The first wave of the "Exhaustive Game Play" update is underway, and is going amazing well! The amount of changes I will be making will be quite large, even though I have just begun!
As mentioned before, this is a very slow and long process, and I am personally playtesting every aspect of the game. The main goal is to improve the game play mechanics of the game to be more engaging and fun.
And that is exactly what is happening. I am refining many aspects of the game, changing some of the core mechanics that players experience, and of course I am doing many optimizations and quality of life changes to many aspects of the game!
I already have a large development list from what "little" testing as I have done. I use the word little because I have technically only just begun to test all the crafts, skills, and items in the game. However, this is also the most crucial and game-changing part as the base mechanics used now affect the entire game play.
But to wet your tongue, here are a few of the major changes that are taking place! Keep in mind, these mechanics can be, and probably will be changing drastically over the course of this development process.
Also please note: The following changes are all being tested on "realism" difficulty. The changes for "normal" difficulties will be less severe and will not be as much of a change as the current play style (or that is general plan).
Focus Usage and Regeneration Overhaul:
The main crafting statistic is getting a large overhaul. Overall starting focus will be less, and will regen more slowly. However, primitive fires are now easier to create. Also, hunger and thirst slowly degrade more which allow you to eat/drink more frequently to restore your focus. The reason for this is to encourage players to explore, gather food/water and crafting materials, then return to your "base" to perform the majority of your crafting there.
Brushworking Overhaul:
This first wave of testing focuses on the initial game play basics, and the "first" profession most players unlock first, brushworking. Currently at this stage the brushworking testing is half way complete, and already major changes are underway. I will of course post more specifics when the update is released.
New Player Starting Tutorial Guide:
The "help ticker" will be replaced with a new tutorial section that starts up for a new non-tutorial character. This will be a general guide for players who start a new character, and will simply give them suggestions on what to do as their first actions in the game. It is a simple tutorial section that will list a step-by-step action plan for a new character who has already read the tutorial, but is still new to the game.
After I have completed the brushworking testing. Then I move to the next step of implementing all of the new mechanics, code work, and graphical/UI upgrades. Which is the second half of the development for this first update. So when completed, this update will be quite large! It could quite possibly be the most important update for this final push. We shall see!
Enjoy!!!