0.48.4378 - Difficulty Levels

The biggest change: now we FINALLY have Difficulty Levels! Took me long enough to understand that the game is way too hard for a new player and this way most players won’t be able to get to interesting content without dumping hours to learn the combat :)

By default the game starts on “Normal” difficulty level, however, there is an Easy to make the game even [sic!] easier. In my tests the Easy level still provides some reasonable challenge, however, note that I personally test the game on Extreme difficulty much more often, which means this difficulty level is more balanced and “is the way the game is supposed to be played”. Overall my global idea was to have several “new game plus” - where the Player is recommended to increase the difficulty step-by-step. But of course everyone can play at their own pace :)

The difficulty level affects a lot of different parameters. First of all, monsters attack slower on lower difficulty levels, giving up to 25% more time to evade the counterattack. Also the total amount of monsters, patrols is decreased and the amount of items increased. The stats degrade not as quickly and struggling against restraints consumes less stamina.

You can change the difficulty settings in Options menu at any moment during the game. Of course some parameters (like the number of monsters on the level) will apply only to the next dungeon map.

Second big, but smaller change: After getting rescued the characters will be exhausted and will not be available for the next dungeon run. They need one day (one run) to recover.

Also there is now some dummy short story in the log about what is happening around when the run starts :) The log was a bad place to put it, but we don’t have a dialogue & cutscenes system yet, so I had to squeeze something meaningful into 6 short lines.

Another new addition: the monsters now show “how many hits will it take to kill it” - the number in the left-bottom. Note that it takes into account the current equipped weapon and overall character’s state (restraints, enchanted items, etc.) so it can change significantly when the situation changes. Don’t forget that the stealth attack deals 5x damage, so you can count that you can stealth-kill vegebeasts in one hit that have this number 5 and below.

And a lot of other smaller changes, including reducing damage to willpower in some situations.

Full changelog:

• Difficulty levels! The game is mostly tested on Extreme difficulty by me, but now (much) easier options are available
• After rescuing characters are exhausted and are not available for the next run for this day
• Short stories in log when characters enter the settlement (just a poorly done placeholder for now)
• Show “how many hits does this monster take to kill”
• Vacuum Cleaner and Mimic now also stop chasing the player character after some time
• Significantly reduce the number of guards at prisoners
• Increased disrobing willpower damage, but reduced stat degradation from it
• Reduce damage to willpower for walking naked by 50%
• Fix EndGame screen behavior - it was showing wrong character’s name also showing wrong log message
• Fix bug when walking barefoot or nude could incapacitate and capture the character
• Fix character suffering willpower damage after blacking out
• Fix gluebeetle’s projectiles behavior when multiple hit the player at once
• Fix gluebeetle interaction with sleeping target
• Fix some actions being performed even on pause (stealth attacks, wisps blinking, sometimes wardrobe malfunction happened without any movement, etc.)
• Fix grabber interaction with sleeping target
• Fix bug when sometimes the capture reason is logged several times
• Softer sound for stealing items in sleep
• Add missing sounds to some monsters attacks under some rare conditions
• Debug UI: Menu to go to a specific map level (replaces Next Map, Restart Map and Return Home)