“I can’t emphasize enough that the Trove team is dedicated to creating fun and meaningful updates on all platforms. To ensure that upcoming updates are properly designed, engineered and tested, the process may take longer than usual due to the team being a small one. As we are adapting our development process, we want to make sure our plans were solidified before discussing them publicly. Being able to talk confidently about this was, and is, important to us. We know that being uncertain about what is to come on Trove may be difficult and that is why we want to thank you for your patience and continuous support.”

Before we continue, let’s recall the recent change on updates. PC and consoles both get the same content it just varies on when each platform is patched. As Richard explains:

“We have broken parity between our PC and Console updates. We touched on this in our last Team Letter in November and on the game’s official forums (here). PC players will get newer content beforehand to help us squish bugs and get balances tweaked which will ultimately lead to console players getting smoother versions later!”

With that being said, here is a preview of what to expect next on Trove!

Content Updates – PC

Four types of content updates for new gameplay, features, and bug fixing:

• Major Content Update – Focused around a major feature like Crystal Combat or Gardening
• Minor Content Update – A gameplay enhancement, like Bomber Royale Season 2
• Quality of Life Update – Improvements to the gameplay experience, focusing on bug fixes.
• Hotfixes – Small updates, as required, targeting new or critical issues.

The plan is to release two Major, two Minor and two Quality of Life Updates per year, alternating through each. We will continue to release Hotfixes every other Tuesday, as needed.

Content Updates – Console

• Console players will get all types of updates (this combines Major, Minor, Quality of Life, and Hotfix improvements) rolled into one ultimate update.
• The plan is to release an ultimate update like this to consoles at least twice per year, just like how Crystal Combat was released at the beginning of this year and Going Green came out recently.
• Of course, consoles will still get targeted updates and Hotfixes as needed, typically on Tuesdays.

Events – PC and Consoles

• These are our 2-week events that mix up the gameplay and provide an extra set of Adventures, such as Luxion’s Spring Cleaning and Splendid Summer.
• Our goal is to have events at least every other month, and possibly more. These events will continue to be released for all platforms at the same time.

Now on to the Design side! We have several great updates planned for the rest of 2019. We are excited to talk about our design philosophies, both surrounding our upcoming content and about Trove in general.

“Our recent update, Going Green, focused on Trove’s non-combat systems and making gardening even more fun and captivating. Immediately after Going Green, we introduced an update that changed up leaderboards.” -Coby West, Designer

Before we get into future patch content, we want to share our two overarching design pillars:

1. Allowing people to play Trove exactly how they want to play (as long as it isn’t hurting others or the servers).
2. Ensuring Trove’s systems are accessible and understandable for all players.

The leaderboard systems were recently changed as Trove’s philosophy around leaderboards is to get them in a place where you can measure your skills and efforts against that of other players. This competition takes different forms for Shadow Tower and Statistic leaderboards. Coby would like to go into detail as to why those changes were made and address concerns some players may have.

“For Shadow Tower leaderboards, specifically the speed running leaderboards, the competition is for prestige in the form of name colors. Currently, the play space for competition in Shadow Towers is small and utilizes mechanics beyond what was originally intended. We are looking forward to adding more options and mechanics for speed runners in the future.

Additionally, with the way Shadow Towers are currently set up, when a Trovian opens a Shadow Tower portal they immediately have 4 worlds created for them. The objective then, for most players, is to blitz through those 4 worlds as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, each new world being opened causes some additional server processing to take place. When many Shadow Tower portals are being opened at once, for example on Mondays, it leads to an increase in server latency. This, along with the limited play space for speed runners is a priority issue for us. While the next Adventure patch will poke at these issues a little bit, the large feature we’re working on, code-named “Delves”, is meant to address the server latency more directly and comprehensively. We are looking forward to saying more about Delves as we get closer to their launch later this year!” -Coby West, Designer

Moving forward, we can’t wait to tell you about the next update, From the Deep! From the Deep will be polishing Trove’s adventure systems and adding new bosses for Trovians with the highest Power Rank and Light to compete against. Beyond that, we are planning to introduce a whole new feature that we hope will take a new place in your hearts and minds. Here’s Coby once again with even more upcoming news to share!

“For our next patch, From the Deep, we are addressing some of the issues with the original Adventure patch. With the current adventure and club levelling systems, smaller and newer clubs have lower experience caps and only have access to adventures that take longer for fewer rewards. With the new adventure system, we have rebalanced the way club adventures are offered and rewarded. Levelling up a Club and having a Heroes Respite will still improve the number of adventures provided from completing their quests, all players should be able to complete adventures and gain Club experience at around the same rate, regardless of the Club’s level.

All new gargantuan foes, called Leviathans, will be found lurking around Geode Topside in the upcoming From the Deep update. Leviathans are tough monsters that will provide a challenge to even the most fearsome of Trovians. Taking a Leviathan down has a bonus chance to earn Crystal Three equipment and exclusive rewards. We look forward to seeing Trovians overcome this new challenge of epic proportions.” -Coby West, Designer

We appreciate you for taking the time and reading this as we took a closer look into Trove’s development. We are excited for you to be a part of the changes coming ahead.

Should you have any thoughts you’d like to share with us, please let us know in the forums or the Trovesaurus Discord channel.

Thanks,

The Trove Team