Update as of September 16, 2024

The following is an official news post, originally available here.

Hello everyone!

Today, we want to inform you that we've decided to postpone the progress wipe by another week to September 23rd. Yes, yes... we know we're announcing this at the last minute, as always, but we hoped to complete all the necessary work by September 16th. The delay is due to the fact that we haven't finished several major improvements. For the past two months, we've been working intensively on the combat system and have practically completely redesigned it from a technical standpoint. We won't go into details; suffice it to say that the amount of work was enormous—we've rebuilt almost every ability in the game for all heroes and all mobs. We've changed the very concept of event calculations and adjusted all client-server timings. To be honest, the tactile feel and responsiveness of Corepunk's combat system were not at a sufficient quality level, and this was a major concern for us. Now, we are ready to compete with the best in the industry in terms of the tactile feel and responsiveness of our combat system. We are confident that with a fresh start, you will notice significant changes, which will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the game and lead to even deeper immersion in the gameplay.

The next major area that the narrative team has been working on immediately after the start of the Alpha 4 test is the improvement of the quest system. We've gathered a lot of feedback, and the narrative team is undertaking a massive overhaul of most quests in the game. Objectives, directions, rewards, storyline narration—everything related to quests will be significantly improved. Now, players will be able to use questing in the game as one of the ways to explore the game world, level up, enhance their equipment, familiarize themselves with game mechanics, and have a great time. Leveling and progression through quests will be much smoother and more balanced. At the same time, work is underway to complete a large batch of side quests and a third storyline that will involve the Steppes, which will be released shortly after the wipe date.

Along with the wipe, as previously mentioned, we will release a new level 20 area—the Steppes. The Steppes will introduce a new biome with unique monsters and bosses, as well as the missing resources needed for crafting Tier 3 items.

Last week, we closed all remaining possibilities for item duplication (or did we?). We didn't rush to fix this problem this time, even though the fix was ready on the test server much earlier. We held back its release because we saw that, by using dupes, players were exploring the content. The progression system, crafting, and items in Corepunk have deep vertical and horizontal progression. While vertical progression is straightforward and forms the basis of most well-known games, to see, study, and appreciate the nuances of Corepunk's horizontal progression, you need to play the game for some time, discover hidden mechanics, and explore ways to use them. In this case, the dupes effectively helped demonstrate how deep and extensive the game's content is—the potential for replayability. Without the dupes, it would have taken 2–3 months for players to discover the possibilities of combining all progression systems.

In the next wipe, many of you will start with a solid foundational knowledge of the game. This can be considered the second stage of testing, where players move from the stage of getting acquainted with the game to more advanced play. We are eagerly looking forward to this, as it will bring a new influx of data for us, which we will use 100% to improve all aspects of the game and fine-tune them for the early access release.

The next important stage for testing Corepunk will be the release of the PvP/PvE game mode with extraction mechanics. It will introduce the missing element that completes the logic of the entire itemization system. Since the mode involves full-loot extraction mechanics, we think that most players will want to use low-tier or low-grade items—or both—when visiting the instance. This will create the necessary secondary market for low- and mid-tier items in the game, which will have a very positive effect on the overall economy and trading between players. All items in the game will become much more valuable. Now players will have many options for using weaker items.

You can sell your items to NPCs and earn gold; you can sell good rolls to other players.

There is also the option to upgrade low-grade items into higher-grade ones. Additionally, players have the ability to dismantle items to obtain different types of resources from them.

With the introduction of the PvP/PvE extraction instance, players gain a new option for using items—attempting to obtain something valuable but with the risk of losing everything you have on you. Soon, the entire game loop will converge into one big replayable system, and the PvP/PvE mode will play one of the key roles in this. We are actively working on this instance and want to test it before the start of early access.

Active work is underway on assembling and preparing new heroes and their specializations for testing. As you already know, much of the content we present and plan to introduce into the game already exists in a produced form. We are working on animations, effects, assembly, tuning, and implementing features for this type of content, and heroes and their specializations are no exception. For heroes, as with instances, a large amount of content has been produced over many years; our task at this stage is to competently and logically assemble it and deliver it into the game.

Dear Adventurers, we hope you will enjoy everything we have prepared and are preparing for you. Corepunk is a special game with a unique concept, and soon we will showcase it globally to the whole world. Thanks to you, we will present the game in good quality, because the amount of fixes, adjustments, and content we are currently producing is simply enormous, and this would have been impossible without this test and your feedback. Please keep playing, and together we will release a great game into the world! Once again, a huge thank you to everyone!