Eternal Dreamers | Free Battle RPG | 91% Positive on Steam

Thank you, @Sauteed_Onion! I'll direct the praise towards our artist!

The next patch will arrive by the end of the week, notably simplifying the socket system and reworking the Assassin class.

Hey, everyone! Here is one final preview of the upcoming patch!

The title screen will be updated to better match the theme of the game. While impossible to tell from this picture, the particles present in the screenshot move in-game! Let us know what you think about the revision!





Moving on, the upgrade of all character busts has been progressing smoothly, but we have quite a ways to go yet! Currently, the busts are only present within the menu for reasons of coherence. Once all busts have been completed, they will replace the old images in the status and dialogue screens as well. Which character bust are you looking forward to most? Let us know!





So long!

Patch – March 16th

Hey, everyone! Today’s patch has a bit of everything, but in this introduction, I would like to focus on the class changes made this time!

Despite its high damage potential, the Assassin has proven too expensive to use efficiently. Furthermore, the Shadow Cloak caused more harm than good, leading to unsustainable damage being dealt to other party members. Therefore, the class sees a handful of changes to really draw out its full ninja-based potential. The Shadow Cloak ability has been removed, as Shadow Cloak will now automatically apply after the use of Shadow Strike. Additionally, Shadow Cloak will no longer prevent attacks on the Assassin; instead, it will raise her evasion until suffering a successful attack. As a result, the class remains safe from harm as was intended, but other party members do not suffer for it. To further increase the utility of the Assassin, a new ability named Shadow Bomb was added. This ability casts instantly, reducing the hit chance of all enemies for two whole turns. Following these changes, we hope the Assassin is as elusive as she ought to be.

The Captain remains a source of contemplation. For now, his base speed was increased, and the scope of his buffs extended to the whole party. That will make him much more efficient at buffing the party, and allow him to attack more frequently as well. However, more in-depth adjustments to the class will be the focus of the next patch.

The Preacher now can cast healing abilities instantly and at a reduced cost to boot! This will allow her to be much more reliable in battle.

Finally, the Manipulator’s SE Redirect now targets all enemies. This might prove a bit too useful, so we will keep monitoring the effects of this change closely.

Additional changes as well as bug fixes can be found in the patch notes below:

• Updated visuals of the area select screen

• The legendary treasure hunter Mister Bo will make unexpected appearances from time to time
  • This enemy drops elemental fragments of all elements as well as Complete/Resist socket pieces that offer protection against all of the elements
• Greatly reduced HP of all spirits on all difficulty levels
• Spirits possess slightly altered color schemes unique to their difficulty level

• Removed level requirements for all types of gear
• Changed amount of sockets on every gear rarity:
  • T1: 4x Bronze
  • T2: 3x Bronze, 1x Silver
  • T3: 2x Bronze, 2x Silver
  • T4: 1x Bronze, 3x Silver
  • T5: 4x Silver
  • T6: 3x Silver, 1x Gold
  • T7: 2x Silver, 2x Gold
  • T8: 1x Silver, 3x Gold
  • T9: 4x Gold
  • Rare equipment: 5x Gold

Captain

• Changed scope of Encourage from 1 ally -> all allies
• Changed scope of Discourage from 1 ally -> all allies
• Raised base speed of the Captain class from 11 to 15

Assassin

• Cost of Shadow Strike decreased from 8->6AP
  • Shadow Strike will apply Shadow Cloak to the user after attacking
• Added new ability Smoke Bomb (class-only)
  • Smoke Bomb: Throw a smoke bomb, reducing the hit chance of all enemies for two turns (casts instantly)
• Removed the ability Shadow Cloak (class-only)

Manipulator

• Cost of SE Redirect increased from 2->3AP
  • Changed scope of SE Redirect from 1 enemy -> all enemies

Preacher

• Cost of Heal reduced from 4->3AP
  • Heal will cast instantly and not take up a turn (class-only)
• Cost of Cure reduced from 3->2AP
  • Cure will cast instantly and not take up a turn (class-only)
• Cost of Holy Prism reduced from 6->5AP

• Spirit abilities no longer cost gauge meter. Instead, a spirit’s ability may be used once per battle
• Changed scope of Encourage from 1 ally -> all allies
• Changed scope of Discourage from 1 ally -> all allies

• Added Assassin-exclusive Smoke Bomb status effect
  • Smoke Bomb: Hit rate decreased by 25%
• Raised the aggro rate of Reaper Driver from +75% -> +100%
• Changed the effect of Shadow Cloak from Aggro rate decreased by 99% -> Evasion rate increased by 50% until suffering damage

• Updated face bust of Anna
• Updated face bust of Forest

• Increased game’s performance in multiple instances
• Changed background of the start screen
• Reduced volume of the sound effects of all buffs
• Mildly increased size of the turn order display
• Updated visuals and sections of the Credits screen

• Added missing ability animations for the Bulletrain, Crippling Round, Flame Round, Ice Round and Shock Round abilities
• Added missing name tags for Zanasu and Ephalia in the Spirit Hunt
• Fixed incorrect ability descriptions
• Fixed various typos

• Clearing a quest will teleport you to the medical center rather than the central hub. Due to difficulties locating the source of the issue, we are considering pretending this is the intended outcome
• The starting party has 3 active party members instead of 4. Please be sure to add a fourth before starting the first quest

• Rework of the Captain Class
• Further visual upgrades for all characters

If you are interested in following the game more closely, take a look at our new Twitter or join our Discord server! Thank you for your support!

Download the newest version here!

Hey, everyone!

Because I can, I am brainstorming additional gameplay scenarios like the Spirit Hunt. I know, I know, it's all adding onto the grind! But that's what the game is about, can you blame me?!

With that said, random missions will be coming to Eternal Dreamers in the near future. How does that work? Things are far from final, but the likely mechanic will be... yep, RNG! And so, clearing any quest will have low odds of spawning a one-time special mission for the player. The nature of these missions is yet to be decided, but special bosses are a very likely case.

Can't wait to have more to share!
So long!

Have another preview for the next update!

• Thanks to the help of community member @Palin, ability books will be more intuitive to use going forward. Whereas, previously, a message would inform the player that the selected or a higher ability level has already been learnt by the actor, the use of the item will now be disabled outright
• The Preacher receives some further adjustments in that her Heal ability will increase her charge level by one. That will allow her to focus on healing her allies without wasting AP to use her orange-grade abilities
• As of now, three special quests will be introduced for the time being:
  • Desert Rumble: The king of the desert has awoken, disrupting our research. Put a stop to him!
    
  • March of Darkness: as the infection spreads, dark forces reach new shores. Stop their advancement!
  • End of Dreams: The being known as Death brings forth the end of the world. Keep it at bay!

The introduction of a new quest mechanic will take a bit of time, so expect the next update to hit sometime early-to-mid April.
So long!

Time for another preview!

As stated previously, the Captain class was to be reimagined. I have been working on exactly that for the past few days. The toughest part was keeping his essence as a support class in tact while providing more dynamic gameplay at the same time. I hope the new abilities - all of which will replace his former ability roster - will be able to achieve this.

• White ability Glory Strike: Attack one enemy with a strong attack. The party gains 2 gauge bar segments

• Orange ability Rallying: Increase the charge level of an ally by one. Their Atk, Matk and Crit rate is increased for two turns (casts instantly)
• Orange ability Defensive Maneuver: Call forth a shield wall, granting protection from enemy attacks for all allies (casts instantly)

• Gauge ability Tactical Retreat: The user loses one charge level and recovers 50% of his AP [-] (casts instantly)

Going forward, Glory Strike will be at the core of the Captain class, providing much needed offensive capabilities while enabling party members to use their more powerful abilities sooner. As the ability reaches higher levels, not only will its attack power increase, but also the amount of gauge bar segments obtained. This means the Captain will grow into a powerful asset over time.

Buffing has been given more flavor and potency through Rallying and Defensive Maneuver. Both of these abilities cast instantly and allow to set up high damage for other party members as well as protection if needed.

Tactical Retreat, the Captain's new gauge Ability, comes free of cost and allows the Captain to replenish his AP at the cost of one charge level. This is a fairly unique ability that will allow him to spend AP more recklessly and engage in attacks more frequently as a result.

I hope these changes will allow the Captain to be a more valuable addition to the party. We will see come next patch!
So long!

Nice update. I might replace The Preacher in my party with Captain in this next patch.


I had a long post written out full of observations, but it got deleted.

A summarized version is:

The final bosses' difficulty was fine, but if you've given her and the other enemies a custom AI I'd have to play the new version and find out. For that same reason any of my comments on enemy balance concerns would have to wait until I see the new AI.

As far as balancing Orange attacks goes, a different solution would be to make it so that if a character kills something from the back row, it puts them in the front row. Then you don't have to edit the balance of Orange moves much and the player can plan around whittling down enemies for other characters to kill and push themselves forward to use their special moves on the turn after.

Monolith having a special attack that works best on bosses would make him especially valuable. Even more so if they're coded to target him. Usually in this game you heal anyone that's below a certain health threshold but enemies that focus fire makes them much more dangerous.

You have a reason to use buffs and debuffs if you know who is going to be attacking and can guess who will be attacked.

I'll have more to say after the next patch comes out.

Looks great so far!

Thank you very much for your feedback as always! I am sorry to hear about the loss of your lengthy post, but this is great insight as is.

I am planning on utilizing the AI core more intricately, perhaps starting with the special missions. I am planning these out right now, and would like to implement special mechanics for them. So using the AI core for that makes sense. As far as the main quest mode goes, I haven't made any changes to it yet. It's all in the cards of course, one at a time.

Your suggestion to gain charge is interesting. I will need to check if something like that is possible, and if it fits the vision I have for the combat system. Overall, I want to make classes not focused on DPS less reliant on their regular attacks to gain charge levels. That is why the Preacher's Heal will have her gain one charge level as of the next patch. With the Captain more appealing as well, he might see more use going forward, and his Rallying ability will make it much easier to use Orange attacks a lot more frequently.

I have yet to make the intended change to Monolith's attack. Kind of put that in the back of my head. Oops!


Thank you very much! It honestly is very difficult to show off the appeal of this game. The meat is in the battles, and there are only 9 maps in the game proper. While that isn't a lot, this game will still take several hours to beat and has a lot of substance to it. So while I personally am satisfied with the scope of this project, showing things off can be quite the challenge. I ought to record a video sometime soon.

I watched your thread sometimes, it look interesting so i gave it a go today.
Well, here is some cons i wrote down while playing the game

First of all, thank you for playing my game! Every bit of insight is appreciated. I will respond to your points one by one.


Admittedly, your first point is a bit lost on me. This is an RPG standard after all.


That's true! And while by design, since it reflected negatively on you, I will create an icon for that menu point as well.


These icons are special currency, but you are right there isn't an explanation to make that clear. Therefore, I will work on implementing said explanation for the menu for one of the upcoming releases.


If you could take the time to describe in more detail what makes you dislike the battle system in its current state, I would appreciate that. That way, I will be able to improve on it the most.


It is, and that particular bug has been a nuisance for quite some time. I shall put in a commission so someone can hopefully (and finally) find a solution.


It wouldn't be the first time, but I will think about decreasing the HP of the boss further. It is a fairly basic fight after all!


By this, I take it you are refering to the battle UI? I have been working on a tutorial to explain the battle system and UI along with it, however, the system will take a bit more time for me to implement.

Again, thank you for taking the time to play through my game. I will make the best of your feedback and of course include you in the Credits section for the game. Thank you so much!

Well, for battle system, there are many things to tell.
Briefly, i think it's not lively.
Except of normal attacks, Actors just stay in place when they cast skills.
Actors/ Enemies movement are not unique.
All of them move a same way, in same speed,
only animation is different.
In my opinion, you can improve either Action Sequences and
Animated Battlers to make thing look better.
Here are some examples of RPGMV battle system that i think you can learn from?

I played the game and I sent you a complete report with the result of my play-test. I have a few things I want to say in addition to what has been said about the game so far.


Assassin
The Assassin class is not mediocre at all (unless you consider being able to be the main damage dealer through the whole game - including tower from floor 1 to floor 60 wile being level 15 with T3 equipment - as "being mediocre"). Poison is not that useful against normal enemies but the same goes for Ablaze. As a matter of fact normal enemies can be killed with flat damage-dealing attacks. However you could as well remove the double strike skill as I agree it is quite useless. Honestly there are much better skills you can cast with party gauge and wasting points to cast that is simply not worth it.

If you increase poison strength it becomes completely game-breaking so you should really refrain from doing that in my opinion. The only improvement the Assassin might need is something that increases the reliability of Quick Attack (not its cost-effectiveness but rather its reliability). So far it still leaves quite a few things to RNG while that preemptive stun should be a niche for Assassin and Elementalist. Maybe increasing its cost to 6 AP instead of 5 and giving it some serious reliability might be the best option. This way you can cast it twice and then run out of AP.

Having a cost of 5 AP is a little meaningless in general. It means in two turns you use a total of 10 AP and gain 4 AP at the beginning of each turn...those are not enough to cast the ability again. For an ability that is most useful when cast at the beginning of a fight and has little use later on decreasing its cost does not make it more useful. Increasing it while increasing its reliability is what that class needs.


Ranger
I already mentioned in my report how game-breaking the current Ranger is so I think there is nothing else to say about this.


Preacher
As I mentioned the skill Heal (Preacher) does not scale correctly making her less effective than intended. Keeping upcoming Captain updates in mind if this is fixed Preacher + Captain could for a nice team core for tank-based teams.


Manipulator
I strongly disagree here. Manipulator has been by far my favorite class. Sakia's ability to cover what the party lacks is incredible and if properly used she can be very effective against all types of enemies. Her average agility is her weak point but increasing it is absolutely something that must not be done - not even a single point - because it would make her way too powerful.

She is not easy to use and requires an almost perfect planning in your skills execution but she can prove to be the second strongest class in the game - the other one being the broken Ranger so that does not count. However I would not say she is unbalanced because using her properly requires some brain and players effort and skills should be rewarded somehow.

The version I tried has already a state-absorbing option for the Manipulator but please do not give her the ability to heal allies or she will be a game-breaking character as well. She is powerful right now and should not be improved any further in my opinion.


Practitioner
Monolith has good damage and nice de-buffs but as I mentioned (and as MMMm mentioned before me) his orange skills are not worth the cost unless you make his basic attack magic based and effective to a certain extent. His ability to heal using Soul Drain is nice but way too many enemies are immune to that in my opinion. I can understand you want bosses to be immune to something that drains 1/8 of their current hp each turn but a lot of normal enemies are unaffected by that skill as well.

Making his auto-attack interesting should be the top priority in my opinion as that class really needs an improvement from that point of view. Or you could just add the gauge-filling effect to Waste as well so that there is no need for normal attacks at all. This could be another option.


Blood Driver
As @MMMm I really loved the Blood Driver. Anna's concept is great, the only improvement would be increasing her taunting ability a bit more so that RNG has less impact on tank-based teams.


Captain
I agree with what has been said about the Captain buffing abilities, they are not worth using. His ability to support allies with buffs cannot be compared to that of other classes but even while he starts bad he can be quite powerful later on when you start unlocking stronger versions of Rally.

On the contrary you should be very careful when touching the Captain as he can prove to be too powerful. Increasing his agility can be a good way of making buffs more useful while maintaining the ability to replenish allies AP bar. However Rally is a fearsome ability and should be handled with extra care. It is difficult to test it since Ranger is currently broken and no Ranger + other classes combination can be tested but in my opinion this ability really is frightening to the point it could be game-breaking - as I said testing it now is impossible so I am going to leave that to a later date.

If I foresaw things properly the Captain could prove to be the strongest class in the next update - based on those planned improvements. However we have to wait to see how this goes.


Hero
The Hero left little or no impression on me. That class can fit in any party but you are not going to be punished by not using it. Of course Marlon has a nice damage and can prove to be very useful in sweeping enemies but his Flameball ability makes no sense to me. That is the point of using it over Focus? It restores less AP than Focus even at level 2 and enemies can still cast skills without spending AP so that has little or no effect on them considering how little useful Ablaze is against normal enemies and how unreliable the skill is.

Increasing its reliability would be a nice improvement to the hero class. However so far there is really no reason to use Flameball over other attacks that are capable of applying Ablaze.


Elementalist
A bit unreliable when it comes to applying states but it is an all-round class. Good at healing, high damage, access to the preemptive stun - freeze in this case - niche and balanced costs. So far a very nice class. I have nothing to say here. On top of it Inner Warmth initial healing strength scales when you increase its level (Inner Warmth II initial healing strength is slightly higher than Inner Warmth I) so this class can prove to be an effective substitute for the Preacher in non-tank-based teams.

This class is slightly less effective as a healer in tank-based teams due to the lack of single-target healing skills but when enemies damage spreads on all your characters this class proves to be very useful - although doing that means offering yourself to RNG sometimes. Even so this while class basic attack mechanic is RNG-based so using this class means accepting a tacit agreement with luck.

However RNG is quite balanced when it comes to this class and I would not modify it any further as it is balanced and nice to play.

Hey, everyone!

Today I want to give a quick look into how the next update is progressing. Thanks to @Heirukichi 's extensive feedback (which we have had extensive conversations about in private), I have been sidetracked in dealing with a fair number of bugs. So far, the following issues have been addressed:

• Fixed the issue that had Inner Warmth and Heal recover HP accoding to the max HP of the caster rather than the target
• Fixed the issue that had the Lightning Spirit not grant the intended amount of agility to its user
• Fixed a boss-type enemy spawning unintentionally in wave 4 of the third stage of the Crater area on Hard Mode
• Fixed the issue that had the player start out with 3 instead of 4 party members as part of their active formation
  
• Fixed the issue that had the Nurse turn into the ability vendor if Hard mode was unlocked
• Fixed the issue that had the game encounter a fatal error upon accessing the manual and match-up game in the casino

This is why playtesters are invaluable, folks! Since these bug fixes are related to pressing issues, I will be pushing a new version of the game tonight. Mind, this version will include the above fixes, but none of the new content planned for the April release of the game.

Anything else new planned for the next release? Why, yes! The character creator will receive a technically small, yet important overhaul!

• Removed the male/female selection from the character creator
• All eight available appearance options will be listed together instead

Why is this change important? It gives the player the option to choose the appearance they relate with most without having to worry about conventional gender specifications. Inclusion matters, so this is the right step to take.

Seeing a great number of people try and enjoy this game has been a heartwarming experience!
Thanks for sticking with this project, and so long!

I recommend increasing the cost of Ice Shot to to 6. It does not require much time - it means changing a single value - but makes testing the game without bugs much more useful, eventually allowing to discard that option if it still does not perform well.

I am still weighing my options for the Ice Shot. Some sort of change will be made.

What I mean is that if you change it now (for better or worse) at lest you make testing the new value possible. Best case scenario: the new value is perfect and no further change is needed. Worst case scenario: the new value is still not good and you have to change it again, but at least you can discard that value.

The cost will be increased to 5AP with this patch. We'll see how that pans out.

Perfect, notify me when you upload it and I shall start testing it tomorrow morning. I am going to send you a PM with a small request about this download.

All right, so I haven't managed to get very far (still figuring out a lot of things), but here are my thoughts on it thus far.

Interesting plot. I think this could make for a very intriguing story upon playing further and I already find myself wanting to know more.
Regarding the music, I think more could have been done there, (though this is coming from a composer so my expectations are rather high when it comes to music in games). I enjoy the song you've got right now, however the same thing looping in every single map does get a little bit overbearing and monotonous. If you wish for a similar track to be played inside of the buildings as outside, I'd suggest making some minor edits (like, adding different undertones depending on where you are). I see you added some sound effects in the lab, which is a good start. Hopefully, there will be other maps with various themes later on. The script you used for the clouds added a nice dreamlike vibe.
As far as the battles go, I only really did one and died, so I can't really say much on that subject, but what I've seen seems to be the normal MV battle system, so as the others have stated, I'd recommend adding something more, or else using something completely new, especially as the game already uses default graphics and mostly default sound effects.