NEWS
GAME
Director’s Letter – ♯003
Preface
Hello everyone, I’m Soejima, the director of “TRIBE NINE”.
We haven’t talked since the Deadly Demo, but at long last TRIBE NINE will be officially released on February 20th!!
This time, I’d like to explain what kind of game TRIBE NINE is as we approach the release date.
Based on the feedback we have received from the Deadly Playtest and the Deadly Demo version, many changes have been made and the Director’s Letter has become a large volume. For this reason, we will be dividing it into three parts: “Battle,” “Game Content,” and “Story and XB”.
Today, we will be bringing to you an introduction to “Battle,” a key feature of the game.
We’ve made significant changes to the battle system based on the feedback we received from everyone, primarily addressing concerns that “enemies felt too tough and battles lacked excitement.” We would like to introduce each improvement and explain in detail the reasons we made these changes.
An overview of the game as a whole is covered in “Director’s Letter #001,” so make sure to check that out when you have time!
TRIBE NINE’s Battle System
TRIBE NINE’s battle system features 3D action battles comprising a team of three “Characters” and five “Tension Cards.”
In this game, you face off against powerful enemies using various actions, primarily normal attacks.
Players can enjoy devising strategies against formidable enemies and experience each character’s unique playstyle in exhilarating extreme battles.
Basic Controls
Lock-On
This feature allows you to focus on a specific enemy and continue targeting them.
It’s a very useful function when you want to keep attacking the same enemy. Please make good use of it depending on the battle situation.
Note that this feature is optional and not utilizing it won’t hinder your gameplay experience.
Additionally, to help you avoid missing the attack cues of fast-moving enemies, we’ve added a new behavior that reduces the camera’s drift, keeping the enemy centered on the screen. These settings can be adjusted in the options menu to match your preferences.
Stamina
Evading or using powerful moves consumes stamina, and when it reaches zero, you won’t be able to perform those actions.
In this game, instead of having a “CD (Cooldown)” for each action, certain powerful moves consume stamina. However, stamina recovers quickly, almost eliminating any “wait to recover” periods, and we’ve made it so that it regenerates while dashing or performing normal attacks. As long as you don’t push too recklessly, your actions won’t be overly restricted.
For the official release, these aspects have been adjusted to ensure that, by skillfully combining actions, players can continue to move smoothly without interruptions.
Normal Attacks
One of the basic actions involves attacking with the character’s unique weapon and actions.
There are two types of normal attacks: “Primary Attacks” and “Secondary Attacks,” which function similarly to “weak attacks” and “strong attacks.” The Secondary Attack leaves you more vulnerable and consumes stamina, but it’s a very powerful move. If you can successfully hit enemies during their openings, it can give you a significant advantage in battle.
The Primary Attack does not consume stamina and even allows you to recover stamina while attacking, so mastering the use of both of these actions is key to performing well in battles.
As a result, players often found themselves relying solely on the low-damage normal attacks they could trust, falling into a repetitive pattern of wearing down high-health enemies with low-damage moves.
Additionally, the uninterrupted attack motions and the high number of inputs required to complete combos meant that players often had to interrupt their combos to respond to enemy attacks. Moreover, the timing for evading was difficult to pick up from the animations, leading to a frustrating experience where the expected actions didn’t feel satisfying. To put it simply, upon reflection, we realized the experience was like a cascade of stressful factors building one after another.
We’ve addressed these issues by reworking the animations for all characters, streamlining them to match the pace of enemy attacks. We’ve also introduced two types of attacks: the low-risk Primary Attack and the high-risk, high-reward Secondary Attack, making it easier to enjoy the strategic interplay of actions in battle.
Strategy Skills
These are unique actions that symbolize each character’s traits, with execution conditions and effects that differ completely for each character.
Each character has a special ability, which is represented by a unique gauge displayed on the screen. As the gauge fills up, it allows you to unleash powerful attacks or activate various effects by consuming the gauge, offering a wide range of potential outcomes.
Additionally, the two separate Action Skills have been consolidated into a single skill, simplifying the process needed to activate and showcase each character’s strengths. This change makes it easier to track a character’s potential through a single gauge that shows their “”character-specific mechanics”” for Strategy Skills.
Evade and Dash
You can consume stamina to move quickly and evade enemy attacks.
The Evade action has a fairly long invincibility window, allowing you to slip through attacks and continue your own offense with a more technical approach. Additionally, if you dodge in sync with an enemy’s attack, you’ll perform a “Perfect Evasion.”
Furthermore, if you continue pressing the button after evading, it will transition into a dash. During the dash, you can not only move at high speed but also recover stamina, making it a powerful action when repositioning for offense or defense.
The timing for initiating the evasion can be adjusted in the options, allowing you to choose whether it triggers when pressing the button (default) or when releasing the button. If you want to make more use of the dash feature, you can experiment with this setting.
Counterattack
By executing a counterattack at the right moment to match an enemy’s attack, you can parry their attack and greatly disrupt their posture.
Melee characters will perform a “Deflect Counterattack,” while ranged characters will perform a “Dodge Counterattack.” If successful, they will yield significant rewards. However, these actions have a long recovery time and consume a large amount of stamina, so mastering them requires some technical skill.
Of course, this is an advanced technique that is not necessarily required for progressing through the game, so you can still proceed without using counterattacks if you prefer.
In the previous Deadly Playtest and Deadly Demo, this was a limited feature available only to certain melee characters with specific skills. However, it has now been modified so that all characters can execute this action.
By removing the cooldown and enabling it to be performed with a common button for all characters, we believe that the usability has been greatly improved.
Pivotal Battle Elements
So far, we’ve introduced only the basic elements of battle.
Now, let’s move on to introduce more strategic elements that can turn the tide of battles, starting with teamwork and coordination with your allies.
Break and Chain Skills
Enemies have a concept called “Posture,” and by continuously attacking, you can break their posture, eventually causing a “Break” that creates a large opening. Once an enemy is broken, you can perform a powerful team attack known as a “Chain Skill.”
Posture will return to normal if a certain amount of time passes or if the enemy lands an attack, so it’s crucial to avoid their attacks and keep landing hits to maintain the advantage.
As mentioned earlier, Secondary Attacks and Counterattacks are particularly effective at breaking an enemy’s posture, so landing these actions successfully is key to progressing in battles.
While breaking posture can be caused by the player’s attacks alone, it is possible for your allies’ attacks to also break the enemy’s posture. If you’re not comfortable with deflecting or evading, focusing on enemies that your allies are facing may make it easier to break their posture.
Chain Skills are extremely powerful attacks that not only deal massive damage but also increase the party’s “Tension,” which represents the team’s morale.
Despite all the terminology, the strategy is simple: evade enemy attacks then strike back, and you’ll deal tons of damage!
However, the connection between applying Impairment and the playstyle where one handles enemy attacks while dealing damage with appropriate actions was weak. As a result, it was determined that this system was not functioning effectively as a core mechanic, and we have decided to completely remove these elements.
The newly introduced Break System serves to emphasize the importance of tactics in actions, aiming to create an intuitive mechanism that can properly evaluate the player’s actions.
Tension System and Ultimate Skills
By raising “Tension,” the effects of the “Tension Cards” that are set before a battle will be activated.
Tension Cards function like “battle rule extensions” and you can set up to five per party. They offer a variety of effects, such as “reviving once” or “freezing enemy time when a Perfect Evasion is successful.”
Additionally, some cards can combine in a combo-like fashion to amplify their effects, allowing you to create a build with a clear concept that fits the character you’re controlling.
Activating the effects of Tension Cards consumes a certain amount of Tension, and as long as there is remaining Tension, their effects can continue to be triggered.
Furthermore, by consuming all the Tension at once, you can use the character’s strongest move, their “Ultimate Skill.”
The Ultimate Skill is a powerful move that can deal massive damage or heal the entire party, among other game-changing effects.
Choosing between using Tension to activate Card effects or unleashing an Ultimate Skill can be crucial for victory, depending on the battle situation. However, if you’re not familiar with the game yet, it’s recommended to use the Ultimate Skills freely without overthinking it.
Additionally, we’ve made significant revisions to the effects of the Tension Cards. The new design aims to be simpler, more powerful, and more interesting to build around, with a focus on synergy between the cards.
This change is also intended to reduce the burden of managing individual activation conditions for each card.
Looking back at the Deadly Playtest and Deadly Demo, the biggest challenge in battles was that it was very, overly, extremely difficult to understand which actions were appropriate and how to execute them effectively. To address this, we restructured the dependencies between game elements to create a more logical progression.
The battles in the official release version will be a simpler action game in which you deal damage using normal attacks and deal with enemy attacks using Evade and Counterattack. On top of that, Strategy Skills, Tension Cards, and Ultimates—where activation conditions are met by executing the previously mentioned actions—are positioned as a major reward.
Enemy Tension
Enemies also experience fluctuations in their Tension.
Just like the player, as an enemy’s Tension rises, their attacks become more intense. Especially when their Tension reaches its maximum “Extreme” state, many enemies will change to specialized attack patterns. When this happens, it is recommended to stop attacking and focus on evading.
Like the player, an enemy’s powerful actions consume Tension. By observing the enemy’s Tension gauge, you can get a rough idea of the battle’s difficulty. As you become more familiar with the game, checking the gauge can help prevent unexpected accidents.
In TRIBE NINE, managing the back-and-forth of both the player’s and the enemy’s Tension is a crucial element of battle. If you find that you’re consistently being overwhelmed by the enemy’s Tension, it might indicate an issue with your strategy or party composition. In such cases, reconsidering these aspects could open up new opportunities.
Final Comments
For the official release, we’ve made many improvements and changes based on the feedback we received from the Deadly Playtest and Deadly Demo. In addition to the elements we’ve already introduced, we’ve also made several adjustments to enhance the gameplay experience, such as the option to “hide non-player character effects,” making the game more accessible.
TRIBE NINE has been developed with the concept of providing players with a sense of accomplishment from defeating powerful enemies.
While maintaining the challenge of tough enemies, we’re focusing on enhancing the player’s sense of satisfaction and the thrill of executing well-coordinated moves. We’re in the final stages of adjustments to ensure the game is even more fulfilling.
Next time, we plan to share the “Content Introduction,” where I will introduce the various elements that will be available in-game at launch. It’s packed with a lot of content, so please look forward to it!
See you in Director’s Letter #004!
