Jan 4, 2022

350 000 Riftbreakers and.... the plans for 2022

The Riftbreaker - Pacanus

The Riftbreaker has passed 350 000 copies sold across all platforms and well beyond half a million Riftbreakers have visited Galatea 37 when adding Game Pass users. Thank you to everyone who supported us along the way! We're thrilled about what's coming in 2022 :)

We've delivered more than 15 updates in 2021 and we're not planning to slow down in 2022. We are already back at work and preparing the next set of updates. In the short term, we're working on balancing improvements for cultivators, improved mouse input latency (especially under low FPS), various quality of life improvements, performance optimizations, and fixes for the bugs that are being reported. We are also planning to work further on improving the modding tools that we've released recently. We are aiming to release the next update with these and other changes near the end of this month.

The next milestone update dubbed "World Expansion I" is going to arrive around the end of March or sometime later in April. We're still designing the new content and mechanics for this update, so there's no fixed release date for it yet. It's going to include a completely new biome, a lot of new content including new creature species, weapons, skills, upgrades, and more. The new biome, all of the new game mechanics, and items are going to be available for free to enjoy in Survival mode and for use in modding. The story-driven campaign expansion is going to be a paid DLC. We're going to share more information about it as we move forward with development.

The last but one of the most important new additions that we're working on is of course - online multiplayer. This is an ongoing task that is being worked on in parallel to all of the other updates. Behind the scenes, we are slowly reworking large parts of code to make surviving on Galatea 37 together with your friends possible. Some of these changes include large optimizations to how we handle data and game logic. This requires big parts of the game's code to be redesigned and rewritten. We don't have a precise estimate for when this task will be completed, but we're aiming for the end of 2022, with early beta tests coming sometime sooner.

Once again thank you for all your support and for sticking with us on this journey!

Jan 4, 2022

2022 Roadmap for Warsim

Warsim: The Realm of Aslona - Troy - Warsim!

Happy New Year everyone!

So I'm going to try my best but I've been super busy with life recently, I need to get back into the swing of things and want to be pumping out Warsim updates again as usual!

We've also had 1000s of new players pick up Warsim so far over the holidays so thank you so much everyone, I hope you're all enjoying the game and thank you all so much for continuing to allow this game to exist.

So I've been asked a few times about a roadmap for Warsim and I totally understand why people want one. It's awesome being able to look and see what's planned for a games future.

The reason I haven't put an official one out previously is that Warsim's dev cycle has always been quite chaotic and free-flowing, arguably the main reason the game is what it is today... and has been in early access for so long.

I have written a 2022 roadmap with my ambitions for the year and I'm going to genuinely try to hit these targets, but this may be subject to change as things pop up.

Without further ado.

ROADMAP

SMALLER THINGS

* Smaller Updates
* Permadeth Mode (A fan suggestion from a while back, save deleted as soon as you die)
* Beangort Update (A secret update adding a new goblin character)

BIGGER PROJECTS

* Multi Attack System (This is something I was working on a little while back and got pulled from. I want the player to be able to launch multiple attacks per year. Many fundemental things must change for this to happen though so It's been quite the workload)
* Battle Commanders (Those armies you send out need to be commanded by someone, and so do the enemies..)
* Automated Combat (Don't want to deal with the War part of Warsim? Have your general take control)
* Dunelands (The last region of the game unfinished, I have a huge plan for this and hope to unveil the update soon after the combat stuff is done)
* Adventurers Overhaul (Adventurers were never finished and will be given a fresh coat of paint and a bunch of new features)
* Goblin Clans Overhaul (The minor goblin clans suck and are the last of the old school warsim factions not to be updated with the times, I plan to change that)

OTHER STUFF

* Warsim Trailer Project (Our god awful trailer is going to be a thing of the past, I have the new trailers audio all recorded and have the storyboard done, I just need to get the videos filmed and edited)
* Warsim Demo Project (I'm likely going to create a demo version of Warsim, I've just yet to figure out how it's going to work, and what's going to be blocked to make it a 'demo')

POST-RELEASE

I aim to release Warsim when all the above are complete, but that does not mean I will stop working on Warsim, quite the contrary... That will be when I start having a lot more fun with it. I'd love to spend a lot of time working through my 1000+ piece list of fan suggestions and my own ideas that currently aren't in the game but that could be added.

That has always been Warsim's bread and butter, and years and years of these constant suggestions being acted on has resulted in so many features and weird quirks and I'd love to make Warsim even more dense with them.

That's pretty much it so far but I'm happy to answer any questions

Cheers

Huw

EDIT: Oh and I nearly forgot, anyone who's not on our subreddit has missed this gem of a post by u/Tribune_Bunduk

Whatever happens in 2022 I hope it includes seeing more of u/Tribune_Bunduk's incredible Warsim fan art and comics!

Jan 4, 2022

Developers answer official Discord suggestions!

Survarium - joewillburn

Developers discussed with the team the suggestions from our Discord (this time from the Russian channel) and answered some of them. They couldn't answer all because there were a lot, but we left them for the next time. For your convenience, we translated the suggestions and their answers to English.

1. Rework damage to legs. I don't know how you imagine it, but damage to legs is higher than it is to the body - this is strange. Upd. The damage is equal, but leg armor is significantly worse.

Damage to body and legs above the knees is 100%, and the armor of vests and pants is equal, so the damage to body and to legs is identical. But legs are harder to hit, and no one is aiming for the legs.
Boots armor is indeed lower than pants armor, but damage below the knees is only 60%. So we don't see why we'd change something?

2. Remove delay before a medicine you toss spawns in the world. By removing this delay you could offer emergency help to wounded allies.

Yes, this makes sense. We will remove the delay completely or will make it significantly lower.

3. Improve Colt 1911. For its tier the gun is totally worthless, but it would be nice to have a rival for the Python.

It can't rival "Python" simply because Colt 1911's .45 ACP cartridge has lower power than Colt Python's .357 Magnum. Obviously, the game shouldn't be totally realistic, but in-game stats are still based on real world parameters on the weapons. However, we will think about buffing Colt 1911.

4. Let the bullets shoot from gun barrels instead of from the player's camera which is in the character's head. This will allow showing a difference between short and long barrel weapons, and also will make the gameplay more reasonable since it won't be possible to shoot from cover by having only part of the character's head exposed.

Yes, this is unrealistic and dumb, but this is one of the game gimmicks every first person shooter has to deal with. If bullets were to be traced from the weapon and not the camera, for the majority of time you would hit an object before your character, be it a box, a staircase, a fence or anything else. As a result, you won't be able to use cover without the risk of shooting it instead of your opponents. And hitting an object you were not going to hit is not fun at all.

5. Make a 1 day Premium voucher a reward for completing all daily missions instead of automatically adding 24 hours of premium to the account. Not everyone wants to continue playing, and a voucher would be useful for the events, for instance.

Will do.

6. Make it so the bots don't see through smoke and won't shoot when you don't see them.

The bots already "see" worse in the smoke. It works for situations when a bot or its target is in smoke and when there's smoke on the line of sight between a bot and its target. But we will make it so the bots "see" even worse in situations like the aforementioned.

7. Make respawn protection for both sides, not only for the enemies, but also for the allies (greying out their screen) when they stay at the respawn for 20-30 seconds or longer. This will prevent snipers from shooting across half the map while sitting at the base. The maps where it should be implemented: Cologne Bridge, Tarakanovsky Fort, Vector Laboratory in Slaughter mode, Rudnya.

We will think about implementing something that will make campers' lives harder without affecting the rest of the players.

8. Introduce unique faction skills. There are four factions in the game which differ only in equipment. Why won't you add several skills (not in every skill tree, but 2-3 skills in total for all five trees) tied to specific factions (and their tiers). If the player leaves the faction, these skills don't work.

2 or 3 skills for each faction? So 8 or 12 skills in total, 6 or 9 of which would be always inaccessible to the player. This is already a huge minus when players change a faction. So in this case they either have to reset skill points or deal with essentially having fewer skill points until they are back into the faction with the skills learned. And if some players stay in one faction all the time, nothing changes for them except the fact that some abilities are always unavailable. Another option is to have skills which change according to the player's faction. But it brings up the question: How do you explain that to the player? Seems too complicated.

And the main question is – why? Why would you force a player to join a specific faction just to have a skill available? Many players like to level up all factions, and restricting skills will make the process less fun.

9. Add an option to disable the killcam in training matches (to have matches like in SCL).

Yes, it's possible. Will do.

10. Remove Parkinson's disease from in-game avatars. This is a change in game physics happening not always, but often. When shooting an enemy up close its character begins twitching like it's under 10 thousand volts and dancing on a broken glass. Remove this effect and turn everything back. We noticed that in situations like this hits are not registering and thus the character isn't receiving damage. It's like half the damage is gone.

This is how crosshair twitching (due to receiving damage) looks from the "outside". We will try to remove the effect or make it less visible, so it looks ok and hits are registered correctly.

11. Participate in an interview or a podcast. The thing is, in recent years the development goes in a way that only the developers understand. For the community this is all a dark forest.

We reply to your suggestions every month, and the community managers always talk to the players. It's unlikely we will be able to tell more in a podcast.

12.Introduce silencers for light machine guns, you deafen yourself and the whole team when shooting, this is unplayable.

In reality a suppressor for an LMG is a pretty rare and expensive thing. Due to the high rate of fire and cartridge energy it's very hard to create a device that would reduce sound waves without overheating in seconds. Why would something like that be readily available in a world of Survarium?

Obviously, the game has a lot of conventions, so a working LMG suppressor is not a problem. However, in-game LMGs are already overpowered compared to their real life counterparts: you can walk (and even sprint) with them, shoot from the hip, you don't need a partner to reload the gun. If we add LMG suppressors, what's the point in assault rifles?

Anyway, we will think about adding suppressors to LMGs. But if we do add them, they will have some serious drawbacks, like significantly reducing the rate of fire, for instance.

13. Sacrifice sound realism and make the gameplay more fun. Basically, reduce gunfire sound volume (I mean without silencers) so one could increase overall volume and hear footsteps without hurting one's ears when shooting a gun.

Nobody forces you to increase volume to the point where your ears hurt and hearing is at risk. However, taking the previous question into consideration, we will think about decreasing gunfire loudness.

14. Make ranking matches available only to the players with, say, 2500 Elo instead of requiring them to have tier 3-5 equipment. So the ranking matches are only played by the people who know the maps, understand tactics in specific game modes, instead of "half-bots" who only have one tier item.

On one hand, we agree that this will indeed make ranked matches more fun. On the other hand, what are people with lower Elo supposed to do? Do you suggest making a part of the game unavailable to them simply because they don't play that well or don't have enough time to farm ranking?

Restriction by the equipment tier is manageable, and every player has a basic understanding of how much more time is required before reaching tier 3 and unlocking ranked matches. It is much harder with Elo. Regardless of the requirement we set, even good players won't be able to estimate how many more general matches they have to play to reach the required Elo. Besides, luck is still a factor, so imagine a player's frustration upon reaching, say 2490 Elo out of 2500 and then losing the next few matches?

Finally, due to this requirement people would play general matches the same way: not for fun, but for the result and increasing their Elo. This will increase toxicity and filter out weaker players who would see general PvP as a version of ranked matches. And this is exactly what we want to avoid. Ranked matches should be competitive, and general PvP should be played for fun.

15. Add cosmetic items for previous game events to the shop for gold (hats, masks, decals, camos).

We think this is not fair to the people who spent their time and effort to get their items during corresponding events. Besides, if we were to do that, you would blame VG for letting those items be bought, wouldn't you?

On the other hand, due to your requests we added event items to the Holiday treasure hunt, and the majority of the players were fine with that. So it's possible we will add those items to the shop in the future. However, likely not all of them, but only those that were available 2 or more years ago. What do you think?

16. Make "hold breath" for sniper and marksman rifles significantly shorter (the more the weapon's weight, the shorter the time). Also, if the character is standing then the time is shorter than if he's crouching. But even crouching the time should be shorter than right now. This will make campers' lives hard and make light weapons better.

This makes sense. We will think about the best way to do that. However, is it possible that the root of the issue is with "Iron lungs" skill that allows you to hold breath significantly longer?