This week's update makes a number of quality-of-life changes to item drops and makes the loot system feel more fun in general. There are 3 significant changes to the drop system:
No Duplicates - You will no longer get duplicate items as a reward, the effect was almost identical getting relic fragments from the auto-disenchant) but it added a lot of confusion for new players. The item generation server is now aware of what items you currently have and will now give you one you don't already have or, if you have all the items for a given rarity, some relic fragments.
Helpful Item Types - The Item generator is now also smarter as to which item types you are lacking, and will be more likely to give you an item that you don't have many of.
Legendary Drop Chance - Legendary drops are no longer based on pure randomness. This is the most complicated change and revealing the inner workings behind it lessens the magic a bit, but suffice it to say that you can still get really lucky and get a legendary as your 10th item, but you will never get unlucky and not get one in 100 items. This is also where difficulty comes in, playing high level games will get you legendary items more often than playing lower difficulty games.
Reforging System Update
The reforging system has also seen a complete redesign in this update to make the system feel more rewarding and helpful instead of just purely a relic sink.
Hallowed is Permanent - You will no longer have a chance to lose Hallowed or Primordial status from your items. The chance is now a bit lower, but once you have it on an item it's there to stay, and re-rolling will only affect the stat value within the Hallowed range (or potentially upgrade the item to Primordial).
Better upgrade chance - The upgrade stat chance has been significantly increased. While it is still possible to roll a lower value when reforging an item, it is much more likely to upgrade in value so as to trend upward in power.
I will continue to look at this system to try to find a way to have more often incremental improvements while not allowing a complete reset due to an unlucky roll.
Other Changes and Fixes
Elevator event pedestal lowered
Fixed another map desync issue caused by skip box
Added ability usage analytics
Interface lasers changed to blue to match game aesthetic
Map Seed updated
Patch 0.45.08
Final Stretch
With the final event of Early Access being released last week, we've now entered the final stretch before full release! This week has been about making changes and tweaks to things that were not critical priority during the event development.
While I'll be working on some more interesting things like enemies, items, etc this coming month I wanted to make sure that things are still running smoothly with the day-to-day systems, and particularly focused on ensuring that the first time user experience was approachable after a round of playtesting with new VR users.
Changes and Fixes
<*>Fixed pit event mp enemy spawning
<*>Fixed statue event phase 1
<*>Disabled table TP in lobby area due to new user confusion
<*>Fixed 'main' tutorial teleporter activations
<*>Adjusted starting orb location near fist gate preventing line of sight
<*>Updated map seed
Patch 0.45.0
New Event
The final Early Access event is now ready to experience! The Pit will be a harder event (only available as 2nd+ event tile), will test the waters for movement-based events in the future, and should provide a fun (and hectic) challenge.
Next Few Weeks
Now that we are done with the 8 events needed to exit Early Access, we will be spending the remaining weeks updating some of the game systems to be more intuitive, interesting, and fun. If you haven't already, consider joining the QuiVr Discord to discuss the game, give feedback, and suggest changes during the final weeks of development before exiting Early Access!
Other Changes
Event Tiles now appear every 6 tiles
Updated map seed
Fixed issue with Statue Event dark blobs network sync
Patch 0.44.68
Event Progress and Near Future
While this week has been primarily spent working on next week's event. I wanted to take the opportunity to outline what is planned for the remaining weeks before exiting Early Access in June.
Item Rewards & Reforging - The item reward system in its current state is very simplistic. The items in QuiVr have not been made in such a way that Legendary items are required to progress far into the game. In reality the Legendary items generally require a better understanding of the game mechanics to preform at the same level as many of the lower rarity items.
That being said it feels good to get a legendary item, and with a simple 1% chance to get one the reward system is not smart enough to be a compelling reason to keep playing.
Similarly the Reforge system uses simple RNG to decide when to upgrade an item, which can lead to unlucky streaks that feel terrible and leave you without any Relic Fragments. There are definitely better ways to handle 'random' reforging and I will be exploring some of them to try to find a more fulfilling reward experience.
Enemy Types and Combinations - While we do have a pretty good cast of characters in the game, I think that a few more enemy types (particularly during the early gates) would add more variety. In addition, I think that a more interesting change would be spawn group combinations, for example a gate where you only get Charging and Smoke-Screen enemies. These enemy spawn groups will be something that I will be trying in the Beta branch and, if successful, pull into the game.
More Powerups - The powerup drops introduced a few weeks ago have been received very well, and I think the only serious thing lacking is variety. so I'll be working on some more interesting powerups for enemies to drop.
I'm sure that there will also be some more bug fixes and minor changes but these will be the big tasks before releasing out of Early Access.
Changes and Fixes
Updated Analytics for GDPR compliance
Increased Cups event difficulty with 4 players
Updated map seed
Patch 0.44.64
New Event
A new event has been spotted in the canyon! This is a slightly more complex event and will only show up after the first event in a game. Please let me know what you think and give feedback for any fixes/issues you might find :)
This coming week will be work on the final event before release out of Early Access. The plan is to put in the 8th event on May 22 which will give a few weeks of bug fixes and polishing additions before release in late June!
Other Changes and Fixes
Updated map seed
Events now come every 7 gates (down from 8)
Patch 0.44.57
Improved Steam Integration
Potentially due to a Steam update, the integration path between QuiVr and Steam was weakened, causing issues correctly connecting if the game was not launched from the Steam interface (like Oculus Home).
This update adds in a few safeguards to detect if Steam initialization fails and to react accordingly (in most cases, launch Steam and then retry initialization). If anyone using Oculus/WindowsMR headsets launches the game through a non-Steam interface and does not correctly get their Steam account connected, please let me know in the forums here or in the QuiVr Discord.
Updated Analytics
There are lots of moving parts in a game, and figuring out how people play and what parts they enjoy, get stuck at, or miss entirely is not a trivial task. We want to know more about how people play QuiVr so that I can make sure that the development work goes to features that will have the greatest impact.
We now record some new information including Event start/end to see what events people get to and what their success rate looks like. We record what tutorial's are triggered and if they are canceled part way through or run to completion. And we record which teleporters in the lobby are used to see if there are important areas that are rarely visited.
All of the data is anonymized and aggregated, none of it is attached to your Steam account.
Next Event Progress
The next event is progressing well! Added a new mechanic for it which I think will be really cool for both new and experienced players alike! Hope to have it in the beta this weekend and prepped for launch next Tuesday :)
Other Changes and Fixes
Updated map seed
Patch 0.44.52
New Event
A new event is now available (first event in this week's map seed)! This one will make you view the game from a new perspective and present an interesting challenge without the time pressure of other fast-moving events.
I look forward to your feedback!
Trailer Video Submissions
We are still looking for video submissions for the new trailer using the 3rd person camera or Spectator Mode (preferably with music volume at 0). You can share them here on Steam, on the QuiVr Discord, or by email to support@alvios.com!
Other Changes and Fixes
New map seed
Dramatically increased radius of Divine Wraps
Patch 0.44.45
New Event Tile Progress
Next week's new Event Tile is progressing well. While it's not a boss it should be another interesting event that plays with some more aspects of the game that aren't often explored.
Hopefully it will be in the Beta this weekend for testing.
Music Update Progress
Continued work is being done on the dynamic music system, now with more granular changes during gameplay and more variation within similar intensities.
While the system is not currently used within the game, the structure has been implemented and with a few more tracks for non-core gameplay (Summit lobby, transitions to/from events, etc) I think it will be ready for final implementation!
Other Changes and Fixes
Fixed skip targets for events in Cave environments
Fixed issue with moving walls during Flower event
Updated map seed
Patch 0.44.40
New Boss
A new boss has been added to the game! While I don't want to spoil the encounter this is a more hectic fight and is available to spawn after gate 12.
I'll be continuing to tweak values over the next few weeks so please leave feedback here on Steam or on the QuiVr Discord!
New Trailer Prep
We are currently gearing up to create a new trailer for the game in anticipation of releasing in the near future! We'd like your help to do it :D
Using the External Camera checkbox in the Interface settings, or using Spectator Mode in a multiplayer game, we would love to see any gameplay video recordings (preferably 1080p60) to potentially feature in the new trailer!
You can send video links to support@alvios.com or share them on discord.
Other changes and Fixes
Updated map seed
Fixed issue with wrist panel update rate
Patch 0.44.34
Tobii Eye Tracking Support
While I understand that no one currently has a Tobii supported headset, while talking to the Tobii team at GDC everyone is confident in some more widespread adoption in the near future. That, combined with the incredible tech demo of Foveated Rendering that I experienced, has excited me for the future of eye tracking in VR.
This week I implemented some of the simpler eye tracking features, including UI selection and social cues (mask rotation inside hood is based on look direction if Tobii tracking is enabled). However I will be working with them more in the coming weeks to hopefully implement some of the more impressive features, chief of which is Foveated Rendering (which in my opinion promises the most impressive performance gain VR has on the immediate horizon)
Boss 3 Progress
The new boss is currently in development and I hope to have it in the beta branch by Saturday and out by next Tuesday. I think it is really cool and can't wait for everyone to try it out!
