Here’s the complete list of changes for the Rogue’n’Roll public playtest.
• You may now search for brobots directly in the multiplayer menu of the game using the ‘quick play’ button
• You may now invite brobots from other platforms to your game by sending them your session ID (which you can find in the multiplayer menu)
• ‘Headbonk’ damage increased from 25 to 45
• ‘Lucky Critical’ is now called ‘Auto-Critical’ (while less funky, it should be clearer)
• ‘Resistance’ is now called ‘Armor’
• ‘Cooling Weapons’ are now called ‘Energy Weapons’, ‘Heat Cost’ is called ‘Energy Cost’ and other subsequent name have been updated as well, ‘Overheating’ still refers to the action of reaching the maximum of your energy gauge
• Fully frozen enemies no longer automatically take critical damage
Developer's Note: That was making Cryo the best element right-on and was creating a must-have synergy between critical and Cryo which was limiting the viable builds as well as reducing the effectiveness and viability of the Auto-Critical stat.
• Some gameplay elements such as the Recon’s ‘Slash’, the Guardian’s ‘Bash’ or the ‘Chainsaw’ now deal ‘Melee’ damage (alike ‘Explosive’ or ‘Burn’ damage)
• Other gameplay elements such as Affixes, Perks or Gadgets directly reference ‘Melee’ damage (for example: Increases Melee damage)
• ‘Melee Attacks’ are now called and considered as ‘Secondary Abilities’, not all secondary abilities deal Melee damage
• When your guardian is deactivated in multiplayer, you now get to see what your brobot is doing in third person view
• ‘Mark’ damage amplification decreased from 70% to 60%
Health Flow Update
• 70% of the damage you take is stored into the ‘scratch damage bar’ (gray bar), the rest is taken as regular damage
• Only 50% of Bosses’ damage are stored into the scratch damage bar
• The scratch damage bar does not fade over time
• Enemies loot ‘repair’ pickups that lasts for a very, very short amount of time
• Those pickups ‘repair’ a part of your scratch damage
• Various elements in the game ‘repair’ a part or all of your scratch damage while others ‘restore’ a part of your health
• Pickups are independant for each player in multiplayer
• Scoping no longer gather pickups from afar
• Deployed minions (such as Drone and Sentries) do not gather pickups from afar
Developer's Note: We’re explaining this change in details in the patch highlights.
Experience Update
• Destroying enemies now automatically grants experience
• As a result, experience cells have been removed
Developer's Note: We’re explaining this change in details in the patch highlights.
• Leveling-up now also increases your weapon damage
• Experience gains have been smoothed across different runs, leading to less differences in terms of XP gain between each run
Commando
• Passive renamed to ‘Frenzy’ (instead of ‘Fury’), but still stacks points of Fury
• Frenzy no longer increases damage and resistance but instead firerate, reload speed and other speeds related to animation time
Rocket
• Damage increased from 70.0 to 75.0
• Radius increased from 1.9m to 2.0m
• Cooldown decreased from 12.0 to 9.0
• Rocket is homing again
Developer's Note: Haha. See you in the next update with a rollback of this change. Yo-yo design we call it.
Engineer
Drone
• ‘Drone’ base health increased from 50 to 60
Scrap Blaster
• Damage decreased from 65.0 to 55.0
• Projectile speed increased from 4200 to 7000
• Cooldown increased from 4.0 to 5.0
Guardian
• ‘Bash’ now restores health on takedowns
• Passive renamed ‘Beefcake’ and now increases starting health
Developer's Note: While Shield is an interesting mechanic on paper, it was always hard to integrate it to Roboquest both in terms of health regeneration flow and mechanic clarity. Changing the passive to simple health makes it easier to understand. Shield may or may not make a comeback later down the road as a generic or class-specific mechanic.
New Weapons
• 3 new weapons have been added: ‘Pulse Blaster’, ‘Mortar’ and ‘Torpedo Gun’
Pulse Blaster
An energy weapon hurling bursts of delayed explosive blasts.
Mortar
A powerful artillery weapon.
Torpedo Gun
A quick-to-reload shrapnel-blasting shotgun.
General
• Weapon categories have been removed
Developer's Note: We’re explaining this change in details in the patch highlights.
• ‘Power Gloves’ has been fully reworked and now only has a melee-punch as primary fire
• ‘Laser Saw’ has been reworked and now only has a melee-laser-saw as primary fire
• ‘Cryo Launcher’ has been modified: projectiles no longer have gravity and it deals increased damage against fully frozen enemies
• ‘Dual Guns’ has been modified and now shoots in a burst fashion
• ‘Fire Flower’ has been removed from the game (we need to rework how it works to feel unique and awesome)
• ‘Unreal Gun’ is now called ‘Cyclone’
• ‘Cyclone’ alt-fire now sticks to walls and enemies
Developer's Note: Regardless of how fan we are of the original weapon from Unreal Tournament, we felt like it was a bit too hard for players to properly aim and shoot the orb with its primary fire, making the weapon less viable for a vast majority of players. Making the orb stick to its target makes it much more enjoyable for everyone and we hope it will increase its pick-rate.
• Weapon ‘Mods’ are now called ‘Alt-Fire’ (which seems to be more intuitive for most players)
• Weapons that already have an alt-fire (such as the ‘Scratch Rifle’) now have a chance to spawn with alt-fire variations
• Alt-fire in general are more powerful and their cooldown is shorter
• Enemies no longer drop weapons
Developer's Note: We’re trying to get rid of the mechanics hurting the combat flow. Having to stop in the middle of the fight to compare weapons whereas the game timer is still running or when your brobot is going ham in the next corridor is one of those hurtful mechanics. We relocated weapon drops in other parts of the levels where you actually have the time (and presence of mind) to check out those juicy loot.
• Weapons rarity (number of affixes) is now displayed by a color-code (White, Green, Blue, Purple and Orange)
• Based on basecamp upgrades you have more chances to encounter weapons of higher rarity than before
• Weapon levels are now directly related to player level in terms of numerical values (you should be looting level 1 and 2 weapons when you’re level 1 and 2), but as a result each weapon level grants half as much damage to a weapon as previously (you shouldn’t experience any difference)
• Weapons you found now have a chance to be of 1 level higher than what you’re supposed to find at a specific game level
• Fantastic weapons always have an alt-fire
• We’re re-introducing the ‘Elemental Cannon’ under two different forms: the ‘Ice Cannon’ and the ‘Shock Cannon’
Developer's Note: The ‘Elemental Cannon’ did not fit in the alt-fire systems we implemented in one of our previous updates and that’s why we removed it back then. Now that it’s splitted into two different weapons, we can randomly plug alt-fire into it. Though we’re not currently certain of the current implementation of each of them and we’d be glad to hear your feedback about them.
Affixes
• Removed the ‘Affinity’ affix (considering weapon categories no longer exist)
Developer's Note: Another interesting value of this affix was to increase the efficiency of gun weapons that are often a bit weak compared to other types of weapons. We’ll try to think of other ways to promote equipping guns.
• ‘Crash’ has been removed from the game
Developer's Note: It was just way too strong for an affix and therefore we removed it and added it as a neutral perk instead.
• ‘Hitscan’ should work better with multiple-projectile weapons
• ‘Surprise’ chance to auto-critical set to 10%
• ‘Lucky’ chance to auto-critical set to 20%
• ‘Buckshot’ damage increased by 10%
• ‘Neat’ range increase reduced from 25% to 20%
• ‘Heavy’ movement penalty increased from 20% to 25%
• ‘Ion Lance’ damage reduced from 50% to 25% of weapon base damage
• ‘Megaboom’ radius bonus decreased from 50% to 30%
• ‘Warmup’ firerate bonus decreased from 30% to 20%
• ‘Solar’ energy gauge bonus decreases from 15% to 10%
• ‘Quickload’ reload speed bonus reduced from 20% to 15%
• ‘Carbon’ movement speed penalty reduction increased from 10% to 15%
• ‘Puncture’ damage increase per target pierced increased from 30% to 50%
Alternative Fire
• You can now use Alt-Fires with energy weapons when they are overheating
• ‘Can-Opener’ modified: it now simply deals melee damage and heals on takedown instead of executing
Balance Changes
Dual Uzis
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 6.0 to 7.5
Windmill Rifle
• Ammo in clip increased from 45 to 60
Tommy Gun
Primary Fire
• Firerate decreased from 12.5/s to 12.04/s
Light Machine Gun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 12.0 to 13.0
• Firerate increased from 9.09/s to 10.0/s
Blast SMG
• The Blast Ball has been renamed Blast SMG
Pumping Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 11.0 to 12.0
Grandma's Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 13.0 to 12.0
Flame Thrower
• The Kramer has been renamed Flame Thrower
Grenade Launcher
• The Thumper has been renamed Grenade Launcher
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 40.0 to 50.0
• Impact force increased from 50.0 to 58.0
• Radius decreased from 1.9m to 1.2m
Graviton Launcher
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 48.0 to 50.0
• Radius decreased from 1.2m to 1.0m
Throwing Knife
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 24.0 to 25.0
Revolver
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 42.0 to 46.0
Dual Crossbows
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 28.0 to 30.0
• Critical ratio increased from 2.0 to 2.25
Scout Sniper
Primary Fire
• Critical ratio increased from 2.0 to 2.25
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Arquebus
Primary Fire
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Sheriff's Carbine
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 48.0 to 53.0
• Firerate increased from 1.66/s to 1.88/s
Longbow
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 68.0 to 70.0
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Shock Rifle
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 20.0 to 8.0
• Firerate increased from 5.0/s to 10.0/s
• Range increased from 12.0 to 16.0
• Heat per shot decreased from 5.0 to 3.0
Junk Beam
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 20.0 to 19.0
Assault Rifle
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 10.0 to 11.0
Blast Minigun
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 7.5 to 7.0
• Firerate decreased from 16.66/s to 14.28/s
• Heat per shot increased from 1.25 to 1.5
Assault Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 7.0 to 6.0
• Firerate decreased from 3.7/s to 3.57/s
Triple Shotgun
Primary Fire
• Impact force increased from 16.0 to 19.0
Barrel Cannon
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 56.0 to 64.0
• Impact force increased from 78.0 to 80.0
• Radius decreased from 1.5m to 1.0m
• Projectile speed increased from 7000 to 12500
Long Rifle
Primary Fire
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Assault Pistol
• Ammo in clip decreased from 10 to 7
Primary Fire
• Damage increased from 38.0 to 46.0
• Impact force increased from 48.0 to 50.0
Blast Sniper
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 47.0 to 44.0
• Firerate decreased from 2.7/s to 2.56/s
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Elite Sniper
Primary Fire
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Elite Crossbow
Primary Fire
• Critical ratio increased from 1.5 to 1.75
• Range increased from 22.5 to 23.0
Blast Palms
Primary Fire
• Damage decreased from 21.0 to 18.0
Assault Sentry
Primary Fire
• Range increased from 12.5 to 16.0
• Gaining a level will no longer grant you a perk choice, instead you can choose between different Perks at specific locations in each level
Developer's Note: As explained in the weapon drop changes, this makes for a smoother combat flow both in single player and cooperation. We’re explaining the other reasons behind this change in details in the patch highlights.
• There are neutral perks (available to all classes) and class-specific perks (that you can only loot with certain classes)
• All perks have been updated to match the new system and some of them have been removed from the game
• ‘Perk Upgrades’ have been removed, instead you can pile up to 15+ different Perks to specialize your build now
• Items have been removed and merged with the Perk system
Developer's Note: We’re explaining this change in details in the patch highlights.
• Added several types of “shops” where you can purchase various game elements (such as weapon, perks or affix rerolls)
• Added a new in-game currency called ‘Powercells’ to purchase items from shops
• Shops aren’t all available at the beginning of the game and unlocking specific basecamp upgrades will increases the amount and variety of shops you encounter
• Removed all consoles as a result
• Updated many basecamp upgrades
• Added some basecamp upgrades
Developer's Note: Those changes are simply temporary to follow the other game system changes. The basecamp will be overhauled later down the road as you might have read in our previous devblogs.
• ‘Soccer Shoes’ gadget removed
Developer's Note: Following the base headbonk damage increase.
• ‘Hero’s Cape’ required height to reach max damage increased by 2m
• ‘Sunglasses’ now reduces your health instead of your armor
• Arenas now open when all enemies are vanquished instead of when reaching 10% of enemies remaining
• Reduced the delay between two enemy spawns in arenas from 1.5s to 0.5s
Developer's Note: This makes sure the intensity of the combat remains high throughout the entirety of the arena fight despite the change above.
• Enemy projectiles are faster
• Enemies are faster
• Enemies move more often
• Enemies shoot a bit less often when in large groups
• Enemies load up their attack a little faster (5% in average)
• Updated enemy line across the Act 1
Developer's Note: This is only the continuation of the work we’re doing on enemy line ups and we’ll continue in that direction with the implementation of new enemies.
• Trail bots’ sprint speed reduced by 10%
• Most enemy projectiles no longer pass through enemies and instead simply disappear
Developer's Note: This should remove some of the frustration of being shot by an enemy through another one, despite not seeing the incoming projectile.
• Guardbots impact resistance increased by 10%
• Boombot, Boomfly and Rocketpawn explosion radius increased by 30%
• Icebots now trigger a cryo explosion when being destroyed
• Exploding boombots now apply impact to nearby enemies
• Shockpod base damage reduced from 10 to 2
• Smallbots tend to move more often when nearby the player
• Boombot, Boomfly and Rocketpawn no longer take double damage against burn
Developer's Note: This was a change that we thought was implemented in the game for a long time now, but apparently it wasn’t, so we’re fixing that. Right now, there is no valid reason to implement a “weakness” or “damage type” system and even less if it only works with one element out of three.
• Enemies deal more damage in average in higher difficulties (starting from Heroes+1)
• Enemies have less health in average in higher difficulties (starting from Heroes+1)
Developer's Note: Time-to-kill is a very important metric that should always remain relatively low, because that’s how it is fun to smash robots.
Bosses
• Added a system to have a better random boss rotation (and avoid encountering the same boss several times in a row)
• Bosses’ aggro system has been changed and Bosses should more often switch target instead of targeting the same one over and over again
• ‘Mark’ duration on Bosses increased from 2.5s to 3.3s
• Time needed for the lava to cover the ‘Sir Catercoaster’ arena’s ground decreased from 20s to 13s (total time to fully cover the arena remains at 80s)
• ‘Lady Bug’ is now called ‘Queen Bee’
• ‘Dr. Turret’ rotating laser speed reduced by 20%
• ‘Billy Boom’ health increased by 5%
• ‘Billy Boom’ back-plate can no longer be destroyed (and only opens up when ‘Billy Boom’ gets down)
• ‘Sir Catercoaster’ health decreased by 10%
• ‘Queen Bee’ health decreased by 10%
• ‘Judgeball’ health decreased by 10%
• Added 5 new challenge rooms in Act 1
• Added invisible projectile-blocking walls to all doors, entrances and other safe areas to prevent enemies from shooting you and vice-versa
• Locked doors now have a color-code corresponding to their key color
• Quickly updated the tutorial to include all current mechanics
Developer's Note: The tutorial is something we’ll be overhauling later down the road. Considering the heavy changes the game is ongoing, it would be a waste to update it now. Though, there were (and still are) a number of mechanics that weren’t explained or were outdated so we had to make this change.
• Goliaths in ‘Haven City’ now loot large health pickups
• The ‘Junkyard’ in ‘Road’ now provides better upgrades
• ‘Road’ visuals updated
• ‘Energy Center’ visuals updated
• ‘Challenge Rooms’ visuals updated in certain levels
• Improved rail positioning in all levels
• Your perks are now displayed as icons at the top-left corner of your screen
• Perk icons at the bottom of the screen have been removed
• Weapon level is now displayed over the weapon pickup
• All deployed minions now have a floating health bar (alike enemies)
• Minions deployed from primary abilities now have their health bar also displayed nearby the ability icon
• You can change the game language without restarting the game
• The tab overlay now displays player’ stat tied to damage scaling per level
• Map area color changed: challenge rooms (purple), safe area (green) and special areas (orange)
• Updated weapon tooltip critical ratio display: now displayed in ratio rather than percentage (1.25 instead of 125%)
• Updated weapon tooltip range display
• Updated weapon tooltip for multiple projectile weapons: now displays 5x10 instead of 50 (for instance)
• Slightly updated the visual around the player health bar and class icon
• Slightly updated the visual of your brobot’s health bar
• Updated the visuals of the player’s status effects
• Added placeholder icons for weapon alt-fires
• Updated icons for Wrenches, Powercells, Keys and Data-Logs
• Added a Shield icon to display your current Armor value nearby your health bar
• You now see a progress bar when being rebooted by your brobot
• Dealing damage with elemental effects out of your weapon range is now displayed in gray numbers instead of coloured numbers to better indicate that you’re too far from the enemies
• Added an interface feedback for some perk effects
• Added a visual effect on weapons when under the effects of various bonuses
• Bosses now have a proper visual effect when affected by elemental statuses
• ‘Judgeball’ visual effects updated
• Added a new player animation when you’re being stunned
• Updated most weapon impact visual effects
• Updated most surface impact visual effects (for example when shooting grass or dirt)
• Updated the rendering and position of the burning status on all enemies
• Added a visual effect when sentries are destroyed
• Updated the laser visuals of the ‘Laser Saw’ and the Recon’s ‘Dagger’ and added color variations depending on their element
• Added new or updated old visual effects for explosion emanating from the player (alike ‘Hero’s Cape’)
• Added missing overheat visual effects on certain energy weapons
• Added a thruster visual effects to ‘Judgeball’ charge attack
• Added a shield visual effect to ‘Judgeball’ shielding beacons
• Added a ‘despawn’ visual effect to some projectiles
• Updated the visual effect when fully freezing an enemy
• Updated ‘Dr. Turret’ fire area visual effect
• Added a visual effect cue above ‘Trail Bots’ head when they start sprinting
• Updated enemy laserbeams impact visual effect
• Updated ‘Mark’ visual effect
• Started implementing some environment visual effects in specific levels
Developer's Note: This is just the very beginning of what we would like to do regarding environmental ambient and mood. We’d like to add or adjust lighting, post-process, sounds and other visual effects for all of them.
• Added specific sounds for almost all Alt-Fires
• Added a sound for ‘Dr. Turret’ area of effect
• Added a new sound for Commando’s ‘Shorty’
• Updated ‘Shock Rifle’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Graviton Launcher’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Tactical Shotgun’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Blunderbuss’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Grenade Launcher’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Revolver’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Cyclone’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Blast SMG’ shoot sound
• Updated ‘Longbow’ shoot and charge sound
• Updated ‘Scratch Rifle’ reload sound
• Updated Weapon Equip sound
• Updated Jumpad sound
• Hugely improved performance related to text display
• Updated performance of most visual effects in the game
• Updated user interface rendering performance
• Updated the performance cost of a lot of game systems
• Overall CPU performances should be better
• Rotating the map will no longer hide certain elements
• The game systems will no-longer fail to register Goliath’s death in ‘Haven-City’ when destroyed by the client robot (leaving you unable to progress into the game)