The Talent System | Patreon Weekly #67

Hey Patrons!

Thanks for voting in that little poll last week. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of talents, so that’s what I’m going with! Read on to find out when talents will be coming to beta, and also about a few other smaller changes coming in v0.9.0.

Some Interface Tweaks

It seems like each recent update has had some interface chances, and v0.9.0 will be no exception!

Firstly, I’ve made a few changes to the game’s little popup dialogs to make them more consistent with the rounded borders that have been present in buttons for a long time now:  (old on top, new on bottom) 

I also similarly updated the changes scene, both to use the more rounded border and to make room for a new ‘v0.9’ tab: (old on top, new on bottom)

Lastly, I’ve made some improvements to the UI for talents:

Those stars show you your points for that tier. Yellow are ready to spend, grey are already spent, and empty spots are for talent points you haven’t yet earned. The game now also notifies the player when they have unspent talent points, and causes the hero portrait to glow briefly, which should help prompt players to go to the talent interface.

Getting v0.9.0 Beta-Ready

The rest of last week was spent implementing the designs I’ve shown in previous weeklies, in order to get v0.9.0 into a beta-ready state. Most of what I’ve shown you already is the same, though I have made one notable adjustment to a rogue talent:

This is a pre-emptive buff as I felt this talent was pretty weak compared to the other ID-related ones. Warrior’s talent works on two types of items, Mage doesn’t need to risk actually equipping wands, and Huntress’s talent works on all items, albeit at a slower pace. This change gives the rogue a bit more unique power in his talent as well.

I’m looking to get the beta for v0.9.0 started this coming week, with the following major changes/additions:

• The first tier of the talent system
• Reworks to existing challenges as voted for in Poll #8.5
• Another bunch of smaller bugfixes, balance adjustments, and general tweaks
• A new challenge focused around champion enemies, as voted for in Poll #9 (this one might get added to the beta a couple days after initial release)

Annnd that’s it! For the first time since… I think forever, Shattered will have a v0.X.0 update that won’t have a gigantic multi-part beta! I plan to make adjustments as needed based on feedback, and improve on the icons for talents, but neither of those should push the beta outside of the usual ~1 week release window.

Obviously it helps that the update is much smaller than previous v0.X.0 updates, but I think this is preferable to trying to release the whole system in one update, which will easily take 3+ more months and will likely cause the design to suffer. We’ve seen growing pains with big updates before (most notably with the alchemy overhaul, which still needs work), and so I’m hoping to avoid that by being more iterative.