RPGM Maids & Masters [v0.16] [The Mithril Hourglass]

[DracZ]

Thank you for the fix!

Could you also tell me how I leave the Freeze event?

 

[Arisato Minato]

Pretty good game with some intriguing story however I have something I think would improve the QoL when playing.

1) Too much walking, all the estates are huge, with so many empty rooms/corridors that have nothing of worth exploring. For example, your estate is mostly empty and when I want to recovery, I have to run to the far left of the second floor to do that. It is exausting.

2) There need to be something to check the current quest progression without having to backtrack all the way to the estate.

3) The enemies are all hp sponge. I am so tired of having to fight them, especially the hold guardian.

4) The maid stats are all skewered toward Luck while stats that can affect the battle like Atk is so low. Ella heal is so little I would rather use the potion to heal than her. Please tell me there are more combat-oriented maids later in the game because I am stuck at the Hold in the forest or maid that can use magic because so many gear increase magic attack and yet none of the early game maid doing any magic.

 

[hreserves]

Thank you for the fix!

Could you also tell me how I leave the Freeze event?

You're welcome!

The Freeze events are the current end of the game. You should get an "end of version" message once you've completed everyone. If you mean how you complete Alice's event, just go back inside the mansion and the rest will play out until Alice leaves your party. Most of the girls will automatically leave when their events are done, but a few won't go anywhere until you walk through your foyer (which is also how you split up if you grab someone again after they're already done).

Pretty good game with some intriguing story however I have something I think would improve the QoL when playing.

1) Too much walking, all the estates are huge, with so many empty rooms/corridors that have nothing of worth exploring. For example, your estate is mostly empty and when I want to recovery, I have to run to the far left of the second floor to do that. It is exausting.

2) There need to be something to check the current quest progression without having to backtrack all the way to the estate.

3) The enemies are all hp sponge. I am so tired of having to fight them, especially the hold guardian.

4) The maid stats are all skewered toward Luck while stats that can affect the battle like Atk is so low. Ella heal is so little I would rather use the potion to heal than her. Please tell me there are more combat-oriented maids later in the game because I am stuck at the Hold in the forest or maid that can use magic because so many gear increase magic attack and yet none of the early game maid doing any magic.

Numbering responses for organization.

1) I've heard this before. It's something I'm aware of, and I've already reworked some maps to address it. Progress also fixes some of it with your own Estate, with the other beds (including those in the guest house) being fixed after repairing the floors. Some of that size is on purpose; Estates are supposed to feel like cities compared to the villages, and your own Estate is supposed to feel broken and empty until you fix and fill it over the course of the game. All that said, I do still have some plans to make more changes, and I still appreciate the feedback.

2) There is. You get the item at the top of Fekhacht as part of the main story, and the functions unlock as part of the Freeze events in v0.5.

3) I'm glad you mentioned this. I've gotten very little feedback about combat, and balancing it gets challenging with all the inside information I have. The Hold enemies are supposed to be long, arduous fights, but fights against beasts and Servants should feel a little more standard (not necessarily easy, but at least shorter). Most of the fights always felt too short to me during playtesting, which is why enemies have the HP that they have. If you have more thoughts on the subject, I'd appreciate the opportunity to discuss combat more in depth (and this offer goes out to anyone reading this; I still haven't gotten any volunteers to help playtest).

4) Yes, there are more combat-focused damage-dealer type Maids that come later in the game. Most of the way combat is designed in these early segments of the game are an attempt to teach the player the value of utility skills (being able to silence, stun, or otherwise control opponents, buffing yourself or debuffing enemies, etc.) without beating you over the head with tutorial boxes. I like to assume my player is intelligent, and design under that assumption.

For Ella, she'll be getting some extra attention as the story progresses. Doing my best to avoid spoilers, all I'll say on that right now is that the first instance of that attention is present in her Freeze event.

As far as all the magic gear goes, both Ella and Alice can make use of a high MAT stat (though Alice more than Ella) and you recruit another character after the swamps that's intended to be a hybrid character, so you can build her either toward magic or physical damage (or try to balance both, gear exists for that option, too).

I'm also happy to help get you unstuck. I don't want to make any assumptions about what you have/haven't done or are/aren't doing, but feel free to let me know what specifically you're stuck on and I can give you pointers.

I'm really glad you're enjoying the game, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts!

 

[Arisato Minato]

You're welcome!

The Freeze events are the current end of the game. You should get an "end of version" message once you've completed everyone. If you mean how you complete Alice's event, just go back inside the mansion and the rest will play out until Alice leaves your party. Most of the girls will automatically leave when their events are done, but a few won't go anywhere until you walk through your foyer (which is also how you split up if you grab someone again after they're already done).



Numbering responses for organization.

1) I've heard this before. It's something I'm aware of, and I've already reworked some maps to address it. Progress also fixes some of it with your own Estate, with the other beds (including those in the guest house) being fixed after repairing the floors. Some of that size is on purpose; Estates are supposed to feel like cities compared to the villages, and your own Estate is supposed to feel broken and empty until you fix and fill it over the course of the game. All that said, I do still have some plans to make more changes, and I still appreciate the feedback.

2) There is. You get the item at the top of Fekhacht as part of the main story, and the functions unlock as part of the Freeze events in v0.5.

3) I'm glad you mentioned this. I've gotten very little feedback about combat, and balancing it gets challenging with all the inside information I have. The Hold enemies are supposed to be long, arduous fights, but fights against beasts and Servants should feel a little more standard (not necessarily easy, but at least shorter). Most of the fights always felt too short to me during playtesting, which is why enemies have the HP that they have. If you have more thoughts on the subject, I'd appreciate the opportunity to discuss combat more in depth (and this offer goes out to anyone reading this; I still haven't gotten any volunteers to help playtest).

4) Yes, there are more combat-focused damage-dealer type Maids that come later in the game. Most of the way combat is designed in these early segments of the game are an attempt to teach the player the value of utility skills (being able to silence, stun, or otherwise control opponents, buffing yourself or debuffing enemies, etc.) without beating you over the head with tutorial boxes. I like to assume my player is intelligent, and design under that assumption.

For Ella, she'll be getting some extra attention as the story progresses. Doing my best to avoid spoilers, all I'll say on that right now is that the first instance of that attention is present in her Freeze event.

As far as all the magic gear goes, both Ella and Alice can make use of a high MAT stat (though Alice more than Ella) and you recruit another character after the swamps that are intended to be a hybrid character, so you can build her either toward magic or physical damage (or try to balance both, gear exists for that option, too).

I'm also happy to help get you unstuck. I don't want to make any assumptions about what you have/haven't done or are/aren't doing, but feel free to let me know what specifically you're stuck on and I can give you pointers.

I'm really glad you're enjoying the game, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts!

Thank you for your reply. Here are some of my suggestion

1) There are many ways to address this. One is to make a quick travel event prompt like what you did when quick traveling between each area. As soon as the player entered their estate, the game or our dear head maid could ask if we want to retreat into our room for a quick rest.

2) I think the ability to track the quest should be put into the early game as possible.

3) IMO. The fight for me feels pretty much stacked again player in the early game. First, there are 3 ways of negating your damage: you missed the attack, the enemy dodge the attack and the enemy negate your damage with their defense stats. The first two are mostly RNG-based and with my experience with RPG maker games, that RNG is skewered toward missing a lot of the time. The third point is a matter of how buff/debuff worked. In this game, even though it is possible to stack up buff/debuff to a maximum of two times, my experience tells me I should never do that. One single debuff from the enemy will completely negate my buff no matter how many stacks I have, the same applies to debuff. And with how potent buff and debuff apply to both sides if I don't constantly apply buff/debuff every turn or every time it was wiped clean, my damage tank and my party suffer from enemy high damage. In addition, only Melissa is capable of buff and only Jenny is able to debuff thus I lost two-member slots for crowd controlling, one slot for Phoebe who is the only reliable source of damage, the fourth slot is mostly meaningless since both Alice and Ella hit like a wet noodle and take hit like a paper bag anyway. And the enemy has the unfair advantage of having a compound buff, with a single action spent they can both buff attack and defend so in a single action they can affect both stats at the same time, either cleaning debuff, applying buffs to themselves, or in a sense debuff your party since any buff the enemies act like a debuff to you as well.

4) Like the point I mentioned above, the party members at the early game are so not good. One maid is specific in the buff, one specific in debuff, two wet noodles who cannot heal, and only one point stick that is Phoebe. The fight mostly revolves around trying to keep Phoebe alive as long as I can so she can poke my enemy to die. It is possible when there is one enemy at a time. But as I travel to the last part of the hold, it was 3 enemies who were not only way too strong for my party, had too many HP, they also had the better skill to abuse the buff/debuff system. The Hold in the swamp has enemies that can randomly inflict poison as well which already put a lot of stress on the team plan since I am forced to use Ella for her poison clean or risk burning through all of my antidotes. Resupplying is also an issue in this game, since I could not rest and fully heal in every settlement I can find, I have to backtrack all the way to another estate, which is a pain in the ass. Also item resupply could only be done in your estate, so I have to travel all the way back. In addition, those items only came after a waiting time which I don't know how was calculated.

 

[Ge0rgy]

I think i found a Bug in 0.5.
When you are on Melissas "Freeze-Date", and decide to visit Cumhail with her (maybe she likes the countryside?) then you have no chance on returning to the mansion. he Stone Wall at the bottom of your estate grounds won't open even from the outside to let you go in again. - So you can not return to the estate to complete her quest.. also if you go to the topmost house of cumhail with melissa in tow, you can not leave the house any more. Seems the game thinks you're there with phoebe, not Melissa...
quite annoying, now i have to play all the events of melissas date again from a save i made earlier (did save after every date, melissa being the last one..)

 

[hreserves]

I think i found a Bug in 0.5.
When you are on Melissas "Freeze-Date", and decide to visit Cumhail with her (maybe she likes the countryside?) then you have no chance on returning to the mansion. he Stone Wall at the bottom of your estate grounds won't open even from the outside to let you go in again. - So you can not return to the estate to complete her quest.. also if you go to the topmost house of cumhail with melissa in tow, you can not leave the house any more. Seems the game thinks you're there with phoebe, not Melissa...
quite annoying, now i have to play all the events of melissas date again from a save i made earlier (did save after every date, melissa being the last one..)

Yup, that's a known bug. A fix is already in place for v0.5.1. It happens with Alice as well, if you complete their event and say Yes to them wanting to do their thing on the grounds when you're entering the Estate, the gate locks with you intended to be inside, not outside. Alice has an extra bug where it's not possible to get her to stop, but Melissa has a work-around - if you leave for Cumhaill then go back to the Estate then tell Melissa No, her location will bug out and she'll be visible behind a tree in the lower left corner of the map. If you talk to her there, you can select Leave, say Yes, and she'll disappear and the gate will work again.

Thank you for your reply. Here are some of my suggestion

1) There are many ways to address this. One is to make a quick travel event prompt like what you did when quick traveling between each area. As soon as the player entered their estate, the game or our dear head maid could ask if we want to retreat into our room for a quick rest.

2) I think the ability to track the quest should be put into the early game as possible.

3) IMO. The fight for me feels pretty much stacked again player in the early game. First, there are 3 ways of negating your damage: you missed the attack, the enemy dodge the attack and the enemy negate your damage with their defense stats. The first two are mostly RNG-based and with my experience with RPG maker games, that RNG is skewered toward missing a lot of the time. The third point is a matter of how buff/debuff worked. In this game, even though it is possible to stack up buff/debuff to a maximum of two times, my experience tells me I should never do that. One single debuff from the enemy will completely negate my buff no matter how many stacks I have, the same applies to debuff. And with how potent buff and debuff apply to both sides if I don't constantly apply buff/debuff every turn or every time it was wiped clean, my damage tank and my party suffer from enemy high damage. In addition, only Melissa is capable of buff and only Jenny is able to debuff thus I lost two-member slots for crowd controlling, one slot for Phoebe who is the only reliable source of damage, the fourth slot is mostly meaningless since both Alice and Ella hit like a wet noodle and take hit like a paper bag anyway. And the enemy has the unfair advantage of having a compound buff, with a single action spent they can both buff attack and defend so in a single action they can affect both stats at the same time, either cleaning debuff, applying buffs to themselves, or in a sense debuff your party since any buff the enemies act like a debuff to you as well.

4) Like the point I mentioned above, the party members at the early game are so not good. One maid is specific in the buff, one specific in debuff, two wet noodles who cannot heal, and only one point stick that is Phoebe. The fight mostly revolves around trying to keep Phoebe alive as long as I can so she can poke my enemy to die. It is possible when there is one enemy at a time. But as I travel to the last part of the hold, it was 3 enemies who were not only way too strong for my party, had too many HP, they also had the better skill to abuse the buff/debuff system. The Hold in the swamp has enemies that can randomly inflict poison as well which already put a lot of stress on the team plan since I am forced to use Ella for her poison clean or risk burning through all of my antidotes. Resupplying is also an issue in this game, since I could not rest and fully heal in every settlement I can find, I have to backtrack all the way to another estate, which is a pain in the ass. Also item resupply could only be done in your estate, so I have to travel all the way back. In addition, those items only came after a waiting time which I don't know how was calculated.

I'm having a hard time believing I never actually thought of someone being a door Maid. They exist in other Estates (admittedly, without the functionality you mention), but I completely spaced on giving the MC one. That's a great suggestion, and something I can implement elsewhere, too (which should help with some of your 4th point).

The ability to track quests is in the game from very nearly the start, it's just tied to different events, like Phoebe and the war table. The item you get is given to you as soon as you get more than one region away from your home. I completely understand wanting the feature, but it's given out as early as I feel I can give it. In the interest of transparency, I would've preferred including a quest log, but I can't find a script that implements one without breaking another part of the game in a way I don't know how to fix. If you know of any quest log scripts for VX Ace, I'd be glad to give them a try.

Fights kind of are stacked against you, but that's intended in a different ways than I think you mean. It's supposed to be for the sake of supporting the narrative of your struggle to succeed in a world that would rather eat you alive (sometimes literally). If combat feels stacked against you because you're missing attacks too often, that's unintended and needs attention (and I've made a note for myself to look into it). The core idea is "challenging, not frustrating." Randomness causing an excess of missed attacks isn't something I've encountered in any of my playthroughs, but since it seems like you're encountering it, I can definitely take a closer look, as I feel that lends much more to frustration.

The same is more or less true of the buff/debuff mechanics. It applies to the enemies the same way it does to you, and your ability to learn and change tactics is always going to be better than the enemy's. Wolves might howl and wipe your attack or defense buffs, but they can be silenced or stunned. If you don't want to worry about buff management and be more aggressive, you can use Melissa's Rally to wipe the debuffs instead. Or combine that with other forms of crowd control. Or just always hit attack and hope for the best. Different enemies might require different tactics, it's up to you to figure out what your preferred tactic is.

As another example, Alice is a sustain healer. She's not there to do damage or hand out massive heals in a pinch, she's meant to keep your team operating at high efficiency. Her value in combat isn't the attack button, it's keeping HP topped up without needing to spend TP or giving another character SP to use their skills more often.

Something else I should mention is that there's a lot of older design philosophy in this game. If you run into what feels like a wall, the message isn't intended to be "get good or leave," it's supposed to make you think. So maybe you backtrack to fight weaker enemies, or explore new areas or areas you weren't thorough with before to find new gear or items. The game is supposed to teach you things and make you more confident in your actions so that when a new challenge presents itself, you're not beating your head against a wall, you're flexing muscles that you taught yourself how to use. Victory isn't something that's laying out and you happened to pick up, it's something you earned and is rightfully yours.

I mentioned it above, but it's that same "challenging, not frustrating" idea. You've obviously encountered some frustration, which means I have more work to do. The feedback I get (like yours) goes a long way into finding what exactly needs to be changed, and I really do appreciate you (and everyone else) that takes the time to write out their thoughts. It really is a huge help.

 

[Deleted member 2553135]

Overall, I like the game. I think the biggest problems I have are the maps are too big or empty (if there were more secrets in the estates, it might be more fun, but I could not find many for the sure size of the estates), and the normal battles can sometimes seem long.

Anyway, I have a few questions:

1. There are 2 holds I could not figure out how to get into (maybe they are not added yet). The Northern Hold and the Hold by the pool. Is it possible to get these 2?
2. One bug I encountered is that during the Freeze, if you visit the girl you can have sex with in Cumhaill, it will freeze your game when you enter her house.
3. Is there any content for Adhauga? I decided to fix the Estate's Stone for 1000, but that is the last thing I could do with that storyline.

Thanks

 

[hreserves]

Overall, I like the game. I think the biggest problems I have are the maps are too big or empty (if there were more secrets in the estates, it might be more fun, but I could not find many for the sure size of the estates), and the normal battles can sometimes seem long.

Anyway, I have a few questions:

1. There are 2 holds I could not figure out how to get into (maybe they are not added yet). The Northern Hold and the Hold by the pool. Is it possible to get these 2?
2. One bug I encountered is that during the Freeze, if you visit the girl you can have sex with in Cumhaill, it will freeze your game when you enter her house.
3. Is there any content for Adhauga? I decided to fix the Estate's Stone for 1000, but that is the last thing I could do with that storyline.

Thanks

I'm glad you like the game! I need a bit of time to prioritize, but I did want there to be more secrets hidden throughout the game. Some Estates (like Lothario's and your Uncle's) probably just need to be reworked outright, but my priorities are elsewhere for the time being. I'll probably be taking a longer look at combat in the near future, though. So far my supporters have said that combat balance feels good where it is, but I seem to be hearing this more as I fix other issues, so I'll be looking for ways to improve that aspect without compromising anything. I did take Arisato's mention of attacks missing or being evaded to make some changes, so that should help if missed/evaded attacks make combat seem long or feel frustrating. If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

For your questions, you are correct. The Northern Hold and the Hold near the Augalamh pond are both something you'll gain access to in a future update.

That bug's a new one. Assuming you mean Deirlinn (the brunette in the pink skirt), I've never encountered that, and I've been in and out of that house in every combination of party for the Freeze at least twice. Did you get any error messages, or do you remember anything specific happening just before it froze? Have you tried going there multiple times and it happens every time? Even just which party member you had with you (or if you were alone) will help narrow it down a lot. It's possible that was a one-off system crash in the core engine, but I want to do my due diligence.

Currently, the Missing Masters quest is all there is for Adhauga. I did intend for there to be more, but the content I had intended to put there ended up getting merged into other areas or dropped. I have at least one idea for something that could be done there, but I'm still working on the details. Both Adhauga and Aimadh were supposed to have side quests, but what I originally wanted to do just didn't work out.

 

[__1994___]

Sorry for my poor english. )

Fantastic renders and production. A fun game to play. The male protagonist game yes is my favorite (
Maids & Masters

) but it is very well done and keeps you engaged all the time ... If I had some cash to spend I would strongly support
Maids & Masters

and hope he delivers more content to come ...

 

[yumeko93]

I have one question. I would like to see will be able to get pregnant. There will be two levels of pregnancy:
1>) Pill Pregnant 100%.
2>) 0% with the Birth Control Pill.
The mechanism is based on the percentage of fertility, which will change every day. It will be possible to increase fertility with special pills or reduce it to 0% with the Birth Control Pill.
<><> pregnant gives birth

 

[Deleted member 2553135]

That bug's a new one. Assuming you mean Deirlinn (the brunette in the pink skirt), I've never encountered that, and I've been in and out of that house in every combination of party for the Freeze at least twice. Did you get any error messages, or do you remember anything specific happening just before it froze? Have you tried going there multiple times and it happens every time? Even just which party member you had with you (or if you were alone) will help narrow it down a lot. It's possible that was a one-off system crash in the core engine, but I want to do my due diligence.

I did not get any error message. I just enter the house (alone or with somebody) and it freezes (I try pressing the arrow keys, z, x, and escape but nothing happens). Yes, I have tried multiple times and it still freezes. I can post my save if that helps any. Thanks for the response.

Edit: Here is my last save I did. When I try it, it still freezes in the house. Thanks for the help.

 

[hreserves]

Sorry for my poor english. )

Fantastic renders and production. A fun game to play. The male protagonist game yes is my favorite (
Maids & Masters

) but it is very well done and keeps you engaged all the time ... If I had some cash to spend I would strongly support
Maids & Masters

and hope he delivers more content to come ...

I'm glad you like the game! Your English is fine.

I totally understand not being able to throw money at the game. Times are kinda tough for everybody right now. You can still support the game by sharing it with others, though! It might not seem like much, but it helps a lot.

As it stands, v0.7 is only the end of act 1, act 2 could end up being longer than the first, and there's still act 3 after that, so there's still plenty of content to come.

I have one question. I would like to see will be able to get pregnant. There will be two levels of pregnancy:
1>) Pill Pregnant 100%.
2>) 0% with the Birth Control Pill.
The mechanism is based on the percentage of fertility, which will change every day. It will be possible to increase fertility with special pills or reduce it to 0% with the Birth Control Pill.
<><> pregnant gives birth

I had thought about including a system like this, but the scripting gets very messy on the back end. The rest of the game doesn't have a day/night cycle, so fertility ended up being a random chance that varies by girl. Add in that I'd want to remove any party members you got pregnant, the time scale over which things happen, and that the game's focus isn't on pregnancy, it became much easier to limit pregnancy to the occasional Folk character.

I am considering opening up some other options in the post-game (as in the story is complete but there's still side content to do), but that's so far into the future that it's hard to plan for at the moment.

I did not get any error message. I just enter the house (alone or with somebody) and it freezes (I try pressing the arrow keys, z, x, and escape but nothing happens). Yes, I have tried multiple times and it still freezes. I can post my save if that helps any. Thanks for the response.

Edit: Here is my last save I did. When I try it, it still freezes in the house. Thanks for the help.

Found the issue. There's a thing that runs that's meant to fix an issue with older saves on the back end, but apparently I never included something to shut it down if the save is newer and didn't need the fix. Sorry about that. Fixed for the next release (which will hopefully be in another day or two).

Thanks for sticking with it! I appreciate your help in getting this figured out.

 

[jake85]

i like the game aswell its only annoying, the trouble to find out if you done everything in the build or not. which quests are done or not ( a log or clearer written hints on your current progress in game would be appreciated)

 

[hreserves]

i like the game aswell its only annoying, the trouble to find out if you done everything in the build or not. which quests are done or not ( a log or clearer written hints on your current progress in game would be appreciated)

Part of that is on purpose - you're supposed to explore the game world and discover things for yourself. I totally agree though, a quest log would be great.

If you know of any quest log scripts for VX Ace, I'd be happy to try to implement them. The ones I've tried so far break more than I know how to fix. Otherwise, let me know which bits are unclear and I can go through and improve them.

I'm glad you like the game!

 

[jake85]

Part of that is on purpose - you're supposed to explore the game world and discover things for yourself. I totally agree though, a quest log would be great.

If you know of any quest log scripts for VX Ace, I'd be happy to try to implement them. The ones I've tried so far break more than I know how to fix. Otherwise, let me know which bits are unclear and I can go through and improve them.

I'm glad you like the game!

e.g. if you start the hangout events its unclear where you have to go and if you do it again where or what to do this time

 

[randy1990]

is there a walkaround?

 

[hreserves]

e.g. if you start the hangout events its unclear where you have to go and if you do it again where or what to do this time

I understand what you're saying, but this latest update maybe isn't the best example. The only one that doesn't outright tell you what to do next is Quinn, and she's optional. As is going out with a girl more than once. And there are so few places to go, making every possible wrong choice first will take maybe 2-3 minutes, which isn't very likely to happen if you're randomly exploring. On top of that, randomly exploring is kind of the point of this segment of the game.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can make what is basically an on-rails section of the game than having the relevant character tell you where to go. If you don't want to do any reading or exploring, that's what the walkthrough in the README is for.

is there a walkaround?

There's a basic spoiler free walkthrough in the README.

 

[randy1990]

There's a basic spoiler free walkthrough in the README.

thx thanks wanted to know if I have overlooked anything

 

[cakezonesee]

Anyone got the save from where we finished clean the house in the early stage of the game? I reintalled my window and don't really want to play that part it was quite long. Don't need to be the exact moment but around that will do.

Thank you ^^
the save from where we clean the house in the early stage of the game? I reintalled my window and

 

[matriks]

Guys in this game gonna be impregnation and pregnancy?