Heresy a Flare mod
Hello, early this year i decided to start my own flare mod. My main idea is to make it resemble Diablo 1/2 as much as possible, so i changed lots of game mechanics for that. The base is already in place, a similar stat system, different weapon classes with att times, range, etc...; i also added some unused content and lots of my own created content, more use of elemental damage/resistances, some ideas like summoning pets... and a heavier focus on brutal combat and loot variety (and blood, lots of blood).
One major change compared to Flare is going to be the character growth, the skill tree will be empty at the start and the player needs to search for masters (from guilds) that will unlock them after joining their profession. The guilds will be shown along the game progression, each will present different playstyles, unique skills and late game equipment.
There are 3 basic proffessions that will advance/specialize into others as the acts progress:
Soldier, basic melee warrior skills:
-Knight, oriented to defense
--Paladin, Healing and resistances
--Dark Knight, Leeching and debuffs
-Mercenary, Attk oriented, better loot drops, an all rounder
--Duelist, high dodge and mobility enhacing skills, some support magic skills
Archer, basic ranged skills
-Shooter, pure damage oriented, get the crossbows unique weapons
--Master Shooter, get the heavy crossbows and other ranged unique weapons
-Hunter, stealth/dodge, magic
--Ranger, animal summons and support spells (like slow)
--Assassin, high evasion and movility, short range weapons like throwing daggers and short swords (hybrid melee/ranged)
Magician, a mage apprentice
-Enchanter, pure damage oriented
--Elementalist, more destructive spells
-Warlock, attack and support spells
--Necromancer, summons undeads, poisons, leeching and debuffs
--Druid, summons monsters, turn into monters (melee/magic hybrid)
(Necromancer and druid are pet based builds, they will depend a lot on their summons)
Now on to the story, I dont know if it will be too wordy for the average Diablo player, i will adjust text quantity once i can get feedback after i release a "first act". It will have dark humour(or my attemps), adult themes and bad language (not a child friendly mod); Im a Terry pratchet and horror movies fan so it will show in here.
To resume it without spoiling too much, you are after some guys in a quest for revenge and it will get mixed with fantasy gods and Eldritch horrors.
I have a post on FreeGameDev full of spoilers for anyone interested.
https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14397&p=94459#p94459
I planned Acts in different biomes that will have a city or the like as a activity hub, with npcs for services and quest giving.
The total work is humongeous, im adding lots of new enemies and art to the game, so it will take time.
I would love to hear your suggestions and the like.
I'm guessing it isn't quite playable yet?
I like the idea of an initially blank skill tree + scattered skill trainers. Pre-planning my character build is cool, but exploration of growth is more fun IMO.
--Medicine StormI still need at least 5 more enemies that ill use for the first and second act (boar, wolf/boar goblin rider, goblin shaman and slime) and populate the powers and loot list. But the story is mostly there along with main level maps. Then lastly balancing hell, i think maybe in a couple of months the first act would be ready
Small update, added slimes
I wonder if anyone read this posts at all, but well, here i present to you a new whole cast of enemies:
- Goblin shamans and High shamans
- Boar and armored boar
- Goblin wolf rider, goblin boar rider and goblin boar knight
- Boar Goblin shaman and Boar Goblin High shaman
- Living guts (guts slime)
All of them animated and running on flare! Now i can go back to map making until i need a few minor horrors models for the act end.
Bruh.
--Medicine StormNice models! Don't get discouraged if there aren't a lot of replies.
There's a spelling mistake on the Boar Knight (it says Knigth).
Once again, great work!
Thanks guys!, ill correct that misspelling, i kind of confuse where H go from time to time in english.
Ok, so, i want to tackle item population of the game. I have a few that wont change in the whole game, money (duh) and potions:
Small health Potion - recovers 25% Hp
Health Potion - recovers 50% Hp
Big health Potion - recovers 75% Hp
Small mana Potion - recovers 25% Mp
Mana Potion - recovers 50% Mp
Big mana Potion - recovers 75% Mp
Elixir potion - Restore 50% of maximum HP and MP
Panacea potion - Cures all negative effects
Regeneration Potion - Restore some HP and MP over an extended time.
This ones are easy enough, the problem are loot items, Flare doesnt have a random item generator, which is a real pain since they must be created one by one and taking into account the point of the game where they appear. So for streamlining creation i thougth of this system:
Quality (lesser, normal, high, supreme) + Atributte + type (of the item: sword, amulet...): Ex:
Lesser warrior ring (small +Str)
Magician amulet (average +Int)
For items with mixed bonus ill use some cool names, ex, Crusader (+Str +Def), Bandit (+Agi, +Str)...; since ill also let enemies drop items higher than their level, to give the player something to look for on a future level up (and some utility to the stash), i plan asking for the 70% of the neccesary stat so the player can use it (ex: War-axe a Lv10 item, each lv up the player get 5 points (so 50 points for a pure Str char at lv10 ) , so its the 70% of 50 str points = 35 Str points requiered to use that axe) and 30% if a second stat is required (bows need Dex and Str) so for a Lv10 bow, the char needs 35 Dex and 15 Str. Rings will only have a Lv requeriment since they are intended to help raise needed stats.
Besides that, i think magic items should count a lv higher than they are(+1 if just one attribute, +2 for two extra attributes...), ex: Club-lv5 = 16 Str needed, Lesser warrior club-lv5 = 21 Str needed...
This is a bit complex but i trust will give the illusion of variety, and even so i fear it will fall short. What do you guys think?
Nice going! I am starting a similar effort, but have not begun to get my hands dirty yet. I started by slowly refining my concepts, classes, setting, etc. So right now all I have are tables and notes. I hope that I can reach the point where you are now. It sure is a lot of work, and making heads and tails out of the Flare files is a challenge. But I expect to see how it all fits together once (if?) I get down to it. And perhaps credit some of your assets ;)
Enough for an introduction. Your idea sounds manageable in complexity as the creation of items goes, and easy to follow while playing. But I share your fear. Such a method will run out of combinations quickly and you out of names even faster, for the level of variety that I understand you have in mind.
My suggestion would be for you to leave it at that, however, so as to not bog down your progress. It is, as I understand, fairly easy to add more items later.
When I was going through what the engine offered, and got to the items, my thought was that it would be possible to write a script to generate them. Not within the engine, just to automate the combining into a file for it. I may still get to share that, but don't wait for me, you are far too much ahead.
Hi NeverEnds!, I have to move from my ass already and share my new assests, i hope they are useful for you and more people, its not really FOSS if i dont release them, rigth?. I would really like to get my hands on a script like that, its been 10 years since i coded something so im beyond rusty on that aspect. If you finish that script please give me a shout, im just adding basic items for the time being.
Its actually scary how much work the entire thing is, but its not like i have a deadline or anything of the shorts, going slow is fine. As someone told me in another forum: You must try hard to get something playable that you like to play. Making games( for fun ) without the motivation to play this game is always bad. Best thing to keep you motivated is to play your own game and have fun doing it.
Lol, I was the one that said that, Danimal. It really is a lot of work to make your own game, even if the engine is already made, like Flare. Big companies, and even small companies, have a team of people, and everyone is focused on a specific task: some do code, some do art, some do marketing, etc. When you make your own game, you have to do all of these different tasks by yourself. The time you spend on art is time that you're not spending on marketing, the time you spend on marketing is time you're not spending on code, etc. So yeah, it's normal that things get slow.
Just a quick news, this is still alive. Currently im making all the items declarations on my spare time; its a real chore which is making me lag behind on the development, after that ill realease an alpha/beta of what i have of the first arc to get some feedback and bugs reports.
I have been slowly adding more equipment, icons, enemies... across this past year; so far the worst is having to tailor to 3 different game styles (melee/ranged/magic) and balancing difficulty, while maps and art-wise is more straighforward and fun to me.
So keep tuned, im slow but sure.