I thought I had already written this and published, but I can't find it anywhere.  This was a great stream where Chris was determined to answer questions.  He doubles-down on 4/11 to and hits the questions hard again while testing.  Needless to say the team is behind and working hard to get the game back into shape after one of the toughest updates to the game.

Wave Spawners Have a Big Change Coming

Lord Subtleton found major issues with wave spawners that affected Envy Angel and we should have the change in the next patch.

Considering spawners, Chris answered another question about people logging in and out of the game and resetting a boss, so they can farm more efficiently for a specific item.  This happens a lot with top tier farmers, and Chris said it's hard to mitigate these issues without punishing the whole population.  The long-term strategy is to design zones more effectively to mitigate this issue rather than adding more timers to the game.  Sounds like a good plan to me, but this has been a long standing issue and the team hasn't got the time to run around and really fix all of the encounters quickly. 

The good news, I'm hoping, is that episode 2 is lighter on zones, so they can focus on quality.  Episode 2 will always be burdened with having far too many adventure zones and that makes maintenance and fixes hard to spread throughout the world quickly.  This month is the perfect example.

I doubt you ever remove these issues.  You have to update Unity over and over to get the features you need.  Game engines are constantly evolving; there are always bugs to fix.  It's just life.

Crown Shop Buffs Are Gone as of patch 952

See you later.  I never even noticed, so...

Seriously though, Chris did say there were people that would go buy 10 cheap items and get the buffs.  That's hard core.  Considering the buffs were entirely random it sounds like overkill.

Richard In a Box

To make the character sheet work correctly, the team had to put a model under each zone that is redressed to look like your character.  it was fun to see and I have a screenshot that I will share tomorrow, if I remember.

Dungeon Rooms Will Have Two Types: Deco or Encounter

These should drop in the world and you will see that reflected in the name of the blueprint.  There were technical issues with allowing both at the same time and I think the ability to exploit the AI making unique platforms with deco that confused the mobs is the main issue.  

PvP Updates

Chis is considering making a zone that's as attractive to play as UT is, but with a PvP focus.  He wasn't clear on the finished zone, but knows he wants to get back to working on Blood Bay and making new PvP zones that create some unique, emergent play.

Variety is the spice of life and this is a game with a good structure for entertaining PvP.  There are issues, but it's part of Shroud's unique offering.

Chris was also asked about making a lot PvP-only, so once you entered the lot, you were in a PvP zone.  Chris said the tech already existed to make any arbitrary area a PvP zone and that making tools to allow that shouldn't be too tough to get to players.  Definitely something to look forward to.  I think it's an interesting mechanic that has a lot of applications and new gameplay options.

Chris is remiss that so much had not progressed with PvP, but the team had a really tough few months with the new dungeon system coming online, all of the server drama, and the holidays.  They are only one month out of all of that upheaval and now they just had a very difficult release.