Relic Hunters Legend News

Hey Hunters,

How's it going? We've been A-OK here at Rogue, and we just had a nice couple of weeks of fixing bugs. We still have two more weeks to go before we are back to doing new stuff, so hang in there - it's gonna be worth it!

But fun things first: we released our new GAMEPLAY TRAILER and you can already check it on our Store Page and YouTube!

https://youtu.be/Wx9yOoax8F8

We are headed to GDC (Game Developer's Conference) in San Francisco next week, and our previous trailer was from late 2017, so a new gameplay show-off was more than needed.

It was super fun to record this - I played with Founders Blurbi, Spookyy, Rathorn, wowman and MasterSuperior, and it is a testament to how much our community helps us out every day. Thank you!

Bug Fixes Ahoy!

We've been laser-focused on the Loot update for the past few months, so the game's stability and smoothness suffered quite a bit.

We have decided that our showcase at GDC was an excellent opportunity to take a whole month to fix bugs and issues in the game.

Jimmy is fighting some Ducans at Peaks Blockade

This is the list of fixes we are currently working on:

• Getting stuck sometimes when typing on the chat
  
• Some commands are not being ignored while typing on chat (using skills, opening the inventory, etc)
  
• Getting killed while charging a skill would make you unable to revive (stuck on revive screen)
  
• You can join matches that are already on scoreboard
  
• You can close the scoreboard by pressing ESC
  
• The scoreboard bugs out when it opens on top of the inventory screen or pause menu
  
• Pinkyy's Leap animation bugs out when she jumps straight up
  
• Edge tracking of the enemies disappearing
  
• Jimmy's Dash animation bugs out when he jumps straight up
  
• Skills from other players are showing up delayed on multiplayer matches
  
• Weapon animation are bugging out in many cases (switching while in cover, getting stuck on reloading animations, etc)
  
• Some weapon animations have inverted hands
  
• Improve the feel and sticky aim of the controller cursor on the inventory
  
• Controller deadzone and acceleration are wrong on the menu screens
  
• Two tooltips can open at the same time on the inventory if you close it while a tooltip is open
  
• Step sounds and fx are wrongly timed
  
• Some maps vanished from the mini-map
  
• Champion and Elite enemy lifebars and icons are not showing correctly
  
• Melee attacks are not working for multiple characters and skills
  
• Some skills cause 0 damage when elemental weapons are equipped
  
• Changing the input method on the inventory makes the Recycle button not work anymore
  
• Loot VFX are playing twice and sometimes with the wrong rarity color
  
• Ammo drop is not correctly considering the dynamic drop chances, and is dropping less ammo than it should
  
• Final gamepad input on the pause menu or inventory are triggering skills on the gameplay
  
• Some visual effects are hard to see on snow levels
  
• Cover animations are busted
  
• Some enemy shaders are not correctly displaying the "white" effect when they are hit
  
• Sometimes weapons stop firing until you switch to another weapon
  
• Pinkyy's Barrier is being targeted as if it was an enemy
  
• Controller support in general needs some improvements
  
• Sometimes when you join a game, enemies are just flying weapons
  
• Sometimes when enemies are activated they shoot at you with a low-damage instant hit-scan damage
  
• Champion enemies sometime cause a lag spike when they die
  
• Lifebar is not starting the match fully filled when you have +Life% gear equipped
  
• You currently lose a Scavenge match when you should have won it by Overtime
  
• Jimmy's grenades sometimes fly towards the sky or fall through the floor
  
• Scoreboard should close all open screens when it pops up
  
• Options and player settings are not saving correctly every time
  
• Mission completion should be recorded when the last objective is completed, not when the scoreboard shows up
  
• Loot and progression should be saved on disconnect, and also periodically to prevent losing data on crashes or forced closures
  
• Revive countdown bugs out if you open your inventory while downed
  

___________
Hopefully this will all be done by next week!

Follow Us During GDC

Lucy will be active on instagram and other social networks all throughout GDC, so make sure you follow us to stay up-to-date!

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Cheers,

~Mark

Hey Hunters,

How have you been?

We've been getting ourselves ready for 2019, and especially for our participation at GDC, the Game Developers Conference, that takes place in San Francisco.

Our goal is to get as close as we can to our planned Alpha version. The first step was already completed: the game has LOOT now! But we have 3 weeks to get ready for GDC, so we are prioritizing two things: making the game prettier and making it less buggy and more stable.



We decided to start with pretty, and record new footage for our shiny new gameplay trailer. Our previous trailer is over 1 year old, and we've come a long way since, so it's about time we replaced it.

This new trailer is going to be 100% focused on action and gameplay, so expect a lot of bullets flying all over the place!



We have fixed several visual bugs and worked on new features to improve the way the game looks.

Epic new visuals. #nofilter #nophotoshop

(Thanks to Founders @Shuwan4games, @Gitaxian and @Teku2001 for being our models on the picture above

The main feature that we worked on was the Backgrounds. We are using Unity's brand new Vector Graphics support to create huge, detailed and crisp-looking backgrounds that take very little video memory but scale beautifully to 4K resolutions.

Before (left) and After (right). Look at those backgrounds!

We also gave lighting a lot of attention, tweaking our character shaders, shadow color, color grading, and especially implementing a gorgeous SSAO (Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion) effect that ties everything together.

Before (left) and After (right). The lightning, color and depth are much improved!

We are not completely done, to be perfectly honest. The game looks good on screenshots but still has room for improvement when in movement.

There are still three major visual upgrades that we want to do in the near future: full-screen visual effects such as dust and wind; fog on the lower parts of the level; interactive objects such as grass moving and objects bouncing when you walk/shoot at them.

Bug fixes incoming!

We are now on full bug-hunt mode. With the help of our Founders and Backers we are finding and squashing as many bugs as we can to make the game as close to perfectly smooth as possible by the end of March.

Bug fix squad jumping from the dropship!

If you have access to the game, head over to our Discord on the #legend-bugreport channel. I am keeping a list of bugs that will be fixed pinned there, and if any bug that is annoying you is NOT on that list, let us know!

Relic Hunters Blitz

As previously announced, we have a new internal team called "Juno" and they are working on a brand new mobile Relic Hunters game. Yes, it will be free, and yes, it will be awesome! I wanted to post some work-in-progress images already, but it's so early that it's wiser to wait a bit until we know for sure the direction the game is taking.

We want it to be a super accessible game, so it will be a pixel-art, lo-fi game aimed at older hardware. We want everyone to experience a silk-smooth, 60 fps gameplay with bright colors and fun mechanics!

Here's a sneak peek at the new visual design of Jimmy and the Ducans:

Jimmy from Relic Hunters Zero (left) and Jimmy on Relic Hunters Blitz (right)

Ducan Trooper from Relic Hunters Zero (left) and Ducan Trooper from Relic Hunters Blitz (right)

I can't contain my HYPE :O

New Livestream Schedules

We are also changing our livestream schedules. There is a vote going on on Twitter and Discord, so just head over to your favorite one and voice your opinion: when do you think we should be doing our development livestreams?

That's it for this week! See you next time!

Cheers,

~Mark

Hey Hunters,

How's it going?

There are a lot of exciting things to talk about this week, so I'll get right to them!

Loot Drops!

Yes, it's finally time to farm for some rares!

That's a LOT of damage on a Medal! Guess it might need another balance pass...

If you have access to the Pre-Alpha, you've been able to see and interact with some items since the last Steam update. But so far it was meant just as a test for the Hunter screen (the inventory) and the item affixes / RPG stats.

Now we actually have a full-fledged drop system that will allow you to defeat enemies and get randomized loot from them!

Needless to say, this changes the entire game. Starting from the next Steam update, we are going to wipe your progress (again) and you will be able to experience a completely rebalanced (more like UNbalanced, amirite?) experience from level 1 to level 20!

How Do Loot Tables Work?

Uh, it's complicated. But long story short: we have a very scaleable and flexible system which will allow us to do all of the following very easily:

• Add new items automatically to the drop tables of regular enemies;
  
• Do special drops during Quests or Events;
  
• Segment enemies from Faction (Ducan, Kami, Timekeeper);
  
• Drop specific loot from specific enemies (yes, Bosses will have their own loot that you can focus-farm);
  
• ...and more!
  

If you want to get to the real nerd details of how loot works, you can check it out on our Dev Wiki.

But tl:dr for the normal human beings:

• item quality is based on content level, NOT Hunter level;
  
• regular enemies and containers will drop stuff at below their level;
  
• elite enemies, champions, bosses and chests can drop stuff above their level;
  
• this means that content that is of higher level and higher difficulty yields better loot;
  

How Many Items Are There?

Just a few, but considering how early we are in development, it's a TON!

Some new Rare Gear pieces that we worked on this week

This build will go live with 78 Gear Bases and 42 Weapon Bases. We call them "Bases" because when they drop they are randomized with different stats and affixes, and every affix has different rolls.

There are currently 30 Gear Affixes that can roll depending on the type of Gear. We are still working on Weapon affixes, so they will not be on this build.

All affixes are currently very simple and straightforward stat boosts, but we have a very powerful system that allows us to create more interesting and complex affixes - these will come as soon as we wrap up the basics of the RPG layer of the game!

Gear Score Might Surprise You

You will also notice that we have Gear Score on the Hunter Screen. You may have seen this in multiple other loot-based games in the past. But ours is a bit different. Here's why:

As you climb to higher Gear Score Ranks (you can check your progress by hovering your cursor on the Gear Score indicator), you actually unlock extremely important advantages for your Hunter.

Gear Score Rank borders: Crude, Common I, Common II, Uncommon I, Uncommon II, Uncommon III, Rare I, Rare II, Rare III, Rare VI

First of all, you get a massive bonus to all types of Attack and Defense;

Second of all, you get a character portrait border (pictured above) that indicates how much of a badass you really are;

Last but not least, you get a visual upgrade to your character to reflect that they are better equipped. Since we could not afford to make every single item change your visual appearance, we thought this would be a good way to still have your looks progressing as your gear gets more powerful! (Keep in mind that this feature is still not present on the current Steam build, ok?)


Exciting things, of course!

Our current focus in on making the game look prettier, because GDC is coming up and we need a new trailer. We love our Kickstarter trailer, but it's almost 18 months old now and the game is already looking much, much better!

But first, let's talk about something super, SUPER cool:

New Team Members!

The most attentive of you might have seen it announced on social networks last week, but our little family has grown! We have just hired five new team members and we are now 14!



But actually, this is the start of our vision for Live Ops in Relic Hunters Legend where we will have multiple different teams taking turns to deliver new content and features.

Rogue Snail is now actually TWO teams, a big one and a small one: Team Voyager (led by me) and Team Juno (led by Eli)!

Next year Team Juno will join us in Relic Hunters Legend, but in 2019 they are working a new, unannounced Relic Hunters project for mobile. We hope to talk about it (very) soon, but keep two things in mind: One, it's going to be awesome! And two, it is NOT taking any resources away from the Legend team - this is a government investment that we got to make a brand-new mobile game!



Wanna talk about loot? Have burning doubts that need to be answered? Wanna know how deep the item system will go? Endgame? Come hang out with me on today's Special Livestream, starting today at 11 AM PST. Don't miss it!

Cheers,

~Mark

Hey Hunters,

How's it going? Hope you're having a stellar 2019 so far!

We've been a bit quiet during the first couple of weeks of the year, so thank you for your patience. It was time for us to onboard our new team members, review the state of the project, and set new goals with a new strategy.

Let's Speed Things Up!

It is no secret to anyone that we are taking a lot longer than we originally planned to release the Alpha (and consequently the Beta as well!). When the game was funded in late 2017, we believed we would have the Alpha around August 2018 and the Beta at the start of 2019.



And here we are with still no Alpha! :O

We've been super busy though - just take a look at this extensive list of everything that we got done in 2018. What happened is just that we underestimated how much work was actually involved in making this sort of mini-MMORPG.

Thanks to our super fans that backed us on Kickstarter and are supporting us with the Founders program, we still have funds available to complete the Beta, so don't worry about that. We have to speed up, though!

Here are the new year resolutions that we made to speed up the development:

• Increase the team size significantly (from 9 to 15) in the following months;
  
  
• Focus on core features of the game such as loot, progression and skills;
  
  
• Hold back on quality-of-life features and overall polish until the core stuff is done;
  
  
• Don't worry too much about providing tutorials/information to players until the core stuff is done;
  
  
• Leave minor bugs such as visual issues and things that don't compromise gameplay until the core stuff is done;
  

The GDC Loot Build

The trial by fire of our new development mentality will be to deliver a great build of the game for the Game Developers Conference that will take place in San Francisco during the second half of March.

We're calling it the "GDC Loot Build". It will feature all of the loot mechanics that we planned for the Alpha: item drops from Crude, Common, Uncommon and Rare rarities, including gear and weapons, for a total of about 100 items (each with different random rolls when they are dropped)!

Raff is checking out her Crude shoes. Not terribly impressive.

This is by far the most anticipated and requested feature of the game, and it is bound to change how the game plays and feels, so we are focusing 100% on that.

We've been promising loot drops for a LONG time now, I know. But this time I am confident that we're going to deliver it. We have properly estimated and detailed the work involved, using charts and numbers like adults.

We know we haven't been delivering things at the dates we've estimated them, and it can be very frustrating for you, our supporters and most important costumers. We don't take this lightly, and we are actively trying to improve.

Thanks for the encouragement and understanding that you've shown so far - we want to be worthy of it!



So what is changing for our Beta plans?

With our (very) delayed Alpha, our proper Beta phase won't start until the end of 2019, with a significant risk of slipping to 2020!

Since there are people who have supported us on the Beta tier ($20) since 2017 and still haven't had a chance to play the game during development, we think it would be unfair and unreasonable to make these people wait that long.

So here's our new commitment to you: all Founders and Kickstarter backers who purchased Beta access will have their Steam keys no later than June.

We expect to be in Alpha still by June, but it doesn't matter. At that point, Alpha backers will have had the game for a year and a half, so it's not fair to make the other supporters wait any longer.

An influx of new players will be healthy for the community, so I think everybody wins with this decision.



We are currently working on a build that have pretty much all of the item systems but still no loot drop systems. What this means is that we are going to populate your inventory with a lot of loot of different rarities, and as you level up you will be able to equip them.

This will allow us to test the inventory screen and the overall workings of items. Even though there is no loot system, the items that will be on your inventory will be randomly generated with unique affixes and rolls, since that system is already done.

This is the first major step towards full item progression, and I hope you're as excited to see it as we are!

If you have Alpha access, expect to see this update next Friday (January 25th).

And don't forget to join our community on our Official Discord Channel and follow us in our medias to stay updated on everything we're doing!
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Cheers,

~Mark

Hey hunters!

We are on the home straight of 2018 and this year was incredible for us. How was it for you?

This year was full of changes in our team and especially on the development of Relic Hunters Legend! We are very close to wrapping up all the features that we promised for our Alpha release.

How about checking out a recap of everything we did in 2018? ːsteamhappyː

Click here, and check the things we did this year!



Just like in 2017, we have a planned preview of what's to come for next year. I'll debut it today on our livestream, at 11AM PT / 2PM ET / 5PM BRT.

So come join me as I go through a brief recap of what went down in 2018, and what are we aiming for 2019!

Cheers,

~ Mark Venturelli