6.5 KiB
Ashen Realms – Playable Slice 0.7 V2
Complete Burned Road
Status: Implementation Specification
Depends on: Slice 0.6.6
Purpose: Turn the Burned Road into the first complete repeatable hunt location using the new no-XP/no-direct-money progression model.
1. Goal
The Burned Road becomes the first place where Ashen Realms feels like a repeatable RPG activity rather than a combat test screen.
The player should be able to:
Travel → Hunt → compare encounters → choose an enemy → fight → receive trade goods/equipment → hunt again.
This slice replaces the previous reward assumption of direct XP and Silver from kills.
Normal monster kills must not directly grant XP, Silver, regional reputation or World Renown.
2. Player Experience
When the player starts a hunt on the Burned Road, 2–3 encounter cards appear.
Possible enemies:
- Ash Rat
- Feral Road Hound
- Road Bandit
- rare: Charred Raider
Each enemy must feel mechanically and economically different.
The player can deliberately choose an easy target, a useful target, or a risky rare target.
3. Encounter Pool
Suggested initial weights:
| Monster | Weight | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Ash Rat | 50 | basic safe target |
| Feral Road Hound | 30 | first status-effect enemy |
| Road Bandit | 18 | stronger humanoid with telegraph |
| Charred Raider | 2 | rare dangerous encounter |
Weights are balancing data and must not be hardcoded into the Angular UI.
The hunt should return 2–3 distinct encounter records where possible.
4. Monster Mechanics
Ash Rat
Purpose: pure baseline combat.
- no special combat mechanic
- low danger
- short fight
- guaranteed basic trade good
Feral Road Hound
Purpose: introduce Bleeding as a simple ongoing effect.
- normal bite
- occasional Bleeding application
- Bleeding has clear icon/status feedback
- Bleeding duration and damage are server-authoritative
Road Bandit
Purpose: reinforce Telegraphing.
- normal attack
- Heavy Strike is announced before execution
- Shield Bash can interrupt the prepared attack
- Defend is a valid response if the player does not interrupt
Charred Raider
Purpose: first rare encounter and visible future farming target.
- noticeably stronger than normal Burned Road enemies
- combines higher base stats with one known mechanic
- no entirely new subsystem
- visually marked as Rare / Strong
5. Trade Goods
Every normal enemy should provide a thematic trade good instead of money.
Initial content:
| Monster | Guaranteed Trade Good |
|---|---|
| Ash Rat | Ashen Pelt ×1 |
| Feral Road Hound | Tough Hide ×1 |
| Road Bandit | Raider Insignia ×1 |
| Charred Raider | Charred Raider Insignia ×1 |
These items represent loot that can later be exchanged with a merchant.
The trade goods must be persisted as actual player-owned loot.
Slice 0.7.5 will add category-specific carrying capacity and loot bags. Until then, existing inventory storage may temporarily hold these goods.
6. Equipment Drops
Trade goods are guaranteed; equipment remains an exciting additional roll.
Suggested initial drops:
Ash Rat
- small chance for simple starter-slot equipment
Feral Road Hound
- chance for Ashen Boots
- chance for a Small Healing Potion if potions are already lootable
Road Bandit
- Bandit Blade
- Bandit Hood
- Plunderer Gloves
Charred Raider
- Reinforced Leather Jacket
- Ashen Boots
- Mark of the Border Watch
- optional prestige drop later
Exact drop rates should remain data-driven and can initially follow existing Tier-1 balancing values where already implemented.
7. Reward Rules
After a normal victory, the server may grant:
- trade goods
- equipment
- consumables
- hunt/combat state progression
The server must not grant:
- XP
- Silver
- regional reputation
- World Renown
These economy/progression rewards are deliberately deferred to merchant exchange and milestone systems.
8. Backend Requirements
The existing content model must support:
- multiple monsters for one location
- weighted encounter generation
- rare encounter weighting
- guaranteed loot entries
- probabilistic equipment entries
- status-effect combat events
- telegraphed actions
Recommended behavior:
POST /api/hunts
→ server validates current location
→ server selects encounter definitions from Burned Road pool
→ persisted HuntEncounter records are returned
Combat must still start only from a valid generated encounter.
9. Frontend Requirements
The Hunt screen must show for each encounter:
- monster artwork
- English name
- danger rating
- optional short flavor text
- clear Attack action
The player should immediately recognize the rare Charred Raider.
After victory, the loot summary should clearly separate:
- Trade Goods
- Equipment
- Consumables
Do not show old XP or Silver reward rows.
10. Hunt Refresh
The player can choose Search Again.
Rules:
- generates a new persisted hunt result
- old encounter IDs cannot be attacked indefinitely after being invalidated
- avoid client-side randomization
- no resource cost in this slice
11. Tests
At minimum:
Hunting
- Burned Road produces only configured monsters
- rare encounter is selectable through deterministic injected random values
- encounter generation is server-authoritative
- invalid/stale encounter cannot start combat
Combat
- Feral Road Hound can apply Bleeding
- Bleeding ticks correctly
- Road Bandit Heavy Strike is telegraphed
- Shield Bash can interrupt the telegraphed action
Loot
- Ash Rat grants Ashen Pelt
- Road Bandit grants Raider Insignia
- normal kill grants no XP
- normal kill grants no Silver
- normal kill grants no reputation
- equipment drop roll remains independent from guaranteed trade good
12. Acceptance Criteria
- Burned Road offers 2–3 encounter choices per hunt.
- Four enemy definitions are available, including rare Charred Raider.
- Feral Road Hound demonstrates Bleeding.
- Road Bandit demonstrates Telegraphing / interrupt interaction.
- Every enemy grants a thematic trade good.
- Equipment can drop in addition to trade goods.
- Normal kills grant no XP, Silver, regional reputation or World Renown.
- Loot is persisted server-side.
- The player can repeatedly hunt without manual database changes.
- Existing travel and combat flows continue to work.
13. Out of Scope
Do not add yet:
- loot bag capacity
- merchant exchange
- reputation-gated shop offers
- first quest tutorial
- Abandoned Watchpost content
- area boss