Hello everyone! I've got a big exciting new update to share! Major changes to a whole bunch of mechanics and systems that greatly streamlines things while maintaining or even increasing depth and complexity. This definitely feels like a major milestone in the sense that a whole bunch of messy, disjointed things are condensing into an actual set of foundational systems.
Protection and Block Unification:
This is based on more modest change which was suggested by Random595 in our Discord and after some discussion and thought I decided to run with it all the way to what feels like the logical conclusion. Protection and block points have now been merged together into a single, universal system: Protection Points.
Armor, shields, and talents all now simply grant Protection Points. Block Points have been completely removed as a separate concept.
Your Protection Points now act as a separate HP bar which sits atop your regular HP bar.
Protection Points regenerate by 5 points every 5 turns (same tick as everything else).
Any external damage you take will first deal damage to your Protection Points. This includes effects that were previously passing through Block-Points like clouds, flames, shocks etc. The only exceptions are internal damage like poison and starvation damage.
Unlike Block Points, Protection now works after sprinting and when unstable.
Critically: A single attack can never break through your Protection Points and damage your HP. This is where we get the 'BLOCK' effect. As long as you have even 1PP remaining you can safely shrug off even the largest blow.
Armored enemies now use the exact same system.
I think this is a fantastic change that does a huge amount for the games core mechanics, stats and character building. Full credit to Random for the initial suggestion that sparked this off. I hope he's not upset with how far I've taken it :P
Streamlining: Merging these two stats/mechanics fits perfectly with the overall goals of the project (tight, streamlined, elegant systems leading to a ton of depth and complexity). This feels like a continuation of what Block Points had already done last year when we merged like 4-5 different defensive stats into them. Protection becomes a universal mechanic for 'tankiness' (more on that later).
Deterministic: We remove yet another source of random damage mitigation with its associated unpredictable damage spikes. Previously Protection was reducing damage by a random amount. This system is now perfectly deterministic.
Simplicity and Consistency: In order to balance the old Block Point system a bunch of special cases were introduced that made it harder to keep track of. Unless you were really paying attention it was easy to miss some edge case. This new system has very few edge cases. No unstable or sprint disable. Works against the vast majority of damage incoming damage. We no longer have crit hits or telegraphed attacks removing 2BP. It just works as you'd expect in basically all cases.
Depth: This new system captures the same tactics and gameplay that Block Points were providing i.e. you can use this resource to intentionally tank huge hits, then avoid damage for a few turns to rebuild your 'shield'.
Balancing: It is drastically easier to tune and balance the system now as the numbers can be adjusted at a far higher granularity. Previously 0BP => 1BP => 2BP were enormous jumps which made tuning the system very challenging.
Power as a Core Mechanic:
I've been sitting on notes for this for over a year now and figured I'd just go ahead and implement it. Might as well just make this update a full mechanics overhaul! Previously we had a TON of different, unique effects on talents, equipment, weapons, and even NPCs that all mostly boiled down to: for a short time you will deal more damage. The basic concept I think is great as it creates little tempo windows in which high, risky aggression is far more rewarded, but the implementation was messy. So thats all changing now. Power is now the single, unified, 'go freaking nuts' effect.
Weapons and Equipment:
Berserker-Axe: +1 Power when cleaving 3 enemies. Enchant for 2 enemies.
Pike-of-the-Guard: +1 Power if you wait for a turn.
Power-Blade and Power-Maul: +1 power on kill (see below for changes to on kill).
Boots-of-Grounding: +1 power if you did not move in the previous turn.
Shield-of-Power: +1 power when protection breaks (is reduced to 0).
Construct-Power-Core: +1 Power if you wait for a turn. Also increases the damage modifier on Power by 10%/20%.
Battle Frenzy:
Battle-Frenzy (Base): now very simple: +1 Power on kill (again see below for changes here).
Battle-Frenzy (Rage): increases the damage modifier on Power by 20%.
Battle-Frenzy (Blood-Lust): +5 Life-Tap during Power. Note that these modifications to power effect ALL power. This is one of the huge advantages to a unified system. We can now create all sorts of synergies.
War Cry:
War-Cry (Base): Instantly grants +1 Power as well as the previous stun and shout effects.
War-Cry (Upgrade): +1 => +2 Power on use.
Infusion of Storms:
Infusion-of-Storms (Base): +1Power when ending turn 'wide open'. This means not adjacent to any walls. Depending on balance I might end up including pillar type objects as well here.
Infusion-of-Storms (Reflection): +30% Reflection during Power
Infusion-of-Storms (Mana-Tap): +3 Mana-Tap during Power (again I should stress this effects ALL sources of Power).
NPC Abilities:
Sun-Scarab Imbue-Fire => Power-Aura.
Maggots: previously they had a Swarm-Melee which was not obvious. They'd gain a bit of extra melee damage for each adjacent maggot. This has been replaced with Swarm-Power which simply grants them Power when 2 or more maggots are adjacent.
Skeleton-Doom-Knight, Troll-Doom-Knight and Demotaur: Creeping-Doom => onTakeDamage: +1 Power.
Ogre-Chef: onAllyDeath: +1 Power (replaces the old endlessly growing damage)
Arcane-Sentinel: now has Swarm-Power (same as the maggots above).
Overall I think this is a fantastic change. Previously these were all handled by like 5-6 different unique effects. The unification to power:
Makes the effects more oomphy and impactful (+50% damage is significant).
Makes the effects and durations much easier to keep track of. Its almost always just: do [x] gain power for 1T. No weird accumulators, no scaling up damage modifiers. Just trigger the effect and 'go nuts' for a turn.
A single unified system allows us to start adding all sorts of synergies. Any talent or equipment can now modify Power. A character with an easy to trigger Power source can spec into a Power build by stacking modifiers onto Power.
Overall, much like Protection this feels like one of those things where we just condense a bunch of noise into a single clean concept without losing much real depth or complexity.
Speed Points:
I finally ended up refactoring the absolute dumpster fire that the turn scheduler had become. This is the deep, deep system that actually handles turn order and which I have been completely avoiding for years. Without going into too much detail (because it was gross) the way that FAST enemies were being handled was that they were taking fractional turns when moving so that they would take their turn twice (or three times for Ranked) in between normal character turns. This made it very hard to reason about the order in which turns and events actually occurred. I mean I wrote the damn thing and just spent 2 days rewriting it and I still can barely describe how it was working.
All of this has been completely reworked now by simply making Speed Points universal. Despite the fact that I did everything I could to make the player facing behavior identical (there are a few minor edge case changes) I'm extremely please with this system because it means that... well... Speed Points, one of the most important player facing mechanics, are now universal. So NPCs that are FAST now simply do almost the same thing the player does i.e. use their speed points to move without ending their turn and once they run out their next move ends their turn. Using an ability of course always ends their turn. The only difference is that they get full SP at the start of every turn. So FAST enemies just have 1SP, it regens at the start of their turn, they use it for a free move, then make their normal move and end their turn. Simple.
I haven't even done anything with this system yet. I'm not even displaying NPC Speed Points yet. My goal for this pass was just to clean up the code base while preserving all of our existing behaviour but this opens up the possibilty of having NPCs with any number of speed points in the future if I want to make faster NPCs.
For anyone interested the turn scheduler is now pretty simple:
Player takes his turn. Using speed points does not end turn.
NPCs take their turns in order of distance to player, so nearest first. Using speed points also does not end turn.
The global Turn 'ticks' which updates status effects and regen and stuff.
Loop
Very, very simple. There's still a mess of nuance here for pausing for projectiles and allowing enemies to all move at the same time in order to speed up gameplay but the overall order is now, for the first time, comprehensible.
The Holy Trinity of Stats:
The above changes have completed something that I totally didn't plan for at the start of the project. Something that seems to have sort of emerged organically across development which is that we now have these 3 stats that are like the core of our entire combat engine:
Protection: your defensive tempo. When you can take hits, when you should avoid hits.
Power: your offensive tempo. The 'go nuts window' that rewards aggression.
Speed Points: your movement and positioning that allows you to take advantage of Protection and Power.
Its remarkably streamlined and elegant. Whats extremely interesting to me is that all 3 of these stats are 'playable'. They are not just passive modifiers. You don't just continue to play the game the same as before but now you just do 'better'. Each of the trinity stats is its own little mini game that can be optimized and planned around. To take advantage of them you must actually 'do something'.
Even more interesting is that these are now universal in the sense that both the PC and NPCs are now using nearly the exact same 3 core systems. The final changes to SP on NPCs means that everyone is finally playing the same game. Buffs that raise, restore, or modify Protection, Power or Speed Points can now land on the player and NPC and just work, without any weirdness. Just as an example Haste now simply +1Max SP which effectively makes the NPCs FAST but if it lands on the player it still works.
A huge advantage of this unification and condensing is that I can now 'hook' into these 3 systems in all sorts of interesting ways which allows us to start building up synergies. I have only begun to do this with this update but I'll be looking to build on this system in the coming months.
We can modify the Power effect. Give the player Life-Tap, Mana-Tap, Damage-Shields etc. when under its effects.
We can trigger stuff when the player gains Power ex. healing, restoring mana, ticking down cool-downs etc.
We can modify the Protection effect. So for example granting a massive DS when you have > 0 Protection Points.
We can trigger stuff when Protection breaks. Example: Shield-of-Power now grants +1 Power when protection breaks.
We can trigger stuff onSprint. We were already starting to do this before, but I'll be leaning into this harder.
The systems can interact. Example: Boots-of-Power now grant +1 Power when you use 5SP in a single turn.
So suddenly we have a whole layer of synergies we can encourage. Players can lean into Protection heavy builds, Power heavy builds or Speed Point heavy builds or any mix of these. If you have a way to trigger Power easily it suddenly becomes much more beneficial to start stacking items and talents that modify the Power effect. If you have a very high Protection you will value anything that triggers when your Protection > 0.
I'll be working more on this system in the next few updates as I think its pretty clear how this can be hooked into many talents and items. It doesn't need to 'take over' everything, but it should definitely be treated as a core part of the game, as one of the most basic ways we can allow for and encourage distinct builds stacking stuff from different kits.
Changes to 'On Kill':
I mentioned this above and so should talk about it here. On-Kill has now been rephrased to mean: as long as you killed at least one enemy last turn. This allows us to make On-Kill effects much more impactful without having to deal with crazy runaway power when the player is fighting swarms of weak enemies. You can now intentionally hold say a Life-Tap melee weapon, even as a caster and bonk weak enemies to get a more substantial heal.
All our previous Life-Tap/Mana-Tap weapons have been updated with higher values. Weapons that used to grant a recovery type ability now also use this same system: Blood-Stringer, Soul-Reaper, Scythe-of-Reaping, Runic-Death-Staff, Blade-of-Energy, Spirit-Bow, Staff-of-Thought-Theft.
All our previous Life-Tap/Mana-Tap equipment has been updated with higher values. Robe-Of-Lich, Gloves-Of-Vampirism, Boots-Of-Vampirism, Ring-Of-Vampirism, Ring-Of-Blood, Crown-Of-Thought-Theft, Charm-Of-Draining, Gloves-of-Absorption.
Staff-Attunement (Mana-Tap): Grants +3 Range-Mana-Tap when a staff is equipped (a funny little hack that means we don't need a separate Staff-Mana-Tap).
Aura-of-Death and the Vampires innate racial Life-Tap have also been increased.
When gaining HP/MP from tap, the values of separate sources are now merged. So if you have Life-Tap and Melee-Life-Tap both triggering you just get a single combined popup (less spam).
Support AI:
Up until now we have had basically two different AI types: Melee and Ranged. Support type enemies were all just running Range AI which meant that they would try to get close enough to attack the player, maintain clear LoS etc. I've changed this so we now have a 3rd AI type: Support which simply tries to maintain LoS/Range with at least one ally. They have a bias against being close to or in LoS of the player. This means supports now act like proper back liners and should force the player to actually agro into them or else have some sort of tool to pick them off.
Mechanics:
Reduced Shout range 6 => 5 (it is slightly smaller than old shout but always goes around corners).
Change crit hits to not use the weird hidden extra minimum. Awhile ago crits were changed so that they always dealt more damage than normal hits (their min is artificially higher). Having done a ton of testing with this update I've decided to revert this as all the melee classes were outperforming the casters by quite a bit and this undocumented feature was contributing to it.
Monsters:
Quite a few more instances here of Power being used as a universal mechanic.
Added a new melee attack type: Heavy-Attack which deals crit hits when the player is orthogonal to the attacker. This has been placed on a lot of 'heavier' enemy types.
Elite (Strong) can now apply to all melee enemies (normal, spear, double, heavy, poison etc.) Previously it would only apply to enemies with the basic Melee-Attack.
Skeletal-Champion: Melee-Attack => Spear-Attack.
Pirate-Deckhand, Captain-Danarr, Duelist-Steve: Melee-Attack => Double-Attack.
Archers have been reverted to firing every other turn with increased damage (its a net nerf to them I believe). The old change was simply to counter Block-Points which we no longer need. I find this plays much nicer anyway as the constant shooting animation slows the game down.
NPC Cloud walls can extend across low cover (ex bushes)
NPC-Ice-Shield now adds Protection to the target (taking advantage of our new Protection system).
Giant-Leech no longer overheals on blood (just normal heal). I found during that big Life-Tap rework above that Giant-Leech was the only thing left in the game still using the over heal mechanic so I've decided to just remove it rather than have this one weird special case.
NPC-Berserk: Changed to just be 50% more damage + Movement Speed. So it is effectively Power + Movement Speed.
Orc Berserker and Gnoll Berserker: higher base damage, not fast, Berserk triggers at 75% HP. They were kind of a mess before.
Removed protection on Pogo-Lancer and Pogo-Gunner otherwise everyone in zone would end up with protection.
Clockwork-Brawler and Clockwork-Pyro are now slow (most of Click-Clock is slow to offset the Protection).
Clockwork Brawler should use Rocket-Punch instead of Extendo-Punch (its basically the same but lets him get into range).
Arcane-Sentinel: copies can no longer make more copies in order to prevent endless spawning spam.
Clockwork-Engineer (Armor-Pack): +10Max Prot and Restore Protection
Zombie-Bloats no longer explode in acid (its just a cheap shot death if it actually hits player)
When Yendor dies poof all remaining mobs. Looks cooler.
Weapons and Equipment:
Plenty of changes to weapons and equipment. Some of this is integrating with the new Protection and Power systems (I covered the Power ones above already). In other cases its just trying to make each piece a bit more unique. Trying to get to the point where about 50% of our equipment is stats based and 50% has some kind of unique effect.
Reduce all melee weapon damage by 1 except: Tier-1 Weapons and Poison Weapons. I did extensive testing with this update. Running through zones over and over again with different classes. Melee characters were consistently stronger so this is a nice, small, global nerf. I've got pretty good data collection for these tests and the melee classes are still doing better than casters.
Dancing Blade: leaves a 1T Dancing blade every time you sprint (attacks after player ends his turn and then poofs).
Mace-of-Shielding: onMeleeKill: restore 5PP (enchant for 10PP)
Staff-of-Shielding: onRangeKill: restore 5PP (enchant for 10PP)
Whips now pull the target all the way adjacent to the player and no longer stun. This really helps define their identity I think.
Inferno-Staff: 4 Range flaming cloud (2T). This is its basic attack now. It does not work with talents that require an actual projectile: Power-Shot, Tunnel-Shot etc.
Discord on Whip/Spear: 3DMG/3DUR => 0DMG/5DUR. The whole point is the damage modifier not a piddly little DoT.
Blazing-Cloak: triggered only onSprint (not onUseSpeedPoint)
Festering-Boots: triggered only onSprint (not onUseSpeedPoint)
Crown-Of-Brilliance: 1INT + 1Mana-Tap => 2INT (we have enough Mana-Tap items now)
Entwood-Armor: removed HP, Restores 1PP when you end your turn in water. Haven't tested it properly yet but this should provide players with a way to instantly regain that all important 1PP Block barrier.
Molten-Forged-Boots => Smoldering-Boots: no stats but Lava-Walking and creates smoke onSprint
Festering-Boots and Blazing-Cloak: now have 15DMG clouds when enchanted
Shield-of-the-Guard: +1Protection when resting (can be used to instantly regain the block)
Ring-of-Inferno and Ring-of-Thunde: 6/12DS => 12/18DS but only when Protection > 0. So this is now hooking into the Protection system in order to provide a pretty crazy DS.
Removed Arcane-Armor set. As I continue to refine equipment and make it more unique and impactful I'm planning to move away from having so many armor sets with just simple stats.
Player Talents:
Remove crunch from Charge except Crunch upgrade. In all the testing I did the Barbarian was consistently doing the best by quite significant margins. His ability to just insta kill 1 or more enemies right at the start of combat while also closing distance contributed most to this. This also makes the Crunch upgrade really quite unique and different.
Flame-Portal: now works adjacent to (or on) lava
Flame-Portal: now shows all valid targets (if enabled)
Power-Strike (Concussive) => Power-Strike (Protection): Restore 5Protection on kill. I think this fits the Warriors theme a bit better.
Recovery: changed the base talent to restore protection to full when used (will need to do new name and graphic)
Shields-Up (Protection): Restores 5Protection when used against 2 or more enemies
Power-Shot (Fast) => Power-Shot (Restore SP): +2SP when shooting orthogonal. I think this fits the Ranger better as its challenging his positioning.
Tunnel-Shot (Fast) => Tunnel-Shot (Restore SP): Simple +2SP when 2 or more. Its much easier to pull off.
Shield-of-Flames (Damage-Shield) 9DMG => 15DMG but only when protection > 0. Pretty crazy DS numbers for a high Protection build.
Environment and Levels:
Renamed Protection-Shroom => Invulnerability-Shroom (much more clear)
Block-Shroom => Protection-Shroom (again much more clear). It now temporarily gives +10Protection and restores it to full.
Increased Pigapult delay 4 => 5 as it was a bit too oppressive.
Continued to slightly reduce the size of some older boss levels.
User Interface:
Fear and Fleeing will no longer overwrite the status text with '!'. Instead all fear Status-Effects just have 'F' as their normal glyph.
Show 'turns to close' on the mouse over desc of doors.
Doors will now vibrate slightly the turn before they will close.
Only play door sound when it opens (not close) so you don't get constant door noise spam.
Purple highlight for the targeting preview when using player abilities.
Character-menu: HP/SP/MP mouse over desc has same desc as bars (includes regen rates).
Goto merchant will now goto the nearest merchant
Hot Fix 1.36.1:
Player Balance:
Charge (Crunch): range 3 => 4, removed the onKill reset. It behaves like a strict upgrade to the old Charge (Base) which was quite strong.
Raise the protection of a late game protection equipment
Tier-3 Shields: +2 Protection
Tier-3 Heavy-Armor: +2 Protection
Tier-3 Protection-Rings: +2 Protection (Rings of Shielding and Ring of Fortitude)
Game Balance:
Remove random 50-100% roll from resistance mitigation.
All resistance values x 0.75
Potion-of-Resistance actually buffed to 25% (its supposed to be strong)
Monster Balance:
Reviving a skeleton will take 1T and is telegraphed and interuptable like Smite. You can also body block the revive.
Revived skeletons always come back at 50% HP
Bugs and Crashes:
Fast-Tanks ranked modifier will only allow tanks to 8-way move instead of also giving them 1SP
Don't popup +1PP when in water with Entwood Armor (unless low protection)
Fixed a crash (freeze really) when a swooping enemy was killed by the players damage shield.