Crystalgate;162023 said:
The dialogue in the cave was very well done. I think I'm pretty much agreeing with Volrath regarding it.
The battle system looks good so far. The first battle you have basically no skills at all. That is probably good thing though, just mastering the basics turned out to be harder than expected. Anyway, a few observations.
Stamina seems to carry over between battles. It could have been just a coincidense, but that was what I observed. I don't think that would make a good feature.
Stamina recharges normally during spellcasting. I can't tell if that's good or bad, but it certainly helps fighter-mage builds.
I'm glad the cave dialogue worked out so well, it was actually my first real venture into "dangerous" dialogue as I like to think of it; dialogue that presents the personality and feelings of the characters.
On the battle system, yeah, skills in the first Episode are pretty pretty nil, you might have enough EXP to buy one skill by the very end, but it wouldn't do much good anyway. Episode 2 will feature the first "tutorial" to combat, and you will later be given volumes as items that you can use the get the details on the system as you progress.
Stamina DOES carry over from one fight to another; just like HP/SP. In the first fight especially I left stamina alone, as you just got done with a fight, and it makes the running away a lot more "epic" when you're not ready to just book it completely away instantly.
I will take the idea of Stamina restoration after fights into account; I think I'll do it for the times (like when you sleep in the cave) when story gives you time to "rest" and leave it alone for fights like the first two where you are pretty much thrown from one fight to another in short order.
Stamina regening while casting was/is intentional, as I'll be introducting skills that have high and low stamina costs; using a low stamina buff with a casting time will give your character something to do while waiting for stamina to recharge to a more useful level if you've drained it. Also, it gives me a tool to use with high Stamina cost skills; if it takes 100% of your Stamina, that recharge time becomes an opportunity cost you have to factor in, since if you cast a lesser spell you can instead use that "useless" casting time to help recharge your Stamina.
I've changed the stat calculations now to provide a more scaled approach; with a max AP of 4, and each stat point costing 1 AP, I do a very simple calculation to determine that if you have 1 DEX and a max of 4 AP, you're running at a 25% maximum of DEX, and treat that as the base stat at the time. This makes the early game easier by providing time to adapt to the ins and outs of the battle system before before stats will be "cast aside" for skills, and the Stance system replaces the stat differences.
The Stance system will become very important, allowing you to use larger buffs to certain stat areas on the fly; for example enhancing your STR by 50% at the cost of some DEX or AGI, or drop all your defense abilities so you can regen your SP faster while Meditating, etc.
I always welcome commentary and ideas for the combat, or how it's being handled. In Episode 1 it's not very obvious yet, but Episode 2 will get some additional insight into combat, and Episode 3 will begin the true "advancement" of the system.
