In Gatewalkers, the player has a vast arsenal of skills at his/her disposal, which makes it possible to survive even in the most hostile environments. The basic types of skills are:
skills from items (x8)
quick slot items, like grenades (x8)
passive skills (x9)
chargeable skills (x1)
combo skills (x1)
and co-op combo skills (x1)
In this post, we’re going to cover two types of skills:
passive skills and
chargeable skills.
Passive skills
In addition to skills obtained through wearable items and skills available through quick slot items, you can also unlock passive skills. The goal of passive skills is to constantly (without any additional player activity) buff selected character attributes. For example, some passive skills increase critical damage, while others increase defense or make the character restore stamina faster.
Proper selection of passive skills opens new options for developing your character. You can create characters that are:
balanced, for example, a warrior that deals a lot of damage and at the same time has reasonable survivability in combat,
specialized, for example, an assassin that deals formidable critical damage but at the cost of very low defense.
The passive skills window
To assign passive skills, you have to click on the highlighted region on the main bar (1). This opens the passive skills window.
In the left panel, you can browse unlocked passive skills. These are divided into five categories:
domination (1)
charisma (2)
discipline (3)
determination (4)
smart (5)
To make searching for skills easier, the top of the panel contains switches that allow the player to filter passive skills based on their type.
The right panel features the wheel of passive skills (6), which contains the skills that are activated. Only those passive skills that are on the wheel are active and grant their effects during gameplay. All the effects granted by currently activated passive skills are presented below the wheel (7). Moreover, the center of the wheel contains the chargeable skill slot (8). The chargeable skill depends on the currently activated passive skills (more on that below).
Unlocking passive skills and passive skill slots
Passive skills are unlocked in the player’s skill tree, much like item recipes (we’ll describe the new skill tree in our next post). A list of available passive skills is presented in the preview popup that appears when you click a node on the skill tree.
To unlock a passive skill you have to unlock all the recipes for a given item in the skill tree. For example, to unlock the “Clear Mind” skill, first you’ll have to unlock all the recipes for the Force Staff, that is, the basic recipe, all the elemental recipes, as well as the epic and legendary recipes.
It is worth noting that the number of available passive skill slots grows with the number of unlocked recipes in the skill tree. The thresholds are as follows:
3 passive skill slots after the player unlocks Tier 3 recipes
5 passive skill slots after the player unlocks Tier 5 recipes
7 passive skill slots after the player unlocks Tier 6 recipes
9 passive skill slots after the player unlocks Tier 7 recipes
Passive skill levels
Some passive skills appear in the skill tree more than once. For example, the “Brutal” skill, which increases the chances of critical hits, appears four times. This means that you can acquire the same passive skill multiple times. Each time you unlock the same skill you increase its level. However, different skills have different maximum levels (from 1 to 3). That is why acquiring a skill that is maxed out doesn’t make much sense (unless you want to unlock an item recipe).
Having the same passive skills appear more than once on the skill tree gives the player more flexibility when planning his/her build, deciding which branches should be invested in and which should remain unexplored. Thanks to this property, players can achieve similar character effects by unlocking different regions of the skill tree.
Chargeable skills
After choosing which passive skills are active, the player gains access to a chargeable skill. There are five chargeable skills available, each corresponding to one of the five types of passive skills. The number of activated passive skills of each type determines the chargeable skill. If the majority of activated passive skills are “domination” skills, the player can use the “Tyrant” skill. If most of the activated skills are from the “smart” category, the player has the “Ranger” skill at his disposal. Below, we list all the chargeable skills available in the game and the corresponding passive skill types:
LEADER skill (majority of passive skills from the charisma category) - all allies within 4 meters become immune to attacks for 4 seconds. Removes all Crowd Control effects from the caster
TYRANT skill (majority of passive skills from the domination category) - 20% more power on skills for 10 seconds
SCHOLAR skill (majority of passive skills from the discipline category) - the caster gets 200% shorter cooldown time for 10 seconds
DEFENDER skill (majority of passive skills from the determination category) - Restores 35% of max armor; this value is additionally modified by the characters Susceptibility to Healing
RANGER skill (majority of passive skills from the smart category) - Restores 50% of max stamina
After selecting passive skills and activating the chargeable skill (1), you have to charge the skill to 100% before you can use it (2). To get to 100% you have to pick up charges (3) dropped by hit enemies.
To sum up, we gave you a sneak peek of the passive and chargeable skills system. We hope you’ll like them. Let us know what you think and remember to try them out during the upcoming BETA tests, which start February 3, 2021!
Best, Gatewalkers Dev Team
P.S. Remember that the things we’re writing about can be still considered “work-in-progress”, so it’s still possible that the mechanics presented here will change. We’re counting on your feedback!
Female character and visual upgrade to armors
Hi Gatewalkers!
The beta tests are coming, and we would like to show you the new improved player characters!
In the beta, you will have the option to choose whether to play as a woman or a man. Therefore, we wish to present to you the new female armors and upgraded male armors. During the tests, you will have a chance to try out the gear capped to tier 3: (female and male tier 1-3)
Also, take a look at high-end items to compare: (tier 7)
Please let us know how do you find them! Gatewalkers DevTeam
UI/UX improvement
The alpha tests of Gatewalkers have just finished, and once again, we would like to THANK YOU for your great feedback!
During the tests, we have read many opinions about what is working and what is not. The one thing that was pointed quite often was the quite "raw" UI. The idea behind such a basic UI was to create it fast and then check if the proposed layout is working for you. After that, we planned to make a new one based on your opinions.
We are now ready to show you how we have approached creating a new UI/UX and what you can expect from it in the upcoming Beta (which starts February 3, 2021).
The first and essential part of UI/UX is the HUD, which is almost always a visible part of the game. That is why we put special effort to refine it in terms of usability and readability. The previous one was a little bit too overwhelming at first glance.
As you can see, we have redesigned the entire look and feel. Next, we will discuss some (not all) elements of the new UI.
MAIN BAR
The main change involved moving all vital UI elements like HP/shield bar, stamina bar, and effects status bar close to the skill slots and quick slots. Thanks to that, it will be easier to manage all these different gameplay aspects at once, even when you are in combat. Let us take a closer look at each part of the main bar:
(1) HP/Shield bar - Shows the level of your health points and shield points. Moreover, if you have a barrier, it also indicates how strong it is (more about barrier in the future).
(2) Stamina bar - Indicates how many skills you can cast without resting
(3) Skill slots bar - Here, you have all the available abilities that can be used during combat, based on your gear.
(4) Quick slots bar - Quick items bar to which you can assign hotkeys. Quick slots makes it easier to use items during combat and exploration.
(5) Active effects panel - Here, you can see all the effects that affect your character, both: positive and negative.
(6) Passive skills and chargeable skill panel - A place where you can see what passive spells are now active and what chargeable ability is available to you. We will write more information about the mechanics behind passive skills and chargeable abilities in a future post.
(7) The elemental power on a weapon - The icon shows what elemental power is enchanted on a weapon with information about the accompanying cooperative combo spell.
(8) Solo combo spell - Description of the solo combo ability that is cast after executing an appropriate sequence of skills.
(9) Crafting button - Opens the crafting window, where you can make the most important things that do not require a crafting station
(10) Progress tree button - Opens the progress tree window, which allows you to progress your character in various ways: unlocking new recipes, unlocking new passive skills, unlocking new weapons with enchantments (coop combo) and weapons with the solo combo skill (solo combo). More on a new mechanic called solo combo in future posts.
(11) Open inventory button
INVENTORY AND STORAGE
An updated view of inventory and icons of items reflects the fantasy and sci-fi feel of Gatewalkers' world.
CRAFTING STATION
We have changed the crafting station panel to include all crucial aspects of items to create here. Also, we have made filter buttons more visible.
CHARACTER STATISTICS PANEL
We have redesigned basic and advanced statistic panels to show essential data concerning your character's build more clearly.
RADAR
The radar serves as a quick overview of the location of active quests and objectives. Button (1) allows you to get back to the Guild. The next two buttons open settings (2) and the map (3) of the expedition's current area.
SURVIVAL PANEL
Here (on the left side of the screen), you can see icons representing hazards that players face during an expedition. In this example, in the forest world, you need to fight with hunger, dehydration, and insanity, All these elements are shown in the survival panel alongside information about the time of day.
PARTY PANEL
A new look of the party panel to track the HP/shield and stamina level of your party members.
DIALOG WINDOW
A new look of the dialog window.
SETTINGS WINDOW
We have expanded settings, so a new window includes new parameters to set.
To sum up, we have shown you changes in UI/UX, and we are eager to hear your feedback. Please remember that it is still a work in progress. Thank you for reading and be on the lookout for more information about Gatewalkers soon!
Best, Gatewalkers Dev Team
Beta announcement
Hello Gatewalkers!
Since 2020 comes to an end and now we are in 2021, we wish you all a happy new year! To start this new year with a blast, we want to announce the next phase of the Gatewalkers OPEN test!
Let us start by summing up June's ALPHA tests. We are thrilled and grateful to you, our players, for the great reception of Gatewalkers and helpful feedback. During the tests, around 80000 unique players played the game! This vast number of players and the overall positive rating of the ALPHA build (approximately 83% positive reviews) gives us a HUUUUGE charge of positive energy to work further and improve Gatewalkers! THANK YOU!
Of course, we know that there is still a lot of work ahead of us. Some aspects of the game need to be refined and improved, but your opinions show us that we are heading in the right direction in general.
Now let us tell a little bit more about the upcoming tests.
The next open tests will take place during the upcoming STEAM Winter Festival (starting from the 3rd of Feb, 2021). We have listened closely to your feedback, and we have prepared many changes to current mechanics (character customization, balance, progress tree, chargeable skills, etc.) and plan to show you some new ones (solo combos, conditional skills, remedies, etc.).
Be aware, the Gatewalkers' upcoming open tests' goal is to hear your feedback about changes, new mechanics etc., without reviling too much story and content. Moreover, we have improved the graphics, UI, readability of some crucial aspects of the game, added expected background music, and more.
We will post more detailed information about the next phase of tests in the upcoming weeks.
As for current open tests, we are going to close the servers of ALPHA on 08/01/2021 at 3:00 PM GMT.
Also, as a new years resolution, we are going to inform you more systematically about the progress of Gatewalker's development.
This year was amazing for us! We are getting closer each day to the release of Gatewalkers, we have received a lot of good feedback from a successful ALPHA launch, and thanks to your opinions, we have a lot of positive energy to work further on the game.
More details about the progress of the development soon!
Because of the upcoming Christmas, we wish you all the best, great family holidays and to stay healthy! As you can see, Gatewalkers also celebrating Christmas!
Greetings Gatewalkers! Here is the updated version of the answers to the most common questions. If you don't find the answer you're looking for here, go ahead and ask us whatever you want in the comments section.
What type of game is Gatewalkers?
Gatewalkers is a cooperative action RPG and survival game, where players travel across different worlds in order to save their own. Explore procedurally generated worlds, face hostile inhabitants, face challenges like extreme weather conditions, toxic atmosphere, lack of water, and more.
When the game is going to be released?
We are planning to release Gatewalkers on Q2 2021. The exact date of releasing the full version has not yet been established.
Do you already know the price of the game on the day of its release?
It's a bit too early for that.
Will there be a single-player mode?
Although the game is meant to be played in multiplayer, there will be a single-player mode available too. What is important to add, that the entire story can be played in both modes: solo and in cooperation.
How about local multiplayer mode?
Currently, we are not working on local multiplayer mode. We are now focused on solo and online coop experience.
How many players can play together at once?
In cooperation, you are able to play up to 4 players.
What are the system requirements for the game?
It is still too early to tell you for sure, but we plan to optimize the game to allow players to enjoy the gameplay on most PCs (not just high-spec ones).
Are you planning to support XBOX/PS controllers?
Yes, we are. Currently, we are working on adding the XBOX controller and PS4 controller.
Are you working on a Linux version?
No. The game will be officially released on PC and Mac. However, we do not exclude support for gamers who want to run the game on Linux.
Are you planning to release Gatewalkers on consoles?
Yes, we are! We are planning to support XBOX and PS consoles, but the porting will be done after the PC version release. The exact dates of the console release are still unknown.
Are there predefined levels in the game?
No, we are procedurally generating the map at the start of each expedition.
Are you planning open/closed beta tests?
Yes, we have done some tests and we are planning to make more of them till release.
How can I sign for the alpha/beta tests?
The best way to join alpha/beta tests is to add Gatewalkers to your wishlist. Then you should see all information about upcoming tests and how to join them inside the Steam client.
Where is the right place to report the bug I have encounter during tests?
The best place to do so is on our Discord server: https://discordapp.com/invite/8Tn76pT
Where can I follow the game development?
The best place to follow the game development is at our social media:
Our ALPHA test has started almost two months ago and for this time, you guys played a lot of games, killed a lot of enemies, and loot a huge number of secret chests. To sum up, around 55 000 unique players have played the game already and we've got VERY POSITIVE steam reviews on the GATEWALKERS ALPHA steam page. These numbers are great and we wish to thank you all for your time and feedback! Your constant support, positive and negative feedback gives us new energy to make the Gatewalkers better and better game. THANK YOU ALL ONCE AGAIN!
Based on that great experience during the alpha, and based on your feedback we come to the conclusion that the current way of doing staff is a way to go. In other words, we think that the best way to release the game is to make one or two more free alpha/beta testes for you to check the game and for us to gather some more feedback and polish the game. As a result, of these tests, we wish to release the game in Q2 2021.
We hope you will like this plan and stay with us! We wish you all the best and have a great day!
Best regards, Gatewalkers Dev Team
PS. Exact dates of future alpha/beta tests will be announced soon.
Open Alpha EXTENDED
Dear Gatewalkers!
We see a great interest in Gatewalkers Alpha, a lot of players wish to have a little bit more time to check the game. To meet your expectations, we decided to extend the tests for a little bit longer. The exact date of ending the test we will give you later, and till then just enjoy the game!
