Recently we asked BioSynth’s community for a feedback on a few subjects and…
… we immensely appreciated everyone’s support! Thank you everyone, you rock!
Today we’re going to share the results and answer the comments we received.
This also means that we’re talking about stuff that we never shared before, so there’s a lot of new information, if you didn’t take a part in the survey.
In-Game Reward for Kickstarter
We intend to give Kickstarter backers one or more exclusive rewards (so be sure to follow the Kickstarter if you aren’t following it already).
The three in-game rewards mentioned in the survey all got about the same average score…
About these items, we got this comment:
“I feel a kickstarter weapon or armor will either be not as good end game or too powerful all game (don’t need other weapons)”
Which is a concern we’ve had since we first thought about offering an in-game item.
Before the survey we wanted it to be just a cosmetic item… but reading the following comment made us consider another point of view:
“Regarding backer only items: it’s nothing too important for me. It’s nice to have, though, but if it’s just cosmetic, i wouldn’t use it probably. Make it extra strong and then we’re talking, but that’s just my person point of view :)”
After thinking about these… we think we found a great solution: the in-game item could be a cool item that can be upgraded during your adventures.
This way, you can use it in early game without it being OP… and it will get powerups so you can keep using it in later parts of the game.
The required pieces to upgrade the item could be found around or you could get them from NPCs. We’ll take the time to create something cool about this upgrading process.
Most Loved Features/Content for Eventual Stretch Goals
The feedbacks about the game features/content were really interesting and there were a few surprises.
These were the most loved ones:
- Cyberware & implants
- Additional maps
- Additional classes
- Skilltrees for each skill
Cyberware and Implants
Cyberware and implants have been in my mind for a long time. I always thought it would make the game way cooler… but my opinion it’s just my opinion… after seeing the overwhelmingly positive rating from the community, I got it: everyone wants those.
Here’s the thing. Having cyberware and implants as simple 2D icons to drop on an equipment slot doesn’t cut it for me. If you equip that cool cyber arm, you want to see that cool cyber arm on your character.
That seemingly simple feature hides an incredibly hard challenge: you have to handle implants together with an armor system. How do you handle having a complex cyberware AND a metal armor?
We found a solution and are ready to work on this, if we reach that stretch goal 🙂
By the way, not all the implants will reflect on your character’s appearance… for example, if you equip some cyber lungs, obviously they won’t show up… but every cyberware you equip will give some perks.
Additional Maps and Classes
Additional maps and classes are self-explanatory… but honestly I was really surprised to see additional maps as the second most wanted feature! That’s great to know.
Skilltrees for Each Skill
Skilltrees for each skill is a feature where each singular skill has its own small skill tree. Think about customizing a skill with its own 4-6 variations.
Let’s suppose that there’s a skill for the ninja that allows him to get behind an enemy from a certain range and then backstab them dealing 150% weapon damage. This skill could have a tree branch where you also deal negative status to the enemy as bleeding, paralysis, poison, etc… or another tree branch where you get to backstab 2 enemies instead of 1.
Thanks to the modular skill system that we developed, this isn’t challenging to create… but we’d have to run a lot more tests.
But it’s cool because it allows you to customize your build a lot more!
Less Popular Features
As for the not so popular features, I’m surprised that voice acting didn’t end up higher – it got in the 6th spot, out of 9 features.
Consoles version and localization ended up as the 2 lowest ranking features… which isn’t a surprise since not all the players need them. But I understand that these are crucial for some players, so we’ll still keep them into consideration.
Most Loved Classes
Of course, we had to talk about classes.
At first we already had an order for the additional classes that we wanted to put in the game… but then we thought: “we’ll let the players decide what are their favourite classes”.
The slaver got the last spot. It seemed a cool class, but I can see why it ended up so low: only a part of the players want to play as an evil character.
The ammunitionist got the 5th place, very close to the soldier that ended up at the 4th place.
The 3rd place went to the genetist, with my great surprise – I didn’t expect it to score so high. Well, having mutants fight for you seems fun… and spreading diseases is also a good power to have.
The second place went to the scientist. They can throw gravity bombs to gather enemies in a place, use boson techs to enlarge objects or make them smaller, or open a tiny black hole in the middle of the battlefield.
And the first place goes to the machinist. I knew this class was a winner from the very start! In part summoner, in part shapeshifter. They can summon robots of various shapes and sizes (from small spiders, to mid-sized dogs, to big lions) and enter in their own small gundam-like mech units.
Answering Comments
Let me start by saying to the people who wanted to contribute to testing/voice acting/localization/analysis/etc.: thank you so much for wanting to help, we really appreciate it… and the survey was anonimous, so we can’t contact you… shoot us and email if you want to get in touch.
Now, let’s answer a few comments:
“Would love to see a class that somewhat resembles a Wizard/Mage class.”
The good news is that the hacker (that is already in the game), is basically a wizard – more on the illusionist and manipulator side, but has some big damage AoE abilities too. If we get to add the scientist, that would be more of a DPS wizard.
“Gamepad support would be fantastic”
Can’t remember if it was in the last version of the demo… but in our current build, we have controls mapping. That doesn’t translate automatically into gamepad support… but we already have the foundation for that.
“I really like the skill tree but would love more complex skill trees. I worry about some skill trees that end up useless or super weak.”
I know that in the currently released version of the demo there are just skills from skill trees… but those won’t be the only skills. After the first few levels, most of your gear will grant you additional skills… and then you can also equip 3 quick items, which basically are 3 wildcard skills. You’ll have plenty of chances to customize your build.
And of course, if we get to make the skilltrees for each skill, there will be even more skills to choose from.
About some skills ending up useless/weak, we test them. And even if a skill pass our tests, we’ll listen to players’ feedbacks. Our end goal is to make players have fun with skills!
“A playable and fluid game, with a good story”
Yep, that’s the very minimum 🙂
“Could you think about romances as well?”
Consider that with a very limited budget we have to make important choices. The 3 pillars discussed here are guiding us. If we get to bring our full vision to the game, we can think about romances too. But if do them, we most likely won’t be able to do them with cinematics.
Let me conclude the post by saying a big thank you to all of you that expressed their appreciation for the game and our work. And of course, thank you to all the people that support us in any way – from sharing our stuff to reading our posts, etc…
Remember to follow the Kickstarter and we’ll be back soon with more news.
