0.74.0.0 (@Experimental Branch)

Summary

This patch is a smaller one, as development time was limited over the holidays and due to illness — thanks for your patience!

The main focus has been expanding AI behavior for units and buildings. This required improving the underlying ability and unit logic to support it properly. Thankfully, the systems are modular, so they can grow without adding unnecessary complexity — but it was still a fairly extensive addition, as you might have noticed :P. Alongside that, there are various balance tweaks, updates to the new fire spells, a few additional equipment pieces, and general fixes and adjustments.

After this patch, development will slow down a bit as I need to shift more focus toward work outside the game. That said, I still strongly believe in this project. Every hour invested moves it closer to 1.0, and I’ll continue developing it in my spare time. The goal remains the same: bring the game to a polished, balanced 1.0 release and out of Early Access.

Game mechanics

• CosmeticBoss is back in business again/Now with two abilities and not just a dull auto-attacking heap of flesh.

Content

• Reworked Firebolt:

  • Added New talent: Firebolt - Infuse

    • I thought it would be nice to be able to keep the “core-style” of the ability (e.g. classic firebolt or fireball), e.g. if you felt duped when getting the timebomb when you liked Fireball.

  • And Timebomb is now on the right side instead after Fireball - if I wanted it balanced, it would have to be very low damage(every affected target will deal damage to everyone next to them).

  • CosmeticEverkindle is no longer piercing/got too strong.

• Reworked Meteor MagmaCore - it will also now use up all your mana to boost its damage & Area size - I thought it matches its theme much better - The wizard consumes all of his mana to summon the largest possible meteor - It gets pretty insane though if you try to get the highest possible max mana - but what the heck, it is fun! (Maybe need a little balancing as well :P)

• Added two new equipment - these ones are a bit special compared to most other bland +basic stats - So they probably need some heavy lifting with balancing, but I think it is worth it - the game is made to be fun & experiment with weird builds, not have a perfect 1:1 balanced game.

  • CosmeticI know one of them is harsh/but it is added to make more unique playstyles - if so by little this time.

Quality of Life

• I didn’t notice that the “bug-handling” - gui window was not popping up when encountering an error, so I saw I had accidentally disabled it, so now it is on again, now with the option to let the player risk keep on playing, or try save and then quit.

• Casttime abilities like meteor will now cancel if you let go of its ability (e.g. hold to cast) - The idea is that your are the “character”, which is focusing on casting it

  • Also added a game-setting to toggle this off (to get click once for cast-time abilities, like most MMO games have) - I thought it felt more “immersive”, but I also think it can become irritating / boring, thus the setting was added.

• Quickbar overlay (the teal/cyan filter) opacity is reduced 80% -> 50% - I wanted to be able to be even more able to see which ability is behind it.

• If you reach / are Max-level,