Fallen Earth Dev Chat – Patch v1.3 – v1.5, Respecs, and much more
Posted by Brad West


Last night Fallen Earth Lead Designer Lee Hammock joined the hosts of the LifeNet Fallen Earth Podcast for a developer chat on LAGWAR Radio. We have interviewed Hammock a few times now and it simply gets better every time.

For those of you that missed the live stream of the interview, you can listen to the downloadable mp3 here or on iTunes.

For those of you who are podcast impaired, below is a detailed review of the topics discussed. The interview covered everything from patch v1.3 through v1.5, respecs, PVE expansion, how instanced PVP will make it’s way into the game, and a whole lot more.

Vehicle Revamp
In patch v1.3 all vehicles are broken down into one of four categories – fuel efficient, alternative fuel, combat, and cargo. Also, vehicle stats have been revamped to coincide with this change. Don’t start deleting your old vehicles just yet though. There are some motorcycles that you could fire a gun from previously, that will now be considered cargo vehicles, and therefore players cannot attack from them. It’s probably best to compare vehicles before trashing your existing rides.

It should also be noted that all vehicles storage slots have almost been doubled. “When I stat’ed up all of the vehicles originally, I was under the mistaken impression that the most storage slots we could have was 32 slots – it was in fact 64 slots”, said Hammock.

Keep in mind the Dune Buggy is still dominates when it comes to storage, the 50th level Load Runner is King.

As for vehicle upgrades – this is something they have looked at and are going to do, just not right now. “We have the basics of the technology, but do not have the art for it – which is basically a gear window for the vehicle”, Hammock explained.

New Rifle Ability
Also in patch v1.3 is, Agonizing Attack, which is a new rifle ability that removes any food buffs or the like, but not active HoT’s. This ability is being implemented in response to some of the player concerns about rifles being “gimped” in PVP combat. Hammock said, “We realize rifles are a little short on the power level right now – this is step one and then we’re going to look again and see if things still need to change, and if they do we have a step two. We are trying to make changes incrementally rather than one sweeping change, do the wrong thing, and unbalance something else”.

New Armor Advancement System
Coming once level cap reaches 50. “People will get a big kick out of this with some of the new gun models and stuff like that”, said Hammock. Will there be more tradeable armor sets? “Yes, there are going to be more suits that are top end and tradeable and there will also be upgraded faction suits”, Hammock stated.

The Jet Engine Hammer – Melee Weapon
“We challenged our art department to top the Tesla Hammer. So they came back with this concept art of a jet engine with a big ram head on the end of a big pole and when you swing it you turn the jet engine on, and wham!”, Hammock explained. There was also another jackhammer type melee weapon mentioned as well.

Starter Town Revamps
When asked about the starter town revamp Hammock told us, “Whenever you have an MMO, it’s natural to have player churn – we lose most of our players in hours 2 to 4 – that says to us they get through the tutorial and they are not grabbed. So we’ve been trying to back through the starters zones and make them feel more exciting and more dangers – we’ve actually made the starter towns harder.”

Extra AP Missions
“There are currently no bonus AP missions in v1.3″, said Hammock when asked about patch v1.3. However, players can expect to see extra AP missions in v1.4.

Repeatable Missions
“We’re doing a little more of it this time (in v1.3)”, Hammock said. “A lot of the repeatable missions give really good crafting components, or special recipes and stuff like that – there will be repeatable missions for everything from crafting to PVP and PVE instances.” Hammock went on to say.

Hammock also went on to explain that we will see a whole lot of repeatable missions in the patches that follow v1.3 in an effort to keep people busy at end game. Keep in mind that the plan is to have repeatable missions for every style of game play, from crafting to PVP and PVE as well as group oriented missions.

Respecs
“We are working on respecs – I’m not saying it’s going to be an immediate thing, but there is work being done and we are in the preliminary stages of looking at some type of system to…I don’t want to say cap AP’s cause that sounds really blunt and not necessarily what we are trying to do – but trying to…limit is even worse of a word – we don’t want people to feel like they have to go back to the starter towns to grind out every AP mission to be the best at PVP. That’s not fun, that’s basically making you do something that is un-fun to be good at the game. No one is going to lose anything, this is definitely going to be a going forward kind of thing.

Later when asked about the mention of respecs in an earlier State of the Game as to whether they would still be limited and expensive, Hammock said, “The goal is to effectively have sort of two levels of repsecs. There’s the basic level which is gonna be obtainable by purchasing through NPC’s or crafting items yourself or something like that. It will be a significant outlay of cash. But it will basically be some type of usable item you will get or talking to an NPC that will cost you several thousand chips that will allow you to respend some amount of AP – that you will be able to take from skills (and mutations), not attributes. Any abilities that you are no longer qualified for, you will get to keep, but be unable to use.”

Hammock also went on to say that after using the item that allowed the respec, the player would receive a 24-hour debuff that prevented them from effectively respec’ing again. He told us that they want players to be able to fix minor mistakes they may have made while spending AP’s. But they did not want players to be a full crafter one day and the ace of PVP the next.

The second level is the total respec, that is only for customer service issues. “We want to have that capacity if, for example, there are some changes I would like to make to some fairly core mechanics that I would not feel comfortable doing without giving everyone in the game a chance to respec afterward”, explained Hammock.

Deadfall Point
When asked about the overall feel of Deadfall Point, Hammock described it by saying, “It’s a place of paranoia – it’s a very dangerous area – sinister”.

He also broke down the story of Deadfall, but rather than sum that up here, I would rather you hear it from the man himself – so give the audio mp3 a listen. The story really kicks major ass.

Factions
“Each faction will have it’s own stuff to do in Deadfall Point, but it’s really one overall main mission”, Hammock explained when discussing their role in the immediate future of Fallen Earth, specifically within Deadfall.

“There is a plan at which point the factions…change. In sort of the far off dreamland of four years from now, we figure people will eventually wanna see something different. Whenever that change with story and location comes, we’re probably going to do something to change up what they are – one of the ideas is Area 51, we could do different factions that maybe have relations to the existing factions – different factions for a different setting. Up until then the factions are going to be front and center in all of our story lines.”

As far as factions and Sector 4 goes, he assured us that players will find the story of the factions very interesting. Tensions will rise, and all Hell will break loose as the factions wreak havoc on each other as the internal politics and the faction leaders are revealed, as well as the sub-factions of each. “We’ve talked about how the Enforcers have a bad guy side, and in Sector 4 you get to see it along with the other factions, front and center”.

Hammock then told us how he has been racking his brain trying to think of ways to make the existing factions cooler and more useful and create new content through them. I’m sure that is a relief for some players to hear. This is still way off into the future of the game though.

Also, keep an eye out for a new faction players can earn faction points with, who up until now has been an enemy. “Not everyone you kill in the wasteland is your enemy”, said Hammock.

Las Vegas
Considering Fallout is now doing Las Vegas (Fallout: New Vegas), we’re a little iffy on Las Vegas.

Aside from Vegas, Hammock did mention Area 51.

Patch v1.5 – PVP – Bloodsports and Clan Wars
“So one clan can declare war on another and basically set guidelines for how long you want the war to last, you get a point total every time you kill someone, and at the end whoever has the most points wins. We’re probably not going to have it in the first push, but long term we want to have a ranking leader board kind of thing. Different clans can see who’s on top”, explained Hammock.

He also explained that when participating in a clan war, those players from each clan are fair game to their enemy clan, whether in a PVP zone or not.

Also mentioned was a system where the Barney Badasses of the apocalypse can issue a challenge to other players, if the player who issued the challenge lives for X amount of time without being killed they get X number of points.

In regards to Bloodsports, it is an instanced PVP zone. Various types mentioned included: death match, survival mode, capture the flag, and assault – all of which are subject to change. There will be a system where players can queue up solo or with a team, except in death match where everyone kills each other. Hammock went on to explain that there will be lots of cover points, lots of interesting places to crawl and climb. Faction loss and item degradation through death will be ignored in the Bloodsports.

Now don’t toot the WoW horn just yet. The goal is to follow more of a First-Person Shooter design with the Bloodsports. For the team based encounters, Hammock stated they are mainly looking at 8v8 and 16v16 size maps.

Another item worth mentioning is that Dueling is coming.

Death Toll System
The development team is also going to be reworking the Death Toll system. In it’s new form, Death Toll would function as a currency instead of a level. Changes will also be made to amount lost on death – where you don’t lose any or at least don’t lose as much. There will be a good amount of merchants available where you can spend your Death Toll along with a broad amount of gear you can purchase with it.

“Crafting is King in Fallen Earth, so crafters will not have to worry about PVP gear being better than their stuff”, Hammock went on to say. “We just want to make the gear a little more attractive.”

Crafting
“There’s going to be all kinds of new stuff opening up for crafting. There’s going to be new mounts available – along with a whole big pile of stuff that will be coming out.”

In patch v1.3, there’s a bit of crafting additions. Hammock described it as one of those towns you run into that might have an item exclusive to that town, and that v1.3 has a lot of those. It’s not like a full crafting tree – but you get them through story and missions.

Sounds like crafters have nothing to fear. With the mention of vehicle upgrades and the new armor and weapon degradation and upgrade system, players are going to be really busy making goodies.

Is Fallen Earth a PVE or PVP focused game?
Well, according to Hammock they are trying to please both. “We are alternating between the two – we go through a couple months of Deadfall and level cap increases then a few months of Bloodsports and Clan Wars and Dueling, along with an achievement system.”

Closing
If all of this has got you ready to hit the wasteland, then check out the full audio interview. Most main topics were reviewed here, but there’s some fantastic conversation and storytelling from Lee Hammock that’s guaranteed to make any Fallen Earth fan slap happy. Check it out here.

No wyglada ze zmiany w PvP w patchu 1.5 beda konretne. Bedzie nareszcie po co walczyc i z kim.

kiedy mają dać tego 1.5 wiadomo już ??

Z tego co sie orientuje to nie wiadomo. Pewnie nie wczesniej niz koniec kwietnia/poczatek maja.

Narazie zapowiada sie ze bedzie szybko 1.4 z contentem pve, chyba w nim ma byc 60lvl i sector 4 ?

WOW, dodadza Las Vegas i Area 51, mniam

Dla mnie powinni sie zdecydować albo robia bloodysport arenas like wow style , albo maja pvp world ze strefami wyłączonymi z pvp.
Próba połączenia obu pewno wyjdzie nijak.
Clanwars to dobry pomysł, clany beda mogły decydować z kim walczą ,tak jak wardecki w Eve w empire to się napewno sprawdzi.

Wiecie moze czy na trialowym koncie mozna wysylac i odbierac maile?

Nie mozna z tego co pamietam.

Szkoda. Gralem na trialu i myslalem, ze sobie pozniej upgreaduje do normalnej wersji. Ale udalo mi sie zdobyc jeden z 4k promocyjnych kluczy i wszystko co nazbieralem w trialu chyba przepadnie

A tego klucza nie dalo sie do wczesniejszego trial konta przypisac ?

No wlasnie nie. Moglbym tak zrobic jedynie w przypadku gdybym sie nie logowal na konto/konto trialowe przez minimum 60 dni. (promocyjnego klucza trzeba uzyc do konca marca)

No nic - trudno. Jakos odrobie ta strate

Ktos moglby odpowiedziec na pare pytan ?

Gralem na trialu tym chyba 10 dniowym. Wrazenie w sumie pozytywne, lubie klimaty takie hmm postapokalityczne, poza tym w sumie wygladalo mi na w miare casualowa gre, w ktora mozna grac prawie jak w single. No i crafting mi sie podobal.

Jak to wszystko wyglada na wyzszych levelach ? Sa jakies instancje ? Jakis sens glebszy tego wszystkiego jest ? Jest jakies glowne zajecie, ktorym sie tam gracze zajmuja ? W takim wowie to wyglada to tak, ze jest levelowanie, a potem rajdy, a tutaj jak wyglada taka typowa sciezka ? Jest w ogole cos takiego ?

Generalnie na 46 spsob rozgrywkie nierozni sie diametralnie od tego co masz na nizszych levelach. Oczywisci dochodza frakcje (i gridn z nimi zwiazany ) i "PvP", ale i tak najwiekszym wyzwaniem jest crafting. Szczegolnie jesli chcesz napisac wszystkie ksiazki. Instancje, ale jakos nie widac aby ludzie do nich lazili masowo. O rajdach nie slyszalem.

Mam pytanie odnośnie craftu. Czy da sie zmieniać kolejność kolejkowania, czy też jak włącze produkcje itemu, która powiedzmy trwa 4 godziny to przez ten okres czasu sam nie mogę nawet śrutu zrobić. I czy jak przerywam produkcję to czy tracę matsy.

1. Craftowanego przedmiotu nie mozesz zatrzymac i zaczac robic drugi.
2. Jesli przerwiesz craft to tracisz matsy.
3. Mozesz spauzowac craft (tylko nie wiem po co )
4. Mozesz usunac zakolejkowane przedmioty i ustawic kolejke od nowa.

Mam nadzieje, ze moja odpowiedz bedzie jasna

Dzięki, teraz wszystko jasne. Trzeba będzie uważniej opracowywać kolejkę craftu żeby się nie zablokować.

A jakieś tipsy odnośnie tego na czym zarabiać żetony? Bo muszę przyznać, że samo pisanie książek pochłania niezłą kasę i brak na inne "przyjemności". Pióra nie można wycraftować, wydropić?

Ja tam robiac alty zarobilem sporo siana z questow

Posprawdzaj questy powtarzalne, czasami sie trafi ktory daje taka sama kase za powtorzenie jak za pierwszym razem (w S2 byl taki co dawal 5b za dwie minuty zbierania zielska).

No i najwaznieje, zrob alta (albo roziwn na mainie) z charyzma i socialem. Handlarz naprawde kupuje duuuuzo taniej od NPCow.
Przyklad: dla "nie-handlarza" podstawowe matsy (Scrap Wood, Scrap Iron itd.) kosztuja po 4s. Handlarz z odpowiednim Socialem kupuje je za 1s
Ludzie kupuje w S3 matsy na handlarzach i sprzedaja tak innym na AH itemy.

Ja (na 12 lvl) zarabiam na Grilled Chicken, robi sie 5min, wymagany 15 lvl w cooking, robi sie to z 3 szt. Tainted Meat- dropi z wiekszosci mobow np. Chicken, Coyote, Crab, Creeper, Wolf itp.
Za 4 kpl. - 59 chipow

Mozna, trzeba miec 45 lvl w science i kupic ksiazke

Dzieki za info na temat pióra.