Hero Tower Defense Thursday: Day 30 - HTD Pre-Alpha v0.010 Release! Water Skills, Healing, Buffs, and Changeable Native Skills!
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Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!
Go here to read Day 29 of Hero Tower Defense Thursday.
Ok, we're back with another HTD release! We ran into a few issues last week which is why there was no update. If things aren't ready then we don't release an update, we'd rather take our time to make them good instead of rushing things out.
So then, we've introduced some Water Skills. Since Water is the more defensive element you'll notice that these act a bit differently. For example the T1 Physical and Magical Water Skills still do damage like the Fire and Shadow skills but also give you a buff that increases either your Physical or Magical Defense respectively.
These buffs only last a few seconds but but they are easy to keep going since it is triggered every time you use the skill which has a lower cooldown than the buff duration. So essentially you can keep them up forever if you only use those skills. You'll only see the buff effect if it is a fresh buff. In other words if you aren't renewing the duration of a prior application of the buff then you won't see the effect. This is to prevent it from spamming.
You'll notice there aren't any buff icons to go with the buff themselves, these will be added soon. They just require another system that we don't have yet but it's high on the list. With the buff icons you'll be able to see which buffs/debuffs you have on each character.
We've made it so you can change the Native Skill of each hero. Go to the Skills Screen and click the Native Skill Icon (The big middle one) to toggle through the current (3) Native Elemental Skills. This is just temporary for testing purposes because in the actual game you won't be able to change this on a whim, you'll have to do something in order to change your Native Element.
The Water Native Skill is the first skill where the primary targets will be your own characters and not the enemies. This is because it is a healing spell which, like the other Natives, stacks up to 5. So since this would mainly be used on your own guys we had to make the heroes and the civilian target-able as well, which they weren't before. Also, we had to make the AI a bit better so as to heal your weakest guys first which helps a lot. The Heroes should also now prioritize their target selection to the lowest HP enemy within range for damage skills.
So now you get to play around with some defensive and utility skills and see how that'll work. As I've said before these Tier 1 skills are very basic because there is no plain generic attack to use. You will always be using a skill of some kind so the first skills had to fulfill that requirement for each elemental type. Light Skills are up next so expect to see those soon!
What's New:
-Added Water Skills
-Added Hair Customization Toggle Graphic
-Made Native Skills temporarily changeable (click the Native Skill icon in the Skills Screen to toggle through the current (3) Native Element Skills)
-Improved Sound Quality
-Added Character Name Plates (Changes to the names themselves still don't work yet though, we'll implement that soon)
-Dragging a character to any side of the screen now scrolls the map
-Added restrictions for how far you can scroll over the map
In the Works:
Design
Graphics
Programming
Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!
Let us know what you think in the comments and as always any feedback is welcome, thanks!
-Dan
Welcome to Hero Tower Defense Thursday!
HTD Logo
So then, we've introduced some Water Skills. Since Water is the more defensive element you'll notice that these act a bit differently. For example the T1 Physical and Magical Water Skills still do damage like the Fire and Shadow skills but also give you a buff that increases either your Physical or Magical Defense respectively.
These buffs only last a few seconds but but they are easy to keep going since it is triggered every time you use the skill which has a lower cooldown than the buff duration. So essentially you can keep them up forever if you only use those skills. You'll only see the buff effect if it is a fresh buff. In other words if you aren't renewing the duration of a prior application of the buff then you won't see the effect. This is to prevent it from spamming.
You'll notice there aren't any buff icons to go with the buff themselves, these will be added soon. They just require another system that we don't have yet but it's high on the list. With the buff icons you'll be able to see which buffs/debuffs you have on each character.
We've made it so you can change the Native Skill of each hero. Go to the Skills Screen and click the Native Skill Icon (The big middle one) to toggle through the current (3) Native Elemental Skills. This is just temporary for testing purposes because in the actual game you won't be able to change this on a whim, you'll have to do something in order to change your Native Element.
The Water Native Skill is the first skill where the primary targets will be your own characters and not the enemies. This is because it is a healing spell which, like the other Natives, stacks up to 5. So since this would mainly be used on your own guys we had to make the heroes and the civilian target-able as well, which they weren't before. Also, we had to make the AI a bit better so as to heal your weakest guys first which helps a lot. The Heroes should also now prioritize their target selection to the lowest HP enemy within range for damage skills.
So now you get to play around with some defensive and utility skills and see how that'll work. As I've said before these Tier 1 skills are very basic because there is no plain generic attack to use. You will always be using a skill of some kind so the first skills had to fulfill that requirement for each elemental type. Light Skills are up next so expect to see those soon!
What's New:
-Added Water Skills
-Added Hair Customization Toggle Graphic
-Made Native Skills temporarily changeable (click the Native Skill icon in the Skills Screen to toggle through the current (3) Native Element Skills)
-Improved Sound Quality
-Added Character Name Plates (Changes to the names themselves still don't work yet though, we'll implement that soon)
-Dragging a character to any side of the screen now scrolls the map
-Added restrictions for how far you can scroll over the map
In the Works:
- Hero Stats and Points (50%)
- Story: Intro (20%)
- Story: Intro Scene 1 (0%)
- Class Skills: Tier 1 (50%)
- User/Profiles Screen Graphics (75%)
- Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)
- Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (10%)
- Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (10%)
- Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (10%)
- Weapons: Hammer and Swords (100%)
- Buff/Debuff Icon System (100%)
- Inventory System (0%)
- Saving Character Names (100%)
Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!
Let us know what you think in the comments and as always any feedback is welcome, thanks!
-Dan
Green Numbers!
ReplyDeleteSecond! :P -Water's Great Guardian
ReplyDelete2nd??
ReplyDeletefinally we've a healing skill!!! woah, these update is a great one; heroes are pretty stronger than in past updates cause of these native-healing skill. Anyway... these little dragons have a dirty play; they shoot further than you, so they can attack you while they're out of your range!!! pesky-little dragons, i would like to skin them
Yeah, that's actually a bug I think because sometimes they are within range but the heroes don't attack them for some reason. We'll look into it, thanks!
DeleteLight skills should lower accuracy and have stunning effects.
ReplyDeleteIndeed! You'll see effects similar to those on them.
Deletejust a quick note that when you start the battle, the names of the characters overlap.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be making it smaller next release probably.
Deleteif u use a skill and click on a character u kill them............
ReplyDeleteHaha, yeah, that's because they only have 100 health and you do more damage than that especially with the charges. It's not really balanced right now, we're just using placeholder numbers for the most part.
DeleteI killed all my team mates with skills.
ReplyDeleteThat's mean :P
DeleteTotal Lee Aww Some.
ReplyDeleteCan you add a "delete saved data" option?
ReplyDeleteThere will likely be a profile screen where you can have multiple profiles and then create and delete them there.
DeleteI WANT PETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PLSSS
ReplyDeleteLol. A pet dragon... That would be awesome!!
DeletePet Dragon would be the best pet EVER!!!!!
Delete-Bjf
We're working on it :D
DeleteHey Dan,
ReplyDeleteCan you add a menu button so you can go back and customize your character? Also can you a default settings button so you can have you characters back to the default settings?
-Bjf
A Menu button certainly, we'll be adding that soon. As for the Default button, this is just a temporary set up for testing. When we get more of the core mechanics in place you'll have to spend points and pick the skills like an RPG so a default option would end up going to waste.
DeleteThank You! :)
DeleteAlso I agree with you that the Default Button would be a waste now that you explained.
-Bjf
I has Question... Will there be a level cap like PTD?
ReplyDeleteYes, it can get really hard to balance things without one. If there wasn't a level cap the amount of experience required to level up would eventually create a level cap on it's own because it'd increase by a multiple of some kind every level.
DeleteEnjoying the water skills. Keep on with the greatness!
ReplyDeleteExcellent, we'll do our best! :)
DeleteFound bug! if you use the water blast on your own character. they kill them self instantly!
ReplyDeleteThat's actually intentional because some skills will have advantages and disadvantages to them. So sometimes you'll want to use them on your heroes and other times on the enemies. Right now the skills do a lot of damage compared to your health so that's why you can one-shot yourself lol. We'll be balancing this as we go so don't worry!
Delete