Hey hunters, how have you been?
As we promised to our community, we're going to post quick updates at the end of each month to show you what we’re working on in the development of Relic Hunters Legend. Lucy and Mark talked a little bit about the latest news on our last Livestream (you can check it out here) but we'll go into detail in this post.
We listened to our alpha players who gave us a lot of valuable feedback and we decided to make some changes:
Party Transitions
We were having some issues with Party transitions between missions: sometimes parties wouldn’t load after a mission ended and players would get stuck at the loading screen; other times some of the party members wouldn’t be able to join a mission. We’ve already fixed this for the next update!
Adventure System
Our Story missions are single-player only, so players needed to leave their parties to start them. This introduced a lot of friction to the multiplayer experience.
Since implementing multiplayer Story missions would be very expensive and might not even be worth it, we’ve decided to make it easier for players to enter these solo activities without having to leave their parties. Hopefully that will be enough, but we’ll keep listening to player feedback after the change is live.
You’ll be able to do any Secret Market story content by just entering the multiplayer hub talking to NPCs:
While one player does their solo Story mission, other party members can do whatever they want at the Secret Market while they wait - including starting their own Story content! We call this “phasing”, and effectively puts players into a solo instance of the Market while they complete their Story activities.
We will also allow you to start and track multiple Adventures at the same time.
And finally, we will allow party members to play solo Story missions outside of the Secret Market without leaving their parties as well. Players who are doing Story missions at another location will be marked as “In Another Activity” on the Social screen, and will re-join their Party as soon as the Story mission is over!
Backend Migration
We are moving all data and code from our existing backend service to another platform. This is very unfortunate, but there is no way around it. Our current backend platform will be shutting down next year, so we need to make the move.
This is a boring, technical and long process. Thankfully our Mysterious Strangers are giving us all the support we need to do it safely and as quickly as possible. Even then, this will take a lot of work, and will also require us to wipe all current save files from our Alpha players.
We apologize for this wipe, since it was not our intention, but unfortunately there is no other alternative at this point. So don’t get too attached to your perfectly-rolled Legendaries :(
Second Act of the Story of Relic Hunters Legend
We’re working on Act 2 of the Story of Relic Hunters Legend. On the previous update our Alpha players were able to play the entire First Act and the feedback has been great! We are almost done with Act 2, but we won’t release it for Alpha players - both Act 2 and Act 3 will be a surprise that will not be spoiled until release!
New Maps and Assets - Hilltown and Old Town
We’ll have new Regions for our players to explore, such as Hilltown, which is part of the new Act 2 content.
Distraction Game mode prototype done
We’ve finished the prototype of the new Game Mode: Distraction. In this game mode waves of enemies patrol around areas and seek out nearby players to attack. The players need to keep an “Alert Meter” full by defeating enemies all the time. It's a super intense game mode! However, the player can't get too distracted by the waves of enemies and lose focus of the Elite enemies that appear randomly and that matters most for the Alert Meter progression! The lowest the Alert Meter bar is at the end of the mission, the smaller the rewards.
Defense Game Mode prototype done
Defense Game Mode is in development. In this game mode, you will need to defend your Loot Chests from waves of enemies that spawn on the different lanes of the map. Special “Gatecrashers” enemies will spawn and move directly towards the Chests to destroy them. Regular enemies will also appear, but their focus will be distracting and defeating players to help the Gatecrashers reach the chests. Players must focus on taking down the Gatecrashers to advance to the next rounds, but they need to find the best strategy to make it work without losing their Chests!
New SFX and VO
More sound effects have been added to our stores, resources, chests, and scoreboard. New Enemy voice overs were also implemented.
New Enemies and more variations of Kami
We created new enemies and new variations of Kami! Increasing enemy variety in the game is one of our priorities, and hopefully you will get plenty of different baddies to shoot at when the game is released!
Gear Score Rank Skins
We wanted to make player progression more fun and visually exciting! We’re implementing Gear Score Rank Skins: whenever you reach a new Gear Score Rank (such as Common I or Rare I) you will get a visual upgrade for that Hunter! The cool thing about this is that you are not locked into a specific look - you can mix and match pieces, change their colors individually, and have your Hunters always look the way you want them to.
New Chat Tabs and overall improvements
We improved our player experience with the Global Chat, now they’re able to talk only to their party, whisper to their friends and look for a group to play with! We will also have a Trade chat in the future, and implement spam protection on public channels.
We fixed a lot of bugs that our players found in the previous update, such as:
- Fixed getting stuck after the Kami Queen battle, even if the Champion was defeated.
- Fixed the Kami Queen not using some of her skills. She will now summon several Kami Kaze during the battle and become stronger when at low health.
- Fixed the Cobran Captain dealing only 1 damage with their attacks.
- Fixed Lt. Susan’s shotgun only being shot at a very close range.
- Fixed a bug where some achievements were not unlocked when getting some specific legendary weapons or gear.
- Fixed Jimmy losing his accessories after unequipping them.
- Fixed bug where weapons stopped working at Coldstone Peaks missions.
- Fixed issue that prevented players from exiting the Scoreboard if their Ultimate Skill was triggered right when the Mission was ending
- Fixed an issue where gamepad input would stop working on the map screen if you moved your mouse while in gamepad mode.
- Fixed various visual bugs.
- Fixed various SFX issues.
And there are many more things to come! Keep following us on social media, join our Discord Channel to hang out with us and ask your questions about Relic Hunters - we’re always there to assist you and our community loves to make new friends <3
Cheers ~
Rogue Snail Team