Jul 24, 2022

与我签订契约，成为救世勇者吧！ - tempords

hello everyone!

In the past week, I mainly optimized the game and fixed bugs.
Some of these changes may have a great impact on the overall experience of the game.

The maximum number of hands has been increased

Many things need you to experience before you have a real feeling. The same is true for many details of game design.
In the previous version of the game, I didn't set the upper limit of my hand.
It leads to many bad experiences in the actual travel process, which are summarized as follows:

1. The intuitiveness of cards decreases.

Due to the stacking of cards, each card becomes very non intuitive, and the selection of cards becomes extremely difficult;

2. Players' strategic thinking becomes chaotic.

Although the increase in the number of cards is linear, due to the arrangement and combination, the combination of cards that players can use rises exponentially, which leads to the later period when there are many cards, too many options will make players become chaotic when thinking about strategies. The intuitive experience is that players often have to consider a long time to carry out a round, making the game rhythm very slow;

3. The numerical balance is difficult to adjust.

For some cards whose values are affected by the number of cards in hand, the upper limit will become extremely high, resulting in a very single strategy in the whole travel experience.
Like the following example:

In a previous match, I drew storm arrow rain. As a result, in all subsequent battles, the strategy became to stay, draw all cards in my hand, and then infinite storm arrow rain;
Although I couldn't close my mouth when I first found this move, I began to feel bored immediately after repeating the same strategy in the next dozen battles. This is obviously not the game experience we want.

Animation sequence optimization

In the previous version, in order to make the performance in the game play regularly in order, we designed the animation sequence function.
But the result is that it overcomes the problem and makes the use of cards in the game less smooth than in earlier versions.
For this reason, we have optimized the function of animation sequence from only one common animation sequence to multiple parallel animation sequences.
In a word, in a word, we can start to dump cards happily again!!!

effect adjustment of chop card

The effect adjustment of this card is a little interesting and worth talking about alone.

The effect of chopping card is to superimpose the power of chain chopping by constantly chopping enemy units, and finally play a powerful effect.

In fact, just looking at the effect of the card, the effect before adjustment will be more interesting - the ability to use the power of overflow damage increase chain chop, which actually increases the operability of the card. Then why should I change it?

The chart above shows that the power of the old and new slash cards changes with the number of kills.
It is obvious from the figure that when the number of kills is relatively low, because the overflow damage is not high, the killing power before adjustment is lower than that after adjustment. After the number of kills is relatively high, due to the exponential growth of overflow damage, the power of the slash card before adjustment rises rapidly until it breaks the table.
As a contrast, the adjusted slash can also achieve considerable power growth when the number of kills is small, on the other hand, it will not cause numerical imbalance after the number of kills is large. After full comparison, we finally adopted the adjusted chopping scheme.

In fact, based on different ideas and different expectations of the game, different designers may make different or even completely opposite adjustments when facing these problems.
But! But the point is that we need to understand what kind of mechanism, what kind of interaction will lead to what kind of game experience. I have always felt that building a connection between these two ends is the most basic and important ability of game designers.
In addition to the above, several weapons and shield effects of the axe brave have been adjusted this week, and a master axe has been added. And some other optimization adjustments and bug fixes. The specific update details will be listed at the end.
Finally, I want to thank those players who tried my brave, and all those who supported me.
Thank you for your feedback. I can't get there without you.

Finally, I wish you all the best, and I wish you all the best.
TemporDS

global modification

Animation sequence optimization - add a separate animation sequence for each character and hand
Increase the upper hand limit and display the current number of hands
Replace the vibration instance with a lens

card adjustment

Kill effect adjustment - each kill force +25/40
Black hole spirit effect adjustment - each time the friendly element dies, you can get up to 30/50 attacks
The cost of image is increased to 2
The cost of ghost armor + is reduced to 0, and the spirit body obtained is changed from 2 layers to 1 layer
The tracking arrow superposition function is temporarily removed
Magic effect adjustment - power of up to 2 skill cards in the hand +4/7
Adjustment of Qi refining effect - add power +4/7 to a random skill card in each round of hand

weapon and shield adjustment

The shadow spirit that gains fixed damage when the dark axe is at a low level
At the highest level, the axe reduces attack and increases growth
When throwing an axe at a high level, reduce the attack and obtain the effect of drawing cards to reduce fees
New axe brave weapon - Master Axe: after each attack, get a random attack card, and the cost is reduced to 0
Patience shield effect adjustment - when attacked with armor, this battle attack +2

performance optimization

Particle instance replacement of shadow spirit
The card change in the observer event will now be paused and displayed to the player
Headless knight's flame avatar icon update
The death finger skill of count of blood now has a special intention icon
The arrow shield in the introduction of the brave Archer will now show the effect of sub item tracking arrows

bug repair

Store drag error

enemy optimization

The rebound effect adjustment of thorny pig man is now attacked by combo skill, and the rebound count will only be -1.

Jul 24, 2022

Out Today - New Classic Music

Puzzledorf - Simflare

v2.4

Summary of changes in this update:

New Music added for Classic Mode, Title and Menu Screens
New animated Title and Menu Screens
New graphics for worlds 3 and 4, other graphics updates coming soon
Volume adjustments on Sound Effects to fit new music
Minor fixes including rare music loop bug, graphical fixes to W1-7
"Original Game" renamed to "Classic"
Block animations modified

Music and Graphics

The new music for Classic Mode has now been added to the game, as well as the new graphics for Worlds 3 and 4 of Classic Mode. There are also new, animated title and menu screens. There have been minor volume adjustments to the base levels of the sound effects and music so existing players may want to adjust their volumes again.

Pricing

Pricing hasn't changed yet. I will release the new Christmas music very soon, then when I update the graphics in the following update (probably in August), I will increase the price of the game to $10 USD at this time, as well as release the new official Soundtrack to buy on Steam at $10 USD.

The Future

Expect more updates with free new puzzles in the future. I also have plans to port Puzzledorf to console, probably looking into this after the Ruins update.

Beyond that, my attention has been turning towards other projects. I have started toying around with a fun little RPG prototype (shown below) that may evolve into a full game. More on that in the future.

Jul 24, 2022

In Development: ZBD-04A

Armored Warfare - Silentstalker

Commanders!

Today, we’d like to tell you more about the final vehicle prize of the Rise of the Dragon Battle Path – the Chinese ZBD-04A Premium Armored Fighting Vehicle.

The ZBD-04A is a modification of the original ZBD-04. If you’re familiar with the previous articles, you already know what the name means – Armored Vehicle (Z), Infantry Fighting Vehicle (B), Tracked (D) and accepted in service in 2004. The letter A signifies it’s the first service upgrade of the said machine.

The ZBD-04 is the main tracked IFV of the People’s Republic of China. It was developed in the mid-1990s as a replacement to the (even at that time) utterly obsolete ZBD-86 (which was a direct copy of the Soviet BMP-1 without significant improvements). In the 1990s, during the “fire sale” years, advanced Soviet technology was available on an open market as a result of the size and budget reduction of the Russian armed forces, China acquired the BMP-3 technology and it all pretty much went all from there.

The ZBD-04 is most definitely not a BMP-3 copy, but it was heavily influenced by it and carries the same weapon system – a 100mm 2A70 low-pressure rifled gun paired with a long 30mm 2A72 autocannon (designated ZPT-99 in Chinese service). The turret is, however, not similar to the BMP-3’s Bakhcha-U. It is welded and allegedly co-developed with Russia.

The body is made of thin welded steel and aluminum alloy plates with its front protruding heavily, allowing the vehicle to actually swim. Unlike with the BMP-3, however, the idea wasn’t here to cross rivers and lakes but to deploy these vehicles from landing ships during amphibious operations against islands. To that end, the ZBD-04 is fitted with water jets.

The vehicle has a crew of three and carries 7 troops. It weighs roughly 20 tons and is powered by a 600hp diesel engine allowing it to move as fast as 65 km/h on land and 20 km/h in water.

Despite its designation, the early prototypes (under the name ZBD-97) actually saw some use as early as in 1997. According to the Chinese sources, however, the vehicle was developed only between 1997 and 1999 with the following four years being spent ironing out the issues that inevitably emerge with each new design. In 2003 the vehicle officially passed the state trials successfully, becoming a service model in the process under the name ZBD-04. It was first shown to public in 2007 during a special exhibition celebrating the 80th founding anniversary of the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution. By then the production was in full swing.

As durable as it was, the ZBD-04 (mass-produced since 2003) had a number of flaws, most notably its poor protection that no longer matched the requirements of modern battlefields. That was why, in 2011, the production switched to a modified and improved model designated ZBD-04A.

Very simply put, the ZBD-04A sacrificed the ability to operate on an open sea (by getting rid of the water jets) for additional protection. The vehicle can mount a composite armor set that allows it to withstand 30mm autocannon fire from the front and 14.5mm machine bullets from its sides while still being partially amphibious. The ZBD-04A can use its tracks to ford rivers and lakes.

The turret was also improved by the addition of cage-type stowage baskets and a laser warning system. Its Fire Control System also underwent an overhaul and the vehicle received the hunter-killer capability (thanks to commander’s independent stabilized optics) as well as a new thermal imager. The gunner received a new set of optics as well, similar to those used on the ZTQ-15 Light Tank.

As a result, the weight of the vehicle increased from 20 to some 24-26 tons. To compensate for that, the Chinese copy of the Russian 6V150 diesel was up-tuned from 600hp to some 670hp, which made the vehicle actually faster (its maximum speed grew from 65 km/h to 75 km/h).

The production of this vehicle is ongoing. Between 2003 and today, roughly 2400 vehicles of the ZBD-04 series have been built, including:

400 ZBD-04 IFVs (2003-2011)
1400-1900 ZBD-04A IFVs (2011 and ongoing, estimates vary)
100 AFT-10 Tank Destroyers
Other models such as recon and command vehicles

It is a modern vehicle that’s expected to serve for many more years. Export models exist as well, they haven’t found a buyer yet though. The ZBD-04 or ZBD-04A IFVs haven’t seen combat either, although they participated in numerous exercises.

In Armored Warfare, the ZBD-04A will be a Tier 7 Premium Armored Fighting Vehicle.

Similar to the BMP-3, the ZBD-04A will be a medium weight class AFV with a decent set of frontal armor capable of withstanding 30mm autocannon fire. Unfortunately the vehicle will not carry any ERA or NERA, nor will it come fitted with APS.

On the bright side, it will be fast (75 km/h) and relatively agile and, most importantly, aside from the troops it will carry, it will also be able to lay down considerable firepower in the form of a 30mm and 100mm combo. Both weapons will come with the same properties as the BMP-3/3M weapon system.

And last but not least, there’s its decent camouflage (30%) and view range (460m when driving, 495m when standing).

Once again (much like the VN17), the ZBD-04A will be a fairly universal vehicle, not a one trick pony. Thanks to its maneuverability and firepower, it’ll be suitable even for the players who are new to Armored Warfare.

We hope you’ll enjoy it and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!