Getting towards the bottom of the list
Did a pass on the player's farm area. More detail, slightly different layout, and I'm going to quickly add some dead branches and rocks for the player to clear. The plan is to make this a property the player has to purchase in order to unlock in a future build. Sort of taking bits and pieces of Fallout 4 settlements, with Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing. But I need to write a few more systems before that stuff is fully ready.
I hooked up the entrances to the 2 new cave areas and detailed up the environment around them.
Also caught a couple bugs around resource mining nodes. There were some edge cases where their info would save and but then they wouldn't load properly. I'm still testing but so far I've fixed that particular bug.
Beldon's quest line is about 2/3rds scripted right now. There were a few systems that I need to write or update to get everything working and so this took a bit longer than I expected. But the scripting, triggers, and events that I've created for this quest line will be used in a ton of other places too.
I added back in the night time spawn points for the night goblins. These are mostly around the north east side of Redtree for now. I wanted to get the general feel for their spawn frequency and see if any major bugs pop up. They need a lot of polish, animation support, and a proper art pass before they're really done and this is just a placeholder for now.
And I started planning out the economy. Figuring out how much quest rewards should pay and then based on that as a starting unit, how much things like lodging or items should cost. This will definitely go through a bunch of iterations and will take me a while to implement across all the current items.
So what's left???
Beldon's quest line. There is one more major encounter to script and then that'll be the end of his initial quest arc.
The farmer and the slime. This needs a polish pass now that quests and their associated triggers are much more polished. But the basics are already there so this should go quickly.
Gate guard day job. The scripting is all that's left on these scenes. I think most of them are straightforward and don't branch off very much. So it should just be a matter of the scripting and dialogue triggers.
The bank stuff. This needs one more dialogue tree and a tiny bit of scripting. In the future I'll come back and add some proper animations and encouragement from the bank teller but those will be in a future build.
Female imp final touches. I think there's 2 dialogues that are left for her? Nothing branching and it'll be similar to her monastery scenes but scripted to happen anywhere.
Then building the HLODs and putting out the next build!!!
Comments (3)
So, I was thinking about skill progression with weapons, and I've had an idea: Special moves! In Baldur's Gate 3, each weapon type has specific attacks that can performed with it. For example, a sword can slash, but can also stun enemies with a pommel strike and cause bleed by nicking an artery or some such. This stands in contrast with a spear, which can slash but also allows the user to charge at enemies, and can be thrown, too. What I'm getting at here is for these things to become available as the player becomes more proficient with their weapon. This could either be through having an epiphany by way of repeated use, or through a trainer of that specific weapon type. A trainer who specializes in hammers hasn't got the knowledge to teach in the use of swords or axes. These trainers could be difficult to find or difficult to access, which would keep the player from being too powerful too early. It could be that they think that what they teach is worth a great deal, and so they're also cost prohibitive. Maybe their cost is the retrieval of a difficult to reach item, something that'd sit in the player's quest log for a while. The comment section only counts 1 post as of the time of this writing, so I'm splitting this post up into three portions. This is part 1.
This is part 2. Weapon skills. *Swords - pommel strike(stun), open vein(less damage but causes bleeding), riposte, advancing thrust. *Hammers - concuss(stun), knockback thrust(a thrust that causes the target get pushed backwards), deflect, knock target prone(stun in effect, but has a lower chance of succeeding than concuss and lasts longer) *Axes - grapple and disarm, bleed, cleave(attack more than one target), advancing strike *Kite shields - shield bash, advancing thrust. -Perhaps you could a unique shield that is so polished, it can reflect light to blind an opponent. -Also remember that there's at least three types of shields: buckler, kite shield, and tower shield.
So, I was thinking about how lovely and idyllic those screenshots you've got on this post(Getting towards the bottom of the list) are, and I was thinking about what would complete this picturesque environment. My first answer is birds singing their chipper songs! Imagine, if you will, a bluebird singing its song unseen from its perch in a nearby tree. Upon attacking this tree, the bird ceases singing and flies away to some more distant tree, unreachable by the player. This goes into making an entire ecosystem for your environments, but that may be too much of a task for a solo developer. Something else that could enhance picturesque coziness of your world could be a diverse range of plant life: clovers, Aegopodium, columbine plants, ferns, ivy and other such vines climbing up walls, and veratrum plants, to name a few. Perhaps in particular dense clusters of plant life, you could have them produce clouds of pollen when rustled, by the player or perhaps a strong gust of wind. Oh, and speaking of plants, I suggest that you add soil bumps where crops are to be grown. I know that farmers do this, though I don't yet know why. I might make a post about it later. That actually brings me to my last nature suggestion for this post, and that is wind rustling the leaves of trees. I can't say as to why, but the sound of wind rustling trees is pleasant to my ears. It brings a sense of peace, similar to the effect that listening to water washing back and forth of a coast does. This may go a ways in producing the coziness that you've stated that you wish for your game to have. What do you think?