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Topics - MSE_Karen

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16
Ship's Log / Road to SpaceGuilds #1
 on: November 27, 2018, 04:48:37 PM 


SpaceGuilds, the first major update in the Spacelords Roadmap, is almost upon us. As you can expect, the Guilds are the main focus of this update, and we will offer much more information about how they work in the following days. But there are many, many new features, tweaks and refinements included in this milestone that deserve their time under the spotlight. Today, we will focus on a new feature that will be quite handy for Raiders and Antagonists alike: The Radar.



We have been considering adding a radar for some time, and the feedback received from our community convinced us to finally implement it in the game. We have gone through many different iterations until we settled for a version that worked along the game’s mechanics. 

As you can see, the radar itself is simple and functional. Located in the lower left corner, it will pop up when you have enemies in your vicinity. Your foes will be shown as red blips of varying sizes -those located on your same altitude will be shown as dot of equal size as yours, while others above and below your position will appear as bigger and smaller blips, respectively.   



The inclusion of a radar makes the tactical management of Aleph and the stress levels even more important. Raiders and Antagonists will only be visible on the radar when they are stressed.

You can use this to your advantage by keeping your stress level under control and moving literally under the radar, or doing the exact opposite and luring your rivals to an ambush, or divert their attention from the main objective. The choice is yours!

Enemy elites and special enemies, like a final boss, will be also shown in the radar with special icons.



The inclusion of the radar will hopefully add a new dimension to your Spacelords games, and we are looking forward seeing new strategies emerging around it when it goes live along the SpaceGuilds update -coming really soon!

What do you think of this new feature? Let us know your opinion in the Spacelords Official Forum, Twitter and Facebook.

See you on the Broken Planet! :D

17
Ship's Log / Stefanie Joosten joins Spacelords!
 on: November 22, 2018, 05:01:32 PM 


MercurySteam is working with actress and model Stefanie Joosten on the creation of a brand-new playable character for Spacelords! This new character will be available in Early 2019.

 “I met with several MercurySteam team members at a gaming convention last year, where I had the chance to play Spacelords for the first time and was very impressed by the unique visual style of the game,” commented Stefanie Joosten. “We agreed it would be cool to collaborate in the future if the opportunity ever arose, and I am really happy to say that the time is here and now!”

After playing the character Quiet in Konami’s Metal Gear Solid V, Joosten will now lend her image and voice talents to play the role of Sööma, a member of the Umbra Wardogs faction, born in the Cydonia region, on distant Mars, as part of a seclusive cult devoted to helping those who suffer pain and oppression.



Sööma joined the ill-fated expedition to the Broken Planet as a rite of passage into her Order’s senior echelons. But the terrible reality of the war raging over the Broken Planet will put her beliefs and natural kindness to the test.

“Sööma is a really interesting, layered character to play,” adds Joosten. “She possesses great inner strength and fights with the conviction of someone who is certain her cause is just, but still harbors a naivety that will clash with the conflict she is about to become involved with.”



“We have a standing commitment to our community to continue adding top-quality content to Spacelords, and creating this new, iconic character in collaboration with Ms. Joosten adds a whole new level of depth and charisma to Sööma,” said Enric Álvarez, Studio Director. “It has been a real pleasure working with Stefanie. We are sure Sööma will become a major “fan favourite” for all our players!”

18
Ship's Log / Spacelords Update 11.3 Patch Notes
 on: November 22, 2018, 03:36:50 PM 


The latest game update includes what we expect to be an improvement of the reward system for high-level matches.

We've been receiving feedback about high-difficulty matches whose rewards do not feel equivalent to the invested effort from the players.

We consider that matches should be rewarded because of the challenge they offer, so we've done a full readjustment on game difficulties which aims to disperse the population along a more diverse MMR range. This also allowed us to greatly increase the weight of the MMR on the match final score calculation and to reduce time, death and extraction importance over the score as well.

From now, higher scores - which imply higher rewards- will be more accessible and frequent on high level matches.



The 11.3 Update will be available today, including a brand new weapon for the Raiders’ leader, Harec – The “Easter Egg”.

New to Spacelords? Play now for free!

19
Español (foro general) / Informe del Estado del Juego 2
 on: November 19, 2018, 03:13:49 PM 


¡Hola, SpaceLords!

Bienvenidos a la segunda entrega del Informe del Estado del Juego. Como ya hicimos en nuestro anterior artículo, queremos aclarar algunos de los puntos más importantes para nuestra comunidad.

Últimamente hemos visto en el foro oficial del juego, y en nuestras cuentas de Twitter y Facebook, que tenéis varias dudas  y preguntas con todo lo relacionado al MMR y dificultad del juego, dos conceptos bastante distintos pero relacionados y sobre los que queremos arrojar algo de luz en este post.

Para empezar, todos los Raiders tienen un MMR que se va calculando según ganen o pierdan partidas. El MMR no es siempre perfecto, existe también un valor de incertidumbre "K" que indica cuanta confianza tiene el sistema en que un jugador realmente merezca su MMR. Cuanto más juega un jugador, más decrece su incertidumbre “K”. Por ello, las partidas con usuarios nuevos son normalmente las más desequilibradas. Necesitan jugar unas cuantas partidas para que el sistema sea capaz de proporcionarles partidas con el nivel de desafío acertado.

¿Qué es el MMR?

Se podría definir como la capacidad de un jugador para ganar partidas. Su habilidad efectiva, entendiendo esto como la suma de varios factores:

                - Su puntería y como se posiciona en el campo de batalla.
                - Su capacidad para elegir el Raider adecuado en cada partida.
                - Su capacidad de forjar armas y combinar bien sus cartas.



Echemos un vistazo a la dificultad, diferenciando entre partidas sin y con Antagonista.

Partidas de 4 Raiders cooperativas sin Antagonista:

En estas partidas, la dificultad de la partida se establece en base a La media de los MMRs de los jugadores. El valor resultante es un número entre 0 y 100 que afecta a diversos parámetros tanto de los enemigos como de la propia misión:

- Parámetros de la IA enemiga se ven afectados por este valor: daño (a disparos y a melee), resistencia, velocidad, calidad de sus algoritmos (más o menos inteligencia), así como las habilidades especiales de los enemigos de élite con Aleph.

- Parámetros de la misión: Tiempos, cargas de Aleph requeridas, palancas, vida de los Jefes Finales, elementos especiales de la misión (Beholders, torretas, Protectores...)

En resumen: La dificultad, cuando no hay Antagonista, es el nivel de desafío de cada partida y se usa para calcular las recompensas. A mayor dificultad, más recompensas.



Partidas de 4 Raiders contra un Antagonista:

Lo primero que debemos mencionar es que el porcentaje de dificultad no afecta de la misma manera cuando se juega sin Antagonista que cuando se juega contra uno. Una IA en una misión con dificultad 30% sin Antagonista no es equivalente a una IA en la misma misión con dificultad 30% cuando hay Antagonista. Del mismo modo, el propio diseño de cada misión influye en la capacidad de un Antagonista para hacer valer su habilidad: algunas misiones ofrecen oportunidades de enfrentamiento PVP más directo que otras, lo que significa que las diferencias de MMR se manifiestan más fuertemente.

Spacelords es un shooter, un género en el que el diferencial de habilidades entre un jugador top y un jugador casual es muy alto. El modo Antagonista es un modo con 3 variables principales: MMR de los Raiders, MMR del Antagonista y dificultad. Este matchmaking a 3 bandas es una herramienta muy potente que sirve a un propósito concreto: que gente de niveles de habilidad dispares puedan jugar juntos.

¡Poder emparejar a Raiders y a Antagonistas de distintos niveles de habilidad es muy importante! Permite encontrar partida más rápido y con servidores más cercanos para tener mejor calidad de conexión. Si dejáramos la IA con una dificultad media, esta es la distribución de winrate que veríamos para Antagonistas con MMR entre 20% y 40% jugando contra Raiders de MMR 30%:



Con esa distribución de winrate, cualquier Antagonista por debajo de 26% MMR o por encima de 34% resulta en partidas demasiado desequilibradas. Esto limita enormemente las posibilidades del matchmaking para proporcionar un Antagonista adecuado a los Raiders.

Las partidas bien equilibradas siempre son más divertidas; los jugadores se mueven por todo el nivel, utilizan todos los mecanismos de la misión y el resultado final es más imprevisible. Mediante el ajuste de la dificultad (la habilidad de la IA) podemos extender la cantidad de Antagonistas posibles para una partida de la siguiente forma:



¡Ahora el winrate se mueve en rangos aceptables para Antagonistas de MMR entre 20% y 40%! Utilizamos la dificultad de la IA del juego como hándicap para igualar la contienda entre Raiders y Antagonistas, siempre respetando que los jugadores con mejor MMR tienen más posibilidades de ganar.

El escalado de dificultad sirve para suavizar la dificultad de las partidas con Antagonista, pero no se tiene en cuenta a la hora de calcular premios. Tanto Raiders como Antagonistas calculan sus premios usando el MMR del rival; a mayor MMR, mayor el desafío y mayores recompensas.

En resumen: En partidas con Antagonista, la dificultad se utiliza para ampliar la cantidad de Raiders y Antagonistas que pueden jugar juntos, siguiendo la máxima de que no debe invertir la tendencia en la que los jugadores más hábiles deben ganar más partidas. En este caso, el nivel de desafío es el nivel de habilidad de tu rival, y las recompensas aumentan de acuerdo con eso.

https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/statics/multimedia/images/2018/07/24/95_SPACELORDS_2.jpg?v=yyZZn

Esperamos que hayáis encontrado este texto informativo. Si tenéis más dudas, por favor, comentádnoslo en el foro oficial del juego y en nuestras cuentas de Twitter y Facebook.

¡Muchas gracias y nos vemos en el Planeta Roto!

20
Ship's Log / State of the Game Address #2
 on: November 19, 2018, 01:20:52 PM 


Hey Spacelords!

Welcome to the second instalment of the State of the Game Address. As with our previous article, we want to shed some light over some of the more candent topics and concerns shared by our community.

We have been following many threads in our official forums, and in our Twitter and Facebook accounts, about Spacelords’ difficulty and MMR systems, two different but closely intertwined concepts. We hope the following post helps shedding some light over this subject.

From the moment they start playing, all Spacelords players have an MMR rating, that takes form as they win or lose matches. Since the MMR rating is not always a perfect indicator, it exists a “K” uncertainty factor that determines how reliable one player’s MMR factor really is. The more the players game, the lower their “K” uncertainty factor is. That’s the reason why games with new users appear to be the more unbalanced ones -they need to play a few games until the system is able to provide them with an appropriate challenge.

So, what’s the MMR exactly?

We could define it as the players’ capacity to win games. It is their effective ability, indicated by the sum of different factors: 

- Their accuracy and positioning over the field of battle. 
- Selecting the Raider best suited for the mission at hand. 
- Their capacity of forging weapons and choosing a good combination of Cards. 



Now, let’s have a look at the difficulty. We will differentiate between games with and without Antagonist.

4 Raiders Coop Game without Antagonist:

On these games, difficulty levels are determined by the players’ average MMR. The resulting figure is a number between 0 and 100 that affects both the AI and the mission on many different parameters:

- Enemy AI parameters: damage (shooting and melee), endurance, speed, intelligence and special abilities in the case of Aleph-charged elites.

- Mission parameters: Time constraints, Aleph charges required to progress, final bosses’ health, and other elements unique to a certain mission (Beholders, mounted guns, Protector’s health, etcetera.)

In summary, the difficulty level in a game without Antagonist is determined by the mission’s own elements, and directly affects the rewards; the higher the difficulty, the better the rewards.



4 Raiders Coop Game against an Antagonist:

First of all, it needs to be said that the percentage of difficulty doesn’t affect a game the same way when there is an Antagonist present. For example, the challenge presented by an AI with a 30% difficulty in a game without Antagonist is not equivalent to that of an AI with a 30% difficulty fighting alongside an Antagonist. On the same vein, the mission design may offer the Antagonists some extra opportunities to achieve their goals, causing that the differences between MMRs become more evident.

Spacelords is a shooter, a genre where the skill breach between a top player and a casual player is very high. The Antagonist mode introduces 3 main variables to the mix: The Raiders’ MMR, the Antagonist’s MMR and the difficulty ratio. This 3-sided matchmaking is a very potent tool that serves a very concrete goal: teaming together people with diverse skills.

Matchmaking Raiders and Antagonists of different skill levels is very important! It speeds up finding new games and benefices the quality of the connection by finding the closest server available. The following would be the win-loss ratio we’d obtain if we leave the AI with an average difficulty in games including an Antagonist with an MMR ranged between 20% and 40%, facing a team of Raiders with a 30% MMR:



Given that win-loss ratio, including an Antagonist with an MMR below 26% or above 34% would result on a highly unbalanced game. This considerably limits the chances of finding a suitable Antagonist for the Raiders.

Well-balanced games are always more fun to play, with players focussing on the mission goals and offering a more unpredictable outcome. By adjusting the difficulty (the AI’s skill) we can expand the number of Antagonists available for a game:



Now the win-loss ratios are acceptable for Antagonists with an MMR between 20% and 40%! We use the AI’s difficulty setting to equalize the fight between raiders and Antagonists, but always bearing in mind that players with better MMR have better chances to win.

Increasing the difficulty is used to smooth out games with an Antagonist, but it is not considered for calculating the rewards. Both Raiders and Antagonists obtain rewards based on their rival’s MMR; the higher that MMR is, the more rewards they obtain.

In short, in games where an Antagonist could appear, the difficulty settings are used to widen the number of Raiders and Antagonists that could play together, always respecting the axiom that states that the more skilled players should win a higher number of games. Thus, the challenge you will be facing will be equivalent to your rival’s skill, and the rewards will be increased accordingly.



We hope you have found this post informative. If you have any questions, let us know in our official forums, and on our Twitter and Facebook accounts, and the team will be happy to give you an answer. Thank you all and see you on the Broken Planet!

21
Ship's Log / Spacelords Update 11.2 Patch Notes
 on: October 25, 2018, 12:15:17 PM 


Some cards combination allowed players to surpass the 100% barrier and thus became virtually invulnerable.

- Damage reduction value can never exceed 95%.

That’s all! Here is some nice picture for your enjoyment:


22
Ship's Log / Spacelords Update 11.1 Patch Notes
 on: October 18, 2018, 05:48:43 PM 


REWARDS

Bad streaks on Blueprint draws are rare thanks to the bonus chance after losing one Blueprint in a previous round, however, they are very unpleasing when they do happen. We've removed the loss of the Blueprint prize in the main map after losing the draw.

- One-time rewards are no longer consumed when you lose the draw.
- Mission requisite to get a Common Blueprint changed from "Win the mission" to "Score over 2"


ANTAGONIST

Playing as the Antagonist is meant to be challenging, but it's not meant to be a burden on the economy of the player. We've adjusted Antagonist's scores so that they will, on average, be similar to those of the Raiders and thus, earn the same amount of gold, faction points and have the same shot at blueprints as Raiders do. This means that Antagonist's scores may be well over 5 even when they lose the match if they perform good enough.

- Raider kills and match time now have more weight on score calculation.
- Antagonists can now get a scores above 5 even after losing a game.




MISSIONS

With the last patch we introduced a delay on using Dr.Kuzmann's levers without properly adressing the duration of Shae's electrocution. We're adressing this along with some extra touches on the Council Apocalypse campaign.


In Shock

- Greatly incrased Shae's electrocution duration.
- Decreased lever use time by 10%

A Breath of Hope

- Decreased Aleph charges needed on both second and third monolites by 10%
- Decreased Guardian's health by 10%

A Fistful of Sand

- Increased the Protector’s health by 10% 

The Beast's Lair

- Decreased General Marmalade's life when not playing against an antagonist by 10%


The Destroyer of Worlds

- Increased Aneska's life when playing against an antagonist by 10%

Upside Down

- Reduced Kuzmann's crab health by 10%


Mind Over Matter

- Decreased the required number of enemies to pass the Fifth Council's exam by 10%
- Increased enemie's spawn rate by 5%



FACTIONS

Locals
- Increased Locals' life regeneration speed by 100%


Fifth Council

- Lowered Fifth Council player character's resistance to shooter damage from 60% to 50%



CHARACTERS

Harec

- Decreased Stalk's cooldown by 35%
- Increased Vindicta Anima's damage by 5%
- Increased Vindicta Anima's reload speed by 15%
- Increased movement speed when aiming with Vindicta Anima by 20%
- Increased movement speed when aiming with Ignis Fugit by 20%

Doldren

- Increased KLT-13's damage by 5%
- Increased KLT-13's fall off distance by 10%
- Decreased Patient Boy's clip size by 1
- Decreased Patient Boy's fall off distance by 45%
- Decreased Patient Boy's reload speed by 7%
- Increased Bloody Mary's damage by 10%
- JK-5 can now perform Headshots (headshots instantly kill wounded characters)


Iune

- Last Wish can now perform Headshots (headshots instantly kill wounded characters)
- Sigh can now perform Headshots (headshots instantly kill wounded characters)


Valeria

- Decreased Little Girl's damage by 10%
- Decreased Little Girl's quantum projectile damage by 10%
- Decreased The Whip's damage by 20%
- Decreased The Whip's quantum projectile damage by 20%

Ginebra

- Decreased Hound's life from 60 to 50
- Decreased C33 SU-SCHLEUDER's damage by 5%
- Decreased JAVELIN URSA M-02's damage by 5%
- Decreased J.WHEEL M-11's damage by 10%



Ayana

- Increased Makilium's damage by 10%
- Increased Makilium's projectile re-check time to damage by 50%

Schneider

- Decreased Yama Boom Boom's damage by 5%

Konstantin

- Decreased Tolchok's damage by 5%

Hans

- Decreasad Heaven's Bane K8's damage by 5%

Rak

- Increased pishacha's regeneration cooldown by 20%
- Decreased Shepherd's damage by 5%

Alicia

- Decreased Rock&Roll's damage by 5%
- Decreased Rock&Roll's spread by 5%
- Decreased Rock&Roll's projectile explosion radius by 10%

Loath

- Decreased Bubble Gum's damage by 5%
- Increased Dragée's damage by 5%

 H.I.V.E.

- Decreased Shy's clip by 1
- Decreased Shy's fire rate by 33%
- Increased Shy's infection time by 20%




CARDS

Locals

- Mystical Concentration: damage bonus increased from 25%/75% to 35%/100%
- Mystical Concentration (rare): damage bonus increased from 35%/75% to 50%/100%
- Patient: damage bonus increased from 60%/200% to 70%/250%. Required time to activate the card decreased from 6s to 4s.
- Patient (rare): damage bonus increased from 90%/200% to 110%/250%. Required time to activate the card decreased from 6s to 4s.
- Urgency: reload speed bonus increased from 70%/300% to 80%/300%
- Urgency (rare): reload speed bonus increased from 120%/300% to 80%/300%
- Abnegation: wounded time decrement bonus decreased from 30%/80% to 20%/60%
- Abnegation (rare): wounded time decrement bonus decreased from 50%/80% to 40%/60%
- Skill: reload speed bonus decreased from 13%/50% to 10%/30%
- Skill (rare): reload speed bonus decreased from 20%/50% to 15%/30%
- Merciless: damage bonus increased from 25%/80% to 35%/110%
- Merciless (rare): damage bonus increased from 40%/80% to 60%/110%
- At the last minute: damage bonus increased from 50%/150% to 60%/200%
- At the last minute (rare): damage bonus increased from 80%/150% to 100%/200%
- Lone vigilante: damage bonus increased from 50%/150% to 70%/250%
- Lone vigilante (rare): damage bonus increased from 80%/150% to 120%/250%


Fifth Council

- Failsafe: damage resistance bonus increased fro 30%/60% to 35%/60%
- Failsafe (rare): damage resistance bonus increased fro 40%/60% to 45%/60%
- Unlimited surge: activation time reduced from 60s to 40s
- Unlimited surge (rare): activation time reduced from 60s to 40s
- Effectiveness: damage bonus decreased from 5%/12% to 4%/12%
- Effectiveness (rare): damage bonus decreased from 7%/12% to 6%/12%
- Firewall: damage resistance bonus decreased from 40%/95% to 30%/90%
- Firewall (rare): damage resistance bonus decreased from 60%/95% to 45%/90%
- Reboot: regeneration bonus decreased from 110%/350% to 80%/300%
- Reboot (rare): regeneration bonus decreased from 170%/350% to 120%/300%


Hades Division

- Nerves of steel: reload speed bonus increased from 100%/400% to 120%/500%
- Nerves of steel (rare): reload speed bonus increased from 200%/400% to 240%/500%
- Charge: damage bonus increased from 15%/50% to 20%/60%
- Charge (rare): damage bonus increased from 20%/50% to 30%/60%
- Hard: damage resistance bonus increased from 25%/60% to 30%/60%
- Hard (rare): damage resistance bonus increased from 35%/60% to 40%/60%
- Cold blood: aleph meter shut off bonus decreased from 9s/120s to 8s/60s
- Cold blood (rare): aleph meter shut off bonus decreased from 16s/120s to 12s/60s
- Armor-plated ammo: damage bonus increased from 20%/40% to 25%/50%
- Armor-plated ammo (rare): damage bonus increased from 25%/40% to 35%/50%
- Spiral of violence: damage bonus decreased from 25%/60% to 15%/45%
- Spiral of violence (rare): damage bonus decreased from 35%/60% to 25%/45%
- Stealth: aleph meter attenuation bonus decreased from 35%/100% to 27%/100%
- Stealth (rare): aleph meter attenuation bonus decreased from 45%/100% to 37%/100%
- Professional: damage bonus increased from 30%/90% to 40%/100%
- Professional (rare): damage bonus increased from 45%/90% to 60%/100%
- Black belt: damage bonus decreased from 25%/65% to 17%/45%
- Black belt (rare): damage bonus decreased from 25%/65% to 25%/45%
- Survival: health bonus reduced from 80/240 to 60/200. Duration decreased from 10s to 8s
- Survival (rare): health bonus reduced from 120/240 to 90/200. Duration decreased from 10s to 8s

Umbra Wardogs

- Supreme tribal healing: regeneration speed bonus increased from 140%/500% to 160%/500%. Distance increased from 5m to 7m.
- Supreme tribal healing (rare): regeneration speed bonus increased from 250%/500% to 300%/500%. Distance increased from 5m to 7m.
- Natural selection: healing chance increased from 50%/100% to 55%/100%
- Motivation: damage resistance bonus decreased from 15%/40% to 12%/30%
- Motivation (rare): damage resistance bonus decreased from 22%/40% to 18%/30%
- Exacerbated: damage bonus increased from 60%/300% to 75%/300%
- Exacerbated (rare): damage bonus increased from 100%/300% to 140%/300%




BUG FIXES

- Fixed a bug that caused the main menu to freeze sometimes and block any possible action.
- Fixed a bug where the game was not giving PlayStation Plus’ associated skins to some users.
- Fixed a bug where the Antagonist could spawn in a different point than selected.
- Fixed a bug on Upside Down where the game could crash if the Raiders lost the match with an Elite soldier grab.
- Fixed several game crashes related to host migrations.
- Fixed a bug where Matchmaking was not working properly after cancelling a match in a squad.
- Fixed several bugs related to the squad system.
- Fixed a bug where Doldren's Bloody Mary was not resetting the score after reloading.
- Fixed a bug where if two Doldrens were on the same match with Bloody Mary, both weapons shared their score.
- Fixed a bug where Ginebra's S. Bogen C-A00 was not applying push correctly to Fifth Council's Elite Assault units.
- Fixed a bug where Lycus shield was not suffering damage from enemy bullets.

23
Ship's Log / New "Killerball" Weapon for Schneider
 on: October 11, 2018, 01:58:20 PM 


The Killerball is the name of Planet Mort’s official sport. The Killerball professional teams played its deadly matches using high-powered spheres that could harm, or even kill a careless player. Not being quite an athlete himself, Schneider didn’t understand the rules very well, but he was fascinated about such a bloody sport where death was a common occurrence. Thus, he decided to create a drone able to shoot bouncing energy spheres as a homage to the one and only sport ever to interest him.   

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHeih-Uxfos

24
Ship's Log / State of the Game Address #1
 on: October 05, 2018, 05:43:35 PM 


Dear Raiders and Antagonists,

Welcome to the first State of the Game address. In this new section, the MercurySteam team would like to acknowledge the most candent topics shared by our community in Spacelords’ official forums, the game’s Steam forum, the unofficial Discord channel and our social media channels.

Previously this week, we released Spacelords’ Update 11.0, including many optimizations and upgrades to the game’s AI and Logic systems.

The feedback we are receiving is quite positive overall, but there are some topics our community is concerned about or would like to have a better understanding. Let’s have a look to the top 3.



1. MMR, game difficulty and disparate player levels.

With the new F2P model we have welcomed thousands of new players. These new users are very important for the future of game, and in time they will develop their skills and become really good players. We believe that, as more players enter the game, players will be better stratified between low, mid and high levels. Until we reach that sweet spot, though, we currently have new players mixed with dedicated veterans.

In an ideal world, matchmaking would flawlessly match players with absolute precision, and the system is designed to function with that goal in mind, but in real life time zones, geographical zones and connection speeds might affect the experience. Again, we keep working to minimize their impact.

Ideally, Spacelords matches players with compatible MMR, independently of their character level. It is entirely possible for a low-level player who recently joined the game to achieve a high MMR if he or she is skilled enough, having to face and Antagonist with a superior While Forge Level. We keep working on fine-tuning this system and improving the user experience.



2.  Mentor Matches

This topic is related to the previous one. We implemented the mentor matches to support and reward veterans who give a helping hand to the players new to Spacelords. While the concept is sound, it is not pleasing a significant number of vets out there. We are aware that the system is not 100% fine-tuned, and we are thinking about ways to improve it, including increasing the rewards for the mentors, among many others.



3. Kuzmann’s levers in “In Shock”.

The latest patch included a small modification to the “In Shock” mission boss fight against the infamous Dr. Kuzmann. We felt the old "insta-use" levers incentivized suicidal manoeuvres a bit too much. With these new changes introduced in the game, we tried to encourage a safer and slower approach in order to solve the situation.

The solution, however, is not as fine-tuned as we hoped, resulting in a significant increase of the mission´s difficulty. We are amending this in an upcoming game update.



We hope you have found this State of the Game entry useful. We are immensely grateful for all the constructive criticism feedback. We take all the feedback received into account, and several ideas coming from the community have ended-up being implemented in the game. Of course, this process takes time from evaluation to execution, but our commitment to making the best game possible based on our fans’ preferences remains.

See you on the Broken Planet!

25
Ship's Log / Spacelords Update 11.0 Patch Notes
 on: October 02, 2018, 11:57:19 AM 


The Council Apocalypse campaign came with lots of new bosses and spectacular attacks that were dragging down some systems' framerates. Many of these optimizations happen quite deep in the engine code so it has taken the QA team longer than usual to test.



GAME LOGIC IMPROVEMENTS

- Parallelized collision detection code.
- Overall memory usage reduction.
- Code optimizations for some FX transformations (scaling and material swaps).
- Parallelized sphere hit detection code.
- Reduced the amount of hit colliders in some common objects (shields, parrots and airships).
- Created lighter versions for the enemy prop ships flying in the background on some missions.


AI IMPROVEMENTS

- Implemented smart time limits for decision makers.
- Parallelized task assignment code.
- Removed some redundant events in enemy animations.
- Implemented variable caching for the enemy horde manager.


GAMEPLAY

Along with the many tech changes, some new "under the hood" gameplay systems have been implemented. We now have more power to tune mission difficulty server-side. In this first iteration, our focus is on low MMR matches. Low MMR matches sometimes have a very slow pace, with too few enemies around. We are increasing enemy spawn rates and lowering AI skill a little bit to bring the game a bit more action and, hopefully, not modify the difficulty curve too much in the process. Veteran players will notice these changes mostly on mentor matches.

- Increased enemy spawn rate at low difficulty levels.
- AI behaves more permissively at low difficulty levels.
- Decreased enemy damage at low difficulty levels.




MISSIONS

As we mentioned in the patch notes for 10.3, the Council Apocalypse campaign released a bit too strong. The following changes tackle problems in mission duration mostly.


IN SHOCK

- The Fifth Council now sends Elite Snipers to join the troops protecting Dr. Kuzmann's expedition.
- Kuzmann's levers now require time to activate.

THE MOUSE AND THE SNAKE

- Reduced the health of all Beholders by 15%.
- Reduced regenerating beholder's regeneration speed by 40%.
- Reduced Valeria's health by 20%.


UPSIDE DOWN

- Reduced the time required to activate the trojan by 20%.
- Reduced Dr. Kuzmann's health by 15%.
- Increased the time Dr. Kuzmann stays stunned by 10%.
- Increased enemy spawn frequency by 10% when not playing against an antagonist.


MIND OVER MATTER

- Reduced the Council's health by 10%.
- Reduced the amount of enemy kills the Council requires for examination by about 10%.



WEAPONS

SCHNEIDER

- Decreased Rain of Fire's damage by 10%.


H.I.V.E.

- Decreased Shy's damage by 10%.


DOLDREN

- Increased JK-5's damage by 10%.


HAREC

- Increased Ferox Impetus' damage by 10%.



BUG FIXES

- Fixed a bug on The Beast's Lair where the game could crash due to a memory leak.
- Fixed a bug on The Enemy Within where the game could crash for the host the first time Uras-Beherit's weak points were exposed.
- Fixed a bug where the game could crash where entering a match.
- Fixed a bug where the game could crash when healing Lycus with his shield activated.
- Fixed a bug where the menu could block after reconnecting to a game.
- Fixed a bug when receiving rewards where the menu could block.
- Fixed a bug on In Shock where some enemy ships were not reaching their destination and enemies were not been deployed. - Fixed a bug where aiming was not working property while in cover.
- Fixed a bug where Valeria's quantum projectile was not appearing correctly after a host renegotiation.
- Fixed several bugs caused by hot renegotiations.
- Fixed a bug where the AI was not selecting cover properly.
- Fixed several VFX bugs on Kuzmann's Surgeon skin.
- Fixed several FX bugs.
- Fixed several language issues.

26
Ship's Log / Issue: Locked menu screen in portuguese
 on: August 30, 2018, 06:08:12 PM 
Calling up to all Spacelords Portuguese and Brazilian players!

We've detected an issue that can result in a locked menu screen. We're already working on the solution and should be included in a game update soon. In the meantime we recommend changing the game language to English.

Sorry for the inconveniences and thank you for your patience!

27
Ship's Log / Known Issues
 on: August 23, 2018, 05:26:15 PM 


Dear Spacelords,

When launching such a big and complex project as Spacelords, there are inevitably some issues that will come up. We are really sorry if you have encountered any so far, but rest assured the MercurySteam team is working hard on solving them.

Known issues:

- There is a soft lock when using the levers on 'The Mouse and the Snake', ‘A Low Blow’ and ‘In Media Res’ missions. When activating the certain lever, the mission will not progress. This issue seems to depend on the levers configuration. When this happens, the only solution for the time being is to vote surrender and try again.

- On Xbox One Founders Pack and Ultimate Edition Pack owners might find they don’t have all the previously purchased content unlocked.

- On Xbox One, you might get stuck in the “Match Ready” screen. We recommend to reboot the game if this happens.

- Weapon level for weapons that have not been crafted before is being resetted to 0.

- Connectivity error with MSE servers causes a loop when the player is banned, being not possible for the user to reconnect with MSE's servers.

- Squad issues: If you are in a squad of any number of players, you might not find games even though there are games available. We recommend to either dissolve the squad and create a new one.

- On Steam, Founders Pack and Ultimate Edition Pack owners might not have received Konstantin’s Elite Skin.

- Loaht cannot use his ability nor any smart objects after he gets pushed by an enemy during Loaht's transformation.

We will keep you updated on this subject. Thank you for your understanding.

The MercurySteam Team

28
Ship's Log / Raiders of the Broken Planet Reborns as Spacelords
 on: July 23, 2018, 01:12:45 PM 


Independent development studio MercurySteam today revealed ground-breaking changes to their self-published shooter-brawler game. From August 23rd, Raiders of the Broken Planet is reborn as Spacelords, and becomes a totally Free to Play gaming experience.

These changes coincide with the launch of the much awaited fourth campaign, Council Apocalypse, completing the first arc of Spacelords’ epic storyline. Council Apocalypse includes four new unique missions and a new recruitable character, the cold and calculating Valeria, all of which will now be completely free. You can watch the official trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRT_tRSTqJY



“When we launched Raiders September last year, we hoped its low price point of 9.99 per campaign- would open it up to a large number of users, but it didn’t work as we planned” commented Enric Álvarez, Spacelords Director. “Our vision is to see our game enjoyed by millions of users for years to come and putting all of the game's rich content into their hands for free is the way to realize it. We’ve answered our community and hope this removal of any payment barriers will build our devoted community further”

Spacelords is not just an update to Raiders of the Broken Planet; it is a new game built on the back of Raiders. The differences in all aspects go so deep, that the best way to communicate them to players is by re-branding and inviting everyone to experience the new Spacelords by themselves this 23rd of August. Newcomers will find a huge, new Sci-Fi universe to get immersed into, while Raiders’ veterans will see their calls answered.



On the Spacelords brand, “we felt that ‘Raiders’ only focused on one specific side of the battle for the Broken Planet: The Raiders,” adds Álvarez. “But this is about the Aleph, a mythical substance from the Broken Planet, a substance everybody wants -the Raiders, the Antagonists, each of the invading human factions…- All of them know that whoever controls the Aleph, will dominate the universe as the ultimate Spacelord. So, the new brand is not going to change the game lore at all, quite the contrary. Spacelords comes to embrace all of them -Raiders and Antagonists- under one umbrella.

MercurySteam is committed to reward those players who have previously purchased one or more campaigns with exclusive, top-quality game content that won’t be available to anyone else. The studio will announce the exact nature of these rewards in the coming days.
And for those players who cannot wait until Spacelords become a Free to Play Game, two of Raiders of the Broken Planet’s most popular game features, designed with players who haven’t purchased a campaign in mind will dramatically change. From today, the free Mission of the Week becomes the Mission of the Day, accessible to all players. Similarly, the Gold price necessary for renting individual missions has been reduced significantly.



Be witness to how a game is reborn on August 23rd, when Raiders of the Broken Planet becomes Spacelords, a new and exciting Free to Play gaming experience.

29
Ship's Log / Issue related with a trophy for Rak Mayura
 on: June 26, 2018, 06:30:53 PM 
Hi Raiders,

We have detected an issue related with an achievement for Rak Mayura, "Selective Breeding", that can't be unlocked when you complete the requirements. We'll solve this problem in a future update.

Thank you very much for your understanding, we apologize for the inconveniences!

30
Dear Raiders,

We have detected a problem after the latest patch that affects some high level players (with high MMR ratings). They might find the enemy AI is excessively difficult to beat. We are determining where the problem is and will solve it ASAP.

Sorry for the inconveniences.

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