Hey guys,

Here's an in-depth new dev diary by Lead Game Designer Alexandr Soloveyko talking about what the dev team is working on for the next CrimeCraft update! We haven't set a date yet, but of course the team is already hard at work. For this update, Soloveyko explains that we are focusing on player requests:

Hi,

Almost two months have passed since the GangWars expansion release and we hope you guys found it fun and exciting. With GangWars we added a lot of new features to the game and no doubt it was the biggest update since the CrimeCraft release in 2009. We did our best to polish all new content to the highest level of quality, to make it fun, balanced and user friendly. We think that we did a good job, but at the same time we see that there are a lot of small but still important improvements that should be made. And it stays in line with your feedback – many of you guys are asking us about different improvements and adjustments and a lot of your comments make perfect sense. So we've decided that for the next patch we will focus on polishing the game and implementing player improvement requests.

We spent a lot of time gathering player feedback; we analyzed every aspect of combat and the user interface, we checked all bugs and issues that we haven’t resolved yet and finally we created a huge list of bugs and improvements that we want to address. I’m not going to name each issue, believe me the list is really long. But I still want to share some of them with you guys.

The first group of issues I want to talk about are the combat improvements. We implemented the possibility to see the teammates’ hp during matches – it will be shown via a thin green bar above character heads under their names. Players will be able to turn this feature on and off in the game options. This is something players were requesting long time ago and we believe that it will add an interesting tactical element in the game. Now your teammates will know when you need the NBR Grenade or when they have to cover your back. We thought about introducing a new ability that would allow you to see your opponents’ hp, but it will require a lot of playtesting and we aren’t ready to add it to the game yet.

The next feature is the possibility to see when other players heal themselves using healing boosts. It will be seen for both teammates and opponents in the same way you see when a player stands in the NBR Grenade cloud – a light blue number will float next to the character's body. We believe this is an important improvement, especially for the newbie players – seeing your opponent being healed is a good signal explaining why he is so tough. I guess many of you guys had that bad feeling of an invincible opponent when facing someone with Direct Injection System – showing him being healed won’t help you to kill him, but it will clearly let you know what is going on.

Also we fixed the issue with the player invincibility after respawn. This feature was implemented long ago, but it didn’t work correctly. Now all players will get a full invincibility for 2 seconds after respawn or unless they start shooting, attacking in melee or using abilities, whatever comes first. Moreover, players won’t be affected by corrosion or fire during this time, so throwing a Molotov Cocktail at the opponents’ spawn won’t work anymore.

The last big combat improvement I want to talk about is the damage calculation. Currently, the inflicted damage is rounded when applying to the target. Meaning if, let's say, your weapon damage is 25 and your target resistance is 18%, then you’ll apply ( 25 * (100%-19%) ) = 20.25 = rounded to 20 points of damage. This was implemented to not bother casual players with fractional numbers on the HUD and in the combat log. It makes sense, but it has one significant drawback – your inflicted damage remains the same when you improve your attachments or the damage you take will be the same when you improve your clothes. This is not acceptable, so everything will be fractional now. But on the other hand, we still don’t want to overwhelm casual players with fractional numbers, so we decided to keep everything integer on the HUD and in the combat log. Thus if, let's say, your final inflicted damage will be 15,33, then in the combat log you’ll see that your damage as 15; 15; 16; 15; 15; 16; etc.

Also we fixed several significant issues in the Snatch and Grab game type. First is the player spawn logic – those of you who carried flags on the maps like Reinhold Museum, Old Sunrise City Hall, etc. experienced opponents spawning right behind you or even in front of you. We are happy to let you guys know that this is finally resolved. Also we fixed the issue with the bases collision in SnG – now you can safely throw grenades above the bases and they won’t explode in front of your face without any reasons.

Next group of improvements is about the matchmaking system. First of all, grouped players who select “random PvP” won’t appear in Riot matches anymore. First of all, they joined in a group so they want to play in one team, not against each other. And secondly, this will prevent them from cooperating inside Riot matches which surely spoils other players’ experience.

Then we added the possibility to select the PvE difficulty directly from the Quick Join Menu if a PvE game type is currently selected. At the same time a player can check the “accept events” option when he selects random PvP or some PvP game type in Quick Join. When checking this option on, a player would appear in one of the custom matches you can find under the Events tab.

Another improvement you requested is the possibility to create private matches. This feature was implemented about a year ago and it was removed from the game with the GangWars release. Honestly saying we just didn’t have enough time to make it work with the new matchmaking system and new UI. But we understood that many of you guys like this feature so expect to see it back in the game soon.

The last matchmaking improvement we are still not sure about. Since the GangWars release we don’t show your character's power rating on the UI anymore. This doesn’t mean that we stopped using it although some of our players thought that we stopped. So now we are thinking about putting the power rating on the players’ signatures, so you will see all your teammates’ and opponents’ power rating during matches. This will show that, for instance, that level 50 player doesn’t play well so you guys will understand the logic behind the matchmaking better. However we don’t want some players to lose matches in order to reduce their power rating and play against lower-skilled opponents. This is the reason why we removed the power rating from UI and now we are still unsure about what solution will be better.

The next small but long requested fix is the fact that you’ll get back in your Gang Hideout after playing the match if you were in the Hideout when the match started.

At the end I want to tell you guys about some lobby features you are waiting for. We believe many of you like our new Item Shop interface, when you can just click on some slot in your character menu and select between the available items for that specific slot. But what this interface is short of is the possibility to remember your filter settings – it’s quite boring each time you open, let say, boosts shop to go, and click “my purchases”, then click “items of all levels” and then click “serums”. So we implemented the feature that the Item Shop will remember your filter settings for each item slot – meaning the system will remember what you specified for boosts, for boots, for pants, for abilities, etc.

Another cool feature we will add in the next patch is the possibility to customize the masks for you classes. This is what you asked us about and it makes perfect sense to us. Also you will be able to customize the masks and glasses for your custom profile, so you will be able to have headshot damage modifier when wearing some cool glasses. Also we will give you the possibility to select between the default class makeup and the makeup you bought on Black Market for each class separately. Thus, you’ll be able to completely customize classes’ visual appearance.

And the last feature I’ll tell you about in this diary is what I believe you request us the most – this is the possibility to change the slots order for the boosts and abilities for classes and slots order for abilities for Bleedout Cards sets. You still won’t be able to change abilities for classes, but if you want to have the Proximity Mine being assigned in the first ability slot in the Sniper class – you’ll be able to do it in two mouse clicks.

All these improvements aren’t the only features of the upcoming CrimeCraft update though. We will continue sharing the information with you guys and in the next developer diary I’m going to tell you about the abilities revision – how do we resolve the issue with overpowered abilities and how do we improve abilities that aren’t that popular.

This sounds great and I'm definitely looking forward to these changes in game. It would be nice to see the full list of things being worked up on but I think we can definitely understand the difficulty in sharing such a vast amount of information especially when nothing is finalized. There is no doubt that this is a great game and to this end the majority of players is hoping that we can work some of the kinks out to improve this games viability for new players. Keep up the good work and keep us in the loop. We have nothing but help to offer. 

Wow some very nice updates. Any ETA when we all can expect this? Also, what are going to do about this lvl8 to enter city?
Also, I hope to see mass mail to all gang member.

Thank you for informing us you are doing something to improve the game and may players requests!
 

Nice Read.

some suggestions:

- some items im black market are way to expensive for their use. i dont go into details, just check your logs and find out which items are never ever bought by any player ... and reduce their costs significantly.

- Huge bug, repeatable: if youre queued and the fight starts while youre inside the party/club, you will end up "out of the map" after the match. luckily youre still able to port to antother zone so its not a gamebreaker but still annoying. As workaround just dont port into the club while queued or leave the club before the match starts. but leave it to the lobby, leaving the club into the hideout wont fix it.

- matchmaking in tournament sucks i think. i always end up against the best teams at the server from the start. i dont think my powerrating or whatsoever is that high right now, cause im playing this game just for 7 rl days.

- some sorting would be nice for the crafting recipies. Its pain to search a specific AUG f.e.

- the premium repair costs are too high. or lets say items brake too fast. its not even possible to repair a full set of amor+weapons with the 90 goldbars you get each month.
in my opinion the 90 goldbars should be enough to repair a full set the whole month.
if you want more players, you need to tune down the goldbar requirements for almost everything or raise the amount a premium player gets each month.
i understand your concept but its slightly overtuned IMO. common MMO players with some experience (even WOW retards) expect that they get everything if they pay 10-15 bucks a month.
so do i. but in CC you dont get everything, see the repair example above.
if the repair of one set the whole month would cost lets say 80 bars, it would be nice. so youre able to save 10 bars each month for other things. i dont mind spending some extra bucks each month but others do ...

- are you aware of that that several players have up to 15 gangs at once to make money? this sucks bigtime and should never be possible.

- dont stop to work on balance, its a neverending story. right now pistols feel useless (firerate isnt just high enough) as well als burst and single shot ARs. tune down SG2 and Ras LMG or bring the other waepons in line with them. even out the smgs, right now simga is the only usefull. whats the point of having 5 SMGS but just one usefull? ok ras lmg isnt to bad either cause its dps.

try 1vs1 sigma vs wolf for example. who wins? ;)

- more gms for tournaments, ban more cheaters

-

Last Edited on: Jan 26 2012 04:55 PM UTC (116 Days ago)

Nice changes, btw can u lower a little skills cost??? some ar over priced and due low population for free and casual players is harder to get the skills

Good stuff.

I disagree with nomad on some of his suggestions.  Particularly about reducing the gold bar price of many items.  However, items that are not purchased should see some drops particularly some patterns perhaps.

As far as ARs and LMGs... he is wrong.  Plenty of people use the rask AR and the hargan LMG.  Also, of course the wolf and maus smg won't beat the sigma close range.  That isn't necessarily true for the exeter or silversmith smg.  Sigma's fire rate is much higher than the wolf and maus (which is more of a long range smg anyway).  That outcome generally makes sense.

We thought about introducing a new ability that would allow you to see your opponents’ hp, but it will require a lot of playtesting and we aren’t ready to add it to the game yet.

I would said "Nix this idea".

Knowing your ally health is enough.

Also we fixed the issue with the player invincibility after respawn. This feature was implemented long ago, but it didn’t work correctly. Now all players will get a full invincibility for 2 seconds after respawn or unless they start shooting, attacking in melee or using abilities, whatever comes first. Moreover, players won’t be affected by corrosion or fire during this time, so throwing a Molotov Cocktail at the opponents’ spawn won’t work anymore.

Good to hear about that. But I recommend the 1st 1 second to be granted full immunity even if they are shooting. Some people tend to double click and this cause them to respawn without the immunity.

Quote | ZiggiLing posted on Jan 26 2012 05:17 PM UTC

Good stuff.

 

I disagree with nomad on some of his suggestions.  Particularly about reducing the gold bar price of many items.  However, items that are not purchased should see some drops particularly some patterns perhaps.

As far as ARs and LMGs... he is wrong.  Plenty of people use the rask AR and the hargan LMG.  Also, of course the wolf and maus smg won't beat the sigma close range.  That isn't necessarily true for the exeter or silversmith smg.  Sigma's fire rate is much higher than the wolf and maus (which is more of a long range smg anyway).  That outcome generally makes sense.

maybe, im very new to this game. but i kill the most with Sg2 and ras LMG.

Quote | Danio71 posted on Jan 26 2012 08:36 AM UTC

what are going to do about this lvl8 to enter city?

Yeah is seems to be putting some of the free users off. If you have a premium or deluxe account it does not take many rounds to get to level 8 but for a free user it takes much more time. I understand that us (the players) having paid accounts is one of the big ways you guys make money from the game which is fine but it seems like many people who come to try out the game quit before they even reach the city. They dont want to play for hours getting killed in pvp before they enter the city.. For those of you thinking that "hours wtf.." these guys dont have a clue what they are doing. They are trying to figure out how to move around and where to go on the map for each game type. They are not leaving each round with 40+ kills because they made a new character and already know how to play.. no they are leaving with like 10 kills and some of them never even find the objective. Its stupid.

The rest of these developments look great though I do have 1 question. How would the HP over time boosts work? Would you seriously have someone who used a 40 or 60 second boost that gives HP every second to have a constant stream of light blue numbers floating from them? Or are you talking about boosts that give 1 large shot of HP. If so what about the HP and stamina boosts. This I think will be very hard for you to balance in a way in which it does not give away everyones locations.. As it is now if you are standing in an NBR you might as well be shooting yourself because most of the skilled players will see it right away and know its going to be an easy kill because you are wounded and they know exactly where you are.

Quote | Danio71 posted on Jan 26 2012 08:36 AM UTC

Also, what are going to do about this lvl8 to enter city?

We are going to reduce it.

Quote | DrSeptimus posted on Jan 26 2012 09:36 AM UTC

But I recommend the 1st 1 second to be granted full immunity even if they are shooting. Some people tend to double click and this cause them to respawn without the immunity.

We are going to replace "press fire button to continue" with the "press any button to continue" so all players who don't want to occassionally loose invincibility will spam "space" or whatever they like.