Build 5 Patch Notes:
Build 5 continues to expand upon the newly implemented "perks system". In total, there are now just under 300 individual perks (including weapon abilities) which are derived from the 10 "perk type effects". Internally, I classify "perk type effects" as something that is unique from a coding perspective, IE a perk to gain +5 Strength and a perk to gain +5 Focus belong to the same perk type effect but they are still two individual perks that both cost one PP each to acquire. I just wanted to clarify this as I still have more plans for the perks system. For now however, I would like to just gather feedback on it and tweak things based on community feedback as opposed to adding more perks.
The perks system has also revamped character progression tying it closer to the perks system and each warrior now has the ability to bring up to two weapon sets into combat provided they have the correct perks. So yes, weapon swapping is in and it will no doubt give the player more options in combat.
Again this build is being uploaded to the experimental branch first, so I'd appreciate it if you guys played it and offered me some feedback. The main reason why I have opted to created two branches is to allow players to finish their older playthroughs before transitioning to the new perks system builds. In a couple weeks I will most likely be making these builds live.
Instructions to opt into the beta/experimental branch:
1. Within the Steam library list, right click 'Dead Monarchy", then select "Properties".
2. Towards the top of the window that pops up, click the "Betas" tab.
3. A dropdown menu list will then appear, select "experimental - Experimental branch".
4. The game should then automatically download and update to this build.
5. Once you have booted up the game, if you see "Build 4" in the main menu, then you are good to go.
New Stuff:
- Added new combat idle animation for rapier.
- Added new combat idle animation for 2H greatsword.
- Added new combat idle animation for 2H warhammer.
- All melee abilities (unless not applicable) now have perks to allow for attacking on higher elevation.
- All melee abilities now have perks to reduce their Stamina/Focus use cost.
- All melee abilities (unless not applicable) now have perks to reduce their cooldown timers.
- All melee abilities (unless not applicable) now have perks to reduce their AP cost.
- There is now a set of perks that will increase the chance of gaining +1 for a specific stat on level up. There are 5 tiers, each tier adds +20%. So for example, +20% to gain +1 Strength, +40% to gain +1 Strength, +60% to gain +1 Strength, +80% to gain +1 Strength, +100% to gain +1 Strength. On a side note, not all perks will have tiers, some perks will be individual perks that have no other "upgraded versions".
- There is now a series of perks that can increase each primary stat in increments of +5 up to +25. These perks are found in the "Progression Perks" tab.
- There is now also a set of perks that will reduce the hit chance penalty that is applied when targeting the head. It is found in the "General Perks" tree. The highest tier perk is applied by default to all monsters/enemies.
- There are a series of "Reflection" perks, one for each primary stat. You gain half your combat level as a bonus to X primary stat. The changes are not retroactive, so it is important to decide when you want to take the perk. Waiting and taking this perk at a higher level does mean a bigger stat boost. These perks are found in the "Progression Perks" tree.
- Each character can now bring up to two sets of weapons into combat. For example Sword + Shield and Crossbow. When you swap weapons in combat, you do not receive the full bonus to primary stats that you would normally get if you equipped the weapon. For example you equip a Mace that gives +2 Stamina, you'll start combat with that bonus but if you swap to an Axe that gives +2 Resolve, your maximum Resolve will be increased by +2 but you will not gain the full amount. This is both a way to balance weapon swapping so that there is still a valid reason to just specialize in just one weapon but it is also necessary due to how the extra stat bonuses themselves are applied.
- A series of perks have been implemented for "weapon swapping". It is basically an ability that goes on your shortcut bar. By default, it costs 12 AP and you can eventually reduce it down to 0 AP.
Gameplay Tweaks:
- The implementation of all these new perks has resulted in a few abilities getting their cooldown timer, use cost and AP cost adjusted, this would be in the case of an ability that has yet to be improved by perks.
- Stat progression has been changed. At Veteran and Monarch difficulty, characters now only gain +1 in the two stats they are proficient in based on their backgrounds. At lower difficulties, characters gain +2 in their proficient stats. Characters no longer gain levels in stats that they are not proficient in. This then paves the way for stat boosting perks.
- Each warrior can now only acquire 6 active abilities from the perks tree.
- Attacking the "Head" with either Attack/Shoot Head or Break Helmet now has a -50% hit chance penalty. In other words, the bonus +50 that used to be added (hit chance formula) is now only added to attacks that target the body or weapon abilities. This only applies to basic attacks to the head, it does not affect abilities.
- "Fatigued" now applies when you have less than 5 Stamina (0-4) as opposed to 0 Stamina.
- All tiers of longbow weapons now only do +10 Break damage to Helmet/Armor values.
UI Updates:
- Updated difficulty selection menu to reflect the changes to stat gains. Also increased the texture resolution of the choice buttons as they were starting to blur at larger resolutions.
- Fixed the issue of equipped weapon types not displaying properly in the "arena menu" and instead just showing up as "unarmed" despite having a weapon equipped.
- Due to the fact that I have added difficulty levels in now, you can now specify a specific amount within a stack to sell.
- Changed all references of the "claymore" weapon type to "greatsword".
- Changed all references of the "halberd" weapon type to "polearm".
- Changed all references of the "hatchet" weapon type to "axe".
- Changed all references of "rusty" weapons to "basic" weapons, as something like a "Rusty Longbow" doesn't really make sense.
- Added in a confirmation message when exiting the game with manual loading/saving enabled.
- Arena UI has been further updated. There is a UI element in the bottom left corner that displays all the perks acquired on the currently selected warrior, this should make it easy to keep track of what each warrior has. There are now also two UI elements that display the equipped weapons from both set 1 and set 2 since you can now swap between two weapon sets. Tweaked minor UI element positions.
- The camp, barracks and battle placement UI have been updated to support the additional slots for weapon swapping (second set). The UI boxes for barracks and battle placement have scroll bars, whereas the camp UI box is just a static box. "Empty" slots have been made more clearer as well.
- For players that toggle their battle camera off "V", there used to be an issue where when you come back into a battle after previously toggling the camera off you had to press "V" twice. The issue has to do with how the camera is tracked. So now, after every battle the camera is automatically toggled back on. So basically, you just have to press "V" once to toggle it back off, but the end result is smoother as previously the UI elements were not correctly displaying whether the camera was actually toggled on and off after coming back into a battle.
- The dismiss button in the barracks menu will now automatically be highlighted when the mouse hovers over it. This should give the player more "feedback" when interacting with the UI.
- A tooltip for the dismiss button (in the barracks menu) has been added, this should help clarify what the button does.
- Tooltips for "items" have been updated. They now show the icon and the amount of the specific item that you are hovering over. This is only for "items" specifically, so not weapons or armor etc.
- Added a tooltip description for when hovering over EXP or Experience Points in any related menu.
- Tooltips in general now scale to the size of the text box. This basically means that tooltips will conform to the size of the text and won't take up unnecessary space on the screen.
- New icons have been added to all weapon related perk trees. For example, there shouldn't be any more duplicate icons in the crossbow and longbow perk trees that were added in the previous build.
- All weapon abilities have "ability" added after the ability name to distinguish that it is an active ability when interacting with the perks tree. Any "passive perk" that directly augments abilities is labelled as a perk within the tooltip description. Instead of +1, +2, +3, +4 to denote a perk that augments an ability, the words "Improved, Refined, Advanced and Perfected" are used instead. For example, Snap Shot +1 is now Improved Snap Shot. In cases where there are a series of 5 related passive perks, the first perk in the chain is called "Flawed xxx".
- The initial loading sequence when first booting up the game has been shortened.
- You can now rotate the camera while you are in town. This is just a nice little touch that gives the town a bit more perspective, taking away the feeling that you are looking at a flat image.
- Updated the text size and font of UI drag icons (ie x5, x10) when dragging and dropping items in various menus.
Bug Fixes:
- Adjusted existing combat idle animation for 2H greataxe.
- Most instances of "feet sliding around" during combat animations should have been fixed.
- Tweaked some of the lighting settings for the player town/base.
- "Suicidal Vampire Archers" bug, should be fixed now. Vampire Archers will now only use this ability if they have at least 26 Strength, if they have anything less the ability will fail and they will default to basic attack AI.
- A rare issue where the hit chance UI box doesn't show up when swapping between abilities over a target you are currently hovering the mouse over, has been fixed.
- The issue of being able to initiate certain unwanted actions with the "right mouse button" should have been fixed. For example, closing a menu screen with the right mouse button or selecting an ability then initiating the ability/attack on a target with the right mouse button.
What's Next?:
Again, I'd like to thank everyone for your support and most importantly your patience. After over a month of no updates (I was low-key stressing about this actually) I feel like things are back to normal now and I should be able to upload weekly builds again. The plan is to let the perks system "simmer" for a bit, there is still a lot more I want to add to it but I will now be switching my focus to the WORLD MAP. That's right you read correctly, I hadn't planned on starting on the world map until next year but I'm in a good position now to begin work on it.
Overall, the map is somewhat inspired by Fallout 1/2, with the grid overlay and real-time map movement. The map is comprised of individual 2D tiles which will give me finer control over things like random events. The player model and buildings are all 3D models but the camera will be fixed. While the bulk of my attention will be on the world map, I will also be releasing smaller weekly builds mainly based on any feedback I get on the new perks.
So there is still a lot more to look forward to in the future, so perhaps tell a friend about it! As always, I'd really appreciate any feedback you guys have, especially reviews as they do wonders and help motivate me!
Cheers,
Kevin.