Greetings, hunters!
Remember the days when you had no idea if or when an African map and compound bows were coming to Way of the Hunter? Sure feels like forever ago! Let's summarize our biggest update yet, what's new at Nine Rocks Games, and perhaps most importantly - what's next.
By Shadomatix (Discord)
What's new
Tikamoon Plains. Bows. Aggressive animals. It's a load off our minds and a huge relief to be able to finally bring you some of the most requested features after many months of development and secrecy. By all counts, 1.24 has been our biggest and most ambitious update yet.
In case you have missed it in the fine print, here are a few of the biggest additions and changes brought in with the Tikamoon Plains DLC and the update 1.24:
African Tikamoon Plains map with 12 new animal species (including rare furs!)
4 compound bows and 2 bow sights
Free Hunt single-player mode with character selection
Hiker difficulty with more forgiving animal spooking mechanics and extended photo mode range
Animal charging behavior on all maps with varying degrees of aggressivity per species
Main menu UI/UX facelift, now with map-appropriate animal portraits
Distance from which animal calls can be heard has been tweaked per-difficulty
...and so much more!
Delivering a package like that is all the more gratifying when we see you - the players, old and new - enjoying the new content. It's one thing to develop a feature but it's another thing entirely to see it out in the wild, appreciated in earnest by so many. We have seen the game hit the highest concurrent player count since the original release a year ago, as well as continued interest. This year of all years, when every video game fan is tripping over great games to play week after week, we consider that high praise and we are deeply grateful.
By Attwell (Discord)
How you've been
We are proud and happy with our latest launch but this is the part where we stop patting ourselves on the back and we react to some of your less-than-amazing feedback and acknowledge lingering issues. We are working on patches and although we will not be able to release the first one until September, we wanted to let you know what some of the current bugs and problems are that we are planning to address:
If a player fast travels (or gets knocked out) before a fatally wounded animal dies and is killed upon despawn, the animal remains in its last pose.
Wrong claim date on taxidermied animals.
Lion's rare fur description says albino instead of leucistic.
Inability to claim the final mission animal (do not harvest other animals while the objective is active to avoid this issue)
Other issues that we are looking into include (but are not limited to):
Mission animals can respawn after you have taken them down. Successfully hunting the animal again will not allow the player to sell or taxidermy it for a second time.
Peep sight occasionally shakes when using a bow.
The claim screen occasionally shows the wrong animal.
By Martin Najlvin Miřejovský (Facebook)
Regarding animal age data, some of you were confused by the information provided in the in-game encyclopedia, noticing discrepancies between the encyclopedia and real in-game experience. Rightfully so. Age information for some species is currently incorrect and does not account for differences in lifespans between males and females of some species. We are working on making it right.
By Kak2R (Discord)
With regards to albino cape buffalos and leucistic lions - we are happy for those of you who are excited about catching a few during your first weekend spent in Tikamoon Plains. But for those of you who claim that it's inconsistent with the intent of them being "rare" furs, we hear you loud and clear and we agree. Working on it!
By Gateiro (Discord)
As for charging - this feature turned out to be the most exciting for us to watch, and we found some situations that it can create simply delightful. We are confident that it's a great addition, bringing a new sense of danger and dynamism to what could otherwise be a pretty standard hunt. And though our per-species aggressivity rates are backed by thorough research, we also understand if not all of it meets your expectations or is conducive to fun gameplay. We don't want to rush big tweaks or make them across the board, but we also don't want to make charging an occurrence that's too common with species where most of you wouldn't expect it. So to start with, we'll be toning down the mule deer aggressivity and continue to pay close attention to your feedback.
By Shatun☆Bro (Discord)
We are also hard at work addressing issues with multiplayer that a portion of players on Xbox Series X|S has been experiencing, preventing them from browsing available servers or joining friends' sessions. In addition to that, we are investigating ongoing issues with claiming animals as a client, as well as intermittent stability issues. We understand the frustration of those of you who have been experiencing these problems for a while now, and we apologize. Improving the multiplayer experience is an ongoing process, and we hope to get things where they need to be soon.
By Garamond (Discord)
On hunter sense dot color - the keen-eyed among you have noticed this immediately. The hunter sense dot that displays the hit location when aiming down sights or looking through a scope now has a secondary color. It will change from red to yellow-ish gold if the projectile hits the target in the ideal hit energy range. This is useful while using bows or crossbows where the hunter sense dot could be displayed on an animal, but the arrow's trajectory would go above the animal and end at the correct spot but missing your target altogether. The new secondary color will now give you a bulletproof (no pun intended) confirmation that you will hit your target. But admittedly, there are situations where the gold color may be hard to see. We are considering future tweaks, but in the meantime, you can change the secondary color of the hunter sense dot in the Accessibility settings under Bullet camera colors > Bullet energy.
Lastly, we hear those of you who are unhappy with the framerate while using Visual Quality mode on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. We are actively optimizing the performance in Visual Quality mode on consoles, letting you enjoy the game's visuals at a more consistent framerate.
Community creations
Before offering you but a tiny selection of everything that various content creators have been up to since Tikamoon Plains released - a public service announcement: Nekhebu's WOTH Toolbox has just been updated with full data from the new map. For all your spoilerific need zone finding needs, look no further.
What's next
"Where is the updated roadmap?" you ask. We hear you. The roadmap is in the works and we are as excited as you are to get into a new year of new content for Way of the Hunter. These days, we have been focusing heavily on gathering and addressing your feedback from the first weeks of Tikamoon Plains as something that we need to deal with in the short term. We have also been deliberating your requests for new content and features. But once we are confident that every item on that roadmap has solid planning behind it, we will publish it as soon as we can. Don't worry, it's coming soon. Why not hunt a few more buffalos to tide you over until that day? :)
By RecktheDishes (Discord)
What we have been up to
In a bit more self-centered news, we have launched a new regular series, 'People of Nine Rocks Games'! On a weekly basis, we publish a brief interview with one of our friends and colleagues from the studio. If you missed it, you can catch up on the first five by browsing our Announcements section. To catch the future ones as soon as they release, make sure to follow us on the socials of your choice: Facebook/Tw...X/Instagram/LinkedIn. If you have ever been curious about the people behind Way of the Hunter, this is the series to follow.
And finally, we would be remiss not to mention our double celebration of the Tikamoon Plains DLC release and the 1-year anniversary of Way of the Hunter. Right on the eve of the launch a year prior, no less! Good times were had, as always.
Thank you for caring about Way of the Hunter, and if you have any thoughts to share, you know where to find us (and if you are not a fan of social platforms, drop us a line at info[at]ninerocksgames.com).
Good hunting!
On behalf of Nine Rocks Games,
Michal, Community Manager
By Zeb Powers (Facebook)
