M.A.S.S. Builder, A Fully Customizable Mecha Action Game
Created by sekaiproject
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Latest Updates from Our Project:
Post-Patch 0.4.0 Manifesto
almost 4 years ago
– Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 10:35:00 AM
Hello everyone and welcome to another block of text named the "Post 0.4.x Update Manifesto." Once again, we're here to talk about the reasonings behind the latest update as well as what's next on the M.A.S.S. Builder game development schedule, looking ahead to another update that we'll be working on from today onwards. Well then, not to take anymore of your time, let's start from the various features we've added to the game in 0.4.0.
Stamina System and enemies' AI
The stamina system was a system that we've planned to add into the game at one point to further the depth of our enemies. As many of you had expressed to us, the earlier versions of our enemies are very lacking in depth and they'll just run into you mindlessly, where all you had to do is kite them easily with ranged weapons or just rush into battle with a melee weapon in an "either-you-or-me" battle. We were never able to make our AI smarter due to the fact that a system that could gate their strength like the stamina system wasn't finished.
With the stamina system introduced into the game, we were also able to improve the enemies' AI to be a tad bit smarter or being more aggressive yet still having a workaround, and provide more depth to the difficulty system than just simply being a numbers game. With that said, there were still concerns throughout the week after the patch drop about numbers being too high or low, scaling being a bit weird, and we understand that our tuning have not been excellent. We will continue to monitor your feedback for them and hopefully perfect it by next update.
A change to the blueprint drop system
This was a very controversial topic to talk about, and a topic that was given an extreme amount of ideas to work with. The one question many had in mind was, why a drop system like this? Simply put, we wanted our players to always discover something new, a new armor blueprint, a weapon, something to say that "you're making progress in unlocking more things in the game" rather than having a new set of armor or weapons player can just easily choose to buy and leave the others out.
Now, the old system was too harsh and its algorithm made some very frustrating work of those final pieces of a blueprint undiscovered instead of providing reward. We wanted to implement this new algorithm patches ago, but was only able to make it work correctly with 0.4.0 (ask our community members how we tried it last time and failed, where we reverted it back). The new system would provide rewards either through credits gain, or obtaining new blueprints without that much grind needed, and players will now be able to create a M.A.S.S. unit to their liking much easier, and that's what we liked to see.
Players' tuning and property damage system
Throughout 0.1.0 to 0.3.0, there had been concerns of how weak some play styles, particularly the uninteresting status regarding ammo loads and property damages being too negligible. With 0.4.0 our aim was to bring the spotlight to them, providing newer playstyles for our players to test and try. We've seen its strength on the first days and immediately had to balance them, which was a fun experience to see a lot of messages saying they're too good.
All in all, the past few days had shown many of you discussing on which type of damage being stronger and an optimal playstyle for each of you. We liked to see that, as it meant our balancing was able to get different people to say that their build was better than the other. On that note though, some of our players are still struggling with ammo on certain bosses and we'll consider making some changes in some missions on normal difficulty to make them easier to complete.
Onwards to 0.5.0
Now here comes what's next. We know a lot of you are interested to see what will be coming in the next update. First, to remind all of you, the old 0.5.0 mentioned in our roadmap will be shifted back, and this new 0.5.0 will be something we weren't able to finish in time for 0.4.0 alongside something new we'll be able to prepare in time. The update period should not be as long as the 0.4.0 wait, but we are not able to announce the time frame at this time so keep an eye out, maybe we'll be able to do it soon. So, what's coming?
Few new missions alongside hunting grounds: These are the main focus of the 0.5.0 update and we're sure to make them spectacular. With that said, we're exploring new mission mechanics that are different than what you players had to work with before (investigating objects, destroying all enemies, etc.) and we'll be sure to show our WIP of those level designs as soon as we can. If things goes as planned, we will be able to finish Chapter 2 with some intensifying plots.
More love towards ranged weapons: We'll be introducing two new firing types that were planned since a long time ago. As some of you might have known from our resident developer within our discord, we've just finished a framework revamp and are now able to create new firing methods with less work thus they'll be inserted here to provide some love to ranged playstyles that have been stale for a good while now.
A lot of other changes are still being discussed internally but those two are the main focus of the new update at the moment. We know it might seem not much, but as we've said, we're aiming to provide this new update as soon as possible, and we'll be sure to say when it is available as soon as we can set a date for it. For any questions, you are very welcome to come and talk with us in the M.A.S.S. Builder discord channel!
Patch 0.4.0 Release + Full Patch Notes
almost 4 years ago
– Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 05:32:22 PM
Hello everyone, we're finally ready to release update 0.4.0 which changes much of the combat system alongside content updates such as the new Hammerfall Set, lots of new grips, assaulters, and shields base.
We hope that we have delivered what many of you wanted with this update, so try it out, and may you have fun! As we always mention, if there are any concerns or suggestions, feel free to come and have a talk with us in the discord, link provided below. There is also a community discord run by our players so ask around and check it out as well!
We thank you for all the supports you have given us through these months of work, we truly appreciate all of it and hope that you all will continue to do so while we work on the 0.5.0 update. Next week will be our post-patch manifesto where we'll discuss the current patch, and what's coming next.
0.4.0 Patch Notes
Additions
Unlocked Tier 4 Nodes
Added a stamina system to some enemies, bosses will have a stamina gauge shown where players can deplete them with attacks (some more damaging than others) to down a boss, rendering them unable to do anything for a while.
Added a variant of the stamina system to what we called Elite Quarks (the big boys). They can now be stunned and disabled for a while. This meant we can stop adding more health to them and start making them aggressive in behavior instead.
Added missions 10 - 11. We honestly weren't able to finish up to what we had wanted due to the new tileset where we needed to create almost everything from scratch and arranged them into something we can be proud of.
New armor set, the Hammerfall set, has been added into the game. Its blueprints can be found from Mission 9 onwards.
New Close Combat and Shield parts added into the game.
Added an option to display enemies' health bars.
Added Simplified Chinese UI Localization
Added Traditional Chinese UI Localization
Improvements
More poses and backgrounds are added into the photography mode. More are coming soon.
Improved some enemies' behaviour as in how they interact with players, how they use their attacks, etc. There are newer attacks and patterns added to some Quarks in the game.
Improved blueprint drops algorithm, players will now have a much better chance at obtaining blueprints that are not yet unlocked. While there are still chances of obtaining duplicated ones, they will be converted into credits. We also improved blueprints backend to help with larger amount of parts such as Assaulters and Grips so they can reliably drop ones that players are still missing.
Most of the BGM in the game has now been changed into original scores. This will be a reoccuring improvement as we obtain more and more OST for the game with each update.
Improvement to Thai and Japanese Localization, now covers most development and tuning parts.
Changes
Rebalanced all enemies' status. Some enemies will have more HP to incorporate the stamina system with weapon types affecting how much stamina damage can be done while some will have lower HP. Various attacks are shuffled, given more differing damages (more to ultimate attacks, less to ones that are easy to get hit by). Additionally, bosses will receive extremely high damage while they are downed.
Difficulties now provide less status changes but more behavior changes to the enemies. Bosses will be more aggresive and use their stronger attacks more frequently in higher difficulty, normal mobs will move faster and chase you much more aggressively, and so on.
Rebalanced Engine, Gears, OS, Modules, Architects regarding magazine load, energy capacity, magazine reload, energy rechage, and shield recovery. We raised the floor of various units by 30% and reworked some of how their values effected their usage. We also moved some around to provide access to ammo for ranged playstyles through engines faster.
Changed a lot of Tech nodes to enable dedicated and out of balance playstyles more. Also changed some techs that might provide too much power to the players when combined with the new stamina system.
Rebalanced Bullet Shooters to slightly have more damage than Energy Shooters in contrast to Energy Shooters faster recharge rate. These will be closely monitored and might change later down the line.
Adjusted Spread firing type. These will also be closely monitored on the reception of players.
Reworked property damages. While we lower the raw numbers of each property damages on some parts, each property statuses will be much more effective when applied onto an enemy. We hope this will finally solidify a playstyle that contrasts with physical, piercing, or plasma damage to a certain degree.
Redistributed most armor blueprints. The drop table is now changed to provide better drop rates and easier targeting of certain parts.
Mission objects will now scale according to difficulty, such as exploding barrels dealing more damage to the player on higher difficulty.
Bug Fixes
Fixed various missions that have missing collision triggers that make bullets and launchers go through the ground and not exploding.
Fixed a lot of typo.
Further optimized Volumetric Fog, it is still not the best thus we still encourage anyone suffering from lags to not use them.
Known Bugs
Stormwielder's "WEAK duration increased" part does not work currently.
Some of the other localization will contain parts that are still in English. This is due to last minute changes to them thus we aren't able to translate them properly in time.
Shields showing up in photo mode exploit is cool, we'll leave it at that for now since it's not that easy to reproduce and it isn't critical.
That will be all of the patch notes for 0.4.0. We appreciate if you'd ask any questions you'd like so that we can answer them by next week as well, so ask away
WIP: 0.4.0 Patch Notes and Dates
almost 4 years ago
– Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 03:22:58 AM
So! Let us start by apologizing that some planned content updates will not be available in this 0.4.0 update, which includes less that expected missions and a few more. It has been rough working in their creation amidst this situation since we needed time to create the best assets possible in our eyes but as it is already finished to this level, going ahead will be much quicker. We will be changing what's coming in 0.5.0. but will try to deliver it within a month and a half, at most two. We'll talk more about it in our post-patch manifesto on June 27th. For now, please enjoy the 0.4.0. Patch Notes and look forward to the update next week, June 20th.
0.4.0 Patch Notes
Additions
Unlocked Tier 4 Nodes
Added a stamina system to some enemies, bosses will have a stamina guage shown where players can deplete them with attacks (some more damaging than others) to down a boss, rendering them unable to do anything for a while.
Added a variant of the stamina system to what we called Elite Quarks (the big boys). They can now be stunned and disabled for a while. This meant we can stop adding more health to them and start making them aggressive in behavior instead.
Added missions 10 - 11. We honestly weren't able to finish up to what we had wanted due to the new tileset where we needed to create almost everything from scratch and arranged them into something we can be proud of.
New armor set, the Hammerfall set, has been added into the game. Its blueprints can be found from Mission 9 onwards.
New Close Combat and Shield parts added into the game.
Added an option to display enemies' health bars.
Added Simplified Chinese UI Localization
Added Traditional Chinese UI Localization
Improvements
More poses and backgrounds are added into the photography mode.
Improved some enemies' behaviour as in how they interact with players, how they use their attacks, etc. There are newer attacks and patterns added to some Quarks in the game.
Improved blueprint drops algorithm, players will now have a much better chance at obtaining blueprints that are not yet unlocked. While there are still chances of obtaining duplicated ones, they will be converted into credits. We also improved blueprints backend to help with larger amount of parts such as Assaulters and Grips so they can reliably drop ones that players are still missing.
Most of the BGM in the game has now been changed into original scores. This will be a reoccuring improvement as we obtain more and more OST for the game with each update.
Improvement to Thai and Japanese Localization, now covers most development and tuning parts.
Changes
Rebalanced all enemies' status. Some enemies will have more HP to incorporate the stamina system with weapon types affecting how much stamina damage can be done while some will have lower HP. Various attacks are shuffled, given more differing damages (more to ultimate attacks, less to ones that are easy to get hit by). Additionally, bosses will receive extremely high damage while they are downed.
Difficulties now provide less status changes but more behavior changes to the enemies. Bosses will be more aggresive and use their stronger attacks more frequently in higher difficulty, normal mobs will move faster and chase you much more aggressively, and so on.
Rebalanced Engine, Gears, OS, Modules, Architects regarding magazine load, energy capacity, magazine reload, energy rechage, and shield recovery. We raised the floor of various units by 30% and reworked some of how their values effected their usage. We also moved some around to provide access to ammo for ranged playstyles through engines faster.
Changed a lot of Tech nodes to enable dedicated and out of balance playstyles more. Also changed some techs that might provide too much power to the players when combined with the new stamina system.
Rebalanced Bullet Shooters to slightly have more damage than Energy Shooters in contrast to Energy Shooters faster recharge rate. These will be closely monitored and might change later down the line.
Adjusted Spread firing type. These will also be closely monitored on the reception of players.
Reworked property damages. While we lower the raw numbers of each property damages on some parts, each property statuses will be much more effective when applied onto an enemy. We hope this will finaly solidify a playstyle that contrasts with physical, piercing, or plasma damage to a certain degree.
Redistributed most armor blueprints. The drop table is now changed to provide better drop rates and easier targeting of certain parts.
Mission objects will now scale according to difficulty, such as exploding barrels dealing more damage to the player on higher difficulty.
Bug Fixes
Fixed various missions that have missing collision triggers that make bullets and launchers go through the ground and not exploding.
Fixed a lot of typo.
Further optimized Volumetric Fog, it is still not the best thus we still encourage anyone suffering from lags to not use them.
Known Bugs
Stormwielder's "WEAK duration increased" part does not work currently.
Some of the other localization will contain parts that are still in English. This is due to last minute changes to them thus we aren't able to translate them properly in time.
Shields showing up in photo mode exploit is cool, we'll leave it at that for now since it's not that easy to reproduce and it isn't critical.
That will be all of the patch notes for 0.4.0. We appreciate if you'd ask any questions you'd like so that we can answer them by next week as well, so ask away
WIP: Urban Level Preview
almost 4 years ago
– Sat, Jun 06, 2020 at 12:58:05 AM
So, in this weekly update, we'd like to show you the work-in-progress level for the upcoming patch. We've heard concerns of water levels and how it will work so we decided let's show how it's building up. Honestly it took a very long time to work on this new tileset where we needed to create the assets that we'd like to use in it. What you're seeing here is the result of those work, but it's not yet finished! There will be much more to come to the mission, and we hope you're excited about it!
Here's another angle of the level!
Join early access: http://bit.ly/2vcipiZ
Join discord: http://discord.gg/quS7E46
WIP: Upcoming 0.4.0 Boss Enemy Preview
almost 4 years ago
– Sun, May 31, 2020 at 05:52:31 PM
Hello everyone! In this week's update, we're excited to show you can up and coming boss enemy for a mission in the 0.4.0 update. Alongside this boss will be much improvements to boss enemies' mechanics. We hope to tell you more about it soon, hope you're excited as well for the update on June 20th!
