Went through the tedious task of adding more effects to the boss’ attacks. Along with making sure she made some footsteps when doing certain actions. The trails aren’t exactly where I want them to be so I’ll fix that soon by adjusting the position of where the trails start. While testing the fight I found that the rain was adding to the difficulty because it made the screen so busy. I don’t want it to hinder the fight in any way so I decide to stop the rain once the player got inside the fight.
I learned a lot about how to improve the combat in the game. First off I reduced the size of the target image on the enemy when locked on. Its previous size was a bit distracting. I was able to defeat the boss but it is very difficult and that made me rethink a lot of things such as the player’s own progression with stats and such. The camera’s position when locked on made it hard to see the boss. So I added a bit more pitch to make it tilt a bit more. Now it is easier to see what the enemy is doing. This is important for dodging, parrying, etc. Since I changed the camera angle when locked on I had to change how the projectile fired from the player as well. Instead of firing from the rotation of the camera I did it from the capsule. It is better this way than how I previously had it.
The boss hits quite hard and in a flash the fight can be over quickly. I don’t want it to feel too unfair. I decided to start giving improvements to the player’s stats. This way it will be easier to adjust the player rather than each individual boss. Eventually I will figure out what are good stats for the bosses in NG+, but for now my focus is on the first playthrough. I already tracked the level the player has beaten so I used that to increase health and melee damage. The heal used to be a definite number but I changed it since the max health will change per level. For the heal I simply take the max health and divide it by 2.5. This seemed to be a fair number for the trouble of using that much Primelight.
Since the health changes I want the player to be able to see its progression. I kind of screwed myself by making the resource bar a circle. I wanted to see if I could show progression through making it thicker, but it didn’t look nice. I found that I could make the background of the life bar transparent so it isn’t clear where its maximum is. By dividing the health by a number that will decrease per level I can use that to show the progression of health. Sure it will max out when its fully a circle, but at that point it will be clear the player has a lot of health.
This is a great step forward that should help with making the player feel like they’re getting stronger. The powers help but even I myself as a player typically look for health and power increases.
I was fine getting sidetracked because I am mostly done with this boss. There are only a few things left for me to to do her. I want to update her model and add a bit more effects.
GoldenGratus Games 