Hello Survivors!

At Persist Online, we strive to create an immersive and enjoyable gaming environment where every player can thrive. One of the most critical aspects of achieving this is game balancing. Today, we want to talk about why balancing is so important, how we approach it through data analysis, team feedback and discussions, and your invaluable input, and why its an ongoing process that will continue to evolve with our community.

Why Balancing Matters

Balancing isnt just about tweaking numbers its about ensuring that every aspect of the game works harmoniously to provide a rewarding experience for all players. Heres why its essential: We want every player to feel that their success is based on skill and strategy, not on overpowering abilities or imbalanced mechanics. Proper balancing ensures that no single strategy or item dominates the game, fostering a healthy competitive environment. A well-balanced game keeps players engaged and invested. When you feel that your efforts are rewarded appropriately, youre more likely to continue playing and contributing to our vibrant community. Balancing allows for a variety of playstyles to flourish. Whether you prefer melee combat, ranged attacks, crafting, or strategic planning, we aim to make sure that different approaches are all viable and enjoyable. You are incredibly creative, and sometimes that creativity can lead to exploits that disrupt the games balance. By continuously monitoring and adjusting the game, we can prevent these exploits and maintain a consistent playing field for everyone.
Using elevated positions is fine, but also tricky for our balancing. Here a player is standing on a destroyed vehicle, where the Zombies have a hard time reaching him.

Our Balancing Approach

Balancing Persist Online is a meticulous process that combines thorough data analysis, team feedback and discussions, and your valuable input. Heres how we do it:

1. Data Analysis

We rely on comprehensive data analytics to understand how you interact with the game. This involves: Gameplay Metrics: We monitor various metrics such as skill usage frequency, loot, player deaths, and more to identify trends and potential imbalances. Performance Indicators: By analyzing performance indicators, we can determine which aspects of the game are underperforming or overperforming, helping us make informed decisions about necessary adjustments. Player Behavior: Studying how you adapt your strategies over time allows us to ensure that the game remains challenging and engaging as your tactics evolve.
The image shows the Player Death events during Pre-Alpha, spread quite evenly across the map.

2. Team Feedback and Discussions

Our dedicated team regularly collaborate to evaluate and refine game balance. This approach includes: Internal Reviews: Team members share their observations and insights based on their unique perspectives and areas of expertise. From hardcore PvP and grinding to more casual gaming approaches. Brainstorming Sessions: We hold regular meetings to discuss potential balancing changes, brainstorm solutions to identified issues, and assess the impact of proposed adjustments.
The graph shows the different amounts of raw materials that players have gained during Pre-Alpha.

3. Community Feedback

Your feedback is invaluable in our balancing efforts. We actively seek and incorporate your insights through: Surveys and Polls: Regular surveys and polls will help us gather direct feedback on specific aspects of the game, ensuring that your voice is heard. Discord: Engaging with you on forums and our Discord channels allows us to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and concerns firsthand. We are very active on Discord and try to answer all questions coming up from the community. Testing: Our testing phases will give you the opportunity to trial changes and provide feedback before theyre fully implemented, ensuring that adjustments meet your expectations.
A heatmap representing the final death of Undead, Mutants and Faction NPCs.

Why Balancing is an Ongoing Process

Balancing is not a one-time task but a continuous journey. Heres why it must always be part of our development cycle:

1. Evolving Playstyles

As you become more adept at Persist Online, you continuously develop new strategies and techniques. Whats balanced today could become overpowered tomorrow as you find new ways to leverage game mechanics.

2. New Content Integration

With each new update, or addition of new content, the games dynamics change. New skills, items, and features can disrupt existing balance, requiring constant reevaluation and adjustment to ensure everything works together seamlessly.

3. Preventing Exploits

Your creativity can sometimes lead to unintended ways to exploit game mechanics. Ongoing balancing helps us identify and patch these exploits, ensuring the game remains challenging and rewarding for everyone.

4. Enhancing Player Experience

To keep Persist Online fresh and exciting, we need to ensure that all aspects of the game evolve. Continuous balancing allows us to refine gameplay, introduce new challenges, and enhance your overall fun with the game itself.

Balancing the Future

At Persist Online, our commitment to balancing reflects our dedication to providing an engaging and dynamic gaming experience. We understand that balance is key to fostering a vibrant community where every player can find their niche and thrive. We also understand that not every change is received well, but will explain our thoughts and discuss these with the community. As we move forward, its our goal to maintain transparency in our balancing efforts, keep an open line of communication with you, and utilize data, team insights, and your feedback to guide our decisions. Your experience is our priority, and through relentless balancing, we aim to make Persist Online the best it can be. Thank you for being an integral part of the Persist Online community! Your passion and feedback drive us to continuously improve and deliver a great MMORPG experience. If you have any suggestions or encounter any issues, please reach out to us by joining our Discord community. Stay safe, stay strong, and see you in the apocalypse! ~ Your Community Management Team

[ 2025-01-17 16:29:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

SOME SURVIVE. THE BEST PERSIST!

Persist Online is an MMORPG with zombies, so you better get yourself a gun. Survive in an unforgiving open world, where every building is accessible. Forge a deadly team with friends and claim what's not yours. Take your loot to your safe bunker to craft better gear.

ENGAGE MASSES OF PLAYERS AND ZOMBIES

Join forces with other survivors to keep the zombies at bay and take on mutated bosses in a sprawling open world. Beware of other players eager to relieve you of your hard-earned loot on your way to safety. Form a guild and defend strategically important nodes on the map to amass rare resources much faster. Survive in a living world full of the undead!

WIELD FIREARMS AND MELEE WEAPONS

Unlike in your typical MMORPG, waving a wand does nothing for you in Persist Online. Instead you can choose from a variety of firearms. As much fun as blasting away is, be aware that zombies and mutants are drawn to loud noise. So, swinging a humble frying pan, could result in you being less dead. Which is a good thing in a zombie apocalypse.

EXPERIENCE A TRUE HARDCORE GAME

The company behind Persist Online runs one of the longest surviving MMORPGs ever, the 1997-released Tibia, of course their new survival MMORPG is a tough old-school experience. Think twice before taking out your best equipment! Lose your backpack and everything in it! Question whether those hitting you with friendly fire are really your friends!

CRAFT WEAPONS AND ARMOR

Sure, you can fight your way through hordes of zombies to find a rare shotgun. Or you could craft a shotgun from scratch and continuously improve it until you're wielding the best freaking shotgun in the game. To obtain the necessary resources, you naturally have to fight your way through hordes of zombies again. Damn those zombies.

BUILD PERFECT CHARS AND TEAMS

There are no classes in Persist Online; it's all about developing your character how you want to play. Investing all your hard-earned points into the fishing skill tree not only lets you fish more efficiently, your fishing net can also paralyze your enemies, giving the hammer-swinging player killer on your team the perfect opportunity to strike. It's like shooting fish in a barrel!

PERSIST IN A DYNAMIC OPEN WORLD

Explore an open world that's not only big, but big on details. Every building can be entered - but might become a deadly trap. As the post-apocalypse isn't all sunny days, there's a dynamic weather system as well as an impactful day and night cycle. Nothing is stopping you from riding into the sunset - except for everything in the world that wants to kill you.