The first book of Runelight is finally ready!
It's one of the four main books in the world, dedicated to the art of war: combat skills, combinations, and building chains of abilities for each weapon type.
The military camp itself is hidden deep in the darkness, and reaching it won't be easy. Players will have to fight their way through dozens of creatures of the dark just to get there.
The first version will include:
- 10 passive pages that can affect weapon skills and even interact with each other.
- 5 combat maneuvers.
- 5 modifier pages (more experience from attacks, reduced weapon durability loss, and so on).
- 5 active skills for each weapon type (5 for one-handed swords, 5 for two-handed swords, etc.).
The first tests were a complete disaster.
The sheer number of possible combinations in the skill builder was way beyond anything I had prepared for.
What started as a simple idea to make combat less resource-intensive through the book has turned into something much bigger, deeper, and more interesting than I expected.
Each page has its own set of arrows that determine where its effect flows within the book. This creates some really interesting possibilities when putting together different builds, even with a limited number of available pages.
I also realized that clearing a dungeon doesn't actually take that long, at least when we're talking about the first floor of any dungeon.
Tactical decisions have become much more interesting and unpredictable. But there's a funny side effect: now that I want to do everything at once during combat, I'm really starting to feel how limited my character's stamina is.
And, to be honest, I'm too lazy to cook food just to increase it.
Still, even with those limitations, combat feels much more active, dynamic, and alive than before.
What was supposed to be a relatively small improvement to combat has somehow turned into an entire system of its own. And I'm really enjoying where it's going!
