Aniimo is scrapping its legendary creature's random stats after player complaints
Pawprint Studio's first Dev Dispatch answers seven player grievances about its free-to-play creature collector, and the big one is Irisalis: its randomised Innate Potential is being replaced with fixed values, with the difference paid back as Starcryst Essence.
Aniimo launched on September 15 and went straight into the argument free-to-play creature collectors tend to have: players liked the catching, and did not like what the game did with randomness. Two weeks on, developer Pawprint Studio has published the first of a recurring Dev Dispatch, rounding up the complaints it has seen and saying what it will do about each.
The legendary that wasn't equal for everyone
The clearest reversal concerns Irisalis, the game's legendary Aniimo. Its Innate Potential is currently rolled at random, which meant two players could own the same once-only legendary and one of them would simply have a worse version. Pawprint says that is not the experience it wants, and from version 1.1 Irisalis will have fixed Innate Potential: 10 attack, 10 regen, and 5 each of HP, break, magic defence and physical defence.
Players who rolled above those numbers will not lose the difference. The studio says any existing Potential above the new values will be converted into Starcryst Essence as compensation, with the exact conversion rules published in the version announcement and in-game mail.
Rerolls, colours and Aniipods
Three other 1.1 changes deal with cosmetics players felt they were paying for twice. Rerolling Sparkling Hues for Sparkling Prismana Aniimo currently burns resources and keeps handing out repeats; after the update, any Hue already unlocked can be switched to freely, including a creature's original Prismana Hue. Legendary Aniipods will also work on Sparkling Aniimo, replacing the Aniipod a creature was caught with.
Two answers are more open-ended. On mobile lag and overheating, Pawprint says a dedicated team is optimising for popular devices now. On slow support tickets, it describes upgrading the system and growing the team. Neither comes with a date.
Why it matters
Aniimo was the fourteenth most-played game on Steam on October 1, peaking just under 109,000 concurrent players, so this is a large audience being told a randomised legendary was a mistake. Undoing that roll two weeks after launch, and paying players back, is a faster retreat than this genre usually manages.
Why it matters
Reversing a randomised stat roll on a once-only legendary, with compensation, is an unusually quick concession for a free-to-play collector with six figures of concurrent players.