REMORE: INFESTED KINGDOM News

Hello again Survivors!

In our posts over the past few weeks, we've covered most of the major things we wanted to test in the internal version 0.13.0.

There were a lot of other detailed changes, but since this is not a live release, this is all I can share for now...

The New Version's Test Points can be summarized as follows,

• Does the New Combat System, with the removal of "Grabbing/Caught" and redesign around “Ambush/Surrounded,” remain fun in "continuous play" as opposed to "single session?"
  
  
• Does the Character Customization through the "Memory Bond" Systemwork well with the revamped Combat System and does it add variety to the gameplay?
  
  
• Are the Newly Added 3 Characters compelling and do they work well with the "Memory Bonding" System?
  
  
• As the number of Characters grows, do the changes to the Character System and Weapon Systemsmake intuitive sense and help convey each Character's personality and increase the fun of the game?
  
  
• Does the Basic Meta-game LOOPof setting out with these Characters and collecting “Firewood” with a limited inventory in order to fuel “Embers” to counter “Corruption” work as intended?

Today I'm going to give you an overview of our test setting, our internal assessment of each test point, and our next steps.


[h3]The Setting and Context of the Test[/h3]
The Maps used in the Test consisted of three Story Maps and four Farming Maps. After completing the two Story Maps based on the concept of "Entering Remore's Red-Light District", four Farming Maps and completing the "Dock" Story Map (which, for comparison, corresponds to the Stag Manor Map in the Current Version) you will have completed the Test Version.

Since the Narrative elements will be added after gameplay validation, the current version only includes a few simple elements to test the atmosphere, such as background settings for spatial design and "Journals written by NPCs”.



Since we were only testing internally, we didn't have a "Tutorial", but instead, we assumed that the "understanding of the changes" of Dev Team members who weren't directly involved in the content/system planning would be pretty similar to those who had only played the Early Access Version, and performed a kind of UX validation to see if the intended fun was intuitive and engaging...

After a basic screening of the members most directly responsible for the game design, we divided the team into three groups: those with high to low levels of understanding and involvement in the development of the changed game environment.

The First round of testing was done with members of the Team who were "aware of most of the logic for implementation," primarily programmers; the Second round of testing was done with members of the Dev Team who were "indirectly aware of some of the logic for presentation," such as narrative and UI designers; and the third round of testing was done with members of the Art Team who were only aware of the "big picture and goals" of the changes made after Early Access.

And... the results of the first round of testing were hopelessly(?) poor, because even from Team Members who understood the game logic, the feedback was mostly "This is so Hard and unreasonable that I Want to Give Up."



[h3]Test #1: An Unintentional Inferno of Difficulty, with UX Issues and Bugs Stacked on Top[/h3]
I'll admit that when we first got feedback about the difficulty of the levels, we were a bit taken aback. That's because we thought the construction of the many Single-Maps, with the logic "make more enemies come out a lot, and let players kill a lot!" and with the removal of "Grabbing/Caught" and the introduction of "Ambush/Surrounded" the ground rules were much more player-favorable than in the Early Access version.

Based on feedback from those who played and analysis of recorded footage, we concluded that the biggest contributing factor to this issue was the unreasonableness of "Roamers" (Skulkers) on outdoor Farming Maps when they suddenly jumped out of the darkness from outside of players field of view and alerted a large group of enemies.

During our Single-Map testing, we ultimately introduced the "outdoor" concept, and two of the main ingredients to flesh out that theme were the presence of roaming creatures and windows. We wanted to create a play experience that communicates, "It's dangerous to end your turn outside where the Roamers were lurking, so look through the window to see what's going on inside and try to get in as best you can”.

However, there were three main factors that led to a different experience than intended for the Dev Members who tested,

• Depending on the TP's situation, there are times when ending a turn outside is unavoidable, and it's harsh to have a Roamer pop up unexpectedly and bring in a bunch of enemies that are virtually impossible to deal with.
  
  
• Skulkers have a newly introduced “Agility” Stat - i.e. they have increased Dodge Rate - and depending on the situation, they may not be able to perform the intended response (i.e. the character with the higher “Dexterity” Stat gets the kill) ...
  
  
• Also, the fact that "Skulkers have a high Agility stat" is communicated through the icon for the Defense type, which is not very prominent and hard to recognize.

We analyzed the causes, but the solutions weren't always immediately obvious, especially for the first issue, where there was a pretty strong split between "there's no tension if you can see all the threats ahead of time" and "we're making a game to make you feel tense and threatened, not to kill you".

The second and third issues are a result of the Character System overhaul in this release, but the first issue was a bit of a mystery, as the introduction of the Roamers was pretty much the same structure in the last Single Map test, so I was wondering why the negative feedback was only appearing now.

And scouring the feedback and implementation status of past versions to find the reason for the discrepancy was somewhat fruitless, as in the end... it was just a bug in the Roamer's patrol range.

The original intent was that the Roamer would move 3-5 spaces per turn in the direction they are facing, so in principle, there shouldn't be a situation where a player would be immediately recognized by a roamer outside of their line of sight.

However, in order to create a sense of "patrol" unlike regular mobs with random movement, a sort of "waypoint system" was introduced for the Roamers, where the command "move from waypoint A to B" would override the "limit travel" rule, resulting in a situation where a Roamer that was 8-10 spaces away would jump out and cause a mass alert situation.



The conversation between a programmer and a level designer after discovering this issue was so hilarious that everyone on the team cracked up, so I'm quoting it here.

• Programmer: "Oh, I thought getting to the waypoint was a priority?"
  
• Level Designer: "Yes, well it is, but I just wanted to set it as a destination!"
  
• Programmer: "Well, enemies jumping out of the dark is kind of cool, so I thought that’s what you were going for?!..."
  
• Level Designer: "...I... I'm not that crazy..."

Eventually, the Skulker was changed back to its original design intent of "slowly approaching and applying pressure, while reminding you that it's dangerous to end your turn outdoors".

We also thought about the lack of recognition of Evasion Rate and Armor Type, but we didn't fix it per se, as we felt that a Tutorial Guide popup would be helpful when you encounter a Skulker for the first time and later (similar to when you encounter a new type of creature in Early Access). We wanted to keep the concept of "fast movement" in the Skulker.

Instead, since “Hit Rate” is such an important piece of information, we revised the way it's presented in Tooltips so that Players can better recognize the fact that the Hit Rate is low even before issuing an Attack Command.



Additionally, considering that continuous play leads to a higher sense of fatigue compared to testing a Single Map, we have reduced the number of enemy spawns and increased the variance between "rooms with many enemies" and "rooms with fewer enemies" within the same map for better balance.

With these adjustments, we nervously requested a second test from the testers who gave the game a score of 2 out of 10 in the first test, as well as the original second test group (the narrative and UI design teams). So, were we able to receive feedback that the game has become "fun?”

The results of that test will be revealed next week!
REMORE

Hello, Survivors!

So far, we've talked about the “Memory Bonding” System to fulfill the Narrative Goal of “Connecting the Memories of the Dead,” the Diversification of Characters from 3 to 6, the changes to the Character System to accommodate this diversification, and the changes to the Weapon System related to this.

We've created a working internal test build with the abovementioned changes to see how far we've come in realizing the goals we've been working on for the last six months, and we're pleased with the results! (Although we still have a long way to go!)

Today, we're going to introduce some of the changes to the Camp System,

We should stress that unlike the other Systems we've introduced so far, the changes to the Camp System are all in a state of Ongoing Implementation.




Of course, even the things I've introduced so far have used a lot of dummy resources for quick testing, and the UI still has a lot of room for improvement, including the overall quality, but the difference is that the Camp System is a dummy system, not just a production/resource, but the system itself.

Unlike traditional Single-Level designs, “Continuous Multiple Map Play” is required to validate things like the “Memory Bonding” and “Stat System,” but in order to design the Meta-game System in a way that won't “change,” we needed to finalize the battle stage experience.

To solve this, we decided to use the resources of the Early Access version of the Camp but removed all existing systems and implement the minimal "bare bone" elements of the new environment as quickly as possible, using temporary systems and a temporary UI.

In other words, the systems that are currently implemented are not so significant in and of themselves, as they are designed to help drive the battle stage experience to the intended shape.

In fact, for that reason, I was considering skipping the "Current" implementation of this metagame altogether.

I decided that it would be more consistent to show the current state of the game as it is, since we're pretty much sharing the state of the game we're developing in real time, and the next formal design will be based on the "results of feedback related to the current implementation."

Due to those special circumstances, today's introduction is a bit long, but I'll start with Changes to the Inventory System.



[h3]Consolidating and Simplifying Inventory[/h3]
In the Early Access Version, the Inventory was separated by "Type" of Item, and was designed with the goal of being able to take everything you can get on a given stage.

On the other hand, since one of our new meta-game design goals was "unlimited access to farming maps," we felt that "you can get everything on the map" was likely to be more of a stressor than a benefit if we kept the existing inventory system.

The new farming maps don't have an "Entrance" and a single "Exit" like the original Early Access version, but rather, it's up to the player to decide where to go and how many items to get on a large map. With multiple "Exits," players can always escape if they feel like things aren't going well.



In this structure, if you can play an unlimited number of farming maps, and if you can get all the items on a map, the natural optimal strategy is to scour every map you enter and collect all the rewards. At least for the balance designer who wants to keep difficulty at the "right level," they have to assume that players will behave this way and spec enemies accordingly.

This goes against the current farming map design philosophy of "let the player decide for themselves how much they want to farm, and then return to the farming map", which is why we added a maximum inventory constraint of 16 spaces.

Once your Inventory is full, you'll have the option to either "Accept some inefficiency and continue exploring to get better items" or "Call it a day and return to the escape route". You'll have to make strategic decisions based on your Party's Current HP and Weapon Durability, as well as the Difficulty of the Stage.

The Items you can pick up are the ones you're already familiar with from the Early Access version, such as higher-tiered "Weapons", "Iron Ingots" to repair those Weapons, and consumables like Bandages, Equipment, Repair tools, and Throwing Daggers.

Now we've thrown a new important Item to the mix: Firewood.



[h3]Feed the Fire with Kindling![/h3]
When we introduced the setting of Ember’s Fire, we mentioned that it's the most important key to the direction of the narrative we're currently revamping. The new core system, Memory Bonds, is based on this setting, and the Ember will be heavily involved in the overarching story of the entire game and the origin of the creatures.

In other words, the new narrative can be described as a contrast between “Fire” and “Darkness.” The crisis that has engulfed the world of Remore is darkness, symbolized by the "Dark Shroud" and players overcoming this darkness by harnessing the power of the "Flame," represented by the Ember, is one of the main keywords in the visual imagery that reflects the overall narrative.

We wanted this feeling to be incorporated into the game's setting as well as the actual gameplay, and we aimed to replace the Character's Corruption System due to the “Dark Shroud” with the Radiance System of the Ember utilizing “Firewood,” respectively.



Here's a rough setup,

• The world of Remore is shrouded in a "Dark Shroud" and players can only be protected from it by the flames of the Ember.
  
• However, the Ember’s "Radiance" decreases with each passing day, and Players must keep it alive by collecting "Firewood" when they venture out to farming maps.
  
• If they don't have enough “Radiance”, the “Corruption” rate will increase dramatically, which can lead to the death of their characters.
  

So, in a way, the Firewood that players gather on their expeditions becomes a resource that they must collect in order to survive, much like the "Food" in a survival game. Red Dust, Wood, and Charcoal can be gathered, and each has a different value, so collecting as much of the highest value Charcoal as possible will help you "last longer".

As a result, players must farm "Firewood" and "Weapons" to defeat powerful enemies, while managing their resources and minimizing their losses to defeat the boss guarding the "Embers" to complete an Act. This completion of an Act moves the entire narrative forward and sets the stage for the Final Boss to be defeated and the game to end.

(Please forgive us for only revealing the big-picture design goals, as revealing more detailed narratives would spoil the fun for later!!)

However, when we actually tested it, we got a lot of feedback that "Firewood" and "Weapons" weren't enough of an incentive to keep coming back to farming maps.

This is because we were focused on testing Memory Bonds and other changes to the Combat Experience, and as we mentioned at the beginning, we were focusing on Items that were "instant gratification," so there wasn't much in the way that Camps could be used to set up or grow something other than the Ember.

If we had a wider variety of items that could be dropped, and a wider variety of Camp facilities and crafting that could utilize them, it would definitely increase the "fun of farming," but we're not sure if "pushing that direction" is really the best way to contribute to the overall fun of the game given our limited development resources.

However, regardless of how we end up solving the above issues, our goal is to maintain the intent of inventory constraints, the way farming maps are organized, and the overall flow of the game as we move forward.

Next week, we'll share a more general update on the current build testing and our plans for the rest of the meta game systems.

Thanks as always! See you soon.
REMORE

Hello, Survivors!

Last week we talked about the changes to the character Stats and Skill/Talent systems.

The changes to the higher-level systems for characters naturally led to quite a few changes in the design philosophy of the Weapons, so today I’m going to talk about that!



[h3]Rebalancing Weapon-Character Importance[/h3]
In the Early Access version, Weapons were given a very high level of importance, with basic elements such as Attack Range/Area, Min/Max Damage, Critical Hit Chance, and even special effects such as Bleed, Pain, and Stun, virtually giving them the same level of characterization as Characters in other games.

The main reason for this design was that the Early Access version was locked to three Characters, and while each of the three Characters had a Perk Tree to choose from, the sense that the player could pick and choose something they liked and build upon it was weak.

As a result, much of the meta-game relied on the Blacksmith, Jorgn, to upgrade the tiers of Weapons, as well as a system of modifications that allowed players to specialize in the options they wanted. The development team jokingly said, “When you play the game, you get more attached to the Weapons than the Characters.” In fact, we've even joked that Remore is a game about growing Weapons.



However, now that the game has been reworked, we have more Characters to choose from, and we've refined the Memory Bonding system we shared earlier as a key feature of the game, we needed to rethink the weight of the Weapon system.

The question that arose was, "With stronger characterization and customization through Memory Bonds, is it really a good design decision to keep Weapons at the level of importance as before?"

Of course, we've found that Characters, Memories, and Weapons all have their own distinct personalities, and figuring out how to combine them is a lot of fun and gives you a lot of freedom and depth to decide how you want to play. We've had a lot of positive feedback on the Weapon modification system when we first showed it off in Early Access, and I think that's because it has its own unique appeal.

However, more people felt that if the Weapon gimmicks were as complex as they are in the current Early Access version, it would take away from the Character's Personality and Freedom of Customization or make it an unnecessary step.

For example, the Early Access version of the One-Handed Sword has an Attack Range that includes a diagonal attack, a moderate Critical Chance, and the ability to inflict Bleed. From there, you have the option to modify it to remove the Bleed and increase its Critical Chance or Damage, or to make the Bleed stronger to maximize the damage of the sword's Tier 2 Finishing Blow Skill.



However, at this point, the primary identity of the Weapon as a "Sword" is in its ability to inflict Bleed, even in the second-tier skillset, and options like removing the bleeding and attaching a critical option become more of a variant option that offers a bit of a different playstyle. Actually, "specialize in a more suitable weapon that specializes in Critical Hits, like a One-Handed Axe" is more of a meaningful option.

On the other hand, if you have a lot of Characters, Memories of the Dead, etc. that you can combine, we felt that the following design would be a “freer” approach.

• The Sword itself would not have a Bleed effect and would only have a “Range”' and “Skill Stat bonus.”
  
• When you bind "Butcher's Memory", you gain the talent "Weapon attacks inflict Bleeding equal to 25% of your Dexterity stat".
  
  • Thus, you can use the "Bleed" special effect with a weapon other than the "Sword" (= increased freedom).
    
  • However, the Sword has a Damage Bonus based on its Dexterity stat, and has an Attack WP cost of 1, so it synergizes well with that Weapon.
• On the other hand, a character that specializes in “Surprise/Assassination”, such as a Shadow Sister, who relies on having high instant damage so does not need an effect like bleeding really.
  
  • Therefore, a more appropriate build choice would be to bind Swordsman's Memory to increase the damage of Sword Skill attacks.

We concluded that giving Memories of the Dead the special effects that were previously granted to Weapons would make the Character, Memories of the Dead, and Weapons more distinct and enhance the fun of finding "More Synergistic Combinations".

Each Weapon's characteristics are centered around what we call "Weapon-specific Features": the attack's Range and Area of Effect, and the resulting WP cost and distribution of Skill power. So, a Spear would be focused on the "Can attack enemies 1 space away" feature, with only the "Stab" skill to hit a single enemy 1 space away and the “Pierce" skill to hit 2 enemies in a straight line at the same time", and special abilities such as traditional immobilization effects would be acquired "via memory bond, if you wish".

Of course, to prevent all Weapons from becoming too similar, we're still retaining some special effects for Weapons that can't be differentiated by range or AoE alone, especially abilities that directly relate to "Ambush" or "Surrounded," the centerpiece of the new Combat System.

For example, we kept the Knockback effect on the “Mace” because it was useful for creating “Surrounded” situations and was always a core feature of Blunt Weapons, and we kept the “Dagger” because it gave a bonus to Ambush while reinforcing the concept of assassination.

The big difference is that the effects are much simpler than in the Early Access version and organized to focus on a single feature.

Instead, the Strength and Dexterity stats we introduced earlier will now be more deeply tied into the damage of Weapon Skills, for example, skills from the Two-Handed Blunt Weapon will have a [Strength]-based attack, so higher Strength will give a bonus to damage, and skills from the One-Handed Sword will have a bonus from Dexterity. This is intended to make each Character's Weapon arsenal more "tailored to their stat allocation" and give us more room to consider stat synergies outside of special effects.



[h3]Changes to Weapon Swapping[/h3]
In addition to this shift in weapon tech design, we've also made a major change to how each Character equips and swaps Weapons.

In the Early Access version, all three Characters were able to "swap out any weapon in your inventory, on the fly, in the middle of battle." This meant that when enemies raised an alarm and captured a friendly character, "choosing the right weapon for the current formation and enemy type and attacking with the right skill" was a key tactic in the game.





The problem is, in order to perform these tactics at the level required by the game, the player needs to be familiar with the characteristics of the Weapons in their inventory (Range, AoE, Special Skills, and approximate damage ranges) that are currently not equipped.

We think it's definitely fun once you understand it, and we even created a quickslot UI to intentionally encourage it, but it's by no means intuitive for newcomers to the game.

We've also gotten a lot of feedback that, while it may be "tactically valid" to unequip Edwin's wooden fork at a distance, equip it to Diurmuid, and then use it again, especially in situations where Blisters and such are tricky to hit, it's really breaking the immersion of the game.



As we hinted at in our previous post about the UI overhaul, to address these issues, we've changed the Weapon Swap rules to allow each Character to have a maximum of Two Sets of Gear, and only allow swapping between those two Sets of Gear during combat.

We initially tested a cleaner approach of only allowing one Set of Equipment per Character, but we realized that it would be a shame to completely give up the fun of "Switching Weapons to Suit the Situation." We decided that each Character should have a Primary Set of Equipment, and a Secondary Set of Equipment for situations that the first set might not cover" to get the best balance between intuitiveness and gameplay fun.



If you get a new weapon from a weapon rack or chest in the middle of a battle, you won't be able to equip it while you're in combat while an enemy is alerted to you. You can only swap out equipment sets when it's safe to do so after combat is over, and I think that's a line that doesn't break immersion too much. (Having the ability for distant Royal Guard able to unequip his Sword so you can equip it on the nearby Shadow Sister when you're not "in combat" is just less annoying!!)

Well, that’s it for this introduction to the changes to the Weapon System.

In fact, there are quite a few other minor changes, such as modifications to the damage formula and the addition of “Defense Types”, but I've omitted the more complicated parts of the formula because they’re a bit much for this Dev Note’s context!

These are the things that have changed from the Early Access version and will continue to be the direction of the game. Of course, there will be other minor changes as we continue to balance and add more content, but we think you can safely assume that our current "Theme" of simplifying weaponization - leaving each character with a maximum of two sets of gear - is set in stone.

Thanks again! We'll be back next week with something new!
REMORE

Greetings Survivors,

Kane Jung, Game Producer of REMORE: INFESTED KINGDOM, is ready to leave the darkness and wants to bring all your burning questions into the light with a special Q&A Live Stream!
Selected Inquires submitted by the community will be answered on our Q&A Live Stream Day!

Please enter your inquiry using our Question Submission Form and your question may be selected to appear on our Q&A Live Stream Day with the answer! (Host: Fanatic Bob)

[Question Submission Period]
June 4 ~ May 11 (PT)

[Question Submission Form]
https://forms.gle/7go7R38X6PhKojM36


[Live Stream]
June 25 6:00 PM (PT)

[Rules]

• Please keep submissions cordial. Offensive or personal inquiries will not be accepted.
  
• You may only submit one inquiry per form.
  
• Only one of similar questions will be accepted and answered. (Sorted by submitted time)
  

Thank you,
REMORE

Greetings once again, Survivors!

Last week, we introduced three New Characters to the game: the Shadow Sister, the Inquisitor, and the Jester.

Along with the addition of these new characters, we're also making some big changes to the system that defines who they are in the game and today, we're going to introduce these Systemic Changes.


[h3]Changes to the Stat System[/h3]
In the original EA version, the Stats attached to the "Characters" themselves were fairly simple. Health (HP), Crit Chance and Damage, Armor and Evasion, and the actual "Default" differences between those Stats weren't that significant - it was a decision to weigh additional factors, such as perks and weapon characteristics, that would be acquired later.

But now that we've chosen to increase the number of Characters, we naturally need a way to make the "Differences between Characters" a little more pronounced - unlike before, when we had a fixed set of three Characters and only had to choose Perks or Weapons to use, we now need a way to decide "which Character to bring with us into battle".

Of course, as I mentioned last week, there is a big difference in the basic Skill composition, but in the context of the Memory Bonding system we introduced earlier, we felt that the difference in Skills alone was not enough. If a character with 2 Skills is given an additional 4 Skills through Memory Bonding, then their innate uniqueness is lessened...

In addition to Health, we're introducing a system of four "Primary Stats," which we've labeled Strength / Dexterity / Fortitude / Agility.

• [Strength] Increases the damage of weapons with the 'heavy and strong' concept, such as blunt weapons or two-handed axes, and offsets any damage reduction from enemies due to the [Fortitude] Stat.
  
• [Dexterity] Increases the damage of weapons with the "agility attack" concept, such as swords and spears, and offsets the effect of increased enemy evasion due to the [Agility] Stat.
  
• [Fortitude] Reduces the damage you take when attacked, while the [Agility] Stat increases your dodge rate.

With the introduction of these Stats, we've differentiated between which Stats each character specializes in, whether it's a “Starting Stat” or a “Leveling Stat.”

For example, Diurmuid who is powerful, specializes in the [Strength] Stat, while the Shadow Sister, who specializes in ambushes and assassinations, is a damage dealer who specializes in the [Dexterity] Stat.

The Jester has a lower [Dexterity] than the Shadow Sister, but a higher [Agility] instead, which makes a difference in the way that a "Dodge and then Counterattack" type of Memory can be more effective when bonded. If you choose Willam (Royal Guard), who specializes in the [Fortitude] Stat, you might want to play him with a Shield and stand firm in the middle of the enemy hoards.



In this way, the stat system was introduced with the goal of having different play styles depending on which stats you specialize in, and each weapon was given attributes like Strength-based damage, Dexterity -based damage, and so on.

You'll see how these Stats are distributed, and then choose which Memories you want to bind, which combinations you want to build, and then go onto the stage.

We're still in early development and the UI still needs a lot of work, but based on internal test feedback, we think we’ve done a good job of "conveying each character's personality" through the four basic Stats. The next challenge is to refine this Stat structure to make it easier to understand, and how to "differentiate between characters with similar Stat allocations" when we have more characters in the future.


[h3]Differentiating between “Skills” and “Traits”[/h3]
As I mentioned in my notes on the UI redesign, we've separated the location of Weapon Skills and Character Skills in the UI to some extent, because we didn't want the slots for Weapon Skills to change every time you swap Weapons, and we didn't want the icon locations and Hotkeys for the Character Skills you use to always change.

We ended up capping the number of Character Skills at 6 (with a maximum of 2 Weapon Skills, for a total of 8 Active Skills), which led us to a problem with the Memory Bonding system.

• First of all, the number of active Skills per character (up to 8) is still quite high compared to other games in the genre. You can “get used to it”, but it's not easy to “get it all at once.”
  
  
• However, keeping this UI puts a relative limit on the number of skills that can be added through Memory Bonds.
  
  • Once we excluded the two Weapon Skills, we realized that each Character would need at least two Unique Skills, and possibly three Passive Skills, to flesh out their personality, such as Stealth for the Shadow Sister.
    
  • That leaves us with only three Skills that can be added through Memory Bonds,
    
    • which is far too few for the "room for build customization" we're trying to achieve with the Memory Bond system,
      
    • Having an infinite number of Skills would have been difficult to manage and recognize in combat.
• In Early Access, Perks like Edwin's “Flanking Stab” and Diurmuid's “Healing Boost” were unique Perks that didn't take up space in the Skill pool, so we thought, "What if we made a lot of Memories that are bonded in this way?”
  
  • However, even at that time, there was a lot of feedback that it was difficult to recognize the existence of such Perks due to the UI.
    
  • The Perk types were already fixed for each character, but we knew that allowing Players to "freely set their own Perks" like Memory Bonds would exacerbate this problem.

As a result, we created the concept of "Traits" to separate from "Skills" and represent them separately in the UI.



On the left-hand side of the UI, you'll find "Traits" that correspond to the "Perks" in the original Early Access version.

Unlike Skills that directly cost WP or TP to "use" or "trigger", they tend to consist of additional effects that synergize with the Skill's activation, such as "Increase Skill power on a successful Surprise" or "Inflict 2 additional Pain on Collision", or simple but powerful Stat boosts like "+1 WP" or "+4 TP".

Meanwhile, on the right side of the UI, "Weaknesses" are placed. These are basically used to create “Drawbacks” for your characters, which in turn reinforce their “Traits,”

For example, I mentioned that the Shadow Sister who specializes in ambushes has a "Stage Fright" weakness that makes her weak in frontal combat, while the Jester has a "Sarcasm" weakness that triggers when an ally's attack misses, angering (?) and debuffing them.



We'll also use the Weakness UI as a guide for how to deal with enemies. We want features like Blister's "Instant Death on Collision" effect, or Orman's "Stun on Armor Break" in EA, to be clearly labeled as Weaknesses in the UI so that when you encounter a new enemy, you can easily remember how to deal with it based on the description of the Weakness.

It was a challenge to balance the two conflicting design goals of keeping each character unique while still allowing for the freedom of customization that comes with the "Memory Bonding" system, but fortunately, test feedback on the current version has been very good.

So, while we're keeping the broad outlines of this system, we'll continue to add new Characters and expand the types of Dead Memories that can be bonded, while maintaining a design direction that reinforces the fun of customizing "the Character you want, the Party you want."

There's a lot more to talk about, such as the changes brought about by the introduction of permanent death and the concept of "Corruption" that aligns with the new narrative, but we're running out of space, so we’ll leave it there for now!

We'll be back next week with another look at new System Changes!
REMORE