The Weaver: Dev Diary #1

[p]Josh and I wanted to make a summoner for years, but it was just one of a few ideas in the running for classes with unique ways of scaling over a fight. The missing piece of the puzzle was how to fit it into the game's existing UI - especially on mobile - but as soon as we started brainstorming about how to create an alternate version of the central UI to make space for Pets, the Weaver concept was born. [/p][p]Every class (and most enemies) in Vault have ways to get stronger and scarier every turn, and it was important to make Weaver feel fundamentally different. By limiting players to 5 Pet slots it forced making choices that make playing Pets feel very different to Buffs, but still leaving a ton of room for customization and growth over both individual battles and runs as a whole. [/p][p]The last piece of the puzzle is the Infest mechanic - playing effects on enemies that will trigger after you deal enough damage (or just kill them), whether further hurting/debuffing the enemy in question, or drawing cards/Weaving Pets. [/p][p][/p][p]All of this combines to make the Weaver probably the most nuanced and, hopefully, rewarding to play - Pets are essentially another 5 cards you can carry into future turns with which to attack, block, draw, gain rage, apply Infests that do any of those, make more Pets which might do some of those, boost the ability of themselves or other Pets to... you get it. [/p][p]Next time we'll go into detail on how Pets work - unlike a Buff they don't just do a specific amount of one thing, but usually have multiple possible actions, many of which scale their effectiveness to that Pet's current AP value, and allow you to choose targets every time. You'll have to learn all about Pets to decide on which ones to Weave, when to Unravel them, what Actions to take in which order, when to play cards to increase their AP, and when to ignore all that and smash enemies in the face. [/p][p][/p][p]- Dabor [/p]