Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
Madoc has had a very difficult and slow week, but we're all excited to be working on new and different things, with progress on the next update being done on various fronts.
The highlight of the update might be force and a new area to explore, but we're also making some updates to earlier content, items and general changes to improve replayability and make new playthrough feel somewhat fresh and interesting. We have a big list of improvements we'd like to make, but we can't possibly get through them all at once, so we're still figuring out how to prioritise many of them. Some of these things also fall into the spoiler category, but inevitably we will talk about some of this when we know what's confirmed.
Remember we said some improvements to combat seemed really important? Well, one of these in particular we all agreed should at least be worked on in parallel with other things, and that would be better combat movement / footwork. We've touched on this on Discord before, and the gist of it is to make the movement more continuous and responsive, eventually allowing new moves like switching lead foot. Dashes in particular have a 1-2 step then pause pattern which works quite well in a duel, but can feel a bit sticky in group fights or just when you're not really in control of the fight or experienced. We're looking at some general changes to the pace of combat, and this becomes critical to making it work. Even on its own, we think it could make the combat feel immediately more fluid and fun.
This is not an easy change to make however, footwork is one of the most difficult problems we've dealt with, and has taken a serious lot of development time already. Often we've tried to make improvements and had to scrap them when we just couldn't get them to actually work. Keeping things consistent and responsive with very unpredictable constant movement and turning inputs, external factors and keeping the character balanced is just very complicated. We've been studying the problem constantly and testing some ideas, and at this point we felt it was worth giving it a shot. We're still not sure the new approach will work, but we're hopeful.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
Madoc has had a very difficult and slow week, but we're all excited to be working on new and different things, with progress on the next update being done on various fronts.
The highlight of the update might be force and a new area to explore, but we're also making some updates to earlier content, items and general changes to improve replayability and make new playthrough feel somewhat fresh and interesting. We have a big list of improvements we'd like to make, but we can't possibly get through them all at once, so we're still figuring out how to prioritise many of them. Some of these things also fall into the spoiler category, but inevitably we will talk about some of this when we know what's confirmed.
Remember we said some improvements to combat seemed really important? Well, one of these in particular we all agreed should at least be worked on in parallel with other things, and that would be better combat movement / footwork. We've touched on this on Discord before, and the gist of it is to make the movement more continuous and responsive, eventually allowing new moves like switching lead foot. Dashes in particular have a 1-2 step then pause pattern which works quite well in a duel, but can feel a bit sticky in group fights or just when you're not really in control of the fight or experienced. We're looking at some general changes to the pace of combat, and this becomes critical to making it work. Even on its own, we think it could make the combat feel immediately more fluid and fun.
This is not an easy change to make however, footwork is one of the most difficult problems we've dealt with, and has taken a serious lot of development time already. Often we've tried to make improvements and had to scrap them when we just couldn't get them to actually work. Keeping things consistent and responsive with very unpredictable constant movement and turning inputs, external factors and keeping the character balanced is just very complicated. We've been studying the problem constantly and testing some ideas, and at this point we felt it was worth giving it a shot. We're still not sure the new approach will work, but we're hopeful.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
