So the next major implementation for this months builds is about ready...I think. Originally, I wanted to have things to this point by the prior release, however I thought it'd be for the best if I split my focus into two parts.
A major driving factor for the changes I've made in this build as well as to the request system, was that I essentially want characters as well as the game going forward, to feel a little bit more worthwhile. With this new system, the workload will be less taxing all the while allowing players to engage with the game more. Not that I was getting tired of doing the requests just yet, but I would have eventually needed to do something else anyway. Here are the highlights.
Raid Battles
This is a new feature I'm introducing that is essentially a boss fight where players can participate to unlock rewards, unique characters, moves, etc. On the title screen, there will be a flashing button titled "Raid Battle". It will show a picture of the boss, a tooltip, and available rewards for defeating said boss. The chances for getting rewards depends on three things:
The patreon tier of the player, with tier 3 having the highest chances.
How well you perform during the match.
Whether or not you land the final blow on a boss (depleting durability to 0 with a victory)
Free members do not have access to this feature.
You can't fight the boss endlessly. The boss comes with a durability meter that will decrease whenever someone defeats them. Once it reaches 0, the raid battle will become unavailable until the boss is activated again.
One of the rewards you can get from raid battles, is the aforementioned rose ticket, bringing us to the next thing.
Rose Tickets and Requests
There is another button on the front page, clearly labeled "Character Requests". This simply takes you to a page where you can fill out a form and send a character request at the cost of 1 rose ticket. The upside to this is that people can no longer conveniently "not bother" to send essential details pertaining to character requests, or give a stat distribution that goes over the allotment. Also with this system in place, character requests will feel like more of a unique thing, since rose tickets are a bit rare.
In addition, patrons can define a "cost" for the character, which is a coin cost for other people downloading said character. Whatever cost is paid for the character will go into the bank of the person who submitted the character.
In regards to limited characters, they do now have a coin cost associated with them.
New Limited Characters - Daigaijin Fan Pack
Characters by https://www.patreon.com/shinkagemusha/about. A furry fem combat artist, who has worked on a comic called FFC that my colleague had informed me about. I glanced at it, and it's pretty cool. Check him out, especially if you're a furry fan. You can grab these characters in the games shop.
Miscellaneous Things
Just some balances and fixes. BP enhancements and enhancements in gauntlet mode matches now only affect endurance and strength. BP is now purchasable in the shop. Gimmick moves now have a slight penalty, if you use them against an opponent that is not using gimmick moves. It's not too harsh, but if you spam them, any potential reward will go up in smoke. The shadow clone gimmick move has been nerfed. Now, you can only summon two shadow clones at a time. Whenever a shadow clone is defeated, if will cause the summoner to get knocked down, with a considerable stun. Also, while a shadow clone is active, the summoner as well as any shadow clone cannot recover stamina past 50% .
I fixed some weirdness with Ember's mouth, and Ankha's mesh by her right arm, so re-download those characters if you feel to.