Java Lilith's Throne [v0.4.10.7 Hotfix] [Innoxia]

[PerpetuallyAmiss]

New to this game, but while the races and most things or bit wonky, I don't really mind the OP so much as I mind some having no stat or narrative niche in there perk. I beat the game and all its quest as just human, and my character concepts are all over the place. At the end of the day I as a player expect I'll prevail, whether the internal narrative for that is they got their ass beat by, boxing bunny, or deadly dragon, is mostly a matter of character concept to me. If dragons stat block was meh, it'd be underwhelming, if a bunny was monty python and prevailed its not big supprise. In the realm of balance though GUNS, have consistently hit me for 150-300 for a single ap. Often deciding if a battle is one entirely on if they nuke me. Thought teleport might be able to counter act that but it doesn't take effect til the next round.

 

[Sphere42]

The way i see it you have a problem not being as powerful as dragons are while being your favorite race.
But well my dude, that's how it works simply because few things are actually equal.

Not just "my favourite" but generally having completely arbitrary imbalances over two orders of magnitude. And it isn't needed, the game already has enough other mechanics to make NPCs challenging without restricting player/sex freedom like this.

With the higher demons I'm a little on the fence as they are central to the world's lore, but on the other hand it would probably be more interesting to give them powerful artefacts, high-level perks and extra stats in magical tattoos rather than just maxing their base stats.

maybe add some special benefits like shield penetration, it doesn't have to be pure damage buff, in fact, i'd like it more if it wasn't pure damage buff. More like special status effect maybe?
Something along those lines yup.

Funnily enough most of those racial/anatomy moves do also apply a debuff, dragon breath applies Arcane Weakness. Only debuffs are pathetically weak most of the time. And shield pen is the same as bonus dmg with the current mechanics, unless you meant armour shred which benefits later attacks as well.

Is there anyway in the xml or in 'buggy' to make it so an NPC or custom built npc to be attracted to the player? I got obedience and affection high, but it still says NCP is not attracted to you and I'm not able to perform the submissive acts.

That's probably the sexual orientation. Talk to Arthur about "experiments" or cheat-edit it to Androphilic.

Thought teleport might be able to counter act that but it doesn't take effect til the next round.

Yeah, the first turn is broken in general. Witch's Seal lets you permastun 3 targets if you survive 1 turn each, Teleport makes you almost unkillable after turn 1, any attack with high burst damage will just end the fight outright.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

And it isn't needed

Ultimately it's not for you or me to decide what's needed in this game.
If they want to balance racial benefits they will have a lot of work on their hands, deciding which creature should be more or less powerful than which creature won't exactly be a cake-walk.

Maybe they could start by separating races into tiers.
Like humans, half-humans, and the like would be in the lowest-tier creature pool, and dragons/lilin would be in the high-tier creature pool, and stuff like elder lilin would be in the super-tier creature pool.
Separating them this way would make things a bit less chaotic, i think.

They could also make races purely cosmetic to avoid all that pain in the ass, but that would definitely make the game a bit more boring.

Only debuffs are pathetically weak most of the time.

Agree with that, at present whatever status effects there are i generally found them to not be worth the trouble.

And shield pen is the same as bonus dmg with the current mechanics

Well, combat is always about inflicting damage.
It's how you go about doing so, that separates boring combat from fun combat.
Sure they could just beef flat numbers but that would definitely be the boring solution, and the combat in this game is already pretty dull as is.
Well, i think i'm not being paid enough to actually consider seriously how they could improve it so whatever.

 

[Sphere42]

Ultimately it's not for you or me to decide what's needed in this game.

Thank you for the condecension but that was a literal statement not a design opinion. The game has other mechanics already implemented, therefore racial stats are not necessary to differentiate encounters.

They could also make races purely cosmetic to avoid all that pain in the ass, but that would definitely make the game a bit more boring.

If you scroll up a bit you'll see I had a different suggestion: standardise the budget but make the actual stat gains scale with e.g. level. A lvl1 "dragon" is a whelp barely capable of lighting your cigar, a lvl99 catgirl is an avatar of Lord Fluffles himself and can definitely brush you aside with a flick of the tail, even without enchanted gear. But if you want to be a fire kitty you still need to pick lion/sphinx or whatever just like a Coatl has no affinity for ice.

Sure they could just beef flat numbers but that would definitely be the boring solution, and the combat in this game is already pretty dull as is.

No, flat bonus damage literally does the exact same thing in the current combat mechanics as "ignoring shielding" would do. I suppose an attack could ignore a fraction of shielding (including all of it) but at present shielding already is a weaker stat especially on the player as you need to spread your defences while enemies RNG into synergising setups which bypass them.

 

[bruhbruhbruhasda]

is there a way to edit saves? for example adding health

 

[tehlemon]

This is so much discussion on whether specific transformations are OP while completely ignoring how broken the rest of the game is. It doesn't matter which transformation you pick if every transformation can one-shot every enemy in the game lol

Just play what's fun. The entire combat system needs to be gutted and replaced anyways.

 

[Sphere42]

completely ignoring how broken the rest of the game is

Except for the part where I didn't ignore that? And the part where others said firebombs and guns are OP, because those definitely are racial traits right? Thing is we can address different parts individually to an extent, and having a solid foundation reduces future work in rebalancing everything again and again.

 

[Darkstar2610]

Anyway to expand the text area?

 

[Sphere42]

Anyway to expand the text area?

Probably no, but which one? The combat/sex action log? Dialogue? That bottom-right "activity log" thing which mostly lists saving and item use?

 

[Astrolucidity]

is there a way to edit saves? for example adding health

There is, if you go into a save file with any text editor (I prefer notepad++), you can edit values. Although be aware that these saves record literally everything, including NPCs you've met, their likes, their gender, etc...
If you don't want the hassle of rummaging through code, the easier solution would be to type 'buggy' without quotes in any room, which will open the debug/cheat menu. Looking through it you can add/remove Physique, Arcane, edit your body, and much more that could help you boost your strength. Enchanting clothing / accessories / tattoos / weapons is also another way, although it takes a lot of essences.

 

[hotaruchan1]

I mean was the combat system ever remotely balanced? I just assumed it was a here something basic until I got around to putting in one not stupid. And then just never went back to it.

 

[Exiua]

is there a way to edit saves? for example adding health

Aside from editing the save file yourself or using 'buggy' (debug menu), I have been working on a

You must be registered to see the links

to help simplify editing save files. It's still a work in progress, so it can't completely replace editing the save file manually or using the debug menu.

 

[Quintilus]

I mean was the combat system ever remotely balanced? I just assumed it was a here something basic until I got around to putting in one not stupid. And then just never went back to it.

 

[Sphere42]

Sorry if this has been asked before (several times probably...) but how do you make an OVERWRITE mod? For example there's a set bonus status effect in "/res/statusEffects/sage/set_latlov.xml" but if I copy-paste that to "/res/mods/testmod/statusEffects/sage/set_latlov.xml" I get two status effects upon wearing the Latex set: the unchanged original one and my modded one on top of it. Instead I want to only apply my modded one, without editing or deleting the original version.

 

[DSGMods]

Your third paragraph confuses me though, because stat totals are exactly what is wrong with these races. Mythologicals get between 200 and 300 stat points IIRC, some predators get over 50, some pets more like 5. Squirrels get a laughable ONE SINGLE stat point!

Enemies do need to get stronger over time, but that is what gear and levels are for. Increasing stats via races (without level scaling a homogenised budget) will lead to either railroading of player identity as every non-Yokai/dragon form becomes worthless or massive race bloat as every one of them gets mythological variants with higher stat tiers.

And currently the stat-strong races get good unique moves too. Or at least good for NPCs, alternate-loss immob is uncounterable but too slow to be worth using as the player.

How early races like dogs or domestic cats were balanced is unknown to me. They were implemented before my time. And yes, they all suffered from power creep. The new races that I added were scaled initially more conservatively, dragons had 80 or something like that, small mammals had 30 or 40, large predators matched hyenas, which served as the framework template, at ~50. There was some further discussion about lore congruence and whether or not races should be cosmetic only, and then I re-scaled everyone of my non-mythicals to ~50, and that has been the total ever since.

As far as mythicals go, they were scaled around alicorns and demons, and for that reason basically no dragons spawn right now much to the chagrin of many. Their breath weapon intentionally maxes out at less than what a level 50 player can do with Fireball, iirc with no specialization in fire spells. Eventually, dragon TF items will be locked behind several quests, similar to how becoming a demon is no longer so easy.

This comes down to how much a race should play into player builds, and I have not gotten much direction on that. It's also been more difficult to differentiate the races ever since miss chance was removed in the combat rework, basically turning "agile" races back towards conventional physique.

I personally gave up on trying to balance the gear I made with anything except an arbitrary linear progression as using player feedback is an honor system assuming no cheat guns, with enchantment caps on, no crazy mods, etc, and it's the same story with races. Hopefully once the 2D table is complete I can arrive at a more systematic conclusion regarding tier compression, or at least some numbers to fiddle with rather than gut feeling.

 

[Sphere42]

Their breath weapon intentionally maxes out at less than what a level 50 player can do with Fireball

Same as with other special attacks the main issue is the lack of scaling rather than the target power level. Some attacks deal flat damage, most use Unarmed damage which has solid progression, status effects are completely and utterly useless with their non-scaling -2 physical shielding and similar crap. As far as I can tell everything except status effects could easily use more advanced logic via pure XML as it has access to the caster NPC scope (to read out the level I hope).

It's also been more difficult to differentiate the races ever since miss chance was removed in the combat rework, basically turning "agile" races back towards conventional physique.

Well Action Points and Energy Shielding are grossly underused attributes for "agile" species. Small prey could also gain Critical Power via "keen senses"/"precise movement"/"sucker punch". Can status effects at least scale off host NPC properties without Java edits?

 

[DSGMods]

Same as with other special attacks the main issue is the lack of scaling rather than the target power level. Some attacks deal flat damage, most use Unarmed damage which has solid progression, status effects are completely and utterly useless with their non-scaling -2 physical shielding and similar crap. As far as I can tell everything except status effects could easily use more advanced logic via pure XML as it has access to the caster NPC scope (to read out the level I hope).

Originally Breath Weapon scaled with the player's elemental proficiencies without limit, but this was immediately exploited. I then wanted it to follow a roughly natural log curve, but this is not so easy to do with basic arithmetic and there was an object context bug, so now there are placeholder values.

I can only speak to what I am responsible for, but I can raise these concerns when it is time to adjust.

Well Action Points and Energy Shielding are grossly underused attributes for "agile" species. Small prey could also gain Critical Power via "keen senses"/"precise movement"/"sucker punch". Can status effects at least scale off host NPC properties without Java edits?

The designer of the combat rework told me in no uncertain terms that additional AP should be given out basically never, and I would like to respect their wishes. I have proposed adding a substantial cost multiplier for AP on the calculation table, but thus far no number has been decided on.

What you can or cannot a status effect or race all depends on if it's legacy or not. If it was made after ~June 2019 for statuses or December 2020 for races, chances are good you can stay in XML.

 

[DSGMods]

Sorry if this has been asked before (several times probably...) but how do you make an OVERWRITE mod? For example there's a set bonus status effect in "/res/statusEffects/sage/set_latlov.xml" but if I copy-paste that to "/res/mods/testmod/statusEffects/sage/set_latlov.xml" I get two status effects upon wearing the Latex set: the unchanged original one and my modded one on top of it. Instead I want to only apply my modded one, without editing or deleting the original version.

You will need to perform edits somewhere if you want to do this. Easiest way I can see is to change the file extension for the file in the /res/ directory. You will need to do this with every update.

Is this the same stat tool that's the reason why I can walk out of the mansion at the very start of the game, enter a tile next to it and then encounter a horse morph at 100+ hp who can hit for like 30 hp?

As I've said elsewhere, how the early races were balanced is not known to me. Point totals were a relatively recent, and admittedly arbitrary, way to try and create some kind of standard.

 

[NorthStarSteve]

I mean was the combat system ever remotely balanced? I just assumed it was a here something basic until I got around to putting in one not stupid. And then just never went back to it.

Then why even put it in the game?

 

[throbzombie]

is there a way to edit saves? for example adding health

Your save is an .xml, so you can use an ordinary text like Notepad++, or Sublime if you wish. You can edit anything you want then because the game stores just about everything in the save file, including your party size limit and even what specific NPCs are wearing.