Development Digest March 16th - 24th
Hey guys. Kindred here again.
Janna says now that I've started posting progress updates that it's no longer her job to post them. Something about a new baby and what not. Not sure how I feel about that... but here I am.
With a lot going on this week, I've been giving attention to some design work that had been neglected until now since it doesn't always require me sitting at the PC.
If there's one thing I find lacking in Swords 'n Magic, it's clarity around how stats, damage numbers, and status effects work. This ambiguity can make it difficult to fully engage with the game.
Working on the new buff bar changes last week was a first step in clearing up some of that ambiguity, but I think we need a lot more. While I finish up work on the stats/attributes panel I'm realizing that a lot of our attributes (focus, vitality, resilience) don't all have a very balanced effect on gameplay. And we have other stats, such as luck or movement speed that feel like secondary attributes.
Redesigning Character Attributes
So this week I'm really working through a bit of a redesign for these attributes as well as looking at ways to streamline more of the RPG elements in the game. The combat in the game was always designed to be simple and easy to understand, but when we introduced stats in the form of consumables, suddenly combat was this mysterious void that everyone has questions about.
Redesigning how those numbers are crunched behind the scenes and clearly teaching players how they work is now become a priority for me. This week Janna and I are scheduling a design meeting with our dedicated testing team to get their feedback and input on major changes to the attributes and how they should be handled.
Permanent Progression
During this meeting I'm sure the topic of more permanent progression will be brought up. This is definitely something that the game has been lacking. Originally it was designed to be entirely gear and buff based so players could always play with new players by simply equipping lower level gear. That way they would never out-level another character and would never be forced to make a new character to help catch up their friend, a bane of many coop RPG's I've enjoyed over the years.
The question is, do we add permanent progression in the some form and break this rule we've set in place? Or do we find other ways to offer better gear-based progression, like armor or stat buffs on equippable items?
Implementing a Class-less Class System
Another design change I've been considering for a while now is streamlining weapon skills. We've hinted at clustering our weapon skills into classes in the past and I think now is the time to finally pull the trigger on that.
The plan is to organize skills in the following way:
Brawler
Rogue
Hunter
Mage
Mystic
Druid
Whenever you use a weapon skill, it'll give you generic experience in that class. All class-specific weapons will benefit from the class level, and no longer from an individual skill level.
Why is this change a good idea? Because it'll generalize a lot of your skills and allow you to have a more diverse kit. When you're wandering through the Windless Woods and you come across a cool new magical axe, but you've primarily used spears the entire game, it means you can't really even try it out. You'll be such a low level that you'll need to go back to Azura to train it up, or hope you survive an encounter where you swap between the axe and your primary weapon to level it up.
While this new design doesn't entirely remove this situation, it does limit it a lot. It gives players a lot more diversity in how they play the game. You can now swap freely between 3 different martial weapons and 2 spell schools and retain the benefits. I think this will give players more freedom to swap weapons without feeling like it's a waste of their time not leveling just swords, for example.
Lastly, I think one of the biggest advantages to this class system is that it frees up players who really enjoyed specific weapons that might be lacking in the game. There are only a handful of scythes and fist weapons in the game, and while ideally we add more to make sure players can play how they like at any stage of the game, this system helps smooth out those gaps in weapons by allowing you to at least swap to a dagger for a while until you find a new fist weapon.
And I know what you're thinking. Does this mean a skill wipe? And no, I don't think it'll be necessary to wipe everyone's skills to implement this. I think we can gather everyone's weapon skills, take an average for each class and set that to your new class level.
I don't want to put the cart before the horse here, but with a new class system this also lends to the future possibility of class based skills, whether they're passive or active. I'm not making any promises for something like this, but it would be much easier to manage and design 6 class skills than 15 individual weapon skills.
As far as crafting skills go, I don't think they'd be grouped together in any way. They'll remain unchanged for now. But eventually I have some big changes for crafting as well, which we'll save for another time, when we get closer to tackling those changes.
Wrap Up
As well as some of this important spring cleaning we're slowly chipping away at new zones in the game while I redesign these mechanics and add in all the missing quality of life features I think the game absolutely has to have to work as a complete game.
And don't worry, dungeons are still at the forefront of all of this. We want to make sure that when dungeons launch, all of our mechanics feel cohesive and intentional and are no longer shrouded in mystery. (And this includes a better way to split stacks, by the way. One of the BIGGEST complaints we have right now.)
Thanks again for your continued patience. We have an update just around the corner to introduce all these big changes to the game and I can't wait to see all your feedback.
Janna says now that I've started posting progress updates that it's no longer her job to post them. Something about a new baby and what not. Not sure how I feel about that... but here I am.
With a lot going on this week, I've been giving attention to some design work that had been neglected until now since it doesn't always require me sitting at the PC.
If there's one thing I find lacking in Swords 'n Magic, it's clarity around how stats, damage numbers, and status effects work. This ambiguity can make it difficult to fully engage with the game.
Working on the new buff bar changes last week was a first step in clearing up some of that ambiguity, but I think we need a lot more. While I finish up work on the stats/attributes panel I'm realizing that a lot of our attributes (focus, vitality, resilience) don't all have a very balanced effect on gameplay. And we have other stats, such as luck or movement speed that feel like secondary attributes.
Redesigning Character Attributes
So this week I'm really working through a bit of a redesign for these attributes as well as looking at ways to streamline more of the RPG elements in the game. The combat in the game was always designed to be simple and easy to understand, but when we introduced stats in the form of consumables, suddenly combat was this mysterious void that everyone has questions about.
Redesigning how those numbers are crunched behind the scenes and clearly teaching players how they work is now become a priority for me. This week Janna and I are scheduling a design meeting with our dedicated testing team to get their feedback and input on major changes to the attributes and how they should be handled.
Permanent Progression
During this meeting I'm sure the topic of more permanent progression will be brought up. This is definitely something that the game has been lacking. Originally it was designed to be entirely gear and buff based so players could always play with new players by simply equipping lower level gear. That way they would never out-level another character and would never be forced to make a new character to help catch up their friend, a bane of many coop RPG's I've enjoyed over the years.
The question is, do we add permanent progression in the some form and break this rule we've set in place? Or do we find other ways to offer better gear-based progression, like armor or stat buffs on equippable items?
Implementing a Class-less Class System
Another design change I've been considering for a while now is streamlining weapon skills. We've hinted at clustering our weapon skills into classes in the past and I think now is the time to finally pull the trigger on that.
The plan is to organize skills in the following way:
Brawler
- Mace
- Sword
- Shield
Rogue
- Dagger
- Gauntlet
- Slingshot
Hunter
- Bow
- Spear
- Axe
Mage
- Ember
- Frost
Mystic
- Order
- Chaos
Druid
- Earth
- Sky
Whenever you use a weapon skill, it'll give you generic experience in that class. All class-specific weapons will benefit from the class level, and no longer from an individual skill level.
Why is this change a good idea? Because it'll generalize a lot of your skills and allow you to have a more diverse kit. When you're wandering through the Windless Woods and you come across a cool new magical axe, but you've primarily used spears the entire game, it means you can't really even try it out. You'll be such a low level that you'll need to go back to Azura to train it up, or hope you survive an encounter where you swap between the axe and your primary weapon to level it up.
While this new design doesn't entirely remove this situation, it does limit it a lot. It gives players a lot more diversity in how they play the game. You can now swap freely between 3 different martial weapons and 2 spell schools and retain the benefits. I think this will give players more freedom to swap weapons without feeling like it's a waste of their time not leveling just swords, for example.
Lastly, I think one of the biggest advantages to this class system is that it frees up players who really enjoyed specific weapons that might be lacking in the game. There are only a handful of scythes and fist weapons in the game, and while ideally we add more to make sure players can play how they like at any stage of the game, this system helps smooth out those gaps in weapons by allowing you to at least swap to a dagger for a while until you find a new fist weapon.
And I know what you're thinking. Does this mean a skill wipe? And no, I don't think it'll be necessary to wipe everyone's skills to implement this. I think we can gather everyone's weapon skills, take an average for each class and set that to your new class level.
I don't want to put the cart before the horse here, but with a new class system this also lends to the future possibility of class based skills, whether they're passive or active. I'm not making any promises for something like this, but it would be much easier to manage and design 6 class skills than 15 individual weapon skills.
As far as crafting skills go, I don't think they'd be grouped together in any way. They'll remain unchanged for now. But eventually I have some big changes for crafting as well, which we'll save for another time, when we get closer to tackling those changes.
Wrap Up
As well as some of this important spring cleaning we're slowly chipping away at new zones in the game while I redesign these mechanics and add in all the missing quality of life features I think the game absolutely has to have to work as a complete game.
And don't worry, dungeons are still at the forefront of all of this. We want to make sure that when dungeons launch, all of our mechanics feel cohesive and intentional and are no longer shrouded in mystery. (And this includes a better way to split stacks, by the way. One of the BIGGEST complaints we have right now.)
Thanks again for your continued patience. We have an update just around the corner to introduce all these big changes to the game and I can't wait to see all your feedback.