What's Next 0.10.0

Hello everyone, welcome back to another "What's Next" post of the year, albeit only the second one as we've only made two major updates this year. Again, we'd like to add a disclaimer that this post won't go into details of what we'll be doing for the next coming update, update 0.10.0 (no it's not 1.0.0 and we'll continue on this trend towards 0.11.0 and 0.12.0 and so on). Let's start shall we?

First things first, we must announce that we will not be working on Multiplayer PVP as we'd promised a year ago. This is due to all the problems and concerns with multiplayer that arose during 0.9.0 alpha test of multiplayer. We've been collecting a lot of data and planning accordingly on its improvement, and that's what we'll be working on in 0.10.0 in the features and systems department.

What we can say right now is:
1. The first and foremost priority is to further develop multiplayer mode, mainly on matchmaking features (we're still in consideration whether to only matchmake people with a ping threshold of under a number).
2. A reconnection feature must and will be added into the game as it is a core feature for multiplayer that we didn't have enough time to complete in alpha phase.
3. More information of players in the lobby, more QoL issues in the feature.

PVP will be discussed and worked on at a later update, we are sorry about this, but the feature won't be fun if we released it alongside the current multiplayer issues, and fun is our first priority in the game.



And since we'll be working to further complete multiplayer mode, we'll have the others on the team work to complete more story contents as a focus. Why story missions? Because we wanted to finally complete one of the game's goals, a total of 26 story mission. We have been thinking hard about this and have come to a conclusion that we are now at a place that we should focus to complete each feature one by one, and story missions are something we can work alongside the multiplayer upgrade plans. More story missions also mean that we can further unlock nodes of the highest tiers (just like how we unlocked t6 in 0.9.0) sooner than later. We expect to complete around 4 story missions in total, maybe more in 0.10.0

And lastly, we'll be continuing other content works that we've always been doing, accessories, more poses, and more weapon parts will still be coming to the game in 0.10.0 Balance changes will happen as well, but it won't be drastic as in 0.9.0 as we think the current game is in an alright state. To clarify on this, we're thinking of making EASY MODE having players almost immortal, NORMAL being extremely clearable with enemies being slow, hard and very hard requiring a fully thought-out method of play and enemies challenging the players' own skills.

And no, we don't think that everyone should be able to complete VERY HARD if they don't utilize everything they have. We won't balance the game around any self-imposed challenges. We will balance the game with normal in mind for everyone, cosplay builds and everything, and players should not have a hard time if they keep upgrading their unit through the game. We will balance things according to the degree of fun we feel when piloting our M.A.S.S. units in NORMAL difficulty.
Again, thank you for sticking with us and M.A.S.S. Builder, see you next week.
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