TFH: Situation Update

Mane6Dev

The Powers that Be
Mane6 Developer
Jan 25, 2016
623
2,157
The Hold
mane6.com
Long delayed hello, everyone!

As you might have noticed, TFH hasn’t hit the expected 1.0 milestone yet.

Due to the same row of heavy "RL" reasons mentioned before, (the details of which you don't really want to hear, but include some really heavy RL issues for some of our Devs), we continue to be down three people in our development team for long periods of time.

We've attempted to patch part of these holes by putting out a call for a pixel artist to cover the major delay on story mode (art placeholders), but we've yet to hire one. We've got a couple of people who applied to us whose stuff we've really liked, but which haven't yet replied to our e-mails. Applicants, if you're reading this, please check your inbox and spam folders! We might be trying to contact you. All of this is putting the story mode on hold for far longer than we expected and far more than what we’d have liked. Hopefully we can steer that particular situation back on track soon, as the hiring of said artist would help us finish the remaining elements needed AND free other people to work on additional things we’ve been holding down the priority list for some time.

That said, the remainder of the team has still been working hard these past few weeks, as we strive to get those features which do not require our MIA developers to get completed working and out of the gate.

You might have already seen a couple of glimpses of the upcoming features here and there in Beta and Anu's worklogs in the official forums, but here's a slightly more detailed breakdown of what’s coming to TFH in the near-immediate future.


Tutorials

We've been working hard to supply Oleander with the time and the crayons to teach you how to fight, and building the framework that’ll allow us to create and easily iterate on lessons across many fighting game concepts, with some light target practice and obstacle courses to reinforce all you have learned.


Ranked Matchmaking

Soon, we will have standard matchmaking features to pair up similarly skilled players with a more ‘competitive’ scoring system. In addition, a casual levelling system that is always active as you play online (ranked or not) will provide unlockable hats and palettes at certain milestones. Performance within each match, fighting against tougher opponents and other challenges provide xp bonuses to push you even further!


Pixel Dungeon 2.0
Salt mines. Now even saltier.


We wish to keep most of this stuff a surprise, but we're pretty excited for this release. In addition to the PvE element, we've added more cooperative play to unlock hats and intercept predators. We're also putting in some interesting little items to make dungeon fights more stylish and silly.

VolligLosgelost.png

Character Intros/Outros

Characters will no longer stand still while the fightin’ starts happenin’ - New animations for Intros/Outros are coming to the game.


...And an apology

In addition to the things mentioned above, we’d like to apologize for the breakdown in general communications; we’ve been active and communicating with the playerbase through a couple of the discord community channels, as well as pulling some of the most active people in the game for gathering feebdack on these new features and on the already existing ones. Discord has been really helpful for quick, direct feebdack and feature implementation, but has given off a perception of silence to the general public. As things are now closer to their initial public iteration, we’re going to be posting more often to the general community via our official forums, the social media places and the Steam community forums.

As always, we’d like to thank you guys for continuing to stick with us through the rough patches.

- M6
 

gatorafan

HOLAS: (tm)
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
238
567
Ship02: Ur
nightarks.enjin.com
I can hear it.

Well, in defense of the guys, this was said before the first public release, and one could say it wasn't supposed to hold true after it. Also, I'm pretty sure that most of the active community moved to a Disqord server and that the team is still talking to everyone over there.

That said, it is a pretty stinky situation for those of us who don't feel like making the move. And there are still no velvet emotes, can you believe that?
 
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Valsion

Well-Known Member
Feb 24, 2018
62
181
Even if most of the active community is on Discord, the devs need to be more active on the official forums. This is the first place people will look for information about the game and if they see an inactive community and months since the last developer post they are gonna think the game is dead.
 

ty4brawl

Feed b ack
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 4, 2016
480
1,897
FL
discord.gg
Even if most of the active community is on Discord, the devs need to be more active on the official forums. This is the first place people will look for information about the game and if they see an inactive community and months since the last developer post they are gonna think the game is dead.
Ye, the full quote mentions as such.
In addition to the things mentioned above, we’d like to apologize for the breakdown in general communications; we’ve been active and communicating with the playerbase through a couple of the discord community channels, as well as pulling some of the most active people in the game for gathering feebdack on these new features and on the already existing ones. Discord has been really helpful for quick, direct feebdack and feature implementation, but has given off a perception of silence to the general public. As things are now closer to their initial public iteration, we’re going to be posting more often to the general community via our official forums, the social media places and the Steam community forums.
Honestly it's a bit concerning to me, especially as someone who was a backer. And yes, I'm sure that they're working hard on it, but to have nothing, not even the smallest "hey we're still here." or anything is bothersome. :arisad:
 

ShadowLightMew

Shiny Pokémon hunter and trainer
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 7, 2016
338
41
34
Probably a dumb question but did they post their Discord ID? Someone with Discord could ask if they will still be on the forums
 

ShadowLightMew

Shiny Pokémon hunter and trainer
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 7, 2016
338
41
34
Haven't seen it sadly and Discord needs the full name and number
 

indie_animator

Active Member
Mar 10, 2018
40
70
Bay Area, CA
tangerinepop.com
Interesting. Thanks for the info.

I remember applying for pixel artist, but never got a reply.
That tends to happen whenever I apply to an art/animation company.
Figured Mane 6 was was flooded w/applications and hired people right away.

Did two animation tests for Lab 0 to try to do freelance work on Indivisible, and they never replied.
Then larger studios don't reply because of so many applicants, etc.

Been thankful to work at a few places over the years though.
 

Alevgor

Canis Imaginatus
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
169
299
Companies never send negative replies. Too much work, also they can send a positive reply later if previous candidate was not hired for some reason.
 

indie_animator

Active Member
Mar 10, 2018
40
70
Bay Area, CA
tangerinepop.com
Ha, now that I think of it, I may have gotten a response from a few over the years.
If the company is huge, I can see how they don't bother.
A smaller company seems more likely to have someone take the time if there are few applicants, but no one's forcing them-

So they may as well do whatever.
It's fine. Working at Six Foot Two, Mondo Media, and Wild Brain were good times though. :)
 

ShadowLightMew

Shiny Pokémon hunter and trainer
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 7, 2016
338
41
34
Mane 6 currently has nothing new to show, we have to wait for future updates
 

SmokeRulz

Where there is smoke, there is fire!
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
356
525
On top of the heavy work going into the story mode (especially with the new sprite artist hired on now) and intro/outro animations, Beta's current top priortiy is the matchmaking system, which they're testing right now. So hopefully an update will be soon.
 

Null Serene

Member
Feb 4, 2018
8
20
On top of the heavy work going into the story mode (especially with the new sprite artist hired on now) and intro/outro animations, Beta's current top priortiy is the matchmaking system, which they're testing right now. So hopefully an update will be soon.
What exactly does a matchmaking system mean with a playerbase consistently in the 20's? Not tryna be snarky or anything, just wondering if finally adding solid matchmaking will bring some people in or what. I mean, I'd certainly enjoy it if there were enough people playing. I stopped playing online against rando's because there was a pretty insurmountable skill gap and I wasn't learning, and started just playing with one friend who was about the same level as I was.

Kinda dumb not wanting to play and add to the playerbase because the playerbase is small, causing it to be smaller, but is what it is. As it stands, myself, and a few of my other buds, are pretty much exclusively waiting for story content to jump back in. Would be nice to feel the urge sooner tho I guess.
 

Null Serene

Member
Feb 4, 2018
8
20
Not to also sound snarky, but it's for when the game is complete and has a 1.0 release. Gotta get it done before then, much like the rest of the missing features keeping us from having a non-early access release.
Oh, figured there was gonna be a matchmaking update then 1.0 was gonna hit sometime afterwards. Or, is that still the case, and you're just implying it's better to just have it there ahead of full release?

Either way, yeah, hope we get some players around then, would be rad to see the lobbies even a quarter as populated as they were on launch.
 

CamTSB

僕は誰なんだろう?
Mane6 QA
Feb 2, 2016
486
497
33
Ontario, Canada
twitter.com
Oh, figured there was gonna be a matchmaking update then 1.0 was gonna hit sometime afterwards. Or, is that still the case, and you're just implying it's better to just have it there ahead of full release?
That's what I'm implying, it needs to be done before 1.0 drops regardless of the time between matchmaking and 1.0. It's just super technical since we're essentially building our own matchmaking system from scraps of a bunch of old dead xerox copy machines and sawdust. Also it's really not a visual thing to show off so it's hard for progress to even be spoken of.
 
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