Hello Chieftains!
This is a collaboration between Maggie & Peter. I hope all the chieftains had a great Easter holiday.
Who still remembers what we mentioned last time? Oh yes, it was our lovely and fierce barbarians!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2646460/view/4206998459073743760?l=english
Here's a simple explanation for the chieftains (since Peter has corrected me several times on this!): Barbarians refer to the brutal and bloodthirsty NPCs that we often encounter in our game; Tribesmen are members of our clan; they are companions, comrades, and family, and they can even be avatars controlled by the chieftain!
These past few days, Peter has been racking his brains to ensure that our cute and fierce tribesmen are doing their jobs well (they are getting fond of idling!). For this purpose, he even sought out Soulmask, the designer responsible for the barbarians, a.k.a. the father of the barbarians, Lion, for some advice. After rejecting Lion's enthusiastic invitation to incorporate Peter's appearance into the barbarians, he also showed us a lot of exciting changes to the barbarians. We are so eager to share them with everyone!
Did you like Soulmask's previous tribesmen? Then I think you must take a look at this. They are no longer the same as the ones chieftains have known, of course, in a good way.
1.The optimization and improvement of the barbarians
In the tribe of Soulmask, many tribesmen wear various special Decoration, or use a variety of exotic paintings, in hopes of gaining part of the power of the Pyramid Guardian. Perhaps this may not be as they wished, but what harm does it bring?
Every tribesman of the chieftains was once a ruthless barbarian: in the game, the three barbarian tribes run through the exploratory journey of the chieftains. Although the skills and gears between the tribes are different, it is obviously not enough for Lion, so starting from the new version, painting has become one of the symbols to distinguish these barbarians - the paint colors between different tribes may differ, but are wild enough.
And then there are the leaders of the tribes—uncertain if the chieftains have faced them in their previous adventures. These towering leaders seem to have indeed gained a portion of mysterious power, possessing unbeatable strong attacks:
* This is an in-development image and does not represent the actual game experience.
*Are the chieftains ready...?
But once the barbarians become members of the tribe, the chieftains may be more concerned about the "intelligence level" of these tribesmen—rest assured, they are no longer the "robots" who get stuck in the wilderness and mysteriously disappear the next morning.
2. Easier tribal management
In the last NextFest, we received many suggestions from the chieftains regarding the management of the tribesmen, for example:
The system of tribe management and the use of tribesmen is cool, but tribesmen often lag behind. artificial intelligence still needs to be optimized.
Difficulty in understanding mechanics with the tribesmen.
I would like you to include cooked meat as a form of food for the tribesmen, they only eat fruit from tables/chests.
——Chieftain: Hio5818
I can only say that Lion really cares a lot about the feedbacks of all the chieftains. He has reviewed every player's suggestions/complaints and made modifications to the issues that were collectively addressed:
Better management list:
Micromanaging the tribesmen, through interaction. A management window would help
——Chieftain: Käsebällchen
Many chieftains could not bear the previous clan management interface, and Peter was no exception. However, this has now become a thing of the past: Lion has "upgraded" the mask management module for the chieftains. The new clan management interface can view and manage any element of each tribesman in list form:
Improvement of gathering tasks:
My biggest want is with the Tribesman quest system. Currently in my camp I have 3 chopping wood which means, I had to create each of their quest 3 times for example.
Gather wood at marker A
put wood in woodworking
put hardwood in woodworking
...
put fancy hardwood in woodworking
I wouldn't mind having to write it once, how ever being able to simplify it with
"Gather wood at Marker A/B/C Deposit gathered resources in woodworking"
Or a master quest log so I could created the quest once and then select from a list of which tribespeople get them, like when selected workbenches on the continued production quest.
——Chieftain: Devlian
The tediousness of collection task was indeed the most troubling issue for Peter, to the extent that he would rather pick up an axe himself and spend half an hour manually chopping trees than have the tribesmen do it for him. Now, collection has been completely overhauled and can almost be "set and forget." You only need to set the collection point, provide the tools, and set the behavior (chopping trees or mining?).
Alright, our lovely tribesmen will automatically stuff everything into their backpacks until they can't move. Then they will return home and put the items into the corresponding chests. The craftsman tribesmen will continue to turn raw materials into finished products. At this stage, the basic production line has been completed. Congratulations!
Easier gear repair:
For repairing you need first take mats from box, unequip weapon, put mats on bench, repair item, take it back, equip. For building or crafting you need to do the same a lot of annoying actions.
Yes, that's maybe more real, but also too annoying to do every time.
——Chieftain: Nighty
We want Soulmask to be more realistic, but at the same time, we don't want the chieftains to get too frustrated, so we thought of the tribesmen—why not let them help you?
Now, all you have to do is place the low-durability gear on the workbench for repair, and the delegated tribesmen will automatically take repair materials from the storage box. Go do what you need to do!
Is that the end? Not at all. From the multiple conversations in the tea room, the Father of the barbarians Lion, has ambitions far beyond this—in Soulmask, the tribesmen, in addition to being a help in our construction, we hope that they will be more vibrant members of the chieftains' family, and even another incarnation!
3.More realistic tribesmen
As mentioned before, the tribesmen in Soulmask are not just "servants" for the chieftains to complete tasks, but real flesh-and-blood family members.
They will complain about not having good enough main dishes in the food chest, and can't help but join in the dance of other tribesmen during work, and will cheer and embrace when the tribesmen are resurrected.
*Except for occasionally putting work aside, everything is going well...
Lion hopes that his "creations," even when the chieftains are not paying attention, will have their own lives. That's what family should be, isn't it?
They also have their own personalities: most tribesmen have specific likes and dislikes within their talents. Some tribesmen cannot bear the torment of rain, while others are addicted to smoking. Their mood affects their work efficiency and combat performance, and tribesmen with extremely low mood may even go on strike! Family needs to be well maintained and satisfied, chiefs, remember that.
Some tribesmen habit when using the restroom be like:
Oh, we finally got to it: talents. We have prepared 265 talents with 3 levels for each in EA! Of course, there are good and bad ones, just like real people. What Lion desires most is for the chieftains to continuously add barbarians to his own clan and select the most suitable combinations for their control. We can't wait to see what tricks the chieftains will come up with!
And in the future, we don't want to treat these talents as just cold numerical changes and words - we hope to show them in every action of the NPCs. This is the ultimate goal of Soulmask - that everyone inside is as real as can be. Please allow Peter to tease you a bit here - in the versions you will play in the future, you will see all of this.
4. What's next?
To be honest, we really hope that everyone can experience our tribal design in Soulmask. It's really impossible to describe the effort the developers have put into them due to space limitations. But don't forget, Soulmask is a intricate enough game. We have a lot more want to show!
Next, Maggie and Peter will talk to you about our home itself - buildings may be the most important aspect of survival in Soulmask. And in this regard, what our new home will look like in the future... the chieftains will know next week.
We are Maggie & Peter, we will see you soon! What else would you like to see about the barbarians? Feel free to let us know in the comments, and we will showcase more on Discord!
Join discord：https://discord.gg/Vjh9gteNEn