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So iteration 3 was released on hUb and I got a lot of feedback, mostly from my twitter friends and from the spell of play team. It is great that so many of you shows interest for this project, it makes me want to give you more! One of the super great things about iterative development is that you get so early feedback. For example I got a twitter comment about a bug and two hours later a new version of hero was up on hUb without it. I´ve started development of iteration 4, wrote some plans and done a little fixing of some small issues mentioned in feedback. Iteration 4
Well development is kind of slow since I get only 1-2 hours a day of time in front of the PC (for those who don't know I´m on parental leave with two small kids). So I try to prioritize like hell and some very cool ideas will have to wait until I get the time to finish them in one longer programming session. I try to improve the stuff I got and slowly add new features, taking my time refactoring and rewriting my code often. If you get to many stinks in the code you don't want to work in it anymore... One problem is that this project does not have a dedicated artist, and as some of you know I get the nice isometric art from Reiner Prokein´s free art. My plan is to try to manage with what I get from there and when the project is a bit more stable I hope to get one or more artist along for the ride... (Actually Gridur has done some art for I3 (the weapons and potions) and I hope he will show us some more of his great 2D skills in future iterations too! Now I´m going to put the kids in their beds! Daniel @dntoll Toll |
Submitted by dntoll
Sat, 05/30/2009 - 17:14
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It shows great signs of
It shows great signs of progress, and to be honest i like where it's going, and how it is going there. The controls are awesome, the idea is great, and, overall, it's a neat game to kill time with, and hopefully it will be more then that. Can't wait to see some more stuff added, and some quest, and who knows, maybe a possible storyline in a future iteration. Bottom line is, Hero is one hell of an interesting game you are working on! Cheers.
Cool to hear some about your
Cool to hear some about your future ideas and thoughts. Something that somewhat baffles me with the rpg genre is the fascination with stats and numbers.
I've played a bunch of pen and paper rpgs in the olden days, and since computers do number-crunching quite well I always thought that in an video game rpg you'd see nothing of that. Quite the paradox...
Anyway, as we discussed some I'd like to see your choices regarding xp-points actually matter (i.e. you cannot max everything out). It would make sense to me that to be good at sword fighting you need good dexterity, but not too much strength as your muscles would get in the way. I guess you understand what I'm going for here, just making your choices more interesting by actually making them matter...
Keep it up!
Hm wise thinking there
Hm wise thinking there hObbE, i love the "muscles could get in your way". Also it would be cool that, because of increased strength bows could brake faster. Anyway, good luck with it! Can't wait for the next iteration.
I think the number
I think the number fascination is one of biggest attracting powers in rpg´s. I myself don't like when its totally hidden from me(but I don't want to make the actual calculations either). For me the challenge is to select the correct skills etc and to create a strategy that maximizes my chances to kick ass and rule.
I think the choices of xp-point placement is one of the biggest issues of balancing the game... And balancing rpg´s are hard...
I think we need interesting choices with drawbacks (like hObbE suggested) but a game also needs selection between no-choices and visible dominating strategies...
Like in fallout I always max out my speed so I get lots of action points, since it is an obvious dominating strategy to be able to do more things than your opponents... But it is also a dominating strategy to max out strength...
But you also want the other characteristics, not too low since it gives you drawbacks (anyone remembered low intelligence in Arcanum).
But since you have a limited amount of xp-points you get this automatically....
In Hero I plan to use the following xp-point setup:
The higher a skill gets the less you get from a single XP-point, (Any one played Ars-Magica pen and paper rpg?). So am I going to boost my already high weapon skill with 10% or add 50% to a lower skill? When you reach some skill levels(even values) you get new abilities...
Some skills will have a max-value
Since I play rpg´s more for developing my character than anything else(story, action) Hero is really mostly about developing the character...
I kind of hate missions where you have to collect 10 bear pelts because some farmer wants new clothes, it is not interesting since it has nothing to do with you (unless you get a hefty xp-reward for it). So I hope I can make the story in Hero to be about developing the character... Well its up to the imagination I guess...
Yeah something you need to
Yeah something you need to focus on is making this interesting for the player's character. I also hate having to get stuff for other people and just be rewarded with XP, or a tiny fee. I'm a hell lot of a Role Player myself, and i would love to be able to try and make my character the strongest one in that land, but still have a hard time defeating one arch nemesis of mine, just for the sake of trying to win
yes lots of satisfactory
yes lots of satisfactory comes from ruling over creatures you once had a problem defeating... but if you feel invincible its not fun either so I think some dynamic difficulties are in order...
In Iteration III you are quite invincible when you get the +4 soak armor since the skeletons only do D2 + STR in damage, and they have kind of weak STR.
I think damage resistance will need to be measured in percent or to give any enemy the chance to hurt any other enemy... In Iteration 4 I introduce critical hits, which partially solves this problem...
thats a very important
thats a very important comment. rpg fighting is always the most fun when your dominance goes up and down. when you meet new enemy types they should provide you a new challenge otherwise their just extra dead meat. but its also important that as you grow stronger you OWN them
and then new enemies comes along and so on...
on the note of defence i really hate diablos hit and miss scheme. if youre not good enough you just stand there hitting air "miss, miss, miss". and difficult enemies does the same to you. they miss a couple of times but when they actually hit. BAM 90% of your hp down... I think this is what causes the potion madness in those games.. you shouldn't even be up against enemies doing that kind of damage in the first place. it would call for more interesting fights if you manage to hit often but with less damage. and also a lower threshold for those really weak enemies you can kill just breathing on them. they shouldn't be able to hurt you.. or maybe they should just a little..
end of rant
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub
It would be cool to
It would be cool to introduce a "rival", that you could sometimes meet in a random dungeon, and test your skills against him, to see how much you have improved. Regarding the "miss" thing, i hate it in wow. In "real life", although you are weaker then your opponent, if you hit him, you will at least scratch him, you won't just miss him 90% of the time. He could deflect your attacks, and he could hit more then you, but with a given strategy, even the weakest warriors could win against the toughest dragon.
Yes I think both of you have
Yes I think both of you have really good points here! As SolidBenny said multiple minor damages are more interesting than extreme critical damages... (that is what I meant with critical damages only partially solves the problem) Critical massive damages are really only funny if the player delivers them.... maybe this is a good perk for the player or for an enemy that can be defeated more easily with some fancy strategy...
Maybe all attacks should deliver damage and the amount of damage depends on how well you did the attack?
I like the idea of rivals or bosses, one classic rpg thing is to meet your dark self...
At least in my story plot I got five bosses...
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