Mechanics Overhaul Update (Patreon)

This week, on the SoC writing team.

Sup, Rein here, with a Paradox style Dev Diary. I’ve decided to take a moment and shed some light on what I’ve been working on in my spare time and recently have focused on entirely – the SoC skill rework.

As it stands now, Rowan has 5 attributes, 19 different skills, on-level feats and 10 equipment slots. As you probably realize, most of that is not used all that often. To a degree, that’s because the design work on how it all should work was never finalized. But this also because the game evolved since its initial conception, from a free roam RPG to a Visual Novel with greater structure. More emphasis was put on character development and plot progression, and less on character and castle management. So the game moved forward, while the skill system lagged behind, growing increasingly disjointed from everything else.

Well, not for much longer.

Over the last 13 months, since April 2018, I’ve been working on overhauling the entirety of it. I went through 8 different skill system drafts, testing and theorycrafting various solutions, and ping-ponging ideas with the rest of the team. I’ve been trying to come up with a system that would build up from what we already have, adequately accommodate for our existing and future needs, and won’t be weighted down by mechanics that are difficult to implement and don’t really add much to the gameplay.

For the most part, the internal discussion often ended up with someone asking: “Do we REALLY need this?”

Do we REALLY need different armor types?

Do we REALLY need different weapon types?

Do we REALLY need attributes? Perks? Nineteen different skills?

And the answer was usually a meek “Not really?”

Of course, one can make a VN without bothering with skills at all, but that was out of question. For all the frustration the system was bringing us, we wanted it to exist in some capacity. We wanted Rowan to evolve through the course of the game, grow stronger from both doing the twins bidding and fighting his secret war against them. We wanted to have the Nemesis system, and that was impossible without a working skill system.

So in the end, I embarked on a quest: Trim all the fat from the skill system - leave only the essentials, and use 100% of them. Have less of everything, but make everything we have MATTER.

The first thing that went out of the window was swappable equipment, for two reasons: It added a layer of micromanagement that really didn't add much to the game itself, and because no matter what items Rowan would use, his sprite would always show him wearing the same clothes and using the same sword anyway. So what few items will remain in the game, will behave as static bonuses that apply automatically. Cliohna got you a cool ring from completing her side quest? Boom, you now always wear it. Simple, and effective.

The second thing that went out of the window were level up perks, which, for the time being, simply doubled as +skills/attributes. In the future, when we flesh out some of the game’s other mechanics, level up perks might be reintroduced into the game. For the time being, there’s simply no need for them.

The third thing that went out of the window was the majority of the skills/attributes, and the distinction between the two. There simply was not enough gameplay in the game to justify having that many of them, separated into two groups to boot.

And so, once that was decided, utilizing trial and error, intuition and some really wonky math, I’ve started cutting and merging skills and attributes, until I’ve narrowed the system down to 8 universal skills:

• Combat Prowess – Handles all the combat checks.  
• Brawn – Handles most physical checks, and physical intimidation.  
• Agility – Handles dexterity checks, reflexes, might also handle speed checks.  
• Stealth – moving silently and hiding.  
• Perception – Listening and spotting. Might find occasional use in conversations.
• Deception – Both verbal bluffs and combat feints, sometimes sleight of hand. 
• Diplomacy – Persuasion, composure, and verbal coercion.  
• Wilderness Survival – First aid, archery, everything  concerning outdoors survival.  
  
  

(You might notice the lack of more traditional rogue skills, like Open Locks and Disarm Device. For these, we went through Rowan’s backstory again, and decided it doesn’t really make much sense for him to have them in the first place, as he’s not a rogue by trade. So we simply cut them. But I digress - back to the topic at hand.)

So, now that we had, more or less, a good idea of what skills we wanted in the game, the next step was bending all of the past events to fit the current philosophy.

And so, for the last 2 months, I have been going through. Every. Single. Bloody. Event in the game, changing skills checks and adjusting descriptions. I have thus far checked 48 Rosaria Exploration events, 54 Rosaria Resource events, and 80 Castle Ruler events. By my estimates, I’m 60% done with the rework, with only Orciad and Helayna Escape Investigation remaining as the two big blocks that need to be dissected.

Of course, not every event required changing. But I have also used the rework to expand on some of the less developed events that I felt did not give the player the freedom of choice I expect from SoC. Many events now sport additional responses and dialogue options, depending on skills levels, past Rosaria actions and whether or not Rowan has access to spies. Usually it’s just a paragraph or two, but some events, like the forest “Necromancer Lair”, have doubled in size.

https://i.imgur.com/WDovUM8.png

The other big chain that had a lot of work done on it was the Helayna’s escape arc, which has been cleaned up and expanded. The whole chain now checks every skill possible, though depending on your choices, you will only see some of them.

The investigation arc will likely receive similar treatment, so all branches hold up to a similar standard. But that’s next week, along with Orciad.

So the big question is: once I am done with checking and adjusting everything, what remains to be done, and when the rework will go live?

Well, there is still some design work to be done, in particular on:

- Wounds, and how to prevent the death spiral that comes with them.
- Level ups, and making sure they’re sparse, but meaningful.
- Guilt impact on skills, and how to prevent putting the player in unwinnable states.

In general, I have ideas on all of these (I’ll discuss them at length in further Dev Diaries later on), so it shouldn’t take that long. But of course, the primary issue is - I am a writer, not a programmer. I will try to have everything on my part wrapped up by the end of the next month, but once that is finished, it will take some time to code all of this into the game in one, big update. So I can’t give you a precise ETA on the rework, but I can say real progress is being made, as seen above.

That’s all from me for now. As always, thank you for your continued support. We will continue to work hard to make SoC rise to your expectations.