Update 0.9

Hello everyone! Another week another update!

For the month of September I'm planning on turning my attention away from balancing the player and towards filling out the game with new content. In particular reworking zones and trying to get as many generators in the new style as possible. I'm planning on moving pretty fast this month and just really trying to knuckle down and get as much of the content for the Web-Release finished as possible. Depending on how its looking I'll likely end up spending some time reworking some of the older generators and associated vaults to get the more in tune with the new level style. Really I just want to get enough variety in the dungeon so that things won't get overly repetitive. 

The plan is to get Web-Release released by by November 22 2023, which is exactly one month before the start of Steam Winter Sales which is when I'd like to launch the game into early access. This means I've only got about 3 months to go so I'm going to need to start really prioritizing my work flow.

This week I took a look at The Crypt and did pass over all the monsters trying to rework them a bit to better fit some of the new design principles of the project. I've also redone most of the monster vaults for the zone as well as adjusting the spawn tables. There are some new generators in the new style as well and so I'm hoping with a bit more work to convert some of the older generators crypt can mostly be considered done for now. I'm trying to theme Crypt around the idea of hoards of enemies coming at you and the constant danger of getting surrounded or overwhelmed. This will be in contrast to The Iron Forge where things will be slower, stronger but less numerous and The Arcane Tower where things are highly mobile and range/magic focused. I don't have nearly enough time to even begin to do everything I'd like with these zones but hopefully this is enough of a push in the right direction to be mostly good enough for the Web-Release.

MECHANICS:

• Cursed Floor will now Over-Heal undead as they walk across it or every turn they spend on it. Levels can place sections of Cursed Floor in various locations to discourage the player from kiting across it.
• Over-Heal will now cap at 2x the base max HP. For the next update I'm intending to add some kind of duration or fading effect over time to keep this powerful effect in check.
• Slow caused by cold will now cap at 5T. Previously this was 10T which I feel is much to long given the current pace of the game.

MONSTERS:

• Skeleton Warrior: Following Teal Knights excellent on all the interesting properties of spear wielding monsters, the Skeleton Warriors now have a basic 2 range spear attack. They also have Lunge to help them get into range.
• Skeleton Elite Archer: Chilling Shot - which is a long range Cold based attack that can slow the enemy making it difficult to escape.
• Necromancer: Now uses a basic life tap projectile instead of poison. I think I'll be moving away from these low damage poison projectiles that are not very deadly but make it difficult to track the damage your taking. Necromancer has a new Bone Wall ability that summons a wall of bones behind the player to fence him in. 
• Death Priest (Pestilence Priest): A new ability to 'Curse Floor' which temporarily curses the floor in a radius around the player. Given the new Cursed Floor mechanics, this highly punishes a player who tries to kite away as the monsters will path over the Cursed Floor and get over-healed.
• Wraith: Now a normal strength enemy with slow movement. Shadow-Steps every 3T and has a Chilling Touch which will slow the player.
• Flesh Golem: spawns a maggot 50% of the time when taking damage.

BURST OF FLAME:

Though I'm focusing on level content right now I still can't help myself but take little pokes at some of the areas on the player side that are still bothering me. Burst of Flame was frustrating me in that its most interesting effect (bursting flame sources) was really difficult to target while its single target version was just too much of a use anywhere, anytime spell that did tons of damage to pretty much any target. I think we need to be very careful with abilities that have such unrestricted targeting to stop them from overshadowing other abilities.

The new version of Burst of Flame which we can test this week no longer has a single target version and must always be used on a flame source. The player can aim the burst out of the flame source like a Bolt spell. The goal here is to make Burst-of-Flame a bit more situational but very strong.

BALANCE:
As I'm working on the content for these zones I'm generally testing with a set of characters saved from real runs with the appropriate level and equipment. This means I'm getting a lot of iterations of testing at various points in the game. So expect to see a lot of small tweaks and adjustments back and forth as I fiddle with things trying to get all the classes in my save roster to feel roughly 'balanced'. This weeks testing showed The Barbarian to be significantly stronger then the other classes so I'm making a few adjustments. 

Depending on how further testing goes, I'm anticipating there may need to be some further reductions to the damage of end game Melee Weapons which are often dealing as much damage as spells. I'm also considering the possibility of moving STR HP 10 => 8 with items and talents balanced accordingly. To me it currently feels like its a bit to easy to get your health 'high enough' and not that much harder to push it into 'very high' levels. Given the way high HP significantly increases healing from all sources, it might need to be a bit harder to really push this stat high.

• Melee Mastery: +2,4 => +1,3. This is pretty much in line with the way the other passive talents have being going. Given that even with this nerf I'm likely to still get and upgrade this Talent as early as possible I think this is appropriate.
• Force-Lance Damage: 15DMG => 10DMG. Finally had a run with one of these things and its honestly pretty insane. Spears are already very strong and with a bit of positioning this thing is essentially an infinite lightning bolt weapon.

LEVEL GENERATION:

• Completely remade all the monster vaults for The-Crypt.
• Reworked the spawn table based on some of the changes to the monsters.
• Two new generators in The-Crypt.

BUGS AND CRASHES:

• Dash Attack should now work though this likely needs a rework at some point.
• Down Stairs will no longer spawn in that disconnected area of The Upper Dungeon.
• Scroll of Acquirement will no longer summon +1 scrolls and potions.
• Totems casting Discord on the player will now halt his movement.
• Totems will only cast Discord on the player when he has enemies agroed.
• Fixed the Vampire Gate not opening when killing the boss in bat form.
• Fixed old descriptions on the HP bar and when mousing over the player referring to regeneration.
• Acid Slime will no longer popup 'dangerous terrain' messages when levitating.
• Ranking up a 'Special' talent will now recharge it.
• Fixed: transferring an enchantment to a wand was not recharging it when the wand was on the left side of the table.