Hunters Inc News

Greetings Hunters!

As some of you know, the Berserker has been the only playable class for a while. Mainly, this is because we wanted to iterate on the core monster tracking and fighting aspect of the game, and having fewer classes means it was easier for use to focus on and tune that experience. Essentially it removed a layer of complexity and allowed us to rule out class asymmetry and tuning as a potential cause of any issues.

Now that the core of the game is starting to come together, it is time for us to introduce the rest of the Hunters Inc team!

This is still a very early "blocking out" of the classes for the game and is nowhere near final. Over time the classes will start to take on much more distinct characteristics. Abilities and weapons will evolve, swap between classes, or may even disappear entirely! There are a fair few placeholder mechanics to try and emulate the behaviour we want and lack of polish around the new weapons, but we wanted to get it into your hands as soon as possible. Please let us know your thoughts on the new classes either here in the forums or over in our Discord Channel

Below is a list of everything we have added in Update #6:

[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]CLASS AGNOSTIC[/h3]

• Hunter vision. Each class now has its own unique hunter vision bound to Q.
  
• Ammo crates. Restore ammo for ranged weapons and grenades. Replaces bomb bushes.
  
• Item shop will only show purchasable items for selected class (Berserker only currently)
  
• Added HUD Widget for Hunter Vision
  

[h3]NEW CLASS - TRACKER[/h3]
A low health, high stamina class whose job is to locate the monster and identify it's weakspots for the rest of the team. Deals low damage from range but can inflict huge damage to weak spots.

• New Weapon - Bow! Hold Left click to charge a shot. Right click to perform a weak melee
  
• New Weapon - Dagger! Left click to stab, Right click to unleash a wild stab frenzy
  
• New Weapon - Smoke Bombs! Throw smoke bombs on yourself or team mates to reduce the aggro level of anyone inside the smoke. Useful for escapes!
  
• Hunter Vision - Weakspots. Identify the location monster weakspots for the rest of the team
  
• Hunter Vision - Footprints. Relocating monsters leave tracks that can be seen by the tracker.
  

[h3]NEW CLASS - SHAMAN[/h3]
A low health, low stamina support class who can provide intel on monster behaviour and manage team and enemy status effects.

• New Weapon - Scythe! Left click to slash, Right click to perform a charge attack
  
• New Weapon - Magic Skull! Left click to release a continuous jet of magic flame. Right click to perform a melee strike
  
• New Weapon - Wisp! Throw the wisp and follow its trail to find the monster
  
• Hunter Vision - Creature Health. See the health of monsters and mobs, green is healthy, red is close to death.
  
• Hunter Vision - Monster Aggro. Visualises which Hunter currently has the monsters attention by drawing a red line from monster to target.
  

[h3]NEW CLASS - BLACKSMITH[/h3]
A medium health, medium stamina class that specialises in structures and equipment. Can deal high damage to hard targets like monster armor, structures and environmental objects.

• New Weapon - Hammer! Left click to swing, Right click to perform charged smash attack.
  
• New Weapon - Blunderbuss! Left click to blast, right click to melee with rifle butt.
  
• New Weapon - Flash Bang! Throw at monsters to stun them!
  
• Hunter Vision - Items. Hunter tools and items are highlighted in the world.
  
• Hunter Vision - Breakables. See which objects in the game world can be destroyed by players or monsters.
  

[h2]UPDATES & IMPROVEMENTS[/h2]

[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]

• Players now walk slower while using hunter vision
  
• Update HUD portraits to accurately reflect class
  
• Can no longer pick up, or see pickup prompt, for thrown items that don't belong to your class
  
• Removed level gate for spider queen battle
  
• Moved class select station to inside the barracks
  

[h2]BUG FIXES[/h2]

• Our focus with this update was on adding new features, so really only fixed bugs to do with the new classes.
  

[h2]KNOWN ISSUES[/h2]

• [Common] Airship countdown timer not triggered on first entry. Exit and re-enter to fix.
  
• [Common] Carried items such as tail and head can be dropped through the floor if they are thrown while clipping through terrain
  
• [Rare] Loot and XP awarded from mission may not be accurately reflected in hub inventory
  
• [Rare] Player input may occasionally enter a locked state - dash or jump to fix
  
• [Rare] Game may crash on reviving team mates
  
• [Rare] Returning to hub may cause upgrade station to be missing content. To fix leave and rejoin session
  
  

As always if you would like to talk with us or have any questions about the game, we look forward to chatting with you in our Discord Channel

Greetings Hunters!

Earlier this month we moved from a closed to open alpha and opened the game up to thousands of new playtesters. Thanks to everyone who took the time to try the game and give us feedback on what we've built so far!

After analyzing hundreds of individual feedback items, a pattern quickly started to emerge. The two most common pieces of feedback we're around how it felt to control the Orcs and tedium of tracking the monster around the map.

So with this update we set out to improve those areas of the game - namely by giving the orcs 2 new mobility mechanics (including the highly requested ability to sprint) and a super jump. Let us know what you think of the improvements!

Here is everything that we've added in update #5:

[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]Mobility Features[/h3]

• Added the ability to sprint with Shift. Hold shift to sprint and tap to dash.
  
• Added a super jump - hold CTRL and press Space while crouching
  
• Added some tutorial stations to the spawn room to tutorialise new movement options
  

[h3]Razan[/h3]

• Can now chop off limbs during combat with gameplay impacts
  
• Foot - chopping it off slows Razan down
  
• Tail - chopping it off disables spin attack
  
• Crest - Drops a unqiue shiny
  
• Armor plates - reveals weakspots
  
• Implemented additive flinch on Razan body when hit
  
• Made chopped areas look more gory and less sterile
  
• Updated place holder meshes for armor
  
• Updated place holder meshes acid attacks
  
• Reduced the number of times it relocates from 3 to 2
  

[h3]UI & UX[/h3]

• Added setting to reduce or disable motion blur
  
• Added slider to set FOV
  
• After action report now shows monster parts gathered during mission
  

[h2]UPDATES & IMPROVEMENTS[/h2]

[h3]Difficulty[/h3]

• Increased amount of acid gained from standing in acid
  
• Increased Razan Damage for all attacks
  
• Set default difficulty back to 2
  

[h3]UI & UX[/h3]

• Can now invite friends / join session from Steam overlay
  
• Updated control map to reflect new control changes
  
• Hunter vision now dismissed when interact key released
  

[h3]Health Restoration[/h3]

• Eating meat is now a process - not instant
  
• Getting hit while eating interrupts heal
  
• Pigs now only drop meat on death
  

[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]

• Added dirt paths to maps to help with navigation
  
• Tuning pass on weapon unlocks and loot drop rates
  
• Mission complete banner now triggers a few seconds after the objective is completed
  
• Made loot drops a bit bigger and more obvious
  

[h2]BUG FIXES[/h2]

• Fix for bones collected in mission not sharing correctly
  
• Fix for spiders dropping bones 100% of the time on death
  
• Fixed issue where clients could not interact with objects
  
• Fix for issue where input was not being detected
  
• Fixed issue where players could collect multiple orkyte
  
• Fix for Razan blood trails not spawning occasionally
  
• Fixed issue with aggressive fog for some players at lower settings
  
• Fixed issue where player inherited speed buff from Razan
  
• Fixed issue where hitting Razan head caused desync
  
• Fix for players needing to look away to interact with dropped items
  
• Fixed bug with boss damage showing as zero in AAR
  
• Fix for infinite stamina bug
  
• Fix for making Razn blood draw underneath slime
  
• Fix for Boss monsters getting stuck in a particular module
  
• Fixed issue with sprint not ending on stamina exhaustion
  
• Fix for issue where sprint FOV would change while stationary
  
• Fixed issue where players could not sprint after dashing
  
• Resolved issue with terrain "morphing" on approach
  
• Fixed issue with pig spraying yellow blood on death
  
• Fix for issue where heal items would disappear from inventory
  
• Fix for players occasionally getting stuck in Spider Queen corpse
  

[h2]KNOWN ISSUES[/h2]

• [Rare] Loot and XP awarded from mission may not be accurately reflected in hub inventory
  
• [Rare] Game may crash on reviving team mates
  
• [Rare] Returning to hub may cause upgrade station to be missing content. To fix leave and rejoin session
  
• [Rare] Clients may occasionally become invulnerable to enemy attacks
  

As always if you would like to talk with us or have any questions about the game, we look forward to chatting with you in our Discord Channel

Greetings Hunters!

We're back with a number of improvements to how players collect and use the bits they carve off of monsters! This update also marks us moving from Closed to Open Alpha, meaning the game will be available to a much larger group of players. Big thanks to everyone who has played the game so far and given us the valuable feedback we need to make the game better!

[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]Breakable Monster Parts[/h3]

• Monsters now have breakable parts that can be destroyed while the monster is alive. Razan only for V1
  
• Added armor plates to legs and over weakspots
  
• Replaced head weakspot with breakable crest
  

[h3]Loot Drops[/h3]

• Chopping monster parts now drop loot of different rarities that can be collected on the battlefield
  
• Extracting with monster head awards rare crafting materials
  

[h3]Enemy Spawning[/h3]

• Overhauled our enemy spawning system to give us more control.
  
• For players this means it should be more consistent, and be fewer instances of no spiders of hordes of spiders
  

[h2]Updates and Improvements[/h2]

[h3]Razan[/h3]

• Tuned Razan attack damage and HP based on player count and difficulty selection
  
• Added ability for Razan to turn to face players while it's attacks are on cool down
  
• Reduced chance of Razan carves dropping bones
  

[h3]Upgrades and Crafting[/h3]

• Orkyte is now a collectable crafting resource
  
• Sword upgrades now require monster parts to craft
  

[h3]UI & UX[/h3]

• New inventory window added to crafting screen to view collected crafting materials
  
• After getting knocked out, the location of the monster is added to the compass to make it easier to find
  
• Made red blob in hunter vision much brighter and more obvious
  
• Scaled up Razan Health bar
  
• Added a class selection screen
  

[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]

• Added ability to host private sessions
  
• Set default difficulty to 1 for solo players
  
• Tuned XP and level thresholds
  
• Updated the tutorial flow for spawn room
  
• Fixed some low hanging rocks that were causing Razan to get stuck on relocate event
  
• Locked spider mission behind level gate to improve first time user experience
  
• Increased XP given from Spider Queen mission
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issue where health pig wasn't spawning
  
• Fix for missing footstep audio
  
• Fix for background music shutting off when Razan was killed
  
• Fixed button selection animation on main menu not displaying properly
  

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• [Common] Hitting Razan head with sword may cause desync for clients
  
• [Common] Rewards and Loot collected in first mission may be awarded in subsequent missions
  
• [Common] Friends can only be invited to private sessions using the "C" Invite button in the HUD. Steam overlay option not implemented yet.
  
• [Common] Aggressive fog on lower graphics settings (medium and lower)
  
• [Rare] Game may crash on reviving team mates
  
• [Rare] Dying directly Spider Queen may cause players to get stuck inside the body
  
• [Rare] Returning to hub may cause upgrade station to be missing content. To fix leave and rejoin session
  

As always if you would like to talk with us or have any questions about the game, we look forward to chatting with you in our Discord Channel

Greetings Hunters!

In this update we wanted to improve the experience of starting and ending a mission and address some of the feedback from the last update - namely, it being difficult and time consuming to track the Razan across the map.

[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]Blood Trails[/h3]

• Boss monsters now spray blood when relocating, leaving a trail of clues for players to follow
  
• Finding and collecting blood pools increase Battlecry
  
• Blood pools persist in world for approx. 5 minutes before disappearing
  

[h3]Monster Trophies[/h3]

• Razans head can now be cut off entirely
  
• Head can be picked up, carried around and thrown to other players
  
• Depositing the head in the airship elevator grants additional mission rewards!
  

[h3]Insertion and Extraction[/h3]

• Hunters now enter the hunting ground by being lowered down from the airship
  
• Players need to return to the airship after a successful hunt in order to finish the mission
  

[h2]Updates and Improvements[/h2]

[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]

• Significant performance improvements
  
• Battlecry now generates on damage dealt, as well as kills
  
• Airship has had an upgrade
  
• Updated mission start area to support airship elevator
  
• Map is now smaller and requires less backtracking
  
• Bombs now only deal 25% damage to the player that threw them
  
• Decreased the amount players fly through the air when knocked back by Boss monsters
  
• Stamina apples can now be stored and consumer like meat
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fix for clients not showing acid damage UI
  
• Updated text on upgrades to correctly reflect variables affected
  
• Fixed issue where hitting teamate with acid upgrade would trigger DOTS effect (but not the damage)
  
• Fix for first apple giving 2 stamina on use
  

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• [Common] Aggressive fog on lower graphics settings (medium and lower)
  
• [Common] Using unstuck feature may cause issues with UI updating
  
• [Common] Dropping the Razan head requires looking away from it and looking back to return the interact prompt
  
• [Rare] Game may crash on reviving team mates
  
• [Rare] Dying directly Spider Queen may cause players to get stuck inside the body
  
• [Rare] Returning to hub may cause upgrade station to be missing content. To fix leave and rejoin session
  

As always if you would like to talk with us or have any questions about the game, we look forward to chatting with you in our Discord Channel

Greetings Hunters!

For Update #4 we have focused on significantly improving the experience of fighting our first boss monster and improving the difficulty level of the game.

Some of you may remember the predecessor to Razan, the crocodile formerly known as the Sandsnapper. Razan is the first boss we started working on, and it has gone through a number of iterations. In this update we made significant improvements to boss encounters and want to start giving the monsters a life and personality of their own - hence the name change!

Razan is a giant lizard that inhabits the sulphur plains. Thematically it is all about acid and uses its acid immunity to hunt down and destroy its prey. While hunting it, you will need to avoid its acid pools, be mindful of how close you are to melting your armor and avoid its acidic bile projectiles. Killing the Razan will give you the crafting materials need to upgrade your weapons with acidic properties that will be useful against other boss monsters.

We hope you enjoy it - as always if you like to talk with us or have any questions about the game, we look forward to chatting with you on our Discord Channel



[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]Razan Hunt[/h3]

• Tuned mission to have a single, significantly tougher monster (was previously 3 small monsters)
  
• Added new direct acid spit attack
  
• Acid no longer does immediate damage, instead applies the acid status effect
  
• Reduced duration and size of spawned acid pools
  
• Killing Razan unlocks an acid upgrade for the sword that applies acid status effect to enemies
  

[h3]Boss Monster Behaviour[/h3]

• Monsters can now relocate to a new area on the map when they reach a certain damage threshold
  
• Boss will throw players off their back when relocating
  
• Monsters can now become enraged - increasing attack speed and damage for a fixed period of time
  
• Monsters can now break through objects when relocating to a new area
  

[h3]Game Difficulty[/h3]

• Added system to dynamically scale difficulty based on player count (updates every time a player leaves / joins a hunt)
  
• Solo players now have 3 lives. Being knocked out will respawn you back at base camp.
  
• Reduced Spider Queen to 3 from 4
  
• Reduced number of spiders spawned during Spider Queen hunt
  
• Scale number of mob spiders based on player count
  

[h3]Status Effects[/h3]

• Implemented a feature where status effects are applied after X seconds of build up, and then trigger an event upon filling the bar.
  In this update standing in acid pools will cause ACID BURN to accumulate, trigger damage over time when the bar reaches max. Stay out of acid for X seconds to make the bar start dissapating.

[h3]Other Features[/h3]

• Added an "Unstuck" button to manually respawn players at camp. Will not be in shipping game but intended to reduce the need to restart missions in the event of bugs during pre-release. Might by glitchy
  

[h2]Other Updates and Improvements[/h2]

[h3]World & Hub[/h3]

• Increase skirt on nav mesh to improve monster pathing
  
• Pass of boss monster spawn locations
  
• Pass of all world modules adding more collectibles
  
• Decoration pass on all world modules
  
• Added placeholder class selection station to hub
  
• Fixed collision issues in hub
  

[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]

• Reduced spear count to 3 and increase the damage they do
  
• Made it easier to stand on spears
  
• Make Tracking Bone Pile bigger and more obvious
  
• Increased Aggro range on spider
  
• Decreased spider damage
  
• Improved wall jump
  
• Made breakable objects able to be mantled up
  
• Improved performance from acid pools
  

[h3]UI & UX[/h3]

• Updated map screen to show recommended player count for difficulties
  
• Added highlight to show currently selected difficulty
  
• Updated main menu w/ new logo, background and buttons
  
• Updated upsell screen
  
• Updated welcome message w/ Japanese and Brazilian Localisation
  
• Updated avatar icons in HUD
  
• Updated loading screen images
  
• Updated mission preview image for Spider Queen mission
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed After Action Report sometimes missing for clients
  
• Fixed crash caused by throwing meat on the ground
  
• Fix for Razan using an old material
  

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• [Common] Aggressive fog on lower graphics settings (medium and lower)
  
• [Common] Using unstuck feature may cause issues with UI updating
  
• [Common] Hitting your team mate with the acid upgrade causes them to see the poison damage status effect but not take damage
  
• [Rare] Game may crash on reviving team mates
  
• [Rare] Dying directly Spider Queen will cause players to get stuck inside the body
  
• [Rare] Returning to hub may cause upgrade station to be missing content. To fix leave and rejoin session