The shooter mix Scavengers is a big success on Steam and continues to be enjoyed by many players. But what plans do the developers have for the future? How do they intend to fend off cheaters and what new characters can we expect? Find out in our interview with the developers.
We at MeinMMO asked Josh Holmes, the head and founder of the developer studio Midwinter, about the current topics of the successful shooter mix Scavengers. Here you can find the interview. The questions were asked by our editor Benedict Grothaus.
MeinMMO: I really enjoyed playing my first rounds of Scavengers with a friend, but the research somehow slowed us down. Will you make changes to the system?
Josh Holmes: Research will continue to play an important role in Scavengers, but we understand that it was a point of frustration for some players. We have taken the feedback into account and will implement a number of changes that players will see in the coming weeks. For example, it is true that it was quite difficult to extract usable items (which are the main source of research resources) from the planet. Our intention was always to provide players with additional utilizations through daily and weekly challenges, as well as the battle pass system, but these are not yet included in the game.
To address this in the meantime, we have made a change that allows players to keep any usable item they find, even if they do not successfully extract it. We will re-evaluate this once the additional mechanics for utilization are in place. This is just one example of the meta-game changes we have made to consider some of the initial feedback after the Early Access launch. The most important part of this Early Access period is to gather feedback from the community, and we will continue to listen and use feedback to adjust features.
MeinMMO: Only shortly after the EA release did you make Scavengers completely Free2Play without needing an access code. Why did you decide to do that?
Josh Holmes: Twitch Drops were always intended as a limited-time event and allowed us to engage and build our Twitch community. What we did not expect was the overwhelmingly positive response we received on Twitch and from our community. Over a few days, we were able to deliver hundreds of thousands of keys. This far exceeded our expectations, and our supply of Steam keys ran low. We did not want the platform choice between Steam and the Epic Game Store to be an entry barrier for players. Therefore, we quickly decided to abolish the keys and allow all players access to the game.
MeinMMO: The game had some issues handling the number of players, leading to problems with matchmaking and connection at launch. Did you expect such interest in the game?
Josh Holmes: The launch exceeded our expectations, and we are very grateful for the hundreds of thousands of players who jumped into the game during our launch week. That being said, it is not ideal and frustrating to encounter errors and issues. The main problem was pre-game lobby servers crashing when they reached a certain player threshold. We quickly introduced a short-term fix while the issue was being identified. Then, additional fixes and further adjustments were implemented. This is all part of the Early Access experience, and we are very grateful for the patience and endurance of our community.
MeinMMO: How will Scavengers support even more players in the future, and what improvements will there be?
Josh Holmes: The pre-game lobby issues were a relatively small hiccup that we were able to resolve, and improvements have been made to further enhance stability in the future. We cannot predict everything that may happen. But we are not worried about more players joining Scavengers in the future.
MeinMMO: Can you tell us what gameplay changes have been made since the closed beta?
Josh Holmes: We have made a large number of gameplay changes since we held our closed beta playtest in December. These include the full range from seemingly small adjustments (the way the radar system hides players under certain circumstances), to balance adjustments (general weapon tweaks), and more cosmetic adjustments (a new slide-jump animation).
Other adjustments affect moment-to-moment gameplay and match feel (boss encounters, enemies dropping data points, storm behavior). Throughout the Early Access, we will continue to make adjustments and optimize the player experience based on feedback.
MeinMMO: What is the biggest criticism from players that you will work on, and what is the biggest praise?
Josh Holmes: We have received a lot of feedback regarding our research system, in which some players had difficulties understanding it. We will work to make the research more accessible and understandable. It is a deep system, so we want to ensure that we improve usability and make it a satisfying experience for everyone.
What players loved… well, it was really nice for us as a team to see all the positive feedback from players in response to the many different aspects of the game. One thing that stands out is the balance of PvE and PvP gameplay. Players seem to really appreciate the strategic opportunities for different playstyles. Oh, and the gliding – we never get tired of seeing new community GIFs about it. We continue to improve gliding and overall mobility in Scavengers, as fluid movement plays such an important role in our gameplay.
MeinMMO: There have been complaints that hackers were already in the game. How will you combat cheats now and possibly in the future?
Josh Holmes: We are aware that cheaters have negatively impacted the player experience for a number of players. We are working on solutions. First of all, we have already banned a large number of cheaters, and we continue to review new reports of cheats.
We are also using our own custom systems in addition to standard anti-cheat technologies to address the problem. Since the launch of Early Access, we have made a number of improvements and will continue to expand and refine these systems to be more efficient and precise in the future.
Monitoring patterns and techniques in the game plays an important role. While we know that cheating can never be completely “resolved”, we will do everything in our power to make it difficult for cheaters.
MeinMMO: What plans do you have for future content?
Josh Holmes: Many things! In the short term, we will introduce events and mutators in the current game mode (like the upcoming “Gun Fu”, where explorers spawn with two random weapons at the beginning of the game). Additionally, we are offering players more research options that will allow new strategic options for their loadouts. And we are expanding research to include cosmetic items. Furthermore, players can look forward to new explorers and enemies and more exciting content as we approach our first season launch.
MeinMMO: Can you hint at one or two of the new explorers that might come?
Josh Holmes: I don’t want to give away too much, but if you look closely at some of the artworks we have released previously, you can spot a hint of one of the new upcoming explorer characters. The interesting thing for us when designing new explorers is experimenting with new combinations of abilities and weapons and how they interact with the other explorers in the game. In any case, we hope that the new explorer brings something unique to the game balance, new potential for players, and a new challenge for enemies.
MeinMMO: Will you support next-gen consoles at a later date?
Josh Holmes: We have announced that Scavengers will come to console (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) sometime after our PC launch. As a team, we are very excited about the possibilities that next-gen consoles offer developers, but I have no update on our console plans today.
MeinMMO: With Scavengers, you will also generate a testing environment for SpatialOS and held a test where 1,700 players played on a server. This is basically a dream come true for any MMO player who feels that the “massive” in MMO is missing. Can you tell us what will happen after this test?
Josh Holmes: The idea behind ScavLab was to create an experimental sandbox testing platform within Scavengers, where we could host a huge number of players and entities and test unique gameplay features in a single, shared hub. Here at Midwinter, we are collaborating with Improbable’s London studio to develop ScavLab. Using Improbable’s IMS technology, we tackle the traditional size and complexity limitations in virtual worlds.
Our first event was just the tip of the iceberg. We will undertake more in this direction and test even wilder concepts with the community, where we hope players can participate in unique gameplay experiences along with thousands of other players.
MeinMMO: What does a stress test like this mean for the future of multiplayer gaming?
Josh Holmes: There are so many possibilities for experiences of this scale, and we are really only scratching the surface. On a personal level, I am excited about the gameplay potential this could enable for us and the possibility of integrating mechanisms and experiences from ScavLab into the core game of Scavengers.
It is also an incredible feeling to be able to bring so many members of our community together in a single shared space where we can communicate and play with each other.
If I look beyond Scavengers, I can see how much impact this level of player density can have on other gameplay experiences. How many people can come together and interact at once. It feels like a potential new frontier for gaming, and I look forward to being a part of it.
End of the interview.
Regarding the issue of the absurdly large mass battles made possible by SpatialOS in Scavengers, there is now something new. After the great success of the first test, there will soon be another large mass battle test with thousands of players. But this time, everyone can participate. How this will work, you will find out here at MeinMMO.
