Dev Log: Combat Evolution and Upgrade Rebalancing 🎮⚔️

In this dev diary, I'll share the journey of improving my game's combat system, focusing on the new weapon mastery feature and the upgrade progression rebalancing. The goal is to create a more engaging and rewarding experience for players.

Implementing Weapon Mastery 🌟💪

I introduced a weapon mastery system to provide a sense of progression and mastery. Players now gain proficiency with each weapon by defeating enemies, advancing from Novice to Apprentice and finally to Master rank. This progression is tied directly to the upgrade system, with higher ranks unlocking access to more advanced upgrades.

Implementing this system came with technical challenges, especially in dynamically balancing the upgrade pools based on mastery levels and game progression. I used a weighted pool system that adjusts available upgrades according to unlock conditions, ensuring a consistent progression experience.

Balancing the mastery requirements was crucial to avoid grindiness while still providing a sense of achievement. After playtesting and iterations, I settled on requiring around 1,000 kills to reach Apprentice rank - substantial but not tedious.

Debugging the Axe Radius Upgrade 🪓🐞

One particularly tricky issue arose when implementing the Axe's radius upgrade, which becomes available at Apprentice mastery. After the upgrade was added, I noticed that the axe's attack radius was not increasing as intended.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the problem was not directly related to the upgrade system itself, but rather stemmed from how the game scene was being loaded. The scene loading process was incorrectly initializing certain components, causing inconsistencies in the upgrade application.

Specifically, the upgrade pool was being called before the scene had finished loading properly, leading to the axe's radius upgrade not being applied correctly. To resolve this, I had to carefully review the scene loading sequence and ensure that all necessary components and systems were initialized in the correct order.

This involved tracing the execution flow from scene loading to upgrade pool initialization and identifying the exact point where the issue occurred. Once the root cause was pinpointed, I restructured the loading sequence to guarantee that the upgrade system was only accessed after all prerequisites were properly set up.

After implementing these changes and thorough testing, the axe's radius upgrade started functioning as intended, providing the expected power boost for players who had invested in mastering the weapon. This experience highlighted the importance of considering the broader system interactions and initialization order when debugging complex gameplay mechanics.

Rebalancing Upgrade Progression ⚖️🔧

Alongside the mastery system, I rebalanced the upgrade progression to create distinct tiers of upgrades with specific purposes and weight distributions. Core upgrades (550-700 weight) form the foundation, mid-game options (200-400 weight) offer strategic choices, late-game powerups (35-75 weight) reward long-term survival, and ultimate abilities (25 weight) serve as rare "jackpot" moments.

To achieve this, I replaced the previous approach of having upgrades appear in multiple pools with a hierarchical unlock system. Upgrades now follow a clear progression path, preventing early power spikes while still offering impactful milestones.

Balance adjustments were made, such as moving the life steal upgrade to the mid-game tier (200 weight), reducing the sword echo upgrade's weight to 35, and removing duplicate entries for upgrades like anvil count and double axe.

Looking Ahead 🔮🚀

Early feedback from testers has been positive, with players reporting increased investment in their weapon choices and a greater sense of progression. The mastery system has also encouraged experimentation, as each weapon offers unique rewards for reaching mastery milestones.

Moving forward, I plan to expand the mastery system with weapon-specific challenges, advanced multi-weapon techniques, and special events that boost mastery gains. UI enhancements are also planned to provide clearer visualization of mastery progression.

I will closely monitor player data to assess the impact of these changes on survival rates, build diversity, and overall engagement. Time-to-acquisition for key upgrades, run completion rates, and build variety in successful runs will be key metrics to track.

I'm excited about the future of the combat system and the possibilities these changes unlock. I'll continue to iterate, refine, and expand upon these systems based on player feedback and data analysis. Stay tuned for more updates as I work towards creating an even more immersive and rewarding combat experience.