I can see your point about the sandbox aspect, but the guide they have on their official wiki told me to specifically kill the enemy. And it does have a specific way to beat the level as it's quite literally impossible for me to kill the bandit alone, so stunning and then talking to Cecily was quite literally the only way to pass that part of the mission.
Actually, even without the help of Cecily and Gray Rat, you can still kill that bandit by spamming the fire lantern since it does DoT that gets higher the lower the NPC's DEF is, and that DoT has a chance to cause injuries that decreases DEF stat, you'll need at least 1 or 2 blue potions to tank most of the hit that comes your way while spamming that fire. Assuming you're below level 15 and haven't toggled some of the important traits such as 'Weapon Knowledge' and purchased any of the important items like Halberd or Saber+Dagger, then the lantern is another free potent tool you can make use of, it's even super effective in killing Mad Beast. There's far more ways to deal with bandits once you hit level 15+ and have unlocked all of the important traits.
I'm not unfamiliar with this style of combat. I have played Violated Heroine and found its combat decent. The issue is that most tile sets are way too small, there's no strafing, and everything is dark af. Add on top the extremely twitchy enemy AI, and it's frankly a chore to kill anything that takes more than two or three hits to down.
I have to disagree on this one. I've also played Violated Heroine and as far as gameplay goes, it's quite worse than LonaRPG in every single aspect since it has no stat/skill building, has near zero gear progression along with a jankier (in a bad way) combat that has no real depth to it. I'm playing Violated Heroine more for the porn than the RPG part since the later leaves a lot to be desired, I'm enjoying it for what it is.
If this game were a tactical turn based rpg, then the tile sets would've been perfect, but this isn't.
Having LonaRPG turn into a turn based RPG would mean that it will have less freedom of action. Let me show you something that a turn based game can't replicate:
You can see there that I managed to create a chaos and infighting by baiting that archer into shooting the guy in front of Lona. Since my Lona is a race of Abomination, she regularly needs a fresh corpse to consume in order to avoid getting sick, however directly killing neutral NPC will reduce Lona's morality, so one of the solutions is to instigate a fight between NPCs. This is the type of interesting strat you won't see in a turn based and this is just one example out of many.
My main issue with the stamina system is that you have to go out of your way to regenerate it. Once again, if it were like Violated Heroine and regenerated when you did nothing, it's be fine. But the fact that I have to specifically use the rest key to regenerate stamina is just annoying.
If we're talking about ease of play, then I agree with you. Playing as Human Lona, even as a veteran, can be pretty annoying due to stamina management. This is one of the main reason why I main Abomination Lona since this one only needs you to hold one button to regenerate not only STA but HP as well through desecration. I made an entire guide on how to rebirth into this race and how to play it, the link is in my sig. Just to show you a few examples of what this race can do, here:
Not even a single potion or rest. Can even create a tentacle out of corpse that act as an aggro and potentially as a killing machine. The tentacle's stats fully matches the stats of the NPC that tentacle was created from, with only the difference being that the ATK and DEF stats are reversed.
Having said all of that, I still stand by my point that removing this stamina system is an extremely bad idea. If you want to have a better time, rebirth into Abomination Lona. If that still isn't enough, then you can resort to Cheat mod and get unlimited stamina/food which is also quite okay since having fun is the primary goal here.
Oh, and the fact that I literally cannot cancel throwing a rock for distracting is also stupid.
Pressing 'SHIFT' during those charging skill will cancel said skill.
Edit: The pathfinding for the companion AI is also so dogshit lol. The rally trumpet skill barely does anything.
The NPC's pathfinding is certainly dogshit, which is even more apparent with those prisoners, no arguing this. As for rally trumpet, it mainly serves as a way to control your companion's position which can help depending on the environment. It's not perfect but it has its good use if you know where and when to use it.
