Dev Log

#141

@coyot: Whether AoE/etc hits all dark enemies will be Anthony’s call ultimately. We’ll let you know what the decision is when he makes it.

Other stuff:
Fixing some bugs today.
Dealt with an issue where AoE attacks were hitting things outside of their normal range because of a range calculation glitch.
Next, fixed a bug with bulldog mode so that it now “unsticks” when you change target priority.
Another big thing - I added a little “save” button in the defender select screen in battle that saves your current targeting priorities, so they persist between deaths/recalls, battles, and even play sessions - it’s added to the save XML so hopefully this will meet everyone’s configuration needs.

All of this will be in version 0.9.33, which will go up towards the end of the day.

The last “big” request people have been making is for saveable battle positions, so if you lose at wave 30, but had a fixed strategy up to wave 20, you could “replay” the level up to that point and then choose when to diverge, etc, so you’re not always making the same rote decisions over and over again.

Sounds like a great feature! Unfortunately, this will have to wait until after gold release, because it’ll require a bit of extra work and we really need to freeze things down so we can ship reasonably soon. Post-gold, I can add a lot more of these sorts of things.

[size=14]Here’s my current list of “like to have” features which absolutely will NOT be making it into the gold release, but I’d love to get to afterwards:
[/size]

  1. Battle replays - You can just straight up save a whole battle log of every single input you made, and replay it for a given battle, and then share it with friends, etc. Optionally allow it to come with an attached xml party data object so you can replay it with a specific party loadout that might no longer exist. Ability to “replay” this input data with a live game battle.

  2. Full battle logs - Not only player inputs, but everything that’s happened! What enemy is targeted, what attack is used, the results of die rolls, etc, blah blah blah. Then you grognards can analzye everything to your heart’s content. Ability to “replay” this data as recorded - ie, enemy spawns, etc, are controlled by the replay, not by the current level data.

  3. Make battles as deterministic as possible.
    Right now battles are mostly deterministic, with a few exceptions - enemies are spawned with a bit of random wiggle, things like dodge, poison, critical, etc, all operate on die rolls, and other things. I ran a bunch of tests early in development that proved that you’d get the same results on all game speeds. I have no idea if this is still true, but aside from the above randomizations and some minor edge cases, it should still be the case. Going forward, I’d like to swap out the random calls with a different random function that guarantees that two players making the exact same inputs on the same battle will get the same die rolls (I’ll obviously need to do some research). There might still be some slight non-deterministicness with this, but it should hopefully be good enough for the purpose of replays, swapping strategies, etc.

#142

0.9.33 just went up. Windows version is live, Mac version is uploading as I write this.

Lots of bug fixes all around, as well as the aforementioned ability to save target priorities. Also fixed a glitch that made SQ7 unwinnable, fixed some glitches with skulls, and other thingies.

#143

Seriously, you guys owe me a new keyboard because I ruined this one with all the drool seeping out of my mouth.

Everything sounds fantastic Lars, and it sounds like things are coming along nicely. Even the “mostly bug fix” patches/posts usually have a little “oh, that’s cool!” moment or item or feature buried in them somewhere, which is very encouraging.

Also, I’d say it’s time to fire up your PR Hamster and get him rolling on his wheel, and consider getting a “Green Light us on Steam” campaign rolling. I can only imagine that getting onto Steam would boost the hell out of your sales, and you guys certainly deserve it (IMHO).

P.S. Any chance I could bug you for another “fluff” post that shows off some of the new artwork?

#144

@Marak,

I’ve got a new “sexy before/after” post in the works, but I’m holding it back until I can spill the beans on the big announcement :slight_smile:

On a side note - I’ve had a tester report installation issues on the Mac related to security certificates. What’s happening is that when he tries to install 0.9.32 or 0.9.33, it says that the security certificates don’t match (which is super weird since I’ve been using the same one) and refuses to install. Is anyone else getting this? I’d really like to avoid having 1,000’s of mac players not able to install the updated game on launch day.

As for PR, definitely - we’re dusting off or rolodexes and getting a new batch of PR materials together. The website will get a bit of an overhaul towards the end, too. Everything starts as soon as we can make our announcement.

#145

— Begin quote from "larsiusprime"

@Marak,

I’ve got a new “sexy before/after” post in the works, but I’m holding it back until I can spill the beans on the big announcement :slight_smile:

— End quote

Oh, you big tease. :wink:

#146

Okay, so I’m uploading version 0.9.35 as we speak for Windows. Earlier today I uploaded 0.9.34 for Mac - will try to synchronize all 3 platforms later this week.

What’s new:
-Lots of little bug fixes
-Fixed some status effect offsets for enemies
-Fixed “spawn cargo target strong” bug
-Double click to equip stuff
-Fixed “spawners break target first” bug
-Added hotkeys for targeting & speed controls
-Fixed grammar & spelling in various places
-Fixed phantom “infinite more” indicator
-Fixed various equipment issues
-Anthony has rebalanced a lot of NG+ items

Also, we found out that the huge scary “can’t install on mac” bug was a false alarm. The new version should install just fine over old mac versions.

Also - kind of a big thing. Anthony decided to go with “stone, bronze, and obsidian” as the three skull types rather than just have 1 kind of skull. Bronze and Obsidian are a lot more rare than stone and let you get some pretty pumped up equipment.

I think that’s it for now.

Also, our big announcement is still unfortunately a secret, because I’m still waiting on somebody to get back to me. I really, really want to just announce this already.

Oh, and we’re going to have a panel at PAX Prime with Jeff Vogel (spiderweb softare), Carpe Fulgur (Recettear: An item shop’s tale), Gaslamp Games (dungeons of Dredmor) and Robert Boyd (Cthulhu Saves the World, The New Penny Arcade game). But that’s not the big announcement :slight_smile:

#147

Okey dokey, 0.9.36 is coming right up, this one has a lot of bugfixes for the most part, I’m doing my best to completely clear out bugzilla - ie, respond to and deal with everything that’s been filed. For the “enhancement” category that means ‘decide whether to do it or not,’ etc, and take it off the list.

A few notable changes:
-Fix to bonus missions - we’ve put pass/perfect as a criteria for certain battles now, as opposed to everything being waves
-Fixed “unazra” being a total wimp
-Fixed display bugs with various items
-Fixed tooltip glitch in battle preview

Also, we made a final decision with Bonus Missions. We were trying to decide whether to have one global set of bonus battles, or two sets - a normal one and a NG+ one.
Ultimately, we decided on two sets, but treating them like everything else in NG+. So, normal mode bonus battles feature regular enemies, and NG+ bonus battles feature “_plus” variants of those enemies. The maps, wave counts, etc, are the same. Also, I’ve added the ability for Anthony to set different rewards and unlock criteria for the NG+ bonus battles - right now most of them are the same, only the first one is arbitrarily different as a proof of concept. Eventually he’ll go through and make each one different.

I made the hardware mouse the default cursor since there’s sometimes lag with the software mouse. However, if you use the virtual mouse it switches you automatically to the software mouse because there’s no real way to use that feature otherwise.

The last big thing is that I’ve changed how tutorials work. Now, I can specify if and when a tutorial should show up in NG+, so I can show different stuff for each mode. Battle dialogue always shows up in both (which you can of course turn on/off like before), but the tutorials that show up should match what game mode you’re in. So, in NG+ the opening tutorials just explain that monsters have new abilities, etc, instead of telling you how to play the basic game.

I’ll upload the latest build here in a second.

In other news, we’ve got Karen polishing up our UI so hopefully we should be able to get that in the next two weeks hopefully, and Tyvon’s feeling a bit better so we should have the last of our sprite art completed soon. It’s a race now to see if Anthony and I can beat the artists and get done first. Once I finish fixing bugs and Anthony finishes the bonus battles and items, the game will be done content-wise. Then it’s a matter of testing the various build configurations and doing some stress-test playthroughs to catch any rare showstopper bugs and then exhaustively test old save files from the 0.9.01 to make sure they’re all compatible.

And if an important person will email me back, I can finally tell you guys about that huge announcement I’ve had to delay all week. Refreshes inbox

#148

Okay, new version 0.9.37 is uploading right now for you windows users.

A lot of little graphics tweaks throughout here, I added something that looks like an exit for “the way out” and tweaked the overworld design, still waiting for some more sprites to finish it off. Added some boulders to the mostly empty deserts.

Also, tweaked the “you got” screens a bit so they’re not so ugly. Other than that, fixed a handful of bugs and spent some time talking with contractors.

Still haven’t heard back on the announcement.

#149

Version 0.9.38 is ready.

I’ve fixed a lot of bugs in this build. Most notably, I fixed a horrible bug that caused NG+ content to show up in normal game mode.
-Fixed a bug with porcupine damage that made it do less damage than advertised - this is fixed, which effectively buffs porcupine. We might have to rebalance accordingly.
-Fixed lots of glitches on battle previews, tooltips, wave blocks, enemy panel, etc.
-Fixed monstrosity status effect offsets
-Fixed archer targeting:
Rangers will no longer shoot arrows at enemies that are dead or phased out at the moment the arrow leaves the bow. If it dies or phases out before the arrow hits, it’s still going to sail right through and be “wasted” but they are now smart enough not to start attacking things that are already invalid targets.

-I fixed it so cultist-healers can heal themselves, and other enemies, but not other cultist-healers.
-I added some basic settings for bonus battles, set distinct unlock requirements for normal and NG+ mode bonus battles.
-Added unique rewards for normal and NG+ bonus battles. The perfect rewards should now cover all the books, the XP rewards are still placeholder
-I added two books - book of blood and book of plagues, which make it so all defenders/enemies (other than bosses/azra) are permanently bleeding or poisoned for the duration of battle. Book of Daring and Book of Silence probably won’t be used, as they’re intentionally “bad” and thus make crappy rewards. Might stick them somewhere esle tho…

Anthony and I still need to do some work on the bonus battles. We’re planning on having most of them be “epic” battles rather than endless modes, and some will have pass/perfect criteria rather than “reach x wave” criteria. So, those should get some attention this week. We will still have one or two endless battles.

Also, I’ve nearly cleared out Bugzilla! We’re in the single digits for the first time ever, and I’ve got my own list of little things I discover as I march through. I want to fix as many bugs as possible while I wait for the artists to finish, so don’t be shy about loading me up with more bug reports.

As for artists, Tyvon has been getting me some updates to the bosses - I’ve got a new version of Eztli coming down the pipe soon. Also, Zhi has just told me he is sick, but is starting to feel better, so when he recovers we’ll finally have our overworld done.

There’s just one set of cutscenes that needs some major tweaking, and that’s the “unazra” plotline which James is working on revising right now. Once that’s done, I’ll integrate those changes and finish up the sidequest cutscenes.

We’re on good track to have a release candidate before my trip. The last remaining major content is the bonus battles, sidequest writing, and new art. We’re getting pretty close to the final gameplay balance, so now is a good time to run through the game and let us know if anything feels off, if certain items are too strong/weak, etc.

Also, the books are mostly finalized - they’re levels 1-18 (only 1-16 are intended for the game, and 16 is a non-functional “OMG you got everything” trophy).

Try some save game hacking to give yourselves the books, and let me know what you think about them. Which are the best, which are useless, which could be tweaked (numbers/values only, we can’t make new features at this point). In which order do you think we should give them as bonus battle rewards?

New windows build is uploading as I speak. Play it on a test server near you!

#150

Greaaaaat. The second I get 0.9.37, 0.9.38 is coming out. What are the odds.

Oh well. Looking back at the original gold edition beta builds, I think you’ve come a long way Lars =)

(Also, I may have forgotten my Bugzilla account name and password too many times for me to try now…sigh. Oh well, I’ll try to help via PM’s)

[size=4]Chain Lightning. Level 11 Lightning. Sheep level. Insert evil laugh here[/size]

#151

Do you know what email you set it up with? If I can find where the admin panel is I could reset it for you.

#152

— Begin quote from "larsiusprime"

-I fixed it so cultist-healers can heal themselves, and other enemies, but not other cultist-healers.

— End quote

Cool. Now the buggers are only a pain, but not a big “oh shit oh shit” when there’s 5 of them together…

— Begin quote from ____

Also, I’ve nearly cleared out Bugzilla! We’re in the single digits for the first time ever

— End quote

This calls for a drink!

#153

Hey all, just dropped version 0.9.39 on the test server.

Big changes to this version: fixed some tweaks to book of plagues/book of blood, as well as made book of synergy functional.

I experimented with making poison disable regeneration, but this turned out to be way too powerful. For book of plagues, which originally poisons both defenders and enemies for the duration of battle, I found another problem - defenders regenerate so quickly that you need a LOT of poison to make a difference, at which point it gets kind of ridiculous.

So instead, I made it so book of plagues poisons all the enemies, but gives all defenders a new status effect called “disease” which shuts of regeneration (technically it just slows it, but I made the slowdown 100%, which brings it to a complete stop). This creates a really interesting trade-off - the book is a huge gift to the player as all the enemies essentially have a 120-second countdown before they die (the poison dps amount is 1/120 of each enemy’s health), but you need to rely on healers and the heal spell a lot more to stay alive when you get whacked.

Book of blood was easier - just apply some bleed to all enemies and defenders. They take more damage, and so do you. Stakes raised for everybody.

Finally, book of synergy was fun. This makes it so that ice, fire, and water no longer interact, so burning enemies can’t quench themselves by diving into water, and fire won’t cancel slow/freeze and vice versa. The downside is that Azra has a PSI tax (currently set to 25%) on all PSI gained during the battle (including recalled defenders). So, you no longer have to worry about placing dragons/ice mages closer together and can totally wreck shop, but you have to be much more frugal with your spends. The psi tax is tweakable so we’ll be looking at how we need to balance this book.

Finally, I added something I’ve been meaning to do forever - equipment and status effects for the defender select menu. You can now see what equipment someone has and the relevant bonus from it both when picking someone to summon and when you place them on the field. Also, their status effects show up like they do for the enemies.

Need some feedback on equipment icons - right now I’m showing “+15” and then an icon of the relevant sword, etc. For the summon menu it shows base stat + bonus, in the defender select it shows the overall stat in the stat panel (base+bonus baked together), but then shows the equipment with the +bonus amount separately up top. Is this confusing? I don’t have enough room to split it up down below because I need space to show the additional +boost_bonus value on mouseover.

Anyways, it’s up now.

#154

— Begin quote from "larsiusprime"

This creates a really interesting trade-off - the book is a huge gift to the player as all the enemies essentially have a 120-second countdown before they die (the poison dps amount is 1/120 of each enemy’s health),

— End quote

Hmm, this sounds, like, really strong thing :slight_smile: I mean, if the map takes most (tougher) enemies 60 seconds to cross, this will make the creeps 50% of their original strength, so placing the defenders close to Azra will make them quite powerful.

— Begin quote from ____

but you need to rely on healers and the heal spell a lot more to stay alive when you get whacked.

— End quote

Not really. What’s the regen speed compared to a healer’s output? I’m looking at my level 29 or so party. Slak 33 HPS, Ketta 12, Bakal 5, Wrenna 10, Markos 10, Niru 13.

Healer with Aid 9 does 105/0.19 at boost level 1, 263/0.14 at boost level 5 - that’s from 550 to 1880 HPS healing output. Of course, the real numbers are significantly lower as these calculations are based on cooldown, so they exclude actual casting time, plus it’d be assuming the healer using no other skills - but even taking that into account, the loss of the regen, which translates to 83HPS with one character from each class, is next to nothing compared to what one healer will manage.

I think this book should be scrapped. It’s way too powerful, it changes the balance between party and creeps by a way too big margin.Or at least change the poison to be in absolute numbers, i.e. calculated from Azra’s attack skill (after all she’s using the book) - and make it calibrated so that it will cause decent but not overpowering damage. Faster creeps are usually weaker and will suffer less due to shorter exposition to the effect, tougher creeps will suffer longer but achieve about the same relative effect

Question: Are there any balance tweaks/fixes in the works, affecting spells, skills, creep stats or whatever? I plan to do a few playthroughs from scratch with various challenge modes to figure out what is doable at which level etc, and these would of course have significant impact. (I.e. the latest bugfix of ranger targetting is something that will no doubt have impact on ranger’s effective DPS :slight_smile: )
If you only expect polishing to be made, it’s time for me to get started on it…

#155

Yeah… okay, so I think I agree with you there on the book of plagues. Especially if you pair it with the book of blood (which makes the DOT do more damage)… it’s pretty insane.

So, I do need a book to fill this slot, and I’d like to do whatever takes the least effort (ie, no new code). So, what I could do is change it so that it’s not a % of the enemies’ health but instead is tied to Azra’s attack stat - that could work, especially if it’s a small enough amount. I think canceling regeneration is a good downside (provided the upside is not enormous), because even though healers can far outpace natural regeneration - that’s kind of the point. Without natural regeneration, a defender left unattended that is getting hit at all is almost guaranteed to die, whereas before you could count on them growing their health back. Would make “hero mode” particularly challenging with this book.

So, I’ll think about what tweaks I’ll make to the poison, or if I’ll just make it some other debuff, or just replace the book with something else altogether. I could just make a book that gives azra a boost to attack.

As for balance, I haven’t checked with Anthony this week, but other than bonus battles which I’m pretty sure need a lot more attention, we’ve got enough material here to start testing with an eye towards balance. Things obviously aren’t final, but that’s what testing’s for. All the main battles and sidequests in both normal and NG+ should have their new enemy types and from what I can see Anthony has put rewards in for every battle, including high-tier skulls, and we’ve got equipment upgrades so that spending every single skull should get you everything.

A cursory glance at the XP rewards suggests those are intentional.

As for items, we’ve got some rough kind of balance in for them. I’m sure some are weak or overpowered, but they should be good enough to test and get good feedback on.

Also, all the battles should be functional. The “unazra” battles currently don’t have any mechanical differences (other than party member restrictions) and we honestly will probably leave them that way rather than add another twist - so having an alternate mcguffin will just be a story/art difference.

And, as I said - bonus battles still need a lot of attention. They’ve got new unlock requirements, but they need to have their wave data and XP rewards changed as those look like placeholders.

#156

Yeah, Bonus Battle 6 (I think it’s that…well, the bonus battle with the “Light of Judgement” reward) seems to be a paradox: It’s a endless battle with wave 30 and 50 completion rewards, yet it only has 11 waves, so rewards can’t be obtained. -.-

(Note: This was on 0.9.38…I don’t know if you’ve fixed that yet. So if it is fixed, my apologies)

#157

Bonus battles are still pretty incomplete. I’ll talk to Anthony about what the plan is - he’s usually much better at balance/design than I am, but he has a day job so he’s got less time than I do for these things. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do to take some work off his plate and get these finished up and ready for testing soon.

AT any rate, version 0.9.40 just got uploaded.

Here’s a list of fixes/changes:
-Make spit balls appear from right location
-Move shanty down
-Switch tile types (gold castle vs dull pavement) for better contrast in southeastern levels
-Ranger arrows were firing from too low
-Renaming of heroes is now possible
-Buying staffs before getting ice mages caused error (quickSetup() null error)
-Recruit “You Got” needed some tweaking
-Fixed ozimal’s prison tutorial arrows (move recruit button arrow left)
-Mousing over disabled spells incorrectly triggered tutorial
-Mousing over disabled spells showed trash
-Spell tutorial arrow was too low
-Defender upgrade tutorial was obsolete
-Fixed some broken items
-Fixed sq7 boss color
-Added new graphics for ozimal
-Fixed insane cultist color
-Berserker shoes had color glitch
-Fixed pixel trash in armored cultist attack
-Set basic bonus level targets for NG/NG+

Haven’t touched book of plagues yet. Not sure what I’m going to do with it. Probably just something quick and lazy.

#158

Okey dokey everyone, here’s what’s new in version 0.9.41 (uploading now for windows):

-Fixed “rangers fire bajillions of arrows” bug
-Fixed Zelemir’s animation timing (defender)
-Fixed Zelemir’s animation timing (enemy)
-Revised unazra poses
Unazra battles:
-Unazra portrait in battle UI
-Unazra’s name (currently “???”) is listed in reward screen rather than Azra’s

-First time splitter tutorial
-No longer fires in NG+
-Only fires in response to a splitter (ie, not on higher difficulties)
-Spikey enemies use spikey graphics (still waiting on spikey worm graphics)
-Cultist+'s now indicate that they can heal in enemy select menu and wave preview
-Fixed bug with insane cultist spawned in “Right hand” battle
-Fixed targeting tooltip overlap bugs

I’ll be doing some revisions to bonus battles tomorrow, and I’ll try to post builds for all three platforms.

#159

Version 0.9.42 is uploading now.

The biggest change in this build is a lot of new UI graphics for the battle interface. Karen’s been getting me these lately and I’m putting them in as fast as I can.

I’ve told all my contractors I need final assets in by next Wednesday. My goal is to get the first Defender’s Quest Release Candidate done that weekend. Next sunday (9 days from now) I leave to visit my family in Norway. While I’m gone, Anthony will be having testers throw everything they have at the RC and find the last remaining bugs and balance issues. When I get back, if there’s any problems we’ll fix those, put another Release Candidate and hopefully we’ll ship a few days after that!

I still need:
-Big portraits and a few missing enemies from Tyvon - he’s making good progress
-A few tiles and overworld features from Zhi
-UI stuff from Karen
-Final story revisions from James
-Final bonus battles/balance from Anthony

The biggest remaining thing is for Anthony to finish the bonus battles, ensure that balance is good throughout the game, and for me to get missing art assets and story bits in.

I’ll try to get mac and linux builds up tonight too.

EDIT:
Okay, got all of the builds uploading. I updated the index file with new links, but the binaries might not be ready for 30-40 minutes since there’s a lot of them.

#160

Uploading the latest build, version 0.9.44, for windows.

The biggest changes here are mostly on the art integration side. Karen’s been getting me a whole new set of UI graphics for the game and I’m throwing 'em in as quick as I can. In general, this has vastly improved things like contrast and readability while decreasing visual noise and generally just making it look better.

The new menu scrolls are a first draft - I’ve asked for some kind of outline so that it meshes better with the rest of the game. So far, everything’s gotten an overhaul except for the shopping menus in towns. So party screen, battle, title, save slot screen, option menus, tutorials, popups, confirmation boxes - all of this should have new stuff.

Some areas might need some tweaking so that we can maintain good visual contrast in edge cases, particularly with certain color combinations for defenders.

Another thing - I’ve embedded some more font outlines, and I’m using both aliased and anti-aliased text now. The general rule is to use aliased (pixely) text for low font sizes so they’re easier to read and don’t get totally smudged, but use anti-aliased fonts for larger font sizes so that they don’t look all jaggy and hideous. I think I’ve made some good choices but let me know how it looks and how easy things are to read.

Bugzilla has some fresh bugs in it, and I promise I’ll hit those hard first thing tomorrow. Tyvon has a final set of sprites for me, which will include new big character portraits, as well as new boss sprites where those are missing (hand, eztli, etc). I’m supposed to get those tomorrow morning, as well as new tiles from Zhi.

Finally, Kevin has got me a new music track which we’ll be using for the credits.

From here on out, I’ll be bugfixing, tweaking, polishing, etc. According to SVN logs, Anthony has been working on the bonus battles and overall polish and balance, but I haven’t checked on any of that.

I leave for Norway on Sunday and get back the following weekend. The plan is to have a release candidate sometime this weekend, and Anthony will take over daily operations while I’m gone and direct the testing. When I get back, if the release candidate withstands several harsh rounds of testing (ha!) we’ll launch. Otherwise we’ll create another RC and lather, rinse, repeat until we’re in good shape.

When I launch RC, I want to have the following:

  1. Full game executable for Mac/Win/Linux
  2. Full game “Compatbility mode” executables for Mac/Win/Linux (ie, no Adobe Air dependencies, just a plain projector)
  3. Downloadable demo executables for Mac/Win/Linux
  4. Generic Browser based demo

Since it’s been a while since I’ve generated demo builds, I’m sure some of my conditional compilation has rusted. I’ll try to get some demo builds out tomorrow if I can so we can catch any problems specific to the demo versions.

WE ARE SO CLOSE YOU GUYS!

Anthony’s made me promise never to announce a fixed release date without consulting with him first - so this is just a guess and nothing official - but I’m pretty sure we will ship in early August. If there’s any delays, that will probably come from dealing with the paperwork side of things with all of our distribution partners.