Bit of an update on my testing. On 1.5 release with iOs 9.1. Crashes still on my 6 plus, but a bit less so. It seems to stutter a bit and crashes, rarely in small fights but almost always when there are large number of opponents. Im a bit disappointed that playing on hard is not all that hard. Seems i can wipe out pretty much everything within one round most of the time. would love to have a tougher level and or harder opponents. wonder how relevant helmets and pants etc are for walking cannons also noticed there is never any loot for the cannon weapon category, is that intentional?
In my new run I find more wands so the drop rates seem OK. Newly spawned enemies are invisible until you move one of your units if they stand right next to them, is this intentional?
Not intentional ... actually it's a bug that I've been struggling to fix. There is code to check when they arrive whether they are visible to any player characters and then make them visible if they are. However, it doesn't work for some reason. It's something that has been on the back burner for a while. Similarly, when you teleport to a new location and it should reveal enemies, it doesn't. No idea why but since it was not a critical bug, I didn't put too much energy into it. Now that the major bugs are done, though ... I'll take another stab at it.
That's interesting ... can you take note of what actions you were performing when it happens next? It could either be that the larger levels have too many enemies but I doubt it. If so, however, I can go back and reduce the variety of enemies on larger levels. Pretty easy fix ... I'll add a very hard mode in the next update. What does your party look like? Shooters, fighters, or a mix? Any strategy or ability you find to be too effective? Good catch .... will add those in the next update along with lots of other items.
Could you make it so there are more items available? In the shop you often have about twice as many slots to sell stuff then actual items. Often there is almost nothing for the current layout of characters. Also the screen where you can enter the shop is totally unnecessary.
Good point. Easiest way to do that would be if I make the vendor backpack bigger so it contains more items. I can do that by removing the instructions window on the top left. Will look into that today. Agreed ... it serves a purpose as it gives time for the game to load the player's inventory. I suppose I could have "loading inventory" or something slider but to be honest, this is simpler. I think what I will do though is use that space to add some more dialog from the vendor that reflects the character's progression through the campaign. So as you move along and complete major quests, the vendor's intro text in that window updates. Should be a nice way to add a bit of immersion and depth to the game.
Quick question ... do you have dynamic shadows enabled? I've noticed on my iPad Air that enabling dynamic shadows will sometimes cause the game to crash when certain levels load. Can you try disabling dynamic shadows and see if that changes anything?
Started making improvements to the vendor UI / screen. Here's the shot with the much larger vendor stock: Screen Shot 2015-10-26 at 8.20.41 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr The vendor will now have 35 to 40 items for sale each time you visit him rather than 5 - 10. Also, I fixed the inconsistency with the min damage / max damage label in the player 1 stat summary here and in battle inventory screen.
Just a little preview of a new patrol level. This rather psychedelic scene showcases the new magical totems that are both cover positions as well as sources of magical energy. The energy can do various things like replenish action points, health, improve hit chance and so forth to those stand next to them. Screen Shot 2015-10-26 at 2.25.19 PM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr The level above really focuses on them as there are lots of of them and so you have to think not just about where the cover positions are but which totem's magical benefits do you need and thus which should you try to take and hold from the enemy. The AI also knows the value of these totems and will try to use them as well.
Quick update on the next content patch. I had a monstrous magic item creation session today and have increased the item database by a further 50% approximately. Will continue and will likely do the same tomorrow so the total item database should be at least double the current size in the next version. Lots of currently sparse items like shoulder armour, belts, gun muzzles and so forth. Also, decided the plans on the next game. Going to go with a Demon's Rise fantasy setting game and a squad-level space shooter similar to XCOM or Space Hulk. Will develop both concurrently and will setup in progress threads for both games once something tangible is ready to be shown.
There was some discussion in this thread before about being unable to add a mid mission save system. You mentioned that it is simply too hard to implement. The person requesting it mentioned they could put you in contact with a developer that might help you. Did that ever happen? I dont mean to go over old ground but the lack of a mid mission save is a big thing for me. If it will never happen to LoD is it being considered in your new game? Thanks.
It's something I plan to work on soon. I went back to the developer that wrote the grid section of the code and got some useful tips. It should be possible but still a big job. Will hopefully be in version 1.7 as an auto save at the end of each turn.
@stubbieoz: that was me. Gosh, how embarrassing, I totally forgot about translating the reply I got from Niels (the other developer I was referring to) @Wavelight: If you are still interested, let me know, and I'll make time for this.
No, it's cool ... I think I figured out how to do it. The limitation that I thought existed in Unity on the size of the save file only applies to Unity web player builds (browser games). Going to knock off the final rounds of polish, minor fixes and new content for the 1.6 major update and will then look into the in-game save for the update after that.
I love my illusionist but she is difficult to level up. I mainly use the ability to have an enemy switch camps which is a really cool feature but does not kill directly so no XP. She only got a single attack with 60% hit rate at level 4. Usually in other games I let the Mage finish of wounded enemies to collect XP but with this hit chance it rarely happens as the enemies have dodge chances as well Problem is I can't find gear to remedy that, hit chance increasing gear seems to be tied to weapons she cannot use. For the staff I need something AP related. Maybe I should use the damaging skills more often but charming an enemy is most of the time by far the best thing to do - not because they deal damage (usually very low) but because they soak up the damage from the other bad guys.
That's an interesting point and something I hadn't considered. While performing any ability rewards some XP (and failing an ability does too) ... the xp is less than what is given for an actual kill. Mind controlling an enemy essentially denies the illusionist from getting the bulk of the xp for kills. I'll change it so that mind controlling an enemy awards most of the XP that you would have got for killing it in the next patch. That should fix the problem. I certainly don't want to penalize a player class for playing the way they should. Regarding the hit chance, I'm going to increase hit chance across the board for ranged units but will also increase the hit points of enemies to compensate. I want the game to be challenging but not in the currently unsatisfying way in that units often miss their attacks. I'd much rather have them hit but then still have the enemy alive. This will be in the next patch. Do you think that would be an improvement?
Finished adding all the new magic items. The base items went from 220 to 350 so a significant increase. The end result is many thousands of new magic items to collect and equip. Here's an updated shot of the new vendor screen that shows some of them. All the new items have new icons and all of them have some sort of stat line effect (unless they are broken or very low level). Screen Shot 2015-10-28 at 9.29.11 AM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr Also, I've finished all the levels for the next expansion. There will now be 48 patrol levels in total and another 7 or so quest levels. The next patch is basically ready but I haven't tested it yet so will be spending the next week or so in testing and balancing the difficulty. Will also add a couple more things like the harder difficulty level and some of the other requests.
Quick update .... managed to add a slider in the options screen that controls how frequently characters talk when performing an ability, inflicting a critical hit, entering a new level, killing all enemies on the level, failing an ability attempt and responding to being selected as the active character. As requested, it's a slider so you can set it to whatever frequency you like from never to often.
Added the XP fix for all mind control abilities. They now grant you the same XP as killing the unit. I figure that's fair considering you first have to whittle the unit down to 100 hit points or less and generally once mind controlled, the unit will be killed by its former allies pretty quickly.
It could be too much, I kill a lot finally myself with my fighters but the XP boost is certainly appreciated. Re hit rate: I am fine with hit rates for most cases only the Mages suck cause there is no gear. Maybe also because I did not get +hit chance upon level increase - how do you choose which stats are boosted, is this totally random or class specific? But with the XP from mind control it is probably OK if the illusionist sucks at direct damage.
