Greetings, Ravens!
We're here with another Dev diary about the upcoming changes and updates of Ravenswatch!
I’ll try to be concise and make this post short, so let’s jump into the news right away! If you’ve watched our recent Reveal trailer, you’ll know Ravenswatch’s new update will feature a new playable character: Sun Wukong. He’s directly inspired by the most famous Chinese classical literature hero, the Monkey King himself will join the Ravenswatch on November 16th.
Watch our Reveal teaser here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Ghkpy1ePQ
Ahead of the release, we wanted to share a quick overview of the character, so you’ll know what to expect from this new Hero.
Sun Wukong overview
Our version of Sun Wukong is deprived of his godly powers. His crown has been possessed by an unremovable force, sapping his powers and putting an end to his divinity. He is now raging and bitter about his new mortality. The loss of his powers has also made him return to his primal instincts and his ape-like attitude. That doesn’t make him any less mighty as you can get an overpowered feeling by playing Sun Wukong, thanks to his fancy and flashy moves and his incredible mastery of martial arts.
We created Sun Wukong with the idea of Duality in mind. The first thing you’ll notice with him is the Yin and Yang stances, that you can switch during combat. The Yang stance makes you deal +100% damage, but also take +100% damage. High risk and reward, but you’ll also benefit from Strength for a short time. The Yin stance on the other hand makes you get Life on Hit for all of your abilities, as well as applying a Shield for a few seconds. Perfect for recovering the health you just lost by taking too many risks with the Yang stance!
You now understand, Sun Wukong requires more skill than any other character. And if you come from Curse of the Dead Gods, our previous game, you may be very happy to see the Parry make its comeback (sort of, it’s not exactly as punitive as Curse of the Dead Gods. We’re not monsters). You’ll need to balance the two stances, take risks, block attacks, and grow stronger to bring Sun Wukong to his full potential.
We could talk quickly about Sun Wukong’s Ultimate abilities, but frankly, we’d rather let you discover them by yourselves! Sun Wukong will also come with 17 Talents to upgrade your main abilities, we cannot wait to see how creative your builds and strategies will be.
Matchmaking system
The Online Matchmaking system or quick match, whatever you want to call it, has been the Number #1 requested feature since the launch of Ravenswatch in Early Access. We had planned this feature for later in the development of the game, but after seeing the demand we decided to bring it sooner and move some other stuff for later.
In the Sun Wukong update, you’ll now be able to look for Players online and create custom lobbies. That’s why the page on the right side has been modified a little bit to welcome the changes with the Matchmaking system.
We still consider it an early version of the system we have in mind, and it’s missing some key features like Vocal chat or more co-op information in the HUD, like the health of your teammates and such. We’ll improve the User Interface as well as make the connection more stable between the players in patches along the Early Access of Ravenswatch.
Even though there are no current Vocal features, it was impossible to release this matchmaking system without adding the simplest form of communication between the players: Pings on the map. Another highly requested feature that we decided to add in this update. Open the map and select a spot to ping it to alert players of your strategy or desired directions.
We hope you’ll enjoy it! Just know there’s room for improvement and we’ll listen to your feedback and suggestions on the matchmaking system. It was just too important and requested to wait more before adding it.
Difficulty modes overhaul
Onto another big thing: the Difficulty modes! The release of the second Chapter, Storm Island, made us realize the need for an overhaul of the Difficulty system. It also fits with the new matchmaking system, as it is way easier to choose between 4 difficulty modes than 10 to find players across the world.
So what does this revamp mean? We’ve condensed the 10 difficulties (from Normal to Nightmare 9) into 4 tailored challenges, with a real feeling of an escalating difficulty. Basically, we did not really like how tedious it could get to reach the highest difficulty levels of the game, especially with now two Chapters and a third in the works. It is still up to balancing of course, and we’ll probably rework it again for version 1.0 with more game-changing modifiers. But for now, it will do fine!
We’ve asked our community to share their ideas of new Names for those 4 difficulties, and they delivered! We made a poll on our Discord server to vote for the best ones and those who will make it into the game. And if you missed that, join our Discord server now for our next polls!
📝 One note about those changes: we will need to reset your progression on Difficulties as it’s necessary for this overhaul. We hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience but the game being in Early Access makes it inevitable in some cases to not reset progress for some features. We want to reassure you that the rest of the progression is not affected, so Heroes’ Ranks, unlocked Talents & Magical Objects are fine and not reset!
Steam deck issues fixed
Quick but worthy of a mention: in case you’ve missed the patch 0.14.03, we’ve fixed the Steam deck issues with telegraphed attacks and some crashes. If you’re a Deck player the Sun Wukong update will be the perfect time to jump back into the game! Let us know what you think, but it surely runs smoothly now!
Check out the latest patch note:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2071280/announcements/detail/3704829977958308187
Community Questions
- Will you add a Reroll mechanic for Talents or Magical Objects? The Reroll suggestion is a frequently requested feature from the community, and we're totally into that! We'll have to think about how to implement it in the current game loop, but it's something that you can expect to see arrive during the Early Access.
- Are you considering giving players some way to restore Ravens' Feathers? Yes! We're currently working on the design of this new mechanic. It will require new content for both Chapters, as well as ideas for visual representations of the shrine/altar, but you can expect this in the near future.
- Are Skins or cosmetics coming to the game? Why are people so interested in Skins and cosmetics?! (no, actually we understand). The short answer is: Yes, but for version 1.0. The longer answer is: We rather focus on core content and put priority on improving the already existing experience of the game. But with that said, we have already started designing some alternative skins for Heroes and all I can say is that they totally rock!
Live Showcase and Q&A
Join our Devstreams next week to learn more about the new Hero, Matchmaking, reworked Difficulties, and more!
Sun Wukong Showcase:
📆 November 13
🕚 5 PM CEST
Sun Wukong live Q&A and Co-op
📆 November 15
🕚 5 PM CEST
Follow us on Twitch to not miss it!
News from the Passtech team
The team has finally moved to our new offices and we took some time to celebrate with friends and family:
Also, the replay of our Lead Environment Artist Romane is now available on YouTube. If you're interested in our artistic and production processes for Curse of the Dead Gods and Ravenswatch, you can watch it here (French only):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWDNTDJQMN0
- The Passtech Team 🍉
Social Channels
Passtech Games Discord Ravenswatch Twitter Passtech Games Twitter Ravenswatch Subreddit Passtech Games Twitch Passtech Games Website