Hello there folks, two days ago I completed the Making of Knight Estate series. I was thinking about discussing the features of the game and starting a new deep-dive series about it, but that will come later.
Today, I'll be letting you guys in on what I've been working on as I prepare a new update for Knight Estate. As we speak, the game still has a small player base, but this has remained a blessing in disguise for me. There’s usually something that needs fixing that gets past me but can easily be detected when many people try different things in the game.
In today’s blog, I’ll specifically be talking about the tournament section of the game. As one of the two main combat simulations in the game, I honestly did it an injustice by making it too simple to begin with. I attribute that to the fact that I was too worried about the animations. To be honest, I unnecessarily made the animations too labor intensive for something that could have been done in-engine. See, I wasn’t very good at Godot when I was putting together the infrastructure for the game. I describe it like that because I was basically placing graphic assets in the scenes first and doing the complex code later. Now that I know a thing or two, I almost feel like pinching my own ear, because there was no need to draw hundreds of frames just because I wanted them in different colors. All that was needed was just modulating them in the engine. But that’s too late, and the animations will be staying that way for a bit.
A game like Knight Estate was always going to have a gazillion moving parts, characters, buildings, wars, titles, health, and other things that almost made me lose my mind trying to piece together and organize them to run like the gears in a Swiss watch. Those features that were more, let’s say, central to the game had to be prioritized. Features like tournaments and map work had to take the backseat. Months later, I’m now doing a lot to cover what I didn’t do for those, because many players prioritize them, and they are essential to making the game fun when the player is not doing conquest-related activities.
Initially, the tournament was very basic. Whoever had more strength would win the round, and there was a small chance of a fluke that would make the weaker one win based on the skill difference between the two. So, the bigger the gap in strength, the higher the chance of accidents happening. My concept was that the more skilled both fighters are, the fewer flukes would happen. If you take your time and look at the math in this, you’ll realize how broken it was going to be. If both fighters had high strength, then fewer flukes would occur, and the higher-rated one would win almost every time. Yet, the fluke feature was supposed to be a slight chance for a weaker opponent to win. So, this method had to go immediately.
Not only was the winner calculation broken, but there was also a stamina mechanic I had implemented, but I’ve already gotten rid of it. If you thought the fluke mechanic was broken, you’ve got to hear about this one. See, the stamina bar was supposed to hold the player’s health intact for a bit, but after it was depleted, the health bar would start taking the damage. In hindsight, this feature was not necessarily terrible, but I did not unlock its full potential. Once the stamina bar was depleted, health would start taking heavy damage, and a player could die in one round, even if they had over 60 health. This needed a huge overhaul.
In a previous update, I fixed the issues with health depletion, fixed the winner determiner, and added a mechanic that allowed your squire to give you a health boost. This helped a bit, but it was like duct tape, it was only going to hold for a while.
In the coming update, I have decided to focus on specialization when working on each feature. I spent more than seven days with Godot open, the PC stayed on, and the tournament scene was the only open tab in the engine. The only time I switched screens was when I was working on art.
I found some major issues in the code. They were haunting me like ghosts. Some of the code was from last year when I was still figuring out Godot, and I started by cleaning that up. I then put in place better methods for deciding a round winner and added what I’ll call "disruptors" that would prevent the opponent from being overpowered even if they have 100 strength and you have 50.
I added boosts for the player, which will be another good use for the gold earned in the game. These boosts will be a great investment if used correctly. I won’t mention each of them here, but for instance, the pointed lance has a 70 percent chance of landing a critical hit on an enemy of any strength level. This can be used for a maximum of four rounds, allowing the player to be tactical.
I also allowed the player to choose the number of rounds for the tournament. Combined with a prize value feature I added, this allows the player to earn more per round. The more rounds they fight, the more they can earn from every tourney. This one is somewhat experimental, but I will gauge its performance based on player feedback.
Last but not least, players can say goodbye to randomly generated tournament opponents. I have now added champions to the game, each with a unique fighting style. This allows the player to pick their boosters based on the opponent's style. For instance, if going against a striking expert, you are better off picking two health boosts and two damage boosts. The striking expert can quickly eradicate your health bar if you let them, but you can use damage boosts to get some revenge. I also added a feature that allows the opponent to trash talk you, though that one has no real effect on gameplay.
That’s it for today folks, thanks for reading and see you in the next one.