New Patch - Multiplayer Networking Optim. / New Revive Mechanic / New Companion

Greetings!

This update tackles several big things we’ve been working on since launch: better networking, more optimization and crash fixes. It also features a new multiplayer revive system, and a new companion. There’s still more work ahead, but we’re happy to get these improvements into your hands.

Network Optimization

Networking should now be drastically improved. Multiplayer should feel much smoother overall, and desync should be far less common. On particularly poor connections, you may still experience some stuttering, but it should be shorter and much less frequent than before (and still playable).

Optimization and Crashes

We found and fixed a number of issues that were reported by the community (thanks!) We expect these changes to improve the experience for a lot of you. This patch should also help bring more stability on the Steam Deck. This is an ongoing effort, so please let us know through our community channels on Discord and Steam if you experience any crashes.

New Companion

A new companion is ready to join your campaigns: Aodh, the Vigil! He’s eager to join your ranks! Let us know how it goes.

Multiplayer Revive

Now HP-Based instead of coins
We did see a few of you express uncertainty about this announced change but hopefully you give it a chance, try it out, and let us know what you think. Early Access gives us the opportunity to experiment with changes like this, but we still want to keep our ears open to critical feedback and continue iterating.

Multiplayer revival is a surprisingly difficult thing to balance correctly in a roguelike. Originally, we took the Risk of Rain 2 approach: there was simply no way to revive. We eventually decided to add revival to make multiplayer more forgiving and more enjoyable for players of different skill levels. Although, we felt our current coin-cost implementation wasn’t optimal.

Why do we think HP-based revival is better?

• Buying Charms is now a much more viable path. You no longer need to hoard a massive amount of coins in preparation for late-game revives. These two systems were fighting against each other. Coins are meant to create a meaningful choice between healing and becoming stronger through Charms. Tying revival directly to coins made choosing Charms difficult, even for stronger players.
• Some of you pointed out that revival is still indirectly tied to coins. That is partially true: you may need coins to recover the HP you sacrificed to revive someone. However, there are other sources of healing throughout the game. There is also one major difference: previously, the cost of revival increased every time someone was revived. With this HP-based system, healing fountain costs only increase from one Act to the next. The cost no longer snowballs into an increasingly impossible amount.
• It also gives you the freedom to revive now and heal later. Previously, you could end up running around trying to gather enough coins before being able to revive a teammate, which slowed down the action and didn’t feel very dynamic.

Here is the detailed breakdown on how the new HP-based revival currently works:

• Reviving another player costs 50% of your current HP.
• The revived player receives HP proportional to how much health was actually sacrificed.
• You need more than 10% of your max HP to be able to revive another player.

For example:
Ruadh is at 100/200 HP and revives Brienne, who is at 0/100 HP.

Ruadh sacrifices 50 HP (50% of his current HP) and ends up at 50/200 HP. Because he sacrificed 25% of his maximum HP, Brienne revives with 25% of her maximum HP, or 25/100 HP.

The time limit to revive your friend shortens by 5 seconds after every revive. This helps limit some of Ruadh’s healing potential while also creating a consequence for accumulating too many deaths and revives during a run.

TL;DR: Please give the new revive system a try and let us know what you think!

Stuff We’re Still Working On

• Mid-run saves: We’re making good progress on this! It ended up being much more complicated than we originally expected, but don’t worry, this is still on our main burner and actively being worked on right at this moment.
• More optimization and crash fixes: The work continues! Please continue to report your bugs and crash encounters, it helps tremendously.

What’s Coming Next

With many of these major technical issues now addressed, or getting close to being addressed, we’ll be able to shift more of our attention toward the long-term future of the game. We’re aiming to share a broader overview next week of what you can expect in terms of upcoming content, system reworks, and balancing.

Thanks again for all your support. You’ve all been great with us and given us valuable feedback. Keep it coming <3

-blankfox

Changelogs - v.0.12.58540

NETWORKING / MULTIPLAYER

• Networking Optimization: networking quality has been greatly improved. If the distance between players and the host is high, small and brief desyncs can still occur, but they should be much less frequent and severe.
• Fixed a bug where lobbies would appear as Public even when set to Friends or Invite Only
• Resized the lobby list to fit the new region and connection quality information

NEW CONTENT / SYSTEM REWORK

• When reviving a player in multiplayer, you now share 50% of your health instead of paying coins
• The revive timer now expires faster each time a player dies
• New companion: Aodh, the Vigil, is now unlockable

BALANCING

• Fixed the ranged Ally Command interacting incorrectly with the Gambling Clan Ally Emblem, which could lead to massively inflated damage.
• Fixed Giant Fortunes spawned from Synergy Emblems not correctly being limited to one.
• Marathon scenarios should now be much more consistent, with more objectives available to complete and more objectives counting toward progression.
• Beacons will now automatically destroy themselves after 90 seconds.
• Fixed the interactable cap per Act
• Nerfed the size of the Vortex created by the Crusader's Ally Emblem: 8 -> 5
• Fixed the hitbox of ranged Ally Commands being twice as large as their visuals.
• Fixed Infantry Captain II overshooting his reach attack

BUGS

• Fixed an issue with the Codex not updating notifications after discovering new content on a fresh save
• Fixed allies sometimes rendering with fully black equipment
• Fixed a bug causing +0 Coins Region Rewards in Act 3
• Fixed the Old Meister Event giving incorrect Emblems
• All Charms and Emblems that trigger when under or over a certain amount of HP should now correctly check whether the condition is fulfilled at the beginning of a level, instead of only after taking damage.
• Fixed a potential crash in the Quarry and Boss 3 levels (Steam Deck)

OPTIMIZATION

• Fixed an issue where the Minimap RenderTexture could leak into the next level and contain stale data
• Art asset optimizations
• Safer release of animation data to help prevent crashes for some users
• Fixed an issue where loading pool contexts could create race conditions

MISC

• Updated some Charm descriptions
• Lightened the Elite fight ambiance
• Various audio tweaks and fixes
• Fixed a few typos and mixed-up descriptions