Hello!
Welcome to the 7th edition of AM Devlog! AM Devlogs are weekly updates (when we don't patch) on the development progress of Adventurer Manager. These Devlogs highlight our philosophy of the importance of development transparency and player feedback.
Missed a Devlog? You can view the archive here!
I want to start off this 7th Devlog talking about some upcoming Skill adjustments. While the previously introduced 'major' patch adjusted Skill drastically we knew that it wouldn't be a simple one and done. We've introduced a few hotfixes along the way to address some overpowered classes and abilities. This upcoming patch will introduce even more changes to the the way Skills work and we think we are very close to a final iteration! Here's the details of the new system. We've reduced the total amount of Skills down from 12 Active, 4 Passive to 9 Active, 3 Passive. Wait, what?! You took away Skills?! Yes we did! While we were happy with the amount of Skill options available to you all, we did not like the amount of redundancies that were occurring within the same class. Fewer Skills allows us to really make those Skills more vital. In addition, you will now have to CHOOSE 5 of those 9 Active Skills to specialize in. Once you choose your 5 you are locked into those selections until you pay lots of gold to respec them. In order to make your 5 choices more important, the total investable Skill ranks for them will increase to 10 and they will matter. 'One point wonders' will largely be removed due to the fact that the first Skill Point into a Skill will not ultimately be worth it, but over 5-10 Ranks you will see definite gains. One of the most important elements that have been changed regarding the Skills are Stuns. Stuns are no longer 100% guaranteed. Stuns will now have a % chance to land and will increase with invested Ranks. All of these changes are getting us closer to our goal of making Adventurer Manager's combat more tactical and engaging.
WARNING! Monsters are going to get a helluva lot tougher in the very near future. You all have had it relatively easy but it was never the intention for you to breeze through our dungeon content! You will soon see the introduction of various Monster mutators that will influence their strengths and weaknesses! Enraged and Deadly Monsters will go away and instead Enraged and Deadly will be two of many possible mutators that a pack of Monsters in any dungeon can contain. An example of some mutators include: Deadly, increased Critical Hit Chance; Shielding, increased Block Chance; Armored, increased Armor; Tough, increased HP; and so forth. These mutators will also apply to minibosses and bosses and will undoubtedly make them much tougher to take down. To help you identify what a particular monster or group of monster has a Mutator, there will be new info pane that will appear to give you more detailed information.
The goal for combat and dungeon exploring in AM is to have our basic encounters be relatively easy to allow you to farm and gather equipment to prepare you for the tougher encounters which require careful utilization of classes, abilities, and equipment to take down. You may encounter a boss with high block chance and realize a Paladin would be very helpful to debuff the block chance. That's not to say it will be impossible without a Paladin, merely you may find some combinations of Classes more useful for certain situations. I'm happy to say that gone will be the days where you can AoE breeze your way through our dungeons!
The vision for AM has always been the management of your Adventurers and part of that will be how/when to utilize certain classes and equipment over others depending on the Monster and Dungeon and next patch should be a step in that direction. I apologize in advance for any trouble these new monsters may cause, (just kidding, I want to kill all of your Adventurers as much as possible *evil grin*) but it should be a lot more challenging which is what we've always wanted in AM!
Skills will not be complete with these changes though! Pretty soon you will see the introduction of the aforementioned Class and Power Party abilities. Your favorite AoE stuns and heals (and even resurrect) will be introduced! Just to recap: Power will generate after multiple encounters of using Skills, taking damage, and defending to allow you to utilize a Class or Party 'ultimate' that you select beforehand. There will be 3-4 options per Class that will be a permanent selection. Do you want your Cleric to AoE Stun, AoE Heal, or Resurrect? These are the types of choices you'll make with your Class Power Skill. Oh and you might expect some Bosses to use some of these against you as well….
Last Devlog I mentioned briefly the changes that are coming to how Auto Adventures are taken and completed and I'd like to elaborate in this weeks Devlog. Pretty soon you will see a large Scroll UI (mentioned in Devlog #3) that will be your one-stop shop for Auto Adventure management. Auto Adventures will ONLY be taken from this UI. You will simply choose the level of the Adventure and the Party you would like to send and voila, they will begin the Adventure. Automatic Adventures will also take a lot longer to complete than before, but the Adventurers will steadily gain levels and Equipment as they continue along. They will end up gaining similar amounts of XP, Gold, and Equipment as if you sent them on a bunch of Auto Adventures. We'd like to cut down on the amount of micromanaging you have to do and we believe this is a step in the right direction. When the Adventure is complete, you will be notified and you simply click and Complete in the Scroll UI. You can then either Rest them or send them on another Adventure immediately! This should allow you to quickly build up secondary parties with very little hassle and clicking!
That's all for this week's edition of AM Devlog! Check back next week for more development updates and a new team member feature!
Happy Adventuring!
Thomas Spradling
Game Designer & Producer
VAStudios