Just so you know, there is already an update sitting with Apple that improves the camera controls. Is there anything else with UI that is really impeding enjoyment? Just pretend camera controls for zooming and rotating are good now.
Other than camera controls for zoom / rotate as I think I've already fixed that in my upcoming update. What other UI issues are a priority?
I'd rather not separate out melee and missile attacks as it would be a heavy change throughout lots of code areas. Any major code change introduces a lot of risk for bugs that would be very hard to deal with at this point. I think I prefer the idea of limiting the extra attack benefits on non-weapon items. That should prevent an excessive number of attacks and be easy to implement without a heavy code change.
Attacks Armour +3, Bracers +3, Bow +3, Leggings +3, boots +1, Amulet +2, ring +3 attack per turn. 18 attack turns. level 10 archer, so 22 attacks per turn, you can also buff attacks per turn with other characters, ranger. As long as you can have so many attacks melee become superfluous. If you change the gear, no point having gold and a shop. I would make elite armoured enemies highly resistant to normal ranged attacks. Normal enemies can be controlled by ranged, elites by melee, with ranged doing heals, buffs, curses/poisons etc on elite enemies.
I would vote #2 (general improvements). Having the camera move to enemies when they're actually doing things would help a lot.
Hehe- I actually couldn't think of any more UI improvements, I just thought any might be better than more content, so scrap my vote if you like!!
The current code, unfortunately, doesn't distinguish between ranged and missile attacks. So I can't easily make units just resistant to missile attacks but not melee. However, there might be ways to get a similar effect without redoing whole sections of the code. Can I ask what is the critical chance on most of your missile units? I'm thinking that I could create enemies that have a very high armour but not a high critical resistance. If I then lower critical chance of missile units to 0% as a base, then those enemies with high armour will suffer less damage from missile attacks that will rarely cause criticals. Critical hits ignore armour so if a melee unit (with a higher critical chance) inflicts a critical hit ... it will go through the armour and cause a lot of damage. However, with 22 attacks on high level units ... I still doubt that would be enough. Missile units have a huge advantage over melee units because of their range. A melee unit with 22 attacks generally means he can still only kill 2 or 3 guys a turn. A missile unit with 22 attacks can easily kill 22 guys a turn. Something definitely needs to change their because otherwise, it becomes too unbalanced and I can't build the later levels properly because I can't accurately gage the power level of an average player's party. Does that make sense?
Initial prototype of this seems to work really nicely in my game engine. Was just a few lines of code ... don't know why I didn't explore this option earlier. I'm going to do some more testing and if all goes well, this'll be in the next update.
crit Hit odds 60/100, crit 40/50. Have ranger with crit at 70/87. I did have an archer with crit about 80/97, changed gear to get more attacks. These are from the shop stats, when I go on patrol some of the enemies give me a 100% crit chance from a ranger with crit odds 70/87.
I'd vote for UI improvements, which would benefit the current content as well as future additions. There were some suggestions regarding the store earlier in the thread, like comparing item stats, and store UI size -- with an iPad Mini the size increase would be most welcome. There's currently a lot of black empty space that might be reduced. Definite yes to this: "an indicator on the actual character portrait.... so if you pick up a bow, the archer who can use it would have some kind of indicator pop up." I like the idea of the text log by D1vi8 on page 12, and that of ability icons above or next to units -- would provide valuable info. The one thing about moving the camera to the active enemy is that with maps with lots of enemies (I'm thinking of a skirmish I played last night Spoiler with dwarves trapped in a cage ), the camera would be swinging all over the place -- it's a large map. On smaller maps it would be great, though. Not sure how to balance that. Maybe move in order around the map in terms of enemy actions, but the order may be based on some statistic (i.e., "initiative"). Re: difficulty, I'm only maybe 4 missions in on the main quest line, none of which has been too difficult. Patrols, on the other hand -- haven't yet survived one. I'm assuming they're geared more toward more leveled characters. I'll give more feedback as I progress.
The bonus critical chance is because when attacking a unit in the open (not in cover from the direction of your attack), the target's critical resistance is reduced by around 30% (I think). So that's why the in-game critical chance is higher than the base stat line. I really want to tone down the number of attacks from items. I would rather characters have fewer attacks that have a greater chance to hit and do more damage than just have more attacks. Attacks are a force multiplier and difficult to balance. Also, it just takes a lot of time to attack 22 times in a turn. It also, for me anyway, breaks the sense of immersion / realism if a single character can attack so often in a turn.
I seem to have the camera auto move to follow enemies and missile objects working pretty well. I have it working only on enemy turns rather than on the player turn. I'm going to add a button that allows you to cycle to the next player character. I need to test all of this but if it doesn't cause any weird behaviour on a real device, it should be in the next update.
Okay guys ... seems like no one found it. Take a quick look at the human warrior behind the fire-breathing dwarf. He's not the standard Human Knight or Elven Paladin. Perhaps a new character on the horizon.
If not a zoom in on enemy movement / missiles... A zoom OUT, just large enough to frame the attacker and target. That would be fantastic.
Dynamic camera controls and switch to next character in party has a few issues on a real device. Will look into it and try and fix. Patch to fix the after quest 5 issues is with Apple ... waiting for their blessing before it can go out. Thanks for your patience.
I spent lots of time on shopping to get get high end gears for my heros. So even in day 5, these heroes seem way to powerful, my heroes have HIT 100%, CRIT 100, resistance 100%, each battle took around only 2 to 3 turns to finish. I would suggest a balanced looting/gear system before creating new levels. Off the top of my head, items to tune: 1. Reduce the number of high end gears in the shop. 2. Reduce the number of attacks, movements a hero can have by reducing the high end gears and the upgrade of the level up. 3. Increase more "low end" loots in the battle for selling. 4. Hero sells gear at 1/3 of the price. 5. drop high end gears after killing big boss. 6. shop reloads with new gears only after winning a battle. I had problem with the rotation gesture in XCOM (so I had to use the rotation button in XCOM) but I have no rotation/zoom problem in the new DR patch. BTW, can I start the adventure with less than 6 heroes? I am trying a band of half giants for the 2nd round to see how far the gang can go without archers/wizards.
