The Cycle: Frontier Acts On Beta 2 Feedback, Says Launch Is ‘Very Close’

It’s been over a month since the last The Cycle: Frontier beta test and developer Yager Developments is now working to act on the data and feedback gathered during the previous round of testing. In the team’s latest dev update, Executive Producer Jonathan Lindsay described the playtest as intense, with over 600,000 players joining the fray throughout its six-week run.

Three main complaints that players had with the PvPvE first-person shooter were stability and performance issues, it’s difficulty, and problems with the new-user experience, especially when it comes to matchmaking.

To reduce the overall difficulty of the game, Yager will be replacing the linear progression system with a logarithmic one. The new progression mechanics will see players gain big gains in power early in the match and smaller incremental increases at later levels. Mobs will also have their AI stealth detection range reduced as well as the time it takes before they stop chasing down a player. Spawn indicators will also be removed to prevent spawn camping and the previous complaints about solo vs. squad encounters are currently being addressed.

New players can expect improvements to matchmaking so they don’t get queued up with more experienced players. The team is also planning to make the “Sell” feature more conspicuous and will be adding ways to educate players on its importance in the game. For those looking to connect with friends or add new ones, the non-functional friends list will also be fixed in an upcoming build.

As for the stability issues, Lindsay admitted that the 16,000 or so concurrent players logged during the test pushed the servers to their limits and caused various problems including disconnections and reset progression. These should now be fixed following backend improvements to enhance network performance. The team, however, is still looking into the graphics performance issues and are currently hard at work on a fix.

Lindsay also teased that they’re now very close to launching The Cycle: Frontier although he didn’t offer a release date or window just yet. “The main thing is we don’t want to just rush this out,” he said. “We want to make sure that we’re happy with it and that you are super happy with it.”

You can watch the full dev update video right down below.