As hinted at in last week's blog post, this week we're going to be detailing how equipment will work as we move forward into The Contest of Gimmicks! And that's exactly what we'll be talking about in this post - all things equipment, and a little bit about stats (and the card archetypes).
This is an exciting one folks!
The gist of equipment
So, when it comes to equipment, we've got 3 distinct entities:
Your Equipment Cards, your Equipment Deck, and, of course, your plain old Equipment.
Your Equipment is the stuff that you've got in your inventory and get your character to wear. It's the same as always. You'll still need to be high enough level to equip gear- a brand new player can't just stumble across an H.Q. Mith Longsword with a full set of Mith armor and be unstoppable against slimes, for example.
Your Equipment Deck is a pile of cards that you draw from whilst in combat. It's seperate from your other decks - for instance, your Ability Deck (this would be specific cards that you've added to your deck, many of which may have level requirements, as we discuss below). Your Equipment Deck is made up exclusively of cards based on the gear you're wearing - it's one of the ways we're ensuring that you don't run out of cards in combat.
Your Equipment Cards are the individual cards that comprise this deck. They're determined by the equipment you wear- they're not customizable directly. When a player equips weapons or armor, their Equipment Deck automatically populates with a certain number of cards, determined by the equipment type and quality.
Each piece of equipment gives you a specific set of cards; if you want to change those cards out of your equipment deck, you'll need to change the equipment itself.
In practice, it's pretty simple: if you equip an LQ Bronze Shortsword, you'll, for instance, have 6 cards added to your equipment deck. Let's say these cards allow you to attack for 2 damage each. As long as your LQ Bronze Shortsword is equipped, you have a chance to draw those cards from your Equipment Deck.
If you were to, maybe, equip a HQ Bronze Shortsword instead, some of the cards in your deck would be replaced with cards that deal 3 damage each instead.
So why's this matter?
Well, unlike how Genfanad played in the past - where the only difference between the various melee weapons, for instance, was their power and aim characteristics - in The Contest of Champions, different weapons represent different gameplay styles entirely. This extends to armor as well. Each piece of armor will also populate your Equipment Deck with unique cards. Just like with weapons, you can mix-and-match armor pieces to achieve specific card combinations.
Do my stats matter, then?
Yes, of course! Most (but not all) equipment and cards are organized into archetypes that to help orient decks to certain playstyles, whilst still being broad enough to allow players to create their own strategies! The archetypes are derived from the main combat skills in the game:
Attack is about precision and accuracy, with a lesser emphasis on using tools like traps or caltrops to give you the edge in battle.
Defence players are a bulwark against damage and defeat their enemies by reflecting incoming attacks, whilst attempting to keep their defences up.
Strength decks throw caution to the wind in order to land decisive and powerful blows to decimate their enemies.
Ranged players need to keep their distance from their opponents and balance survivability and accuracy in order to dispatch their enemies.
Sorcery requires chaining elemental effects together to build devastating attacks or debilitating statuses.
So, if you wanted, for example, to combine Strength and Attack, you might end up with a deck built around making big attacks but with the caution and temperance necessary to ensure they land whilst attempting to stay out of danger.
And you can certainly mix-and-match. Some cards may require a certain Defense level to have access to, for example, but may fit well into a Strength (or even Sorcery!) deck.
That's all for now
So, that's all for now! Thanks very much for tuning into this weekly update. Next week, we'll be telling you guys on the blog what we've been working on in September. For Patrons, that post is already live - go check it out!
In the meantime, make sure to Wishlist us on Steam, Follow us on Twitter, and Join the Discord if you haven't already so you can stay up to date on the game! You can also support us on Patreon, where you can get bonus extra BTS content - and access to our Closed Beta when it's live.