Ren'Py Divine Dawn [v0.30] [Cryswar]

[Mike the Red]

Hey - thanks for commenting! I always welcome constructive criticism, as well as feedback on what's working.

It's past midnight here so I'll be fairly brief in my own responses, but;

• Chargen music I could swap out to something else, that's not too difficult.
• The temple got a little too verbose, for sure. I *think* before and after that generally hits a better balance, and when I get better background art for the temple I'll be able to cut down on the description as well. The game started off completely text-based, so I was stuck trying to evoke everything by word.
• What do you mean by a dump stat?
• Agreed there could be more checks. I seem to be really bad at thinking those up, I'm trying to slowly improve as I go but those are actually some great suggestions!
• The scrolling thing is kinda just how Renpy do, rollback works all the time unless I manually completely disable it, and I didn't want to disable it for that section in case someone decided they wanted to go back to the previous choice (premade vs custom). I have some ideas to maybe work around that though.
• I suspect it has to do with Python using floats, and mana spending more time as a float than an integer. I intend to, at some point, multiply all mana values by 20 (costs, regen, cap, etc) so I can make it integer-only, which will hopefully make it much clear exactly what a given number means.

...Hey, I said fairly brief, not actually brief. Anyways, glad you enjoyed the opening, and thanks again for sharing your impressions! It's really helpful to get the perspective of new players to see what I can improve.

Have you considered putting $ renpy.block_rollback() after the player clicks on custom character generation? That should prevent the rollback to before that point, but it doesn't disable it after that point.

AFAIK most people use Dump Stat to refer to those stats you ignore or subtract points from in order to max others (some people use it to mean the stat you dump all your points into, but that seems to be a misunderstanding). So if you're going, say, a strength build you completely ignore any stat that doesn't benefit the build, to min-max. Otherwise you're being inefficient. So you end up with a character that, lore-wise, can carry really heavy things but lacks the mental capacity to not only not spell their own name, but the understanding to realise other people have different names to their own. The Fallout 1 and 2 games had fun with this making low Int characters have their own plot interactions with some things, but typically it's just a gameplay-story segregation thing where you're supposed to ignore that your character should be incapable of living safely by themselves.

DnD and the like make stats have minimum values to try and represent basic capability which can help, but it's just moving the floor. You are not allowed to be a Renaissance Man. Jock or Nerd, pick one, or forever be underperforming in situations designed for min-maxed munchkins.

Fifth edition is definitely better about this than third, but it's still something people do. When I'm the GM, I take sadistic glee in demonstrating why min-maxing is a bad idea. To bring it back to Divine Dawn, you must min-max if you want any hope of having a playable character, which is a bit disappointing.

 

[Cryswar]

Fifth edition is definitely better about this than third, but it's still something people do. When I'm the GM, I take sadistic glee in demonstrating why min-maxing is a bad idea. To bring it back to Divine Dawn, you must min-max if you want any hope of having a playable character, which is a bit disappointing.

That's just flat-out wrong. You can just max an offensive stat, ignore the rest of your stat points, and still beat any current content, tho Siofra might be tough. If you really want to get fancy, offensive stat + any defensive stat will roll any current content. It's not really some kind of min-maxing hellscape if "have your main stat on auto-grow" is enough to do fine.

It's fine to think the system could be improved, but hyperbole like that isn't really constructive.

This is mostly true but at this point the meaning has basically, uh, degraded?, into meaning stats you just completely ignore. At least in the communities I hang out in. But that's where the word comes from, yeah.
I was basically just referring to how I prefer systems where you have to, to some extent, care about all stats.
My current char is a pure mage so only Magic and Focus matter for offensive purposes, with for example Strength having 0 benefit. It's a design choice and there is nothing wrong with it. Just too much talking on my end.

Hm, that's fair. I think it's fine for a mage to be able to ignore Strength, the vast majority of systems in any game let you do so just fine. Very few games even have a reason to go Strength as a mage - which this system does, with the various hybrid builds and synergies. Most stats have a decent-to-good reason to 'dip' 5-10 points for traits as well.

I do get where you're coming from, the idea of every stat being useful for any build is a fun idea, but I'd argue that DD does a better job of it than most even in its current imperfect state.

If I get to the point where I finish this game and start a new one, I definitely plan to reconsider what stats are necessary and how the player interacts with them. I'm not married to the current idea, but I'm also not going to spend 6 months rebooting the game - seen that happen to too many projects.

 

[geheim12347]

Hm, that's fair. I think it's fine for a mage to be able to ignore Strength, the vast majority of systems in any game let you do so just fine. Very few games even have a reason to go Strength as a mage - which this system does, with the various hybrid builds and synergies. Most stats have a decent-to-good reason to 'dip' 5-10 points for traits as well.

I do get where you're coming from, the idea of every stat being useful for any build is a fun idea, but I'd argue that DD does a better job of it than most even in its current imperfect state.

If I get to the point where I finish this game and start a new one, I definitely plan to reconsider what stats are necessary and how the player interacts with them. I'm not married to the current idea, but I'm also not going to spend 6 months rebooting the game - seen that happen to too many projects.

Wasn't suggesting that you would. I am just used to it I suppose, the tabletop rpg system I mainly run things has all stats matter.
I like the system well enough and it works for the game. As I said, was just saying too much there.

 

[geheim12347]

This is just a current impression after clearing the first two adventure...uh adventure things. But since you said you liked new impressions:
I must admit that I liked the section until the adventure a lot more. There were small conversations and tidbits there between encounters which added to the experience (thinking back to the boar encounters and the nether dogs). There is an attempt made there to have this with for example the Hob/wolf encounter but I got that twice within four encounters which of course kinda takes away from it feeling...natural? flowing-well?
My main issue, I suppose is that the entire flow and pacing of the story took a complete nosedive (that's at least how it feels to me. Maybe I am doing something wrong). Maybe this has been me optimizing the fun out of it or something but I am missing the chit-chat between characters as you walk from encounter to encounter. I appreciate that this is basically impossible considering the sheer variety you can get with travelling from one spot to another, the encounters, and the companions you can pick but it kinda sucks since that was really well done before the adventuring part.
This is more me praising the previous part because it was so good that this adventure part that is just okay feels really bad in comparison.

Also, Cecila's introduction was a bit sudden. Like, I felt there should have been some more dialogue between everyone. Maybe once they started travelling?
Same for the predator slime. I expected some conversation to occur when I got back to camp.

In general the camp feels quite sterile. Maybe this could be helped by other characters interacting with each other and you being able to witness that? Could happen after one time period passes or when you go to a character there is a chance they are having an interaction. Maybe characters could also approach the pc and strike up conversations with them.


Just some thoughts. I appreciate how much work it is to even get something to this point. I am not criticising because I dislike it. I am only criticising because I like what I see and think it is worth to spend the time thinking about.

 

[Cryswar]

This is just a current impression after clearing the first two adventure...uh adventure things. But since you said you liked new impressions:
I must admit that I liked the section until the adventure a lot more. There were small conversations and tidbits there between encounters which added to the experience (thinking back to the boar encounters and the nether dogs). There is an attempt made there to have this with for example the Hob/wolf encounter but I got that twice within four encounters which of course kinda takes away from it feeling...natural? flowing-well?
My main issue, I suppose is that the entire flow and pacing of the story took a complete nosedive (that's at least how it feels to me. Maybe I am doing something wrong). Maybe this has been me optimizing the fun out of it or something but I am missing the chit-chat between characters as you walk from encounter to encounter. I appreciate that this is basically impossible considering the sheer variety you can get with travelling from one spot to another, the encounters, and the companions you can pick but it kinda sucks since that was really well done before the adventuring part.
This is more me praising the previous part because it was so good that this adventure part that is just okay feels really bad in comparison.

Also, Cecila's introduction was a bit sudden. Like, I felt there should have been some more dialogue between everyone. Maybe once they started travelling?
Same for the predator slime. I expected some conversation to occur when I got back to camp.

In general the camp feels quite sterile. Maybe this could be helped by other characters interacting with each other and you being able to witness that? Could happen after one time period passes or when you go to a character there is a chance they are having an interaction. Maybe characters could also approach the pc and strike up conversations with them.


Just some thoughts. I appreciate how much work it is to even get something to this point. I am not criticising because I dislike it. I am only criticising because I like what I see and think it is worth to spend the time thinking about.

The opening (especially the pre-temple stuff) was recently rewritten. The first few adventures haven't been updated well yet, so you can definitely tell that they were my first attempts at segueing into a more open-ended adventure.

I've been focusing a lot on the camp scenes (where ~70% of the game's content is right now), maybe too much so, but trying to make new areas fun is an ongoing project.

More interaction is actionable, it's something I want to do but haven't gotten to yet. In-battle comments, more random allies and scenes in areas, etc.

Celica shows up the moment before you leave, her camp scenes touch on that.

 

[geheim12347]

Celica shows up the moment before you leave, her camp scenes touch on that.

Yes, I know. And the scenes do talk about that but the party in general doesn't really interact with her just joining. You'd at least expect Ashley to talk to her and just bounce off of her being her. Sam to make a few more comments how she's totally not happy about it. That sorta stuff.

Speaking of Sam, why do her pronouns shift between she and they all the time?
Does she go by both? I don't mind. Just curious.

 

[TheeSonus]

Speaking of Sam, why do her pronouns shift between she and they all the time?
Does she go by both? I don't mind. Just curious.

Some may be holdovers from when male Sam was still in the game, but mainly it's because Astaroth is starting to become aware of the fact that Sam is... actually a woman (via the loosest definition of the term anyways). At least that's what I've heard from Crys about it over on the discord.

 

[Cryswar]

11/20 Weekly Update
Took a bit of a detour this week, focusing on the upcoming area and fleshing out some mechanics instead.

For starters, I did the new Harp weapon, which will be unlocked in the Deepwoods Vale from the butterfly girl. It's a Magic/Charisma hybrid support weapon, with some decent support abilities, as well as a decent variety of harp-unique channels. They're slightly weaker than some, but cost no mana to use or upkeep, in return for being limited to only having one at a time. Alongside that, did some more tuning on channels to make them work better.

There's also a decent spread of new Charisma actives, buffing your party, debuffing enemies, or offering some weird effects like reducing cooldowns/restoring mana. Similar to the harp, and synergizing decently well with it, they're meant to help support builds out.

Also added 15 or so new traits, a mix of magic, charisma, harp, and one for Greatswords.

Thermomancy got a pretty sizable expansion, alongside elemental resistances/mitigation now being a thing - some of the new enemies will have some interaction with that.

Also added 15 new monsters for the Deepwoods Vale, a mixture of cats, bears, minibosses, and Brazilian mythology.

Lastly, got a commission going for new weapon icons for most weapons, which seems to be going really well - homie works well and fast!

I don't have an exact ETA on release, but we're not... *too* far off, maybe. My hope is to get 0.23 out to patrons very late this week or early next week and see where it goes from there.

In the meantime, gonna do one more beta today and then just get back to work.

 

[froo]

For starters, I did the new Harp weapon, which will be unlocked in the Deepwoods Vale from the butterfly girl. It's a Magic/Charisma hybrid support weapon, with some decent support abilities, as well as a decent variety of harp-unique channels. They're slightly weaker than some, but cost no mana to use or upkeep, in return for being limited to only having one at a time. Alongside that, did some more tuning on channels to make them work better.

There's also a decent spread of new Charisma actives, buffing your party, debuffing enemies, or offering some weird effects like reducing cooldowns/restoring mana. Similar to the harp, and synergizing decently well with it, they're meant to help support builds out.

A bard build, I didn't see that coming but am interested. I would need to tweak my build by a lot but maybe I will try it out.

 

[geheim12347]

Some may be holdovers from when male Sam was still in the game, but mainly it's because Astaroth is starting to become aware of the fact that Sam is... actually a woman (via the loosest definition of the term anyways). At least that's what I've heard from Crys about it over on the discord.

Huh, that makes sort of sense. Never how I have ever seen anyone use pronouns for gendering people but it's a neat idea.
Well, Sam's a great character in either case. Still not sure how to feel Celica. I feel like I can understand her a little too well for my taste, minus the sports part.

 

[Cryswar]

Yes, I know. And the scenes do talk about that but the party in general doesn't really interact with her just joining. You'd at least expect Ashley to talk to her and just bounce off of her being her. Sam to make a few more comments how she's totally not happy about it. That sorta stuff.

Speaking of Sam, why do her pronouns shift between she and they all the time?
Does she go by both? I don't mind. Just curious.

Huh, that makes sort of sense. Never how I have ever seen anyone use pronouns for gendering people but it's a neat idea.
Well, Sam's a great character in either case. Still not sure how to feel Celica. I feel like I can understand her a little too well for my taste, minus the sports part.

Whoops, I forgot to respond to that yesterday, sorry.

Sonus is correct, it's partially me trying to portray MC thinking of Sam as their totally-not-a-hot-girl best friend rather than admitting that holy fuck Sam is hot, and partially leftover of gender-neutral pronouns from male Sam (though a lot less so than people assume - most mentions were either intentionally gender neutral or I fed them into the pronoun generator to be appropriate for the character).

Gonna remove most of them next update to avoid confusion while I try to make the former intention a little clearer. Male Sam was just nuked in version 22, so there's a bit more adaption to make than I had initially realized.

A bard build, I didn't see that coming but am interested. I would need to tweak my build by a lot but maybe I will try it out.

That makes both of us LOL, I did want to do charisma weapons eventually but wasn't sure where to start. Butterfly girl with magic harp kinda inspired that, and I did like 90% of the weapon in a day. It's a mix of Charisma and Magic scaling, in the future I'll experiment with others.

 

[geheim12347]

When selecting morning exercise with Sarah she is still wearing her old outfit (the stuff barely covering her) instead of her new and comfy clothes. Is this intentional?

 

[Cryswar]

When selecting morning exercise with Sarah she is still wearing her old outfit (the stuff barely covering her) instead of her new and comfy clothes. Is this intentional?

Sam, Sarah, Ashley, and Celica have alternate outfits for exercise scenes.

 

[geheim12347]

Well, Siofra down with third try. I almost had her in the first try but Geostigma brought her down so low that she summoned the second phase when the first summon was still alife. The second time it was Sam just critting Siofra down to a value where she again had all three summons at once.
The second phase was very easy considering her big talk, suppose that is mainly action economy. Could think about giving her two actions or maybe...
Have the text say she channels magic at the end of each round and maybe give a skill check to interrupt it before she finishes (Medium Insight, Hard: Magic, Dexterity. VERY HARD if you want a silly option: Charisma) and if that fails after she has finished chanelling a check to half the damage to your group (Medium: Agility, Hard: Magic).

Just throwing out ideas as they appear here. You know way more about your system than I would.

 

[geheim12347]

There is a minor spelling mistake in the "Aftermath" scene in Metatron's affection scene. A "T" is missing. Uh, yeah. That's all. Nothing big, lord knows my pdfs I sell had people pointing errors months in and that stuff was only 15 pages.




Edit: There is a word missing a little later in the same scene:
"It feels a little watching a sweet girl grow up into a woman."

 

[lnppo]

There is a minor spelling mistake in the "Aftermath" scene in Metatron's affection scene. A "T" is missing. Uh, yeah. That's all. Nothing big, lord knows my pdfs I sell had people pointing errors months in and that stuff was only 15 pages.

View attachment 2187845


Edit: There is a word missing a little later in the same scene:
"It feels a little watching a sweet girl grow up into a woman."

Why is it so orange, bro?

 

[geheim12347]

Why is it so orange, bro?
View attachment 2187906

I suffer from chronic migraine pains. It's often only like having a knife in my head. And often like someone doing their best to hammer that knife into my pretty head. The main problem is that it is almost constant.
Anyways, migraines give you photophobia which means all light hurts. Sunlight hurts the most, blue a bit less, white even less, and orange only a little. There ya go.

 

[Cryswar]

Well, Siofra down with third try. I almost had her in the first try but Geostigma brought her down so low that she summoned the second phase when the first summon was still alife. The second time it was Sam just critting Siofra down to a value where she again had all three summons at once.
The second phase was very easy considering her big talk, suppose that is mainly action economy. Could think about giving her two actions or maybe...
Have the text say she channels magic at the end of each round and maybe give a skill check to interrupt it before she finishes (Medium Insight, Hard: Magic, Dexterity. VERY HARD if you want a silly option: Charisma) and if that fails after she has finished chanelling a check to half the damage to your group (Medium: Agility, Hard: Magic).

Just throwing out ideas as they appear here. You know way more about your system than I would.

Siofra has gotten a few nerfs from her original version, she's much easier now. She's part of the main story, so I'd rather not make her *too* complicated or difficult, though optional/side battles have more room to be brutally difficult instead of just 'kinda hard if your build isn't great.'

Those are fun ideas for a side boss Sofra down the road though!

There is a minor spelling mistake in the "Aftermath" scene in Metatron's affection scene. A "T" is missing. Uh, yeah. That's all. Nothing big, lord knows my pdfs I sell had people pointing errors months in and that stuff was only 15 pages.

View attachment 2187845


Edit: There is a word missing a little later in the same scene:
"It feels a little watching a sweet girl grow up into a woman."

Thanks for the typo reports! I'm still getting reports from the temple in scenes that have been there for almost two years, it's crazy how easy it is to miss a typo that survives thousands of people reading it.

 

[thecatcameback]

Finished playing up to the church. It's a great game. I love when you have the characters bounce off each other. Dialogue is a strong point. Some of the monologues get a little too long around the point I'm at, though.

Gameplay wise I sort of wish you could toggle which Mastery you could get, but that's just me being spoiled since you can respec stats. I opened up on tougher fights by stabbing them with poisoned knife and renewing it whenever it ran out, then swapped to main weapon. You've done amazing work on your UI, by the way. It's very clean and usable.

Will affection ever get a way to rise during adventures? I notice trust naturally goes up as I sweep through the zones with different people, but affection only goes up with working out and hanging out. Maybe taking them on dates in cities?

Either way, great game so far. Thank you.

 

[Cryswar]

Finished playing up to the church. It's a great game. I love when you have the characters bounce off each other. Dialogue is a strong point. Some of the monologues get a little too long around the point I'm at, though.

Gameplay wise I sort of wish you could toggle which Mastery you could get, but that's just me being spoiled since you can respec stats. I opened up on tougher fights by stabbing them with poisoned knife and renewing it whenever it ran out, then swapped to main weapon. You've done amazing work on your UI, by the way. It's very clean and usable.

Will affection ever get a way to rise during adventures? I notice trust naturally goes up as I sweep through the zones with different people, but affection only goes up with working out and hanging out. Maybe taking them on dates in cities?

Either way, great game so far. Thank you.

Glad you're enjoying it! The monologues are a thing I've gotten a lot of negative feedback on, it's a mix of trying to portray a character who can be pretty thoughtful (at times) and too much verbal diarrhea on my part. Slowly improving on it, I think!

Really good to hear about the UI, I'm always trying to improve it. It could use a lot of work still tbh, but it feels nice to know that the work so far has borne fruit!

Yeah, you can respec masteries freely. I'm not sure they were the best implementation; in the distant future I might move to an ability upgrading system instead, but I've spent so much of this year unfucking systems that I just wanna write for a while haha.

Affection goes up with sex scenes as well, though obviously, that's not super useful for the first few levels on characters that don't want to bang early on. I've gone back and forth design-wise about affection events during adventures, I may re-add them given time.

Dates are definitely planned too, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Thanks for taking the time to post, and the kind words!