This update took me way more than I expected.
After probing around, I figured out that being stubborn about purposely excluding enemies intents from my game was going to do harm rather than make my game "better".
I think I was losing many potential players just because "the game has no intents so I won't even bother understanding all its other mechanics".
So, I decided to implement my version of the enemies intents, adapting it to my game, in a way that it would make the game appeal to people who want them, without ruining the balance and the aspects I want my game to have.
And honestly, I'm happy with the result. It gave the game a slight upgrade in the tactical aspect, and it also now feels even more dynamic, coupled with the Countdown system.
Here's an overview of how it works:
Enemies will now show intents ONLY when at 1 Countdown (which means that you won't see it if you end turn when the enemy is at 2 Countdown). The Intent icon will appear instead of the Countdown one, and they will switch back once the enemy has performed its action.
Intents will tell you the type/types of action, and how many actions the enemy is going to perform. Intents won't tell you an exact number for attacks.
Possible intents are:
- Aggressive (the enemy is going to attack).
- Defensive (the enemy is going to perform a Block or Evade action).
- Support (the enemy is going to perform a buff or action that is not under other categories).
- Debuff (the enemy is going to perform a debuff status, or an action that affects your cards).
- Healing (the enemy is going to perform a healing action).
Together with this new system, I decided re balance many aspect of the game, partially to adapt it to the new changes, partially because I think some cards, especially when found in an early, would make a run way too easy.
Cards
Reworked cards drops balance, now some cards cannot be found before a set level (for this update, I set this limit for non item healing cards and for cards that raise enemies' Countdown Value.
- Firefly Pendant now heals for 40 and 15.
- Potion now heals for 30.
- Candy now heals for 15 and 3.
- Vampiric sword now heals for 10.
Enemies
- Zakuro doesn't get stunned when losing tail anymore. It will get +2 Countdown instead.
- Wealthy Abomination will now always use Weak Spot after resurrecting, and the (random) number of actions he can do per turn increases with lower HP.
- The Maker's action that removes your blessing will now leave a shadow of the removed blessing.
- Slight changes of behavior to most bosses.
Others
- Fountains now heal for 33% of max HP up from 25%.
- Normal blessing rooms are now more common.
- Made tutorial easier to follow.
- Fixed some problematic characters in the font.
Please let me know if you have any feedback about this update!
It is very possible that I introduced some new bugs, I'll be testing for a few days to minimize issues.