Buckle up, it's a big one.
Over the last few weeks, I've had an incredible amount of development time which has allowed me to do away with the test branch for fixing all of the things that were broken up to the current end of the main story in CoA. There are a few other things being worked on that I want to take this time to talk about, but first let me just let you know that there will probably not be a new patch this weekend.
The three major things I've been working on are:
• The Orc War - Continuation of the main story, beginning immediately following the third Veil scene.
• Battlefront - a mini-game where Ruby commands troops on an exploration through various parts of the four kingdom's area.
• Battle Series I (DLC) - Level 25 maze dungeon featuring Zodiac themed bosses and loot.
I've mentioned the Orc War many times over the past probably a year and a half now, and I am sorry at how long it's taken me to be able to make progress on it. However, I am happy to say that development for it is well under way. In fact, there won't be a new update to the game until at least the first part of the questline is completely finished. This part takes Ruby & friends through the Nexus Waterway, an abandoned sewer system beneath Auria. I'm very close to finished with this part, but I need to iron out a few things before I publish it. Specifically, I need to connect the Day 4 (Orc War Day) map to the various locations around the world. Some events will only take place during the Orc War and will be missed once players progress past the core events.
Because the beginning of the Orc War is linear, there is no quest log details for it. Additionally, I have decided that keeping up on the quest log takes entirely too much development time, so moving forward there will be less dialogue related detail and more to-the-point 'what to do' and 'where you left off' information. Originally, I did want there to be a ton of extra readable dialogue, but at the end of the day I want to continue the overall project and getting bogged down in dialogue has already cost us a lot of time. This may be something I invest in once I consider CoA to be "complete" (as opposed to 'this is where the story stops for now' which is how I previously looked at it when I originally launched the game.)
In short: The first steps of the Orc War are set to happen following the 3rd Veil scene and are already intertwined with event coding, therefore there will not be an update to the game until it is finished and ready to go, which I estimate to take no longer than two weeks from today.
The Battlefront was an idea I had for a new game altogether, but decided to add to CoA as a test run. Ruby hires mercenaries who fight through contested areas, collecting resources and building support structures to secure Lvell's position throughout the northern forest region. On the world map, this first Battlefront zone is the entire snow and dead forest extending from the tower north of Lvell beside Scarlet Cavern.
Key mechanics for Battlefront:
• Only Ruby may participate. Other party members are removed unless otherwise specified (such as DLC character packs if that's something we ever do)
• Once KO'd, mercs will drop all their gear and return to level 1 to be hired again. The initial hiring process costs Gold, but all future hirings will cost resources of the area (Silver Piece, Gold Piece, Wood, Food, etc).
• The current test group of mercs are capped at level 20 and only have a handful of skills. This will be expanded on as further tests roll out.
• Similar to how the original Black Forest functioned, there is one zone per world map tile for the entire forest and structures included with some deviation for combined zones.
• Loot obtained from the Battlefront area will be optimal for further Battlefront usage, but also conform to the standard weapons and armor sets of the main story characters.
• Since there is very little story contained within, new zones can be deployed as part of any regular patch and will not impede other patches or updates.
• If you have any comments or recommendations about the event, feel free to let me know!
Battle Series I is an idea that came from me wanting to continue to fund this endeavor. Updates take a ton of time (I have 2884 hours in the engine as of writing this) and now over 20,000 people own a license to the game. As always, every DLC helps the project continue. So, about the details... I came up with 5 boss battles, whose details will remain a mystery until release, based on the Zodiac theme. Each boss has their own zone. Each zone has its own addition of unique battles and includes some from the previous zones. Each boss has a chance to drop gear from the Zodiac Weapons & Armor Set. The basic Zodiac set is a purchasable 260-point Defense and Magic Defense focused set, which you can get using the Astral Coins that drop from all enemies in the area and from Zodiac Coins which have a chance to drop off the bosses. Additionally, the bosses have a chance to drop enhanced versions of this set with their name attached, which are 325 point uncommon set and 350 point rare set. For the first time, this new set also includes weapons!
These bosses will find their way into the Pit with slight variations. In their pit alternative, they will not drop astral or zodiac coins.
Short: The is a battle-focused DLC with minimal story involvement. Possible rewards are weapons and armor.
Some other things to go over regarding the next update:
- There will be an increase in CoA's overall file size, the specifics of which I'm not yet sure. New background music was added for the new zones and I found dozens of new SV enemies to use in the future. Given some time, I will likely remove the unused assets until they're ready to appear in game. For the time being, their data will be present in the file size.
- The next download will be big, even relative to the above statement. Many character files had to be slightly updated which will cause the file to be re-downloaded. Additionally, all the details for Battle Series I is included in the current package even though it is not yet available.
Coming Soon, but later than everything above:
- The Pit will see a rework to save data space and development time. Custom non-boss battles designed for the Pit will be replaced with their regular-game alternatives and drop the same loot. Pit Coins and other Hall of Challengers specific loot will instead drop after the battle as a text prompt rather than directly off the defeated enemy.
- The next tier of the An'ura Rift for the Colosseum will not come as originally planned. Instead, the current rift will be brought to level 25 and all data for lower level enemies will be adjusted. Ultimately, these changes will keep these 'endgame activities' in line with the highest level Ruby & co should be provided the player does mostly everything along the main story path.
- Multi-map zones will be mostly replaced moving forward with full scale maps where it is possible to do so. For instance, Scarlet Cavern and Den An'ura use mostly the same tileset throughout and could all be on one map rather than be spread across dozens.
That's plenty of information for one post, wouldn't you say? Stay tuned for patch notes in the coming weeks for the official release of 5.0 and the first steps of the Orc War!