Below, you'll find a short but insightful Q&A between one of our Guild Knights and myself. The conversation revolves around the following four main questions:
How does the switch to PvE work from the previous PvP version, especially regarding the technical challenges?
Will the game have difficulty levels?
How many hours of gameplay will the game provide?
What exactly will the RPG aspect of the game be? Will player decisions matter?
Community Member:
1) How would the PvE work? I was thinking that PvE would be very hard/challenging to build - an intelligent system to give a challenge to the players. I thought that in a way PvP is easier (apart from the matchmaking and other things). Like giving each card the ability and letting the players play (like building an online chess game without having PvE would be much easier than building a PvE chess engine). Again, I don't claim to know a lot about building game engines... just assumptions as a software engineer.
Developer:
Yes and no 🙈. Obviously, as you mentioned, having only players take control of characters/cards saves you from creating an enemy AI system. That system would have been much harder to implement in the previous version of the game, which was:
A lot more chess-like.
Had more characters on the board.
Featured more complex systems like troop strength and equipping during the game.
Allowed one action per card per round, leaving an insane number of options, sequences, and outcomes.
Now, with the new version, a lot of things have changed, making all of that easier. I already have a decent enemy AI, and once I figured out how I wanted to build it, or let's say how it should work, things became a lot easier than expected.
Community Member:
2) Would there be difficulty levels?
Developer:
Not overall, but within the challenges and battles of the campaign, there will be different difficulties. This connects back to the first point - my goal is for the AI systems to be very simple on a fundamental level.
The difficulty/challenge should be created through different factors:
Enemy behavior: Attacking the closest or weakest target, attacking based on aggro, attacking based on threat, etc.
Enemy types: Agile ranged units, mixed squads, resistances, immunities, etc.
Battlegrounds: Wide and open, narrow with lots of obstacles, etc.
Modes/winning conditions: Eliminate all enemies, protect a certain target, survive with all units, etc.
These points can be combined or interact with each other. So, in short, my goal is to create difficulty in terms of understanding the challenge and finding a solution - like a puzzle. Certain battles will be much easier if your squad consists of x, y, z units or/and if you play the battles in a certain way.
Expanding your collection plays an important role. It won't be possible to make all units equally viable; some will be used more than others, but this direction should create circumstances where each unit can shine - at least a few times - if used correctly.
Community Member:
3) How many hours of gameplay are planned, at least for the main campaign? With "Horde Mode," I think we will get infinite playtime?
Developer:
For the campaign, it is hard to tell at the moment, but based on the number of characters and locations, I would give the following rough estimates:
- Collecting all characters: around 50 hours.
- Leveling up all characters: probably the same.
- Finding all the loot or best gear: probably longer (not sure yet).
Yes, Horde-Mode means basically infinite playtime. But the campaign is also planned to be expanded with DLCs (more battles/battlegrounds, more characters, more enemies, more loot, and potentially even more maps and new races). We already created a rough concept of the west part of Lyboria years ago (including landscape, vegetation, and potential races).
Community Member:
4) Since the site says "RPG," would the choices of the players have significance later in the campaign (like what cards/races can be unlocked, or choosing between this-or-that card, etc., so that even the main campaign can be replayed and get different experiences)? But no matter what, I am way too excited for the release of the game!
Developer:
No, as probably clarified above, the idea is that you can collect all characters within the same play-through. It's an RPG because all characters can be leveled and equipped. When it comes to leveling up, things are still a bit undefined, but currently, the idea is that characters can be progressed in different ways. It probably won't change their overall archetype but should provide the possibility for different "sub-styles." Simply put, you get a certain number of points to increase the characters' stats and enhance their abilities. For example, you can either increase the damage of an already deadly unit or give it more durability by increasing its defense.
In terms of abilities, you could increase the damage of a power-strike or increase the knock-back chance. And yes, I think I will implement tools to reset the specs. It's somewhat comparable to Pokémon, where you can choose at certain levels which ability they should learn, but in exchange, you might have to get rid of another one. So, although the Pokémon are identical, they can be played a bit differently.
In terms of choices regarding the story - no, I don't think you can change the outcome. But you do have the choice of how to progress through the map and what you focus on first. The idea is that, similar to Oblivion or Skyrim, you will be introduced to the main plot, but instead of progressing said plot, you can also choose to focus on other things/side missions first.
The main plot will be about some sort of corruption (don't want to reveal more) is spreading across the map, leading to certain battles/battlegrounds popping up on the map. Similar to the concept of Oblivion gates, you can either start clearing those regions/fighting those battles and progress the plot, or first focus on "local" missions in each region.
Once the campaign is over, you can still do all the other stuff, i.e., grinding in certain regions to level up, get more reputation, or find special loot.
I hope that clarifies a lot of the future plans!
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If you haven't wishlisted the game on steam yet, you can do it now:
Thanks for the clarification! And also a great idea to post these Q/A stuff here so that everyone can review it later