Mainframe Industries is sharing some of the key takeaways from Pax Dei’s recent alpha test and setting a window for the next test.
Shared on the game’s Discord, the team thanked all who got to test the game and participated in other ways like watching and commenting, as well as giving feedback in different ways. The team had two main goals with the alpha, to test and stress their tech to detect and begin to fix any issues that popped up and to test several systems: building, harvesting, and crafting. With a sandbox in which everything is player-created, it makes sense to concentrate there for a first wide alpha test.
In their reflections on how meeting these goals went, on the tech end, they found the test to be helpful in identifying a number of issues, including stuff that they had never seen before. Buildings going invisible was a new one. They also got to put their world layering system to the test with the demand. This helps create new layers in the world to support a specific capacity spike. Again, with players creating everything, everywhere, sometimes some are building in layer one and others in layer two can see it happening.
Building was a main focus of the test, given all that, and the response encouraged the team. “We did not expect all these castles and villages, along with so much creativity with some of the pieces!” Freedom to move plots without limits helped for an alpha but they’re looking to rein in some of the freedom in the name of balance in the future. “Building restrictions serve multifaceted objectives: they safeguard constructions from random destruction through plot permissions and strive to maintain a harmonious and balanced world area,” they note.
There are other changes planned for buildings, with some performance tweaks planned, balancing for recipes, and other changes to add to options and also some to reduce potential overlap.
As for crafting and harvesting, lessons here also tend towards a balancing nature, including assessing resource yields and locations. Losing all resources if you fail on crafting is also going to get reworked. Is also planning on taking a look at organizing and improving Inventory management in the future and additional crafting changes.
They're also teasing that they will be adding a lot of new content for the next test, which they shared is planned for the first quarter of 2024.
