And for his neutral special, he wields a gun!
I wanted peoples opinion on what they like about this game (or rather, what this game aims to be, it's not exactly in the best state and the direction/rate of development is just tragic) in case someone else were to make a similar game. Specifically i'm interested peoples opinion on content such as furry/scalie/animal morph, sandbox, character customization, fantasy RPG elements, handwritten/plot characters, slave/companion management and story. How much do these things mean to you. If there is anything i left out that appeals to you don't be afraid to mention that too. Also I hope i'm not derailing this thread by doing this.
Sims-style interactions with NPCs bolstering their affection for you, and the ability to choose-your-own-sex-scene, are the big ones for me. The freedom to engage in whatever kink floats your fancy is another big one, although its Patreonizing gives it a huge mixed moral message -- the line is drawn at an oddly arbitrary point where horsecocks and weird animal parts are okay, but feralmorphs have to be "taurs" rather than full sentient beasts or else it's red-flag territory; it's strangely more restrictive than CoC in that regard, which had quadrupedal and non-humanoid partners as well and didn't suffer for it. It's funny that having something like presenting yourself to Battle Cat is categorized in the same level of extreme fetish as guro or pedophilia.
The appearance fluff/character customization is largely just fluff and matters less to me, especially because it rarely gets involved in the actual gameplay. Waltzing around with G cups versus AA does nothing except change weeaboo "paizuri" to "naizuri". (Is it really so hard to call it a "titjob" or "frottage"? Yeesh.)
I really, really love LT's respect for the player's agency. For instance, TiTS has this horribly written encounter with a bunch of fanwank OC characters where they blow out your airlock and then force you into this long, complicated multi-scene encounter on rails, and I just want to strangle the writer every time it happens. LT very often gives you the chance to say no or to say, sorry, not into dicks/vadges/both, or, sorry, I'm just not that into you. By comparison, everybody in TiTS starts out at mid-to-high-level sexual harassment. I don't come to adult games looking for soapboxing about pansexuality, I come looking for titillation when my real life relationships aren't satisfying me enough.
LT's agency is schizophrenic, too; it goes to great lengths to ensure that you are in control, yet is trapped in a run-or-rape atmosphere like just about every other text-based life simulator or CoC clone, and that bugs me to no end. Degrees of Lewdity similarly infuriates me that they went and spoiled a perfectly good "find a way to earn your rent, on your back if need be" life simulator with all of the rapists running about. LT even goes to great lengths to justify the rape results in-universe with an explanation that the player induces lust in those around them so it can't be modded away or head-canon'ed (DoL does the same in a slightly different way).
When the non-con game option is enabled, the non-con scenes are so mind-numbingly boring -- just you or them spamming resist actions -- that I can't imagine anyone who even likes that sort of thing can schlick themselves to it. The forced TF stuff also bugs me.
I adore that this isn't a futanari playground out of the box where at least half of the female population is packing sausage unless you voluntarily configure it that way (there's only one prominent named futa character and she doesn't do anything until you complete a side quest and show vulnerability). However, the furry stuff is a mixed bag. I'm not opposed to furry content, but the distinction between "minor", "lesser", and "greater" isn't obvious. The difference between a furry/scaly and non-furry partner is unclear; your partners have very little description for their fur or body coverings, and aside from excruciating detail on the genital anatomy, the rest of the anatomy only comes up when you hover over their race icon or actually click on it to read their character description.
The furry is purely cosmetic until the game suddenly forces a tail penetration on you.
Which is basically pegging. Not going to kink-shame the people who are into that sort of thing, of course, just that I'm not one of them, and there's no way to tell an NPC that it's a boundary that is a deal-breaker that they're not allowed to cross. Real life partners can be told that there are certain things they're not allowed to do, and they might bark up that tree now and again but still know that they'll blow the relationship if they try to coerce it or force it. By comparison, characters in this genre are practically clasping their hands together in glee with their plans for violating you, even those people who are head over heels in love with you.
The slave stuff is an entirely separate game within LT, and feels fundamentally off; it's like it throws you into this gigantic mansion and offers the possibility of being a slaver, but then buries it laterally. It's hard to describe, but I think it comes down to the lack of strategic depth on training a slave. Unlike SlaveMaker where you are managing numerous statistics to make "good" slaves, you just manage obedience and affection, which is far too little depth, and it fails to capture Free Cities' "fear" versus "loathing" nuance. You literally just hire a slave, tweak their room and duties until they gain affection every day, and then go off and faff around while they gain obedience and affection on their own. You don't interact with your slaves. Your companions and houseguests don't even interact with your slaves beyond telling you "oh, yeah, I talked to X" when you ask them if they've interacted with your slaves (and anytime IRL I've heard someone say "oh, yeah, I did" is a huge red flag that they haven't actually done it at all, though that might just be real-life subordinates and co-workers poisoning my interpretation).
[edit] Sweet Enola Gay, that was longer than I thought it would be.
Anyway, one final thing I remembered was my very first impression on the game during the museum visit was that it was a game about witchcraft in modern London, with the vast majority of people as humans and a deep underbelly in a Buffy-esque underworld, which I thought was utterly brilliant. Then (avoiding spoilers) it sent the player into an alternate universe and turned into just another CoC. I deflated like a balloon with a pinhole in the knot as I found out it was just bog standard after all.
Same thing could be said about accepting player suggestions: too much and you'll be doing nothing else. At that point, you're basically being paid to to work for them rather than making your own game. It can also create disparities in the quality. Last, but not least, be honest with your community!
If you haven't already dug through the suggestions.txt file in the src/com/lilithsthrone/res/doc folder, that file is a play-by-play of everything wrong with accepting player suggestions without a content filter. It's literally just a copy-paste job of people dumping random nonsense (presumably from the Discord), rather than being curated and organized in any way.
I hesitate at saying that player suggestions should be rejected outright, but they should always be assigned a priority and moved higher or lower, and it should be the developer writing something down with a couple minutes' design work on it. Adding something to The List is definitely something that needs more effort than Ctrl, C, and V.
