danteuiuiuiui

Newbie
Jan 1, 2018
43
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It's kind of annoying that Sam's pronouns keep switching between she and they.
I also really dislike how modern and juvenile the dialogue feels. It's like everyone I've met so far is a 15 year old from our times.

Horror and text based how does that work?
Have you heard of Lovecraft or Stephen King?
 
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Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
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May 31, 2019
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Vitality says it can go above 40% damage mitigation when vitality is higher than your level, however, vitality(and the other stats) are capped at the players level.
Some weapons/magic has vitality buffs that can temporarily push you above.

Horror and text based how does that work?
Are we talking pictures or just plain text
The majority of the game isn't, but some scenes can get relatively gross or unsettling. It's the same idea as a horror book, the descriptions are supposed to evoke certain feelings.

It's kind of annoying that Sam's pronouns keep switching between she and they.
I don't really see an issue there. Keeping pronouns varied rather than using the same one every time keeps the writing a bit less repetitive, and in normal speech/writing, 'they' is used pretty commonly. The majority of pronouns used in most scenes with Sam are gendered so it should be pretty clear it's a design decision rather than an accident or mistake.

I would suggest reading characters other than Sam if you don't like his/her dialogue.
 
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danteuiuiuiui

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Jan 1, 2018
43
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I don't really see an issue there. Keeping pronouns varied rather than using the same one every time keeps the writing a bit less repetitive, and in normal speech/writing, 'they' is used pretty commonly. The majority of pronouns used in most scenes with Sam are gendered so it should be pretty clear it's a design decision rather than an accident or mistake.

I would suggest reading characters other than Sam if you don't like his/her dialogue.
I'm not a native speaker but I don't think I've ever read a book in my life that switched between she and they for the same person, let alone in the same sentence.

I've played until you meet metatron and I don't think I can continue reading this with how much the dialogue reads like all of the characters have spent their whole lives talking over social media. It's honestly incredibly offputting how much the narration and the dialogue differ in style. One part is flowery, epic fantasy and the other is like middle schoolers talking on whatsapp.
How can some people growing up during a war 900 years ago talk in the same memey style that someone living in the boonies in peace times has.
 

thelolkat

Newbie
Feb 4, 2019
18
2
I liked it! honestly was expecting there to be more form a rando 0.8, but what's here is pretty neat. I like the characterization and the sex scenes are hot! now just add a footjob and we're 11/10. I liked how you have Femdom without it being super edgelord "ugh you're a dirty pig and I'm going to stomp on your dick" which.... I see too much of in games. TBH the dialogue didn't bother me and I think if you made everybody talk like a generic fantasy novel I would check out. I'm looking foward to how this shapes up.

Also this is nit-picky but I'm 100% for the singular they being used. It's grammatically legal and my 12th grade english teacher (wherever she is now) can suck a dick for saying it wasn't. Plus I recognize the expedience in coding the dialogue that way.
 
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Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
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May 31, 2019
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I liked it! honestly was expecting there to be more form a rando 0.8, but what's here is pretty neat. I like the characterization and the sex scenes are hot! now just add a footjob and we're 11/10. I liked how you have Femdom without it being super edgelord "ugh you're a dirty pig and I'm going to stomp on your dick" which.... I see too much of in games. TBH the dialogue didn't bother me and I think if you made everybody talk like a generic fantasy novel I would check out. I'm looking foward to how this shapes up.

Also this is nit-picky but I'm 100% for the singular they being used. It's grammatically legal and my 12th grade english teacher (wherever she is now) can suck a dick for saying it wasn't. Plus I recognize the expedience in coding the dialogue that way.
Footjob... sometime in the next few updates, I keep meaning to do it and getting sidetracked with something else lol. I like a bit softer femdom, though there will be a mix. I definitely don't like the crueler aspects of it that show up often, consensual/affectionate femdom is totally a thing and deserves more love.

Looking back, I'm not sure if mixing 2-week update schedule and numbers going up that fast was a great idea, if it was monthly it'd make more sense as a 0.4, 0.8 has implications that maybe don't quite fit. But for now, it is what it is, and I mostly like the 2-week schedule. Glad you enjoyed what was there at least!

Most of the initial characters are fairly immature, and teenagers at best, so I wanted to capture that in their speech. It definitely didn't come out perfect and will be improved down the road, but going generic fantasy sers and thous didn't feel anywhere near appropriate for the vibes most of them had. I appreciate the feedback!
 

danteuiuiuiui

Newbie
Jan 1, 2018
43
111
but going generic fantasy sers and thous didn't feel anywhere near appropriate for the vibes most of them had.
You know, there's a lot of room between "My good Ser Sam, art thou ready to depart?" and "Fuck yeah, bruh! Let's motherfuckin' go!!!!"
But in the end this is of course your decision. I just find it sad, because I really do like everything else about the game a lot. The non-dialogue narration and descriptions are top notch and it's really nice how they change quite a bit depending on your choices, even when those are seemingly inconsequential.
 
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Chaika-chan

Newbie
Sep 22, 2018
31
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consensual/affectionate femdom is totally a thing and deserves more love.
This.
Looking back, I'm not sure if mixing 2-week update schedule and numbers going up that fast was a great idea, if it was monthly it'd make more sense as a 0.4, 0.8 has implications that maybe don't quite fit. But for now, it is what it is, and I mostly like the 2-week schedule. Glad you enjoyed what was there at least!
Yeah, I'd still consider this 0.1 or 0.2 assuming there's more scale, so maybe a 0.1.xxx setup would work better for you. Use the xxxs for weekly, then the decimal for a major tracker of the completion of the main aspects of the game, or rough percentage of completion.

Gotta say, I'm loving the scenes, and it's a bit spoiling with the 2 week updates as opposed to monthly, but it also means smaller updates, so I try to hold off a bit for more to play around with at a time. I have a soft spot for Sarah, but Ashley's goofball-ness has slowly been winning me over with the more 'playful/mischievous' nature.

What hasn't worked so well so far is the combat. Well, the combat itself seems fine, but it's an awful lot of clicking around, especially with cooldowns sort of rendering the 'repeat' feature worthless if you want to maximize damage, and the requirement to select a target even for single targets if you've defeated the others adds an extra step that probably doesn't need to be there. Add to it the very specific and narrow click zones due to text over icons or buttons, and it seems kinda tedious if I were to nitpick. (Not sure if you can already, but targeting by clicking the character/name box on the main screen would be nice since the order in the third box seems odd or shuffles around instead of a left to right scheme.) Lastly, I'm not sure if there's a design reason behind it or not, but forcing you to fight through a bunch of waves of enemies in order to proceed a day is not ideal to me. If anything at this point, I'd rather play around with each of the characters and raise their trust/affection through the night, sleep, and morning routines. Maybe there's a rest or skip feature to hop to the next time period?
 
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Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
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May 31, 2019
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This.

Yeah, I'd still consider this 0.1 or 0.2 assuming there's more scale, so maybe a 0.1.xxx setup would work better for you. Use the xxxs for weekly, then the decimal for a major tracker of the completion of the main aspects of the game, or rough percentage of completion.

Gotta say, I'm loving the scenes, and it's a bit spoiling with the 2 week updates as opposed to monthly, but it also means smaller updates, so I try to hold off a bit for more to play around with at a time. I have a soft spot for Sarah, but Ashley's goofball-ness has slowly been winning me over with the more 'playful/mischievous' nature.

What hasn't worked so well so far is the combat. Well, the combat itself seems fine, but it's an awful lot of clicking around, especially with cooldowns sort of rendering the 'repeat' feature worthless if you want to maximize damage, and the requirement to select a target even for single targets if you've defeated the others adds an extra step that probably doesn't need to be there. Add to it the very specific and narrow click zones due to text over icons or buttons, and it seems kinda tedious if I were to nitpick. (Not sure if you can already, but targeting by clicking the character/name box on the main screen would be nice since the order in the third box seems odd or shuffles around instead of a left to right scheme.) Lastly, I'm not sure if there's a design reason behind it or not, but forcing you to fight through a bunch of waves of enemies in order to proceed a day is not ideal to me. If anything at this point, I'd rather play around with each of the characters and raise their trust/affection through the night, sleep, and morning routines. Maybe there's a rest or skip feature to hop to the next time period?
Very helpful constructive criticism! In rough order of comments;
  • Yeah, I think I will try numbering something like your idea. Assuming 1.0 is 'done' we're still ~2+ years out so I admittedly don't want to rush that lol.
  • Sarah is a cutie, but they're both good girls!
  • Every 10 focus reduces all cooldowns by 1, so 10 focus (or just using spells) is enough to spam most stuff in current version of the game. I personally found that setting 1-2 stats on autogrow and manually spending the others to get valuable traits or hit breakpoints in focus/insight was really strong.
  • Box targeting is something I'd like to do, idk how easy it would be but I'll look into it - I think it should be doable.
  • Autotargeting a single remaining enemy is so obvious I feel kinda dumb for not even thinking of it haha, thanks for bringing that up!
  • I can add a 'netflix n chill' button if you don't want to adventure at a given point. I wanted to do more actual 'just hang out' scenes anyways, that could be a good way to implement it. How would you see that working? As an alternate way to boost trust/affection by spending time with characters?
I really appreciate the UI feedback in particular, from the start of the game it's something I've struggled with - DEFINITELY not my forte - so people giving me honest feedback and constructive criticism on it is a huge help.
 
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Chaika-chan

Newbie
Sep 22, 2018
31
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Very helpful constructive criticism! In rough order of comments;
I really appreciate the UI feedback in particular, from the start of the game it's something I've struggled with - DEFINITELY not my forte - so people giving me honest feedback and constructive criticism on it is a huge help.
10 focus -> Huh... maybe I didn't read as closely as I thought on some of the details for stats. That certainly seems like a workaround since I'm mostly seesawing between two abilities with the cooldowns. I went mostly Strength and Magic for damage spells and healing (crits and stuff don't seem too important vs raw damage at this level yet, and I tend to prefer damage over defense -i.e. glass cannon- so long as it's doable) and libido with the idea it would affect sexy scenes and/or combat down the line.

Box targeting -> It's probably do-able, but depending on how RenPy treats it, it could be more trouble than it's worth for now vs content and bigger features.

Auto target -> It's a simple thing, and assuming the code isn't too hard to implement with checking remaining active enemies, definitely one of those QoL things to reduce time/clicks for grinding.

Netflix 'n chill -> This is sort of a design choice on your part. It could be that the 'adventuring' is a set corridor of fights to push through to get to a 'rest area' like a town or something, and thus light on the companion content except for specific downtime so you can focus more on it at those larger rest areas, or... you can leave it at a leisurely pace where an extra day of fooling around rather than fighting and pushing forward to the next 'checkpoint' is fine.

I would see it as an option to either:
  • 'skip' from morning to evening, thus skipping the time sink of fighting to focus on the characters (but could bite back if you don't want players maxing affection/trust stats early on or without fighting or passing checkpoints),
  • an option to 'hang out' similar to the evening options where you talk or do an activity with one or more companions for the 'day' time slot, and/or
  • maybe something like an 'explore' with someone where it's more slice of life peeking about and goofing off while scouting the area (maybe grants 1 initiative for the next day to push forward or something), but also has a possibility of a fight, just not a long chain of them.
But yes, mostly either an option to rest and just skip fighting if someone wants to focus on horny mode with different characters, or some sort of event to add trust/affection.

I also noticed that Sarah can be... stubborn with her attack role. I've gone into some fights underleveled/without applying stats, and even if you tell her to attack, she will only heal if she's below a certain health which caused some... interesting loops where both of us healing was enough to barely stay alive, but since my attack did nothing, I needed her to actually attack to get the last bit of a third enemy to die. (2 on 2 was a win, but 3 on 2 was a slow loss). I understand self preservation which is fine for default, but I'd sort of expect it to be the player's fault for not switching her off attack to support if she dies, and for her to actually attack when on attack. Granted, it's an edge case, but it was still sort of funny.

Which also leads me to something you may or may not want to implement: partner targeting. I'm not sure of the logic right now, but it seems a bit random, so it's tough to focus one enemy down with your partner, and there's no way to force them to focus the particular target you want them to. The downsides are it could be very OP, and would take away the aspect of their own volition. (Which the Default/Attack/Support does to a lesser extent already - granted they don't disobey xD). It would also add some extra clicks per turn unless they autotarget your target, or you set a kill order at the start of the fight or something.
 

Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
Game Developer
May 31, 2019
919
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Is there any foot fetish content in game or planned?
Currently no, future yes. It's not a primary focus of the game, but I find it fun to write and know some people want it, so it'll happen. My tentative guess would be sometime over the next few updates?


10 focus -> Huh... maybe I didn't read as closely as I thought on some of the details for stats. That certainly seems like a workaround since I'm mostly seesawing between two abilities with the cooldowns. I went mostly Strength and Magic for damage spells and healing (crits and stuff don't seem too important vs raw damage at this level yet, and I tend to prefer damage over defense -i.e. glass cannon- so long as it's doable) and libido with the idea it would affect sexy scenes and/or combat down the line.

Box targeting -> It's probably do-able, but depending on how RenPy treats it, it could be more trouble than it's worth for now vs content and bigger features.

Auto target -> It's a simple thing, and assuming the code isn't too hard to implement with checking remaining active enemies, definitely one of those QoL things to reduce time/clicks for grinding.

Netflix 'n chill -> This is sort of a design choice on your part. It could be that the 'adventuring' is a set corridor of fights to push through to get to a 'rest area' like a town or something, and thus light on the companion content except for specific downtime so you can focus more on it at those larger rest areas, or... you can leave it at a leisurely pace where an extra day of fooling around rather than fighting and pushing forward to the next 'checkpoint' is fine.

I would see it as an option to either:
  • 'skip' from morning to evening, thus skipping the time sink of fighting to focus on the characters (but could bite back if you don't want players maxing affection/trust stats early on or without fighting or passing checkpoints),
  • an option to 'hang out' similar to the evening options where you talk or do an activity with one or more companions for the 'day' time slot, and/or
  • maybe something like an 'explore' with someone where it's more slice of life peeking about and goofing off while scouting the area (maybe grants 1 initiative for the next day to push forward or something), but also has a possibility of a fight, just not a long chain of them.
But yes, mostly either an option to rest and just skip fighting if someone wants to focus on horny mode with different characters, or some sort of event to add trust/affection.

I also noticed that Sarah can be... stubborn with her attack role. I've gone into some fights underleveled/without applying stats, and even if you tell her to attack, she will only heal if she's below a certain health which caused some... interesting loops where both of us healing was enough to barely stay alive, but since my attack did nothing, I needed her to actually attack to get the last bit of a third enemy to die. (2 on 2 was a win, but 3 on 2 was a slow loss). I understand self preservation which is fine for default, but I'd sort of expect it to be the player's fault for not switching her off attack to support if she dies, and for her to actually attack when on attack. Granted, it's an edge case, but it was still sort of funny.

Which also leads me to something you may or may not want to implement: partner targeting. I'm not sure of the logic right now, but it seems a bit random, so it's tough to focus one enemy down with your partner, and there's no way to force them to focus the particular target you want them to. The downsides are it could be very OP, and would take away the aspect of their own volition. (Which the Default/Attack/Support does to a lesser extent already - granted they don't disobey xD). It would also add some extra clicks per turn unless they autotarget your target, or you set a kill order at the start of the fight or something.
Partner targeting works the same way as enemy targeting, on the 'Threat' system (explained in the Threat bit of stats). There is a skill planned that is similar to the alpha wolf's Mark, which will let you direct an ally to attack a specific enemy by boosting their threat significantly at the cost of 'wasting' a turn.

The threat system is a fundamental part of the game and is very unlikely to be removed entirely for allies, though. All battle entities, including the player, are all the same kind of entity and follow the same basic rules; threat is meant to represent the chaotic nature of battles and the simple reality that you can't always nuke the guy you want to if they have buddies attacking you or in the way of your attack. There will be a few future entities (enemy or ally) that can mess with it or ignore it, though.

I'll look into the Sarah thing, she's had a weird number of AI issues that Celica didn't seem to and I'm not sure why.
 

Chaika-chan

Newbie
Sep 22, 2018
31
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Partner targeting works the same way as enemy targeting, on the 'Threat' system (explained in the Threat bit of stats). There is a skill planned that is similar to the alpha wolf's Mark, which will let you direct an ally to attack a specific enemy by boosting their threat significantly at the cost of 'wasting' a turn.

The threat system is a fundamental part of the game and is very unlikely to be removed entirely for allies, though. All battle entities, including the player, are all the same kind of entity and follow the same basic rules; threat is meant to represent the chaotic nature of battles and the simple reality that you can't always nuke the guy you want to if they have buddies attacking you or in the way of your attack. There will be a few future entities (enemy or ally) that can mess with it or ignore it, though.
Okay, that makes a bit more sense now. It looks like I'll have to take a deeper look at the details on threat. The mark would be a nice addition for a buff/debuff, so it sounds like you have a plan in place already. Also understood on the fact that it's pretty integral to the game. That said, do you think it would make sense to visualize the threat somehow? (Red border for highest or a % or something) or is it too chaotic or too much of a giveaway?
 
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Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
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May 31, 2019
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Okay, that makes a bit more sense now. It looks like I'll have to take a deeper look at the details on threat. The mark would be a nice addition for a buff/debuff, so it sounds like you have a plan in place already. Also understood on the fact that it's pretty integral to the game. That said, do you think it would make sense to visualize the threat somehow? (Red border for highest or a % or something) or is it too chaotic or too much of a giveaway?
Right now I'm not sure, sometime in the next few updates I'm hoping to fit in a rework to how enemy info is displayed and include a 'tag' system (so you can see that an enemy has high vitality and that mitigation piercing moves are good, without knowing the exact numbers) and I could see about adding a Threatening tag or something along those lines.

The way it works in my head, each tag will either be text or an image for quick identification, and mousing over them will give more info and hints, ex. "Tough" might have a tooltip like "This enemy has high vitality mitigation, reducing most damage taken by a significant amount, but is vulnerable to mitigation-piercing abilities."

That said, probably not happening in 0.9, I'm kinda hoping for 0.10 but we'll see.

To clarify btw. I like not showing all of the numerical details of enemies, but the player needs enough information to make informed decisions. Whether that's a good idea or not is up for debate of course, but that's the general idea behind some of these design decisions. My poor UI skills make some of them hard to tell for a player though, which could definitely be improved.
 
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zeraligator

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May 25, 2018
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Right now I'm not sure, sometime in the next few updates I'm hoping to fit in a rework to how enemy info is displayed and include a 'tag' system (so you can see that an enemy has high vitality and that mitigation piercing moves are good, without knowing the exact numbers) and I could see about adding a Threatening tag or something along those lines.

The way it works in my head, each tag will either be text or an image for quick identification, and mousing over them will give more info and hints, ex. "Tough" might have a tooltip like "This enemy has high vitality mitigation, reducing most damage taken by a significant amount, but is vulnerable to mitigation-piercing abilities."

That said, probably not happening in 0.9, I'm kinda hoping for 0.10 but we'll see.

To clarify btw. I like not showing all of the numerical details of enemies, but the player needs enough information to make informed decisions. Whether that's a good idea or not is up for debate of course, but that's the general idea behind some of these design decisions. My poor UI skills make some of them hard to tell for a player though, which could definitely be improved.
It might also be a good idea to have a level indicator(or atleast something like enemies that are way higher level having a skull or something like in Fallout), this way players can atleast get a basic grasp of how powerfull an enemy could be as, currently, I have no idea what enemies are considered stronger and it allows easier strategizing than having to guess whether a certain type of gob is stronger than a certain type of wolf.

With the example of the Tough trait on enemies, I'd just like to add that you should probably subtract mitigation from a possible tooltip. It's a decently long word that is made unneccary by the explanation mentioning that it takes less damage.
'This enemy has high vitality, reducing the damage it takes' gives players enough information without being excessively wordy, the extrapolation that piercing skill, that already explain that they negate some damage reduction, can be made by players without the need to spell it out for them.
 
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Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
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It might also be a good idea to have a level indicator(or atleast something like enemies that are way higher level having a skull or something like in Fallout), this way players can atleast get a basic grasp of how powerfull an enemy could be as, currently, I have no idea what enemies are considered stronger and it allows easier strategizing than having to guess whether a certain type of gob is stronger than a certain type of wolf.

With the example of the Tough trait on enemies, I'd just like to add that you should probably subtract mitigation from a possible tooltip. It's a decently long word that is made unneccary by the explanation mentioning that it takes less damage.
'This enemy has high vitality, reducing the damage it takes' gives players enough information without being excessively wordy, the extrapolation that piercing skill, that already explain that they negate some damage reduction, can be made by players without the need to spell it out for them.
That is EXCELLENT feedback! The danger thing would actually be fairly easy to set up when I get the card rework going, I'll have to ponder the specifics but a symbol or 1-word description (ex. Trivial or Lethal) could describe the rough level difference. Maybe I'm just making things harder for myself by not including the level, but I like the idea of getting a rough gauge without the specifics so it feels a little less obviously game-y.

Good point on the mitigation as well. I really like how you wrote that, it rewards people for reading into what vitality does (mitigation) and realizing "oh hey I have an ability that pierces vitality mitigation, hmmmm..." without just straight up walking them through it.
 
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Chaika-chan

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Sep 22, 2018
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That is EXCELLENT feedback! The danger thing would actually be fairly easy to set up when I get the card rework going, I'll have to ponder the specifics but a symbol or 1-word description (ex. Trivial or Lethal) could describe the rough level difference. Maybe I'm just making things harder for myself by not including the level, but I like the idea of getting a rough gauge without the specifics so it feels a little less obviously game-y.

Good point on the mitigation as well. I really like how you wrote that, it rewards people for reading into what vitality does (mitigation) and realizing "oh hey I have an ability that pierces vitality mitigation, hmmmm..." without just straight up walking them through it.
Yeah, I understand not wanting to go full mmo with all the details and stats, and for a 'porn game', I'm not really sure fine details fit with horny brain players. xD I think you want to keep it as simple as possible, but like you said, enough info to make informed decisions on what to use.

The adventure screen does give a relative expected level range for the enemy chain zeraligator, but it does also ramp as you continue, and you have difficult and easy enemies mixed on some stages, so I agree to an extent of a visual. Honestly, threat visualization may not be as necessary if you know what you're up against. (Focus the hard hitters first, and you won't have to worry about a sudden crit that takes someone out.) You could do something like WoW with their elite dragon icons for leaders (silver) and bosses (gold), or show a heirarchy/specialization icon (magic attacker, physical attacker, tank/defense, and either minion or no icon for smaller threats). Usually, visuals also help in a game like this where a big sprite is the boss/specialized character, and little ones are minions if no hp details are shown. The other verbal way of doing it is like you said, with a lesser/major/element descriptor like a lot of Final Fantasy games.

I think the biggest pain point of this right now is the Gob Shaman, the Knight and.. the other one. It's tough to tell if it's better to down the shaman first since they hand out the buffs and do magic damage, or take out the minions since they can do a lot of physical damage especially once buffed. I feel like the shaman had more health, but maybe wasn't doing much damage, and the other two were supposed to be an armored attacker and a regular attacker; both of which were maybe a tad easier (unarmored more so) to kill, but really hurt if the shaman had time to buff them.

Elements/types do help too with knowing say a physical attack against a magic user (typically light armor) will be more effective, if I need to use an armor pen skill on an armored enemy, or say water against fire, umbral vs holy, etc. I know for now, most of the spells seem to be frost/water, but each partner seems to have an element type too. If I know Celica is water based, and we're up against lightning types, I may want to kill them quickly, play support to her since she'll be weak to their attacks, or just have her defend since her attacks may not do much anyway. If we're against fire types, maybe I focus more aoe so she can hit harder on what she wants (so a big spell isn't wasted on a 5% health enemy), or play support so she only attacks.

With all that said... this is mostly for those looking to min/max, or those with some prior knowledge using simple visuals and critical thinking to grasp the situation. I'm sure you're still going to get a bunch of people who will try to just spam the normal attack on everything and hope for the best. (Or grind to be high level enough to fast forward through all the fight parts that way.)
 
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zeraligator

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May 25, 2018
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Yeah, I understand not wanting to go full mmo with all the details and stats, and for a 'porn game', I'm not really sure fine details fit with horny brain players. xD I think you want to keep it as simple as possible, but like you said, enough info to make informed decisions on what to use.

The adventure screen does give a relative expected level range for the enemy chain zeraligator, but it does also ramp as you continue, and you have difficult and easy enemies mixed on some stages, so I agree to an extent of a visual. Honestly, threat visualization may not be as necessary if you know what you're up against. (Focus the hard hitters first, and you won't have to worry about a sudden crit that takes someone out.) You could do something like WoW with their elite dragon icons for leaders (silver) and bosses (gold), or show a heirarchy/specialization icon (magic attacker, physical attacker, tank/defense, and either minion or no icon for smaller threats). Usually, visuals also help in a game like this where a big sprite is the boss/specialized character, and little ones are minions if no hp details are shown. The other verbal way of doing it is like you said, with a lesser/major/element descriptor like a lot of Final Fantasy games.

I think the biggest pain point of this right now is the Gob Shaman, the Knight and.. the other one. It's tough to tell if it's better to down the shaman first since they hand out the buffs and do magic damage, or take out the minions since they can do a lot of physical damage especially once buffed. I feel like the shaman had more health, but maybe wasn't doing much damage, and the other two were supposed to be an armored attacker and a regular attacker; both of which were maybe a tad easier (unarmored more so) to kill, but really hurt if the shaman had time to buff them.

Elements/types do help too with knowing say a physical attack against a magic user (typically light armor) will be more effective, if I need to use an armor pen skill on an armored enemy, or say water against fire, umbral vs holy, etc. I know for now, most of the spells seem to be frost/water, but each partner seems to have an element type too. If I know Celica is water based, and we're up against lightning types, I may want to kill them quickly, play support to her since she'll be weak to their attacks, or just have her defend since her attacks may not do much anyway. If we're against fire types, maybe I focus more aoe so she can hit harder on what she wants (so a big spell isn't wasted on a 5% health enemy), or play support so she only attacks.

With all that said... this is mostly for those looking to min/max, or those with some prior knowledge using simple visuals and critical thinking to grasp the situation. I'm sure you're still going to get a bunch of people who will try to just spam the normal attack on everything and hope for the best. (Or grind to be high level enough to fast forward through all the fight parts that way.)
I get the whole major/minor/element thing, but the problem(for me) with that approach is that it is difficult to compare enemies strength between different 'branches' of enemies and special encounters/enemies(like, is a boss way out of my league or is it worth a shot). Also, brute force is always an option, if you're willing to grind for it.
 

Suwi

Member
Feb 8, 2019
208
115
Damn Cryswar, you got a ton of things to do and I honestly didn't read all of them but I get that the game still needs to be tweaked and improved here and there.

It will be tough, gruelling, boring, and sometimes tiring. But! Hang in there! Even if the game doesn't have much yet, it's still honest work!
 
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Cryswar

The Profound Dorkness
Game Developer
May 31, 2019
919
2,142
Damn Cryswar, you got a ton of things to do and I honestly didn't read all of them but I get that the game still needs to be tweaked and improved here and there.

It will be tough, gruelling, boring, and sometimes tiring. But! Hang in there! Even if the game doesn't have much yet, it's still honest work!
There's certainly a lot to do and it ain't easy, but I'm not giving up on this anytime soon haha. Thanks for the encouraging words!
 
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