M.A.S.S. Builder News

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.

Welcome back to another WIP update. We've talked Co-op PVE Multiplayer last week, so this week, it will all be about the PvP Multiplayer. There are a lot of things that we'll still need to flesh out first for PvP so let's discuss some of them that we're certain will be in the game or how will things work out. With that said, we'll be answering to feedbacks on both PvE and PvP multiplayer in the next week WIP update so feel free to leave your feedbacks in the comments, in our discord, or in the Nolt feedback hub.

First, let's talk about PvP modes. For now, we're settling with some basic modes. First, we'll have a 1v1 deathmatch, where players just mindlessly pit their M.A.S.S. units against each other in combat. This will be a simple mode with a simple ruleset, there's nothing much except two players fighting to get the most kill count within a limited amount of time or reaching a set kill count first, either of those.

Image shows a simulation of what we wanted and not actual footage of PvP

With that out of the way, we can now talk about the second mode, which is the 3v3 mode. In this mode, with no name at the moment, players will be fighting against each other, but not to score kill counts. Instead, those kills will be score multipliers when objectives arrive. Players will then complete simple objectives, be it collecting items or interacting with objects. In design, we wanted this 3v3 mode to have players not that focused on killing each other, as that will only benefit certain builds and limit playstyles, creating toxicity and discord among players.

Since we're on the topic of builds, let's also discuss on our vision of balance in PvP. PvP will have a separate tuning page from PvE tuning. Status tuning isn't a problem at all, since we wanted everyone, new and old players to receive the same experience and have decided for now that we'll use either a point system for players to put into the various status available, straight on as is, or a tuning that is unlocked and scaled to the same power level. However, on the topic of tech nodes, we're still discussing internally on how that will work, might be a system where we provide a set of nodes only available for PvP and unlocked everything at the start, or might be some other methods. The point is, we want everyone to be at the same power level, and only experience will help one win against another.

That will be all we can say about PvP at the moment and is our current vision, something we wanted to create at the moment for PvP. We'll respond to your feedbacks on both PvE and PvP next week, so discuss among yourselves and tell us about it!

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

Welcome to another weekly WIP update of M.A.S.S. Builder. We're still working to flesh out the parts of multiplayer and we'd like to discuss with you about them. We've mentioned we'll both be doing co-op and player versus player PvP in our multiplayer modes and both of them required extensive design to make it good, so let's talk about what we're doing to both of them. For this week, we'll focus on the PvE or the Co-op side where players help each other.

In our designs, we wanted Co-op to be mostly against Quarks in contrast to PvP which will be against M.A.S.S. Units. Now, how are we designing these so-called Co-op? We're thinking of two modes of play currently, a four-person and a six-person co-op mode. But why these two player counts? For four-person missions, we're thinking of objective-based missions where some players will be required to perform some kind of objective or role. For six-person missions, it will most likely be a large battlefield where each can cooperate in a massive fight with explosions going off everywhere. Both of these modes will have Quark bosses special to their mode and it should require players to cooperate to take these bosses down.



And don't worry about finding enough friends to play with, we're working on a matchmaking system that even a solo player can join a co-op session to play in these missions. If you're a group of two or three, getting another group or solo players to join in these mission should not be difficult, and everyone should be able to experience these missions. If you've got any ideas, share it to us in this post or our discord!

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

Welcome! To the first "what's next" of 2022! We'd like to first put out a disclaimer that this won't tell you everything we're doing, but only the major parts of the update that we'll need to finish before we'll update M.A.S.S. Builder to version 0.9.0. There will be other small improvements (like balance changes and QoL updates) as well as small additions to further better the game. With that out, let's talk on what we're planning for 0.9.0. What's coming in this long-awaited multiplayer update.

Multiplayer Alpha Phase
Let's get the biggest thing out there first, multiplayer. We speculated multiplayer as a whole to take at least 7 months and first wanted to make 0.9.0 be the long pause. However, we thought it would be best to get a smaller version, like a test version out first to check if we're doing it right and that no critical problems are found by the time we announce full multiplayer compatibility.

Multiplayer Alpha Phase is mainly to test things out. The aim is to first create a working lobby where players can join each other in a session. This is to check if there are any syncing or network issues, players seeing the same things or not, can others see their movements with less delay as possible, things like that.

That is the bare minimum, so expect some kind of empty space where you all can show off your M.A.S.S. units and run around with no objectives with other players in 0.9.0. We'll keep you updated on our progress.

To end about Multiplayer, we know you might wonder on which kind of gameplay modes are we planning to create, what about balances, or player counts. We ask that you wait for more information when we are ready to reveal them later. Small steps at a time so we don't trip.



New Missions
While we have full focus into the multiplayer update, we cannot deny that the game needs to progress further towards the end of its single player campaign. This means that in the next update, we will continue working on Campaign missions.

There will be at least two new missions available, and if we have time from multiplayer, we'll add in one more of either a challenge (takes a lot of time to create one that's different yet challenging) or a hunt (takes less time, still needs to be fun and hectic just like the latest one with explosions all over).

New Quarks
We're planning to introduce a lot of new Quarks. It's been a long way and we've promised Quarks that behave differently, varying attacks and behaviors a long time ago. We've been constantly adding one or two each update just like the exploding one introduced in 0.8.0. It felt refreshing for us to see players having fun with them in the newest hunt.

With that, we'll be working on many more of them, having them fullfill some kind of purpose that's not just "run headlong into you" and "me smash" kind of thing. We're also be updating some old ones that were never re-used due to some annoying mechanics they have (hello flying fish Quarks).

Other improvements
While 0.8.0 introduced a lot of things, it also came with lots of problems. Balancing player status are one thing, optimization is another, visual effects and all. They certainly took a toll on players' PC and we're working to reduce effects cluttering, instances where players suddenly loses FPS, more balancing to make a lot of tech nodes more useful, and etc.

We cannot promise we'll fix them all, but we'll try our best to get to most of them.

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

Hello everyone, this is Vermillion Digital team. First of, we'd like to thank you for the continuous support for M.A.S.S. Builder. We've finally reached a 100,000 units sales, and without your creations, your "builds," and your kind words even when we're this late in providing a promised major update, we would not be here, able to do the things we loved. We'll continue working on M.A.S.S. Builder to make it into one of the best game of the mecha genre, and we hope you'll continue to look forward on the contents and updates we'll be pushing out in the future.



With that out, let's see why 0.8.0 was delayed to such extent. First, let's talk about what 0.8.0 brought to the table. A lot of systems upgrade, a few new missions, new Quarks, some more launchers, a new armor set, and almost a total rework of the game's balance through difficulty, mechanics, status tuning, and tech nodes.

While that might not look like much, each and every one of those additions and fixes required time to be tuned to their best interest of both us and you all. Bullet Launcher positioning system has slight differences from the accessories system, new missions were crafted with new requirements and methods, enemy mechanics needed to be different and fun, projectile barrier needed to not be annoying but an engaging mechanic that allows us to keep power into ranged playstyle.

One of the most prominent changes and additions were new bullet launchers and energy launchers rework. We needed to make something new, different, and fun to use. We've had sessions talking, voting within our team on which energy launchers we're doing. Someone even wanted a drone to plant itself into the ground at a targeted location and explode itself (we'll keep that idea for a later time) and some of us wanted more utility as we also wanted melee users to be able to use them. These took a long time to work on and we're happy that you were excited to use and praising them.

I'd honestly want to say that we've rebalanced the game two to three times in itself during the whole update cycle, as we've brought out some update ideas into the M.A.S.S. Builder Discord channel and our players expressed concern on how it'll turn out. Weight was the first one, we didn't think to remove them at first, but after hearing about it in feedback, we yielded.

The second was when we introduced Quantum Break nodes that had chance of activations and ranges of benefits, they weren't popular and we had some heated discussions with us saying we wanted some kind of fun and weird nodes alongside a few players and others wanting a certain consistency for speedrunning and min-maxing purposes. We then took another look at all our rebalancing and changed them one more time, separating most chance from nodes into another node in itself. And in parallel to that, we were required to test them extensively alongside Quark status changes. Those were the months with nothing but testing day in day out, changing numbers, and more testings. But they were not enough, as you can see that we've done a huge balance update in 0.8.5. Thank you for all the input and feedback.



That should be all for 0.8.x. We've gone on longer than we have expected now. We hope you all have fun, and again, thank you for your support throughout our second year. We hope to continue to fulfill wants and desires of a mecha game, your feedback is always appreciated as it had helped us in our journey for as long as we remember. Next week, we'll talk about what's coming in 0.9.0 as most of you are surely wondering, what is the first step towards our multiplayer update.

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