Annihilus 7.0, future plans, and what lies ahead

[Game]

Hello friends! It is a little late, but Happy New Year! It's been a while since my check-in with everyone, and people are wanting some details on what is planned for Annihilus, and what the future looks like. We have just very recently come to a few conclusions, and I figured it is best for everyone to know as soon as possible. I'll get right to it.



The next version of Annihilus, currently titled 7.0, will be a massive overhaul.


This means quite a few things. This will by far be the biggest change / update Annihilus has ever seen, in fact I bet very few servers will have seen an overhaul as large as this, if any at all. Of course any changes we're currently set on are subject to change at anytime, but here is a very small fraction of what we're working on.



• Progression has been redone from the beginning. Monster strength, experience gains, item progression, will all be totally different. Act 5 will no longer be the "end" of the game. It is just the beginning. To give you an idea, monsters in the Throne of Destruction in Hell will be level 70, nowhere near higher level content.





• Monster Resistances are no longer a "thing". All monsters will have 0 resistances to all elements by default, and will only rarely have any sort of resistances. Certain monster types will have minor resistances, an example would be all Demons would have 25% fire resistance. There will also be many more monster types as there are only a few now. Rare / Superunique monster properties such as being "Fire Enchanted" would also cause them to have some fire resistance. We will be removing the resistance UI from below the monster health bar completely as it will not be necessary.





• Relative to the resistance change, "resistance pierce" as a stat will be all but removed. There will be VERY rare instances of it showing up on an item, but it will not be a primary stat, and definitely not something you build around or can stack.





• Player Count will no longer increase the amount of items dropped. There will be a new stat on items that will "increase quantity of items dropped" that will work the same way as the Player Count buff used to. 100% increase quantity will be the cap, giving you the same result as players 8.





• Character and Item power will be much lower than they are now. Numbers are just way too high for everything, so you will see a number crunch. 50,000 damage is a good "average" number we're looking at for endgame damage as of now.





• Tons of endgame content is going to be added. We're talking about more maps, special sidequest events, much more item customization such as "rare crafting". I will be a little more specific of what is currently on the drawing board, again ALL of this is subject change and may not work out:


- Maps will now be able to roll magic, rare, and even unique. Based on what affixes maps roll it can modify what shows up in the map, such as special monsters, things that make the map harder such as modified monster stats or player stats, and many other things. The harder the map, the higher quantity and quality of items! As for unique maps, those will stay a surprise for now


- Endless Dungeons. Imagine a 100+ Level dungeon that never ends, only getting harder with each level, while the loot gets better and better. The monsters and level type will be 100% TRULY random. This could very likely replace the Crucible, that is still under talks.


- Side areas such as The Pit, Stony Tomb, Swampy Pit, etc will now have special quests with special challenges that must be done at a certain level and solo. Just as a quick example, lets say you must kill the special Boss spawned in The Pit in under 2 minutes without dying, while level 20 or lower. Completing this will reward a "special" item. The Pit will have a totally different challenge in each difficulty, this was just a quick made up example in my head. You will receive a notification when hitting level 20 about this special quest, so you won't miss any opportunities.


- PvP minigames. This may be a content patch beyond the initial 7.0, but we will be working on minigames such as Capture the Flag.


- Trial Bosses will also be changed, they will no longer be a daily type of things. More information to come later on this.





• Skills are being completely overhauled. There will no longer be "Damage Synergies". There will still be utility synergies for certain skills that are not damage related, such as Telekinesis and Energy shield, but you will almost never increase a skill's damage with a synergy anymore. There may still be some rare cases, we are still in early stage, a good example of this would be Murder of Crows still allowing you more Raven summons. This will encourage hybrid / dual elemental builds, especially with resistances being gone. As for passive / buff skills, they will be redesigned to receive more power with hard points versus "soft points" such as + to all skills.





• Many issues and bugs are being worked on, if all goes well we will have Glide working and all resolution problems resolved.





This is just the beginning, Firehawk and I are going to be working non stop for the next few months to get this where we want it. You may have just noticed I said "few" months, and that is unfortunately correct. While we wanted to have this ready in late March, we do not want to have a repeat of 6.0 where we didn't get to test things nearly enough, and ended up with a lot of crashes and problems.




Our current projection for completion is May.




We very well could finish a little sooner in a perfect world, and we will DEFINITELY be starting thorough beta testing well before then to ensure this is the smoothest launch possible. We will also provide developer updates along the way to keep everyone in the loop and keep hype up. Subscribers will of course see things a little sooner! All Subscribers will receive instant access to the beta test as soon as it goes up. Anyone who has purchased atleast 2000 Gold between the time of this post until the time of launch will also receive access.



There is a reason I want to ensure everyone who supports us financially gets a chance to adjust to the changes a little earlier and gets to help us shape this historical patch into a flawless piece of work. Announcing all of this ahead of time is somewhat of a double edged sword for Annihilus, as MANY players seem to just stop playing as soon as news is announced. This will not be happening until May, so there is PLENTY of time left in the ladder. Please continue to play and support us in the meantime, as our time and server cost are definitely not free. We are also going to look to give some other incentives to still buying Gold between now and then as well.

Many people usually jump to Hardcore and give it a test when it gets around this time in ladder, I suggest you try that if you're getting a little burnt out, some of you are already transitioning and having a blast!



One last piece of information to mention, these changes are so drastic that all existing characters will not be compatible with the changes. We are not going to delete your characters! We will be adding an "Annihilus Legacy" realm that will store all existing characters and forever run 6.1.1, so they will always be there if you want to play them! Anyone on Annihilus Legacy will use the same login as their standard Annihilus account, so you can chat between Annihilus and Annihilus Legacy with whispers just like how Annihilus and D2PK realms can chat.



I just want to truly thank all of you who will still continue to play between now and May, without you all we definitely wouldn't be able to put the time we're currently putting into 7.0. Thank you so much. We look forward to bringing this game changing patch to you, thank you so much for your patience, we hope you are as excited as we are.


- The Annihilus Staff