Hello!
Welcome to another edition of AM Devlog! AM Devlogs are weekly updates on the development progress of Adventurer Manager. These Devlogs highlight our philosophy of the importance of transparency and player feedback.
Welcome to the two part 4th AM Devlog! This is a very exciting for Devlog for us because it will highlight two huge changes that are coming soon. This will be a text-heavy but I assure you it will be worth it! The first new feature is an overview of our skill changes. The second is an overview of a brand new, never announced upcoming management feature!
Our current skill system has served us well up until recently. It's long been something we wanted to improve and make more robust. Today we're ready to share with you what we've been designing and working on for changes to our skills. Every level an Adventurer will gain a skill point. You will be able to invest these points in up to 12 possible active skills and 4 possible passive skills with 5 of 5 investable skill points per skill. Unlike some other games in the past, we are not limiting the higher tier skills by points invested or even level. You will be able to attain the 'top' skill in one tree by level 4 in the new system. If you want, you can make a 'jack of all skills' Adventurer and put 1 point into all of your skills. This may not be the best option though, as the bonus for investing all 5 skillpoints into a specific skill will be worth it! Adventurer Manager is all about the Adventurers and in this new system with only 49 investable skill points over 16 skills with 5/5 investable points, you will only ever be able to maximize 10 of them. This new arrangement will allow for some interesting variations in Adventurers of the same class as a Warrior could specialize in damage dealing skills, party buffs and protects, or tanking and defense.
[img=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1950450/AM_Devlogs/Devlog4/warrior_skilltree_preview.png]
Early Warrior Skill Tree
Okay that's how the skill tree will work but what about how it's used in combat? Well, we've tossed out Cooldowns entirely! Now, every skill will cost Energy. Energy will be a flat 100 for all classes. Each skill, based on its tier, will cost a certain amount of Energy to use. The Energy pool will refresh between each encounter. The benefit to this system, as well as allowing access to almost all of our skills at lower level, allows for combat to be incredibly more tactical. Putting the skills you want in your hands to use anytime you want allows you to determine the best action to take in a variety of encounter situations. Need to drop the armor on that Zombie to hit him harder? Cast out a -Armor skill from your Warrior before you drop him down with your Rogue's high damage skills. An easy encounter of bats that will be a breeze? Just blow all your high Energy, high damage attacks to end the encounter quickly. But wait! That's not all!
In addition to expending Energy with attacks there will be another bar called Power that counts up! As you use abilities and take damage (choosing to Defend will generate more) you will gain Power in the respective Adventurer's Power bar. When you've reached a certain threshold you'll be able to use a special class ability! These are still in design at the moment but you'll be able to pick 1 permanent skill of a few options per class. When your Power bar has been filled you'll be able to unleash your Class's ultimate ability! In the case of a Cleric, your options will be a Resurrection, Full Group Heal, Instant Kill Undead or some others! We're not done there either!
Along with the individual Adventurer's Power bar, there will be a Party Power Bar! This bar will build up among all Adventurers and based on the Class arrangement of your party you will able to use a party ultimate ability. These will be slottable skills that unlock based on class arrangement in a party and you may choose the one you want before you enter a dungeon with a specific party. These will primarily be used in longer encounters like Boss fights to deal heavy damage or rescue your party in distress. We're incredibly excited to bring you these skill changes and we are certain it will be worth the wait!
With these changes, the last 3 classes in the base set of classes will be enabled for hire! These include the Barbarian, Paladin, and Monk. The Barbarian is a heavy damage melee combatant who can also pull his weight on the frontline as a dodge tank. The Paladin will be a hybrid between the Cleric and Warrior. Instead of focusing on Armor to tank, the Paladin will focus on blocking and some minor heals. The Monk is a little more interesting. He will focus on multi-hits with dual wield fists. With the Monk we are introducing a great change to dual wield, which is the chance on attack for the offhand weapon to make a separate attack. In essence, any class that dual wields weapons will have a flat chance to attack with the offhand weapon. The base amount will be most likely around 25% (it's still being decided), but it will be able to be raised with passives, abilities and other upcoming features. The Monk has abilities that cause dual hits with the offhand as well as other abilities and passives that raise his chance to dual wield hit. We've been wanting to bring these last few classes to you for a while and they are definitely coming soon!
(Continued in Part 2)