development thread

[Troyen]

I think you did this with the first game too, didn't you? Where each weapon had a x2, x3, or x4 multiplier depending on the type?

It certainly makes more sense on a sci-fi level and is one way to balance out weapons. Otherwise, the fast firing pistol/submachine gun would always be one of the better choices.

[jack1974]

Yes but this time, each weapon has its own value, so I think it's going to be even more funny when people will have to decide which weapon to use
Also now the type of shoot has a big impact too. For example Aimed Shot will increase both To Hit and Critical chances at expense of delay. Since in the first game there were fixed turns it had less impact than this one

[jack1974]

I'm also doing something I should have done long time ago... displaying the full damage calculations in the battle log (at least for normal attacks) so people won't wonder anymore where those numbers come from
Currently the player/enemy defenses are too high so it's unbalanced when using pistols or SMG, but slowly getting there...

[jack1974]

today added a cheat in the prototype to display all enemy info, since I think will be better so people can spot bugs (this weapon was supposed to deal 5 damage instead did 4! and so on).
I used a color scheme for the various resistances so people should be able to associate them more easily. I also did a TON of balancing, before players could get a randomized light armor with 30 defense at level 1... and enemies at level 1 had 5 attack they could never kill anyone with such values!!

[jack1974]

haha I'm showing as much info as possible for the damage calculations (it's going to be useful during testing to find potential bugs) but now people will realize how complex are the calculations done behind it. Critical, elemental damage, offhand malus, target's defense, glancing blow... insane

[Troyen]

Am I reading that right that offhand guns do 1/5th of regular damage?

[jack1974]

If you don't have dual wield yes, otherwise they're too powerful. Then each rank in dual wield skill increases by 20% so at rank 5 you have 100% but only Michelle can do it. Of course as usual values can be tweaked during testing, etc

[jack1974]

today started adding the enemy skills and things are completely different now. Before I was able to win this test fight without a scratch, while now things aren't so easy anymore...
I also raised offhand to 40% (the screenshot is outdated) since 25% was a bit too low. You can only equip a Pistol or SMG on the offhand slot anyway

[Troyen]

Seems you have the same information in the combat log three times:
"Boragrub B hit Rebecca for 3 damage....lowering the defense to 0." <- this line was the most useful
"Because of all the hits taken, Rebecca Fox has lost 1 Defense!" <- is this also from Corrode Armor or from just taking too much damage?
"Rebecca Fox lost 1 defense from the attack." <- is this Corrode Armor?

How many defense did she lose here? If the answer is 3 I guess it makes sense, but is very verbose (and thus will be harder to read when all the Boragrubs go in a row, spamming the log). If it's 1 you could cut that down to one line, or maybe two:

"Boragrub B hit Rebecca Fox for 3 damage: 7 weapon+skill - 1 target's defense = 3 damage (glancing blow: 50% damage reduction!) using Corrode Armor.
Corrode Armor reduces Rebecca Fox's defense by 1."

[jack1974]

The second is from all the hit, the last one is the same effect (Corrode Armor) so I guess I can see how to reduce the texts indeed
I mean, from how you see it, is obvious how to fix. But in the code is more complex as usual.