[2023] How many redesigns has this game had now?

Originally posted by JokeeeceNightmare: How is it that 3/4 of you assume I'm dissing the game? I don't think it's terrible to redesigned your early access game, I'm just wondering why it's happened so many times at this point.

At this point, do the developers even fully know what they want the finished product to look like? That's the kind of question that gets raised when you keep changing core functions of your game.

A21 is fine, but then again, so was A15, and so was A12, so what compels them to keep making drastic changes that change the way the core of the game works and plays?

Much of the prior redesigns were reworks of prefab asset store stuff or quick and dirty in-house stuff to just get a mechanic/function in place to fill the void. The initial skill system for example was an asset store grab that they did minor edits to and put in to fill the void in gameplay.

Most of these systems were overhauled ONCE- When replacing the placeholder stuff with actual intended stuff. However, these replacements in many cases were done iteratively; Not all at once. Take the move from the original skill system to what we have now; Learn by Doing as the players called it, to Skill Buy.

Many people treat it as if they reworked the skill systems a dozen times in a row, but what actually happened was they gradually phased out the LBD aspects while fleshing out the intended aspects. This took a good 4-5 major versions, with A17 being the final death knell for LBD. Since then the skill system has had some tweaking, but no major reworks; And in whole, the skill system only had One rework.


There were also a few things where the intended thing just didn't work out.... The original crafting system was planned to be a 5x5 crafting grid. Players didn't like it though; And neither did the devs. So the devs ultimately held a vote on the main forum for the kickstarter backers and it was overhwelmingly voted to nix it and do something else. With the initial plan in shambles, they migrated to a placeholder system while they gave a long hard think over what they wanted to do with it. See now in A21, we have the crafting magazine system.


And of course some things they tried and just didn't work out so it got reverted; For example they tried to make cooked food more desirable by making them more beneficial and adding debuffs to eating uncooked food like canned goods and raw crops; Players absolutely freaked out over this so it quickly got reverted.

But all along they've essentially always been progressing towards completion, with very few genuine steps backward. (crowd opinion on what is and isn't a step back notwithstanding, if you follow the list of planned features, they've been steadily ticking them off.)


At this point, the only things really left to do are add bandits; Which was originally planned for a21, even showed footage of it and everything. But it wasn't quite where they wanted it when the release window came around so it got pushed to A22 where they're hoping for a quick turnaround since it's basically the only thing happening in A22.

And the Story and all that involves. At that point, pretty much every box set forth in the kickstarter will have been achieved and we'll hopefully be looking at a move to beta and final release.


As for 'how 3/4 of them are assuming you're dissing the game'; That'd be because basically every person before you who has brought this topic up WAS dissing the game. Get burned by a stove enough times you start to just assume it's going to be hot and react accordingly.