My friends, it's been a while! I was streaming the other day and getting valuable feedback from a friend of mine (Darklight_Dreamer) and he asked if a display could be done to show when the player hits an elemental weakness in an enemy's defense. While this would have required a massive overhaul by itself in RPG Maker MV's core engine, it inspired me to make a small change in my policy. I'd previously prided myself on using little-to-no plugins, but I decided to concede once more to improve the combat system and make the game a better overall experience. As I began working to implement this, I ended up doing a rather large amount of changes which culminated into a big update to the game! Please enjoy the newest--and most definitive--version of Nick Quest! It was a lot of work but the game plays in a way that I feel it always should have.

Below is a list of all changes made.

SYSTEM CHANGES

-23 new maps have been added to the game. Some existing areas have received additional maps. (Two Rivers Forest, Arcatia, Sumera, Desert North/South, Green Valley, Cliffs, Mountain). The Tower of Verity maps have received a rework.

-A new bonus dungeon, the "Halls of Reflection", has been added. Additional maps have been added to access this in the game.

-New encounters and boss fights have been added to the Halls of Reflection

-The Chicken of Power superboss has been relocated to the Altar of Power, accessible after clearing the Halls of Reflection

-Values of HP accessories have been increased to make them competitive with offense based accessories

-New items: Rusty Key and Ascension Slab, have been added

-The order of Nick's learned skills has been changed to feel more intuitive

-Status ailment effects from enemies have been adjusted to create a more gradual difficulty curve

-Certain enemies' skillsets have been adjusted.

-Certain enemies' stats have been adjusted to create a more gradual difficulty curve

-The player can no longer purchase status-inflicting items in Arcatia.

-Status inflicting items are now a rare drop from all common enemies

-Nick's "Taunt" skill no longer has him automatically guard. Instead, it raises his chance to counter attack to mitigate damage and increase his damage output.

-The attack value of Axes has been increased

-The damage value of Piercing Strike has been increased

-The Haste Ring now grants attack

-Counter Rate has received significant adjustments across all Swords

-Several typos and grammatical errors have been addressed

-Defense has been added to the Channeling Ring

-The elemental necklaces now grant a 66% resistance to their respective status effects, as opposed to the prior 50%

-The carriage will no longer be accessible to/from Chelas until the player completes the 2nd Michael encounter

-The Agility stat of numerous enemies has been adjusted

COMBAT CHANGES

-The text boss at the top of the screen no longer details each action and damage

-The text boss at the top of the screen only displays skill names

-Damage is tracked by numeric values displaying in real time

-Area of Effect (AOE) damage spells now show on all targets simultaneously

-Status ailments will be displayed on the target as it is inflicted

-Status ailment AOE will now show on all targets simultaneously

-Buff and Debuff effects will be displayed on the target as it is inflicted

-Buff and Debuff AOE will now show on all targets simultaneously

-"Weak" will show when an enemy's elemental weakness is targeted.

-"Resists" will show if an element is used that the target is resistant to.

-"Counter" will display if a counter attack is used

-Green text indicates restored HP, which also displays when using Guard

-Purple text indicates restored MP, which also displays when using Guard

I hope that you all enjoy all of these changes. I feel that with all of this work, Nick Quest is in the best place it has ever been! The journey is not done, however. In the near future I am intending to find additional music to incorporate throughout the game to enhance the experience even more. Thank you for joining me on this journey.