Hey I've been working on a little combat fix for Lilith's Throne and before I continue, I'd like to gather some feedback on what I already have
Most important gameplay changes:
Please keep in mind:
My goal is not to make the game hardcore, but to make combat feel interactive, so you cannot bulldozer your way through every encounter and instead will have to experiment with different builds and strategies.
Please don't hold back with feedback - every slightest bit of information is useful, even if it seems irrelevant (did anything feel confusing? silly? off-putting? Maybe something seemed strong, but actually wasn't at all? Did some combos feel OP? Etc)
also suggestions of any kind are much appreciated (especially for new moves)
Planned Changes:
P.S. I would appreciate some code revision and tips on how to optimize and make my code cleaner
Links:
Prebuilt:
Pixeldrain
Source:
Pixeldrain
Installation:
Alright I think I played enough to get a good grasp of things, haven't done EVERYTHING yet but I beat up Meraxis on Lilith difficulty, focused on magic all throughout. I picked office worker, since the other 2 starting jobs I use got ultra-nerfed...
Magic felt pretty bad until about lv5 when you can take chuuni, before then you use too much aura and you'd occasionally have to waste a whole round to recover it with drain/arcane strike, and channel never felt like it was nearly enough.
Water magic continues to feel like the only good spell school since it can actually crit without just not using 2 of your 3 ap (or being almost dead for fire).
Arcane magic gets really good lategame since lv 100 enemies have ~1500 hp to eat through (while taking only 25%, I think it is?) and because races got their stats removed, most enemies would only have 10 arcane if they were demons, so lust auto-wins 99% of fights in 1-2 turns depending on starting lust.
I only noticed it really late but poison vapors was really good, the DoT seems to ignore the difficulty damage reduction (unless it normally deals 400 per turn) and can reduce incoming physical damage by a lot.
As for weapon skills, I do like the 0 ap skills with a cooldown, although on Lilith that means even lv2 randos hit you for 80 pretty much every fight.
The ones I used were demonstone's channel, early on the buff to arcane and spell damage is nice, though lategame it's not worth the combat slot since I had 100% spell damage. It also seemed to reduce my spell damage/efficiency when the buff ran out?
Drain doesn't feel very good, it seemed to get quickly outpaced by arcane strike for mana recovery, and it only potentially benefits arcane spells since few enemies use magic and other spell schools don't care about raising arousal.
I used knuckledusters early for extra chip damage. Even if it only dealt 5, that's 5 more than 0
Later on I picked up imp arcanist staff, and I really like both skills you get from it... conceptually.
Grand heal gets completely outpaced by soothing waters for healing, and it rarely crits since you'll usually have SOME random debuff from something, like dazed.
Grand cure would be incredible if it worked more often, but on Lilith difficulty, one enemy teasing you once deals like, 60 arousal. Two teases pretty much guarantees you hit 100, and that puts a permanent debuff on you so you can't reduce arousal after that happens. More egregiously, any skill being on cooldown seems to count as a debuff (also hindering grand heal), so you can realistically only utilize one of the two skills, and any other skill with a cooldown can deactivate your support skills. Not 100% sure on this, since I THINK your actions are the last to happen, so it's possible someone used headbutt or whatever on me during the turn but before my actions occur.
I didn't really use witch broom or dark siren scythe yet, but the broom sealing magic when almost no enemies use magic seems pretty useless in most cases.
As for skills I never used but enemies used against me, kerambit's stacking poison seems like it might be pretty good, especially if it also ignores difficulty damage reduction like poison vapor did. Demon dagger's delayed poison just seemed like a worse version of it?
The dory's evade plus deal damage seems like it could be good, even if my build completely negates it since it can't avoid spells.
The katana/wakizashi skill seems like an okay enemy skill, and a terrible player skill, especially on high difficulties. Jhortrix hit for over 800 plus 400 to my elemental and was hard to interrupt with the difficulty damage reduction, but if I used it one single hit would probably interrupt me. Oh, also enemies seem to be able to use 3ap skills even if you reduce their ap. I thought I was being clever flashing him during the kata, but alas. Occasionally enemies would guard/evade on 2 ap, too.
I think there was some text/parser error with the sledgehammer when some salamander girl attacked me? Or maybe it's an issue with the character, seemed like a unique character or something.
I think that's most of my main thoughts on the mod? Feel free to ask for more specifics, or like, a different build you want tested. (Also Loliphile's modded version has an xp modifier slider [plus other stuff but that's the only one I use], maybe ask if you can use it? Or make enemies give their actual level's exp value instead of the scaled value, I dunno. I just hate how enemies scaling with you gives you SO much xp, you end up hitting the level cap after like, 2 imp squads...)
Welp, I'm off to get my ass kicked by Silent/Whisper since I can't perma stunlock them anymore