Third time’s the charm, right?
We just pushed up the latest round of improvements to combat. All major issues are resolved. This represents as balanced as it is going to be at this stage of development.
The build is still on the Testing branch, password is CombatCombat
Character Initiative
Major change to this version is using character initiative to break up the combat rounds. The game is designed to be “you vs the world”. It is not a party game of “us vs the world”. That means, most of the time it will be just you in combat against a bunch of baddies. In testing we found anything more than 3 bad guys starts to become too much: It just isn’t fun to be beat on, especially if the monsters get 2+ attacks.
So the new initiative system allows the player to go every 2-3 monsters. By being thoughtful and specific, you can eliminate monsters which haven’t gone yet, giving you two turns in a row, something which is always enjoyable!
We hope you like it. There are some minor bugs with it which will be resolved next week, but overall its working good.
Until we get UI/Art for the system, we just show the round order in text at the top left.
Next Steps
With the combat working well in isolation, our next step is to integrate combat into the main game. We’ve already started on this and think it’ll be ready next week.
Art and visual effects will continue to trickle in, so you’ll see those improvements along the way in the main game.
Once the integration is complete, we’ll call Build 13 complete, and then turn our attention to Build 14 - Simulator & Goals.
Faster?
I was out for a walk last night and reflecting on Build 13. We’ve started in earnest Jan 4 2021, meaning it has taken 4 full months of development. We put in all kinds of new systems, companion fighting and targeting, 20+ status effects, 8 weapon types, combat objects like Thunderstone and Smokesticks, 55 spells, and all the ridiculous complexity that makes Archmage Rises so great.
If you take our 3-4 people working on it, that’s about 16 months of person effort. Meaning, it took just as about as long as Build 12 Dungeons (17 months).
But only took about 4 months chronologically.
We’re getting faster! Having a team is really helping. Maybe we’ll finish this thing!
13.2 Release Notes
Press TAB to repeat last spell, press TAB again to cast it
Added in turn initiative order
Added fire burning effect to tiles from fire spells
Changed how damage is calculated. ARMOR reduces first, then resistances. It was really bad the other way.
Damage is calculated and displayed now on impact of the spell, not timed from point of cast.
Vastly improved weapons. The attack icon now shows the equipped weapon, equipping weapons is better, the damage and AP are better.
We decided there will not be dual wielding. It causes too many problems, and this is a mage simulator. Yes you can be a battle mage, but no dual wielding.
At player creation a primary hand is selected, the other is the offhand and can equip a shield if desired.
2 handed weapons like bows and crossbows work correctly now
Tooltips are more verbose
Fixed a targeting bug where spells/weapons which can only hit the back rows could still hit the front row due to line of sight. Now it won’t let you use it.
Added monster Line of Sight, so an archer in the back row can be blocked by fog, so he has to move to see and hit you.
Added some new icons.
Cast box now remembers the spellpower you last cast at per spell. So if you cast Magic Missile at 4 stamina, and shield at 10, flipping back to MM will set it to 4, flipping to shield will set it to 10. This makes testing and playing faster. :-)
Fixed monster layering issues
Frozen enemies now have their animation.. uh… freeze!
Fixed prone and standing up camera issues
When monster hits the player, the floaty text appears from there, not the middle of the screen
Fixed charmed enemies from attacking corpses (though it was entertaining!)
Fixed dead enemies can no longer speak from the grave… awww.
About 30 other fixes and improvements I don’t want to type out and you don’t want to read. :-)