Frayed Knights: Speedy Feats...
Some quick and dirty updating on Frayed Knights, the comedic indie RPG in development at Rampant Games...

I am sleep deprived. And frustrated.

This has been a really busy couple of weeks for me working on the game, but I'm afraid I have little to show for it. The needs of the higher-level game required me to (finally) overhaul the combat system, and it has been a doozy. From the player interface perspective, not a whole lot has changed yet (which is sure to annoy some). The core of the experience isn't too different, but everything behaves in a much more orderly fashion. Things progress more smoothly within the combat sequence from event to event, which makes it a lot easier to manage from a programming side. Things were just getting out of control - both from a programmer, and as a player trying to make sense of the action.

But that's the interface side. On the underlying mechanics side, the high-level game was also getting out of control. Balancing things was getting insane. So I chose the better part of valor and wussed out. Things are a lot more "level-based" in the game now than I originally intended, but frankly I didn't see a clear path out of this without a serious round of simplification. There were basically too many moving parts in the underlying rules system, and as I deduced from literally hundreds of feedback forms, nobody was really clear how things were working under the hood anyway. It didn't make a difference to anybody. So I replaced some of the more "simulation-esque" rules for simpler, more game-y rules.

As an example - weapon damage and hit points. Based on some misplaced desire for a more simulationist approach to combat, I had hit points scale very little based on level. It was a much more slow progression. Likewise, weapons didn't scale drastically with damage done based on level. After all - why would a bigger, more ornate axe really do more damage than a plain old sharp, workhorse battle-axe? No, I reasoned, instead it would be more of a case of character skills reducing the likelihood of getting hit, and reducing the seriousness of the wounds. That's more realistic, right?

And it's more boring. It's not as fun to see the damage numbers going DOWN as your character becomes higher level!

And I had this really complicated equation for weapon damage based on the minimum strength needed to wield the weapon effectively, the weapon's base damage, the strength of the wielder, and so forth. How much did it add to the game? Very little. I am still keeping the special damage effects of blunt versus piercing versus edged weaponry, but I have simplified weapon damage so that it is... may the gods of RPGs forgive me... more based on relative level and class.

So if you are a big fighter with a big level and a big sword and big strength, you will do Really Big Numbers against a low-level opponent. Just like those JRPGs. Except probably without three-digit and four-digit damage numbers.

Another thing I have had to do is add a bunch of higher-level feats for the party (and their enemies). While they aren't all fully implemented yet, here's a subset of a bunch of new special abilities characters can acquire as they level up. Right now, I have a "default" level-up list for the four main characters from this list to speed things up, but the player will have a choice of an attribute raise or a new "feat" every level:

Lunge: Character can make extended-reach attacks with fewer penalties
Rank Smack: Character can attack an entire rank at once with a melee weapon
Guard: Character can protect one other character. Sometimes.
Counter: Character has a chance of immediately counter-attacking on a missed melee attack against them.
Hangfire Reaction: Character has a better chance of dodging a trap on a failed disarm.
Spell Homing: Single-target spells more likely to hit.
Healer At Heart: Character's healing spells are more effective.
Spell Volley: Spells can be repeated in less time.
Counterspell: Character can attempt to cancel inbound enemy spells.
Improved Counterspell: Character is very impressive with countering enemy spells.
Spell Reflection: Character has a chance of reversing countered spells back upon the original caster.

I probably need to come up with more amusing names for all of 'em. I like "Rank Smack," but it's hard to figure out what it really does. Maybe "Multi-Smack" would work better. I also need more "active" feats. Getting a bonus under a certain circumstance is all well and good, but again - the fun factor comes from being able to do something new. And cool. Maybe I should just name the feats, "Do Something Cool 1" and "Do Something Cool 2" and so on...

And then I have been fixing a ton of bugs which have cropped up - often unnoticed - in the last few months of development. My MessageVector code is no longer working - for some reason, the friggin' dialog has mysteriously vanished. It's still there, and it thinks its visible --- it's just not displaying. How long has that been happening, I wonder? How much more time am I going to be spending fixing things that were once working? There are other special effects that are no longer firing --- animations that aren't running ---- and junk like that.

Three steps forward, two steps back.

The townspeople (since the new chapter just about STARTS in a town) are another struggle. I need a lot of them. I'd prefer them to not all look alike. What I need is something kinda like this or this - but less cartoony than the first one, more feature-rich and expandable than the second, and with female characters too. Preferably with Blender support (I've always had a problem importing animations into Blender) for expansion.

I really hope things come together quickly. This coming weekend is going to be the "big push" for indie game night. Hopefully, with all the bug fixes, it at least won't be LESS functional than the pilot version!

Labels: Frayed Knights

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:55 AM (Permalink)