The MiniLog - Improved Loot, Combat Tweaks, and More
Hey hey people~ Let's dive right into it.
Consumption item stats have been rebalanced to better reflect their values relative to one another. The old passive MP regen from item consumption has now been removed, as it was confusing in its functionality and conflicted with the immediate MP stat gain.
Loot tables are now used for the spawning of loot in the world. This process was previously only done for chests, but now the same tech has been applied to spawning loot for desks, shelves, shop items and other parts of the environment. This approach is far more scalable than the previous setup, which involved the manual prefabrication of many variants. As loot tables can be used as a subset within our existing prop clutter variants, it does give their appearance far more variability.
Since placement still needs to be considered, objects of similar scale or utility are grouped into separate tables. To reiterate, loot tables will now be applied to the dungeon shop. Not everything is loot-tabled yet, but potion vials at least have a chance of appearing now.
While we're discussing shops, I plan to introduce a UI-based shop to the sky island sooner rather than later, as I’d like there to be a means of accessing all items reliably rather than having to hunt for a specific dungeon room, which may or may not have what you’re looking for. This system will inevitably be applied to wandering NPCs capable of trade and vendors with no designated space for their goods to be on display, but that is for another time. Once the basic system is up and running, I will do a quick item cost rebalance and place a shopping kiosk on the island.
Also in the news, the Permanence potion has been added to the game. When consumed, this potion sets your current physical form as your new "baseline", so any future reversion magic will restore you to this state rather than your original one.
Combat Tweaks
Hitstop has been added as an experiment in sword attack animations to make attacks feel more impactful. I’m not sure if everyone would be on board with this change, but I quite like it. Please try it out and share your thoughts on the implementation of hitstop or any feedback you may have.
Knockback has been added to both the player and enemies. Now, upon receiving a hit from an enemy, the player will be knocked back slightly. Upon hitting an enemy with your blade, they will be knocked back. This allows you to create space during combat and does make playing with slimes a little more enjoyable. If you time it right, you can send them flying.
As for outstanding issues with combat, I’ve resolved an issue where smaller enemies (i.e., particular types of slime) would often fail to damage the player despite flying right into them. This issue was found to be a result of collider conflicts and has now been resolved. Enemies in a non-aggro state, when struck from behind, will now aggro towards the player instead of ignoring them. Finally, I’ve resolved the long-standing issue where the "lock on target" system would break when in close proximity to a given target. Now when in close proximity to a target, the camera will switch from the over-the-shoulder position to centre on the player and back.
Questing?
You may find on your travels a placeholder quest board. Would you like to see a basic quest system be added early? At this stage, quests could be limited to tasks such as "fetch X of Y items" or "kill A number of B enemies." Some have been asking for a goal and something to actually do in the game. Truth be told, I’ve been hyperfocused on the technical aspects/mechanics, but this is something I could add rather quickly if you feel it would make you want to play more. Is this something you’d be interested in seeing? Could I interest you in some basic questing?
Other Miscellaneous Changes
Change: Reduced size of cookies by 50%
Change: Added random delay to variant group spawns
Change: Updated Credits
Change: TAA is now set as the high aliasing method, and FXAA is set back to medium.
Fixed: Issue - Player OnDamage & OnHeal hit-flash only applies to the player's skin... This effect now applies to player clothing and hair as well. Weapons in the environment no longer flash red when the player is hit. Hit-flash has been disabled for all weapons.
Fixed: Bread slice recipe. Now requires 1 loaf and gives a yield of 10 slices, rather than 10 loaves for 1 slice.
Fixed: Issue where alias settings were found to once again not initialise on start-up. The initialisation method was likely disabled following 0.15.1-A class name changes and mistakenly not re-enabled.
Fixed: Issue where the continue button in the event dialogue says "CONTINUER" instead of "CONTINUE"
Fixed: Issue where ragdolling from first person results in the player's head not being visible.
Fixed: Issue where player lantern can be taken into the character creator.
Fixed: Issue where apples appearing on shelves show up as "invalid ID"
Fixed: Lack of interaction for some desk loot.
Fixed: Issue where a shelf in the dungeon shop was using a non-interactive variant set.
Fixed/Added: Missing ingredient "Stabu-berry", which was relevant to doughnut crafting.
Fixed: Various loading screen transition bugs. Issue where transition could become “stuck” if the window was not focused during transition.
Fixed: Updated test chamber lighting to match the latest sandbox lighting profile.
Fixed: Issue where enemies could be stood on a few seconds after dying, leading to the player appearing to "float" standing on nothing
Fixed: Issue where trait icons were missing from the character creator.
Fixed: Issue where when making a character (in the character creator), it would clone the most recently loaded character if used before starting a new game. An issue in the load game process has been identified and fixed.
Wrapping Up & Coming Up
As this has been a very fix-heavy build, I will push this update out to everyone a couple of weeks from now. Next week, I plan to solely concentrate on creating monsters, and I anticipate having some prototype spawn ready to showcase.
I'll be back soon. Be sure to let me know what you think, and I'll see you next time~
