Feb 13, 2020

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

hi

Sorry we forgot to say Happy New Years :< As we roll in the next decade, we wanted to give you another update on what we have been up to at Hopoo Games the last couple months.

In December we launched the Hidden Realms Update - and we are really pleased with how it turned out! We’re glad to see all of you enjoying the new content, especially getting instantly 1-shot across the map by a Capacitor Scavenger. Also in December, we had our first sale, were nominated for a Steam Award, and were one of the top sellers for the duration of the Winter Sale. As always - thank you all so much for the support!

Looking forward to 2020, we have a few exciting things coming up as we approach 1.0.

=== Content Update 4 ===

We are still in the thick of development for CU4, but what we do have so far is turning out really solid. Players can expect both returning Artifacts, along with brand new ones - with some a bit more extreme than others. We’re going a bit wacky with Artifacts this time around, so we hope you enjoy all we’re putting in.

For reference, we still have not beat the first stage as a team with all the Artifacts on. Good luck!

Also for CU4 we have overhauled all the UI in the game to address navigation via controller - no more on-screen cursor.

With the content changes are a bunch of bug fixes and stability improvements. Specifically, we are addressing two big issues:

Long runs begin to crash because of physics-related issues. Updating our version of Unity should fix this.
When Steam gets a server hitch, all active RoR2 games lose connection to Steam and shut down - what people are experiencing as the “Black Screen” issue. Those have been resolved by decoupling the need for Steam lobbies to be active for a game session to stay open.

We know those issues have been frustrating, and we truly appreciate all your diligence in sending us crash reports and output logs. They helped a ton, and were critical for us fixing these issues.

=== Ghostpunch ===

Another exciting axis in CU4 is we have extra help from the Ghostpunch team, who’s in charge of a ton of the content in CU4 outside of the Artifact system. If you’re not familiar with their work, you should be: they were in charge of doing Stage Remixes, alongside whiteboxing (aka level design) for both Siren’s Call and Void Fields.

We wanted to work with them for a few reasons:

We only have 3 developers in the office, and can use all the help we can get for creating fresh content.
The success and demand of the game is much higher than we expected, so we’re trying to get quality content out at a pace that players are satisfied with.
The success of the game has allowed us to put more resources into development, making it bigger than our original plans. An example of this in a previous CU was Stage Remixes, an idea we never originally had in the roadmap.

We’re incredibly excited for what they’re going to be able to create, and we hope this will be the best update yet.

=== Console Update ===

On the console side, we are excited to confirm that the Hidden Realms update will be coming to Xbox One, PS4, and Switch in March!

With the newest update there will also be performance improvements, bug fixes, as well as many other quality of life improvements. We are extremely happy with how solid this Content Update turned out on the consoles and can't for everyone to check it out - the PlayEveryWare team is putting a ton of effort into these updates, and it wouldn’t be possible without them.

We are super excited for you all to check out CU4, and we will be sharing more teasers and details as we get a little closer. Let us know what you are most excited for with the next update and as always, thanks for playing!

-Hopoo Games Team

Dec 19, 2019

Hopoo Games Development Thoughts #11

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

Happy Holidays to all wet poison dog players!

This week we released our Hidden Realms update, which was a bit of an experimental update for us. We covered a lot of risky ground, like giving monsters items and equipment, dedicated server support, and a new mini-gamemode in the Void Fields. With the deployment of the update going so well, we had a fun day in the office watching streams, reading Discord, and even joining in on some runs with players in Quickplay and their Dedicated Servers.

Not only that, but after launching the Skills 2.0 Update we heard a lot of feedback from players wanting more content unlocked as part of the base game. We tried this in the Hidden Realms update by reducing the number of unlocks dramatically - and from what we have observed, players are really digging this.

===Steam Awards and Winter Sale===
Over the weekend we were also thrilled to hear that we are one of the nominees for Better With Friends in Steam Awards 2019. We’re up against some heavy hitters, and we’re so happy that our fans voted and believed in us. This game’s reception is still such a shock to us - thank you all again. If you feel like Risk of Rain 2 is truly better with friends and you want to take us all the way, here is a link to vote for us in the finals:
https://store.steampowered.com/steamawards

Not only that, but to celebrate our nominations in the Steam Awards, Risk of Rain 2 will go on sale for the first time - starting today! Get your friends involved!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/632360/Risk_of_Rain_2/

===Major Points for CU 3===
• Noting players are really enjoying both Void Fields and Scavenger, which is awesome!
• Noting players are loving Stage Variants, which is great to hear. Huge shout-out to the Ghostpunch team for handling both Stage Variants in their entirety!
• Acrid was a returning fan-favorite character, which puts a lot of pressure on us to do it right. We’re happy with the results and the feedback!
• Seeing some players wishing Acrid’s poison was lethal - we’re watching it, but it’s very unlikely to change unless we dramatically make the poison’s damage worse. There’s many item synergies that work especially well with Acrid’s poison, such as Gasoline, Sticky Bomb, and Guillotine that can still kill enemies. Having that feeling of ramping up in power as you obtain more of these unique item synergies makes Acrid’s item prioritization different from other Survivors.
• Players want the Engineer Mastery Skin - so do we! The reason it’s not in the game right now is because the skin system doesn’t support skinning projectiles and minions. Since that feels particularly important for Engineer, we didn’t want to release a half-baked skin that doesn’t affect his Turrets or Mines.
• Golems still spawn as TP bosses occasionally - whoops. We’re not entirely sure why. Not even we can stop them.
• A lot of players are asking for a Linux Build for Dedicated Servers - we don’t totally know the implications of having both a Windows and Linux version of RoR2DS, but we’ll take a look.

===Minor Points for CU 3===
• Animation canceling Acrid M1 is both wacky looking and tiring for the players. Will most likely be fixing that.
• Monsters receiving a Tesla Coil in Cells may be a bit too much
• Want to make sure Unique Bosses like Aurelionite and Alloy Worship Unit are still threatening
• Watching some specific Scavenger combinations to make sure they’re all still fun
• Players are enjoying REX buffs

Thank you all again for the love and time you spend in Risk 2. You’ve all helped take this game so far - and we’re excited for what could come next. Thank you all so much. Happy Holidays!

-Hopoo Games Team

Dec 17, 2019

Early Access Hidden Realms Content Update - December 17, 2019

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

This is the third major content update for Risk of Rain 2 on PC. With this update we are focusing on expanding the base game with fun and exciting content that the player will see right when the update lands. While Skills 2.0 had a bunch of challenges and unlocks, some players preferred to have content unlocked in the base game, and we’ve heard the feedback!

This Content Update will be coming to consoles in the near future - for details on how our Content Updates get ported to console versions, check out our previous Development Thoughts here: {LINK REMOVED}

Changes with the ‘🌧’ icon in front of them are changes or additions suggested by the community. As always, if you want to stay up to date on the game feel free to join the discord at {LINK REMOVED}

==== Major Content====

• Added Tool: Dedicated Server Tool
○ We’ve been working hard to support the growing community we have for Risk of Rain 2. We’ve seen many players play together with rulesets they enjoy the most - this tool allows community servers to be hosted and connected to, similar to other games. Please note that this Tool is still in Alpha!A tutorial on how to use the tool is available below: {LINK REMOVED}

• Added Survivor: Acrid
○ Acrid is a melee-range hybrid who uses powerful poisons to melt tanky enemies.

• Added 2 Stage Variants
○ ‘Stage Variants’ is a new system for CU3 that allows stages to have multiple layouts. We chose the first stages as a test ground for Stage Variants since they are the maps you see most often - our hope is that this system can help keep the game fresh, even when entering the same maps!
○ Titanic Plains Variant
○ Distant Roost Variant

• Added 2 Hidden Realms
○ New Hidden Realm: Void Fields
○ New Hidden Realm: Secret Hidden Realm

• Added 3 Skill Variants
○ New Skill Variant: REX Utility
○ New Skill Variant: Loader Utility
○ New Skill Variant: Acrid Utility

• Added New Skin: Acrid Skin

• Added New Monster: Void Reaver

• Added New Boss: Scavenger

• Added New Boss: Secret Boss

• Added 9 Items and 1 Equipment to the game
○ New Item: Razorwire
○ New Item: Fresh Meat
○ New Item: Ghor’s Tome
○ New Item: Resonance Disc
○ New Equipment: Jade Elephant
○ New Lunar Item: Visions of Heresy
○ New Lunar Item: Beads of Fealty
○ New Boss Item: Genesis Loop
○ New Boss Item: Pearl
○ New Boss Item: Irradiant Pearl

• Added Chest: Adaptive Chest

• Added Chest: Overgrown 3D Printer

• Added Shrine: Cleansing Pool

• Added Drone: Emergency Drone

• Added 3 Challenges to the game
○ New Challenge: ...To Be Left Alone
○ New Class Challenge: REX: Dunked
○ New Class Challenge: Loader: Earthshatter

• Added 2 Environment Logs to the game
○ New Environment Log: Void Fields
○ New Environment Log: Secret Stage

• Added 6 Lore Entries to the game
○ New Item Lore Entry: Sticky Bomb
○ New Item Lore Entry: Visions of Heresy
○ New Item Lore Entry: Strides of Heresy
○ New Item Lore Entry: Gasoline
○ New Item Lore Entry: Personal Shield Generator
○ New Item Lore Entry: Brainstalks

==== Gameplay Changes ====
• General
○ Update regens to not be multipliers, but scaling flat bonuses to decouple benefits of regen items from base regen
○ The result of this is that all characters regardless of their baseline regeneration all benefit the same from regen items. This will only affect melee characters WITH regen items - nobody else is affected.
○ Reduce Boss Encounter (Aurelionite, Alloy Worship Unit, etc) health scaling by ~20%
○ Reduce Boss Encounter (Aurelionite, Alloy Worship Unit, etc) damage scaling by ~75%
○ Change ‘One Shot Protection’ calculation to include barrier
○ Our intent in changing OSP in this manner is to make sure that it is a hidden mechanic, not a reliable one to build a strategy around. We know there’s still edge cases that are abusable - but as long as it’s not ALWAYS the best strategy, we don’t mind having some end-game builds that are extremely powerful.
○ If you have 100% Health and 100% Barrier and take a billion damage, previously you would remain at 100% Health and 10% Barrier. You will now be at 10% Health, as intended before the inclusion of barrier in Scorched Acres.

• Survivors:
• MUL-T
• Scrap Launcher
○ Cooldown: 3s ⇒ 1.5s.
○ Animation Duration: 0.4s ⇒ 0.3s.
○ Grenade Speed: 50m/s ⇒ 70m/s.

• REX
○ Update “Smoothie” skin to have fall colors and unique textures

• DIRECTIVE: Inject
○ Burst Duration: 0.3s ⇒ 0.2s
○ Animation Duration: 1s ⇒ 0.6s
○ Heal Percentage: 30% ⇒ 60%

• Seed Volley
○ Renamed DIRECTIVE: Drill
○ HP Cost: 30% ⇒ 0%
○ Tweak visuals and icons so its more mechanical and less flowery

• Loader

• Knuckleboom
○ Add small forward lunge
○ Extend size of hurtbox and effect

• Grapple/Spiked Fist
○ Minimum Length: 5m ⇒ 1m
○ This just means that the tether won’t break as easily from being really close to the grapple point

• Items

• Predatory Instincts
○ Remove proc effect growing in size for each stack.
○ Buff Duration: 2s ⇒ 3s

• Happiest Mask
○ Ghost Damage Boost: 300% ⇒ 1500%
○ Ghost Proc Chance: 10% ⇒ 7%

• Eccentric Vase
○ 🌧Thicken zipline visuals
○ 🌧Zipline Acceleration: 20 ⇒ 30
○ Cooldown: 100s ⇒ 45s

• Personal Shield Generator
○ Shield Health: 25(+25 per stack) ⇒ 8% (+8% per stack) maximum health

• Shaped Glass
○ 🌧Add special death message for dying while carrying Shaped Glass

• Brainstalks
○ Buff Duration: 3s (+2s per stack) ⇒ 4s (+4s per stack)
○ 🌧Add slick camera effect when buff is active

• Queen’s Gland
○ Spawns all possible guards at once when stacked, rather than one at a time

• The Backup
○ Increase size of Backup Drones

• Frost Relic
○ 🌧Add area sphere to to clarify that it does damage in a sphere, not a disk

• Red Whip
○ 🌧Getting hurt no longer disables the buff
○ 🌧Update whip model, texture, and icon
○ Move whip movespeed over to a buff so it shows up in the bar

• Brittle Crown
○ Remove flat gold reduction on Brittle Crown

• Warbanner
○ 🌧Remove ‘Damage’ tag so it no longer spawns in Damage Chests

• Rusted Key
○ Increase lockbox size by 50% and make slightly shinier

• Stages

• Abandoned Aqueduct
○ Reduce spawn cost of Clay Templars to match other maps with Clay Templars
○ Fix some collisions

• Scorched Acres
○ Add Alloy Vultures to the spawn list post-loop
○ 🌧Reduce spawn distance of Imp Overlord

• Bazaar Between Time
○ Update shop visuals

• Rallypoint Delta
○ Double frequency of Drones spawning in the map
○ 🌧Reduce spawn distance of Imp Overlord and Magma Worms

• Monsters
• 🌧 Add Grovetender to Wisp Family Event

• Wisp
○ Spawn Cost: 9 ⇒ 10
○ Base Damage: 4 ⇒3.5

• Elites

• Malachite
• 🌧Add visual effect and overlay when affected by Malachite Debuff

• Drones
•🌧 Make all Drones resistant to AOE attacks, reducing their incoming damage by ~70%
•🌧 Purchased Gunner Turrets now persist between stages

==== QOL ====

• Update a ton of old particle effects to match new visual quality since release
• 🌧Prevent Golems from ever being chosen as a Teleporter boss
• 🌧Force Teleporter Boss to initially target the player who activated it
• 🌧Add ‘Are you sure you want to quit?’ confirmation dialogs
• 🌧Add selected difficulty to the stat sheet at the end of a run
• 🌧Prevent multishop terminals all having question marks
• 🌧Bypass ping cooldown for single player games
• 🌧Add option to enable/disable exp and money effects in the settings
• 🌧Add "Total Minion Kills’ on end of game report
• 🌧Add execution damage to Total Damage stat
• 🌧Update the visuals for items taken during 3D printing to be a bit clearer
• 🌧Add collider on Loader’s pylon to trigger pressure plates
• 🌧Raise wwise max memory pools from 32 to 64 to accommodate additional sound banks
• 🌧Force loadout button to always be visible even if you have no skills unlocked
• 🌧Update right edge of execution threshold bar not lining up with the actual value
• 🌧Shift Radar Tower/Scanner effect closer to green to make it not confusing with Vagrant Nova
• Fix inconsistent prices across maps for Missile Drones, Clay Templars, Beetle Guards, and Elder Lemurians
• Update Golem to match new visual quality since release
• Update a bunch of item displays that were too big or too small
• Add pickup droplet for Boss items
• Increase highlight threshold to increase outline clarity of items near walls
• Fix some items having incorrect outlines

==== Bug Fixes====
• Fix Teleporters not using the correct decal layer
• Reduce chance of camera clipping into walls
• Reduce particle count on Beetle Queen spit FX
• Fix vulture attacks creating particle systems that wouldn't clean up themselves
• Fix Crowbar sound not playing over the network
• Fix Medkit sound not playing over the network
• Fix Guillotine sound not playing over the network
• Fix Shattering Justice buildup sound not playing over the network
• Fix Predatory Instincts effects not playing over the network
• Fix Merc Blinding Assault sound not playing over the network
• Fix Greater Wisp Death transmitting explosion effect for each client in multiplayer
• Fix a bunch of items not fading when close to the camera
• Update Engineer Turret not destroying itself for clients
• Add check to make sure a monster spawn is valid before adding to weighted selection (could affect early game spawn frequencies to be higher)
• Ensure Nano-Bomb state stops charging animation if interrupted
• Add missing Korean characters that previously defaulted to ‘?’
• Add missing French characters that previously defaulted to ‘?’
• Add "IMMUNE" hitmarker for translation
• Add extra life "REVIVED!" text for translation
• Add scoreboard headers for translation
• Add "Lv:" HUD text for translation
• Add "BLOCKED!" damage hitmarker message for translation

Thanks for clawing your way through our patch notes - we hope you all enjoy the Hidden Realms Update!

Oct 18, 2019

Hopoo Games Development Thoughts #10

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

Hey everyone! It's been a bit, and we wanted to give a big update on WHEN future updates will be landing on both PC and console. There has been lots of excitement and questions so we thought would clarify those now.

**=== PC Update ===**

Since Early Access release, we’ve gotten into very a solid rhythm of development. CU3 has us really excited - we think players will enjoy all of the content we are adding. We took notice that some of the content we added into CU2 might be a bit difficult for players to unlock, and felt like a bit of a grind for players who have been with us since Early Access launch. For CU3, we are focusing on adding a lot of BASE content to the game to make every run feel fresh and exciting for all players. Not only that, but we plan on revisiting some old content and making sure they're hitting the same quality level as our newest content.

It's also no secret that the Fall update landed veeeery close to the end of fall, same with the Spring update. Calling them the Winter Update, Spring update, etc has led to some confusion of when those updates will actually release. As such, we're updating the roadmap to reflect for CU3 and CU4 the actual month that releases are planned so it's less confusing across the board. We're holding steady on updating it to the exact month for 1.0 until we get closer.

**===Console Update===**

On the console side, we’re also starting to find that the team at PlayEveryWare needs a bit more time to port to all three consoles. The team currently has TWO patches in flight right now:

1: Our first patch on consoles will include bug fixes, performance updates, and a few QoL updates. Not only that, but the first patch will include a couple of unique features, including gyroscopic aiming for Switch and voice chat for Xbox One. **This was submitted to certification a few weeks ago, and is planned to show up near the end of October.** Stay tuned to our social media channels where we will share when this patch arrives. Additionally, to ensure that you know you have updated to the latest patch once it is live, see below each console version:

Switch: 1.0.2
Xbox One: 1.0.5.0
PlayStation 4: 1.02

2: The next patch is, and includes the Skills 2.0 content update (see roadmap below) which will also come with the patch that came shortly after it was released on PC, addressing regen and bugs. **This patch is currently in progress, and is planned to show up mid-December.

While we were a bit optimistic with the initial pace, we are hopeful that this 3-month cadence is something we support going forward for consoles. Not only that, but we hope that as we practice more, the turnaround time gets less.

I hope this clarifies our outlook going forward. We feel that we always have room to improve, especially in communication - please let us know how you feel. As always, thanks for playing!

-Hopoo Games Team

Oct 10, 2019

PC Early Access Patch (Build ID #4233443)

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

Hi!

The past few weeks we have been watching the feedback from Skills 2.0 and we're so excited with the reception of the update! Overall we're happy with the balance and design of the content we included, but we reduced health regen too much. This patch includes changes to health regen, a few items updates, some slight changes to Survivors, QOL updates and bug fixes.

We will be doing another Dev Thoughts in a week or two going into detail on more future content plans and console updates.

=== Gameplay Changes ===

Health Regeneration
- Increase Player's Health Regeneration by +66% in Rainstorm difficulty.
- Increase Drone Health Regeneration by +150% in ALL difficulties
  - All these regeneration changes have been highly confusing and affecting difficulty too drastically – as a summary, Drizzle and Monsoon are the same as Skills 2.0 Release, while Rainstorm is now a bit easier.

Items
- Monster Tooth
  - Heal: 6 ⇒ 8
    - Now that we're encouraging players to value healing items more, the healing items themselves should be a bit more decent
- H3AD-5T v2
  - Now activates by holding "Use" (E key by default)
  - Improve consistency of bonus falling damage
  - Now shows little lights when ready
- Commando
  - Frag Grenade
    - Animation Duration: 1s ⇒ 0.5s
    - Can now interrupt your other abilities
- MUL-T
  - Power-Saw
    - Improve vacuum effect to pull towards enemies
- Artificer
  - Plasma Bolt
    - Update proc coefficient, travel speed, and fire rate to match Flame Bolt
- Engineer
  - Carbonizer Turret
    - Walk Speed: 6 ⇒ 7
    - Now scales laser tick rate with attack speed

=== QOL ===

Add details to difficulty text to show what actually changes between Drizzle, Rainstorm, and Monsoon.
Update a few of our internal workings to better help modders
Update 'Warm For Life' challenge text to be more clear
Pre-Game Lobby now properly shakes physics objects around

=== Bug Fixes ===

Fix Quickplay matches only filling up to 3/4
Fix Loader's "Swing By" challenge using 25 real-time minutes instead of the in-game timer
Fix 'Keyed Up' challenge no longer unlocking
Fix Alloy Worship Unit preventing you from activating the teleporter
Fix 'VFX Culling Bias' not saving when closing the game
Fix 'Warm For Life' challenge not displaying the correct value when in progress
Fix Equipment Drone not firing their equipment
Dying while traveling in Volcanic Egg and Eccentric Vase no longer causes you to pop out the other end alive
Fix flying AI wandering towards the ground
Fix the character select always showing Commando skills when restarting a run
Fix Clay Dunestrider's Tarball attack not networking its position correctly
Fix MUL-T's buzzsaw caching attack speed and crit chance on starting the attack
Fix Preon Accumulator and Fuel Array sometimes missing in multiplayer
Lemurians no longer sprint if very far away
Fix Loader disappearing when ragdolling
Fix Loader's wrists spinning around during certain animations
Fix melee characters being able to infinitely strike ragdolled players
Add missing Korean characters
Fixed a variety of typos

enjoy!

-hopoo

Sep 20, 2019

Hopoo Games Development Thoughts #9

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

This week, we released Skills 2.0 CU, an update we've been working hard at. We're excited to see everyone unlocking the new skills, and hope that they become viable alternatives to select from in each run. We're listening closely to our community to make sure that the content that comes out is rewarding and fun. Also huge shoutout to Ghostpunch for the whiteboxing of our new map, Siren’s Call!

We're also super thrilled to see Loader's great reception! She's GRAPPLING with excitement to SWING into your game LOADED with excitement hahahahheahehaehaeaheahuasdhuasdfgd

Compiled below is a list of major feedback that we've received for CU2. We've been working on a patch internally that should address a majority of these points, available (hopefully) either next week or the week after.

===Major Points for CU 2===
• Regen changes have made the game significantly harder, and we want to make sure the game is still enjoyable for all players. We're also noting that regen changes have made turrets and drones a lot weaker, and they will be getting a regen buff. Most likely what will happen is that Rainstorm will be a middle ground between what Drizzle and Monsoon is in terms of regeneration. We will also be updating the difficulty text when hovering over them to show what the changes are between difficulties, so this mechanic isn't hidden from players.
• Also noting that a few of the Challenges seem very difficult at first glance - watching to make sure people can unlock them over time. It's fine people can't get them all in the first week :)
• We're very happy to see people making guides for specific Prismatic Trial seeds!
• A few Challenges seem to be inconsistent when unlocking, specifically the 25 minute one and the Huntress Rallypoint Delta one.
• We think that Loader is strong but a bit one-dimensional, but the fact everyones having a good time means we hit a good spot.

===Minor Points for CU 2===
• Loader's arms turn all wonky in certain animations

===Stuff We Are Working On===
• Making sure the balance of the game is where it needs to be, and that the new challenges provide a good but fun goal to strive for
• Double checking Challenge unlock conditions
• PlayEveryWare is busy working on the first patch for Switch/Xbox/PS4, which will address some outstanding bugs alongside a bunch of performance improvements.

Thanks! We're excited that the community is so engaged in every CU, and we love that we can get a ton of feedback in a short time - it really does help make the game better. Thanks again!

-Hopoo Games Team

Sep 17, 2019

Early Access ‘Skills 2.0’ Content Update – September 17, 2019

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

This is the second major content update for Risk of Rain 2 on PC. With this update we are focusing on Skills 2.0, brand new content, as well as other general changes and quality of life improvements.

Skills 2.0 introduces a new way to play your favorite survivor! Our new “Loadout” system allows for swappable skills and skins at the beginning of each run. Each survivor will maintain their unique identity, but have some options to tinker with before jumping into a run. While some skill variants play off existing skills, some variants are entirely unique abilities available to a survivor. Each new skill and skin in your Loadout will be unlocked only with survivor-specific challenges - good luck! More skills and skins are planned to be added in future updates.

This Content Update will be coming to consoles soon - for details on how our Content Updates get ported to console versions, check out our previous Development Thoughts here!

Changes with the ‘🌧︎’ icon in front of them are changes or additions suggested by the community. As always, if you want to stay up to date on the game feel free to join the discord at https://discord.gg/riskofrain2

==== Major Content and Changes ====

Added Survivor: Loader
- The Loader is a slow but powerful bruiser that can use her grappling hook to uniquely navigate the environment.
Added Stage: Siren’s Call
Added System: Loadouts
- “Loadouts” are a new system that allows you to mix-and-match your selected Survivor’s abilities before entering a run.
Added System: Alternate Skins
Added 15 skill variants
- New Skill Variant: Commando Secondary
- New Skill Variant: Commando Special
- New Skill Variant: Huntress Utility
- New Skill Variant: Huntress Special
- New Skill Variant: MUL-T Primary
- New Skill Variant: Engineer Secondary
- New Skill Variant: Engineer Special
- New Skill Variant: Artificer Primary
- New Skill Variant: Artificer Secondary
- New Skill Variant: Artificer Special
- New Skill Variant: Mercenary Secondary
- New Skill Variant: Mercenary Special
- New Skill Variant: REX Secondary
- New Skill Variant: Loader Secondary
Added 7 skins
- New Skin: Commando
- New Skin: Huntress
- New Skin: MUL-T
- New Skin: Artificer
- New Skin: Mercenary
- New Skin: REX
- New Skin: Loader
Added Elite: Celestine
- Celestine are new high-tier elites that only spawn late into the game, similarly to Malachite elites.
- New unique visuals and SFX that signifies a Celestine elite has entered the stage
Added 2 bosses to the game:
- New Boss: Solus Control Unit
- New Boss: Alloy Worship Unit
Added 2 monsters to the game:
- New Monsters: Alloy Vulture
- New Monsters: Solus Probe
Added 6 Items and Equipment to the game
- New Item: Focus Crystal
- New Item: Lepton Daisy
- New Item: Shattering Justice
- New Equipment: Blast Shower
- New Equipment: Volcanic Egg
- New Lunar Item: Strides of Heresy
Added Interactable: Lunar Seer
Added 3 Challenges to the game
- New Challenge: Warm For Life
- New Challenge: Blockade Breaker
- New Challenge: Guidance Offline
Added 22 unique Class Challenges to the game
- New Class Challenge: Commando: Rolling Thunder
- New Class Challenge: Commando: Incorruptible
- New Class Challenge: Commando: Mastery
- New Class Challenge: MUL-T: Pest Control
- New Class Challenge: MUL-T: Gotcha!
- New Class Challenge: MUL-T: Mastery
- New Class Challenge: Mercenary: Demon of the Skies
- New Class Challenge: Mercenary: Ethereal
- New Class Challenge: Mercenary: Mastery
- New Class Challenge: Huntress: Piercing Wind
- New Class Challenge: Huntress: One Shot, One Kill
- New Class Challenge: Huntress: Mastery
- New Class Challenge: Engineer: Better With Friends
- New Class Challenge: Engineer: 100% Calculated
- New Class Challenge: REX: Bushwhacked
- New Class Challenge: REX: Mastery
- New Class Challenge: Artificer: Chunked!
- New Class Challenge: Artificer: Orbital Bombardment
- New Class Challenge: Artificer: Massacre
- New Class Challenge: Artificer: Mastery
- New Class Challenge: Loader: Swing By
- New Class Challenge: Loader: Mastery
Added Environment Log: Siren’s Call
Added 7 Lore Entries to the game
- New Monster Lore Entry: Jellyfish
- New Monster Lore Entry: Beetle
- New Monster Lore Entry: Beetle Guard
- New Boss Lore Entry: Solus Control Unit
- New Boss Lore Entry: Alloy Worship Unit
- New Survivor Lore Entry: REX
- New Item Lore Entry: Little Disciple

==== Gameplay Changes ====

General
- Reduce the spawn frequency of the “aggressive” director
  - This should result in spawning behavior a bit more similar to Early Access Launch, where the Director will be able to save up a tiny bit more before spawning things. This doesn’t make the game easier or harder - there should just be slightly fewer small monsters, and more big monsters.
- 🌧︎Fix health regeneration boost being applied outside of Drizzle
  - Drizzle difficulty is intended to have increased health regeneration of 250% for players. This was being accidentally applied to ALL difficulties since launch. Oops. We will be monitoring this closely to make sure the pacing of the game stays consistent.
Survivors
- Commando
  - 🌧︎Update Suppressive Fire (R) to fire more bullets with more attack speed
  - Add 2 new skill variants
  - Add 1 new skin
- Engineer
  - 🌧︎ Bubble Shield now flashes before it expires
  - 🌧︎ Update Pressure Mines:
    - 🌧︎ Now “arms” over time to 900% damage and an increased radius
      - Players (including us) were mostly just using Engineer's mines as somewhat underwhelming grenades as soon as they came off cooldown. This change puts more power in strategic placement and reduces how often the skill needs to be used for it to be effective.
    - 🌧︎ Now scales max available mines with max secondary stock
    - Max Stock 10 ⇒ 4
  - Add 2 new skill variants
- MUL-T
  - 🌧︎ Show both primary and alternate fire descriptions in Character Select
  - Move “Multifunctional” passive into “Retool”
    - This change was made to make the UI for MUL-T’s skills easier to read. There is no functional difference.
  - Add 2 new skill variants
  - Add 1 new skin
- Huntress
  - Add 2 new skill variants
  - Add 1 new skin
- Mercenary
  - Add 2 new skill variants
  - Add 1 new skin
- REX
  - Add 2 new skill variants
  - Add 1 new skin
- Artificer
  - Add 2 new skill variants
  - Add 1 new skin
Items
- Guillotine
  - 🌧︎Tier: 1 ⇒ 2
  - Update Logbook entry to properly reflect its stacking behavior
    - In the Logbook, it said it scaled the execute threshold by 20%(+5% per stack), but it ACTUALLY stacked by 20% (+20% per stack). Instead of reducing the threshold down to 5%, we decided to keep the current behavior and upgrade it to tier 2 instead.
- Cautious Slug
  - Regen Rate: 250%(+250% per stack) ⇒ 300%(+300% per stack)
- Sticky Bomb
  - 🌧︎Proc Chance: 5%(+2.5% per stack) ⇒ 5%(+5% per stack)
    - Tier 1 items are the most commonly stacked, and should therefore linearly stack without diminishing returns in most cases.
- Crowbar
  - Damage Boost: 50%(+30% per stack) ⇒ 50%(+50% per stack)
    - Tier 1 items are the most commonly stacked, and should therefore linearly stack without diminishing returns in most cases
- Topaz Brooch
  - 🌧︎Barrier Gain: 20(+20 per stack) ⇒ 15(+15 per stack)
- Aegis
  - 🌧︎Has been reworked in functionality
    - Barrier gain from overheal is no longer capped
    - Now grants barrier for 50% (+50% per stack) of the amount you overheal
- Halcyon Seed
  - 🌧︎ Friendly Aurelionite now has special AI to be more aggressive
- Crowfunder
  - Proc Coefficient: 0.2 ⇒ 1
Stage
- Bazaar Between Time
  - 🌧︎ Add Lunar Seers
    - Lunar Seers allow you to, at a price, determine the next upcoming stage. The intent for this is to allow us to continue adding content that is stage dependent (Timed Security Chest on Rallypoint Delta, Broken Robot in Abyssal Depths, etc) without it becoming frustrating in the future to actually land on those maps.
- Abyssal Depths
  - 🌧︎ Brighten ambient lighting
  - 🌧︎ Ambient lighting is no longer extra dark inside the cave portions
Elites
- Malachite
  - 🌧︎ Health Bonus Percentage: 2820% ⇒ 2350%
Drones
- 🌧︎Drones can now be repurchased after they die, excluding TC-280
- TC-280
  - Base Cost: $500 ⇒ $350

==== Music & SFX ====

Add new stage track
A bunch of other tweaks and updates to SFX

==== QOL ====

🌧︎ Damage numbers can now support up to 998,000,000 damage (truncated as 10K, 100K, 1M, etc)
🌧︎ Money values in the HUD now have commas
🌧︎ Newt Shrines, Shrine of the Mountain, and Altar of Gold now become unavailable once the Teleporter starts charging
🌧︎ Game now remembers your preferred difficulty until you close the game
🌧︎ Update geysers on Scorched Acres to have shorter launch arcs so they don’t cause fall damage
🌧︎ Add cost of purchasables to their chat message when pinged
🌧︎ Add unique shrine icon for Altar of Gold
🌧︎ Add new unique UI sprite for Lunar Coins. Update Lunar Coin model to have a hole in the center to match new icon.
🌧︎ Add equipment cooldown to logbook
🌧︎ Add stats for regen and armor to logbook entries for survivors and monsters
🌧︎ Minion kills can now spawn Lunar Coins on your behalf
🌧︎ Damage dealt by your minions is now reported in the post-game screen
🌧︎ Minion healthbars are now nested below their leader’s
Dead players now remain in the allied healthbar area
Update level up effects

==== Bug Fixes====

🌧︎Update skill icon not accounting for cooldown scale when calculating the display value for the cooldown progress indicator
🌧︎Fix Flamethrower Drone creating two flamethrower effects
🌧︎Fix floating trees in Gilded Shores
🌧︎Fix trees in Scorched Acres and Rallypoint Delta not having collision
🌧︎Fix stuck spawn location in Scorched Acres
🌧︎Fix AI pathing in Wetland Aspect to reduce the chance of a boss spawning on the wrong side of a wall
Update Wandering Vagrant’s Nova attack to properly apply on-hits
Fix Aurelonite firing more projectiles for every connected player in the game
Fix water splashes being oriented 90 degrees in the wrong way
Update ambient sound in the Celestial Portal to not include insects
Canceling Artificer’s Nova Bomb early now properly stops the sound
Fix some spots in maps that could cause you to be stuck
🌧︎Fix Asian characters being clipped in ally healthbar
🌧︎MUL-T’s Transport Mode now properly applies crits
🌧︎Replace instances of unknown deaths (pots, out-of-bounds, etc) having a white box and a blank entry with a generic “mystery” attacker
🌧︎Update a bunch of typos for stacking behavior and skill damage that were inconsistent with in-game values
🌧︎Fix friendly Aurelionites dropping Logbooks when they expire
🌧︎Fix falling enemies never properly being removed, resulting in spawns stopping after shoving enough enemies off the map
🌧︎Fix Follower-type items still remaining before and after entering a stage
🌧Update Dio’s Best Friend on Huntress to no longer clip into her scarf
Remove word wrapping in a few instances
Fix enemy team level-up sound effect playing simultaneously for every instance of a monster in the map
Fix cropping issues on Warbanner and Tri-Tip Dagger icons

Thanks for SWINGING into this update - we hope you all enjoy the new build!

Aug 30, 2019

Development Thoughts #7

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

=== Risk of Rain 2 Console Launch ===

We’re very excited to work with both Gearbox Publishing and PlayEveryWare to bring Risk of Rain 2 to the Xbox One, PS4, and Switch, launching today! Thanks to their fantastic efforts, we’ve been able to turn around a console release very quickly.

A unique challenge that we’re facing is that Early Access games don’t really exist on all the consoles. To help smooth over that confusion, we are launching a console-specific roadmap, outlining the timeline of when the consoles will be updated to match the PC version of the game. Note- the PC roadmap remains the same and we will maintain two roadmaps (see below).

Outlined below is our intended development plan for Content Updates (CU) going forward:

-Hopoo Games begins and develops the CU
-Submit to Gearbox QA once the CU is content locked
-Launch the CU on PC
-Address any Week 1 feedback + bugs with a small patch

After the first week is over and we’ve gathered all the information and feedback we can, we then share everything with PlayEveryWare for the consoles.

-Submit our Content Update + Week 1 Patch to PlayEveryWare
-PlayEveryWare takes over to begin porting the CU for Switch, Xbox One, and PS4
-Submit console version to QA
-Pass certification on Switch, Xbox One, and PS4
-Release on all consoles simultaneously

Our intent is to turn around Content Updates as soon as we can for consoles. Not only that, but consoles will get some features specific to its hardware that will also be included in the roadmap as it grows - ad hoc multiplayer for the Switch as an example. We’re also keeping our ears to the ground to make sure that the console version of the game is of the same quality as the PC version - please let us know if you run into any issues!

=== Risk of Rain for Xbox One ===

As a bonus, fans of Risk of Rain will also be happy to know that the original Risk of Rain has been ported to Xbox One, and can be purchased as a bundle along side RoR2. We are thrilled to bring the Risk of Rain universe to the Xbox Community for the first time. Check it out!

=== September Content Update ===

For our PC Risk of Rain 2 community, don’t worry! PlayEveryWare and Gearbox have done a fantastic job sandboxing the development of the consoles, meaning that internally we’ve spent all of our time working on our next Content Update, slated to come out in September. We’re very proud of the next update - including Skills 2.0 - that we will show off as soon as all the madness from console launch settles down. Our September update ended up a lot larger than we previously anticipated, and we hope you will enjoy playing it as much as we enjoyed making it.

We’re all excited for the future of Risk of Rain 2, and we hope that the console release is another step towards reaching out to fans across the world. Thanks again to everyone who’s supported us - and to all our new fans, we hope you enjoy your stay.

-Hopoo Games Team

Jul 26, 2019

Hopoo Games Development Thoughts #6

Risk of Rain 2 - Huntress

Hi!

As we work between major Content Updates, we still want to make sure we're communicating with our fans. While there isn't a whole ton to talk about, we will try our best to make sure everyone knows we have not died (yet).

== Development Progress ==

Internally, our September content update is chugging along great, and is slated to be better than Scorched Acres (in my opinion :))

The feedback from the community on the types of content and how much of each different content style we added were great to hear. We want to continue our next content in a similar fashion by adding another character, stage, map, monster, items and lots of achievements along with Skills 2.0!

This Update is also refreshing coming off of Scorched Acres because it contains some recurring content from Risk of Rain 1, as shown below. I wonder who could the next survivor be...? (hint: it's not the Miner)

We're also doing a bit of reviewing of how the Scorched Acres update went overall. We are looking at how things improved (new content!), but also at some things did not (no longer guaranteeing Rally Point Delta makes it frustrating to try to earn the Preon Accumulator). We will spend time doing more QoL and improvements on previous content in our next update as well. We want to make sure that all content lives up to the high standard we have set since launching in Early Access.

Not only that, but players have had enough time to test content, and we have a better idea of not only what's balanced, but what's enjoyable.

== Skills 2.0 ==

We have been very hard at work at "Skills 2.0" teased in our roadmap, and a lot of people have been wondering what that means for their favorite characters. While the system is still in progress, we know this!

Our main design goals with Skills 2.0 are to:
1. Give players a reason to play other characters they might not normally pick, or return to old characters
2. Give players who REALLY love and are proficient at a certain character a way to earn some in-game rewards

This is based on feedback that we've seen from the Community since launch. We will provide a full run-down on this as we get closer to September!

== Modding ==

It's no secret that Risk of Rain 2 has fostered an absolutely awesome modding community. While we have no direct mod support, our intent is to avoid breaking mods with our updates, and to not do any changes that would hamper the community. Maybe you'll see us popping into the modding community in the future!

If you're interested in Risk of Rain 2 modding, check out the Thunderstore to see the awesome content people have already been making! As always when modding ANY game, please download and install mods at your own risk! We can't check every mod that gets uploaded or guarantee that they are safe and won't break your save files.

Check it out here! https://thunderstore.io/

NOTE: We will be releasing an updated EULA for RoR2 very soon. The ONLY intent for this EULA is to make sure that if modders make content (like say, a returning Survivor), we aren't locked out of making similar content in the future. For the modding community: please actually read the EULA, and PLEASE let us know if this is not reflected in what we wrote. We know a lot of companies sneak stuff into their EULA, and that truly is not the intent here.

Sorry if this sounds like "Soon TM hehe" and that there isn't very much concrete information, but I hope some people enjoy this post anyways. Thanks again so much for all your continued support!

-Hopoo Games Team