Billing, The Champion, and Compelled Duel | Patreon Weekly #189

Hey Patrons, in this weekly I’ve got details to share about billing changes, The Champion, and compelled duel!

But first, here are the results from Patreon Poll #37:
Compelled Duel:  80%
Elemental Strike:  58%
Parry/Riposte:      32%
The results here make sense, the more unique the proposed ability, the stronger the support. Based on this, I’ll be looking to implement compelled duel first. In fact, check below for some more concepting on it! Also, I’d love to hear more detailed feedback on parry/riposte if anyone has any. I understand the weaker results here, as it’s basically an existing ability, but I want to make sure that the ability isn’t going to be poorly received in general.

Billing Changes

Firstly, just a quick mention that I’ve switched this Patreon over to Patreon’s new billing system. This has no impact on existing Patrons, but new patrons will now be charged right when they subscribe, and then again at the same time each month. Previously patrons would be charged at the first of each month, no matter when they signed up. This change also lets me support yearly billing! New (and existing, I think?) patrons can choose to pay yearly instead of monthly at a 10% discount.

The Champion

I’ve now fully implemented the first Duelist subclass! The Champion gets access to a secondary weapon slot (takes the place of one inventory slot) and can use the ability of her secondary weapon at any time with its own charge counter. This effectively gives the Champion +50% weapon charge speed, and access to much more flexibility in terms of the abilities they can use. Just as with other subclasses, this can be further specialized with talents:

Compelled Duel

As mentioned in previous weeklies, compelled duel forces the duelist and a chosen enemy to fight each other, while all other enemies are ignored. This has obvious value in situations with multiple enemies but should work well in true 1v1 situations as well.

I’ve been thinking more on exactly how this might work, and over this week I’m going to be trying to implement it like this:

• All enemies except the Duelists target are temporarily removed from the game (this helps handle crowd situations)
• The enemy aggros onto the duelist, even if they were fleeing. Any allies persist and can help the Duelist in this fight.
• After a several turns, or when the enemy is killed, the duel ends and all enemies re-appear. Characters may get pushed around to make room.
• The Duelist ‘loses’ the duel and is penalized if she uses the ability to run away.

Temporarily removing enemies might be a bit tricky from a coding perspective, but I think it’s the most effective way to implement this ability, especially when crowds are concerned. Naturally I’m also thinking about how this will play out when fighting Yog, as minions are a big part of that fight. The Duelist is allowed to keep her allies, so perhaps Yog will be too.