Another week of updates, and this one was quite the workload! Last week we began introducing our work in progress nodes concept. This week we took that concept to the table and started getting things to work. A lot of smart techniques went into making what we have possible so far and I'd like to share what went down here.
Now as you can tell from this image that was posted in the last devlog
There are A LOT of nodes involved here. And mapping this up by hand would probably have taken the entire week. As many of you already know, the team is known for creating dev tools outside of DM (a tactic Zane enforces), to allow us to create content at during game time, and we currently have dev tools set up for our grid maps, NPCs (and various other legacy systems). This time I decided to take a different route. Nodes are static, and are not something that need to be changed during game hours, however it still needed a way to have them created not by hand because that would just take too long.
So to keep things short, this is the end product -
(everything including the large nodes are connected, just needs an updated gif)
In order to achieve this, when the game starts up, it scans the entire image pixel by pixel and starts sorting based on patterns found. It is able to detect where nodes are, what their sizes are, what nodes they are, and what nodes they're connected to.
This whole system took 3 days to complete. So why do this? There are over 400 nodes involved in this tree, and that's incredibly overwhelming to have to hard code all locations and connections for each. If Zane changes connections or moves nodes around, the only thing that'll need to happen is a rescan of the image to update.
SulLight has been working on completing the animation from last weeks devlog
But has decided to remake this scene for better results.
You'll probably be seeing more iterations of this as we move forward, but it's really shaping up!
With this hard stuff out of the way (this node system took a lot of our attention this week), we're looking to complete the tree by next week.
This week I'd like to introduce Wards.
Wards are a group of individuals who harness inner power and unleash it as devastating attacks from a distance. This class is essentially a mage class. Wards are able to mold their chakra into any of the five elements giving them a wide range of tactics to employ.
Wards are weaker physically than fighters but make up for their lack of physique with their devastating ranged attacks.
Wards are spiritually attuned to the world more than other classes. This often leads to wards being followed around by Spirits. These spirits are normally harmless but they quickly grow and change depending on who they're following. A type of symbiotic relationship is formed. The seishin protects the person they are linked to in return for being able to continue feeding on the spiritual energies of the person.
Seishin's vary most of the time but one thing that is consistent between them is how their form changes depending on the type of chakra they get from the "host" Gameplay wise, a ward's abilties will stem from their seishin.
This is the charged attack
Below is a diagram explaining how a Ward's techniques work. These are not necessarily the order in which techniques are used, this just gives an example of how they perform.
Now here's a piece I'm really excited to share. SulLight has decided to recreate how the Yokai boss scene in the tutorial area is going to be played out. This is what he has so far -
If you're wondering why this scene is being remade, the best way I can put it at this late an hour without poorly explaining it, is just compare it to why we remade the combat system. While this is on a much smaller scale in terms of the analogy, we believe every piece of interaction the player has with the game counts, and if we can make something better than it is, then we should.
Next week we'll be showcasing wards in action with either gifs or videos, most likely of the PvP variety. See you next week!