Chyos today:
Good morning,
I've finally caught some sleep and am now somewhat refreshed, so time to report about the past week.
First of all: I'm glad that the bonus scene is finally finished or at least 95% finished (I'm still missing a replayable version for the camp route of the 3some scene with Yasmine & Liandra), I'll submit it on Monday.
This scene was quite a lot of work, as many had already suspected. Almost 650 pictures and it cost me a few nerves just yesterday. Nevertheless, I had originally hoped to finish on Wednesday. Well, overestimating myself is still a problem for me. Yesterday afternoon, while testing, I also had the desire to improve a few things. It occurred to me that it would be nice to be able to wake up Yasmine in the night. Since I had already made a scene in which Giron is sleeping next to her, it seemed like a great addition with little work. And yes, it could be done quite quickly in half an hour's work. but then I realized that there is only 1 animation with 2 views available.
That bothered me, so I took her other animations and made a few additional pictures so that Giron is asleep in all the animations. Of course the layers of the animations had to be reworked afterwards. but I was happy with the result. Then I had the idea "it would only be logical if he could wake up when you're too loud" (the scene already existed)... Well, all in all it took more like 2 hours.
There were some other things along the way that I also added and changed, traps will now rattle when a rat or rabbit is caught to make it easier to see if a trap is full. And since Melissa's quest took a little too much grind from what I've heard (looks like I just got extremly lucky during my tests) I've increased the chance to find map pieces from 1/2 to 2/3.
Ok, now that this scene is finally done I can look forward into working on the combat rebalancing. The plan still stands to get the 0.5.6.5 update out before the month is over, but if that is really possible will be seen by the end of next week. The changes I plan to make are quite a lot, altough some of them might only be active after you start a new game. For example: changes made to the talent system won't be visible until you start a new game. This is due to the nature of rpgmaker and I can't change that (some variables are set in stone the moment you start a new game). However old saves won't be affected by this as they will still have the current talents enabled as before.
Originally I also had the idea to change the accessory slots so that you have 1 slot for jewelry and one for belt/cloak. But that would be incompatible with the current saves (I have already tested) so this change will have to wait and it is therefore possible to wear 2 belts at the same time for now.
Well, I will report at the end of next week what exactly has been changed.
But enough work for now, have a nice weekend!