Alpha 0.5 - Mastery Unleashed

Alpha 0.5 - "Mastery Unleashed" ⚔️🔮

⚠️ Alpha Warning: Major System Overhaul! This update completely rebuilds the skill system from scratch. Please backup your saves! Expect some rough edges, balance issues, and potential crashes as we work through the new architecture.

Complete Skill System Rebuild We've completely rewritten the entire skill system from the ground up! Every skill now uses a unified, inheritance-based structure that should eliminate most of the bugs and crashes you've been experiencing. Each character maintains their own skill copies, preventing those annoying cross-character conflicts.

Revolutionary Damage Over Time System DoT effects are completely new! Each skill now manages its own DoT timers independently, which should fix all those memory leaks and weird interactions. Plus, we've added gorgeous elemental particle effects - fire rises, water flows, earth settles, and air swirls with unique behaviors for each element type.

Precision Range & Targeting Say goodbye to basic range categories! We've implemented WoW-style precision targeting with exact distance measurements. Skills can now have minimum range requirements (no more shooting arrows in melee!), maximum range limits, and some skills even have unlimited range when appropriate.

Personality-Driven AI Combat This is where it gets exciting! Characters now make skill choices based on their MBTI personality traits. They'll prioritize healing based on their risk tolerance, choose targets influenced by their personality types, and show realistic combat behavior. No more AI trying to heal enemies or damage allies!

Enhanced Damage & Resistance

• Streamlined damage formulas - skills now scale directly with character attributes
• Elemental scaling system - 50% bonus for primary elements, 20% for secondary elements
• Constitution-based resistance - Constitution now provides meaningful damage reduction (caps at 60%)
• Unified damage calculations - eliminated those confusing dual-damage systems

Combat Flow Improvements

• Smoother skill execution - eliminated delays and casting failures
• Self-contained cooldown timers - each skill manages its own cooldown internally
• Real-time hotbar updates - cooldown displays now update smoothly during combat
• Fixed "Unknown Spell" errors in hotbars
• Better drag-and-drop support for hotbar management

Technical Performance Upgrades

• Centralized validation - all skill casting checks happen in one place now
• Reduced memory overhead - eliminated unnecessary data structures
• Optimized timer management - better cleanup of temporary effects
• Enhanced error handling - fewer crashes, more helpful error messages

Resource Management Overhaul

• Robust cost validation - prevents invalid skill usage with comprehensive checking
• Intelligent payment systems - automatic resource cost calculation and deduction
• Consistent resource types - unified naming conventions across all systems
• Separated validation from payment - better error handling

Critical Bug Fixes

• Fixed resource cost validation - skills can no longer be used without sufficient resources
• Resolved cooldown UI desync - display now matches actual availability
• Eliminated memory leaks in over-time effect cleanup
• Fixed range validation edge cases - no more out-of-bounds skill usage
• Corrected file path resolution for skill loading

Save Compatibility & Migration

• Full save compatibility - all existing saves work without modification
• Preserved hotbar assignments - no need to reconfigure your UI
• Character progression intact - all learned skills and advancement maintained
• Automatic migration - system updates transparently in the background

What We Need Feedback On

1. Combat balance - Are fights too easy or too hard now?
2. AI behavior - Do characters make sensible decisions?
3. Performance - Any stuttering or frame drops during combat?
4. Crashes - Any skill-related crashes or errors?
5. DoT effects - Are damage-over-time effects working properly?

Thanks for testing and please report any issues you encounter! The new skill system should provide a much better foundation for everything we're building next.