Hello everyone!
This month, I'm here to talk about how the combat layer has changed since our previous demo! Let's get to it!
Connection to the campaign layer
To recap, check out what a mission briefing looks like when the enemy army tries to accomplish its mission.
The important part for this devlog is the Resistance mission part and the magic dust rewards at the bottom. The resistance mission shows what kind of mission the resistance will have to conduct to foil the army. These will be randomly generated except for special situations like base defense. For now, we have implemented two types. Ambush, in which the goal is to clear the area of enemies, and escort, where a VIP will be needed to be escorted to a designated location. But we plan to add more types of missions.
Another big change in the design of these missions is that we have removed the unlimited reinforcements. This came from a design philosophy change. I wanted to move away from hard timers which punish players if they are too slow. I still want to make the player take risks, but I wanted to rather reward players if they do. And here comes the magic dust into the equation.
In the campaign layer, there are basically 2 main resources. Gold, which is gained by the resistance's current status in the campaign layer, and magic dust, which will be earned by performance in the combat layer. A combat mission can end in three ways:
- The player couldn't archive the objective. In this case, the enemy army mission goes through, and the resistance does not receive any magic dust.
- The player archives the objective but failed to meet the time limit. In this case, the enemy army mission has been countered, and the player receives the normal magic dust reward.
- The player archives the objective, and inside the time limit. In this case, the enemy army mission has been countered, and the player receives an increased amount of magic dust.
General combat changes
The general combat has received some changes as well. To recap, originally we had a system very similar to the new XCOM-s with 2 activations, where the most "meaningful" actions will end your turn, like attacking. In addition, we have a stamina system that is being used by the unit's activatable skills.
The biggest change we have made is that no skill will end your turn. This means for example if you have an enemy unit adjacent to your active unit, that unit can attack twice if it wants to! But to make it more interesting, and not a no-brainer choice, every attack after the first will have a quite big multiple-attack penalty to the hit chance. This means that attacking twice will always be a strong option, but other non-attack skills can still make sense for a second action as they don't get the attack penalty.
The movement has received some changes as well. Namely, attack of opportunity became a passive skill rather than being always active by default. Instead, leaving a tile that is inside the enemy zone of control will cost 2 instead of one. This change makes maneuvering stronger by default, but it is a necessary change so that the movement action can compete with the sheer value of a second attack.
The way stamina is used has been fundamentally changed as well. Now, every time a unit uses its second action, that costs 1 stamina. If they don't have enough stamina they can't use their second action. This makes stamina an integral part of the system, rather than just the fuel for skills (though it retained this function as well). It gives a nice dilemma to the player when you have an exhausted unit to use its one possible action point or skip the turn to rest and regain stamina.
Ranged combat
Another big feature is the return of ranged combat! We have implemented both bows and crossbows. Regions with the marksman attribute will unlock them for the resistance. They share the marksman skills between them, but they have some pretty big fundamental differences.
The bow does rather low damage but is able to shoot twice. This means that it is very deadly against badly armored targets, but armor is very effective in reducing its damage.
The crossbow has an accuracy bonus and does moderate damage with armor piercing. But there is a big catch! After every shot, it will be needed to be reloaded. So while its damage is more consistent, especially against armored opponents, the max potential damage per round is lower.
The calculation of hit chance is a bit different for ranged attacks as well. Instead of using the target defense statistic, it will use the double of the distance between the attacker and the target. And there is no flanking hit chance bonus in case of a ranged attack, though it will still ignore shields in this case. There is a possibility to obstruct a shot if there is an obstacle or another unit right next to the target.
The best defense against ranged attack is not being in the line of sight, or if that fails shields and armor. The max range by default is double the sight range of the unit, so other units can spot for the ranged attacker.
Closing thoughts
On an unrelated note, the heavy armor the resistance is using has been reworked:
So that's it for today's devlog! As always, if you like what you see and want to show your support, the best way to do that right now is to join our Discord here. Otherwise, see you next time!