Combat Tactics: Revisited and Revised (Patreon)

Hail Voyagers,

              Today we bring you a special update centered around encounters and battle strategies. Specifically, the re-balancing of combat attributes in order to make them less obtuse and more immersively streamlined. 

TL;DR Range of skills have been readjusted, on top of revalued cost and damage.

Following is a detailed breakdown of the newly inducted changes and presentation of the upcoming additions to it. Lets start with:-

Skills: Range, Cost and Damage

Skills had their range, cost and damage revamped extensively. To make these changes easier to grasp, we've also overhauled the way information for each skill is displayed in the description, making it easier to grasp the important info, at a quick glance. Players will now also be able to gauge how strong a skill is based on the "Power" value in the description (Shortened to POW: X.) X will have the power level of said skill to make it easier to see which skill deals more damage. Let us show you an example with the skill "Burst Fire"

Caly entering battle with default stats:

Player selecting Blaster and then switching to Burst Fire Mode:

The interface will now reactively indicate beforehand the stat and resource changes that will take place once the player goes through with their decision. 

Additionally, the UI will also grey out skills that are unavailable due to the absence of requirements. For example:

"Gatling Burst" here requires 20 Action Points, 20 Energy and 1 Ammo pack to fire. Unfortunately, the player does not clear 2 out 3 of these requirements as they only have 4 Action Points and 10 Energy. They must either choose another skill or pass the turn entirely to regain the resources to try unleashing Gatling Burst again.

Talking of skills and tactics, stripping your enemy's armor now stacks till the end of the encounter! Using the skill "Strip Armor", Caly can slowly chip away at the enemy's armor inflicting 10% armor loss with each strike. Essentially, if you are tactical and patient enough with your approach, you can render a challenging foe defenseless, thereby making short work of them even with the basic of attacks. Beware though, not to loose sight of your surroundings and get tunnel visioned into a disaster.

Separately, the skill "Rest" has been reworked from the ground up as well. While its Energy recovery value has been nerfed to just five, it does however now also recover your HP by a % of the remaining AP. Following is the calculation formula:

Caly's Max HP * 0.2 * Caly's leftover AP/100 [BODMAS priority order]

To put it in example, if Caly's max HP is 1000 and then she uses "Rest" while her AP stands at 70, HP recovery would be calculated as:

1000 * 0.2 * 70/100

1000 * 0.2 * 0.7 = 140 HP recovered.

Imagine, a weaker Trauma Kit but it never runs out. Keep in mind however, that the "Rest" skill has a cost of 10 AP itself so make sure you only use it when you can spare it.

As aforementioned already, the amount of energy a player gets from "Rest" has been been capped to five. This was done to discourage passive play of spamming "Rest" and then try to melt foes by using an advance skill. Passivity aside, there is also only so much space to move around and every tile Caly treads to create distance, costs her ever increasing AP making for some very irritating play experience. Instead, we'd like to encourage players to try a more brawling approach and gain energy while either receiving damage or/and by using the skill "Hand to Hand" combat. Do not be reckless, but also do not forget that the best defence is a good offence.

PS: We received many queries on why a player should use "End Turn" if they can always use "Rest" instead which is clearly superior for its buff? Fair point indeed! In response, we have tweaked "Rest" so that after each use, it goes under cool-down for three turns**. Player will have to now strategize when to use and gain the most out this skill. No spamming ten "Rest" heals just cause you have the AP for it! Speaking of AP..

** This is not player turns, but the green marker on the timeline has to pass 3 times.

Action Points 

Action Points or AP is a combat balancing system that walls advance skills by making them only available when a certain value threshold is met. However, as it currently works, all AP, no matter the usage, is lost the moment your fire your weapon. With the new change however, shooting will no longer consume all your remaining AP anymore. 

             Bottom Right: AP being retained and reused post shooting

The player will now be able to use as many tactics and PSI skills as they want during the turn AS LONG as they have enough AP left to cast them. That means, dependent on the circumstances, a player can buff, heal, rearm, use items etc. multiple times before ending the turn. Keep in mind however, having AP will not bypass the cool-down system! If certain skills are recharging, they'll not be available no matter how many action points you have. Understand the limitations and work around them to wreak havoc on Caly’s foes!

Additionally, the leftover AP now also governs how fast Caly's next turn will come. Take another look at the GIF above. Note in particular the timeline bar where you will see two Caly faces. One clear and one transparent, both indicating Caly's present turn and the next turn order respectively. You'll notice that the moment we used the skill that dropped AP below 50, the transparent head jumped position. This facet of the AP system is heavily jointed into the weight parameter, so think ahead of what play-style you want. A fast and agile assassin or slow but brute juggernaut. 

To counter balance these changes to AP, we’re making positioning more important than ever. Once you attack, you'll no longer be able to move. Make sure you’re satisfied with your position and advantage of the new skill ranges, before taking aim!

Speed Of the Encounter

Next up is the combat speed itself, where not much has changed in terms of what is obviously visible to the eye. We have however, adjusted the speed of the timeline, so turns will pass very slightly slower to balance the changes in the weight system. Beware though, the more heavily armed you're the more encumbered Caly will be and there are things that need to be dodged in time..

.. otherwise.

These changes have all been made with the goal to not only make combat faster-paced but also to encourage players to not be armed to the teeth all the time. Be mindful and consider a balanced approach to avoid eating avoidable damage. 

Tripteen and the Bots Within

From the various feedback that we gathered, the enemies in Tripteen felt off. Sometimes they were too strong and then other times, too weak. To fix that, we decided to redo them completely.

From a seasoned player's POV, they'll prove to be a new kind of challenge now. Depending on where you stand, when you end your turn and the speed of the combatants, things might turn dicey really fast.

Their behavior has become more unpredictably advanced, but as a trade-off, they have forgone spamming "combo moves" in favor of tactical independence, so getting defeated after two combos is very unlikely now. However, charging skills now behave slightly differently, so you had better watch out!

                                   That's a lot of damage...

Re-adjustments: Items, Weapons, Armors and more.

Finally, several changes have been made to weapons, armor, classes, hit rate, state, battle speed, and the weight system as well. For example, the Blaster now has a normal shot that will not consume any energy. 

We aren't going to bore you with in-depth details about each of them, but in short:

• Equipment weights, modification effect delays, item requirement etc. will govern performance in combat.

• The player hit rate system has been overhauled, with the hit value alone no longer the only decisive factor in landing attacks. Recoil and Skill play a vital part too now and have to be taken into account as well. Player's chance to hit enemies is now more reliable compared to the old system with player having greater control over the dependencies.
• Various weapon ranges too have been adjusted, so the weapon modifications you attach will become more noticeably impactful on use. Customize to your heart’s content, and find your favorite style! 
• The weapon's characteristics also have changed, to make sure they are used in the way they are intended and to create more reasons to use different kinds of weapons.

        Planning on using sniper like a shotgun in melee? Nope, ranged targets only! 

• The player and enemy weight have now been synchronized! No longer will enemies stomp on Caly's face multiple times like overcharged Duracell bunnies while player await their turn, anchored down due to the weight of the gear. Professional baddies have fair standards too!

And that is the end of that wall of update text. Apologies for the long read, but it isn't everyday, or for that matter every month, that you do major overhauls like these so, we just wanted to get it out all there in one systematic and detailed push. Before we leave though, we have one more special announcement.

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Come 3rd of October, we're "planning" to release the next patch for VoidBound. Dubbed as the technical foundation patch internally, this update will bring with it the new aforementioned combat system changes, a few freshly minted H-Scenes and more! As usual we'll be following the same performa offering it to our supporters first followed by a formal public launch. Details to follow as more unfolds.

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Thank you for reading and take care o/

Kind Regards,

Cursed-Atelier Team