Development News: A New Journal, a New Skill and Other Curiosities
Hi everyone,
This week work on “Lore” update continued. As I mentioned last week, lore is a new type of resource that hero can collect in various ways: like listening to bards or finding altars. He can then spend this resource to purchase treasure maps or skill points etc.
One of the main ways to collect lore is by reading books. Hero can read books anywhere as long as there are no enemies around. But it takes some time according to book’s lore potential. It may last between 1 to 8 hours. Hero can not a read book when he is hungry. After reading the book, the book will no longer have any lore to give, so hero can sell it.
I also rearranged the journal to have two pages navigated with tabs. One is named “Overview” which is the same as the journal in current game. The other page is called “Lore”. In this page, hero can see the total lore he accumulated, from which sources and how much lore he has left to spend. He can also purchase two different kinds of treasure maps, skill points or attribute points.
Treasure map can be a common “Treasure Map” or a “Legendary Treasure Map”. Legendary treasure map’s rewards will be roughly double the common treasure map’s rewards but their purchase price will not be double. So they will be profitable nonetheless.
A new skill will be introduced which is called “Lore Mastery”. This skill will make lore accumulation easier. Every point in this skill will increase the lore gained from books by 5%. So if the hero maxes out this skill up to 20, he will gain 100% more lore from books. Along the way, he will gain some perks for gaining more lore from bards, historians, statutes etc.
I put the lore counter near the gold counter at the bottom hud. There is a tool tip for it that explains briefly what it is. I also make the arrow and lockpick icons bigger in their counters so they are hopefuly easier to recognize for the new comers.
Another new addition is a small but a neat one. As we know, there are quest icons at the right edge of the screen. Now, completed quest’s icon will have a different icon. It will turn green and a tick sign will be on it reminding that this quest is finished and hero needs to go back to quest giver to claim his reward.
As I was working on the new skill, I reconstructed the armor skills. Medium armors were too similiar to light armors and some of them had almost overlapping stats with each other. So I combined them for the sake of clarity. It was something I intended to do for some time but have postponed, thinking if I delete medium armor skill, there will be less dexterity skills than the strength and intelligence skills. For some reason, I wanted each attribute to govern exactly five skills each. This is kind of an OCD which requires to pursue symmetry at all times. But then I made the cooking skill and number of intelligent skills became six. It broke the symmetry. But to my surprise, it didn't bother me as I thought it would. I got used to it immediately. So I quit wanting things to be symmetrical.
There are now two armor types instead of three: light and heavy. Armors made of cloth or leather are light armor, armors made of metal or stone are heavy armor. Most of the medium armors were leathers so they are now light armor. Note that this is just a classification change, I didn't delete the medium armor items.
I empowered these armor skills as well. They contribute more to the hero’s defense. Now the new heavy and light armors feel really different from each other. I will add some additional features like stamina regeneration to the light armors to differentiate them even more. It is also a lot easier to find and suit up same kind of armor to get the bonuses.
I worked on the treasure maps a little and made the edges of the lands more visible. There are some works to be done regarding the maps but I feel it is getting there.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. May the tides bring you triumph!
This week work on “Lore” update continued. As I mentioned last week, lore is a new type of resource that hero can collect in various ways: like listening to bards or finding altars. He can then spend this resource to purchase treasure maps or skill points etc.
One of the main ways to collect lore is by reading books. Hero can read books anywhere as long as there are no enemies around. But it takes some time according to book’s lore potential. It may last between 1 to 8 hours. Hero can not a read book when he is hungry. After reading the book, the book will no longer have any lore to give, so hero can sell it.
I also rearranged the journal to have two pages navigated with tabs. One is named “Overview” which is the same as the journal in current game. The other page is called “Lore”. In this page, hero can see the total lore he accumulated, from which sources and how much lore he has left to spend. He can also purchase two different kinds of treasure maps, skill points or attribute points.
Treasure map can be a common “Treasure Map” or a “Legendary Treasure Map”. Legendary treasure map’s rewards will be roughly double the common treasure map’s rewards but their purchase price will not be double. So they will be profitable nonetheless.
A new skill will be introduced which is called “Lore Mastery”. This skill will make lore accumulation easier. Every point in this skill will increase the lore gained from books by 5%. So if the hero maxes out this skill up to 20, he will gain 100% more lore from books. Along the way, he will gain some perks for gaining more lore from bards, historians, statutes etc.
I put the lore counter near the gold counter at the bottom hud. There is a tool tip for it that explains briefly what it is. I also make the arrow and lockpick icons bigger in their counters so they are hopefuly easier to recognize for the new comers.
Another new addition is a small but a neat one. As we know, there are quest icons at the right edge of the screen. Now, completed quest’s icon will have a different icon. It will turn green and a tick sign will be on it reminding that this quest is finished and hero needs to go back to quest giver to claim his reward.
As I was working on the new skill, I reconstructed the armor skills. Medium armors were too similiar to light armors and some of them had almost overlapping stats with each other. So I combined them for the sake of clarity. It was something I intended to do for some time but have postponed, thinking if I delete medium armor skill, there will be less dexterity skills than the strength and intelligence skills. For some reason, I wanted each attribute to govern exactly five skills each. This is kind of an OCD which requires to pursue symmetry at all times. But then I made the cooking skill and number of intelligent skills became six. It broke the symmetry. But to my surprise, it didn't bother me as I thought it would. I got used to it immediately. So I quit wanting things to be symmetrical.
There are now two armor types instead of three: light and heavy. Armors made of cloth or leather are light armor, armors made of metal or stone are heavy armor. Most of the medium armors were leathers so they are now light armor. Note that this is just a classification change, I didn't delete the medium armor items.
I empowered these armor skills as well. They contribute more to the hero’s defense. Now the new heavy and light armors feel really different from each other. I will add some additional features like stamina regeneration to the light armors to differentiate them even more. It is also a lot easier to find and suit up same kind of armor to get the bonuses.
I worked on the treasure maps a little and made the edges of the lands more visible. There are some works to be done regarding the maps but I feel it is getting there.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. May the tides bring you triumph!
