I knew there would be stuff that wasn’t going to be clear in the current build so it’s good to know what that is. In the meantime though I’ll explain it here until it’s more apparent in-game. Hirelings deal damage essentially on a timer, there are 3 types but only 2 available in the current game.
Mercenaries (or swordsmen)
When their timer finishes they do damage for each hired mercenary sequentially. So if you have 3 swordsmen, you’ll see damage like -1 pause -1 pause -1 pause and then they go back on cooldown.
Archers
Archers fire a single volley of arrows when their timer finishes. This deals a range of damage based on how many archers contribute to the volley. The calculation is a little wonky right now and will probably change, but basically you have archer damage * number of archers which is the top end of the range, then there’s an accuracy stat that affects the bottom of the range. So if you have 2 archers then you do maybe 1-2 damage in a single hit. The idea compared to mercenaries is that they have a higher possible DPS but hit less reliably.
Mages (Not in current version)
Mages I’m still thinking on. They might do a range of damage as well, or perhaps their magics ignores some defense stat or something.
To make things like this more apparent, I could probably add some tool-tips or something, but more importantly I want to have a little animation that plays when each hireling does their thing so it’s more apparent what’s happening. e.g. a volley of arrows rains down when the archers deal damage, or you see sword swipes when the swordsmen attack, etc. That with some damage numbers would really go a long way to making it apparent.
I should probably also give a quick stats rundown or at least how they work as of writing.
HP
Nothing crazy here, just how much health you have. There aren’t major penalties for death at the moment though.
Gut
Gut does have one use at the moment and it’s gut levels. Essentially every time you fill the bar up (you’ll notice it can over-fill), you’ll be at another gut level. Aside from this giving you a more bloated sprite to look at, you’ll have a bonus to your attack at the cost of your speed. In the future, when abilities are added, I want it to act as MP as well.
Attack
Also pretty straight forward. More attack more damage. This is only for your character though, hireling damage is solely based on the number of hirelings and any upgrades you’ve bought for them (to be added in a later version).
Speed
Speed essentially reduces your cooldowns, though again, your stats only affect you. Hirelings are not affected. As stated above, cooldowns are negatively affected by gut level.
But yeah, hopefully that demystifies things a bit. There’s still a lot to do, including filling out the forest area. The slime girl drops/monster table are bs yeah lol. Progression and unlockable areas was the last thing I got in yesterday before starting a build.
(edited for typos)
