home scrolls and game balance

Since yesterdays update, there is only one new piece of functionality: home scrolls.

At this point, you can buy a plot of land, buy a home stone, go to a plot of land that you own, and establish a home stone there.

Furthermore, you can purchase home scrolls.

When you use a home scroll from the overworld, you will be transported instantly to one of yer home stones.

The rest of the day's update is about balance.

I reduced the number of health that a n00b gets to 3.

So you die a lot more now.

I also reduced the number of health you get for leveling up to one 1 for each 2 levels.

Same thing for energy.

So, you gain 1 health at level 1, 1 energy at level 2, another health at level 3, another energy at level 4, and so on.

This makes the game much more challenging.

I also changed the incident rate of enemy and item spawning in a dungeon.

There are now much fewer enemies.

And there are not much fewer items.

So over the course of the day, I went through several "game got harder, game got easier, game got harder again" sequences, but at this point I will let it level out and see how it all goes.

Next up I am adding factions for characters in order to enable dungeon themes.

For example, if I generate a "catacomb" theme, I want there to be a lot more undead, but fewer non-undead.

Same idea for caves, or tombs, or dungeons.

I want each dungeon to be able to feel a bit more distinct from other dungeons in the world.