Combat Simplification and the beginning of Storyline Integration!
Fragment's Moonrise · published
Hey All!
In my most recent devlog, I overhauled the Game's Combat and began integrating Cutscenes! If you have yet to see the video, check it out below:
And if you haven't already, definitely check out the game's Discord! You'll immediately be able to watch the latest development blogs as I post them!
Anyways, for those who don't have time to watch the video, allow me to discuss the changes presented. These changes will be added in the next major update for the game, scheduled for a few months out!
Combat Overhauls:
The game's core combat is RTS based. However, I wanted to really refresh the central idea behind the control scheme for an RTS. You see, in typical RTS games, you have full control over the Camera alongside full control of your Army. This begins to make gameplay fairly complicated, and can be disorienting to those who aren't used to RTS games already. Its also not entirely needed in Fragment's Moonrise, because this game is meant to be more of an "Action RTS", meaning the base game is about movement and spellcasting, not managing your army and camera.
With the adjustments made, the Camera now focuses on a single "Leader" Unit, following them around. Built into the controls is the ability to quickly and easily rotate the camera by dragging your mouse to the edges of the screen (or pressing some of designated hotkeys). You do not have full control to position your Camera wherever you desire, nor do you specifically need to in Fragment's Moonrise. In this game, you'll primarily want to be focused on your squadron of Units, which has now been streamlined thanks to this overhaul.
For Movement, the "Leader" Unit is referred to as such in name only; in the backend of the code behind the game, when a Movement Command is issued, the Leader is issued a command to move to that exact spot. Similarly, all other Units are then ordered a Movement Command to move NEAR that spot. This actually greatly improves movement control, allowing Units to no longer bunch up as much as they did previously and freely move about.
The combinations of these two mechanisms, the Camera following the Leader, and the Movement commands being issued to all Units, allows for some fairly smooth control compared to previously. In the currently playable rendition, given that its a 'true' RTS control scheme, you'll be focusing on moving both the camera while also moving your Units. Since these commands will now be conjoined in the coming update, during playtesting I'm finding combat to be far less disorienting and much easier to focus on attacking and dodging. I think this change is going to be very well received and a good improvement over the classical RTS style of controls!
Its worth noting, you can switch "Leader" Units at any time, by using a new UI mechanism that displays Unit status information. Switching a "Leader", as mentioned previously, is really only important for selecting a Unit to focus your Camera on.
Now comes the Spellcasting. Previously, Spellcasting worked by issuing commands to all Units regardless of who is selected. Now, given that Movement Commands have been freed up, all Spellcast commands can be directly issued onto your Selected Units. The change made to make spellcasts issued to all Units was an original modification to the game to help streamline attacking while moving specific Units, but since that has now been revolutionized via the new Movement + Camera control scheme, I figured the best thing to do would be to return Spellcasting commands back to whom you have selected. That way you can specifically order certain Units to cast particular spells while other Units you allow to say regenerate Mana OR save their spellcasts for a critical moment (when others' spells are on Cooldown). As such, clicking anywhere (except on another Unit) will reselect all of your Units allowing you to quickly reselect everybody. In addition, establishing Control Groups comprised of specific Units has been retained in the game. This allows you to quickly recall a selected group of Units quickly and easily.
Of important note: the Classic RTS Mode has actually been moved to "Grandmaster Difficulty", and will be available as a custom option. So the original RTS gameplay scheme will certainly still be playable!
Storyline Integration
Storyline has been in development for quite a long time, and now its finally time to begin setting up the intro Map and entire world. While Cutscenes will be coming in the next blog post, this devlog video goes over all the setup necessary to prepare for Cutscene creation! Skip ahead to 2:14 in the video to begin checking it out!
Thanks for checking out this blog post, and I hope you're enjoying Fragment's Moonrise!