Post by ShutUpAndSmokeMyWeed on Dec 19, 2016 10:07:34 GMT -5
There was a Q&A with developers live stream yesterday on War Robots' FB page. I didn't have time to watch all of it but among the stuff I did catch was a possible re-design of Springfield and another shout-out to the forum. Perhaps someone else can come along and help summarize the main talking points of the stream (which adriannnnnn has done a great job of timestamping conveniently in his video).
Credit to bagofsoup for providing this detailed rundown of the Q&A!
1. Upcoming Matchmaking change will be ELO system of placing you among other players or tiers (they mentioned bronze, silver, gold, tiers etc) based on your recent wins, losses, maybe damage dealt, etc. New Matchmaking system, built from the ground up, will be out by the end of winter (this January, if not February).
2. A lot of the developers time this past year was strengthening the game structure and servers to accommodate a fast growing player base, plus getting game over from client side to server side to eliminate most or all of cheating. (We did get new maps, new bots, bot speed changes, selling bots and weapons, weapons balancing, skins, new targeting system, clans, squad chat and New platooning system, seasonal events. I added this part in parentheses, but they should have mentioned these things in my opinion).
3. New maps and new game play modes are currently in the works for this next year (modes like beacon spawning, team death match, 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, etc). Working on balance issues of these changes, or any map changes because of it, etc. Will put these things on test servers first of course.
4. New weapons in the works. Heavy molot is furthest along. In final stages and could be ready for January, they hope. They will depend on test servers a lot this year for new weapons, revamped weapons, new maps, and new game mode feedback.
5. The name walking was dropped from the title, but not necessarily to add flying robots in, as that would make the current maps likely obsolete. It would take different programming for the flying and camera work. Hovering or jet pack bots could be a possibility, but doesn't sound like they are really far along on testing any of these things at the moment.
6. Console game development? That would take a lot of work to make new Dev teams just for that, so that could be down the road, but not right now.
7. They might add a single player mode to WAR robots, but it would be more like a better tutorial mode or something.
8. Aphids overpowered? There will be a balance patch in update 2.5 (January) that will be on test server first. Goal will be to improve the underpowered weapons and balance out the overpowered weapons, like aphids for example. (When Aphid buff (mainly accuracy improvement) was first tested on test server, it seems good, but when it went to live server, players who really knew how to use them took over and made them even more powerful than originally hoped for. They will try to address this and other things in update 2.5 (January) and test server. Goal is to make aphids better than they were, but not too op).
9. Working on a system to make balance change patches at any time, and not to have to wait for bigger monthly updates. They could test a change on a weekend test server and put it in live server that week and not have to wait a whole month for a bigger update to go through.
10. Developers' stance on camping? Let players do what they prefer and enjoy, so long as it's helpful to the team and game. They are trying to keep camping weapons balanced and not OP, so they have a role but don't dominate. Their stats say that campers aren't too prolific per six man teams, maybe 1 or 2 on average. But keep them an option, just not OP.
11. Post game stats? Beacon capture average is seriously being considered to add to player profile. Dev's considering adding a "taken damage" bonus to players to reward them for taking damage to help teammates, etc. Also, expect more robots with defensive abilities to help in this kind of way. Or different "roles" for robots to help in the battles, like other games have in team play. A way to reward players for strategic things outside of just who gets the most damage in a match.
12. New weapons and bots selection organization system (or user interface) for hangar? They know it takes time to scroll through a list of stuff, and are working on ideas. Didn't say much else about it for now.
13. Can we ever get to choose a map to play on, or put more bots into our hangar to choose from, even if we can still only use five of them in battle? Both are a possibility, in early stages of development, but they could drastically change the game (like a guy loading up five sniper bots and choosing to play Springfield or yamantau over and over again) so they would really need to test the possible ramifications of that. If it ever happens, would always go on test server first. Any big changes always go to test server first.
14. Will iOS and Android players ever be able to play together? (Asked earlier in stream but I forgot it). It's technically possible, but would take quite an effort. First priority was eliminating cheaters, bot and gun re-balancing, and improving matchmaking system. If they can ever get more time to work on this they could look into it, but not currently.
15. Will War Robots ever be playable with Virtual Reality or VR? They like the idea, but not necessarily for this current game. Would be better to make a specific game for VR from the ground up. So could be a different game, even with similar bots and types, but built for the ground up for VR (in the War Robots universe, for example).
16. Golem hardpoints better on the old golem design? Dev's might do another player poll or Facebook vote to see what majority players want on that. They are up for what the community wants on things like this, and will see about it. The dev's might consider the player idea of having both old and new golem designs or hardpoints to buy or chose from. They will at least think about it.
17. New war robots website in the works, but not ready yet at all, so for now War Robots Facebook page is the place to get info and give feedback and polls and votes and such, besides test server feedback of course. The wikia website and forums is now being formally recommended by the War Robots Deb team and by Adrian Chong as well for players to go to Wikia and get info as well.
18. Is it possible to get a physical shield and ancile shield together in one bot? It's possible, but wouldn't be as strong with weaponry to compensate, if it was ever developed.
19. Why redesign Yamantau? To improve gameplay balance for it. Any other maps getting redesigned? Not really at this time, but they may look at Springfield map and the weird spawn points, since a community poll and in game stats show that map and several spawn points there to be the least popular for players.
20. Any plans to improve Rog? Yes, several changes for Rog will be in update 2.5 in January. They will see how feedback and results go with it at that point. Gameplay balance is always tricky, when adding in every little change, bot, map, or weapon. They can't change everything all at once, since that would be too much for players to handle at once, so they make incremental changes to different things at a time, then test and see what needs balance next. Just changing aphids a month or two ago made such an impact in the game, which they will need to adjust, so that's why incremental changes are better one at a time.
21. Recent targeting system change? Adrian mentioned a problem with the sensitivity setting on the latest 2.4 update, the aiming moved left or right when shooting. Or improving the time it takes to switch targets in manual lock on mode.
22. New HUD interface is being worked on, possible that players can customize their hud or change weapons firing and button size.
23. Dev's are open for more player bot skin design contests in the future. For example, the dev's liked the "new robocop" player skin design for the Griffin that was all black with the red visor line. Thought it was cool.
24. Can we ever expect 1 vs 1 player battles? Yes, early this next year expect custom game modes like 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, 1 vs 3, etc. Or having clan vs clan or tournament battles where you can form squads of 6 vs 6 which all stay together after each battle to play again and again, maybe even getting to choose maps for these situations. Organizing more player driven tournaments as well.
25. Favorite map from last player poll? Dead city. The devs like it too. Good for knife fighting and camping. The dev's also like it for using the boa. They have a slight redesign idea for the boa that would keep the traditional basic shape, but still be more modern at the same time.
26. Dev's are currently working on several maps, one of which is a moon map. Could be on test server soon in the next month or so.
27. What's the biggest player feedback that has influenced the developers this past year? The new moon map. An extra terrestrial map was requested a lot so it's one that is currently in the works for testing coming up. Plus bot and weapon balancing. Also, fan driven clan tournaments and war robots fictional stories and fan made content inspires the developers, since it shows how passionate players are about the game. Player feedback and excitement on new bots and weapons is welcome and enjoyable to see.
28. They didn't get to answer every question, but they can do this type of live stream Q&A again, and have the Facebook page for feedback and comments at any time as well.
Credit to bagofsoup for providing this detailed rundown of the Q&A!
1. Upcoming Matchmaking change will be ELO system of placing you among other players or tiers (they mentioned bronze, silver, gold, tiers etc) based on your recent wins, losses, maybe damage dealt, etc. New Matchmaking system, built from the ground up, will be out by the end of winter (this January, if not February).
2. A lot of the developers time this past year was strengthening the game structure and servers to accommodate a fast growing player base, plus getting game over from client side to server side to eliminate most or all of cheating. (We did get new maps, new bots, bot speed changes, selling bots and weapons, weapons balancing, skins, new targeting system, clans, squad chat and New platooning system, seasonal events. I added this part in parentheses, but they should have mentioned these things in my opinion).
3. New maps and new game play modes are currently in the works for this next year (modes like beacon spawning, team death match, 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, etc). Working on balance issues of these changes, or any map changes because of it, etc. Will put these things on test servers first of course.
4. New weapons in the works. Heavy molot is furthest along. In final stages and could be ready for January, they hope. They will depend on test servers a lot this year for new weapons, revamped weapons, new maps, and new game mode feedback.
5. The name walking was dropped from the title, but not necessarily to add flying robots in, as that would make the current maps likely obsolete. It would take different programming for the flying and camera work. Hovering or jet pack bots could be a possibility, but doesn't sound like they are really far along on testing any of these things at the moment.
6. Console game development? That would take a lot of work to make new Dev teams just for that, so that could be down the road, but not right now.
7. They might add a single player mode to WAR robots, but it would be more like a better tutorial mode or something.
8. Aphids overpowered? There will be a balance patch in update 2.5 (January) that will be on test server first. Goal will be to improve the underpowered weapons and balance out the overpowered weapons, like aphids for example. (When Aphid buff (mainly accuracy improvement) was first tested on test server, it seems good, but when it went to live server, players who really knew how to use them took over and made them even more powerful than originally hoped for. They will try to address this and other things in update 2.5 (January) and test server. Goal is to make aphids better than they were, but not too op).
9. Working on a system to make balance change patches at any time, and not to have to wait for bigger monthly updates. They could test a change on a weekend test server and put it in live server that week and not have to wait a whole month for a bigger update to go through.
10. Developers' stance on camping? Let players do what they prefer and enjoy, so long as it's helpful to the team and game. They are trying to keep camping weapons balanced and not OP, so they have a role but don't dominate. Their stats say that campers aren't too prolific per six man teams, maybe 1 or 2 on average. But keep them an option, just not OP.
11. Post game stats? Beacon capture average is seriously being considered to add to player profile. Dev's considering adding a "taken damage" bonus to players to reward them for taking damage to help teammates, etc. Also, expect more robots with defensive abilities to help in this kind of way. Or different "roles" for robots to help in the battles, like other games have in team play. A way to reward players for strategic things outside of just who gets the most damage in a match.
12. New weapons and bots selection organization system (or user interface) for hangar? They know it takes time to scroll through a list of stuff, and are working on ideas. Didn't say much else about it for now.
13. Can we ever get to choose a map to play on, or put more bots into our hangar to choose from, even if we can still only use five of them in battle? Both are a possibility, in early stages of development, but they could drastically change the game (like a guy loading up five sniper bots and choosing to play Springfield or yamantau over and over again) so they would really need to test the possible ramifications of that. If it ever happens, would always go on test server first. Any big changes always go to test server first.
14. Will iOS and Android players ever be able to play together? (Asked earlier in stream but I forgot it). It's technically possible, but would take quite an effort. First priority was eliminating cheaters, bot and gun re-balancing, and improving matchmaking system. If they can ever get more time to work on this they could look into it, but not currently.
15. Will War Robots ever be playable with Virtual Reality or VR? They like the idea, but not necessarily for this current game. Would be better to make a specific game for VR from the ground up. So could be a different game, even with similar bots and types, but built for the ground up for VR (in the War Robots universe, for example).
16. Golem hardpoints better on the old golem design? Dev's might do another player poll or Facebook vote to see what majority players want on that. They are up for what the community wants on things like this, and will see about it. The dev's might consider the player idea of having both old and new golem designs or hardpoints to buy or chose from. They will at least think about it.
17. New war robots website in the works, but not ready yet at all, so for now War Robots Facebook page is the place to get info and give feedback and polls and votes and such, besides test server feedback of course. The wikia website and forums is now being formally recommended by the War Robots Deb team and by Adrian Chong as well for players to go to Wikia and get info as well.
18. Is it possible to get a physical shield and ancile shield together in one bot? It's possible, but wouldn't be as strong with weaponry to compensate, if it was ever developed.
19. Why redesign Yamantau? To improve gameplay balance for it. Any other maps getting redesigned? Not really at this time, but they may look at Springfield map and the weird spawn points, since a community poll and in game stats show that map and several spawn points there to be the least popular for players.
20. Any plans to improve Rog? Yes, several changes for Rog will be in update 2.5 in January. They will see how feedback and results go with it at that point. Gameplay balance is always tricky, when adding in every little change, bot, map, or weapon. They can't change everything all at once, since that would be too much for players to handle at once, so they make incremental changes to different things at a time, then test and see what needs balance next. Just changing aphids a month or two ago made such an impact in the game, which they will need to adjust, so that's why incremental changes are better one at a time.
21. Recent targeting system change? Adrian mentioned a problem with the sensitivity setting on the latest 2.4 update, the aiming moved left or right when shooting. Or improving the time it takes to switch targets in manual lock on mode.
22. New HUD interface is being worked on, possible that players can customize their hud or change weapons firing and button size.
23. Dev's are open for more player bot skin design contests in the future. For example, the dev's liked the "new robocop" player skin design for the Griffin that was all black with the red visor line. Thought it was cool.
24. Can we ever expect 1 vs 1 player battles? Yes, early this next year expect custom game modes like 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, 1 vs 3, etc. Or having clan vs clan or tournament battles where you can form squads of 6 vs 6 which all stay together after each battle to play again and again, maybe even getting to choose maps for these situations. Organizing more player driven tournaments as well.
25. Favorite map from last player poll? Dead city. The devs like it too. Good for knife fighting and camping. The dev's also like it for using the boa. They have a slight redesign idea for the boa that would keep the traditional basic shape, but still be more modern at the same time.
26. Dev's are currently working on several maps, one of which is a moon map. Could be on test server soon in the next month or so.
27. What's the biggest player feedback that has influenced the developers this past year? The new moon map. An extra terrestrial map was requested a lot so it's one that is currently in the works for testing coming up. Plus bot and weapon balancing. Also, fan driven clan tournaments and war robots fictional stories and fan made content inspires the developers, since it shows how passionate players are about the game. Player feedback and excitement on new bots and weapons is welcome and enjoyable to see.
28. They didn't get to answer every question, but they can do this type of live stream Q&A again, and have the Facebook page for feedback and comments at any time as well.
