Hey guys. Sorry it's been so long since an update, I've been away for a week. I've still been doing a lot of work though, and I've made quite a bit of progress in a number of areas. So, without further ado:
Visual Gear
Something that I always like to see in a game, and also something that is left out of many roguelikes due to the shear quantity of equippable items, is a visual equipment system. What I mean by this is that the gear you equip is displayed on your character. Originally, I planned for Claustrophobia to have various different playable characters, but that currently isn't working with the type of character customization I want to put in the game. So, instead, your gear will now be displayed on your character, which you can name and change body features on starting a new game.
Of course, now you have to decide what stats you want to improve with your gear and what looks the best. Talking of stats...
Stat Changes
Stats haven't had much of a mention so far, but if you'd ever checked through the released screenshots in detail, you'll notice values and stats themselves change around quite a bit. This is partially due to me trying different combinations of character builds, and partially due to me not yet settling on a balanced combat experience. There is a lot of horrible maths behind the stat engine (as there is in any RPG), but I think I'm settling with the current build. It looks like this:
From left to right:
- Weapon Damage : The average damage dealt by your weapon.
- Armour : Reduces the amount of damage dealt by incoming attacks.
- Stamina : Increases health and health regen.
- Strength : Increases the damage done by melee weapons, and increases armour.
- Agility : Increases damage done by ranged weapons, and increases critical chance and dodge chance.
- Intelligence : Increases damage done by magical attacks and increases mana and mana regen.
I'd really like feedback on this above anything else. What stats do you like to see in RPGs and how complicated would you like it to get? With this system I've tried to incorporate all the well know RPG elements and still kept it simple enough that managing your gear doesn't become absurdly complicated, and you can focus on combat and exploration. Which in turn ties into my final point (it's like I actually thought this through...):
Combat Changes
Minor changes here, really, but one that make combat a lot more satisfying and fun to play. I'll have a video up soon of this in action, but combat now has particle effects for blood, multiple sounds for each weapon type, hit animations for each major weapon type, and character/enemy attack animations. Base stats and combat difficulty has also been altered so that levels 1-5 are fairly easy going, then after that difficulty increases exponentially. Enemy gear will begin to out rank your own gear and you'll be forced to play a lot more tactically to take everything down at high level. And don't get me started on bosses...
No seriously, you really shouldn't, my hands hurt from typing so much.
Spare me.
~TheIndieForge
Keeps getting better and better!
Thank you!