Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Dungeon Diving 10

Just a small update (no build just yet).

Got a TON of great things working. Gear is now component-alized. Meaning I create base skeleton equipment, and can add components to it (which just build into the stats) to reflect some variations instead of building a database of different gear. This is how WoW does their gear (“of the monkey” etc), and is likely how Diablo handles theirs. Gameplay wise, it allows me to structure and add variation, rather than doing them all in one go. As such, a “base” set of gear for my first playable alpha is now in and ready to be used.

Stat system (at least my initial attempt) is complete as well. Stats are POW/SPD/LCK. POW(er) affects how hard your abilities hit (as a multiplier), SP(ee)D affects how fast your abilities refresh and perhaps a dodging component, and L(u)CK affects item drops and critical rates. Item drops will be important because they’ll affect your ability to produce permanent gear upgrades. I purposely did not put in defensive stats for a reason -- #1 your gear has an armor stat on it which directly reduces how much damage you’ll take, and #2 your health is upgraded as you level (and bought outside of the dungeon). Perhaps it’s not the best idea, but I wanted to keep the focus on playing and skills and less on gear/stats. We’ll see how it goes.

I revamped the skill system to be MUCH easier to handle, where you can only use one skill at a time and once the “queue” clears you can add another ability (assuming you can afford it and the refresh is up). This was important for adding a casting system to the game (which I also did) – skills can have a cast time and will display a progress bar over the player’s head. Casts will pay off for being vulnerable to silences/stuns for that time period. For example, there is an enemy that has a 1.5 second cast spell, but at a certain level the warrior gains the bash ability that can stun opponents and cancel anything currently being cast.

The START of status effects are in. It really needs a full-fledged system for maintaining/displaying/acting off buffs/debuffs, and that’s likely my next task. For example, I want to give a skill for damage over time effects, which isn’t possible without this system.

Once that’s in, it’s just a matter of finishing off the skills, adding a few extra enemies, and then we’re at alpha! Excited to share with people, it’s been a long time to get this off the ground

-J