v0.2.49 - Whoops all faster now


This is a small update that fixes something I overlooked in the last release. Missed increasing the movement speed for the type used by Tendril Pull/Hook abilities and Knockback ability effects. Also greatly reduced the wait time after performing an ability. This varies by the number of targets, and it might be ever so slightly too fast now, but I like the way it plays. Thanks to rossgrams for the feedback!

Files

RatWitchTactics-BetaDemo-v0.2.49-Win.zip 24 MB
Dec 06, 2018
RatWitchTactics-BetaDemo-v0.2.49-Mac.zip 31 MB
Dec 06, 2018

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(2 edits) (+1)

Yeah, it's a lot nicer now. I think reducing the wait time after abilities made a big difference. Sweet!

Now that I played it more, I have a few bug reports/feature requests:

 • First just a positive comment: Being able to undo movement is awesome! (and canceling abilities) Without it, I would be in big trouble. I found myself using it multiple times per turn to check out different options. Checking if a guy was in range from a certain spot, how much extra damage I got from high ground, etc. I never had to worry about moving a guy into the wrong position by mistake and losing a turn. (In Endless Legend, for example, it's way too easy to make that mistake!)

 • There's a bug with Ring Gust. I think it messes up if you use it when it wouldn't have any effect. You activate it, the UI slides away like it should be animating stuff, but then it never comes back and you have to force-close the game. You should be able to reproduce it. If you start a skirmish playing the Apprentice Trial Team and immediately use Ring Gust (before moving).

 • Sometimes damage numbers seem to be off by +1 or -1 between what the UI tells you and what it actually does. Maybe some rounding issue?

 • Some of the items could use a bit of extra "real" description. Flash and Salts specifically. They don't really tell you what they do.

 • It would be nice to have a subtle indication of the game grid on the floor. Sometimes it's hard to see how things line up for using the straight-line spells and other attacks. Also it would let you count tiles so you could stay out of enemy range, plan next turn's moves, etc.

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Aaaaand then some bigger feature requests. Nothing super difficult I don't think, and things that would increase the replayability a lot.

 • Some random variation in skirmish maps. Having some of the environmental features from the mission battles in skirmishes would make them a lot more interesting. Throw in a couple random obstacles and elevated tiles. Maybe vary the proportion and size of the map a little bit. Just a small variation each time could make a big difference.

 • Squad Customization. The pre-made squads are good, and there's quite a few choices, but if you could hand-pick the units in your squad, that would add a lot of extra play hours messing around with different combinations of units. Also it would let you customize the difficulty—you could simply give the enemy an extra unit or two, or give yourself fewer. (or vice versa to make it easier.)

 • Modding Support. Not sure how you have your units set up, this could be easy or a fair bit of work. If you loaded in the specs for units from a JSON file or some other text format, then you could let people define their own custom units. Then all sorts of new units could be added to the game, through no effort on your part! Maybe some cool things you didn't think of. It seems like the abilities are all simple enough to be defined with a few parameters. Name, cool down, damage (<0 for heal), range, a 2d array for the hit pattern, number of knockback tiles. Forget about allowing custom unit models and textures, just let people hook up to existing ones by name. 

Anyway, that's my two cents. I know it's way easier to dream about game features than to actually make them, hahaha! I'm sure you have your own list.

(+1)

Thank you so much for the feedback. This is awesome!

  • Nice catch with that Ring Gust bug. When this had no valid movements to apply, it returned without sending notification that the ability had been applied (without effect). Fixed for the next update.
  • The damage variance is simply random -1, +0, or +1 to add some uncertainty. I've been thinking it would be nice to tie this into a Luck stat for units so that lucky units have a higher chance to do more damage and unlucky units to do less. For now, the UI might benefit from making this seem more like an estimate so added a "~" prefix to the amount. This too will go out with the next update.
  • I agree these descriptions were lacking. Revised these to include more info about their effects. In for the next update.
  • I've been thinking the same thing about the grid. Every skirmish test I run I end up using the cursor to count tiles. Just need to work on some new texture assets.
  • More skirmish maps and custom squads are things I'm working toward for the full game. Skirmish is pretty barebones right now, but I do see the same potential for replayability with providing lots of customization.
  • I'm unsure about modding support. I like the idea, but it seems like a lot of work to get there. Something I'll keep in mind though as I work on more of the skirmish features.

Thanks again for taking your time to write this up! It's super helpful.

(+1)

Cool, sounds good! You're welcome.

I forgot to say, I'm not sure if you use the same code for all knockback effects or not, but I think I saw that Ring Gust bug with another ability. I couldn't remember which units I was using that time though, so I could be wrong.

For the damage variance, could you just show the range? 7-9 damage, 12-14 damage, etc. Even if the chance isn't always even, at least then players would know the possibilities.

(+1)

Range is a good idea, going to experiment with that.

I think (hope) that bug should be resolved for all abilities that move units. They all derive from the same class so they should handle not being able to move the targets for any ability.