Hello,

Since it's been a good 14 days since the last post I'll provide another update on where I'm heading with the project.

Fishing

Work on the fishing skill has continued to the point where I'm satisfied with the result. It's a minigame to kill time, that will reward you with items that will power up your character a bit on the side. Of course, in order to track your progress in a skill (as with any skill), the player will need a way to track their progress. I've been working on the needed XP curves, reward systems and menu's to make that happen.

Below you can see what a skill menu will look like when you open it up:

Rewards will be unlocked gradually from level 1 - 99. As you can see, there is still plenty of placeholders open, these are rewards I intend to fill later on. For now, the groundwork of the skill is done, and you will be able to advance it in the next patch.

For now, here you can see the skill while you're training it, and some of the things that will happen as you're doing your job!

Resource Rework

We understand that the current system to gather metal, wood and fiber is a bit tedious. Simply smacking trees and rocks while on your adventures with your sword in order to get some minor materials to decorate your house with wasn't very rewarding, nor did it really make you want to pay attention to it. So I'd like to point out a few changes as of the next patch.

Housing Rework (batch 1)

To make sure that the housing system holds more value to the rest of the game, I've patched in a new category of items that you can buy (after unlocking it) from the furniture store, the utility tab! Below you can see some of the utility items, I'll keep their purposes hidden for now :)

This is a first batch of additions that will make the housing area feel more like a "hub". Much more is planned and will be revealed in the future.

Of course, since it's no longer possible to farm metal/wood through the previous system, a new system is required. So therefore I've converted them into two actual seperate skills: Mining & Woodcutting!

Woodcutting

You will now be able to head to a dedicated area where you can start farming XP for your woodcutting skill. Higher levels will unlock higher quality trees, and various other rewards. For each tree you will receive some wood chips, alongside the expected logs. Wood chips can be converted at the woodcutting NPC for a 10:1 ratio of lumber. This is the type of lumber you need to buy things with in the furniture store. If you don't want your extra logs, you can convert those into extra chips! Below is a spoiler on what the area looks like:

The skill will feature some fun random events, that will progress your XP even faster if you play them! I'll show the below as a small spoiler, but how it works you can find out for yourself!

Mining

In a similar vein ( *wink* ) as woodcutting, a new system was needed to farm "metal" for the furniture store. Instead of wood chips, you'll gather metal fragments during your mining training. Much like before, you can trade these in at a 10:1 ratio for metal at the mining NPC. This skill comes with its own progression tree and will yield you with ore that grows in rarity the better you get!

Smithing

Since you're now holding a bunch of new ore, you'll need a place to spend that ore! Currently I'm working on this skill specifically, as the above skills are in a pretty good state already. I don't have too much to show on this one, except for the part that will convert your ores into bars. The bars will be used at the anvil where you'll be able to craft different tiers of equipment. You'll be encountering rare recipes during your fights that will unlock rarer equipment! Crafting these will not be simple however. You can see the forge system below:

Conclusion

That covers what I've been doing the past 14 days. Work on the empire still continues, but it's gone a bit on the backburner, since making the backend systems for these skills has been quite some work. Some new melee combos and skills/vials have been added as well, but those will be revealed in the combat part of the patch. I'm currently balancing the first batch of enemies you will encounter when you enter the empire for the time, as they were quite... strong!

Thanks for reading, until the next one!