https://winter-wolves.itch.io/planet-stronghold-2 (scroll down to find the demo download)



What's New in 0.6.4

- Time Bomb now does AOE damage, also costs 2 PP (before was 0!)

- Shock now inflicts Energy damage (as it should!) and does fixed damage (minus target's Energy resistances)

- Strike Back now works

- Steal Life damage value are fixed (before was always -1 vs the right value)

- Fear Tactics now works

- made Barrage more powerful since has high cost and delay

- Drunk shot now works

- Jacob's image in the morale check was missing, now it's there



What's New in 0.6.3

- raise morale now should work on any ally

- fixed text on Harm (the relative damage is to CURRENT HP, and not TOTAL HP as erroneously stated). Also they now do little but fixed damage to bosses, ignoring their armor/defenses

- disarm skill now works

- difficulty setting now is correctly stored after character creation phase

- changed auto-equip to telling the player which slot is selected so it's more intuitive

- Time Bomb now works properly, and in addition to damage also reduces target's defenses

- tweaked Quick Reload that now becomes Quick Hands, beside reloading speed also gives a general speed increase to make the skill more useful overall

- raised Soot Strike damage a bit

- Weakness now works correctly but I reduced the values by 10. Since there are never going to be enemies with such high elemental resistances anyway (50 resistance was crazy)

- tweaked Steal Life, it uses current HP but has increased minimum damage values

- Drunk Shot is still broken, I'm thinking how to tweak it



I disabled purchases since I don't think makes sense for a game that is just a prototype for now (albeit quite advanced).

I'm aware of some issues, but I thought to get some early feedback anyway for anyone who wants to try the alpha version.

In this game equipment will be important - if you try to do the first battle with level 1 weapons/armors, you should lose. If you equip the appropriate level weapons, it should be doable in Normal level (maybe get a KO character , but still win the battle).

Made even a boss fight even if of course a Boragrub boss fight should still be easy enough



Any feedback is welcome. I didn't have time to test all the skills though most should work I think

I ran into this before I was able to start a battle.

Show Spoiler

[code]
I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
File "renpy/common/000statements.rpy", line 519, in execute_call_screen
store._return = renpy.call_screen(name, *args, **kwargs)
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1157, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1157, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1215, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1216, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1097, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1097, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1115, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1151, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 603, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 603, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 650, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 651, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 656, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 656, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 736, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 738, in execute
KeyError: u'islands'

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "game/test.rpyc", line 9, in script call
��$pؔE�J�V˖��m�:AK����E��V�c*��E�¿ռ$4X1��!�h`���˘zߒ�iZ�u�zҲ�U���m�b8bEgO���t `�)�t�/� O-��~Y�U����G=v�Vp,�PDcz������� �
File "game/script.rpyc", line 1648, in script
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\ast.py", line 1828, in execute
self.call("execute")
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\ast.py", line 1816, in call
return renpy.statements.call(method, parsed, *args, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\statements.py", line 177, in call
return method(parsed, *args, **kwargs)
File "renpy/common/000statements.rpy", line 519, in execute_call_screen
store._return = renpy.call_screen(name, *args, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\exports.py", line 2710, in call_screen
rv = renpy.ui.interact(mouse="screen", type="screen", roll_forward=roll_forward)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\ui.py", line 287, in interact
rv = renpy.game.interface.interact(roll_forward=roll_forward, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 2649, in interact
repeat, rv = self.interact_core(preloads=preloads, trans_pause=trans_pause, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 3033, in interact_core
root_widget.visit_all(lambda i : i.per_interact())
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 511, in visit_all
d.visit_all(callback)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 511, in visit_all
d.visit_all(callback)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 511, in visit_all
d.visit_all(callback)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\screen.py", line 424, in visit_all
callback(self)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 3033, in <lambda>
root_widget.visit_all(lambda i : i.per_interact())
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\screen.py", line 434, in per_interact
self.update()
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\screen.py", line 619, in update
self.screen.function(**self.scope)
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1157, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1157, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1215, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1216, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1097, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1097, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1115, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 1151, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 603, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 603, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 650, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 651, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 656, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 656, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 736, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_gui.rpy", line 738, in execute
File "<screen language>", line 738, in <module>
KeyError: u'islands'

Windows-8-6.2.9200
Ren'Py 7.0.0.196
0.6.0
Mon Jun 25 20:14:56 2018
[/code]

Game crashed during combat

Show Spoiler

[code]
I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
File "game/script.rpy", line 1536, in <module>
File "game/RPG framework/Core/enviroment.rpy", line 801, in getActions
File "game/RPG framework/Core/character.rpy", line 753, in getAction
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 309, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 309, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 311, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 337, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 338, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 346, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/Core/enviroment.rpy", line 715, in predictDamage
File "game/RPG framework/Core/skills.rpy", line 1918, in predict
File "game/RPG framework/Core/skills.rpy", line 1901, in damageSP
AttributeError: 'Boragrub1' object has no attribute 'sp'

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "game/test.rpyc", line 49, in script call
H��Y3"u��i!��b����Zf�H���|c��oH�����S��h�4B
File "game/script.rpyc", line 1524, in script
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\ast.py", line 862, in execute
renpy.python.py_exec_bytecode(self.code.bytecode, self.hide, store=self.store)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\python.py", line 1912, in py_exec_bytecode
exec bytecode in globals, locals
File "game/script.rpy", line 1536, in <module>
File "game/RPG framework/Core/enviroment.rpy", line 801, in getActions
File "game/RPG framework/Core/character.rpy", line 753, in getAction
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\exports.py", line 2710, in call_screen
rv = renpy.ui.interact(mouse="screen", type="screen", roll_forward=roll_forward)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\ui.py", line 287, in interact
rv = renpy.game.interface.interact(roll_forward=roll_forward, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 2649, in interact
repeat, rv = self.interact_core(preloads=preloads, trans_pause=trans_pause, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 3033, in interact_core
root_widget.visit_all(lambda i : i.per_interact())
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 511, in visit_all
d.visit_all(callback)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 511, in visit_all
d.visit_all(callback)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 511, in visit_all
d.visit_all(callback)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\screen.py", line 424, in visit_all
callback(self)
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\core.py", line 3033, in <lambda>
root_widget.visit_all(lambda i : i.per_interact())
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\screen.py", line 434, in per_interact
self.update()
File "C:\Users\AlphaRig\Downloads\planet-stronghold-2-demo\renpy\display\screen.py", line 619, in update
self.screen.function(**self.scope)
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 309, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 309, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 311, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 337, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 338, in execute
File "game/RPG framework/rpg_combat.rpy", line 346, in execute
File "<screen language>", line 346, in <module>
File "game/RPG framework/Core/enviroment.rpy", line 715, in predictDamage
File "game/RPG framework/Core/skills.rpy", line 1918, in predict
File "game/RPG framework/Core/skills.rpy", line 1901, in damageSP
AttributeError: 'Boragrub1' object has no attribute 'sp'

Windows-8-6.2.9200
Ren'Py 7.0.0.196
0.6.0
Mon Jun 25 21:46:05 2018
[/code]

Other notes:



1) Some status effects icons like Miles' Weakness work but the status effect icon isn't visible

2) Some lines of text are too long for the screen to handle

3) It would be nice if preview of skills are viewable at all levels rather than just the current and next level. It make it easier to plan your builds.

- For some reason Rumi's heal can only be used on herself, I am pretty sure that is a bug.

- Boos fight is too easy even in hard mode as all you need to do is use charm and he will be just a sitting target.

- Forth battle on the other hand (The one you fight against 6 enemies) is way too hard, even in easy I could at best kill two of them before losing. (If there was a way to revive party members , witch is what Rumi's heal is suppose to do there just might be some chance to win it, but this way, unless I am doing something terribly wrong, there is no chance to win that battle.)

- The skills on the left are a bit confusing, I can't really tell what's a difference between them, true I am amusing this will be properly explained in some tutorial in full game.



Other then that, seems like a fun system. Might play around with it, test other skills, etc. a bit more latter. Right now I am pissed of for getting killed by those 6 worms 10 times in a row

Haha thanks valuable feedback. First crash of Jaeger is some problem with one of the skills you pick for your protagonist but I haven't found yet which one sadly the error message is completely wrong (reports a wrong thing not related to it) so it's hard to know.

The other one is simply because I forgot to rename SP into PP in some place (the SP was used in the fantasy RPGs).

Lol at charming the boss, that of course shouldn't be possible!

About the other issues more or less was aware about them, like the healing only on Rumi (another mystery since I didn't set it that way).

The skills on the left are basically all the various firing options and change depending which weapon are you using. Of course I'll add a proper tutorial (probably I should do it now).

About this "It would be nice if preview of skills are viewable at all levels rather than just the current and next level." I am not sure how to implement it at GUI level, maybe I'll add some sort of button to see the full skilltree, even if for all skills each level adds more power in practice.

https://78.media.tumblr.com/332faca71f804472cd6f5f3919af69e9/tumblr_pax90mTH3k1qhts2bo1_1280.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

OK at least this thing was easy to do

- Disarm doesn't work, enemy still attacks next turn.

- Damien's time bomb can't be used, icon simply doesn't aspire even if you do have a skill.

- Auto equip doesen't seem to work.

- Regardless of witch difficulty you choose at beginning in options it will always be in normal mode in options at begging.

- Some Items/skills/statuses of monsters are ridiculously unbalanced, for example Good Flashing Asult Rifle will only ever do 1 damage to the six worms in 4th battle despite being lvl 4, refined normal medium armor will only ever take 1 damage from them, in boss battle all weapons ever seem to make only 1 damage while Milo's toxins on max lvl will make 26.

While the first time I stood no chance against those worms in battle 4 even on easy now I had no problem beating them in hard just because of different equipment/skills even true both times I equipped all lvl 3/4 items.

Thanks will check, but what you mean by auto equip doesn't seem to work? I use it all the time so that's strange !

Yes that 1 damage was the issue I was referring to in the development thread. The only solution if I want to keep the damage = attack - defense formula is to raise the HP a lot, so the weapons will always do more than 1 damage.

You used still the first version right? I did an update yesterday because indeed I found that in the random item generator I had too much "variation" for the values, so the same rare item could have either 5 or 10 damage, and +5 more damage makes a lot of difference.

When you click on some item above items says auto equip available items, but I don't see anywhere to click for auto equip, I tried just clicking on text but nothing happens and I don't see any button for it anywhere.

No, I used the second version, there's still differences in weapons like those:



https://preview.ibb.co/c7q9VT/screenshot0001.png" style="max-width:100%">

https://image.ibb.co/jJuTqT/screenshot0002.png" style="max-width:100%">



The first one will always do just 1 damage while the second one around 20-30, but in boos fight they both do just 1 damage.

The auto-equip works like my other RPGs In practice shows all the items that the character can equip in the selected slot. Then you click on one of the list and will show below (comparison, like SOTW etc). To equip there's the equip button in the place where you see the "unequip" one in your screenshots.



As for the different damage is because one is an assault rifle, the other is a sniper rifle: assault rifles can fire many times in a turn, while sniper fire just once and have long delay (speed 9 means is much slower than speed 40).



The main issue is that if the enemy had 0 defense it would work fine, like:

Sniper Rifle = 30 dmg but maybe enemies take 2 moves since character is slow

Assault Rifle = 9 dmg x 5 = 45 dmg (some misses due to low accuracy so in the end damage could be about same level as sniper rifle)



the problems appear when enemy have even only 8 defense, so each shot of assault rifle does 1 dmg (9 - 8 = 1) while the sniper still does damage (30-8= 22 dmg).

This is the main problem I'm facing now. While using the assault rifle it destroys the target's armor, something you can't do with sniper (each shot reduces Resilience of armor) it still looks bad for players to get 1 damage for 5 times in a row



So I need to find a way to solve this, which could be simply bump up the HP and lower the defense or even change the damage formula. Once I figure this out, the weapons values are fine I think.

Is there any particular reason the average non-boss enemy would ever have a defense value higher than the player's damage value? I'd expect shooting for 1 damage to only happen on an intentionally hard fight. Remember in PS1 mobs would die in about 2-4 hits on average.



It's okay to have a specific type of enemy with super high defense like those crystal people from PSCD or maybe the strong rock people I can't remember or specific warrior types, but that should be the exception. You'd want a variety of combat encounters to make sure all the classes can shine.



And if that means bump up enemy mob hp to compensate for lower defense, so be it.



(I can't actually try the prototype, says "no compatible downloads found".)

Is there any particular reason the average non-boss enemy would ever have a defense value higher than the player's damage value? I'd expect shooting for 1 damage to only happen on an intentionally hard fight. Remember in PS1 mobs would die in about 2-4 hits on average.

No, but in PS1 everything was fixed, so much easier for me to balance. No randomized weapons, no randomized enemies, etc.

But I am trying to do something like this even here, so that every level has certain values, and unless you equip items of very lower level (like level 1 against a level 4 enemy) you should always do more damage than the defense.

So I think it's just a matter of balancing it here, also I need to do checks for higher levels, and I'm adding XP boosts so people can try level 5 then level 10 and so on (to make sure the damage progression is OK).



As for the boss I screwed up something - you always do 1 damage no matter what. It's fun to read "30 weapon+skill - 8 defense = 1 damage"



I'll check about the download, I think I might have made it available only for Windows or something. I'm doing a new update today anyway with much better balancing (hopefully) and fixes!

After a morning of tweaking I think now the situation is much better! I used the method of giving more HP (both to party and enemies) and tweaked also the damage, accuracy, etc of many items. Version number is 0.6.2, I didn't fix any of the other bugs (except damage on boss enemy) since I wanted to get the damage right first

Now weapons seem a lot more balanced, but armor is way too strong. This is a result of 4th battle in hard mode without using any healing:



https://image.ibb.co/jPjxkT/screenshot0002.png" style="max-width:100%">



I barely take any damage from them.



There's still seems to be issue with Damien's time bomb and choice of difficulty level at start being ignored.



As for auto equip, that was my misunderstanding. When I saw "Auto equip" I thought there was a way for you to click on button and be automatically equipped with the best items available to you at a moment.

Yes the player armor is still too strong, I agree. Even if the boragrub are one of the weakest enemy for attack, it's still to strong. Also probably the Resilience is too high (basically if it's 10, enemies need to hit you 10 times to lower 1 defense point with normal attacks).

For the other issues, yes I hadn't time to fix the bugs you reported, I'll do it tomorrow thanks for testing, seems I'm moving closer to nicer/more balanced prototype.

As for auto equip, that was my misunderstanding. When I saw "Auto equip" I thought there was a way for you to click on button and be automatically equipped with the best items available to you at a moment.

That's my assumption based on how that feature works in other games too. The game itself decides what's "best" by looking at primary stats for the character (even if sometimes it doesn't pick the best secondary stats).

Yes the player armor is still too strong, I agree. Even if the boragrub are one of the weakest enemy for attack, it's still to strong. Also probably the Resilience is too high (basically if it's 10, enemies need to hit you 10 times to lower 1 defense point with normal attacks).

For the other issues, yes I hadn't time to fix the bugs you reported, I'll do it tomorrow thanks for testing, seems I'm moving closer to nicer/more balanced prototype.

Is there a way to make it a rating? Basically change Resilience to be a bigger number and divide that by 10 to determine how many attacks it takes to reduce defense. So 32 resilience takes 3 attacks (or 3.2 if you keep track of the decimal part) and 40 takes 4 attacks.



Main reason is because it sounds like Resilience needs to be a small number to be balanced, but small numbers tend to be the most imbalanced in terms of increased benefit. Going from 1 Resilience to 2 Resilience right now effectively doubles your defensive value, whereas the difference between 12 and 13 is much smaller due to diminishing returns. I worry it would make battles much harder to balance in the 1-3 Resilience range.

That's my assumption based on how that feature works in other games too. The game itself decides what's "best" by looking at primary stats for the character (even if sometimes it doesn't pick the best secondary stats).

I'll change the name then (I used it since Loren so that's 4 RPGs) Doing auto-equip of best item wouldn't probably work well (too hard to determine). Maybe I change it to auto-filter or something.



As for Resilience I could easily just have some fixed smaller values, like light 1, medium 2, heavy armor 3. Then based on rarity could increase by very small ranges like (1-2) so at maximum would be 5.

Higher than 5 probably it's too much since at higher levels you can have high armor values. Or I should change how it works, like the damage absorbed by the defense is subtracted from that value or something, like:

defense 10, resilience 15. enemy attack for 11, 1 dmg but resilience reduced by -10

I should do some tests to see how this system works though.

Some random opinions on various skills



- Raise Morale: Unfortunately this seems only work on self, instead any ally

- Time Bomb: As mentioned by DarkWolf, it doesn't work currently. Even if it did, I looks like it would need serious tweaking anyways, it may need need percentage-based damage so it can scale better. The higher tiers increase the number of turns required to detonate increases each turn, making it even less appealing.

- Quick Reload: This skills seems to have good synergy with Kill Them All. Otherwise, it seems to be of dubious worth, needing a high investment combined a weapon with an extremely low ammo capacity to take advantage of it.

- Drunk Shot: Maybe, I'm just having rotten luck, It seems like the Shots graze most of the time and once in a while hits the intended target for full damage. I never seen it hit a random target like the description says.

Toxins: The fixed damage is miniscule. However, it might still be worth it because it's DOT effect, and it's the only one available.

SootStrike: Again, the fixed damage may hurt in the long run.

Weakness: Is it me or it doesn't seem to work anywmore?

Harm: Can be good first attack to soften up foes with very high HP, but loses its value as the battle goes on. Too bad it's useless against bosses, where it may have been the most useful.

Finisher: Competes with Chain Shot to deal with nearly-dead enemies. Chain Shot seems better unless the enemy has too much HP remaining to be killed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgwkPSWXcAAvEEg.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

today I'm taking time to review all the reported bugs with skills and maybe tweak them like I just did with Harm. A skill that just doesn't work on bosses is bad design Now it's even useful, since for example against the boragrub boss, even doing 10 dmg only is not bad at all (of course I'll design the other bosses so it's less powerful/they can get around this).

I have also tweaked the values more so that armor aren't so powerful at higher levels, before a heavy armor could have 112 defense towards level 30 which was definitely too much, even if I'll scale the enemy damage, that was too crazy

I'll upload a new version probably tomorrow, I'm also keeping a changelog since even during this stage will be useful for me to keep track of what I changed (and for the few brave testers here )

If it was 10 damage, I would just stick with pistols since they don't cost PP and inflict almost as much damage. Considering soldiers and scouts can inflict at least twice as much damage on their turn, it would be better just save the PP for any healing or debuffing. Maybe instead of fixed damage, have Damage = Base damage + character level. Alternatively, you try reduced percentage for bosses (example: 20% for regular enemies 15% for bosses).



More feedback on skills

-Steal Life: It doesn't work as described. Life drained seems to be based on current HP rather than total. Despite the description, it still steal below the minimum HP. I think Heal is a better overall when it comes the psionic's role as a support class.

-Into the Fray: I'm not sure what's supposed to do. I haven't found any use for it yet

-Critical Hit: The description could use tweaking to indicate how much delay is reduced without pointing points and resetting.

- Drain Power: I could see it being useful at higher levels when enemies may have a higher HP pool. At the moment, it's pretty useless.