Official Answers by week

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 01/26/2014 Through 02/26/2014

MrDDT asks:

You posted this over a week ago in your blog post/updates area. Can we get an update/information you said would give in this coming week (over a week ago)?

Yes, I apologize about that. I did start writing up descriptions of the coming systems, but with one distraction after another I did not complete the descriptions and therefore I did not post. When I do have time to do this I will. For now my time is consumed with trying to wrap up current bug fixes, optimizations and the tutorial.

tinesionnach1 asks:

I have noticed when it rains in game we get an uncomfort count down in the top corner of the screen, Are there plans to make this a debuff and will it apply to snow as well, I think it would be cool if your out side in snow it adds a encumbrance Debuff like everything you carry is 10% more to your encumbrance bar.

Yes it was intended to affect a player's actions. It's still on my huge list of improvements.

Are there any plans to freeze over the lake in the winter season?

Sounds neat, but no.

Can there be deposit only setting put on bins, I know many times tribe mates want to leave me stuff but new tribe members may not know its stuff for me and will take it out.

Please post this in the Suggestion list. Although players have requested more complex permission settings, these are not things I originally planned on having in game. I will consider it but not in the near future. There is too much already in progress.

One solution for now is for you to have a bin or building set aside for items deposited for you with instructions (on the label for example) to other tribe mates to not withdraw items.

You could also follow one of the proposals set by xsyoncity:

Here is one work around for the bin question using existing rules...... The owner of Bin could set permissions to private so that bin cannot be moved except by him.... then adjust the lock to family or friends.... then add you and the other players that understand what that stuff is for .... that way only you and the owner (and other knowledgeable players) could remove stuff from the Bin. Amyone in tribe with proper tribal permissions granted by leader could also break that lock, but, i suspect that those permissions would not be given to new players..... Also Bin naming of "Deposit Only" could help to alleviate the problem..... ;-).

Are the upcoming farms going to be only placed on tribe lands or can they be built off of the tribe land?

On tribe lands only. Farms off tribe lands would cause too many problems.

Thanks for the questions!

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 02/26/2014 Through 03/18/2014

znaiika asks:

My question is, why ranged combat is postponed again?
I is it hard to implement? I would rather have ranged combat before agriculture and cooking.

It's not difficult to implement, but I need to resolve current desynchronization issues first and those are difficult to resolve. Farming and cooking have taken priority as they have been highly requested by players.

Wilson423 asks:

With the release of the new PvE server do you plan on giving players a stat re-roll? Most older players have probably used the three allotted ones and PvE changes the game a bit for stat requirements if your not a hunter.

This is a reasonable request. I will add a stat adjustment to all players this Friday during maintenance.

Thanks!

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 03/18/2014 Through 04/21/2014

Ledjlale asks:

I’m interested about your concept of PvE. Would it be just a “city builder” with some monsters/quests/scripted NPC/monsters or else?

A city builder with an increasing number of tools and abilities that allow players to create adventures for and interact with other players. The plan is also to introduce elements such as achievements and collectibles.

To be more precise : will you integrate a NPC faction that can capture our town and seek to expand their power (and not just wandering)? (same system as a PvP mode but opponents are replaced by bots)

No. I'm not considering anything like this for the PvE server right now.

I found a very good description of a PvE world : http://syncaine.com/pve-sandbox-mmo-design/

“As for combat goals, the world would be such that player hubs are all friendly to each other (or at least non-combative), and all players fight against a common enemy faction. This factions goal would be, of course, world domination, and player actions would determine just how close that faction is to its goal. As the world would ideally be larger than what the player population could occupy, the enemy faction would be in control of different areas at different times, based mostly on where the current player population has chosen to establish itself (more on this in a different post about housing/cities).”

=> Will it be one of your goal? If yes, what is your priority and is it your primary, secondary, last or optional goal?

And if you can answer, what do you think about the previous description on syncaine and what are the differences in your goals?

I agree with a lot of what is in that description. Many of my goals are similar. Finding the correct balance for progression and systems has been the most difficult and time consuming aspect of development, but is improving over time.

Regarding players uniting to fight against a common enemy, my original design planned on an epic storyline with an enemy faction that players would struggle against. The original design, however, was intended as large budget game and was scaled down a lot. For now, it's not really worthwhile to think about 'what could have been'. In the near future, something like this isn't in the plans for Xsyon, but it will certainly keep improving and evolving!

MrDDT Asks:

Are there any planned updates for doing anything with the PVP server?

The current round of development is focused on updates that will affect and improve both servers (tutorial, terrain reversion, farming and cooking).

The next planned update for improving PvP is again to attempt to address 'desynch' issues. This has been worked on several times and is not an easy issue to resolve. A major issue right now is the speed that players are allowed to move during combat. Imagine two players in different parts of the world with an average 200 ms delay between them. Players moving at 1 meter / second are going to need less positional adjustment than players moving at 10 meters / second.

Many games address 'desynch' by having servers local to nearby players. (I've experienced much of the same 'desynch' issues we have with Xsyon when playing other games on a US West Coast server from Russia). The original design for combat forced players into walk mode during combat. This was a deliberate decision made to reduce inevitable 'desynch' between players from around the world with variable ping to our servers, but it didn't sit well with the player base and was changed.

A huge benefit and primary goal of having a separate PvP server is that we will be able to add specific features, balance systems and allow for less restrictive game play on the PvP server that will please PvP players without alienating PvE players.

It's going to take time though. For now, the launch of the PvE server has greatly improved Xsyon's situation and development will continue on the current round as planned.

Arkonick asks:

Are there plans to add more swings that are more player controlled like thrust, above attack, left high attack, right high attack, side swing left, side swing right, Lower left swing, and lower right swing? Something like a small ui on the side that pops up when you enter combat and you click on the swing you want to do, also it could be tagged to the Numpad as well as programmable.

Those swings do currently exist and are manually controlled my your mouse movement. Currently the only effect is what armor / body part it hits on your opponent and is countered by the direction of your opponent's parry.

Do you plan on updating skins in the future of terrain and tree bark skins?

I'd like to, but not for a while. The mid and distant textures need work in my opinion. Foreground, the texturing is fine and we'll likely add better and more varied grass and ground details before revising foreground textures.

Are there plans in the future for a new system of building multi story building's?

Yes, but it will require an improved collision system, which is a major task. I may allow direct multi story building before a new collision system is implemented, but it could have some issues.

What Engine is Xsyon running on and do you plan or think you might change game engines in the future when Funds allow it?

Xsyon is running on its own proprietary engine. Switching to a new engine would be a huge task with little benefit so it's not likely. This of course depends on what engines are released in the future.

Do you plan on adding a target nearest object hotkey to battle the random stacks that vanish under ground? Would this be able to target the nearest stack hidden under ground and allow the player to destroy or pick it up to lighten the support tickets for this issue?

I'll think about it and have added this to my suggestion list. Although it's an annoyance, there aren't too many help tickets for this issue right now.

Will you eventually allow people to change rock terrain? As of right now you get a msg can't lower or raise cause rock. It makes no since that one can't throw dirt on top of that rock changing the rock to dirt so one could raise and lower that land. So will we ever be able to lower land with a rock surface using dirt or rock so if it is rock maybe having stone would allow you to raise it and a pick to allow for lowering the rock surface.

I'll also think about it. Rock is restricted so that players don't end up destroying mountains. With terrain reversion coming in however, I can revisit this. I'm going to focus on the current things already in development first though!

treenie asks:

Are there any plans to change the payment system in the future from a free with limitations vs subscription model.

Maybe to something along the lines of:
Free - Keep same skill limits e.t.c.
One off payment - Remove skill limit but xp gain is slower, can start tribes but limited to amount of members e.t.c.
Subscription - Same as now but slight increase in xp gain

Just wondering if this would stimulate player growth and help get an extra boost of cashflow towards the development of the game

I am considering testing out allowing less restrictions for free players. The current system is intended to give free players a trial of the game rather than becoming a permanent way of playing the game. Simply having a subscription give a slight increase in xp gain would likely make most current players cancel subscriptions. That would not be good.

The 'Free to Play' model generally depends on a small percentage of players that pay a lot per month to offset a large percentage of players that pay little to nothing. They also thrive on disguising the cost of play from players and leading players into paying more than they normally would with a flat subscription model.

Xsyon doesn't currently have incentives for players to pay more than the monthly subscription fee for one account. Switching to a typical 'Free to Play' model would require adding incentives that would make some players spend in excess of $100 per month. That's currently not feasible with Xsyon, nor is it a direction I would like to head.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 04/21/2014 Through 04/30/2014

Sparky asks:

I'm wondering if you have any plans for a canoe or row boat for quick lake crossing or handy fishing?

Not for a while.

Any plans to be able to bind at different totems?

Yes, but not exactly. Players will be able to bind at buildings when I revive the Real Estate system which was developed and in testing a while back. The system had a few issue of what happens when a Tribe gets disbanded so it was shelved, but it will be back.

A bulletin board system for messages?

Yes, this is on my list of things to squeeze in when I can. Improvements on that list do get implemented (quite a few are making it into the current patch.)

Player made notes in bins for quests?

Interesting. I'll put this on my list.

Glorp asks:

Since you split the servers, scavenging for BP's has become close to non existent. I have heard hearsay that the loot table was changed to help the economy grow and make currency worth something.

The tables haven't changed since last August when they were revised.

Any chance you will be upping the % for BP's to drop?

I'll look into this after farming and cooking are patched out.

Sister and I have set up a trading hub which has worked fairly well but the business will dry up if we cant acquire what people want to buy.

Yes, I've been paying attention to this. It's exactly what I was hoping players would do. It does seem to be working well so far. Thanks!

MrDDT asks:

I've done some testing with blue print drops and they seem to be the same as before. Xsyon any chance you can run your tests to see what the % chance of them dropping is?Because some people report finding zero, while others are finding them same as before?

I ran some tests. I ran 10,000 scavenges in every region with skill at 75 and without any tribes in range. Here are the results:

Architecture blueprints: Range from 10/10,000 to 200/10,000: 1/1000 to 1/50
Other schemes: Range from 250/10,000 to 500/10,000 : 1/40 to 1/20 scavenges

It highly depends on the region and keep in mind that being on or close to tribe land will reduce the rate.

Casondrah notes:

Many of us who are active have noticed the droprate loss in BPs...including those who are just as active now as before the server split. We had multiple discussions about it in global a few weeks back trying to figure out if it was just a personal thing or an issue for others as well. A couple seem to have some luck, but the majority have noticed the same thing as Glorp...a drop in the droprate of BPs, arch in particular, after multiple days trying in areas all across the map.

It is strange as nothing has changed as noted above. It could be that players are looking in the wrong regions, too close to tribe lands or both. I do need to focus on farming and cooking this month. The range of finding actual blueprints does range considerably as noted. I will look into revising the tables again after the farming and cooking patch.

Anticules notes:

I have not noticed any difference in the bp drop rate for myself on pvp server.

Yes, it hasn't changed. Thanks!

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 05/01/2014 Through 06/24/2014

MrDDT asks:

When cooking/farming is put on the live servers, do you plan on making changes to the survival/needs of people in game for food?

Yes, the energy and life gain rates will be adjusted as food will affect both.

jwjohnson1978 asks:

Are there any plans to add different types of bone armor. ie.. starter/mid grade that uses round, flat, ribs from other animal types (dogs, coyote, etc)? It would be easier for new players that want to start hunting animals/revs to get into a set of heavier armor.

Yes, I'm considering adding bone armor sets that use non specific bones or smalls from the mid size creatures. They won't be new armor looks though as we don't have the artists required to add completely new armor sets though. They would the same as some current sets but with different properties and material requirements.

Also, are there plans to make human bones available? Gutting Revs maybe? There's a lot of bone armor I'd like to make, but no resources.

Yes, it's on my long to do list to add human bones from revenants when they are dealt a final blow (killed where they won't re-spawn.

Glorp asks:

Will Human Bones be harvest-able from revs in the future and will there be stats added to them?

Yes, both have been on my list for a long time. There are just other priorities right now.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 06/25/2014 Through 08/21/2014

MrDDT asks:

I was asking mostly of death from not eating or drinking. Is this still planned and will it come soon after the cooking/farming update?

Yes it's part of the update (as you know, but just answering the question for those not following the feedback thread.

Whorlok asks:

after the coming patch what you want doing?

Right after this patch, my focus will be on revising the 'free to play' system to be more effective.

Are you working on Master weapons and Two handed swort and bows with ranged combat?

Master and two handed weapons may come soon after the 'free to play' revisions, but we'll see.

Ranged combat is still a problem to implement because of desynch issues. One of the main problems causing desynch between players is the speed of player movement in combat. Originally (years ago) combat was meant to limit your speed which makes synchronizing actions and positions a lot easier.

Another issue is the real life distances between players when having players from around the world on one server.

In brief, let's say it takes 250 ms for a command to travel from one player to the server to another player. If you are travelling at 0.5 m/s the difference can be easily compensated for. If you're travelling 10 m/s (for example) your player can already be 2.5 meters away from your last position by the time the movement command arrives at the viewing player.

Now, there are definitely ways to improve on the current system to adjust for this problem, but it's not so easy!

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 08/21/2014 Through 10/26/2014

matilda asks:

I'm wondering what the plan is to counter new players overpulling grass, branches and twigs?

Grass and tree resources are restored over time now since the recent updates.

Tree resources also no longer require forest surface and forest surfaces do not change now as well.

On a different subject: I'm wondering what the plans are for "block", shields & polearms?

Combat is being revisited now. Plans are to be determined, so I can't say anything for sure right now.

On a different note: I was wondering what other things you are hope'n or plan'n to add in the future for hardcore survivor game players who are here for the pvp & survival aspect more then the pve & building community?

I don't have any specific PvP features planned for the near future, though the combat revisions will certainly affect PvP. Upcoming features will benefit both the War and Peace servers.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 10/26/2014 Through 11/17/2014

Player asks:

A player asked if there was any intentions to add grass seed at some point for those wanting to plant grass in specified areas?

At some point, yes. Currently doing this is more trouble than it's worth and so I implemented grass regrowth instead.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 11/17/2014 Through 12/19/2014

Greenspade asks:

Whats the plan for getting people to join this game without being able to try it in a market that supports free games and most players won't pay without first trying? I mean aside of steam, do you have any other plans aside of the steam release in case this doesn't work?

Yes. We will try a different type of free trial or trial server. All I can say for sure is that what we had in place previously was not working for the benefit of the game or players.

What solution are you giving to players who have put work into their free to play players as an alternative to their main subscription accounts, who are no longer able to log into their players?

They can add a Citizen account. The free to play aspect was intended as a free trial and not as a free to play model where the few pay high fees to support those who play entirely for free.

What was the main reason for removing free to play? (Yes I've seen your post, could you elaborate?) What did you think this would legitimately help?

This has been explained, but the situation is quite simple. Free to Play was added as a free introduction to Xsyon with the hopes that it would benefit the game and community by increasing our player base and revenue. Neither happened. Development then focused on many aspects for the new player (tutorial system, revised character creation) which didn't help. Direct feedback and surveys showed that a lot of players enjoyed their limited introduction to Xsyon but did not stay around long enough to experience systems such as tribe creation, terraforming and construction. The main reasons were outlined in the Developer Updates: Players expecting a more typical Free to Play with cash shop model, players being discouraged by paid citizens and new players not feeling vested enough to 'learn the ropes' without an even more extensive tutorial system.

What is the plan for breathing live back into the 100% dead pvp server?

The population should increase considerably with the launch on Steam.

Is there plans to eventually support the pvp server with events as often as the pve server?

Only one time did we run an event on the Peace server only. In general, events will run on both servers if there are active players able to attend the event.

dprail asks:

What happened to the post here about the details of your steam early release campaign and the competition?

A post from a banned player using an alt account was removed. I didn't read the contents.

Have you been playing any games lately? Any of the steam early release games?

I've checked some out, yes. The 'sandbox' genre is becoming more defined. From what I've seen out there and from what's being worked on in Xsyon, I'm comfortable that in time Xsyon will stand out from the small crowd.

thurgond asks:

Are we going to get other forms of beads (wood, metal, plastic, shell) to go with the stone beads?

I haven't thought about it, but please post this in the Suggestions if you'd like this to get more attention.

We are now closing up the Questions for the Developers. With a pending release on Steam an open ended session such as this would be counter productive. We can endlessly talk about possibilities but it will be far more beneficial to focus on what's actually in the works.

To that purpose, the In Development section will be updated and feedback sessions will be posted for what's in progress and what's under consideration for the near future.

I thank you all for your questions and look forward to the feedback sessions!