Hello all! Been a while, but here is a quick update;
Due to some financial wonkery I have not made a start on getting art for the first slice of the game. That has been built and given some tweaking, but I am going back to revise the design a bit as a result - which I will discuss below. The current slide is the first class tutorial - Veteran - and the intro sequence where you choose the class and suchlike. Both are ready to start getting graphics and a polish on the text, but I have decided to try and simplify things when it comes to combat, while expanding some other bits.
Basically, I am going to keep the player's stats the same regardless of level, and add skills as you rank up. That will help keep balance simple as numbers will remain low. Heirlooms will still be a thing, so you will be able to get very good items which will remain viable for the whole game based on your playstyle and class.
Stats will also be affected by the difficulty. Easy will give you max, while hard will give you a single roll of the 'dice' between the min and max stats. Classes with have primary, secondary and tertiary stats they will add 3, 2, and 1 to respectively to give them an edge and differentiate them slightly.
I am going to make ranged combat work via having ammo which you load into an equipped pistol, with the pistol determining the accuracy of the shot - or shooting skill - and the bullet giving damage and/or special effects. So a Saint's Round will do Holy damage, which will do more damage to ghosts and demons, while a Venom Shot will give a chance at poisoning. I'll dig more into this when I work on the first proper quest as the player will have a quick trip to the shooting range to start off the first mission.
I've also decided that players will have a 100% chance to hit, thanks to all that training and pluck! This will be modified by Morale, which will be represented by a status effect. IE - players who lose morale will become Shaken, which will give them a -10% chance to hit. If a player is Shaken and takes more Morale damage, then they become Staggered, which replaces Shaken and adds -20% chance to hit, etc. The top level will cause death if the player gets further morale hits. Recovery can be done by completing side quests, sleeping, travel sequences, etc.
The current plan is to get this one sorted so I can test things such as getting (and plugging in) graphics, updating the UI, etc. Then, the first 'released' slice I'll put on Steam for QA and such will be the first adventure and the second class - Duellist. Once that is done, the first actual early-access release will be the second quest and third class which will either be Abomination or Cleric. We'll see how things lie at that point!
In any case progress is rapid while being ultimately less time consuming. I can get the basic playout of the sections plugged in quickly, and the polish is way less hassle. I'll update people as I go, and maybe post a quick video of the intro sequence on the main site at some point.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend!