Q&A with ZIV

Greetings, dear members of STALCRAFT global community!

It’s me, ZIV again, and I’m back with a new form of feedback. I would prefer live conversation, but when we do it on Discord my answers fastly go up and get lost, and I haven't learned to change my talking manner so that I don't get banned on Reddit yet… 😅

From now on, global community managers will collect your questions, suggestions, critics regularly and send me the most interesting ones from their perspective. Let’s consider it a replacement for monthly streams, which are unfortunately still in Russian only.

Moreover, I’ll do my best to spare some time to chat with you via Discord — just a simple dialog without any answer sheets - let them stay here. So, here we go!

Actually, we choose not to boast around and just do our thing since developing an MMO game can be very unpredictable, and there's a danger of ruining everything by making one wrong choice, even when these choices seem right for both the devs and the community. But what I'm explicitly proud of is our team — we've made it so far thanks to the fact that there are unique fellows with invaluable skills and a great love for what we do. 

In retrospect on our story, I can't say what I would have changed (apart from buying bitcoins :D). Even those decisions that used to seem involuntary and regrettable ended up in our favor. For example, we were ashamed of our Minecraft visual for quite a while, and we planned to design full-realistic graphics with ordinary human models, we even made some models. Luckily we didn't do that and now we have our unique lit style which we're crazily in love with.

Definitely yes, although the RU players are already making fun of us constantly reworking the locations. With the July 10th big update all of the greenery there will be changed. Later on, we are going to work hard on fixing the South locations issues that make players leave the game before reaching the North. 

There are major issues at the Cordon and the Dump, that are related to the PvP balance and the complexity curve. The difficulty should grow slightly for players not to rage quit.

This is not just our plan, but something that is currently being done. With the 10th July big update (we call it the 'Day X') the CW system will be changed and will focus more on 1vs1 skirmishes. We strive to separate the wars between rich and poor clans and lower this activity's entry thresholds. 

It was all about the number of Global community managers. We have recently reshuffled our human resources and transferred some specialists to this department. Also, we are planning a further hiring soon.

The Art Contest will launch this month after the end of the Storytelling Contest. We're doing our best to post content for both regions equally. Moreover we translate the articles and the streams from the RU regions as fast as we can. The details of the 'Day X' update in July are kept secret from both - Russian and Global communities. (As secret as possible)

We understand what the main weakness of the current matchmaking system is, and we've tried to smoothen it in the Season Battle Pass. However, the matchmaking issue hasn't been solved yet and unfortunately, it is not really easy to do so. Any minor changes like the ability to lower gear level have some major pitfalls. However, if we find something worthy, we definitely will try to implement it.

Anyway, the only viable solution is the total rework of the closed matchmaking system into the open one — we want to do that, but it is a giant amount of work and that's making it a perfect candidate for the next big update after Day X.

If there is an option to choose gear corresponding to different matchmaking levels as it is done in 'Crossout', it will significantly transform the game and also will encourage a lot of players to use Veteran and Stalker Аlevel gear(that now collects dust in most of the players' personal storage). But it will literally create several games in one. The planning and realization of something like this must be handled with the greatest care.

Entering the Chinese market is a topic for a separate conversation, this is obviously a harsh task, but of course, we are planning to do it. Generally speaking, we've been working on different language localization for quite a while now. One of these languages is Spanish. I can't tell you the exact release date but probably after Day X.

We tried it during the first five years of STALCRAFT, and we've learned the lesson that the popularity of such servers entirely depend on the number of resources invested in their development. All of our resources are concentrated on the main game.

In WoW, DayZ, Rust, and other similar games those servers are opened by the players themselves, who put their time and efforts into it. Our game, on the other hand, was initially designed without the option of opening your own server. In fact, the effect of doing so can be unpredictable. Maybe in the distant future, when we want to cause a raucous and we find no alternatives, we will try something like this.

We haven't finished the tests yet, but, supposedly, the requirements will be as follows (mind that these are preliminary):

Minimum:

i5 3470 - 750ti / r3 1200 - rx560 

Recommended:

i5 6400 - 1050ti / r3 1200 - rx570

Talking about the structure of the new North — it's just a month left, have a little patience and you'll see it yourself!

We're planning a major rework of daily quests and delivery packages, but don't expect significant changes in the nearest future. Though, there will be some balance fixes.

Our priority is the system of replayable dungeons with randomized insides — we called it “The Operations” project. We had the prototype tests in February but now all of the resources are concentrated on polishing the Day X. Moreover, we are going to work on stuff that we won't be able to finish until the release date (as far as you enter the new North, you'll see where the lack of locations is)

We have already made the list of projects we will be working on for the next six months after Day X drops, but I don't think this article is the right place to reveal it. We will share our plans with you after the July update.

Yes, we are planning to bring them back every year in the corresponding season. That is, content from the spring season should be expected next spring. And of course the new stuff is to be added to the old ones.

As I have written above, our priority, apart from finishing some stuff after Day X, is releasing the first replayable dungeon. We tried to add some little simple dungeons with fixed-placed NPC and mobs three years ago. But they were easy to complete and the reward was little. As a result, the players had no interest in completing this dungeon.

And in order to provide rather valuable rewards, it is necessary to ensure proper difficulty in obtaining them. In the open world the difficulty is ensured by PvP and a rivalry with other players, but in the dungeons it's all about the AI and engineered mechanics. That is the main reason for the small amount of PvE content in our game — its realization requires a list of mechanics working in complex.

We've already put a lot of effort into developing an AI and a huge amount of PvE mechanics (that were tested during events like the Arena), so technically we are ready to release the dungeons that will ensure both the interest and the difficulty. Among the plans, there's even an opportunity to choose the difficulty level!

We do understand that this might be a very useful feature, but we don't have any extra pair of hands to do it. To add this option, we need to plan a huge amount of work on the servers. The feature itself is something that requires a diverse list of specialists to put their backs into. We will add it one day, but now it's not a high-priority project to do it at the expense of more important features.

Session Battles are something like «a game inside the game». Some session shooters spend years altering and polishing the level design and other game components to find the balance and make the game interesting enough. We were constantly focused on the main game in the open world, which is why we didn't pay attention to the Dead Time, the Standoff Mode, and the Duels. These b-side activities are made to allow you to take a rest from the main gameplay.

However, the game designers are now forming an extra department responsible for the Session Battles only. We can't say what kind of priority level that is, but we are looking forward to develop in this direction.

The Dead Time itself will most likely be replaced with the Spring event Arena and then put into the major rework mode. But those are just plans, they can change any time.

Aaand that's all for now with your questions that were chosen and sent to me by community managers. Please, leave the feedback on how do you find this format of communication and this article specifically, I really want to read it!

Let all of your extracts be successful!

ZIV, The Hokage of the Hidden EXBO village