27.09.2023Director’s Letter Vol.2

Hello to everyone who has been enjoying Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. This is the game’s producer/director, Hirayama. Today, the second DLC, "Conqueror of Jiangdong", and the free Ver1.200 update were released. For this letter, I’ve selected some of the new and updated content to introduce in a bit more detail so that you can enjoy them even more as you continue to battle the monsters and demons plaguing ancient China in our game.

DLC Vol. 2: Conqueror of Jiangdong

New Weapon: Long Sword

First off, I want to introduce you to the newest weapon in your arsenal – the long sword. The long sword features an extended, sharp blade and performs more dynamic action than regular swords. It is a weapon that is characterized by its ability to be strengthened by charging power in stages in both normal and spirit attacks. It is also possible to follow-up a spirit attack or martial art with a charged attack, enabling you to not only cancel the recovery frames after an attack, but also shorten the time required to fully charge your power. By watching for an opening and actively aiming to charge power, the potential damage can be increased.

The most important feature of the long sword is that it can performs a special step-like action during the charging phase. This action not only allows you to maintain the charging phase while moving, but also allows you to parry an enemy's attack by activating it on the way out, similar to the deflect action. If you successfully parry, this charging stage is immediately maximized, allowing you to launch a powerful attack while breaking the enemy’s stance.

The more you master the use of charging and special actions, the more aggressive your attacks will become, so I hope you will give it a go, as it really pays off big-time in battle!

New end-game content, "The Thousand-Mile Journey"

• This end game content will be playable with the purchase of DLC Vol.2 or the Season Pass.

With the theme of "strategy," players select randomly generated battlefields and routes, and acquire special effects called "Benefits" that can strengthen the character as you make your way through the long journey. The higher the difficulty of the battlefield, the more exclusive currency you will receive as a reward. Will you decide to take the risk of a greater challenge but for greater rewards? Or will you take a safer route to reach your goal? The key to success is to choose your route while considering the details of the battlefield and the "Benefits" you will receive.

The exclusive currency can be exchanged for "The Thousand-Mile Journey" limited strengthening materials that can be used to upgrade and replace your martial arts, as well as "Legendary Armor," a higher level of armor that can only be obtained here, allowing you to build more powerful equipment. If you get stuck along the way, you can spend exclusive currency to purchase additional "benefits". Don't give up! Time to try again with even stronger equipment.

As already announced in the roadmap, we are planning even more features for the third DLC, so please look forward to future developments of "The Thousand-Mile Journey"!

Free update Ver1.200

Lies of P collaboration weapons

The curved sabre, Puppet's Saber, and the sword, Etiquette, have been added as collaboration weapons from a game we hope you’re also enjoying, Lies of P. After the update is applied, you can receive them from "Deliveries" in the battle flag menu. (After receiving them, they will appear as drop items from enemies.)

As awesome as their appearance is -- faithful to their counterpart in Lies of P -- it cannot be overstated how powerful these weapons are. The Puppet's Saber's exclusive martial art "Storm Slash" is an easy-to-handle continuous attack with two elements -- ice and flame. The Etiquette's exclusive martial art, "Majestic Guard", is a defensive move that cancels out incoming ranged attacks (with the exception of critical blows) such as wizardry spells, while also increasing your Spirit. Each of these techniques is unique and different from existing techniques, so we hope you will give them a try.

We are also currently working on a collaboration with the Nioh series scheduled for November, and we hope to deliver content that is different from previous collaborations. I hope everyone, including the Nioh series’ fans, will look forward to this as we plan to deliver something special!

Major balance adjustments & feature expansion

We have also implemented an overall update based on the direction of "expanding the scope of strategy with a focus on action and RPG” and “improving the ease of playability” of the game. I will explain the intent of the adjustments behind several of these, listed below.

Diversifying the characteristics of existing weapons

We have made adjustments to enhance the individual characteristics of each weapon type with the aim that players can enjoy using them more without changing the gameplay experience of the weapons they have familiarized themselves with so far. Common adjustments include the addition of Spirit Gauge Stock and the increase in martial arts slots, as will be described below. On top of that, individual adjustments have been made for each weapon type.

For example: For dual swords, dual sabres and dual halberds, we have added a just-timed deflect that grants a bonus in Spirit gain, and enhanced technical moves centered on quick attacks and deflects. The hammer and poleaxe now grant super armor from the start of the attack until the hitbox disappears, emphasizing their tank-like characteristics so that they can take on the enemy aggressively.

Deflect counterattacks have also been made generally more comfortable to use, including but not limited to adding the “Increase Spirit Gain” buff for successful deflect counterattacks. With these updates, I hope you will enjoy embarking on battles and switching between weapons that best fit the situation at hand.

Addition of Spirit Gauge Stock for all weapons

Until now, spirit attacks had the advantage of increasing damage according to the amount of Spirit you had when you launched them. But because they consumed all of your Spirit, it turned out that following-up a spirit attack with other actions that also require Spirit to use wasn’t a very practical option. Of course, it is not wrong to choose to use a normal attack after a spirit attack to accumulate Spirit, but we wanted to make it possible to further consider other options such as martial arts and wizardry spell depending on the situation, so we’ve made this change.

With this adjustment, similar to the cestus, spirit attacks will only consume Spirit up to the stocked amount, giving the player more liberty in choosing their next action using the extra Spirit they’ve maintained. It’s worth noting that, although cestuses are different from existing weapon types in that they are capable of stocking 2 extra Spirit rather than 1, users of cestuses also receive more Spirit damage than those of other weapons when hit by enemies, retaining its unique role as a high-risk, high-return performance weapon.

Expansion of the maximum number of martial arts

Another big adjustment we decided to make is to expand the maximum number of martial arts per weapon from 2 to 6, which you can freely switch between two sets of three martial arts at any time. Please be assured that weapons acquired prior to the update will still be randomly assigned arts so that the number of martial arts will be adjusted according to this change.

The reasoning behind having only two martial arts slots at initial release was so that players could concentrate more on the controls, taking into account the fast-paced nature of the battles. Now that many of you have stuck around long enough after clearing the game, we were convinced that you are ready for more advanced combat application. Our next goal was to expand the strategic possibilities as an action game, including making leeway for players to select some martial arts that were rather limited in their use. That said, in the first playthrough of the game, you are naturally limited to 3 martial arts maximum per weapon; only in the second playthrough onwards will you find weapons that are 5★ and higher, which also unlocks the ability to switch martial art sets 6 martial arts.

We’ve also adjusted the timing that accepts canceling a martial art by performing another martial art, making it easier to combine multiple moves in a combo-like manner. We hope this update encourages you to use martial arts more aggressively in conjunction with the Spirit Gauge stock expansion!

Elimination of effect categories for ”Fixed Special Effects”

Another aspect that needed adjustment concerns “Fixed Special Effects”. We found that many of the fixed special effects found on equipment were assigned a category, which had been limiting the combination of special effects. This was detrimental to strengthening the individuality of builds, so it had to be addressed in order to allow players more freedom in customizing their gears. With the update, even if an equipment has a fixed special effect under the “attack” category for example, you may now embed another special effect from the attack category so long as the item has an unoccupied slot.

Please enjoy building to your liking in combination with the adjustment of special effects described below.

Adjustment of Special Effects, Set Bonus Effects, and Grace Effects

We have made overall balance adjustments to allow you to enjoy various combinations of effects, especially those that are used infrequently.

• Special Effects: Upward adjustment of special effects with low effect values.
• Set Bonus Effects: Adjustment of the type and value of the effects, focusing on those that are less valuable than the Grace effects.
• Grace Effects: Adjustment of the type and value of effects to enhance the synergy of each Grace, making them more faithful to their respective themes.

For example: For the "Grace of Shennong the Red Emperor," which is a grace effect that symbolizes the Fire Phase, we have made adjustments matching its concept, such as changing the effect to "'Damage Reduction' upon Martial Arts" instead of "'Berserker’s Might' upon Deflection", to create synergy with the "Subtlety of Fire Phase" that is granted for achieving full set bonus.

These are but a few of the details of the update that we hope you’ll be excited about. As announced in the roadmap, we plan to make balance adjustments as necessary in October after analyzing the environment once the update has gone into effect. In addition to content additions and balance adjustments, we will also continue to prioritize optimization and bug fixes to ensure a better playing environment.

We hope you enjoy the DLC Vol.2 content and free updates, and thank you for your continued support of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Masakazu Hirayama, Producer/Director