Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.54.0] [Selebus]

[flameod2]

I dont really comment on well, anything. But one thing that irks me and i feel would make more sense even in this nonsensical game would be a change to the affection system.
It doesnt make sense that you need to have 30 affection with someone and they still hate your guts for the events that need it.
I get that you want a grind but if you care so much about the story making sense maybe dont include the story in that grind at the expense of it making sense as well.

The most direct example is how it only takes like 15 affection for ayane and ami to pretty much open up everything but their darkest secrets.

But even with 30 needed for an event yumi still would throw up if we touch her.

It doesnt make sense that you NEED high affection for events that truly barely move the needle. Affection should in my mind represent how close you need to be with the girl to access an event with the amount of affection representing around the same amount of closeness for all the girls.

Essentially I dont think it makes sense to need high affection to do things that are hardly any different. Yumi being the main example. Im not convinced even in chapter 2 that we should be above a 10. And there shouldnt be an affection requirement for just constantly helping her find jobs. Especially when you gate all the events behind other events anyway making it almost impossible to miss any due to high affection outside of maybe a couple obvious bad choices.

Its fine to just have lower affection reqs for characters we arent that close with in the narrative yet. It would make more sense to raise those as we actually get closer to them. Like to invtie them over. Or progress the romance. Or to learn secrets about them.
Not to talk about job hunts over and over.

Just my own personal nit pick. Everything else i take in stride and hope will be fixed when its finished.

 

[Moonflare]

I dont really comment on well, anything. But one thing that irks me and i feel would make more sense even in this nonsensical game would be a change to the affection system.
It doesnt make sense that you need to have 30 affection with someone and they still hate your guts for the events that need it.
I get that you want a grind but if you care so much about the story making sense maybe dont include the story in that grind at the expense of it making sense as well.

The most direct example is how it only takes like 15 affection for ayane and ami to pretty much open up everything but their darkest secrets.

But even with 30 needed for an event yumi still would throw up if we touch her.

It doesnt make sense that you NEED high affection for events that truly barely move the needle. Affection should in my mind represent how close you need to be with the girl to access an event with the amount of affection representing around the same amount of closeness for all the girls.

Essentially I dont think it makes sense to need high affection to do things that are hardly any different. Yumi being the main example. Im not convinced even in chapter 2 that we should be above a 10. And there shouldnt be an affection requirement for just constantly helping her find jobs. Especially when you gate all the events behind other events anyway making it almost impossible to miss any due to high affection outside of maybe a couple obvious bad choices.

Its fine to just have lower affection reqs for characters we arent that close with in the narrative yet. It would make more sense to raise those as we actually get closer to them. Like to invtie them over. Or progress the romance. Or to learn secrets about them.
Not to talk about job hunts over and over.

Just my own personal nit pick. Everything else i take in stride and hope will be fixed when its finished.

Yes. Selebus is a good writer and an awful game designer.

 

[shmurfer]

He's even mentioned how affection isn't really affection and just a measure of how much you've interacted in the game. How he's intentionally left the lust flag on someone he doesn't intend to get any sex any time soon, and just randomly deleted all your affection grinding on at least one person (two if you then decide to check a specific phone message)

 

[DeanNoriko]

Yes. Selebus is a good writer and an awful game designer.

This sums it up well.

The game shines through its story.
The gameplay elements are barebones, at best. It's really just means to forward the story.

As creative and sometimes innovative Sel is with writing an engaging and complex story, his idea of interesting gameplay is dog shit, almost to the point where it feels like it could be intentional.
I think some of the bad reviews on this site hint at it as well and I am not surprised if he misses out on a lot of subscribers by making this game unnecessarily grindy and obscure (gameplay wise, see the reset puzzles).
That being said, Sel is Sel and he would rather die on that hill than use any of his brain capacity to make the gameplay experience any more fun, engaging, realistic or different in any way.

Personally, I learned to live with it, I don't see "affection" as affection at all, I simply read the numbers as check marks or flags for events, which they essentially are. I play this game to learn what's going on, not to marvel in it's ground-breaking gameplay. And Sel is probably aware of this being the approach for most of his subscribers, so he has no intention to change anything.
Still, I hate his stupid boner for those puzzle events. At least make them like the kids TV quiz show one, that was the only one I was able to solve without help (except for the puppies part) and that was somewhat engaging and rewarding.

 

[LessonsInDissonance]

Yes. Selebus is a good writer and an awful game designer.

And an awful person

 

[derekthered56]

I think affection isn't supposed to represent how other characters think about Akira but how Akira thinks about everyone else. He makes a stupid gamified system of tracking his relationships so he doesn't have to confront what he's really doing to real people. And of course the various gods roast him for it by randomly adding or subtracting millions of points.

And of course Sel keeps this system well after the point is made and wastes everyone's time with it, because he's kind of a dick.

 

[Moonflare]

I think affection isn't supposed to represent how other characters think about Akira but how Akira thinks about everyone else. He makes a stupid gamified system of tracking his relationships so he doesn't have to confront what he's really doing to real people. And of course the various gods roast him for it by randomly adding or subtracting millions of points.

And of course Sel keeps this system well after the point is made and wastes everyone's time with it, because he's kind of a dick.

The game contradicts this theory a few times, in the sense that the girls affection actually should represent their affection towards Akira, the most emblematic example is Chika getting 1000 affection points, at a moment Akira definitely didn't come to like her more because of rabies.

At the same time, New Maya's affection drops to zero and she's in no way zero towards him, she loves him and would go after him for forever. So yeah, yet another, excuse my wording, dogshit attempt by Selebus to gamify things that either don't add anything, or subtract from it.

At least the affection thing is easily ignored so it never really bothered me much.

 

[derekthered56]

The game contradicts this theory a few times, in the sense that the girls affection actually should represent their affection towards Akira, the most emblematic example is Chika getting 1000 affection points, at a moment Akira definitely didn't come to like her more because of rabies.

At the same time, New Maya's affection drops to zero and she's in no way zero towards him, she loves him and would go after him for forever. So yeah, yet another, excuse my wording, dogshit attempt by Selebus to gamify things that either don't add anything, or subtract from it.

At least the affection thing is easily ignored so it never really bothered me much.

I mean that the system is how Akira believes other characters see him. So when he believes Chika has rabies, he marks that idea down has Chika having 1000 extra points. And for New Maya, the 0 points are him avoiding thinking about her opinion at all.

I think the idea had some merit in chapter 1, but should have been discarded or changed massively as the game went on.

 

[barglenarglezous]

On the subject of Affection, are any of y'all the kind of nerds to keep a spreadsheet of the maximum NEEDED affection values for the girls? I have a curiosity about this that may play into a theory, but am feeling too lazy to consult the wiki to extract that data myself, especially if someone else has done the labor.

In particular, are their any characters that have required affection levels uncharacteristically higher than the other girls.?

 

[Riolol]

The thing I found odd about affection points was Niki and Noriko both starting out with 50 points each because they had history with Akira but not anybody else like Ami or Ayane.

 

[shmurfer]

On the subject of Affection, are any of y'all the kind of nerds to keep a spreadsheet of the maximum NEEDED affection values for the girls? I have a curiosity about this that may play into a theory, but am feeling too lazy to consult the wiki to extract that data myself, especially if someone else has done the labor.

In particular, are their any characters that have required affection levels uncharacteristically higher than the other girls.?

Well you have Ayane as the outlier at several thousand.

 

[Tommykjohnson1990]

Yasu is sad, did she lose connection with HOPE again? She let Sekaori enter Hope's church, so maybe he got mad at her?

I think it's more her making a Frieren face for her costume and not actually sad

 

[fdsasdf_p]

I wouldn't call it unfathomable, she was hysterical in that moment. Sekai could have been trying to calm her down for all we know. I don't know who else it would be.

I can point out a few other options to think about.

- I'll start with Sekai then.

From the context of this event, Ami was just talking about how she missed her mom because she mistakenly thought Sekai was still the reason why Sensei broke down this time. There, Ami again showed her high praises toward Sekai and how she missed her immensely. It is just too much of a stretch for Ami to go 180 from "You missed Sekai right?! I missed her too but don't worry I am here for you!" to just "STFU!" toward Sekai's ghost. Besides, even when she was under hysteria, being able to yell at Sekai has never been previously established as a capable trait of Ami.

More importantly, Ami talking to Sekai overall as an idea means way too huge; with the minimal concrete evidence we have, we would have to take too many mental gymnasium classes to make everything sensible. For example, if Ami was responding to Sekai back then, the follow up questions are "When did Ami start seeing ghost Sekai?", "How long has Ami been seeing Sekai so that she could bring herself to yell at her dead parent ghost instead of having an emotional breakdown?", and then "Has Ami been lying about her feeling toward Sekai this whole time?"

Essentially, all these questions extended from assuming Sekai being the one Ami was yelling at can't be answered to satisfaction for the time being when Ami has yet to show any critical sign of it (like talking about things or using specific phrases she shouldn't have known). All these make Sekai the smallest pie in a pie chart.

- Other strange entities.

There is no way to prove it, either. We can insert anyone that kind of fits the context, but that itself is not a proof of them actually being there in the same room with the Arakawas (besides, similar questions like "When did Ami start seeing shit?" or "Why are they there in Sensei's room even?" come back). I'd say it might actually be Angel 1 and 2 who's doing some nanny nanny boo boo and taunting Ami's situation, but only because I thought it'd be funny and these two deserve to be yelled at from time to time and not because I have evidence.

- Really just herself (my go-to).

Have you ever been under difficult times, which weighted so heavily on you that you started naysaying about the path you took, the decisions you made, and yourself altogether? Granted, my experience never got to a point that I'd verbally yell at my own shoulder angel or demon, and it's also admittedly too absolute to reconstruct exactly what delusion Ami was going through based off others' experiences, but going with this never has to answer the aforementioned lore-heavy questions. It works without needing to assume huge implications such as Ami not only could see/sense Sekai, but also could talk to her.

I dont really comment on well, anything. But one thing that irks me and i feel would make more sense even in this nonsensical game would be a change to the affection system.
It doesnt make sense that you need to have 30 affection with someone and they still hate your guts for the events that need it.
I get that you want a grind but if you care so much about the story making sense maybe dont include the story in that grind at the expense of it making sense as well.

The most direct example is how it only takes like 15 affection for ayane and ami to pretty much open up everything but their darkest secrets.

But even with 30 needed for an event yumi still would throw up if we touch her.

It doesnt make sense that you NEED high affection for events that truly barely move the needle. Affection should in my mind represent how close you need to be with the girl to access an event with the amount of affection representing around the same amount of closeness for all the girls.

Essentially I dont think it makes sense to need high affection to do things that are hardly any different. Yumi being the main example. Im not convinced even in chapter 2 that we should be above a 10. And there shouldnt be an affection requirement for just constantly helping her find jobs. Especially when you gate all the events behind other events anyway making it almost impossible to miss any due to high affection outside of maybe a couple obvious bad choices.

Its fine to just have lower affection reqs for characters we arent that close with in the narrative yet. It would make more sense to raise those as we actually get closer to them. Like to invtie them over. Or progress the romance. Or to learn secrets about them.
Not to talk about job hunts over and over.

Just my own personal nit pick. Everything else i take in stride and hope will be fixed when its finished.

I used to think affection/lust system actually exists within the universe, and it serves as a god-tailored world design that forces girls to fall in love with Sensei as soon as he steps into their lives, especially with girls like Yumi (I also used to think that her affection point should've started as a negative number) and shit like throwing 6M points to Molly and seemingly having effects; each girl just has different levels of resistance or simply more difficult cases (if you would), hence they require higher affection points and you still can't get handsy with them.

But that's me giving Selly way too much benefit of the doubt when at the end of the day this is just a common dating sim mechanism that even he cannot escape from. More importantly, the fact that some requirements are high enough to piss people off is enough to say that his vision of game pacing simply isn't universally agreed upon viewers.

 

[Hario1225]

Ngl I understand Miku's fear of blood.

lesson learned, turn off the lights you horn dog. at least that's what i always do by experience lol

 

[JelF547]

On the subject of Affection, are any of y'all the kind of nerds to keep a spreadsheet of the maximum NEEDED affection values for the girls? I have a curiosity about this that may play into a theory, but am feeling too lazy to consult the wiki to extract that data myself, especially if someone else has done the labor.

In particular, are their any characters that have required affection levels uncharacteristically higher than the other girls.?

Spoiler: Yes

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UPD: New maya have broken some calculations, I'll fix it later but for now highest affection requirement chat is shifted
UPD2: Fixed

 

[Kitty Hawk]

Average score for girls from LiLcord based on tier lists:

Spoiler

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Ayane is the best girl!

 

[Moonflare]

Ngl I understand Miku's fear of blood.

lesson learned, turn off the lights you horn dog. at least that's what i always do by experience lol

I mean, I don't like blood either, but when you have to scrape off parts of your body, blood and other stuff from your underwear every month whilst leaking, blood is kind of a package deal.

It's understandable Miku has a problem with blood because of her parents, but at the same time, was it really that much blood to conjure up flashbacks of her trauma?

Regardless, I'm pretty sure if ever someone was in a situation where something akin to that happens, the lights would be going up quite quickly lol

 

[Moonflare]

Average score for girls from LiLcord based on tier lists:

Spoiler

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I could say so much stuff. But I'm just glad I'm here rather than there. What a peculiar place

Edit: I find it hard to fathom a list where Ayane is best girl even if it was manipulated by Himawari.

 

[Riolol]

Average score for girls from LiLcord based on tier lists:

Spoiler

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Ayane is the best girl!

Heh the bottom of the list is 3 adults, then Nodoka, then 3 more adults. Also Kaori being that low means they all have no taste.

 

[LessonsInDissonance]

Average score for girls from LiLcord based on tier lists:

Spoiler

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Ayane is the best girl!

Didn't expect the general audience to get it, but yes, Ayane IS the best girl, and she is the one meant to be