STALCRAFT Q&A

Question: Are there any plans to introduce completely new weapons and attachments to Global? (sizmik)
Answer: Yes, we plan to. We still have a certain layer of weapons, which on the RU-region is in lootboxes and in no way represented on GLOBAL. 

We are developing plans to implement ways to get these guns in-game, and we are going to apply them both on RU and GLOBAL. For now, at least we can expect something new for Halloween, but we can't disclose what's next.

We are also expecting a rebalance of weapon attachments, after which we will be able to add existing attachments to barter and start producing new ones. The rebalance was supposed to be in August, but the date was pushed back due to development issues. It should be released in the Fall for sure.

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Question: Will we be expanding existing or creating new barter branches in the future? (KPEHEP)
Answer: Yes, we will. For example, there are now cut branches of Vector and M1A, they will be lengthened.

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Question: Will pay to win aspect be added from RU servers to global servers? (kalek2007)
Answer: We are very careful about the generally accepted norms on monetization and are not going to sacrifice the reputation of the project for the sake of immediate profit. We will test different ways of monetization, but none of them are planned to be Pay to Win. 

We are certainly not going to add lootbox cases from RU servers.

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Question: Will there be any future events exclusive to a certain server (EU/NA/SEA) like Reichstag Assault on RU? For example, some event dedicated to the US Independence Day on July 4. (The Mercenary Duck)
Answer: It is not planned yet, but as the number of people playing on specific servers grows, the number of people servicing those servers will also grow.

That is, the more people who play on a particular region, the more opportunities we have to hold separate regional mini-events there.

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Question: Will there ever be out of event battle passes? (mac)
Answer: We have seasonal battle passes in development, but we can't guarantee their release yet (we don't know what the tests will show). Keep an eye on the news.

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Question: Are there plans to make the Crow Arena game mode permanent? (Inov, Deathgun)
Answer: We have no such plans at the moment, but you can rest assured, it will be back next year.

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Question: Will there be an OTS on the Global? (Kulawy)
Answer: OTS on Global will only be held if we do something special for Global. OTS is needed for a public stress test of mechanics and gathering feedback. For this purpose RU servers are better suited for us and they are enough for now. The main thing to remember is that this is not "entertainment" for players and we can't give everyone who is just interested to try new things that we're testing.

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Question: Is there any news about the Pripyat? (Cat)
Answer: We can't share any news about Pripyat until the rework of the new North is out, unfortunately.

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Question: How do we plan to implement the lootbox gear that is on the RU servers? (Kulawy)
Answer: We are working on different ways to implement the ability of obtaining them in the game, one of them is seasonal Battle Passes. Unfortunately, we can't share details on this topic, so I just advise you to keep an eye on the news.

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Question: Will there ever be any new PvE enemies or a revamp of existing ones? (Metha Rossi)
Answer: Yes, there will be. There will be dungeons, there will be AI tweaks, and so on and so forth. When? Probably in small updates as we go along. It's all closely related to the development of our AI, there was a whole article about it recently, which you can read here*

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Question: Are there plans to add more ways to obtain Serum? (Funke)
Answer: For now, Serum is the main motivation to create clans and fight on conquests, so don't expect them to spread widely outside of clan mechanics.

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Question: Is there any news on the dungeon? Maybe what stage of development is it at? Is there anything we can share? (Cat)
Answer: Dungeons are a sore subject for us, because we planned their release last winter. Then they turned out to be stillborn and terribly overcomplicated, so they didn't go any further than the internal tests.

Now we are working on the first dungeon, and it will be a simplified version, which we will develop further as we collect analytics and feedback from players. We have big plans for dungeons, but we have very little PvE experience, so it's been slow going so far.

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Question: Is there any other, all-new content planned? (Cat)
Answer: Next year we have a big global update planned - "Rework of the North". Northern locations and faction bases will be completely redesigned, as well as gameplay on them.

Also at least one dungeon, new mechanics in the open world and redesigned gameplay on Backwater are planned for release. And of course events, for Global it will be the first Halloween and New Year's Eve events.

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Question: Why don't we want to add general voice chat (proximity chat)? (Salvenangriff)
Answer: We are actively observing the experience of other games, and so far we don't like what games are turning into with general voice chat. We think it's better to add more voice commands and voiceovers to characters actions than to give the option to include bass-boosted music and other jokes.

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Question: What's next for the game? What can we expect our journey to be like? (Banks Montgomery)
Answer: This year we are concentrating on tidying up the game, so you should mainly expect various changes and refinements to the current mechanics.

For example, we will change airdrops, resource farming events, and gameplay changes to the Backwater area. In general, we will put things in order and fix all the identified problems before the game will begin to develop content further.

However, we will certainly have new content. A large-scale event is planned for Halloween, we are also working on the "Operations" system, on the basis of which we will add dungeons. And of course we are working on various technical projects related to character animations, graphics, AI and so on.

Next year we are planning a global update - "Rework of the North". As part of this project, we will redesign all the northern locations and faction gameplay, and it will significantly transform the entire end-game content.

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Question: Is there anything you can say about how the developers think the game is coming along and a general overview of it? (Banks Montgomery)
Answer: Every year our pace of development increases, as does the scale/quality of updates. If you look at us a year ago and now - it's heaven and earth. We spend almost all of our budgets on expanding the team and hiring new specialists, including the establishment of new ones for our range of tasks. And this is bearing fruit.

We are also facing a number of problems that have come to light after entering new regions. There are problems with the ping among numerous players from different regions, which needs to be solved by improving the server infrastructure. Also, some servers in general have a very small online presence, which leads to problems like domination of certain groups of players due to the small number of people on veterans/masters. Also, we have some difficulties with the conquests. And it's not about gameplay - retention rates aren't much different from the RU region. The point is that we have still almost never advertised to the English-speaking community. We are going to slowly learn how to promote Stalcraft for a global audience.

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Question: What steps, if any, is EXBO going to take in regards to marketing the game to a wider, western audience? Any info about the content creator program (xy, Deathgun)
Answer: Developing and implementing marketing campaigns requires a lot of resources. We are constantly trying new ways to promote ourselves as much as we can, the work in this direction does not stop for a moment.

As one of the options, we would like to establish closer cooperation with popular youtubers and streamers in the near future.

Regular interaction with our players - answering their questions, organizing contests and interesting events for them - also plays an important role for us

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Question: Can we get a statement as to our overall "clan health" from the people in charge of them? (Banks Montgomery)
Answer: We have certain metrics by which we can assess the overall state, but the numbers give very little without personal insight into the situation and understanding of what is going on. In the RU region, the person in charge of clans has a good idea of what is going on with them: who in terms of the membership can reach tier 1, who is tier 3 and cannot compete, who has internal and external problems. With Global he has no such understanding now because all the attention is occupied by RU + the community abroad is still alien to him. Therefore, for some time, perhaps, the control of clans there will not be as sensitive as on RU and in fact will go "by the instruments". If suddenly there will be a person responsible for the Global in terms of clans, it will be great of course. We'll work on that.

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Question: Is the aggro range issue still being investigated and is it truly a bug? (Banks Montgomery)
Answer: Yes, the large range is considered a bug and we are working on fixing it now. Unfortunately, we can't disclose the timeframe. This is work on the AI and it is quite complex.

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Question: Is there any chance that a leaning mechanic will be implemented with new character animations? (Airking)
Answer: We thought about this possibility, but at the moment it takes too much time and effort to develop all the basic character animations. But! In the future it is possible, but not in a classical form, but in the form of leaning/sticking to surfaces, like the system in CoD MW 19, MW2 22, because we don't have enough buttons on the keyboard for regular Q/E tilting.

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Question: When will the Chieftain and Granite get a new model? (Airking)
Answer: At the moment they are in active work. We can expect them in about two months. 

Note: I tried to ask for some teasers, but no luck ;(

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Question: Is there any news on netcode refinements/improvements? (Agliophobia)
Answer: We recently closed the tests of a thing that will fix the unreg a little bit! Also, with the release of the new character animation system, hitboxes will also be redesigned, so it should greatly improve the situation with unregs.

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Question: Any information about the SA server? (Jueycri)
Answer: We have a lot of difficulties with the opening of servers in South America, which we can not yet solve, for example, it is not clear which location should we put the server in (connectivity between countries within SA is quite sad due to the geography of the continent).

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Question: Can you talk about what tasks you help to solve when you're not communicating with the community? What does a "good" day look like? What problems have you encountered that make you consider it a "bad" day? (Banks Montgomery)
Answer: The main task of a community manager is to build a bridge between players and developers. This means that in addition to direct communication with the players, I'm involved in collecting feedback and information about bugs for the developers, especially after the release of big updates. I also deal with the tasks of making players better informed, improving and finding new ways of contact between our team and players. For example, we are currently working on a public Trello page, where you will be able to see information about major issues that we are already aware of, for example. I think we can mention this Q&A as an example.

I consider the day good if I was able to make some contribution to our common cause with the team, if I was able to help the players with their problems, to answer their questions. If I was able to do all my scheduled work on time. If there were no excesses, like server crashes or some big bugs that can harm the community. In short, the calmer the better.

I don't think I've ever had a straight up "bad" day. There were some hard days, like the Blizzard event days and the Crow Arena event days. We had to be on duty all the time on all the resources and collect all the feedback we could. This is a very serious job, because it helps us to improve the event while it is ongoing and take this experience, evaluate it and use it for the next event. Feedback on the Blizzard, for example, pointed out our weaknesses and strengths. After taking the feedback into account, we tried our best on the Crow Arena, which was received much better by the community. But we still have a lot of work to do.

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Question: Do you approve ketchup on spaghetti? (Tits)

Answer: HELL NAH

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Question: Will there be an additional main storyline in the game? Similar to the storylines in major DLCs in some games. (empra)
Answer: There will be new side quest lines in the game, including some very lengthy ones, but I don't think we'll have some sort of parallel main quest line that will be disconnected from the existing main quest. Then again, though, there will be significant side quests. Also, who knows, maybe the existing main quest will get some kind of development in the future...

In any case, to expect a storyline that would start from the Swamps and go all the way to the finale and be exactly that "some kind of alternative plot" - we wouldn't recommend.

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Question: Why don't we want to introduce IP and HWID bans? (Jomiko)
Answer: Bans via IP and HWID are absolutely useless, they are easily bypassed. Not only that, they can also affect innocent players who have similar IP addresses or HWIDs.

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Question: Are there plans to limit ping on Global? (Agliophobia)
Answer: There are no plans to limit ping, but there are planned changes to the netcode that will make playing against high ping players less toxic.

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Question: Does EXBO plan to do anything about players who ruin other people's experience, engage in trolling or even bullying in the open world (not in the chat)? (R21187)
Answer: There are no exact plans at the moment. Trolling in the in-game chat is punishable. Real bullying is considered on a case by case basis.

Damn, thanks to whoever read all of that... Love ya <3