In this post, we will continue our conversation from last time. If you missed the previous post, you can read it here.
As many of you have noticed, the game’s “Levels” system (the Farming, Mining, Fishing, etc. skills that level up as you play), is pretty underwhelming. They certainly have an impact, particularly if you’re chasing high quality items for a task or the Art Gallery, but they aren’t very interesting, and are in need of some work.
But... so are many other elements of the game. So, why am I looking at this system first?
My approach to updating the game’s content, especially early-on, is to see which areas of the game not only need work, but which also have the potential to affect as many other areas of the game as possible, and which can address the largest volume of feedback or fix as many bugs as possible in the process of updating them.
The Levels system (which I may rename to “Professions” to make it a bit more distinct from other systems), is being re-worked to have more of a skill tree style to it. At each level for each profession, you will either unlock a choice between two different “perks”, which are passive abilities that provide notable benefits, or a single perk or unlock, which are less common but are generally reserved for things like a crafting recipe unlock, a particularly significant perk, or other major benefits.
Rather than detailing everything that this rework will be adding (after all, there are more than 130 individual profession perks being added!), I want to talk about some specific additions that address community feedback that has come up since launch.
One of the new professions being added is a dedicated Combat skill. Much of the feedback since launch centers around the game’s difficulty curve and combat mechanics, and this skill will bring many changes to specifically address community feedback.
Folks who have been following the game’s development since before launch are no stranger to the notorious “third AP’ discussion. This is one of the most asked for additions to the game, which I have always been the most adamant about not adding. Before getting into how the Combat skill will help resolve many of the issues that a 3rd AP is often suggested to solve, I want to talk a bit about why I am generally against adding it.
The first issue with a 3rd AP is that the game has a difficult relationship with pacing and speed as it is. Turn-based combat is already comparatively slow vs. other combat systems, and anything that makes it take even longer needs to have a very good reason to be there. There are only 2 reasons that people suggest an additional AP, as far as I can tell. One is that they do not feel strong enough in combat (especially when transitioning into the Catacombs, where troops of enemies in the deeper floors can have many more actions than the player), and the other is that having only two AP makes the AP consumed by the constant need to eat/heal feel like it doesn’t really exist.
These are two genuine issues that need addressing, however the issue with 3rd AP is that it either solves the problem by making the player much more powerful, or it requires that enemies be re-balanced around this 3rd AP, in which case it makes several other problems worse, notably by making all battles take longer, and adding to the existing “trash mob” problem of fights falling into the "one-shot", time-wasting category much more quickly (which is a problem for another time, in itself).
My main issue with adding more AP is that the effect of making the player stronger, scaling the combat more smoothly, or improving the healing/food economy can all be achieved in other ways which don’t introduce the same collateral damage that adding more AP adds. A simple example would be the fact that an extra AP means 33% more damage. Except, if part of the problem we’re trying to solve is that you have to eat food every turn, it really means making the player twice as powerful. It also means that any effect that had a chance to trigger, such as combat points, are twice as likely to trigger since you have twice the non-healing actions. This means that even effects that can generate bonus AP are also twice as likely to trigger. That means that one more AP makes you twice as likely to gain even more AP. There are a lot of snowball effects caused by adding just one more permanent AP that would require rebalancing the entire game from the ground up, and that would just introduce new balance problems.
So, with all that said, let’s talk about the Combat profession.
The most notable addition is that, at various level thresholds, the player will unlock a several passive +10% chances to generate a bonus AP at the start of every turn. This stacks with all other AP generation effects, and because it is generated at the start of the turn, you will always know if you have it before you decide what to do for that turn. This goes up to a 30% chance per turn to get an extra AP at the highest Combat level (10).
There are a few reasons for choosing this approach. One is that it scales as you progress through the game, meaning you will more reliably gain bonus AP as you progress into more difficult areas of the game. It also means that, by having a less-significant AP bonus than something like a permanent extra AP, there is more flexibility to address the player’s power, difficulty balancing, and things like food economy in other ways, without needing to gamble it all on an extra AP fixing every issue.
These bonus AP rates are only 3 of the 7 perk levels of the Combat skill, and all of the other tiers offer choices to power up the player in more flexible ways. These range from making it easier to flee battles, to making “tank” builds more viable, to leaning into certain combat styles, adding more benefits to non-damaging skills, flat damage buffs, and more.
The idea is to make a lot of small adjustments to the player’s power while giving players more agency in how they approach combat. One of the issues with balancing combat is that everyone has a different idea of where the problems are and what the solutions should be. By taking this more incremental approach, there are more opportunities for players to choose perks that alleviate the specific problems they are running into, while another player may take a completely different approach. It also gives me more numbers to tweak in the future, as updating a few perks here and there could solve problems for certain players without affecting others.
But, that’s enough for today. Stay tuned for part 3, where we’ll talk more about some more familiar Professions…