Jan 02 2016

SOUNDTRACK

Cardinal Quest 2’s soundtrack is now up on Steam!

It’s available as DLC for the game; there’s also a game + DLC bundle. They’re both at 40% off until the end of the Steam sale on Monday.

I’m working on Steam trading cards now. It’s a little bit of fun to finish up the Steam version before I move on to updates and new projects. ๐Ÿ™‚ For the large trading cards, I’m having the characters walk around Daisy’s great Act backdrops. Here’s one at a nice desktop resolution:

These should be going live next week, so I’ll post a few more soonโ€”as I figure out what updates I’ll add to CQ2 next, and what my next game’s going to be for 2016. Happy new year!

14 Comments on “SOUNDTRACK

  1. this game just keeps me coming back for more…

    I’m finding leech to be a skill that scales really poorly, and is pretty underwhelming compared to other healing skills.

    right now I have yet to win an act by investing a point in either toughness or leech and believe me I’ve tried.

    I feel like the wizards lack of hp growth makes him a poor choice for melee, and especially at later levels, maybe healing 4 pts of damage while remaining in melee combat is 9/10 times a terrible idea.

    So, what if leech functioned differently? instead of a static 2-4 as a spell it did damage based on your weapon damage, and instead of targeting an enemy is was more like righteous fury, and empowered you for x number of turns, or until you got a successful hit?

    I feel like it would open up sometime doors for an alternative “battlemage” sort of build, where a player could opt for some of the harder hitting weapons and utilize talents like forcefield to tank up and play more of a melee/int based character who suffers from lower base HP but a chance to possibly heal quite a bit with higher damage weapons like the bludgeon and golden axe.

  2. Yes, similar problems here. This reminds me that the wizard should be buffed.
    I was thinking something like +1 base speed and lower cooldown on fireball.
    12 turns for a spell that is likely resisted is weak.
    Wizard starts with low hp. That is crippling in itself. Boost his hp to +5
    Staff is a weak weapon. Dagger gets +1 speed and extra damage with crits
    maybe staff could get +1 int and +1 speed?
    Or a unique staff weapon type upgrade like: enchanted(+spell damage) where 1/2 of the weapon’s max damage is added to spells like fireball
    Or maybe wizard could start with 2 spells, if the idea is that he is a spellcaster.
    With the idea of the post by Wyatt, he could have “wind blast”, a melee range spell that pushes an enemy back 2 squares and recharges with spells cast.
    Of course, wind blast and leech should have their damage slightly increased with spell damage.
    Please buff the wizard.

  3. @Xander
    I will politely disagree that the wizard needs a (large) buff. They are a very powerful class when played carefully.

    I mostly want to see leech changed so that it’s actually something that can affect how the character is played.

    Currently a good wizard has to pretty much do everything within his power to stay away from melee combat as his low health makes him a vulnerable target. Wasting a skill slot on an attack that does little damage and offers little in return seems like a waste of valuable talent points.

    I do agree that 4 hp for toughness is generally not worth it, but I don’t think that it should be raised to +5 overall. His low HP is what makes him a “glass cannon” sort of character.

    I’d rather see it as a part of something like the fencer perk. Instead of giving +3 base HP the perk would boost your toughness skill so that it gives you 5 hp instead of 4 hp. This would actually be sorta a nerf for most acts as it would take 3 levels in toughness before it would bypass the 3 extra health you simply start with currently… and who the hell is taking 3 levels of toughness as a wizard?! However, if someone WERE to try and play a more melee oriented wizard, it would allow for better scaling in the Tower, and would synergize more the version of leech I’m trying to promote ๐Ÿ˜‰

  4. A new year, another big thing.

    Also I hope we get a new class or a new act. Or even a new but rare NPC ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

  5. There was a bug which I’m not sure got resolved; after enslaving the scavenger in the tower, after a couple levels he would inexplicably attack you even though he has a heart above his head.
    Also, I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to have a sort of “cow level” in CQ2. In that level, it’ll be full of angry scavengers, and maybe a mini boss merchant King, who drops legendaries.
    Or,, the scavenger could sell a legendary every couple levels.
    I dunno.
    Looking forward to the update ๐Ÿ˜

  6. @Wyatt
    A good wizard is certainly playable, but it is by far the worst class in the game,
    Especially when there is the ranger who
    moves faster
    hits much faster
    hits more consistently.
    and has infinite escapes with his dog and natural speed.
    The idea is that the wizard is a powerful spellcaster who has trouble moving and fighting with his hands.
    This idea is fundamentally opposed to the scorekeeping system, which values speed above all else. Additionally, the wizard even struggles to positively differentiate himself from the ranger when both characters are characterized by their ranged attack. An extra spell would add some extra missing flavor, while some of the flat buffs would compensate him for the stark contrast with the scorekeeping system.

  7. Or I wonder if the scorekeeping system should be based on the number of times moved (turns) rather than speed. I read that was a problem with balancing the thief.
    Also, counting the turns that the enemies move before low speed kicks in and they hold still for one turn has been painstaking.
    If a monster is going to move / hold still next turn, could it have some sort of signal, like a color in it’s eyes or something?

  8. Wyatt: Cheers! Leech is a good candidate for improvement in the next patch, and that sounds like a good way to tackle it. I like the idea for adjusting Fencer as well ๐Ÿ™‚

    Xander: I would like to make the Wizard a little stronger, for sure. I’d like that strength to be something unique to the Wizard rather than a stat buff. I’ll have another look at Magic spells and the balance on magic resist; hopefully that will help.

    I’ve tried to keep it so that figuring out when a monster is going to miss a turn takes a little guesswork. Maybe I need to make it a little harder!

    yapos: Cheers! I have plans for a few more classes, so let’s see how things go.

    Feezajeez: Thanks for the bug report! I wasn’t aware of that one. I’ll fix it. A few special levels in the Tower would be nice too, I’ll see what I can do there ๐Ÿ™‚

  9. Some more thoughts on wizard/ balancing magic spells.

    So I was thinking about what xander said about the ranger being essentially a better version of the wizard due to increased speed, a ranged attack with a significantly shorter cooldown etc… and I agree. Which got me thinking to what sets the wizard apart from the ranger.

    Which really got me thinking about the archetypes these characters play: in many role playing games a speedy ranger type is is strong in 1v1 combat, but has a harder time dealing with larger groups, while a spellcaster is slower, but has powerful abilities that are good for dealing with large groups of enemies.

    In looking at spells I’ve noticed that Wrath of God is really the only spell in the game that targets all enemies on the screen, and Ice Blast is the only spell that hits an area.

    I wonder if buffing certain spells could really make them a) more useable overall and b) help the wizard stand out as a class that can more effectively take on larger groups of enemies.

    Weaken and Freeze for example are skills that I feel like pretty quickly gets outclassed by other options, especially mid-late game during an act, or at higher levels of the tower.

    Obviously, there’s an issue with how majorly buffing those skills could lead to imbalances when other classes use them.

    So in thinking of how to buff the wizard in a unique way, while still maintaining balance for other classes, what if the cooldown was sizably increased for the way more powerful Int based skills, BUT points of Int reduced that cooldown more drastically

    That way, for classes with low Int these skills would be powerful abilities that could only be accessed in times of dire straits, but for wizards with high Int, these skills could be accessed almost as frequently as they are now.

    This way the Wizard would be a class who could really rely almost solely on his skills and engaging multiple enemy units at a time… rather that just being a kind of slow version of a ranger.

  10. one of the annoying things is that some classes lose they’re healing skill/passive for good right talents like judgement stopping wrath of god or invigorate stopping tinkerer which used to matter until it was destroyed and leech instead of inspiration, i feel that all of the healing skills shouldnt be “or”

  11. Hey randomnine I hope in the future we get a skill that converts a % of faith or intellect into extra damage.

    Also I hope the next class is long ranged.

  12. Can you make the skill Charge do stealth damage? Or is that too much?

    It becomes useless when used as a thief.

  13. These are good calls. I’ll have another look at Charge, stealth crits would definitely help the Thief out and I don’t see a downside.

    And yeah, the Wizard is supposed to be all about the magic. In the long run I think the main way the Wizard will improve is stronger Int spells all round, at which point it’d definitely make sense to slow down their use for other classes.

Comments are closed.