Early Warrior Playtesting | Patreon Weekly #304

Hey Patrons! In this weekly I’m going to go over some of the dev work I’ve done on the last week, with a focus on the Warrior.

This weekly also includes an audio Q&A! You can find audio timestamps at the end of this weekly.

Last Week’s Work

I spent some of last week on Warrior changes, and some on various other adjustments:

• Firstly, I’ve made a few changes to the Warrior from last week’s design based on testing. Shielding is slightly up to 3 + 2xArmor Tier, the shield now starts cooling down the moment it is triggered, and the shield ends if no enemies are nearby for 5 turns. Aside from the small numbers buff this is mostly QoL, but goes quite a ways toward making the shield feel more flexible. Unused shielding still refunds up to 50% cooldown when it expires.

• I also discovered that not being able to apply the Warrior’s seal to unidentified or cursed armor feels absolutely awful with this new shielding mechanic. For now I’ve disabled this limitation outright, but may adjust it to something like requiring the armor to be curse-IDed first (equipping armor always does this).

• I’ve also been making a lot of smaller patch-style fixes. Most of these are just bugs, but there’s a few new things such as hints for undiscovered items in the journal, a softening of the big game hunter badge (it’s now find 10 rare enemies), landmark entries for lost pack and returning beacon, and consistency for potion effect stacking vs. refreshing (all potions now refresh effect duration, no stacking).

• Of these little changes, probably the most significant is that I’m making a couple changes to how run score is calculated. The game will now give partial credit for floors explored if you only miss things in one or two rooms. You’ll get 50% or 20% score respectively, instead of 0%. To compensate a bit, I’m making quest score a little harder as it can now be reduced by taking avoidable damage, just like vs. bosses.

• Finally, I’ve been talking with Aleks about improvements to the Warrior’s splash again, and should hopefully have more to share on that front in the coming weeks.

Audio Timestamps

This month there were 13 questions from 8 different Patrons.

• 0:08 "I shall slide my bishop to e3, what shall you rebuke with?" – radiantchaos

  

• 0:29 "This was discussed in the main server a few weeks ago, but what would be the effect if you smoked the different seeds/plants." - Detective Umbriel

• 2:27 "How's the weather for you? For me, spring is coming up very soon, which I'm very happy about. (I am NOT going to school in -5 degree weather again)" - Terry

• 3:10 "If you could have two items from shattered pixel dungeon irl (no amulet) what are you taking" - #1 ring of force stan

• 4:48 "Have you considered having some scrolls do an effect when they burn up, similar to how some potions have effects when frozen or thrown?" - Veek

• 5:59 "What was one of the most "evil" ideas you've had for the game, and did it make it in?" - Detective Umbriel

• 7:56 "how was your day-but-actually-month? (inb4 "I'm tired")" - radiantchaos

• 9:47 "Would you consider some sort of dream gas trap (i.e. it would put any enemies caught in it to sleep (until attacked) and it would force sleep you until you're fully rested)" - Detective Umbriel

• 10:41 "Why is it mobs can walk over hidden traps without consequence?" - Raynuva

• 12:35 "What is your deadly sin?" - Detective Umbriel

• 15:06 "How does the shopkeep get past the gates of the bosses and why won't he sell me the key?" - Chewyou

• 15:53 "You'll buff sniper next update, right?" - Zrp200

• 17:17 "How do you intend to balance cleric's metamorph effects? They're not normally attainable, so are they just an extension of the Scroll of Metamorph's numbers? Do you have any plans to revisit their balance in the near future? They feel pretty weak to me for the most part, especially Recall Inscription and Bless." - Zrp200