Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
Good progress on the pathfinding this week, we're building the multi-layered 3D maps, it's fast and automatic, and they look very tidy. We're now adapting the pathfinding to take advantage of this and we expect that even putting aside the new features it supports, it will immediately result in a much smoother experience for general navigation and movement.
We've also been going through our planned QoL changes, we have a long list of these, but we think there's a few that are particularly important as they remove some fiddly or tedious aspects of gameplay and controls that can be quite detrimental. Some are pathfinding related, but we also have things related to moving objects, comparing equipped items, interacting with small icons and objects, playing dead after a KO, queuing some inputs and more.
Comparing equipped items is a problem we've been juggling for a while. Unlike in other games, items don't always have direct equivalents and sometimes replace multiple items if equipped, so the solution isn't as obvious, and we still want to keep things minimalist and unintrusive. We do think this is important, the layered equipment makes the process difficult and also very confusing for new players who end up just ignoring important upgrades. This should be a fun and rewarding part of the game, not tedious and confusing.
Along these same lines we'd also like to see companions being more autonomous in managing their items. We talked recently about expanding AI to be aware of more things surrounding them than just other characters, which is an important step. However, we realised that before NPCs can search the environment themselves, we could also have them search bodies and containers after the player has, making use of what they left behind and perhaps letting them know if they missed something useful.
In general we do want to make the gameplay experience more streamlined and comfortable so you can focus on the fun stuff, with solutions that don't feel hand-holdy or gamey, but just more comfortable and intuitive, and that can contribute to immersion rather than detract from it.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
Good progress on the pathfinding this week, we're building the multi-layered 3D maps, it's fast and automatic, and they look very tidy. We're now adapting the pathfinding to take advantage of this and we expect that even putting aside the new features it supports, it will immediately result in a much smoother experience for general navigation and movement.
We've also been going through our planned QoL changes, we have a long list of these, but we think there's a few that are particularly important as they remove some fiddly or tedious aspects of gameplay and controls that can be quite detrimental. Some are pathfinding related, but we also have things related to moving objects, comparing equipped items, interacting with small icons and objects, playing dead after a KO, queuing some inputs and more.
Comparing equipped items is a problem we've been juggling for a while. Unlike in other games, items don't always have direct equivalents and sometimes replace multiple items if equipped, so the solution isn't as obvious, and we still want to keep things minimalist and unintrusive. We do think this is important, the layered equipment makes the process difficult and also very confusing for new players who end up just ignoring important upgrades. This should be a fun and rewarding part of the game, not tedious and confusing.
Along these same lines we'd also like to see companions being more autonomous in managing their items. We talked recently about expanding AI to be aware of more things surrounding them than just other characters, which is an important step. However, we realised that before NPCs can search the environment themselves, we could also have them search bodies and containers after the player has, making use of what they left behind and perhaps letting them know if they missed something useful.
In general we do want to make the gameplay experience more streamlined and comfortable so you can focus on the fun stuff, with solutions that don't feel hand-holdy or gamey, but just more comfortable and intuitive, and that can contribute to immersion rather than detract from it.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
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