Aug 31, 2021

Patch 1.5.0 "Going the Distance" Now Live

Wasteland 3 - whippleshuffle

In the rearview mirror of the Kodiak, you see the engines of Steeltown belching out their tar-black smoke far into the air above. Tinged with fire, it blankets an already charred sky with a reminder of the valorous work you accomplished there… or the inglorious chaos you happened to set loose. Regardless of how you dealt with the town’s conflict, you know that the road ahead is fraught with even greater challenges and dangers that have yet to reveal themselves. Just over the horizon looms Cheyenne Mountain, and before we set that adventure loose, your squad will need to be prepared.

As noted in the State of the Frozen Union article, Patch 1.5.0 is primarily focused on improving the co-op experience, as well as allowing those at the endgame to experience the Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation expansion content. We’ve also taken a bright light to some of the underused quirks, perks, and backgrounds, balancing those with the intention of making them even more attractive options when you’re creating and evolving squad members. Rounding all this off is a bevy of overall polish, fixes, and other general improvements that aim to please.

A big thanks to our community for continuing this journey with us. We think you’ll agree that we’re no longer reluctantly crouched at the starting line and that this Kodiak’s engine is now solidly pumping, perhaps even thumping, in time. A green light hath flashed for us all, and the flags doth go up. Our devs are churning and burning, and they yearn for the cup.

What we’re saying is, with Patch 1.5.0 we’re going the distance.

We’re going for speed.

Patch 1.5.0 'Going The Distance'

Highlights

Players are now able to leave the endgame area and head back out into the world to experience The Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation content as they damn well please. Additionally, players with one of the expansions (or both) will also have access to a specific squad management option available to them within the endgame area.
- Note: These options are only available to games that have access to The Battle of Steeltown or Cult of the Holy Detonation expansions.
Say goodbye to blindly crafting items and guessing at what they might be good for—the crafting interface now shows detailed information and stats for what will be crafted. We truly live in the future.
We now display how long it’s been since you last saved your game next to the Quicksave menu button. Not displayed is whether you’re save scumming to try to force a specific outcome. But we know. We all know.
Do we smell bacon? Hot Hogs will no longer immediately charge you the same turn their fuses have been lit, allowing you to respond to them more effectively. They will also properly switch their hostility to Hostile/Red, making it easier to shoot them or tame them. Time to go H.A.M. on your enemies; which stands for Hogs Attacking Murderclowns.
Numerous co-op quality of life improvements have been implemented in this patch, and are noted in detail below.

Co-op

Peer-to-peer communication between co-op game clients has been optimized, which should result in fewer soft-locks and desyncs between players in cooperative mode.
[GOG] Co-op sessions can now be started through the GOG Galaxy client.
The connection strength indicator, which is displayed in the multiplayer lobby, will now more accurately display the signal strength between players. Strong signal, good. Weak signal, bad.
Your co-op partner’s selected grid square is now displayed during combat, while browsing the squad inventory together, and while perusing merchant wares. Our goal here is to create a strong, psychic bond between co-op players. Soon you will become a single being of light, operating as an enhanced quantum emergent structure of consciousness. Don’t fight it.
You are now able to select your friend’s Rangers in the inventory screen to see what the hell they have equipped. No more having to ask what that weird thing with the green squiggles is on their head. Now you’ll just know, and of course, knowing is half the battle. The other half is probably telling them they’re playing wrong.
When you’re in a conversation with a skill check that you cannot pass without your partner present, the skill check will properly update as soon as your friend joins the conversation.
“Game-exit flow” & messaging improvements have been implemented. Just keep reading.
- When a player opts to go back to the main menu or quit to desktop while in a co-op session, they’re now met with a prompt informing them that the action will disconnect both players. You’ll also be informed whether progress is able to be saved at that point or not.
- If the session end is at a point where saving *is* allowed, progress will be auto-saved using the multiplayer auto-save slot. This save will be provided to both players. If saving at that point is *not* allowed, then no new save is created.
- Conversely, the player who did not quit the game will now also see a prompt informing them why the game ended, in lieu of receiving a generic “Game Disconnected” error message. This messaging will likewise indicate whether progress was able to be auto-saved. Unfortunately, it will not include an evaluation of the health of the friendship, and whether the session was ended in anger or on amicable terms. You might want to shoot them a quick message like “we cool?”
Resolved an issue where the host would be unable to use the Kodiak after the guest player revived them with a Nitro Spike.
Resolved an issue where merchant and inventory selections could get stuck for both players.
The "Join Shopping" prompt will now properly appear when a player hovers their mouse cursor over the merchant that the other player is trading with.
Resolved an issue that could result in infinite enemy/friendly turns occurring during specific combat scenarios.
Resolved an issue that could break the host’s camera view while they were using Precision Strike.
Resolved an issue where the selection in the appearance customization would reset for one player if the other was also making changes to their appearance customization at the same time
Both players will now be properly pulled into combat with the Refugee Smugglers outside of The Bizarre.
Resolved an issue preventing players from sometimes joining conversations.
Fade in/out for cutscenes should now for real only happen while viewing cutscenes.
Resolved an issue where armor coloration could be incorrectly displayed after a saved game was loaded.
Disabling the Difficult Skill Check option in the Multiplayer Lobby will properly disable it every time.
Resolved an issue that could result in an infinite loading screen when players attempted to start a co-op session via Steam.
[Consoles] Resolved an issue that could trigger a softlock during the transition to the Garden of the Gods map.
[Controller] Resolved a display issue that could prevent players using a controller from being able to host a game session.
[Steeltown] Resolved an issue where co-op players could “kill” Crow's hologram by bypassing the opening cutscene on the Factory Level. We use quotes liberally here since “killing a hologram” seems like a good thing to use quotes for.
[Steeltown] Resolved an issue where players were sometimes unable to move their characters after Blue’s arrest.
[Steeltown] Fixed a bug allowing a co-op guest’s character to travel through radiation without taking damage after a host used an injury kit on the affected squad member.
[Steeltown] Resolved an issue where only one co-op squad could be healed by Doctor Breeler after the Ghost Garage encounter.
[Steeltown] Resolved an issue after Steeltown’s completion where only the guest was able to participate in the conversation with the Steeltown Refugee.

Balance

Dev Comment:
"This post-Steeltown DLC period was a great opportunity for us to take stock and act on some of the community's feedback on character builds, as well as look at playtest data on which perks, quirks, abilities, and backgrounds were being used less than we'd like. Our hope for these changes is to inspire you to pick options you've never used before or see them in a new light, and generally beef up underpowered options.”

Note:
In the last patch, a number of the text descriptions for these balance changes accidentally went in. With this patch, the actual functionality changes will be active.

Quirks
- Doomsday Prepper - Increased Status Effect Resistance to +33% (previously +25%), added a +15 CON Bonus.
- Two-Pump-Chump - Removed the -15% Hit Chance Penalty.
- Varangian Blood - Changed the -4AP penalty to -20% Evasion for 2 turns.
- Lone Wolf - Increased Initiative to +30% (previously +20%), added +15% Healing Rate.
- Circus Freak - Removed -10% Evasion because clowns suffer enough, but doubled the detection time down to -2.00 (previously -1.00) because bright neon colors do NOT make for good camouflage.
Perks
- Bloodsport (Melee Lvl 6 Perk) - Increased the number of debuff enemy types to Shocked, Bleeding, and Poisoned enemies (in addition to the original Stunned and Blind enemies).
- Conductive Beams (Weird Science Lvl 9 Perk) - Increased the chance to activate Electrocute to +20% (previously +10%).
- Pressure Cooker (Big Guns Lvl 7 Perk) - Pressure Cooker is now a lvl 6 Perk (previously lvl 7).
- Close Call (Sneaky Shit Lvl 7 Perk) - Increased the malfunction chance to 66%, this perk affects all squad members.
- Breakfast Bandit (Toaster Repair Lvl 5 Perk) - Added the description of the Toast healing item to the perk; Toast is delicious!
- Shrug It Off (Melee Combat Lvl 10 Perk) - Increased Armor gained for every adjacent enemy to +5 (previously +2 Armor), added +10% Status Effect Resistance for every adjacent enemy.
- Minesweeper (Explosives Lvl 4 Perk) - Added +1 Perception bonus.
- Fortify (Mechanics Lvl 7 Perk) - Increased the amount of armor gained to +7 for friendly vehicles, robots, and deployables (previously +5 Armor).
- Toasty (Toaster Repair Lvl 10 Perk) - Your first attack every turn will inflict Burning (previously the first attack after killing an enemy inflicted Burning).
- Tender Loving Care (Armor Mod Lvl 10 Perk) - Increased Armor gained to all squad members to +8 Armor (previously +5 Armor).
- Reinforced Plating (Mechanics Lvl 5 Perk) - Increased the amount of CON gained to +33% on repaired Vehicles and Robots (previously +25% CON).
Backgrounds
- Grease Monkey - Increased Damage to Robots and Vehicles to +15% (previously +10%).
- Paladin - Increased Crit Resistance to +15% (previously +10%).
- Stoner - Increased Status Effect Resistance to +15% (previously +10%).

Gameplay

Rangers who may leave your squad at the end of the game will now drop their loot for you to pick up.
- Note, dropped gear that was previously modded will drop as un-modded. This is an issue that our Dev team is aware of.
Resolved an issue that was allowing certain abilities such as Rally and Demoralize to apply status effects from an active weapon.
Abilities that dealt a percentage of your equipped weapon's damage should now deal the correct amount of damage again.
Loading an autosave that was made after starting a fight with a Scorpitron on the world map will no longer make the encounter disappear.
Deployables that are spawned far from combat will now be destroyed after combat ends, resolving an issue where a combat encounter could seem to have no way to end it.
We resolved an issue that allowed players to duplicate scope mods. We see you. Through non-duped scope mods.
Those damned elves will no longer softlock the game if they’re freed during the Elf on a Shelf quest. You know what though? Don’t free them. Blow them up. They cause too many problems.
We’ve hacked the hacked robots so that they will no longer be targeted by a player’s ambushes.
Combat speed penalties for weapons you lacked the skill to wield, are now correctly applied to those weapons.
Benjie Braddock now appropriately rewards the player, if helped.
As intended, it is now possible to use the Suture and Injury Kits to save Georgia Overdrive or Shotgun.
We fixed a specific tripmine that was not able to be disarmed in Yuma County Speedway. Trippy Tripmine, Trips are for kids.
Resolved an issue where the Patriarch would incorrectly state that Cordite had been freed even if you did not free Cordite.
Strength will now correctly apply a range bonus to all throwable items (including snowballs).
Resolved issues with the components required to craft Extended Mag and Rubber Grip mods, allowing them to now be crafted correctly.
Fixed some edge cases that could cause experience points to not be granted to the squad for every enemy death in the combat, such as kills by friendly units or status effects applied by the enemy.
The Sonic Emitter can now be used out of combat so you can emit… sonics (???) whenever you want.
Resolved an issue that was resulting in new characters having their starting weapon field marked as complete during character creation, before their weapon was selected.
[Consoles] Resolved an issue that was preventing players from sometimes creating custom Rangers at the start of a new game.
[Controller] Resolved an issue that allowed players to sometimes attack multiple times in one action by repeatedly pressing the attack button. By the way, remember the NES Max controller with that sweet turbo button? Stubin’s Farm remembers.
[Controller] Resolved an issue that was preventing players from being able to select status effects in the inventory.
[Steeltown] We resolved the issue where DI would sometimes go missing and would not rejoin the player's squad as a companion. The faint scent of cheese curds may though be detected on her breath...
[Steeltown] We replaced a Guard-Bot to its appropriate station for certain Markham outcomes.
[Steeltown] There is now additional dialog with Serena Ash when a player speaks with Luna Moon first.
[Steeltown] DI’s conversation is now correctly triggered when Markham asks about the Synaptic Degausser.

UI & Controls

Squad Management Screen updates!
- The Squad Management screen will now display skulls atop incapacitated squad member portraits, and EKG lines on portraits of Rangers that are downed.
- There’s now an alert reminder within the management screen that the squad can only be modified back at Ranger HQ.
- The number of skill points each new recruit has available is now displayed beneath their portrait within the squad management catalog at Ranger HQ.
The Mission Log now defaults to open, making the details displayed there quicker and easier to read.
We now warn you when you’re about to leave a World Map merchant interface. Once it’s closed, it’s closed for good, so we want to be upfront with you about that.
The game will now automatically close the menu after saving your game, letting you get back to the action quicker.
When targeting robots and animals, the user interface will now indicate whether you meet the requirement or not for hacking and taming. Not indicated is whether the robot or animal will fill the void left by the retirement of the Mexican Pizza.
Default stack sizes are now smarter when shopping.
- When selling stack size defaults to 100% of the stack.
- When buying stack size defaults to 50% of the stack and/or does not exceed what you can afford.
The interface now displays Hit Chance when you’re aiming your weapons at non-hostile NPCs.
Players can now launch brightness calibration again from within the options menu.
The inspection panel interface now lists the level of the enemies you’re hovering over.
We improved messaging within the UI when you’re attempting to equip an item that you don’t meet the requirements for. It’s the visual equivalent of a slide whistle making a sad ‘beeooooo’ sound.
The modding screen will now display a label indicating your highest-skilled character.
Fixed some localization errors for various languages.
Resolved an issue that was causing quick slot items to disappear after players transitioned across maps or loaded a saved game.
[Controller] The AP bar now highlights a preview of spent action points during the radial menu selection; this matches the existing mouse and keyboard behavior.
[Controller] As you hold the joystick when selecting a stack size within an inventory window, the selection rate will accelerate to make it less tedious.
[Controller] The gamepad selection cursor now sticks to patrolling enemies.

Audio

Everyone can once again have fun tonight, as we’ve made sure to return the song “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” to the Cannibal Jamboree. We suspect the elves from Santa’s Village had something to do with its absence. BLOW. THEM. UP.
Resolved an issue that was resulting in looped sound effects when the cloning sequence dialog was skipped. Another clear example of why cloning people is an affront to the natural order of things.

Aug 31, 2021

August Developments Blog

Relic Hunters Legend - LucyG

Hey Hunters, how are you doing?

August was a pretty awesome month for us, we celebrate the 6 years of our Relic Hunters franchise and with all of your help, we accomplished 100k wishlists for Legend. We couldn’t be happier about it. And of course, we kept working pretty hard to develop even more features and stories for you to enjoy in Relic Hunters Legend.

We’re also celebrating these achievements with the Celebration Weapon Contest, so if you want to get a chance to win two Relic Hunters Legend Alpha Key, check what you need to do and the rules of the contest to participate in the previous Steam News! (the event will roll out until 05th September)

So with no more further ado, check out the things we’ve been working on in August for the game:

New Map and Assets

More maps for you to enjoy! These are some prompts for Ubabela, the most prosperous touristic city around the Oasis, the last remnant “ocean” in the Cradle. Will be the hunters able to relax and drink coconut water on the beach or will be a lot of trouble waiting for them in this paradisiac place? Well, you’ll have to discover it by yourself in the second Act of the Relic Hunters Legend story when the game launches!

We also kept modeling and implementing some pretty fancy buildings and other cool assets for Semilla City, the richest place in the Galaxy, where all the elite members of the Duke Ducan Empire live.

Second Act of the Story (Main and Side Adventures)

We’re working on the Second Act of the story in Relic Hunters Legend, the script is done and now we’re implementing the dialogs and adventures in the game.

These adventures and features will not be available for our alpha players to play until launch, but will be worth the wait!

New Kami Species Implemented

We implemented some of the new species of Kamis that we’ll have in Relic Hunters Legend. With new behaviors, attacks, and visual and sound effects, you’ll be shocked to face them!

Pinkyy’s Rarity Icons

We had already implemented Pinkyy's new cosmetics, but we needed to make their icons too, so now she has it all! We can't wait to see how everyone will combine these cosmetics and improve Pinkyy's style.

Chat 3.0

We tested our previous chat and we realized that it needed some changes, so we developed and implement Chat 3.0:

Now every tab has icons and the label will appear only when selected.
Party and Whisper tab will open when you receive a message, except when the input is focused
Chat sounds only trigger when the tab is open
Announce System implemented: now we have announces when the player enters or leave the party and when they receive a Heart or Super Heart
Help button pop-up

New Music and SFX

With all the new maps and stories being implemented, of course, we’ll have new Music and Sound Effects too! We’re not going to reveal it for you now, but you’ll have a great surprise with the Legend’s soundtracks.

Delve, Defense and Distraction Game Mode Improvements and Bug fixing

We talked about these game modes in the June and July Dev Blog and we kept improving the experience with them this month. For Defense and Distraction, we finished implementing the game modes in the normal mode and started to make the missions on Hard and Epic. We also made some bug fixes that were discovered in our playtests.

In Delve we’re making the polishment to enhance the experience with this game mode. To access this game mode, the player needs to have a Delve key that they’ll be able to get from Special Missions and the Mission Requirement System is already implemented.

Dialog Typos

We revised all the dialogs and fixes some minor typos that we discovered.

Streamlined Dialogs and Side Adventures Dialog Options

We kept working on streamlining all the dialogs in Relic Hunters Legend and we also included dialog options in the Side Adventures.

Improvements in the Ambient Profile

We improved the settings in our Ambient Profile and now the shadows, daylight, and nightlight are looking so much better now.

Party System Improvements

We created a system that will prevent the player from leaving their party if they start a Story Mission to complete an Adventure. This system still needs some polishment but is already in the game.

Pause Function Improvements

As we talked about in the previous developments blog, now you can pause the game when playing solo. We tested this function a lot and kept improving the experience with it this month.

Shader Improvements

We developed a shader for the vegetation and assets sway and we’re also working on new shaders to make our environments more interactive and beautiful to improve the immersion in our game.

Bug Fixes

We tested out a lot of the new features that we’re implementing in the game and this month we fixed some bugs in the Compare System, Chat, Bubble Chat, Options, and UX Gamepad. (We talked about them in the previous dev blog)

There were also some Bug fixes that came from the feedback of our community playtest that we already addressed and fix, such as:

Backpack potion in front of the Back Button
Leave Party Button Fixed
Seven Passive ability Fixed - it was triggering at the very beginning of the game and now it’s fixed
AutoEquip: Fixed the UI and the network operation and we also fixed the equip item notification appearing when the item has already been automatically equipped.
Removed the Gameplay jingle when closing the game

And there are many more things to come! Keep following us on social media, join our Discord Channel to hang out with us, and ask your questions about Relic Hunters - we’re always there to assist you and our community loves to make new friends.

Cheers,
Rogue Snail Team

Aug 31, 2021

Pre-Alpha Release v.1.1.5

Hexonomy - Starfish

The Hexicon Update

With this newest update comes a ton of additions and updates. Our most notable is the addition of the Hexicon, a lexicon of all business currently in game (30) and all of their stats and data. From the Hexicon you can create loadouts to take with you into your games for quick and easy access to your favorite businesses.

Also included is the addition of some background music (with the potential temporary music selection) as well as audio for notifications, all available to be adjusted in the settings menu for taste as well. Along with these audio settings are a few new gameplay settings, and not to mention a TON of UI adjustments that are getting us started into the next phases of our Roadmap that were looking forward to releasing soon!

New and Noteworthy

Implemented a ton of settings for users
Created the "Hexicon" for building and saving loadouts
Added Audio to entire game, including background music and notification sounds
Integreated cooldowns and new modifiers
Ton of new visual updates for UI

Core Updates

Made Settings for Business Plans to save and load
Created tile modifiers UI
Created business modifiers UI
Implemented tile modifiers
Implemented business modifiers
Reviewed and Updated Code for creating all modifiers, making it more performant
Created Options for having modifiers only last certain length of time
Integrated entirely new environment (Stadium) for the game
Upscaled Grids in MenuMap and Classic to match stadium scale
Restyled Hex Tiles to go through ground so we can raise and lower tham dynamically
Reworked Hotkeys so Player Controller doesn't host Business Data
Implemented Modifiers Costing an Amount of Money to Activate
Made Modifiers not allowed to activate deactive if game ia not in progress
Made modifiers take away money for deactivation as well
Increases size of icons in simple selection menu for easier viewing
Expanded message types
Created messages when modifiers are activated and deactivated
Created hex tile modifiers data table
Created business modifiers data table
Created biz sequence for main menu
Made icons from Inspector drag and dropable onto the board
Created child objects for Settings input and styled them properly
Setup audio system for notifications
Updated Key Bindings for movement controls
Updated Keybindings for Zoom Axis
Added backgrounds music to game that transitions over levels

UI Updates

Updated buttons for toolbars
Updated icons for menu buttons
Wrap HotkeyBar with background to see controls better
Chat Menu now fades out after messages appear
Linked cooldowns for different types of modifiers
Created visuals for cooldowns in modifier menus as well
Moved Modifier Cooldowns into seperate Widgets for general use
Stylized all other UI components
Parameterized all UI components with Game Interface parameters
Created the music audio controler UI for background music
Added Cooldown checks to HexClickMenu for ease of access
Updated Global Mods Menu
Updated Player Mods Menu
Switched Icons over to ProIcon Package with adjustable detail
Made Simple Selection Menu expand to min and max height depending on amount of businesses
Named all properties in Classic Game Mode
Fixed Hex Icon background in hotbar not being correct size hexagons

Bugs Fixed

Client Messages involving property now show proper Property Names
All progress bars are no longer 1 tick behind the actual counter. Adjusted the counters to be in synch with server
Progress bar updates are no longer linked to frame rate. So if FPS drops, progress bars will no longer lag behind
Modifier Bubbles do not continue to decrease when not in menu
Players list should now be showing once loaded in
Profile pictures of opponents should now show up in results
Selling a business when the shipping views are visible on screen no longer causes them to stay frozen on the screen

Upcoming Long Term Changes in Future Patches

These changes will most likely come in many different future patches, but there are our next big target goals in no particular order.

Introduce new search feature and and recommendations for businesses in an advanced business selection tool
Compressing textures to save on hard disk requirements
Automatic matchmaking for quick play using "Classic" settings
Creating settings for custom matches so players can host custom games and tweak gameplay to their liking
Tutorials available from the main menu and help menus available in game

Become a Tester!

These patch notes are for the Pre-Alpha v.1.1.4 release that is available to all testers. If you have signed up to become a tester you should have already received your code for access to the Development build of Hexonomy. If you are interested in becoming a tester, you can contact us through our website or visit us on our twitter and send us a DM! There are only a limited number of codes available for Pre-Alpha testing so contact us to get your codes soon!
Twitter
Website Contact

More updates to come soon! Check the top of this post for information on how to get your hands on an early copy of Hexonomy and become a Pre-Alpha tester! Can't wait to share our exciting development in future updates!

While we are still in development, if you are interested in supporting Starfish Studios while we create Hexonomy, check out our Patreon account as well to donate to our development efforts!
Become a Patron!