OK but if the game is properly balanced so that regular people get a regular challenge and 4' goblins get a bit more of a challenge, what's the problem if the 9' manticore breezes through the game? If a player wants to min-max and ruin their game experience (or improves, depending on perspective), that's their prerogative, no? Plus, there's always difficulty options on top of that. I refuse to believe that the majority of the CoC1 playerbase made themselves into abominations just for combat stats. I'm sure the vast majority was just roleplaying whatever they wanted to roleplay, because that's the point of the game. Odds are, it was just a few people who had fun doing the min-maxing, just like in CoC2 there was one guy soloing Kasyrra, and the devs decided to act against it because they can't handle a handful of people not playing the game as they intended it—just like they rebalanced crit damage just to make that Kasyrra fight impossible by yourself, because of the one guy doing it.
To recap, the problem isn't the players min-maxing: it's game balance. If a sizeable portion of players truly feel they have no choice but to min-max to get through the game, it's a game balance issue, and that's 100% on the devs. If you have TFs that make you weaker in combat, then you absolutely need to make sure the game is still playable for people who use those TFs—either by making the debuffs not too extreme to overcome, or by including non-combat options to progress through the game (something which TiTS does a bit, but CoC2 barely does).
In your example there'd be no point in tfs having stats. If it would be balanced for those two characters to be able to do the same fight, but the weaker one only having slightly more of a challenge, then the stats would have to be small to the point of being flavor text, and would be restricted from stuff like permanently flying. You'd get like dragon arms having a bonus of 1 hp, otherwise fights wouldn't be slightly tougher for the weaker, it'd be sgt rufus thundercock, second of his name, having armor pen to compensate the player having possible tf armor bonuses so a basic pc tank would be ripped a new one. however it's a party based combat system, so if each party member has bonuses, then the pc could be a supportive class and do fine, but your tank and dps would be the ones doing the heavy lifting. You couldn't tank the same hits or hit the same enemies because your character wouldn't be able to compete with accuracy bonuses, dodge bonuses, armor pen. In theory you could, it'd seem like you did it as a weaker class but in reality you'd be better replaced with any companion, or you'd say "i did it! i used 15 elixirs and a ability to not die for a few rounds but i mean i did it!" >see 7 hour long ffx level 1 bosses. Similarly to how you can't build a tank with only physical abilities, have him put all his stats into charisma willpower and cunning, give him underwear, and have the game balance so he'd do just as well as ice knight brint. You could compromise and make him a paladin and give him a few "acceptable" tfs but you can't just have the balance scale to whatever a player would do as foolproof protection. Something has to be a loss condition, or tfs just don't have any stats, the power is transferred to other places, and you avoid all of that, and people can rp whatever they want however they want and not rely solely on their party or exploiting game mechanics.
The guy beat kas multiple times but it was meant to be a encounter you lost. The dev's responses were poor, they should have been a bit more appreciative someone put that much time and effort into their game, but it boiled down to being invulnerable, buffing yourself, and praying for a crit. Unless you built a very specific way planning for it, had revive items and the revive belt, it wasn't something doable. He also did it with a lust build I didn't see but had enough power to nuke that encounter. She had reasonable stats so you might feel like you did something but if you ever actually beat her there, there was 4th wall breaking text about you cheating. Him beating her wasn't the real problem, though. The problem was that exact formula could be used on any enemy in the entire game before the changes. Who cares about a superboss, a monster in the abyss, whatever, invulnerability, crit roll, if you fail to crit, revive and try up to 2 more times, job done. It was a hole in the armor of every future encounter basically unless they started giving everything ludicrous amounts of hp which would make people playing normally feel like everything was a sponge.
Not saying you're lying. I absolutely believe they would say there going to do something like story alterations for joining certain god factions. My problem with this is if they are saying accounting for Berry's body variations are to difficult for them or they cannot be bothered to give him flavor text in the newer quest; so they instead remove him because its easier I highly doubt they'll put in enough effort for the story alterations to be meaningful. It is probably going to be something shallow interaction wise. (Like characters addressing you differently.) Altering the story in way that seems impactful based off which faction you join when done right is often a massive task. I believe there is 7 gods in this game. If they allow the player to join all 7, I cannot imagine they'll be down to rewrite certain scenes 7 times to account for all the variations.
Story alterations I meant about Kas in particular, not a route for each individual god. If you ever sell your soul and go to her, she loses her shot at having a child, feels you betrayed her etc. However more than likely that'd just alter your path from the romance to "hostile" with maybe a couple dialogue changes. they could make it a route where she becomes more unhinged in comparison since in the normal "hostile" route you have a soul she could get, but with the betrayal she has no hope, but i doubt they'd make a second variation. from what i've heard i don't think they're going to make every single god available, lumia's pretty confirmed and supposed to be getting one eventuallysoonishTM, and i believe nareva is next when we reach her domain. none of the others they've talked about, and yeah i'm in agreement with you it'll probably be something like skyrims "WOWEE ITS THE CHAMPION OF (god) so would you like a apple", with maybe if we're lucky an exclusive epilogue or the occasional treat with particular people, the kitsune for keros, the devout people for others etc, but yeah i'm not holding my breath.
We get that Kasyrra is evil. I'm not arguing she isn't. I'm aware she is, hence "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't." I'm saying, how can you trust entities that feed off of your soul. And not to mention, with every soul eaten they grow stronger. You are told the gods are good. You don't ever see them be good unless it serves their own interests. Kas has no effect on them aside from the portal she opens, which lets in something that does threaten their foodsource. Then they do the "good thing" and protect their food source. A hyena is not good for defending its meal, it's simply a hyena.
If we're acting under the assumption that the lack of evidence is evidence of absence, then you cannot say they are benevolent as you have only ever been told they were good. You have never seen it. You've only ever seen them act in their own best interest, starting at the Godswar. They just got smarter, like humans. They realized, "Hey, if we annihilate the foodsource there will be no more food!" and then fought the wraiths that didn't agree/were not smart enough to not understand that. Again, that's just a hyena being a hyena.
Point me to a good action they have committed that has not benefited them directly, and I'll agree. But everything they have done has served their interests. Especially explains why they all have a breeding thing going on. Cows gotta breed to produce more meat.
Well on the topic of beings feeding on your soul, the world doesn't like or accept it, YOU do. Kinu pops up in hawkethorne and is expecting to die if she's spotted. All the kitsune say upfront "so uh we need to drain your life energy some but we give GREAT HEAD NO CAP!" the common response is for people to hunt them down, the pc is the exception not the rule. On the gods, imo what they're trying to write is basically, all of them were empty and formless moving black holes. Whatever they ate, they got memories etc. They steadily grew hearts and forms etc and aren't really "wraiths" anymore, they're like hiveminds, combinations of many, many people, experiences etc embodying the forms of gods people followed, but also becoming them eventually, caring and defending people to various levels etc. They are similar to gods in how no, you never know if they're really good, but you couldn't do anything about it, you just trust them or try to rebel and hope you're not deus vulted or lumia doesnt splatter you across the wall. they grow stronger with souls but at the same time, the kitsune become cursed if they kill, and it also damages their reputation and makes them have to make examples. they're powerful but they're similar to vampires, they keep a good enough reputation or they'll, again, get deus vulted. keros also keeps them in line and explicitly tells them to give back what they take, and in game the energy is also shown as regenerating over time so if someone went there hoping to commit suicide by fox, the foxes would refuse, and they're capable of seeing life energy so they'd know how much they could do, if they go beyond that then they'd become cursed become faceless and exiled. the gods seem to feed off their followers beliefs, which leads to stuff like mallach contacting you directly and thanking you in his "heaven" after building a large temple to him for cait which he says is usually only accessed by the equivalent of lifelong saints, martyrs or other gods so it's a big deal, their knowledge has given them the awareness to understand life and death and emotions so they don't want to feed like that and don't appear to need to, and people can touch them point blank and even have sex with them so they don't appear to have soul eater qualities or at least are completely under control.
Your question is impossible to answer, because under that logic, anything they ever did to help any living being is self-interest.
And, quite frankly it's not a question that has any real relevance to the champ. We haven't seen the gods harvesting souls. The closest things we've seen is Keros and the kitsunes communal soul thing.
Even if you interpret the gods as self serving and never doing anything good, which is a stretch imo, we certainly javent seen them soing anything bad, AND the alternatives are way, way, worse.
Heck, the fact that Nareva allowed you to question her and puzzle out her secret, and she let you go afterwards with nothing but a fairly meek request to keep it under wraps when she could have wiped you off the planet should engender trust with the champ. You have info that could be a major blow to the gods and they're just letting you slide on the honor system.
Nareva lets you go because they already say if you were to tell anyone, they'd consider it blasphemy of the highest order, and you'd be hunted to the ends of the earth by followers of every god at worst, or step on many toes, or at best laughed at. Keros also talks about it with you later and says "bro, just don't say anyone, it'd just be bad for you". the living embodiments of gods, widely known and worshipped are literally walking around. you couldn't run up to people and go "THEYRE EEEEEVIIIIIL AND WERE WRAITHS ALL ALONG" while literal mallach is walking around patting girls on the head, not counting fanatics.
