At the end of February we’ll be rolling out the Stalker Trials, a separate challenge mode that will populate a selection of the game’s maps with different types of enemies to create new challenges. Stalker Trials will come with a leaderboard that will let you compare your combat prowess with your friends’. Initially this will only be available to PC players, but we’re planning on rolling it out to consoles as well.
You read read more about the Stalker Trials and how it works here.
Before we roll out Stalker Trials, we would like to get more eyes and ears on it. That’s where you, the community, comes in. We’re planning an open beta for this new endless mode on Friday, February 8th.
To access the open beta, open up your Steam Library, right click on Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, and select Properties. Navigate to the Betas tab and input the following password into the window: ‘PrippLovesYou7ha38fp’. Switch over to the ‘stalker_trials_beta’ branch in the dropdown menu.
Please leave any feedback or bug reports you may have in this thread.
First, just started it up so no more detailed feedback yet.
The beta gives a false positive by anti-virus (avast); so it crashed first time while avast was scanning it.
Having done 2 maps one time now I wonder about the permanent equipment rewards. I get better and better equipment from doing challenges.
Is the score deduxion ( deduction) based on what I equipment I wear going in to an challenge or on how much of the original scrap I spent in the store?
I am guessing on what I wear? That would make the most sense.
Overall so far, I feel like this mode gives a lot of added value to the game and re-playability to keep players occupied for quite a while going forward. Hopefully you will spend that time to do work on adding more story dlc’s as well as that is what I honestly think would add the most value to the product.
Re-engaging duck mode now. Reporting back again later.
But have you thought about restricting character or item swapping during a mission?
To me it feels nice to make some meaningful long term choices in a game/game-mode like this.
But the fact that you can always swap a character out with another one for any encounter, and swap equipment/hats back an fourth between characters kinda ruins these choices for me.
An example:
You are sneaking around and taking opponents out one by one. The opponents lifepool is bigger than 3 average stealth shots. so you have to use a mutation to kill them.
Now you will have to swap the best stealth weapon around to the mutant that will use his mutation for the upcoming stealth-kill. You also have to this with hats, mutants and also armor if you go loud.
To me, this ruins the importance of the choices i make, and turns the gamemode into a micromanagement mode.
This wasn’t a big problem for me in the main campaign. Because there I just needed kill the opponents. But in the stalker trials game mode, we have to optimize our score, so we need to swap out mutants/items/mutations to maximize our score all the time. (even if it just increases crit chance slightly) - I don’t think this is very fun.
I would much rather spend some time thinking about a perfect loadout for a mission. and then be stuck with that loudout for the entire mission. This way I feel like I would spend more time playing the actual game, instead of hopping around in the character menus. I think that I would be more proud of my highscore too.
Anyway, These are just my thoughts, and i’m not sure it would be a good idea to make this restriction.
On PS4 so probably not going to be able to trial the beta but glad to hear it is coming. I’m picking up other triophies after having completed on Very Hard Iron Mutant so this will add value.
If I could ask for anything for future development, I’d say I’ve always been a fan of possible character creation but perhaps that’d have to be for “MYZ 2.” But for me a DLC with additional characters and maps would be something I’d be excited for too.
Also glad to hear about forthcoming bug fixes as well as the new mode.
Hi, Mark here from TBLC.
Thanks so much for trying it out! You get a score bonus based upon unspent scrap (Purse Bonus). No deduction is made for items or armor which is equipped by your crew. Only somewhat related deduction is for using explosives. Glad you are enjoying it, I can’t say anything about new content at this stage, just - watch this space!
Thanks a lot for trying the game and the feedback! Yes there is a fair amount of management needed, but that’s where the real score work is done, getting the right kit for the right situation becomes even more necessary in Stalker Trials, either way we will continue to read feedback and balance as we go!
So I would get more bonus points by spending as little as possible of the starting scrap and rely on equipment rewards from missions. And breakdown as much as possible, that I wont need for killing, of the awarded equipment. I haven’t played enough yet to really evaluate how that would work; but from a glance the unspent scrap bonus seems a bit strange.
Reading you response to megalaks though and thinking about keeping equipment and swapping more stuff during missions I guess I would be able to get more of the score multipliers from really planning out each kill/combat situation. Which I guess would be worth more than scrapping equipment to only keep the bare minimum.
Also; since there is a scrap bonus. Would it make sense to have a 1 to 1 scrap value for weapons in regard to store price and scrap from breakdown? (admittedly I am not sure what the ratio is at the moment)
hi Beh3moth_x
Thank you for your response.
Though to me, excessive jumping around in menus is not what I consider a highly skilled or fun task. To each his own
Here is the workflow of swapping between two characters:
Remove one weapon from your current character (CharA). You cannot remove both weapons, as there is a minimum of 1 weapon that is mandatory on a character. (and all spare weapons are sold because of the purse bonus on unspent scrap)
Now swap out CharA for the character you want to use instead (CharB).
Equip the weapon that you removed from CharA, and remove the bad/cheap weapon from CharB that you need to transfer to CharA to be able to move the last weapon to Char B.
Swap CharB for CharA again
Equip Bad/cheap Weapon on CharA and remove the last good weapon that you want to transfer to Char B
Now remove other items.
Swap CharA for CharB yet again.
Equip the last weapon and remaining items.
setup mutations, and you are ready to go!
I think this is too much, especially if you need to do it many times. and restart and repeat every time you miss a critical hit.
Maybe the problem could be resolved if you made a loadout save/load menu or something.
I’d just like to add for now that I like the idea mentioned of locking item and character swapping from missions in trials mode. Giving bonus for how much scrap you kept in you purse still seems strange to me.
If you would lock swaps during doing missions you could award bonus based on the equipment brought into the mission instead. It would in my opinion serve the game mode much better; you know before going in what enemies you will encounter and could try to optimize for that.
And well, a trial mode that awards points to a leaderboard where you try to beat a highscore is from a gameplay perspective more fun when you have set rules for the encounter that other people also have to adhere to.
If a new starter go into early challenges a way into when the mode is released the player will not only be competing against the encounter with other players. The player will also compete against the superior and specialised gear of older players. Meaning basically no leaderboards until the player has come at least close to get all the gear.
Rating bonus based on gear, items and characters going in to the encounter and locking would instead potentially encourage players to push the limits with setup. This ofc will require more work with design for balancing the bonus from different gear, items, characters with regards to the encounters. But still…it would be awesome.
Well, I agree with Waeress on the purse point.
I think the purse bonus is strange because you acquire more and more loot that you can sell.
In the beginning I got the idea that this mode was supposed to be a mode where you could compete on equal footing, and test your skills.
But the purse bonus makes it impossible for anybody to set a high-score unless the individual has acquired and subsequently sold all items.
And is that even fun? - to sell all your awesome stuff, just to raise a score?
I would rather see you scrap the purse bonus, so people can use their weapons of choice.
How about making the the score purely based on amount of turns and time?
And instead of focusing on the score, focus on making some increasingly harder and harder missions.
The current state of the score system feels like it forces you to play the game in a certain way.
ie:
You cannot use any awesome weapons.
You have to kill one opponent with melee
You have to kill one opponent with the mind control mutation
You have to kill one opponent with overwatch
And why would we punish the player for using grenades?
I actually think the current score system limits both creativity and the fun part of this game - it’s gameplay.
So yea:
Lock the loadout when you go on a mission.
Only use turns for the scoring. (time if turns are tied)
Or try something different
But the current state of the mode doesn’t feel right or fun.
One thing I had missed and understood when watching yesterdays stream is that you can sell gear now. And it is at a 1-1 price and getting weapon parts back from upgrades. That basically gives the same thing as locking gear when going into missions. But with a lot more of UI interaction.
Still, it was nice to see that it basically works in that way already. Even though I would prefer less UI interaction.
Please!!!
Leave the current v1.04 as a non-default branch in Steam (game’s properties --> betas) - ‘Vanilla’ - branch, or something like that. I’d love it will be fixed as a pre-dlc updated one. Thank you!
We have fixed this, you can now swap weapons without the need to replace them. The only condition is that your active crew has at least one weapon each.
deduction) based on what I equipment I wear going in to an challenge or on how much of the original scrap I spent in the store?