Beta Test - Anomalies and Gems now live!

[jambell]

Hello hunters!

Today we are opening the beta for Part 2 of our Fall Updates, which is focused on Anomalies and Gems.

Frankly, we originally intended to put this out yesterday right after stream but ran into some networking issues that we wanted to fix first, and they wound up being more complex than we thought.

We believe they're all cleaned up now, but it's Friday evening on our end. We're going to be away for the weekend, but we wanted to push it for y'all anyway with the caveat that we unfortunately won't be around to fix any issues that might pop up until after the weekend. We thought this would be better for you rather than having you wait for Monday.

This update includes the introduction of two systems intended to add depth and variety to both your build and to your runs.

• Anomalies: a set of mutations applied to a given Frenzy run. These may be helpful or harmful, and may require clever Equipment choices to increase your chance of success. Do well in these runs and be rewarded with bonus Materials, Fortification Ingots, Gems, and possibly more.
• Gems: small, stabilized versions of Teffra crystals that can be slotted into your Weapon to give it more powers and abilities. Use these to help your progress through Frenzies and Super Frenzies.

Here's what we wrote about these two things in our announcement post last month. Some details may have changed between then and now, but I'll share it here for context:

Spoiler

Anomalies and run variety

Our design philosophy for Rotwood is to create simple mechanics that combine in interesting ways. We feel that interesting gameplay comes from taking two or more simple things and combining them to produce interesting variation and complexity. So far, this philosophy mainly manifests in our Power design, our Equipment design, and in the mechanics included within one Hunt.

However, we have always known that the mechanics you experience in a Hunt don’t need to be static and confined to just that Hunt. Until now, we have been focusing on making the baseline of each Hunt, but it is time to start remixing things a little bit.

Anomalies are how we are executing that idea. Once you have put your fourth Heartstone into the Wellspring, one of the locations on the map will be experiencing an Anomaly, which can mean many things.

An Anomaly could be something like Rain and Lightning Storm, and so all Charged damage is increased – both to you and to your enemies! It may be Acid Rain in Nocturne Grove or Spores in Great Rotwood Forest… or, maybe it is Permanent Night where Nightmares lurk.

When Anomalies are active, they are temporarily constrained to one Hunt and only one effect is active in a room at any given moment. You will know the effects ahead of time and can plan your equipment to improve your chances of success.

… and perhaps you may even harness the Teffra Saturation in these Anomalies for greater rewards!
 

Gems

One of the main experiences we want to provide in Rotwood is to build up a toolkit over time by investing into a wide array of equipment, and being challenged to creatively use that toolkit to overcome adversity. So far, you have been doing so with equipment: as a Hammer main, perhaps you prefer the hard-hitting Golf Swings of The Tenderizer or maybe you prefer taking risk and goading enemies to attack you with The Smashing Pumpkin. Some Cannon players prefer raining punishment down with Hail of Gory, while others prefer rapid-fire reloading and building up massive piercing Heavy Attack hitstreaks with The Keening.

Ideally, you feel like you have lots of options to choose from.

Gems are our way of letting you fine-tune your choices even further.

Weapons that have been purchased in Zone 2 come pre-loaded with Gem Slots which can fit Gems of all sorts of varieties. You could use a Gem to increase Damage to a specific Rot, or even increase Damage Resistance against that Rot. Some Gems could increase the amount of Loot you find, increase your Maximum Health or even improve your Luck. 

Over time, your Gems will become more powerful and we encourage you to find combinations that push your Weapons farther than you could before, and find a gameplay style that really suits you.

We have more plans for Gems and Gem Slots in the works, but this update includes the introduction to the system.

As is the case with all things Rotwood, we want to leave room to evolve and grow based on player experiences and as the rest of the systems in the game begin to come in. We have plenty of ideas for other things we can do with both Anomalies and Gems, and we're sure you will too. We hope that you'll share your experiences and ideas with us, as you have already been doing with so many of our other systems.

More information can be found HERE on our post announcing the Fall Updates.

How to play

1. Close Rotwood if it is running.
2. In Steam, click on Library > Games.
3. Scroll down to Rotwood.
4. Right click, select Properties.
5. Go to the Betas tab.
6. In the dropdown, select the 'publicbeta' branch. (You may need to restart Steam to see this branch)
7. In that same properties window, go to the Installed Files tab.
8. Click Verify integrity of game files.
9. Your game will now be updated to the beta branch.

Save files
The beta branch uses a completely separate save file, due to its experimental nature.

The beta branch is to gather feedback and ensure stability before release to the live game. If you were to copy over your existing savefile, it would work, but it is strongly recommended to store a backup of your save file if you did so. We are not treating this branch as a live branch, so we will not be taking extra precautions to support moving your save file back to the live branch.

[AleksyPL]

hype!

[Anxiattack]

So considerate of you guys to push this update on us just before weekend even after your office hours were concluded this week. Thanks a ton, You guys are awesome!!!

[Kacpert25]

The spores don't want to work.

[Anxiattack]

Yeah there currently is quite a few problems with the beta, so we'll just have to wait till Monday for Klei to start addressing them

[jiggilowjow]

On 11/16/2024 at 1:58 AM, Kacpert25 said:

The spores don't want to work.

i noticed that too... green ones no longer heal.... the rest of the spores seem to work fine

[jambell]

Hello folks,

Thanks for your testing! We have our first patch focused solely on stability, fixing top crashes and major issues. 

We will be continuing to improve stability while doing balancing and tuning throughout the week. Thank you for your feedback, as always!

Hotfix #1: 642121
Changes:

• Reduced Max Wind force during Windy anomaly

Fixes:

• Fix bug where killing a Rot Boss wouldn't deliver Anomaly XP other than when a Heartstone is present
• Fixed Gem table sometimes not revealing in network games
• Fixed an issue where Antleers during the Stampede anaomaly can get stuck, unable to run across the level properly
• Fixed ghosts not rendering properly on remote machines
• Fixed spores not working properly
• Fixed some anomalies that persist across clearings
• Disabled Groak spores anomaly from appearing in boss rooms (for now)
• Fix crash when using Forager's Gem, Scavenger's Gem, Crafter's Gem, or Gambler's Gem
• Fix crash in "Juggernauting" weather when killing props that are spawned by enemies, or applying to props
• Fixed some objects dealing 0 damage when in Crit Fog anomaly
• Fixed Crit Fog anomaly not applying in higher intensities
• Fix bug where Gourdo's Noggin-Padder and Healing Gem heals for significantly more than listed
• Fix bug where rooms would re-lock during anomalies that spawn monsters
• Fixed Crit Fog and Healing Winds only applying lowest intensity for non-host players
• Fix many cases where powers are difficult or impossible to pick up when near the Weather tooltip
• Fix Lightning Bolts don't appear on client machines
• Fix bullseye sound crash
• Fixed Groak spores anomaly not showing spores on screen
• Fix First One's Free triggering erroneously when entering anamoly rooms
• Fix Gems that are in a Proto Weapon don't get correctly placed in the inventory when crafting a Boss Weapon out of it
• Disabled acidfloor anomaly for boss rooms
• Disabled mothballs on spawn anomaly until network issues are resolved.

[MrMyther]

2 hours ago, jambell said:

Fix bug where rooms would re-lock during anomalies that spawn monsters

Honestly kinda a shame this was a bug - means you can just ignore the Miniboss Anomalies and such in the safe rooms

[Anxiattack]

This is an awesome first patch which seems to address a lot of the more major bugs currently in the build. I love the polishing process with updates.

[gibbert]

8 hours ago, jambell said:

Fixed Gem table sometimes not revealing in network games

This was such an annoyance, tysm for fixing it!!!

[Kacpert25]

22 hours ago, jambell said:

Fixed an issue where Antleers during the Stampede anaomaly can get stuck, unable to run across the level properly

Antleers are still pushed away by the wind, which slows them down, but they don't get stuck to the walls of rooms as much anymore.

[jambell]

Hotfix #2: 642417
Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where charmed monsters were keeping the room exits locked upon room completion
• Fixed a soft-lock when Mother Treek is hit with acid while dying
• Re-enabled Mothballs on Death anomaly; fixed bug where remote players killing monsters wouldn't spawn Mothballs
• Fixed Antleer stampede pathfinding; fixes a case where antleers can get stuck while stampeding.

[Anxiattack]

Good stuff!!!

 

[jambell]

Hello folks,

Today we have a balance and tuning pass, as well as a few new features!

As I said in the first post, "we want to leave room to evolve and grow based on player experiences and as the rest of the systems in the game begin to come in. We have plenty of ideas for other things we can do with both Anomalies and Gems, and we're sure you will too." We had some hunches about some elements of the Gem system, and it became quickly apparent that once it was in your hands, you felt that way too.

In that spirit and with a bit more time to cook this week, we've acted on your feedback and have removed the Corestone cost for unsetting gems and removed the slot type restriction, instead allowing you to slot Gems wherever you'd like and rewarding matching slots with a Slot Bonus. A design pillar I often refer to is that our game is about building a toolkit and using that toolkit to try new ideas and solve problems, and both of these things were a bit too much friction towards that.

Expect Gem balance to shift slightly as well, as it will continue to do moving forward as the game evolves. Like I said, we still have loads of ideas for both Anomalies, Gems, and Gem Slots that may become relevant as more systems are added in.

Thanks for your feedback, testing, and excellent bug reports!

Happy Hunting!

Please make special note of this patch note, and proceed cautiously:

• Fixed an issue where a player was considered completed the Gem Tools and Mysterious Device quests if they played with a Host which had already completed it. NOTE: Beta saves with this issue will continue to be broken. As is always the case, we will not be taking extra precautions to support moving your save file back to the live branch, so if you have this issue, especially do NOT move your save back to the live branch after Beta has concluded.

 

Patch #3: 642915

Additions:

• Gem Screen: Gem Slots are no longer restrictive, but provide Slot Bonuses when Set in a matching slot.
• Added a Teffressence Container Gem which can be used similarly to a Proto-Weapon to allow non-Boss and non-Proto-Weapons to be upgraded past Level 9.

Changes:

• Gem Screen: Unsetting Gems no longer costs Corestones
• Gems: Overall tuning pass aimed at balance, appeal and settling into a system that includes Slot Bonuses. These will continue evolving.
• Gem Screen: Added confirmation dialog when dusting a Gem
• Gem Screen: Allow unsetting/dusting gems even if the current weapon has no Gem Slots
• Gem Screen: Added more sound to Gem screen
• Gem Screen: Further iteration on slot -> gem flow for both controller and mouse/keyboard, around shortcuts for dusting, setting/unsetting
• Gems: Proto-Weapons now have 3 Gem Slots
• Gems: Equipment with "Balance" gemslots now have SUSTAIN SUPPORT DAMAGE rather than DAMAGE SUPPORT SUSTAIN (only the first two were visible to <Lvl10 weapons)
• Anomaly Rewards: Added generic ingot and loot bag icon for reward UI
• Anomaly Rewards: Made reward icons larger
• Anomaly: Disable Ice Clouds anomaly in Bonechill Quarry
• Anomaly: Adjust spacing in Extreme Intensity
• Anomaly: Updated Anomaly strings
• Further iteration on Frenzy prop layouts
• Reduced visual intensity of most powerful Rain and Acid Rain Anomalies
• Sound: Anomaly sound tweaks
• Sound: Frenzy music tweaks
• Loadout Mannequin: Now considers normal, broken, and charged Proto-Weapons the same weapon when equipping items
• Iteration on new Player Status Widget (Back/Select) to restore previous functionality
• Added logging during beta to gain information on possible major performance issues

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where a player could be considered having completed the Gem Tools and Mysterious Device quests if they played with a Host which had already completed it. NOTE: Saves with this issue will continue to be broken, but when you play outside of the Beta all new instances will be fixed. As is always the case, we will not be taking extra precautions to support moving your save file back to the live branch, so if you have this issue, especially do NOT move your save back to the live branch after Beta has concluded.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes NPCs wouldn't spawn in town even though they were unlocked
• Fixed wind effects affecting the movement of Stampede anomaly Antleers after the effects were removed
• Fixed an issue where charmed stationary mobs would prevent the room from opening upon clearing it
• Mothballs spawned by anomalies are invincible until they hit the ground so they don't die immediately
• Fixed bosses becoming big again after phase transitions, and other Anomaly-related status effect losses
• Fixed Plumper not plumping when a remote player walks into it
• Fixed control issue where enchanting a Heavy attack with a Mother of Methuselah would result in a double-trigger if pressed late
• Fixed bug where Gems could continue gaining XP even though they were max level
• Fixed an issue where players swallowed by a Groak don't get spit out when that Groak itself is swallowed & spit out by another Groak
• Fixed an issue where Rook got smaller, instead of larger, when getting Juggernauted
• Fixed an issue where getting sucked in by Groak while wearing fully upgraded Gustree Greaves can get players temporarily stuck in mid-air
• Fixed case where players with save data from before last update could get into unusual states with their Frenzy/Super Frenzy unlock states
• Fixed bug where some monsters did 0 damage in Crit Fog anomaly
• Fixed a major performance slowdown during level generation
• Fixed bug where sometimes Anomaly particle fx wouldn't cover the entire arena
• Fixed bug where The Scrambler's Shellcap wouldn't lose charges if total damage was reduced to 0
• Fix Geode Cracker gem slots don't match other Colossapphire weapons
• Fix Catuceus Staff has no gem slots
• Various UI focus bracket fixes
• Assorted crash fixes

[Anxiattack]

W patch right here ladies and gentlemen.

[MrMyther]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

40 minutes ago, jambell said:

Gem Screen: Gem Slots are no longer restrictive, but provide Slot Bonuses when Set in a matching slot.

 

[HeatAndRun]

3 hours ago, jambell said:

Hello folks,

Today we have a balance and tuning pass, as well as a few new features!

Let's go!!!!

[jambell]

Patch #4: 643173

Changes:

• Updated Chinese translation
• Added unidentified gem count on the identification tab
• Cost changes to Gems, Ingots, Loots in the Market (note: it is known that purchasing these as non-host still doesn't work)
• Improve mouse-click responsiveness on Gem Screen when identifying lots of gems in a row

Fixes:

• Fixed players being able to exit the Gem Screen mid-identification to cheese the identification roll
• Fixed some gems without levels displaying levels in the Gem Screen
• Fixed some gems without slot bonuses displaying slot bonuses in the Gem Screen 
• Fixed Menace anomaly monsters shrinking after clearing a combat room
• Fixed Menace anomaly combat rooms opening up early before the menace monster is defeated
• Fixed crash fighting Elite Gourdo in Elite Mother Treek fight
• Fixed crash when using a gem-equipped striker
• Fixed an issue where mothballs wouldn't spawn properly during the Mothballs anomaly
• Fixed an issue where mothballs spawned by the Mothballs anomaly could be charmed
• Fixed an issue where certain monsters would shrink during the Juggernauting anomaly
• Fixed an issue where monsters would not grow during networked multiplayer games during the Juggernauting anomaly
• Fix crash removing a gem when it somehow got higher level than it should be allowed to, and prevent a method where gems could get higher level than intended.

[Anxiattack]

Two patches in one day??!!! What a blessing this is.

[Kacpert25]

Change not mentioned in the changelog: Regular Plumper has been updated with the new move that its imbued version has.

[MrMyther]

19 hours ago, jambell said:

to allow non-Boss and non-Proto-Weapons to be upgraded past Level 9.

Is there a reason proto-weapons cant be upgraded this way? would be a shame if there's no plan for them to break this current cap.

[Kacpert25]

20 minutes ago, MrMyther said:

Is there a reason proto-weapons cant be upgraded this way?

It would then be too easy to get future weapons from bosses if proto-weapons could be higher than level 9.

[jambell]

Hi folks,

We will have one more patch tomorrow fixing a few more issues.

Thanks again for all your testing!

Patch #5: 643980
Changes:

• Remove sparkle from Gem Dust inventory icon
• Nightmare: Made Nightmare visual effects more prevalent
• Nightmare: Iteration on various Rots that didn't have prominent eyes, to make Nightmare more visible across all Rots
• Anomaly Rewards: Reduced amount of XP required to hit tier 3 to reduce cases where a run can end without being able to obtain all rewards
• Gem Screen: Hide Gem Count when 0
• Gem Screen: Show the slot-match bonus when identifying a gem
• Gems: display "max level" gems and their experience bar differently
• Clearing Exit countdown: increased base timeout from 20s to 30s
• Players are now invincible during conversation
• Client machines only save state at the end of a room, rather than upon hitting "exit to menu". Update strings to reflect this behaviour

Fixes:

• Fixed issue where Boss Loot would not get collected successfully if the run was ended before it got vacuumed up
• Fixed issue where Anomaly Rewards would not get collected successfully if the run was ended before it got vacuumed up
• Fixed issue where Anomaly Rewards would not get collected successfully if the player leaves the room before it got vacuumed up
• Fixed a case where anomaly effects could start earlier than intended if there were two rooms with the same anomaly in a row
• Fixed Market-purchased loot, ingots, and gems not spawning properly when purchased by a non-host player
• Fixed a Gem's slot bonus not applying when set into an Any slot
• Fixed Toot conversation that was incorrect about when Reviving starts costing health
• Fixed issue where Nightmare rots in the second wave wouldn't have effects applied to them
• Fixed an issue where the indicator that showed where Plumper will appear did not display properly on remote machines
• Fixed owlitzer spikeballs spawning mothballs while the mothball weather is active
• Fixed Basic Headband giving less max health than it should
• Fixed more cases where things would deal 0 damage in Crit Fog anomaly
• Fixed Mother of Methuselah skill not hitting airborne targets
• Fixed issue where B and Y will trigger Build or reset Chat if you mouse off the chat input after opening it
• Fixed for Plumper's plump attack sometimes hitting players multiple times during no-interrupt states
• Fixed cases where Gems could get stuck inside a weapon and not be removable, leading to chains of "unset this gem?"
• Various crash fixes

[Anxiattack]

Good stuff. Keep up the good work!!!

 

[RancorSnp]

I need an explanation about why does the fork choice to go to the market, upgrades, or potion store still exists. I have been consistently sending feedback that this shouldn't be a choice but instead an unified store since the first play test. And as the game development progressed the fact this is still in the game is more and more baffling. 

At this point - you have made it so the ONLY way of meta progression is visiting the market. Why does the player have to CHOOSE between a chance of meta progression and upgrading or healing? Visiting the market is more important than finishing the run - you don't get gems or better weapons by finishing the run, you get them by visiting the market - if you are lucky enough to get what you want, because all of the ways to actually gather materials to unlock stuff were removed and relegated to market rng.

I really do not understand why this is the design direction the game is going in, and why the players are given an option to make objectively bad choices, or even worse presented with a situation where they NEED to heal, but their option is to not get anything for the run, or hope the market will RNG healing for them