Hello Exofarmers!
Thank you all for the many questions and feedback we received relating to Lightyear Frontier’s narrative. We saw the response on our Q&A video in March, and we understand that it’s an important topic for many of you (for us as well!) and want to clarify our stance and what changes we’ll be making.
Reasoning behind the shift 🔄
In the current game, we try to tell a story via PIP-3R’s voiceover in a linear fashion. After each region you restore, PIP-3R gives you more information about themself and their mission, culminating in a deep dive into the alien mystery inside the vault.
You can also discover tidbits of information about the alien ruins by finding all artifacts in each ruin area, presented in short text entries.
Thanks to the feedback we’ve gotten, in addition to observing player behavior, we’ve come to understand that the linear approach is not working as well as we hoped.
Oftentimes, players are focused on their task and may be taken by surprise by the sudden voiceover, either unintentionally missing important pieces of context or being outright annoyed that the game is interrupting them. Many of you do not feel in control of when the narrative happens, making it hard to plan around it.
All in all, this storytelling style does not mesh well with the sandboxy nature of the gameplay. Once this was made clear to us, we decided to look into different avenues of conveying narrative to our players.
So what’s changing? 📌
We should start by underlining that we are NOT removing all narrative and storytelling from the game. It’s evident now that our Q&A video was too vague on the topic and caused many of you to worry that the game would become entirely mechanics-driven without context, but that is not the case.
We are moving the conveying of narrative to mechanics within the player’s control, so that it doesn’t happen without your intent to engage with it. That way, we can ensure that the player’s attention is not split between other tasks.
The most noticeable difference is in removing PIP-3R as your constant companion. While the character may return in a different form, they will be absent in the upcoming update. PIP-3R has been a divisive character within our community, but we understand that many players have enjoyed their company and will keep that in mind as we look into future options for them.
New forms of narrative ✨
We’re changing the old avenue of storytelling, the Findings system, with two new ones: Inspection Points and Artifacts Findings.
The current Findings system works so that each alien ruin has a set amount of artifacts to find, and by collecting them all, you are given notes from PIP-3R.
The problem we’ve experienced with this system is that it competes with the linear storyline told in the Vault. Since the exploration of the ruins is non-linear, we couldn’t be sure what artifacts you’ve already discovered, so the text entries had to be light on details to avoid presenting information in the wrong order. Therefore, this resulted in PIP-3R’s notes only being able to convey vague context and speculation on each ruin’s purpose, which is much better suited for the new Inspection Points.
Inspection Points 🔍
Inspection Points are small interaction spots located at various landmarks across the world, providing additional context about what you discovered. Our intent for the Inspection Points is to let players learn more about their planet at their own pace, and to reward explorers who want to fine-comb every corner of the map for clues.
Artifacts Findings 📝
We wanted the findings from artifacts to be more in-depth and exciting to uncover, so we reworked the system from the ground up, using the Findings system as a foundation.
In the new system, artifacts no longer belong to a specific ruin and instead contribute to a total artifact count for the whole world. As you find more, you unlock research entries that go much deeper into the alien mystery from the get-go and reveal details that we had struggled to find a place for in the past.
Between these two systems, we feel better equipped to tell the story of Lightyear Frontier more than ever before. Despite the removal of PIP-3R’s dialogue, the total amount of narrative text in the game has increased by approximately 50%, thanks to the versatility of the new systems.
Neighbours here to stay 🏡
Our dear neighbors will continue to be part of your planet, with some updated dialogues and quest item locations to correspond with the updated world.
Going forward 🚗
We’re working hard on the upcoming update and aim to get all the narrative changes into your hands as soon as possible! We hope you continue to share your feedback as you explore and learn more about the Lightyear Frontier and its former inhabitants.
Also! We’d like to take this opportunity to mini-announce that before the patch goes live, we will add an in-game event to prepare you for the update, with a new quest and a reward that will carry over into the new world. More details to come soon!
Thank you for your patience as we near the finish line of this massive update. The wait is almost over! 🚀🌱
//The FRAME BREAK Team
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