It has been a crazy six months for Aethermon, the game has evolved so much. Behind the scenes we have been plugging away at the worldbuilding, production and visual elements of the games. But thanks to your great feedback, the game itself has also continued to grow.
In this post we highlight the changes we’ve made to Aethermon over the last 6 months, every one of which has improved the experience beyond comprehension.
Opponent Intent
Previously players would choose a Battle Card, then they would see their opponent’s move. This was chosen to better emulate a PvP experience.
Unfortunately, this would rarely (but still too frequently) lead to some really “feel bad” experiences where an NPC opponent’s card would completely negate a player’s Battle Card.
By allowing players first to see their opponents intent and make decisions accordingly, the battles become much more puzzle-like. This is particularly fun in group battles.
(R)eact update
With the above change, (r)eacts have been simplified.
Previously (r)eacts were played separately after opponent intent. With the player making all their choices after seeing opponent intent, (r)eact cards are played with the player’s main Battle Card.
(r)eact rules are now simple: Each round, players must play 1 regular Battle Card; they may also play 1 (r)eact. (r)eacts are resolved before regular Battle Cards.
Decks -> Dice
The original intention was to eschew the use of dice as much as possible. This often meant using decks as a randomiser – such as in Boss battles. This provided many advantages, such as being able to plan that in a 6-turn battle, we could comfortably expect that players would see all six cards in a 6-card deck.
It did have the downside of needing extra cards per boss. This not only was a significant $$$ cost to the game, but created extra player overhead as they would need to find the relevant deck for each boss.
We’ve instead shifted to larger cards for bosses with Moves on the cards (6 Moves and 2 cards for Final Bosses, 1 card with 3 Moves for regular Bosses). Players simply roll a dice and read the corresponding Move.
This has an added benefit that players can see all the possible moves an opponent might use and plan their actions accordingly.
Furthermore, the ‘card savings’ has allowed us to include more Final Bosses!!!
Six New Final Bosses
Woot woot! We are currently balancing out six new bosses, each of which provide a unique end-of-game experience!!!
Friendship (helping others in combat)
Players can now help each other in battle.
Throughout a player’s journey, each Player can now gain “Friendship” with their Allies.
If you have a “Friendship Token” of another player OR they have a “Friendship Token” of your colour, you may discard the “Friendship Token” then intercede in one of these Battles at any time, playing ONE Battle Card into the battle.
If you are in the same Battle as your ally AND you each have the other’s Friendship Token, you may discard BOTH tokens and each of you may play 1 additional Battle Card in a single round of that battle.
Team Battles
On each floor of the randomly generated Tower, players will face one of 4 kinds of encounters: (1) Regular Battle, (2) Quest/Heal, (3) Boss Battle (tier 2 Aethermon with unique moves or (4) Team battles.
These Team battles pit two players against a single Boss. Victory here not only earns the players an Artefact (as defeating Bosses always does), but gains each player “Friendship” as described in the previous section.
Artefact Scaling
Artefacts previously scaled linearly, i.e. a Tier 2 artefact was worth two Tier 1 Artefacts, a Tier 3 Artefact was worth a Tier 1 Artefact and a Tier 2 Artefact.
They now scale so that Tier 2 Artefacts are worth THREE Tier 1 Artefacts, and a Tier 3 Artefact is worth TWO Tier 2 Artefacts (or six Tier 1’s).
(This is the triangular number progression 1,3,6,10…)
This better addresses the situations where players would rather hold on to a lower Tier artefact (more in next section) than gain a ‘stronger’ artefact that actually made them weaker due to loss of synergy.
Artefact Progression
Players are no longer forced to get rid of their artefact when getting a new artefact.
When getting a new Artefact, players can now choose from 3 options:
- Get a new Tier 1 Artefact
- Exchange a current Artefact for a random Artefact 1 Tier higher
- Exchange a current Artefact for a chosen Artefact of the same Tier
Character Tweaks
Lots of balance changes.
The most significant rework was the Fire element (Sparkitty line). Sparkitty used to boost abilities by discarding cards. This had the unintended consequence of Sparkitty becoming the tankiest character in the game as players would choose lower power High HP moves so they could discard them easily. Bonuses for discarding cards are now tied to the value of the moves discarded.
Star/Heart-value
Purely a quality-of-life improvement. It is now easier for players to know how much HP to gain per level.
When levelling up, players used to need to look at the “value” of a battle card, subtract that value from 5, and gain that much HP.
Cards now have a Heart and Star value that always add to 5 between them. Higher Star-value moves are stronger; players gain HP equal to the Heart-value.
3 New Playable Elements
We’ll reveal the Aethermon later, but here are their mechanics:
Ice – Slows opponents, gets a bonus if opponent slows too much
Metal – Hurts self in battle, but has powerful abilities
Heart – Increased player accessibility (reduced language dependency, doesn’t require as much game literacy, slightly overpowered)
Each Element now has a playable Alternate
By popular demand, opponent characters are now playable!! They maintain the same moveset, but have 2 unique abilities, to be unlocked on crowdfunding, with stretch goals.
Quests -> Team Quests & Solo Quests
Quests used only to be activated by a player landing on a quest square; now each floor activates 1 Team Quest. Solo quests are still activated by a player landing on them.
Team quests involve the entire team.
Solo quests affect the player landing on the square, and at most 1 more player.
New Keyword (C)leanse
Another quality-of-life improvement. Too many cards had the language “remove 1 debuff from self, and one buff from your opponent”.
Hence, many cards now have the Keywork (c)leanse to replace that text.
Simplified Levelling
When levelling up, players simply choose one of two (three with upgrades) available moves, then shuffle the unchosen move back into their unlearned movepool.
Previously players could choose from all previously available moves.
We’re getting better everyday! Keep growing with us AetherRen.