Feb 19, 2020

Our Lead Game Designer Answered Your Questions (Q&A)

Survarium - joewillburn

Today we are bringing you a new Q&A with our lead game designer, Vadim. We regularly collect your questions and discuss them with the team. So, if you would like to make suggestions, ask questions or leave a comment, you're more than welcome! Enjoy!

Q&A

1. If the weapon that a certain module was linked to is sold (one must uninstall all modules to be able to sell the weapon), maybe the module should no longer be linked to that weapon? This would be useful in the many cases where a player wins the event version of a weapon that he (most likely) already had and wants to transfer the modules but has to pay gold to do so because the system doesn't recognize that it's the same weapon.

A. Thanks for mentioning this. We are considering an optimal solution to this situation. And it should be introduced with one of the forthcoming updates.

2. When selling a weapon that has added modifiers, its price in Silver should either increase over a stock weapon or give back some of the spare parts that were used to upgrade it, just like the player receives some of the spent Silver back upon selling it.

A. At the moment the price depends on the number of weapon modifiers that have been upgraded.

3. The ELO should be displayed in the game, so that players know who they take on board. I often help people who want to complete squad daily quest but as a result they end up playing 800 ELO vs 5000 ELO and “feeding” and I end up feeling bad because ultimately that was my choice to help them.

A. We will consider displaying ELO alongside the player's profile and statistics.

Either this or the game shouldn't allow players to squad up with ELO difference bigger than 1000. A low-skill player who gets his ass wrecked will uninstall the game either way. What’s the point of finding a match faster if they won't enjoy it?

A. Thanks for the suggestion. We'll definitely consider this idea.

4. Game should have automatic radio commands to inform that a certain objective is being attacked by the enemy. GUI informs of this with a blinking Unit icon, but if the player is focused on something else, he might not realize this immediately if he's not inside the Unit capture zone.

A. Maybe. My concern is that extra voice commands could potentially be distracting to players. This will need some more consideration.

5. Due to a low player-base, matchmaking puts very high ELO or veteran players against newbies and this evolves into talks in general chat about how the game is infested with cheats, even though the administration continuously states that most of the time there are no cheats for the game. What could be done to prevent the global chat filling with 2000 ELO players spamming "everyone is cheating, developers do nothing, uninstalled"? For these low ELO guys everyone above 4000 ELO very well might be cheating, there is no difference to them, since they are severely out-skilled. Maybe players below 2500 ELO (or any other number that you think is right) should get their own matchmaking and no one in their lobbies should *ever* be higher than 2500 ELO?

A. We already have ELO groups which we try to matchmake as best as possible. If we come up with separate groups, for the players with 2500+ ELO it would take considerably longer to MM, compared to regular players.

6. Would an Infection mode fit inside the Survarium lore? One or several players start as someone who's infected and with no weapons. They have to infect everyone else by using melee, but they have more HP than a normal player. Match would end if they infect everyone or if the players kill the infected ones. Normal players would have to work as a team.

A. We could give this a try. First, however, I’d like to check how interesting such a mode would be for most of the players.

7. Guns Race seems to be an interesting mode, but has only been used twice in the 2 years since we saw it for the first time. Why not make it part of normal mode rotation?

A. I’d definitely want to deliver 1-2 more locations suited specifically for this mode and only then add it to the standard rotation with other play modes.

8. In other games that have Team Deathmatch mode, AFK players get moved to Spectator mode or don't respawn at all so they don't get farmed by active players. Could the same be done in Survarium to avoid this because of players who can easily roam the enemy base?
One guy goes AFK and when he comes back, his score is 0-15 because automatic re-spawning is enabled by default in this mode.

A. Good thought, we’ve been thinking in a similar direction.

9. Would be nice to have the option "Send a Message" in the end-match results screen, as it's not there currently and the only way to do it would be to add the player to your friends list first.

A. This is possibly a good idea to implement. We'll discuss it internally.

10. Shouldn't an opponent that was just killed appear on the mini-map as a red X or something? Useful situations for this would be seeing someone who hides away, another teammate kills him but you don't know if the enemy is still there or alive.

A. That’s a good one, we’ll definitely consider it.

11. People keep asking for female characters and moderators tell them that it's complicated because all armors would have to be redesigned. It would also mean new animations, new voices, new faces, new weapon stances, smaller hit boxes but some suggest that it could be done by just changing the faces and keeping the same armors and animations. What do you think of this small change? Would it work or would it be seen as a lame attempt at female characters by the community?

A. Currently there are higher-priority tasks. But when we get to adding female characters, one of the first implementations would be the change of faces and voices to female ones.

12. Do you have any plans to add dynamic grass/bushes? That is, grass/bushes that would move away if a player is standing inside. This is particularly a problem that induces spawn-camping on Vector Laboratory, where the walls close to the base are full of bushes that can hide a player entirely. Is this intended or is it a side-effect of trying to make the map prettier?
If its implementation is difficult, maybe an easier solution would be to lower the height of said bushes so they don't hide the players fully even if crouched?

A. This doesn’t seem a too complex thing to implement. I'll speak to the programmers about a possible implementation.

13. Many returning players ask about the Terminator skill, which allowed to carry two primary weapons, but was removed 2 years ago because it was deemed too powerful, making you too versatile. Maybe you could consider bringing it back, but adjusted? For example, not being able to sprint when carrying two primary weapons. Or having to choose between "Berserker" skill and this one, not being able to get both.

A. We’ll return that skill as soon as we figure out how to balance it properly. Right now it is am unfair skill.

14. Doesn't make sense to have a 2:00 minutes resupply cool-down on the ammo box in the shooting ground when testing weapons. Can you remove this cool-down?

A. Yes, agreed. This will be removed.

15. Please consider changing "Vector Laboratory" Slaughter version map name to "Smoke Laboratory"

A. LOL, good joke, but I have to say ‘No’ :)

16. Could you remove the part of the handrails marked in black to be able to make this kind of jump? https://i.imgur.com/hwHVZr1.png

A. Yes, we can and we will.

17. Before the jump animation updated it was quite easy to do this jump on Chemical Plant https://i.imgur.com/ya225y1.png from the bridge to the balcony even with the slow Zubr set. PVE mission, for example, had a cache spot that needed a calculated jump and that one wasn't possible after the jump animation update either, but a quick patch was released to fix that spot in particular. Could you make adjustments to this spot too?

A. Sorry about this. We'll try to fix that situation.

18. What was the logic behind balancing weapons like As Val or SR-3M that has 39 damage, 21 penetration and 800 ROF and an integrated silencer if compared to a 9A-91 with the same 39 damage, the same 21 penetration, but just 700 ROF and no integrated silencer? Both guns are in the same class, same tier, equally accurate and have the same stats otherwise, just the DPS is lower.

A. Indeed. We'll fix this error with one of the forthcoming updates.

19. Will we ever get extended magazine modules for the H&K MP7?

We'll consider this when adding new modules into the game. Thanks!

20. There seem to be some camouflages that you cannot get anymore, not even by completing achievements. Veteran players do have them, so could you add them to be buy-able with Silver at least?

A. We will need to outline what specific camouflages and we’ll think about how those could be added.

21. Please add the possibility to sell or destroy T5 premium gear. They take up space in the inventory and some of us have a lot of them because we grind Team Missions or win them in Treasure Hunt.

A. Currently you can sell any duplicate of premium weapons or gear.

22. In CS:GO players also have tags on their heads, but they disappear if they're far away from you, like on the other side of the map, to not cluster the screen. Do you think something like that could be implemented in Survarium too?

A. We'll try to add such mechanic with one of the forthcoming updates.

23. Pump-action shotguns have a much lower effective range than semi-auto shotguns. Example: Remington 870 - 15m, VEPR-12 - 28m. Install a silencer on VEPR-12 (which is not possible on pump-action shotguns) and it will still have higher effective range! Maybe effective range of pump-action shotguns could be increased a bit?

A. Pump-action shotguns will be improved with the next balancing update. Possibly we'll increase the effective distance as well.

24. Can semi-auto pistols get a buff in damage to be able to kill with 4-5 shots in exchange of very big spread or very short range? Right now, the best option is Glock with its auto mod, which overshadows even some of the main weapons of the game. Instead of nerfing it, maybe you should buff other pistols?

A. We'll consider this for an upcoming balancing patches.

25. Training with bots is done locally. There should be a possibility to play it with squad mates, maybe by making it non-local or implementing something completely different? There is a desire to play with squad mates to quickly test stuff, experiment with the damage system and more.

A. We'll consider it. Maybe implement is as part of the ‘clan wars’ task.

26. Implement a [press this key to continue] in the loading screen. A lot of games have this and it would help in reading the loading screen tips on computers that load the match very fast.

A. Not a bad idea. We'll look into its implementation.

27. Stat range should be displayed on each attachment. If I don't have tons of the same attachment, I need to guess the best values, I don't know if I have a good, a bad or an average roll on the attachment. Would be very nice if this is easier to see, like how mods in the workshop display min-max range.

A. This would lead to too many numbers in the interface. We need to think up how to display the min/max without distracting from current numbers. Currently you can see the improvements range when upgrading the module.

28. People would like to have a map voting system before match starts. No, this doesn't mean to be able to select what map do I want to look the match for. This has in mind that the match has already been found and confirmed, but the players are given the option to choose the map they'll play before it loads in.

A. I like the idea. We’d need to evaluate the complexity and discuss the implementation first.

29. If you have improved an attachment to max quality, but decide to use another attachment on that slot, the former attachment is kind of useless. We should be able to use it to improve other attachments with an increased chance.

A. A possible implementation could be that the max-quality modules could be used to improve other modules.

30. Melee attack should remove stamina just like jumps do, and the recovery of it should start immediately after the actions. You get 100% recovery on a kill if you have the “Second Wind” skill learned... That may stop spamming Melee running like crazy a bit.

A. This sounds interesting. I would lower the ‘Second Wind’ skill parameter to 50% though.

31. Flash suppressors don't actually hide the muzzle flash from the players point of view. Can we get a fix so silencers are not the only way to see what you're shooting at?

A. We'll research this point, thanks for bringing it up.

32. Are there plans for a spectator feature so we can watch our friends play or watch other high lvl players play in the game client? I wish I could watch my friends play even if it’s with 1-2 minutes delay when waiting for them rather than do nothing. Also, if something like this would be implemented people could learn from high lvl players by watching them live.

A. This feature needs technical research. Will discuss with the programmers what could be done.

33. How about Clan Daily missions? This could attract more players to clans and also give more things to do as a clan. Those missions could be made in such way that every member can contribute, example: Kill 150 enemies in a single day. They would give more prize but the whole clan would have to contribute. 150-500-1000, developers would have to decide what is enough for 10-20 members of a clan.

A. Good idea. We'll try implementing alongside the improvements related to the clans system.

34. It would be cool if a module would get un-linked from the weapon if you upgrade the module to a better rarity level. Or if Premium modules were cheaper to un-ink. Or if highest rarity or Premium modules had 1 free install that wouldn't link them to a weapon.

A. Thanks for the idea. We’ll consider the possibility of implementing.

35. Any kind of module in the game, no matter what’s its type or rarity can be sold for 500 Silver. Can you make their price increase with rarity?

A. Thanks for the idea, we’ll consider the pros and cons of this approach.

END

Thanks for your support!