Hello everyone! A pretty substantial update this week. While there's still a lot of work to do with Ranked Mode I think this update will really help to show what's going to be possible with this new system.

I ended up focusing almost exclusively on getting new modifiers implemented and the existing ones broken into tiers of increasing difficulty. Didn't get much of a chance to address the interface or some of the ways I want to make the actual progression work. So for now this is still definitely a work in progress and I'd encourage players to make use of the little hack I posted last time to mess around with SR and test things out.

LINKS

Rogue Fable IV Discord
Random595 Youtube
Random595 Twitch

DESIGN NOTES:

DIFFICULTY:
As I've mentioned many times before the difficulty of the base game will continue to be toned back to give new players a more gentle introduction to the game. I think it will be important to continue this process over the course of development since, as more content and new mechanics are introduced, the complexity will slowly rise making it more difficult for new players to get up to speed. For veteran players this incremental creep will likely go unnoticed but for a totally fresh player we need to be aware of how much harder the game will become simply due to increasing complexity.

Reducing the difficulty of the base game will also help to 'slide' the difficulty back across all the ranks. I don't want Ranked Mode to be something that only the top 10% of players ever touch. A player that has gotten his first win or two in the base game should feel comfortable starting to try to climb in Ranked and this means that not only must the base game be made easier, but that the first few ranks need to scale in difficulty only gradually.

As a rough overview I could see the base games difficulty dropping by about 20% if we take the Web-Version as baseline. Bronze and Silver would then have roughly the same difficulty as the Web-Version which should allow players to smoothly transition into it. Gold and Platinum will ramp up the difficulty curve quite a bit as its at this point that we're really targeting players who have mastered the games fundamentals. Masters then exists as the final test where we can really try to go overboard on the difficulty. Even with that said, I don't want Masters to be exclusive to a tiny handful of players so the top 0.1% of players will likely still need to turn to mods and custom game modes.

MODIFIERS:
I'm currently debating how much to consolidate modifiers vs how much to split them up. I don't want to end up in a situation where, in order to provide a challenge at higher ranks, we need to have a giant list of modifiers. I think this would just get really hard to keep in mind when playing the game.

An extreme example of merging would be to just have something like Super-Mages in which mages get boosts to damage, range, and cool-downs. This is a bit over the top but the point is that it would make it much more obvious to the player that mages are gonna suck and he needs to be careful when encountering them. Super-Swarms might merge speed with increased damage or health. There is likely some middle ground here that will need to be balanced and tested towards.

I also want modifiers to be quite impactful and change the way the player plays and approaches different situations. Something is going wrong if the player goes through the whole game and doesn't really notice the effects.

I should also say that as much as I want modifiers to change the way the player plays, I don't want them to necessarily drastically alter the core gameplay if that makes sense. I want modifiers to selectively make parts of the game more challenging, or encourage the player to play in some novel way. I don't want them to be like an alternate game mode that is drastically different.

I have a bunch of ideas in my notes and a bunch of modifiers that Rethlit was kind enough to send me the code for that while very interesting and definitely challenging, seem like they might be obnoxious to play with if you had to deal with them over the course of a whole run and in repeated games. I think a lot of these might end up better implemented as mechanics for Special-Levels/Sub-Zones once that system gets implemented as they would be really neat for a level or two.

UPDATE 1.3:

Game Config File:
The first time you launch the game following this update a new file will be created in your game files. From here you can selectively disable any modifiers you don't like playing with. I think especially with some of the time challenges, a lot of players have no interest in this sort of thing and so I want to make it easy to turn them off. You can also turn off the race/class restrictions in ranked. Over time I'll likely add more to this file for players to tune and fiddle with. This is YOUR game, play it however you want! This will likely eventually get an in game interface as some point.

On windows this file (and other data files) are located in %appdata%\local\RogueFableIV\User Data\Default\SaveData

Class and Race Restrictions:
Ranked-Mode now includes class/race restrictions that become increasingly restrictive in the higher ranks. I believe that one of the true tests of mastery of the game is the ability to really play the full scope of the games characters, especially given the changing challenges of Ranked. I've decided to not include Vampire, Gargoyle and Mummy in the ranked list as these races really need some serious work before they are ready for the trials of Ranked-Mode.

Modifier Restrictions:
This is just the beginning of a system that will need to be expanded on a lot in the future. Basically there needs to be at least some level of restriction in how the game selects modifiers to create interesting and balanced games. I'm currently roughly breaking the modifiers into Game-Modifiers and Monster-Modifiers. Game-Modifiers effect the whole game while Monster-Modifiers only effect some subset of monsters. I think in general Game-Modifiers tend to be more impactful and so should be more tightly controlled.

• Must have at least 1 and no more than 2 Game-Modifiers at Gold and above.
• Must have at most 1 Game-Modifier in Silver and Bronze.
• At most 1 Damage Modifier (Don't want to end up with everything 1 shots you)
• At most 1 Health Modifier (Don't want to end up really grindy)

New Modifiers:
I still have a massive list of these and as mentioned before Rethlit sent me a bunch as well. Will need to slowly work through it over the course of development but I think we now have a decent set at least for the near future.

• Relentless Pursuit: Enemies never lose agro
• No Retreat: the Up-Stairs are locked until you clear the level (not counting drop-walls or hidden enemies).
• Weak Shrooms: half hp,mp,sp value of mushrooms.
• Consumable Lock: player has a cool-down after using potions, scrolls or wands
• No Time to Think: when the player has agro a turn timer will count down after which the player automatically waits his turn. I saw this challenge on Randoms channel so I assume it came from him and Rethlits devious minds.
• Time Limit: a simple time limit to complete the game after which you automatically lose.
• Perfect Aim Mages: increased range on their staff attacks and 'Perfect-Aim' at the top tiers.
• Endless Spawners: no limit to the number of spawns and faster spawning.
• Vampiric Melee (Rethlit): all enemy melee is vampiric. Original suggestion was for all enemy attacks but I felt that might be to much. Perhaps at a higher tier.
• Tough: increased HP. Applies to swarm, tank, archer, mage and bosses
• Deadly: increased damage. Applies to melee, fire, ice, toxic and storm attacks. Different from the previous 'Deadly' in that this applies to individual attacks as opposed to all abilities of a given monster type.
• Exemplar (Rethlit): all elite enemies gain twice as many stat benefits from being elite.
• Super-Speed: all 'FAST' enemies now move 3 tiles instead of 2. Yes its finally happening. This took a rewrite of some super low level, fundamental parts of the turn/timing system that make me very uncomfortable. I haven't noticed anything yet during testing but please be on the lookout for anything odd with how enemies are moving and taking their turns.

Tiered Modifiers:
As mentioned above, I don't want the higher ranks to just have a massive list of modifiers for the player to keep in their head so one solution to ramping up the difficulty is to have Tiered-Modifiers that get more challenging in the higher ranks. You may notice based on the numbers that I'm trying to get a bigger spike for Tier-III at Masters. The breakdown is Bronze/Silver = Tier-I, Gold/Plat = Tier-II and Masters = Tier-III.

• Perfect-Aim-Archers: +1,+2,+3 Range with Perfect-Aim at Tier-II+
• Perfect-Aim-Mages: +1,+2,+3 Range with Perfect-Aim at Tier-II+
• Experience-Rush: 50%,40%,20% base EXP rate.
• Rapid-Healing: -1,-2-3 CD on enemy healing.
• Regeneration: x4,x6,x8 natural regen.
• Consumable-Lock: 10T,20T,40T cooldown after using wands, potions or scrolls
• Spawn-Elite-Chance: 150%,200%,300%
• Tough: 125%,150%,200% hit points.
• Deadly: 150%,200%,300% damage.
• Time-Limit: 70mins, 60mins, 45mins (is 45mins always going to be possible given other modifiers?)
• No-Time-To-Think: 5s,4s,2s turn timer
• Vampiric-Melee: 50%,60%,75% of damage dealt is healed.
• Endless-Spawners: 0,1,2 reduction in cool-down. No spawn limit at all tiers.
• Super-Summoners: 20%,30%,50% reduction in cool-down and increase in the level of monster summoned. This is an example of merging two previous modifiers into one.

MECHANICS:

• Gi of Swiftness and Gi of Flowing thought now also trigger their effect when dodging ranged attacks. This will obviously be applied to any future items with this mechanic.
• Strafe-Dodging now also counts as a dodge for all dodge activated abilities (this might be to strong).
• Protection now has a base 25% mitigation as in it reduces damage by some guaranteed minimum amount. A continuation of the reworking of defenses. I believe that armor protection in general should be one of the best forms of defense as it comes with the ENC restriction. This is not only a flat buff to survivability but also makes damage taken a bit more consistent (less spikey and surprising).

PLAYER_BALANCE:

• Adjusted the EXP rates to roughly maintain the same leveling curve we had before last updates reduction in monster numbers. Basically just speeding it up for the first 7 levels or so.
• Very slightly increased food consumption rate. Its never, ever a problem for non-trolls even when resting as much as you want.
• Shield-Block: 20%,40% => 15%,30% as suggested by Random/Scar
• Lightning-Bolt Damage 12,12 => 10,10 (its just generally way to useful with its penetrating property and long range).
• Burst-of-Wind 6MP => 4MP (I'd rather have a slightly weaker Burst-of-Wind that the player uses more often)
• Burst-of-Wind Damage: 6DMG => 5DMG (I'm tempted to just make it 0DMG)
• Shock range 1.5,1.5 => 1.5,2.0
• Dominate 8MP => 9MP (back where it was before)
• Blood-Lust-II: resets cool-downs instead of a heal. I don't think the Barbarian really needs or should have an innate heal and the reset really helps to extend his aggression.

ITEM BALANCE:

• Orb-of-Flowing-Thought: Instead of reducing turns to regen MP it just increases MP regen per 'tick'. A slight buff overall.
• Orb-of-Flowing-Thought: now correctly lists the 50% max MP modifier
• Sharp-Shooters-Staff: 4DMG => 5DMG
• Staff-of-Force: 4DMG => 5DMG
• Scroll-of-Death-Fog: 10DMG => 8DMG (don't want it wiping late game boss rooms)

IMONSTER BALANCE:

• Reduced NPC protection by 50%. Compensating for the 25% base reduction. Also want to keep it on the lower side in case a Modifier gets added to boost it back up.
• Spider-Nest: 5CD => 4CD (same as all other spawners)
• Bee-Hive: 5CD => 4CD (same as all other spawners)
• Bee-Hive: spawns 1xWarrior and 1xDrone instead of 1xWarrior and 2xDrone
• Blink-Frog: 16HP => 12HP (they were much harder then other equivalent swarm enemies)
• Mosquito: 26HP => 20HP (a fast vampiric enemy does not need to have so much HP early on)
• Souls and Wraiths are now flagged as flying.

USER INTERFACE:

• Player Rank now displayed in the ESC menu
• You can now highlight the Ranked modifiers in the ESC menu
• Bit more highlight when mousing over all buttons
• Highlight on hp,mp,sp,fd and exp bars when mouse over
• Slightly longer bars just to fill up that HUD space
• Monsters will indicate if they can be killed with Killing-Strikes with a K in their status text.
• Healing and Protection shrooms now note that they cure physical ailments.
• Power-Maul now has correct two-handed desc
• Added a timer bar for the No-Time-to-Think Ranked modifier
• Ice-Bombs and Bone-Bombs now show the burst lines extending through characters

GRAPHICS:

• Skeletons now show a little slash animation when using their spears. Just using a recolored Ice-Lance animation until I get the time to do a better one but these really needed some kind of visual.
• Added a slight bounce to the player when dodging attacks.
• The Berserk/Bloodlust animation has been sped up (was always kind of annoying and breaks flow)

BUGS AND CRASHES:

• Weapon-Abilities will now count towards charging weapons (a pretty substantial buff for some classes).
• Fixed the Corrupted-Ent not having frames on his Vine-Pull ability.
• Fixed enemies that were responding to a shout, moving in their first turn. This was most often noticeable when opening a door. Enemies are supposed to miss a turn when they first spot the player and the actual guy doing the spotting was doing this. His friends responding to his shout were not missing turns.

Whew! Yeah so a pretty big update! As always I'll be hanging out tonight and tomorrow to do any hot-fixes on bugs or crashes that slipped in.

Next week I'm planning on making a sort of clean-up week. There are a lot of little bugs, issues, or otherwise misc stuff that I'd like to tackle before moving onto another set of more focused updates. I'll probably try to devote every 4th or 5th update to this sort of clean up. After that I'm intending on leaving Ranked-Mode for awhile and beginning the process of adding some of the Sub-Zones I've got in my notes. So this will include a bunch of new enemy types, tile types and objects, possibly some new mini-bosses and, depending on which sub-zones I decide to do first, possibly some new special mechanics.

As always thank you everyone for your support, feedback and enthusiasm! Hope you all enjoy the update!

HOT FIXES:

Hot-Fix 1.3.2

• Fixed: fast enemies were only moving 2 tiles on their second turn. I knew messing with speed was going to break something.
• Fixed: crash when mousing over Totem-of-Discord with one of the Perfect-Aim ranked modifiers.
• Fixed: a bunch of crashes with Perfect-Aim modifiers when enemies used their abilities. I did a proper code search this time so I believe this will catch all possible versions of this crash.
• Fixed: switches spawning in corridors or otherwise blocking stuff.

Hot-Fix 1.3.3

• Fixed: Knockback was not causing enemies to skip their turn. Still working out kinks in the new turn/timing system it seems.
• Fixed: Inferno-Staff attacking into a trap or shroom was crashing game.
• Fixed: when you esc out of the character select menu for a ranked game you would then be unable to start a new game.