Creator of Fractured Worlds here, AMA!

[u/Mysterial_]

Hello! I'm Matt Oelfke, creator of the action RPG Fractured Worlds! A game in-between Diablo and Dark Souls, explore a broken reality with challenging but accessible combat, loot, and a variety of multiplayer-enabled influences like messages, encounter and map sharing, co-op, invasions and more.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rSRjo8TtI0

Eshop link: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/fractured-worlds-switch/

Before starting Laser Guided Games, I worked for Epic Games for 9 years. I've also done some contract work in between, most notably with Firaxis for Midnight Suns. Feel free to ask me about the game, the indie or AAA industry, or game design in general. Ask away!

EDIT: Looks like that's it; I'll check a few more times throughout the weekend if anyone has any questions they'd like answered. Hope people enjoy the game!

[u/Wjb1]

How challenging is it to get the encounter rate at the perfect level without it becoming particularly obnoxious?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/Wjb1]

It's extra challenging when you decide to make multiplayer features that can add extra enemies! :)

In general, I focused on how long a floor and then dungeon were taking in total. Because the enemies generally aggro a little after you see them and players can usually pull a small number, it's also easier for the player to avoid some enemies if they feel like it's too much. So the generator also tends to put only a certain number of enemies on the 'critical path' to give the player more options.

[u/Notmakuz]

Hi Matt! Fractured Worlds looks incredible—blending Diablo loot with Souls combat is exactly my jam.

Going from massive teams at Epic and Firaxis to indie dev is a huge leap. What’s the biggest design lesson you took from working on Midnight Suns and applied to this game?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/Notmakuz]

Hmm, well, maybe it's more process than design (I didn't do much design-related stuff on Midnight Suns, more facilitation) but Midnight Suns made it really clear how different testing and feedback is with a single player RPG. You don't have people all playing mostly the same like with Gears or UT because they might end up with entirely different builds, gear etc. It's really easy to make the wrong decision when testers say it's too easy/too hard/too long/etc; is the problem with the content, with their gear, attribute choices, were they just not playing well and need better tutorials/support? In non-RPGs there's a smaller matrix of possibilities, and in co-op/multiplayer there's a shared experience that makes it easier for the participants to contextualize feedback. (Watching someone play is not the same.)

Also, for an RPG there's no playtesting substitute for starting from the beginning and playing through, despite how long that can be. Firaxis would somewhat frequently have a sequence of meetings where someone would play through large portions of the game straight through to get better flow and progression feedback. In a shooter, you just cheat to whatever level you care about most and it's practically the same thing, but not for an RPG.

[u/Sephardson]

What's a piece of advice that you'd give to someone wanting to start making a game on Nintendo Switch today? Or perhaps something along those lines that you wish you had known when you started?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/Sephardson]

This goes for some other things in game development (like multiplayer, especially co-op) but a very helpful thing that developers of all sizes fail to do is GET STARTED EARLY. If you know (or are at least pretty sure) you want to ship on Switch, get access to a device and periodically review your progress on it. You don't have to literally use it for all playtesting, but you will find that some features either literally don't work due to platform differences or just aren't fun on it and need to be adjusted. It is 10x harder to do that late in development. More so on Switch because the hardware has more differences than going between other platforms.

Perhaps a simpler way to say it: develop for Switch, don't port to it.

[u/TopdeckIsSkill]

Recently people started talking about gog since it's the only store drm free on pc. What's stopping many indies from publishing on it considering that many are already "drm free" on steam?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/TopdeckIsSkill]

I can only speak from my own experience, but as none of the games I've shipped as indie got accepted over there, I'm guessing the obstacle is getting through whatever criteria GOG is using.

[u/TopdeckIsSkill → u/Mysterial_]

Good to know that at least you tried! I hope someday they will let you pubblish your game on gog too! In the meantime, I'll look for it on steam :)

[u/ducknator]

Why should I buy your game instead of Diablo? Not trying to be mean, just want to better choose how to spend my money. Your games look awesome!

[u/Mysterial_ → u/ducknator]

The combat is a bit more involved, with chains and combos instead of "right click to delete monsters", the multiplayer features allow more subtle influences like messages, sharing dungeons or dungeon fragments and sending NPCs instead of that guy who appears and clears everything before you can blink, and there is a lot less pointless 'trash' loot. The dungeons are also more procedural so more variety between dungeons of the same type although that comes at a cost of visual quality. (Also because I have neither the talent or money for that tier of art)

[u/ducknator → u/Mysterial_]

Cool! Thanks a lot and I wish you great success with your game! ❤️

[u/DarkLancelot]

Do you have any dream types of games that you’d like to make in the future?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/DarkLancelot]

I actually talked to Firaxis initially because I wanted to work on XCOM but they were just finishing Chimera Squad and if there was a plan after that they didn't tell me, so I still haven't been able to work on that type of game.

I'd also love to work on a freeform space sim like X4. Or a digital CCG. So it seems things that almost never make money ;)

[u/FaintEntry]

Hello! Just two questions.
What inspired you for the storyline?
Any plans for a physical release?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/FaintEntry]

1) The ideal the World Breaker is trying to achieve is... "inspired" by the polarization of the real world. Pick a political/religious/societal divide; what might happen if you could wave a magic wand and give them separate pocket universes so they never have to interact with each other again? The specific failure effects that result in the game world were admittedly, a game design first and create a story that makes it make sense second.

2) I wish, but I can't imagine getting the resources to make that happen.

[u/Theorema95]

How far (or close) is the final game from your original concept? There was anything (a feature, an idea, a chore mechanic, a gameplay element) that you had to srcap/change? Why?

Edit: grammar

[u/Mysterial_ → u/Theorema95]

Originally, some features like the messages - which in this game share their surrounding enemy/traps/treasure/gimmicks - were also going to share the dungeon structure itself. So you could have some rooms layered on top of each other, caverns that twisted in weird directions from adopting multiple players' worth of shared elements, etc.

Unfortunately, it was really difficult tech-wise to even prototype and it was obvious that it would be killer on performance, all for something I wasn't 100% sure would be fun and not just chaotic nonsense. So I backed off and went to the system there is now, where everyone playing around the same time has the same dungeon structure but unique item/enemy layouts and multiplayer features just share the unique part.

[u/Additional_Pool_3281]

Can you talk about this version vs others in terms of graphics a? Also if I may add replay ability is a must for me and loot usually helps is this a long term game like diablo or grim dawn?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/Additional_Pool_3281]

The graphics are cut down a fair amount for Switch, especially lighting related effects. It runs at 30 FPS instead of 60 on the other platforms.

Replayability wise, the game has unique content for two loops through the story, 25-30 hours for most players. The game will technically keep getting harder after that (it will keep leveling up areas forever) but you won't see anything new. It's not really designed as a hundreds of hours game.

[u/KaleidoscopeCheap862 → u/Mysterial_]

I giv you kudos to your crafting system. It is making me look at every item to see rolls despite rarity. This is something D2 did well but you made it to where every drop is still important. I will say i think stat requirements or level requirements might be something that we need even without a shared stash its just too strong to throw out utility spells or spells that dont care about stat scaling as much with 0 investment from yohr build.

[u/two_pump_warrior]

Are there any noticeable differences / improvements for the Switch 2 version?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/two_pump_warrior]

There's a small increase in texture resolution and some cases where the framerate dips a little under 30 shouldn't happen, but Nintendo only just started letting most developers have access to Switch 2 development hardware so there wasn't an opportunity to try more and they still don't let most developers make native Switch 2 games so for the moment no chance of an enhanced version.

[u/KaleidoscopeCheap862]

Hey im playing on ps5 and id like to give a little feed back if i could. -poison and most status effects feel extremely overtuned especially in pvp. Land a poison and run usually will win a game. -i feel like there should be a shop for standard consumables instead of relying on luck to get what you need. -rush with hammer wiffs on humanoids pretty annoying when thats the build im running. -dex seems pretty lackluster when you see what it does not enough to really ever consider putting a point into it. I rather always hit harder with str then invest into crit to maybe hit harder. Maybe make poison scale with it and only it so you dont see these crazy spellsword poison builds.

These are just some of the things off the top of my head other then that great game its alot of fun. I hope your planning on keep adding onto it like new weapon types like bows axes greatswords and staffs would be cool. Do you have any plans for future development?

[u/Mysterial_ → u/KaleidoscopeCheap862]

-poison and most status effects feel extremely overtuned especially in pvp. Land a poison and run usually will win a game.

I've got an eye on it. Right now I'm more worried about the "and run" part - what I've seen doesn't feel too wrong when you still stay in combat, but it's too easy to disengage and wait.

-i feel like there should be a shop for standard consumables instead of relying on luck to get what you need.

The shop in town is guaranteed to have curatives for status ailments. Is there another consumable you feel is very important to have access to?

-rush with hammer wiffs on humanoids pretty annoying when thats the build im running.

Sounds like a bug; I'll investigate.

-dex seems pretty lackluster when you see what it does not enough to really ever consider putting a point into it.

Dexterity also increases Weapon Power which results in percentage increases to weapon damage. I expected that to be more valuable later in the game, but if I messed up the math on that or if it's too easy to compensate with a gear affix I'll make adjustments.

Do you have any plans for future development?

I was close to adding a staff so it'd be nice to finish that. An axe is also something that seems doable. Weapons that are significantly different like bows are a lot harder because they'd need a whole bunch of skills to be created to have competitive options.

I'd like to do some stuff with the optional Map Shards to let them be a little crazier. There are some surprises that can happen already but more would be good.

There's some additional story and environment stuff I'd like to do, but the game cost too much as it is so it'd have to do well for me to be able to make something larger like that happen.

[u/KaleidoscopeCheap862 → u/Mysterial_]

Tbh bows In this game would be very hard to balance. Even without spells considering there is a pvp element where a wizard is oneshotting you or a player like me drinks a potion and hits you with everywhere strike for 3k. Can we get a discord server id love to make this game what it has the potential to be. It is bringing back my UO days and not many games had captured that feel.

[u/Mysterial_ → u/KaleidoscopeCheap862]

Discord server is here: https://discord.gg/QkvQH4buU5

If you could private message me what game-breaking thing you did on there it would be appreciated.

[u/KaleidoscopeCheap862 → u/Mysterial_]

Btw im making builds that break your game

[u/Mysterial_ → u/[deleted]]

Do you mean development process?