Since the last time I have posted, I have made a new introduction and tutorial, loot rework, region select screen, another MDS reward rework, character customization, and...
And something else probably.
The most important of those is, of course, loot rework!
It's very simple - making missions more difficult will make enemies drop more and better parts.
Additionally, drop quality is now influenced by minion power and whether it is modified or not.
For example, modified dreadnought will drop better parts than the normal dreadnought and normal dreadnought will drop better parts than a tank.
There are still a lot of random chances involved, so don't expect this to be true all the time.
Introduction cutscene has been removed, because it was too long and, well, not that good.
Instead of it, there are several dialogue boxes that appear before and after the tutorial.
The tutorial has been shortened as well, so it takes a lot less time to get to the real game.
Region select screen allows to quickly jump from one region to the other, without using arrow buttons.
This is useful to higher level players and it will be even more useful when the Restoration War activity will be added.
Finally, now it's possible to create a custom character for dialogues.
You can change character's name and dialogue appearance.
I'm really happy with the improvements, but not that happy with how fast I've been working.
Unfortunately, ETA has not moved forward much. Now it's at 45 days.
This is because there were several delays and because loot rework was not included in the previous ETA.
Two steps forward, one step back.
This weekend I won't be at home, so that's another delay, but when I'm back, I'll be working on the final story mission and the Machines.
My current estimate is that it'll take 3 weeks, but if I can do it faster, this will bring the release much closer.
Currently, story mission XIV and the Machines are the biggest tasks on the list.
Completed:
- Loot rework: Bigger enemies now drop better parts, difficulty level makes enemies drop better parts.
- Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
- Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
- Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
- Relics.
- Mission XIII.
- Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
- Mission XII.
- Mission XI.
Not completed:
- Mission XIV.
- Broken Infinity endgame activity.
- Restoration War endgame activity.
- Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
- The Machines.
- New save system.
- 49 new achievements.
Completed – Minor changes and improvements:
- Graphically improved loot.
- Added region select screen and map key.
- Improved mission overview interface.
- Improved mission I.
- Improved mission III.
- Improved text input.
- Reworked tutorial.
- Reworked introduction.
- Added avatar customization: Name your character and choose how it looks in dialogues.
- Improved spaceship building interface.
- Reworked Super Shield ability: Shield lasts 8 seconds and increases armor generated on kill while active.
- Fixed inventory leak.
- Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
- Improved dialogue avatars.
- Improved settings interface.
- Added button that resets settings to default.
- Added button that resets controls to default.
- Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards, removed diodes.
- Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
- Improved achievement interface.
- Repositioned mission interface.
- Fixed weapon amplifying.
- Improved ability bar.
- Made better ability icons.
- Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
- Improved ability and effect icons.
- Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
- Improved barrager.
- Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
- Improved Sector transition cutscene.
- Improved pausing.
- Improved HUD.
- Improved ability level scaling.
- Improved item management and filtering.
- Repositioned item management buttons.
- Stat page improvements.
- Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
- New part properties.
- Improved part names.
- Higher grade parts are now more common.
- Relic dismantling rewards.
- Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
- Parts give fewer wave chances.
- Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
- Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
- Fixed story mission X glitch.
- Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
- Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
- Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
- Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
- Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
- Decreased starter part limit to 6.
- Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
- Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
- Increased starter ability points to 10.
- While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
- Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
- Removed filled alloy containers.
- Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
- Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
- Fixed engine glitch.
- Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
- Guardian is now more mobile.
- Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
- Region update flashes are now brighter.
- Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
- Improved dialogue system graphics.
- Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
- Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
- Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.
Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:
- Improve the implemented Machines.
- Rework certain achievements.
- Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
- Better default controls.
- Fix stack buying glitch.
- Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
- Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
- Improve Techamer's cell.
- Rework loot box.
- Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
- Improve siege mission.
- Improve arena mission.
- Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
- Expand dialogue box.
- Improve shield particles and animations.
- Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
- Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
- Rework contribution system.
- Improve damage text.
- Cathode rework.
- Improve controller support.
- Optimize.
- Improve secured regions.
- Rework evolving mechanic.
- Replace gauntlet missions.
- Improve collision system.
- Add help pages.
ETA:
- 45 days.
Progress:
- 70% of the tasks completed.
- I’ll post again when the percentage will reach 80%.
Until then!
