Post by Rendah Games in Fantasy Combat Simulator jam comments

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The skill tree was a bit unintuitive, it took me a second to understand "unlocking" the skills, and initially thought things needed 10 points since it said /10

I understand the delay on movement to make kiting weaker but it still feels unresponsive... Maybe try having the player's movement speed ramp up over that amount of time so it still feels like the game's responding to inputs? You could start around 10% speed and SmoothStep up to 100% over those 15 frames or whatever. You could tweak the numbers to make it mostly identical gameplay-wise while still feeling better.

I felt pretty unthreatened until I got to a green guy with a sword 5~ areas in who "Flicker Striked" me (in PoE terms) for 18 damage and one-shot me which felt pretty unfair. I had even just put my first few points into HP just in case, at level 5 or so. I suppose I should have been focusing more on defenses, but spells were hitting me for like, 1-2 damage so I felt safe. (Maybe since I was playing a wizard myself?)

Overall fun and impressively "complete" RPG systems but I don't feel compelled to try again since I don't see any unique gameplay features to mess with or anything specific it made me want to try to do. Playing D2 you see skills deep down the tree that sound really fun, so you keep playing. Playing PoE you keep seeing new skill gems with neat effects and supports that compel you to find more so you can combine them in neat ways. A small feature that's unique and distinctive could go a long way.

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Sef1 year ago

> unlocking
Yeah, it's (Current Level / Max Upgrade Level)

> delay on movement
Are you referring to the character turning before moving? Characters only do that when at a full stop. I designed it like this because it looked weird (like a vehicle) when characters that started moving (from idle) would move towards their facing direction then turn to their destination.

> flicker strike one shot
Did the green guy have a colored weapon? That mob probably used 'Charge' on you and had a nice rolled weapon, cause mobs' equipment can roll Rarity(stronger base) & Quality(extra modifiers) too. And maybe you weren't lucky enough to find gear that would've absorbed the damage, equipment aside from weapons and accessories usually have damage reduction and resistance.

> overall fun
Thanks

> I don't feel compelled to try again since I don't see any unique gameplay features to mess with or anything specific it made me want to try to do
Yeah, I'm working on objectives to add to the games. In the meantime why not try adding/stacking Multishot or Chain Shot or both to your projectile spell, you can combine compatible skills. You don't have to though, and thanks for the feedback!

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Rendah Games1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

>Are you referring to the character turning before moving? Characters only do that when at a full stop.

Yeah, it feels... pretty bad. Again, it's interesting strategically, I like how it makes dodging things and positioning more difficult, it's just kind of a "game sin" to not have any movement happen when the movement key is pressed. I can't think of any other ARPG that has this kind of delay when characters are turning, that's more of an RTS/Dota thing. I could see it turning a lot of people off of the game, they'd just think "the game's laggy" without really understanding it.

>why not try adding/stacking Multishot or Chain Shot or both to your projectile spell, you can combine compatible skills. You don't have to though, and thanks for the feedback!

I totally didn't know you could combine skills, that seems neat! You should probably emphasize it in the skill tree UI more or wherever so people don't miss it

I also just realized I never used the vendor because despite reading the controls I never realized I was in a "Respite Zone" so I never pressed the button. That could also be more clear. It's super important to make this kind of stuff totally unmissable for dummies like me who don't want to pay attention. Maybe just by displaying some text in a corner of the screen saying: "Respite Zone" "Press V for Vendor, H for Stash" whenever you're in one of those zones. I'd imagine that whole system is placeholder and you'll have more visible shops/stashes at some point, though

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Sef1 year ago

> I totally didn't know you could combine skills, that seems neat! You should probably emphasize it in the skill tree UI more or wherever so people don't miss it
I have the thing in the skill menu

> make it clear about things that don't have visual/environmental indicators like Respite Zone/Vendor/Stash
Yeah, I used to have buttons dedicated for those on the HUD (where the zoom i/o is at now), but it didn't make sense to have those always around since you spend most your time outside Respite Zones anyway. I was hoping that people would read the description before entering the game but with the feedback I got from the last two Demo Days that's not gonna happen hahaha

> Maybe just by displaying some text in a corner of the screen saying: "Respite Zone" "Press V for Vendor, H for Stash" whenever you're in one of those zones. I'd imagine that whole system is placeholder and you'll have more visible shops/stashes at some point, though
Great idea, thanks. And as you say some current systems are just placeholders and I'll eventually have visible interactables/indicators.

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Rendah Games1 year ago

I played more actually using the skill combining and it's pretty fun! The blessings and everything seem kind of OP, I got a setup that made the game super easy, but the combining is pretty interesting and neat. I like how it's balanced around mana costs more than support slots, that's a cool idea. Some kind of optional harder content would be fun, or maybe just a general rebalance. I ended up using Poison Bolts with all the +proj, homing + chain + speed, with the blessings for max MP and MP regen, and I was basically one-shotting everything from around level 35 to uhhh 100 (which was fun while watching a stream)

It's kind of strange you can just grab skills from anywhere though, it kind of seems like "build diversity" wouldn't exist since everyone should just grab every blessing, +proj/homing/chain, etc. Might make sense to lock skills behind classes... Or maybe more advanced/higher level versions of those skills on classes or class advancements or something?

Bugs:

I had a wand and buckler equipped, dragged a Short Staff on, and it let me have the buckler equipped with the 2H. I had to take it off and on a couple times for it to realize I'm not supposed to have a buckler with the 2H

It seemed like Scourge Spell wasn't aggroing enemies? (I almost remember this happening in some other ARPGs so maybe it's intentional, but very powerful)

Picking up gold from far away failed maybe half the time, probably other items too but I noticed it most with gold. Maybe I was just clicking next to it? If so a larger pickup radius or something might be nice?

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Sef1 year ago (1 edit)

> I played more actually using the skill combining and it's pretty fun!
Thanks! PoE inspired the mechanic.

> The blessings and everything seem kind of OP

	Maximum Channeling Duration	Blessing Duration Per Channeling Duration
OLD	10	3
NEW	3	10

Yeah, In this build it is. I had to make the change to make Blessing Skills viable early game. And the effects I believe the base buff should be sufficient since this is a single-player game.

> Some kind of optional harder content would be fun, or maybe just a general rebalance
I working on some new objectives, far from ready though.

> I was basically one-shotting everything from around level 35 to uhhh 100
Then you're playing the game right.

> It's kind of strange you can just grab skills from anywhere though, it kind of seems like "build diversity" wouldn't exist since everyone should just grab every blessing, +proj/homing/chain, etc.
For projectiles it's the meta. I'll add other skills eventually that will be of interest (I hope).

> everyone should just grab every blessing,
Yes, I don't plan on adding other skill branch themed buff skills because it would just be some variant of the existing Priest Blessing Skills.

> 2h with Shield
That was my bad, I did a fix last night cause dragging vendor equipment then equipping them didn't reduce your gold, and the fix made the bug. I'll publish the fix tonight.

> Scourge Spell no aggro
I missed this in the last update: Scourge Spell still uses a hit score of Infinity instead of -1 like other spell for an absolute hit. I'll publish the fix tonight.

> Picking up gold from far away failed maybe half the time, probably other items too but I noticed it most with gold. Maybe I was just clicking next to it? If so a larger pickup radius or something might be nice?
Loot does have a larger hit box. The things with clicking on loot, when the character moves and you still have the mouse down and it's slightly of the loot's hitbox the command then defaults to move. I'll have this figured out soon. For now though pls use Auto Loot, you can find it at the bottom of the inventory menu

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