There were no Live or Testing updates for Boundless this week. But we have been busy. The following features will be coming in the next release:
- GUI rendering, update and animation optimisations to increase game performance.
- Tweaks to the Player damage indicator in the HUD.
- Improved Creature AI, including creatures not falling off cliffs, avoiding obstacles and searching for routes to track you.
- Early version of Location Markers on Planets in the HUD.
- If we are lucky, we might be able to release the new portal! Wish us luck.
The foundation work on the unified Attributes / Stats / Progression System is almost done. This will allow the designers to easily modify game balance across Creatures, Tools, Weapons, Buffs, Bombs and Player Progression.
Thank you to all the YouTubers posting their Boundless videos. We have been learning lots and our designers have been making changes to the game including the tutorial / objectives to make the game flow smoother and more intuitive. The new users will see these changes soon.
Code
Portals are in the last stage of the implementation and being tested to shake out functionality and usability issues. Portals can be created between and within Worlds. Opening and maintaining an open portal both cost resources. Currently this is balanced to make it much more resource efficient to maintain open portals.
A new creature drop system has being implemented where you have to hit a dead creature to extract and collect the drops. Each player can extract and collect their own drops. The creature will still de-spawn after a fixed time. This system stops vulture players from stealing drops, and also makes the drops easier to find especially if a creature was killed from range. The perceived down side of players getting drops for free is IMO offset by removing the option for griefing by stealing another player’s drops. Also drop stalking players still need to survive in the environment where the drops are appearing.
The attribute system is being worked on, with the health system being the first system to be updated. The damage, explosion and impact feedback is being hooked up and will be updated to support the new damage types. This includes elemental and physical properties.
The HUD will now displayer a player’s location markers on remote planets when they’re holding the Totem. This includes your own markers, friends beacons, your guilds locations, cities and the capital.
We’ve been fixing up a number of GUI issues for the next release. We also spent time investigating issues for the corrupted GUI and controller lag people have been reporting. Additionally we also worked on the PlayStation 4 TRC.
Design
This week @luke-turbulenz has reworked the Sanctum, with a view to implementing a more comprehensive tutorial and new user experience. Once integrated new players will be learning about the game, and choosing their starting world in a slick and engaging way. He’s also worked out how creatures will choose targets based on a “threat” system.
@olliepurkiss has been generating lots of data for the attributes system, which covers player progression, creatures and how they are generated, and items and how they work with a character’s attributes.
Rob has been working on the final bits for the HUD, including what information is shown when looking at blocks and interactive entities. The per block HUD elements will help you understand: what is in a beacon, what is outside, what is locked, what will regen, and what it shared with other players. He’s also been working out the information that is shown about Warps and Portals. And finally working out the details of what is shown when looking up at a planet in the sky.
Art
This week the art team have been busy working on all aspects of improving our game visually. In particular we’ve been delving into concepting our characters and looking at the full breadth of customisation aspects that we’d like to see in the near future. Here’s a first glimpse of this working process where we eventually aim for you to be able to choose your face, skin and head shape in a fully interchangeable way.
The current flowers of boundless have also been getting a bit of polish and loving attention. We’ve increased the visual fidelity of the mesh to allow a more crafted and detailed end outcome. Here’s a few images of the stages of progress done under the hood, behind the scenes.
Finally we’ve also been ploughing on ahead with our Hunter with a series of patrolling and attacking animations. Tune in next week where we’ll be able to update the animation Hunter dev post with the full set of animations. Until then, @jesshyland has created the Tier 3 model of the Hunter in aptly themed Valentine’s day colours!
Ahem.
