Aug 31, 2023

Community Announcements - [CM] Sally

Greetings, this is the Dev Team.

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who participated in the Sneak Peek Test. We’ve taken the time to read through all the feedback, expressing concerns and sharing valuable opinions. We would like to share our insight on the feedback for this Final Test.

1. Survival Mode

Currently, we do not have plans to test out the Survival Mode during the Final Test.

The dev team has been working on the Survival mode (Battle Royale) for a long time. We aimed to explore the potential of close-quarters action battle royale but faced numerous challenges.

Due to the trait being a real-time close-quarters action PVP, the essential factor for us to proceed with the official launch was having a smooth matchmaking experience with a significant number of players.

However, we’ve observed through multiple previous tests that there is a growing gap between players who quickly adapted and those who were new to the game.

The challenge for the dev team arose from the situation where new players found it difficult to settle into the game, which in turn led to difficulties in matchmaking, thus creating a vicious cycle where level-based matchmaking became impractical.

We developed and introduced AI Bot to address the issue of matchmaking and the shortage of players, but this resulted in giving players the fun of PVE yet deviated from the essence of PVP.

We knew Battle Royales requires a significantly sized player base for matchmaking, but we aimed to focus more on delivering the enjoyment of real-time close-quarters action PVP of HypeSquad.

As a result, we developed other modes (besides Survival mode) which could run better with fewer players. We aim to test whether these new modes will allow new players to HypeSquad to quickly get used to the game and have an enjoyable gaming experience.

We apologize to everyone who has been with us through the long journey, and we kindly ask for your understanding in our decision to emphasize testing the three new modes (Conquest, Kill and Carry, Record Break).

2. Combat and Balance

We thank you for providing feedback regarding the new character abilities, Stamina system, weapon balance, and more changes. The dev team thoroughly reviewed the feedback and plans to actively work to implement them in the Final test. All changes will be shared through the Patch Note, along with the intention behind these changes.

▶ Character Ability

Balance issue amongst the character abilities
First and foremost, we apologize for any inconvenience caused by the balance issues. When we make modifications, we consider various data formed through several tests to decide if something needs a buff or nerf.

As for Jiwoo, we identified an overbalanced situation while attempting to improve the pick rate, which was initially relatively low during internal tests. However, based on the data from the Sneak Peek Test, we plan to make the following adjustments below. And we will continue to actively refer to the feedback from the community along with the data to fine-tune these adjustments during the Final Test.

Additionally, we consider the abilities of Walter and Renee to be doing well in terms of performance rather than needing significant changes as of now. Still, we will closely monitor how their abilities impact the game through the test.

▶ Stamina System

We will share our insight on some of our feedback regarding the topic. As for the reason behind the significant direction change of the cooldown system to the stamina system, kindly refer to the previous post, the [Dev_note] Sneak Peek Test.

Stamina System needs changes because repeatedly using a single skill makes the game dull

While changes due to the stamina system are also a factor, we believe some aspects regarding the weapon skill mechanism are lacking. Our long-term goal is to improve the weapon to clearly define each point, allowing players to understand each skill’s distinct role and combination.

In the Final Test, we’ve adjusted the Stamina system so that the cost for each consecutive use of the same skill will increase by 1 stamina. Through this, we hope to lessen the excessive repeated use of the same skill and also allow players to utilize better and strategize the weapon skills. Furthermore, we adjusted the high stamina consumption, which had been set high in the first place, as we had concerns about spamming of skills as well. Now, players can experience using various skill combinations as before.

The UI for Ability seems less intuitive compared to the cooldown system

The value for [Setting] → [Gameplay] → [Show Simple Skill Icon] has been set to be “Enabled” in default, which will help with better visibility of skills.

▶ Weapon Balance and System

Regarding Two Weapon System

The NA Server Focus Test Dev Note explains why we decided to make changes to the 2 Weapon → 1 Weapon. So today, we would like to share more of the dev team’s insight on this matter.

Using two weapon combinations could be complex, making it difficult for most players to adapt and enjoy the game. During the Final Test, our goal will be to continue to improve the weapon skill and balance so that players can have a fun gaming experience even with 1 weapon system.

Regarding Weapon Balance

We are actively reviewing the feedback and the log data to check on what weapon needs balance changes. We’ve observed through the feedback that the player experience was CC of weapon skills were still dominant. As such, we have prioritized adjusting the duration of CC effects.
The reason why we changed the skills of Combobuster, Laito Blade, and Frost Cannon was so that we could exclude the wide-area CC skills from the weapons with CC effects, and other skills may be balanced accordingly.

While the current skill sets may be unbalanced, we will work to make it better through the Final Test.

3. New Mode

Many players have taken the time to share with us their feedback on the two new modes (Conquest and Kill & Carry), which were introduced earlier through the Sneak Peek Test. The Dev team is improving the modes while considering all the feedback. The following changes will be made to the modes during the Final Test.

Conquest Mode
We have reduced the player count from 9 vs 9 to 6 vs 6. This change aims to create a ground for more strategic gameplay by allowing players to assess the situation and engage in batters with better situational awareness.

One of the features of Conquest mode was pushing the enemy from the central point of the base when a team successfully conquered the base. However, this feature was sometimes not working as intended, so it was excluded in this Final Test.

Kill and Carry Mode

To address the issue where games abruptly ended before players could fully grasp the situation of the game, we have limited the maximum battery capacity to 300. The Kill and Carry mode will maintain the current 12 vs 12 system.

▶[Go to Final Test Patch Note]

Thank you.

Aug 31, 2023

METAL SUITS, Gamescom 2023 Exhibition Participation Review

METAL SUITS: Counter-attack - jinmanpak

For the first time in my life, I visited Gamescom, the world’s largest gaming event. The world’s largest game show that we only heard about. The scale was truly amazing. There are a total of 11 large halls the size of BEXCO or KINTEX in Korea. However, there is also a hall on two floors, so you can think of a total of about 15 large halls.

<Gamescom hall composition - Halls 2, 3, 4, 10, and 11 are composed of two floors>

The weather was very humid and hot on the first day, but then it became a decent summer day. When I returned to Korea, the weather in Köln was similar to the fall weather in Korea.

<A huge number of people moving during the B2C period>

With support from the KOCCA(Korea Creative Content Agency), our Egg Tart also opened a B2B business booth in the Korea Joint Pavilion. And we were curious about user reactions and feedback about our game, so we set up a booth in B2C called Home of Indie at a separate cost.

<Metal Suit Booth in Home of Indie>

B2B was from Wednesday (23rd) to Friday (25th), and B2C was from Thursday (24th) to Sunday (27th).

When we visited to set up the B2C booth on Wednesday for the exhibition, many B2B people came to the B2C booth and played games. Perhaps that’s why there were many people who played the game at the B2C booth and then came to the B2B booth to request a meeting.

Thanks to this, we were able to hold many meetings in addition to those scheduled in advance in B2B. If you are going to attend an exhibition reading this article, don’t just go to B2B or B2C, make sure to go to B2B and B2C together!! (But don’t forget that it’s twice as hard)

By the way, this time I cosplayed as our “METAL SUITS” protagonist, Kevin. It was a business trip and the conditions were not good, but as the CEO, I did my best.

<METAL SUITS Protagonist Kevin Cosplay>

====================================

“METAL SUITS” gained some popularity in the B2B and B2C booths. We had meetings with over 20 companies at the B2B booth, and users constantly visited the B2C booth to enjoy games.

<Various users playing METAL SUITS>

While we were developing METAL SUTIS, we had a lot of questions internally about whether it was right to develop in this direction. It was the same at last year’s BIC, but I think the biggest asset was that I became convinced that we were heading in the right direction after going through Gamescom this year.

Also, participating in this event was a meaningful and wonderful event that felt like I had just made my debut on the global stage of my dreams. I hope to achieve good results of what we want.

====================================

There were many connections made through this exhibition. While exhibiting at the indie game booth, I saw many people developing games alone by themselves and was impressed by their passion for game development.

We are also scheduled to participate in the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) next month, so the next dev journal will likely be a review of the Tokyo Game Show (TGS).

As we participate in the event, game development continues internally, so please look forward to the game we are developing, “METAL SUITS”!!

Thank you for reading the dev journal to the end. If you are interested in our project, please follow us and wishlist us on Steam.

Aug 31, 2023

Version 1.0.7 - Patch Notes

Delivery INC - THE_T_V1RUS

Hello Delivery Managers!

This update is a big one that we’ve been eager to get out. A lot of improvements are here for performance and quality of life as well as new game features and vehicles. We hope you enjoy the update!

DELIVERY INC - Patch Notes 1.0.7

Added challenges to Free Play. This feature adds an alternative way to unlock campaign rewards.
Added two new vehicles. The EV car and EV SUV are now available in the game. They can be unlocked in the Beijing campaign instead of the rickshaw and auto rickshaw. The rickshaw vehicles are still in the game and have been unlocked in free play for all players.
Fixed an issue where the multi-route feature would sometimes skip the first destination in the queue.
More optimization added to prevent lag while 3D buildings are enabled.
Fixed positioning of “days owned” tooltip for vehicles.
Vehicles in the maintenance tab will now automatically be moved to the bottom of the list after all normal and severe repairs are made.
The maintenance tab will no longer continue flashing red after repairs are made.
Fixed a rare issue where canceling a severe repair would not work.
Updated location of where map data is stored on the user's computer. Map data is now stored in the same location as the game and when the game is uninstalled, all map data will be removed with the game.
More optimization added to searching and downloading custom cities in free play.
A warning will now be displayed during gameplay if you are in danger of going bankrupt.
Minor Russian translation improvements.
Minor Chinese translation improvements.
Fixed minor text issues.
Redesigned main menu and pause menu for better player readability.
The summary screen now shows the exact number of excellent, good, bad and ignored reviews.
A HEX value can now be used to select the color of your vehicles.
Fixed an issue where vehicles that could not rush still showed visual indicators as if they could rush. Note that drivers with the reckless trait will rush on ANY vehicle.

If you experience any problems during gameplay, please report a bug from the pause menu or main menu. You can also join our discord to speak directly with us.

Thanks for playing!
- DigiFox Team