5/6/2023 0 Comments Vagrant story weapon guideWhilst functional, the more we explored equipment, the more we found ourselves asking what it was we were trying to achieve in the first place.Īnd so, we stripped it right back and started again. That meant we could narrow beam equipment drops to match the enemy attacks the players would be suffering-imagine for example, a cunning enemy that always goes for the legs-and slowly expand on this until all heroes were fully armoured. In fact, one of my favourites for armour was to determine what location enemies attacked on their cards. Others were fun, but also added more complexity. The most obvious method involved limiting the equipment a hero could use based on their path and level, but that felt fundamentally counterintuitive to our class-less system. So, we trialled several methods here before moving on. Whilst we liked the customisation and variation, we really wanted a more accessible system with less potential for confusion. Players were constantly looking in two places for die modifiers, rerolls, and special rules. Go too far in that vein, and you create a new negative play experience-you make the game too easy.Īnd, to polish it off, we also didn’t like the interactions between the ability and equipment cards in terms of cross referencing. That means you have to tone down every enemy with the lowest potential hero in mind to avoid a negative play experience, where the heroes can’t actually damage or defend themselves against an enemy. Unless you make equipment drops completely fixed (such as when you defeat a certain boss, or reach a set location), it’s hard to ensure the equipment level of each hero remains consistent. Otherwise, you invite strange situations where heroes are wielding two double-handed weapons, three shields, and four breastplates.Īlthough slot systems are perfectly functional (and indeed, I have several early playtest documents with exactly this format), this makes balancing the game a touch difficult which, of course, affects the gameplay experience. Now, in order to make that work, you also have to introduce a slot system based on body locations. These might be new weapons, armour, or shields, each providing new rules and/or heightened stats, such as extra range, stopping power, or defence. Let’s start, as we did, with a conventional approach:Įach hero begins with one or two pieces of equipment.Īs the campaign continues, the heroes are able to find other pieces of equipment. In truth, equipment was something we went back and forth on the most in early design. You’d think adding different weapons and armour into the game would be a relatively straightforward process. In fact, this might secretly be one of my favourite mechanics in the game right now because I’m riding a massive Japanese-roleplaying-game (JRPG) high. Today we’re covering another way to upgrade your heroes in Bardsung: But I'd have to fire up my game again and really dig in to come up with a useful explanation.Then, let's hand over to Sherwin to talk weapons, equipment, and shiny, shiny gems. Also, when you beat the game you can save and continue playing a new game with your old weapons and stats and keep trying to make better and better stuff! You can't get 100% of the map on the first run through, either, you have to play it again.įrom what I remember, I usually have a silver weapon for evil/undead/ghost, hagane for human/beast/dragon and a crossbow for beasts. It's truly worth it to invest in a guide if you want to get into weapon crafting, and you can make some sweet stuff that totally beats what you pick up in the game. Again, a guide will help you with that, or you can experiment on your own. So you want to focus on having about 4 weapons, each specialized to two-three classes/affinities that don't conflict with each other. You want to combine materials until you get the strongest material against each type of enemy - for which I suggest consulting a guide.Įach affinity or class has an opposite, so if you raise one (such as beast) then another will go down (such as evil. I guess the basics are that each workshop limits what items you can combine, and you discover better workshops with more options as you progress through the game. I suggest this: It gives a great breakdown of stats and items.
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