With Trove’s fifth birthday and its Delves expansion now behind it, we’re curious about what’s next for the game. Gamigo’s Cornelia and Coby – Product Manager and Game Designer on Trove, respectively – kindly chatted with us about that and a few other burning questions, like what’s up with console, which class is next up for a Tomb Raider-esque revamp, and whether the game’s Bomber Royale mode is ever getting more content. Let’s dig in!
MassivelyOP: Can Gamigo talk about the current health of the game? How big is it compared to a few years ago, how the PC and console playerbases compare, how many people are currently working on the game, and how does Gamigo see the game fitting into its stable overall?
Cornelia (Neli), Trove Product Manager: Trove’s playerbase continues to grow. If we compare the console to the PC version, there aren’t many differences; our userbase on consoles tends to be a little younger, though. We have a very dedicated team, although the size of it can fluctuate over time, depending on many factors including the development of new content and more. Overall Trove fits well into our portfolio as we strive to provide games to a diverse audience, and we are working hard to constantly improve Trove for our players.
Delves includes a huge revamp of the Tomb Raiser – did players respond to the revamp by playing Tomb Raisers again long-term? What other classes are on deck for similar revamps?
Coby, Trove Game Designer: I think it’s a bit early to speak to the long term, but I’m happy with how players have responded so far! Being able to iterate quickly based on player feedback on the PTS was helpful for creating a class that folks enjoyed and also is able to stand on the damage charts. As for what’s next, I think the Chloromancer is ripe for some adjustments to bring it more in line with the game that Trove is in 2020.
The key change in Delves was basically a huge change to Shadow Tower worked; Shadow Tower was super popular but generated tremendous technical issues for the game. Delves was meant to give players similar content, without the lag and endless spawning levels. How are players handling that major change? Might we see Shadow Tower’s glory restored at some point?
Neli: I think the Daughter of the Moon might have some really harsh words with us if she had to pack up and move yet again! Delves is an evolution of the Shadow Towers in that it offers something exciting and new every time you open a Delve – and our players appear to really enjoy that more varied challenge.
My kids spend an absurd amount of time playing Bomber Royale, which is Trove’s battle royale mode. Does Gamigo have plans to expand or update it?
Coby: Awww, I love that! We have some ideas in the pipeline for ways to expand/evolve Bomber Royale in the future, but I don’t know when they will come to pass.
Does the team have any plans to reduce the amount of time between the PC and console expansion launches? The last one was a couple of months of lagtime, and it made me worry about the future of console for the game, especially after Defiance sunsetted one of its console versions.
Coby: The lag time between the console and PC versions helps us make sure we are getting consoles the most polished version of the game as possible and one that won’t need rapid updates. Trove Console is still going strong, and we have no plans to sunset it; many of our developers play primarily on console in their free time.
Neli: I agree! I play on my console a lot, too, and can confirm that we will keep on going with Trove there.
Trove has always seemed to me one of those games that is deceptively accessible – as in, my little kids can play it, but eventually, the difficulty of the character progression systems requires an adult’s help (and in some cases, grinding). The endgame grind and gating has always seemed to be a big complaint for hardcore players too – so I can’t help but wonder whether Gamigo is addressing that or leaving it alone to focus on content instead.
Coby: I think that is just kind of the game Trove is. Generally speaking, we do add shortcuts to things after time passes to make older content quicker to complete (looking at you, companion eggs). That said, we are, of course, always looking for ways to improve the game and constantly iterating, the recent adventures update is a great example of this.
Last fall, Gamigo changed around how it was taking player submissions for in-game content to make it much easier for staff to sort through the mods and decide what to include in the game. Can you folks talk more about this system – how many players are taking part, how they are compensated, what proportion of the cosmetic creations comes from gamers?
Coby: We can absolutely talk about this. You can find the details about how players are rewarded for their creations here. As for a percent of the new content, anything that is added to game that was created by a Trovian has a credit on the item itself in the collections. I would estimate that around 10% of our new content is player created, but that’s off the cuff.
Neli: I too would estimate about 10% of our content to be player-created. The new submissions system has not only helped us a lot by making it easier to see all the amazing new creations our players come up with but we believe that it has also made it a lot easier for our players to submit their creations – with everything in one place, as a player you can easily observe the progress of your submission.
What content can we look forward to now that Delves is settled? Does the team have plans for more expansions, and how many might we expect? Will new content going forward be based on Delve’s systems, or will Delves sort of be a one-off as the team moves on to new ideas?
Neli: Delves is here to stay! We have so much we still want to explore down in the caves (for example, I don’t think all the Shadow Tower villains have made it to their new lairs yet). We also have a lot of grand plans for the future, but I can’t spill every one of our secrets just yet ?, so make sure to keep an eye out!
