Others Corruption of Champions II [v0.7.8] [Savin/Salamander Studios]

[Quoo]

One Piece's world building being an "illusion of depth" has to be the worst take I have seen about anything, also I cant tell if Skandranon is a troll or Savin himself

 

[Lord Kentus]

hellbent of exterminating all kitsune is not the only correct course of action.

I mean to be fair, that's a very understandable position as they currently exist I think

 

[Skandranon]

They do for me.

They don't for most people. Like I said, if what you were saying is true, we wouldn't have people in this very thread complaining that the game treats you like a side character, because mechanically, the world revolves around you and that never changes.

And more importantly, this entire conversation is specifically about my personal opinion, so thats what we're talking about here.

A literal drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the game.

Except the game literally ends, which means everyone's does. It doesn't move on to another character after you die because you're the center of attention. No one else's story gets resolved if yours ends.

...this is true of every game in existence where you have to play a single viewpoint character. Taking it that literally makes no sense except for semantics.

If I made a game about being a janitor, technically you could say the janitor is the center of the universe because if he fails at whatever he's doing, the game ends.

But that would be silly.

Memes and opinions aside, Batman is just a dude with a lot of money. He didn't earn the money he got from his parents the same way Spider-Man didn't earn that insect bite. They are still special because of those things.

This whole conversation is about opinions.

Batman trained, invented, and worked for a long time to get what he has. It's a hell of a lot more than just "has money". Spider-man was just in the right place at the right time.

If you don't encounter any of the elements involved in lore, then it's not good worldbuilding because it's not part of the world. I don't know how far you are in One Piece but none of that is true. We see things all the time through flashbacks and the events in those shape how the present is ongoing. We've seen specifics about the history of Roger, even had a flashback arc specifically about a part of it not too long ago. The allusions One Piece makes actually have an impact on the story. The poneglyphs, the ancient weapons, ancient civilizations like the Shandians, the Void Century and how it effects the world today still, etc are integral to what's going on. If we just went through the journey without knowing the history we wouldn't understand why things are happening or what needs to be done to resolve them. It's not an illusion, it's actual depth because it actually matters.

I've read all of One Piece, but that's neither here nor there.

But let's give another popular example: Star Wars, specifically the original trilogy.

When they first meet Han Solo, he brags that his ship can do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

What's the Kessel Run? Where is Kessel? Why is it so popular? What's a parsec? How fast is the fastest time, for comparison?

None of that is answered. None of it is referenced again (besides the fact that the MF is fast). It doesn't matter, because we don't need to know. That moment builds out the universe: it lets us know that Star Wars uses an alternative measurement of distance, it lets us know that somewhere there's a place called Kessel, it lets us know that the Kessel Run is a popular enough benchmark that Han assumes the reference is impressive to everyone, and it lets us know that the Falcon is fast (but gives no point of actual comparison).

Or when Han meets Lando, they, in a short period of time, reference several events in their shared past that we get no detail on. Just vague references that let us know that there are things and places outside of the scope of this story.

That's all worldbuilding, and good worldbuilding.

But Spider-Man is not the center of that world. If he died, the story of that world would continue because it's set in the Marvel Universe where there are hundreds of comics detailing how life still goes on after him. Even characters taking up his mantle and becoming Spider-Man have happened.

...this is my point. My original statement was "you can be the main character and not have the world revolve around you."

Spider-man is the main character of everything titled "Spider-man". Yet, the world does not revolve around him. That's exactly what I'm saying, the world is bigger than the story about Spider-man being told in it. And even in the context of his own story, he fails a lot.

And Saitama definitively is not. There have been large swathes of the manga where he's not even on panel the majority of the time. He's basically a side character at this point.

Again, this is my whole point.
If it didn't show up, everyone would die. The comic is titled after him. No one is stronger than him. He is the solution to almost every problem.

Yet, we can have an interesting story where he's not the focus. That's literally the exact point I've been making.

And I don't think Frodo is the central focus of LotR. He is one story we follow along with multiple others.

He isn't the central focus, he's the main character. Like I said, you can be the main character and still not have the world revolves around you.

 

[LandBeach]

Speaking of worldbuilding and lore in general, I feel the characters do exposition dumps a bit too much.

 

[Fikedever]

Does a guy playing Tomb Raider self-insert as Lara Croft? Do people "self-insert" as Arthur Morgan when playing Red Dead Redemption 2? I'd say not usually.

Some people, yeah.

Self-insertion isn't ubiquitous to all video games , its usually restricted to a certain subset of them which lack well defined personalities to get in the way of thinking of "yourself" as the person in the game. I simply play all games the same way you'd play a fighting game, or Mario, or a TMNT game or something: the PC is just an entity I'm controlling.

If it is a blank slate RPG it is definitely the intention to self-insert. I'm also talking about the context of a RPG porn game, not necessarily all games. I don't think a well defined character stops self-insertion, just makes it harder for some people.

There's a big difference between being a viewpoint character and being the center of attention. One doesn't necessitate the other. I don't like stories where it feels like one single character is the only active force of the entire universe, it makes that story seem artificial. The MC can be the focus of some scenes. The MC shouldn't be the focus of EVERY scene. I think that some stuff should happen independently of the MC's control.

I may have misinterpreted here. I was thinking about being the center of attention relating to porn scenes in a porn game, not necessarily the non-porn scenes. I see the benefit in balancing the focus of scenes.

If a character is introduced in a sexual way in a porn game, then they should be focused on the player character. I don't think it follows that because in a normal RPG a shift of focus at times to another character can be good means that it is a good idea to shift the focus to another character having sex unless the intention is voyeur, cucking, open, or polyamorous relationship.

For example, I think the PC being able to "deny" other character's relationship is silly. It should be something you either encourage or ignore, but not forbid. It gives you an outsized amount of control for the purpose of stroking the player's ego at the expense of the veracity of the in-game universe (and, to add, an amount of control that can't possibly be consistently replicated throughout the game).

Stroking the player's ego isn't a bad goal for a porn game. I have different expectations for a porn game. An ignore button is the easy way for the writer to not write a path they aren't interested is doing, which isn't a bad thing. If there are characters that are intended for polyamorous, open, voyeur, or cucking content then that should be made clear early on so that a player is able to invest as little time in them as possible if they aren't interested in it.

I don't really think this is true. Self-insertion is at direct odds with an interesting character, I really don't think it's possible to do both.

It's not a requirement for me. Generally, I don't self-insert as exactly me. Sometimes its someone who I wish I could be. I think it depends on the person, though. There is likely variability in ability or desire to self-insert that is affected by similarity of the character. So, the more concrete you make a character, the more you decrease the proportion of people who would self-insert. but its certainly possible.

I've seen people complain when, say, the PC declares their love for a character and the player doesn't feel the same way. I've seen people complain about the PC's tone in certain scenes, that its too angry when the player hasn't directed them that way. I myself have disliked scenes with Gweyr, where the player is sympathetic to her estrangement from her family despite me thinking she kinda deserved it.

There are too many shackles in place caused by people expectations of a self-insert character to give them an interesting personality. Gotta pick one or the other.

You can have a concrete characterization within the choices the player makes. For example, having the PC declaring love for a character after choosing to have sex with them is probably a bad idea, worse if they haven't even had sex. Generally, love is related to a pursued romance option. I think the bigger issue with those complaints is a lack of build up to the declaring of love. Generally, most players who wouldn't love the character would have stopped pursuing the progression and wouldn't have an issue. If of course, they went through the scenes until the PC declared love and the player was convinced they didn't love them, and then complained, I could see what you mean, but I don't think that's generally what happens.

I'm not really sure the context of anger you are talking about. For me, when it comes to the PC being angry in responses, the issue I have with it is that theres really nothing you can do. It is actually worse when I'm self-inserting and also personally would be angry, because now I'm resonating with the anger the PC feels and I can't do anything about it. This usually happens in Tobs content for me, and is part of the reason I've not played a single Kinu quest. The big issue with Tobs content is the PC lacks agency because of the linearity of the narrative, which comes out as the player character being weak. This doesn't cause issues with me self-inserting, it just isn't interesting to me. The whole Kinu stepping out of the parents shadow theme doesn't make up for that lack of interest.

Is the issue with Gweyr the lack of ability to self-insert because of Tobs writing the player character with more definite characterization? What I've gathered from the complaints about Gweyr I've seen is that the player character is railroaded into acting stupid because Tobs wanted to write a good reason for Gweyr to have been exiled, but then couldn't figure out how to justify why the player character, and the player, should be sympathetic, and just decided to force the player character to be sympathetic no matter the choice?

From my understanding, you don't self-insert as the player character, but you disliked the Gweyr scene anyways. Wouldn't this indicate that the issue is outside of self-insertion?

This is pretty much what I'm saying. There's not enough interesting choices to make your blank slate character take the hit in personality. And the dev team is too small to give you the amount of choices that would make it worth it, at least to me personally. Hell, multi-million dollar companies have struggled with this same thing.

I don't think the issue is that the team is too small, I think the issue is that focus is deliberately on writing more content for less choices and branching paths for extended word count on a single path.

Coincidentally I agree with Sav here. Characters that make the PC the center of their whole lives make me uncomfortable, because the player can't logically reciprocate, which makes the relationship seem massively unequal. I can't take the PC pretending to have a deep, lasting relationship with a single character, then turning around and saying basically the same thing to 20 other chicks while the first one waits back at home for the PC to give them some attention again. Harems kinda creep me out.

Which is why I enjoy when NPCs do their own thing sans the PC.

Would it make you comfortable to create a single character that you devote only to Brienne then? That way, that PC would be reciprocating and fully focused on Brienne, and there wouldn't be any hypocrisy or unequality?

You might just be because I have no problem conceptualizing a character based off all the choices in the game and my own ideal in this setting. They don't all have to be pivotal choices to fit what my character would do. And I already said the problem is when they do take choices and force dialogue on you, which we see a lot with Tobs and why his content gets lambasted so much.

I guess I have an issue of coming up with a head cannon and running away with it, so I'm good at coming up with a character, but then I get frustrated when I get off the rails. That's also mostly related to Tobs content though.

The main villain is focused on you due to sheer happenstance (literally just standing in the right place at the right time) as opposed to you just being generally super awesome.

In a way, the main villain is focused on you because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. But, the reason you are in the right place at the right time is because you do possess a special quality no one else in the tavern does: courage. I would have said empathy as well, but its possible to want to help Cait for selfish reasons (like a reward) if you are playing that kind of character.

I'm obviously not talking about game mechanics. Game mechanics don't shape perceptions of characters. If they did, people in this very thread wouldn't be irritated by how the game treats them in the story because the mechanics treat them the same either way. Mechanically, literally everyone is an unthinking unfeeling doll when you aren't around - that's not how anyone, in this topic or any other one, actually perceives them, because mechanics don't shape character perception.

What you see shapes your perception. What you don't doesn't tend to. That's why, mechanically, characters being unthinking unfeeling dolls doesn't affect how people perceive them. This is why sequels can alter people's enjoyment of an older work, unless they haven't seen or heard about it from other people. The less you see, the easier it is to compartmentalize it. People generally can separate game battle mechanics from story using suspension of disbelief, but there are cases when there is such a disconnect between game and story that it causes ludonarrative dissonance. The fact that that phrase exists indicates that probably someone experienced a change in perception of story based on gameplay.

The gameplay is almost invariably completely independent of the story. If there's a cutscene where your character gets beat, it doesn't matter how high you level up - your character gets beat.

I don't think automatic defeat cutscenes are good game design. They might be the best way the writer has of moving the story along, but its more a concession due to limitation of paths.

Story trumps gameplay, always, when it comes to shaping perceptions and personal taste in how characters are handled. Almost nobody's personal tastes take gameplay into account.

I think that story is a more important factor than gameplay for characterization, but an ideal would be to use gameplay to strengthen characterization. Usually though, fun gameplay is more important than that so concessions are made, and the story can make up for any dissonance. Go to far in the gameplay, though, and it can start overriding suspension of disbelief.

None of that is answered. None of it is referenced again (besides the fact that the MF is fast). It doesn't matter, because we don't need to know.

...

Or when Han meets Lando, they, in a short period of time, reference several events in their shared past that we get no detail on. Just vague references that let us know that there are things and places outside of the scope of this story.

That's all worldbuilding, and good worldbuilding.

That worldbuilding has a direct explanatory effect on elements directly affecting the story. They serve a purpose, and as you indicate are usually one liners that aren't overly expositing. The issue with CoC2 is that it has large exposition dumps.

 

[Fikedever]

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You can try out Drifa, written by Jstar and coded by mod anon.

Full release probably tomorrow. There may be bugs.

Edit: Also, save compatibility is not guaranteed.

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Edit 2: That changelog is wrong. Correct one will be edited in to the current post.

 

[Raf-Raf]

You must be registered to see the links

You can try out Drifa, written by Jstar and coded by mod anon.

Full release probably tomorrow. There may be bugs.

Edit: Also, save compatibility is not guaranteed.

You must be registered to see the links

Level 20 cap...
Looks like I'll lose my sanity throughout the grinding experience.

 

[Skandranon]

If it is a blank slate RPG it is definitely the intention to self-insert. I'm also talking about the context of a RPG porn game, not necessarily all games. I don't think a well defined character stops self-insertion, just makes it harder for some people.

Yeah, that's the subset I'm talking about.
I'm simply saying I personally regard blank slate characters the exact same way I'd regard any other character, which means in my eyes its just a character with no personality. Boring.

If a character is introduced in a sexual way in a porn game, then they should be focused on the player character. I don't think it follows that because in a normal RPG a shift of focus at times to another character can be good means that it is a good idea to shift the focus to another character having sex unless the intention is voyeur, cucking, open, or polyamorous relationship.

Eh, I think this is up to personal taste.
But I will say that in this particular game, pretty much all the relationships are open and polyamorous, because your character is canonically polyamorous.

Stroking the player's ego isn't a bad goal for a porn game. I have different expectations for a porn game. An ignore button is the easy way for the writer to not write a path they aren't interested is doing, which isn't a bad thing. If there are characters that are intended for polyamorous, open, voyeur, or cucking content then that should be made clear early on so that a player is able to invest as little time in them as possible if they aren't interested in it.

I get what you're saying here. I think it all comes down to a push-and-pull between the porn and the plot. I think such options hurt the plot (at least for me), but I can see as to where they'd improve the experience of the porn part. The call would come down to where you want your game to focus on; there are plenty of games on this site where the porn is subservient to the plot, and vice versa.

It's not a requirement for me. Generally, I don't self-insert as exactly me. Sometimes its someone who I wish I could be. I think it depends on the person, though. There is likely variability in ability or desire to self-insert that is affected by similarity of the character. So, the more concrete you make a character, the more you decrease the proportion of people who would self-insert. but its certainly possible.

Like I said, its not something I can quite relate to, but the mechanics of it and how it differs between people is an interesting topic.

I think the bigger issue with those complaints is a lack of build up to the declaring of love. Generally, most players who wouldn't love the character would have stopped pursuing the progression and wouldn't have an issue. If of course, they went through the scenes until the PC declared love and the player was convinced they didn't love them, and then complained, I could see what you mean, but I don't think that's generally what happens.

Yeah, lack of buildup is an issue that I've seen come up a decent amount between this and TiTs.
An example of this specific thing for me is Brienne. After you transform her, if you sleep with her, it pretty much immediately goes full steam into your characters acting very much in love. A bunch of her scenes fire automatically, too, upon stepping into the Wayfort; she'll basically tackle you and get you to knock her up as soon as she's done with her previous litter. My characters had to start taking blank powder to get out of the cycle. She doesn't really have any buildup at all.

Of course, most people do really really like her, largely because Wsan is a goddamn wizard at pretty much anything he does, so its not really a problem that comes up much, but for me personally, it was bit offputting. Evelyn, another Wsan character, also has the issue of a lack of buildup I think, but for a different reason.

I'm not really sure the context of anger you are talking about. For me, when it comes to the PC being angry in responses, the issue I have with it is that theres really nothing you can do. It is actually worse when I'm self-inserting and also personally would be angry, because now I'm resonating with the anger the PC feels and I can't do anything about it. This usually happens in Tobs content for me, and is part of the reason I've not played a single Kinu quest. The big issue with Tobs content is the PC lacks agency because of the linearity of the narrative, which comes out as the player character being weak. This doesn't cause issues with me self-inserting, it just isn't interesting to me. The whole Kinu stepping out of the parents shadow theme doesn't make up for that lack of interest.

Funnily enough, the context was something to do with a Kinu Quest. I don't know what specifically it was, because, again, I've done basically no kitsune content still (lack of interest in Kiyoko, mostly) but it was just something I noted people had opinions about. Sounds like a recurring Tobs problem.

From my understanding, you don't self-insert as the player character, but you disliked the Gweyr scene anyways. Wouldn't this indicate that the issue is outside of self-insertion?

My personal issue with Gweyr was being misled. After she first gives you her story, you basically get to make a judgment call on how she behaved in her tale. You can say what she did was necessary, or you van say she's a monster, as well as a more neutral option.

The issue is that after that, no matter what you pick, as you continue down her questline your character comes down on the side of basically being 100% on her side and convincing her she deserves to go home.

I don't like choices that don't do anything.

Would it make you comfortable to create a single character that you devote only to Brienne then? That way, that PC would be reciprocating and fully focused on Brienne, and there wouldn't be any hypocrisy or unequality?

Eh. You run into a matter of practicality there: Brienne (or any other character} doesn't have enough content to hold up a game by herself. She wasn't designed that way, no character was. I wouldn't devote the time to run through the entire game just for Brienne scenes.

And then, as another consideration, she just doesn't hit any of my buttons. I don't like lactation or pregnancy, and I prefer my PC to play the sub if someone has to.

In a way, the main villain is focused on you because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. But, the reason you are in the right place at the right time is because you do possess a special quality no one else in the tavern does: courage. I would have said empathy as well, but its possible to want to help Cait for selfish reasons (like a reward) if you are playing that kind of character.

Sure, but that just makes you a decent person. There's a difference between a character being particularly brave and a character being The Chosen One. Heck, to bring back my earlier One Piece example that's a huge argument going on in One Piece about Luffy right now; that's he now way too special and it damages the story, despite the fact that he was already pretty damn special.

I don't personally like most stories that cross a certain line in putting the MC on a pedestal, no matter the medium.

I don't think automatic defeat cutscenes are good game design. They might be the best way the writer has of moving the story along, but its more a concession due to limitation of paths.

Oh, I don't either. I'm not saying they're good, I'm just using them as an example of how story trumps gameplay in almost all situations when it comes to characters and story.

I think that story is a more important factor than gameplay for characterization, but an ideal would be to use gameplay to strengthen characterization. Usually though, fun gameplay is more important than that so concessions are made, and the story can make up for any dissonance. Go to far in the gameplay, though, and it can start overriding suspension of disbelief.

Yeah we pretty much agree on this. There's kind of a fuzzy line drawn where story and gameplay affect each other, though, and I think where that line should be is going to be different from game to game.

That worldbuilding has a direct explanatory effect on elements directly affecting the story. They serve a purpose, and as you indicate are usually one liners that aren't overly expositing. The issue with CoC2 is that it has large exposition dumps.

Oh, I think CoC2's worldbuilding could use a lot of work; the Convocation of Mirrors for instance was a really sloppy way to tell an important piece of lore.

My comments on worldbuilding were to point out how it establishes that the Champ isn't the most important thing in the world and that there's other and possibly bigger stuff going on.

 

[sskrx7]

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You can try out Drifa, written by Jstar and coded by mod anon.

Full release probably tomorrow. There may be bugs.

Edit: Also, save compatibility is not guaranteed.

You must be registered to see the links

I wish you could tell your foxy family to fuck off after Kiyoko and Kinu kindly inform you that your opinion doesn't matter at all, we shouldn't be forced to romance her just to get her out in the first place. I want Kohaku romance instead .

 

[Raf-Raf]

I wish you could tell your foxy family to fuck off after Kiyoko and Kinu kindly inform you that your opinion doesn't matter at all, we shouldn't be forced to romance her just to get her out in the first place. I want Kohaku romance instead .

Kohaku gang, best gang???

 

[Deleted member 1660801]

We demand more Kohaku content

Jokes aside, I'm a little afraid Tobs looks at this forum and he is gonna see all this Kohaku love and make her shitty out of spite

 

[KloneZone]

I wish you could tell your foxy family to fuck off after Kiyoko and Kinu kindly inform you that your opinion doesn't matter at all, we shouldn't be forced to romance her just to get her out in the first place. I want Kohaku romance instead .

I wish we could get Kohaku out of the Kitsune Den. She deserves better then to be in that place.

 

[CantThinkOfOne]

in my case my tittle already dark knight and 100 corruption, so the sword supposed to be corrupted dawnsword but it still unequiped automaticaly am I missing something or doing something wrong?

did you save edit your corruption?

 

[Daken9]

Lowkey, i think Kohaku's as good as she is because she's mostly an afterthought. You can tell Tobs put way more effort on her cat counterpart (outside of Mino city) and she's 100x less readable for it

 

[Raf-Raf]

We demand more Kohaku content

Jokes aside, I'm a little afraid Tobs looks at this forum and he is gonna see all this Kohaku love and make her shitty out of spite

For Tobs more content means more empire-state-building-sized word walls.

 

[Quintilus]

empire-state-building-sized word walls

Oh no, raf-r...I mean king kong climbing up on that building!!!!!!11111 What should we do?????

 

[Raf-Raf]

Oh no, raf-r...I mean king kong climbing up on that building!!!!!!11111 What should we do?????

You see before we get to that, we need some flashbacks involving Kinu.
Then after that, we'll talk about the godswar before we reach the King Dong storyline.
Then put some extra fillers too to make it even more tedious to read.

 

[Quintilus]

You see before we get to that, we need some flashbacks involving Kinu.
Then after that, we'll talk about the godswar before we reach the King Dong storyline.
Then put some extra fillers too to make it even more tedious to read.

"Next"
"Next"
"Continue"
....
What I supposed to do, again? Wher s ma quest log?

 

[Deleted member 1660801]

For Tobs more content means more empire-state-building-sized word walls.

That's when I just skip to the h-scenes lmao

 

[Raf-Raf]

That's when I just skip to the h-scenes lmao

Except those world walls are the h-scenes.