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CHANGELOG
GAMEPLAY & BALANCE
-With the addition of the Worm, new resources related have been added to the game. Some of them are exclusively harvested after a successful Worm kill, some are obtained by directly attacking the beast for it’s valuable scales, and some are available in the territory where they roam, Worm Sighting event maps. Alongside some other various misc resources, a successful Worm hunt will yield Worm Scales, Worm Silk, and Worm Sand to the victors, as well as Worm Fangs, a trophy of tremendous value, proof of the ultimate feats of heroism and skill among Nomads.
-Added a new Meteor Fall event on all maps of the game (with the exception of Nomad’s Cradle), which brings a new resource essential to technology progression, as well as Walker construction… and raiding. As the debris in the sky enters the atmosphere, leaving a blazing, fiery trail behind it to follow, make sure to be prepared for a fight over its spoils when it reaches the ground.
-Meteor Cores are a new resource which can be extracted from Meteor crash sites across any oases where they land. They are a strange, energized crystal, harvested from the largest rocks falling off meteors. It’s not a resource exclusive to an event map, as it can essentially happen anywhere in the world, in any oasis. They have a variety of uses, which include technology progression, Walker Mechanism crafting, as well as an important crafting material for a new Catapult boulder.
-New vitamin added to the game: Worm Tincture - It is produced with a mixture of Worm Sand, as well as a Worm Fangs, extracted from the mandible of a defeated Worm. This potent vitamin will grant XP upon consumption when below maximum level, or +1 attribute point when at max character level.
-A new recipe has been added to Advanced and Artificer Woodworking Stations: Tablets. Similar to the production of Tablets at an Ancient Fabricator, this will require glass, shattered fragments, and a meteor core in order to craft. Tablets are guaranteed, but there is no guarantee of specific tablet types.
-The old Hullbreaker Catapult Boulder (now obsolete) has been replaced with Charged Boulders: Its main ingredient being Meteor Cores. This new addition to the Catapult ammo can deal considerable damage against all types of armor (Soft, Hard, Robust, Reinforced, and Solid).
-The Ancient Crafting Station has received a new visual update, which brings renovated assets, animations, and effects, as well as some fixes to UI and related text. And one secret or two that our mapping lead may or may not have hid in there as well.
-It is no longer possible to consume an interactable while being grappled to anything. This includes current bandages, and any future items in that category.
-Increased spread of Scattershot pellets, and further rebalanced damage versus different types of player armor. With new balance, heavier types of armor will provide better protection against Scattershot.
OASES & POINTS OF INTEREST
-New event oasis: Worm Sighting. In this stretch of desert deep in the Wasteland is where the roaming Sandworms, dubbed “The Long Ones”, have taken as their territory. The Worms are ravenous, monstrous beasts. Once one of them is focused on a Walker, it will lose sight of everything else around it. In order to defeat the Worm, experienced nomadic hunters must band together, as entering their territory unprepared will mean certain death.
-Fixed Iron Ore node spawns on Kali Spires maps.
Improvements were made on exit of the C8 pocket in Nomad’s Cradle. Fixed several sinkholes and other miscellaneous terrain issues.
-Misc fixes to inaccessible loot in Ancient City oases.
-Fixed small gaps in geysers on Kali Spires.
-Removed holy spheres from Kali Spires.
-Storm weather SFX should be lower now.
WALKERS
-Walker Mechanisms are now one of the resources required in the construction of many Walkers in the game. The main resource utilized in the crafting of Walker Mechanisms (crafted at Woodworking Stations of any tier) is Meteor Cores.
-With the introduction of the Worm to the game, there’s been some re-balance work going on for some time, specifically for some Walker Upgrades resources. Durability upgrade for higher tier Walkers (specifically Iron Upgrades) will now require Worm Scales to craft. This will not affect all Walker Upgrades, only the large ones.
-Some Walker Legs and Wings have also been re-balanced to utilize these new resources more. In general, Walker Wings will require more Worm Silk (which is now made more available), and Walker Legs will now require special Worm Scale resource. Generally, it’s the late game ones which require new resources in greater amounts. As an example, only the Heavy Legs will utilize Worm Scales. But, as outlined below, they also come with some new advantages.
-As well as resource balance for crafting Walker Parts, there has also been some re-balance on not just the HP of these buildables, but the armor rating itself as well. All Walker Parts which utilize Worm Scales in their construction will now have +1 to their base armor rating. This means that, for example, Falco Raider Wings now have 5000 HP, as well as a Hard armor rating (old was Soft). In the case of Heavy Legs which utilize Worm Scales, the armor rating will be Robust.
-Projectiles fired from siege weapons will no longer be affected by host Walker’s own movement. Should make shooting on the move a bit more reliable, and allow for more interesting Raptor vs Raptor combat. This is a fairly experimental change, so let us know your thoughts on it.
-Added functioning Raptor passenger seat. A second player can now sit alongside the pilot.
-Raptor “Flip” option will now only appear when it is stationary, and upside down(so not during flight).
-Fixed not being able to rebuild Hornet Walker’s legs in some specific situations.
-Fixed wrong torque consumption on Balang Walker.
-Fixed Silur Walker not consuming torque when starting to move.
-Improved spawn points on Panda Walker.
-Walkers in Nomad’s Cradle should no longer automatically log out after 6 hours.
MOBS
-Fixed an issue where Killins would get stuck attempting to exit their nests.
-Killins of the Spires should now be at a slightly greater height when on patrol.
TRADING STATION & QUESTS
-Fixed some improper collisions on Trading Station floors.
-Disabled quality usage on Quest Packages.
INTERFACE, VOICE & TEXT
-Lowered interaction distance for “Remove net” interaction on all objects.
-Lowered interaction distance on Battle Fan.
-Added a new equipment status UI, which will appear near the minimap area when your equipped gear is very damaged.
-Fixed issue which caused players using controllers to be unable to access Walker upgrade interface.
FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS
-Small optimization pass on Windmills.
-Fixed several client crashes.
-Further optimization work related to Players and Walkers has been done. Situations where there are potentially 80-100 players in very close proximity should now perform much better.
-Further Xbox related optimization pass on assets, sounds, and more.
-Fixed some jittering issues on grappling hook movement.
-Fixed problematic reload animation on Ballistas.
-Fixed a rare issue where the player could die from jump kicking.
-Fixed being able to net Poaching Huts.
-Netting a Hose Station will no longer just net the base, but the entire structure.
-Fixed animation issues with Sawblades.
-Improved description of help widget in Ancient Crafting Station: Now properly mentions Reinforced Planks.
One of the main goals when designing the new Meteor Fall event on maps, was to try and reduce the predictability generated by the current implementation of event maps, specifically the Asteroid Crater event map, since it being a relatively small map meant that players would get to the good stuff rather quickly, and sometimes in complete safety. Complete safety isn't bad when playing sneakily, or utilizing tactics such as small walkers, wingsuits, etc... But it did reduce the gameplay opportunities from the encounters (by reducing the encounters). So with this new feature, we are hoping to create scenarios for fights with multiple sides, with various small-scale PvP and PvE goals, without having these completely static in the World Map, or in specific spots in a specific map.
We also did not like that the Asteroid Crater event maps were mostly discovered through checking World Map every so often. We think it's much more fun to have these types of events as something completely random, which begins to happen on the oasis you're at, and does not wait for you, or anyone else.
Meteor Fall events are very visual, from the moment the meteor chunks start burning up in the atmosphere, up until the point the surviving meteorites reach the ground.
So look up, Nomad! And brace for impact, because they will be falling anywhere in the oases, causing shockwaves of damage to anything in its way, and bringing a rare new resource!
This was a great opportunity not only to experiment with in-map events to create more content which would not depend on new servers, or anything related to the World Map, but also to create new sources of resources to add to the game, which game designers could then utilize in newly rebalanced Walker parts, tech progression changes, and more.
We have several more ideas, as well as the prospect of creating more interesting variations of this very same event. This feature is not finished yet, in terms of design and balance, and will most likely receive more updates. We know the currently implemented POIs around different types of oases are not great, and we are hoping to have more community feedback on this event in order to adjust those in the future.
DEVLOG
For this devlog, we wanted to address some of the questions and feedback we’ve seen since the start of Season 3.
TO START:
There have been a lot of questions about what our next steps are, and plenty of speculation that we’re going to stop working on the game. We want to put those rumors to rest: we’re still developing Last Oasis. We haven’t given up on the game.
Work on Xbox is ongoing, and we’ve also been focusing on two content patches. The patch that will be released first introduces the worm. As long as there aren’t any major issues that pop up during testing, we’re aiming to push that content patch next week.
The second patch is still a few months away, but we’re excited about it already, and have seen some of you saying you’d be interested in the type of things it’ll bring to the game.
SEASON 3 THOUGHTS SO FAR
We’ve been keeping a close eye on the response to Season 3, and wanted to touch base on how things are going and what we’re planning for the future.
We knew that the decision to add realms would upset a good portion of the community, especially among veteran players. We understand that this was a massive step away from what the game had been. Realms will be sticking around for now, but that doesn’t mean it’s the final option we’ll be going with before release. The season will play out for its entirety, as we intended it to.
A lot of you have been asking: Why, though? Why realms? Why didn’t you try out other things first, or try asking the community for input before making the decision?
Like chadz mentioned in the S3 launch post, we wanted to take a riskier path. Being in Early Access means we can approach development with a more open mind, since we aren’t tied down to anything yet. We knew that Small Realms were going to need work once released, and that in no way were they the final solution. There’s new problems we’re looking into solving, and we are taking player feedback into account while we investigate and continue to develop.
Why are you not listening to your players?
We appreciate how vocal you can be, and that you’re willing to share what you would like to see in the game and how we can improve it. We are listening to, reviewing, and discussing that feedback, and understand that it’s frustrating that there isn’t any instant gratification when it comes to seeing changes. We also know that it’s frustrating when we do make changes that go against what you’ve been asking for.
Design, iteration, and actual development work takes time. Content and changes in a patch might have been in-progress for months before they reach the player.
Why have you changed so much from what the original direction of the game seemed to be?
Sometimes, we realize that we need to make changes or go a route we had initially thought we wouldn’t go down because the state of the game needs it. It can be frustrating (both for the players and the developers, especially when there is early documentation that contradicts where the game is going). We’re in Early Access, and as easy of an excuse as it is, it offers us the chance to explore things we may have brushed aside in the beginning. Shaking things up comes with the knowledge that we might gain players, or we might lose them. If you aren’t happy with the direction we’re going in, we get it. As long as we’re in Early Access, the game will continue to change in ways you may or may not like.
QA UPDATE
In general we're still looking into the crashes that are happening on Xbox, and we are very happy to let you know there is very good progress on further optimization related to memory utilization, especially on consoles where it's most needed. It's quite a large task, and as such parts of it will be released not necessarily in a single update, but in upcoming updates. This specific update has many improvements toward optimizing sound, assets, and more. As well as general optimization, UI and UX is a very important aspect which is for the most part receiving a large variety of fixes and improvements, specifically for Xbox, focused on World Map issues, specific crafting station UI which was not properly implemented for Xbox, and more.
Below there is a list of issues not only related to optimization and performance, but also game design, which the QA team has worked on providing game designers with community feedback:
-Many UI related fixes on both Xbox and PC, related to help tooltips on several stations and POIs(such as ACS), as well as more specific things like the Furnace UI issues that were recently reported.
-Not a bug in this case, but there's been lots of feedback on the imbalance around base raiding early on in the game. Specifically, the lack of tools and ammo viable for raiding Solid tier structures. This is being addressed with the PvX content added on this patch.
-All known and recently reported base exploits are fixed. We have been working on implementing new checks which should prevent any new ones from happening, but as always make sure to report exploits such as these, as soon as you, or a friend, experiences them.
-Many balance changes have been introduced to later tier Walkers. These changes are not aimed toward making Walkers more time consuming to craft, it’s more geared toward addressing the very prevalent ramming meta. While they will be costly, and require new resources, this also means the parts will be more powerful.
-Still in the topic of balance changes, some of the new content introduced to the game also brings resources which will spice up the progression mechanics in the game; more ways to acquire tablets, and even the possibility to acquire attribute points after level 60.
-There is a new experimental change which changes the behavior of projectiles fired from siege weapons when mounted on a moving Walker. This is mostly aimed toward improving the feeling and gameplay around Walker vs Walker combat at high speed, but will most likely have a few issues in its first implementation. All feedback regarding this change is more than welcome, as we plan on iterating on this a few times.
COMMUNITY QUESTIONS
Have some questions for the devs? You can submit them {LINK REMOVED}using this form.
Q: Will you ever be opening up the region lock? O(SEA)E wants a decent zerg fight with NA and EU.
A: We've been collecting a lot of feedback on the realms change and will be making a decision on how to change the game for the better closer to the next season. Merging realms, at least in some capacity, is definitely on the table, but we don't want to make any promises before the final decision is made on how this feature will develop.
Q: What are you going to do when it comes to the allied zergs on solo and five cap realms?
A: We're considering measures against sister clans and zerg alliances on capped realms and will share them as soon as it's ready. It's not the way we envision capped realms to function, as they're aimed at players who want smaller scale experience, so we'll be limiting zerg behavior there.
Q: Have you considered opening up the BB on pc only realms for testing?
A: We have thought about this! The idea has been tossed around to use it to shake things up in various ways every few weeks. We’re looking into incorporating this for Season 4.
Q: Have you considered adding more variety to the early stages of the game, like adding new maps and biomes so that returning players will have more fun starting from the beginning again?
A: In general, we try to implement some significant changes to the entire experience, including the beginning of the game every season. In Season 2 it was the focus on trading that allowed to progress through it instead of fragment grind, in Season 3 we experimented with realms that were meant to tailor the experience to whatever a specific player wanted, and so on.
When it comes to the very beginning of the game in the Nomad's Cradle, we don't have any plans to do big changes to it, as it's more of a confined tutorial that teaches the basics and isn't meant to be played after you learn about them and get your first gear. Later stages of the game though, including tiers on Medium difficulty maps like Canyons, can and most likely will have differences from season to season.
Q: Any updates on self hosting servers???? Or just more stuff about private servers?
A: We're planning to release self hosting servers within the next few months, which should include extensive server configuration ability. This means full control over how claiming works, full access to edit all cooldowns and structure decay values, adjust trade taxes, and lots of other settings for server owners to play around with.
Q: Can you clarify the wipe schedule you want to have?
A: As we said before, full wipes will happen when they're required for technical reasons. Most of the times it will be some kind of a large change either in the game itself or in our server infrastructure. When it comes to individual realm wipes, we're estimating something between 2-3 months for each, but will be adjusting them based on your feedback and, possibly, have varied wipe times so you can choose how fast paced of a game you want. Once realm decay comes into effect, we'll add a visible timer for each realm.
Q: Follow up: Why are you so keen on adding regular wipes?
A: When considering the realms change, we realized that the game gets quite stagnant even with the oasis burning feature and it gets increasingly more difficult to start as a new player on an old realm. With regular realm wipes, we believe it should solve both of those problems. As we said before though, this is an experiment during Early Access and we'll definitely be doing changes to the whole system, not excluding a possibility of reverting it entirely if it proves to be the wrong way moving forward.
Q: Why are event tiles spawning so weird?
A: The way the event tile system works is it guarantees to spawn and event map during a "primetime" when the majority of players on that realm are active and also has a certain chance to spawn event tiles outside of that "primetime" to randomize it a little and make it less predictable (or campable). We might be doing some changes to the system itself later on, but don't have specific plans for it yet, so if you have suggestions, please let us know!
Q: How big is the dev team?
A: There’s about 30 of us! Everyone wears quite a few hats, and may not always focus on doing work that relates to their given role.
Q: Are you going to add more stuff like what was introduced in the Commerce update? What about the Ancient update, is that still happening?
A: We've mixed the ideas we had for the Ancient Update with some other ones, so a big chunk of it is what's already in Season 3 - the ancient sandworm to hunt and a city of an old civilization to explore (kind of like dungeons in the sky). Since not all ideas from the Ancient Update came to life just yet, we're keeping them in the backlog for future updates and will most likely revisit them later.
GAMEPLAY & BALANCE
-With the addition of the Worm, new resources related have been added to the game. Some of them are exclusively harvested after a successful Worm kill, some are obtained by directly attacking the beast for it’s valuable scales, and some are available in the territory where they roam, Worm Sighting event maps. Alongside some other various misc resources, a successful Worm hunt will yield Worm Scales, Worm Silk, and Worm Sand to the victors, as well as Worm Fangs, a trophy of tremendous value, proof of the ultimate feats of heroism and skill among Nomads.
-Added a new Meteor Fall event on all maps of the game (with the exception of Nomad’s Cradle), which brings a new resource essential to technology progression, as well as Walker construction… and raiding. As the debris in the sky enters the atmosphere, leaving a blazing, fiery trail behind it to follow, make sure to be prepared for a fight over its spoils when it reaches the ground.
-Meteor Cores are a new resource which can be extracted from Meteor crash sites across any oases where they land. They are a strange, energized crystal, harvested from the largest rocks falling off meteors. It’s not a resource exclusive to an event map, as it can essentially happen anywhere in the world, in any oasis. They have a variety of uses, which include technology progression, Walker Mechanism crafting, as well as an important crafting material for a new Catapult boulder.
-New vitamin added to the game: Worm Tincture - It is produced with a mixture of Worm Sand, as well as a Worm Fangs, extracted from the mandible of a defeated Worm. This potent vitamin will grant XP upon consumption when below maximum level, or +1 attribute point when at max character level.
-A new recipe has been added to Advanced and Artificer Woodworking Stations: Tablets. Similar to the production of Tablets at an Ancient Fabricator, this will require glass, shattered fragments, and a meteor core in order to craft. Tablets are guaranteed, but there is no guarantee of specific tablet types.
-The old Hullbreaker Catapult Boulder (now obsolete) has been replaced with Charged Boulders: Its main ingredient being Meteor Cores. This new addition to the Catapult ammo can deal considerable damage against all types of armor (Soft, Hard, Robust, Reinforced, and Solid).
-The Ancient Crafting Station has received a new visual update, which brings renovated assets, animations, and effects, as well as some fixes to UI and related text. And one secret or two that our mapping lead may or may not have hid in there as well.
-It is no longer possible to consume an interactable while being grappled to anything. This includes current bandages, and any future items in that category.
-Increased spread of Scattershot pellets, and further rebalanced damage versus different types of player armor. With new balance, heavier types of armor will provide better protection against Scattershot.
OASES & POINTS OF INTEREST
-New event oasis: Worm Sighting. In this stretch of desert deep in the Wasteland is where the roaming Sandworms, dubbed “The Long Ones”, have taken as their territory. The Worms are ravenous, monstrous beasts. Once one of them is focused on a Walker, it will lose sight of everything else around it. In order to defeat the Worm, experienced nomadic hunters must band together, as entering their territory unprepared will mean certain death.
-Fixed Iron Ore node spawns on Kali Spires maps.
Improvements were made on exit of the C8 pocket in Nomad’s Cradle. Fixed several sinkholes and other miscellaneous terrain issues.
-Misc fixes to inaccessible loot in Ancient City oases.
-Fixed small gaps in geysers on Kali Spires.
-Removed holy spheres from Kali Spires.
-Storm weather SFX should be lower now.
WALKERS
-Walker Mechanisms are now one of the resources required in the construction of many Walkers in the game. The main resource utilized in the crafting of Walker Mechanisms (crafted at Woodworking Stations of any tier) is Meteor Cores.
-With the introduction of the Worm to the game, there’s been some re-balance work going on for some time, specifically for some Walker Upgrades resources. Durability upgrade for higher tier Walkers (specifically Iron Upgrades) will now require Worm Scales to craft. This will not affect all Walker Upgrades, only the large ones.
-Some Walker Legs and Wings have also been re-balanced to utilize these new resources more. In general, Walker Wings will require more Worm Silk (which is now made more available), and Walker Legs will now require special Worm Scale resource. Generally, it’s the late game ones which require new resources in greater amounts. As an example, only the Heavy Legs will utilize Worm Scales. But, as outlined below, they also come with some new advantages.
-As well as resource balance for crafting Walker Parts, there has also been some re-balance on not just the HP of these buildables, but the armor rating itself as well. All Walker Parts which utilize Worm Scales in their construction will now have +1 to their base armor rating. This means that, for example, Falco Raider Wings now have 5000 HP, as well as a Hard armor rating (old was Soft). In the case of Heavy Legs which utilize Worm Scales, the armor rating will be Robust.
-Projectiles fired from siege weapons will no longer be affected by host Walker’s own movement. Should make shooting on the move a bit more reliable, and allow for more interesting Raptor vs Raptor combat. This is a fairly experimental change, so let us know your thoughts on it.
-Added functioning Raptor passenger seat. A second player can now sit alongside the pilot.
-Raptor “Flip” option will now only appear when it is stationary, and upside down(so not during flight).
-Fixed not being able to rebuild Hornet Walker’s legs in some specific situations.
-Fixed wrong torque consumption on Balang Walker.
-Fixed Silur Walker not consuming torque when starting to move.
-Improved spawn points on Panda Walker.
-Walkers in Nomad’s Cradle should no longer automatically log out after 6 hours.
MOBS
-Fixed an issue where Killins would get stuck attempting to exit their nests.
-Killins of the Spires should now be at a slightly greater height when on patrol.
TRADING STATION & QUESTS
-Fixed some improper collisions on Trading Station floors.
-Disabled quality usage on Quest Packages.
INTERFACE, VOICE & TEXT
-Lowered interaction distance for “Remove net” interaction on all objects.
-Lowered interaction distance on Battle Fan.
-Added a new equipment status UI, which will appear near the minimap area when your equipped gear is very damaged.
-Fixed issue which caused players using controllers to be unable to access Walker upgrade interface.
FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS
-Small optimization pass on Windmills.
-Fixed several client crashes.
-Further optimization work related to Players and Walkers has been done. Situations where there are potentially 80-100 players in very close proximity should now perform much better.
-Further Xbox related optimization pass on assets, sounds, and more.
-Fixed some jittering issues on grappling hook movement.
-Fixed problematic reload animation on Ballistas.
-Fixed a rare issue where the player could die from jump kicking.
-Fixed being able to net Poaching Huts.
-Netting a Hose Station will no longer just net the base, but the entire structure.
-Fixed animation issues with Sawblades.
-Improved description of help widget in Ancient Crafting Station: Now properly mentions Reinforced Planks.
One of the main goals when designing the new Meteor Fall event on maps, was to try and reduce the predictability generated by the current implementation of event maps, specifically the Asteroid Crater event map, since it being a relatively small map meant that players would get to the good stuff rather quickly, and sometimes in complete safety. Complete safety isn't bad when playing sneakily, or utilizing tactics such as small walkers, wingsuits, etc... But it did reduce the gameplay opportunities from the encounters (by reducing the encounters). So with this new feature, we are hoping to create scenarios for fights with multiple sides, with various small-scale PvP and PvE goals, without having these completely static in the World Map, or in specific spots in a specific map.
We also did not like that the Asteroid Crater event maps were mostly discovered through checking World Map every so often. We think it's much more fun to have these types of events as something completely random, which begins to happen on the oasis you're at, and does not wait for you, or anyone else.
Meteor Fall events are very visual, from the moment the meteor chunks start burning up in the atmosphere, up until the point the surviving meteorites reach the ground.
So look up, Nomad! And brace for impact, because they will be falling anywhere in the oases, causing shockwaves of damage to anything in its way, and bringing a rare new resource!
This was a great opportunity not only to experiment with in-map events to create more content which would not depend on new servers, or anything related to the World Map, but also to create new sources of resources to add to the game, which game designers could then utilize in newly rebalanced Walker parts, tech progression changes, and more.
We have several more ideas, as well as the prospect of creating more interesting variations of this very same event. This feature is not finished yet, in terms of design and balance, and will most likely receive more updates. We know the currently implemented POIs around different types of oases are not great, and we are hoping to have more community feedback on this event in order to adjust those in the future.
DEVLOG
For this devlog, we wanted to address some of the questions and feedback we’ve seen since the start of Season 3.
TO START:
There have been a lot of questions about what our next steps are, and plenty of speculation that we’re going to stop working on the game. We want to put those rumors to rest: we’re still developing Last Oasis. We haven’t given up on the game.
Work on Xbox is ongoing, and we’ve also been focusing on two content patches. The patch that will be released first introduces the worm. As long as there aren’t any major issues that pop up during testing, we’re aiming to push that content patch next week.
The second patch is still a few months away, but we’re excited about it already, and have seen some of you saying you’d be interested in the type of things it’ll bring to the game.
SEASON 3 THOUGHTS SO FAR
We’ve been keeping a close eye on the response to Season 3, and wanted to touch base on how things are going and what we’re planning for the future.
We knew that the decision to add realms would upset a good portion of the community, especially among veteran players. We understand that this was a massive step away from what the game had been. Realms will be sticking around for now, but that doesn’t mean it’s the final option we’ll be going with before release. The season will play out for its entirety, as we intended it to.
A lot of you have been asking: Why, though? Why realms? Why didn’t you try out other things first, or try asking the community for input before making the decision?
Like chadz mentioned in the S3 launch post, we wanted to take a riskier path. Being in Early Access means we can approach development with a more open mind, since we aren’t tied down to anything yet. We knew that Small Realms were going to need work once released, and that in no way were they the final solution. There’s new problems we’re looking into solving, and we are taking player feedback into account while we investigate and continue to develop.
Why are you not listening to your players?
We appreciate how vocal you can be, and that you’re willing to share what you would like to see in the game and how we can improve it. We are listening to, reviewing, and discussing that feedback, and understand that it’s frustrating that there isn’t any instant gratification when it comes to seeing changes. We also know that it’s frustrating when we do make changes that go against what you’ve been asking for.
Design, iteration, and actual development work takes time. Content and changes in a patch might have been in-progress for months before they reach the player.
Why have you changed so much from what the original direction of the game seemed to be?
Sometimes, we realize that we need to make changes or go a route we had initially thought we wouldn’t go down because the state of the game needs it. It can be frustrating (both for the players and the developers, especially when there is early documentation that contradicts where the game is going). We’re in Early Access, and as easy of an excuse as it is, it offers us the chance to explore things we may have brushed aside in the beginning. Shaking things up comes with the knowledge that we might gain players, or we might lose them. If you aren’t happy with the direction we’re going in, we get it. As long as we’re in Early Access, the game will continue to change in ways you may or may not like.
QA UPDATE
In general we're still looking into the crashes that are happening on Xbox, and we are very happy to let you know there is very good progress on further optimization related to memory utilization, especially on consoles where it's most needed. It's quite a large task, and as such parts of it will be released not necessarily in a single update, but in upcoming updates. This specific update has many improvements toward optimizing sound, assets, and more. As well as general optimization, UI and UX is a very important aspect which is for the most part receiving a large variety of fixes and improvements, specifically for Xbox, focused on World Map issues, specific crafting station UI which was not properly implemented for Xbox, and more.
Below there is a list of issues not only related to optimization and performance, but also game design, which the QA team has worked on providing game designers with community feedback:
-Many UI related fixes on both Xbox and PC, related to help tooltips on several stations and POIs(such as ACS), as well as more specific things like the Furnace UI issues that were recently reported.
-Not a bug in this case, but there's been lots of feedback on the imbalance around base raiding early on in the game. Specifically, the lack of tools and ammo viable for raiding Solid tier structures. This is being addressed with the PvX content added on this patch.
-All known and recently reported base exploits are fixed. We have been working on implementing new checks which should prevent any new ones from happening, but as always make sure to report exploits such as these, as soon as you, or a friend, experiences them.
-Many balance changes have been introduced to later tier Walkers. These changes are not aimed toward making Walkers more time consuming to craft, it’s more geared toward addressing the very prevalent ramming meta. While they will be costly, and require new resources, this also means the parts will be more powerful.
-Still in the topic of balance changes, some of the new content introduced to the game also brings resources which will spice up the progression mechanics in the game; more ways to acquire tablets, and even the possibility to acquire attribute points after level 60.
-There is a new experimental change which changes the behavior of projectiles fired from siege weapons when mounted on a moving Walker. This is mostly aimed toward improving the feeling and gameplay around Walker vs Walker combat at high speed, but will most likely have a few issues in its first implementation. All feedback regarding this change is more than welcome, as we plan on iterating on this a few times.
COMMUNITY QUESTIONS
Have some questions for the devs? You can submit them {LINK REMOVED}using this form.
Q: Will you ever be opening up the region lock? O(SEA)E wants a decent zerg fight with NA and EU.
A: We've been collecting a lot of feedback on the realms change and will be making a decision on how to change the game for the better closer to the next season. Merging realms, at least in some capacity, is definitely on the table, but we don't want to make any promises before the final decision is made on how this feature will develop.
Q: What are you going to do when it comes to the allied zergs on solo and five cap realms?
A: We're considering measures against sister clans and zerg alliances on capped realms and will share them as soon as it's ready. It's not the way we envision capped realms to function, as they're aimed at players who want smaller scale experience, so we'll be limiting zerg behavior there.
Q: Have you considered opening up the BB on pc only realms for testing?
A: We have thought about this! The idea has been tossed around to use it to shake things up in various ways every few weeks. We’re looking into incorporating this for Season 4.
Q: Have you considered adding more variety to the early stages of the game, like adding new maps and biomes so that returning players will have more fun starting from the beginning again?
A: In general, we try to implement some significant changes to the entire experience, including the beginning of the game every season. In Season 2 it was the focus on trading that allowed to progress through it instead of fragment grind, in Season 3 we experimented with realms that were meant to tailor the experience to whatever a specific player wanted, and so on.
When it comes to the very beginning of the game in the Nomad's Cradle, we don't have any plans to do big changes to it, as it's more of a confined tutorial that teaches the basics and isn't meant to be played after you learn about them and get your first gear. Later stages of the game though, including tiers on Medium difficulty maps like Canyons, can and most likely will have differences from season to season.
Q: Any updates on self hosting servers???? Or just more stuff about private servers?
A: We're planning to release self hosting servers within the next few months, which should include extensive server configuration ability. This means full control over how claiming works, full access to edit all cooldowns and structure decay values, adjust trade taxes, and lots of other settings for server owners to play around with.
Q: Can you clarify the wipe schedule you want to have?
A: As we said before, full wipes will happen when they're required for technical reasons. Most of the times it will be some kind of a large change either in the game itself or in our server infrastructure. When it comes to individual realm wipes, we're estimating something between 2-3 months for each, but will be adjusting them based on your feedback and, possibly, have varied wipe times so you can choose how fast paced of a game you want. Once realm decay comes into effect, we'll add a visible timer for each realm.
Q: Follow up: Why are you so keen on adding regular wipes?
A: When considering the realms change, we realized that the game gets quite stagnant even with the oasis burning feature and it gets increasingly more difficult to start as a new player on an old realm. With regular realm wipes, we believe it should solve both of those problems. As we said before though, this is an experiment during Early Access and we'll definitely be doing changes to the whole system, not excluding a possibility of reverting it entirely if it proves to be the wrong way moving forward.
Q: Why are event tiles spawning so weird?
A: The way the event tile system works is it guarantees to spawn and event map during a "primetime" when the majority of players on that realm are active and also has a certain chance to spawn event tiles outside of that "primetime" to randomize it a little and make it less predictable (or campable). We might be doing some changes to the system itself later on, but don't have specific plans for it yet, so if you have suggestions, please let us know!
Q: How big is the dev team?
A: There’s about 30 of us! Everyone wears quite a few hats, and may not always focus on doing work that relates to their given role.
Q: Are you going to add more stuff like what was introduced in the Commerce update? What about the Ancient update, is that still happening?
A: We've mixed the ideas we had for the Ancient Update with some other ones, so a big chunk of it is what's already in Season 3 - the ancient sandworm to hunt and a city of an old civilization to explore (kind of like dungeons in the sky). Since not all ideas from the Ancient Update came to life just yet, we're keeping them in the backlog for future updates and will most likely revisit them later.