Hello!
Welcome to the 6th 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!
The Skill Update finally arrived last weekend! We've been wanting these skill changes for a while and are incredibly excited that you're finally getting to play it! We have already released a few hotfixes to fix and balance some abilities for various classes and we will continue to do so up to and after the full release. Skill icons are also sneaking into the game and you should see all of them fully implemented sometime next week. Player skill effects are also being slowly introduced.
One thing that we have mentioned in some discussion posts but have not officially addressed related to the Skills Update are the upcoming changes to monster skills. Over the course of some smaller patches, monsters will start receiving specific skills relevant to their type as well as overall improvements. Normal monsters will generally have one to three skills that are from their respective class but with different names and animations. This way you will know what types of abilities they use but their names and animations will differ. Animations for monster skills will definitely be introduced as we finalize them. Bosses and minibosses will have selected skills based on their classes as well but will generally be modified to make them tougher and may have some unique abilities to make things more interesting. They will also be more intelligent as to when they are using their abilities instead of blowing their best skill right at the start. It will take us a while to plug away at monster skills so we appreciate your patience as we continue to work on them.
A new system will be also introduced in the towns to hire Adventurers. Around the time the Resting system hits we will replace the Hire Adventurer menu in the Inn with a new scene for Resting Adventurers. Adventurers will now be depicted as little characters in the blank area in the bottom right below the inn. Each class will have its own unique image and animation and you'll simply click the class of Adventurer you'd like to hire and a new popup will appear. This new popup menu will show the race, class, gender, and their Attributes. As always, UI changes and improvements are always ongoing!
[img=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1950450/AM_Devlogs/Devlog6/adv_hire_ui_preview.png]
Early Hire Preview
Speaking of the Resting system, which was addressed in Devlog #1, it has received some updates that we are excited about! Here's how it will work. Adventurers will now have Endurance which will slowly drop as they go on both manual and automatic Adventures. It will be a 0% to 200% amount that will default to 80-100% (still in revision) when Resting in the free bed that the Inn provides. As the Endurance % drops during Adventures the Adventurer will start to receive negatives to his Attributes and derived stats. They'll miss more, lose some max HP, and some other detrimental effects. In order to regain your lost Endurance, the Adventurer will have to rest in realtime in the Inn in beds of increasing quality. The better the bed, the quicker they will rest and the higher they will raise their Endurance up beyond 100% to receive increased stat bonuses. With the better beds also comes an increase in price! When the University hits, various paths will offer bonuses to Rest Speed, Cost, Endurance Loss, Endurance Max, etc. This is one of our first major management systems going in soon that will encourage you to use more than just the same 4 Adventurers. Also related to Resting are changes to how Auto Adventures are taken and turned in! They will be far more streamlined (with fewer clicks) and able to be managed from inside a manual dungeon. This may not come with the Resting system but will be close behind it. More details to come when they are available!
To wrap it up here, we'd like to give a big shout out to our supporters and players who have put their time and energy into our little Early Access game. Your friendly comments, conversations, suggestions, and number crunching on our steam and studio discussion boards have really energized us and have helped ensure that future players of AM will be playing a truly awesome game. We would not be where we are without the support from all of you. You all make working on AM truly worth it.
Happy Adventuring!
Thomas Spradling
Game Designer & Producer
VAStudios