Remnant 2's latest dev talk puts crosshairs on the game's most busted ring, confirms loadouts with a 'Yep', and gets into the armour nitty-gritty

The Remnant 2 Dev Loop, a tell-all set of posts by Principal Designer at Gunfire Games Ben Cureton (otherwise known as Verytragic), hit the Remnant 2 subreddit over the weekend, and it's a doozy.

The second of these dev insight blogs, this dev loop went into the Gunfire's upcoming balance changes and plans. In particular, Cureton made sure to specifically note one absolutely busted ring as in dire need of adjustment. 

"Ahh yes, the Bright Steel Ring. Quite possibly one of the strongest single items in the game … In [Remnant: From the Ashes], it worked out because there were so many enticing options vying for your two [ring] slots. Opting to use it was a real tradeoff. However, you have [four slots now], 1/4 isn't nearly as big of a loss."

For those of you out of the loop, Remnant 2 is a third-person shooter soulslike game. As such, it follows a lot of the same rules for armour and encumbrance in the genre: wear light armour, and you'll flow like water, wear heavy armour, and you'll fat roll. 

The Bright Steel Ring, however, gives you the fastest evasion roll regardless of what you're wearing. You could be a maxed-out brawler and still float like a butterfly—with the right weapon pairing, you may even sting like a bee. If you remember the days of Dark Souls 1's Havel armour, imagine someone in that rolling like they're buck naked. Yep, that doesn't seem sustainable.

"We changed the name to 'Dull Steel Ring' and adjusted it so it reduced the Weight Class by one, thus moving you from Ultra Heavy to Heavy, or Medium to Light, etc. We felt that this is a very fair change, as it's still effectively a single ring that grants 25 reduced encumbrance (a single ring!)"

There'll also be tweaks to armour stamina cost penalties. Cureton shared some interesting disparities between what the game tells you and what's actually going on under the hood. "Even though the UI currently says that Stamina Penalties are 0% (Light), 25% (Medium), 50% (Heavy), and 75% (Ultra Heavy), they are actually 0%, 15%, 30%, and 45%." 

Cureton then went on to say they'll be making it so the stamina cost matches the UI—a bump from 45% to 75% is pretty hefty, just like the metal these walking tanks are working with. "Overall, we have no problem with people being super tanky, we just want to make sure that there are trade-offs …  there will be more tradeoffs when going Ultra Heavy, and more fair ratios for all of the other armors."

The game'll also be getting buffs to basically all of its survivability trinkets. For example, the Blood Tinged Ring, which gives you healing when you're nearby bleeding enemies, will have that "nearby" range increased from 10m to 25m. "There are dozens of changes to these types of trinkets... basically buffed across the board."

Aside from other balance minutiae, Cureton also commented on loadouts, a much-requested feature by the community to be able to save and run with different arrangements of equipment. Under a large heading titled "Loadouts", Cureton writes: "Yep." Before moving onto the next header. Well! That settles that, then.