Posted August 08, 2024 by illtemperedtuna
I keep ending up on tangents. Yesterday we ended up getting our bonus system to be able to show in real-time what the bonuses do and this is HUGE for me being able to set up bonuses quickly and see if they're tuned correctly or not, much better than having to test every bonus at runtime and having to hit play, run debugs, then see if they're working properly. We can just see in the editor what's going on!
I totally screwed up the recording of this but I couldn't be arsed to do it over again.
We often underappreciate how much ease of use means for our ability to push forward. I have spent exorbitant time setting up the project to be usable and able to be iterated on without me pulling my hair out. I'll do the usual thing about complaining about how we had to do this by ourselves and not having a team, but I suppose that's the price of being an insufferable neckbeard outcast...
So been thinking about how we should approach moving forward, and it all falls back on that question of "How do we make this little tiny area fun?" and it also feeds into the question of "How do we properly set up and tune item drops?".
I've got all the bonus systems coming online, i've got the items all coming online, i've got creatures dropping those items coming online. Holy crap... ARE WE GOING TO HAVE A GAME SOON!? It feels like it if health holds up.
But how do we tune for balance? How do we ensure that as we're testing other random things, that we're killing enemies day after day and getting a feel for how the item system works. We need to get a feel for what % of items should be powerful, how easy it is to find items, how randomized it should be.
All of this requires continuous play and iteration and getting first hand experience with the gameplay, and the sooner we get these items and bonuses in, the faster we can start figuring out what's most fun and retains user engagement.
This also feeds into spawning and level setup, because ultimately these bonuses and items have to come from somewhere. Should weapons be able to drop randomly from any fish? Or should only specific fish drop weapons? Maybe we should make these fish random. How hard should a mini boss that drops a cool sword be? Should they simply be a pinata the layer see's and approaches wanting to get that nice big free gift? Or do we make these items earned? Maybe a bit of both? But how do we communicate to the player that some enemies are pinata's and that other enemies are challenges that only reward solid play and can easily kill the player?
The obvious answer is to make some enemies look dangerous!
Whew, it's a delciate balance b etween thinking this all over and not deep diving too much, thinking over everything that needs doing because that can impede motivation, you start to feel as though you're in the belly of the whale. This is to say nothing of how I may need to implement new spawn system mechanics! TOO MUCH TO DO! GAHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh
Ok, let's focus, Ill Tempered Tuna.
We're getting close to the fun coming to bear, to getting all these bonuses online. We're knockin' on the door! If we can get a slew of bonuses in today (fingers crossed, slept like shit), and if tomorrow we get some items set up on some enemies. And then the next day we're able to finagle a little playable area... this MIGHT just come together!
Oh I just had another key idea! I've got all these premade areas with lots of fish that give tutorial information, so I have all these overly complex chunks of content that are cluttering up the game and are hard to finagle and manage, but If i extract the tutorial elements and just insert them into generic level chunks, that will untangle much unnecessary bloat as well as make it easier to iterate, add, and revamp tutorial content.
MORE CRAP TO DO!
Edit: I forgot to mention that I'm really thinking hard about what wounds should do, maybe putting too much thought into it. So imagine you're using duel weilding weapons. Does the playstyle fit with damage over time mechanics? That you would just slice them up, cause them to lose their precious bodily fluids into the ocean, and I guess you could move about and wait for them to die from the DOT damage? Maybe you swap to other forms once you've applied the full wounding amounts?
The more I think about it the more I'm thinking the damage over time is the way to go, it makes duel weilding relevant, allowing for higher damage output, but if you swap to other forms, you get to keep that applied damage while having the bonuses of these other forms, it's kind of like the best of both worlds. I was worrying maybe the constant numbers would create create too much visual noise, but maybe it won't be so bad! I need to set it so all duel weild weapons cause an auto bleed effect from a standard bonus on their weapons.
Holy crap I just had an idea. What if while using weapons you could swap between duel wielding and sword and board by holding the swap button? We have that functionality freed up now that double pressing buttons causes you to swap forms. HMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm
Oh and that reminds me that the swap system feels so much easier to remember now that i've adjusted the hotkeys to require double pressing to change form. The game is really feeling WAY more intuitive to play now.
Good lord with all the yappin' I do, how do I ever find time to get any work done?!