Hello everyone, it's time for the monthly Dev-Blog

This Dev-blog will be slightly different from the others as it'll have a focus on the poll results, analyzing them, as well as discussing a few future features I'm still considering.

Let's start with 2 Features/Major changes I'm thinking about

There are two major features I've been contemplating for some time now: an Equipment system and a Weapon modifiers system. There are separate polls about these two features, but I would prefer you to read this section before voting there.

Features Polls

https://forms.gle/UtxnGSBiWAKwAoZn8

Equipment System

Actually, the feature that is the most likely to not be implemented. Adding a feature in a game has an important cost in both time and complexity. Especially if you want to have a system deeply interacting with other features like it's often the case in Rogue: Genesia. However, I'm not sure Equipment would really bring much to the game. There has been a lot of discussion around an Equipment system on the game discord already, which led me to define it more clearly. If an equipment system were to be added:

• It would be a Meta-progression; equipping/Obtaining and Upgrading equipment would only happen outside of a run. Otherwise, this would too greatly slow down the gameplay if you had to equip/unequip item as you look at them in-game.
• There is still no decision made on whether equipment should be Procedurally generated or manually made.
• There is still no decision made on whether equipment would have rarity or level.
• There is still no decision made on whether equipment could be upgraded using soul-coin.

If they were to be Procedurally generated:

• Each type of equipment would have a list of possible Main Stats. Depending on the item type, the stats would be different (glove would be attack speed/ projectiles/ a bit of defense, while chestplate would be most likely armor, health, health regen...).
• Each main stats would have sub-stats that can be added to the item, a Damage main stats wouldn't be able to have a positive health-regen sub-stat for example.
• Each Main Stats would have both positive substats and negative substats.
• Value of each stats/substat would be predefined with non-random multipliers, only the level/rarity of the equipment would affect the value of the stats,
• Number of substat wouldn't be random, but defined by rarity/rank of the item
• There is still no decision made on whether stats/substats can be rerolled

These point are important as I don't wish for infinitely grindy and frustrating procedural equipments to be made, which has been a concern when the topic first came out on the discord. The main advantage of procedural equipments over manually made one would be the development time, Procedural equipments would requirement 2-3 of week of work to have a fully fledge system, while a manually crafter one could easily scale to much more time depending on the number of unique item I make. Another major concern about equipment is that it would collide with the talent system (Talents could be seen as a form of equipment). However, if equipment were to be added, some talents would be converted to equipment trinket (God's stone) so there is less overlap, having equipment mainly be a stats thing while talents would be focused on unique abilities/modifiers. Equipment would also affect stats that are not yet influenced by things in-game like Talents related, or also affect different tag drop-rates. Finally, I have the fear that adding yet another feature like equipment could lose some of the players, as there are already many systems in the game that can affect gameplay. If equipment were to be added, it would only be unlocked after D-rank Rog's mode is completed.

Weapon Modifiers

Contrary to the equipment system, this is very likely to be added to the game. Some cards at the moment sort of act like "modifiers" for your attacks (Fractal, Fire Spirit, Ice Spirit, Thunder Spirit...). The main change would be to make them (and add many other similar effects) into modifiers you can slot into the weapons you own. You would only be able to slot a modifier once per weapon; however, you can move them between weapons as much as you like, and weapons can have any number of modifiers (as long as the weapon tag is compatible with the modifiers). Of course, most of these cards would see a major improvement in their effects (Fractal won't suffer damage reduction, Ice Spirit's effect would be greater...). This change would serve 2 main purposes: [olist]

Bring more variety/building into the runs, instead of having this sort of all-apply-to-everything mash-up there is at the moment.

Passively push the players to take fewer weapons without limiting the number of weapons even more. This is both good for replayability, game feel (as you would properly see how effective the two weapons you have are), improve player's building (taking 12 weapons just makes you very weak as it denies you 70+ passive levels you could have taken), and improve performance. [/olist] This change will also bring a new UI to show which weapons you have and how many max slots (which is something that I've seen a lot of requests for).

Gameplay Polls Analysis

Results of the poll can be publicly viewed at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pCCwSiyMoxIHoZ8pvhi4q1GtOMNGz_dCfA8Ari6Pd0A/edit?usp=sharing

Update 0.9

How do you feel about the last major update (0.9)

Overall, it's an update greatly appreciated by players, not perfect for sure, but it assures me I'm not too disconnected from the playerbase and that the change was overall positive. There is a minority not liking the update, but it's much smaller than I expected from the forum posts.

How do you feel about the new card dropping formula

Almost half of the players didn't notice a change in the card drop formula, which was a bit expected as the change is not as drastic as many would have expected. However, there is a non-negligible part of players thinking it's a harder distribution. I may very slightly tweak the settings to lessen the effect of the new formula. Also, this doesn't affect weapons (since some players seem to believe it does).

How difficult do you find C-rank

I was a bit afraid the difficulty was too high, but it looks like it's spot on. I expected many more players on the right side of the graph, but only 2.5% find the C-rank difficulty really difficult. Overall, C-rank is the end of the middle section of the game, being the 4th difficulty out of the 6 planned, so it's normal for the difficulty to start picking up. There are a few people in the polls who like the difficulty in the early game but are a bit disappointed by the enemy scaling as it gets a bit too easy. Due to the overall scaling of the game, this is something hard to balance and pinpoint, especially with the huge difference in player skills. Good players will quickly snowball in the mid/late game, while less skilled players will have a lot of difficulty keeping up. Scaling enemies too hard could lead to a lot of frustration from less skilled players who spend a lot of time just to die in the middle of the Volcano. I'll make a poll about enemies in different zones at different difficulties so I can get precise data on what needs to be buffed/nerfed without just blindly relying on personal experience or raw data from the game's values. Another possibility would be to add a "casual" mode where you simply cannot die or adding additional lives, as is common in other roguelites. This could remove frustration from less skilled players while allowing me to better scale the difficulty for average/skilled players.

What is the new QoL you like the most

Not really much to say. I was mainly curious about the QoL features most liked by players, and keywords are by far the most appreciated ones. Also, I noticed that while new card design is last, it's something that got noticed a lot by players in the "like don't like" section.

How do you feel about the new enemy balance?

Overall, it's a slight improvement perceived by players. There are still improvements to be made, but I think it's on the right track.

What changes from Update 0.9 do you like or hate the most?

This one can't really have a screenshot as there are A LOT of different answers, and there is too much to analyze every one of them here. So here are a few things I've noticed: [olist]

Check game options! Like a few things I've seen that are already in the game options tabs.

Bosses that require special actions from the players modify the stage requirements, and it can be seen on the top left of the screen. I'm saying this as a few people were still confused for Necromancer. However, Necromancer's inter-phase may need to be a bit balanced, especially regarding the timings.

Changes to the bosses are both liked and disliked. That'll be part of the future polls about enemy balancing to get better data on.

Many players seem to overrate the experience card in the early game, due to the exponential nature of the experience drop and requirement. Having a 1600% exp multiplier early on or at the end of zone 3 doesn't really change how many levels you'll end up with at the end. I even think that focusing on them in the early game actually makes you weaker if you pick them over other more powerful cards.

Lost achievements are, in great part, due to requirement changes or achievement name changes or simply some cards that have been locked behind achievements where they weren't before (like throwing knife, since it's a very bad weapon for newcomers). Some achievement loss is to be expected in an early access game with major updates. (Many games actually completely wipe the saves).

No challenges are impossible.

I'll add new Steam achievements in the near future (before starting to work on 0.10).

UI navigation with a controller is a known issue, but I prefer to keep it for 1.0 polishing as the UI/menu can still change in a significant manner, and spending time on that would be a waste of time at the moment. [/olist]

Avatars

Would you prefer to see more unique avatars like the Gun-Slinger, Summoner and Shop-keeper or less unique like the rogue and Duelist?

So far, there's a very clear preference for unique avatars that have more than just a small ability or different stats/stats caps.

Which of the main avatar do you prefer the most?

I think the results are not the most accurate, especially as Summoner got a lot of tweaking after the beginning of the polls and the rework of the gunslinger. Having Rog's knight so high is to be expected. I'm a bit surprised to see Duelist so low, but I can understand as she can be very hard to play due to the extra damage she takes, especially in the early game. I may want to tweak her negative armor a little bit or her ability a little bit. I expected to see Gunsligner a bit lower due to the multiple feedback I've seen, but I guess he's in a better place now than during 0.8.

Why?

443 answers to this question, so I can't reply to everything (again). [olist]

There is already a female avatar, and that's the duelist.

Less unique characters are both liked and not liked due to not adding much to the game, but I think they are cool additions just because a few players like their quirks. I'll possibly add a small special ability to the Rogue, but I'm still not set yet.

Outside of the duelist and the summoner, most feedback seems to be more of personal preference than a real issue with X or Y character. [/olist]

General

What do you like the most/least about the game?

I'm mostly surprised to see avatars so low, Especially as they are one of the most time-consuming aspects of game development (due to animations), and they were greatly requested additions. I'll likely spend a bit less time on making more avatars and try to balance the current avatars (especially Summoner and Gunslinger).
Difficulty is the highest unliked thing, but it's likely related to the "hard early, easy late" issue I've talked about a bit earlier. Challenges come second, but as they are optional and aimed at more experienced players, it's to be expected that they are not liked by most players. For graphics, I think some players may confuse graphics with performance, but I also expect some players to dislike the perspective. However, this is not something that can be changed at this point in the game. Some players feel that the talent system is a bit weak/boring. I sort of agree with this. God's stones are by far the most used talents, but they are just stat boosts, which is the most boring type of talents. This would work a bit better if they were converted into equipment. This should also make other talents be more appreciated, as I've noticed some talents are underrated.

What is the boss you prefer?

I expected some shamans to be higher and the worm and necromancer to be lower, but overall it's a slightly balanced distribution. However, I suspect some players like some bosses over others for very different reasons than others, but this will be expanded in the future enemies balancing polls.

How much would you like to see the camera unzoomed by default?

This question is there randomly because I've seen some people wanting this in the game. I prefer to avoid making it just an option due to the heavy impact on gameplay it has (more monsters/ longer range is useful, some effects based on the screen edge would also be affected by it). From the results, I think it would be interesting to slightly alter the default zoom level of the game, at least by a tiny value and see how it goes for most players.

Would you like to see new major features added into the game or simply new content

This question may seem odd, but it helps me to know if most players consider the case "feature" complete or not. So far, from the results, I think I can add the two features I've talked about earlier without bloating the game with too many features. As for the additional content, there seems to be a huge incentive for more variety rather than just more.

Do you think the run length is too long ?

Would you like to see an alternative mode with shorter run length?

Overall, the game length is a bit too long for half of the players. A vast majority agree on an alternative game mode with shorter duration. The alternative game mode is a solution to the issues. Another solution I can think of is adding an off-road path with a boss stage much earlier in the zone you've already completed. This way, players could go for a higher challenge immediately if they think they can handle it, and that would greatly reduce game length when wanted.

Anything you would like to add?

I'll let you read all of them by yourselves. I've used the answers in these parts as important data to clarify some conclusions in the other sections, and this was a very important source of details for me! Thank you for all of your answers. They greatly help me to better define the expectations of players for the game, its future, and think of improvements for the game!

[ 2023-09-08 14:50:32 CET ] [ Original post ]