Rogue Fable IV

Rogue Fable IV 1.24

Version
1.24
Version Date
March 8, 2025
Links
Source

Patch Notes

Update 1.24 New Bosses

Hello everyone!

Figured I'd make this a proper update integrating all 5 new bosses into the main game. A big thank you to everyone who helped design, test and balance these bad boys! I'll definitely be following this 'open source', and test driven approach for all future bosses. I had not planned on using the new Danger School game mode for this sort of thing but its worked wonders and I think the quality of these bosses will reflect the extra testing, feedback and iteration.

I had actually planned on pushing through and getting a new boss for each of the 6 branch zones completed for this update but I'm kind of running out of steam here and I can feel myself teetering over the burnout cliff. An entirely new zone, a brand new game mode and 5 new bosses, most with complex mechanics, has been a pretty challenging load to cram into just two months of work.

So I'm releasing this update as is and I'll be taking a few weeks to do some easier work. I've got some artwork to do for this update, a few of the bosses and their items still need proper sprites. There's also probably some extra balancing or polishing I could do on the fights. Besides that I'll be doing some easy level design work and adding a few new generators to some of the dungeons. This will also be a good time to catch up on some of the bugs-and-crashes that are being reported.

Hope you all enjoy the new bosses, looking forward to your feedback!

NEW BOSSES:



Bright Shadow the Construct

A fight against a big chunky obsidian golem that should primarily challenge the players movement and positioning.
  • Statue Animation: he animates inert statues into obsidian golems when he is within 1 tile of them. They will revert to statues if they are more than 2 tiles away from him.
  • Stomp: when the player is roughly orthogonal to him he will stomp the ground and create a line of lava towards the player (orthogonal only).
  • Lava Regen: like all obsidian golems he heals quickly when in lava.
  • Berserk: <50%HP, 10CD, 5DUR
  • Drops Brass Shackles: these fit in the 'Charm' slot and add a 25% chance to grab enemies for 5T when the player is melee attacking. The enemy is then unstable and immobile until the player moves away.
The Efreeti Lord

A total rework of this boss using newly implemented AI behavior that allows for bosses (or any NPCs) to have 'states'. This is a pretty classic boss fight mechanic that will allow us to have bosses that cycle through different states each with their own abilities and behaviors.
  • Summoning State: summons Flame-Vortex
  • Flame State: rapidly summons flaming clouds between him and the player.
  • Orb State: a single turn in which he summons a long range Fire-Orb on one of several special platforms.
  • He has a chance to Escape-Blink on every state change to stop the player from easily boxing him in.
Rethilt the Rotten

A fight mostly designed by Rethlit. The main idea is that the player must split his attention between the quickly regenerating boss and the hoard of water logged zombies that he is raising. Fail to focus on the boss and you won't be able to burn him down. Fail to focus on the zombies and you will get surrounded and beaten down.
  • A simple Acid-Attack. I'm still debating how dangerous the boss himself should be.
  • Raise Dead: raises 1 zombie from the water as close to the player as possible. Will raise 2 zombies when he is low on health. I believe the CD and duration is balanced so that he caps out at 6-8 zombies or so.
  • Fast HP Regen.
  • Drops Rotting Shroud: 16HP and 3HP-Regen (the first item/talent with HP-Regen!)
Kocha the Controller

A random side suggestion by Kocha herself during some other boss discussion has led to what should have been the most complex boss of the bunch. The idea is that the 'boss' is actually a disembodied spirit that can inhabit one of three powerful constructs. She will switch between them every 6-10T at random. Beating down the individual constructs is difficult and resource intensive but each of the 3 has a unique way to 'eject' Kocha, leaving her vulnerable for a single turn in which you can deal damage.
  • Melee Construct: Fast moving with a powerful melee attack and grab ability. He will also lunge towards the player to close distance. Forcing him to lunge into a wall will cause Kocha to eject.
  • Range Construct: A powerful, very long range projectile attack. Once active the construct will 'charge energy' each turn from 0 to 8 at which point it will overload and eject Kocha. If it is able to make an attack it will reset this charge to 0. This charge level will be shown visually once I get a proper sprite made. Some kind of rising energy up a crystal or something.
  • Summoning Construct: When activated it will immediately summon 8 spectral blades. Kocha is ejected if the player is able to kill all 8 blades.
  • If the player kills all 3 constructs without killing Kocha then she will spawn in an Enraged form and repeatedly fire projectiles until finally killed.
  • Drops Construct Power Core: Player gains 10% Magic-Power each turn (max 30%). Casting a spell resets it to 0%.
  • I'll be doing some proper sprite work to make each of the constructs look unique in the next few weeks.
Celtius the Dragon

This is the guy who takes the crown of being the most complex and hardest to implement. This is easily the most work I've had to put into a single enemy. The 'Dragon' is composed of 5 pieces and is our first example of a multi-tile enemy. I've still got to clean up and generalize the code a bit but it should now be reasonably easy to make more bosses like this. Despite all the code complexity, the fight itself is relatively straight forward with the main idea being to NOT stand toe to toe with the dragon but rather kite him around and whittle him down.
  • The whole dragon has a proper facing direction and he can only generally move when he is facing the right way.
  • Head: a very strong bite attack and Ice-Breath which creates a large area of Freezing-Clouds.
  • Body: Lunges forward to help the dragon close distance. Will also trample the player if he is in front of any of the body parts.
  • Wings: these will flap and throw out Frost-Vortex that will kind of drunkenly mill about wherever they land. These should act more like a disruption to player movement rather than an actual threat.
  • Tail: will tail slap the player with a big knockback.
  • Drops Shield of Celtius: Protection, Cold Resistance and an innate 6 points of Shield-of-Ice that stacks with the talent form.
  • This guy definitely needs some proper sprite work for the next update. The current version was thrown together in about 10 mins but after hours and hours of struggling with his implementation code I need a break right now from looking at him :P

OTHER STUFF:



Experimental Mana Rework:

Testing this out so would appreciate some feedback. During repeated boss testing it became clear that casters often experience two possible fights:

A) They are able to quickly burn through their large mana pools with rapid casting and just brute force the boss down. They can often ignore a lot of the unique mechanics through sheer damage output.

B) Failing this they are left 'out of gas' and kiting around for a long time waiting for mana regen or looking for an energy shroom.

This ability to quickly burn mana and then suffer the consequences is absolutely a feature of casters but in my opinion it is currently over tuned. I'd like to see them with less upfront output but a greater ability to sustain throughout a fight. Overall I think casters are still a little weaker than CD based classes so I'd like for this change to either maintain their overall power level or even increase it slightly.

I would also like to still have the option for builds with high mana points but this should be something the player actually has to work towards and sacrifice something else for. The player should not just accidently end up with more mana than he knows what to do with.
  • MP Regen 2MP/5T => 3MP/5T
  • Int MP: 3MP/INT => 2MP/INT
  • All MP items + Mental Clarity have been adjusted accordingly (3MP => 2MP).
  • Exceptions: Robe-of-Flowing-Mana, Ring-of-Wizardry, and Mental-Clarity (Upgrade) are nearly as high as they were before (essentially a relative buff).
  • Mental Clarity (Regen) +2Regen => +1Regen. Based on testing 5MP/5T was pretty insane. This is still possible to attain with items.
  • +1 Starting MP so that the early game balance is unchanged (still start with 8MP). Early game casters are effectively buffed.

Talent Changes:

Minor changes made while testing.
  • Burst-of-Wind: 8DMG => 6DMG
  • Wall-of-Fire: 7Range => 6Range
  • Wall-of-Fire (Quick) 0CD => 5CD

CONCLUSION:



So a big chunk of new content which I'm excited to finally see in game. As mentioned above I'll be taking it a bit easier for the next few weeks. Get some easy content added, fix some bugs, do a little polish and house keeping. After that I'd like to get another round of bosses added and then I'm either planning on tackling another new zone or else starting a top to bottom rework of Vault-of-Yendor. Haven't decided yet :P

Thank you everyone for all your feedback and support! This update in particular really felt like a collaborative effort and it was loads of fun to brainstorm and debate with you guys. Hope you all enjoy the new content!