Update 0.22

Things are on track for a Friday release this week, for real this time! This update is just a big old list of tweaks, tuning and polishing. I feel like I'm starting to zero in on a state of balance that I'm happy with for the Web-Release and so many of these changes are becoming increasingly specific. As a basic overview:

A BIT HARDER
The previous update made the overall game significantly easier. This update is nudging the game back 'a little harder'. While I want the base game to remain accessible to new players and be a fairly casual experience for veterans, there is a point where the game becomes so unchallenging that many of the fundamental mechanics and tactics are no longer necessary. Obviously I really want to avoid this. 

The rule I'm trying to follow is that: if the player is familiar with and takes advantage of all of the games mechanics and tactics then the base game should be fairly easy. The game should not be so easy that the player doesn't need to learn the mechanics and tactics.

DO YOUR JOB!
I'm doing a lot of fine tuning of enemy stats and abilities. The main thing I'm focusing on is really trying to get each enemy to very obviously 'do' whatever it is that is supposed to make it challenging and unique. Overall HP and damage has being reduced across the board and so enemies are no longer quite as challenging in terms of just raw stats. Rather I'm trying to push their unique abilities or defenses to be much more impactful and noticeable so that every enemy poses some kind of obvious unique challenge.

PLAYER BALANCE:

• Tier-1 Spells 3MP => 4MP
  • Game is easy enough without this change and it messes up the balance between the higher MP talents. I also generally don't want to encourage builds that just endlessly spam basic abilities which 3MP per spell really reinforces.
• When fire ignites and spreads across poison gas the damage of the poison cloud will be added to the damage of the fire.
• Vanish only makes you invisible at Rank-2
• Shield-Block-2 Block: 30% => 40%
• The merchant will sell tomes more often.
• Crystal Chests will drop tomes more often
• Life-Spike Heal 50% => 30%
  • Life-Spike is just such an absurdly powerful ability that tends to greatly reduce the need to use any other healing resource in the game. It also has a massive range, can be stacked and with a bit of AP can be used to take down even the largest threats. All of this is fine but the fact that at 50% it can be used to essentially face tank most enemies is a problem imo and thus the reason for this nerf.
  • From my own testing its still totally possible to face tank stuff but I think this has moved it from the realm of 'Over Powered' to just 'really really good'.
• Burst-of-Wind Damage: 8,8 => 6,6
• Shock-1 has a simple 4 spread limit while Shock-2 has no limit
  • Just a matter of simplifying the ability a bit.
• Disengage DMG 4,8 => 2,2
• Lunge DMG 6,12 => 4,4
• Dash-Attack DMG: 12,18 => 6,6
  • I hadn't actually played Duelist in awhile and so I'm not sure why these numbers were left so absurdly high. 
  • Even with the reduced numbers, a bit of Ability-Power had most of these abilities dealing 30+ damage.
  • The Duelists abilities absolutely do not need to have massive damage output to be absurdly powerful.
  • The Rank-2 doesn't even need a boost to damage since the SP and CD reset mechanic is also so powerful.
  • Overall, from my testing, the duelist is still incredibly powerful after these changes but feels more like the light agile fighter he's supposed to be rather than 1-shotting enemies with 50+DMG abilities usable pretty much every turn.

ITEM BALANCE:

• Increased cost of attribute equipment by 20GP.
  • No matter what Tier they supposedly drop in, attributes are just so damn powerful and something like Gloves-of-Strength should not cost 40GP
• Bomb DMG: 36 => 24 (same as chakram)
• Wand-of-Fire DMG 8 => 6
• Wand-of-Fire Range 7 => 6
• Wand-of-Lightning Range: 7 => 6
• Reduced level of Fire-Wisps and Souls: 6 => 4
• Souls will no longer regenerate HP and so you can't really keep them for long.
  • Regeneration made sense when this was a Necro spell that could be used to add to your undead army. As a consumable that can drop right at the start of the game, not so much.
• Enchanting a 5 Charge 'wand' will only raise its charges to 6 and then 7.

USER INTERFACE:

• Show encumbrance on the merchant screen.
• Sprint and Jump targeting will default to max range in the direction of the cursor unless the player actually specifically targets a valid tile. This just makes it easier to quickly use.
• Game will automatically start with the UI displaying SP or MP based on starting class.

MONSTER BALANCE:

• Reverted NPC max DMG back to the previous value (higher). 
  • Again I think this change went to far when combined with all the other ways the game has become easier. I'd rather the enemies be easier because they have less HP rather than because they are just not all that dangerous.
• Corrupted-Ent Damage: MED => MHIGH
• Corrupted-Ent Summon CD: 3 => 2
• Ice-Berg now has Bear-Hug
• Berserkers are fast again
• Berserks HP: MLOW => MED
• Goblin Summoner CD: 8 => 5
• Dry Bone Skeleton HP: MLOW => MED (why was this low???)
• Vampire-Bat and Rat-Piper have more HP
• Clockwork-Pyro has a Flaming-Cloud-Bolt (how did he not have this before???)
• Bombombers are now fast
• Bombombers Damage: 24 => 36
• Bombombers only explode on a single tile (like homing fire orbs) to prevent them from blowing each other up.
• Enemies will only go berserk when within 4 tiles of the player (they often waste a turn at max distance otherwise).
• Summon-Totem range: inf => 6
  • Previously there was no actual limit besides being on a 'visible' tile. Trying to avoid having them summon the thing way in the back where the player has no chance of destroying it.
• Rat Piper: 3Rat/10T => 2Rat/5T
  • A buff that also makes it more obvious that he's a 'summoner'.
• Rat Nest CD: 8 => 5 and also reduced a bunch of other spawners to 5CD as well.
• Higher level spawners CD 5 => 4.
• Electric Eel now shoots a slow shock projectile like other eels.
• All eels slow projectiles 5CD => 3CD
• Tentacle Spitter now shoots a poison projectile rather than Acid (much stronger)
• Slime Splitting HP 50% => 60%. For reference RFIII had 75%.
  • Slimes just weren't really 'doing their job' anymore with the changes.

LEVEL GENERATION:

• Giant-Mushrooms are now low obstacles that can be shot over.
• Reworked many of the Zone-Line-Vaults for Branch-1 and Branch-2
• Shrunk and reduced the number of enemies in many of the branch end boss arenas. These arenas really need to be treated as just a single large fight rather than a level since even this single large fight is very challenging and takes a long time.
• Cleaned up the generators used in Orc and Dark-Temple to produce smaller levels more in line with the new general level size.

BUGS AND CRASHES:

• Blood-Lust was not working when ON blood
• Selling equipment with an ability was not removing it from the menu
• Could not escape (with ESC key) out of merchant or librarian menu
• Reduced the sound and music volume by 50%