HTML Masters of Raana [v0.8.3.3] [GrimDark]

[♍VoidTraveler]

You know what, after thinking about it some moar... i think i wouldn't mind if Mr.Dev would add a hardcore "IRON MODE" somewhere in the far-off future. A mode where if you die, it's permanent... and no save could save your ass.
A mode in which everything is perma for everyone. But yeah, we'd probably need better combat first.
The more i think about this, the more i like it. Would be just like good ol' GrimDawn times.

 

[jsmith27x]

While I would agree that most ppl want to play pokemon with all of the unique girls, the fact of the matter is not everyone gets attached to ALL of the girls. Some players HATE Juno. Which I dont understand, cause shes one of my favorites.

They what now?

 

[HereandNow2022]

That's because it was intended to combat save scumming, which it fails horribly at.

Maybe not everyone, but most? Definitely.
As in, they definitely reload when some sort of outcome is less than satisfying.

What way? If they can't die you can't play "that way" lmao.

Ah, i see what got you edge-lording me. Don't like death much do we?
Or maybe any changes to your "perfect game?" Something along those lines, it seems.

No, i think i will not quit making completely reasonable observations.
But don't get your panties in a twist, i doubt the dev will change anything just because i said something.

Way ahead of you.

I doubt simply reloading can be classified as "exploiting game's mechanics" but okay lol.
It's just that the dev seem to want people to save scum less if he went as far as to try and discourage it by making mc and the slaves immortal. If that is what he wants, then i'd say taking control of the saving system would be far more effective in achieving that than inventing dubious deterrents such as the 'absence of death'. Deterrents which, by the way, don't really work as he hoped anyway.

Has the dev ever stated it was created that way to prevent save scumming? Do you have any proof everyone plays as you do?

Most? Again, you're making completely unsubstantiated claims to fit your narrative.

If you like perma death, simply sell off or let the slave go. Problem solved. Even better, restart the game from beginning. You shouldn't ever use the save function until you are logging off.

I could not care less how you play. Further, game is not perfect; Hence why I reminded you it is early ALPHA. You are the one who seems obsessed with making everyone play your way and assuming they do so.

You are not making observations. You are falsely claiming to speak for the majority of players.

Save scumming is absolutely exploiting a game mechanic.

 

[Hargan2]

That's because it was intended to combat save scumming, which it fails horribly at.

As a save scummer myself, this simply is not true. It's actually the opposite, there's no player or slave death in combat because Grim knows it would be pointless, and people are just going to save scum anyway if they die or lose a slave. I have found no evidence to contradict this, and it's far better to have a wound system anyway in my opinion. I can totally understand where you're coming from, but don't ascribe intent to a mechanic unless you have evidence that the intent is there. I can't find any evidence of this mechanic being intended to combat save scumming.
See below:

I doubt this will happen. Majority of players dont like this type of feature. That's why Grim doesn't have player or slave death in the game. People will just save scum. And nobody likes a restricted save mechanic. You just take a stat penalty, but you can train it back up with time and money.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

and people are just going to save scum anyway if they die or lose a slave

They are going to do it even if they do not die or lose a slave, as well.
The whole point of saving is to reverse inconvenient outcomes, after all.
It takes a lot of grind to pump those stats back up no? That's just one reason.
Pretty much the only thing you could to to prevent save scumming is to take complete control of how save system works, make it fully automatic. I doubt that anything else will work.
Personally, i don't particularly care. I'll play how i like it regardless of what the dev intended or not.
So long as the engine allows it of course, i prefer to not use external cheats unless the game is an utter bore.
Which this game isn't.

 

[Hargan2]

They are going to do it even if they do not die or lose a slave, as well.
Because it takes a lot of grind to pump those stats back up, and because of a myriad of other reasons.
Mostly, to save time and effort. Pretty much the only thing you could to to prevent save scumming is to take complete control of how save system works, make it fully automatic. I doubt that anything else will work.
Personally, i don't particularly care. I'll play how i like it regardless of what the dev intended or not.
So long as the engine allows it of course, i prefer to not use external cheats unless the game is an utter bore.
Which this game isn't.

Fair enough. The Hardcore difficulty does have "restricted saves" but I'm not sure what that actually means since I've never tried it. That's probably the closest you'll get at this point. Based on similar conversations I've seen in this thread and on the discord in the past, I think the vast majority of people like being able to save scum, and for everyone who doesn't, there's the hardcore mode. And maybe in the future Grim'll add an iron man option for people who want an even more hardcore experience than that.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Fair enough. The Hardcore difficulty does have "restricted saves" but I'm not sure what that actually means since I've never tried it. That's probably the closest you'll get at this point.

When i was making my character i took a look at it but to be honest it didn't look hardcore to me, it looked annoying if anything.
Perma death is what i consider hardcore, that difficulty didn't have that so.. can't call it hardcore.

I think the vast majority of people like being able to save scum

Exactly my point.

And maybe in the future Grim'll add an iron man option for people who want an even more hardcore experience than that.

Yeah, that would be nice.
None of that "higher taxes" nonsense, just perma death, for everyone. Maybe harder combat as well... that kinda thing.
Or maybe you could even customize it... that also works splendidly well.
I remember some old games had customizable hardcore difficulty with a percentage bar that showed you how hard you customized it so far.

 

[ShinCore]

Has the dev ever stated it was created that way to prevent save scumming? Do you have any proof everyone plays as you do?

Most? Again, you're making completely unsubstantiated claims to fit your narrative.

If you like perma death, simply sell off or let the slave go. Problem solved. Even better, restart the game from beginning. You shouldn't ever use the save function until you are logging off.

I could not care less how you play. Further, game is not perfect; Hence why I reminded you it is early ALPHA. You are the one who seems obsessed with making everyone play your way and assuming they do so.

You are not making observations. You are falsely claiming to speak for the majority of players.

Save scumming is absolutely exploiting a game mechanic.

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[ShinCore]

While I dislike the bickering tone the "save-scumming" discussion has taken, the fact of the matter is, players are free to save-scum if they wish. It's not exploiting, in my opinion. Since Grim comes from a heavy TTRPG Paper and Pen background (and has based MoR heavily upon those experiences), save scumming is probably something he frowns upon, but understands that not everyone is going to be as hardcore (or not hardcore enough, in some instances) as he is.

In my discussions with him over the past few months, he has consistently expressed to me that he wants to give players the freedom to choose how they want to play, as "open-world" as possible. Granted, the game is still in development, and he has much that he still wants to put into the game. But he is has shown himself to be open minded and humble (to a fault). He always listens to feedback and tries to accommodate where possible.

A perfect example is the "grind". Grim thinks its too easy at normal difficulty levels. I think its fine. Others feel like its difficulty is trivial and that it should be harder. Still others feel like its too hard. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. But he still listens and conservatively fine-tunes with every update. Gameplay balancing is not easy, but he listens and puts in the time and effort to understand and adapt.

He doesnt judge people on how they wish to play, and I honor that sentiment by following his lead.

He simply is grateful that people like his creation.

 

[ShinCore]

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GrimDark — Today at 1:58 AM
0.8 Alpha (release is about six hours away)!

Features
This first Alpha release's main focus is feedback on the new slave control systems, the new vendor application systems, titles, traits, Medicine/Performance skills and the look of all the new girls. You'll also be able to explore the rich stories of Mai-Lynn, Aria and the tier2+ slave "TheGirl" (custom name).

TheGirl will tell you different stories at dinner dates/talk events based on how you choose your brother's character to be. Will she tell you about that one time when he let her live one whole day as a princess for her 18th birthday, or when she was the main fuck-toy during week-long parties?

Not-yet-implemented features
These systems will be implemented later this week or in later 0.8 Alpha releases (0.8b-0.8e):

- The Afraid/Fear framework
- The Defiance framework
- LOTS of additional renders
- Arias quest. You can buy her at ANY TIME from the slave market in Crystal Heights.
- Caitlin's background story (all her unique dialogues are blank atm).
- House rules - Still use the old system, but expect them to eventually find their way into the new control menu.

Disabled features
- Upgrading the Annex (completely reworked framework is due out later). Build the annex as normal from the new Manage Home button.
- You can no longer assign girls as whores at Redhaven market. Old prostitution framework will be overwritten by the new one coming out in 0.8.1.

EXPECT bugs/glitches - and please report them in the open bug-report channel.

This first release is NOT be save-game compatible! Cheat buttons will be able to throw you into late game features right away, however. Cheat buttons are found at your Home > Cheats.

REMINDER: ACCESS TO ALPHA VERSIONS IS ONLY AVAIL FOR TIER 4+ $25 (ACOLYTE) OR ABOVE.

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[♍VoidTraveler]

You can no longer assign girls as whores at Redhaven market. Old prostitution framework will be overwritten by the new one coming out in 0.8.1.

I wonder if we'll be able to build our own whorehouse or something.
Maybe even entire chain of those, and why not, that's business too.

 

[HereandNow2022]

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Thank you.

I'll tone down my adversarial tone. i just hate when people post claiming to speak for "everyone" or "most" players. Too many Devs get sidetracked during Alpha by listening to the loudest on boards...

 

[hyfka]

tbh I mostly reload instead of keep playing because of the limited number of non-named mercs, I don't want to run out
And I'd probably reload if I got the endgame mercs killed out of fear of being locked out of harder encounters later down the line.

I have some thoughts on difficulty as well:
Overall I think especially the early game is a bit too easy if you know what you are doing. On the current 0.7.9 version I never felt like I really had to struggle to make ends meet (normal difficulty). I think maybe part of that is because you get the big sum of cash to gear up for the main quest.
And then in later stages the difficulty drops even further until you start trying to fight dudes in Combat Armor with assault rifles. I think there is a pretty big difficulty "valley" when you have 1-2 combat slaves and rifle mercs in leather armor until you get to said opponents. But I think it's fine that at that point you don't struggle economically anymore, since with investments and setting slaves to work and upgrading the house you have made quite a few investments to make yourself "upper middle class" so to speak, and it's okay that at that point it becomes a power fantasy.
Also maybe it's because I didn't max strength, but meele seems completely useless by the point you get to rifle - and by extension so does Dex compared to wearing armor.

Tl;dr: More sense of struggle in the early game without extending the grind overally would be nice, combat needs a bit of rebalancing (I know it's placeholder)

 

[ShinCore]

Thank you.

I'll tone down my adversarial tone. i just hate when people post claiming to speak for "everyone" or "most" players. Too many Devs get sidetracked during Alpha by listening to the loudest on boards...

I appreciate that. I get that folks get passionate, especially about things that they feel strongly about. But one of the things that I personally value about this game and the indie solo dev Grim is the relatively mature community that has formed around it. It's rare to find, and I want to see it continue in that fashion.

And yes, I am fully cognizant that I am talking about maturity on a forum site dedicated to porn and porn adjacent games (and sometimes piracy of said games).

Which, when you think about it, makes it stand out even more.

 

[ShinCore]

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ShinCore — Today at 5:16 AM

REMINDER: Tier 4+($25) subs will get immediate access to the huge .8 ALPHA update coming out shortly. After some testing, Tier 3 ($10) is typically allowed access thereafter, depending on the results. Public release only comes after GD-studios is pretty sure things are stable and polished.

If you want to play this update ASAP and play around with new features, please make sure you are subbed to the right tier.

Also keep in mind that the SubscribeStar discord bot only updates once every few hours, not in real-time. So it may take a bit before you get access if you open a new sub, or upgrade your current one.

Finally, make sure you have your SSA account connected to your discord account. The integration setting is in your SSA account settings under "Integrations". Please see the attached image for an example. Feel free to ask for help in #questions-support if the SSA discord bot is not updating. GD-studios should be on in a few hours and can manually verify your SSA account and manually update your status on the discord channel so you can get access to the Alpha version.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT POST YOUR SSA ACCOUNT INFO (OR ANY PERSONAL INFO, FOR THAT MATTER) IN ANY OF THE DISCORD CHANNELS. ASK FOR HELP, AND WE WILL ASSIST THE BEST WE CAN.

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[caju]

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT POST YOUR SSA ACCOUNT INFO (OR ANY PERSONAL INFO, FOR THAT MATTER) IN ANY OF THE DISCORD CHANNELS.

But it's okay to post it here, right?
Hold on, let me get a pen

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Also maybe it's because I didn't max strength, but melee seems completely useless by the point you get to rifle - and by extension so does Dex compared to wearing armor.

You need to remember that stats are also being used in quests, not only in combat.
There are quests that, for example, require you to break a metal gate and for that you need strength.
And i'm guessing dex will also be helpful in places where you need to be fast.

As for current combat yes, melee is rather weak compared to ranged weapons simply because you need to close the distance first.
That is the primary advantage of guns, they can start to deal damage right away, unlike melee weapons.
In some games i played developers somewhat mitigated this advantage by giving melee weapons massive damage boost which was always higher than what any gun could provide you with. This proved effective in luring some players to be melee fighters.
Honestly, it would probably work on me, too.



Dex is useful for evading melee attacks, which in theory saves you money because they can't damage your armor if you evade them. I'm guessing the idea behind dex was to avoid getting mobbed by a bunch of melee targets who would otherwise quickly demolish your armor.
But it doesn't really work at the moment, indeed.

... I wonder if we'll be able to dual wield one day.
Wider weapon variety would also be nice, like hand cannons:

--

^This baby of mine is from a certain mmorpg btw.

 

[Hargan2]

... I wonder if we'll be able to dual wield one day.

That gives me an idea! Dual wielding is limited by the fact that humans can't really focus on and track two separate targets. So you can hold two weapons, but if you want to fire with any accuracy they generally have to both be aimed at one target. An implant or implants, like an eye implant for targeting that then can be stacked with a brain implant to enable the advanced feature of independent targeting, could fix this. Letting you not only dual wield, but also fire your weapons at two different targets if you so which.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

That gives me an idea! Dual wielding is limited by the fact that humans can't really focus on and track two separate targets. So you can hold two weapons, but if you want to fire with any accuracy they generally have to both be aimed at one target. An implant or implants, like an eye implant for targeting that then can be stacked with a brain implant to enable the advanced feature of independent targeting, could fix this. Letting you not only dual wield, but also fire your weapons at two different targets if you so which.

So what you mean is basically a targeting implant which will track targets for the user.
Why not, not a bad idea. Let's say it increases accuracy and helps finding weak points, therefore increasing critical rate or critical power.
Also enables a dual gun wielder to select two separate targets to shoot at once.
Supposing in a game like this a dual wield would be able to shoot twice at a single target per turn but with this implant you get extra utility.

 

[Hargan2]

So what you mean is basically a targeting implant which will track targets for the user.
Why not, not a bad idea. Let's say it increases accuracy and helps finding weak points, therefore increasing critical rate or critical power.
Also enables a dual gun wielder to select two separate targets to shoot at once.
I'm guessing in a game like this a dual wield would be able to shoot twice at a single target per turn but with this implant you get extra utility.

That's basically what I'm thinking, yeah. If dual wielding ever gets added, I'd imagine it as "You can shoot each weapon once at the same target, but with this implant you can shoot each weapon at a different target if you want."