Hello, everyone! Today's patch addresses some of the shortcomings of the interface and introduces some additional optimization. We're still hard at work on chapter 2, but in the meantime, here's some stuff we've been tweaking to improve the overall feel of the game.
Additions and Improvements
Added a visible slot for storing your bow on your lower back as we've seen far too many people skip that part of the tutorial and store their bow in their backpack.
Changed the font in the books scattered around to be more legible.
Expanded the detection of arrows when nocking them to your bow so that they'll now nock if you place them anywhere between the string and handle. Previously it happened only when bringing the back of the arrow to the string.
Tweaked the values of the new enemy detection FoV to make them behave more in line with what you'd expect.
Added indications of the ultimate perks for each combat discipline in the Isle of the Divines so that players know what they're working toward.
Swapped over to a different shader for a lot of the materials in game. The boost to performance should be very noticeable for those whose systems might have struggled a bit.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug introduced with the stealth update that would have mages disappear permanently when ending aggression.
Slowed down a portion of the overhand attack animation of Master Abardon to prevent his sword from going through yours during parry training.
A couple of the carts around the tutorial zone hadn't been updated to be destructible. This is now corrected. The only cart that can't be destroyed now is the one used for collecting the kindling bundles during the tutorial.
Our next planned update will introduce and flesh out the new armor randomization system for enemies we've been working on. Stay tuned for our next devlog outlining the system for more info. As always, if you have any feedback you'd like to make us aware of, we invite you to do so in our discord. Happy adventuring, everyone!
Hotfix 1/8/2019
Today's patch is a small one to correct a new bug that arose with the stealth update. A handful of enemies before the merchant in the cave dungeon and the enemies in the final boss fight were behaving incorrectly (not grabbing their weapons/mages being unable to die). This patch fixes the issue.
If you find any bugs, please let us know about them either on the forums here (there's a bug report forum) or on our discord.
That's all for now. Happy Adventuring, everyone!
Stealth Update!
Hello, everyone! Today's patch is a pretty significant one. Aside from the usual quality of life stuff and bug fixes, we're introducing a new mechanic to the game: stealth!
How does the new stealth system work?
Enemies now have a field of vision in front of them where they can see you. If you're behind them or out of their line of sight, they won't be able to see you. That said, they can still HEAR you! To be stealthy, you'll need to be slow and steady in your approach. If you're moving too quickly, they'll hear you and any hope you had of a sneak attack will be gone! However, if you do manage to attack before you're detected, you'll be rewarded with a hefty damage bonus! You can see the system in action and learn about some of the other things we're working on in our first ever devlog. Link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdGwriseIyE
Full Patch Notes:
Additions and Changes:
Added a stealth mechanic to the game.
Added the first iteration of our enemy appearance randomization. Enemies will now load a random texture when spawned. This is the beginning of a system that will create more variety among the enemies.
Melee goblins now take reduced damage when hit in armored spots (currently just their shoulders). This is also an early iteration. We're working on a system to randomize their armor sets to create more variety and make each encounter more dynamic.
Enemies can now roam! Some enemies will patrol their surroundings.
Added a floor marker at the center of your playspace. This can be disabled in the options menu.
Master Abardon got a facelift.
The locker room in the cave dungeon also got a facelift.
Teleportation now behaves the same way out of combat as it does in combat. This change creates a better parity between the locomotion methods.
Added item descriptions above some of the loot found in the cave dungeon.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that would sometimes resize arrows when they became embedded in objects.
Fixed a bug that would fail to reset the glow of an enchanted blade if you began sharpening it with a new meteor shard and stopped.
Archers now realize and change course if they're sidestepping behind an obstacle that would prevent them from shooting you.
Bombs will no longer collide with your body, making it much easier to pick them up without being stopped or kicking them away from you.
That's all for today, everyone! We hope you're as excited as we are about some of the changes coming to the game. Keep an eye out for our future devlogs to keep up with development, and if you'd like to play a more active role in helping us shape the game, you can do so in our discord! Thanks for all your support, and happy adventuring!
New Options!
Hello, everyone!
Today's patch introduces our new options menu with some of our most requested settings and a few others added. Also included in this patch is a handful of small bug fixes and tweaks.
New Options Include:
You can now deactivate the fade to black effect when teleporting.
You can now deactivate the fade to black effect when ending a climb.
You can now have the climbing fade to black effect also trigger during normal falls.
You can now adjust the turn speed of smooth turning.
You can now choose to disable quick storing of items in your backpack during combat or all-together to avoid accidentally placing your weapons in your backpack while in a fight.
You can now change the game's master volume.
You can now change the game's music volume.
Bug fixes/improvements:
Fixed a bug where activating a mana vein with a bow in your hand would not restore missing mana or increase your maximum mana.
Fixed a bug where causing Master Abardon to dodge during the healing portion of the tutorial could prevent the tutorial from progressing.
Adjusted the teleport speed during combat. It now starts further and builds slower.
Made it so that fire will no longer act as a blocker to your teleport. This should be especially noticeable when trying to teleport with an ignited arrow nocked to your bow.
Corrected the rotation at which you spawn into your house at the beginning of the tutorial.
Changed the color of the mana indicator on your hand while using protection magic to provide slightly better contrast against the gold of the medallion.
Increased the default turn speed of smooth turning to twice what it was. You can achieve the old speed if you liked it by reducing the current turn speed to 50%.
That's all for today! If you'd like to keep up to date and speak directly with us, or share your ideas for the game please feel free to join our discord and do just that! There's more options/settings on the way along with some more polish updates as we create new assets and work on the next chapter. If there are any options missing that you'd like to see, please let us know!
As always, happy adventuring!
Quality of Life Patch 12/3/18
Hey, everyone! Today's patch is another small one to address some minor quality of life issues and squash some small bugs. I want to give a special thanks to tormentor.x and Kaede for their help in identifying some of these issues.
• Fixed some late pop-in of geometry when returning to the main cavern of the cave dungeon.
• Fixed some faulty collision on the far side of the bridge near the broken elevator.
• Fixed some faulty collision in the life fruit room of the dungeon around the water.
• Fixed an issue where an arrow could hit your hand while selecting a magical discipline or interacting with your backpack and get stuck to your hand.
• Added some player boundaries around the broken elevator to prevent players from falling down and getting stuck.
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause the sound to briefly burst into loud static when returning to the main menu.
That's it for now, everyone! Happy adventuring!
Quality of Life Patch 11/22/18
Hello, everyone and a happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States!
Today's patch makes a few adjustments to improve some quality of life stuff.
• Flaming arrow heads will now behave as other sources of fire do. I.E. You can ignite the fuses of bombs with an arrow head that's been ignited.
• Reworded the snap turning option in the options menu to avoid any confusion.
• Loading into a checkpoint will now point you in the direction to continue your adventure. Note, this won't work with checkpoints acquired before the patch, but any new checkpoints will set your rotation correctly.
• Saving and quitting will now return you to the main options scene instead of shutting down the game immediately. You can exit the game from the main options scene menu.
• Added some decor around the more barren sections of the cave dungeon.
• Added a subtle reminder of your abilities before the final boss fight to help nudge players in the right direction for how to defeat him.
• Fixed a bug where the chain link required to solve the puzzle following the Spider Queen fight would not behave as expected when hit with Kinetic Thrust and reloading would not fix the issue.
That's it for now, everyone!
As always, happy adventuring!
P.S. The Steam Awards are going on right now and a few people have informed us that they'll be nominating Vengeful Rites for an award. Should you like to do the same, we'd recommend the "VR Game of the Year" award, or the "Labor of Love" award. Thanks!
Patch Notes 11/18/18 and Thank you!
Hello, everyone! We've got another patch for you with some bug fixes and adjustments.
Before I post that stuff, though, we want to take a moment to thank everyone for their feedback and the kind reviews. As of this post we have a score of 100% positive reviews. It's awesome just to have enough reviews to actually have a score, but to have them all be positive is amazing. We're glad you're all enjoying the game and super grateful for all the support and feedback that will help us make it even better! Thank you!
On to the patch notes!
• Corrected a mistake that wouldn't allow LIV to run properly while in the intro/options scene. Now it should work correctly from start to finish. Let's see those MR videos!
• Fixed a bug where enemies would occasionally freeze up in terror after losing aggro on you and refuse to attack again.
• Fixed a bug where previous checkpoints wouldn't always turn off after loading in to a later one, allowing you to backtrack and have your location saved earlier in the dungeon.
• Fixed a bug where the final boss would wait for you to approach before attacking.
• Corrected some missing geometry/collision around the dungeon.
• Added a new attack to the first boss's move set and reworked some of the RNG he has. Also fixed a bug where blasting him with Kinetic Thrust would prevent him from hitting you/the environment with his melee attacks.
• Corrected the tooltip for meteor shards disappearing prematurely if you walked away before completing the prompt.
That's it for now, everyone! Happy adventuring!
A small patch.
We just uploaded a patch that addresses a bug where the spider boss's minions could continue spawning after her death, keeping the player locked in combat until reloading/dying.
In this patch there's also some tweaks to the first boss. We don't want to spoil anything but the intended strategy for defeating him is now a bit easier to pull off.
Additionally, some changes have been made to prevent the use of teleportation while transporting to/from the Isle of the Divines.
Keep the feedback coming, everyone! We appreciate your help in making Vengeful Rites the best it can be. Thanks!
Hot Fix for Protection Puzzle
Hey, everyone. We just uploaded a hot fix for an issue regarding the protection spell puzzle not activating if you reloaded the game after acquiring the checkpoint there.
A couple of other small bug fixes have gone in with this patch as well, such as melee goblins not receiving damage from bombs and missing collision in a few places around the dungeon.
The game is live!
It's taken a year and two delays to get here, but it's finally that time! The game is now LIVE for all to purchase and play. We're so excited!
The feedback we've received from testers and those who tried the demo has been invaluable in making the game what it is, and we can't wait to see how everyone likes it and, more importantly, get more of that feedback so we can continue to refine the game and make it as fun as possible going forward.
This is only the beginning! Chapter one of four. We honestly can't wait to get to work on the next chapter! In the meantime, we'll be closely monitoring the Steam forums, twitch, youtube, reddit and of course our discord for any bugs/feedback that needs addressing. We hope everyone enjoys the game and we can't wait to hear from all of you!
As always, we invite you to join us in our discord to share your thoughts and impressions, or just to come chat with some fellow VR enthusiasts.
