Progress Log #5

I'm Running Out of Things to Put Here

         After taking a break, I'm back to working on this project. Over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten enough done to make another one of these logs, so let's go over it.

         A ton of bugs from the last build have been fixed. Object clipping, camera issues, hardware detonation, etc. Fixing those issues was my top priority following the demo's release, and luckily none of their fixes were too difficult.

         Even though it wasn't directly causing any unintended behaviour, I decided to scrap the mechanic of jumping on enemies to stun them. Not only was it incredibly powerful against enemies near walls, but it was also very easy to trigger by accident. After considering it for a while, I decided that it didn't add anything of value to the game and that it would be best to get rid of it. 

         The stomp-stunning was originally sort of a bandage fix to not knowing how to deal with enemy/player collisions, but I now have an entirely new entity collision system that fixes all the issues I had before. Entities won't collide with each other at all anymore, but they can still apply forces to one another when they are on the ground. Enemies can pass each other, but they will never stand directly behind the other ones. And even though you can't collide with enemies anymore, you still won't be able to pass them on the ground, since they apply a stronger force to you than you do to them.

          I may not have mentioned this before, but the last released build had a system in place to prevent players from spamming the same attack over and over. If you hit an enemy with the same attack twice in one second, the second hit will apply much less knockback. Then, if you swung the same swing a third time within a second of the last time, the hit applies essentially no knockback. There were a couple of issues with this. Firstly, one second was not nearly long enough to prevent the spamming of certain moves (cough the downward jab). Second, there was a bug that allowed you to exploit the knockback reduction with none other than that exact same downward jab. The move was so fast that the knockback reduction actually helped you combo with it, and this could essentially be done infinitely. This is now fixed, and recoil of the jab had to be increased dramatically in that process. However, it is still a very fast move, and should serve it's (intended) purpose well.

         Natural health regeneration was a terrible idea. It's gone. No further questions.

          The last thing I'll talk about in this log will be the plans for the next enemy. Gnomes will be another relatively standard grounded enemy with a few quirks that make them stand out from the kobolds. They will generally try to stay at a long range and shoot their crossbows at the player. However, when players get close, they also have a trowel that they can use to defend themselves in melee combat. With it being a trowel though, I wouldn't worry about taking too much damage from it.

Get Gnomed.

I'm Running Out of Things to Put Here Too...

         Aaaaaand that's all for now. The next build is coming along very fast and very smoothly, so I'm expecting to be done with it in the next couple of weeks. I'll give more details as more gets done, so come tune in next week for more of this nonsense. Seeya!