I don’t envy the developers of early access co-op RPG Fellowship for having to convince its loyal players that the thing they liked was too good and needs to be made worse for the health of the game.
Although many players have enjoyed running its MMO-like dungeons without all the busywork of an actual MMO, the developers believe its loot system is holding back its true potential as an action RPG.
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Linderberg said the goal is to also give players the ability to overcome threatening dungeon modifiers through their gear. A dungeon with tougher monsters might require stacking as much survivability as you can, but a dungeon where speed is king could push you towards prioritizing raw damage output.
“There’s always going to be [best-in-slot items] but we want to try to open that up more,” Lindberg said.
I look at all of this and get excited that the game is leaning into being an action RPG with the build variety of Diablo, or at least something closer to it. If you’re going to have loot in the first place, it should meaningfully change how your character functions, and that seems to be exactly where Fellowship is headed. I also think it’s a smart way to add some depth to the game’s core loop of running the same dungeons over and over, and to open the door for players to find unexpected gear combinations that shift each season’s meta.
Early access is exactly when you want to test these kinds of changes and find a solution that doesn’t ruin the appeal of the game. To do this, Chief Rebel will be holding a playtest for all of these changes on May 20. Then, the big loot rework will go live for season 3 sometime in June.
