I don't really know what this game is about but every screenshot of the UI makes me think it's too cute to have skeletons as enemies. Surely they could be disgruntled popsicles instead.
What about chibi skeletons? They'd be cute too.
jack1974May 07, 2015
I've started recoding the battle setup screen to display two rows and also the class bonuses I talked in previous posts. I thought also to add an option
this game will be obviously quite different from SOTW or even Loren, so for non-plot battles you can escape if you want. Of course there'll be a price like losing items/money you robbed, but you'll be safe. Probably not many Nightmare players will use it... unless I disable saves during the missions/robberies, which could be... interesting
yayswordsMay 08, 2015
Wait wait, nightmare difficulty? Where do I sign up?
I saw talent trees and was like that's it, pants down. Then I was like, but this game looks so cute so it's probably mostly a VN and nobody will care if I opine on the combat, and the pants went up again. They're still up, but unbuckled.
jack1974May 08, 2015
Haha no it's a RPG, done very differently from SOTW, more similar to Loren for several aspects (skilltree, grinding, full party heal after each battle, etc). I'm trying a new approach again: I don't want (well, mostly I CAN'T for time/money reasons) to spend as much time as I did with SOTW, but I want to implement a Nightmare difficulty if possible.
It will be mainly done by limiting the SP regen a lot and also no healing except for LIMITED potions, like you can carry only amount X on each mission (where X is a low number like 4-5). And spells/condition will have a much bigger importance.
yayswordsMay 08, 2015
Then I have two things to say. The first and most important is that the second row of talents all look like birds, or perhaps witch doctor ritual masks.
For the beta I'm afraid but I will need a lot more time. I am still evaluating several gameplay things, like the combos or passive effects during the battle setup, etc. Then I also need to integrate everything with the story. I doubt will be before September
today added some of the new enemy sprites (the skeletons in this case). Also already tweaked some skills and stuff. Changed Kira's Strikethrough skill so that ignores armor value for example (since the "hit back row target" doesn't make sense anymore with this new layout).
The battle core mechanics are starting to shape up, and I like it so far
yayswordsMay 10, 2015
If there's never going to be more than three party members, maybe you could remove the empty slots and use them for UI elements or just make the party shinier?
Also this way enemies can be 5, for some outnumbered battles
yayswordsMay 10, 2015
Ah, good call.
KaininMay 11, 2015
The sword is kind of hard to see even on the player characters because it's hard to distinguish visually from the blue border.
Hmm maybe I'll ask artist to draw another icon
Maybe you can highlight it on mouse hovering if you intend to have it show us hints for what we are seeing (or during tutorial if you have one) instead of another icon/color - as we only need to see it once to start watching for a sword shape...
As for the 1 row only - did you already decided how to do it? Forgive me if you did and I missed it, but if not - how about having the melee(some spells?) just reaching 3 squares (right in front of them and to the sides) and maybe give the warrior some passive (or better a toggle - or it can become very dangerous to be a warrior ) that when they are next to a teammate they can.....redirect the damage maybe? Or will moving enemies be a...well...bitch to add to the AI?
PS: Offtopic I know but....will that be the game where we can create hybrid mage/warriors/rogues? (wear all armor/weapons)
jack1974May 11, 2015
Maybe you can highlight it on mouse hovering if you intend to have it show us hints for what we are seeing (or during tutorial if you have one) instead of another icon/color - as we only need to see it once to start watching for a sword shape...
Yes will add tooltips, but it should be immediately clear as the shield is. I'll try rotating the sword, or maybe changing it to some other icon.
As for the 1 row only - did you already decided how to do it? Forgive me if you did and I missed it, but if not - how about having the melee(some spells?) just reaching 3 squares (right in front of them and to the sides) and maybe give the warrior some passive (or better a toggle - or it can become very dangerous to be a warrior ) that when they are next to a teammate they can.....redirect the damage maybe? Or will moving enemies be a...well...bitch to add to the AI?
Yes adding movement to the AI would be a pain, besides I am not sure that continuously moving the characters would be fun for the players too. I still need to go in details, I have planned some starting bonuses (see the post I quoted 2 posts above) so already a strategy is if to group 1 or more characters together or split them away, and then I will obviously need something that prevents the mages/thieves to be super weak (killed by warrior with 1 hit ).
Warrior has the protect skill from Loren/SOTW anyway, and also a taunt that should redirect most damage to him, so that's a start, but definitely in this game I can't have mages with low HP. There's also the defense/armor concept though, I will explain it more in detail on next Friday's blog post
PS: Offtopic I know but....will that be the game where we can create hybrid mage/warriors/rogues? (wear all armor/weapons)
Uhm I'm not sure, in Loren 2 you can pick any class, but not really create "hybrids" (well, the rules aren't defined yet anyway). In the CYOA-style game I'm making (called Cursed Lands) you can customize the character a lot, so maybe that's the one you're referring to.
Anyway remember that until I publish an alpha/beta version, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt since it's not the first time that I plan something on paper and then BAM, once I try in the game I need to make radical changes
yayswordsMay 12, 2015
Anyway remember that until I publish an alpha/beta version, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt since it's not the first time that I plan something on paper and then BAM, once I try in the game I need to make radical changes
I have been meaning to ask this earlier, but what would the accuracy stat do besides raise critical chance?
jack1974May 13, 2015
yaysword: how did you knew I was drunk when I had that idea?!
I have been meaning to ask this earlier, but what would the accuracy stat do besides raise critical chance?
Nothing else, I don't want to have the hit/miss mechanic at all in this game. However the critical hit this time is not like SOTW but does DOUBLE damage. And with lower stat number, it should be interesting. So raising that value to reach 10-15% Critical Hit change could make sense I think.
yayswordsMay 13, 2015
Those are good changes. Defense (and attack) has kinda exponential scaling in SotW; the more you get, the harder you are to hit, but even if you do get hit, it reduces the damage too. And crits are pitifully weak.
jack1974May 13, 2015
Today tested for the first time the defense/armor system of QoT, it's interesting but I am not sure how could be at high levels. The idea as you know is that the damage is much simpler formula: attack - defense = dmg.
Problem is when defense is higher than attack. In this case damage is zero but every hit lowers defense by 1.
This worked at lower levels, but at higher levels it can be a bit of a pain, since for example even an attacker with attack 10 needs to hit 10 times a monster with defense 20 before can do any damage. I put some skills that ignore armor, and the mechanic works well. But still I think I need to tweak this.
Maybe still does 1 dmg even if attack is lower, or something else. Need to think about it more. I might also put up an alpha version to test later this week
JaegerMay 13, 2015
Nothing else, I don't want to have the hit/miss mechanic at all in this game. However the critical hit this time is not like SOTW but does DOUBLE damage. And with lower stat number, it should be interesting. So raising that value to reach 10-15% Critical Hit change could make sense I think.
Depending how much of a critical chance is raised with each point in accuracy, I'm unsure about how useful the stat could be. Raising 10 points in strength for raw damage seems more appealing than a 10% chance at double damage.
jack1974May 13, 2015
For sure, but I don't think putting all points in a single stat will bring any good results in any case. I just tried putting all points on HP, but with low attack/defense enemies still crushed me
I also need to tweak the values, maybe critical could be a random int between x2-3 base damage, or something. Or maybe critical hit could also decrease defense by 2, which would be a good bonus.
I now changed so that on a hit with lower attack vs defense you still do 1 dmg, seems not much but already changes a lot. I definitely will put a demo up once I fix several other things (for example there's no staggering in this game).
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