As there is almost 200 questions asked in total and we just closed the forms yesterday, we honestly did not have enough time to answer everything to post today thus we've decided to separate this AMA into two piece, one for this week answering everything regarding features and gameplay related questions while next week will be everything regarding customization as well as show what you, the community, has sent in! Askers who have sent in their name will find their names in quotes before the question.
We answered every questions asked so if it seems we cut your questions off, you should be able to find them in another category. If the questions asked similar things that we can answer together, they’ll be grouped together. If it looks like we missed your question or misunderstood what your questions meant, feel free to ask it again in the comments section below!
ps. The comments have more!
FEATURES and QUALITY OF LIFE
Tsubasa: Hello Xsi and other members of the Vermillion Digital team for some reason, if an accessory's Pitch is 90 degrees or somewhere close to it, the Yaw and Roll would not roll correctly (they would behave as if they are the same thing entirely). Since this makes adjusting accessories correctly extremely difficult, can a quick patch be issued such that this problem will be solved (if 0.9 is not ready or if it won't come with 0.9)?
We've known and have been with this bug internally for a while and honestly, it is a difficult bug to fix. It will be solved but we do not know when it'll be happening.
RAINING TIKI: Will there a thing in the mission menu's for seeing which mission drops blueprints for which parts on whatever difficulty or will it be left up to the Wiki players?
No. This is something we wanted to leave it to players' agency in order to figure out. We do not want to provide every information available and wanted players to have the excitement of discovery and to discuss amongst each others their findings, hence the player-made wiki. One can still ask us and we'll give them the straight answers onto where each blueprints drop though. We've provided that favor multiple times already so feel free to talk to us!
T.K. @ Oasis: Is there going to be a system where people can upload M.A.S.S. units for others to download and use? Or maybe turn them into codes that people can enter? Something like that. Redgrave: Seeing many amazing creations made by community, will there be some methods of sharing them? Steam Workshop or maybe some in-game browser? Ibrzu: Would it be possible to implement some kind of unique code per each mech look so if a friend wanted to have the same look to his mech as yours he could just copy the code and input it into his own game rather than replicate every single detail manually? WuttaDawgDoin: Will there be plans to allow for uploading and download of player creations The_Gordon_Kill: Will we be able to get workshop frames and use other players M.A.S.S? I think it would be an awesome addition to the game if we could copy and edit other peoples frames. RAINING TIKI: Will there be a way for the players to post their Creations and other players to download them "In-Game"? This is for those who have a very hard time creating because of either Lack of ideas or they have the ideas but its just hard overall for them put the thing together.
YES! We wanted an official system to share builds between each other. We mentioned this last year before starting the development of 0.9.0 that we wanted to work on what we called PRESET system, a system that allows builds, pieces of completed parts alongside its accessories to be shared both internally between players' frame and externally between players through usage of codes or export of files. However, we did not have any spare time at all (just look at how long 0.9.0 is taking) and thus we haven't had a chance to work on it yet.
IT WILL BE THERE! THERE WILL BE A METHOD TO SHARE BUILDS WE PROMISE!
Therex55213: Of the features confirmed in previous AMAs, many have been since cancelled or shelved indefinitely due to complexity (such as extending the joint sliders further). Are there any features previously confirmed in AMAs which have since been cancelled, but have not been outright stated as such, you think would be better for people to not hold out undue hope for seeing in the near future?
Let me answer it like this. When we answered AMAs, we have everyone in the team sit round together and look to the possibility and feasibility of the request. If everyone on the team can agree to work on it then we'll answer the AMA question with an acceptance. If it is something that one of us disagrees with we will just outright deny the suggestion/request. So anything that's answered along the lines of "surely we'll do it" is still out there, just that we don't know when we'll get to work on it. Like slow firing shooters, dual wielding and shielded shooters, etc. Oh, I guess aerial and low gravity missions are out of the window now though. That's one thing we're sure the game is not designed for and after exploring how we can make it without much change from what our game is designed for, we don't think it'll be fun so we're scrapping that altogether.
I don't think there's anything that we promise to do and later cancelled from old AMAs left. Things that are mentioned "we'll explore" or "we'll investigate" we discuss amongst ourselves and leave it at that. If it's something we agree on, we'll put them in our development pipeline just like various QoL upgrades we've shown in the past. Lots of them are from AMA requests and suggestions through our Discord and Feedback Hub. We just don't talk about it and only announce when we're ready.
Why? Honestly, we've seen people misunderstanding or twisting lots of our words and when we try to de-escalate any of them, it goes further beyond and creates friction between devs and players (which you might have noticed for a while now) so unless people ask us directly, we will not talk about any of our internal discussions or provide any leaks of what we're working on aside from the weekly WIP posts. Honestly, we don't know why or when development steered itself into a dev vs. player mindset but we don't want it to move further into that territory.
Billie Jean: Will you gonna improve the melee effect system because I very like the blade wave.
If we're talking about particle effects, yes we'll keep on improving them and making their visuals better. If we're talking about its techs, and whatnot, the answer is also yes, we'll be making melee feel better to use through the means we have.
Shogapic: Will the game have achievement (stable and ready, not in 0.4 or 0.5 where they were introduced and quickly removed) ?
Right before the game is released in its 1.0 state, we will bring back achievements system since at that point, nothing much will be changed anymore, balance issues should be mostly solved, and we can settle on what's the challenge to complete
xLord_Anubis: For the posing/taking pictures of your MASS Units could there be an option way down the line to take a picture of multiple MASS units in various poses? I say way down the line because this isn't so much gameplay, but merely a Builder/Collector sort of thing.
Yes, we've answered this last year that it's something we have plans for. However, it will take a long time to develop such system as it is very much different from the current Photography Mode itself. Basically a large, new system must be developed to be able to make multiple units photo mode happen. Just to quote last years'
"... it’s not going to be soon. It’s basically another kind of photography mode in itself. It’s a lot to be work on like how to select, where to place each unit, which kind of pose for unit 1 and unit 2, any effects available, et cetera. It’s a whole lot other things but we are planning to do it..."
Talbolago: Are there plans to let us make our own custom poses in photography mode? Anonymous: Want to pose MASS by yourself!
We will quote last year's answer since they are still the same
"Customizable poses have too many problems accompanying it both currently and in the long term. There is a reason why we released the game with those poses and used our time to make new poses in almost every update instead of making a customizable pose system. There are too many technicalities involved in the joints, the limbs, the frames, and everything that might seem humanoid at first but isn’t like that at all when working with the M.A.S.S. unit that we will outright decline working on a customizable pose system."
Ball17291: ท่าท่างหุ่นภายในเกมส์ จะสามารถนำมาใส่ในการเล่นเกมส์จริงได้ไหมครับ? เช่นใส่ท่าในหน้าเมนู แล้วเล่นเกมส์จริง กดปุ่มCtrl>หุ่นนั้ง,กดปุ่มz>หุ่นหมอบ หรือปุ่มอิโติคอนวงกลม กดเลือกหุ่นแบบเลือกท่า Translation: Will we be able to bring poses from the photography mode into gameplay itself? Like assigning poses from the menu and pressing some button to show those emotes, setting crouches into CTRL and Z to prone.
ทางทีมงานคิดว่าไม่น่าจะทำได้ครับ เพราะแต่ละปุ่มในเกมตอนนี้ถูกใช้งานไปกับแต่ละรูปแบบการเคลื่อนไหวหรืออะไรของมันแล้ว อันนี้ไม่ได้หมายถึงปุ่มคีย์บอร์ดนะครับ แต่เพราะเกมเราต้องออกแบบมาเพื่อให้ผู้เล่นที่ใช้ Controller เล่นได้แบบไม่เสียหายอะไร เราจึงไม่สามารถเพิ่มอะไรแบบนี้เข้าไปในเกมได้ เพราะผู้เล่น Controller จะไม่มีปุ่มเหลือให้ใช้งานของเหล่านี้
Translation: We're unable to do something like this because we don't have enough buttons already. We don't mean keyboards since we're trying to make players playing with controllers have the best possible experience, we don't want to alienate them with a system that they don't have enough buttons to use.
Hunter T: Are there any particular features you wanted to add that you had to put on the back burner, but might come back to in the future?
One particular system that's never been talked about but has been designed since ages ago (0.4.0 or 0.5.0?) there's a weak point system (cannot be locked) on bosses that would allow us to scale ranged weapons damage down (since they can aim at weakpoints to utilise this system) while melee players can get their high damage swings and even higher if they get a chance to aim at these weak points.
We never get a chance to work on because the game still works fine with the current combat system. We hope to be able to work on it sooner than later since there's now people telling others there's no reason to use things other than shooters when we wanted a game where no one has to feel pressured to play something just because "it's better" and play however they wanted. Without this system in play, we cannot do anything except watch players melt bosses with ease.
Then there's the photography mode upgrade up there as well. The aforementioned sharing system. And there's also the much requested frame skirt removals, the dialogue replay system, etc. There's too many we wanted to put in but alas, we don't have enough hands nor time.
Anonymous: Can you provide several MASS presets for beginners?(He means the MASS with full accessories)
No, we provide full armor sets and parts at the start already. You can even enter into the armor menu to randomize everything at the start.
Jack: My question is if it will be possible, in future updates, to insert the steam workshop where you can download all the mecha uploaded, whoever wants, from the community? Have you considered opening your creative workshop on Steam?
No, we will not be using Steam Workshop in M.A.S.S. Builder. due to various factors including backers exclusivity. We want our backers to feel special with their creations officially in our game. You can still share builds through the PRESET system and anywhere when it's finished but no Steam Workshop.
Anonymous: Can photography mode include a background with "clear ground space", or can it simply use the existing level map as the background? Or can you create a green background, or a PNG transparent layer?
We will continue to add more background into the game. We'll try to work on a piece where the M.A.S.S. unit can look to be standing on the ground but the game won't have any green screens or clear transparent background.
Anonymous: Adjust the interface to increase the function that the module of the same name can only show the highest level module and display the engine, skeleton, OS level
This is certainly something extra that we will have to deny. Reasons are that each and every module of the tuning system is treated as an individual piece and not part of a line and we cannot hide certain pieces of "lower levels" without recreating a large part of the system. We hope you will be able to work with the current and soon to be updated sorting system.
Anonymous: When copying the appearance of the MASS, can different parts be copied? Sometimes I don't want to copy the whole MASS to another slot.
This will be doable when we can work on the aforementioned PRESET system.
Anonymous: Can the editing of MASS and weapon be integrated in the same room and different areas can be switched through the lens to make weapon adjustment and body adjustment more convenient
While we understand how going back to the lobby menu and then into the other customization menu is sometimes a chore, the two room works in different ways and we don't want to clutter the menu with tons of buttons to press. We'll investigate further if we can make a button to swap rooms without going back to the lobby menu though.
Anonymous: Can you add some consumables to the game to use up the extra credit points
Yes, we are planning for more credits spending but just as we mentioned last year, there are a lot of people who still does not have enough credits to unlock everything that's unlockable in the game so we're not in a hurry to work on it. Should be something right before 1.0 release or a while after that.
Anonymous: Want to be able to move the perspective freely when building
We consider the current one that allows player to rotate/zoom the camera freely with focus on the parts already free enough. We will not work on a non-focus floating camera system.
Anonymous: Will some of the features of the William’s save tool be incorporated into the game? such as the Skeleton regulation function and savefiles extraction function
While we don't use William's save as it would affect and influence our ideas for the game, we do acknowledge and honor their tool as one of the most useful tool out there that has helped our game a lot. We would prefer players to expose themselves to the tool and see what's extremely beneficial to them and have a discussion with us on how we could upgrade official in-game systems to perform some of those functions.
On that note, things like going OVER or UNDER the limits of frame expansion isn't something we will do. File sharing will be covered with the PRESET system in the future.
Anonymous:: Can you add a new module in the "adjust" module, or binding with the OS module/Architect module, make the player can set the action of the body template, such as "high power", "heavy", "fighting", "shooting", "fire suppression", etc., and on the actual body movements also differ according to the different type?(Which basically means he wants a couple different sets of action templates)
No. As we wanted tunings and techs to mean nothing to players' aesthetics, this would break that rule of having players use anything for their looks (and animations) and having a separate status.
STORIES and MISSIONS
Tsubasa: The war against the Quarks canonically started since AW 0071. Canonically, when did the start of the story take place?[ Similarly, when did certain notable events (invention of Void Cancellers, invention and service of MASS, Fall of Shelter 13 etc) happen canonically?/i]
Honest answer, Xsi, our game designer and storywriter, does not know as well since he was given the story to write after the first storywriter was shifted to work on something else so there is a discrepancy between what Xsi' vision of the story and the first storywriter. He said if it's all according to him, the canon start of this story is around 10-something years after Shelter 13 incident, which is decades after AW 0071 itself.
Let's just say it's up to players to create a story for themselves and fill in these gaps and plot holes with their own imagination then. On the topic, Xsi mentioned he read some of the writings players has for their own PMCs and hope that one day, he also can write something that's as dark and grim as some of those. Maybe for M.A.S.S. Builder, maybe for something else entirely.
Tsubasa: How expensive are MASS units in credits? Are the subsidized fors PMCs?
Extremely expensive that under normal circumstances, people won't fund themselves to create a PMC. This is due to material shortages in order to build one as mining operations for all the required materials are extremely dangerous. This is why there is only a handful of PMCs around the world, 17 major ones serving their own purposes in their place with funding from W.D.F. and a few more like yours being self-funded thoroughly. The W.D.F. provides knowledge on the technology required for anyone they approve and will provide any training required by anyone aspiring to be a pilot though. They also have certain facilities to accommodate orphans and anyone who wish to join the cause so that's that.
AkumaOuja: Are there any plans to flesh out the story and to make it so we can interact with the characters more outside of the main plot?
Flesh out the story yes, that's the main reason we don't have any voice acting in-game yet due to how dialogues and stories and missions can still change. Interaction from us with the NPCs? I don't think that's what we'll do even though some of us wanted to create a system that allows player to choose answers to some of NPCs questions. It takes too much out of the more important features and by the time those features are finish, the game would be too far developed to add them in already.
Krakenumbreon : Will you guys add any new mechanics to modes?
For single player missions, there will always be something new to play with. For multiplayer, we do plan to add more and more complex mechanics which cannot be done in single player down the line when we create them!
Varien: Could you give us a taste of more lore for Cyclops?
We won't spoil the upcoming story but we can talk about their creation. We wanted a non-Quark enemy out there and their motives needed to be something on the opposite of us.
We wanted to explore that setting of someone who saw the end of the world in sight and chose to just revel in the final glory of this world. They don't want to destroy the world, no, they just want to live however they want in a post-apocalyptic setting. hence they're somewhat of a Chaotic Neutral, using whatever means it is to achieve their goals but in their path, they do not help bring down the world, that would be the end to their FUN and they don't want that as well. You can even see that they would only use Quarks as a means to escape or attack, but they don't cause outright mayhem to Shelters. As few casualties as possible to not spark any heavy retaliation so they can continue doing what they want.
Our Ellenier is one of those casualty but she does not let go though, and that's where our stance towards someone like that.
Anonymous: Will you expand on quantum break? the entry does mention a supercharged quanta particle...../quote] Currently not something we look forward to. That entry left it like that is a just-in-case we do something more with it. The 0.9.0 update to Quantum Break should make them feel powerful enough as-is though and we look forward to reading feedbacks regarding them.Anonymous: I remember the 1st anniversary Q&A saying that there will be some low gravity missions, when will they be implemented?I'm sorry to say that this is something we won't be making anymore due to how the game's development has progressed. Our designs have conflicted with the possibilities of making a low gravity mission.
Anonymous: Hope for more mecha bossesThere will be more coming in later missions!
Anonymous: When will the new mission start animation be added?Not in the near future. We do want to make more but it's very low priority since it's not a requirement but a luxury.
Aine: I know there will be at least one map coming that will have Multiplayer, but will multiplayer functionality eventually be added to the campaign missions? And, related, will 'difficulty' (See; enemy hp and quantity) increase with the number of players on the team?No, multiplayer and campaign missions are separated entirely. There will be no story progression through multiplayer available. On the topic of difficulty, yes, enemies will scale a bit by how many players are in the mission.
Joe dela Torre: Will you be able to import your mass build into multiplayer? At least cosmeticly? It would be a real pain to build it from scratch again just for multiplayer.Don't worry, Multiplayer will use the same setup system so you don't need to build anything new. You can use your old units and there will be a separate tuning page just for PvP while PvE Co-op setup remains the same ones you used in Single Player missions.
Therex55123: Are there any plans for how to deal with players using inappropriate or insensitive armor designs in multiplayer?No, because we don't know what different players classify as inappropriate or insensitive. Everyone has a different classification of those things. Every multiplayer room has a lobby though and even with quick join, you can opt out of the lobby before it starts, or if you're a host, you can kick them before you start the room as well. When the game starts, you can't change your unit so there'll be no surprise swap.
Yamero: When will pvp mode be on?In version 0.10.0
Alex: Will multiplayer be linked to our current single player campaign ?Yes, you will use your single player progression and creations to play in Multiplayer. However, all PvP nodes will be unlocked at the start for everyone to use with even zero progression in single player.
Alex: Will multiplayer involve any rankings ?NOPE. To quote last year "...we haven’t thought about ranked as well, just so you know we’re not making an e-sports game so it’s not going that way at all..."
Anonymous: Will there be a Rogue like mode or Global Conquest mode?Aside from the modes we've teased before, there have been no new modes thought of yet.
Anonymous: What about the balance of the online mode?PvE online co-op will use the same balancing as we have in Single Player because we wanted players to feel the power they wanted to show. PvP balancing will have a totally different tuning parts and status. You can read more here
Anonymous: Will there be space war mission and underwater war mission?No, we've lost the means to travel to space and underwater mission isn't something that's feasible because there's too many rules to change as we can't make it the same as a ground mission.
GAME BALANCING and COMBAT
Tsubasa: As of current, automatic weapons (auto energy launcher for instance) are notably stronger than others, notably due to their RPM and hitscan/very high projectile speeds. Is the latter an intentional attribute and would that be changed in the future?It is intentional, but let's also talk about why shooters are mostly stronger. In essence, the downsides of shooters are the amount of bullets, but that is almost non-existence due to how we never wanted players to feel bad running out of ammo. Enemies will always drop ammo when players' ammo stock gets low. The lower it gets, the higher the chance. This allow players to constantly move away, flying and shooting from distance, constantly dealing damage without taking any risks. That constant damage is high enough with tuning and it melts bosses with no risk at all.
This happened because our game designer wants everyone to feel the fun in having power and has constantly been taking actions to adjust the power of certain things when players suggest changes to improve them. Melee on the other hand receives much higher defenses even when they spec into pure offense so they don't get hurt when attacked and can retaliate properly and we've been raising its damage, its defense, and enemies' attack every update.
However, with the last update where there are toxicity both towards players who don't use the most overpowered things and towards our game designer. There are demands as well as condescending discussions in certain topics made against our game designer. We've seen players talking on how they know how to manipulate or demand our game designer to change certain things, how to complain effectively and change to game to their wants. This is not healthy at all and we have decided it is time to revert some of the changes and return to what we've wanted when we started out developing this game and lessen player's power if they're not invested.
The hitscan nature of weapons won't change. The ammo drop won't change. We still wanted players to have fun, but without investments toward certain stats such as MAG.LOAD, EN.RECHARGE, or ACCELERATION, players won't have the same amount of power. The ceiling is still there, it's just that the floor is much lower now and spending investments there should counteract the total power of the unit. We will also add certain systems that allow us to lower shooters damage against bosses (like the weak point system mentioned in this AMA). PvP won't have the same techs as PvE and it will be harder to just constantly shoot without a care of ammo in the world. Defenses will be important. Defense through speed and dodging can also be attained and goes in conjunction with shooting.
On that note though, we know there are players who doesn't care about what's the best thing ever and just wanted to play however they want and we still support those players so these changes won't affect players who plays on normal difficulty much at all. In conclusion, we will continue to monitor these changes, do some changes to lower their power, but we will not make any knee jerk reactions because the current state of the game is a result of those kind of reactions.
Thighhighs: What made you guys choose to give some techs 6 second cooldowns? The increase in damage per proc didn't feel like it made the skill as useful compared to the weak versions that had no cooldown such as Cryo Coated Metals which now is never used as opposed to its 0.7.5 version which at least had a little use in some builds. How did you guys come to the decision regarding that? Thanks so much for the amazing game.We have certain percentages of damage that should be available done towards enemies in a single second. This percentage is then increased or decreased in conjunction with whatever the source of it is, getting attacked, attacking, ending a combo, etc. Then we also factor in the utility it provides. In the case of freeze, the abnormal status is extremely effective against group of enemies. In this case though, we do think 6 seconds is too long as well and in 0.9.0 it had been reduced to 4 seconds instead.
CriticallyHero: Will players ever be allowed to use more than two energy launchers at a time? perhaps up to 4, in in various configurations?There might be. We have not yet designed all types of energy launchers we wanted to make and with Beam being 1 large energy launcher, there can be a group of 4 in some configuration in the future as well.
ExodusL: Combat is really fun for like the first 1 or so but then it really falls off and gets stale. Is there any plans to make combat more interesting? IE: Beam weapons have different combos or special attacks we get with combining certain mech parts? I think that would really beef up the combat!There are some systems we wanted to make to add depth into combat such as the weak point system for the boss. Parts effecting gameplay will be denied though. As we have always upheld the philosophy of aesthetics separated from gameplay, that change will force players to use certain parts to play in some way. We don't want that.
Ball17291: สกิลเพิ่มพลัง สกิลใหม่ๆหรือ สายสกิลเฉพาะสกิลหรือสายเลย เช่น สกิลสนับ หุ่นต่อยรัวขึ้น สกิลค้อนทุบพื้นมอนเตอร์ติดมึน สกิลสายปืนใหญ่ ยิงอาเทรารี้ สกิลสายสไนยิงทะลุแรง Translation: will there be powerup skills, supporting skills, specific skills for certain things like using a knuckle allows you to attack faster, stunning enemies if using a mace, piercing shots for sniper rifles?ไม่ครับ เราจะไม่ทำสกิลที่ทำให้ผู้เล่นต้องเลือกใช้อุปกรณ์อะไรบางอย่าง ถ้าเราจะทำ มันต้องใช้ได้กับทุกอย่าง เหมือนพวกสกิลที่เราทำมาตลอด ไม่ว่าจะใช้อาวุธระยะประชิดแบบไหน ทุกอันก็ทำให้ศัตรูระเบิดได้
Translation: No, we will not create certain techs/skills that forces players to use certain weapons or parts. If we're making one, it must be universal for that type of weapon like we've always did. Something like all melee weapons can cause explosions.
Guflepz: in the future, do you have more skills like the Ultimate move? maybe elemental form or elemental final attack? I love design gameplay but mission gameplay has no interest like limitation move skill shoots slash punch?Aside from Quantum Break and Energy Launchers, we don't think we'll make any more combat actives that require a press of a button. Sure we'll make some techs that make Quantum Break do some awesome interactions but not more than that.
Banmai: Will there be a way to earn credits besides doing missions, such as selling materials?We aren't actively thinking of those systems yet but it's been asked every year and we're not denying it yet. Still, we've buffed credits gain and our data showed players can continue to play and obtain the amount they needed to unlock everything within a few days of playing the game in this current version.
Eillis: Visual customizations are a great element of the game already, but gameplay feels very lacking. You can make a cool mech but then you ask yourself "Ok. But what do I do with it now?..." Are there plans to address this issue? What are they?There are a few systems we wanted to add to make the gameplay more fun as well as new challenge missions out there to play with. However, the core gameplay stays the same as it's something we find fun with and cannot change much. The game is required to allow all types of players to be able to play with ease, but we have an emphasis on allowing players to play however they wanted and with a lot of our players being model kit builders, we don't want to stress the gameplay to be difficult or extremely in depth. We're making a playground for builders to pit their creations against enemies of all sorts here in M.A.S.S. Builder.
...continued in the comments section
