Introduction

Good morning Wardens, We’ve been excited to see so many players try Highguard so far and really appreciate the conversations we’ve seen from fans about what they’ve been enjoying and what needs improvement. One consistent point of feedback we’ve heard is that the Gear Phase needs improvements, so we want to discuss what changes are being made this week, in the near term, and in the future.

2.0 Changes

Most of our dev team tended to fight around the Points of Interest ( locations with the Shield Breaker ), resulting in more action and tension than what some players are experiencing on live. We’ve also noticed that many players harvest more and utilize the shop as the primary means of gearing up rather than using Vesper and Trader Flynn to fill in what they weren’t able to loot. To create more action and motivate players to risk contested looting, we’re increasing the quality of loot found at Points of Interest.

Better POI Loot

Masterwork Weapons

Points of Interest will now drop improved Blue and Purple weapons. They’re tuned to have their modded properties be around 20-30% better than a normal Blue or Purple weapon.

Ultimate Chargers

Many players haven’t discovered that barrels and boxes within POIs can drop Ultimate Chargers. So we’re increasing their discoverability by making their containers glow with energy if an Ultimate Charger is contained within.

Improved Guidance

We also have observed that newer players have struggled to understand what to do in this phase, so we’re making some UI updates to help with team coordination.

Waypoint Markers

When you leave your base in the gear phase, waypoint icons will guide players towards the Points of Interest. They’re also pingable so players can communicate intent without voice comms.

Map Updates

The map will also help reinforce the increased loot quality, leaning into player familiarity with loot zones in other games.

Faster Traversal

We’re changing Speed Gates to activate whenever any player gets near them rather than when you have the Shield Breaker. This should be a fun way to shrink the maps a little bit while still creating map awareness by telegraphing player presence.

Near Future Changes

And all of that is just the beginning, we’re going to be rolling out additional content updates in upcoming patches.

• We’re going to add unique loot to the purple gear phase. Players have enjoyed how the orange gear phase introduces new items, so we think players will enjoy experiencing more that sense of progression sooner.
• We’ll be adding a new loot category soon to expand combat tactics and strategy.
• We’re going to be adding a new Red Weapon to the Care Package.

Future Changes

Some things are a little harder to quickly update, but we wanted to open up and discuss a couple topics that we’re exploring with future content.

• Future maps will explore a variety of size and routing changes from our current maps, both to provide variety and create more action.
• Some future Wardens are being designed with unique interactions during this phase of the game.

Conclusion

We just wanted to say thank you again for all the feedback and we hope you enjoy these changes.

-Highguard Design Team