Greetings once again, Great and Mighty Netherlords!
We return to you at long last, with the first of several important updates on the development of Lords of Nether!
It has been some time, as we have been immensely busy behind the scenes. We have been working on a number of big features, while also making tweaks, adjustments and improvements to other things such as dungeon layouts, lighting and more, but more on those in the next update.
Today, we focus on the first of these features – Combat!
Developing our combat system has by far been the single biggest task we have undertaken in Lords of Nether. Combat is a very prominent and important part of LoN's gameplay, as you can naturally expect to be doing a great deal of fighting while conquering the world! We must therefore make sure that the experience is fun and engaging.
In addition to the regular challenges making a combat system for a real-time strategy game would present, Lords of Nether is at its heart a simulation game, where your orders are only a part of the equation when it comes to what your minions do in combat. As such, we are presented with a rather unique, but exciting challenge – how to make combat fun, with units autonomous enough for the player to feel like they are in control of (mostly) living, thinking creatures – a sort of loosely directed chaos! As no tried and tested solution for what we are doing exists, we have to design and build this entire mechanic and all its systems completely from the ground up.
So, here are the first steps we have taken in that direction!
1. Awareness
Knowledge, my Lord, is power! And the first step in acquiring knowledge of one's foe is by using one's senses! Therefore, your minions (as well as your enemies) are now equipped with several:
Vision – A cone-shaped field of vision that allows units to perceive each other. This vision can be blocked by certain obstacles, such as walls, making it possible for units to lose track of each other.
Sound – Units are equipped with a hearing radius in which they can perceive loud sounds, such as the chaos of combat or the heavy stomping of trolls and armored foes!
Proximity – Standing too close to a unit will alert them to your presence, in order to prevent units being caught entirely off guard, unless certain abilities are used to nullify this sense.
Harm – Any harm that befalls a unit, such as being bashed over the head or shot with an arrow, will send it into an alert state, making the general direction of its source known to that unit and those directly around them.
These systems combined give units the ability to detect and react to other units in a natural and realistic way. Units will try to find the source of the harm when they get hurt. If they cannot immediately see or hear their opponent, they will investigate the direction the attack came from, or the last known position of an enemy. Alternatively, a unit might hear the sound of combat from behind a door and try to investigate the source of the disturbance, etc.
2. Actions
When at last engaged in combat, the fun truly begins! Units now have the ability to perform a variety of actions. Gone are the days where we simply had goblins whacking each other with sharp implements! Well, they mostly still do that, they are goblins, after all, but now they have a greater variety of tricks up their sleeves!
Offensive Actions – These are actions that are negatively impactful to other units, from swinging a sword to casting a fireball at foes in the back lines. There is a variety of things that these will be able to accomplish aside from simply dealing damage, such as applying debuffs to enemies or disrupting their spells and attacks.
Defensive Actions – When not carried away in the throes of carnage, units may choose to defend themselves, be it by dodging out of the way of enemy attacks or blocking them entirely. If that is not enough, they may even choose to apply buffs and protections upon themselves or their allies.
Currently, Goblins in particular boast the ability to perform standard and heavy attacks, as well as a kick that may knock a lighter enemy back and disrupt their charged attack or ability. They can also attempt to dodge out of the way of incoming attacks to avoid them entirely, or they can attempt to block attacks if dodging is not a valid option. They can mix and match these actions, currently picking at random from their bag of tricks.
All of these actions are highly configurable within our editor, possessing many variables that can be edited and changed. This gives us the tools to create the many varied abilities and actions units can perform in combat, from melee strikes, blocks and dodges, to lightning bolts, curses and fire novas!
Most RTS games use random number variables to represent damage, but due to the variety of actions our units can take in combat we do not need to resort to that, and can instead use a preset damage adjusted by multipliers for specific attacks. This allows us to build a far more interesting combat system, which makes more sense in a slower-paced, simulation-heavy game like LoN.
This is the current state of our combat system. It must be noted that though we have shown units "fighting" before, there were no real systems behind it yet; it was a very simple approximation of combat, put together quickly to represent a rough idea in the game. What we've spent so much time doing now is building a truly intricate system that can and will tie into many others and be built up gradually as we continue to develop the game and add more content. This is the final form of our combat system, even if it's only in its foundational state.
This has been the largest project among the show-able work we have been doing for the past year, though yet more exciting additions to this mechanic are on the horizon:
Unit decisions in combat will be tied to information granted to them by our extensive influence maps, which indicate how dangerous or favorable locations on the battlefield are. Units can then use this information to make (mostly) smart decisions regarding where to go, who to attack and what abilities to use.
A Morale System that keeps track of how well you've been taking care of your minions, as well as the current state of a battle, will further inform the decisions of a unit and determine how they fight, or if they fight at all!
Our existing Force system, which can apply various levels of physical force to units, will be applied to combat. This will make it possible for units to be knocked around depending on their mass and the strength of the forces being applied. Blocks can currently be broken if the damage threshold is exceeded, but this will also lead to an increased level of force taken by the blocker, compared to what they would normally incur, as they attempt to take the attack head on. This may cause an opponent to be knocked back by an attack that would normally have staggered them, or knock them down where it would've knocked them back. With sufficient force, such as with fireballs, or a particularly heavy war-mace, some units may even be thrown into the air, only to once again meet the cold, dank floor bellow.
Spells and abilities such as Sneak or Invisibility will affect unit senses, and sound propagation will be reduced through obstacles such as walls and doors. This will create a more realistic sense of the environment and an incentive for players to build dungeons in ways that will alert their minions to enemies traipsing through your domain.
There will of course be much more, more than we can reasonably write here! But for now, we feel the foundation of our combat is finally good and we will continue to polish and improve it as we go forward!
That is all for now, my Dark Lords! We will return soon with a wider focus update on numerous smaller but nonetheless important and impactful features!
Thank you once again, from the bottom of our cold, dark hearts, for your continued interest and support! This project is made all the more rewarding with the continued involvement and excitement coming from you all!
Until next time, Netherlords!
Lords of Nether Dev-Stream #1
Greetings, Netherlords!
We are excited to announce that we have decided to do our first ever dev-stream for Lords of Nether on the 18th of December, at 4PM GMT! A bit of an impromptu and last minute decision brought on by our passionate Discord audience, but we are more than happy to begin this next step in engaging with you all more directly! Join us at the platform of your choice!
We will reveal concept art for a brand new playable Netherlord, previously kept a mystery! We will showcase the game as it stands currently and we will take questions from our wonderful, malevolent audience!
To participate in the QA round, we ask you to join our Discord channel via the link bellow and use the designated channel!
Discord Server - discord.io/lordsofnether
As we have had to do all this rather last minute, we have not had the time to figure out the setup for Steam Broadcasts, so we will not be broadcasting directly to Steam for this one. We do however intend to do so for the next Dev-Stream! We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
We look forward to seeing you there and sharing many dark daliances and secrets with you, Lord!
Dev Log #1
Greetings, aspiring Netherlords! Welcome to the first ever Steam development update for Lords of Nether!
We wanted to kick this whole thing off officially, as Lords of Nether's store page has now been live for a little over a month! And what a turnout it has been! We have been watching the wishlists flow in and we are absolutely humbled by the response we have received from you all! Thank you so much!
So, to start off, we would like to introduce the game more intricately and describe the pillars of it's design, to give you a better idea of what Lords of Nether is all about! So let's dive in, shall we?
Introduction
Lords of Nether first began many many years ago as the side hobby project of one young teenager, drawing little line-ups of characters for a game he dreamed he would get to one day make. Now, all these years later, that dream is fast becoming a reality, having become a project worked on by a small but incredible and dedicated team! We have all poured our love, dreams and passion into Lords of Nether and we look forward to the day when it is in your hands, as we envision it to be!
But just what is Lords of Nether? Well, as is likely obvious to many, the initial inspiration of the game began with Dungeon Keeper, those many years ago. A fascination with being a dark power, moldering in the dark, dank depths of the earth and amassing armies of evil creatures to soak the earth with the blood of goodly heroes. In the years since, many, but not -so- many games have come and gone who have shared the same inspiration, each attempting to do something different to one another. So from that initial seed that was Dungeon Keeper, sprouted a niche genre that we in the community have come to call Dungeon-Managers. This genre however, is a bit poorly defined, given the various entries that have come and gone.
To us, Lords of Nether is a hybrid of the traditional God-Game genre, which Dungeon-Managers are a subset of, as well as Real-Time Strategy. We have long since longed to have a greater degree of control over what goes on in games like this, be it greater level of customization while building your underground domain, or more intricate control of your units, to allow for cunning strategies and the ability to react to events during combat as they unfold.
So, to put it succinctly, Lords of Nether is a hybrid God-Game/RTS that leans more heavily on direct, rather than indirect control. It puts you into the role of a powerful dark entity, an ancient and nearly forgotten evil known as a Netherlord, one of four such beings, who seeks to return to the world and wrest control of it from the forces of Light. You will get to excavate and build intricate dungeons, more suited to your tastes and needs than ever before, as well as lead armies of varied creatures from folklore, myth and popular fantasy culture. From Goblins and Hags, to the very Living Dead and Demons brought forth from the Burning Hells themselves!
And just how do we aim to achieve this? Well, it is time to talk about...
Design Pillars
When it comes to the design of Lords of Nether, be it in Art or Mechanics, we have a set of core values and goals that we adhere to, that we classify as our Design Pillars. Whenever we are making a decision, we try to make sure that it in some way enriches or helps towards these aspirations without harming the rest of the principles of our design philosophy. These pillars are:
Classic Inspirations
Solid Artistic Vision
Strong Atmosphere
Immersion
The Villain Power-fantasy
Rich Story-telling
Simulation & Strategy Balance
High Replayability
High Player Agency and Creativity
Difficult but fair
Easy to pick up, hard to master
Lords of Nether draws inspirations from many classic sources, with the now legendary Dungeon Keeper series at their helm, as previously mentioned. Counted among these inspirations are things such as Diablo 2, Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Dungeons & Dragons, to name a few. This gives us many different sources to draw from and measure our work to, giving us measures of the intensity, mood, art quality and much more to strive toward.
Some of Lords of Nether's primary inspirations
The atmosphere defined early on for Lords of Nether is one grim, gothic and dark, however not one devoid of colour or contrast. We do not want a world that feels bleak, but one that is vibrant despite the general dank and oppressive atmosphere of a world on the edge of twilight. For this purpose we try to maintain a solid and unwavering artistic direction. While our initial intention was to present a grittier, grimier and more, for the lack of better words, blandly realistic world, this was largely a result of inexperience. This direction was used largely on placeholder assets that were meant to be replaced, which is much of what you have seen on our Steam Page, with much improved versions based on our current direction now starting to stream in!
A dark, yet fantastical world awaits, Lord!
We have worked to define the current and final artistic direction through the game as we found the prior one to not gel well with the RTS/Management format and to undercut the potential a classic fantasy setting like ours has. Where we find ourselves now is in a place of dark, fantastical, or stylized realism, where features, shapes and colors are emphasized to strengthen the visual language but never verge on cartoony or too over the top. Highly detailed models with realistic textures and materials are one way we want to ensure quality and maintain the realism of our work. Every element of our art, from concept through sculpt, texture, animation and all the way to music and sound are all made with the intention of evoking the nigh palpable and rich atmosphere we want in LoN.
Some examples of our new artistic direction
We place enormous value on our goal to create a highly immersive experience that will make the player truly feel like the Dark Lord, conquering and crushing your way through Antioch. We want Lords of Nether's campaign to have a rich story with many characters, twists and turns, set within a lore-rich world who's histories you can glean and explore as you go. While you are definitively the true villain of the story, the tapestry around you is painted in hues of moral grey, where the lines are sometimes blurred for other characters. Despots, arrogant or delusional individuals and those with a mentality of ends justifying the means, all shall come to fear you and suffer your wrath as you carve a bloody swath through Antioch.
In the more technical aspect of things, one of our primary goals is to allow you, the Player, a greater degree of control and expression in the game world, as mentioned. That has manifested in two primary ways – the ability to command your minions directly, allowing for complex strategy and more immediate reactions to events, as well as the capability to build in a much more personalized way, allowing you to design the spaces of your dungeon in a way that better fits your space availability, it's needs or the whims of your inner dungeon architect.
Commanding your units directly and building your dungeon intricately are key aspects of LoN!
It is key to our mechanical design philosophy that we try as much as possible to never force the player into completing challenges in the exact way we suggest or envision they could be completed. What we want to do is give you tools, a challenge and a suggestion on how to perform it, if even that after a time, and to let you figure out your way to impose your will and ensure your victory. From overall playstyles that may focus on different aspects of gameplay such as crushing enemies with your army, wearing them down with traps or spells etc., to the more minute aspects of how exactly you accomplish these goals, to even the decisions of what you build or what minions you draw into your service and what interactions they have with each other, all is meant to be a playground filled with toys for you to overcome whatever we put in front of you. We hope that this philosophy results in not only a much more memorable and individual experience, but also in high degrees of replayability, which we also want to foster by adding different game modes outside of the campaign, such as sandbox or survival challenges, multiplayer etc.
To sum things up, we are generally aiming to deliver Lords of Nether as a game that grabs and immerses you in a deep, rich and storied world, offers you difficulty and challenge and lets you run free with the tools at your disposal. We want a game that, as the old adage says, is easy to pick up but hard to master, as there will be many intricacies that may at first be missed and those more careful or discerning will likely conceive of strategies and methods that we have not even anticipated, but are gleefully excited to witness when the time comes!
It is our sincere hope and our constant aim to deliver exactly that! And we will continue to work tirelessly until that goal is delivered and beyond! We will continue updating you all as to the development of Lords of Nether, as well as revealing more about the internal workings and driving factors of the game!
Thank you for joining us on this first ever Steam Dev Log, we look forward to many more!
