Last week’s achievements

* Rebalanced HP formula
* Altered battle menu displays
* Rebalanced damage formulas
* Fixed HP displays
* Added elemental resistances to all enemies
* Added remaining enemies and bosses of first and second dungeons: Centaur Warrior, Dryad, Elven Archer, Feligas, Grisly Bear, Slimectric, Slimelter, Slimercury, Slimerime, Sylph Mage, Zanari Arcadian, and the two bosses who I won’t name
* (Mostly) Papered out new attacks, magic, and other abilities: Acid Barrier, Angel Blade, Angelic Clasps, Angelic Protection, Aqua Rush, Archsilk Bolas, Arrow Hail, Ballad of Bravery, Barrier, Blazing Arrow, Chain Lightning, Clarity, Crystal Shield, Defense Command, Divine Intervention, Draw Slash, Dual Slash, Electrical Aura, Enduring Echoes, Fearless Faith, Fiery Cling, Flame Jelly, Freezing Cling, Full Bloom, Harpoon Thrust, Healing Arrow, Healing Horn, Holy Field, Icy Jelly, Inspiring Stand, Intangibility, Intuition, Jolting Cling, Light Healing, Mercury Cling, Mighty Burst, Miracle Healing, Neutralize, Noble Salvo, Poison Jelly, Poison River, Purifying Burst, Reinvigorating Rondo, Remedy, Restabilize, Revitalize, Run Down, Rupturing Quake, Sacred Salvo, Scalding Wave, Shield, Shining Flare, Shock Torrent, Snow Sweep, Solar Arrow, Spinning Spear, Spirit Beam, Stun Jelly, Tangling Vines, Torrential Waterfall, Toxic Brambles, Trample, Unbind, Whispering Wind

Current focus

Battle balance.

Sample stuff

I still have a bit left to do here this week! Green indicates an upside of an attack, such as how much it costs to use relative to how much damage it deals or extra status effects it inflicts; yellow indicates a downside, such as how much it costs to use period or how inaccurate it is.

Not shown, though, is another hidden element of balance: distribution. Flame Spray is all around superior to Fire Wall, but the latter can be used by almost any mage with a fire affinity while Flame Spray is reserved for wyverns, dragons, and other rare fire breathers.

…also, looking this over again, somehow I only now noticed how fundamentally flawed my Power For Tier column is. I’m leaving this picture in untouched, though, as simple evidence that I’m not perfect. =P

Weekly goals

* Make tentative “final” decisions on Jelia’s moves
* Finish papering out damage-dealing attacks
* Implement all the new attacks into the game
* Give the new enemies their AI

Comments

I finally pinned the damage formula to a comfortable level, then wound up creating more moves than expected! Similar to Pokémon, most enemies in Dreamblazers appear in multiple areas at different levels and share from a large pool of moves. For example, the Greatwolf and Feligas monsters share attacks such as Mega Slash and Vital Fang and recur on several continents because wolves and big cats are everywhere. (No, there won’t be any Zubat or Tentacool appearing all the time.)

This type of setup means that move creation is very front-loaded. Since I didn’t have any archers until this point, suddenly five new moves appeared for the Elven Archer enemy—five moves that I won’t need to create again for any of the Ranger enemies! Likewise, the Dryad and Sylph Mage had twelve new moves created between them, but other magic-using enemies will share their attacks.

Again, Pokémon is a useful analogy. If I created moves in Pokédex order, then I’d get through 18 Pokémon with only one Electric-type move before suddenly several show up at the Rattata mark (#019) and even more for Pikachu (#025). However, by the time I hit Gengar or so (#094), I’m guessing that over 85% of moves would be created for only 13% of Pokémon. Not that I’m operating on such an enormous scale, of course, but the ratios are a great point of comparison.

All of this does entail lots of spreadsheet legwork to creating attacks before I can even touch Unity or ORK. I don’t mind, but progress feels more tangible in a playable demo than in rows and columns, even if it’s a playable demo loaded up on placeholder everythings.