new battle layout feedback

[jack1974]

I don't know why, but I think would be better if the party row moved to the bottom.

Yes I'll move the party there (is a simple change). I think because most RPGs show the party at bottom

Anyways, as far as 5 slots and proximity bonuses are concerned, it might bring little more strategy if the values strike the right balance. Make the bonuses too big, and there is no point spreading the characters far apart, especially if its a defense bonus. Make the bonuses too small and it's safer just to keep them apart from any enemy that does have an AOE attack.

There wouldn't be a single valid choice I think, would depend mainly on the enemies. After some fights you could know that enemy X has a powerful AOE attack so for that fight you might not group the characters, and so on. In this game using special skills should be maybe not rare, but surely not common as in Loren/SOTW.
For example at level 1 all party members have 3 SP, and skills vary from 1 to 3 SP (the combo skills). And you have no way to recover SP quickly. The main problem I'm having right now is not allowing the player to raise the SP too much. I think I might just remove the possibility to assign Constitution/Will (so HP/SP) and raise them on every level up based on the class. Otherwise even if I make 1 skill point = 1 point increase, at level 10 someone might place all the points in SP, having 13 SP so could use skills 4-5 times in a battle... or as alternative I could put some attributes cap which change based on class, for example Mage would have highest Will, Warrior highest Strength and Thief highest Skill cap.

[Troyen]

I think I liked the layout where the party was in their underwear best.

And yes, you probably should not include con/will for tuning purposes if all the game stats are so low.

[jack1974]

I think I liked the layout where the party was in their underwear best.

that will be a special mode DLC called "Undergarments undercover mode"!

And yes, you probably should not include con/will for tuning purposes if all the game stats are so low.

Hmm well I'll first try leaving freedom. After all even if you put all points on SP, it would leave you with low other stats. Since most SP are used for skills that are like "deals 150% base damage", having low Attack value would result in weak attack even if you could do 4-5 special moves each fight.
So while increasing Attack would raise all your hit damage permanently, raising SP would allow you more skills but always in limited number (there aren't SP potions in game, and very limited other ways to regain SP).

I'll need a bit to experiment to see if there can be a balance. With healing and SP regen (mostly) out of the way, things might work out

[Jaeger]

Another thing to consider is how high of a level cap you plan to have. In SOTW, skills couldn't be used often early on (without spending resources), but it wasn't as big of issue at higher levels as the SP pool grew (along with Jariel's infamous Vigorous Sonata skill).

If you want to keep skill use on the low end, then I do think it should be raised automatically (perhaps 1 point after [number] levels). You can also keep stat distribution on the low side, like 1-3 points per level.

[jack1974]

Yes skillpoints to distribute on each level up currently is: "Easy":4,"Normal":3,"Hard":2,"Nightmare":1
But might put Easy to 3 too.

As for level cap, this obviously is a shorter game than SOTW, but I plan to allow grinding for those who wants to (like Loren). I think could have 15-20 level cap.
This is the current WIP of the level up, at level 20, playing in Normal difficulty:

I have limits like in SOTW:
- until 10, 1 SP = 1 attribute
- 11-20, 2 SP = 1 attribute
- 21+, 3 SP = 1 attribute
so I tried to distribute all points to SP, and ended up with 30 ! however doing this would probably be an epic fail since this character would be super weak and killed instantly at high level, since would still have the level 1 HP/Defense

So maybe it could work. Worse case if during testing I spot a problem, I'll eliminate the possibility to assign points to increase HP/SP so they would be fixed, allowing tweaking of the other stats.

[Troyen]

Are you still going to scale enemy stats based on character stats? Because the 2 SP, 3 SP does the same thing, but both in tandem means leveling up is a disadvantage on higher difficulties in the second half of the game. (In SotW, going from level 21 to anything above just made the game harder, except for the additional trait at 24.)

[jack1974]

Nope, the enemies will be fixed levels/stats. I will display the difficulty near the dungeon/house to rob. Each enemy will give a specific amount of XP based on his level compared to the party average, so while grinding will be possible if you fight a level 1 enemy group with a level 10 party you won't get much
In practice for many aspects I go back to Loren's system: skilltree, unlimited grinding, fixed enemy levels/stats. Of course, with a lot of new features imported from SOTW (thinking the isometric map and more attributes) or totally new (battlefield, custom/fixed items).

[yayswords]

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.

[jack1974]

Haha instead there are some very disgusting enemies, including ghouls and skeletons. The girls are cute, but the enemies are evil and ugly looking

[jack1974]

Speaking of level up, I've just finished coding the level up screen including skills. In this game there are the skilltrees back, but differently from Loren each level up increases power of each skill, so makes no sense to use "older versions" So you'll always have 6 offensive and 6 defensive skills (including the combos).
Because of that you'll also gain 1 skill point to assign every level up, since the total would be 6 skills x 2 (offensive/defensive) x 3 (skill powers) = 36 skills to pick. If the level cap is 20-25, even if I'll have the player starting with 1-2 known skill each character, means you can't unlock all the power in a single playthrough which I think is OK