In this poost I wanted to talk a little bit about the things players will be able to do on the website compared to in game, i.e. off-game actions.
Our dev is currently working on endpoints for our front-end dev to be able to fetch data whenever necessary to the website. We currently have this showing on our closed off beta page for further testing.
Basically, until there's an "open world" in our game, a lot of actions people will be doing in the beta will be through the website since the game itself will mainly be the battle scenario along with extracting crafting materials.
For instance, let's say you do a few wild creature encounters and your healers mana is completely drained. You're looking to use a mana potion for the next upcoming battle because you're most likely going to need mana to heal your creatures up. We want players to be able to do certain actions "off-game" as well and this will also benefit them as it won't cost them a "round" in the battle. The compromise is that if some of you think you can do without regeneration mana and want to take the risk to having your creatures faint, you can still attempt to battle at low mana and if push comes to shove you can then use mana potions in-game at a cost of a turn to prevent your creatures from fainting.
To give you an idea, every action in the game costs a turn. You can either command your creature to do a move which costs a turn and the enemy creature gets to do a move on your creature as well for that turn, or you can choose to have your healer use a heal, which in turn means your own creature will just be standing there taking a move from the opponent creature without being able to do anything itself since you spent this turn on casting a heal. Or you can choose to attempt to capture the enemy creature which also costs a turn and if you're unsuccessful means the enemy creature gets another "free" attack on your creature. You may also choose to attempt to flee from battle if things seem hopeless and you're not interested in capturing the creature or wanting your own creatures to faint. Lastly, you can also choose to use an item that can be used in battles, such as a mana potion. This however also costs you one turn, but not if you use it "off-battle", which gets us back to what we were talking about above.
By spending a mana potion "off-battle" there is no consequence to losing a turn and having your creature potentially take some damage which may require further healing.
[Artwork created with Sora]
Other actions you'll be able to do "off-battle" are:
Use Mana Elixir. Compared to Mana potions, elixirs won't give you mana instantly back, but rather may improve your stats for a short while, for example, increase your healer's mana regeneration rate for the next 24 hours.
Restore Creature Move points. Creature's will have move points for every move they know, for instance let's say a normal type move such as Tackle can have 16-32 move points (based on rarity), when a creature has spent all Tackle Move Points, it won't be able to use Tackle any longer and has to use other moves. If all moves have no move points, the creature will have to rely a desperate move it does where it takes a lot of recoil damage in exchange as this move is reckless. If you end up playing that one creature a lot on a given day and want to keep playing it longer, you may have to rely on restoring the creature's move points which can be done with creature food (found in alpha vials and can be crafted by professions).
Restore Healer Ability Points. Similar to creature moves, healers also have a limited amount of times they can use a certain ability until they have to wait for it to regenerate, even if they have enough mana to technically use that ability, they will have to rely on another ability for the time being or if all abilities are low on ability points they will similarly have to use items to restore them such as healer food.
Move Points and Ability Points can restore over time, mostly when healers and creatures are in a resting state (when player accounts have encounters set off for certain periods throughout the day).
Lastly, mana regeneration. We currently have mana regeneration to update every minute and our regeneration is called mana per minute (MPM). This means that every minute, your healers current mana will update, so the website has to fetch this data from the game when a player requests it, often by going to the inventory page where their healer is visible or hitting refresh on the website.
Keep in mind that Mana Regeneration can be improved through healer items and healer talents. If you're looking for a healer that regenerates mana quick so you can often have extra mana in battles without needing to rely on potions as much, you can focus on equipping items on your healer that have a lot of mana regeneration bonuses and specialize your healers talents into regeneration rather than bigger heals and critical heals. Naturally you'll also be able to change healer iems whenever you want in your inventory if you'd like to switch from creature encounters to do PvP next, although keep in mind that switching talent points may have a zing burn cost to it.
[Artwork by @julsdraws]
Now that we know the benefits to using mana potions off-battle, you may start to wonder what else one can do on the website.
Other than being able to scroll through your inventory of creatures and place them in your active party for the next battle, and switching which healer you're playing with right now among with what healer items they have equipped and using potions, elixirs and foods, you will also be able to use certain heals off-battle.
That's right, certain healer abilities will not be battle-only. Heals that are direct, i.e. all they do is heal your creature directly, no shields, no healing over round abilities, etc, can be used off-battle and won't cost you a turn. They will cost the same amount of mana and heal the same amount as in battle while saving you a turn compared to using them in-game.
This means that, in between every encounter, you will have time to prepare for the next one by healing up your creatures in your active party, making sure your healer regenerates its mana with a mana potion if needed and refresh your healers ability points and your creatures move points to enter every battle feeling fresh!
This definitely beats having to panic-use a potion in-game when you suddenly run out of mana and your creature needs a heal, but maybe some of you are tactical enough and use the right kind of strategy not to need to refresh your team's health and mana every battle and can let your healer regenerate on its own until the next encounter!
One thing remains clear, however, to make the most out of each encounter you will need to spend resources, especially if you're going for the difficult battles that give your creature the highest chance of increases its stats as much as it can upon level up. The cool thing about this however is that most resources that cost zing, will simply just burn zing, something that the whole game economy benefits from similar to when people burn Hive!
Another thing players will be able to do on the website is of course also take care of their professions, this however is a bit too early to talk about and would require its own post.
Until next time, thanks for reading!