Unreal Engine Breeders of the Nephelym [v0.761.13 Public] [DerelictHelmsman]

[RubyZeronyka]

Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying, but most of your grievances with Dark Souls seem to be aimed at the community, not the game itself.

First of all, in Dark Souls, the difficulty—while undoubtedly frustrating to some (especially more casual) players—is an intentional part of the game design; that is to say, Dark Souls is about overcoming overwhelming odds; and this is why enemies are designed to be so difficult (and, for instance, why they’re so tall—they’re meant to make the player feel small, inadequate). In contrast, Breeders of the Nephelym has no reason to multiply the grind every update. Should we believe that DH has a similar philosophy about how BotN is supposed to embody the true struggle involved in maintaining a breeding farm? Unlikely.

Second, Dark Souls actually has several tools to lessen its difficulty built into the game mechanics. A lot of builds are simply more forgiving than others—heavy armour and tower shields, for instance, are much friendlier to newer or casual players than running around naked with a buckler and parrying everything. Even further on the easy-mode side of the spectrum are magic builds, which give players more and safer options for dealing with the threats they encounter. Finally, there are summons, which drastically lower the difficulty of boss encounters. Note that the game itself does not judge players for using these tools in any way, shape, or form; it’s the players of Dark Souls who have a reputation for establishing a hierarchy of the various builds according to “prestige”, calling noobs those players who use safer builds and telling them to “git gud”, and likewise mocking players who use summons, etc.

I want to stress also that growth potential in Dark Souls—how much faster one can progress by being familiar with its mechanics—is far, far greater than that in Breeders of the Nephelym.

All in all, I think that even overlooking other aspects of the games such as levels of polish; how much more engaging and well-crafter the actual gameplay loop of Dark Souls is compared to BotN; how much more attention is put into the world-building and story, etc.; there’s a clear difference fundamentally between what Dark Souls presents and what games such as Breeders of the Nephelym, which like to pretend they’re just “old-school hard”, have to offer.

My issue with soulslikes is that they have a super constrictive while contortionist kind of playloop. They offer you "choices" but those choices if you dont follow them in XYZZY7.AE way, youre dead. So it gives you the feel that you can do this in so many ways but in reality only a few are viable, unless you're a masochist that wanna prove that you can beat the game by using a fart attack. I mean, its possible? Yeah, viable? Hell the fuck no XD

One thing that to me makes the whole "difficulty is a design choice" story to fall appart is when you look on the lower side of the spectrum. Take Fallen Order/Survivor for example. In any representation of SW, stormtroopers are a memed bad aiming shooters that barely can do damage. Even the melee ones are just as weak. Yet in those two games a damn tropper with an electrobaton does more damage to you that what you do to them with a damn lightsaber that is suposed to cut throught titanium like if you cut hot butter with a diamond knife. And it barely scratches them.... Assuming that you have bypass their kryptonian level block stamina bar.

Sure, if a hard enemy that is said to be a big deal is hard, that's good, it has to be hard. But on the other hand if a game brings a damn stormtrooper, skeleton, ground soldier, whatevs, and the damn thing is capable to kill me, to me that's simply not just bad game design but literally immersion breaking. Cause I know that my real life self would perform better than my character that has actual combat skills. And that is a side that is rarely mentioned but ALWAYS there. Add to that that fans like to copy/paste the formula into other genres or bring similar feels of "challenge" into other games and you get situations like the Warden in Minecraft that made me drop that game on any version past 1.19. One thing is challenge, but another thing is BS. And the issue is that the souls trend very rarely properly sets each other appart cause the very concepts they use to define those contradict themselves in a lot of ways.

Again, Im putting things from the perspective of an average player and again DS games and BotN are very different and in many ways uncomparable genres. But crazily enough they seem to have more parelelisms in the way they handle their progression mecanics that the average people would even care to think. And since you mentioned the builds in DS. BotN also have ways to make the game much easier. Like:
- Go as a futa player.
- Play with pregnancies off.
- Use liquids to capture nephs instead of relying on Wild Sex.
- Play with only futas.
- Abuse the breed-breed-breed-sleep-repeat cycle until you get what you need.
- Abuse the vagrants to farm experience.
- Etc
But still those are things that while viable and available tools to make your gameplay life much easier it limitates a lot the other potential gameplays. You can play as a female or male, but has less options. You can enjoy the process of seen the pregnancies happen but it triples the time it takes. Use wild sex instead of liquids but farm for experience. Etc. Takes time to get to a fun point, its annoying, youll rather be doing something else and the illusion of choice is still there. You can use cheats to bypass the annoyance like you can use trainers in soulslikes but that essentially nullyfies the experience as a whole. And THAT is a big part of the problem. Its when the annoyance IS part of the core gameplay spine. Not because the game lacks ways to be fun without the grind or challenge but because the game is designed to force you to deal with it liking it or not even if what's hooking you to play the game is something else.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

but it's a porn game... i'm not here to git gud... i just want to git nut

Exactly. And its part of the thing. We play BotN for the sex and breeding to then have a unique looking offspring. The grind essentially kills that core part of the game's immersion.

Another thing is that many players and devs tend to clearly underestimate how certain elements of the gameplay like defeat or grind can be immersion breaking. Some people love to retry a challenge a bizillion times but to me dying more than 3 times in a short period of time is so immersion breaking that I may end up dropping the game for weeks just due to that alone. Specially if it comes after a while when Im doing pretty fine and suddenly the same thing that defeats me left and right in all kinds of ways.

 

[aspar4gus]

Exactly. And its part of the thing. We play BotN for the sex and breeding to then have a unique looking offspring. The grind essentially kills that core part of the game's immersion.

I feel like certain aspects of the game design could've benefitted more if it took inspirations from the the gameplay loop of monster ranching or horse race genre than a soulslike game lol, it's not even apple to apple idk why he's so fixated to apply a very different game philosophy

 

[Nick_Rock90]

I may be dumb but, how can I activate the portals?

 

[TrashBandit]

I feel like certain aspects of the game design could've benefitted more if it took inspirations from the the gameplay loop of monster ranching or horse race genre than a soulslike game lol, it's not even apple to apple idk why he's so fixated to apply a very different game philosophy

When I first started playing this game, I thought that it was a breeding season inspired game but I guess not.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

When I first started playing this game, I thought that it was a breeding season inspired game but I guess not.

I think it was inspired by BS in the beginning but BS has a more engaging loop. And an actual story.
Now it's just bs, and not inspired by BS.

That having been said, I'm not that big a fan of "Endless" games. After you've done everything the game world asks of you (whether you enjoyed it or not), what's the draw to continue in perpetuity?

 

[florameriadoc]

It's working. Thank you.

strange, it doesn't work for me and I have the latest version: Early 0.760.6.

Do I need to press CTRL or SHIFT and the key under escape, or maybe ctrl + shift + key under esc?

 

[RubyZeronyka]

Now it's just bs, and not inspired by BS.

That made me chuckle quite loud

 

[formasual]

When I first started playing this game, I thought that it was a breeding season inspired game but I guess not.

Actually, I believe it was inspired by Breeding Season. Dere said himself in discord years ago, which I witnessed with my own eyes, that he had never seen a porn game that wasn't a breeding game and thought that if he made a porn game it would have to be a breeding game. He was clueless about the different genres at the time and assumed it had to be a breeding game. He used to have some text on the main menu (I think) where he said that this all started because someone was supposed to view the eclipse with him and failed to show up, or something like that. So I think he is just good at most everything he does and decided to dev a porn game on a whim. He was months to a year into development before he realized he could have done just about anything else, but he had already invested so much at that point that he just stayed on course.

 

[aspar4gus]

Actually, I believe it was inspired by Breeding Season.

There was a time, long before the gate progression system and sex position unlocking being implemented, that i believed this to be true. I can play the game almost all day during that iteration.. just focusing on breeding for traits, hair/face combinations, and colors..

Now the gameplay is so tedious that i can't even stand playing these late versions for over 1 hour

 

[Deleted member 1053499]

bout to buy a new laptop and dont want to spend too much money so i m just wondering what pc specs can run this game smoothly??

 

[RubyZeronyka]

bout to buy a new laptop and dont want to spend too much money so i m just wondering what pc specs can run this game smoothly??

Ill say an entry level gaming laptop should suffice.

 

[Xero-34]

my 0.760.0 version save not compatible with 0.760.6 build. how do i fix?

 

[RubyZeronyka]

my 0.760.0 version save not compatible with 0.760.6 build. how do i fix?

Welcome to the reality of BotN where every 4-5 updates, even if minor ones break previously made savefiles. Yet playing the same saves on much older game versions somehow DO load.

 

[Deleted member 1053499]

Ill say an entry level gaming laptop should suffice.

got a 10 year old dell laptop and this game laggy as hell was looking around for a new laptop and there all these i5, i9 and im kinda at a lost.. could u be a tadbit specific

 

[Quazar87]

got a 10 year old dell laptop and this game laggy as hell was looking around for a new laptop and there all these i5, i9 and im kinda at a lost.. could u be a tadbit specific

Yeah, a 10 year old laptop is not going to be able to comfortable run a modern game. I would consider an "entry level gaming laptop" to be a $700-$1000, 15 inch, generally i5 processor ones. The nice ones go up to $2,000 but then they get ridiculous. I don't think anyone needs to drop $4,000 on a top of the line Razor.

It looks like the ASUS - ROG Zephyrus 14” is currently having a big sale. Down to $1,000 from $1,700. That's a quality one, really packs a lot of power into a smaller form factor.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

Yeah, a 10 year old laptop is not going to be able to comfortable run a modern game. I would consider an "entry level gaming laptop" to be a $700-$1000, 15 inch, generally i5 processor ones. The nice ones go up to $2,000 but then they get ridiculous. I don't think anyone needs to drop $4,000 on a top of the line Razor.

It looks like the ASUS - ROG Zephyrus 14” is currently having a big sale. Down to $1,000 from $1,700. That's a quality one, really packs a lot of power into a smaller form factor.

Yeah mine currently is about 5 years, laptop alone cost me 750 bucks with an i5 and BotN on high runs now at about 25-40 at times. However Im starting to notice that more modern games just arent cutting it. Cyberpunk for example while "playable" the experience is honestly ass and that's with everything on the bare lows.

It's perfect for doing a lot of non gaming things or if your games are pretty much pre-2019 released. However it no longer reaches the minimums. So Im forcefully having to build a desktop one but Im not sure which specs should I aim for to have a machine that could last at least about 10 years without requiring an upgrade, at least, not for running from passing the recommended to not even reach the minimums cause it gets quite annoying when a game is simply base framerate unplayable on low.

 

[florameriadoc]

strange, it doesn't work for me and I have the latest version: Early 0.760.6.

Do I need to press CTRL or SHIFT and the key under escape, or maybe ctrl + shift + key under esc?

nevermind, I found the answer on Discord, I need to be a patreon member to make the cheats work

 

[Anonymous_asian]

As I said, Derelict (Main dev of this game) is a big Dark Souls player. And many people that know him have mentioned how part of his way of playing those are transfered into the game like the whole skipping progression mockery.

And again, the parelelisms I brough between the both are:
1. The tediousness to get something done and how even when you know how to do it, the experience more often than not can be more frustrating than fun for the average player.

2. The phylosophy of preventing cheating at all or severely mocking you to do so to the point of invalidating any potential non-sandbox gameplay using them. Forcing you into either 100% sandbox or grind to death. And honestly I suspect he doesnt have removed the sandbox elements cause that would axe 75%+ of his income and perma damage his reputation as a developer but that doesnt prevent him to show you how much he despises you to do so.

3. Both the fact that the main dev is a souls player, you see the experience his game delivers and how is not the first case Ive dealt with in which a dev is fan of said hard games and their developed ones suffer from an annoying game loop.

And 4. How the latter point applies both inside the game with the restrictions and forced tediousness it has and outside the game with the hostily and mockery both the dev and hardcore follower base seem to have. The only difference is the way they say it. In soulslikes they say "git gud", in BotN they say "the game is still on alpha and people seem to be dumb enough to forget that alpha games are prone to changes and nothing is yet set in stone so big changes need to happen and things like save wipes are necesary". Which.... Frankly neither are worth shit. They're basically a synonimous to say "F U and deal with it or stop playing".

The issue is that it does not translate well into BotN. Soul is essentially a rhythm game. The reward is learning the unique induvial rhythms and completing it. The idea of BotN is economics, the idea that you need to fulfil the requests before the deadline or risk being whisked away to prison. Last time I've checked, and throughout the times I've played. Never had I received a hard deadline about breeding. The further the game developed. The less it was about breeding and the more retarded it became. Now you're some "super-hero-god-person-thing-that-needs-to-have-sex-with-the-animals-because-reasons-to-save-the-world". Now go kindle that bonfir- I mean, pussy portal.

I also love the engaging gameplay of pressing spacebar. Totally the best part of the game outside of the walking simulator. At least Cloud Meadow has a card-like pokemon system that was somewhat enjoyable and entertaining to play. Souls respawns encounters to keep it engaging. What does BotN have to keep it engaging while traversing the barren lands? And what's the point once you've unlocked the transportation? Why, why do you have to traverse the area, when you can just event lock it like a normal dev so that once you've reached a certain requirement. You'll gain access to those creatures. At the same time, he'd probably make it so grindy you might as well do the old warcraft trick of a drill a piece of cardboard overnight while you sleep.

 

[formasual]

nevermind, I found the answer on Discord, I need to be a patreon member to make the cheats work

No you don't need to be a supporter. Just press the tilde key and you should see a field to enter cheats at the bottom of the screen. You don't need to press anything else to bring it up, just the tilde key.