Disclaimer: everything discussed in this post is work in progress and subject to change
Greetings, and welcome to the inaugural Median XL developer diary!
There is a lot to discuss and I respect everyone's time, so without further ado here is what we have for you today:
- We're sorry for the radio silence. Development of 2.11 is in full swing. Expect season 39 in early summer
- Magz_ and Vanarchy have joined the team! They are cooking up some exciting stuff for you all that will be revealed soon™
- 2.1X patches will focus on overhauling a big part of the gameplay experience that has been stale since 1.0: endgame rifts and levelling
Stay awhile and listen...
At the start of the year I wrote this post that goes into the details of why Median XL's release schedule has been inconsistent over the past 2 years. The reality of having a small team which don't do this for a living is that at any moment life can interfere to impede or halt development. Ultimately, I hold myself chiefly responsible for these past delays and I am sorry. With that out of the way, I am happy to announce that the ship has well and truly turned. I don't have any precise dates to share yet as things are still in flux, but I am confident that Median XL will return to a more predictable release cadence for the foreseeable future.
These longer periods of inactivity have also reminded me of the wasted opportunity that is our "Announcements" section. I don't want you guys to forget that we exist in the lower activity period between "a month after ladder release" to "next ladder announcement". This is also a great time for the team to collect feedback from our biggest supporters that will ultimately shape the future of the game. Hence, I am happy to kick off this series of informal chats with a topic that is near and dear to my heart.
A brief history of endgame levelling
Median XL's endgame has always been primarily about beating bosses and hunting their charms. In fact, I consider Brother Laz's later Median XL versions to be among the pioneers of the boss-heavy ARPG endgame loop that was popularised by Path of Exile. In Ultimative, and earlier, the maximum character level was 120 and would be achieved a few hours after reaching Hell (Destruction) difficulty. Due to technical limitations new maps could not be added to the game world - so we had to rely on stuffing rifts in unused progression side areas. The Stony Tomb suddenly became a portal back in time and the Lord of Sin could be found in a dingy Upper Kurast basement.
Sigma 1.0 lifted both of these limitations. Quests were now appropriately integrated with the world map and levelling up your character played a role in separating quests by difficulty and preparing you for the challenges ahead. The increased time spent in rifts meant that character builds had to be more flexible and have more tools at their disposal. Back in the day builds were more binary and single target (but only elemental) was king.
Since then we have added a few new rifts - the Dimensional Labyrinth and Scosglen being the most noteworthy - but endgame content has been expanded primarily through dungeons and bosses. Fast forward to today and it's now been over 6 years of the core endgame rifts / levelling experience remaining mostly unchanged.
The next steps
Endgame levelling in Median XL currently suffers from two issues.
I. The direct impact / power gain from levelling itself is weak
This problem is nothing new and has existed ever since vanilla Diablo 2. Getting +5 to strength on levelling up is quite impactful when you have 25 strength, however it is practically insignificant when you have 500. New skill points remain exciting for longer, but even then most builds were finished around level 80 and what remained was window dressing. This issue is also compounded by the fact that each level takes exponentially more grinding to achieve than the last, yet the rewards are identical. Median adds another layer of diminishing returns on top because the maximum level is 150 (level up rewards are an even smaller percentage of the total base), and item affixes which give lots of attributes and skill level bonuses are much more common. Understandably, this does not make the levelling process exciting but more of a chore to get through before unlocking the next character power-up opportunity.
II. Going through the same zones, in the same order, with every character gets boring after a while
The plethora of different rifts one has to go through to reach 150 is clearly a massive improvement over the endless D2 Baal runs. However, the static nature of our endgame rifts system does not hold up so well when replayed over and over again for years. Most games in the genre have solved this problem by taking heavy inspiration from the "Map System" that was first popularised in Path of Exile. Nowadays, the use of such systems for endgame levelling is near ubiquitous - from big budget ARPGS all the way through to Diablo 2 mods. We will not take this approach because it is inconsistent with Median XL's core design and strengths.
Our rifts were first and foremost created to serve as the backdrop for quests, and, secondly, an opportunity to farm a special drop bias or targeted drop. They all have a unique identity, lore, and context - mashing them together in a random order filled with random monsters simply will not do. Our focus will be on strengthening these identities, improving quests, and adding variety by enabling player choice and providing different incentives. I want to stress that these overhauls will be implemented in a completely modular and optional manner. Those of you who enjoy playing through the current chain of rifts, as it is, will be able to continue to do so without disruption.
I am unable to share specifics on our solutions to these problems right now because details will change subject to time and resource constraints. The changes also won't be rolled out all at once but gradually and, as always, will evolve based on the community's reception and feedback. However, I can reveal that leeks were already planted a while back - core features of the 2.8 and 2.9 patches successfully trialed prototypes of what you're about to see in 2.11 and in the next patches to come. In addition, the team will of course still keep bringing engine upgrades, quality of life improvements, and content/system/skill/item changes with every patch.
A final thank you
I want to give a shout out to the community and especially our Patrons. Without your continued support between these irregular seasons Median XL would not have been able to endure and be in a position to resume active development once again. We really appreciate it! We will next be in touch as soon as it is time to start the beta, so stay tuned for that! Cheers.
