Unreal Engine Breeders of the Nephelym [v0.761.53] [DerelictHelmsman]

[RubyZeronyka]

I only play this for fun on and off, so noob question... but what exactly is the issue with the game? I read a lot about grind and unfixable progression system etc but the only grind I can think of is breeding certain Nephs to unlock new areas. Like the hornball bee or a meaty wolf for the titty pony. Other than that you just walk around and collect keystones. If you really need money, sell cow milk.

This is not an argument btw, I just honestly didn't follow the community discussion around the mechanics. I did get stuck in one past version, however, I think it was getting the nympho perk on a dragon. Oh and the Breeder needs to run faster... using Nephs as a mount would fit the setting. Maybe riding a Titan.

You haven't dealt with save wipes yet did you? Cause if you did, youll get a glimpse on part of the problematic we tend to talk about.

Sure, the game can be fun with cheats but thats where the problem starts. The cheats are very 8-80 in the aspect of, the moment you use the money one for example, you end up with 4 times the maximum amount of money youll need to buy basically everything the game has to offer in terms of purchasables. Thing is.... If you dont cheats, then youre up to hours (real life hours) upon hours of ingame grind. Which would be kiiiiiinda okey (I mean survival sandboxes are like that in a way) if it werent by the fact that every 4-5 updates previous saves stop loading on new game versions, so you either hack your save files or start all over again.

Each update also happen to make something that was previously easily available to be locked behind some grind. Like the Pawsmatti sex position thingy for example. Did you knew there was a time in which you started the game with all sex positions available? Now you have to unlock them, one, by, one through favor. Which is a bit tedious to gather.

Or others that totally altered the game flow like, before if you happen to make about 4k money you could buy the demons pool, go straight to Moaning Crag and start to capture some demoms pretty much after say 15 minutes of gameplay or so. Now they're very lategame content only available after probably 15 IRL hours of play (if you do it without cheats). Thats a massive difference and things like that on every update keep getting more and more pronounced.

 

[Dei-mos]

maximum fun after updating the game saves arent working
new game is completly broken too

starting with 0 currency and nothing to sell the only way to get going is cheating ?

compared to 4-5 years earlier there are hardly inprovements
most new races are copy&paste from earlier models bee ok give it antennas and the stinger, sharks lokks similar - just glue a tail on

otherwise its mostly doors, stances and worldlevel forcing the grind
ok map got bigger but 80% of it is empty anyway and the waypoints/teleporters ...

 

[dusk2340]

maximum fun after updating the game saves arent working
new game is completly broken too

starting with 0 currency and nothing to sell the only way to get going is cheating ?

compared to 4-5 years earlier there are hardly inprovements
most new races are copy&paste from earlier models bee ok give it antennas and the stinger, sharks lokks similar - just glue a tail on

otherwise its mostly doors, stances and worldlevel forcing the grind
ok map got bigger but 80% of it is empty anyway and the waypoints/teleporters ...

you need to farm shinies from fern to earn early game money now

 

[formasual]

You haven't dealt with save wipes yet did you? Cause if you did, youll get a glimpse on part of the problematic we tend to talk about.

Sure, the game can be fun with cheats but thats where the problem starts. The cheats are very 8-80 in the aspect of, the moment you use the money one for example, you end up with 4 times the maximum amount of money youll need to buy basically everything the game has to offer in terms of purchasables. Thing is.... If you dont cheats, then youre up to hours (real life hours) upon hours of ingame grind. Which would be kiiiiiinda okey (I mean survival sandboxes are like that in a way) if it werent by the fact that every 4-5 updates previous saves stop loading on new game versions, so you either hack your save files or start all over again.

Each update also happen to make something that was previously easily available to be locked behind some grind. Like the Pawsmatti sex position thingy for example. Did you knew there was a time in which you started the game with all sex positions available? Now you have to unlock them, one, by, one through favor. Which is a bit tedious to gather.

Or others that totally altered the game flow like, before if you happen to make about 4k money you could buy the demons pool, go straight to Moaning Crag and start to capture some demoms pretty much after say 15 minutes of gameplay or so. Now they're very lategame content only available after probably 15 IRL hours of play (if you do it without cheats). Thats a massive difference and things like that on every update keep getting more and more pronounced.

This is pretty much spot on. I would add the one thing that made me finally leave his discord. Supporters, such as myself at the time, were basically ridiculed for wanting the cheats so that we did not have to re-grind hard after every save wipe. This is when he added the "imma lazy sack" cheat which opens the locked gates. The cheat was meant to shame those who used it, but these were, in part, the very same people who were paying him monthly. He wants us to alpha/beta test everything again after a save wipe and also pay him monthly. When we complained he basically called us lazy sacks of shit. I think I had already ended support at that time, but others were pretty offended and I think he lost some support after that, tho he likely gained the equivalent back again at some point.
I know now that he has mental issues, but at the time it seemed he was just being a major dick. Regardless, there have been improvements however slow the updates were released, so I am glad for it because this is a rare and enjoyable game. I also hope his mental health improves or at least does not get worse, not for the sake of the game, but for him personally.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

This is pretty much spot on. I would add the one thing that made me finally leave his discord. Supporters, such as myself at the time, were basically ridiculed for wanting the cheats so that we did not have to re-grind hard after every save wipe. This is when he added the "imma lazy sack" cheat which opens the locked gates. The cheat was meant to shame those who used it, but these were, in part, the very same people who were paying him monthly. He wants us to alpha/beta test everything again after a save wipe and also pay him monthly. When we complained he basically called us lazy sacks of shit. I think I had already ended support at that time, but others were pretty offended and I think he lost some support after that, tho he likely gained the equivalent back again at some point.
I know now that he has mental issues, but at the time it seemed he was just being a major dick. Regardless, there have been improvements however slow the updates were released, so I am glad for it because this is a rare and enjoyable game. I also hope his mental health improves or at least does not get worse, not for the sake of the game, but for him personally.

Damn! I knew that moderation in that server was toxic but having suporters being bullied for wanting QoL features, while they're being the money foundation of the damn game.... Dats a new low for BotN .w.

Quite frankly and being brutally honest, I cannot give two fucks of his mental issues cause shit like that IS NOT an excuse for assholeness. I have been through literal hell in my life in different ways and yet I try to treat people I come across with respect and decently until they prove me by irritating me to the core that they dont deserve such treatment, and even then I avoid going to calling people names. Another thing that I cannot stand is his elitist souslike player mentality. I try, I really try, to not despise fans of games like Dark Souls such as Derelict but more often than not when I come across one they seem to have a personality profile similar to that individual. Mocking you for not being willing to endure the most punishing masochistic treatments that life can throw at them. And should I care that a person like that still not only seeks for more punishment but also wants the others to feel just as miserable? Hell the fuck no.

I cannot say that I was a money supporter but I did offered and worked for a while as a translator of Spanish, I didnt fully liked the whole Pawsmatti adition but at the time the game still didnt had pissed me off enough cause the progression gates werent fully added, but after that and how save wipes kept being a thing, along with the comunity being more toxic every day made me say "Fuck this, imma out". Specially cause besides both Fuzileiro (Portuguese translator), Ngacha (German) and even a partner I briefly had in the team of Spanish that barely stayed a pair of weeks we all kept asking Derelict a lot of times to split the lines page sheets into two being one masculine and one feminine cause a lot of lines in those heavy gendered languages like Portuguese or Spanish sound weird as hell if you apply the same gender neutrality that English is usually known for but he never did and we had to twist our minds to make the damn translations to sound like something a reasonable human being would say while speaking in Spanish lol

TBF I thought a bunch of times to leave this game behind and never look back at it again but after all this time I grew to love the world, my ingame creations and the possibilities of things like neph breeding but.... I would be lying if I said that I havent been heavily looking for something to replace it like for example heavily modded Skyrim. Still has its flaws in things like offspring generation but in every other area it beats BotN to dust.

 

[TheInternetIsForThis]

Another thing that I cannot stand is his elitist souslike player mentality. I try, I really try, to not despise fans of games like Dark Souls such as Derelict but more often than not when I come across one they seem to have a personality profile similar to that individual.

To be honest, this game doesn't resemble a soulslike in the slightest. A soulslike is a challenging game that very strictly follows its own internal rules and rewards players for figuring out those rules and how to abuse them. The point of a soulslike isn't the grind, it's figuring out how to game the game. Thus, 'git gud'. Not to mention most soulslikes actually tell an interesting story and have engaging gameplay as well.

This game doesn't have any of that. It punishes you for attempting to play it, offers no respite, and mocks you for not being exactly like the dev. The rewards for sticking to the grind are paltry at best, and there is no way at all to 'git gud' and jump ahead or otherwise kick the game's ass. The story isn't, and the NPCs are flat enough to make even a pixel game look 3D.

Anyway, yeah. This game isn't a soulslike, and it won't be until someone can speedrun the whole thing in an hour or two while wearing nothing but a bucket and skipping a fascinating storyline in order to do so.

 

[muschi26]

To be honest, this game doesn't resemble a soulslike in the slightest. A soulslike is a challenging game that very strictly follows its own internal rules and rewards players for figuring out those rules and how to abuse them. The point of a soulslike isn't the grind, it's figuring out how to game the game. Thus, 'git gud'. Not to mention most soulslikes actually tell an interesting story and have engaging gameplay as well.

This game doesn't have any of that. It punishes you for attempting to play it, offers no respite, and mocks you for not being exactly like the dev. The rewards for sticking to the grind are paltry at best, and there is no way at all to 'git gud' and jump ahead or otherwise kick the game's ass. The story isn't, and the NPCs are flat enough to make even a pixel game look 3D.

Anyway, yeah. This game isn't a soulslike, and it won't be until someone can speedrun the whole thing in an hour or two while wearing nothing but a bucket and skipping a fascinating storyline in order to do so.

I swear, I see way too many people here (devs and players alike) confound simple tedium with honest difficulty, and mindless grind with meaningful gameplay.

 

[Dei-mos]

I swear, I see way too many people here (devs and players alike) confound simple tedium with honest difficulty, and mindless grind with meaningful gameplay.

if it was just that ...
there were games with a random roll for between + 2000 and -5000 money per day getting the -5k twice or 3 times a row would kill your playthrough since you wouldnt have a chance to get back in the greens making it a quicksave/load carnage

spending time on a game is ok - if its fun or a interesting story etc but pointless grind ?
i mean i asked a dev before if he believed to be ubisoft adding the grind just to sell boosters to skip the grind

or do they use the games for mining in the background? that would at least explain the mindset to tie down players for days and days

 

[formasual]

To anyone who may be wondering about world level, I have been testing the new build (its been quite a while since I played). The world level does seem to rise tho without any indication as such. Its variant specific tho or at least per area. Since some variants share the same area it could boost both, but I'm not exactly sure about that much of it (it didn't in the past). However, it does increase world level when you release neph from your barns. I don't think it works releasing from the breeding yard, only from barns. This is also not 100% tested, but seems so.

 

[TrashBandit]

You have to get Nephelym of your gender first. So if you're male then you need to get male ones. They can be caught with the kind of milk that they like. Then talk to the multi-tailed fox lady lounging near the seraphim that trades your monsters for Favor.

I see I wasn't clear in my question, I already know how to unlock the race that I want through the wild or breeding (for hybrids) and for the fact the males are always feral/exotic. What I wanted to know was how do I turn my human looking spirit form into a furry looking one.

 

[TrashBandit]

I am only asking this is because of the UI change to the character creator. Before all you had to do was press a button in the settings and the character creator to turn all humanoid Nephs into exotic ones but now the buttons are gone.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

To be honest, this game doesn't resemble a soulslike in the slightest. A soulslike is a challenging game that very strictly follows its own internal rules and rewards players for figuring out those rules and how to abuse them. The point of a soulslike isn't the grind, it's figuring out how to game the game. Thus, 'git gud'. Not to mention most soulslikes actually tell an interesting story and have engaging gameplay as well.

This game doesn't have any of that. It punishes you for attempting to play it, offers no respite, and mocks you for not being exactly like the dev. The rewards for sticking to the grind are paltry at best, and there is no way at all to 'git gud' and jump ahead or otherwise kick the game's ass. The story isn't, and the NPCs are flat enough to make even a pixel game look 3D.

Anyway, yeah. This game isn't a soulslike, and it won't be until someone can speedrun the whole thing in an hour or two while wearing nothing but a bucket and skipping a fascinating storyline in order to do so.

U didn't understood half of what I said did you?

What I said is that all the soulslike fans that I know that happen to be devs they have a tendency to make their games just as tedious. Call it grind, call it "git gud" the annoyance is still there and as a matter of fact there are ways to speed up the gameplay of BotN if you know the game, thus "gittin gud"; but I think anyone with two braincells know that this game and a soulslike by their very design are two completely different things. Soulslikes are about instense combat action while here is about breeding the right nephs, doing a lot of fucking, selecting and mixings. That's its damn obvious.

But I find it funny how people always keep bringing that same flawed logic to justify soulslikes when they're an example of a game that constantly throws to the window the game rules (classical enemy behind wall situation for example) but because it's "hard" people like to say "oh its perfection". And.... The game rewards you for figuring stuff out actually or more like it stops beating you down for not magically guess the first try what you're suposed to do? That's two diametrically different things that soulsfans love to confuse. Specially cause figuring how to exploit the weaknesses of X enemy or X situation in a game is by no means a soulslike trait but more like something on the book 101 of universal gaming. From Mario, to Prince of Persia, to Need for Speed, to Darksiders to even MMOs like SWTOR, knowing how to exploit an enemies weakness is always a thing players look for. The difference is that the vast majority of the games dont rely your success about 90% at beating that on using them. And storywise it really depends on the narrative, not the gameplay loop necesarily. Even damn Minecraft has a story if you browse enough.

The reason I compared soulslikes with BotN is cause curiously, Derelict is known for having only played Dark Souls, he's said by people close to him that those are some of the very few games he plays, people that have been following BotN since that time in which it used collars to capture nephs. It's their words not mine. Words that criticised him for being much more of a dev than a player and thus the game clearly suffering of QoL features because of it. What I find funny is that you claim BotN has the thing of the game mocking you for not being like that dev yet soulslikes are different in what aspect? Arent you suposed to still do the 4-5 things the dev came out of its ass to beat an enemy so if you dont reproduce that exact attack pattern you're dead? Heh, cute.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

I swear, I see way too many people here (devs and players alike) confound simple tedium with honest difficulty, and mindless grind with meaningful gameplay.

If your concept of meaningful gameplay is 80's arcade difficulty then sure, youll see it a lot. Cause the tediousness and boredom it produces is identical.

 

[22056007]

Please help m and take me as an idiot, but how can I use codes from hybrid guide? I have been unable to find console to input those codes.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

Please help m and take me as an idiot, but how can I use codes from hybrid guide? I have been unable to find console to input those codes.

Codes from hybrid guide? What do you mean?

 

[TheInternetIsForThis]

U didn't understood half of what I said did you?

Nah, my entire post was about how the soulslike comparison is obscene for this game. It is fundamentally incompatible with a breedersim. And the soulsbros who've played one soulslike and understand none of the design philosophies just compound the issue the same way a thousand-folded steel katana weaboo makes anything anime look bad. And yes, that assessment applies to Derelict too, imo.

Soulslikes are incredibly consistent - a well made soulslike can literally be played blind once you learn them. (That isn't hyperbole - it's been done.) They will reward you for learning them in depth, and they will kick your ass while you learn it. And this game isn't possible to recreate that atmosphere in. The best you can do is what we have here - a surface level approximation of the idea so thin you'd need an electron microscope to measure it.

Because, again. This isn't compatible with the soulslike design philosophy. What was created here is a terrible gameplay flow that only punishes the player for attempting it and gets objectively worse with each content update.

 

[22056007]

Codes from hybrid guide? What do you mean?

On page 541. List of codes for game. But how to use them? That is the question.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

Nah, my entire post was about how the soulslike comparison is obscene for this game. It is fundamentally incompatible with a breedersim. And the soulsbros who've played one soulslike and understand none of the design philosophies just compound the issue the same way a thousand-folded steel katana weaboo makes anything anime look bad.

Soulslikes are incredibly consistent - a well made soulslike can literally be played blind once you learn them. (That isn't hyperbole - it's been done.) They will reward you for learning them in depth, and they will kick your ass while you learn it. And this game isn't possible to recreate that atmosphere in. The best you can do is what we have here - a surface level approximation of the idea so thin you'd need an electron microscope to measure it.

Because, again. This isn't compatible with the soulslike design philosophy. What was created here is a shit gameplay flow that only punishes the player for attempting it and gets objectively worse with each content update.

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".

 

[RubyZeronyka]

On page 541. List of codes for game. But how to use them? That is the question.

On the newest updates (The ones with the new UI) you need to press the key under ESC to bring up the console so you can imput them. If you're in an update previous to the UI overhaul, then you go to the Settings menu and youll see a typing box, put the cheat in there and enjoy ^^

 

[TheInternetIsForThis]

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 problem here is that Derelict wouldn't recognize a decent gameplay loop even if it smacked him in the face with a ten foot dildo. That and he's so intolerant of opposing opinions that, well. You've seen what happens on the Discord, you already know that. This game used to be decent to play, and I firmly believe that was accidental rather than intentional. The soulsbro mentality just makes everything worse, not better.