THE WARRIORLOCK News

With so much detailed feedback and great suggestions from players, I was really excited to get to work on rewriting and upgrading some game-changing aspects of The Warriorlock!



The stat regeneration system for Health and Soul power was, as some players put it, 'effectively useless' and 'a joke.' I heard you. I saw and felt your pain. I made it all better.

Players and their chosen party members will now have their Health and Soul points drip-generated at triple the original rate! I had previously cobbled together a quick change to the settings to see how it would effect the game overall, and then spent the last few weeks implementing the changes permanently and properly.

The healing drip is passive, and will run continuously in the background while the player is in-game, regardless of whether or not they are standing at rest, or walking/moving around. The drip is paused of course during combat, but will return to recharging after each battle has concluded.

Thank you for your messages and posts!



I have re-written the Steam achievement script for the cavern boss, so that the reward trigger is now applied when the player and their party encounter the Drakko Immortuous, regardless of whether or not they win in battle, as this achievement is intended to reward discovery over victory.

The original achievement could only be obtained if the player defeated the cavern boss, but for some players this achievement was either very difficult or inconvenient to unlock, or for some reason did not trigger after combat. I will work in an additional achievement for victory at some point over the new year, for those who would like to try for both. : ).



The Rampage skill is one of those aspects that can really tip the table in your favor, but there are few who get to fully realize how helpful it can be, as it was never available until reaching character level 9. After a few play-throughs this summer, I found that this setting was a little excessive, and took away from some of the potential fun had when pulling out this skill in battle, like a concealed 45 magnum, and then smashing the crap out of a hard-to-kill enemy.

I have changed the skill setting for each relevant character so 'Rampage' is now available at level 6. Enjoy!



I set a few traps in testing the original 60-second enemy repel feature of Repel Spice, and found that if the timer was still active/running when the player triggered a narrative intro, or transition into/out of a level area, then 1/12 times or so, the timer would reset and get thrown into a loop, preventing the event commands for 'Stop Timer' to execute with 100% effectiveness.
I like Repel Spice. I'm a little attached to it, so I don't want to eliminate it altogether, but I had to do something. So, I've reduced the timer setting to 1/4 minute, and wrote in many extra command lines at most level transitions, to help ensure that the timer executes properly and allows enemies to resume their usual hunt and attack behavior. The command priority is in the right order, but sometimes with ruby code and multiple scripts running, there can be some tripped hurdles (not tripped turtles) when the game window is loading a next/new screen, or transitioning between area maps. Anyway, it's working flawlessly for me now, so please report any bugs as usual in the discussion thread. Appreciate it huge time. : )

Thanks everyone! Ya'll are awesome for supporting my humble project and helping me to grow as a game developer, and continue doing improved work. Can't wait to announce and show you all my next game in 2020! Cheers and Happy December!

Thank you everyone for taking the time to give me helpful feedback on The Warriorlock. I've implemented the following positive adjustments and bug fixes.



I've adjusted all character level caps to 50. Usually a level of 10+ is more than adequate, but if anyone is actually crazy enough to attempt the grind in reaching this max upper limit, then I will reward a bounty of 1 Warriorlock Steam Key per party member whose level reaches 50. The key(s) can be traded, gifted, used in giveaways or resold. It doesn't matter to me what you do with them.

To qualify, players must post either an image or video in the Community Hub, of the character party menu, showing the character's level(s) at 50. Once this is done, a copy of your save file must be emailed to me: [email protected] for confirmation.

Character Party Menu screen looks like this:





The skill Reaper has been updated to be more lethal, apply only to the four blunt weapons (sword, hammer, axe, labrys), and now includes a basic animation with the character attack. The Reaper skill is acquired at level 13, which will now deliver a death blow 99% of the time to any one target (even big bosses) for a cost of 100AP (action points). *This skill cannot be acquired for ranged or light weapons (bow, crossbow, daggers, long knife).



The skill Rampage has been updated to show 5 consecutive attacks by the character, instead of one action x 5 damage, so you can now watch each of the 5 attacks be executed one at a time, with the damage and misses calculated separately. It makes for a more visually detailed execution, and also allows the player to view how each attack affects the target.

Special thanks to player Pika! Pika! for the detailed feedback with fixing/adjusting the skills and character level caps.



The combat engine is a heavily customized system from two completely separate script engines, which I re-worked over many months for The Warriorlock, specifically programming a dynamic turn-based system which would include a stat-driven turn-order, A/P charging/wait feature with animated gauges, and fully animated combat for both party members and enemies. With this customization has come a lot of bugs (reported by players. Thank you!) and multiple re-writes of the 3 core scripts.

I have been working over the past 6 months to continually improve the combat, and as of Sept. 2nd, I have completed the latest update, which now allows for multiple action skills, such as Rampage, to pause all non-essential commands, while executing and animating as many times as needed, without interrupting the turn-order gauges or enemy action sequence. This was a major headache to implement because so many commands are waiting to execute at any given time with the custom ATB system.

I had already announced the Rampage skill upgrades, but upon further testing yesterday, found that it was affecting the combat system when more than 2 enemies are present. The player turn order was resetting, and many 'successful' hits to enemy targets were not calculating. So, I worked on it all through the night until 6am this morning, changing the command order when the player selects any multi-action skill, and now finally it works flawlessly.

If you level up enough to acquire the Rampage skill or you find any of the Spell Books that teach summons for example, please note any oddities or bugs in combat and let me know. I am 99.9% certain that it's running hot and smooth now, but your feedback is invaluable. Thank you!

I need to sleep, so I'm off to dream of a Carrion Road crawl, hopefully without running into any pantless Bearded Trolls—those bastards are brutal.

There are a few changes/improvements I've made which will affect new players, and those restarting games attempting a new crawl with a different combination of party members.

First off, I have adjusted the formula for hit/miss stats when calculating %'s of successful and failed combat strikes and/or special skill deployment, to allow for more instances of 'counter attacks' on behalf of the player, which come in very handy as a bonus when facing down more than 1 opponent. Also, counterattacks do not count toward the player turn count, so there is now an increased chance of being awarded multiple turns to strike and/or use items. It won't happen too often, but you should notice an increase in bonus turns + counterattacks. It feels more balanced, but still keeps you on the edge of your seat, as some enemy troops can still wipe you out quick if your 'SPEED' stat is lower earlier in the game. TIP: Use your bonus EXP points to pad out your SPEED stat early on if you want to have increased 'first-turn' starts to most battles.

Second, I have now default-equipped the player inventory with 3 consumable items (Prime, Essence & Scarlet Harlot) from the start of the game to help out with the first part of the crawl, before you have a chance to collect some useful items for battle. It won't make a huge difference, but definitely allows for a hail Mary or two if you get caught with low HP and are taking a beating.
Again, try to avoid most battles until you have collected some items and selected a few party members. It will give you a great advantage overall.

Third, players can now start a new game with the option to completely skip all intro, narrative and dialogue scenes to start out in the open on the other side of the Gnar Wall, placing them in immediate danger with full control over the game.

Please share where you can with any groups or other player friends who may appreciate this little gem.

Cheers!

Dee

Many high-5's to the select few who have experienced the Shadow Bug, and reported it to me with the details needed to resolve it! I'll make this quick.

The bug was only affecting a handful of players, which led me to a script and event conflict where if the enemy shadow spawned, but did not update within the allotted 5 frames needed, then it would spawn in a passive state. I've gone ahead and adjusted the script with a more lenient frame update requirement, and also added a new default menu item just for redundancy.

The new item is called 'Entice Spice' and is added to your inventory by default after you cross through the Gnar Wall.



Entice Spice is non-consumable, so you'll always have it and cannot sell it. If for any reason you encounter shadows in the game that do not engage with you, simply go to your item inventory and select Entice Spice! It will automatically activate the global switch for enemy shadows, and they will come after you with a vengeance.

Now, for those of you who currently have this bug, the new item won't help you until you have a new save file, so I have gone ahead and created a new folder in the Steam Warriorlock build titled 'Back-up SAVE (party selection)' in which there is a 'Save02' file, with instructions. Basically, you go into the main Warriorlock game folder on your computer and copy/paste the new Save02 file to start the game off bug-free, skipping right through to the party member selection scene.



I put a note inside the new folder with complete instructions, but feel free to ask for any assistance.

Last step is to exit out of the Steam client completely and restart it, just to make sure all your data is up to date.

I want to thank everyone for their patience, assistance and overall human kindness in alerting me to and helping me with this. Have a great weekend!

Cheers!

Dee

I'm just posting this new key map image I made here (same one in the game item menu) for anyone wanting a preview of the native controller and keyboard bindings before launching the game.

The Warriorlock was developed with a heavily customized VX Ace engine, and so the bindings are a little limited, but there are few necessary inputs in the game other than 'Select,' 'Action,' and 'Escape,' so it's very easy to get used to. Also, the default controller scheme is already preset with the same default settings as an Xbox 360 controller. Hope this helps!

Anyone using a Steam controller and having issues with functionality, please let me know, and include your OP system so I can report it to Steam for review. The Warriorlock was tested by Steam staff with their latest controller, and it works as it should for them, with the caveat that the controller must be plugged in before launching the game (hence the 'partial controller support' notice) so it's usually just a simple input setting adjustment.

Thank you!