Post by soldancer in Hostile Takeover comments

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Me: I wonder what would happen if you crossed XCOM with Slay the Spire?

Whispering Spider: You're welcome.

I am loving this so far. It's a whole lot of fun and has a lot of strategic decision making. The only thing I have a little trouble with is that there isn't really a lot of early aggro management, so it's extremely hard to keep my ninja alive until I start getting cards like Doppelganger, All for One, Meat Shield, etc. Is there a rhyme or reason to the targeting of enemies, or is it random? I usually have about 75% of mobs in a room targeting the ninja, so I'm not sure if this is totally random or intentional.

Either way, keep up the great work!

WhisperingSpider5 years ago

Thanks a lot! Those two games are definitely influences, and I hope that my game is unique enough to build off of other games that I look to for inspiration :)

As for your question about aggro management, currently enemy target selection is 100% random. Way back in the day when it was a straight SRPG things like threat, distance-to-target, and target HP were all built-in to the AI. Since making the shift to cards, however, it became super not-fun to juggle aggro on top of random abilities each turn, so enemies choose their ability, and then have a 50/50 chance to target each player character if it's an offensive ability.

For now that's how it's likely to stay, but I understand the frustration of a streak of bad luck, so at some point down the line I may add some kind of 'bad luck protection' where it will weight the other character's chances of being selected higher after consecutively choosing the same character.

Thanks again for your interest, kind words, and feedback, and keep your eye out as a pretty large patch will be released in the next day or two!

soldancer5 years ago

As far as looking to games for inspiration, I always think about Doom and Diablo. Back when they were released, everyone (myself included) called similar games Doom clones and Diablo clones. But now they are First Person Shooters and Action Role Playing Games.

You can have a game that wears its inspiration on its sleeve and still distinguish it with unique mechanics or settings, just as Hostile Takeover does. It's not a "Slay the Spire" clone, but a Tactical Roguelike Deckbuilder.

For the aggro portion, maybe one of the ninja's starting cards could be one that helps offset squishiness. Dodge helps, but there are a ton of times where I need more than one move and the +3 shield doesn't usually help all that much. Meat Shield is definitely my favorite, and doesn't push you towards a certain build like any of the clone cards would.

Anyway, just my two cents. I'm exicted to see the new patch, and I'll be playing this a lot for the forseeable future.

itch.io

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