Dev Friday Livestream (August 2, 2013)

Friday August 2, 2013 the Dev team streamed a demo and Q&A session on their Twitch channel.

Dahanese was joined by OverloadUT, and Sledgehammer70 and Trick Dempsey.

Questions

Will there be a Volge outfit in the future?

Maybe, with the helmet it's like you salvaged part of his body and made it a trophy. It's possible for a full suit armor.

When will the rewind content end?

Will be live until the DLC launch, no date yet.

Will the Volge emergencies remain in the game?

Yes they will remain in the game, just like the plague emergencies are still cycling through. So you'll always have a change to run into the Volge as you're crusing around the bay area.

Will the Dodge High Speed Challenge return?

Yes it will be coming back. It has been happening every 3-4 weeks. So you can grind and get your paradise faction rep and then buy one of 3 unique challenges with boosted stats.

DLC Voices, how do they select them?

When the new DLC comes out, if you purchase the DLC or own the season pass. You will get an option to basically recustomize your character, that includes choosing a different species. In that process you will be able to customize the appearance, choose your voice and possibly rename your character.

Will we see plague sieges before the DLC?

No it wont come out before the DLC, but they will be coming back into the game and they will be rotated through like arkfalls are.

Will the Volge be nerfed for the sieges?

No, in fact the bombers have gotten a lot harder. A lot of people will come to the sieges so they have been enhanced.

Does the Toxic nano do anything?

On live it should be identical to radioactive. They did have another nano effect type that was in the game that they had to pull late in development. It was a bio-radiation at the same time. They didn't get entirely taken from loot.

BMG Damage and Heal Charge and mag size mods

There is a UI bug which causes the Heal Charge % to display as 0 in the live game. It does have an effect in game. In the UI update that accompanies the Castithan Charge Pack it is fixed.

Charge % is an arbitrary size magazine, each tick is essentially a shot. So the mag mod size will have an effect but it won't make that much difference.

How do the phases work?

Talking about worlds, instances and phases.

Worlds are the thing that you drive in, that's a server. The entire world all the way from Mount Tam down to San Francisco is just one giant consistant thing.

As the day goes on during peak hours, they reach a population limit they spin up a new server. When a person teleports (fast travel, go to friend, co-op map) they send the player to more populated server to try and kill the smaller ones off.

If you are just chasing arkfalls you will either be on a massively populated server that they are trying to get people off of, or you are one of the holdouts on a low population server they are trying to close.

Phasing is different, for example during an event new players can keep joining up to a particular stage once that stage is reached they start a fresh event unless they are in a group or join a friend, so that the event makes sense for new players. Also to make the optimal play experience they will split off new event phases for each 12 or 14 players.

When did falling damage get removed?

It existed for a long time, a year before launch they scrapped it. They found it was a negative play experience anytime you took falling damage as when you are rushing to join your friends etc.

Why can't we use other world vehicles that exist?

They are neat vehicles, they need to be animated and rigged. Large crowds of people at arkfalls revert to a base skin, so if people showed up with lots of different models that wouldn't help the situation. They need to be selective about what they put in.

Will the test server be on all platforms?

No, PC only. So that they can change it on the fly at any time they want rather than having to get clearance from other entities. And you wouldn't want to download a second game client to hard drive for console users, or download multiple times.

They are working on ways for console users who have a PC can access the test server.

Missing mods for weapon types

It is in our current test build so will be in our next patch.

List of weapon synergies and mods in game

Yeah we could provide a list.

Defiance Data has a list, see our Synergies and Mods pages.

When the DLC is released, will the new vehicle be a Roller or Cerberus?

It is a Roller. To level Cerberus I recommend Freight Yard.

Lockboxes can be bought with bits, can we do this with Synergy mod caches?

We are adding a bunch of new lockbox items into the store and in-game, but we can't say when. You can purchase mod caches but you can also do objectives to gain them.

Can mass breakdown be added to the salvage matrix?

With the Castithan Charge Pack salvaging will be done in one button press. Additionally we are going to improve the experience so you can do things en-masse but have not yet settled on the best interace that would be. At some point in the future you will be able to mass breakdown.

Will we ever be able to dual wield pistols, SMGs or Castithan blades?

Not any time soon, it's a massive animation and bandwith thing. It's something they want to do, but it would take a lot of time. 

Any chance of extending or removing the weapon skill cap?

They are doing a lot of work on the progression of weapon skills, there is definitely a feature going in which will adapt to that question. They aren't removing the cap they are doing a different mechanic that will be kind of familiar.

Crafting system?

There will be a crafting system. No time or details but they have looked at things like modding your vehicle, crafting mods for your weapons etc.

Will charge blades have nanos?

Charge blades will not have nano effects on release, charge weapons will.

New contracts and factions

Adding a new faction with the DLC (It's a castithan word). They are adding several new contracts in the future, one of the things Trick is working on at the moment is making a more clear and entertaining a reputation allocation system. It is hidden right now, and it's important to the end-game they want to make it more interesting and engaging.

Will there be other ways to gain reputation?

Someday, one of the big dangers with rep is that there isn't enough ways to get it right now. And it isn't clear how to get it. We don't want to flood the market with it, as it is a major time constraint compliment.

When will orange BMGs be orange weapons and not recolored purples?

In every case investigated where orange BMGs didn't have 3 stat rolls, they did actually did, their melee attack and nano-effect are seperate rolls and just aren't listed on the bonuses.

DLC Achievements

Yes they will happen, some have been leaked already.

Submit Questions

Submit your questions on the question gathering thread on the official Defiance forums.

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Video

Defiance stream starts at around 1:30:00

Watch live video from riftgame on TwitchTV