Unreal Engine Breeders of the Nephelym [v0.762.1 Early] [DerelictHelmsman]

[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.

 

[22056007]

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 ^^

It's working. Thank you.

 

[muschi26]

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".

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.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

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.

That's true. Which is what still keeps me going but.... IDK, I used to love this game for what it was but in the current state Im very divided about it. Some parts got a clearly and very welcomed improvement like the offspring blending of colors that made the sons and daughters of two nephs to truly feel like a descendant of that particular pair, but the progression gates.... Pawsmatti.... Sigh

 

[aspar4gus]

In soulslikes they say "git gud"

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

 

[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.