Hello everyone!
It's been quite a while since we last released an update or even posted a news. We took some vacations and we're working on a meatier update than usual. But that shouldn't be a reason to leave you in the dark.
So we're here to make amends and give you some news.
State of Early Access
It's been one year since we launched Roboquest in EA and we wanted to thanks everyone who purchased, whishlisted, helped us in the development and got involved in the community. We wouldn't be there without you. You give us the strength and motivation to move forward with the game every day, with each and every piece of feedback and love you send us. Thank you :LoveBot:
We expect the EA to last for another year (expecting around Summer 2022). We think that we need that much time to improve and finish the game up to the state we're aiming for.
During this time, we'll be adding new content and balancing existing content such as weapons, perks and enemies (among other additions you can look for in the roadmap).
Regarding new levels, we plan on releasing them alongside the 1.0. We understand many of you are waiting for more playtime and replayability (basically 'more things to do in the game'), but we need to release them all at once for them to work properly (as they are all tied with each other). In addition, we'd like to finish laying out the game before extending the game lifespan, in order to remain in a state where we can easily modify our systems based on your feedback and our observations.
Items
A new "item" system is coming into 0.7.0 to replace the old "core" system.
Over the course of the development, we tried many different systems for cores, some you liked and some you liked less.
But all in all we never been really fully happy with it and it was always an internal debate for us.
There were three main issues with it: firstly the choice of what core to pick was not that much interesting to pick. Secondly, committing into a category forced you to stick to it until the end of your run. Finally, there wasn't much of "building" with secondary stats, they didn't really matter.
These are the problems we wanted to tackle with the new "item" system.
This new system is closer to the core system is 0.5.0 where you could equip and swap up to 3 different cores with several twists on it.
Firstly, items now have a set of 2 specific bonuses such as "Elemental Damage", "Ability Cooldown" or "Melee Damage" which are not tied to weapon categories.
Secondly, an internal system makes sure you always have at least a core of your main category available when opening chests and other rewards. This removes situations where you wouldn't find the core you're looking for at the beginning of a level and find yourself underpowered.
Thirdly, the 'Robo' stat no longer exists, their new specific bonuses serve its old purpose of building an interesting set of secondary stats.
Finally, there are several different "item types", each with its own visual and set of specific bonuses, making them easily identifiable at a glance.
Right now, we are quite happy with the system. We felt like equipping these items is funnier that equipping bland "cores" and it removes (or at least alleviate) the issues we highlighted earlier.
Though, we're eager to hear your feedback and point of view on that to be sure we're on the right track.
As last words on the subject, we're also also implementing an array of "corrupted items" which grant both a bonus and a debuff to your stats, making them pivotal in your build.
There aren't a lot of them in the game at that time, there will be more in the future, it's still a pretty early iteration.
Playtest Version
We're going to open up the 0.7.0 playtest build in about two weeks.
This time around, you'll have every basecamp upgrades and classes unlocked automatically so you won't have to farm anything and will be able to experience every new piece of gameplay right away.
We will also make sure to highlight those new pieces so you don't have to wonder about what changed.
The playtest is also pretty important this time around for the balance of the game. We multiplied the number of perk and weapon effects and there is a high chance we missed some under or overpowered effects.
A quick note regarding translation: many things have changed regarding the descriptions of perks and affixes in the next update so there will be a sheer amount of work to be done. Brace yourselves!
We're sorry we remained quiet for so long, we're not necessarily used to share our work-in-progress or other information. This "dev update" format is something that we'll be looking to use in the future to be more active so we hope you like it.
Have a great day (or night) everyone, and expect to hear from us sooner than usual!