Hello everyone!

Welcome to our next Deep Dive, where we’ll be taking a look at one of our core systems we’re looking to revamp: Mobs!

When it comes to mob design, we know our current mobs are a bit lackluster: Too often, you can sit atop a tree or a stone and Flamonstrum your way to massacring as many Runespores as possible. Although this has its perks, we wanted to redesign our mobs from the ground up and create a better experience for players when it comes to mob fighting, to make it more engaging than before.




When it came to designing new mobs, we wanted to take what we have learned from years of creating mobs across our various events, dungeons, gauntlets, and more, and put that knowledge into revamping our mob systems to make mobs more engaging to fight. We also wanted to streamline our mob drops - to reduce inventory clutter when adventuring outside of towns, and to make our Professions easier to handle.

As we looked at what worked and what doesn’t, we also took the time to look at the last set of mobs we released - Kearpon, Bizirik, and Minotaur - and wanted to take a pass at ensuring that all mob locations were open enough to be able to fight mobs in an open space unintruded from obstacles.

Another element that we wanted to center our design around is the idea of “Types” of mobs. In our current Revelius world, we do in fact have subtle “types” for all of our current mobs - but it doesn’t really manifest itself with the mobs themselves. As such, we wanted to bring these mob types to the forefront to help players better navigate their experience and determine how the mobs will fight the player.

In Directium, all Mobs fall into one of seven categories: Normal, Mystic, Nature, Poison, Flying, Water, and Undead. These mob types will not only be visible to the player, but these types will also influence both the mob drops and the mob fighting styles.

In our playtest, you will find these mobs located in Mob Dens around Hogsend, which are specially designed to help facilitate more interesting mob fights. Instead of fighting hordes of mobs, you’ll instead focus on 1-2 mobs at a time. These mobs will hit harder, and take longer to kill, but they will drop more items than our current mobs drop. The goal is for Mob Dens to gradually move onto the world, but this will happen gradually over time.

Mobs will also have distinct “movesets” based on their type. As you come face to face with these beasts, you’ll learn these moves and learn how to better fight them. You may want to keep your space when it comes to poison mobs, lest they envelop you in a nasty poison haze, whereas for flying mobs you’ll want to watch out for their divebombing attacks. These mobs are also designed to give you a chance to react - meaning you’ll want to watch out for their charge-ups, and work to Protellomo or Ascendo your way out of a sticky situation.

When it comes to mob drops, the mob types also come into effect. We’re shrinking the number of unique mob drops from 3 down to 1 - But then having 2 mob drops that are shared among each type of mob. This means that although each mob will have the opportunity to drop three different items, the unique item is what you’ll want to use for level-specific Professions, Quests, and more. This reduces the number of Mob Drops significantly, addressing the concern over item clutter.


That wraps up our deep dive for our redesigned Mobs! Between our new mob types, mob drops, and new mob attacks, we really wanted to ensure that fighting mobs is a fun experience - no longer something to sit and mindlessly shoot at to level up (Which, by the way, did someone say XP rebalancing? We’ll have more to share about that in the future as well!)

Lastly, we had alluded to a revamped Hogsend in a previous post! Here is your first look at the new Hogsend, which will be available to all players during the playtest! As we approach the playtest, we'll have more images to reveal all around Hogsend, so keep your eyes peeled!