Mutations and Effects Changes on PTS

As mentioned in the November SotG blog, we've been monitoring player feedback and wanted to begin addressing the strength of mutations and effects overall, as well as audit their actual functionality, removing redundancy and creating more differentiation. Starting tomorrow at noon PDT we are going to be pushing the first round of these updated effects to PTS and opening it up for you to check them out

We’re going to be doing a lot of tweaking to the initial numbers we put on PTS. These are by no means final numbers. They are not designed to be final numbers. We will be continuing to change and modify add and remove based on the feedback we get. 

These numbers are a starting place for a new balance point, so please get on the PTS rip them apart. Try all the builds and go nuts!

We’re also making some tweaks to weapon damage at high levels. Some weapons are too high, others are too low. We had to look at the time investment required for players to get these weapons and make some decisions on what that time meant to in terms of damage then balancing those decisions with feedback indicating a desire for longer battles.We’re going to be rolling the changes on the PTS starting this week and tweaking numbers until we are satisfied. 

Finally and importantly, check out this forum post for a breakdown of the new values that will be live on PTS. Note that because of the numerous revisions and tweaks that are planned, the skill descriptions in game have NOT been updated, so refer to the forum post throughout the testing period for updates and changes.

November State of the Game

After spending the past six weeks on bug fixing we’re starting to move on to some new exciting features. The first on our schedule is farms. We had intended to get these out sooner, but held off a little bit to get the system different enough from harvesters to be fun.

For farms we wanted to focus on longevity for the structures and more customization of the resources players can place in their farms. Players will be able to craft either a 3, 6 or 9 plot farms. Once they place their farm in a suitable location in the world , they will be able to plant seeds for organic components, place young animals to raise, or a little of both. We want to make sure that players aren’t locked into one type of resource per farm. Harvesting the resource will give the player a chance to get a common, uncommon or rare component. Players will be able to use crafted, dropped, or purchased items to extend the longevity of their farms, speed up the growth of their resources, or improve their chances of getting a rare component. Additionally, placing a farm in a higher risk area such as a PVP zone can improve the yield of harvested resources.  

In addition to farms we are working on making some adjustments to skills and mutations. We are fixing buggy abilities, increasing the strength of some mutations and adding new functionality to other lines. We should be putting a rough draft of these changes on PTS in the upcoming week or so and tweaking based on player feedback. If you have any questions or concerns this will be a great time to be heard by the devs.

From there we’re looking at adding the long-awaited stage 3 coresuit recipes. There will be three versions; ranged, melee and support. Ninjanomicory has been working his fingers to the bone on the models while Tee Affo is adding the necessary functionality to make them play a significant role in combat. We will be doing a separate blog on the suits and another few new features in the upcoming weeks. 

See you in the Wasteland!

M