PAT22 University

The patch notes for the twenty-second update of the Stars Reach pre-alpha testing phase are massive. The list of changes, improvements, bug fixes and new features added to the game is huge - but it is many, many small things.

Most sadly though, the marketplace did not make it. The developers had wanted to include a kiosk to the TPL station in space, that allows players to purchase things that have been put up for sale by other players. An asynchronous trading method to get the economy off the ground, which is a priority right now. I was very excited for that - but sadly it didn’t get ready in time and now has to wait until next patch.

Space portals look like caged wormholes now

Weapons

The biggest change with the most impact on gameplay is what has been done with the weapons. The weapons we’ve seen so far, were mostly some early prototypes, proof of concept, test-specials there weren’t ever meant to be part of the final game. The weapons planned in the game design are meant to have different damage types and fill more specialized roles and uses in combat.

That’s why something like the previous “OmniBlaster” that just deals generic “damage”, doesn’t really fit in there. What was the OmniBlaster has now been replaced with the OmniForce and the OmniShock. Two blasters - one of them dealing kinetic damage, the other dealing shock damage. The latter also comes with new, different special abilities on the “Q” and “E” buttons: an arcing AoE “Artillery” shot, and the “Hunter Seekers”: a 3x3 grid of homing projectiles. The OmniShock keeps the OmniBlaster’s specials, and on top of that, we also get Corrosion Drones - similar to the Companion Orbs but with corrosion damage instead of fire damage - and the Freeze Ray.

Newly improved lights shining through the newly improved fog

I did a little bit of combat with a newly crafted OmniForce and the OmniShock which used to be my OmniBlaster - but I didn’t have any strong feelings about it. Most testers seem to agree that the OmniShock is the new GOAT among the available weapons. I personally am a little handicapped by my bad, high-latency, rural internet, which means that any weapon that doesn’t have homing is very hard for me to hit. That makes me anything but your best source of combat related information.

What I can tell you though, is that the new weapons all use new, component based crafting recipes! And they do use the same components found in previous component recipes - just in different combinations:

• OmniShock: Barrel + Grip + Energy Sequencer
• OmniForce: Barrel + Grip + Focusing Lens
• Companion Orbs: Focusing Lens + Power Chamber
• Corrosion Drones: Focusing Lens + Power Chamber
• Freeze Ray: Barrel + Stock + Energy Sequencer + Power Chamber
• Gravity Gun: Barrel + Stock + Energy Sequencer + Power Chamber
• Harvester: Nano Compression Matrix, Energy Sequencer, Grip, Flare Cone
• Healix: Barrel + Stock + Focusing Lens + Energy Sequencer
• Terraformer: Power Chamber + Focusing Lens + Barrel + Stock

That’s great, and I especially like that the two Omnis share two ingredients, but differ in their third. Makes them similar - but not the same. I like that more than the two drones (companion, corrosion) as well as the two beams/rays (freeze, gravity) being completely identical.

Akacala dusk

What’s not so great, is that for now all the weapons use only Q (Quality) for increased damage and V (Versatility) for battery efficiency. That’s gonna change of course - eventually all the tools and weapons are supposed to make full use of all four PQRV values. But for now, weapons only use two - and the same two across all the weapons. As things stand right now, you’ll simply want to craft components with maxed out Q and good V - and that’s gonna be the clearly best choice to use for each and every weapon you can make. I guess it does help make things easier for crafters.

Ecology Kiosk

While the weapons are the change with the probably strongest direct gameplay impact, the Ecology Kiosk is the probably most interesting addition. It’s not just a terminal that shows you the overall health of a planet in terms of it’s resources, flora and fauna - but also includes Servitor interventions when players deplete or destroy any aspect of a planet’s health. For now it’s all very basic - just some “roombas” spawning in and attacking you, when you do for example completely mine out a resource. But it will be very interesting to see where the devs take this concept.

Akacala dawn

Sadly for now this had to be disabled. It only ran for the one hour initial sanity-check test on Thursday, which was late night and I didn’t attend. So, I never got to see the kiosk in person - but I did get to see some reports and screenshots from other testers. And it probably will be back next Thursday. But as I said - it seems to be rather basic for now, and is probably more interesting for it’s future implications, rather than for what it currently already does.

Improved Tutorial

I went in and created a new character, just to play through the tutorial again, and take a look at the improvements first hand.

Starting the new tutorial

Here’s the notes I took right when walking through it:

• Free cursor is still the default mode. I believe starting in fixed reticle and making free cursor “the other option” would fit better - especially since the tutorial consists of mostly narrow tunnels to walk through, where you need a closely zoomed in camera.
• The wall you have to climb up, still doesn’t appear all that “climbable” at first glance. It’s cluttered in a distinctively non-ladder-like way.
• There are still dialogue boxes that need player confirmation, even if there is only a “yes” button and no “no” option. The window pops up, and does not free your cursor, so if you are in fixed reticle mode, you have to manually switch back to be able to spawn in the box. Right out of the box, fixed reticle players are treated second class.
• Eqipping the debris tool still requires the player to drag the icon - not the square. The icon does not fill the square, but is significantly smaller, requiring the player to aim carefully. Not a big issue with a real mouse on a large screen - but might be rather fiddly on a SteamDeck for example.
• After equipping the Debris Tool it is equipped but not equipped. It is orange and highlighted, but holstered, and you have to draw it to equip eqip it.
• Pressing the number button to equip equip the tool changed the stance of the character - but the tool did not visually appear, the tool selection stayed orange as it was before - there was no real noticable change in state that told me something actually changed.
• After clearing the debris, you no longer have to crouch to get through.
• It’s still possible to accidentially make pop-up windows disappear before reading them. Move back a few steps, or move forward a few steps to far, and you no longer know what you are supposed to do next.
• When firing the grapple you are actually advised to switch to fixed reticle mode for more precise aiming.
• When after the electric room, the Servitor tells you to use ReLife again, doing so does not auto-continue. You have to both press G on the ReLife station AND press the continue button (which again can only be done by switching to free cursor - right after you’ve been advised to switch to fixed reticle)
• When I arrived at the lava room, the floor was already frozen, so I was not able to properly test the fire suppressor.
• Getting through the lava does no longer require crouching and climbing - it’s just walking down the ramp on one side, walking around the wall, then up the ramp on the other side.
• You can still select “Valiant Soldier” first, then switch to another starter package - and will keep the “OmniShock” recipe (as well as several component recipes) that only the soldier should get. Same with the refining recipes only the crafter should have.

Visually a dead end - I can’t tell the bottom half is further away and the top half nearer, so I can walk through below it.

Deeper Thoughts

Going through this starter experience again prompted me to take two steps back, and question a few things on a more fundamental level. I personally never was a fan of front-loaded tutorials. There are interesting videos to be found on YouTube that for example compare the “tutorial” phase of older megaman games to newer ones. Old megaman games had you start in a level with only one way to go. Then there was a small gap you could easily jump over. Then there was a larger gap that was just a teensy bit to large to jump - but you didn’t know that of course. So you’d run, try the jump, not make it, hit the opposite wall and discover wall-sliding. You’d then slowly slide down the walls into the lower screen, and at the very bottom of the pit, there would be spikes. You couldn’t move, but pressing jump again would make you jump off the wall - landing on safe ground, as the spikes only were right next to the wall. Behind you then was a little energy pickup, and the only way back up was to use wall-sliding and wall-jumping.

And that’s how you’d learn about wall-sliding (a new feature in that release), wall-jumping, wall-climbing by using a combination of wall-sliding and wall-jumping, hidden secrets, and the fact that not all pits would kill you - but that there could be screens lower down as well. And all of that without using a single word of written or spoken text.

Doesn’t scream “climbable” to me. Testers have been using fences/railings to make extremely ladder-looking things. It’s doable.

That then get’s compared to a newer entry in the megaman series, where there is some annyoing character bombarding you with severall walls of text to click through, that explain to you - with many words and even some animations/videos - that spikes will kill you, and how wall-sliding works, and how to wall-jump, and so much all at once, that by the time you finally are out of the pop-ups and have control of your character again - you’ve already forgotten half of it again, because you never got to try it.

There’s also games like Noita for example, which teach you the very basics of movement, by just placing some signs in the game world, behind the path you have to walk by. It’s just like background decoration - no pop-up window that forces you to klick OK. You don’t have to confirm that you’ve read and understood the text - because if you can make it past it, you know how to move anyways. I’m specifically using Noita here, because that’s an example also mentioned by the devs once.

But What Is The Point

WASD - especially in combination with mouse look (fixed reticle mode) - has been the de facto standard navigation method for 3D worlds for about three decades now. Every shooter - first person or third person - used that. Minecraft uses it. Roblox uses it. Portal uses it. Among us uses it. The Sims 4 has a first-person mode that uses it. Kerbal Space Program uses it for walking around. Elder Scrolls games use it. Firewatch uses it. Noita uses a 2D version of it - where the mouse doesn’t control the camera, but still is used for aiming.

Seems unneccesary to force the switch to free cursor here

If you allow to include controller based games, where the left stick does WASD and the right stick does camera, then even games like Kirby: The Forgotten Land use the same control scheme. And while Super Mario 64 technically was not the same - since it had only one analog stick on the controller to work with - it came very, very close. In summary: this is a control scheme that almost everyone knows. And for the few players who’ve never, ever played in that way - nothing you can possibly do in your tutorial will be enough to teach them the muscle memory.

Making those 99% of players who already know how WASD works click away a pop-up window that insufficiently (for those not knowing WASD) explains how it works, does not help anyone. It’s more like just a token excercise so you can say “we did teach players how to move!”.

So, maybe the Noita way of just putting up a background sign that says “Hey, we use WASD for movement” is the best approach after all. And the same way, there could be a sign behind the relife station that says “This is a checkpoint - press G to save your progress”. Or a sign behind the box that says “Press G on the box to pickup a Debris Tool to clear the path”. Something like that. That would of course require signs that you can put text on. And maybe making the corridor less linear, so that run up straight to the sign + box, and then have to take a turn (so you can’t miss it).

Dragging only works for the small icon - not for the large orange square.

Questioning Everything - Especially Front-Loading

Even then it still is a front-loaded tutorial though, and as I said, I don’t like those much. Should be kept to an absolute minimum. The debris tool is teaching you how to use the terraformer - which is the most central and important tool in the game right now. But even know, there’s several starter packages that players can choose, which do not even include a terraformer.

It might be too soon to learn to use the terraformer for these players. If I pick “valiant soldier” I probably should learn about using weapons instead. Because, as a soldier, I technically don’t have to use a terraformer ever - and even if I do, it might take a while to get there. Long enough, and filled with enough other stuff to learn, that I’m no longer fresh on the debris tutorial at all.

But that same weapon tutorial that the soldier should get at the start - might also be interesting for a Diligent Crafter later, when (if) they finally pick up their first weapon. Just like the soldier might want to take the debris tutorial later - when (if) they do pick up a terraformer. But even with the debris tool - players who pick the crafter package, still go out on a planet and first thing they do, is to dig up some dirt right next to the portal. Just to try out the real thing - and they do get rewarded for that with discovery XP, which entices them to dig more and deeper. And that’s when people really learn to use the terraformer. Should we really be trying to stop them from doing that, in an ill-fated attempt to keep the main planets more beautiful, that doesn’t work out anyway?

A message appears

Took a step back, now it’s gone

No more instructions for me

Warframe does offer parkour like obstacle courses (those can even be player-made), that allow players to learn and train their partially quite complex ninja-moves. It’s a little challenge area, that keeps your time and also keeps a high-score list. I’m not sure if I remember correctly, but I do think the game also presented players with a rather easy, developer-made such course early on in the game, when you just start playing. If not, they totally should.

What if the TPL offered multiple free training and challenge courses - optional of course - that covered different topics, like movement, combat, mining, etc.? The (or “a”) mining one cold be about how to get the most diamond out of some slumping dirt. Just little challenges like that - optional and repeatable anytime. Just go back to the TPL, find the right terminal, choose “start challenge”. The same terminal could optionally also offer some more explanation text - for those who want it.

As various gameplay options get more in-depth and complex, you really might want such repeatable tutorials that players can take, whenever they feel ready for it. I imagine something like advanced dancing for entertainers might really need something like that. Artisan crafting might as well.

It’s not about choosing what mode you like best - it’s about always toggling back and forth, because neither mode works all the time.

And already forced to toggle again. Can’t continue in fixed reticle mode.

And now please toggle again.

The Big Question For The Current Tutorial

What purpose does the current tutorial actually serve? Does it sufficiently teach WASD to anyone who’s never used WASD before? What does it teach someone who already knows WASD that couldn’t be conveyed by just a little sign in the background as well?

Does it teach crouching and climbing? When I built that maze, there was one section where you had to crouch. That wasn’t even intended, but the homestead object just was in the way, and there wasn’t enough space to go around it - so you had to crouch under it. At that point in time, the tutorial still required you to crouch three times: once when crouch was explained to you, once after clearing the debris and once in the lava-room. You had to use crouch three times in a row - should be enough actual usage to remember it? Nope, I have to tell you that there were players who got stuck in the maze because they didn’t remember crouching in that one spot where it was needed. The new tutorial uses crouching only once - and after that, in the actual game, the player might not need to crouch for days or weeks. Without that regular use, and after only using it once - people are just gonna forget about it. I bet you that if you asked relatively new players to crouch in the game - far more would be able to do it, because CTRL is commonly used for crouching and they just tried that - and far, far less would actally remember it from the tutorial.

No more crouching, no more climbing, pre-frozen lava. Very easy now.

It does teach you about dieing and the grapple. But without telling you about the actually important stuff about how your gravemarker works, and how the ReLife station saves your inventory. Imagine a challenge room, where you have to:

• save at a relife station,
• pick something from a box (which explodes on touching it)
• die in the explosion,
• run back to pick up your gravemarker, (to get the something back)
• return to the relife and save

… all with a timer and a high-score list.

There also could be a grapple challenge where you have to overcome a few hurdles using a supplied test-grapple. Reward for making it through: you get a real Grapple that’s yours to keep. A new player could just walk past it, of course - but hey, you do want to get that free grapple, right?

So What Does The Tutorial Actually Teach You?

One thing that the Tutorial does indirectly teach you, is that you will get pop-ups that tell you what to do. Like quests or something. Go there, pick up that, equip this, use it there… clear, step-by-step instructions that you just have to follow mindlessly. Just follow the quest-compass. The tutorial does set (or confirm) themepark-like expectations in the player.

You are definitely being taught to constantly toggle. The tutorial starts you in free cursor, tells you two times that fixed reticle is better, and forces you back into free three times.

What the tutorial does decidedly NOT teach you, is to explore and experiment, and just try things out on your own. It does not tell you how a sandbox works, and does not encourage you to set your own goals. In fact, the choice of a starter-package where you get hints at some of the possibilities what you could be doing, and let’s you pick one - that’s probably the most sandbox thing you get to do in the entire tutorial.

And if you look what players say and report about playing sandbox, especially their first sandbox - it often comes down to getting out of the tutorial and then feeling lost. “And what do I do now? What’s next?”. And then they get told: “This is a sandbox, you can do whatever you want to do!” - “Yeah… but how do I know what I want to do? How do I figure out what I’d like to do, if I haven’t any previous experience from other games?”

That’s why I kinda like that idea of TPL “challenge rooms” - because if you get a mining challenge, a combat challenge, a crafting challenge, a dancing challenge, etc. - that does give the player some glimpse at the many possibilities and options they have, of what they could be doing. And they can actively try out those things - in a non-commital way. Just to get a taste of it.

If someone doesn’t know what to do - it should be because there’s so many interesting choices they can’t decide what to pick - and NOT because they don’t even know any of the options they have available to them. Right?

Still the most useful starter option, in my opinion.

Another thing I did notice, is that when a friend joins the game for the first time, and struggles in the tutorial, there really isn’t much I can do to help them - other than post a few messages in chat. But without them sharing their screen it’s hard for me to understand what they struggle with, and without me sharing my screen while I run through the tutorial on a new character, I can’t show them what I’m talking about. TPL challenge rooms that allow for spectators would help with all that.

The Skill Teaser

The skill trees have been completely rearranged and gotten a ton of new additions. But with a little twist: There isn’t actually much that’s new or different. Most of the new skills are marked as “WIP” and can’t actually be unlocked yet. They are just teasers for what is planned - and things aren’t set in stone yet either. Chances are that what we see now, will still change down the line. Some skill trees might split, or get combined, or be moved elsewhere. Still, there are some very exciting things that do get teased in this preview of skills and skill trees to come in the future.

Botany

Botany

WIP: Herbalism (unlock)
Yield 1 -> Yield 2 -> Yield 3
Forestry (unlock)
WIP: Foraging (unlock)
Farming (unlock)

Herbalism

-

Forestry

Planting
Growth Beam 1 -> Growth Beam 2 -> Growth Beam 3 ---> Growth Beam 4
                                                 +-> Stunting
                                                 +-> Pruning
Yield 1 -> Yield 2 -> Yield 3

Foraging

-

Farming

Thermal Meter
WIP: Plant Genetics
Bush Planting
Growth Pod 1 -> Growth Pod 2 -> Growth Pod 3

Nothing suprising here. Work on Farming had already begun ages ago - but then it got scrapped again and got a new design, and now we don’t know when it will finally get implemented.

WIP: Business

Business

WIP: Management (unlock)
WIP: Logistics (unlock)
WIP: Advertising (unlock)

Management

-

Logistics

WIP: Crime

Advertising

-

This is going to be about player shops and selling crafted items. And logistics are a crime! I wonder if that’s supposed to be a dig at Amazon?

Combat

Combat

Playtest Specials (unlock)
WIP: Combat Tactics (unlock)

Playtest_Specials

OmniShock -+-> Tri-Shot
           +-> Doom Blossom
OmniForce -+-> Hunter Seekers
           +-> Artillery
Gravity Gun -+-> Black Hole Bomb
             +-> Boomer
Freeze Ray -+-> Snow Globe
            +-> Deep Freeze
Corrosion Drones -+-> Bug Bombs
                  +-> Acid Bath
Companion Orbs -+-> Node Ring
                +-> Boomerang Burst

Combat_Tactics

WIP: Ranged (unlock)
WIP: Melee (unlock)
WIP: Drones (unlock)
WIP: Combat Engineer (unlock)

Ranged

WIP: Sniper
WIP: Shotgun
WIP: Rocket Launcher
WIP: Pistol
WIP: Heavy Machine Gun
WIP: Bow
WIP: Battle Rifle
WIP: Assault Rifle

Melee

WIP: Sword
WIP: Staff
WIP: Mauler
WIP: Laser Whip
WIP: Knife Stars

Drones

-

Combat_Engineer

-

This is interesting, as we get a first glimpse at (some of) the planned weapon categories. Not sure what the difference between a battle rifle and an assault rifle is - but I guess we’ll find out. Also, what’s a knife star? That a shuriken?

Cooking

Cooking

WIP: Preservation (unlock)
Foods (unlock)

Preservation

-

Foods

Fruit Jam
Mushroom Patty
Meat Kabob

Cooking jam originally was a method of preserving food for the winter. If jars and tins aren’t preserves, makes me wonder what is then? Also, cooking lost a lot of recipes, which were moved to medicine and other places. Yeah, batteries are no longer made by cooking either.

Crafting

Crafting

WIP: Tailoring (unlock)
Machinist (unlock)
Civil Engineering (unlock)

Tailoring

WIP: Armorer

Machinist

Weaponsmith (unlock)
Toolmaker (unlock)
WIP: Engineer

Weaponsmith

Reflection Shield
Power Battery
OmniShock
OmniForce
Healix
Gravity Gun
Freeze Ray
Fortress Shield
Companion Orbs
Acid Drones

Toolmaker

Xyloslicer -> Pruning Shears
Terraformer -> Depositor -> Chronophaser
Paver
Pathfinder -> Trailblazer
Instaformer -> Fabricator
Harvester -> Growth Beacon
Grapple -> Gravity Mesh
Cooking Station -> Toolmaking Station -> Lathe Station -> Refining Station

Civil_Engineering

WIP: Public Works
WIP: Public Architecture
Paver -+-> Paver: Manfactured Surfaces
       +-> Paver: Flagstones
Architect (unlock)

Architect

Instaformer -+-> Stone Blocks
             +-> Metal Blocks
             +-> Manufactured Blocks
Initial Homestead -> Additional Homestead -> Additional Homestead
Fabricator -+-> Windows & Walls
            +-> Ramps
            +-> Lights
            +-> Decorations
            +-> Essentials

Not much new here - just the new weapons added and a little reordering. Public works and architecture is going to be stuff for player cities, like having your own kiosks and terminals, and other stuff.

WIP: Humanities

Humanities

WIP: Writing (unlock)
WIP: Music (unlock)
WIP: Dance (unlock)
WIP: Acting (unlock)

Writing

WIP: Journalism

Music

-

Dance

-

Acting

-

This is an interesting group - lots of potential for player creativity in there. Can’t wait to see this getting more fleshed out.

WIP: Leadership

Leadership

WIP: Inspiration (unlock)
WIP: Group Tactics (unlock)
WIP: Coordination (unlock)

Inspiration

Politics

Group_Tactics

-

Coordination

Politics

What’s more rare? Inspired politicians - or inspiring politicians?

Medical

Medical

Pharmacology (unlock)
WIP: Genetics (unlock)

Pharmacology

Medicine -+-> Stamina Booster
          +-> Health Booster
          +-> Focus Booster
Cures -+-> Watt Away
       +-> Thaw Bones
       +-> Go Juice
       +-> Flame Out
       +-> Cure All

Healix_Specials

Surge
Mass Heal

Genetics

-

Weirdly enough, the Healix Specials are kinda “free floating” and not attached to any other tree where they cold be unlocked?

Mineralogy

Mineralogy

Refining (unlock)
Prospecting (unlock)
Mining (unlock)
Industrial Mining (unlock)
Gas Harvesting (unlock)
Depositing (unlock)
Chronophasing (unlock)

Refining

Soils
Sedimentary
Other
Metamorphic
Igneous
Alloy

Prospecting

Assay Stats -> Assay Adhesion and Temp -> Advanced Assay

Mining

Yield 1 -+-> Yield 2 -> Yield 3
         +-> WIP: Gemology (unlock)
WIP: Speed 1 -> WIP: Speed 2 -> WIP: Speed 3
Hopper Size 1 -> Hopper Size 2 -> Hopper Size 3

Gemology

WIP: Gem Drop 1 -> WIP: Gem Drop 2 -> WIP: Gem Drop 3

Industrial_Writing

WIP: Rig Speed 1 -> WIP: Rig Speed 2 -> WIP: Rig Speed 3
WIP: Rig Range 1 -> WIP: Rig Range 2 -> WIP: Rig Range 3
WIP: Mines 1 -> WIP: Mines 2 -> WIP: Mines 3

Gas_Harvesting

WIP: Gas Yield 1 -> WIP: Gas Yield 2 -> WIP: Gas Yield 3

Depositing

-

Chronophasing

WIP: Lithify 1 -> WIP: Lithify 2 -> WIP: Lithify 3
Heat 1 -> Heat 2 -> Heat 3
WIP: Erode 1 -> WIP: Erode 2 -> WIP: Erode 3

It seems that industrial mining is all about operating some mining rig. I wonder what form that will take? We alread know that we probably aren’t going to see unattended mining like with the harvesters in SWG - because the materials have to actually be removed from the CASIM. So this might be more like a boring machine - a tunneler - that’s faster in creating tunnels and digging through stuff - but worse than the terraformer regarding yield and gems and stuff?

Ranger

Ranger

Trailblazer Utilities (unlock)
WIP: Survivalist (unlock)
Surveying (unlock)
WIP: Stealth (unlock)
WIP: Stealth Attacks (unlock)
Navigation (unlock)
Camping (unlock)

Trailblazer_Utilities

Flamethrower
Freeze Beam
Flare

Survivalist

WIP: Poison Resistance -> Poison Resistance 1 -> WIP: Poison Resistance 2 -> WIP: Poison Resistance 3
WIP: Heat Resistance -> WIP: Heat Resistance 1 -> WIP: Heat Resistance 2 -> WIP: Heat Resistance 3
WIP: Fall Damage Reduction -> WIP: Fall Damage Reduction 1 -> WIP: Fall Damage Reduction 2 -> WIP: Fall Damage Reduction 3
WIP: Cold Resistance -> WIP: Cold Resistance 1 -> WIP: Cold Resistance 2 -> WIP: Cold Resistance 3
WIP: Anti-Nausea Training -> WIP: Anti-Nausea Training 1 -> WIP: Anti-Nausea Training 2 -> WIP: Anti-Nausea Training 3

Surveying

WIP: Swimming -> WIP: Swimming 1 -> WIP: Swimming 2 -> WIP: Swimming 3
Maker Scanning -> WIP: Range 1 -> WIP: Range 2 -> WIP: Range 3
WIP: Landmark Naming -> WIP: Landmark Naming 1 -> WIP: Landmark Naming 2 -> WIP: Landmark Naming 3
WIP: Hiking -> WIP: Hiking 1 -> WIP: Hiking 2 -+-> WIP: Hiking 3
                                               +-> WIP: Footing -> WIP: Footing 1
WIP: Climbing -> WIP: Climbing 1 -+-> WIP: Climbing 2 -> WIP: Climbing 3
                                  +-> WIP: Piton
WIP: Cave Mapping

Stealth

WIP: Mask 1 -> WIP: Mask 2 -> WIP: Mask 3
WIP: Hide -+-> WIP: Hide 1 -> WIP: Hide 2 -> WIP: Hide 3
           +-> WIP: Sneak -> WIP: Sneak 1 -> WIP: Sneak 2 -> WIP: Sneak 3
WIP: Area Awareness -> WIP: Detect Hidden -> WIP: Detect Hidden 1 -> WIP: Detect Hidde 2 -> WIP: Detect Hidden 3

Stealth

WIP: Mask 1 -> WIP: Mask 2 -> WIP: Mask 3
WIP: Hide -+-> WIP: Hide 1 -> WIP: Hide 2 -> WIP: Hide 3
           +-> WIP: Sneak -> WIP: Sneak 1 -> WIP: Sneak 2 -> WIP: Sneak 3
WIP: Area Awareness -> WIP: Detect Hidden -> WIP: Detect Hidden 1 -> WIP: Detect Hidde 2 -> WIP: Detect Hidden 3

Stealth_Attacks

WIP: Sneak Attack -> WIP: Sneak Attack 1 -> WIP: Sneap Attack 2 -> Seak Attack
WIP: Hidden Attack 1 -> Hidden Attack 2 -> Hidden Attack 3

Navigation

Local Waypoint -> Ranged Waypoint -+-> Survey Map
                                   +-> WIP: Library 1 -> WIP: Library 2 -> WIP: Library 3
                                   +-> WIP: Distance 1 -> WIP: Distance 2 WIP:  Distance 3

Camping

WIP: Camp Stations 1 -> WIP: Camp Stations 2 -> WIP: Camp Stations 3
Camp Size 1 -> Camp Size 2 -> Camp Size 3
Camp Duration 1 -> Camp duration 2 -> Camp duration +3

It’s weird how the weapon is called “Corrosion Drones”, the skill is called “Acid Drones”, and the resistance is called “Poison Resistance”… it’s all supposed to be the same damage type, right?

Apart from that, it’s unclear to me, why some abilities would start at 1 (for exmpale: Mask 1, Mask 2, Mask 3) - while others start at 0 (for example: Hiking, Hiking 1, Hinking 2, #Hiking 3). Or why some top center abilities (that get unlocked in other parts of the tree) are circles and others are squares.

WIP: Vehicles

Camping

WIP: Starships (unlock)
WIP: Ground Vehicles (unlock)
WIP: Air Vehicles (unlock)

Starships

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Ground_Vehicles

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Air_Vehicles

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Not much to see here yet. In a recent video devs said that ground vehicles might end up of the floaty, hovering kind (at least at first) - because simulating individual 4 wheel suspension and traction and stuff, comes with it’s own pandorra’s box of challenges.

I wonder what air vehicles we might get - that actually make sense, given the not so large planets, and the fact that players can already fly around in space ships. Blimps?

WIP: Xenobiology

Xenobiology

WIP: Xenolinguistics (unlock)
WIP: Pets (unlock)
WIP: Hunting and Fishing (unlock)

Xenolinguistics

WIP: Xenoarcheology

Pets

WIP: Husbandry
WIP: Animal Training

Hunting_and_Fishing

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Pets! I hope that we will be able to just have cosmetic pets that were trained by others, without needing to train Xenobiology ourselves!

Crafted one of the new weapons.

Bonus Thoughts

Another topic that the tutorial got me thinking about, is camera controls. I’ve already mentioned above, how WASD + mouselook (fixed reticle) - has become the de-facto standard for movement in a 3D space, across a very wide range of games and genres. I truly think it should be the pre-selected default for that reason alone - and that free reticle/free cursor/hold-rmb-to-look-around should be “the other mode” that you can switch to with T.

Holding my invisible Xyloslicer.

The hold-rmb mode of camera movement is a hallmark of World of Warcraft of course, and has been very widespread in MMOs ever since. The main reason why it is so prevalent in MMOs still today (although “action mode” with fixed reticle is becoming increasingly popular), has to do with tab-target combat: If your game has 5 to 10 hotbars (we probably should talk about an action grid at this point), filled with dozens of abilities, all of which operate on their own and a global cooldown - then using the mouse to click on the ability you wish to fire is the prefered main input method. And you need a free mouse cursor for that.

That of course then also requires combat to be slower pace (you can’t turn and use abilities at the same time), and leads to some responsibility conflicts between right and left hand that good UX design should really, really avoid. You can of course resolve most of these conflicts by getting one of those 20-button MMO mice - but I don’t know what that says about your UI design, if it requires specialized input hardware to work properly….

Can’t even see the targetting circle - despite having high ground and looking down.

I personally really don’t like tab-target combat, and am very happy, that Stars Reach is giong for a way more interesting and enticing action combat system - where you totally don’t need a mouse cursor for clicking on your overwhelming mess of hotbars. I already loved Tera back in the day, for no other reason than breaking up with that tired rmb-camera tradition. And the numerous hotbars.

The then sole remaining reason for using such camera controls, is familiarity. And for any game that actively wants to feel familiar and similar to World of Warcraft (and it’s many clones), it does indeed make sense to stick by this camera control scheme. But any game that want’s to signal “we are fresh, new and different than that dieing breed of games” - should probably steer away from it.

Seems like someone built a cage for the bouncing bunny.

ARPG games like Diablo, Grim Dawn and Path of Exile still use a high up, fixed camera - that can be rotated with the right or middle mouse button, or some keyboard shortcuts. But the big difference there is, that these cameras do not auto-rotate with the character, and barely ever need to be adjusted, because the gameplay itself takes place in a 2D plane. Yes, there might be differences in elevation - but there’s never one floor on top of the other, or small mining tunnels with a low ceiling. And there’s special care taken to minimize line-of-sight issues when you are standing in front of the crest of a hill, and the enemy behind. I remember that problem often being very annoying in World of Warcraft - especially because from your typical camera position, you couldn’t even tell there was a hill-crest that could block your line of sight. That type of camera control - while sharing some similarities with WoW’s camera, is just infinitely better.

With the new plants and the way they spread naturally, we do get extremely convincing looking patches of forest.

Let’s Just Do Both And Let Players Choose What They Prefer

A noble goal, but by my experience that does not work out in practice. Instead of offering two control schemes in parallel that both work fine and offer the player free choice - what these games end up doing in practice, is forcing the players to learn both schemes and constantly switch between them, because each one only works half of the time. And that seems to be the way that Stars Reach is currently going - everyone has to use both modes, because neither really works all the time.

• Mining a tunnel and aiming towards a waypoint in the distance? Got to use fixed reticle/close camera for that, near impossible to do in free cursor mode.
• In the middle of a fight, and want to fire the Artillery shot of the OmniForce? Got to use free cursor with high up camera for that, because aiming that with fixed reticle is way too fiddly for the heat of combat.
• Want to aim your grapple? Definitely works better when using fixed reticle with close by camera.
• Want to log a tree that grows inside a thicket? Must use free cursor - because aiming at that tree trunk without hitting the thicket instead can be quite tricky in fixed reticle.
• Want to walk around a player built house with multiple floors? Unless said house is a massive hall with 10 meter high ceilings, definitely fixed reticle with close camera preferred.
• Running around under water? If you don’t want the water surface to block your sight, better pull in that camera, better switch to fixed reticle as well.
• Trying to build something? Free cursor is a must - this isn’t Minecraft where buildings works pretty good even in first person.

And don’t even get me started on all the bugs and issues that fixed reticle mode has or had - like when trading with other players was entirely impossible to do; or when you couldn’t interact with crafting stations; or when placing a camp left you in a weird broken state neither free nor fixed where T stopped working as well; or when going through a portal would leave you in a state where moving the mouse would move both the free cursor and the camera at the same time; or the very persistent issue of alt-tab making your reticle disappear entirely; I could go on forever… but it should be plenty obvious by now, that keeping up two modes with partially opposing requirements is an endless source of issues and bugs.

Trying to keep the area around the Baracatis portal somewhat smooth, is definitely a sisyphean task.

The thing is, that if you use only one mode, you can then put optimizations in place that would be incompatible with the other mode. Sure, each mode still has it’s own strengths and weaknesses - free cursor will always be unbeatable at clicking at all the many hotbars of a tab-target game, and better at aiming spell effects (unless you completely change around the aiming mechanism) - while fixed reticle will always be better at aiming a grapple, digging a straight tunnel, noticing that hill-crest that breaks line of sight, or just navigating tighter spaces.

The argument for switching seems to be, that if

• Mode A is 4 stars (out of five) at X and 1 star at Y - and
• Mode B is 1 star at X and 4 stars at Y

then switching allows you to get 4 stars comfort all the time. While using either method alone would on average only give you a 2.5 stars experience.

I like that things can get that dark - but it probably shouldn’t be that dark for 50% of the playtime. Longer days, and more moonlight during most nights would help.

But I claim, that having to switch back and forth, and having to learn two methods in parallel is cumbersome and totally worth a -1 star penalty. So, switching gives you 3 stars comfort all the time - while using a single method only gives still you 2.5 stars average. But - if only one method existed, you could optimize that by +1 star for both X and Y - using optimizations that would break the other method - and thus this would end up at 3.5 stars average.

That would make using one great method ever so slightly better, than switching between two less great ones - but effectively almost the same. Just with less work and effort required (and less prone to bugs) than making everything work both ways.

But if fixed reticle is your sole mode and you then for example use a separate drone camera (detached from the character, can freely float around) just for building (and make this the only mode for building - no switching back and forth) - then things get more one-sided very quickly. At the same, if free cursor was your sole mode, and you could trim everything to work more like in Diablo and similar games (with disappearing roofs) and need far less camera movement overall - that quickly gets a lot better too. It’s just that using both and switching that is caught right in the middle between two local maxima.

Growing trees with my invisible pruning shears.

So, the bottom line is, that Stars Reach is doing the hard thing - trying to make both modes work in parallel. Reason for that seemingly being that WoW cemented that mode as the primary camera control scheme that’s used by all tab-target MMOs until this day. But both this camera control scheme as well as tab-target have been on their way out for a while now - and the other mode, fixed reticle - is pretty much the de-facto standard for all 3D-movement games which are not tab-target MMO’s, and for good reason. And as a result of doing both, we see a lot of related bugs and problems.

That one beautiful corner of Akacala that has a slightly different biome.

I personally still think, that fixed reticle should become the default mode for new players - and free cursor should be “the other mode”, that you can switch to if you want.

A Plea

At the very least, please find a use for the right mouse button in fixed reticle mode! The right mouse is such prime real estate, that it feels really bad to just leave it completely unused, only because the other mode needs it to control the camera…

For example: let the right mouse button make the character run, so that you can move around the world one-handed - while you drink beer with the other! That sounds like a useful feature to me.

Fear and Loathing in Akavegas

Conclusion And Summary

The latest patch contains a long list of mostly small things. Many genuinely great small improvements in there as well - like for example I really love that the new chat window still shows at least one line of text, even when closed. The performance improvements regarding lights is something I can definitely feel on Akacala - even if framerate there still remains lower than anywhere else, because of the many player buildings. And while mining rocks and soils you now only got a chance of occasionally getting small amounts of other materials, including ores and gems. Just to mention a few quick examples of the many great small things.

The biggest change we did get, are the new weapons - both mechanically as well as regarding their crafting recipes. The most interesting changes are the Ecology Kiosk (which has been disabled again), and the Skill Tree previews - which are both a lot more interesting for their future implications rather than the smaller changes they brought for this patch. The Tutorial area has been significantly improved - but it still is a front-loaded tutorial that throws dialogue boxes your way. And the most anticipated change we did not get yet, is the marketplace kiosk.

And as a little bonus, I revealed my subjective thoughts on why I think constantly switching back and forth between free cursor and fixed reticle mode is not a particularly elegant camera control scheme and not as good, as just having one single mode could be.

Until next time!