Development Digest March 24th - April 11th
Happy Tuesday, everyone!
I know we dropped the ball on our Friday digests for the last two weeks. We've been a bit busy celebrating birthdays, Easter and working on some game changing new features in Swords 'n Magic.
Class System Progress
The last couple weeks I've been working hard on converting everything over to the new classes system in Swords 'n Magic. I talked a lot about this in the last dev digest if you missed it and want to catch up. The classes are entirely implemented other than saving. After the character skills debacle of 2021, tying everything into the save system has always got me a bit on edge, so I'm putting it off until everything else is in place so it's easier to simply roll back that one change if I mess everything up. Take this as a warning though, changing things this drastic could come at a cost. I'll do everything I can to avoid any lost progress though.
Currently the class system finds your average skills and determines you class levels based on those. So if you have 10 sword skill, 10 shield skill and 0 mace skill your Warrior class level will be 6.6 (rounded up to 7). Any experience toward the next level will be lost. I could build a system for this but I just don't think it's worth the time. To make up for it, I'm rounding up everyone's average to the next level.
Class-Based Passive Skill Trees
The last devlog also touched on the super feature creep idea of class-based skills...
Well I've decided that adding a skill tree for each class is 100% the right way to go. In fact... I've already implemented a pretty robust skill tree that works like you'd expect based on other games in the genre.
I haven't decided how often you'll earn skill points yet, but you'll be awarded the skill points you're owed when you log in for the first time after the next major update. You can spend points in either a major passive node, or a minor passive node. Major nodes grant you a new passive perk that can change your playstyle. This could grant a new effect to your attacks, trigger an event on a crit, or even replace your primary attack with something new. These effects should be a pretty big change to how you play the game. Minor nodes simply grant you a permanent attribute point in a related stat, such as Focus or Resilience.
Here's a mockup of what a tree might look like:
Right now I'm thinking every 5 levels will award you a point starting at level 1, and the new level cap might end up being 60. Right now with a level cap of 30 still in place you should be able to reach the top of a single tree in your primary class.
I also want to make sure players have a variety of playstyles, so I want to add some limitations into the skill trees. You'll earn about 13 skill points in each class, but you'll have a limit to how many total points you can spend, putting you somewhere between 1.5 to 2 primary classes. I'm not entirely sure how this system will work yet, so I'll keep you posted.
Of course you'll be able to reset your points anytime throughout the game. You'll just need a Potion of Amnesia, which is already finished and implemented. Once you drink this potion all your points will be returned to you to redistribute them however you like. This will likely become a high level alchemy craft as well as a rare drop or quest reward item. Perhaps a traveling vendor could sell them for a good price as well.
Here's a sample of a few of the skills I've already got implemented. Please keep in mind these are passive skills and rarely will they give you access to entirely new active abilities. They're also entirely subject to change at any moment, especially before they launch this spring.
Mage skill examples:
Arcane Skill Changes
You may have noticed that there's now a Frost and Ember skill. Arcane how now been split into 4 different skills, Ember, Frost, Earth and Sky. Due to the way the project was set up, all of your Arcane skill will go straight into Ember, likely giving everyone a high level Mage class right off the bat, but 0 Druid class since both Earth and Sky are brand new skill types. Life has also changed to Order to contrast Chaos better for the Mystic class.
And don't worry, martial classes have passives as well, but I don't want to spoil any of those designs quite yet.
Most of these passives have been relatively easy to implement so far, but I'm sure there will be some hiccups along the way.
I feel like these trees are that dash of permanent progression we've been needing. I can't wait to get everyone's feedback when they go live.
Attribute Name Changes
In the process of the class changes I also decided that our primary attributes needed a bit of a rework. It's minor, but I've changed the name of "Max Magic" to "Aura", representing how strong your magical aura is used to store magic around you. There's a lore book in game that talks about this a bit and it made sense to change the name to better mirror Vitality, which is your maximum health.
The only other new attribute name you'll see is Willpower, which is simply Focus for magic based skills. This will be implemented shortly and will also be seen in the next major update.
Steam Trading Cards
That about wraps up what I've been working on in the game. But I have another neat announcement for you.
Right when this announcement went live, we also launched officially Swords 'n Magic Steam trading cards!
Play the game to unlock 4 cards of the set of 8. Collect all 8 by trading with friends or buying them via the Steam marketplace to unlock the first Swords 'n Magic badge as well as random chances to unlock exclusive Swords 'n Magic emoticons and backgrounds for your Steam profile. Every set of 8 you unlock can be turned into the next badge tier all the way up to a coveted foil badge.
I'm excited to see all the trading card trade chat in the Discord LFG channel!
Thanks again for your patience in this update. I think you'll all be blown away at all the awesome changes in the game. :)
I know we dropped the ball on our Friday digests for the last two weeks. We've been a bit busy celebrating birthdays, Easter and working on some game changing new features in Swords 'n Magic.
Class System Progress
The last couple weeks I've been working hard on converting everything over to the new classes system in Swords 'n Magic. I talked a lot about this in the last dev digest if you missed it and want to catch up. The classes are entirely implemented other than saving. After the character skills debacle of 2021, tying everything into the save system has always got me a bit on edge, so I'm putting it off until everything else is in place so it's easier to simply roll back that one change if I mess everything up. Take this as a warning though, changing things this drastic could come at a cost. I'll do everything I can to avoid any lost progress though.
Currently the class system finds your average skills and determines you class levels based on those. So if you have 10 sword skill, 10 shield skill and 0 mace skill your Warrior class level will be 6.6 (rounded up to 7). Any experience toward the next level will be lost. I could build a system for this but I just don't think it's worth the time. To make up for it, I'm rounding up everyone's average to the next level.
Class-Based Passive Skill Trees
The last devlog also touched on the super feature creep idea of class-based skills...
Well I've decided that adding a skill tree for each class is 100% the right way to go. In fact... I've already implemented a pretty robust skill tree that works like you'd expect based on other games in the genre.
I haven't decided how often you'll earn skill points yet, but you'll be awarded the skill points you're owed when you log in for the first time after the next major update. You can spend points in either a major passive node, or a minor passive node. Major nodes grant you a new passive perk that can change your playstyle. This could grant a new effect to your attacks, trigger an event on a crit, or even replace your primary attack with something new. These effects should be a pretty big change to how you play the game. Minor nodes simply grant you a permanent attribute point in a related stat, such as Focus or Resilience.
Here's a mockup of what a tree might look like:
Right now I'm thinking every 5 levels will award you a point starting at level 1, and the new level cap might end up being 60. Right now with a level cap of 30 still in place you should be able to reach the top of a single tree in your primary class.
I also want to make sure players have a variety of playstyles, so I want to add some limitations into the skill trees. You'll earn about 13 skill points in each class, but you'll have a limit to how many total points you can spend, putting you somewhere between 1.5 to 2 primary classes. I'm not entirely sure how this system will work yet, so I'll keep you posted.
Of course you'll be able to reset your points anytime throughout the game. You'll just need a Potion of Amnesia, which is already finished and implemented. Once you drink this potion all your points will be returned to you to redistribute them however you like. This will likely become a high level alchemy craft as well as a rare drop or quest reward item. Perhaps a traveling vendor could sell them for a good price as well.
Here's a sample of a few of the skills I've already got implemented. Please keep in mind these are passive skills and rarely will they give you access to entirely new active abilities. They're also entirely subject to change at any moment, especially before they launch this spring.
Mage skill examples:
- Arcane Mastery - Mage spells now cost 20% less magic to cast
- Spell Weaving - Mage spells now cast 20% faster
- Pyromancy - Ember spells now have a 10% crit chance and Ember attuned weapons have a 20% chance to ignite the target.
- Frostbite - Frost staff attacks slow enemies. Slowed enemies have a 20% chance to become Frostbitten, taking damage over time.
Arcane Skill Changes
You may have noticed that there's now a Frost and Ember skill. Arcane how now been split into 4 different skills, Ember, Frost, Earth and Sky. Due to the way the project was set up, all of your Arcane skill will go straight into Ember, likely giving everyone a high level Mage class right off the bat, but 0 Druid class since both Earth and Sky are brand new skill types. Life has also changed to Order to contrast Chaos better for the Mystic class.
And don't worry, martial classes have passives as well, but I don't want to spoil any of those designs quite yet.
Most of these passives have been relatively easy to implement so far, but I'm sure there will be some hiccups along the way.
I feel like these trees are that dash of permanent progression we've been needing. I can't wait to get everyone's feedback when they go live.
Attribute Name Changes
In the process of the class changes I also decided that our primary attributes needed a bit of a rework. It's minor, but I've changed the name of "Max Magic" to "Aura", representing how strong your magical aura is used to store magic around you. There's a lore book in game that talks about this a bit and it made sense to change the name to better mirror Vitality, which is your maximum health.
The only other new attribute name you'll see is Willpower, which is simply Focus for magic based skills. This will be implemented shortly and will also be seen in the next major update.
Steam Trading Cards
That about wraps up what I've been working on in the game. But I have another neat announcement for you.
Right when this announcement went live, we also launched officially Swords 'n Magic Steam trading cards!
Play the game to unlock 4 cards of the set of 8. Collect all 8 by trading with friends or buying them via the Steam marketplace to unlock the first Swords 'n Magic badge as well as random chances to unlock exclusive Swords 'n Magic emoticons and backgrounds for your Steam profile. Every set of 8 you unlock can be turned into the next badge tier all the way up to a coveted foil badge.
I'm excited to see all the trading card trade chat in the Discord LFG channel!
Thanks again for your patience in this update. I think you'll all be blown away at all the awesome changes in the game. :)