Do you like erotic elements incorporated in the battle system?

[Girm Ork]

First, I am only talking about games with actual gameplay with battles, not visual novels describing battle situations. Imagine a typical Japanese RPG-maker game where you have a map and battle encounters. Do you like when you can do something sexy in those encounters? Or does it seem silly to you and ruining the mood of the game?

Actually, I am planning to make an RPG deck-building game (Last Evil, Succubus Connect). The MC is a girl and she is forced to act as succubus. Her foes are kind of unnormal aggressive guys who have never seen girls before.
I am choosing between two variants for the battle system:
1) The foe has the HP bar and the Excitement bar. The goal is to decrease the HP bar, but the reward after the battle is determined by the Excitement bar. Some cards are affecting HP, and others affecting Excitement.
2) Make standard, HP-only enemies. The reward after the battle is determined by the corruption level of MC.
I am wondering if mixing battle and erotic actions together is a good idea.

 

[nulnil]

The main point of having a sex battle system is so that sexual content is present in fights, and for combat-oriented games, this is perfect. Nobody wants to go without sexual content for an hour and a half while playing a "porn" game.

I am choosing between two variants for the battle system...

I don't know much about how this battle system works, but I think erotic actions go both ways. If you can do erotic attacks against enemies, they should be able to do the same back to you.

 

[Doorknob22]

My personal opinion is that mixing erotic elements with combat is like mixing broken glass with a bowl of cereal. I get it that we're playing fantasy games, but for me there are no two things more opposite than sex and trying to murder the person in front of you. The whole system of trying to excite your opponent while attempting to smash their heads or whatever is so utterly disconnected from actual human experience, that I can't relate to it at all.

In my own game, after some combats you can rape your defeated foe. But if you do that you'll be playing a rapist, there's no sugar coating it and no weird "excitement" manipulation.

To summarize: I personally find the notion of "sex combat" childish and weird.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

My personal opinion is that mixing erotic elements with combat is like mixing broken glass with a bowl of cereal. I get it that we're playing fantasy games, but for me there are no two things more opposite than sex and trying to murder the person in front of you. The whole system of trying to excite your opponent while attempting to smash their heads or whatever is so utterly disconnected from actual human experience, that I can't relate to it at all.

In my own game, after some combats you can rape your defeated foe. But if you do that you'll be playing a rapist, there's no sugar coating it and no weird "excitement" manipulation.

To summarize: I personally find the notion of "sex combat" childish and weird.

Battlefuck can work in some scenarios, like if the MC or enemies are rapists and the physical attacks are just a way to subdue the prey.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

Imagine a typical Japanese RPG-maker game

Ewwww. Boring to the point of being gross.

The first thing I'm gonna say is that most importantly your gameplay has to be FUN. Your prototype has to be fun without the porn. It just so happened I've played 3 card games and 2 darkest dungeon type games in the past couple of months. And every single one of them was so. boring. One of them had top notch artwork, but it did not save it.

Do you like when you can do something sexy in those encounters? Or does it seem silly to you and ruining the mood of the game?

Second, I don't know why are you bothering about the tone that much. Silly does not always equal bad. A lot of adult games here don't take things seriously and end up just fine. Hell, embracing the silly is probably better than trying to be super sirius and failing.

But I also think there's a lot of merit in what Doorknob22 said, especially if some grounding in reality is your shtick. If you're fighting an actual battle, with physical harm inflicted, suddenly switching gears to sex mode is absolutely ridiculous, especially when there are multiple attackers involved, so some of them are fighting, and some are not. That's just weird, what's stopping a non-sexed mook to decapitate the MC while MC is busy draining cock? It's not like she can dodge in that situation, knock her out, and then do whatever with her.

The MC is a girl and she is forced to act as succubus. Her foes are kind of unnormal aggressive guys who have never seen girls before.

That's... not how succubi act. IDK why games butcher this simple concept. A succubus does not fight men. She seduces them. Canonically, in their sleep. Which could make up for a combat system, succubus throws some seducing moves, and her victim resists by praying and such.

Which could make for a realistic combat system. There's a move that puts a victim in trance, and then subsequent moves blast the entranced victim with (lewd) mental attacks, maybe prolonging the trance. And if you incapacitate all the enemies at the same time (which should be hard for more than 2 enemies), then you can start physical lewding. So it would be a game about juggling and chaining crowd control. Yeah, it could be quite fun if the cards have complex synergies. You can check out Corrupted Saviours, it's a bit like that (except MC is incubus type and operates through hordes of minions, but mechanically there's an overlap).


Generally speaking, mixing sex and combat has some major advantages, but there are some serious pitfalls that are not easily avoided. The main advantage is that you're weaving lewd action into main game loops, which is simply great.

But on the other hand, battlefuck devs think that if a gameplay loop has a reward for the player baked in, that somehow means there's no need to keep grind in check OR that the strategies involved don't have to be complex. Boring battlefuck is not redeemed by the porn it serves the player, but many devs thing it is. The second downside is that if a player wants to recreate a certain sex sequence, which would be normally served by a save or a gallery entry, they are SOL, which is a more fundamental downside. Luckily it's not that big of a problem. And the third is realism, which is a matter of taste, but it's still important for some people.

 

[Doorknob22]

Battlefuck can work in some scenarios, like if the MC or enemies are rapists and the physical attacks are just a way to subdue the prey.

That's a significant portion of my game, but I'm not sure that was Girm Ork 's intention. He talks about Excitement Vs. HP. If I understand correctly (I often don't), it means somehow to sexually excite your opponent until she yields as she is too horny to fight.

To quote the OP's words, it seems silly to me and ruins the mood of the game.

 

[Girm Ork]

Nobody wants to go without sexual content for an hour and a half while playing a "porn" game.

I think, at least 30% of games on this forum are made this way. There are many "no sexual content" games too, not everyone is playing "porn" games.

I get it that we're playing fantasy games, but for me there are no two things more opposite than sex and trying to murder the person in front of you.

Not all battles are about murdering each other. Actually, I am more interested in comedy or half-serious stories like in Karryn's Prison.

Ewwww. Boring to the point of being gross.

Well, the standard RPGM battle system is not much different from Final Fantasy 1. Maybe, you've played too many games of this type?
I don't think that card deck builders are much better, but this type of gameplay is not so outdated.

That's... not how succubi act. IDK why games butcher this simple concept. A succubus does not fight men. She seduces them.

Sorry, I did not make it clear that I am not making a game about a succubus, or even a fantasy game. The MC is an ordinary girl, she is raping men and collecting their "manly energy". The country is inhabited by men only, they have never seen any women and think that fucking each other asses is normal. The MC can't approach anybody normally and ask for sex, she is like an alien. This is why she is fighting.

If I understand correctly (I often don't), it means somehow to sexually excite your opponent until she yields as she is too horny to fight.

Yeah, exactly. The enemy is confused, he wants to punch or run away from an "alien". But at the same time, he became horny.

 

[nulnil]

I think, at least 30% of games on this forum are made this way. There are many "no sexual content" games too, not everyone is playing "porn" games.

I know the difference between a porn game and an adult game. Adult games have sexual content, but they are not pornographic in nature. A good example of an adult game is Fear and Hunger.

That's... not how succubi act. IDK why games butcher this simple concept.

Maybe it's because the game isn't a 1:1 copy of the source material.

For me, there are no two things more opposite than sex and trying to murder the person in front of you.

The factor you're missing is tone; there's a big difference between an enemy fading into nothingness and being hacked into bloody pieces. Some media is just less serious than others.

If I understand correctly (I often don't), it means somehow to sexually excite your opponent until she yields as she is too horny to fight.

The MC is a girl and she is forced to act as succubus. Her foes are kind of unnormal aggressive guys who have never seen girls before.

Just wanted to point out, the MC is a girl that rapes men. Yes, women can commit rape, but in media it's typically potrayed in a lighter tone than the other.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

Sorry, I did not make it clear that I am not making a game about a succubus, or even a fantasy game. The MC is an ordinary girl, she is raping men and collecting their "manly energy". The country is inhabited by men only, they have never seen any women and think that fucking each other asses is normal.

Sounds... a pretty fantastical scenario to me, with either magic or "technology" (read: magic with a specific flavor) providing answers to some immediate questions, like how these men breed to maintain their society, how and why the girl harvests this "energy", etc.

Anyway, I really think you should make the viable prototype, and THEN graft lore onto it. Lore is more pliable than what makes a prototype fun.

 

[desmosome]

For your first example, you want to make sure excitement actually has a positive influence on your run. Since the tradeoff is weighed against HP damage which is obviously a win condition, you want to give something more than better lewd scenes after combat for spending resources on building that meter during combat.

A very simple example could be to reward more shop currency for building higher excitement during the fight. Cum energy or whatever lol.

Other examples could be excitement (lust based) attacks and builds that are viable as a combat mechanic.