So, it's been a week since we released the accessories system. Throughout the week, there have been a ton of exciting M.A.S.S. units being shown to us, ones that we screamed out of astonishment, ones that we immediately throw it into our company chat and told everyone to see, and ones that made us laugh out loud in your creativity. We've also seen some people using our game as a reference point into other media and that's very encouraging to us.
The system can be said to improve the overall experience of the game with how M.A.S.S. units can now become something that represents what you want with your own M.A.S.S. unit to another level. With that said, we're also using the accessory system on our part to work with the story. Here's a preview on one of the changes that will come, a unit from the PMC Valkyrie itself. Now, we have been monitoring on your involvement and usage of the system, and know that the system is far from perfect.
We'd like to use this week to ask everyone on their feedbacks of the system. What would you like see improved? What would you like see changed? What accessories you're using the most and what accessories you can't even fathom how to use? We're thinking on what's next for accessories at this point. And to those who are wondering, yes there'll be more accessory parts released in the future. In fact here's an image of ones that did not make the cut this time.
Tell us about it. Put it in this post or the feedback hub. We'll use them to further improve on the system in later patches when we have the time. For those that are still having problems with certain bugs, please tell us about them in the discord and we'll try to help as much as possible. Also, the game is still on sale for 15% off until the end of Steam Summer Sales if you want to grab one for your friends!
If you cannot rotate camera or change view angle, restart your game once.
If your controller does not work, restart your game once.
HOTFIXES
0.7.1
Fixed a dialogue bug that shows larger than intended image on lower resolution.
Fixed some texture streaming issues. Players should now be able to see more of their selected texture modes.
Fixed a bug that blocks some people from accessing the game. If any message is shown when you try to access the game and you're unable to access, please leave the message in our discord channel.
Fixed a dialogue line typo.
Fixed a bug that affected all speed increase nodes that makes their buffs not get removed.
A workaround has been patched into the game for those who are unable to authenticate through steam. The game will now detect a save file in your PC allowing you to play the game in offline mode.
0.7.2
Removed texture streaming. Changed option settings of Anti-Aliasing, Shadow, Effects, and Textures to 4 types (removed ULTRA). Options will now response better to settings. We will continue to monitor this.
Fixed NPC Sprite persisting through cutscenes or mission results.
Fixed weapon customization UI not showing Damage Property.
Fixed patterns not showing properly when scaling accessories to maximum.
0.7.3
You can now pan your camera on both armor and weapon customization
Reintroduced Texture Streaming and reconfigured it to be more lenient on VRAM. We're trying to tune it between faster load times and showing good textures. We'll continue monitoring this until we achieve a satisfactory result.
There are some more bugs that are in the fixing pipeline but we wanted to release these two first.
0.7.4
Improve game loading performance and VRAM usage
Further optimized texture streaming
0.7.5
Further optimize VRAM usage
Fixed Boss enemy's HP Bar not updating
Added Accessory range from 100 - 250 and scaling from 100 - 150
Tuned boost combo animation to make it hit enemies more consistently
Fixed mace attack dealing 0 damage bug
0.7.6
Fixed a backer's decal design
Fixed a JP localization bug on backer's decal
New Core Feature - Accessories System
The accessory system is finally here! Let's recap what is it with what we've said months ago. Accessories are first conceptualized as a "3D decal system" where players can attach small parts onto armors and weapons, making a unique creation of their own, specializing them and fulfilling their imagination. Accessories will range from geometric shapes to complex parts, and you will be able to attach them to most surface of EVERY part itself.
You can attach up to 8 accessories on a one part. They can be rotate, scaled, and offset just like decals, and each of them can hold 2 colors. There is an alignment and copy tool to help you place them on the M.A.S.S. unit. They are classified into various sizes and will require some credits to unlock them for usage. In total, there are 510 accessories being added into the game for you all to play around with.
Improvements and Additions
Global Styles are added for easier coloring of the M.A.S.S. unit. They will apply to everything, from Frames to Armor parts and to Weapon parts. There is also an "Import Global Style" command available in the frame management menu.
All customization features now have full support for Gamepad.
The View Port menu in weapon customization is improved for better viewing and handling.
There is now an overview mode that player can use to switch between viewing the single part they are customizing and the whole M.A.S.S. unit itself.
New tutorials regarding the accessories system are added. Old tutorials are updated as well.
Reworked all NPC Illustration and Animations, and added new NPC illustrations for various situations they are in.
Added new Close Combat Weapon combo for Boost attacks and Air attacks.
Improved some Close Combat animations to make them flow better with combat.
Added 5 new poses for Photography Mode.
Added 20 new backgrounds for Photography Mode.
Added a few new Loading Screens
Balance Changes Melee
Current Quantum Break is deemed too similar to each other and provides an overall increment in everything. We'll be providing a higher degree of specialization, faster QB gain, and faster QB end to all forms (enhanced highest duration).
Quantum Break activation time is lowered to 1.6 seconds.
Engines that are focused on providing melee functionality has their values buffed.
Both Nanorobotics have been nerfed to 80% chance of activation instead of 100% chance. This is to curb some power onto other nodes. We do have some plans to compensate them and all of melee playstyle coming in 0.8.0 and we'll announce them soon.
Ranged
Detonators! This is one problematic weapon as it's too powerful deemed by a lot of our players. However, as mentioned above, we plan to further buff other playstyles and not nerf ones that are currently good, the only thing we hit the detonator with was an ammo nerf. Detonators have much lower ammo count before it needs to be reloaded, but it will have a lot more available in reserves. This should bring it more in line with other playstyles that are buffed.
Other than Detonators, all ranged weapons' damage is increased by varying numbers.
Wave Energy Shooters will down an enemy much more often, including bosses.
Energy Shooters all recharge faster.
Auto Energy Shooters fire faster, and even faster with higher acceleration. This should bring its DPS up on par with a lot of things.
Property Damage
Base burn damage is increased by 25%
Blaze Arms Enhancer changed from 40% BURN damage increase to 50%.
Melting Chemicals changed from 50% BURN damage increase to 75%.
Wildfire Starter I and II now also provides 10% increased chance to apply BURN on all attacks.
Base shock effectiveness is increased by 75%.
Volt Arms Enhancer changed from 50% duration increase to 100% duration increase. This should allow weapons with SHOCK element to apply WEAK for longer period and players can swap in another weapon to utilize that status.
Volt Splitters changed from 25% increased efficiency to 50%.
Gathering Storm I damage changed to be what Gathering Storm II used to be.
Gathering Storm II damage changed to 40%/95%/150%
Speed
Meteor Shielder Speed Buff from 25/25/25 to 20/20/20
Afterburners reverted to leave burning trails, as stated in their description. We'll be looking at this node specifically in some builds to see if it's too strong or too weak and adjust it accordingly throughout the patch.
Accelerated Walkers and Runners have been merged into a single node and their percentages lowered to 15% each.
Others
All drop rate nodes have their percentages increased. Credits especially higher than other.
Enemies and Challenge Missions
Overall enemy damage scaling will be higher, but most enemy melee attacks will stay the same. This along with other melee changes should make the playstyle more viable later in the game.
With enemies' damage scaling being higher, we have now adjusted challenge modes time scaling a bit.
Battlegrounds enemies will spawn much faster in later waves.
Bug Fixes
Perpetual Generator II now triggers correctly at 2s interval.
Frame Ignition S. Type now working as intended, we'll monitor its usefulness and see if we need to buff it or not.
Fixed some attacks audio not obeying volume control.
Fixed some missing cutscene audio.
Fixed some decal placement issues on some armor parts.
M.A.S.S. Builder will be on sales for 15% discount in the Steam Summer Sales from June 24th to July 8th!
Accessories System in Detail and Patch 0.7.0 Announcement
Hey there everyone! We know that you're all waiting for the 0.7.0 update, and the WIP update snippets aren't helping much. But before that, let's have a final talk about the accessories system, an overview of everything to come. We've been showing a lot how the system will be, how the accessories are going to look like, and how many of them are going to hit the game in 0.7.0.
First, we've categorized accessories into four types: Primitives / Armors / Components / Connectors. We know this might be a change of what you've seen before in our screenshots, but we think they represent what's in each category better.
Primitives: These are basic and simple shapes like geometric shapes, polygons, and the likes of them. It also include small elements that can be placed to create a more distinct shape.
Armors: These are basically armor parts that can be attached onto another armor. They are mostly based on existing armor parts with some unique creations that can be attached to add another layer on another piece.
Components: These are mostly "extra" and non-standard parts such as wing pieces, horns, thruster-like parts, and a lot more. We'd like to use them to create new looks in itself, and we hope you can use it further than what we can.
Connectors: These are parts that work very well with length extension and scaling, be it joints, cylindrical shapes, tubes, antennas, and a lot of other things that represents some kind of connnecting piece.
Now how do we unlock each accessory piece? We know there's a lot of accessories available and we don't want you to have a hard time to acquire them, so it'll all going to be credits-unlockable. You pay a tiny amount to unlock any of the accessories in the game, no need for blueprints farming or anything.
Accessories are further classified into size (S, M, L, XL) and each will have differing prices (250, 500, 750, 1000) to unlock. Also, there's a few that are already unlocked for you to play around with, and accessories unlocking will be almost instant.
Before we go, here are some samples for you all to look at, created by our developers. We know you players can do better, much better than that glimpse of a limit tester shown in the image, and we're waiting to see you do it when the patch drops. When is that happening? Next Saturday June 26th. Time will be announced later in our social media.
Hello everyone! We're approaching 0.7.0 soon and we still got more things to show in our WIP update. This week, it's a bit different than what we've been showing through the 0.7.0 update, which is mainly focused on the aesthetics side. With that said, we'd like to make close combat smoother than it was before... so here's the upcoming new close combat attacks and combos!
Some of you might have thought we're finished with accessories at part II, but we're not. Here's a lot more accessory parts you'll be able to use in the coming update. We know you all are waiting for the update to come, and are asking when is it coming? We'd like to say we don't have a specific date down yet but soon! Stay tuned for more info!
We've been showing you a lot of artistic changes over the past few weeks, let's talk about some balancing in the upcoming 0.7.0 update for a change. There's a lot coming, but it'll mostly be buffs don't worry. As you might have heard from our team in the discord channel, our philosophy is to "don't nerf the OP ones, at least not a lot, while buffing the others to that level."
Melee Gameplay Close combat has always been a very alluring playstyle against normal enemies but fall short against bosses where the window of attack gets very small. To this, we're buffing their damage by a to compensate for this small window of attack. We're also changing Quantum Break for some experiments. Players will be able to activate it slightly faster but much more frequently. Each type is also more specialized, but ends a lot faster than before.
Ranged Gameplay Detonators have proven to be much above everything else, still, we don't want to nerf their damage and make it an obsolete weapon, so we're nerfing their ammo once again, but this time to a much lower level. More investment into MAG.LOAD will help you regain its lost ammo count, and this should bring it more in line with other ranged weapons by forcing players to reload more.
We're also buffing other shooters damage base, all of them, especially two that required help, energy auto shooters and energy wave shooters. One has their acceleration relation raised to a much higher level and the other much more power to down and enemy.
Property Damage Gameplay We're raising BURN and SHOCK to a much higher effectiveness (sorry freeze, your Crowd Control power is too much to get a buff). BURN will most likely be a contender for the highest damage now if used efficiently , while SHOCK will be a very strong supporting weapon that helps raise the power of every other weapon if it is applied.
Enemies and Challenge Missions Introduced in 0.6.0, challenge missions have proven to be both a good farming mission as well as a record race for you all, we're very relieved it was able to achieve that. In 0.7.0, we're making the most controversial one, Battlegrounds, to be more of a survival thing. It's time gate will be much higher, while enemies will also grow stronger at a faster rate. We hope this will provide more of a threatening survival feeling, but we're monitoring how it performs.
Welcome to another weekly WIP update! Remember a few weeks ago when we showed you part 1 of the accessories we've been making these past months for the 0.7.0 update? Here's part 2, and it should incorporate a lot of pieces that some of you have been requesting for a lot.
Without further ado and to not keep you guys waiting, take a look!
Hello everyone! After the short previews last week, you might have thought we'll be showing more this week as a part 2, but no, we'll be showing you the QoL improvements for the decals system, how it'll work with accessories, and its process instead!
Here we have a sample M.A.S.S. unit set up for clarity. It has parts with accessories attached onto it, namely the upper torso part. We'll be using these parts to show you how decals will work from 0.7.0 onwards.
Decals placement will still follow the same rules as before, you click to place them on the parts. Accessories placed upon a part will be integrated into a large object and decals can be placed on them as if they were a part of the armor itself.
You can use the offset, rotation, and scaling system to further adjust the decals position upon an accessory part attached onto an armor part itself. As we mentioned, they are counted as a large object itself.
Now here's something new, the alignment system. Decals can be copy-mirrored onto another axes aligning with the reference point, just the same as how an accessory can be copy-mirrored.
Now you might wonder what will happen to the decals if you move the accessory part it is placed upon afterwards. We decided to have the decal's position saved so it'll stay in the same place no matter how much you move the accessories, and you will have no problems when you remove the accessories from that base part itself.
Same as how accessories work, we do have a masking view for decals so you can have an easier time trying to place them. More clarity is always a good thing right?
Finally, we'd like to show you a system to help players who are using controllers. We now have a visual cursor to help controllers place their decals without using the mouse to click on the armor part. We also have this system for accessories, don't worry. Now that should be all for this week's WIP update. We hope you like it, and see you all next week.
Hello everyone, this week's WIP is a very short one with nothing much to explain... It's the collection of the accessory parts that we have finished and will be adding into the game in the coming 0.7.0 update. There's nothing much to explain, we just wanted to give you a preview of them first so you can understand more about the parts we're making as accessories, or better, start planning your build in the coming update. We hope this excites your creativity, if we have a lot more to show then there'll be part 2 coming but for now, see you again next week.
