[2022] Progression Rework - Schematics System

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

For the past few weeks we’ve done a great deal of references to a reworked progression system that would enhance and be deeply connected with other features and changes we’re introducing to the game in Season 5 - features such as PVE maps, rarity system, siege weapon changes, the new creatures and their Rupu War Howdah variations (also known as Battle Mobs internally), and last but definitely not least, Walkers. It’s time to finally get into all the juicy details.

To get this out straight away so we focus entirely on the new system, we are completely removing fragments and tablets from the game and the associated progression. Our replacement system is to be schematics.

I will also touch some of the points that I failed to explain properly in our Rarity System devblog, such as for example, how an epic rarity Point of Interest differs from a common rarity POI, or what kind of bonuses would an item like a simple Bandage get from being crafted at a higher rarity, and most importantly for the good old “quality grind”, how it affects tools.

Schematics System
For Season 5, advancing through different types and tiers of Walkers, siege weapons, base parts, melee weapons and armor, etc. is going to be a major gameplay element of the game, and the vast majority of that will be done through battling Rupu tribes in their camps, hunting wild, dangerous creatures, raiding new POIs, and facing off against fearsome Rupu combat platforms on top of tamed beasts.

One of the biggest reasons we decided to completely remove fragments/tablets progression is the issue of such a core gameplay element of the game becoming very irrelevant, very quickly. After one player in a clan learned anything, everyone in that clan would have access to it. Both for PVP and trade aspects, it quickly removed value from fragments and tablets, and stopped that major part of game progression extremely early on, if it was a big clan, and rather quickly for an average sized group.

In a lot of cases, this made it so technology progression wasn’t even a part of the gameplay for most players, which from our point of view is a design issue in and of itself.

Whereas before it was possible to simply “feed” all the fragments and all the tablets to one player in the group, and thus unlock a vast amount of technology very early on if you had many players in that group that were grinding for it, that won’t be possible with this new system.
With all the major rebalance and redesign that LO is undergoing across the board, having a system where you can essentially get to end-game technology by visiting merely the first three maps and just farming for a few days, that’s something that is completely incompatible with our approach for the game, and would completely invalidate the impact of the rarity system and the introduction of scarcity to the game.

I want to start by describing how you will first interact with the system, what schematics are in practice, and how many other features and gameplay are changed through them - for example our Wandering Merchants, or the acquisition methods for valuable raid ammo such as Hellfire, and even smaller things such as building a simple wood base. Everything in the game is connected to, and interacts with this new system, paired with the scarcity changes we’ve finally introduced to the game, and the rarity system we talked about two weeks ago.

Schematics are essentially items, loot drops like any other, but they are at the center of almost every recipe in the game, and can greatly benefit from rarity bonuses. In our initial implementation, some items will be the exception to that rule, there is player equipment that will drop as a crafted item, rather than as a schematic.
For example, our first iteration will have farming tools of tier higher than Bone not be craftable, but rather be findable in the world as a low drop rate loot (by tier here we are talking about Stone, Bone, Ceramic, etc.).

Some examples of what this means: to build a Walker, you will first need to find a schematic for that specific Walker. In order to upgrade the Wings and the Walker Legs, you will need schematics for that as well. To switch Walker Rigs to a higher rarity variation, you will both need to have crafted a Walker of that rarity, and to find a Rig schematic of the same rarity (or lower).

If you want to build large clan bases wherever, be it PVE or PVP maps, you will need to find structural schematics - if you want to have large factories producing ceramics, or cooking iron into ingots, or weaving massive amounts of cloth, you will need to find schematics to build them in the first place.

Schematics & Rarity
In order to showcase how rarity and schematics interact with each other, I’ll first get into how rarity changes things like Points of Interest and creatures.

Rarity is going to affect how POIs are spawned. Depending on the map, POIs such as Rupu Camps, pyramid, abandoned trading stations, ancient crafting site (fabricator), rupu fortresses, and creature lairs, these will have different rarity, and thus different loot tables with more exciting rewards based on the difficulty of the map. Do keep in mind that a rarer POI also implies higher difficulty. Some POI will not be clearable by melee, for example, and will require Walkers armed with siege weapons to take them out, or weapon platforms nearby.

As it applies to resources and other general loot in a higher difficulty map, this also applies to schematics. When looting Nurr camps in an Easy/Medium difficulty oasis you will very rarely have an uncommon or a rare Stiletto, or Mollusk schematic drop - but if you head on out to higher difficulty oases such as Sleeping Giants, or Ancient City event maps, you will face off against rarer mobs which have increased chances of dropping higher rarity schematics.

While early on you will start off your journey riding a common Firefly and will eventually reach the point you find a Dinghy schematic, you will most likely still be in these early game, low difficulty maps, so unless you get lucky or raid a high rarity, high difficulty POI, or fight rare creatures in that map, you will find yourself riding a common Dinghy.
But that’s just the start of the adventure. Once you advance onto larger Walkers and more advanced gear, you will be ready to cross the sandstorms toward higher difficulty oases where many creatures, Rupu fortresses and various POI await you.

It is at this point that after overcoming these new challenges, uncommon, rare, and sometimes epic rarity schematics will be up for the taking. PVE threats won’t be the only challenges you will face in these higher difficulty maps, there will be other players and clans just like you, seeking to advance and progress toward larger Walkers, more powerful siege weapons, and sturdier bases to protect them.

Balance & QoL
It’s not news that both the rarity and the schematics systems are massive balance tools for us, but I still find it difficult to properly emphasize how much greater their impact is compared to our old systems.

When it comes to balancing different types, PVP and PVE tiles for example, schematics are the main tool for us. Our intention with PVE maps has been laid out already, but I think it’s okay to get into it once again with the added context of schematics that wasn’t available before.
Hanging out and farming early game up to essentially bone tier tech is perfectly okay, but staying beyond that is simply not worth it.

PVE tiles will always be there as safe havens for social interactions, for dedicated trading, and in a lot of cases, for bringing your banged up Walkers, garage them up, repair, refit, rebuild, and go back out into the dangerous areas of the world. As we said before, they’re not meant to be somewhere to live off of, farm and build up, resources respawn slower and are scarcer, schematics are limited to very low rarity, it’s - and with your help we will achieve a good balance where weather events, increased maintenance costs and PVE threats dissuade players and clans from creating banks and bases far too large for the intention we have.

While many schematics are considered very special loot with either low drop rates or requiring you to defeat large, dangerous PVE threats across different biomes, in the other extreme we have some of the very early schematics, which are required to progress through the early game at a decent pace and have a good experience in the first maps, so a few of them will always be unlocked or very easily accessible.
We don’t want situations where you can never get to water purification tech because there’s no campfire schematics to be found, or not having any bandages to heal at any point, etc. We also don’t really want a constant overflow of useless schematics, so this will be a very delicate balance to work on.

We don’t usually talk about numbers and balance a whole lot, other than to say that it’s up in the air, because that’s usually the case with new features and fresh changes in need of proper testing.
This continues to apply here, as we’ll need to carefully balance what drops from where, what are the chances for it to drop, etc. This is something that we will work together with you, the players, during our public testing phase of the overhaul.

A major focus for overall balance of schematics is to avoid excessive amounts of prayers directed at RNGesus. After hunting for Nurr and getting a Stiletto drop, you would probably expect similar results in the future, instead of having a Stiletto dropped from a random Rupu Forerunner in the middle of the desert.
I’ll give you some examples below on how you can expect specific items and buildables to come from similar sources.

• Walkers: The vast majority of our battle mobs (Rupu-tamed creatures) will be the main sources of Walker related schematics. For example, untamed Nurr will have chances to drop Stiletto, while Rupu Nurr Raiders will drop Mollusk Walkers. Larger Walkers like the Falco and the Buffalo come from more dangerous sources, in this case variations of the Papak creature.
  
• Raiding the Rupu in their villages is a great way to make better use of the ammo they store for their defenses.
  
• Exploring and looting Ancient POIs can earn you rarer and useful items such as Automata, Wingsuits and Exosuits.

On the topic of quality of life: since our rarity system devblog, we’ve seen a lot of concerns regarding item clutter, and with schematics being unique items that also go in player inventory, that is still a concern we have. The much more simplified rarity (1-5, instead of 1-100) items replacing old quality items has had a great impact on reducing the amount of clutter items in the inventory, and we want to keep it that way.

For that reason, many schematics will be “group schematics” - what this means is that we'll be grouping some schematics under a single one, so for example, finding a single schematic for Baskwood Armor will allow you to craft 1 piece of either gloves, chest, legs - instead of having to find Baskwood Bracers, Boots and Chest separately. Another example would be structural pieces. Finding a Clay Structure schematic will let you build any Clay base piece, as long as you have the necessary resources and the schematic itself.

Similarly, ammo schematics will have big stacks so as to not fill your chests too quickly when the resources needed to craft the ammo aren’t available to you.
We’ve considered items such as schematic bags and backpacks (similar to our fiber bags), but it remains to be seen whether it will be necessary. Testing will give us more information on this.

In regards to cheating and exploits such as dupes: We fully understand that some of these things will not work at all if there’s things like dupe exploits going rampant at any point during the season, or if cheaters are allowed to get away with essentially robbing the grind off other players.

Our stance for this has not changed, and will be heavily enforced at the start of Season 5. Whereas in the past we focused a lot more on fixing the exploits as soon as possible, than banning the exploiters straight away (even temporarily), this time our approach is much more of a middle ground. While we are focused on fixing the exploits, our support team will be focused on handing out punishments to anyone found in violation of our Code of Conduct, be it a lone player or a large clan, that is found to be greatly benefiting from exploits and cheaters in their group.

— Neon