Oh, hi there!
Last week the team got into a discussion about the ways character progression works. There are 4 main ways characters become more powerful:
- Acquire new Skills
- Equip relics
- Buy gear upgrades
- Acquire new Spells
It was determined that the gear upgrades in the blacksmith shop weren't interesting enough and didn't present any choices. If you were presented a gear upgrade in encounters as a reward, it was a no brainer to take it, and the blacksmith came down to just choosing which class of units should be upgraded.
So Mat was tasked with creating a new proposal for how they might work. He came up with the idea of branching gear trees. After a few days of discussions and deliberations, we chose an approach, and set out to make it. Today i'd like to present how the system works, and show a screen of it.
We have defined that all upgrades will be separated into Styles. Each style would define the upgrades for every class (Fighter, Ranger and Mystic) and type (Weapon and Armor). Each one of these has a number of tiers defined that each provide the benefits of the upgrade.
We have also extended the capabilities the upgrades may provide, so now they are capable of giving direct damage modifiers, like you would see on some abilities (for instance, extra damage to unarmored, or less damage taken from large units). Mat has a large table of possible values, ranging from +1 to +9 Power for Rangers, and up to +30 Armor for Fighters.
One idea floating in his mind (and spreadsheets) is to name one of the Styles "Heavy". A Heavy Fighter armor would also inflict a penalty to Movement (to match the fantasy of wearing heavy armor). Currently he's done so for both Heavy Armor and Heavy Weapon for the Fighter, which can mean the Fighter that decides to grab both upgrades would have very low Movement.
Each time you get to a blacksmith shop, that blacksmith will only carry 2 possible Styles, per upgrade type. He might have Heavy and Light Weapons, but Balanced and Light Armor. It then becomes a choice for you which one you'd like to grab for your units.
Another big change is that all gear upgrades are now per character. Previously they were global per class, and you could buy upgrades for a class you didn't have. This is no longer the case. Each character now has their own upgrade values. The blacksmith will always offer you upgrades only for the characters you have in your party. You can then choose which character to upgrade, and whether you want to upgrade him with the same Style, or swap to a different Style.
Finally, we have discussed what happens if one of your heroes that you've upgraded dies. On the surface, it would seem that all the gold you've spent on his upgrades is now lost. We balance this by making new heroes you find automatically boosted to the same power level as your lost heroes. This guarantees that your power level doesn't end up in a negative feedback loop (new heroes having no upgrades, making them weaker by default, and meaning all your spent gold is truly lost). It also guarantees no positive feedback loops of exploits (as far as i an see): your new heroes aren't any stronger than your deceased heroes.
Since there is a UI redesign coming up, i haven't bothered to make the blacksmith screen look any prettier than it was before, but it does showcase the new layout and framing for that screen. All names are also probably going to be changed: treat this blog post as a preview of the system instead of the final product.
Thanks for reading! If you have any concerns or positive/negative feedback about this change, we'd be happy to hear it. Leave your comments on the Steam forums, under this blog post or join our Discord server to talk to us directly. We're there all the time during work hours, and i'm there always. Unless sleeping.
MarkoP
https://store.steampowered.com/app/600610/The_Hand_of_Merlin/