Hey everyone! Today the backer mini-update will be coming out, the timing will be pretty tight but it’ll definitely be worth it! So while NoMoshing works on finishing up the new quest (backers should keep their eyes out in the towns, there might be something different in this release) we thought that I should share what additions of mine you’ll be seeing in this new update!
The only big addition that we could get done this time around is a new ‘Gift Memory’ system as I like to call it! Basically all gift-able characters (so not Eulania or any brain-washed slaves) will now display something else in their followers menu, a ‘Likes’ and ‘Dislikes’ addition where when you give them a gift they like (currently +3 affection) or one they dislike (+0 affection) it’ll get added to the menu to help those of you with a bad memory! Characters who were in the dungeon (but not brain-washed) will also be unique in that they’ll have two ‘Likes’ and a third category of ‘Ineffective’, the second ‘Like’ and the ‘Ineffective’ refer to the dungeon actions, so completionists should keep that in mind! Until you’ve given the character these gifts and/or tortures though the menu will show ?’s for all areas that apply to that character. In addition, this information will exist independent of your save files! So when you start a new game you won’t have to worry about finding out all their likes and dislikes all over again! However in order to accomplish this, the information will be stored in a new file called “Misc_Data.rvdata2”, while we know that some users have trouble with transferring over files like these we felt it was appropriate to store this data independent of both the save files and the scene replay data. We’ll also be making use of this file in the future for some other information like achievements when they get redone, so make sure that you transfer your “Misc_Data” file along with your “replay” file and save files when you go from one version to the next!
Next on the list of changes is going to be something that a LOT of you have been displeased about, Improved Assault has been fixed! Now instead of costing 25 momentum and giving the entire party 10 momentum (net of 15), it instead costs 15 momentum and gives everyone EXCEPT Hero 10 momentum! Now if you don’t see the difference, the thing is a lot of people thought that Improved Assault was a downgrade since you had to initially build up 25 momentum to use it, which is very difficult in most minion battles, so they preferred staying with the normal assault, this change allows Improved Assault to still effectively be the same skill without needing the extra build up!
Next up, ‘Random Healing’. See before skills like Shining Strike (where Therese attacks then heals a random person) would always heal a random target, however thanks to yours truly, all random target healing skills are set to heal whoever has the lowest current HP (based on the number, not the percent). Now there was deliberation on how it would choose it’s target, but we ultimately went with this mainly because it’s the easiest for players to notice and plan around. There’s even some strategic benefits, such as if everyone is fully healed but you want Therese to heal someone who will be hurt before she attacks this allows her to auto-target them if they take significant damage. While there are certainly downsides to this, players should remember that you can always use healing skills or items that you can choose the target of instead! Though in the course of developing this feature I noticed that enemies were very dumb with their healing, they would ALWAYS target the last enemy in the party no matter what. Well, now they’ll also heal whoever has the lowest current HP with their heals, whether you like this change or not, we felt that it was only fair that enemies not be stupid with their heals if we gave players the same functionality.
Finally, in terms of new features that I added, I fixed the ‘last target’ feature. During some unity force skills (like Therese’s X-slash) the character who used the skill would attack, then Hero follows it up with an attack of his own, the problem is that because of how RPG Maker is he would always target HIS last target, not the last target of the party (who Therese, Elaiya, Bronwyn, etc. attacked), which COULD lead to him attacking someone else which wouldn’t make sense (though given the momentum cost for unity force, rather unlikely except in battles with multiple boss-class enemies). Beyond that, most of what I’ve done is work with NoMoshing to fix a LOOOT of bugs, there are still bugs in the game mind you but we took a large chunk out of them.
So yeah, for you backers out there keep your eyes peeled for the mini-update coming out later, and for the rest of you I hope hearing all that gets you a bit more excited for the public release in January!