Devlog #5 - Next Steps

Hello Damage Up Talents!

First things first I'd like to thank everyone who tried out 0.3.9! I'm so thankful for everyone who's shared their thoughts and feedback, or even just booted up the game for a few rounds to see what it's about. As the game gets more complex and tries to be more than just the gamejam it once was, there are always going to be growing pains and changes people do and don't like.. So I really appreciate everyone being patient and staying open minded with the new features.

Having said that, there's much to add and improve, so let's talk about the next steps for 0.4.X.

Our Next Class - The Warrior

Wielding a huge broadsword, the Warrior is the Talented melee specialist. While keeping your enemies at close range will be a high risk affair, the high damage strikes can clean up groups of enemies in a flash. Combine this with in-built tankiness and abilities that enhance your melee strikes and you have a Class to be reckoned with. 

You'll hear more on the Warrior in a future Devlog.

Elite Enemies

0.4.X will see a new enemy bonus that will appear as the days progress and on higher mastery levels - a chance for enemies to become elites. These upgraded enemies will have a special trait that makes them stand out from the pack. The best players will learn how to recognise elite enemies and react accordingly. I'll be going into elite enemies more in a future Devlog but here's a few teaser traits:

Infested - This enemy spawns 2 flies on death.
Gigantic - This enemy moves at 50% speed but has 200% hit points.

UI Improvements

With every update I hope to bring the UI/UX bar a little higher. There are a lot of areas in the game that could be improved to make vital information clearer. One example that I'll be focussing on this update is the enemy info screen. Currently it's far too small to be readable, and hides a lot of data behind unclear iconography. I'll be doing a complete redesign to make it clearer what's going on, and add some light encouragement for people to use it, because it can be very useful!

It'll also be taking some time to respond to usability requests from players. For example a second set of keybinding for abilities (JKL;) will be added.

Core Game Improvements/Class Updates

Don't think just because the Wizard and Archer are released that I'm done with them.. There's sooo much iteration, improvement and additional content left to add to our first two classes. I won't go too deeply into my plans for now, but there's a lot of interesting changes coming in 0.4.X, including some quite controversial ones! Join the discussion on the Discord if you want to find out more about those!

That's all for this week (but I think that's an awful lot to be fair!). I'll be digging a bit deeper into each of these areas in future Devlogs, so stay tuned. As always, the best place to post feedback/ideas is the Discord but do feel free to comment here too, and I'll try to get back to you!