Post by Sef in Fantasy Combat Simulator jam comments

AGDG DEMO DAY 50 » Entries » Fantasy Combat Simulator

Viewing post in Fantasy Combat Simulator jam comments

> skill upgrading is unintuitive
Yes. I need to figure out how to invite people to read the description or I will be doomed to make ingame explanations. I'll prob add tooltips for the skill menu.

> zone 1 exit point exits game (returns to title)
Yeah, I thought it was funny, but I already removed that from the new build I'm working on.

> +10 Hp Belt dont work
Maybe it was a +Mp Belt? I myself sometimes can't tell because of the text. And I really don't want to change the game's text but maybe in a much later update.

> No Idea what half of the Stats do, if you shorten them, a long explanation on hover
I mean we can deduce within a few moments what is what, but I should not expect anything and prob need to make sure and tell them what is or let plebs filter themselves jk

my initial design was only for 800x600 screen, I don't have enough space in the attribute menu to display the full descriptions, I had to make it look clean, so I went with what we have rn. Hover tooltip on the attribute menu seems overkill to me but I'll see what I can manage.

> Skill Menu's unimpressionable navigation buttons
I actually wanted to make a skill tree similar to PoE's colossal passive tree, but I've yet to figure that out, so I went with the 'browser look' hence the [home] and [back] buttons are on the top left.

I placed the other branch/navigations buttons at bottom of the menu so the skills in a branch gets focused on.

I'm leaning too much in the minimalistic design aspect, I didn't want to take away too much attention off your character and what's happening around it.

> Why doesn't drag and drop override whats on the Slot?
I have this 'Synergy System' where you can combine compatible skills, you place another on the base skill and it gets the added skill's mods.
It makes crafting skills tedious because you sometimes need skills from different skill branches, but I've yet to have a better idea on how to do this. Do you have any suggestions? let's make this game good :)

> but why not have me level HpR directly then? Unless Stats can affect multiple other Stats
Yes, in the Attribute Menu the stats on the left are 'Prime Attributes', they affect the 'Basic Attributes' to their right (in increasing returns). Basic Atts have 'Sub attributes' (eg STR(Strength) - PAtk(Physical Atk) - MAtk/RAtk(Melee Atk / Range Atk)) - Basic affects Sub.
And we also have 'Super Attributes' - notice in the menu attributes are grouped together, those have the same super attribute. Super Atts affects Basic & Sub Atts of that group (eg POW(Power) affects lower atts of STR & INT attributes)

My game has Stat/Attribute autism.

> dodging invu frames
We don't have that here. We dodge by letting 'hit vs dodge' do its thing (for physical attributes only), getting out of strike range, and getting out the way of projectiles.

> Why is both your level (as in status) and your level(as in floorlevel) named level?
Character level and when you open the Map it shows Area Level, we can distinguish that much. I can switch the Area level with 'Zone'.

> attribute point, not going melee, shifting to lightning/poison hybrid
My (barely a) game has a learning curve, git gud jk (dont hate me bro haha)

It was a good idea to invest in the Constitution/Restoration attributes (Health, Stamina, Mana / Endurance, Resilience, Spirit) to get decent flat values, then unlock/upgrade passives from the 'Fortitude' skill branch to multiply the flat values. My suggestion for is to max your prime resource and dump 30-50 for other supplementing resources.

Elemental property effects

Fire burns for ATK/3s
Cold chills (reduces Speed by 30%) & freezes (cold stun)
Lightning does a 0.3 mini-stun
Poison burns for ATK/6s - I wanted to incentivize players to combo poison property skills with 'Toxin' support skills - with the lengthy poison status you will notice the toxin effects

If you're willing to give my game another go I can make you an early game guide, you'll only use your first 8 levels (fast, high regen, hits hard).

> Vendor
You can access the Vendor and Stash at the beginning of every zone - Respite Zones have a zero sublevel.
Yeah, Vendor doesn't do anything special atm, you can sell and buy pots though

> As for Equipment, nothing fancy, except for a legendary Wand for 10-20 spell damage or something.
You might find an item with a nice base mod with 3 bonus mods but only 1 is useful, equipment will stay like that, fully random mods (not exactly). My modifier generator rolls through a table, randomly selects a mod then checks if it's compatible with the base item (some mods can only spawn in some base items).

I have an item crafting system in the works. When it's done this will let us upgrade the base item, upgrade mods, extract mods, add mods. This is far down the list though.

Like Reply

Tomodev1 year ago (3 edits) (+1)

If it were in a pretty physical Handbook, People would be reading your Description, but I generally just hover through the itch Page quickly to see Controls and specific Places People want Feedback on. (Hence why I figured out how to upgrade them. It'd work with a bit of randomly clicking around aswell, but the lock/+ don't really feel like they are a button of any kind)

>return to title

It's fine if its marked as that. But just a regular entry/exit like others isn't very good. A simple Door or a different color or just the text "return to title" or something works enough already.

>HP/MP Belt

Don't know, maybe? Your Font should really be clear to read on that tho.

>Stats

I'm not talking about the obvious stats PAtk/SPAtk/HpMx etc. are clear. But whats AtkRt/CstRt? I know it stands for AttackRating and CastRating but what does it do? Speed of Attacking? Critchance? Affect the Formula in some weird way? And with how little you get per Point on Stuff thats not damage/HP/MP/etc, I'm not really invited to just put one or two points into it to find out. This isn't so much an issue with the Names, but what the Stats actually do. Same with RedDmg RstDmg and Block. I still don't know what RedDmg means or does, seeing that the stat Screen has resistances, I can deduce that RstDmg probably means Damageresistance, but thats also not clear? Is it a flat redcuction to Damage I take? All Damage or is that just physicial damage? Whats block then? Chance to block? In percent or just in some Formula again? In both cases, whats RedDmg? RedistributeDamage? ReduceDamage? If its reduce and reduces my Damage, whats Damageresistance then? Chance to not take Damage? But then whats Block?

>Skilltree

If its massive putting it into subclasses makes Sense. But I just think the navigation Buttons are at the wrong Positions. Just have it be an actual Tree, if I go down from Venomancy into Toxin, have a big arrow at the top to take me back up, if I go into Wizard, a big button on the right to go into sorcerer, and if I'm there, a big one to the left to go back to Wizard. Not just a small one topleft to go back to the previous Place, and multiple Arrows at the Bottom. The one to keep at the top left is the one to return to the startscreen of the Layout.

In any case, if I see it right, you have Fortitude in the Center, with 4 Baseclasses around them, and then a combination class in each of them, and a "advanced Baseclass" so to speak. You have more then enough empty space on the Screen to put all of those into one Screen, just radiating outwards, and adding some Lines in between to indicate which classes are connected.

>Skill synergy

Is there any indicator which Skills are synergizing with each other? Or is it just trial and Error? Because I'm very much not inclined to pick up any Skill apart from passive improvements like + castingspeed to the Skill I'm choosing right in the beginning as my only damage Source. Is it something that can be reversed, or changed at will constantly? Can there me multiple Skills combined into one, not just 2? Or is it just 1 active and 1 passive or something? Either Way, you could always just put in an NPC in your HUB-Area with the Shopkeeper and Stashchest, that allows you to merge your Skills together, so you don't have to do it all in one Place. Fills out the Area a bit more, and frees options up for your Menues.

>Attributes

No, I got how they worked, as long as their Names and Roles are clear, see above. I mean, why do I have to level Strength if its only affects PAtk? Why not remove Strength all together and have me level PAtk at that Point? Derivated Substats are great if you have multiple Stats being affected by one Attribute. If Strength would affect HpMx or SAtk aswell i.e., but this isn't the Case. And if its for Melee range or whatever aswell, why are those Stats not shown in the Menu?

>My game has Stat/Attribute autism.

Nothing wrong with that if done well.

In the End, I wasn't complaining about the Build I got, or the Items, both work, I just died to not paying attention. I'll play it again later to see if I can figure out which Skills combo with each other, but the general Way will probably stay the same, that I'll just have one spammed Attackskill, and level all the support Skills otherwise.

Update:

Did another quick run, realized now the support skills are the one ment to be slotted into the active ones? That could really need some ingame explanation somewhere, I was assuming they were just passive Skills, hence why casttime increase did so little. Its pretty useless tho, makes them far too expensive for little to no benefit, so just putting one point into the Skill itself, and then dumping everything into Stat increases seems way stronger then all other Options. Also somehow ended up with 59XP, even tho every Enemy gives 10XP? I lost a XP somewhere along the Way.

Also checked through the Spells. Channeling ones are pretty useless, with the Amount of Time you have to stand still and the Amount of Ressources you have to burn for the Buffs, that only last 15s, you might aswell just pump those Points into actually powering up your Spell.

And apparently other Actives can be slotted onto aswell? Can I just slot every Skill into one? Or only if they at least share a common Element? Because that'd just mean I'd be spamming one skill even more. Sure, it gets more expensive the more I slot, but it caps out easily enough, with the amount of bonusMP/SP Skills that are available. But then I can't slot Toxic Orb onto Poison Bolt, so no Idea what merges with what anymore.

Like Reply

Sef1 year ago (3 edits)

> my minimalist UI biting me back
took this from my game's description

I'm working on cursor indicators - when you hover over interactable objects this will surely help figure things out when they still won't read my barely a game's description.

> environmental indicators for entry/exit points
I'll add that to my growing list

> replacing my sprite font
I couldn't find I font I liked so I made one myself, nothing special about it, but it's good enough for now.

> Attack Rate / Cast Rate
AGI(Agility)=fast, so I attributed WIZ(Wizardry) to speed too

> granular attribute output

The attribute system behaves in increasing returns, it's a barely-a-demo but I don't want to make things too crazy too early

> Red(Reduction), Rst(Resistance), Block
I swear my brain told me I had answered that, and it's nowhere mentioned in my reply.

Reduction is flat value subtracted from incoming attack
Resistance is percentage reduction after going through above
Block will protect you from incoming damage and status mods

> Property types

class	sub class
Attack	Physical, Spell
Physical	Melee, Range
Spell	Magic, Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison

* Damage is after going through Reduction & Resistance formula

> Skill Tree navigation
Man, i tried that, placing the navigator buttons on sides and corners it looked ugly.
I'll try again, might figure it out and make it work, but it aint today.

> Skill Tree's base

It was deliberate that the more advance classes were not so hidden. I wanted players to wander a little bit, but my current design seems unintuitive and needs some work.

> Skill Synergy
There are 3 skill types Active, Passive, and Support.

Active - your base skill (or use as Support)
Passive - will modify your character directly
Support - you can add these to your base skills

> Trial & Error Synergy
I wanted players to do trial & error to find compatible skills but that's too much to ask, I'll create a guide soon.

> Multiple Skills in 1
I wanted to cap the skills added to 10 skill levels, but I don't have to, there is no cap, the resource cost will render skills unusable

> Skill NPC
Nah, loadout shizz don't make sense here, I'll let you edit skills in the middle of the zone, while you get dogpiled by mobs.

> Prime Attributes
They're your character's foundation, high flat values coupled with decent multiplier is the way to go, high multiplier with low flats result are meh

> Sub Attributes not displayed
They are though, in your skill's description

> 59 Exp
That means your level is greater than the current area level, diminishing returns, fight in areas equal or greater than you

> Channeling & Buffs
You'll sweep early game with and will probably be hard to survive without in later levels Priest Buffs

> Channeling Skills
I need to make a quick guide for this class

Channeling gets faster the more Cast Rate you have
Priest Buffs has a max 'Channeling Time' of 10, Wizard attack skills has no cap
Higher Cast Rate will let you accumulate 'Channeling Time' quicker
You gain 3 seconds of status duration per Channeling Time, and Cast Rate is a multiplier of that duration

Wanna here about my level 8 guide now? haha jk

> Skill Synergy Special Cases
You can add 'Poison Bolt' to 'Poison Orb' but not the reverse, because poison bolt does not benefit & have Poison Orb's AOE modifier if that makes sense, and this is the usual logic

Like Reply

Tomodev1 year ago

But as you already clearly recognized, nobody is going to read through your itch Page, it should be either intuitive on where to click to unlock, or explained somewhere in Game, ideally not in some submenu on how to play, or a textdump at the beginning, but along the Way.

>it's good enough for now.

If even you yourself get confused sometimes wether its a H or an M, it clearly isn't good enough.

> granular attribute output

How you handle Statgrowths or anything doesn't matter, you can give +0.01 for the first level and +2.5 for the second or whatever, if I need to level strength only to increase pAtk, just remove strength alltogether and let me directly click on pAtk to increase it.

As for Skilltrees, just include the Diagram you posted in your Reply in the Game, no need for all the subtrees. Use Icons instead of Text, and display the Name of the hovered class on top of the Skilltree Window when hovering, and you don't need any submenu navigation.

>Trial & Error Synergy

Thats fine to have, if your Game encourages or supports trying out different Things. With 1 Skillpoint per Level and continously scaling difficulty, it doesn't.

>I'll let you edit skills in the middle of the zone, while you get dogpiled by mobs.

Noone does that, you can't attack with the skill menu open, so you'd just get pummeled down.

>Prime and Sub Attributes

Again, I'm talking about Strength as an Example. It serves no purpose being there, it doesn't add anything. Just apply all your modifiers, all the Levels I can spent etc. directly to pAtk. Or let strength affect more then one Stat.

Sub Attributes displayed in your Attribute Window, I never said anything about a spells attributes there. There is no Block or RedDmg there or anything, nothing to see how my Stats would affect those. Which they probably aren't anyway, see above.

>diminishing returns, channeling

You don't need diminishing returns. You have a constant increase in difficulty with a set amount of Enemies per Level. If I defeat every Enemy in every Level I should be right on curve. If I rush past Enemies, I'll naturally fall off due to missing out on experience. You should have just the Amount of Enemies per Zone thats intended so I keep on curve if I defeat all, it shouldn't be possible to overlevel with that layout.

If I channel in the beginning of a Zone, the buffs run out by the Time I hit the first Enemy. If I channel when I start combat, I loose multiple seconds where I just get pummeled and could counterhit them.

>Skill Synergy logic

Why doesn't Poison Bolt allow to increase its radius with Poison Orb? It clearly explodes when hitting an Enemy, it'd allow the Skill to be turned into an AoE by leveling the AoE skill and combining those. I'm on board with skills needing the same Type like Poison to be matched together, but then all Poison should be able to be matched together, or at least all support into all Actives, and no active+active or something coherent. Just allowing all same types to be mashed together until you as the dev feel like it wouldn't make Sense is stupid. If you only allow specific Skills to be matched with each other, without any global underlying logic, or with exceptions like Bolt+Orb, you need to indicate that in your UI somewhere. And it makes even less sense if Bolt+Orb isn't allowed but Orb+Bolt.

And stop trying to sell me your early Level build, if you talk about wanting People to trial and Error, and then try to give them a fixed built for the first 8 Levels or so, so they can actually survive, you're disencouraging trial and error even more then your Game itself does, and are basically telling everyone they need a very specific build to actually be able to get further then 20-30 Levels. At that Point, you might aswell just remove the first 10 Levels the Player gains automatically, and lock it behind a tutorial. So on level up, it goes to the status screen and tells you: You can spent points to increase Attributes. Try it and level Health 5 times this level. If you go to the Skilltree, you can click on the lock to unlock a skill. Here, try and unlock this Priests buffskill, etc. That way you avoid your UI being unclear, as you explain everything, 'and' force every Player to use your early Game build, which according to you is apparently required. Of course, its not going to be Fun, and People are just going to use the exact same build every run, since they're forced to do it, but thats a different Issue then.

Like Reply

Sef1 year ago

> you can't attack with the skill menu open
You can still play on half the screen when one menu is open

> remove STR replace it with PAtk
nah

> Sub Attributes in the skill description
Let's say with a Sword equipped you 'Basic Attack' skill will display Melee Attributes (not explicitly) and when you swap with Bow it will now display Range Atk/AtkRt/Hit/Crit, people can distinguish that.

> enough enemies in an area to keep you in the curve
Nope, everything is random, it depends the generated area's size on how many can spawn so it wonn't get to crowded too early. In the new build though in later levels spawn points get a chance to spawn multiple mobs.

> Priest Buffs
Yeah those need to be learned to efficiently use & cheesed.

> bolt orb
the small explosions bolts make are just vfx, Orb explosions are different though

> build shill
It's guide to use Priest Buffs so we can see how basic attributes interact with each other, Channeling mechanic, resource management.
This is a singleplayer game so I have the Priest Skills help you help yourself, but you can go pure and hardcore in your build route too.

Like Reply

itch.io

Viewing post in Fantasy Combat Simulator jam comments