Highlights from our Dev Stream #9 are up! And if you're interested on knowing what's going to come with Update 4, you have to watch this one (or scroll down for a written summary!)
Watch the Highlights video here (including the Update 4 sneak peeks):
[previewyoutube=inObL4JzqfY;full][/previewyoutube]
If you want to watch the full stream, you can do that here:
https://youtu.be/YZQBRVznhrk
WHAT IS COMING ON UPDATE 4?
Overhaul of the progression system
The new system will bring things more in line with how the lootboxes are given out, and also will give more usability to gene points - in the current state of the game, when players get a lot of gene points they end up not having anything to do with them.
Players will have their gene points that they'll be able to distribute amongst the different perk trees, allowing dual spec if they want to do that, or diving deep into a specific perk tree. This will also come with a huge perk tree rework.
Class-specific abilities
These abilities are something that will enhance the class identity, and give you a moment were you feel like super cool and bringing super extra to the team - like some kind of "ultimate" abilities.
You can only choose one of them, but it will really supercharge whatever your character is good at. Right now they're at a prototype stage: they'll have a cooldown and recharge over time, but of course we'll look into how you charge them, how long they last, how effective they are, etc.
We'll also look into what they do - some of them might be too fun to just keep them tied to a single perk tree, and we might want to make them more widely available.
An example of ability that we're playing with (but might not make it into release, so take it with a pinch of salt!) is a Gunner ability that would allow them to temporarily change the damage type of the weapon they're currently using, making it bypass all kinds of checks (shields, etc).
Endless mode
We're working very hard on this. We think we'll make it so the endless mode is a choice you can make while still keeping the current pilgrimages - we're trying to support both rather than substituting pilgrimages with the new system right away. This is mainly because the endless mode is something we'll have to work a lot on, in terms of balancing and polishing - so we don't want to diminish the game by pilgrimages being removed, but rather you can choose to try an endless run or play a pilgrimage.
Endless mode calls for a new approach to how rewards are given out, and how power progression works during the session. With Endless Mode, objectives come with a in-run reward, and you'll be able to do multiple objectives where you can choose from one or another - your objective choice will be about what you're going to get on your ship as the next reward. So you can maybe chose an easy objective that will give you like a mine field summoning shard, but you can also chose to go for a very hard objective that will give you maybe an epic turret as a permanent installation on your ship for that run, for example.
We're in the early days of developing this, and we have to figure out how it plays best - but the idea is that you can do very long runs with scaling difficulty and seeing if you can actually get the ship to be able to withstand the difficulty increase. This will bring the game closer to that "roguelite with friends" feeling, which was the original vision that Daniel had when he sat down and started thinking about Void Crew back in the days.
Tactile mechanics and hand animations
We've already talked about introducing emotes in the past. How could would it be to salute your fellow ectypes? You'll be able to!
One of the pillars that we have when designing Void Crew is tactile interactions; the idea that you're logging things around and placing them down. But that tactility, the presence of your hands in the game, has been missing. There's a few interactions and animations with hands that are visible, specially when you watch other players - but we wanted to bring that even more forward, and getting the hands in play. This will be both when interacting with the world (there will be hands animations when you do stuff around!), and also for emotes; when you do emotes you'll be able to see your hands animated, on top of the 3rd person animation that other players will see.
We're working on foundational tech for this. This wasn't only about the saluting emote, but also unlocking Daniel E., our CG Artist, to do more fun animations with the hands and improve how ectypes interact with the world.
Laurids, as our Lead Designer (and one of our resident loot goblins), mentioned he can see the ability to get unique hand gestures through the reward pools, that players can unlock and then maybe even get a full-on emote wheel. He also mentioned he wanted the exclusive ability to flip the bird on people, but let's not talk too much about that...
Swimming on zero gravity
The idea of getting blown out of the airlock was always part of the "core fantasy" of things going wrong in Void Crew. But specially in single player, when it happens it also feels like "okay, this is fun, but it's also a bit sad that I lost agency". So we wanted to go ahead and give ectypes the ability to "swim" on zero gravity situations. So, if you get thrown out of the airlock without EVA, you will be able to swim around in space - full-on hands animations and everything! It does look ridiculous, but in the good way. And it means that in those situations, you will be able to try and swim back to the ship. Keep in mind the swimming is slow, though - if you have a pilot that doesn't like you and keeps driving away, you won't be able to get back in. You'll have to coordinate!
This also unlocked another thing for us: we can turn off gravity inside of the ship... in certain circumstances. No spoilers on that yet, sorry! We have to keep some secrets.
When there's no gravity on the ship, you'll be floating around and will have to swim down to the floor before you can move again. While we can't talk much about this yet, Javier mentioned that the first time we tried this internally was the time he laughed the most playing Void Crew... so keep an eye out for this!
How hard do you have to get hit by a carriable before you actually take damage? This is something we'll have to evaluate at some point, because it's happening now...
Making ectype deaths funnier
Let's be honest... we all laugh when someone on our crew dies in the most ridiculous way. And while it's still fun for the person dying as well, we want to make it better. We're experimenting with this and trying to make it so you can see your own death instead of your screen getting blocked automatically and going back to the sarcograph. We want you to be able to laugh with your crew!
While we're trying very hard to get this into Update 4, we can't 100% assure it - but we're definitely working on it!
As Daniel E. said... any chance to improve dying is an improvement to fun. He subscribes to that idea, and we do as well!
Hope you like what's coming to Void Crew! Let us know what you're more excited about in the comments. And, as always...
Metem preserve you!
With love,
The Hutlihut Games team
