This week I was shaping modular difficulty system! It took me many hours, but have managed to make mission overview into something I can tolerate. Eight icons are modular difficulty system modules or challenges. Enabling them changes image between challenges and mission description. That image is difficulty map, it's a visual representation of modular difficulty system. The (almost finished) mission overview Enabling challenges is actually your hero deciding to take more dangerous paths, with anomalies and powerful enemies. Difficulty map shows those dangerous paths.
Here's the updated list of challenges: Lethal Weapons Minions will deal 50% more damage Aberrant Armour Minions will have 100% more armour The Manifestations of Destruction You will encounter dreadnoughts The Assault of the Modified You will encounter more modified minions The Rain of Fire You will be bombarded every 10 seconds until you will destroy bombardment station Risk for Reward Earned parts and experience will be lost if you will fail the mission The Decision Mission objective count will be increased by 100% Flow Stagnation Abilities will cost 100% more ether during this mission Some of these challenges can be used more than once. For example, you can use Aberrant Armour to make enemies have 500% more armour! After making mission overview, I implemented rewards and began implementing challenges. I have implemented four of the challenges already, four more to go. When they will be implemented, I will be testing and balancing modular difficulty system to make sure it can't be exploited too much. I will also increase power of some abilities! I can now decrease difficulty of base game, those players who will want difficulty will be able to get more than enough of it through modular difficulty system. I don't think anyone will ever will beat mission with 34 difficulty: +500% base enemy damage, +1000% base enemy armour, objective to kill 150 modified dreadnoughts, when abilities cost 500% more ether and missiles keeps falling from the sky randomly. I did good! Until next time!
0 Comments
This week I have began working modular difficulty system.
First thing I have to do is to make mission overview screen and I have spent this week trying to make it. Yes, whole week for one interface. In my defense, it's really hard to make interface that's both informative and looks cool. That is exactly what I want from mission overview. Modular difficulty system is big, complex, awesome thing and I need to show that in mission overview screen. I need something cool to represent it, hopefully I'll get that next week. I'm about a week away from being able to update game with one of the most ambitious features, so I figured I'll write shorter echo this week and work longer on the game! Until next week! Or game update! When I began working on Sector Six, I didn't knew that it would become this big. I didn't knew that Sector Six is going to be in Steam, I didn't knew that it will get so much positive feedback, I didn't knew that one day I will write 50th development blog a.k.a. echo about it. But it all happened and it's amazing! So, how did it began? In 2014, after finishing my first game, I immediately began working on Sector Seven. I had the idea of allowing player to build spaceships out of destructible blocks. Two months later Sector Seven was finished. It was weird, clunky, pretentious shoot 'em up with light RPG elements and many, many problems. But I glad I made it, because without out it, there would be no Sector Six. I promised myself that I would make Sector Seven sequel. Later I have decided not to, but then... One quiet summer morning I woke up with weird images in my mind. It was epic black spaceship silhouettes and I knew they were built out many blocks. I created new project file, called Shadow Sector the same day. Later I decided to call it Sector Six. In the beginning, I didn't worked on Sector Six much, I was focusing on my other game, Lur. Just like Sector Seven, it wasn't a good game, but while making it, I got experience, that I needed to make Sector Six. I have finished Lur on January 2015, redirected my focus on Sector Six and intense development began. Back then Sector Six was similar to Sector Seven. There was no inventory, blocks were simply bought for currency. Those blocks didn't had any stats and they were destroyed on hit. Lose all blocks and game is over. Back then I was playing Path of Exile and Torchlight. So another idea hit me. What if blocks had random stats and you could get them by killing enemies? I already knew how to make inventory and generate random loot from Lur, so I decided to give it a try. And it worked! Oldest Sector Six screenshot I have When I finally made Sector Six playable, I have uploaded first alpha version. After Sector Seven and Lur I didn't expect anything, so I was surprised when Sector Six received good comments and ratings. I knew that I can improve the game, so positive feedback about the alpha version made me really excited about the future of Sector Six. And I began working on Sector Six like crazy! Months started flying by. Interface overhaul, combat overhaul, Steam release, graphical overhaul... It was awesome and I think it will continue being awesome! I said this before, but again, thanks for playing and supporting my game! And for reading this echo! For those who are interested in seeing what was Sector Six like in the very beginning, I have uploaded old Sector Six version on Itch.io Sector Seven can also be found there. Now a bit about future! Last week I have successfully implemented modified enemies! Modifications There's just four modifications yet, but there should be more in future. Modification 1: Fires missiles at your location Modification 2: Double armour Modification 3: Drops swarmlings when destroyed Modification 4: Drains ether With modified enemies in, I can work on modular difficulty system! It should take me one, maybe two weeks to finish and then I'll update the game, hopefully it will happen this month! After modular difficulty system... Well, there was massive interface update, massive combat update, massive graphical update... Now it's time for massive story update! After modular difficulty system I will be working on story missions. A lot of them! So, that was the 50th echo, until next time! Modified scion swarm Modified tank Modified veteran Old Colowis background Pink screen of death Combat overhaul in development Invasion core and the glitch of the thousand suns
Last week I have improved amplifiers, improved part and map tooltips, changed several part properties and fixed problems with the holy thunder.
Amplifiers are items, that are used to upgrade spaceship parts. Currently they can be found if hard mode is enabled. When modular difficulty system will be added, amplifiers will be rewarded in large numbers, so I made them stack. Now that Sector Six inventory allows stack-able items, making crafting system will be a lot easier! I have also added new amplifiers: Amplifier XV: Gives part +3% ability unleash chance. Amplifier XVI: Gives part +5 aggression. Amplifier XVII: Gives part +5 resistance. Amplifier XVIII: Gives part +5 mastery. Amplifier XIX: Gives part +5 capacity. As the amplifier XV hints, now instead of four unleash chances, there's just one for all abilities. This should highly reduce chance of getting useless parts! The +x weapon damage property on parts have changed as well. It has been replaced with less confusing +x% damage. Add part with +10% damage property to your ship and you'll deal 10% more damage. Since the beta launch, several players had trouble with what I call holy thunder, that's those missiles that fall when you get away from the enemies. I have made them more user friendly, now when you leave enemy range, you have half second to return to the enemy range, this should help to not get punished by the holy thunder. Also it's no longer possible to trigger next enemy group to barrage you by getting very close to enemy you're currently fighting. The last thing I worked on was the tooltips. Just a few minor improvements! This week I am going to work on modified enemies! The idea is to take currently existing enemies and modify them by adding destructible parts. Tanks with repairing pylons, dreadnoughts with regeneration hubs, acolytes with sniper weapons, heavies with armour strengtheners... This will be fun*! Until next time! *At least for me >=] |
Archives
October 2016
Categories
All
|