This coming Thursday (14th July) sees the launch of a massive new expansion ‘Enter the Shredzone’ which features one new module and a weapon, namely the EMP and the minigun-esque Chain Shredder. All this information you guys already know, but what we haven’t revealed thus far is that this update also includes two big new additions which we’ve been working on for a while - an easy-to-grasp tutorial and an overhauled single-player mode. On the face of it, those two topics aren’t necessarily linked, but they both feed into each other to help ensure that a new player’s experience in Robocraft is as fun and welcoming as possible. Learning the Basics Now, we’ve all tried to get a friend into Robocraft but for whatever reason that person hasn’t decided to keep playing - it’s okay we don’t judge them. If we’re being completely honest with ourselves, we know we haven’t done a great job in introducing players to Robocraft in the past but the new tutorial will help improve that. In the past we have featured videos in-game to help introduce Robocraft, but too few people actually watched them, and our new tutorial is considerably more hands-on.
Upon log-in new players are asked if they want to start a tutorial via a pop-up which immediately transports them into the editor. From there they are directed to pick up the hallowed edit gun, and go through multiple steps to make an unfinished mech battle-ready by placing down a mech leg, taking cubes from their inventory, attaching them to a clearly defined space on the robot and then outfitting it with SMGs. Once complete, players then take their robot into Test mode, where they are prompted to move their robot into clearly marked areas, shoot targets and take down a dummy robot. Now writing this all down, it might seem a bit simplistic, but the whole ethos behind the tutorial’s design is to help newcomers learn the absolute basics, and get them battle-ready as soon as possible.
At the end of the tutorial the player is awarded a Protonium Salvage Crate with four items in, and this Crate is earned only on the first time the player completes the tutorial. The tutorial system will be available from the main menu for everyone to try as soon as the expansion is live and as ever we welcome feedback on how to make the tutorial better. We’ll have a thread ready on the official forums to capture all the feedback; just remember this tutorial isn’t for established players, it’s for the newbies and it is subject to change.
Combat 101 After the tutorial is complete, the new player is then prompted to enter our new take on Single Player; AI Bots Deathmatch. This is an upgraded and enhanced single-player option which replaces the existing Single Player game mode with gameplay which is like-for-like the same as traditional 5 versus 5 Team Deathmatch on the Battle for Birmingham map. Only rather than facing human players, you’re on the blue team flanked by 4 team AI versus 5 AI enemies on the other team. Robots in this mode are also taken from the CRF and will be based on the same CPU bracket as the robot you take into battle.
Please note, this new mode replaces the existing wave-based Single Player mode, but we believe the new AI Bots mode gives a much more accurate and enjoyable representation of Robocraft and acts as a better introduction to playing against others online. Undoubtedly this new iteration of AI is a step up from what is currently in Robocraft, however it doesn’t quite reach the levels of Skynet in terms of human-stomping goodness. For example, AI won’t be able to utilise flyers, they won’t be armed with modules and they will only reliably utilise Laser, Rail and Plasma weaponry. Experience is still earned when fighting against AI bots, but this is at a much slower rate than playing against human-controlled robots. Additionally completing a match against AI Bots will earn you a Salvage Crate (class dependent on performance) with two items, one of which will be locked-off to non-Premium users. Any questions? The main aim of the new tutorial and AI bots mode is to provide a gentle route for new players to get into the full Robocraft experience by first playing the Tutorial, then playing TDM with AI bots, then playing TDM against humans proper, and then venturing into the more advanced game modes. For this reason, players will find item rewards for this mode specifically to be suboptimal compared to other modes. Please note that this mode will not support platoon play; so you won't be able to buddy-up to battle the robots with your pals I'm afraid. If an AI vs Platoon mode is something you'd like, let us know and we can consider it for a future update. If we can get a sufficient number of ‘THIS! YES! OH PLEASE THIS!’ then we’ll put it in the next Quality of Life poll and let everyone decide. We’ll have more details on the Enter the Shredzone expansion later this week, including details on forthcoming bug fixes, balance changes and more. Thanks all!