The Goblin Lair and more new features

In the next version, you will find a new dungeon - "Goblin's Lair." This replaces the current "Hard" dungeon. This dungeon have exclusively goblin enemies. Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to upgrade the environment yet, so it will look the same as existing dungeon. However, it have a couple new features that is worth pointing out. But first, some features:

The UI bars are upgraded to show the status effects as icons below. The yellow numbers are the duration left in seconds for that particular effect. If no numbers are shown, that means the duration exceeds 30 seconds.

Here is a sample of status effects:

• Regeneration I
• - restores 1.5% of total HP per sec
• Vigor I
• - decreases stamina cost by 25%
• Guts I
• - increases damage taken by 25%
• - increases deflection by 5
• Swift I
• - increases damage taken by 25%
• - increases movement speed by 10%
• Seduced
• - forced to move toward and then grab foe
• Ecstatic 
• - heat (pink bar) no longer regenerates
• - increases lewd damage dealt and received by 33%
• Tired
• - increases stamina cost of all actions by 33%
• Slowed
• - movement speed is reduced by 50%
• - action speed is reduced by 33%
• Weakened
• - stamina regenerates rate is reduced by 75%

For the buffs, visit Ms alchemist and she will have potions that grants those effect. Currently, the effects last for 180 seconds each.

The second nice feature is the Command and Ability tab under the character screen. In here you can pick and choose what skills/command you want on the hotbar. This means, that the first two slots are no longer locked and you can freely arrange the hotbar as you see fit. (I know, I know, suggestions on having bigger/multiple hotbars are coming - its certainly a feature I am very keen on implementing.)

Now onwards to the Goblin Lair itself. First, lets give a brief overview of the Goblin enemies:

Goblin Fodder - fragile troops that have the "Lunge" ability to quickly closes gaps with enemies. Basic goblin infantry, weak individually.

Goblin Infantry - stronger version of Goblin Fodder, slightly tougher and just as fast. Retains the "Lunge" ability.

Goblin Shock Troops - Tough (for a goblin) front line infantry. Sturdy and can take a beating. No longer "Lunges" but hard to interrupt.

Goblin RaidLeader - This is meant to be a "leadership" unit. That doesn't mean much right now but eventually it will come to play with formations and squad tactics. Currently serves as final obstacle to the next floor. (There is no true Boss yet)

Goblin Grappler - specialized unit. Have "Pounce" ability (same as Ludas) and can initiate grabs from range. Can be dangerous. Very weak combat ability.

Goblin Sappers - specialized unit. Plants Traps (more about that later). Thought about giving them a blowgun that poisons and make it very evasively, but decided that may be too much. Perhaps as a unit further down the upgrade tree?

Goblin Shaman - ranged support. Casts "Curses" from range. "Curses" are homing ranged projectiles that deals lowish amount of damage, but inflict various negative status effects.

Now, as for the new mechanics for "Goblin Lair":

a) Enemies, once aggroed, no longer returns to their spawn location.
b) There are "Reinforcements" on a timer. Once spawned, the wave will chase the player's group until either is defeated.
c) There are traps scattered about.

(There are other things I want to do to make dungeons more interesting but that will require a more advanced dungeon generation system that will be implemented later)

Originally, the traps were basically mines - you step on a trap, bad things happen. But with some testing, that is not a very fun mechanic. Instead, I want to give the player some possible counter play against traps. So I decided to rework the traps completely. (And that's one of the reasons why the patch isn't here yet). Here are the ideas so far:

Pressure Traps - spike impale from the ground, damaging and possibly inflicting status effects on whoever step on it. The difference between this and "Mines" is that the pressure trap only activates when you step outside the trap rather than activate when stepping on it. So it is possible "dodge" outside the traps but you have to be on your toes ;).

Tripwires - this is a simple trap that activates only if you run over it and trips you over. Walking over it is fine though.

Gas traps - this type of traps activates when stepping onto them. It will then release a cloud of gas that takes some time before they take effect. The gas inflicts various status effects.

Unfortunately, there were rather a lot of new features and not everything is working 100% yet, and it is near the end of month. By the look of things, the patch may or may not land in this month. So either the build will be ready near the very end of this month or very beginnings of next month.

Features and... Goblins?!!

Decided to combine the existing equipment window (hotkey C) and the upcoming stat window together into a Character window. It consists of tabs as seen above. You click on the buttons to switch between different tabs. I think this is a neat way to organize everything and allows for extensions in the future rather than having to create a separate window for every functionality.

Here is a new feature enabled by the new Temporary Effects system - Seduction! It is an ability that places a "taunt" effect on nearby foes, forcing them to a) run towards the seducing unit, and then b) if close enough, starts H.

One thing that some people asked for is the ability to engage in H with clothing on. I am generally weary of adding those features as a toggle, as it adds another path to consider for balancing and gameplay. It gets worse as more of these toggles are added, as now I have to consider all the different combinations of various switches. So instead, I like to add these things as a game mechanic if possible. This is an example of it. Seduction bypasses clothing restrictions completely and an easy path to lewds if that's what you are after. Two birds with one stone!

Oh yeah, in case you are wondering, a) configuring companion abilities is planned and b) no you cannot cancel the seduction midway in case you want to be... "creative" ;).

Here is another new combat ability - lunges! This is reserved to Goblin tree of units for now. The issue that I am trying to address here is that the backpedal while keep swinging is a very potent technique. I don't want to add some arbitrary mechanic such as a trip chance while backpedaling like some M&B mod did, so I am trying to balance it via game mechanic if possible. Lunges have a lot of forward velocity and it is meant to be difficult to kite against. It comes in 3 attack directions like all the other attacks and must be defended accordingly.

A little side note: I think, that the free movement while swinging the weapon might be a mistake. I know M&B had it and that's largely why I implement it. But looking at it again, it makes it very hard to balance. You are kind of forced to make the AI run faster than the player if you don't want to make kiting very strong. The animation themselves could have been a lot more impactful if the lower body get involved in the movement as well rather than doing it's own thing. (Without a ton of animation work, that is) Another possibility is making more enemies ranged to balance out the melee mobility. I think, for a melee focused game, the Souls style of locking you into a forward motion while attacking might work better (for a tiny indie game dev's, at least).

Speaking of balance, here is a little much needed feature - animation for using items. You cannot run during it - can only walk and it is roll-cancellable, and getting staggered cancels the animation (Heavy Armor, anyone? ;) ). The item is consumed when the effect takes place (rather than on interrupt).

And finally, we have... Goblins! As mentioned previously, I want to turn towards more fantasy side of things, and this is the first step. There are a couple of things I want to archive:

The first is that I want to start implementing non-standard body shapes. In particular, I feel like supporting different head models is a must. And indeed, the goblins have their own head model. Just to be clear, I meant heads with a different skeleton setup. The main challenge here is how to get blowjobs to work. Don't know how many people noticed, but the game currently doesn't have "real" H-positions using the mouth, and the reason is that I haven't figured out how to align the mouth with it's target when participants are non-standard sized (eg, with sliders). TBH, I still don't but I am certainly going to give another crack it in the near future.

Secondly, the game can now generate units with different slider values. A rather small feature but it's one that was requested for quite a while now, so here it is. But perhaps more importantly to some, I also cleaned up the UnitData file structure in anticipation of enabling it to be modded. If you want to make enemy(ies) futa, you shall be able to, via modding.

Thirdly, I want to start working on the troop tree. For those unfamiliar with M&B, basically, in addition to companions, you can also hire troops. Unlike companions, you cannot customize them individually and they come in predetermined stats and equipment. Troops of the same type gain exp as a group and when enough exp is gained, you can promote some members of that group to the next tier, that have stronger stats and equipment, etc. This is something I like to implement, too. Maybe a Humans tree, an Outlaws tree, a Goblins tree, an Elf tree, and so on.

For example, here are the Goblin Fodders, the weakest and cheapest of Goblin units:

"Strength in numbers, and little else"

After some experience, some of them may get promoted to Goblin Infantry:

                                                 
                                                        "Better equipped, better fed"

It's getting late and I'm tired, so I will give a very short description of what I envision the Goblins race to be. Goblins are small(er), weaker creatures than average but is very nimble on their feet and moves quickly. They roam in packs and are weak to fire... wait, wrong game. Their tactic involve overwhelming the enemy while supported by various debuffs caused by the Goblin back line, including Ensnaring Nets and Curses that inflicts various Aliments. Outside of combat, Goblins have high libido and female Goblin have high pregnancy rate - "Breed like Goblins" in game lore. (These racial effects are to be implemented later with other breeding mechanics)

Some upcoming features

It seems that the environment save/load is working rather well, at least I haven't received many bug reports on it. Going forward, I am going to assume the environment, quest, and map unlock save/load are all working as intended. If you found a "dupe" bug, it may not be a good idea to keep it a secret; as the same dupe bug could cause your inventory to be wiped in the future.

Anyhow, as I mentioned in the big "What to Expect Next" post, I am going to start implementing RPG elements, and that's what I have been doing.

First up is exp gain and leveling up:

Some comments:

• Exp is separate from money
• Each unit have their own exp, level and stats
• You may level up your companions however you want
• Hirelings (non-uniques) have fixed stats per tier (similar to Mount and Blade)
• You gain exp on KOing enemies, quests, etc.
• Introducing a new concept: Command Points
• Command Points determines the amount of allies you can bring with you.
• Currently, the base CP is 10, and you gain 2 CP per CHA, and maybe some amount per level. The current Allies costs 6 CP each and CP cost may increase depending on the companion level and is reduced by the companion CHA.
• Here is a list of their current effects:
• MIG: 
•  + 10% MIG scaling 
•  + 10% interrupt 
• DEX: 
•  + 10% DEX scaling 
•  + 3% action speed 
•  + 0.5% movespeed 
• CON: 
•  + 10% HP 
•  + 5% Stamina & regen
• WIL: 
•  + 10% hostile effect duration reduction (Debuff Resist)
•  + 5% stagger reduction 
•  + 10% H damage reduction 
• CHA: 
•  + 2 command points 
•  + 10% H damage 
•  + bonus to NPC attitude 
• INT: 
•  + effectiveness of out of combat skills (either through bonus or allows you to raise them higher) 
•  + 10% INT scaling (if ever gets there) 
•  (INT may get cut)

•  Every level also grants 5% HP in addition to other bonuses

• The current scaling for weapons is 100% MIG 50% DEX for melee weapons and 50% MIG and 100% DEX for ranged weapons.

Next up, I noticed that there are a lot of mods of recolors and it seems that item dyes are in demand. (Or maybe it's just due to the fact that recolors are the easiest to do.) Dyes is certainly a feature that I want to implement. However, one of the problems that needs to be addressed is how the UI should look like. So I decided to get started on dyes by implementing a "Item Enchantment/Upgrade" system. I went for a very common setup found in MMOs where there is a window with a slot that you can drag the item into, and then decide to do whatever operation you need to do on the item. 

 

It's a start. Imagine that in the future there would be some buttons on the left/right that allows you to pick the colors for each "color group." As for the upgrade system itself, I am not putting too much emphasize on it atm. The bonus are small and the cost goes up very quickly - it's just an optional money sink.

I also implemented a Status Effects System, or temporary buffs and debuffs. For example, negative effects such as Slow, Bind, Embarrassed and positive effects such as Food Bonuses, Regeneration and so on. I feel they are very important to get the traps right. (BTW, the traps in the previous big post refer to the dungeon traps and not the girl that's a boy trap). Traps that only do damage or break clothing are cool but ultimately not as exciting as ero versions of them that inflict status effects such as Binds, Slows, Weaken, Ecstasy and so on. ;)

Finally, I am working on an "Intermediate" level AI. I don't know if anyone
remembers, but there was a lot of concern on how to balance the 1 v many aspect of combat. Perhaps I did went a bit overboard there and the encounters are fairly easy to some players. So what I want to do is start unshackling some of the constraints on the AI and make them behave a little more threatening on higher level enemies/elites. The "Novice" AIs are still fine for the "Dungeon" area as it was meant as an introduction, but player may be a little surprised by the higher level areas. ;)