Random Post #75 - Another Combat Update

Before anything: The Popularity Poll is STILL up! So if you haven’t voted, make sure to do so!

Just finished writing and proofreading everything that will go in the next update! Mostly of the things, that is… I did write what I wanted to do, but I might need to make some minor changes when facing the legendary rpgmaker limitations.

For now, I want to discuss what I have been up to during this last weekend up to today.

I did make the supposed new player classes. Initially, I struggled to differentiate the characters from one another and prevent the new ones from overshadowing the old, so the player classes are a bit weird, as they need to be viable on their own... so even if they're supposed to be a tank and support class, they still deal enough damage for the solo content.

After all, there is a lot of content where the player is alone… But I feel as if I’ve already hit all the default fantasy classes' archetypes, so I might as well go for the weird stuff.
I am also trying to learn some more stuff on how RPGmaker works, so I can properly make some things in the combat more interesting.
Ah, and because of this whole elemental player classes, it means the default “Hero” class, which used to have some fire skills, will now be an earth-based class, with a big PP damage fire class coming out on the other update.

The names of the Player classes are: Tide Weaver and Storm Guardian.
The Tide Weaver is a healer that uses HP to heal allies, healing more the less HP you have, while being too angry to die(Immunity to death for a few turns). Lots of survivability here, taking less damage the less HP he has.  Also has a fun skill that increases all allies Crit Rate and another one that makes an ally's next skill deal extra damage.
(Might be too strong, or too weak. Needs to be tested, as dying with the protagonist can lead to a game over in some cases.)

The Storm Guardian is a a bleed and shield based class(Tiny passive shields for the entire team that refreshes each turn), with high evasion for the entire party, bleeding counters(Also given to the party), good enough damage, and an exclusive DOT called “Aggravate”, that deals a high amount of damage each turn if the target is bleeding.

Okay, with the protagonist stuff out of the way, I have a confession to make…

...I lost too much time with combat stuff. Again.

I know a lot of people don’t really care about the combat and stuff, but I genuinely think it’s pretty fun. While I was working on the Storm Guardian, I had to create a new DOT, and while tweaking Hildegard’s skills, I… well, one thing led to another, and now every character has new stuff. I’m getting better at dealing with the RPGMaker side of things, so I’m able to do some stuff I couldn’t do before!

Then, I went to test stuff, and I noticed how I was barely able to get 4 of the protagonist’s skills off before running out of MP… So, after pondering for a bit and some extra number crunching, I decided to cut almost all MP costs by around 40%. It’s fun to use skills, right?

As a direct response to that, I increased the HP and Def of quite a few enemies. It’s fun to click buttons, but not so much when nothing poses even the slightest of a threat.

I’m really into teambuilding and other stuff like this. Zehmun had a very simplistic view of this, but I think that fun comes from many places! Even if you do activate the cheats, it’s fun to put your favorite character in the party and watch them destroy everything!

Hopefully, I didn’t break anything. But I haven’t found any bugs in my tests… I don’t get much combat feedback(like, at all), so sometimes when I don’t notice stuff in my first testing, it might take a while for me to find and fix it… So… any feedback is welcome.

One thing that I think is important to think about is state clarity. It’s hard to get across how passives and states work in-game when all you get is the enemy taking a smudge of damage. I’m working on it!!!

Slightly unrelated but related, I’m considering adding a “Get all party members” cheat, so you can use any character from the start, without bothering to unlock them. Lots of characters aren’t balanced around being usable at low level, so they might steamroll or be shit, but… I guess that’s fun as well.

I’ll put a list below of the current changes with some specific thoughts of mine. (Yes, I write down every change I make)
Numbers are ALL subject to changes during testing.

General Changes

Thoughts: Using skills is fun! Not using skills because you have no mana isn’t fun. Getting fun skills to use is fun, but killing enemies before using them isn’t fun. (My opinion)
Game still easy, though. Other than the duo boss fight in the Kiria quest, and maybe the duo in Nameless’s quest, I don’t think there is anything really threatening. (Solo Eris is a bit scary.) I might want to spend some time making the enemies more interesting. Most of them were made with just variations of “basic attacks”. I tried to give some of them some extra stuff, but they either deal no damage or just don’t do anything.

• Decreased the MP cost of skills across the board by around 40%! Everyone should be able to spam more skills (There are exceptions)

• Increased the HP and Defense of enemies across the board!

• Gave some weaker enemies a bit more atk, so they might deal more than 0 damage on tanky characters.

• HP cost skills now scale a bit better. Instead of a high % of Max HP, it now uses a smaller HP % + level to decide the costs.
    It’s mostly relevant for Nameless, as her massive HP costs at high levels made her pretty bad.

• Some enemy-only skills are now properly able to miss.

• Reduced the damage of the Skills: “Bloodbath”, “Goblin Flurry”, “Morgan’s Legacy”, “Eldritch Cataclysm”.
  They are Viz, Peach, and Obscuria’s skills.

DOT Changes
Thoughts: These are the “I’m trying to make Hildegard work, guys” changes. Still, the water protagonist, Viz, Nameless(With one of her weapons), and some random weapons are capable of inflicting status too, so now they might actually do something useful.
I’m not trying to make DOT the best option, but it’s a fun little thing. I’m a big fan of status effects in games, so there’s that too!

• DOT states (Poison, Toxic, Burn, Suffocating, Bleed, and Aggravate) now have proper animations when their damage is dealt.

• Increased the duration of ALL DOT and reduced its damage. 

  • Before, their damage was based on HP% of the target, which made it useless against some enemies and too strong against others.

• Reworked Paralysis. It now stuns only 25% of the time, instead of 50%.

• Poison and Toxic now scale off on the user’s M.Atk, and are reduced by the foe’s M.Def.

• Bleed and Aggravate now scale off on the user’s Atk, and are reduced by the foe’s Def

• Suffocating now scales off on the user’s HP

• Burn now scales off on the user’s M.Atk, and is reduced by the foe’s M.Def.

Character Changes

Protagonist (Hero Class)

Thoughts: I think he’s ok. He is a jack-of-all-trades. But giving everyone cool and fun new toys made me feel sad, leaving him with nothing new. SO! He now has a passive that will make dungeon crawling/going solo with him a bit better.

• Our boy now has a passive where if he lands a Critical Hit or kills a foe, it will give a random ally the “Motivated” buff for 2 turns! The “Motivated” buff will increase damage by 20% and recover 5% HP and MP.

• Hero Class Skills are now either physical damage or earth damage.

• All Fire skills on the Hero class were removed for the future Fire class!

Nihil

Thoughts: Nihil never really lived up to the idea of her being “THE TANK”, so maybe with this she will be more than capable of keeping everyone alive! Also, her skills were mostly unlocked on very high levels! Of course, Nihil is unlocked at a somewhat high level. (Her quest is around level 12 if memory serves me right), But still! Her skills aren’t that impressive to warrant waiting for level 20.
I was considering a fun Scoundrel passive for Nihil, something like “If an enemy is inflicted with any status effect, receive 15% more crit rate on all skills”. Still, Nihil is a defensive character, so…

• Nihil’s Provoke status now lasts 5 turns. Always.

• Nihil now has a skill that reduces all allies damage taken by 40%, and absorbs the last 60% while ignoring 30% of it. (Lene also has it when she is playable. Should make the Eris boss fight less annoying to deal with)

• Increased the potential MAX damage of Nihil’s “Gamble” skill.

• Reduced the level Nihil receives all of her skills. (Nihil no longer needs to be high-level to get the good stuff)

Nameless

Thoughts: Nameless always had 2 problems. Her horrible HP scaling skills, going up to +1000HP on high levels, and how little damage she deals if she’s attempting to tank. As a “support/tank” hybrid, sometimes it feels like Nameless doesn’t do enough on either side. Hopefully, this will make her less of a “wasted slot”.

• Nameless now heals 2% HP passively each turn

• Nameless now has a passive that returns a 15% of the damage taken back to the enemy + a tiny % of her MaxHP
  Should make Nameless deal a bit more damage.

Obscuria

Thoughts: If I had to say the biggest problem with Obscuria is that she has no real identity. She is supposed to be a “Tank/Damage Dealer” hybrid, but she doesn’t tank for her allies, and her damage is just ok outside of the activation of the skill that makes her go mad for a few turns.
These changes are the ones that I thought the most about. I do like the idea of buffing her up and making her go wild, and there are still some stuff that I’m really considering taking out(The weird Life Steal Buff could deal damage, or be part of another skill), but this will increase her damage, and keep her identity as a bit of a setup character.

• All Obscuria’s Dark Magic Spells now heal her by at least 10% of the damage dealt. (Some heal for more than 10%)

• Obscuria now has a passive that makes her physical attacks deal more damage the less HP she has. (In her case, that is all non-dark magic skills)

• Obscuria now has a skill that marks a foe for a few turns. After those turns are up, the mark detonates and deals 30% of all damage inflicted during those 3 turns.

• Increase Obscuria’s Life Steal duration from 2~4 turns to always 6 turns.

Hildegard

Thoughts: The newest party member, and also the weakest. Yes, there is a whole dedicated system of DOT damage that is only well used by the last character you get outside of Kiria. I think the DOTs are still too weak, but they stack now and Hildegard’s damage is no longer trash outside of them.

• Increased Hildegard’s M.Atk growth, so she still deals high poison damage!

• Increased Hildegard’s Atk and Agility. (Her stats were trash across the board)

• Increased Hildegard’s “Tail Blade” Weapon’s M.Atk bonus.

• Hildegard’s “Superiority” skill now also deals extra damage when the enemy is afflicted with Suffocating and Aggravate

• Updated the logic behind the “Superiority” and “Poison Burst”
    I’m unsure if they never worked, or if something broke them.

• Hildegard now has a skill that inflicts a random DOT or debuff every turn for 4 turns.

• Hildegard now has a passive, where every attack of hers has a 10% chance to inflict any of “Poison”, “Burn”, “Bleed”, or “Suffocating”.

Peach

Thoughts: Our magic nuke character is now better at nuking. Also, she now needs a hero to keep her safe! Shields work great at keeping her from taking damage, so Nameless and her Wind Hero will be great here!

• Peach now has a skill that increases MP cost of all spells in exchange for 50% more damage.

• Peach has a passive where every skill she uses gives her a stack. With 3 stacks, her next spell cast costs 0 MP, and deals 20% more damage! However, she loses the stacks when using “Attack” or taking damage.

• Reduced Peach’s MAX MP to compensate for the general MP cost reduction.
    Her high damage skill spam was crazy during testing, but I still think her damage is crazy high.

Hapi

Thoughts: One thing about having only 3 party members is that there isn’t that much of a reason to carry dead weight around. Sure, Hapi heals and gives some buffs, but other than that, she deals almost no damage. Soo… now she can actually deal some damage, or support the team further! The stacking skill deals quite a lot of damage for Hapi’s standards! The healing is just ok, but it has no cost and it's for everyone, so it’s fine.

• Hapi has a passive where every skill she uses gives her a stack. With 3 stacks, she can choose between two skills to either deal high single target damage(Based on her Luck), or heal all allies!
    Hapi is dealing damage now, boys!

Viz

Thoughts: Our physical big nuke character is now… well, I’d say she is a bit more balanced. I gave a long, hard look at the damage on some of Viz’s skills, and well… she really had some insane stuff. Her damage should still be the highest.
The only thing that holds her back is being the squishiest character in the game, and now she has a passive for you to play around with that fact! Set her up, and her damage is the biggest in the game!

• The “Bloodbath” skill now only guarantees a Critical hit when used on a bleeding target, instead of guaranteeing a crit and dealing 3x the crit’s damage.
  It's still a LOT of damage, and the skill got a pretty huge MP cost reduction, so it can be spammed quite a lot more.

• Viz now has a passive that increases her attack and crit rate when she is above 70% HP!
  Good luck with that.

Kiria: 

Thoughts: Kiria is already too good for her own good. She gets nothing new.