Plans for Combat in Rise of Corruption

As I have mentioned before, combat is far from the intended focus of Rise of Corruption.  However, many of you might remember that combat was a problem that bothered many in the initial release before the fix.  People have wanted to know how combat will be handled in the future of this game, so I will explain in detail what my plans for combat are, the mentality I have towards it, and some related things.  There will be spoilers for people that have not played the game yet.

First, I would like to say that when I added combat into the first build of Rise of Corruption, I had put it in to support the narrative rather than the gameplay.  To elaborate on this, the combat in the first build was meant to help show how the player went from a regular person, to the new dark lord ready to win where the last one failed.  Although as some of you know, the combat being made to support the story, rather than make for fun gameplay, led to problems for people before I released a balance fix.  From a story perspective, having to corrupt characters and conquer the world makes combat unavoidable under those circumstances, but as mentioned, I don't want it to be the focus of the game.

I will make some more slight adjustments to the early combat sections, but generally, I won't expect them to change too much, or go back to how they were on the initial release.  Going forward, the balance of combat will be intended to allow for combat encounters to be fast, and (somewhat) optional.  Never taking too much time to get through to get back to corrupting the characters.  The mentality of combat going forward will be to support the story, and combat will mostly be where you would logically expect combat to be.  The context of the fights are meant to be more interesting than the fights themselves.  Now, let me explain the main four combat encounters you can expect, and what you can expect from them.

NOTE: Almost everything listed is subject to change depending on patron feedback and preferences.

First, there are Conquest Encounters:

Conquest encounters are what you would expect, Combat encounters when you conquer a new settlement.  When you conquer a new settlement, you will have two options.  The first, is to go there yourself, and complete a few fights/sections until you reach the settlement leader, and force a surrender.  The second option, will be to send in your army to do the whole thing for you, and you can skip the fighting completely if you chose to.  However, this will come at the cost of a compliance point, which brings us to our next type of combat encounter.

Compliance Encounters:

When any army conquers a settlement, typically the people living there don't like being conquered, and will resist the invading army.  This will be the same in Rise of Corruption.  Depending on the size of the settlement, there will be a compliance score you will need to reach in order to pacify the settlement.  This will show the process of turning a settlement from a rebellious city/village, to one that openly supports you, and gladly sees your rule as the only real option for them.  At zero compliance, there will be a small chance of rebels attacking you when you enter a settlement or building.  However, since it will likely just be some random person or rebellious guard attacking the new dark lord, these fights will be quick and easy.  Compliance can be earned in a number of ways.

Leading your army yourself to take the settlement in question is an extra display of force/power, gaining one compliance point.  However, there will always be enough tasks to do in order to gain compliance in a settlement, and choices to make that instantly gain a compliance point when taking a settlement.  So no matter what you do, you will always be able to gain max compliance in every playthrough when the game is finished.  It also won't take long to raise compliance high enough to remove the combat encounters, and certain settlements might not even have rebels attack you depending on the choices you make beforehand.  Training/corrupting the girls will tie into this for their quests, so you will naturally gain points while playing normally.

(NOTE: To ease some worries of constantly having to fight rebels each time you conquer a settlement, the highest chance of a combat encounter there will be will be 1/4, and can instantly be lowered to either 1/6 or none at all depending on the size of the settlement, and the choices you made in the game in the past.  2-3 points is all it takes to remove compliance combat encounters depending on the size of the settlement)

Our next encounter are story encounters:

Story encounters are what they sound like.  There are certain points in the story, where from a writing standpoint, combat would be unavoidable in order to achieve your goals.  Capturing your first goddess will be one of those encounters.  However, as mentioned, these encounters will be made to be simple and allow for people who don't want combat to quickly complete them.

Our final encounters will be dungeon/misc encounters:

This is technically two types, but they function the same, so I will include them together.  Whenever you are sent to a dungeon, or other area with enemies, enemies will move in a preset patrol, with some areas having other options to avoid combat entirely.  There will be other parts where you will find someone who wants to fight you for whatever reason they have.  All dungeon/misc combat encounters will be made to be entirely optional, but you can rush through and kill everything if you chose to, or don't want to take the time to avoid them.

These are the types of combat encounters I have planned.  As you might see, all combat encounters will be made to be either optional, or as quick as possible so you can get back to the corruption aspect of the game.  If you were to do a playthrough where you did all combat encounters, the intention is that combat won't make up more than 20% of the total game if you were to do everything.  As mentioned, almost all of this can be changed or removed depending on patron feedback.