enlit3d
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Upcoming features
🕑 Added 2021-07-30 01:16:06 +0000 UTCDid even more work on the strategic/base management side of things. Here is a short preview for features to come:
First I should explain that the base management side of things are divided into turns as well. Every turn, you get to embark on one mission of your choice. Doing so will advance the base management turn timer to the next turn and trigger all associated effects.
Every turn, your characters can only partake in one activity. So for example, if you want they to take part in missions, they cannot do any other activity for the turn. The selected activity is shown in the roster window on the right.
Soon to come (not on the next patch), you will be able to actually assign the characters to different activities, such as relief for low Resolve or additional training to learn new grab moves.
I also added a Panic meter, which will serve as your "base HP." If the Panic level goes too high, you risk a Game Over.
I went back and forth on this, removing it then reinstalling it, as I am not sure if its better to add a count down timer, or remove the idea of time pressure all together and let players do things at their own pace. This may be changed in the future.
The bulk of the work went into the new dynamic mission system. On the surface, it looks very similar to the old mission screen:
However, there is one key difference, the missions here are dynamically generated instead of fixed. There are several advantages to this:
1) The old system lead to too much mission cluster, for example, there are 4 missions related to Goblin Shaman. Once I start to add more threats and bosses, it's going to become more and more unwieldly and difficult to use.
2) Dynamic missions. Some missions can be generated base on the context or "background" state. For example, if one of your characters get captured, the game can generate a Rescue Mission for a number of turns. During which the player have the opportunity to get that unit back.
3) A more intuitive (story) progression system. Essentially, how the progression system work for CATC is that there will be a number of Bosses/Threats. The Goblin Shaman being one of them. Once you discover and beat one of the them, it will unlock the next batch of enemies, zones and the next Threat and so on. I like there to be a number of missions before the next Boss fight is unlocked. You can call them filler if you wish but I think they are important to introduce the player to the new enemy types and their strategies. I can be far more direct in giving players an idea of what's going on with these new Threat-Progress missions.
4) Finally, these new Dynamic Missions are far more modular than the old Fixed Missions, by separating the Enemy Types, the Stage and Modifiers and such. For example, in the future, I can add a toggle on the selection screen to disable the Enemy Insight system, instead of having to define those permutations statically.
* The older missions are still playable in the next build as "Legacy Missions" but I expect to fully remove them in favor of the new Dynamic Mission system in the future.
I also added a one page combat quick guide, that players may find useful:
For people looking towards SR / Versus Mode, there will be a a patch for that as well next month. The 2 highest priority features, based on suggestions, are customizable key-binds, and perhaps a group fight mode. I am probably going to add 2 additional character slots in the Versus Mode screen, to a total of 4, and then add a team selection so you can setup 2v2s, 1v2s, 1v3s and so on.
I think the 4 character limit is a good maximum, I know HR supported up to 8 but that felt like too much of a clusterfuck. I can be convinced otherwise though.
Comments
Enlit3D
There probably will be a chance for already beaten Boss/Threats to respawn again, allowing you to fight it again. Next month, (I consider the next immediate patch to be July stuff) I will be focusing on expanding the Evil Organization Threat Group so hopefully there will be a concrete implementation of how that works, and see if respawning previous Bosses mechanic is beneficial or leave it to after beating the game.
Enlit3D
So for example lets say one of your units gets captured. Then whenever the game generates a new mission, there is a chance that it will a rescue mission. The rescue mission may be something like a prison-break scenario. Where you need to fight your way to the captive, then after rescuing her, get to the extraction point. There may be secondary objectives as well; however, the enemy strength will scale up a lot faster compared to normal missions and taking too much time (in terms of rooms visited) may be risky.
Verdonator
I don't know how, but you manage to hype me more and more with every update! I'm excited for what's next and I really like your idea of generated, modular missions. For the panic system, I think it will have to be well balanced so that it does not feel "anxious", like you always have to reduce this all the time. Maybe instead of having a full on game over, this meter could control the probability of your base getting raided and the difficulty of the raids and game over occurs once all your units get captured and you can't pay any ransom to free at least one. My only potential concern is the ability to "go back to older content". I hope that we will be possible at some point to fight earlier bosses for fun, probably when the player beats all bosses/finishes story mode. As for Versus mode, I would personally keep the limit at 8 for one reason : modded moves involving up to 5 units like some modded moves in HRT. That said, I agree, it's a clusterfuck gameplay wise, but players can manage their own game by not doing a 4vs4 if they don't like the gameplay. You can choose to only have 2vs2 maximum in official matches while still allowing players to create custom 4vs4 matches. That's my take on this part of the game.
Kian
I am interested in these dynamic missions & player characters being capturable requiring a rescue mission. Any more info on this and how it will look/play when implemented?
