SLAYERS FOR HIRE news & patch notes

Free to play is here!

Here's a quick snapshot of what's in the game and what's on the horizon.

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Founder's Pack

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1721670/SLAYERS_FOR_HIRE__Founders_Pack {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36895661/d7f0f7fb42af17dd48d252617b5830ec35742595.png Now that we're F2P, we also have a Founder's Pack for sale with cosmetics as the main reward for buying one. Three are currently implemented, with three more on the way. If you already bought the game on Steam, you already own a Founder's pack! Thanks for your early support! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36895661/d715ca721c167ebe63f7ae6f66876d5c96ae5e65.png

State of the Game

The Dragon

The bad news is that our big boye is still in development. He's been the bane of my existence this last year if I'm being honest. We've put a ton of work into him and have had to scrap or redo quite a lot. At some point, we tabled development on him to focus on Battle Royale and the Slayer. If we didn't, we'd either have gone broke or gone crazy. He's still coming, but ultimately we refuse to release a version of him that is anything less than fun to play as and versus. Who knew putting a playable boss character in a platform fighter would be so hard? After the Slayer releases, we're returning to developing him.

The Slayer

Honestly this character is what I'm most excited for in all of Slayers history. The concept behind them is customization and weapon classes. Think Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, or most 3D action RPG's, but put into a fighting game. Once we have their base animations finished, we'll be able to push out new weapon classes at a genuinely rapid pace. We'll also be able to put out *tons* of unique weapons that each play separately from each other. I've been so excited about this character, and it won't be long now before they're out. As always, here are the patch notes in full: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16LziGiOmpIVzc5mi0SJLsHqpmO6e-bIW_V4dQ045z-A/edit#heading=h.vn7kcrnquhg1 Til next time, Slayers! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36895661/1f55a4573dd4b3d385b235ceea21956a427ab247.png

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Hey there!

Some of you may have noticed we've been pushing out updates quietly lately. There's a lot of experimental stuff now in the game and a lot of improvements/changes from when you likely last saw the game. There's still much more to come, so without further ado let's look at some of the content on the horizon.

The Return of Free to Play

We always planned to make the game free to play. We sold the game on Steam to help support development during Early Access, but at this point we're ready to prioritize making it as open for new players to jump in as possible again. If you already own the game - Thank you and congratulations! You're now the owner of a Founder's Pack! We're still working on implementing this into the game, but this will come with a handful of goodies. Current plans are to bundle a handful of cosmetics, an in-game Founder title, and some stuff associated with our next character, which brings me to...

The Next Playable Character

We've been hard at work on many things, but primarily on a character idea we think is going to be a major game changer - The Slayer. This character is designed around customization, both in terms of fashion and gameplay. The explanation I've gone to is to describe them as a Dark Souls character. They'll have weapon classes they can equip and several weapons within each weapon class to unlock. There's a ton of stuff we have developed and planned for each weapon class, but the overall idea is to make each weapon feel like a unique character with the wild game design you've come to expect from SLAYERS. Within each weapon you'll be able to prioritize which combination of attacks you prefer, what type of stats you find suit your playstyle best (speed? range? power? a e s t h e t i c s ? ) There are a lot of reasons why we're excited about the Slayer, but the main one is that we can add significant gameplay content at a much faster pace with them. We'll also be adding a bit of a UI update alongside the Slayer, but that's another story. We still plan on creating original characters alongside the new weapon classes, which brings me to the plan for our original roster.

The Original Roster

We have a very significant amount of work done on the Dragon, but he's been a massive pain to get to a place where he feels fun to play as and against, without sacrificing our promise of making him feel like playing as a Dark Souls boss. We're getting there, but he got put on the backburner while we were developing Battle Royale and the Slayer. Once those are tuned up, it's back to the Dragon. But not just the Dragon, the Boxer is planned to be wrapped up in parallel alongside him. The Archer, Ninja, and Jim Jam Flim Flam are after that. Things are subject to change as we go, but that's the plan and timeline at the moment.

Happy slayin, slayers.

They say not to release updates on a Friday night, but here we are.

Full patch notes here (formatted properly) It's been... too long, but we're back to releasing updates. There are many changes we aren't including in this, and many things we ARE including are still a bit rough, but we need feedback on this stuff. We're excited to be back (me most of all) and I think you're gonna like what we're putting out today and over the next few months. It's gonna be a fun ride. Hopefully there's a romantic sunset involved. Some patch notes (probably not formatted correctly):

0.10.0.4 - Been a while. - July 9, 2021

New Game Modes (WIP):

• Battle Royale (very WIP)
• Team Battle Royale
• Arena Deathmatch
• Team Arena Deathmatch

General

• Public and private lobby functionality added - You can now mark your online lobby as public or private. Private lobbies require the code, but public lobbies can be joined by anyone who clicks “Join Random.”
• Max player count up from 6 to 16 - Gonna be honest, this might not even work but we need to push it to get playtesting on how many people can play the game at once.
• Movement rework - We wanted to make the game feel more like a platformer and strip away some of the legacy platform fighter restrictions, like locking you into runturn. Start and stop on a dime! Should help keyboard players a lot.
• Variable jump height - Holding jump for different amounts of time will let you rise varying amounts. Sounds crazier than it actually is.
• Jump cancelable attacks - Landing an attack allows you to jump and cancel all lag. We have other options we’re going to test too, but for now this one felt the best.
• • (Also added more hitlag on all moves to make the cancel window feel better and for the extra CHONK)
  • ((Also added a 2 SDI cap per hitlag event so that you can’t do Wizzrobe TAS escapes every time you get jabbed))
• Ground bounces - Missing a tech against a downwards attack will often bounce you back up into the air
• Death by wall - Missing a tech at high knockback will now lose you a stock. Mainly seen in arena and battle royale maps, where you’d otherwise never be able to die.
• Roll and spotdodge reworked - You’re now invincible for the whole animation, but blocking a move in this state puts you back into focus. Offense got buffed, so defense got buffed too. Lets you wiggle out of pressure more safely, or you can greed by risking a a wavedash to take your turn back faster.
• Projectile despawning - Hitting a character out of a projectile spawn will despawn the projectile in most cases.
• • Projectiles in general can be dealt with better now. Spy’s missile in particular should be nerfed by this.
• Respawn visual overhaul - You’ll see what I mean once you get in game.
• New shader & lighting overhaul - Game looks nicer. Gold skins actually look like gold instead of just another yellow skin.
• Hitlag smear overhaul - Taking a page from Darkstalkers, we now allow moves with smears to freeze frame on a more flattering frame rather than the extremely stretched out frames they usually connect on.
• Quantum backend upgraded to v2 - Doesn’t mean much for you guys, but this took a ton of work. It enables us to do higher player counts, though we’ll have to see how high people can go without chugging. We’ve done 12 internally without frame drops, but who knows.
• Low knockback hitstun reworked - It used to be if you landed during low knockback moves, all your hitstun was canceled. This made a lot of weird things unsafe on hit at low percents. Just legacy platform fighter things.
• Air throws sped up - I got tired of waiting on these things to finish their animations, so I made them play like two times faster.

Stages

• New stages!
• The Beat (arena map, WIP)
• Battle Royale Prototype
• Octagon Arena Prototype
• More prototypes coming real soon because of Schmoo’s awesome new stage builder (internal use only for now)
• General stage stuff - Cameras and lighting reworked on all stages to work better
• The Bay - Altered the stage geometry so that you don’t get spiked if you’re hit while holding the ledge

Artist

• Ink trail visual update! Schmoo is amazing. Oh, and you travel faster on it.
• Buffed the cloud :) It’s bigger, lasts longer, and comes out faster
• Improved the recovery on tree and shark summons slightly

Slugger

• Bassball reworked - Lifetime increased to 10 seconds or something very long now. Can now recall the ball back to Slugger (a little buggy right now, this is a WIP)
• Lower short hop jump height (1.7 to 1.5)
• Forward and back air buffed to be kill moves again

Spy

• Tons of changes. Jab might be the only move that didn’t receive at least some changes.
• Walljump improved in height and horizontal distance travelled.
• Gravity grenade overhauled to be more consistent and usable. Behaves more consistently in how it pulls you in, lasts longer (60 frames, was 45), and activation can be canceled very quickly now.
• Missile nerfed in size, can’t dismount as quickly now either. Still pretty strong, but not as spammable.
• Tank is smaller, but recovers faster. Also doesn’t have a reversible hitbox, so following up on it is more reliable.
• Tommy gun slide and uzi forward attacks both sped up a little.
• Removed the cannon torch hitbox. It was mostly added as a joke, but it felt awkward and confusing in use.
• Added more pushback from shotgun, because why not.
• Bombs from the air bomb drop (down air) last longer/fall farther. Maybe now people will stop complaining about it being unusable (doubtful).
• Trident now hits upwards more on the first 2 hits and is more
• Jetpack (air strong up) hitbox reworked to only hit at the start of the move, but now spikes.

...And probably much more that didn’t get catalogued. I think I got most of it though.

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Welcome to Test Patch Tuesday!!

You can log on right now and try out the new test patch! ːsteamhappyː

We're super excited to get started with these weekly test patches. Each week we'll be trying some new balance changes or occasionally fun new gameplay features to spice things up. This can be anything from things we're planning to add to the game in the future to just wacky modifiers to have fun with. ːsteammockingː This week we'll be trying out a couple of highly requested balance changes along with a couple of more... experimental changes to see how things feel.

Some of this week's changes:

• Adjustments to make Slugger's power a little less overwhelming
• Removal of the first hit of Artist's forward tilt to improve its consistency
• Spy can now activate cannon anywhere(!!) ːsteammockingː
• Aerials can no longer clash

For a more detailed version of the patch changes, click here. Please note that this patch will only be live for tonight! So make sure to give it a shot while you can! Also feel free to give any thoughts or feedback on the changes made in the patch, we're eager to hear them!! Oh and we'll also be streaming some friendlies on the patch over at our Twitch channel - https://www.twitch.tv/metagamesco so swing by and hang out!~

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36895661/56613e658f0d5ac41fe6fdc629093ed1c28d5d89.png Show off your sick clips and editing skills in a video! On August 26th the Slayers For Hire devs will vote on their favorites and after 48 hours we'll announce the winners on August 28th!

Prizes

• 1st Place - $100 + Unique Discord role: "Combo King" or "Combo Queen" depending on your preference!
• 2nd Place - $50
• 3rd Place - $25

Rules

There aren't a lot of guidelines for this first contest. Basically, if it's over a minute long and is entertaining, the rest is up to you! Whether it's simple clips of you in training mode or a meme montage, the only criteria is to make something your peers will vote for.

• At least 1 minute long
• Hosted on YouTube
• Showcase SLAYERS FOR HIRE gameplay :P
• Submitted by 8PM PDT on Wednesday, August 26th
• Submitted via either Twitter or Discord

Check out the full rules/details here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xYPKNaVfKR9mnPfw9BxCuRBNjw5OvtABMxnlwaY_ZcQ

Last Contest's Winners

There were a lot of great combo videos submitted in the last contest. Feel free to check some of those out for an idea of what we’re looking for! #1: Escanor - Craziest Combo Video!!!! #2: Schmio - Artist is Fun #3: diggy - SLAYERS FOR HIRE Combo Video Submission Playlist of all of the previous submissions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJYLJ9jcXcnUh_dlm0h6M7js050gB6jlf But this is just the start! We're planning to make these a MONTHLY event, each with a different theme and criteria to keep things F R E S H. And stay tuned for more events! We've got a couple of more things coming up in a few days! ːsteammockingː

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SPY TIME 🕵🏾‍♂️ SPY TIME

She's been a long time coming, but TODAY our third character, the Spy is playable!! ːsteamhappyː She'll be getting a lot of balance changes over the next week or so, but I'm super psyched to finally have her out and playable! As you might expect of a weapons master, she's got a ton of really, really crazy tools. It's going to take some time to calibrate all of those, so please don't hesitate to share your feedback on our Discord server. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure she's overpowered right now, but we'll get her in a good spot soon. Thanks in advance for your help, everyone! Have a blast! ( ‵▽′)ψ Full patch notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16LziGiOmpIVzc5mi0SJLsHqpmO6e-bIW_V4dQ045z-A/

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Welcome to the FASHIONISTA UPDATE!

Lots of additions & changes:

• Spectator mode added! - While in a private lobby, you can click your player icon to turn into a spectator. When creating a lobby, set it to 3 or 4 players so that the spectator can join, and voila! Coolest thing is that it shouldn't affect your ping as a player at all. Let's go Quantum!!
• Street Creds added! - Our first unlockables system! Earn Street Creds (SC) in a variety of ways - by playing, checking the news, training... basically everything in the game earns you value now. We'll be adding content for you to unlock, but for now you can find the highly expensive bronze, silver, and especially golden skins for each character.
• Reworked private lobbies - It's now much easier to set up a lobby and visually it's a lot nicer too.
• Major stability updates - Great news especially to players who use Gamecube controllers: the bug that kept you from being able to use your controller online is now fixed! knock on wood
• Major visibility improvements on Rooftops - Changed a lot about how the lighting, values, saturation, etc work on the Rooftops, so now it's WAY easier to tell what's going on.
• Minimal balance changes - This is a strange one to brag about, but with our first big tournament happening tomorrow we didn't want to create any major changes to the game right before the event. By the way... GO REGISTER! IT'S A FREE EVENT WITH CASH PRIZES! Next week's patch will be when we push out our major balance changes to the game.

Hope you enjoy! By the way...

Go register for tomorrow's tournament!! We're giving out $1,000 in prizes for it, payouts to top 8, and it's FREE ENTRY. Check the link for more info.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36895661/d87a0f11f5788903bb47963df53e373537136f26.png Next week we have another big update planned. Arguably a much bigger update ehehehe..... Til then, good slayin!

A free entry, online tournament series with big cash prizes!!

So far $1,500 in prizes for the first two events. I've been working with Tourney Locator and Quarterly Rapport to bring you the first two events in our online series: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36895661/d87a0f11f5788903bb47963df53e373537136f26.png

📣 Slayers Online Series 1

📆 May 30 💸 $1000 in cash prizes (top 8 pay outs in each bracket) 🌎 NA East, NA West, and Europe each have a bracket 📝 REGISTER NOW: https://smash.gg/slayers

📣 Quarterly Rapport 2

📆 June 14 💸 $500 in cash prizes 🌎 NA & EU bracket 📝 REGISTER NOW: https://challonge.com/events/quarantined2#/

More coming soon...

Despite being free entry, each event has payouts to top 8. In fact, for SOS1 the prize pool extends to the top 24 players! (Top 8 from each region) ːsteamhappyː The plan is to start doing these regularly throughout the year, but wanted to kick the first two off with a bang! And speaking of bangs, we're working hard to get a certain Spy wrapped up before the first event. More news on that REAL SOON. ːsteammockingː

👇 GO GO! REGISTER BELOW! 👇

🥳 Slayers Online Series 1 🥳

🎉Quarterly Rapport 2 🎉

Surprise! There's actually three things to announce today! First off, the game is on sale! SLAYERS is 10% off for the next week! Yahoo! Second, we're implementing ranked leaderboards as of today!! φ(*￣0￣) Please note that this is essentially version 0.1 of the ranked mode. It's not got sets built in yet, and the formula itself is more or less untested beyond what we could do internally. I might make a vlog about it, but just know that ranked is going to continue to go through big changes over the course of the next few months, so please be patient with us. That said, I think this is going to make the game a lot more fun! There are 9 skill tiers, and once your 6 placement matches complete you'll be tossed into a tier. The ranks are probably a bit too volatile atm, but we really just need data to see how well my simulations are matching up with people's experiences. Good luck on the boards, people! Finally, we've got a bunch of other stuff coming out with this patch! Here are a few things off the top of my head:

• There's a pretty big backend overhaul to the UI that should make everything more stable
• A fancy new results screen has been added in post-match
• Color costumes are selectable in character select now! Along with previews of the character models!
• The controls saving bug is I think fixed. Let me know if it's not and we'll get back on it!
• In game visibility should be improved yet again. Probably won't be the last time this gets tweaked, but each time should help the game be easier to read :)
• Some netcode tweaks got made thanks to our friends at Quantum. This will probably also continue getting tweaked, but I think this should be an improvement to the stability and feel of the netcode.
• Focus is nerfed to be more punishable on whiff.
• ...and a bunch of other stuff, too! I need to get back into the habit of making full patch notes. Next time!

PHEW! That was a lot to cover! But one last thing... There are still more announcements to look out for over the next few weeks. This wasn't "the big one." ːsteammockingː Stay tuned, Slayers. And as always, thanks for your support!! Alsoooo don't forget, the submission deadline for the combo video contest is May 7th! Get your vids in and you could win upwards of $100! More information on that here.

A week or two ago Magi streamed our game and mentioned that she'd love to see a combo video for our game. Something that showcases the cool stuff that's possible in Slayers. Magi wants a combo video, Magi GETS a combo video. And YOU get paid to help us make that happen!

Prizes

1st Place - $100 + Unique Discord role: "Combo King" (or "Combo Queen" depending on who wins!) 2nd Place - $50 3rd Place - $25

Rules

There aren't a lot of guidelines for this first contest. Basically, if it's over a minute long and is entertaining, the rest is up to you! Whether it's simple clips of you in training mode or a meme montage, the only criteria is to make something your peers will vote for. We'll be selecting the top 6 finalists, but we'll be leaving it to you guys to vote for your top 3 via our Discord. More details / rules here! By the way, this is the first in a series of announcements we'll be rolling out over the next few weeks. ːsteamhappyː Stay tuned, Slayers! We've got some really big stuff on the horizon!

Finally got around to making a quick vid outlining the six things you really ought to know before jumping into your first game. We'll be working on an in-game tutorial at some point over the next few months, but in the meantime, here's a 4 minute summary! Alsoooo, I just found out about this Steam feature, so you can expect a lot more updates on the game and our timeline here. In fact, we're also working on getting these updates to display in-game! Neat, huh?