RPGM Liora's Price of Dignity [v0.2.0] [aura-dev]

[uncommonsence]

Other than the snark, this is genuinely quite helpful. Clear, concise, and to the point. Actually genuinely thanks for the very simple explanation. It's not like it's an "ungraspable iceberg", it's that it's not immediately clear that there's a demo version for free on itch from a quick glance, thus leading to confusion when people bring up a third version you had no idea bout. This comment helps clear thing up significantly.

Sorry but I can't help it when I genuinely tell ppl how things are at the moment and getting and hour long lecture on the problems of game demo semantics in modern multi-platform gaming world as response.

That's pretty wild how people who never payed for patreon version know everything about it while

have no idea bout

itch version kindly provided by the dev they play all the way. They are both in the same section...and both clickable...and there's all the info you asking about. And there is a magic changelog file in game folder that hints that demo receives content updates. And aura-dev responded in this thread regarding the versions.

 

[kinglionheart]

I see where the confusion is coming from, that's the $5 version that's being updated an whatnot, the deluxe version is the same version, just with extra bells and whistles. The free version (demo) is available through Aura-Dev's Itch, and I would assume has less content and is either not under active development, or is just further behind the $5 version and the Deluxe version you linked to here.

Easy to get confused when it isn't being made clear that there's a difference between the free demo (which I don't even see advertised or linked on the Patreon, but I didn't look very hard) and the $5 standard version. Basically what Aura-Dev is doing here is they made the post public so that everyone can see what was added, but the actual links are Patreon tier locked, so you can see what's been added, get interested, and get a subscription if you decide you want one.

Edit: I said it was an older post, it's from literally yesterday. Don't know how I fucked that one up.
Second edit: I should probably not have said the demo isn't being updated, as I actually have no idea. I haven't had the chance to play it yet, and I don't have a subscription to compare the versions. I re-read my response and realized I said things that had no basis in reality, and were just things I assumed then put to pen. That was dumb. It happens. Oops.

It is okay. I paid for the deluxe version before. I really remember the dev said onIy the deluxe didn't have the time limit. I never tried the non-deluxe version on Patreon before so I thought it was the same one on itch. It does have itch links. Maybe I was mistaken too.

If the ass just explained it instead of being an ass then this would have been cleared up already. Thanks for trying to clarify this.

 

[E358700]

Sorry but I can't help it when I genuinely tell ppl how things are at the moment and getting and hour long lecture on the problems of game demo semantics in modern multi-platform gaming world as response.

That's pretty wild how people who never payed for patreon version know everything about it while itch version kindly provided by the dev they play all the way. They are both in the same section...and both clickable...and there's all the info you asking about. And there is a magic changelog file in game folder that hints that demo receives content updates.

First, and most important, I readily and fully admit I was speaking on topics I have no real knowledge of as far as the different versions of the game. It was colossally stupid of me to make empirical statements about the content of each version, and I have absolutely no idea what the fuck I was thinking. Absolutely dumb as bricks, I fully admit that.

Second, I was just trying to make the point that getting all bent out of shape over somebody calling all three available versions "demos" was unwarranted, since the distinction is largely pointless unless specifically talking about one version vs another.

Spoiler: Cont.

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Third, I rarely check a dev's Itch page if they have a Patreon, I check the Patreon under the assumption that they'll have all the important links there excluding any content that's not Patreon-friendly. I imagine most people would just check one site, usually the first one linked, assume it has all the important stuff there is, and move on.

Spoiler: Cont.

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Either way, starting to get off topic, so I'm going to leave you to it. I hope I have adequately explained my point, if not that's unfortunate. Main points are just that A) I'm an idiot. B) You don't need to be a dick for no reason/very minor reasons. and C) Not everybody checks every link, and not everything is immediately easy to find on Patreon, if it's even there.

 

[Trihan]

First, and most important, I readily and fully admit I was speaking on topics I have no real knowledge of as far as the different versions of the game. It was colossally stupid of me to make empirical statements about the content of each version, and I have absolutely no idea what the fuck I was thinking. Absolutely dumb as bricks, I fully admit that.

Second, I was just trying to make the point that getting all bent out of shape over somebody calling all three available versions "demos" was unwarranted, since the distinction is largely pointless unless specifically talking about one version vs another.

Spoiler: Cont.

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Third, I rarely check a dev's Itch page if they have a Patreon, I check the Patreon under the assumption that they'll have all the important links there excluding any content that's not Patreon-friendly. I imagine most people would just check one site, usually the first one linked, assume it has all the important stuff there is, and move on.

Spoiler: Cont.

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Either way, starting to get off topic, so I'm going to leave you to it. I hope I have adequately explained my point, if not that's unfortunate. Main points are just that A) I'm an idiot. B) You don't need to be a dick for no reason/very minor reasons. and C) Not everybody checks every link, and not everything is immediately easy to find on Patreon, if it's even there.

In terms of the parallel being drawn between prerelease and demo, although this is *technically* a valid point, it misses a very important distinction, I feel: the prerelease isn't a *demo* so much as us allowing players access to the most recent build of the game as it's actively being developed. The demo is "here's a slice of what you'll experience in the full game!" whereas the prerelease is "this is literally as much game as there currently is to play".

 

[Panda1xix2]

Programs like MTool. With them, I can modify my character in real time. IE: Change their stats, level them up, make them invincible, give them every item in game, Having a setting where I can press a button to auto win or auto lose fights.

I can do all this WHILE playing the game. It's a separate program and works with most rpgm games. My personal belief is that since the dev of this game is active in the forums and hasn't copyright striked anything (unlike some other devs), that we should at least not upload the deluxe version of the game. And because most of the people on here can easily learn how to use programs like mtool, I don't believe this should be an issue. Mtool isn't the only option, but the one I use.

There's few things that I can't do with mtool. Some of the stuff (like unlocking all the Hscenes without playing the game) is kinda hard so I use the games deluxe console for that. I also like supporting this dev.

The deluxe version isn't the "standard version" of the game right? If so, there's a non-demo, non-deluxe version that I think people are more interested in

 

[E358700]

In terms of the parallel being drawn between prerelease and demo, although this is *technically* a valid point, it misses a very important distinction, I feel: the prerelease isn't a *demo* so much as us allowing players access to the most recent build of the game as it's actively being developed. The demo is "here's a slice of what you'll experience in the full game!" whereas the prerelease is "this is literally as much game as there currently is to play".

Yes, I fully agree. That's literally something I said earlier. I was specifically saying that for this game, at this specific point in time, there is no meaningful difference besides the free demo having a time limit. I have absolutely no issues with drawing the distinction, and when you've got versions that vary wildly in content it's a worthwhile distinction to make, but the guy I was responding to got really heated over somebody calling the prerelease versions "demos" when the only current difference is apparently the time limit.

I will reiterate that I have not had the chance to play through it yet, I have been told there are no content differences, and the demo is also active development, but I could be wrong. Either way my main point is that it sounds like getting hung up on the distinction between demo and prerelease at this point in development seems largely pointless, and it was initially in response to Uncommonsence getting weirdly heated over a guy who didn't know there was even a demo on Itch calling the $5 and $10 versions demos. I have no issue with the distinction or the terminology or anything of the sort, just the way that one guy got bent out of shape over it.

Tl;dr, I agree with what you say here, I just don't think this:

coz they are NOT demo links ffs) don't know why you decided they are and keep falsenaming em.

Is a reasonable response to someone calling them demos, and tried to explain why the distinction isn't that important for this game yet.

I hope this gets the attempted point across so I can stop going off on explanatory tangents and clogging the thread. I apologize for the confusion and clogging the thread with unnecessary rambling and arguments. Game looks fantastic and I look forward to eventually getting the chance to play it, but I'm going to stop arguing over "demos vs prereleases" and "not overreacting to people using words that could be more accurate". I said my piece (some of it very stupidly), and I'll leave it be.

 

[loli senpai]

art looks good tho OwO

 

[wardeityjesus]

The contract system really suffers from Edgar just being terrible, his stats are bad, he has no abilities, and you can't directly build him like Rean so he rapidly falls off a cliff as you start infusing. He has a huge amount of defence but because he lacks defensive stance he can't tank, he has pierce but his damage is lower than Rean 5 levels below him so it ends up doing little to no damage even with advantage, he's a spellsword with 0 spells which means he can't trigger the weaknesses of literally any enemy in the game, guy just needs a full on overhaul so that building Edgar via contracts is actually somewhat viable. As of now he is so worthless that the optimal way to play is just to straight up ignore him and waste every afternoon infusing or learning spells (game really either needs more time slots or mourning needs to let you do things during it other than just work for Edgar).

 

[Zarkhy]

The contract system really suffers from Edgar just being terrible, his stats are bad, he has no abilities, and you can't directly build him like Rean so he rapidly falls off a cliff as you start infusing. He has a huge amount of defence but because he lacks defensive stance he can't tank, he has pierce but his damage is lower than Rean 5 levels below him so it ends up doing little to no damage even with advantage, he's a spellsword with 0 spells which means he can't trigger the weaknesses of literally any enemy in the game, guy just needs a full on overhaul so that building Edgar via contracts is actually somewhat viable. As of now he is so worthless that the optimal way to play is just to straight up ignore him and waste every afternoon infusing or learning spells (game really either needs more time slots or mourning needs to let you do things during it other than just work for Edgar).

To be fair, if Edgar gets his hands on a material like Resilient Bone, he will pretty much immediately infuse it, gaining HP and DEF. The issue is that he normally doesn't get those kinds of materials.

Also, I don't think this is in the game yet, but I would be surprised if he didn't at some point learn Defensive Stance, you know, once he has enough HP to do it in one go.

 

[WinKid]

To be fair, if Edgar gets his hands on a material like Resilient Bone, he will pretty much immediately infuse it, gaining HP and DEF. The issue is that he normally doesn't get those kinds of materials.

You could, however, give him the Bone if you have it.

 

[wardeityjesus]

Weird right? It is almost like Edgar is there to fuck with Liora instead of being helpful.

the big selling point of the contract system is that while you can’t directly control Edgar he is significantly more powerful than the other two party members, the problem is that just isn’t true after like first 10-15 days of the game once the characters start gaining levels you quickly realize his base stats are just way too low for the level he currently is.

Guy needs special abilities specific to him, a charged ability that kills enemies below a certain health threshold(letting him actually steal kills and upgrade himself) he needs to actually have a way to either gain more abilities like defensive stance (he already spends 90% of the time guarding anyway so there’s no reason for him not to have it) or have him start out with a bunch of different strong abilities that you can contract him to use. Pierce is worthless because his damage is so low that a offensive stance rean basic attack with advantage deals like triple its damage, he should have something stronger. I’m imagining how Edgar is possibly going to keep up with the party past day 30+ when he’s already getting one shot by most enemies by the time you reach that point.

 

[kinglionheart]

the big selling point of the contract system is that while you can’t directly control Edgar he is significantly more powerful than the other two party members, the problem is that just isn’t true after like first 10-15 days of the game once the characters start gaining levels you quickly realize his base stats are just way too low for the level he currently is.

Guy needs special abilities specific to him, a charged ability that kills enemies below a certain health threshold(letting him actually steal kills and upgrade himself) he needs to actually have a way to either gain more abilities like defensive stance (he already spends 90% of the time guarding anyway so there’s no reason for him not to have it) or have him start out with a bunch of different strong abilities that you can contract him to use. Pierce is worthless because his damage is so low that a offensive stance rean basic attack with advantage deals like triple its damage, he should have something stronger. I’m imagining how Edgar is possibly going to keep up with the party past day 30+ when he’s already getting one shot by most enemies by the time you reach that point.

No, the entire point of the contact system is to get Liora NTRed and corrupted. This is not one of those villain is too powerful to drop so NTR is unavoidable type of games.

This game's battles are harder than most but the game can be beaten with the proper strategy without doing any contracts with him. In fact the current update adds Edgar tripping up Rean and harassing Liora in battle just shows how little benefits he brings to a proper team.

As others had said you can power up Edgar if you want but that means weakening the others so Liora is more dependent on him. Of course the opposite is true too. Focus on the couple and he will quickly get left behind. It all depends on how you want to play and if you want to avoid NTR or not.

 

[Zarkhy]

No, the entire point of the contact system is to get Liora NTRed and corrupted. This is not one of those villain is too powerful to drop so NTR is unavoidable type of games.

This game's battles are harder than most but the game can be beaten with the proper strategy without doing any contracts with him. In fact the current update adds Edgar tripping up Rean and harassing Liora in battle just shows how little benefits he brings to a proper team.

As others had said you can power up Edgar if you want but that means weakening the others so Liora is more dependent on him. Of course the opposite is true too. Focus on the couple and he will quickly get left behind. It all depends on how you want to play and if you want to avoid NTR or not.

I think a lot of people are simply too good at the game.

At around day 30 you realistically shouldn't have cleared more than 4 dungeons (1 in about 7 days), that basically means the forest three times and the mine once.

 

[wardeityjesus]

No, the entire point of the contact system is to get Liora NTRed and corrupted. This is not one of those villain is too powerful to drop so NTR is unavoidable type of games.

This game's battles are harder than most but the game can be beaten with the proper strategy without doing any contracts with him. In fact the current update adds Edgar tripping up Rean and harassing Liora in battle just shows how little benefits he brings to a proper team.

As others had said you can power up Edgar if you want but that means weakening the others so Liora is more dependent on him. Of course the opposite is true too. Focus on the couple and he will quickly get left behind. It all depends on how you want to play and if you want to avoid NTR or not.

I’ve beaten every boss on the prior patch on the normal difficulty (I haven’t done the lake yet since the dev himself said it’s not balanced at all), the issue is that if you want to corruption to make sense, the rewards need to make sense, Edgar is a badly statted party member with bad abilities who can’t be directly leveled up like Rean, and quickly becomes irrelevant as he has no progression system of his own. There is almost 0 benefit in ever making a deal with him as many of his deals are debilitating (one really annoyingly high prio one is “must go on a date after a party member falls”) which is basically a straight up day skip but is both low value and frequently offered over actual meaningful corruption increasing contracts.

I know the dev reads this thread, so hopefully I can offer my two cents as someone who actually does pay for each patch

1. Just like SKA has you go into the mind dungeon every day, Edgar should start every day by offering 3 contracts (not just one), impatience should simply increase the value of the deal to show Edgar’s desperation.

2. Edgar needs his stats reallocated, he has massive defense but because he lacks defensive stance he still takes large amounts of physical damage and can’t properly tank, I’d give him some form of passive that increases his dodge chance greatly while he’s protecting targets (feels more fitting for a roguish spell sword than straight tanking)

3. Edgar needs more abilities, going off the fact he seems focused on buffing himself, giving him some “on battle start/turn use buff on” abilities would be great, and open up the contract system a lot more to let you build out his role in the party

4. Edgar needs to steal more often, in fact, I’d make him have a asssainte style ability that makes it clear when he’s going to try to kill steal, with the added bonus that he gets special infusion items unique to him from basic enemies (so he can buff his stats off screen), as well as getting double rewards from boss enemies (to both let him buff himself as well as open more deal opportunities to get the resources back)

just an armchair dev here but I think even a few of these changes could greatly improve the contract system

 

[aura-dev]

I’ve beaten every boss on the prior patch on the normal difficulty (I haven’t done the lake yet since the dev himself said it’s not balanced at all), the issue is that if you want to corruption to make sense, the rewards need to make sense, Edgar is a badly statted party member with bad abilities who can’t be directly leveled up like Rean, and quickly becomes irrelevant as he has no progression system of his own. There is almost 0 benefit in ever making a deal with him as many of his deals are debilitating (one really annoyingly high prio one is “must go on a date after a party member falls”) which is basically a straight up day skip but is both low value and frequently offered over actual meaningful corruption increasing contracts.

I know the dev reads this thread, so hopefully I can offer my two cents as someone who actually does pay for each patch

1. Just like SKA has you go into the mind dungeon every day, Edgar should start every day by offering 3 contracts (not just one), impatience should simply increase the value of the deal to show Edgar’s desperation.

2. Edgar needs his stats reallocated, he has massive defense but because he lacks defensive stance he still takes large amounts of physical damage and can’t properly tank, I’d give him some form of passive that increases his dodge chance greatly while he’s protecting targets (feels more fitting for a roguish spell sword than straight tanking)

3. Edgar needs more abilities, going off the fact he seems focused on buffing himself, giving him some “on battle start/turn use buff on” abilities would be great, and open up the contract system a lot more to let you build out his role in the party

4. Edgar needs to steal more often, in fact, I’d make him have a asssainte style ability that makes it clear when he’s going to try to kill steal, with the added bonus that he gets special infusion items unique to him from basic enemies (so he can buff his stats off screen), as well as getting double rewards from boss enemies (to both let him buff himself as well as open more deal opportunities to get the resources back)

just an armchair dev here but I think even a few of these changes could greatly improve the contract system

Edgar has already received a lot of powerups including his own progression systems in this this very update.
He won't have a progression system designed towards helping the party quickly clear dungeons and finish the game, as that isn't his end goal. For example, learning Defensive Stance will help the party, but not himself. It's to his advantage that the party takes more time.

 

[wardeityjesus]

Edgar has already received a lot of powerups including his own progression systems in this this very update.
He won't have a progression system designed towards helping the party quickly clear dungeons and finish the game, as that isn't his end goal. For example, learning Defensive Stance will help the party, but not himself. It's to his advantage that the party takes more time.

I think it’s a good step in the right direction to have him have some for a progression via the projects (although I still think they need to be more stat buff related in additional the personal enrichment aspect).


I think the fundamental problem I run into when I actually try to play the game the way a normal (not me) person would is that the contract system quickly becomes a trap that offers no benefit and should be ignored at all costs, Edgar’s contracts almost never offer meaningful benefits vs infusion or learning a spell, and so if they aren’t going to increase in value they should at least be more frequent (hence why I think he should negotiate every mourning and not just when impatient) and Edgar should have more ways of directly making himself better so that he can scale into the late game (my materials idea).

The contract idea as a whole is amazing, and I wish that I could engage with it in a meaningful way that doesn’t completely cripple or halt any sense of game progression, which currently it’s set up to do unless Edgar gets better scaling or offers more frequent free contracts.

 

[aura-dev]

I think it’s a good step in the right direction to have him have some for a progression via the projects (although I still think they need to be more stat buff related in additional the personal enrichment aspect).


I think the fundamental problem I run into when I actually try to play the game the way a normal (not me) person would is that the contract system quickly becomes a trap that offers no benefit and should be ignored at all costs, Edgar’s contracts almost never offer meaningful benefits vs infusion or learning a spell, and so if they aren’t going to increase in value they should at least be more frequent (hence why I think he should negotiate every mourning and not just when impatient) and Edgar should have more ways of directly making himself better so that he can scale into the late game (my materials idea).

The contract idea as a whole is amazing, and I wish that I could engage with it in a meaningful way that doesn’t completely cripple or halt any sense of game progression, which currently it’s set up to do unless Edgar gets better scaling or offers more frequent free contracts.

Playing the game without contracts is very difficult, you will eventually need to interact with them due to increasing treatment costs,
or you allow Rean to take Decay progression in which case he becomes weaker relative to Edgar. This too however encourages Edgar too slow down the player progression.

Generally speaking all forms that accelerate player progression (and offering free contracts is a part of that), are against Edgar's interests. The game is balanced around that you can trade time to get better deals. If you restrict a clause to a certain day, you can get up to 3.5 of the value by investing the necessary time. If time investment is free through too many daily deals, then this will accelerate the player and allow him to easily use Edgar to clear the game.

I also have a lot of player feedback that contracting with Edgar is TOO good, going in the opposite direction of your feedback.

The question here is if Normal difficulty is maybe just too easy for you, allowing you reach certain milestones early.
Out of 2000 players how have played the game in the past week (and had analytics on), only 80 have beaten the Demonized Warhound, suggesting to me that overall the difficulty of Normal mode is currently not trending towards the too easy scale.

 

[wardeityjesus]

Playing the game without contracts is very difficult, you will eventually need to interact with them due to increasing treatment costs,
or you allow Rean to take Decay progression in which case he becomes weaker relative to Edgar. This too however encourages Edgar too slow down the player progression.

Generally speaking all forms that accelerate player progression (and offering free contracts is a part of that), are against Edgar's interests. The game is balanced around that you can trade time to get better deals. If you restrict a clause to a certain day, you can get up to 3.5 of the value by investing the necessary time. If time investment is free through too many daily deals, then this will accelerate the player and allow him to easily use Edgar to clear the game.

I also have a lot of player feedback that contracting with Edgar is TOO good, going in the opposite direction of your feedback.

The question here is if Normal difficulty is maybe just too easy for you, allowing you reach certain milestones early.
Out of 2000 players how have played the game in the past week (and had analytics on), only 80 have beaten the Demonized Warhound, suggesting to me that overall the difficulty of Normal mode is currently not trending towards the too easy scale.

im curious what makes the contracts too good to players, for me I agree that the contracts are too good in that you can basically take minor to no impact contracts and pay off decay costs every week, but like I said that’s the problem, the only time you ever interact with one of the games most unique features is as a way to circumvent a single cost that only shows up every 7 days. By day 21 days I’ve most likely upgraded rean and liora to the point that they are close to Edgar in terms of important stats, and taken a max of 7-8 minor no impact contracts, I don’t know what the intended play time for the game is but if it’s like SKA and it’s 250 days or so that’s effectively maybe 60-70 contracts by endgame, there’s already around that amount in the game lmao. Contracts need to be more frequently offered or they need to give more to make them ever more viable than spell training or infusion.

 

[wardeityjesus]

Double post but I need to clarify because I think I’m not being clear, the issue I have isn’t necessarily a difficulty issue, the issue I have is that interacting with the contract system in the games current state is universally detrimental, it halts progression, offers poor rewards, and wastes your time that could be spent infusing or learning spells, I don’t know if it’s bugged or not but I’ve genuinely never seen Edgar do any of his cunning actions in a fight, which is a problem because that’s a far better way to delay the player if the are successful, force them to spend time in the town doing something else. Ideally, working for Edgar, where he should again offer a contract (he needs to offer contracts far more with how many are already in game) which then leads you to having full stats to spend on either infusion or training missing skills with the gold you just got. As of now this isn’t how the game works because Edgar never offers contracts during work and the pay is shit (in character lmao) so the optimal way to play is just ignore contracts entirely, which I feel just harms the games central mechanic.

 

[aura-dev]

Double post but I need to clarify because I think I’m not being clear, the issue I have isn’t necessarily a difficulty issue, the issue I have is that interacting with the contract system in the games current state is universally detrimental, it halts progression, offers poor rewards, and wastes your time that could be spent infusing or learning spells, I don’t know if it’s bugged or not but I’ve genuinely never seen Edgar do any of his cunning actions in a fight, which is a problem because that’s a far better way to delay the player if the are successful, force them to spend time in the town doing something else. Ideally, working for Edgar, where he should again offer a contract (he needs to offer contracts far more with how many are already in game) which then leads you to having full stats to spend on either infusion or training missing skills with the gold you just got. As of now this isn’t how the game works because Edgar never offers contracts during work and the pay is shit (in character lmao) so the optimal way to play is just ignore contracts entirely, which I feel just harms the games central mechanic.

Cunning mood triggers if you subsequently clear areas very quickly and are battle actions where Edgar applies a debuff.
Like I keep saying, Edgar offering contracts more often would simply lead to speeding up the game more thus reducing Edgar's chance of winning.

If there is no need to rely on Edgar outside of him paying for negotiations, not even to get gold from him for affording infusion and training, then the issue is purely on the Normal difficulty level.

EDIT: Edgar will also offer extra negotiations of you were defeated on a previous day or if you accept the drinking clause at a date.