M.A.S.S. Builder News

During the development of M.A.S.S. Builder, we've seen players create an uncountable amount of M.A.S.S. units. One of them being thematically elemental robots has always caused distress to players with how property damages work in our game, conflicting their interest in making these "God of Thunder Swordmaster Machine" or "Fire Breathing Dragon M.A.S.S." style work since some enemies has extremely high resistances and they felt compelled to just play with a lesser version of their imagination.



So in 0.9.0, we've decide to totally remove the min-maxing element out of property damage and make each element as similar in power (still with their characteristics of BURN/FREEZE/WEAK) as well as only slightly stronger that RAW when their special properties proc. For gameplay discussions, here's what will be happening.

• Removed elemental disadvantages from the game, there are now only either neutral or advantage with property damages.
  
• Every enemy now has almost the same property damage resistance with every property damage. Property advantages will only result in around 5% to 10% more damage when correct element is used now. Players who bring multiple elements can still take advantage of it, but they aren't forced to or be punished now.
  
• Architecture and tech nodes now make property damage much more effective than before. Players who don't invest in property damage will now have around 30% less damage when using weapons with property damage in comparison to raw damage while those investing an architecture node (such as Revenant) will make this number back to 0% less damage. This should allow players to specifically use Architectures and Tech nodes to counter the lowered damage and perform as well as other methods of play through property debuffs.
  
• Balance special debuffs to match the new powers as best as we can.
  
• M.A.S.S. type enemies (including in PvP) is not effected by any status effects, but their property damage resistance are now lower than Quarks.
  

Now your question might be, "What if one property is extremely effective in PvE, how will you fix this? It's always a problem of either too strong or too weak with their special effects like BURN being meta once again?"

We'd like to answer that with "Let them be too strong, as M.A.S.S. Builder development has been going on, we don't think balance is required in PvE. Players must be able fulfill their fantasy and have fun with the game. To the abyss with balancing, fun comes first."

More Quarks improvement this week, showcasing the new Quark that will be in the next 0.9.0 update. As you can see from the design art weeks ago, we're trying to upgrade our Quark Enemies production, making them more detailed, looks better, and maybe, cooler.



And here's a still image of the front and back. There's still more to do on this Quark, making it as close to the menace we've shown as possible with visual effects and animations. Hope we can show you the finished one soon.



Discord: discord.gg/quS7E46
Feedback Hub: bit.ly/3wpWofe

Welcome back to another WIP update. This week, we'd like to share some of the balance update coming to 0.9.0 regarding speed. But first, let us talk about the missions introduced in 0.8.0. Those missions are how we imagined structures and landscapes of the world to be, and we'd like to capture those feelings of an open space rather than corridors. They do make traversing the area quite timely, especially for those with low acceleration, and missions with large gaps in between were not quite satisfying.

With that, we'll be introducing a new feature we'd internally call the boost speed curve. We wanted a method to help players go through each area quickly, but increasing their speed as a whole would effect every other aspect of gameplay, thus we came up with this so called boost speed curve.

Before this feature, players used to have an instant push in the direction they boost and their speed drops to a constant. With the new boost speed curve, players will be able to gain speed after the drop and the longer you boost, the faster you'll be able to go, allowing traveling through wide, open areas much faster, easier than before.



Aside from boost speed, we're also working on improving close combat attack speed. 0.8.0 was a success in making close combat a better experience as many have mentioned they're having a great time playing with close combat weapons, Quantum Breaks, and many other builds of it. We'd like to take it further and improve on the aspects that are still improve-able, thus, we're now looking at the attack speed. We'll be adding in a feature that increases the speed of attacks the deeper a player combos into. Opening hits are still the same, but the farther a player goes into combo attacks, the faster they'll swing their weapon(s). Combine this with the increasing damage multiplier in later combo hits, we think this is something that will further improve satisfaction when using close combat weapons.



That's the two new things we can reveal for now but there's a lot more other balance changes/improvements coming to the game in 0.9.0. As a reminder, our goal is to make the game fun and we're committing to it.

Discord: discord.gg/quS7E46
Feedback Hub: bit.ly/3wpWofe

Let's step aside from multiplayer discussions this week into some short preview. As we've mentioned in our plans for 0.9.0, we're adding in new Quarks to the game. This is part of a long term Quark (and production quality) improvement plan that we've been doing every update and we're just ready to reveal some new designs, artwork only though. We wanted them to be more dangerous than those big ones walking around, basically on a primal level but more, and they'll have more depth with more abilities than just running after you and SMASH.

Thank you for all the feedbacks you have provided. Your concerns, possible issues that may rise, the desire for a gameplay you wanted to see, and everything that was said, we've shared and discussed it extensively among ourselves throughout these three weeks. Now before we get into answering questions, we felt that we must mention this to every one of you first.

M.A.S.S. Builder, as a core, is a mech-building game where you can bring your creations out to play. The core gameplay of it is collecting parts through provided missions, create and modify your M.A.S.S. unit, and have fun with it. We are not creating the next "mech fighting e-sports," neither "THE MECH MOBA," nor "online MMO live-service mech game." No, multiplayer is an extension to the core game mentioned above, and it is by no means to become the main focus of our game. We hope that this do not disappoint you much and that you'll still be with us on this journey to create the ultimate mech-builder with various of customisation options available for the various types of builders playing our game. The core concept of multiplayer is to allow players to show their creations to others. That's the whole purpose of multiplayer in our opinion.



With that said, here's the answer to the FAQ! That will be all for today, we hope you read through it and understand our perspective on these big upcoming features. If you still think we haven't answer your questions, feel free to ask more or show your concerns in this topic within this week and we'll add it into the FAQ when we have time to answer it.

General Can you explain networking, netcode, things like that in simple terms?
We're working with P2P connections. We will not utilise any dedicated server aside from what is provided by the framework for account authentication (steam user, and for possible cross-store in the future). We don't have the resources (remember we're an indie team of six) to manage a dedicated server for global usage.

Can we lock our game session for private plays?
Yes, we will provide a settings for the host to select whether they're hosting a private or public room where other players can match into.

Any special rewards from these modes?
No, we don't want players to feel compelled to play with others in order to unlock something.

Why are you working on both PvE and PvP at the same time? Why not focus on one? How about finishing the story first?
One, because we deemed the core part of the game stable and filled with features and systems we wanted up to a good point already. Multiplayer is next on the line and one of the final large feature on our list so we're doing it here in 0.9.0 and 0.10.0.

Two, because we needed to design the framework required by both alongside other things at the same time to avoid a half-baked infrastructure with bad UI and UX. We'll prioritize one over the other after those designs are finished and will announce our next plans when we can.

PvE What do you mean by 4 player and 6 player modes? Does this mean we need randoms so we can fill a minimum of 4 or 6 to play co-op? I don't want to play with randoms.
4 and 6 player modes basically is the maximum amount of players in those missions. You can always play at the minimum of two players if the mission allows (most are, in our designs), but we'll set the difficulty to be as if the mission was meant to be played by more players. Also, you will not be able to play co-op missions solo.

What do you mean if the mission allows? What kind of missions can be expected?
Speaking frankly, we're not just creating every mission to be simple mindless killing. This meant that every mission we're creating must be crafted to match the minimum amount of player and scale up or downwards somehow. Sure there will be missions that resembles the single player challenge, now played with friends trying to survive as far as they can, but we also wanted missions where players are separated from each other, requiring coordination to progress through the mission itself.

Making missions completeable with two players with just number scaling limit our designs so there will be missions that require more players at a minimum. Imagine if we wanted a mission that required players to interact with objects on one side of the map so others on the other side can enter another locked area, or a boss with mechanics that lock players or put them into another area. Allowing 2 player minimum in these missions limit how much the boss or the mission itself can interact with you players and we don't want that.

Can you talk more about the first phase of PvE itself, what will we get to play first?
Right, two weeks ago we mentioned a 4 player mode and 6 player mode, but after more design discussions, we will go with one misison for 2 - 4 players and one designed for 4 - 8 players instead of a 2 - 6 for larger group of players. As you can see, the first one will have a minimum requirement of two players while the other will require four. Both will be objective/mechanics based and will be balanced appropriately by the minimum number of players.



How about the future, the ending of PvE in your eyes?
We cannot talk about them at the moment.

Can we play the story with friends?
The simple answer is no. The long answer is that our multiplayer cannot just simply take story missions and scale up for higher player counts. Each story mission is designed for those single player experience and your story progression has no relation with the multiplayer mode which if were to change, is to basically change a lot of things in the background works.

So you'll add bots into the missions for us if we wanted to play those missions but don't have enough people?
No, creating AI helpers, as mentioned in our AMA, will require unprecedented amount of work that we don't have time to work with. If you can't find players to play those kind of missions together and do not wish to use the matchmaking system, then you won't be eligible for those missions.

Will there be friendly fire?
No, friendly fire is not something we see as fun in our designs. It's a grief-enabling mechanics and will cause more frustration than fun.

Will there be local co-op? Or split-screen co-op?
While we wanted it at first, after working on system and network designs and with how we tied our game to Steam, we have come to an internal conclusion of no local/offline co-op. No, there won't be any split-screen co-op as well. You need to be online and connected to a platform to play M.A.S.S. Builder multiplayer.

Why don't you start small first? Give us just a simple mission to play with or something, why talk big about so many modes and large scale stuffs.
We'll be doing that, but we need to get our vision of the mode out first to discuss with you all. We don't want players to misunderstand anything so if there are any concerns, just like this time, we can start a discussion with all of you during this design phase. When work starts and design is set in stone, we won't be able to change things easily. Feedback is extremely valuable to us and the past two weeks have helped us learn what might be possible issues with our designs.

PvP Tell us more about the gameplay modes of PvP. You've only mentioned a 1v1 deathmatch and 3v3 objective match. Can we also have 3v3 deathmatch or single player deathmatches?
Yes, the two modes that we wanted to make available on PvP launch are only those two we've mentioned, a 1v1 deathmatch and a 3v3 objective match. With how our game is played and how we wanted EVERY creation to be viable, deathmatches aren't healthy to that vision. Creating objective-based mechanics and missions mitigate the difference in builds and will allow players with different playstyles to mesh well and compete better than having everyone plays the game as a third-person-shooter. We wanted everyone and their creations to be able to have fun and not be forced to play something they don't want to do, that is never our vision. Each map will have its set mode and you cannot change it, so a mode created for 1v1 will not be available as a 3v3 map. They have their own ruleset and size and every new map might have new objectives.

What kind of objectives can players look forward to? Are you creating a MOBA? Can you clarify?
First, as the definition of MOBA is a multiplayer online battle arena, I'd can accept that we're creating a MOBA but not in the sense of large maps with lanes and whatnot. We're creating mid-sized maps where it will take only a few seconds to get from one side to the other. You can see in the two last preview we've provided, those represent the size of the 3v3 map.

Now towards rulesets. Players will most likely (I say this as it is not set in stone yet) receive what we call "multipliers" from getting kills but no score at all. We will then provide a small window to score, either by collecting items, controlling an area, or something else along the line, and the higher "multipliers" you have, the more you can score for your team. After the objective phase ends, your multiplier will reset and it's back to mayhem killing phase. This, in our designs, will allow players of all sorts of builds to shine. Maybe a team of people just rushing to fight can destroy all units inside an area and take over the area, maybe long-range players will try to fight and another with shield can hold ground for others to play, it's those sort of things that we wanted to create out of these rulesets. Keep in mind, these are not set in stone and we'll talk more about it when we're ready. Maybe the next time we'll show something, it'll be completely different as we might've found something better to create. But you get the idea, EVERYONE and EVERY BUILD must be able to play. That's the sole purpose of our game, it's for everyone to be able to show their creations and have fun with it.

What are the session implications. Can we join on-going games and just have some mindless fun?
No, we are doing P2P and you cannot join on-going games. You will have to be there before the match starts and it will be just that group of players in the room until it ends. Everyone will be required to connect to the host first and foremost, each other next, and then the game can start after everyone is connected. In case of the host disconnecting or leaving, a new host will be assigned. However, if you're disconnected, you will be able to rejoin the room. If you quit before ending, you will not be able to join other games and will be forced to rejoin.

Hosts will also have a choice between creating private or public games, and will be able to kick players out of their game before it starts for whatever reason they wanted to, but not more than that.



Please tell us more about PvP tuning. How will you separate them from PvE? Class-based or preset?
As M.A.S.S. Builder is a game of customization and creativity, we want players to be able to tune their M.A.S.S. units in the same way they do in singleplayer and use whatever they want to use. This means we're not creating and "class" or "preset" for you to choose from, you will still tune your units in the same way you do before through the tuning page. For nodes themselves, after reading all the feedbacks these past weeks, we've decided that there will be units and sub-units for each category specialized for PvP itself. We understand a lot of players wanted to use what they're familiar with from singleplayer so we'd bring them over with a few adjustments for PvP. There will be only one tier and all of them will be unlocked without any requirements. It's fair game how you tune and experience will be the deciding factor.

On the topic of large scale fights and large maps?
We're experimenting with maximum of 8 players in PvE and 6 in PvP for that purpose. A lot of M.A.S.S. units running in the same game space will most likely be overpowering for some PC and if everyone cannot have a good experience, multiplayer will be limited to lower number of players.

PvP balancing will be a nightmare isn't it? Can we expect frequent updates to balance the mode out?
If it's not balanced in the first week, it'll stay that way until the next update months later. That is how we have always worked and we will keep that kind of schedule. This is a reason we wanted objective-focused missions instead of pure deathmatch or killing-focused where it's a game of using the "meta" build to kill the other person.

We'd hate if players are forced to play one build over the other and it's a build they don't want to play, even though we know it'll exist in some form in PvP and it's unavoidable. We'll try our best to work on it and we promise we'll kill any meta that happens until there's no meta except "just play anything" left.

What if the PvP scene is dead and no one is playing it.
Then it is what it is. As we've mentioned, PvP is an extension of the core game. We will work on it and will keep improving it but we will not make it the main selling point of the game over the aspect of a mech builder. Armor parts, weapon parts, accessories, missions, and etc. will always be the more important aspect of M.A.S.S. Builder and we intend to keep it that way.