Hey everyone!

The Rogue-Bike update is here! We've revamped most of the existing systems (rep system, world map) and we're introducing a big new feature: the build crew. Let's dive into the changes right away:

Changes:

• World Map overhaul:
- Randomized start/finish line and level placement. - Added more special nodes to the map. (Medic, First person, Danger zone, and more??) - Day/night cycle. A new environment starts in the morning and playing a level advances the day. Reach the end of the world map before you run out of daylight.
• Rep system overhaul:
- Rep can no longer be lost. The risk of losing reputation made end-game players play very safe, this wasn't very fun to watch. In order to see more sick tricks we're introducing: - Flow (rep per minute). Flow is the reputation one earns per minute, making sure that the players who are on top of the flow leaderboards are actually the most entertaining to watch as they constantly have to do the sickest stunts. - New sessions start at 0 rep, the goal is to reach the end of the last environment with as much rep as possible. Session rep is added to your account rep after each session. Leaderboards will track 'best session rep', 'flow' (only on successfully completed runs), and 'overall account rep'. - Diminishing returns. Doing the same trick over and over will reward fewer rep each time.
• Build crew:
- Build crew is a way to customize and tweak a session to the players liking. - At certain rep milestones during a session new crew members will be unlocked. The player will have to choose one out of four randomly generated crew members (modifiers). Crew members last until the end of a session and a fresh session starts with 0 crew members. - Crew members can be: wider paths when generating levels, higher bunny hops, decrease in off-road friction, generate fewer obstacles, always show the compass, and many others. Right now we've implemented 22 different build crew members and there are more to come! If you have ideas for other crew members, let us know!
• Removed the 'Practice' option when starting a new session. Practice session was a way to ride without consequences but after removing reputation losses this no longer feels needed.
• Removed dawn and night random visual modifiers. Storm can still randomly occur. Dusk now appears after having played 7 levels in the same environment. Night appears 2 levels after dusk. Completing a boss jump and entering a new environment resets the day timer.
• Mixer integration. Allows for interaction between viewers and streamers on the Mixer streaming platform.
• Speedrun timer. Enable in the gameplay settings to show a speedrun timer during your sessions. This timer ONLY pauses during loading screens.
• Added and tweaked a bunch of sound effects.
• Added a few new outfits, bikes, and accessories.
• Updated to a newer version of the Unity engine. This should improve the experience on lower end computers and macs.
• Performance upgrades across the board. We had to do a ton of performance upgrades when working on the Xbox version of Descenders. We took the ones that were applicable to PC/Mac/Linux and carried those over to the Steam version of Descenders.
• Updated the Steam plugin. This fixes the bug where some players have no leaderboards.
• Bugfix: pressing 'equip now' in the game over screen now actually equips the newly unlocked items.

Reputation reset
With the new rep system and the new leaderboards we're resetting everyone's reputation. Based on your current rep we've handed out a few legacy items. Everyone who scored at least 1 reputation has received an accessory item. If you obtained 50.000 rep you've received another legacy item. And if you managed to obtain an impressive 250.000 rep you've gotten a third item on top of that.

Community
If you want to keep up to date with the known issues and our current plans, join our Discord, or have a look at the Roadmap! As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Much love,
RageSquid & No More Robots