Hi folks! Todays blog post was fully written by Mat, our system designer, which let me spent just that bit more time programming the game, so thanks Mat! All text below is from his perspective. --- Have you ever felt that weird sensation when playing an MMO or a long-term RPG where you feel like the battles are too similar and you are just going through the same rotations, doing the same things? Well, when you have to play every map multiple times in order to test new abilities, new AI, or just get a better bead on balancing, youll feel the extreme version of that. And thats a bad thing for a roguelike, man! Our original intention when designing maps and skirmishes was to create interesting scenarios around cover placement, types and quantities of enemies, and waves. Then, we let players loose to play around with their load-outs and approach the battle anyway they see fit. That worked out pretty well, and the curated nature of some of our maps, like Ruined Basilica or Hilltop leads to some interesting combat scenarios. They just, you know, can get old quick. So heres how Im trying to fix that feeling. I divided all enemies into Categories, representing sort of their Power Level, or the way I like to describe it, Level of Disruption, referring to how likely the unit is to require specific maneuvers to play around, or how much it disrupts a plan. People interested in game design might associate this with Birkheads Enemy Types, but its a common approach in the design of enemies.
Then, for each map, Mia and the writers come up with the Skirmish Conditions, or how an encounter itself changes the combat. A choice might lead to better cover, or you might get ambushed. I script these conditions, place spawn points and all that, and then define how many of each enemy category to put in and at which positions. This is where most of the balancing lies. The final step then is to allow some of these enemies to be randomly picked inside their categories! What that means is that instead of two Mandrakes and a Thorntoad (2x Minor Abominations + 1 Medium Abomination), you might get a Wyvern, a Redcap, and a Cockatrice, which, by virtue of their skillsets, changes your expectations for that fight and forces you to reconfigure your plan instead of learning the map by memorization.
A lot of exceptions, of course. Some encounters mention enemies by name, and some maps work better with a specific enemy roster. Thatll all be respected, but this low-amplitude randomness will definitely make the game a bit more resilient to that awful feeling of getting old. And thats a good thing for a roguelike, man! --- Very interesting, Mat! If you want to ask him questions about any of this stuff, you can join our Discord server, where youll find all of us happily working on the game. Thanks for reading! MarkoP & Mat https://store.steampowered.com/app/600610/The_Hand_of_Merlin/