Hello, Survivors!
Last week we talked about the changes to the character Stats and Skill/Talent systems.
The changes to the higher-level systems for characters naturally led to quite a few changes in the design philosophy of the Weapons, so today I’m going to talk about that!
Rebalancing Weapon-Character Importance
In the Early Access version, Weapons were given a very high level of importance, with basic elements such as Attack Range/Area, Min/Max Damage, Critical Hit Chance, and even special effects such as Bleed, Pain, and Stun, virtually giving them the same level of characterization as Characters in other games.
The main reason for this design was that the Early Access version was locked to three Characters, and while each of the three Characters had a Perk Tree to choose from, the sense that the player could pick and choose something they liked and build upon it was weak.
As a result, much of the meta-game relied on the Blacksmith, Jorgn, to upgrade the tiers of Weapons, as well as a system of modifications that allowed players to specialize in the options they wanted. The development team jokingly said, “When you play the game, you get more attached to the Weapons than the Characters.” In fact, we've even joked that Remore is a game about growing Weapons.
However, now that the game has been reworked, we have more Characters to choose from, and we've refined the Memory Bonding system we shared earlier as a key feature of the game, we needed to rethink the weight of the Weapon system.
The question that arose was, "With stronger characterization and customization through Memory Bonds, is it really a good design decision to keep Weapons at the level of importance as before?"
Of course, we've found that Characters, Memories, and Weapons all have their own distinct personalities, and figuring out how to combine them is a lot of fun and gives you a lot of freedom and depth to decide how you want to play. We've had a lot of positive feedback on the Weapon modification system when we first showed it off in Early Access, and I think that's because it has its own unique appeal.
However, more people felt that if the Weapon gimmicks were as complex as they are in the current Early Access version, it would take away from the Character's Personality and Freedom of Customization or make it an unnecessary step.
For example, the Early Access version of the One-Handed Sword has an Attack Range that includes a diagonal attack, a moderate Critical Chance, and the ability to inflict Bleed. From there, you have the option to modify it to remove the Bleed and increase its Critical Chance or Damage, or to make the Bleed stronger to maximize the damage of the sword's Tier 2 Finishing Blow Skill.
However, at this point, the primary identity of the Weapon as a "Sword" is in its ability to inflict Bleed, even in the second-tier skillset, and options like removing the bleeding and attaching a critical option become more of a variant option that offers a bit of a different playstyle. Actually, "specialize in a more suitable weapon that specializes in Critical Hits, like a One-Handed Axe" is more of a meaningful option.
On the other hand, if you have a lot of Characters, Memories of the Dead, etc. that you can combine, we felt that the following design would be a “freer” approach.
- The Sword itself would not have a Bleed effect and would only have a “Range”' and “Skill Stat bonus.”
- When you bind "Butcher's Memory", you gain the talent "Weapon attacks inflict Bleeding equal to 25% of your Dexterity stat".
- Thus, you can use the "Bleed" special effect with a weapon other than the "Sword" (= increased freedom).
- However, the Sword has a Damage Bonus based on its Dexterity stat, and has an Attack WP cost of 1, so it synergizes well with that Weapon.
- On the other hand, a character that specializes in “Surprise/Assassination”, such as a Shadow Sister, who relies on having high instant damage so does not need an effect like bleeding really.
- Therefore, a more appropriate build choice would be to bind Swordsman's Memory to increase the damage of Sword Skill attacks.
We concluded that giving Memories of the Dead the special effects that were previously granted to Weapons would make the Character, Memories of the Dead, and Weapons more distinct and enhance the fun of finding "More Synergistic Combinations".
Each Weapon's characteristics are centered around what we call "Weapon-specific Features": the attack's Range and Area of Effect, and the resulting WP cost and distribution of Skill power. So, a Spear would be focused on the "Can attack enemies 1 space away" feature, with only the "Stab" skill to hit a single enemy 1 space away and the “Pierce" skill to hit 2 enemies in a straight line at the same time", and special abilities such as traditional immobilization effects would be acquired "via memory bond, if you wish".
Of course, to prevent all Weapons from becoming too similar, we're still retaining some special effects for Weapons that can't be differentiated by range or AoE alone, especially abilities that directly relate to "Ambush" or "Surrounded," the centerpiece of the new Combat System.
For example, we kept the Knockback effect on the “Mace” because it was useful for creating “Surrounded” situations and was always a core feature of Blunt Weapons, and we kept the “Dagger” because it gave a bonus to Ambush while reinforcing the concept of assassination.
The big difference is that the effects are much simpler than in the Early Access version and organized to focus on a single feature.
Instead, the Strength and Dexterity stats we introduced earlier will now be more deeply tied into the damage of Weapon Skills, for example, skills from the Two-Handed Blunt Weapon will have a [Strength]-based attack, so higher Strength will give a bonus to damage, and skills from the One-Handed Sword will have a bonus from Dexterity. This is intended to make each Character's Weapon arsenal more "tailored to their stat allocation" and give us more room to consider stat synergies outside of special effects.
Changes to Weapon Swapping
In addition to this shift in weapon tech design, we've also made a major change to how each Character equips and swaps Weapons.
In the Early Access version, all three Characters were able to "swap out any weapon in your inventory, on the fly, in the middle of battle." This meant that when enemies raised an alarm and captured a friendly character, "choosing the right weapon for the current formation and enemy type and attacking with the right skill" was a key tactic in the game.
The problem is, in order to perform these tactics at the level required by the game, the player needs to be familiar with the characteristics of the Weapons in their inventory (Range, AoE, Special Skills, and approximate damage ranges) that are currently not equipped.
We think it's definitely fun once you understand it, and we even created a quickslot UI to intentionally encourage it, but it's by no means intuitive for newcomers to the game.
We've also gotten a lot of feedback that, while it may be "tactically valid" to unequip Edwin's wooden fork at a distance, equip it to Diurmuid, and then use it again, especially in situations where Blisters and such are tricky to hit, it's really breaking the immersion of the game.
As we hinted at in our previous post about the UI overhaul, to address these issues, we've changed the Weapon Swap rules to allow each Character to have a maximum of Two Sets of Gear, and only allow swapping between those two Sets of Gear during combat.
We initially tested a cleaner approach of only allowing one Set of Equipment per Character, but we realized that it would be a shame to completely give up the fun of "Switching Weapons to Suit the Situation." We decided that each Character should have a Primary Set of Equipment, and a Secondary Set of Equipment for situations that the first set might not cover" to get the best balance between intuitiveness and gameplay fun.
If you get a new weapon from a weapon rack or chest in the middle of a battle, you won't be able to equip it while you're in combat while an enemy is alerted to you. You can only swap out equipment sets when it's safe to do so after combat is over, and I think that's a line that doesn't break immersion too much. (Having the ability for distant Royal Guard able to unequip his Sword so you can equip it on the nearby Shadow Sister when you're not "in combat" is just less annoying!!)
Well, that’s it for this introduction to the changes to the Weapon System.
In fact, there are quite a few other minor changes, such as modifications to the damage formula and the addition of “Defense Types”, but I've omitted the more complicated parts of the formula because they’re a bit much for this Dev Note’s context!
These are the things that have changed from the Early Access version and will continue to be the direction of the game. Of course, there will be other minor changes as we continue to balance and add more content, but we think you can safely assume that our current "Theme" of simplifying weaponization - leaving each character with a maximum of two sets of gear - is set in stone.
Thanks again! We'll be back next week with something new!
REMORE