Hey Hunters,
Thank you for your patience with us for the past month. We've been keeping our heads down and working hard on the next steps of Relic Hunters Legend, but we haven't dedicated enough time to interact with you on Discord or on these development updates.
So now I have a huge list of things to talk about, so let's jump right in!
Our family is growing!
If you've been following us closely on social media, you will notice we have hired more people! We have two new coders who will be joining us officially very soon, and help us bring more Relic Hunters to you, faster!
We have also split into teams - you are probably already familiar if you read our previous development update. One new coder is going to Team Artemis, and another to Team Voyager!
This week will be about Team Artemis - my team - which has been working on Raff. We'll talk more about Team Voyager (who are doing Story stuff and the Secret Market) and Team Juno (and their cute Relic Hunters Blitz) in the next update.
Team Artemis: The "Raff" Update
We have a name and a release date for Raff: The Full Party Update is coming to Steam on September 3rd! If you haven't already, you can become a Founder to access our Alpha and play it!
Play our intro, Raff!
I'll be honest, it's been a whole lot more work than we expected. Here's a list of things we got done in order to bring this update to you:
- We implemented healing feedback (numbers, visual effects) and optimized multiplayer code to handle healing other players and avoid synchronization issues.
- We implemented the concept of "Special Weapons" that replace the weapons on your Loadout. This was used for the Keytar, but will be useful for Pinkyy's gloves and Panzer's flamethrower, as well as future dungeon mechanics and quests.
- We finished implementing our Status Effects system, that is now super powerful, works well online, and can easily be extended.
- We implemented Skill Cancelling to allow for some buffs or debuffs to finish early or to be removed by skills.
- We created a whole new system called "Skill Proxy" that allows guns to effectively shoot Skills. This allowed us to create the Keytar, but will also be used to create all kinds of crazy weapons in the future.
- Guns can now shoot multiple different projectiles on the same shot, with different effects and gameplay. This was also to allow the Keytar to work.
- Our aiming system now understands when you have a weapon that can target allies and helps with aim assist / auto aim.
- There are dozens of new skill effects and sounds.
- Our Skill Tool that we use to create skills is 90% complete and will soon be used to make: Skill Trees, Ultimate skills, new enemies, new crazy item affixes, and Relics!
The reason why I'm mentioning all of this behind-the-scenes work is that most will be invisible in the short term. The only new content on the Full Party Update will be Raff with her full set of skills. That's pretty cool and we're proud of it, but it's admittedly a lot less than we expected - we wanted Ultimates, Skill Combos, and at least one Skill Tree, but they will have to wait a bit. We are hopeful that these things will come fast now that all of this base work has been laid out.
Raff's Skill Set Explained
Raff is the most complicated/technical character in the game to date, and since we don't have tutorials I think it's a good idea to give some general guidance as to how she works.
Raff is a Support character first and foremost, so we tried to design her to be viable solo but really shine when playing with other people. The design themes that we went for were duality, music and engineering.
By engineering we mean, uh, hitting stuff with a giant Wrench.
They don't teach that at MIT
The Wrench is Raff's Melee skill. It deals a lot of area damage, but can also hit allies to recover their Shields (blue lifebar) or Armor (yellow lifebar). Pretty handy!
Raff is always using her Utility skill Soundscape. It projects a constant aura of music around Raff that can buff her and nearby allies. By actively using the skill, you can switch between two songs: Soothing Song, which regenerates Life over time, and Battle Song, which grants +20% Weapon Damage.
Her Passive skill is called Shifting Moods. Raff's humor is constantly changing, which affects her skills: every 7 seconds she switches between two stances: Good Vibes and Bad Vibes. Our plan is for these stances to affect multiple Skill effects when the Skill Trees are in the game, but for now they only interact with Soundscape.
If you switch to Battle Song while in Bad Vibes, you deal Magnetic damage in an area around Raff. On the other hand, if you switch to Soothing Song while in Good Vibes, you will instantly heal Raff and nearby allies for a good amount.
That's not all - Raff's signature skill is definitely her Keytar Blast! By holding down the Charge skill, you can wind up a devastating attack with the Keytar that will hit everything in a large cone in front of Raff! Enemies will take a lot of Magnetic damage (which is effective against Shields in particular), and allies will be healed instantly!
Last but certainly not least, if your party wants to slip away in style, Raff has a super cool Mobility skill called Up The Tempo. It gives a huge speed buff to Raff and all nearby allies, allowing you to sprint and zip around the battlefield!
We are cooking up a brand new Raff trailer voiced by the talented Kimlihn Tran to celebrate the release of the Full Party Update! Can't wait to see what you think of Raff and her new kit in September 3rd!
And don't forget to follow us on our media and stay updated about everything we’re doing for Relic Hunters Legend.
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Cheers!
~Lucy, Mark and all the Rogue Snail Team!
P.S. Oh and by the way, Jimmy can kick now! Watch out, Ducans!
