A FAR REACHING GAMEPLAY PATCH IS LIVE NOW! Read all the details below, alongside information on what’s to come!
Buckle in folks, things are about to get WEIRD! (and… fun!)
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN: Please understand that this is the FIRST ROUND OF PATCHES, and everything is subject to being tweaked or rolled back based on player feedback and data collected after these changes go live. While this patch alone will have a very large effect on gameplay, it is primarily intended to give players an idea of the kind of things are possible to adjust in subsequent patches which, potentially, may take things FAR beyond the adjustments made here. Krafties is considering large scale, blanket adjustments to XP acquisition and leveling rates, and other core changes. All of this is being done in an effort to streamline the gameplay experience by removing common inconveniences and make the experience feel more rewarding, as well as increase the number of “high level” pets in the game to a point where it begins to make sense to invest substantial resources in developing more robust content releases for high level play.
So, please give us your feedback! If you are at all invested in the future of Krafties, now is the singular BEST moment in time to make your voice heard and shape the direction of the game. In order to facilitate this, expect a player poll to go out at some point in the near future soliciting feedback both on the changes made this patch along with future patch considerations.
Now, onto the details! The following changes are now live:
- The “Accuracy” mechanic has been removed for ALL pets. Bonded pets now have 100% accuracy when casting both combat and mental based spells. While the Attack/Focus stats no longer influences miss/hit ratios, they continue to play a major role in calculations by defining the MINIMUM amount of damage/buff/debuff that can be dealt out by a pet per spell. This change is intended to improve “game feel” with lower level pets, as well as providing a slight increase to the rate of level progression.
- If you have a creature active currently, you must reload it in order to see this change take effect.
- This change has no effect on spawned creatures, meaning that Wild, Giant, and other types of battled spawns will still miss, and stat debuffs may still affect their accuracy
- Toughness XP changes:
- Toughness XP, the experience awarded to pets upon defeating a spawned creature, has SUBSTANTIALLY increased when awarded from high level creatures such as Giants. The calculation has been modified to incorporate an exponential curve as opposed to the previous linear algorithm. This makes some good sense when considering experience -> level calculations for players’ pets follow a similar exponential curve. Additionally, the calculation to determine a spawned creature’s “toughness” has been tweaked to slightly downplay the oversized role that Defense and Fortitude played in the previous calculation, while increasing the importance of all other stats slightly. This change is intended to make training via Giants more attractive for high level players, which, in an ideal scenario, leads to a wider range of battle mechanics being explored and taken advantage of.
- Wild and Giant creature have been made stronger across the board
- Wild Krafties base levels have increased by ~10%
- Giant Krafties base levels have increased by ~25%
- As of now, special spawns remain unchanged, but are under review
- A ROLLING RESTART OF HOME AND GIANT TEMPLES HAS BEGUN NOW IN ORDER FOR THESE CHANGES TO GO INTO EFFECT, AND WILL LAST THROUGH THE NEXT 24 HOURS!
- Scroll, Manuscript, and Codex Changes:
- Manuscripts have had their experience rewards increased by ~15% (from 1,050 to 1,200), but now require level 12 to use. Manuscript Crafting experience has been increased by 100%.
- Codexes have had their experience rewards increased by ~20% (from 10,750 to 12,750), but now require level 20 to use. Codex Crafting experience has been increased by 100%.
- ALL crafts now take 1 second to complete, regardless of what is crafted.
- Potion Crafting Changes (Beefy Potions):
- Experience earned from crafting potions has been increased by 100%
- Potion crafting now requires three times as many ingredients per potion (Energy values remain untouched for now)
- Potion Quality Changes: The crafting algorithm related to potions has been modified. There are many overly complicated factors and moving parts that tie into these crafts algorithmically, but in simple terms players will find that potion quality has moderately improved both in terms of AVERAGE level bonus values and MAXIMUM level bonus values. While this change will benefit players across the board, it is primarily laid out in order to specifically impact those with pets at Crafting levels above 30. Essentially, this patch tweaks the algorithm to more gracefully scale rewarding potion quality improvements all the way to a theoretical max powered Crafting party of ten level 60 pets. If this modified algorithm has a positive reception, it is possible that future patches may move additional crafting recipes to adopt a similar pattern.
- Radioactive Candy Changes:
- Candy cooldown has been changed from 5 Candies/5 minutes to 10 Candies/5 minutes
- A new radiation level, CRITICAL, has been added beyond the previous max of EXTREME. This change allows players to “overflow” their radiation level with 3 additional candies, keeping your pet above the explicit mutation threshold for longer.
- Sanctum Changes: The Sanctum skill, unlocked at Overall Level 30 for all pets, has had its effects doubled, now granting +2 levels to every stat type (from previous value of +1). Energy cost has been halved from 20 to 10.
- All new players are given level 3 starting creatures, instead of level 1. This change makes the Low Heal spell immediately accessible, as well as generally improving the efficacy of starter pets in early stages of the game (especially important when considering the net buff to Wild creatures this patch). Retroactively, all starter creatures in the Krafties system that have not reached level 3 in a stat will be automatically upgraded.
Annnnnd, that’s it for round one, but expect more in the near future!
Now, onto a few extra happenings.
First, a fun little tidbit: We have a new developer on board! Or… sort of. Through a mutual interest and shared benefit, we’ll have an extra set of hands developing some things using our app/backend codebase. Ultimately, this development work is geared toward a separate project that our codebase happens to be perfect for, but much of this work is being structured in a way that will create value for Krafties players and the community as a whole. You’ll hear more on this if/when there is more to hear!
IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENT: A fundraising event is set to go live on March 28th, sourcing a round of funding for a Krafties expansion that has been discussed for some time. I believe the success of this event will have a significant impact on the future development and growth of the game and its ecosystem. Krafties is immensely grateful for our supportive community, and has worked hard to design and plan this upcoming expansion to ensure it meets the expectations of both present and future members of our community. Things are gonna get juicy!
Finally, A Note From The Developer:
Hello adventurer’s 
Some big changes are afoot, and I think it’s important to talk about “the why” of it all. What’s going on? Why are these “huge” patches and gameplay changes happening in the first place? Simply put, Krafties has been around for a while. However, even throughout the over 10 years of new systems, features, and content added to the game, in terms of its core fundamentals it by and large remains the same game it was when released. Now, a lot of these fundamentals are solid, as evidenced by the fact that Krafties is still alive and kicking. However, the world is not the same, and players are not the same.
As a developer, I am very aware that your time is not only valuable, but that the competition over where you choose to place your attention is a fierce one. It’s not that this wasn’t the case in 2012 when we first hit the scene, but rather that the landscape for “experiences” and attention draws is a constantly shifting and evolving place that, every day, grows with newer, more spectacular pieces of media, content, and experiences that can be enjoyed instantly, for free.
Over the years, Krafties has remained competitive primarily through the additions of new tertiary systems and content, with small revisions to core principles ONLY in places where they were drastically necessary. In short, a sort of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. It’s a safe approach, and there are a lot of strong justifications for it, but in the long run there are some real issues with this strategy. One important issue being the risk of stagnation, and an inability to adapt to changes in the competitive landscape mentioned earlier.
My goal in all of this, as it always has been, is to build something that people can fall in love with, stay in love with, and foster that love being shared. I want Krafties to be able to stand a fighting chance at providing at least some small amount of joy when someone wakes up and decides how they want to spend their day, or when they get home from work and need some time to relax, or when they’re taking a break from doing homework, or when someone unfamiliar with Krafties is feeling adventurous and open minded enough to try a weird little pet game in a weird little virtual world.
And, it’s not just the landscape or players that are different after all these years. I am different. As a developer, as a game designer, as a person. I’ve learned so much over the years thanks to the Krafties community giving me the opportunity to explore this passion project so thoroughly. I know things that I didn’t know when designing many of the core interactions that make up the game, and I am more able to identify both the weak points and strong points of things that have been mostly taken for granted up to this point.
Most importantly, though, is this. Outside of Krafties I have had the bittersweet fortune of both succeeding and spectacularly failing at many, many things over the years. As I reflect on a bulk of the decisions that have been made regarding the game, I can see that a lot of them have been rooted firmly in a fear of failure. However, it turns out that, unbeknownst to me, I have been fighting tooth and nail to obtain a small, now seemingly obvious piece of wisdom: not failing in many cases is not the same as success, and that striving for success always comes with a risk of failure.
In short, I want Krafties to truly succeed, and this a step in that direction.
