Friday Dev Update: Player Feedback and Future Content

8:26 AM willsterling23 12 Comments


                                                                            "What are you looking at with those soul piercing eyes?"

We've always had a philosophy as a business that we should be as transparent as possible and always listen to our players. This is something we constantly strive to do because we believe that the community built around a game and player feedback is crucial to creating a game worth playing.

Today I just wanted to talk about some of the feedback we get from you all and discuss some of the future content we plan on working on. Before I do that though, let me give you a quick update on our current stage of development and what we'll be working on next.

Quick Update on Development


We've currently pushed our next update to the testing branch to squash out any last minute bugs, and we'll be pushing to the default branch for everyone to experience really soon. This update features brand new humanoid models, a new structure to find throughout the word, and other changes. You can read more in depth details here: 


This update will act as a sort of "in-between" patch before our next major update. Our next major patch will feature a brand new island type with a ton of content to experience. I can't go into the details just quite yet, but it will feature new enemies, bosses, a slew of new items, resources, quests, and secrets. We are very excited about it and will give more details soon! 

With all that said, let's move on to player suggestions and future content. 


Our Vision and Your Feedback


With Salt, we have an overall vision for the game in mind. This includes the type of game we want it to be, what aspects we want to focus on, and what kind of content will be in the game. Since Salt is a huge game with a near infinite amount of possibilities, we have to pick and choose what content to focus on and what we have to leave on the drawing board. With limited manpower and time, we can only focus on so much. This is where your feedback comes in. 

We get a lot of feedback for Salt, both good and bad, but almost always helpful. You guys have always been very open about what you love and what you don't love, which helps us to steer the course of development in the right direction, within the vision of the game. This is one of the huge perks of doing Early Access. Having your feedback with every update in development helps us to ensure we are guiding the game in the right direction. 


Future content


I want to now go over some of the content we plan on working on as the game develops. Before I do this, you may want to read this blog post, which answers a lot of common player questions about the game and the future of development. 

Finishing the Story


A few months back we implemented the first portion of the main story. In the upcoming months, we will be working on implementing the next portion which in and of itself includes a lot of content. I won't go into too many details so as not to spoil anything, but as the story gets implemented so will a new expansion of content such as island types, enemies, items, and things of that nature. As always, the main story is completely optional but there if you want to experience it. 

Weather


Weather is probably one of our most requested features and it will be coming soon! I'm personally very excited about weather as it will add a sense of dynamics to the game that isn't there currently. As we implement weather we will also be adding in clouds and stars which will breathe new life aesthetically to the world. 


Armor and Weapon Stat Rebalancing


We realized recently that our current armor and weapons stats are in desperate need of rebalancing. Since we've thrown new items in every month or so, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture and for things to get off balance. We will be rebuilding from the ground up the armor and weapons statistics as well as adding new statistics. We plan on adding stats such as dexterity, agility, strength, defense, and things of that nature that will allow you to really tailor your gear to your playstyle, and even see overall damage and dps. I love this aspect of games because it encourages you to try out different armor sets to suit your own unique needs. 


Ocean Content 


We get a lot of suggestions for more ocean content, and rightly so. This is something we are still brainstorming and coming up with ideas for, but we will definitely be expanding upon it. Let us know your ideas for what kind of content you'd like to see in the deep sea! 


Multiplayer


By and large the most requested feature is multiplayer, which will definitely be happening. Multiplayer will be a very fun aspect of Salt, but also optional. We've had a lot of questions concerning whether or not multiplayer will be required and the answer to that is no. Multiplayer will be more of a cooperative mode that you can play with your friends. We don't have all the design details worked out yet, but we will let you know as soon as we start working on this. 



As always, we would love to continue to hear your feedback on what type of content you'd like to see in Salt as the game develops! 






12 comments:

  1. Is there any plan for sea battles? With cannons and the like?

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    1. i though you could put all the named pirate captains on ships and have to use cannons to take their ships down to loot the pardon pusher parts

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    2. It's something we will definitely be looking into! We've got to work on an entirely new pathfinding system that will work on the ocean, and so there will have to be a good bit of foundational coding work done first, which is why we can't exactly when something like this would be implemented. As we get a little farther into development, it's something we plan on doing and looking into more closely!

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  2. A boss fight with Kraken would have been awesome. Wikipedia says that the Kraken dwell off the coast of Norway and Greenland. It would be cool if you could only find the Kraken really far north on the map just like Norway and Greenland is far north in the real world.

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    1. We want a Kraken in the game so bad. I like the idea of it being in a particular 'region' of the world as well. Sea monsters is something we want to do and therefore will definitely be looking into implementing it at some point.

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  3. Some rare fishing spots or diving in ocean to find loot ?

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    1. Both of those are great ideas! Rare fishing spots is something we plan on adding. Diving under the ocean to some degree is something we are going to do as well.

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  4. I have a few ideas : Kraken, mermaids, maelstroms, ennemy boats, pets (like parrots !!)
    this is my little contribution

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  5. Some random ideas:
    - MONSTERS! Quite obviously, the most suggested one.
    - Ship damage.
    - Puzzles with mermaids or something.
    - Wildlife. I want dolphins swimming under my bowsprit.
    - Also, ship building and a bit more detail on the ships. For example, just one sail per mast is a little unrealistic, IMO.

    Also, I'd like to tell you folks that you're doing a wonderful job so far. :)

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    1. - Yes, monsters for sure.
      - Ship damage is something we've talked about but haven't worked out the design kinks for yet. So it's still up in the air.
      - Mermaids and puzzles, both on the to-do list.
      - Ocean wildlife yes.
      - We'll be expanding upon ship customization more and adding more new ships as the game develops!

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  6. Eventually I'd like to see recruitable crew. Maybe with ability boosts similar to the ones on the clothing. Increased sailing speed, better turning, maybe one can detect rare items or unusual creatures, one that can "sense" pirate outposts in the area, and when sea combat happens, then we would get certain combat boosts. Of course each ship would have to have different limits on how many crew so you would have to pick and choose carefully.

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