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[LightEnt]

Wont take another month for an update, i promise  

Wow, lied through my teeth. Apologies.

oh? ... OHHH
that's some gorgeous fire. Some sort of post-death revenge blast to enemies?

Nah, it's actually a boss technique, i was just testing out the effect. Its appearance in the GIF is just debug.

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I'm updating mainly because I feel like I sort of need to get back into the habit. I haven't been updating not because I haven't been doing anything, but because i sort of feel like what i'd be updating with would be monotonous and boring. To elaborate, nearly all work recently has been framework related, specifically with things that were working perfectly well before that i've completely broken and had to re-do while trying to fit new features in, just to get them working as they were before i messed with stuff.

Update #10 -- House of Cards -- 7/14/2015

So here's a list of what i've been fumbling with:


Hurtboxes -- First, I broke the enemies. For larger enemies, i decided to include multiple hurtboxes with different defense values and such, to allow for weakpoints and more dynamic designs.



Like this ^ asshole.

So I tweaked the programming to have all instances spawn and keep track of their own hurtboxes. This required me to redo (and learn) alot of new tricks. (It's working now.)


Formulas -- Then, I rewrote and rebalanced the base damage formula, like 3 or 4 times. This wasn't hard and it didn't break anything. But in order to test its impact, i had to rebalance all the offensive and defensive values, the multipliers on attacks, equipment design, Enemy/Player stat growth with level, ect. (In the end, I just reverted back to my first idea.) I never felt like this was worth updating about because...well, nobody has played the game yet.


Words --Being an RPG lover, i'm a sucker for full information disclosure. So after that, I decided to get some sprite-based font going for fully-controllable worded popups (and text) and again, i had to learn some new tricks. I wanted to get some "CRITICAL!", or "Deflected!", or "INEFFECTIVE; TRY HARDER." action going on.



Anddd I got it working, but in the end i'm a bit torn on how i want to use it during combat, since too much text everywhere is going to get distracting real fast. So i'm currently not even using it for what I intended. (It's there, though, i will find use.)


Hitboxes -- Then my hitboxes broke. I designed the hitboxes with specific target limits in mind. So, one attack may only hit a single enemy at once, while another could hit nine. This was pretty important for how i balanced things, so it kind of sucked when it stopped working. And the only reason it stopped working is because of...


AI targeting --along with my original core enemy design idea (dynamic enemy instance interaction) I began working in the ability for enemies to dynamically shift between who they would deem an enemy, based on who/what was on the battlefield and what was happening. Along with this, i needed them to be able to target other instances and damage them (while ignoring specific others), and somewhere trying to get this to work, i broke things.

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As of right now, everything is starting to (MOSTLY) work how it did before I started breaking stuff, so i'm able to work on new stuff. Today at work, I did my typical self-therapy session, which involves me designing and playing with new visual effects for attacks and spells.





These are casting glyph animations for some of the fire spells.

Also...



though I never really went into it, i've removed the DMC-esque Style system from the game, and replaced it with a "Flow" system. Flow increases off the same principle as Style. Varying your attacks increases Flow %, which provides a %damage increase to your abilities. Becoming stale will cause the timer to decrease faster, causing you to lose your momentum. Different weapons/techniques/spells will interact with your flow meter in different ways.

I may find a different way to incorporate a score system later on, but i decided this would be a more interesting and rewarding mechanic.

[LightEnt]

  still trucking along baby

1) RPG Mechanics

I've solidified the RPG systems of the game! But today ill just post about the defensive side of Equipment, which comes in the form of {Barriers} and [Units].



- {Barriers} are your typical RPG armor...sort of. Equipping them will increase your defensive stats/resistances and may come with secondary effects (passives). They also provide a regenerating buffer to your HP specific to that barrier, which is very important as HP does not regenerate on its own.



- [Units] are objects that you affix to your barrier. Outside of equipping weapons, this is how Estelle becomes stronger.



- Every barrier has a set amount of Unit slots. How powerful you are depends not only on what equipment you have, but what you decide to prioritize given your limits



- Defeating powerful enemies/bosses will usually drop equally powerful equipment and units, but some can also be found by simply exploring the environment.

- Human bosses may even drop their customized equipment, allowing you put a personal spin on their strengths and weaknesses! Some specific armors / units can even synergize with other weapons / spells in unexpected ways. :D

(im a megaman fan)

2) Enemy Behaviors



- Like the slimes, other enemies come in variations that have slightly different sets of tenancies and abilities, and can change the dynamic of fights.



- This is a support variation on this soldier type. He's no more or less powerful than the others, and has no offensive spells, but is still a big threat. He has the ability to strengthen all of his comrades in the area, increasing the threat level of the entire group!



- Additionally, while every soldier can use healing magic on themselves, this one is able to heal everyone simultaneously in a wide area.

- There are other variations of the same unit that prioritize offensive magic, defensive support spells, ect. This is a theme that is present throughout the game, and hopefully will prove to keep combat interesting from start to finish.

3) Environmental Interaction



- Certain spells can set fire to the environment. Standing it in too long will apply a burn effect that deals damage over time, but it doesnt discriminate caster from enemy!

- How far it spreads currently depends on the nearby backdrops and the attack itself.

- Other usual effects exist too! Lightning damage spreads on metal platforms, Freeze magic slightly changes in form around water. These things are already implemented, I just haven't finished the visual effects for them yet



- And as a bonus, the same technique i used for the fire can be repurposed for all sorts of visual effects that i'm having alot of fun with.
   


I'd like to cover how weapons and techniques (special attacks) work next! Probably show off some new enemies / environments in the process