Planned improvements for Zot Defense 0.2:
- Improved, more aggressive targetting AI for oklob plants, eels, and statues. Friendly monsters currently only target hostile monsters if the hostile attacks the player, the player attacks the hostile, the hostile attacks the friendly monster, or the player tells the friendly to attack the hostile; this means that friendly monsters out of LOS of the player almost never will attack or use their spells or special abilities unless they're already chasing a hostile monster they spotted while in LOS of the player. In 0.2, friendly monsters (especially ones out of LOS) will be MUCH more aggressive toward hostiles. (done)
- I would also like to change the XP costs of the Zot abilities so they're most usable and balanced, but I need player feedback about this, too (dpeg and LordSloth suggested that the XP cost of abilities should grow as the abilities are used more often; this is a possibility). (done)
- Monsters should ignore known traps when deciding where to move, and just bravely blunder into the traps; this will prevent monster clogs in areas filled with traps. (done)
- The game deserves a SVN repository (suggested by Rachel Dillon). (done)
- More theme waves (there are already some in the game, but you have to get pretty far to reach them): Sigmund wave! Butterfly wave! Insubstantial wisp wave! Hydra wave! (suggested by LordSloth). (done)
- The pacing and distribution of the monster waves should be made more aggressive and rapid (suggested by several players). (done)
- Messages should be added to mark the beginning of each monster wave. (done)
- There is an exploit using oklob plants to pump up your XP rapidly, because the game checks whether a monster is currently friendly to see if you get XP from killing it, not whether the monster was created friendly; this needs to be fixed (discovered by heteroy). (done)
- Attacking a friendly oklob plant to make it hostile can be used to create a plug to block monster flow (reported by heteroy). (done)
- Removing *.o files and Crawl-specific documentation from the distribution (suggested by Anym).
- I would like to change the order in which you get Zot abilities, so that you get the abilities at the most appropriate times, but I need player feedback about what order you should get the Zot abilities in. So please email me and let me know!
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When a Zot ability is used to target an invalid square, it shouldn't make you pay the XP cost (suggested by several players).
- Zot Defense 0.1 suffers from a crash bug: too many monsters on the level crashes the game, and it tends to happen, too. This should be fixed by some of the changes above, which will reduce the number of monsters that can survive on the level at once.
- The game deserves a help screen, at the title page (suggested by dpeg).
- The "Make water" ability should be targetable, for making particular water layouts, instead of being random like the Water card.
- Using a deck of dungeons to create a labyrinth, and entering the labyrinth, will crash the game--this should be fixed (suggested by LordSloth).
- Using Nemelex to sacrifice the Orb of Zot crashes the game.
- A tiles build! (suggested by Enne Walker)
- Traps should not be triggered by the player or by friendly monsters (suggested by Enne Walker).
- The Tomb card allows you to seal off the Orb from all non-digging monsters; this should either be forbidden in some way, or many more digging monsters (or monsters with wands of digging) should be generated (suggested by Enne Walker).
- Getting banished crashes the game (discovered by heteroy).
- A shaft produced by a deck of dungeons or a full-power Flight card can let the player leave the level (discovered by heteroy).
- Traps replace walls, letting you dig by placing traps (reported by Grimmsweeper). Traps also replace staircases (reported by Herself).
- Bazaars are reportedly sometimes crashy and sometimes not (reported by Grimmsweeper).
- Picking up the Orb after getting 15 runes reportedly causes a crash (reported by Grimmsweeper and MrPeeps).
- Alarm traps should be set off by hostile monsters and not by the player or allies (pointed out by several players).
- The area around the staircases can be filled up with plants to prevent monsters from spawning (pointed out by Cyan`Bird).
- The Portal translocations spell allows the player to leave the level (pointed out by Cyan`Bird).
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The tutorial option should be disabled.
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Skill training should be turned off on all skills by default at the beginning of each game.
I hope to be able to release Zot Defense 0.2 by April 23, 2009--but that's a goal, not a promise.
Planned improvements for future (>0.2) versions of Zot Defense:
- More maps (selectable at the start?) (suggested by dpeg).
- You should have an ability which lets you send the next wave of monsters immediately (suggested by several players).
- A Labyrinth entrance could be generated every few waves; perhaps also a bazaar entrance, replacing the "Make bazaar" ability.
Other suggestions? Please email me at universal (period) darts (period) champion (at) gmail (period) com. |
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