May 31, 2024

Isles of Sea and Sky - Gojirra

May 31

Fixed an issue where the player could sometimes move during the sanctum cutscenes.
Fixed an issue affecting some save files where the stone in the sanctum would not become passable after completing the required quest.
Fixed a softlock that could occur under certain conditions when a player controlled air elemental died.
Fixed an issue with shadow twins using water elementals.
Shadow twins now correctly only push in the direction that the player does.

June 1

Fixed several issues with Stone Elementals interacting with rivers and air elementals.
Created a check for older copied files with damaged egg maps. If you had an older copied file in which one or more egg was not appearing in the indicated room, they should be present there now.
Fixed an issue where the Sanctum Stone became destructible early for some players. If your save file was affected by this, the stone will have corrected damage / respawn if the quest was not complete.

June 2

Fixed a soft lock that could occur in several situations where a stone elemental was pushed into an air elemental that was facing a solid one tile away.
Fixed some inconsistencies with stone elementals interacting with lava. Stone elementals should now properly enter an air elemental's tornado that is above lava instead of being destroyed.
Fixed a crash that could occur if an air elemental controlled by the player left the screen.
Added stairs and an arrow block to Tropic B0 for players that solve the puzzle in A0 without the obsidian rune, so that the puzzle does not need to be solved again when they return.

May 31, 2024

Thank You for Playing! Major Bug Fixes and Updates

Baisu - V-RShopLt

First of all, thank you to everyone who played our game! We deeply appreciate your support and patience, especially during the first day of our release, which didn’t go as smoothly as we had hoped due to some major issues with game saves.

Thanks to your all of your feedback, we have worked tirelessly for the past 16 hours to identify and fix all major bugs (as well as some minor ones) that have come to our attention. Here is a list of the fixes we’ve implemented:

Fixed Game Saves: You can now exit to the main menu and hit continue if something goes wrong.
Fixed Character Location After Loading a Game.
Fixed Flashlight Issues: Both non-working flashlights and instances of having two flashlights.
Fixed Weird Texture Glitches.
Fixed Dog Mechanics.
Fixed Locked Doors Near the End of the Game.
Fixed Key and Item Descriptions.
Adjusted Sound Levels: Resolved issues with sounds being too loud or too quiet.
Fixed Endings.
Other Small Fixes: Addressed various minor issues discovered through your streams, videos, and our extensive testing.
Thank you once again to all our players, and a special thanks to those who reported these bugs. Your feedback is crucial in helping us create a better experience for everyone!

WARNING! Old saves will not work, you should start new game and it should be all good from there :)

If you encounter any other issues or have any questions or requests, please don’t hesitate to contact us on Discord or your preferred platform. We’re here to help and will respond as quickly as possible.

Happy gaming!

May 31, 2024

[Dev Note] Rebuilding the Character System

REMORE: INFESTED KINGDOM - REMORE

Greetings once again, Survivors!

Last week, we introduced three New Characters to the game: the Shadow Sister, the Inquisitor, and the Jester.

Along with the addition of these new characters, we're also making some big changes to the system that defines who they are in the game and today, we're going to introduce these Systemic Changes.

Changes to the Stat System

In the original EA version, the Stats attached to the "Characters" themselves were fairly simple. Health (HP), Crit Chance and Damage, Armor and Evasion, and the actual "Default" differences between those Stats weren't that significant - it was a decision to weigh additional factors, such as perks and weapon characteristics, that would be acquired later.

But now that we've chosen to increase the number of Characters, we naturally need a way to make the "Differences between Characters" a little more pronounced - unlike before, when we had a fixed set of three Characters and only had to choose Perks or Weapons to use, we now need a way to decide "which Character to bring with us into battle".

Of course, as I mentioned last week, there is a big difference in the basic Skill composition, but in the context of the Memory Bonding system we introduced earlier, we felt that the difference in Skills alone was not enough. If a character with 2 Skills is given an additional 4 Skills through Memory Bonding, then their innate uniqueness is lessened...

In addition to Health, we're introducing a system of four "Primary Stats," which we've labeled Strength / Dexterity / Fortitude / Agility.

[Strength] Increases the damage of weapons with the 'heavy and strong' concept, such as blunt weapons or two-handed axes, and offsets any damage reduction from enemies due to the [Fortitude] Stat.
[Dexterity] Increases the damage of weapons with the "agility attack" concept, such as swords and spears, and offsets the effect of increased enemy evasion due to the [Agility] Stat.
[Fortitude] Reduces the damage you take when attacked, while the [Agility] Stat increases your dodge rate.

With the introduction of these Stats, we've differentiated between which Stats each character specializes in, whether it's a “Starting Stat” or a “Leveling Stat.”

For example, Diurmuid who is powerful, specializes in the [Strength] Stat, while the Shadow Sister, who specializes in ambushes and assassinations, is a damage dealer who specializes in the [Dexterity] Stat.

The Jester has a lower [Dexterity] than the Shadow Sister, but a higher [Agility] instead, which makes a difference in the way that a "Dodge and then Counterattack" type of Memory can be more effective when bonded. If you choose Willam (Royal Guard), who specializes in the [Fortitude] Stat, you might want to play him with a Shield and stand firm in the middle of the enemy hoards.

In this way, the stat system was introduced with the goal of having different play styles depending on which stats you specialize in, and each weapon was given attributes like Strength-based damage, Dexterity -based damage, and so on.

You'll see how these Stats are distributed, and then choose which Memories you want to bind, which combinations you want to build, and then go onto the stage.

We're still in early development and the UI still needs a lot of work, but based on internal test feedback, we think we’ve done a good job of "conveying each character's personality" through the four basic Stats. The next challenge is to refine this Stat structure to make it easier to understand, and how to "differentiate between characters with similar Stat allocations" when we have more characters in the future.

Differentiating between “Skills” and “Traits”

As I mentioned in my notes on the UI redesign, we've separated the location of Weapon Skills and Character Skills in the UI to some extent, because we didn't want the slots for Weapon Skills to change every time you swap Weapons, and we didn't want the icon locations and Hotkeys for the Character Skills you use to always change.

We ended up capping the number of Character Skills at 6 (with a maximum of 2 Weapon Skills, for a total of 8 Active Skills), which led us to a problem with the Memory Bonding system.

First of all, the number of active Skills per character (up to 8) is still quite high compared to other games in the genre. You can “get used to it”, but it's not easy to “get it all at once.”
However, keeping this UI puts a relative limit on the number of skills that can be added through Memory Bonds.
- Once we excluded the two Weapon Skills, we realized that each Character would need at least two Unique Skills, and possibly three Passive Skills, to flesh out their personality, such as Stealth for the Shadow Sister.
- That leaves us with only three Skills that can be added through Memory Bonds,
  - which is far too few for the "room for build customization" we're trying to achieve with the Memory Bond system,
  - Having an infinite number of Skills would have been difficult to manage and recognize in combat.
In Early Access, Perks like Edwin's “Flanking Stab” and Diurmuid's “Healing Boost” were unique Perks that didn't take up space in the Skill pool, so we thought, "What if we made a lot of Memories that are bonded in this way?”
- However, even at that time, there was a lot of feedback that it was difficult to recognize the existence of such Perks due to the UI.
- The Perk types were already fixed for each character, but we knew that allowing Players to "freely set their own Perks" like Memory Bonds would exacerbate this problem.

As a result, we created the concept of "Traits" to separate from "Skills" and represent them separately in the UI.

On the left-hand side of the UI, you'll find "Traits" that correspond to the "Perks" in the original Early Access version.

Unlike Skills that directly cost WP or TP to "use" or "trigger", they tend to consist of additional effects that synergize with the Skill's activation, such as "Increase Skill power on a successful Surprise" or "Inflict 2 additional Pain on Collision", or simple but powerful Stat boosts like "+1 WP" or "+4 TP".

Meanwhile, on the right side of the UI, "Weaknesses" are placed. These are basically used to create “Drawbacks” for your characters, which in turn reinforce their “Traits,”

For example, I mentioned that the Shadow Sister who specializes in ambushes has a "Stage Fright" weakness that makes her weak in frontal combat, while the Jester has a "Sarcasm" weakness that triggers when an ally's attack misses, angering (?) and debuffing them.

We'll also use the Weakness UI as a guide for how to deal with enemies. We want features like Blister's "Instant Death on Collision" effect, or Orman's "Stun on Armor Break" in EA, to be clearly labeled as Weaknesses in the UI so that when you encounter a new enemy, you can easily remember how to deal with it based on the description of the Weakness.

It was a challenge to balance the two conflicting design goals of keeping each character unique while still allowing for the freedom of customization that comes with the "Memory Bonding" system, but fortunately, test feedback on the current version has been very good.

So, while we're keeping the broad outlines of this system, we'll continue to add new Characters and expand the types of Dead Memories that can be bonded, while maintaining a design direction that reinforces the fun of customizing "the Character you want, the Party you want."

There's a lot more to talk about, such as the changes brought about by the introduction of permanent death and the concept of "Corruption" that aligns with the new narrative, but we're running out of space, so we’ll leave it there for now!

We'll be back next week with another look at new System Changes!
REMORE

May 31, 2024

Community Crunch 412: Server Transfers, Mods Spotlight, and More!

ARK: Survival Ascended - ARK: Survival Evolved

Hey Survivors!

We’ve got some quick updates for you as we prepare for the upcoming launch of The Center and Shastasaurus! Most importantly, we’re still on schedule. The new and remastered content will be coming your way on June 4th with the trailer, and we’ll keep you posted as we get closer to go time!

We’re really excited about the launch; The Center was the first non-canonical map added to ARK: Survival Evolved, and it holds a special place in our history and our hearts. But... needless to say, it had a look that only a mother, or in this case, evilmrfrank, could love. So, the team and evilmrfrank have been giving it the glow-up it deserves, and we can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction next week!

So obviously, word’s gotten around about a poll. Let’s dive into that first.

Server Transfers, yep. When are we opening Scorched Earth server transfers? Here’s the thing: we had initially planned for a 60-day period (a long, long time ago)... But as we drew closer to that timeframe, we realized, "Hey, it’s pretty close to The Center,” and we know a lot of you really love a fresh new map experience, so we’re deciding to push it back. Not a lot, just a little bit. And that’s what this poll is about. We’re going to give you two dates and let you vote on Twitter (yeah we still call it that) to decide which day we’ll enable complete Server Transfers onto Scorched Earth.

Click here to vote!

Your options are either June 14th or June 28th. Pick one! The date with the most votes by Monday wins!

Download & play new custom content created by players, including new maps, creatures, items, and game modes, through a dedicated new Mod-bowser directly within the game. Enjoy an endless stream of new ARK content as the creativity and talent of the community is fully unleashed for the first time across gaming platforms and stay tuned as we spotlight more Cross-Platform Mods each week!

This video features:

Seven Deadly Ascended by TheNokosa (Premium mod)
ARK Bionic by GaiaStudios
Tristan’s Wyvern Tweaks by Tristans_Modding
Khal’s Composites by Khalahad_
J-Prefabs: Chinese Temples by GaiaStudios
Dark Age 2 Weapons by leanedtv

On April 8th, we deployed a new type of server across the network (for the various game types) that we refer to as "Expire" (which is what you can search for in the session filter).

These servers will be online until 10 am PST / 1 pm EST on June 1st. We're preemptively using our allocation for The Center to host some additional sessions that players can travel onto to farm, tame, and experience the Scorched Earth Gameplay. The same transfer restrictions apply in that you are only able to download your character, but you can freely take anything off. This is to help reduce load off some of the other servers, or provide players an option for those who just want to jump onto Scorched Earth temporarily.

Please note that these servers will no longer exist after 10 am PST / 1 pm EST on June 1st, so if you intend to use them, remember to transfer your items/creatures/characters off before that date, as nothing will be saved beyond that time period.

For the full list of the Expire servers, click here.

This weekend, the Official Network will be receiving bonus rates! It will be active until Monday, June 3rd.

PVP/PVE: 2x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience, and Breeding
Small Tribes: 4.5x Harvesting, Taming, and Experience + 4x Breeding
ARKpocalypse: 5x Harvesting, Taming and Experience, and Breeding

Fan Art Gallery | Screenshot Gallery | Artist Feedback Form

Creator: iSyzen
iSyzen attempted to complete Primal Chaos in Ark Survival Ascended in 100 days. When he took on this challenge, he didn't know what he was signing up for, but now he knows it was an ambitious yet ridiculously difficult challenge.