NokiMo
Zan the Bonebreaker
Zan the Bonebreaker

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0.8.a Difficulty update for all maps

Here it is. So I've worked on the difficulties a bit, as well as added couple new features.

Features include Sentries now sparking when on low HP and Warlocks being able to cast Toxic Bolt bursts (x3) that should further their terrain lock ability.


As for difficulties, well, as I said, the health/armor/ammo multipliers and instead went over each map and hand placed these items. Here's an overview of the difficulties:

- Casual: plenty of ammo, health and armor pickups, enemies have 30% health and deal 30% less damage. Should make for a straightforward experience without removing a note of gameplay challenge. In some encounters there are less monster spawns (like the Giant Nithriel fight).

- HeadOn: regular pickups, but enemies deal 20% less damage and have 20% less health. As the name suggests, I have thought this for players that would like to take it easy and just charge straight into the fight without altering the gameplay in any other way. In very few cases there's an extra ammo pickup or a monster spawner less.

- Hedonistic: standard and most balanced difficulty. I am testing the game on it, and generally tailor everything else based on it. It's somewhat harder than a normal game difficulty imo, but definitely not too hard.

- Hardcore: enemies deal +50% damage, and you find less ammo around (roughly 10-20% less ammo, mainly for the Spike Gun and Fragfire Gun). The interesting part is that progress hints (gold words) in readable texts are not longer highlighted, which removes any sort of aid a player would get to solve puzzles. The idea behind this difficulty is to offer a more "survival" oriented experience, where the player needs to make full use of wit, reflex and resources to fare well.

- Brutalizing: Now this is what I've worked hardest on. Brutalizing boosts monster damage by 60% and health by 20%. The health boost goes hand in hand with a lot of extra ammo pickups which should allow the player to constantly use their favorite weapon, and a lot more ammo for the heavy weapons/aoe weapons (also, these weapons can be found much earlier in the game on this difficulty). The idea behind this is to give Hedon replay value by changing the gameplay into something purely combat focused. It's designed as a carnage/fun difficulty that also tests your combat skill. There's more consumables to have fun and experiment with, tougher monsters show up earlier in game (along with the tougher weapons), many previously peaceful areas now have monsters in them, the arena segments have extra spawns and so on. I did a full test run on this difficulty and it's pretty damn frantic while also not being unfair at any point. The combat is cranked up but so are the means of going through it.


In any case, I'm awaiting your feedback as always, I could definitely use some testing on the Hardcore difficulty as I fear that there is still a bit too much ammo laying around (I don't like forcing the player to conserve ammo, but rather invite them to use the right weapons for the right encounters, as well as the axe and consumables. And having the Spike Gun and Fragfire Gun ammo capped most of the time isn't cool for a hardcore experience).


P.S. Enough wall text, enjoy!

0.8.a Difficulty update for all maps

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