Hello all!
Once again, Lucas here, coming to explain more systems for you.
This week, as I mentioned in the last Devlog, we are talking about motes.
Motes
Motes, as the lore goes, are miniscule pieces of the base, animating elemental magics that flow through everything. Souls are made of motes - both intelligent and non. Souls break down on death, creating mana, which condenses into different states, one of which being the motes we are here to talk about.
More practically, motes are little creatures that you will find in the field that will aid you on your journey. There are at least a dozen types currently, but we've plans for a lot more. There are a few different variants that we will talk about today: random, caged, and active.
Random Motes
Random motes are found throughout the world just waiting for you to come by and pick them up.
When collected, simply by walking near them, they will begin to follow the player. Following motes of this variety do not do much more than bolster the player's stats.
This variant is the most abundant and the type that you will interact with most often.
Caged Motes
The next variant are the caged variant. They will spawn randomly throughout dungeons, just sitting and waiting to be rescued.
When rescued, a few things will happen. First, if you have not rescued that variant before, you will unlock a new mote to bring with you permanently. Second, the caged mote will transform into a temporary active mote.
Here is the most important bit about motes. Active motes, temporary or permanent, augment the player in the same way that random motes do, but they also augment their abilities.
Think of active motes as little passive effects that one could gain from an item.
A couple examples:
-The active earth mote heals your armor when you take damage to your health
-The active fire mote spawns a passive aoe that follows the player and damages enemies within
-The active moteshroom spawns a bouncing mushroom underneath you when you dodge
Mote Hutch
Now, after you have rescued a caged mote and made your way back to Riilivkava, whether through success or failure, you will be able to harness your new companions as never before.
The mote hutch is a building which is found after defeating Saren Glass for the first time. From it, you are able to permanently summon whichever type(s) of active motes that you wish to follow you.
At first, you are only able to bring one with you, but after leveling the hutch to the max, you will be able to choose three.
These motes will all follow you, regardless of death or anything else that would cause motes to previously despawn. Sort of like equipment that you can add to your loadout before venturing forth.
Now, through the hutch, you can also level up active motes. This increases the efficacy of their passive abilities, but also increases the amount of stats that they provide to the player. In a double-whammy, leveling an active mote, will also increase the abilities of random caged motes. So, for instance, if you have leveled your fire mote to level 5, then all caged fire motes that you find will also be level 5!
On that note, you can also have multiple of the same mote following you - only one can be chosen, but you can have as many temporary active motes of the same type as you are able to find.
And there you have it - motes, our take on gear, in essence. I personally think they are much cuter than a sword, but maybe I'm just biased!
Next time, we will be talking about leveling both yourself and your town, along with a couple smaller mentions that don't warrant their own devlogs.
Until next time,
Lucas