January 18 Update (Patreon)

I was glad that so many people were excited for Omnipocalypse last week. Work on that is still continuing, so let me talk about a couple design elements. One I think I have mostly nailed down, one that I'm still considering. Plus a surprise TLS section!

TLS 1.1.0

Since the release, I've been saying that version 1.1.0 would be the first with all of Chapter 4 illustrated, but it looks like I'm going to have to be flexible. Instead of waiting for that art to be complete, I want to get out a build that will bundle a few things: all reports up to this point, the updated Eustrin, and a newly improved fullscreen script that will need testing.

So that is happening, likely next weekend. It'll slow down Omnipocalypse work a little, but hopefully not that much. This way, everyone playing on Steam will get a more polished version for longer and there will be no pressure to finish TLS 1.2.0, which will be the hefty art update (though 1.1.0 will still include all the recently commissioned scenes).

Status Effects

These are a fun part of RPGs, but they're often not executed in a very fun way. You probably know the usual complaints: unnecessary against normal enemies, useless against bosses. Though I tried to do some interesting things within this framework for TLS, many of the same criticisms can be leveled at it. One thing I utilized even though I have mixed feelings about it is percentage vulnerability to status effects. It functions, but it leads to brute force testing: did poison fail to land because the boss is immune, or because it has 50% vulnerability?

I have in mind various solutions to the overall problem, but many of them require substantial coding. One of the things that made me decide to do Omnipocalypse is that I have a system that I can pull off now, using only my scripting capabilities and some plugins.

There are several components to this system, but it comes down to status effect combos. There are four "base level" statuses: opening, wounds, damage, and affliction. Enemies are either 100% immune or 100% vulnerable, and they try to follow clear logic: most enemies can take openings, flesh-like enemies take wounds, robotic enemies take damage, spiritual enemies take afflictions.

Once you land the appropriate status effect, it has a small effect, but the real purpose is to combo it into a better status effect. For example, you could land Damaged on a robotic enemy, then cause a status effect that reduces their armor. Not only does the second effect only land if the first is in place, the attack also deals more damage. This consumes the base status effect, however, so you need your party working together to burden a boss with various effects.

I hope this will balance the common strategy of "Don't bother with status effects just deal damage" via this system. Status effects are your best way of dealing damage, and in fact there will be cases where the status effects won't land, but you'll use the combos anyway because they're your best form of damage. This also ties into the time loop aspect: having more skills to combo with more characters can be more important to your strength than raw stats, or at least that's my goal.

Most of the system will involve the four base effects and their combos, but there will also be variations. For example, the weakest zombies can be pushed down with many attacks, stunning them and making them vulnerable to follow-up attacks. Hopefully these combinations will walk the line of being intuitive while also varied.

I don't know if I'm breaking new ground here, but I'm not modeling this off any successful system. No doubt there will be some wrinkles at first before the system is refined, but I think/hope it will be a good foundation for a game!

The LUK Stat

This statistic is notoriously nearly useless in RPG Maker games, mildly affecting a few things. TLS needed a special script to give it some actual weight, though that was just along the same lines as the default. For Omnipocalypse, I'd like to use this final stat for something else... and I'm not sure what. All the other stats are set, but this part is still default.

Critically, it doesn't have to be "luck" at all! I just have a stat built into the system and I want to do something with it. Definitely not influencing effect chances, because that won't exist in this system.

The best idea I have so far is to use it as additional damage when striking an opponent's weakness (skills have two different damage formulas). On one hand, this is just another damage stat. On the other, it would mean that we can entirely different kinds of high damage characters and you'd have another stat to consider among others.

I don't know, this part of the game could still change, but I need to decide soon because I keep building atop what I have. Anyone have opinions on this or other ideas? I actually considered doing something crazier with the six available stats before deciding that a more conventional set was still best... but I have one left over and I want to use it.