Killboxes / Outpost Validation
As with any new game, some key questions and concerns have been raised by our players.
devs spoke with Meet Your Maker’s Creative Director, Ash Pannell, to address some of our community’s most common questions, beginning with killboxes, and Outpost validation.
Q: What is the team’s stance on ‘killboxes’ and what will be done about them?
A: Our goal is to give as much freedom as devs possibly can to the Builder to use the tools at their disposal to make the most fun/brutal/ingenious/artistic level they can and be rewarded for it.
However, with any UGC game it is certain that a portion of the content will not be to the liking of all the players. Our objective therefore for Raiders is to grant the agency to choose what Outposts they want to play, and the freedom to curate their own experience.
There are three tools that devs had hoped would allow players to avoid content they were not enjoying and steer them towards what they might want to play:
First, the danger score. These Outposts can only appear in the ‘Brutal’ category and, as it suggests, the name defines its intention. There are other categories to play – but devs do hear that players may want to tackle more ‘Brutal category’ Outposts that are not killboxes.
With that in mind, second comes the Watchman advisor boost that gives you information on the Outpost you are going to raid, which you can find at Suits Advisor Prosarmogi’s station in your Sanctuary. It shows you what sort of Outpost you are about to face. The player can then choose to avoid this if they want.
Third, the Abandon Outpost feature. If you start an Outpost that you don’t like the look of – you have the option to leave it. We’ve heard the feedback that this is detrimental to your Ranking, and devs will be changing this to no longer subtract Ranking points for abandoning an Outpost – this change is planned within the next couple weeks.
Outpost metas are definitely going to change over time as new combinations are discovered by the awesome community. Rest assured that devs will be trying to encourage more of the content you want and give you ways to engage with it.
Q: Why are devs not requesting that Builders validate their own Outpost before publishing?
A: This is similar, if not directly connected to the killbox debate. Our goal has always been to give players the maximum amount of freedom possible to create their Outposts. The greater the freedom the greater the possibility of the creations. Obviously, this can come with some risk.
devs had reached a point where ‘impossible’ outposts were extremely difficult to create and so devs felt confident with allowing players to build what they want without having to play them.
The advantage of this approach is that it allows great Builders to build great content with no other barrier (they can be great Builders without having to be great Raiders too). This allows the greatest amount of quality content to be created.
devs also felt that the tools at hand, especially abandoning an Outpost would allow the community to take the content they didn’t like offline. devs explored many different options while in development, but ultimately placing barriers to creativity (that are easily bypassed by crafty players) hindered our goal to allow maximum creative freedom.
Be the first to comment