We've got a lot of feedback, feature requests, and bug reports over the last few months - Which have been very helpful and have given us some thought on what to look at next.
Here are some of things that have been brought up and that we're generally looking at:
- Melee Combat
Melee combat has a few quirks that may need addressing. Some weapons have good synergy between their light and heavy attacks, and others definitely do not. This has led to some weapons really only being used for 'light attack spam' while others may be used solely for ranged heavy attacks, which could probably use a tweak or two.
- Weapon's ability to stagger enemies is currently enemy dependent, making some of the slower weapons less viable, when really they should be at an advantage up close.
- Some of the attack animations could definitely get a little more 'weight' added to them as they feel just a little weak.
- Lastly, there were some weapon types that enemies use that aren't available to the player. I have had one of these weapon types requested multiple times so we're going to look into adding it (assuming it doesn't break anything).
- Enemy difficulty
Enemy variety and difficulty has a pretty wide range and needs some changes. I'm inclined to add new enemies rather than change the existing ones, as the current enemy roster has a 'lot' of very samey looking armored guys.
- Many of the ranged enemies are a little too easy as they're mostly stationary targets who just fire at will, so I'd like to add some mid/late game enemies that are much more difficult to hit.
- Many melee enemies were designed to strike at a single target. Some of them could use adjustments so they try to utilize area attacks more often to hit multiple nearby players.
- Many enemies do not have a strategy to reach or attack a player who is on top of something. (In early builds, the Legion possessed armors could use their grapplehook to pull the player down, but this was immensely unpopular as it didn't allow the player to run away.) Instead we'll probably test the AI having their own clamber ability, or giving them more ranged options.
- Additional difficulty options to get better enemy density or difficulty would be good here too.
- UI
UI is a constant challenge for me.
- I've had requests for more than 3 items in the quick select, as 1 is nearly always going to be for health potions, this only leaves 2 slots for other weapons/items. I'll be looking into adjusting this.
- There are a few unclear stats/buffs/debuffs, so I'll be looking into a way to see extended properties without cluttering up the inventory anymore (if possible).
- Magic
Magic could be extended. Some magic types don't see near as much usage as they should and most are somewhat rigid in their usage, so there are tweaks to be had here. This one is kind of broad and probably warrants its own post/discussion.
- Discord
I have had more than a few requests now for a proper Discord server, and my honest answer is that I'm not sure. We've bounced between the idea on having one and who would moderate it, but we're still a little in the air if that's a good idea or not as they can be difficult to maintain.
As promised the fireplace stage is now released! Not to mention the game is on sale, so it is a great time to buy a friend a copy or get one for yourself!
I've been wanting to do a bonus stage for ages so I am glad to finally get one out :)
We've added a second programmer to the team, Hamo, who is now working part-time to bring our ideas to life much faster. This update contains improved logic, cameras, visuals, updated characters, abilities, mechanics, balancing, bug fixes, performance improvements, and more. This build is completely re-programmed to be data-oriented, allowing us to add new characters, abilities, attacks, and more with much more streamlined workflows. There is SO much more content coming! I'm excited to have you along for the ride!
Hello everyone! The whole family got sick last week so didn't get much work done but here's a small update of odds and ends. We're all better now so will be getting back into things this week and should have the next regular update done in 2 weeks as usual.
The plan is to get back to adding sub-zones with a new sub-zone coming every 2 weeks and at the same time continue to add new talent upgrades as they occur to me or as they are suggested. I'll also be buffing and tweaking the existing upgrades but really the focus for the next few months is going to be to just keep throwing different upgrades on the pile and after a couple of months we can take a few weeks to narrow down the list to what actually seems valuable and interesting.
If you'd like to help with this just try to keep in mind which upgrades you find yourself consistently avoiding or note the upgrades that you took and just couldn't get work, found underwhelming, or just didn't seem at all interesting. I think we'll all have a much clearer picture of things in a few months time and it will be really obvious what's working and what isn't. I'm also very open to any suggestions for new upgrades, even really wacky stuff. As mentioned above I'm just sort of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks right now.
UPDATE 1.10
TALENT UPGRADES: Many of these were suggested by members of the community. Thanks everyone!
Power-Strike (Heavy) merged old Damage and Knock-Back upgrades. This is the most basic upgrade: +1KB and +2DMG
Power-Strike (Stunning): no knock-back but stuns enemies for 2 turns
Weapons-Mastery (Damage Shield): avoids the effects of damage shields (I feel like this could use an additional bonus to not make it quite so specific).
Range-Mastery (Damage): +2 Range damage and Crit hits when making ranged attacks in melee range.
Lunge (Base): Reduced the base CD 3 => 2 (Kill-Reset takes it to 3CD)
Lunge (Extended): +1 range
Athletics (regen) +1SP every 5T (breaks even with +2SP in fights lasting more than 10T)
Stealth-Mastery (Slippery): 50% unagro time, the time it takes enemies to forget about you (could use a better name)
Mental-Clarity (regen) +2MP every 5T (breaks even with +6MP in fights lasting more than 15T, should this be +3 to match athletics? Seems kind of crazy)
Staff-Attunement (Mana Tap): +3MP on kills with staff
Discord (Order): target cannot use any special abilities or spells
Discord (Point-Blank): effects all enemies in melee range but has no damage.
Confusion: (Point-Blank): effects all enemies in melee range and has no duration reduction
Dominate (Upgrade) 15CD => 10CD and 3Range => 5Range
Dominate (Swarm) 1 => 2 Max summons
Shield-of-Ice (Frost-Bite): gain a cold damage shield equal to the Shield-of-Ice value.
Shield-of-Ice (Reflective) gain 10% reflection when the shield is active.
Shield-of-Flames (Resistance): added immune to lava. The Damage shield version is going to need a big buff to come close to matching this.
BALANCE:
Gold drops are now scaled by game difficulty to add another layer of difficulty balancing. Base game has roughly x2, bronze/silver rank is roughly x1.5 and the higher ranks remain unchanged. Along with the huge amount of talent/attribute/enchantment items now dropping in the base game I think this is an interesting way to balance challenge since we're handing newer players a ton more resources to play/experiment with as they learn the game and expecting experienced players to be able to optimize with much less.
Mummy/Vampire talent level requirements 1,5,8,12 => 1,4,7,10 to better match new level curve.
Changed the totems dropped by Upper-Dungeon bosses back to attributes. I'm much less concerned with attribute items now since we capped the enchantments on items lower. Will likely start working more of them back into the early game since an early attribute item can be a neat game changer at the start.
Arcane-Armor: removed the protection but moved reflection from 5% => 10%. I really don't like tiny incremental bonuses and I'd rather have items that are stronger but more specialized.
Adjusted the drop tables to begin dropping Tier-3 items earlier (basically just adjusting to match the new level curve).
Food starvation damage will now increase each time it ticks by 5%. This is simply to stop characters (especially trolls) from being able to endlessly run around while starving.
Allies will now avoid beneficial shrooms when not in combat.
Tomes (those bought in stores / found as items) now open a menu when used and you pick 1 of the 2 talents. It is immediately learned (you gain a talent point). This makes what was previously a fairly niche item much more useful.
More of a bug: Shroom HP/MP restored is based on the character actually stepping on it (was previously based on players max hp/mp even for monsters)
All monster charges and lunges cannot be dodged, blocked or parried.
USER INTERFACE:
Added a Random char select button to select random class/race (RIP Esty8nines dice rolling bot)
Added copy/paste seed buttons.
BUGS AND CRASHES:
Weapon-Mastery: removed the extra +2 melee damage from the STR upgrade.
Fixed: Passive talents were not listing the new stats they upgraded to when mouse over.
Closed off treasure rooms in boss levels so that mushrooms don't spawn there.
Mino-King Fast charge: fixed the NaN damage
Precision 2 armor penetration now works with ranged attacks.
Fixed the LoS lines from the Click-Clock sentry from showing on the main menu screen.
Fixed duelist abilities with split ATR requirements not working with level based races.
Fixed PB-Burst-of-Wind crash
Fixed Super-Jump not working over characters
Phantom Bow w/ storm shot should now hit tiles correctly (there's still a bunch of other phantom bow issues I'm aware of).
That's it for now! Next update should be much more substantial!
Hi everyone! I'm making this announcement to let you know that my dark boys love / boys hate visual novel, All Scars and Starlight, has been released!
Scars is a grim story about a deposed king, Yuel, who is taken prisoner by the leader of a rebellion and his older cousin, Tavi. Though Yuel initially despises Tavi for overthrowing him, complicated feelings begin to develop between the pair as Tavi refuses to have Yuel executed, despite the warnings of his advisors.
Wanting to keep Yuel safe, Tavi hides Yuel away in the palace where his political enemies can’t hurt him - but the biggest threat to Yuel’s life soon proves to be Yuel himself.
The story has choices and multiple endings, so there’s a few different ways it can pan out. It’s quite a grim story which deals with topics like self-harm, suicide, and sexual assault, and the main pairing are cousins. The story also contains explicit sexual content, so you need to be 18+ to check it out.
Scars takes place in the same universe as a couple of my other VNs, All Ashes and Illusions and All Idleness and Ephemera. If you want to read more about the world setting in Scars you can check those out here!
And I've written some cute alternate universe stories about Yuel and Tavi that're completely divorced from the world present in Ashes, Idleness, and Scars, which can be found here!
Phew. That's a lot of words about Yuel and Tavi haha ;;; I really have written a lot of stories about them over the last couple of years, haven't I?
I feel like I've talked a lot so I'll end here. If you want some quality BL Suffering then I hope you'll give Scars a try at least. I poured a lot of love into it, and it was very much a project of passion!
Hi everyone! I'm making this announcement to let you know that my dark boys love / boys hate visual novel, All Scars and Starlight, has been released!
Scars is a grim story about a deposed king, Yuel, who is taken prisoner by the leader of a rebellion and his older cousin, Tavi. Though Yuel initially despises Tavi for overthrowing him, complicated feelings begin to develop between the pair as Tavi refuses to have Yuel executed, despite the warnings of his advisors.
Wanting to keep Yuel safe, Tavi hides Yuel away in the palace where his political enemies can’t hurt him - but the biggest threat to Yuel’s life soon proves to be Yuel himself.
The story has choices and multiple endings, so there’s a few different ways it can pan out. It’s quite a grim story which deals with topics like self-harm, suicide, and sexual assault, and the main pairing are cousins. The story also contains explicit sexual content, so you need to be 18+ to check it out.
Scars takes place in the same universe as a couple of my other VNs, All Ashes and Illusions and All Idleness and Ephemera. If you want to read more about the world setting in Scars you can check those out here!
And I've written some cute alternate universe stories about Yuel and Tavi that're completely divorced from the world present in Ashes, Idleness, and Scars, which can be found here!
Phew. That's a lot of words about Yuel and Tavi haha ;;; I really have written a lot of stories about them over the last couple of years, haven't I?
I feel like I've talked a lot so I'll end here. If you want some quality BL Suffering then I hope you'll give Scars a try at least. I poured a lot of love into it, and it was very much a project of passion!
