Update 0.4.20 is out now! It includes the Cryomancer perk tree, a lot of changes regarding quality of life, and even a few balance tweaks.
New Stuff
Cryomancy: Players can now specialize mercenaries in the cryomancy tree! It's based around blasting your foes with cold magic. Cryomancers can do decent damage, but they excel at crowd-control.
Cryomancer Gear: Players can now obtain cyromancer robes, hoods, and staves.
Cryomancy Affixes: Several new affixes can be found on equipment that boost cold damage, cryomancy skill, and reduce cryomancy spell costs.
Cryomancy Fatalities: Eliminate your enemies in style! Killing enemies with cryomancy magic results in ice-themed fatalities.
Missions: There are a few more missions for players to accept.
Enemies: Players can now encounter "Frost Samurai" in the world as well as "Hedge Cryomancers."
Quality of Life
Work continues on exposing some of the inner arcane workings of the game, particularly as it relates to tooltips and the Battle Log.
Ability Hover: Abilities now display average damage (or heal) of an ability against a target when hovering over a target with a selected ability.
Ability Tooltips: Tooltips now display the average damage of an attack (or heal.)
Ability Tooltips: Tooltips now display the actual fatigue costs of an ability.
Logging: Perks, traits, and abilities now log most of their activity in the "Battle Logger" to be found in the top-left corner of battles.
Changes
Gorkish Culture: Gorkish cultures will now bring wiener dogs into battle.
Party Compositions: Party generation has been tweaked. Basically, this means that you will now face off against parties with more-balanced compositions (expect both more healers and utility characters.)
Balance
With the recent refactoring of damage calculations, characters had higher damage output. A number of perks, abilities, and weapons have had their damage throttled while armor has generally also had a small boost.
Obliterate: The obliterate perk has been toned down to add less bonus damage.
Sword Tree: The sword perk tree has had many perks toned down to output less damage.
Weapons: Axes, swords, and hammers have had both their base damage and armor-ignoring damage toned down.
Staves: Staves now have even-more significant penalties to parrying and dodging.
Weens: Wiener dogs are now more fierce - they have some innate protection and resistance against damage.
Dire Weens: Dire Wiener dogs are now more savage - they have some innate protection and resistance against damage.
Dire Penguins: Dire penguins now have even more attitude - they have some innate protection and resistance against damage.
Fixes
Bugs: The second wind perk no longer harms a character when it heals a large portion of their health.
Everpixel Tactics Devlog 9
Everpixel Tactics Devlog 9
I have stated numerous times that I'd planned on adding the "Quest" feature out in the next major update for Everpixel Tactics. However, as I've been mulling over that feature, I began to realize that I have the order wrong. I was going to implement quests and then a feature I called "Dynamic Events." But I realized that was totally backwards - in order to realize Everpixel Tactic's quests in my vision, I'd need the "Dynamic Events" feature in place. Thus, the next major update for Everpixel Tactics will not include quests, but will instead include the dynamic events system (and, by extension, procedurally-generated world histories!)
So why "Dynamic Events"? Well, Everpixel Tactics is very much meant to be a brutal, tactical RPG. But it is also meant to be a story-generator in the vein of Dwarf Fortress or even Rimworld (but especially Dwarf Fortress.) Dynamic Events are the mechanism by which this will happen. In upcoming updates, players' worlds will not simply generate and then be static. Instead, players' worlds will have an entire history (forged by these dynamic events) which players will continue to shape via "Quests." The vision for the game has always been a challenging tactical RPG in which players will be able to enter a living, breathing, dynamic, and zany, world.
First, let's talk briefly discuss what quests are going to be in Everpixel Tactics before we move on to discussing how this system will be used to generate a world history.
Quests
Quests in Everpixel Tactics are intended to give players a goal; an "end-game" challenge. These quests will be dynamic in nature, and they will be linked to a world's unique history. This is all very much sounds like a high-level business pitch, so let's get a bit more specific.
Somewhere two or three weeks into a players' campaign, a world-changing event will occur. These will be things like an ancient necromancer awakening, demonic invasions, etc. - and these events will tie into a world's history. For example, that necromancer who awoke was actually a major historical figure who - when defeated by an intrepid band of pixelated heroes - went into a deep slumber. Quests will have a definitive goal - e.g., defeating the necromancer - but will be otherwise open-ended. They will be very challenging, too. Players will be free to attempt to "finish" the campaign by immediately diving into these quests, but the odds will be stacked against them.
To even the odds, players will be able to embark on a handful of "sub-quests" with the explicit goal of growing more powerful. Sub-quests will allow players to obtain powerful artifacts, recruit powerful allies, and even shape the very landscape around them. In each case, sub-quests will tie into a world's history. For example, players will be able to obtain incredibly-powerful swords forged in ancient times, or awaken titans not seen since the world's founding. All the while, players must contend with a world being shaped by their overarching quest. Again, in the case of the ancient necromancer, this means contending with hordes of roaming undead.
Of course, the rewards for the quests would seem anti-climatic if they weren't over-the-top powerful. And so it shall be. Take, for example, the artifacts that players can acquire while questing. These artifacts will have their own, unique histories and will be powerful enough to shape the world around them - to say nothing of how players might be able to build not only mercenaries but entire squads around them. Players might acquire swords that make the entire world grow colder, or holy crosses that dampen necromantic magic (a particularly useful ability when facing off against ancient necromancers...) They may even acquire flails that summon oodles of friendly slimes to aid you in battle. Such artifacts will undoubtedly even any odds a player might be up against.
World History
Let's circle back. Dynamic Events will be used to both generate a players' quests, but it will be the same system used to generate a player's world.
After a world has been seeded, that world's history will be generated via the Dynamic Events system. These events will be the obligatory fantasy tropes like wars, titans being killed, artifacts being forged, etc. But they will also have more exotic, emergent stories, too. For example, a titan (who happens to be a gigantic wiener dog) may have decided that cities are full of delicious morsels (i.e., people) and that ruling over a city means having a perpetual source of snacks. And so, he takes over the city and lords over it as a snack-eating tyrant.
These historical events may also - literally - leave a mark on the world. Magical regions may spring up where titans fall. These same regions may also be corrupted by salty characters with a chip on their shoulder. For example, a necromancer with something to prove might corrupt this same region with necromantic magic. They may even go so far as to raise this dead titan as a powerful (and deadly) zombie.
In any case, when it comes time for a player to embark on their quest, they will traverse a world shaped by these events. As a player's campaign progresses, the world will continue to change - with or without the player's inputs. Perhaps they recruit titans into their squad of mercenaries, or imbue their mercenaries with godhood. Or, perhaps, they even fail their quests and get killed along the way. Because losing is fun.
Everpixel Tactics Patch: 0.4.19
Everpixel Tactics Patch 0.4.19
Quality of Life
Enemy tooltips now show their current stats (health, stamina, etc.)
Logger now displays most perks and traits if they "proc"
Logger now displays more info about certain abilities (like slimes dissolving enemies.)
Logging has been modified to show how much damage was resisted
Logging has been modified to show how much damage was protected
Changes
Merchants now restock their inventories more-frequently, but replace fewer of their items.
Missions now re-generate in cities more quickly.
Damage calculations have been refactored. Generally, this means that characters deal more damage in battle.
Additions
Cryomancer gear can now be purchased - but there's no cryomancy perk tree (yet...)
Brigands can be caught rocking cryomancer gear - but there's no cryomancy perk tree (yet...)
Bug Fixes
Natural warrior no longer boosts the pertinent skills unless a character actually has the trait.
Fey Blood no longer boosts the pertinent skills unless a character actually has the trait.
Duelist perks are no longer double-counted for calculating duelist skill.
Bleeding damage is no longer protected by armor
Bleeding damage is no longer resisted by armor
Everpixel Tactics Patch: 0.4.18
Everpixel Tactics Patch 0.4.18
Quality of Life
Added a battle logger
Bug Fixes
Numerous typos in the character compendium.
Damage was being "double resisted" in many cases. Generally, players should see higher damage in battle.
Fixed a bug preventing a lot of combat dialogue from occurring. Players should now see a lot more dialogue in battle.
Weapon tooltips are now fixed.
Everpixel Tactics Devlog 8
Everpixel Tactics Devlog 8
It was a busy week. I'd hoped to finish up the Cryomancy tree and all associated equipment this weekend, but other priorities popped up. Namely, resolution issues. Instead of finishing up cryomancers this weekend, I added the ability for users to edit various display settings - but the game is much better off for having done so. I also both started - and mostly finished - the "character compendium" in the game.
Over the next week or two, I plan on finishing up the Cryomancy stuff. When that's done, I'll get working on adding more cultures, monsters, and missions to the game. And when all of that is done, I'm going to break ground on the "Quest" feature in the game. I'll cover quests in more detail in an upcoming devlog.
For now, let's take a look at the character compendium (already in the game) and the upcoming Cryomancy tree.
Character Compendium
Everpixel Tactics already has a LOT of enemies you can face off against. A fair amount of feedback thus far boils down to "things aren't always clear." Some of this is by design, but the criticisms are well-placed - I do need to provide better information and/or resources to the player. Enter the character compendium.
The compendium is a work-in-progress that details all of the enemies that a player can face in Everpixel Tactics. It also lists out any perks, traits, or abilities that those enemies may have as well as at what levels they'll have them. I also hope that it doubles as a source of inspiration for players thinking about how to build their own mercenaries. More than anything, though, it should help remove some of the mystery related to why certain enemies have certain capabilities. For example, slimes can - and will - dissolve corpses to grow in size. And when they grow large enough, they can devour your mercenaries whole. All of that information will be relayed in the character compendium.
Cryomancy
The next update will give players access to the Cryomancy tree. It will also include a slew of new Cryomancy-themed equipment. It will then be followed up shortly afterwards with a small update adding new cold-themed enemies to face off against.
The theme behind the Cryomancy tree is - of course - cold and ice magic. But it can't be just like Pyromancy, or Arcanomany. Cryomancy has to be different for it to be interesting. Nothing bugs me more in video games than when a spell or ability is simply an upgrade of another and that by acquiring it, you've deprecated the previous one. Similarly, it's always bugged me when different abilities are the "same-thing-but-with-different-skins." At the heart of Everpixel Tactics is the idea of experimenting with crazy builds - I hope that the Cryomancy tree sets itself apart enough that it encourages players to do just that.
As it is now, pyromancy is your standard all-out-damage magic tree. Biomancy is mostly a healing tree, Arcanomancy is a utility tree with some serious counter-magic capabilities, and Necromancy is a utility tree with the ability to inundate battlefields with meat shields.
Cryomancy will represent the first of several "crowd control" magic trees. Cryomancers will be able to do respectable damage, but it will be their ability to chill and even freeze opponents that sets them apart. One of their main weaknesses, however, will be that their spells have some lengthy cooldowns. Wise players will offset these weaknesses using the Mage, Sorcerer, or even Chronomancy perk trees (when implemented) to speed up these cooldowns.
Without further ado, let's break down each of the 8 perks of the Cryomancy perk tree.
Cryoform: (Aura) Toggle an aura that applies cold damage to enemies every turn with a chance to reduce their action points on their next turn.
Cryomancy_Mastery: (Passive) Cryomancy spells cost less fatigue to cast. Additionally, chill debuffs from this character last an additional turn.
Freeze: (Passive) Whenever this character deals cold damage, they have a chance to also stun targets.
Frostburn: Blast an enemy with cold damage and chill them. Has high amount of armor ignoring damage.
Frostfall: Blast an area with cold damage and chill all targets in the area.
Rimefrost: Chill a target and apply a debuff that causes them to recover less fatigue each turn.
Iceform: Buff a target to also deal cold damage during melee attacks. Enemies striking this character will also take cold damage with a chance to become chilled.
Soulchill: (Passive) Targets chilled by this character take additional damage from all sources.
Everpixel Tactics Patch: 0.4.16
Everpixel Tactics Patch 0.4.16
Quality of Life
Players can now change their own game resolutions via settings
Players can now change zoom settings in settings
Settings are now available on the main menu as well as in combat
A "Character Compendium" has been added to the campaign that lists all of the characters/enemies/creatures a player may come across - including ones that aren't implemented yet.
Additions
Mercenaries in your party should now explain the mechanics of special regions upon entering (provided you have other mercenaries in your party!)
Changes
The game no longer supports 16:10 resolutions by default.
The game only supports 1920x1080 by default - players can configure other resolutions...but be warned that it may create a warped ui.
Bug Fixes
Brigands should no longer spawn without weapons
Health sliders should no longer spaz out.
Everpixel Tactics Patch: 0.4.15
Everpixel Tactics Patch 0.4.15
Hotfix
16:10 aspect ratios were ACCIDENTALLY enabled, wreaking havoc on some players' games. 16:10 ratios have been disabled, and the game should load properly with 1920x1080 (or at the very least, 16:9.)
Everpixel Tactics Patch: 0.4.14
Everpixel Tactics Patch 0.4.14
Quality of Life
Players can now abandon their current mission at any time.
Changes
The dialogue boxes in combat have been resized to be smaller.
Added a warning box to the main screen of the game to set the mood.
Agent healthbars have been reworked and resized.
Balance
All varieties of slimes have higher difficulty scores (this means fewer slimes in missions and in the campaign.)
Early missions have lower difficulty scores (players shouldn't see as many 3-skull missions early on.)
Everpixel Tactics Patch: 0.4.12-2
Minor Content Patch: 0.4.12
Minor Content Patch 0.4.12
Additions
Bretons now rock crusaders in their parties.
Bretons now rock heavy paladins in their parties.
Changes
Breton parties now have slightly-different party compositions.
Fixes
Might tooltip now displays properly in the squad management view.
Mercenary backgrounds now render properly when hiring mercenaries.
Quality of Life
Arrows now displayed over mercenary portraits when they have experience or attribute points to allocate.
Tutorial now explains in greater depth how to perform abilities in combat.
