[news] Gunfire Games' Reddit Ask Me Anything (link)

[BlackjackGT]

We are Gunfire Games, Developers of Remnant: From the Ashes - AMA!

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/co6htm/we_are_gunfire_games_developers_of_remnant_from/
*Working on a formatted summary of some Q&A highlights. Have the following Q&A categories so far:

• Gameplay
  
• Weapons
  
• Endgame
  
• Multiplayer
  
• Game Story
  
• Technical
  
• Post-Launch Support

Summary of some Q&As during the Reddit AMA, organized by a few categories

Answers were from Ben "tragic" Cureton, Principal Designer, and John "pfunk" Pearl, Design Director.

GAMEPLAY Q&A

Q: Can you explore the world freely? How long to beat? How deep is the character customization here?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

Can you explore the world freely?
So right now, you unlock locations throughout the campaign and you can revisit anywhere you've already been. If you re-roll the campaign, everything resets (world-wise - but you keep all your loot and exp).

How long to beat?
A single campaign takes about 15 hours (give or take depending on your skill, difficulty chosen, and level of exploration). However, that value is misleading because you won't see half the game in a single campaign.

It's designed so that you have to replay it to see additional bosses, new quests, pick up different loot, etc. To get it all, it will take much much longer.

How deep is the character customization here?
The character creation allows you to pick face, hair, facial hair, color, eye color, scars, voice, and of course, gender. It's very simplified but it's also something we are looking to expand over time.

Q: What about storage? How many weapons can you have on you, not just equipped but to swap once in a world?

"GunfireGames"님이 먼저 게시:

You can hold everything you've ever picked up. No need for storage, it's all on your character.

Q: How does the campaign reroll mechanic work ? Do we have to speak to an NPC, is it just a menu option,... ?

Gunfire Games님이 먼저 게시:

Design Director answer:
You can re-roll the world at any point from the player base, Ward 13. It's accessible from the large red world stone found in the base.

Principal Designer answer (in addition to DD's answer)
When you reroll, it starts the campaign over. Everything is reset but everything you looted and all exp you gained sticks with you. You can start the game, do the first dungeon, and reroll if you want. You can beat the City World Boss, and reroll if you want... then do City all over again to get different loot drops.

Q: ... say I'm halfway through a world, I save and turn it off (to go to work) and when I come home and boot up.... will the world be different? Or the world is how I left it?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

Your world is your world. If you exit the game, it will remember your place in the campaign. It will send you back to Ward 13, but all of your checkpoints will remain unlocked and all of your gear will be there.

Q: What are the differences between the different difficulties. How does it affect the player the ai and the world.

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

The differences in difficulties are EXP gain only. We don't want people to feel like they are missing out for not playing a harder (or the hardest) mode so we made the EXP gain compensation for the time involvement required.

The biggest change in difficulty outside of scaling up hp and damage is in co-op where enemies spawn more frequently and are more aggressive.

Q: Heard there will be different difficulies : how are they handled? Does the monsters become more aggresives? Come in larger numbers? Or only their stats changes?

Gunfire Games님이 먼저 게시:

There is Normal, Hard, and Nightmare.

Normal is meant to provide a challenge to MOST people. Hard is meant to provide a challenge to the 5% or so that find Normal too easy. Nightmare is meant for when you have beaten the game and have end-game traits... and you are powered up. It's not meant to start on, but we let you do it. Enemies are tougher and more dangerous (and more aggressive).

Q: Will there be increased loot chances etc for higher difficulty or is it purely for the challenge?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

We didn't want players to feel like they were missing out by playing on Normal instead of Hard or Nightmare. So, instead of increasing loot chances, we only increased the experience gain which is meant to compensate for the time invested. Realistically, it's for the challenge, but if you are efficient, it may prove to be better to play on harder difficulties once you have the gear!

WEAPONS Q&A

Q: Are there multiple versions of each gun? Like 2-3 types of shotguns? Or just 1 shotgun that you upgrade

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

Each firearm is meant to be unique. While there are multiple "shotgun" weapons, none of them are alike. There is a 7-shot slow-fire rate, slow-reloading shotgun. There is a 2-shot super-fast fire shotgun with a brisk reload. There is a shotgun pistol (!!!), and even a single-shot BOOMSTICK that can send enemies to the shadowrealm (I'm actually not kidding!).

We want every weapon you pick up to feel completely unique, and because of that, we have less weapons than many other games but no duplicates.

ENDGAME Q&A

Q: What does the end game look like? As in, what will bring me back to play after I've maxed my character and unlocked most of the items?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

Because of the size of our studio and the size of the team on the project, we had to think of things a bit differently than some of our contemporaries. Instead of creating a campaign that you play once (to get to the appropriate level) and then creating a raid or set of dungeons that you run over and over and over, we created a campaign that you can run over and over and over with different results.

So, end-game and early-game are very similar except it's more about seeing all the variants and finding new loot, quests, and bosses along the way. You may defeat the Dragon World Boss at the end of City and get one crafting material, reroll and fight the Ent World Boss at the end of City and get another crafting material, only to reroll again and get Ent again but defeat him a different way for yet another unique crafting material, etc.

This also applies to our Bosses. First run through City you might fight Gorefist in your first dungeon, but the second time through, you might fight a completely different Boss. This also goes for side-quests. You will never see all of the content in one play.

We say it jokingly, but we never wanted to reinvent the wheel, just change the journey. Your ultimate goal may always be the same in campaign, but the journey to the end is always different.

Once you pick up everything, you still have tons and tons and tons of traits to get to fill out your character, and we have plans for more stuff coming soon!

Q: What is your favorite end game activity at the moment?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

My personal favorite activity is trying to beat bosses on Hard with under-powered gear. Since the game is skill-based, it's very possible, but if you don't go in prepared, you are in for a world of hurt.

MULTIPLAYER Q&A

Why 3-player co-op?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

We started with 4. We wanted the experience to be slower paced than other similar games so we had to constantly up the health of enemies.

Over time, 4p became super grindy, especially when you were separated from your team (because you had 4x DPS, when one person split off to fight one enemy, they had to chop through a TON of health). If we reduced health too much to compensate, it just became a run and gun.

With that in mind, we tried 3p and it ended up feeling much closer to our desired experience right off the bat so we tuned a few knobs and let it rip.

Q: How is the coop drop-in drop-out support? If I see a friend playing, can I just jump right into his game, regardless where he is or what he's doing?

"Gunfire Games님이 먼저 게시:

Yes. You can jump in and jump out. Your world is generated for yourself (for when you are solo or the host). Their world is the same for them. If you jump into their game, you will be in their campaign at their spot. If you leave, you will go back to yours in the same spot you were in.

Q: How monster scaling happens in co-op?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

The world scales to the host if you are all within 3 levels. If you are outside of 3 levels, it scales to the highest person (somewhat like Diablo).

We've had some ideas for some sort of sidekick protection but it has to wait until we get this baby out the door in good shape and fix any issues that come up. From there, we will revisit some of that sorta stuff.

You can definitely run 2 chars just to stick with them. You will see more stuff that way and it will also inspire you to play even more on your main so you can get all the stuff you saw in their game!

GAME STORY Q&A

Q: Is there an interesting story I should look forward to in this one? If yes, then what's the best way you'd describe it?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

It's very much the "Hero's Journey." The player character washes ashore after being sent by a small group of survivors on a remote island to stop a race of creatures known only as the "Root". This is their journey as they try to make it to a strange tower that is the "Root of all Evil".

This Journey takes them through 4 unique worlds as they make their way to the tower.

Q: Is the story/lore important and heavily detailed, or is it like something that's just in the background?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

The core story beats are "important" and it's the one thing that remains the same no matter what happens when the world is randomly generated. These story beats carry you through the game and give a reason for your quest. This story has some interesting twists and characters to meet.

What's really interesting is all the random events that have their own story and seeing how those play out in the larger narrative. These events might never appear in a single play through, so to get the whole story, you'll need to replay the game.

TECHNICAL Q&A

Q: What's the max Frames Per Second for PC players (I hope at least 144)?

Gunfire Games principal designer"님이 먼저 게시:

Our current settings are 0, 30, 60, 90, 120. I'd assume 0 means uncapped (which is what we always play on)
..
I just found out that we have a hard cap at 200fps (which you can hit if you leave it at 0).

Otherwise, players can set in 30 fps increments up to 120.

Q: Will the game support LAN? Does the game require a constant connection online?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

It doesn't support LAN but does NOT require a constant connection online. Once you download the game, you can play it offline to your heart's content.

Q: Does the game support 21:9 aspect ratio with 3440x1440 resolution?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

Yes!

Niche question, but might be useful to folks with uber monitors. :) -bj

Q: Will the option to rebind keyboard controls be available upon release?

"Gunfire Games' principal designer"님이 먼저 게시:

You can absolutely rebind keyboard controls.

POST-LAUNCH SUPPORT Q&A

Q: In the future will you follow the steps of adding new classes and new areas?

"Gunfire Games님이 먼저 게시:

The good news is, there are no classes! Only Archetypes. Archetypes are the 3 starting options to help you get going but they have no unique stuff - everything they have can be obtained by every other starting Archetype. It's really just a way for us to say "hey, here is a long range, a mid range, and an up-close char to get you started."

Of course, that being said, we will absoluuuuuuuuutely add more Weapons, Armors (with Armor Set Bonuses), Items, Traits, and Mods to let you customize your playstyle as much as you want. It's really easy to do most of that (though anything with modeling and vfx takes quite a bit longer)... so definitely expect it!

Q: Aside from small updates adding in extra monsters or bosses, can we expect large DLCs to be in the works after launch?

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

We already have tons of plans for additional content both big and small.

We want to provide a solid stream of free stuff which we can easily inject into our campaign (thus changing the campaign experience even more post-launch).

In addition, we absolutely want to add more biomes, enhance current biomes, add more items, add more mechanics, etc. We think about Remnant as a foundation in which we can build upon for a long time to come.

[BlackjackGT]

fwiw, someone did ask about preloading on Steam pre-orders, late in the AMA. It's just not something the game director or designer were involved in. They offered to ask but I suspect they're busy prepping for launch now. :-)

[BlackjackGT]

I don't want to bump my thread too shamelessly. Only bumping if I found another nugget in the Reddit AMA to share.

So here we go, principal designer chimed in belatedly about.....

What's the max FPS for PC players (I hope at least 144)?

Gunfire Games principal designer"님이 먼저 게시:

Our current settings are 0, 30, 60, 90, 120. I'd assume 0 means uncapped (which is what we always play on)
..
I just found out that we have a hard cap at 200fps (which you can hit if you leave it at 0).

Otherwise, players can set in 30 fps increments up to 120.

I will add this to the Technical Q&A section of the initial op post here.

[BlackjackGT]

Added an answer about weapons types, and added a "Weapons" category to the initial op post here.

WEAPONS Q&A

Q: Are there multiple versions of each gun? Like 2-3 types of shotguns? Or just 1 shotgun that you upgrade

"Gunfire Games"님이 먼저 게시:

Each firearm is meant to be unique. While there are multiple "shotgun" weapons, none of them are alike. There is a 7-shot slow-fire rate, slow-reloading shotgun. There is a 2-shot super-fast fire shotgun with a brisk reload. There is a shotgun pistol (!!!), and even a single-shot BOOMSTICK that can send enemies to the shadowrealm (I'm actually not kidding!).

We want every weapon you pick up to feel completely unique, and because of that, we have less weapons than many other games but no duplicates.

[BlackjackGT]

Here's a PC-centric Q&A about rebinding keyboard controls (answer is 'yes):

Reddit Link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/co6htm/we_are_gunfire_games_developers_of_remnant_from/ewtnm9n?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

Q: Will the option to rebind keyboard controls be available upon release?

"Gunfire Games' principal designer"님이 먼저 게시:

You can absolutely rebind keyboard controls.

*I'll add this under the "Technical Q&A" section in this thread's initial post.

[Mr. Stimpson]

bump, request for sticky?