Features

This is by far the most important update to the game since the Early Access release.The new features and functions we built during the last few weeks will allow us to design, implement and track better and more content for the game campaign in the next months. This is why “update 8” took so long: we re-built from the ground up several core elements of our project, and we are now ready for the challenges ahead. New scalable game system We implemented a new scalable system that allows every game element (from items to enemies) to scale up with campaign progression. This system allows the same elements to exist and be spawned at different “tiers”. Each tier increases how powerful that element is. Let’s use an hypothetical “armor of cool” item for example. This is how item stats change with different item tiers:

• Tier 1 armor of cool: +5 Being Cool
• Tier 2 armor of cool: +7 Being Cool
• Tier n armor of cool: +n Being Cool

Not every item will be available at every tier, so now we can have items that exist at earlier levels and items that exist only at the endgame. Game elements now also have “tags” that allow us to spawn them only in areas of the world where they are thematically appropriate. For instance, we can now decide to spawn fire-themed items and enemies only in the volcano area. In addition to tier and tags, each item has a rarity level, in a classic RPG fashion. Items can be common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary. Items are more powerful when they are less common. Rare items contain more stats than their tier budget would normally allow. A rarity level equals roughly 0.5 tier budget.

• Common Item: tier + 0
• Uncommon Item: tier + tier*0.5
• Rare item: tier + tier*1
• Epic item: tier + tier*1.5
• Legendary Item: tier + tier*2

Updated perk/script system We can now build more advanced effects for weapons and game effects (like dots, and triggers) New item/weapon system We reworked the way we calculate damage and effectiveness from usable items (weapons and utilities) in a way that allows better scaling. Items effectiveness is a multiplier of a custom primary stat. Effectiveness is expressed with a “vote rank” going from “S to E”. A rank S item will scale very efficiently, while a rank E item will scale poorly. Item effectiveness can scale using multiple stats at once.
New throwable damage calculation We reworked the way we calculate damage from thrown items, allowing better scaling. The damage calculation is actually pretty simple: Thrown item damage = (item damage * character bonus damage multiplier) GUI Added an interface to the inventory to display weapon/items effectiveness and damage Added a new “active perk list” tab to the inventory. Slightly Improved the Arena mode interface. Item spawners / altars We added a new type of item spawner. You will now find small pedestals with useful items on top of them. Some of those spawners will also regenerate the item if it is destroyed. New items Added new lava pastries and improved the older ones. Added more volcano-themed gear. Added more volcano themed throwable items. Added new items for the arena mode games. Improved Arena Mode Arena mode games are designed to be instant fun for multiple players, so we implemented some extra gameplay rules to temporarily remove the RPG complexity and allow a more arcadey gameplay. In arena mode games players start without items and are not allowed to open and manage their characters’ inventory. When players pick up a new item in arena mode, the old one is dropped on the ground and the new one is automatically equipped. In addition, throwable items now respawn when their number in the arena level gets too low.

Balance

• Game element spawns and drops have been completely rebalanced using our new system. More powerful items are now less likely to spawn, and some items can spawn only in specific game areas or from specific enemies.
• Normal hits from standard enemies no longer stun the players. Bigger enemies will still be able to stun characters.
• Characters can now take environmental damage while stunned (for instance after being thrown into a lava pit). Being damaged while stunned breaks the stun.
• Characters now take different amounts of damage when they are smashed against walls. Smaller enemies take 100% of their HP as extra damage and they are instantly killed, while bigger enemies, like bosses, take up to 15% of their HP as extra damage. Playable characters take 25% of their max HP as damage when they are smashed against a wall or immovable object.

Work in progress

The following paragraphs contain features that are not 100% complete. Maybe they need more content, maybe an extra dose of polish, we decided to ship them anyway with this patch to understand how well they actually work, with your help. Ground Traps - WIP We added our first spike traps, so watch your steps! Traps are activated when you step on them, but if you move away really fast you can avoid damage. Trap activation also damages enemies. New resource visuals - WIP We have now different kinds of Salami and Mortadelle. With the scalable tier system controlling how items spawn, the price for the most powerful stuff can rise to very high numbers. We needed more resource tiers to adapt how they drop to this new scale.
So now we have 6 different Salumi tiers, from +1 to +500.000 We are now testing the new visuals and how much the different salumi tiers are readable.

Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused throwable items to stun the launching character too;
• Fixed a bug that was causing our throwing cursor to be displayed as magenta-colored quads with some graphic cards;
• Removed a temporary fix that increased the character size while carrying objects that was causing locks and glitches to player movement.

[ 2015-10-12 18:34:33 CET ] [ Original post ]