Hey yall! I'm back after nearly a month of procrastination , exams and an unhealthy amount of hours into Expedition 33! Hurray! Anyways, I reworked Pythia's character, expanded chapter 1, did some balance changes, and a couple other things.  Wordcount has gone from 48k to about 63.5k. You can look at the whole devlog at the bottom (Progress/Bugs and fixes/Balance changes). But most importantly, whats next!

The Future:

Upcoming features

• Chapter 2 progress. (Obviously.)

• Romance list: I keep saying I'll do this, and never get to it. Next version, trust me!
• Companion/Party System: Essentially, you'll be able to hire/befriend allies who can fight with you, acting on your turn. Each will have a different class, being Front Liners where they mostly tank damage,  Mid Liners where they mostly deal damage, and Back Liners where they mostly do support actions. Each will have their own skillset and fighting style.
• Companion list: Like the romance list, except for combat info on the avaiable companions.
• Story type (Narrative/Balanced/Combat) : Narrative mode will bypass all combats for the story enthousiastes, Balance is like the game is right now, and Combat will have less forgiving combat, and remove the respawn mechanic. Once you die, it's over.
• Inventory/Equipment/Items: Pretty self-explanatory. You'll be able to find different swords, armors, rings, and all the fun stuff with passive or active effects to mix and match. Items will just be consumables, so healing potions and the like. I'm aiming to add another layer of combat with this.
• Combat AI types: Currently, the enemies just randomly select combat actions (The soldiers, Pythia). I've started to shift to more of a hybrid verision where at a base the action choices are random, but are supplemented with conditional statements styling the enemy into a particualr fighting style (Aldrich). In the future, as the enemies get stronger, so will their combat AI.
• Combos/Mix-ups/Fake-outs: Piggy-backing off the point right above, enemies will begin comboing attacks, so essentially take the same stream of 3 or 4 attacks in a row that synergise into one another. Mix-ups are when the enemy randomly swaps out an attack in a combo string for a other, and Fake-outs will be where the enemy just straight-up lies to you about what attack they're preparing. So the flavour text will present it as if they're parrying, when they're actually going for a cleave. There will be clues something isn't right, however, so stay on your toes.

Potential features

• Utility Theory: As the enemies become more complex and more features are added (not just as I implement them, but as the game progresses), simple hybrid combat AI wont cut it. So, I’ve begun to experiment with Utility Theory and its feasibility in a choicescript environment. With the limited data manipulation options, it’ll certainly be a challenge, but so far it looks possible. So get ready for some challenging bosses that don’t just go around randomly bashing bushes. Who cares if I have to create 16 thousand variables because choicescript doesn't have god-damn dictionaries or classes, WE WANT SMART ENEMIES!
  • Good link if you're interested: https://shaggydev.com/2023/04/19/utility-ai/
  • If you or someone you know has accomplished something like this or has an idea how to, please get into contact with me.

• Damage types: Different spells will maybe have different damage types if I feel like implementing that.
• Weaknesses/Resistances/Immunities: Arm and arm with damage types, different enemies will have different resistances or weaknesses, for you to find and exploit. Maybe. I feel like it.

Devlog:

Progress

• Proposed prologue is now part of main game
• Added expanded section introducing the npc’s and serving as a transition from the prologue to the present day
• Added a combat tutorial with a system meant to introduce and guide the player to the spell system later on. The opponent will, in character, show the player how to read and react to combat.
• Introduced a parrying mechanic. This will be permanently implemented as a game feature later on.
• Added new rank of Accuracy/Evasion: Very High. Odds of hitting are now as low as 5% or as high as 95%.

Bugs and fixes

• Corrected scattered spelling mistakes. Good lord, there were so many. I don’t know how y’all managed to read this properly.
• Removed the instance where Pythia just kinda kills the player before the ritual. In retrospect, what a weird addition.
• Felt the paperwork thing with Amb was kinda out of pocket, so changed that to a reading passion.
• Reworked some spell wording to make it more understandable 
  • Aspect of Astaroth: “deal an initial 4 damage” → “to inflict 4 poison”
  • Umbral Slip: “take no damage from the next attack.” → “this attack, if any.”
  • Errant Whispers: “Target enemy misses their next attack.” → “Target enemy misses their attack. This spell remains in effect until they attack.”
• Sanguine barrage now properly scales with half your missing health, instead of all of it.
• Abyssal Shackle no longer mistakenly only cost 6 mana during the Pythia fight.
• Night’s Embrace now takes into account any modifying effects before removing mana, instead of removing it directly.
• Patched a bug allowing the player to enter and exit stats to reroll enemy stance during combat.
• Conditions consolidated into global counters. (Ex. Aspect of Astaroth and Entropy Surge Poison now stack and count towards Poison.)
• Converted reused temp variables into permanent variables.
• Converted permanent variables only used once into temp variables.
• Converted repeated blocks of text into gosub functions.

Balance changes

• Luminary Guard health pool increased from 25 → 35.
• Evade armor now scales with full intrigue, but caps at 80%.
• Evade now grants Very High evasion instead of High.

• Aspect of Astaroth now inflicts 5 poison counters instead of 4.
• Aspect of Belial deals 3-6 damage instead of 3-5.
• Abyssal Shackles now stuns targets for 1-2 instead of 1-3 and costs 12 mana instead of 9.
• Night’s Embrace now stuns for 2 turns instead of 3.
• Phantom Edge accuracy is now High instead of Medium.
• Errant Whispers now costs 6 mana instead of 4.
• Chaotic Surge now deals between -3 to 6 damage instead of -2 to 4 and costs 4 mana instead of 2.
• Twist of Malice now deals 4-8 damage instead of 4-6 and costs 5 mana instead of 3.