Originally, my goal was to have multi-PC battles released and in alpha testing by now. I actually got them working… but once they were running, it became clear that the engine needed a few more foundational pieces before those battles could be tested fairly.
Rather than rushing the feature out, I decided to step back and finish the missing parts of the combat system properly.
Because of that decision, the next release of the Forge42Engine — along with the updated Tharendell UI — is shaping up to be a massive milestone.
Here’s what’s coming:
1) Multi-PC Battles
Battles will now support up to six player characters fighting together in a single encounter.
Experience points and gold rewards will be distributed correctly across the party, allowing cooperative play to function the way a proper RPG battle system should.
2) Character Leveling
Some of the alpha testers have already reached the point where their characters should technically be Level 2, so the leveling system has now been implemented.
In addition to standard leveling progression, I’ve added a Milestone Stat system where characters gain a permanent stat increase at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.
3) Party Range Ordering
This was a big one.
Players can now define the range order of their party, allowing tanks to stand on the front line while archers and ranged characters stay safely behind them.
This finally makes bows, ranged weapons, and tactical positioning a reality in Tharendell combat.
4) A True Battle Logic System
The original combat engine started as a simple prototype for single-player battles. Like many early systems, it eventually turned into a very large method doing far too many things.
So instead of continuing to pile logic onto that structure, I ripped the combat resolution logic out completely and began rebuilding it properly as a dedicated battle engine service using vertical slices.
This new architecture separates responsibilities such as:
• attack resolution
• positioning and range bands
• targeting logic
• battle orchestration
The result will be a much cleaner, more maintainable combat engine that can support everything from ranged combat to spells and advanced AI behaviors in the future.
With Spring Break this week, I’m planning to push hard on the refactor and finish the new attack resolution service.
Once the engine work is complete, the next step will be updating the custom WordPress UI for Tharendell so players can interact with all these new features.
And after that…
It will be time to let the alpha testers loose on the Forge again.
~Babble Baz