Nov 4, 2024

Risk of Rain 2 - preston.weiler

Video Version Here:

Hey everyone,

Today, we’ve released an update that addresses more of the bugs you've reported to us. That includes tackling some of the larger reported issues like the overabundance of elites. Full notes are here . In addition to that update, we’d like to share our more wholistic plans for Seekers of the Storm. Our ultimate goal is to build Seekers of the Storm into something that can be celebrated by the community for years to come.

Over the next few months, significant changes will come to Seekers of the Storm. The updates that we’re exploring are expansive, so they won’t happen overnight. But the scope of the changes should underline the seriousness we’re approaching this challenge with.

We’ve divided the updates into three release phases:
Phase 1: Items & Elites

Phase 2: The False Son Boss Fight

Phase 3: Survivors

Some content, people already love. Stages, Survivor Skins, and Sale Star are all parts our team is particularly proud of. So, beyond bug fixes, those will remain largely unchanged. The rest of Seekers of the Storm is where we’re focusing.

The feedback that everyone has sent in so far has been a huge help. It’s already shaping the coming design updates and is helping us get a better grasp of the bugs we’re still facing. The fact that so many of you have reached out with thoughtful ideas has been humbling. As we move through these phases, please continue sending us your feedback. The best places for that are the Risk of Rain Discord, or our official support website.

As more feedback comes in, everything is subject to change. We want this to be a collaborative effort that you’re all part of. So, while the changes we’ll lay out are the improvements we’re planning right now, those plans may change in service of making more polished content.

With that, let’s take a second to look at each phase more closely.

Phase 1: Items & Elites

With the exception of Sale Star, all of the new items are being changed. In some cases, like with Sonorous Whispers, the items could simply use a tweak or a rebalance. For others, the uses were more limited...

...so, they have been completely redesigned.

Overall, our goal is to:

Redesign the items to feel more transformational
Make the new items fit into the existing build synergies better
Make some particularly weak items more powerful
Re-establish a better balance within the item pool between defensive, movement, and damage items
With the elites, the planned changes are every bit as significant.

Twisted Elites:

These could offer a lot more room for counterplay. Depending on the items you randomly receive on a run, it’s possible that you’re guaranteed to die if a Twisted Elite spawns. Risk of Rain 2 can be punishing. But when it is punishing, it should always be in ways that feel fair and provide space for players to overcome those challenges.

The core principle of encouraging players to focus fire a single monster is still really compelling. So, we’re rebuilding Twisted Elites to give players a chance to dodge that incoming damage.

Gilded Elites:

These things are, quite healthy 👀. When a Gilded Wisp decides to float over to you, it tends to just hang out stealing your gold while you go on a marathon to take it out.

The changes we’re working on will retain the ‘gold stealing’ mechanic of the Gilded Elites. But in ways that are more interesting and that provide space for counterplay. Their health multiplier is also being knocked down a few pegs.

Phase 2: The False Son Boss Fight

As we get closer to phases 2 and 3, we’ll have more details on our specific plans. For now, we just want to ensure you have an overview of our thinking.

Here’s our focus with the Boss Fight:

Make boss abilities more clear & fair
Prevent The False Son from attacking through obstacles
Move the locations of pillars for better blocking and coverage
Reign in some of the ancillary damage sources (like the number of Golems & lightning strikes)
Rebalance the overall encounter, including damage & swapping flat armor for adaptive

We’re also planning on some changes to both Scorch Worm and Halcyonite during this roadmap phase. We’ll have more details as we get closer.

Phase 3: Survivors

All three Survivors will see large improvements; but Chef is getting a lot of attention.

Chef:

Chef could be a lot more powerful and also feel more streamlined. So, while we’re rebuilding his kit to be more elegant, we also want to buff him overall.

All of Chef's abilities are being revisited but the two that stick out most are Chef's primary & secondary (Dice & Sear). With Dice, we want to allow players to throw cleavers with reckless abandon, like Chefs of yore. With Sear, we’re making the ability more agile so you can quickly use it and move on with your culinary adventures.

The False Son:

The False Son should feel like an unhinged construct creation. After all, that’s just who he is. But there’s still room for polish. On top of cleaning up the overall kit, we want to make a handful of design improvements.

All his abilities are changing, but a lot of focus will be on making Lunar Spikes and Laser of the Father feel more impactful. We’ll have more details as we get closer.

Seeker:

Among the three, Seeker seems to be a clear favorite. So, while she’s receiving some changes, they’re more targeted than the other Survivors. Overall, we want to increase the value of her Tranquility stacks. Each one should be impactful.

We’re also keen on adapting the resurrection capability she delivers in multiplayer for singleplayer. We’ll let the team keep making improvements as we go through these phases and give you more details later.

Those are all the details we have for you today! This is a huge undertaking, but one that the team is excited about. We also want to thank everyone for giving us time to put together a wholistic plan. We know that you're eager to see what’s in store and we can’t wait for you to jump in. In the meantime, today’s bug fixes are live for PC! It will be rolling out to consoles in the coming week as they become available. You can find the update notes here.

Until next time,

The Risk of Rain Team

Nov 4, 2024

V1.3.5 Bug Fix Update

Risk of Rain 2 - preston.weiler

Hey everybody!

Today we're revealing our roadmap for the overhaul of Seekers of the Storm. You can find that over here. But if you're looking for the changelog for V1.3.5, you've come to the right place.

V1.3.5 Notes:

Resolved a player reported issue that resulted in the spawn rate of elites being too high after stage 2.
The Mul-T Sentry skin has been tweaked to eliminate a small spike seen and reported by some players
Resolved a reported issue where the Voidling would not re-appear upon starting the second phase of its fight.
False Son would have trouble using his ‘charged’ attack if your attack speed became extremely high. This has been resolved, so resume printing syringes at your leisure.
As a connected client, some players reported that Seeker’s Spirit Punch had a chance to collide twice with the enemy and deal double damage. That has now been addressed.
As a connected client, players reported that The False Son’s Boss fight would sometimes not show certain animations. He’s back to using those abilities properly.
Players reported that on a certain version of Aphelian Sanctuary, a mysterious floating tree would spawn. The tree has been returned to the ground where it belongs.
Players reported that the lightning on Prime Meridian would only ever target the Host in multiplayer sessions. The lightning will now attack everyone equally.
Platforms for The False Son’s arena on Prime Meridian would sometimes not change for clients when moving between phases. They will now appear/disappear just as they would to the host.
Resolved a reported issue that led to players sometimes not properly spawning in when entering cross play sessions.
Players that use PlayStation controllers on PC reported to us that Xbox glyphs were being displayed instead. The correct glyphs will now be displayed.
As a connected client, players reported that sometimes The False Son’s large boss health bar would not reappear after changing phases. It will now show back up for all players.
Resolved a reported issue with the Prismatic Trial leaderboard not displaying any times.
Players have reported a mysterious Xi Construct creature appearing in the new Aphelian Bulwark Ambry Variant. That monster has now been removed from the monster pool.
Addressed a reported issue where the affliction stacks that Tonic gave you would display a place-holder description.
Resolved an issue where - when fighting the False Son Boss with Artifact of Swarms - the Prime Meridian event achievement would unlock after only killing one of the bosses.
Players who attempted to join lobbies reported to us that sometimes it would just not allow them to join and not tell them why. An issue has been resolved that made certain error messages not appear when joining lobbies. The most common of those was not receiving a message when a crossplay-enabled user attempted to join one without crossplay enabled.
Resolved an issue that could sometimes trap players outside of The False Son’s boss room upon being resurrected by Seeker.
When playing as Mul-T and using the Sentry skin, sometimes players would not receive the visual effect when frozen. You are once again able to turn Mul-T into an ice cube.
Resolved an issue players reported where applying bleed with Noxious Thorns could make monsters turn on each other and ignore the player.
Addressed another reported issue with Noxious Thorn where it would not correctly apply + 1 stack of another active debuff. It had sometimes only been applying its bleed stack.
Resolved an issue where using Sojourn, Eccentric Vase, or Volcanic Egg could lock you out of viewing the False Son fight into or teleporting up to the platform.
Players reported that the Wandering Vagrant’s homing orbs could sometimes turn invincible. That issue should now be addressed.