Dev log6 More combat (Patreon)

We had a bit bumpy month in production, due number of reasons, atm everything normalized an we continue in normal pace. Next update is still in the works but starts more or less shape up so it might pop up in 1-2 weeks.

On bad news trade district of town won't be present in this update since i wont be able to finish it in time. But we still should be able to deliver brothel location as well as Kattie and her sex scene. Brothel location will have placeholder entrance at other town district until we finish trade district.

And a little more on combat, this update main focus feature. Last time we discussed basics resources and how enemy AI decks work on a basic level.

So how combat can described in general? Player preferably with team of 3, will tackle different AI enemy compositions. Before combat player will be able to choose from overall pool 4 abilities + 2 gear items to take into the combat, both main character and companions kit customisable. Player isn't bound to a single kit, so can swap out abilities between battles.

Each companion will have own abilities, with varying effects, damage and other parameters. While there is no defined classical rpg roles in this game, you can adapt character kit to serve some roles better or mix it up a little. Obviously some characters will be better at some tasks than others, for example Hiho might have extra utility mechanics, she is the worst character the actually kill someone - her staff might hurt, but its blunt force barely makes foes bleed. And in most cases bleeding out is the primary way to kill off someone.

What kinds of abilities can we expect:

-damage focused abilities. Each character in the party will have locked in by default basic attack, it costs no stamina and has average damage. Besides this ability player can lock in additional damage abilities which have additional effect or have even more damage, main limiting factor is stamina or situational value of such abilities. Another factor to pay attention to is how damage is applied - all abilities damage is calculated by AxD simple formula, where A= number of attacks and D = damage per attack. Some abilities have additional interaction due this formula.

-defensive abilities. Mostly self explanatory, but way its achieved can vary. There is 3 ways to protect limb hp: armor, block, deflect. Armor was covered in the last dev log(in short it hp which doesnt make you bleed), block mostly acts as armor but is applied to all limbs, but usually is more rare or is given temporary and deflect removes damage from ability. while it might seem deflect does exactly same job as armor\block it has deeper mechanical implementation due AxD formula where it can remove certain amount of D, or completely block fixed amount of A.

-AI deck manipulation abilities. Sometimes you meet more hard to beat enemies, which have dangerous high rank cards. One way to defeat those foes it to have a peek which ability would be used next, so you can adjust your strategy, or completely remove troublesome card from enemy AI deck. Important to remember, despite you remove more dangerous cards, enemy still might pose a threat even with less dangerous cards.

For convenience you also can always look up used cards in exhaust pile of an enemy by clicking on it ( https://i.gyazo.com/1a1a6597ea8f2e8a8365c462f955dc7c.mp4 ). So if enemy reshufled deck at least one, you can have approximate knowledge of possible cards enemy can have.

-Debuff\maim abilities. Sometimes weakening or messing up enemy limbs is more preferred way. Drawback is either situational value, extra cost in stamina or less damage

-Buff abilities. Or instead you can make your character stronger! One of primary ways to buff in this combat is aquiring strength tokens. Each strength token adds +1 to D in AxD formula, this obviously gives multi A even more synergy. Keep in mind while token stack up and persist, they still can be removed by more cunning enemies or even acquired by strong ones as well!

There are many archetypes of abilities. In addition if you want to customize your character even more you have extra options during level progression. Instead of basic + to stats progression, we decided to mainly progress by acquiring additional character perks and upgrading abilities. Perk in their majority are passive effects and can have situational triggers, while ability progression usually are mutually exclusive upgrades. Would you like your expensive damage ability to cost less or deal even more damage? Maybe add debuff effect to a damage ability. This way player has a chance to experiment with builds and seeking different synergy between party members.

This will be it for this dev log, we continue putting work into next update to finally nailing down our last core mechanic so it looks more than tech demo... rather a pre-alpha version instead!