It's the "Awful combat" update...

Hello!

Just a quick update.

Bad design

So, busy re-wiring Three and I get to the VR combat module and...the combat mechanism is, on reflection, bloody awful. I skipped ahead to Four just to be sure and, yep, still bloody awful.

Now, there is a lot to like about the combat (and I'm talking purely here about the combat nothing else). It's simple; graphically it's rather nice; combat is simultaneous; there's progression in terms of unlocks and there's a lot of complex stuff going on under the hood.

There is, however, a lot to loathe about it at the same time. 

If you're playing to lose (And why not? I'm sure a wonky AI vampire has your best interests at heart) the current combat choices means it's all far too easy to end up accidentally winning.

If you're playing to win (It's a rather nice little path and a pretty decent option by the way with or without Vampy) it can be shockingly dull and a grind.

In both cases you press one of two buttons and hope. You've no input at the earlier stages other than this and all the unlocks further down  don't make a tuppence of difference to having to slog your way to get to them.

Better design

The player now begins off with four combat options with a further two unlockable as they progress. Three are core, with the remainder needing a full power up bar to activate. 

Core options

Defend: No attack this turn, but reduces chance of taking damage. Adds to power up bar.

Light attack: A basic attack. Adds to power up bar.

Heavy attack: Can bypass armour and has more chance of hitting. Reduces power up bar.

Power up options

Rage:  Guaranteed hit on the opponent but you'll also take a hit (available at start)

Storm: An unlock that grants two light attacks (No power up addition)*

Last gasp: An unlock that guarantees a hit on the opponent when down to one life point. No damage taken.

Playing to lose impact

It's now easier to throw the game. Defend away, get hit once and spam the Rage to lose. No guarantees you'll not win of course (Sarah is after all playing to win and I haven't changed her - on the other hand she's not very good...) but at least it increases the odds and puts it more in your court.

Playing to win impact

This is where it makes a big difference. With only one of you or Sarah having to win, and a greater range of combat choices you now have a range of tactical choices you can make. Initial tests show the VR is now substantially more of an actual game - which given it is a game....well, that sort of makes more sense.

I need to go back and tweak Chapter Two's VR introduction to lay this out but that's not a major piece of work but I'm glad I did wait a bit before shuffling Chapters out of the door.

And another tweak

I've only made one further change, and I know it's one a lot of you have requested or wanted, and that's to add a time bar to the free roam map on Ophion. 

The timeline used is still deliberately vague being a bar as opposed to a clock style interface. I went this route as I believe that having precision on something like this can break immersion. You perform a quick action and lo, an hour has gone by when in the real world it would have taken a few minutes.  A lot of, in fact almost all of, the GUI refresh has been about strengthening immersion and hence no clock. On the other hand you do now have a much better idea of how much time you have left in the day. I've still kept the changing background images for the station as well of course.

Other than that I can't see any more need for design tweaks.**

Other things

All the old Channel Seven has been refreshed and is now added in and Annie's dance in Four has had a major re-work as well (it wasn't that good really - and now she actually pole dances!). Still tweaking her lewd in Two in bits and pieces but I might have to scale down my ambitions a bit as I glance at the clock. It's already much, much better than the original but if I can make it better than it is I will. (God, having three machines gives you so much flexibility)

Other than that, I'll keep rolling on. Patreon is already paused for March of course. So no charging whilst this goes on.

Stay (or be) lucky.

Notty

* Testing might make this three. We'll see how it goes with the guys but it'd be a simple tweak to extend.

** Famous last words?