Doubts and suggestions for Adam Snellgrove. Please, considerate.

[Killer Albino 3]

Hello! On March 30th I posted something similar on a forum on Steam. However, I think the most suitable place for this is here.

I have a collection of doubts and suggestions to expose to devs, and I am aware of the possibility that some have already been clarified previously. But, I consider that as a client and lover of the Ylands game, it is my moral duty to help its growth.

Doubts:

1- Could the islands be larger in area? Thus, things like cars and horses would make more sense, as they are suitable for traveling long distances. Yes, this doubt is recurring.

2- Will the worlds have more islands again? (see suggestion A)

3- How is the progress regarding the deconstruction of hardened blocks? Is there a prognosis for a demolition hammer? (see suggestion B)

4- About the camera in first person, can we expect a return to this function?

5- Do the animals in the game multiply? If so, how does this happen, by spawning or mating? (see suggestion C)

6- The game has an important foundation in mineral exploration. Taking this into account, could the different types of ores occur in a more geologically realistic way? (see suggestion D)

7- Water physics will be the next big step in refining the game. My question is, will players be able to dominate the water for their activities? (example planting or creating lakes and diversion of water bodies)

8- Now, with the new physics of planting, it is no longer possible to plant in specific pots for this purpose (both in square pots with soil inside, which are placed in construction mode, and in clay pots "clay flower pot"). In addition to the fact that it is not possible to plan in these places because "there is no dirt", it also causes space conflict. Has this been verified? Are there any repair plans for that?

9- Will old servers, which have been corrupted by the latest updates, be reconfigured?

10- Logging off while on rafts and boats is causing errors on re-login, the player will stop under the ground, sitting and immobile, and the raft-boat will disappear. Is this error known?

11- Why the hell "there is no more copper?!?!". I already had to start the world over twice (building a house, boat, equipment), only to discover that there was no copper, not even on the ice islands.

12- In the character menu, it is possible to see slots for armor, and backpack. Where's the backpack? If backpack does not exist in the game, why is there a slot for such a thing? Do you plan to add this?

13- Why do the blocks of the same material have different colors? (eg a green bamboo wall, for some reason, may have two-color blocks, spoiling it aesthetically)

Suggestions:

A- The end of the map could lead to other maps loaded when crossing the border

B- The ideal would be if, for the creator of the block, there was no time limit for the removal of such block.

C- It would be incredible to observe the reproduction of animals as an impacting thing in the maintenance of the island's ecosystem, and in the ratio between birth and mortality of individuals. Currently, the impression I have is that animals do not multiply and are not finely balanced.

D- I know that for some this suggestion doesn't make sense, but as a geology student, my colleagues and I, who played the game together, always asked ourselves "how cool would it be if things made more sense, geologically speaking". (the images "geology" and "geology2" are schematics to help understand how this works)

E- Npcs need to be reworked to be more "useful" and interactive. Smarter in the future, and may pose a threat to the player. (eg pirates/vikings)

F- More animals in general, with an emphasis on domesticated animals, with which we could interact. (eg dogs, cats, cows to express milk and sheeps that can be sheared)

G- The return of skins for weapons and tools.

H- In Ylands, a VERY cool part, are the character customization options. I would like to suggest a specific customization, but that represents an important historical factor and the culture of various peoples. The suggested customization is the dress of the gaucho. Gauchos are the free people who explored the south of south america. These peoples are represented by several statues in different countries (eg the looper "laçador" statue in Japan, as you can see in the attached image), as well as in characters in games, such as a Kung Lao skin from Mortal Kombat (attached image). Pictures "Gaúcho1", "Gaúcho2", "Gaúcho3" and "Gaúcho4", give ideas for such garments.

I- In "Gaúcho4", it is possible to see a man helping himself to a typical gaucho drink, known as "chimarrão". It is made by adding boiling water to the ground leaves of the "Erva-Mate" plant (yerba mate, in English), in a container called "cuia". The "cuia" is made from a seed called "porongo", in which the "neck" (narrow point) is cut. Yerba mate acts as an anti-oxidant, diuretic, mild laxative, stimulant and aphrodisiac. I suggest adding this to the game as a food, as well as tea and coffee. Later, it would be nice to be able to craft beer.

J- I have the impression that some items cannot be built, however, when found, they also cannot be collected, such as furniture. I suggest that all objects without major impact on gameplay, can be crafted.

For now, these are my doubts and suggestions. With that, I hope to be helping you, devs, with ideas that, without a doubt, would add a lot to the game. Thank you in advance, keep up the good work! Stay safe, we will overcome this together!

Edited April 2, 2020 by Killer Albino

[TomasGestinger 41]

Hey, thank you for all the feedback.? We greatly appreciate you took the time and we're aware of your concerns, keep this stuff coming. I went through everything with Adam and Aleš and I'll try to answer everything.

 

1. and 2. - We’re well aware of this big problem and we’re working on it but it’s a significant technical issue that requires a lot of effort. We are first working on making Exploration much more re-playable and afterward, we are planning on expanding the map. These changes are going to happen this year but as I said, it's not an easy task.

3. - We're working on this problem already together with an option to "glue" normal objects together.

4. - There's a big problem with how the first-person camera works in the current version of Ylands, we'll have to remake lots of animation to make it work and we want to make sure it works properly.

5. - Animals and mutants spawn, there’s no reproducing mechanic. I agree that having a full functioning ecosystem would be great but it’s pretty much impossible to create in a video game. Spawning mechanics are a standard way to populate worlds and it gives us a way to control everything better.

6. - I’ll look into it but it’s not a priority right now. The ores function as a gameplay mechanic and implementing these changes would require a lot of work for relatively small detail, maybe in the future.?

7. - Yes, you will be able to edit water to create lakes and ponds.

8. - This is a new issue and we'll look into it, thanks for the info.

9. - In what way has your server been corrupted? What seems to be a problem? We do try to make all old saves compatible, but with really old maps, sometimes it just isn't possible to carry over everything into a newer version of the game.

10. - We're not aware of this, please provide an output log so we can fix it.

11. - There should always be copper. Please send us the map in question and we'll check it out to make sure.

12. - This slot is for the propeller pack right now and we're preparing more equipment.?

13. - We'll look into it, it seems like a bug.

E. - Reworking AI mechanics is a difficult task. NPCs that function as enemies are working well in the randomly generated worlds and they can be programmed in more detail for user-created games, but we are always working on NPC AI and hope to bring even more cool functionality in the future. 

F. - Already in the works, you'll be able to ride more animals in the new update, we're working on more creatures as well

G. - We have decided to instead add these 'skins' into the game as items, as not a lot of people bought them anyway and it seemed a shame to keep these cool items away from people. So now you can find these items in Random Encounters and add them to your Custom Games in the Editor. 

H. - We are always adding more clothes and assets into the game in themed updates (like the fantasy update we just had, that added a lot of fantasy clothes and weapons) and this is definitely something that we could do down the line. We'll add it to the suggestion box and I'll tell the devs about it 

J. - This system encourages exploration so we want to keep some items exclusive and exciting.

[Killer Albino 3]

Awesome to see that you answered me! This is fantastic because, in other experiences with other games, I didn't have the same kind of feedback from devs.

The feedback you gave me, certainly shows value and concern for us.

(I was waiting for the reply notification by email but it didn't arrive, so today I decided to check it manually and saw your answer).

I even showed the message to my friend who plays with me and he was amazed (in Brazilian Portuguese) that they answered us (image below).

As for the old servers, the chars were reset (as if they were being born for the first time), and error messages appeared when loading (they are attached). This week I tried to open the old server and it didn't give these problems anymore.

As for the bug of logging out on the boat and it disappearing + going underground, how can I send what you asked for? (I don't have that knowledge about the output log) It happened about two or three weeks ago. Since then we already played a lot and made a new boat, making again the barrels that we had attached to this boat (does this interfere in any way with the content of the output log?).

Also, about copper on the map, where can I find the map to send you? (In this new save we created, I believe we found a piece of copper on the floor of a cave on the ice island, but we couldn't get a closer look because we were almost dying for the bears).

Ahhhhh, it's true, I had forgotten about the existence of the propeller pack, but anyway the question was valid and you managed to answer me, cool.

I don't know if I understood the answer about G (in the case of the editor would it be "creative mode"?) We usually play only in "survival" / "exploration" mode.

As for answer J, I think, for example, of the fancy armchairs (like the one that exists in the house of the hunter NPC). I would like to be able to add it to my home furniture, however, as the furniture is fixed and cannot be "caught" without being destroyed, I will never be able to have it. I believe that furniture, within the game, should behave as such, with the possibility of being relocated to the taste of the customer, however, currently, it behaves like a block, and can only be destroyed (which causes problems of mass destruction already cited in the initial text).

Once again, thanks for the feedback, it is good to see that you, in fact, are alert to what the community would like to see and suggest. It is a pity that, in steam forums, for example, most of the messages are of a sad nature, with criticisms and disappointments regarding the properties and features removed. This is understandable, after all, we like the game and we want it to be successful and it is painful to see that things so intrinsic for the fun of the game have been removed. HOWEVER, I, at least, understand the situation as a whole (small team, setbacks, coronavirus ...) and your reasons for the actions taken. I just ask you to keep up the good work and don't give up listening to our requests (sugestions and all...), no matter how sad they may be.

And stay communicative, congratulations on that!

Bernardo Maffessoni

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Killer Albino

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

With output_logs and output_logs_clean it is unfortunately necessary to 'get them' right after the issue happens, so if it happens again, please do get them and send them to us. You can find them here: \Program Files(86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Ylands\Ylands_Data

With the copper problem, you can usually find the save file here: D:\Steam\userdata\1022954577\298610\remote\SaveGames 
But if you did find copper in the artic, then that's fine. It's supposed to be difficult to get ? The only bug would be if it wasn't in the game whatsoever. 

G) as with the skins, it means we took the skins, turned them into items and introduced them into Exploration as 'loot' which you can find in Random Encounters in Exploration.

I'll ask the devs, if we could make the furniture moveable in some way, but I don't think it will be possible ?

And no problem, we greatly appreciate feedback, so thank you for it ? So keep it coming and most importantly: Have Fun!