Matt's thoughts in response to a Reddit post on team fighting in Heroes of the Storm.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Monday, March 9, 2015
Making an Empath
One more plot room, then a four-room bonus dungeon, and Ch.2's first draft should be done. In the two side scene rooms, the officer attends a debriefing and the doctor returns home to an NPC that he's mentioned in his text through most of the game so far.
The bonus dungeon explains the Green Knight's ghost companion and builds up some of the background NPCs. Before I start building that dungeon, I need to:
1. Build all four characters the player will use for the dungeon.
2. Make sure their gear is locked so people can't steal their stuff.
3. Refine the exact story arc I want the dungeon to have. I have a very vague outline, but as with everything I do, there are probably still four or five re-writes before I'm happy with it.
The first real challenge in making the first four characters was the Empath. I wanted her to be able to transfer buffs and debuffs around, but there's no good way to do that (the .erase and .remove only work on states, not buffs/debuffs). So, I was stuck on finding a way to make a skill that:
A. Removed Debuffs on an Empath
B. Transfers that Debuff to an enemy, but only if the ability succeeded.
What I had to do is make a special state where an Empath is flagged as having a state that does two things. First, this special state lowers the Empath's stats, but teaches them an attack skill. This skill clears the state on the user [losing the attack], but inflicts damage and a status ailment on a target. It can also let me allow the empath to do different things. For example, right now the Empath gets four skills:
1. A basic Health Transfer that hurts the Empath to heal an ally. This allows for the use Health Funnel.
2. Health Funnel: A damage dealing attack that drains HP and removes the debuff from Health Transfer.
3. Defense Bond: Boosts an ally's DEF, but lowers the user's defense. This allows for the use of Defense Transfer.
4. Defense Transfer: Clears the lowered defense, lowers the enemy's defense and deals damaged based on the Empath's Defense.
I'll get some other nifty Empath stuff for higher levels, but I feel like this is a fairly solid starter skill set.
The bonus dungeon explains the Green Knight's ghost companion and builds up some of the background NPCs. Before I start building that dungeon, I need to:
1. Build all four characters the player will use for the dungeon.
2. Make sure their gear is locked so people can't steal their stuff.
3. Refine the exact story arc I want the dungeon to have. I have a very vague outline, but as with everything I do, there are probably still four or five re-writes before I'm happy with it.
The first real challenge in making the first four characters was the Empath. I wanted her to be able to transfer buffs and debuffs around, but there's no good way to do that (the .erase and .remove only work on states, not buffs/debuffs). So, I was stuck on finding a way to make a skill that:
A. Removed Debuffs on an Empath
B. Transfers that Debuff to an enemy, but only if the ability succeeded.
What I had to do is make a special state where an Empath is flagged as having a state that does two things. First, this special state lowers the Empath's stats, but teaches them an attack skill. This skill clears the state on the user [losing the attack], but inflicts damage and a status ailment on a target. It can also let me allow the empath to do different things. For example, right now the Empath gets four skills:
1. A basic Health Transfer that hurts the Empath to heal an ally. This allows for the use Health Funnel.
2. Health Funnel: A damage dealing attack that drains HP and removes the debuff from Health Transfer.
3. Defense Bond: Boosts an ally's DEF, but lowers the user's defense. This allows for the use of Defense Transfer.
4. Defense Transfer: Clears the lowered defense, lowers the enemy's defense and deals damaged based on the Empath's Defense.
I'll get some other nifty Empath stuff for higher levels, but I feel like this is a fairly solid starter skill set.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
RPG Maker Thoughts and Regrets
I'm breaking down and working more on my RPG Maker game now. I've put a lot of thought into what I did wrong, and what I've done right. This all appears below.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Christmas -- 2014
Merry Christmas! Next year, I'll be trying to write more.
For now, go spend time with your family. Because that's more important than my blog.
For now, go spend time with your family. Because that's more important than my blog.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Thoughts on Dawngate
First of all: I liked Dawngate. It was a fun game. But, the people on the Dawngate Reddit are really getting in their two-minute hate at EA. I'm not a huge fan of EA, but, in this case, I can see the business sense in what they did.
I can't really blame them for closing Dawngate though. It's been in Beta for a year and a half, still had balance problems and had low populations even during peak hours (sometimes taking 15~ minutes for a game to pop for me, someone at the middle/newbie MMR.) There's no guarantee it was going to be a money maker with LoL, DotA2, Smite and soon Heroes of the Storm to compete with. EA is also giving refunds on in-game purchases. Every dollar spent on Dawngate is a loss; odds are, they would have been throwing good money after bad to keep developing it. An economic reality that a lot of gamers don't want to face, I know, but games need to either make money or not be someone's primary source of income to get made.
If Dawngate had gotten to this level of polish a year, maybe two years ago, it would have been well-positioned to be a major player. Unfortunately, it just didn't strike at the right moment. What Waystone provided [an amazing lore and world] is sadly something that the vast market of MOBA players don't care about.
People blame EA for not advertising; I constantly see people saying "my friends say they would have played it if they heard about it!" Honestly, these people are most likely soft lying. They honestly believe that they would have played it, but the fact is, they would not have. You know how I know? Because anyone passingly familiar with MOBAs is aware when new ones show up because we all follow the same news outlets, or have friends who try them and try to get us to play. I doubt most of them would have tried Dawngate if they had heard about it, and those that DID try, even fewer would become paying customers.
Which is sad. Dawngate was on the way to be a very good game. It just missed the moment.
----
P.S.,
With NaNoWriMo happening, I realized I'd been neglecting the blog. Maybe after, I'll get back to writing more regularly.
I can't really blame them for closing Dawngate though. It's been in Beta for a year and a half, still had balance problems and had low populations even during peak hours (sometimes taking 15~ minutes for a game to pop for me, someone at the middle/newbie MMR.) There's no guarantee it was going to be a money maker with LoL, DotA2, Smite and soon Heroes of the Storm to compete with. EA is also giving refunds on in-game purchases. Every dollar spent on Dawngate is a loss; odds are, they would have been throwing good money after bad to keep developing it. An economic reality that a lot of gamers don't want to face, I know, but games need to either make money or not be someone's primary source of income to get made.
If Dawngate had gotten to this level of polish a year, maybe two years ago, it would have been well-positioned to be a major player. Unfortunately, it just didn't strike at the right moment. What Waystone provided [an amazing lore and world] is sadly something that the vast market of MOBA players don't care about.
People blame EA for not advertising; I constantly see people saying "my friends say they would have played it if they heard about it!" Honestly, these people are most likely soft lying. They honestly believe that they would have played it, but the fact is, they would not have. You know how I know? Because anyone passingly familiar with MOBAs is aware when new ones show up because we all follow the same news outlets, or have friends who try them and try to get us to play. I doubt most of them would have tried Dawngate if they had heard about it, and those that DID try, even fewer would become paying customers.
Which is sad. Dawngate was on the way to be a very good game. It just missed the moment.
----
P.S.,
With NaNoWriMo happening, I realized I'd been neglecting the blog. Maybe after, I'll get back to writing more regularly.
Friday, July 4, 2014
New Basic Rules, A Quick Note
The new D&D Basic Rules are posted.
I expect I'll do a full read over the weekend and give you a lot more insight as I go. But, just after skimming the opening [which I'll re-read again], one thing stands out to me as kind of... awkward. Especially given the reason we moved AWAY from 3.5/3.0 to the 4E model was to fix the very problem.
Go read The Wonders of Magic section.
Though, the section on the Wonders of Magic makes me leery for our brave non-magical people. All of their examples are ways adventurers are screwed without their magical helpers. You need clerics or you will DIE. You need bards or you will be OVERWHELMED. Without wizards and druids everything is TEN TIMES WORSE. Even if everything is more balanced, someone may have wanted to say something about warriors and paladins being a protective shield in front of their more vulnerable members, just so it didn't seem like the warriors were just sort of there for other people to be awesome around.
I expect I'll do a full read over the weekend and give you a lot more insight as I go. But, just after skimming the opening [which I'll re-read again], one thing stands out to me as kind of... awkward. Especially given the reason we moved AWAY from 3.5/3.0 to the 4E model was to fix the very problem.
Go read The Wonders of Magic section.
Though, the section on the Wonders of Magic makes me leery for our brave non-magical people. All of their examples are ways adventurers are screwed without their magical helpers. You need clerics or you will DIE. You need bards or you will be OVERWHELMED. Without wizards and druids everything is TEN TIMES WORSE. Even if everything is more balanced, someone may have wanted to say something about warriors and paladins being a protective shield in front of their more vulnerable members, just so it didn't seem like the warriors were just sort of there for other people to be awesome around.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Bad Ideas
Sometimes, you should leave well enough alone. This is the conversation I imagine preceding this article:
"It'd be super easy to recreate a highly lethal contagion."
"It would not."
"Would too."
"Prove it." -- The start of a dark, tongue-in-cheek Outbreak parody, or a bunch of real scientists?
Some real quotes: “'These critics fail to appreciate the precautions and safeguards built into our work. ... The risks of conducting this research are not ignored, but they can be effectively managed and mitigated,' Professor Kawaoka said."
Also said by every bad guy in Jurassic Park ever.
"It'd be super easy to recreate a highly lethal contagion."
"It would not."
"Would too."
"Prove it." -- The start of a dark, tongue-in-cheek Outbreak parody, or a bunch of real scientists?
Some real quotes: “'These critics fail to appreciate the precautions and safeguards built into our work. ... The risks of conducting this research are not ignored, but they can be effectively managed and mitigated,' Professor Kawaoka said."
Also said by every bad guy in Jurassic Park ever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)