Bugs:you're right, the bugs are very elusive.
I've tried consistently replicating them for you but no luck.
Content:Feel free to share your monsters (mini-bosses are also planned), items and classes design!
Here's a list of half baked ideas:
Weapons:bow-and-arrow: stats about as sword, but slower: 0,2,2,2.
Special: can interrupt the dice picking any time and go immediately to confrontation.
This is an attempt to make ranged feel different (see Metaphor, below).
How to activate: just click on the weapon icon instead of picking a dice.
A problem: if you "shoot" (activate the special ability) as the slower player, enemy got one more dice than you.
If are the faster player, instead, it would be convenient to keep picking dice.
Either way, it is never convenient to "shoot"!
Solution: you also get a free yellow die when you "shoot"!
(instead of the die you would have picked)
Text: "attack anytime to interrupt draft and get an extra yellow die."
Note: the *heavy* version (more damage, less speed) could well be renamed "crossbow"
Note: [edit] thinking about it, I image that a possible strategy with this weapon will be to wait until there is one dice left, then "shoot", to get a random yellow dice instead of that lousy last dice. This should feel a lot like "point black" shooting! BTW I tentatively decreased the stats, but tuning is surely needed.
Metaphor: [edit] the dice draft is kind of the phase where the two combatants approach, studying each other and planning their move. A ranged weapon can put a premature end to that phase, by shooting (or attempting to do so). However, the outcome can well be that the target jumps at the shooter and strikes first, etc. The two fighters are supposed to be a few meters apart anyway.
sword-and-shield: stats: 1 to all, i.e. much lower than sword.
Why: shield slows you down; 1H weapon is less accurate and powerful; the shield does not even guarantee protection unless skilfully used.
Special: you
can place green dice (accuracy) to increase defense
Metaphor: you are being accurate... with the shield
Notes: tuning is necessary, naturally, but white is more useful than green so ability to use green for white is a good advantage, compensating low stats.
BTW I didn't understand how the
sabre currently works. It reads something like: "reroll dice pool before draft" but I didn't see anything happening, or maybe I didn't understand what was supposed to happen.
(EDIT: found out! you can click on the weapon to reroll all dice... but, is it broken? you can do that an unlimited number of times so getting a winning combination, if one exists, becomes a matter of patience?)Also, idea for the
maul. It doesn't single-hit kill the boss, that's ok.
But in that case it should at least stun it, negating counter-strikes, to partially compensate. Otherwise that weapon is too ill-fitted the boss, making it a very poor choice overall.
How to: a message reads "the devil is smashed to the ground, but gets back up", or something. The player is probably expecting something to happen the first time, wondering if the beast will die or no (I did), so it is fitting to throw a message saying that no, it didn't die, but at least... it has felt it.
Monsters:(monsters should have stats and their own special ability, which is revealed by clicking on them).
(are stats linked to monster type, currently?)
(it is ok that the energy increases with the dungeon level, but mosters of a given type, e.g. goblin, should have the same stats . Maybe increased by modifiers: large goblins, chefiatan gut...)
flame demon:
Special: it rerolls any dice as it picks it up. Unpredictable, difficult.
Notes: ai strategy can still be kept the same, as it is AI's interest to negate better dices to player.
zombi: (or, gelatinous cube?)
Special: ignores wounds effects. (Is killed by any third wound).
How to: however you strike it, instead of collecting, say "*guts", it just collects generic "*wounds" (with no effect).
Note: this also means that repeated wounds at the same location
do count. E.g. striking the "*gut" twice produces two "*wounds". This partially compensates the tremendous ability of not decreasing monster's performance after hitting it
Note: not even face-hits kills it in one go, then. Three wounds. Resilient beasts!
Wraith (or, rotting zombie):
Special: does not
accumulate wounds. "Any new wound
substitutes the previous."
Note: can only be killed by a face strike!
Note: no need to explain anything to the player: the 'note' above is a mere consequence of the text.
A little puzzle for the player, if you will (the wraith might seem unkillable at first)
Note: the single wound being sustained has normal effect.
Objects:10-foot pole: does nothing. Humorous reference to that overrated object in D&D.
blink spell (or, flare spell, or, cantrip):
re-roll all dice still to be picked (they don't change color).
Note: used anytime, instead of picking a dice, when there is any number of dice left.
Note: particularly useful to reroll the last dice before using it, if you are losing initiative, or to break draws and profit from the difference, if you are winning initiative.
poison gel: consume it to make your next hit fatal, but not immediately fatal: enemy will still strike back as normal, dies at end of turn.
Text:: "your next hit is fatal, at end of turn."
For the next two points...
It's not like I want to insist.
It's your game, naturally. I understand that.
Still, let me illustrate my reasons.
Random AI:Giving them random behavior will actually make it way harder.
(naturally, not completely random, but randomish, e.g. 10% chance, and still get the highest valued die of the randomly chosen color)
I know, a bit harder, but I think also funnier and more interesting!
Because:
- It's fun to be surprised by AI.
- True, it is totally ok that the AI is suboptimal, it will feel like you are... outsmarting a real opponent.
But it AI errors are 100% predicable, and always in the same way, the it is not that fun anymore:
you memorize the behavior pattern once and for all, and it feels like you are just... exploiting a bug of a broken robot instead. - Sometimes the randomish AI move would be an error saving player's life, which is also a fun twist
- My bet is that is makes it feel 'real'
Also, as you said, "best move always" AI, would be not only undesirable, but very work-intensive to code.
What I propose is, instead, immediate to code.
In summary:Don't: make it always do the best move (difficult),
Neither: make it always get it wrong the same way (current),
But: make it
possible that the best move is made, on occasion.
Speed-value rule:I understand that you don't want to confuse players. Luckily, you can state it as a simple rule:
"Whenever you surpass your adversary in speed, you get to pick another die"
(here "surpass" means: you were slower, but now are faster).
That's it.
Beside, I think it makes perfect sense.
As I told you, I was actually confused that I
didn't work like that in my first games.
I.e. when I recovered my initial speed disadvantage (during draft) I expected to see consequences accordingly.
Finally, I don't think the strategy, therefore AI, should change that much, or at all.
What I'm claiming is that the current AI heuristic (go for white/red first, if any left, then, blue/green) would still be more or less as optimal as it was before (that is, reasonably close enough). A bit less, yes, but not substantially differently.
Here is why:
Say am at speed disadvantage: this means that my adversary already picked the best die A.
I could pick the next best die B directly (usually, red/white), OR, pick the blue dice, win speed, then B.
This is convenient only if I planned to get the blue later anyway, which is not very often, as blue dice are the least useful ones (see below).
Here are the reasons why I think the game would improve by adding that rule
- it would decrease the current overrating of base speed weapon stat: currently, it fully determines, alone and without any possible countermeasure, the entire draft order, which is invariably an enormous advantage;
- it would make blue dice, which currently are by far the least desirable ones, a bit more desirable. Currently, they (partly!) affects only the strike-order (and not draft-order), which matters anything only when you manage to make your strike negate an otherwise effective counterattack, i.e. not very often after all;
- it would make strategies more diversified, mitigating just a bit the "always go for white/red, no matter what" effect;
Developer
