2011/03/20

Balance – Part 2

I’m testing several balance changes.

  • Starting HP and MP is now 12
  • Each level of Physical now grants +8 HP and +4 HP regen
  • Each level of Magical now grants +8 MP and +4 MP regen
  • Shock now costs mana again
  • HP Regen, MP Regen, and Crit are doubled on gear bonuses

The result I’m looking for: I want basic Physical characters to feel sturdier
and Physical Defense characters to feel like damage-soaking tanks.

Low-level mages and archers will have lower health. Mages have an easy Heal and
early Shield but have to manage mana. Archers have no easy healing but no
resource management (e.g. ammo).

I packaged up a Windows build of these changes. Also, I started up a forum thread to talk about balance issues.

Update: Potions

In r295 I have a new low-level potion (25 points, 25 gold). The high level potion has been changed (75 points, 75 gold).

2011/03/19

Balance

Balance, the RPG task that never ends! But has to start somewhere.

If you’ve played Flare enough times, you know that melee builds are far too weak right now. Over the last few days I’ve been trying to fix this with Powers, but now I realize it’s the wrong way to go.

A new revelation: characters should be fun to play and manageable even if you take away the fancy powers. A player should be able to just basic melee attack or basic ranged attack to victory. A Physical build should feel physical/brutish instead of dying in only a few attacks. Even the Magical build has a mana-free missile right now just to make its core gameplay doable.

So this weekend I’m going to be pondering the core game stats, and ways to keep something of a balance.

2011/03/18

Various Fixes

  • Fixed frames-per-second throttling, should now correctly run at a max ~30fps.
  • As a result of the above, many animation speeds had to be changed. I’ll tweak more of this later.
  • As a result of the above, the game should feel faster on old machines.
  • Can no longer interact with NPCs if the hero is dead
  • Enemies abandon combat when the hero is dead

That’s enough damage for one day. I will be out of town this weekend, and probably without a constant internet connection.

2011/03/17

NPCs with Dialog

morris989 sent in a Flare patch to add talking NPCs. It’s a simple implementation, but it adds the needed hooks to expand into more interesting conversation options later. Check out r280!

GameSwitcher added

A new class named GameSwitcher has been inserted. It is in the main.cpp. GameEngine is removed from main.cpp and is not a child of GameSwitcher. The new class handles the main game modes (anything that takes up the entire screen and controls). Basically it just calls the logic() and render() for the current game mode, and will perform various checks to transition to new game states. This is the place where the Title Menu, New Game (character create) Menu, and Load Game Menu will exist.

This is how I want the menus to interact: 

Executable launched -> Main Menu

Main Menu -> New Game
          -> Load Game
          -> Exit Game (executable ends)

New Game -> Game Play
         -> Main Menu (on cancel)

Load Game -> Game Play
          -> Main Menu (on cancel)

Game Play -> Main Menu (Save and Exit To Title)

2011/03/15


Flare v0.12 “Vendors” Released

It’s only been a couple weeks but v0.12 is ready! Here’s a quick list of changes since v0.12

  • Vendors have been added. Buy and sell items! There is one vendor at the spawn point and another vendor in the cave.
  • Voice-acting for the vendor by Brandon Morris (Augmentality)
  • Male vendor 3D model by TiZiana
  • Potions can be placed on the Action Bar. The number of remaining potions is shown. When you run out of that potion, the icon goes dark. Thanks to help from LongerDev.
  • Support for other powers on items has been added. This opens up the possibility for interesting items in the future (e.g. teleport boots).
  • Action is no longer paused when menus are open. This behavior can be changed in Settings.h. Contributed by LongerDev
  • Basic support for Mouse Movement added. Edit your save file and you’ll see a mouse_move option. Contributed by Cheshire.
  • Mouse-over on creatures shows a menu with the monster’s name, level, and health. Contributed by Cheshire.
  • Added a basic cmake file to the source distributable. Also rearranged the folder structure to make things easier for novice users. Thanks to gnurobert and ceninan for help on this!
  • Dying now has a penalty: 50% gold loss
  • Crits are more powerful and always do more damage than a regular attack.
  • Click here for a full list of credits.

Screenshots

Download v0.12

Community Announcements

v0.12 Gameplay Video


2011/03/14

v0.12 Release Candidate

I’ve packaged (win, osx, src) what might be version 0.12. Will do an official release tomorrow. If you’d like to test before then, drop me a note or try building from svn.

Restructuring for easier Make

I’m slightly restructuring the files/folders of Flare so that the checkout and source-packages more resemble the final structure needed to build and play the game. The “resources” folder no longer exists and all its subfolders are now moved up one level.

2011/03/13

Vendor Ready For Testing

I’ve finished the basic Vendor system. There is now a vendor standing near the spawn/starting point in Goblin Warrens. He sells potions and level 2-4 normal quality items. He also has a random stock of items based on his level (same calculations as game loot).

Death Penalty

To make Gold more interesting I’ve added a death penalty — 50% gold loss upon death.

2011/03/12

Flare Promotion

I’ve gotten this question more than any other in the past two weeks: “Why aren’t you promoting Flare more?”

Short answer: it’s coming. Sometime this summer I plan to do wider promotion of Flare.

Some people are confused: why would any project want to wait to get more attention? Well, even the tiny trickle of Flare feedback I’m getting these days is taking up a significant portion of my time. Not that I mind — the feedback I’m getting is often earnest and helpful, and the volume is such that I can respond to pretty much everyone.

I’m not a “sales” guy — I’m terrible at promotion because most of the time it just isn’t genuine. Perhaps you can help me. I’d much rather see Flare grow organically. I feel bad signing up for a new forum to talk about Flare, but I’m comfortable talking about it to the communities I already know. Maybe you are part of communities that would enjoy this game: if so, share a link.

I’m not here to make a dime. I will probably never try to make a dime from this. I just want to make nice things; maybe someone else will enjoy them if I’m fortunate. Hopefully I’ll find more people who love the genre enough to craft worlds with me.

2011/03/11

Item Powers on the Action Bar

Items with Powers can now be used through the action bar. Details from r260:

  • Potions can now be put on the action bar.
  • The number of remaining potions is shown on the action bar.
  • If you have no remaining potions of that type, the potion icon is darkened/disabled in the Action Bar.
  • ItemDatabase no longer has an activate(). It is now handled by PowerManager.
  • Powers can be attached to items. This is how potions are done as well.
  • You can put permanent powers on non-consumable equipment.
  • These items can be dragged onto the Action Bar to Use their Power.
  • Added a Lightning Rod (item 1021) to show a spellpower on a weapon.
  • Added Teleport to the Boots of Testing (item 1022) to show another item power example.
  • If you remove or unequip a power item, that power is darkened/disabled in the Action Bar.
  • Increased the number of total allowed powers from 128 to 1024

Special thanks to LongerDev who helped me immensely in figuring out the best way to tackle action bar items!