Paladins Executive Producer Chris Larson has penned an extensive 'state of the game' letter for Paladins that addresses several key issues for the game and in the community. Most notably, Larson writes that the controversial game system that came with the Cards Unbound update will be rolled back in favor of a "new system that [he] believe[s] the community will be really excited about".
Cards Unbound was first added in November 2017 and contained a system that gave a distinct advantage to players with higher-level cards over those with lower-level cards. Essentially, players could level up their cards by collecting duplicates. Duplicate cards could be found in loot boxes that either were earned through gameplay or that could be purchased with in-game currency only. Many felt the system added a pay-to-win aspect to Paladins.
With the Cards Unbound system removal, players will see a number of changes to Paladins:
We are still working out the details of the new system, but the rough outline of our current thinking is as follows (NOTE: Subject to some change, but hopefully this communicates the general direction we want to head):
- Legendary Cards will now be called Talents.
- Talents will only have a single level
- Talents will be unlocked for free by earning XP and gaining Champion levels (for example; 1,5,10,15)
- All Champion Cards will now be free (No cost or grind).
- Deck creation will return to a point system where players can distribute 15 points across the five cards they select for their loadout. Each Champion Card will have five ranks to choose from.
- Talents will not have ranks, and are not included in the loadout point cap.
- Talents and Decks will continue to be chosen at match start to allow players to tailor their playstyles based on their opponents.
- New Talents will be added over time and give further varied playstyles.
- Champion Mastery will no longer be capped at level 25. Instead, it will work similarly to Player Account leveling (which has no cap).
- Card chests will be removed from the game.
- We are evaluating the best options to compensate players for their previously earned cards, and hope to share details soon.
The letter goes on to discuss the just-added Battlegrounds "battle royale" feature. A number of big changes will be coming to the game. The team will be removing the alpha version of Battlegrounds from the game and will be working "aggressively" over the next several weeks to "make it considerably more engaging and fun". Battlegrounds will then become a separate client under a completely different name...effectively a NEW GAME, according to Larson.
Larson will be hosting a Dev Insight Show livestream on Friday, February 23 at 10:00 am Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern.
You can read the full letter on the Paladins Google Docs site.
