The developer of Babylon’s Fall has also revealed when the second phase will come, which will be based on stress testing and will include a new mission…

 

In North America, it will happen on September 11 from 19:30 to 22:00 PT, and in Europe, it’s on September 13 from 19:30 to 22:00 BST on PC (Steam) and PlayStation 4 (which wasn’t part of the first phase). According to the developers, no significant issues were discovered with downloading and installing the game client on Steam. “We received a lot of feedback from players who were unable to progress beyond the Software Agreement screen due to keyboard controls not being supported. We plan to support keyboard controls from the retail version of the game onwards. We also noted some cases where running the game in full-screen mode would cause the login screen to respond exceptionally slowly, making it difficult to start playing it. We will continue investigating and working on this issue.

The servers remained highly stable. However, we received reports of the game freezing immediately after entering a dungeon. This was caused by the game waiting for loading to complete for all matched members. We will be working on addressing this issue. […] We received a lot of feedback expressing that the controls were not intuitive or that they were difficult to understand,” the team wrote.

The pace of the game is slow, and the action didn’t feel exciting. “We’re focused on designing a gameplay experience that stands up to repeated play sessions. We aimed to implement straightforward controls. In terms of difficulty, we envisaged a style that would focus on simple choices—such as whether to attack or defend—rather than a more demanding style of action, which would require players to read the individual frames of animation. However, this focus ended up slowing the pace of the game and reducing the sense of exhilaration. We’re aware that this is something that needs to be resolved and have begun work on enhancements. We could not reflect these changes in Phase 1 of the beta test, but we are planning improvements in the following three major areas.

1. Player character movement and responsiveness. We’ll be implementing the following improvements to make the game feel more responsive. Adjust attack startup animations, revise attack startup frames, attack transition frames, and hitstun frames. 2. Add characteristics to each type of player weapon. In addition to improving the gameplay, this should improve the pace of the game and the sense of exhilaration. Add upgrade cycles to each weapon, conduct major rework of Rod and Shield, and add abilities that trigger when equipping multiple weapons of the same type. 3. Revise enemy behaviour and enemy reactions upon receiving damage. Improve the sense of exhilaration from the action by improving gameplay,” Kenji Saito, one of the directors, said.

As the game is a live service title with servers, “this system will always cause some issues with synchronization, no matter how short a delay, due to the time lag from data on player movements being processed on the game server-side before being sent back to the client. We are looking into implementing a new structure to improve the existing latency,” PlatinumGames claimed, but the updates will only show up from Phase 3 onwards.

The brushwork filter (oil-painting-style filter) making visibility terrible. “One of our aims has been to make players feel immersed in a painted world reminiscent of classic fantasy art. We now see that the balance between the painted world concept and visibility needs further adjustment. The development team is working on some major improvements to the art—we’ll be considering visibility as a top priority, alongside the original concept of an atmosphere that feels like stepping into a painting,” Saito added. Keyboard support will be included in the retail version of the game.

Will you be able to sell unneeded equipment in one go? “We received a lot of feedback about various inconveniences in the game, like being unable to get rid of multiple pieces of equipment at once. This was something that we’ve wanted to resolve as well. I want to move forward with making improvements to various features that allow for batch operations wherever possible. In the control menus, there are many different functions with very similar screens, so we’re aiming to make it as user-friendly and integrated as possible. Please bear with us while we work on consistent improvements to the entire system,” Takahisa Sugiyama, the other director of Babylon’s Fall, added.

It’s difficult to check the additional effects of equipment, which felt annoying. “This is essential information for a hack and slash game, so I’d like to improve this to make it easier to find, with consideration for the current layout. In particular, we’ll be considering improvements to make it easier to check the additional effects on individual pieces of equipment,” Sugiyama replied. It was challenging to identify which NPCs and objects could be interacted with. “I apologize for all the inconvenience caused by us not having prepared tutorials which introduce the flow of the game step-by-step […]. We are also planning to implement additional guidance according to the player’s progress in the final game,” Sugiyama said.

The button icons displayed during dungeon mechanics and Gutwork are small and hard to see. “We’re continuing to make improvements to make the game easier to play as we refine the balance between the art style and visibility. We will improve the design of these icons for increased visibility,” Sugiyama replied. Many game-specific terminologies are difficult to understand, like “Handling” for attack speed. “It seems like some things couldn’t be understood very intuitively […]. We will continue to polish this aspect in close collaboration with the scenario writer, Mr Iwao, to ensure that every word that appears in the game is consistent with the world and lore, as well as being understandable,” he said. Players couldn’t understand the difference between attack modes such as “Mars mode” and “Diana mode.” “In this closed beta test version, the explanations for each attack mode were insufficient. We will add tutorials and such in the retail version so that you can understand the characteristics of each attack mode and use them properly,” he added.

“We understand that there is still room for improvement when it comes to the visibility of the graphics, the controls, and having an easy-to-use UI/UX, so we will focus on improving these elements. […] Phase 3 is scheduled to be held around November 2021. We are sorry that this will mean that those who applied to play on PlayStation 5 will have to wait a bit longer,” the team closed.

Babylon’s Fall comes at an unannounced time on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Source: Gematsu