Presence System and Information Cleanup Weekly Update #9

Weekly Update

Hello! Welcome to our Ninth Weekly Update!

We are looking in good shape for our August 13th 1.0 date.

Hope you are all excited!

NEW FEATURES

The focus this update is combat depth and clarity. The headline change is a new enemy targeting system called Presence. Up until now, when an enemy decided who to swing at, it was basically a coin flip between you and each of your companions. Now every character has a presence score working quietly in the background that weights how likely they are to be targeted, so fights should feel less random and more realistic.

Mana costs on higher tier abilities have gone up. This was a deliberate balance pass to make mana actually matter as you climb the tiers, instead of being a non issue by the mid game.

The rest of the update is readability and quality of life, continuing the march toward the polish level I want for 1.0. The death screen was reworked to include hints, your equipment now clearly shows who has what equipped, and descriptions/dialogues/books all got cleanups.

Presence: A New Targeting System

- Enemies now choose their target based on presence, a behind the scenes threat score, instead of picking at random. It applies to all of combat: normal attacks, special moves, and boss ultimates alike.

- For now, presence is based on MAX HP. The idea is that a bigger health pool reads as a bigger threat, so a tanky character naturally soaks up more of the incoming hits while a squishier ally gets left alone more often. If your party has a 200 HP frontliner and a 100 HP companion, the frontliner will be targeted roughly twice as often (about 66% vs 33%).

- This gives tank builds a real job in a fight beyond just having a big health bar. Building into max HP now actively pulls danger away from your fragile party members.

- Taunt and any other forced target effects still work exactly as before and always take priority. If someone taunts, the enemy locks onto them no matter what the health pools look like.

- This won't make the game look any different as Presence is completely hidden, but it should make everything feel a little more real and add some depth.

The Voices

- A new wandering NPC has appeared in the world. Find them and they may offer you a task. I will not spoil what it is or where it leads, but there are two very different ways it can end with two unique and 100% cosmetic titles to be earned!

- They keep to the higher level regions up north, so you will not cross paths with them until you are a good way into the game.

Death Screen Hints and Changes

- When you die, the combat log no longer instantly wipes to the game over screen. A "You died." message now prints right under the killing blow and waits for you to press Enter, so you can actually read what finished you off before it clears.

- The death screen now shows a random HINT each time. This should help the learning curve with the game a bit as well as a How to Play menu I plan to add next week.

Equipment Clarity

- Equipped gear is now tagged with exactly who is using it and in which slot, like "Equipped: Aldric | Weapon." This applies to both your own gear and your companions' gear.

- Gear a companion is wearing used to quietly vanish from your pack with no explanation. The inventory browser now surfaces it under an "Equipped by companions" line, so you can always see who is holding what. Should be be much more transparent.

- Sell menus now cleanly hide anything that is currently equipped. You will have to unequip an item before entering a sell menu if you want to sell it.

- Redundant text was removed from gear descriptions on around 50 items.

Balance Changes

- Mana costs on Tier 2 through Tier 7 abilities were increased, following through on what I flagged last update. Tiers 2 through 6 went up by 50% and Tier 7 by 100%.

- I also set a floor and ceiling per tier so costs stay sensible and a higher tier ability can never end up cheaper than a lower tier one.

- Healing abilities got the floor and ceiling treatment but were spared the increase, and Teleport plus all Tier 1 abilities were left completely untouched.

- These changes are intended to make the game feel just a little more difficult at higher levels while also making a class with a better Max Mana per level return a bit more competitve with the high HP classes.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed a lot of inaccurate information in the game's books and NPC dialogue. Several old class names that no longer exist were corrected, the Spellsword evolution chain and the legendary merge descriptions now match how the game actually works, and the stated dungeon floor cap and repopulate timer were fixed. Crafting explanations were also brought in line with the current system.

- Cleaned up the Equipped lines in inventories as previously covered in that part of the patchnotes.

Future Plans

I'm going to do one last pass on inventory, equip screens, sell menu, and companion equip UI to bring everything completely in line and standardized.

I will be adding a "How to Play" option in the startup menu as well which should help explain the game a little better and reduce some frustration for new or even existing players regarding menus, mechanics, combat, and other systems that might not be as intuitive as I initially hoped.

I'm also planning to add the final implementations to the last few quests, and to start on Linux and Mac version. You will likely see those builds pop up soon if things continue to go well. I will likely be testing it on here soonish!

Please let me know if you have an idea for the game or if you run into any bugs.

Thanks for playing!

-Lansdolli