I'm certainly no HopesGaming, but let me see if I can answer at least some of them, heh.
Many devs have different approach to it and my humble opinion is that DPC in last episodes of BaDIK achieved perfection of how it should look like. I'm not saying that you should copy his solution (not saying you should not lol) but info about characters in DeLuca are just simply not enough imo.
As you said, many devs approach character database differently.
But if you're citing an example, it's best that you provide a visual example using screenshots of the said game.
Otherwise people may not know what you're referring to despite you citing the game (heck, I don't even remember what the database of characters for BADiK looks like
)
And to expand my thoughts from above, I think that there are too little interaction with people... At the beginning I was hyped to see there are 3 guys fighting in the garden, visiting tavern or brothel, being able to "roam, know the city and help its people" so database like that would be much appriciated right? After couple hours of playing I feel scamed. Girls and Wilfred are the only people I can interact with and after basic few lines that's it... What's with the dancing stuff? I completed mission to learn dance, made one attempt to dance with Gracie, all seems promising and the next thing I can do is saying "Dancing?" each evening with dialog the same as at the beginning... All dialogues with rest of people are the same and it does not have any sense, they are not acting like a people (they should), not taking into account that we already know each other quite good (compared to first day in house) but all we got are the same, emotionless responses.
I think you're misunderstanding couple of things with this part.
The game has events which occurs in small steps such as the following;
- Wine event with Isabel
- Yoga event with Isabel
- Dance event with Gracie
etc etc
And with this, there's bound to be a little bit of conflict between a pure VN approach & exploration gameplay approach.
Girls freeroam content is a bit of mix of both.
I'll try to explain it using Uncle Wilfred.
In the beginning there's a tons of new dialogue options for him; such as "Tell me about yourself" "Tell me about this town" "What is Consigliere" "Why do people call you Uncle?"
But every other dialogue choice other than that is completely situational and dependent on the event triggered:
e.g. "Do you have Luna's knife?" will only be available when Luna's Knife Knife is triggered, & "I'd like to talk about Luna" dialogue option is only available when My name is Luna is started.
Hence Hopes only put essential dialogue choices which triggers events with these characters (not just Wilfred, but all the girls in freeroam).
If the game was just 100% only VN mode (with zero freeroam), then I'd say your critique here would be very valid, but given Full Experience mode and Just Story mode have got a mix of exploration gameplay in them I wouldn't consider this to be a fair criticism tbh - cause otherwise, Hopes will need to create meaningless new banter dialogues for everytime player's MC interacts with the characters (which would be tons, esp in Full Experience) just to give them something new to say for every instance.
I like concept of equipement. I would love to see more choices there (money-based, not story-based) and that whatever I bought has any impact to dialogues/story, not just stats. Like me having a gun but in dialogues MC still acts like he never hold one or there is no way for me to go to shooting range to train. Or Gracie mentioned about buying better clothes to train dancing, or MC having own car/bike, or basicaly anything really but meaning more than just stat change and look but only in equipement screen. There is just no interaction between that and the world
Uhhh...... I'd hate to break this to ya, but I just don't see this happening.
The only thing the Wilfred's contracts & the Main Story content shares is the narrative and the characters.
Everything else, like the equipment or feats that happen in the contracts, are either just not applicable or overwritten/determined solely by how the main story dictates it (with main story linking the said contracts event to be canon; like the characters of nuns Amita, Amata, Lelianna).
e.g.
- MC in my playthrough has not just the gun, but bulletproof vest, Holy Pants, Lock Glasses and more, with some of them even being Legendary equipment. It is (and I mean absolutely no offense by it) implausible to expect all these to reflect on the main story; if Hopes allows one item such as gun to show up on main story just cause player MC obtains it or used it once during Contracts, he'll need to allow it for basically everything else, opening a huge can of worms.
- Every time when player MC gets something new; like a new item; like your example of car or bike? That's gonna change or impact the game.
And Hopes already has an outline/plan of how things will progress set up - equipment from Wilfred's contracts gameplay impacting the story could have consequences of conflicting with his already set up narrative.
- The game isn't a AAA game (like Witcher 3, or Baldur's Gate 3).
If Hopes had a huge team behind it (as well as the money), perhaps it could be done.
But he's a solo dev who only recently launched his season 1 on Steam.
Oh, and don't get me wrong, I like the equipment and the customizing of the MC. But I just don't see what you're hoping happening.
Firstly I was in love of that - I was promised freedom (freeroam), money, mafia stuff, training camp (wow) etc and at the end hm... One or two missions like bring wine or learn ballet gave me one or two points to skills and that's it. In the meantime I had to make missions requiring me to have high stealth for example and... It felt linear. I know it is AVN but I hate when devs comes with ideas they cannot handle properly. If we are implementing stats here - give me chances to improve them. If they even matter - give me different content according to them. Clothes changes stats? Ok, but give me choice of making money which is not story-related. If everything is story-driven anyway then there is no point in implementing RPG elements in the first place.
Skill points can be increased in following ways;
- permanent increase by going through girls events (+1 per each relevant event)
- gear providing different increases
With "give me choice of making money which is not story-related." perhaps you can give an example/s?
And tbh, not sure why you'd want further increase in stats anyway (on top of methods already provided).
If you wish to make the MC basically Superman, there are mods out there by some people that does that; though I really wouldn't recommend them.
It is nicely described in "Help, tips & event" tab but in reality there is no such a thing or at least it is not visible at all for a player. To this point of the game my only choice was to either watch Luna killing mercenary or not and to look at dead traitor (forgot his name) or not... And it doesn't matter anyway since result is all the same and there are no stat related to it (at least yet)
This one, Hopes will need to answer himself; don't think he made his position clear about dispassion yet.
First thing I find stupid was this whole hitlerjugend soldier theme. I'm okay that it is kinda of dev's art of concept but it doesn't have any sense for these people to wear clothes like that in daily basis like we could see in tavern.
Uhhh....I'm confused at what you're trying to refer to here (you'll need to clarify this one).
Money is another thing. It is nicely implemented, I love having "RPG elements" in AVNs but at the same time I'm there couple days/weeks and I feel like I'm the only one having money.
If you're referring to the girls wearing same clothes throughout season 1 (hence it feeling like they have no money to you), Hopes said before that all the main girls (Luna, Gracie, Isabel, Cordia) will be getting an attire change for season 2.
Not sure for the men (Wilfred, Antonio) as well as other non-main LI girls (like Eiza, Elektra, Siobhan, Amita, Amata, Caterina, Onorina etc etc) though.
I answered, what I could, but I guess
HopesGaming can better answer your critique.
