[2022] Lobby Removal and addition of PVE Maps

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

Hi Nomads!

We’re adding PVE maps and removing the lobby system from the game. Let’s get into it.

As core features go, the lobby is probably one of the most “core” there is for Last Oasis, so I understand this change will spark some controversy - still, last month we started this series of devblogs by promising we’d be much more transparent and announce things a lot earlier, to give you, the community, the chance to give us much needed feedback on our new approach. This is something we are fully committed to, we want to bring forward our vision for you to let us know if you believe as we do that this is the best for the future of the game.

First I want to get into why we are scrapping the lobby idea entirely, what are our intentions with the PVE maps (especially in terms of balance and design, so very specific questions and answers), and what are the goals we want to achieve by introducing them in the first place.

After we talk about this in here, we’ll be in our official Discord and available to answer pretty much any questions you have for us, so I’ll see you there :)

Lobby Removal
When the game first released, it had the lobby mechanic, which was designed to allow for something that not many survival, PVP-focused games offer: The possibility of going away from the game for a while, and then come back still having some Walkers, packed bases within them, resources and items you left there, etc. While this worked very well initially (except some of the bugs it had, unrelated to the design issues), we quickly started to realize it wasn’t doing the job it needed to do.

While the lobby system was first and foremost meant to protect new players and allow them time outside of the game without needing to have friends online at all times, it didn’t end up working that way - eventually, the lobby made average clans invulnerable at times, and for actual zergs it ultimately enabled them to be almost invincible, making our risk vs. reward design for other parts of the game not work very well either.

With the new season focusing a lot more on PVE dangers and an improved risk vs. reward balance, the lobby is something that simply can’t be aligned to work with the new approach for the game, and thus we are removing it completely.

As with many things that are coming with this new season, this is also a change that can be reverted at any point in time, and something that we want to discuss heavily with you, the community - but we are fully committed to testing this for an extended period of time both during and after the beta branch for S5.

PVE Maps
First thing to get out of the way when it comes to PVE oases: They are not at all “just another lobby system”, our intention for them is much broader than that, and hopefully, with time, a lot better balanced than the lobby was.
Having someplace to come back to has always been a big part of the overall design of Last Oasis, and something that we know attracted many of you to our game in the first place, so it’s not something that we want to get rid of completely by removing the lobby mechanic, rather, we are doing this because we believe that PVE maps will create that without the issues the lobby system had.

We don’t really see PVE oases as a place where players would want to constantly farm and live in at all times, but rather as safe staging grounds for players so they can get to the point where they can experience the fun of the game without having to learn the game under constant attacks from other players and bigger, more dangerous fauna.
One of the basic overarching principles for PVE maps is that we want players to be able to hang out in PVE maps, and progress at their own comfortable pace up to the point they feel ready to head on out to the wider, far more dangerous world.

In more practical speak: Next season, after you create your character you will have the option to begin your journey in a PVE Cradle (a map that, before, you used to not be able to travel back to, something which is also getting changed). There, you will be able to spend as much time as you need learning the ropes - this involves familiarizing with the progression systems, rarity, new PVE threats, and many other aspects of the game.
From there, you can choose to take a risk and travel to a PVP oasis, or continue learning the game in a more relaxed environment in another PVE oasis.

I do want to make sure this is absolutely clear: From the moment you launch the game and create your character, you will always have the possibility of going straight into a PVP map, instead of starting in a PVE one, it’s all up to your own preference.

The primary intention we have for PVE maps is to become safe spaces where players can have temporary settlements safeguarding their Walkers while they are away from the game (this is similar to our lobby mechanic, but it more heavily involves players needing to maintain and protect their bases from creatures and weather events), where they can gather most basic resources and rebuild after heavy losses, and essentially as big social spaces - Trading Stations will only spawn on PVE tiles for the new season, so we are also hoping that this change and the progression changes to come will also boost trading gameplay further (as well as making sure the only safe zones that exist in PVP oases are created and enforced by players).

When it comes to the balance aspect of PVE oases, there are a lot of considerations we’ve already made ourselves, some of them also brought up by the community (both last week and in the past) and many that are sure to come up during testing.

In the Q&A down below, we’ll get into some of those concerns and explain how we will be tackling the biggest issues.

Can any oasis type be a PVE tile?

We’ll start off with Cradle and Canyons having PVE variations during beta branch and S5 - if in the future we reach a greater variety of maps and biomes available, we’ll consider having PVE variations for them, but for now we want to avoid creating a system where players have access to end-game resources without great risks involved, which is why for the time being we will stick to Cradle and Canyons.

How do PVP tiles differ from PVE tiles?

The rarity system is one of the biggest things that will help us balance and differentiate PVE tiles from PVP tiles, in conjunction with the new progression systems. PVE maps will only have Common rarity resources, and very rarely they will have some Uncommon resources and loot drops, whereas PVP maps will have essentially any rarity up to the maximum possible, as well as having far more Uncommon rarity drops at the lowest map tiers (such as PVP variations of Cradle and Canyons oases).

How will resource scarcity change depending on whether the map is PVE or PVP?

PVP maps will generally be much more resource-rich, since PVE maps will have lower respawn rate for resource nodes and POI across the board. Here we follow the same design as with how rarity will work depending on whether the map is PVE or PVP.

What about griefing in PVE maps?

This one is pretty straightforward - while we will work towards having systems in PVE tiles that prevent most common forms of griefing, we’ll make sure that if there are issues with those systems at first, we’ll punish griefers with temporary and permanent (in extreme cases, or due to repeated offenses) bans from the game.

With PVE maps being a thing, will there still be water caps for tiles?

Soft clan cap (also known as water caps) will continue to be a thing, and they will be implemented for PVE maps as well - we will, however, be looking at improving how capped tiles spawn and make sure there isn’t a lot of situations where there isn’t enough 5 cap, or 30 cap, etc. since we know right now it’s a little too random instead of a nice spread of differently capped tiles for different clan sizes.

Are there any performance considerations for PVE tiles?

Base decay/maintenance and weather events will be some of the most important factors at play when it comes to keeping players and clans in check as they acquire more resources and expand their building capabilities. Massive fortresses in PVE tiles wouldn’t make a lot of sense, whereas Walker garages and smaller banks are perfectly acceptable as a means of rebuilding when losing too many assets in-game.
During the testing phase for this change, we’ll be iterating through several balance revisions to deal with any abuse of the mechanic.

As you can tell, last week’s devblog being focused on the rarity system was no coincidence, without that information being already available it would be a lot more difficult to properly showcase the differences between PVP and PVE tiles - very soon we will get into the changes to progression (fragments and tablets system changes), which will provide more insight on those differences.

It was very nice to see a lot of you guessed at this week’s topic correctly in the many discussions sparked last week - this time, however, I’ll tell you that the next devblog is focused on our travel rework, which is another major topic to get into.
I know you will have a lot of things to say about that (and certainly about this one), so like we mentioned last week, pretty soon we will be opening a new space in our Discord for more organized discussions about Last Oasis ideas, suggestions, etc. away from the more off-topic channels. Hope to see you all there!

— Neon