Sep 17, 2022

M.A.S.S. Builder - V-DGT

Continuing from last week, today is part 2 of the AMA, regarding mostly questions about customizations! We have heard feedback about wanting more explanation to why things are answered that way and we'll try to answer each question to our best.

FRAME and OVERALL CUSTOMIZATION

Delphonse:
Will you allow players to create custom avatars?

Let us quote what we've said last year:
"No, we aren’t planning to have that system in-game. The game is written to have players headcanon their own pilot into the game and we think pilot avatars will take away from that experience. A pilot avatar customization system will take away from that immersion by providing choices that might not fit everyone’s idea of their pilots. Like, if we have 10 images and 20 choices of face of pilots available and it does not represent what you want to look like, it’s not going to be good right
?"

To further explain our answer, we'd like you to imagine all the different people playing this game, each having their own image and story of the game itself. One might want to represent themselves as a human, another as a dragon, another as a sentient AI, a kemonomimi of sorts, or maybe a cyborg. To satisfy every of these ones, we must create hundreds and thousands of customization (can't just be an image, right?) for everything, hairstyle, color, horns, base looks, etc.

Honestly it's not feasible for us to do something like that which might end up still not satisfying another group that we haven't thought of in the first place. Also, from last year's answer:

"Another thing, where does your pilot come into play? If there are pilot avatars available, we will need a place to display it, like, you will need to be able to have a choice to respond to NPCs both in missions and in base dialogues also. That makes it really harder to provide immersion into the game itself, since there will not be 30 choices available, but like, at most 3."

We hope you understand why we won't put avatar customization in our game.

Tsubasa:
Are docking points for drones and weapons still considered by VD?

Brad:
Will it be possible in the future to set Launchers/Bits to dock somewhere on your MASS when not being used and for picture mode?

Anonymous:
Can weapons be customized with hardpoints, such as a combat weapon mounted directly on the shoulder, backpack, shield, etc., so that it can be displayed on the body even when the weapon is not in use

No, quoting from last year's:

"...they are purely for aesthetical purpose, and drone docks we count as functional, as they must work alongside the drone system. And each type of new energy launcher might not have the same number of drones or sizes and it will not work. We will need to isolate systems from each other so missile pods cannot work as well because each bullet launcher has a fixed specific number of bullets, projectiles to fire already..."

For weapons, however, we wanted to do it but there is a lot of conditions to satisfy first before we can start working on them and there isn't a good solution to them. There are too many weapons in the game, not just a simple piece of sword or dagger or gun, but anything possible through accessories. What if make the system and they just float clip into the ground due to its length and whatnot. Those are the kind of things we need to look at and solve first. We will not deny this, but we'll only take a look after Early Access is done.

RAINING TIKI:
Will there ever be an option to Increase and Decrease the size of a Shoulder/Arm/Hip/Leg/Ankle Piece? Like on the Default parts for those who don't use accessories out of difficulty.

We know this is something that players have been asking for every year. The answer is still no, the current scaling is already at the maximum and minimum without compromising other things (animations, gameplay hitboxes, OG parts that doesn't clip into each other).

I'd like to talk more about this topic. We know there's a lot of people over/underscaling the base frame pieces with third party tools and have been requesting the same thing quoting "why does VD care anymore about clipping issues when they've given Accessories." The answer to that question is because there are players of different levels and different mindsets, some would want baseline to look as great as it can be and use only functional sliders for the ease of it, some might mind a lot about clipping issues in their animations (you see people bashing about games where parts of the shoulders/arms clip into the body). If we make things clip from the baseline, things would be awkward in both aesthetics and gameplay level (think lower scaling to the extreme and hitboxes aren't relatable to the size of the M.A.S.S. unit). Some animations would be weird and clip into each other hard and it is something we would like to avoid at all costs.

Floofy Poofy:
Can we pick how a Weapon Functions... within reason? For example, I want to make a Halberd but when I do the game says its a Mace... But Clearly its not. Stuff like that?

We have to deny this one as well. While in the current version, this seems to be doable, it is something that would certainly impact the creation of future weapons, an example being the flail or whip archetype that comes to mind immediately. Those particular functions require a specific model functionality to be able to work without glitches (gameplay and aesthetically) to stretch and/or shrink. We aren't able to make one model that fits all of those things and we don't want to come back to every piece of model and make it work when we wanted to create something new or different. We will try to make more variations fo each functionality though, but that would only come after more and more functionalities are created to fulfill the creation dreams of our players.

Dice2k:
Will you try to make parts that would make M.A.S.S jets simple transformations?

Kickersboy07:
i wother will there be a feature where your mech can transform into a vehicle like a spaceship or a car. If so, how much can you customize. If not, are there going to be any plans for something similar.

TK:
First, it seems impossible, but I'd like to have a variable frame. I think it would be more fun if we could unify it with a simple deformation structure like WING Gundam and attach parts to it to make our own variable gas.

Anonymous - Will there be transformable skeletons in the future?

We'll answer these three questions together first by quoting last year's:

"No, transforming frames are out of the question. It messes too much with the system if we’re making a frame that can transform between two forms. Weapons that can move around a bit are a possibility. Since you know we have motioned weapon parts already, so if we do have time we might expand further on those ideas towards melee or towards other kind of shooters, but no, armor parts will never get motion tag."

For further explanation, transforming frames have too many complications. Let's talk about simple ones first, such as hatches opening and closing upon using thrusters. Seems simple enough, but what would happen when players start and stop boosing immediately, repetitively? How to make those kind of things smooth, how to make thruster effects or any kind of transformations happen without looking awkward? Those things should be as foolproof to what they're designed to do as possible.

Looking further to full body transformation, how to set each form comes to mind, which part moves where, how to make them not clip into each other as much as possible, what is the trigger, a button? Automatic transformation? What benefits must it have to the player? Is one form better than the other in gameplay terms? There is too much to handle when the baseline is as free to customize with as our game, unlike others that have certain specific parts already designed as a pack for transformation.

Varien:
Is it possible to get different hanger poses to make it easier to build such as a A or T pose?

It is not possible. There are certain systems attached to the current pose (such as holding up the arm, zooming into the hands) such that adding more poses would have us reworking a good part of the customization system. You've already tasted how long it takes us reworking the game through the creation of multiplayer, we don't want to work with no ends in sight for another year with zero updates aside from WIP previews.

lord of spoon:
will we see light pulsing or color changing in the paint menus

No, effects and active light changing as well as gradient coloring requires much more from a player's graphics card and we don't want to further this burden into the extremes. We created M.A.S.S. Builder and tested the game with PCs as old as a decade ago and we still aim to have those PCs able to play the game, albeit almost impossible in the current iteration.

Krakenumbreon:
Will you guys be adding the option for different walking and running animations?

DynamicCity:
Any plan to implement different way our M.A.S.S. frame moves on ground? For example: Hovering on the ground (like Dom in mobile suit gundam series)

To the first question, there is only one movement in the game that's not boosting, but if you meant different types of movements then that's another story. Different movement animations such as hover movement, low angle running, etc. Stuffs like this will be further investigated after 1.0 is released. We will not outright deny it but it is something we will not look into at all before version 1.0 is done and we're out of Early Access.

Faze Walker:
If fans asked of more custom parts like to make the charecters look more anime part human like charecters would you add such parts?and hope this is alright but i would also like to ask if we can see more customizable look for the little helpers/drones we have like making them look like tiny version robots and such just for looks tho

We do think there are a lot of parts that can make your M.A.S.S. unit humanoid already, especially looking at some players' creations. We've added a lot in 0.7.0 that can satisfy these creations and if the need arise we'll work on more of them. For the energy launchers, we will also say they are extremely customizable that there are people making them look like dragon whelps, books, tiny robots and the likes already and we urge you to try and use the accessories system to make one!

Andrew:
Will there be added functionality to the Build engine such as warping, increased sizes? and hopefully many more parts?

Baseline armor parts and frames cannot be further scaled up or down already and this should be the final version of what you'll see in release as well. For more parts, these are something we wanted to do. We, at one point, even talked to each other that we should just rush every mission and core features to completion so that we may revise everything related to it and use all the time that we can outsource things (VA, more music, etc.) to create as much variation on armors, weapons, accessories, decals, etc. as possible in that timeframe.

Shield Liger:
I understand there are parts to create the ultimate m.a.s.s unit, but are there any plans for custom sound effects? For example, movement, sword attacks, thruster sound effects, and missiles? Salutes to the Vermillion Digital Team!

No, customization of sound effects is a box we don't want to open. Reasons are that sound effects is not just one single piece of sound bite for one single thing. It is a whole composition of various parts played in sequence to create something. In example, swinging a sword and hitting a Quark. There is a start of the swing, the swing itself might have 3 different sounds being played, the impact again has alot of sounds bites together.

Allowing the customization of every sound effects in the game would be overwhelming to both us the creator, having our sound person make at least 10 combinations of everything, multiplying their workload, as well as having players look at a list of every sound piece available, and then our programming team create a whole new system to do it, and having each unit's savefile size multiplied by a lot more is not something feasible to the project in every aspect.

AlbinoNemo:
Is there an estimate of when you plan to introduce frame-related changes? (For example, removable skirt armour or changing hand types)

Dante:
Will we get an option to get rid of side skirt frame for our MASS units

Invidia:
Could you add an options for invisible or removable weapon/frame part ? It could be annoying having to work around the the base weapon/frame part when creating our own design using accessories. Especially the skirt hardpoints, please let us remove those from the frame.

Eillis:
If/When can we expect the removal of waist pads on skeleton? They get in the way of creative design more often than not.

Anonymous:
Could we hide some skeleton that we don’t need,such as skirt and the feet?

To quote last year's:

...Things like hiding the skirt part sure, changing hands and fingers, and something else are all in there. However, the physique of the whole frame will not changes, as there will be a lot of complications that can happen. It will be a mess to changes the whole aesthetics of the frame itself, and even if you think making the frame smaller and bigger in some parts to represent muscular frame or feminine frame will not be troublesome, let me tell you that it is not easy at all...

On the question of when, we are still unable to even take a look at it so for now, I will say either at version 1.0 release or after that, before we start working on the Rex and Spider frame.

WaffleDefender:
What are the kind of mecha frames would you love to have despite not wanting it in the game?

This is a confusing question because we would like what we love to have to be added into the game so we'll answer it with the mech frames we liked but unable to be added into the game with our systems then. Frames like Wanzers are one, true mecha-musume is another, beast and draconic mechas, and SD is the final frame type we wanted to add but they have too much complications attached to them. We love to have them, but we don't want to have them in the game because of the hassle surrounding the creation of them.

Badzombies2003 - Have you ever thought about making non-humanoid M.A.S.S Units (like quadrupeds or more standard vehicles like tanks or planes)?

Gildedghoul:
Will there be an option in the future to make beast-style mechs?

Anonymous:
Consider non-humanoid mecha

Anonymous:
Whether to consider adding non-humanoid structure skeleton and expand the placement scope of accessories?

Reza Nox:
Will we see any customization with a different layout, like multiple legs or reverse joint legs?

Pazuzu wolfgang:
Well you be adding Spider legs, tank legs, Hover legs, and others to the game?

Farenhite:
Any chance of adding tank and hover leg types in a future update?

Cody Furlong:
When will we be getting Reverse Jointed, Digi-Grade, or Quad type mecha?

Lamp:
Is there any plans for new frames to build around like quadruped?

Phoenix257:
Are there plans for adding any new base skeletons such as quadripedal or reverse-joint?

Internicion:
Do you plan to add other frames such as one with multiple legs or digitigrade legs in M.A.S.S builder?

T.K. @ Oasis:
When, if ever, will the new base frames (Rex and Spider) seen in the M.A.S.S. Builder Kickstarter project page be available?

Shun The Witch:
I havent seen any talk about the other mass frame types like the multi legged one that afaik was on the kickstarter. Does anyone know anything?

Yes, there is the Rex (Reverse legs) and Spider (Quad legs or more) frames are promised as a stretch goal for our Kickstarter campaign and is in the plans. For the question when, we will start working on it after the game fully release out of Early Access into version 1.0 which would be extremely far away.

For non-humanoids like beasts, however, we cannot make them since our game uses M.A.S.S. units arms and hands to hold weapons with firing points and every other things attached to these places. Beasty, non-humanoids, gun-arms units cannot work with the system our game uses.

The Eldritch Mire:
I know you have announced Rex and Spider frames for post release of the game. So is there a probably we will eventually get a Centaur frame?

Honestly before we kickstarted our game, we were discussing whether we would have a spider frame or a centaur frame. We ended up choosing the Spider frame for that kind of aesthetics (and ease of work). We might look back after we completed after these two to what we wanted to create next but there's no plan at all after these two for now.

Oz:
Will you make alternative frames and/or non anime mecha style pieces. I'd really like to build 40k style titans and knights.

While we wanted to do mechwarriors and dreadnought type of mechs, it fully conflicts with how our game's weapons function and would not be feasible to just create a whole new system for them so I would have to fully deny any kind of mechs that have gun-arms.

Anonymous:
Can the attack position of the Beam launcher be changed or increased? I want to restore the GUYVER

No, changing its position will change things related to aiming the beam, the gameplay impact it has, and a lot of other things. Any customizations to an existing mechanic of a weapon cannot be done for just one thing since every other things will now want to be able to customized as well.

Anonymous:
Want the missile launcher appearance Settings to move to the armor screen, and show the MASS, it’s cumbersome to switch back and forth during appearance modification

As Bullet Launcher is a weapon and uses a different kind of system for their customization, it cannot be moved into the same menu as armors. There will also be a problem of having too many things in one page and the UI will be too cluttered to look good as well as making UX extremely confusing to have certain weapons be in the armor menu instead of all weapons in the weapons menu.

Anonymous:
Can you add a function that allows manual input of RGB values on the painting

No, let us quote last year's answer:

"...What do our players want. Do they want the color that’s associated with hex codes or RGB to display correctly in-game? Or do they don’t care about the displayed color but just the right color codes? These are two very different things, because even with the right numbers, with shaders and lightings and everything else, the displayed color, I can say it here right now, will not come out as expected.

The second important problem, the input problem, If you notice, every system in the game aside from name input itself, does not have anything that allows player to input anything in numbers. This is because we have been thinking about players with controllers in every form since the first day of the game and having those people constantly put down their controller to input things on their keyboard felt very annoying to us, so until we’re able to solve that problem, numbers input and color picker like you’ve seen in photo editing software are out of the question."

With that said, certain number of people have displayed unsatisfaction with this answer so let us explain further. The argument towards our stance comes from other games, including consoles, used on-screen keyboards to allow players to input text or numbers into certain fields. We, personally, don't think they belong in M.A.S.S. Builder at all since it is something much more difficult to navigate with controllers and looks extremely unpleasing, It is tedious and annoying to have OSK pop up to cover half the screen so one can input texts or numbers slowly. Applying OSK anywhere more than the naming screen would mean we will need to apply it everywhere in the game, in any system that wants it. People would demand us to put it on the tuning and development page to search for nodes which would result in more demands to allow filters and advanced search. People would demand it on the armor and weapons page to search for parts with certain names. The list goes on and the snowball does not stop rolling. We will say it right here that it is not feasible at all to add OSK into the game for any of these functions, certainly RGB values or HEX codes input and we will stand by our stance.

Anonymous:
Could you add a feature that allows the weapon to be fired from other parts of the body, so as to achieve the same effect as the Gundam midhead Vulcan gun

We cannot, weapons' firing starting point is pre-determined so as it works flawlessly with other aspects of the game. Customizing firing points to the head or anywhere else might cause certain weapons to be unable to hit enemies effectively and players will start telling us it is a bug as it bricks the weapon and they wanted to fire from these certain places. We don't want this problem to happen so the only thing to do is not allowing players to customize them in the first place.

Anonymous: Can the dual hold of a weapon be changed into two weapons of different shapes, such as melee weapon 1 and melee weapon 2 to form a dual hold combination? If SO, CAN YOU do the same with a shotgun in the left hand and a beam gun in the right hand?

Holding different weapons in dual wielding is not something that is available, reasons are, there's too much work to do in both gameplay and aesthetics department. With how M.A.S.S. Builder weapon functions, there are a lot of weapon types, each with different animations available. Mixing them in dual wielding is multiplying this work to infinity.

There will also be a demand to change our core gameplay and keybinds for "left hand attack" and "right hand attack" to mix things up and to create more depth in combat instead of the "attack" and "heavy" attack we currently have, which is basically changing the whole game in itself.

Anonymous:
Can I set a custom weapon type? Like a machine gun or artillery on a melee weapon, or a missile on a shield or something like that. For example, a dual weapon can transform into a heavy weapon. Armor can also be equipped with weapon functions

Transformable and functionally different weapons are a no go. We wanted to keep each weapon weapon as basic as it is so players can freely use any weapons of any looks to their desire and not having to worry about setting a weapon's or armor's usage functions. Remember, aesthetics must be separated from gameplay for as much as possible.

Anonymous:
Can you add cylindrical (similar to Zagu in Gunda), pointed claw (similar to the original Gaogaigar in Gaogaigar) fingers, and can you scale the size of the palm?

Hands and fingers improvement is something we promised to work on, but it's in the same scope as skirt removal. Not a thing we will do soon but certainly something we'll work on in the far future of the game.

Anonymous:
Can the camouflage effect and stickers in the armor color scheme coexist with the glow? Can camouflage colors and stickers not be covered by the glow effect?

No, patterns are on a layer that's lower than glows. If something covers the glow, the system won't be able to glow to its desire effect at all.

Anonymous:
Can you add weapons that are smaller than the real weapons available today and can you add more gun positions to it

Smaller weapons will be added into the game when we have the time to work on it, which we don't have a lot currently, seeing as we're months late into the 0.9.0 update now. We'll try to set a better schedule and expectations so that we can deliver more contents next time.

Anonymous:
Give us some pickling effect painting

Pickling effects pertain into the realm of transparency (coating on top to create certain effects) and we are unable to do transparency in M.A.S.S. Builder. If you want to know why we cannot do transparency, the answers lie in our last AMA.

Anonymous:
Can you give us more details about the simple weapon parts you're working on? How small can it be? Is it just guns or is it all weapons? Does it include shields and launchers?

Sure! The simple weapon parts are mostly an extremely stripped down to polygons version of existing weapons. They have the same size as the current weapons you have so the M.A.S.S. unit holds it in the same way, but without details added. Think of it as the smallest weapon available currently but stripped of all excess decorations so you have a blank template to work on. For now, the only ones finished are shooters but we do plan to have simple parts for melee weapons and shields as well.

Sep 10, 2022

3rd Anniversary AMA part 1

M.A.S.S. Builder - V-DGT

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][/quote]
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 bosses
There 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