I tried the boned mod and I should say it is difficult, at the cost of being stupid, tedious and annoying.
1. The "you get grabbed near enemy" mechanic. The first tutorial boss demonstrates it at its worst, you can get chain-grabbed by this boss. The moment you free from the first grab you obviously try to dash away from him only for him to dash in the same direction and grab you again. There isn't enough time to dash away from an enemy if you happen to dash into one like that. I hope it's turned off for the "fatality" bosses and enemies, I didn't check.
I think increasing the timer for getting grabbed for a second or so would help. Or getting rid of it altogether, it's a game about melee combat, it's unavoidable that we're going to dance around enemies all the time and stand next to them waiting for their move.
2. The "struggle" mechanic. You have to struggle for a very long time. What I understood from the mod description is that you need to struggle in short rapid bursts to have the greater chances to escape (low stamina consumption = good escape chance), however I still manage to struggle free only what feels like 50% of the time.
The funny part about randomness is that it is random even if you have good chances. I suggest tying the randomness to the luck stat, this way those who get caught often can compensate the randomness. Maybe even writing out the exact chances at full stamina and given luck. Or make a different mechanic, for example the "The downfall of Hasumi" mod for the "Mission mermaiden" has a great one. It can screw you over too but at least that happens mainly when you are low on HP and not ALL THE TIME.
3. Le "you can't get up until you have 100% stamina". I HEAVILY suggest decreasing the percentage to 50%. Because what happens is, if you are kicked to 0 stamina by a heavy blow and are not in reach of any enemies you just lie for idk like 20 seconds (you can spam attack to cut the time to 18 seconds, very useful (no)) and during these 20 seconds I can go and grab a snack in the kitchen, for example. Complete waste of time.
How to fix: half the percentage required to 50%, maybe make the "cast magic" button refill stamina using mana.
All these problems together create a horrible abomination of an experience: you get punched to 0 stamina from 100, you wait for the monster to slowly approach you, you don't manage to get up in time with 95% stamina and 80% hp, you now struggle through the whole animation despite having "high chances" to escape, you are let go, you dash into another/the same enemy's radius trying to escape and it goes on. It doesn't make the game hard, it just makes the game punish you by wasting your time. It's often faster to alt+f4 and retry from the last save then to go through the punishment phase.
The mod needs finetuning. I like the ideas in the mod, they cover the game in places where it lacks but they are implemented in such an irritating way it just takes away all the fun.
Everything else is cool though! Especially aphrodisiac, it was extremely underused in the game. I hope my insight is useful.
I hope you'll look into it, I gave you my posting virginity for that XD
1. The "you get grabbed near enemy" mechanic. The first tutorial boss demonstrates it at its worst, you can get chain-grabbed by this boss. The moment you free from the first grab you obviously try to dash away from him only for him to dash in the same direction and grab you again. There isn't enough time to dash away from an enemy if you happen to dash into one like that. I hope it's turned off for the "fatality" bosses and enemies, I didn't check.
I think increasing the timer for getting grabbed for a second or so would help. Or getting rid of it altogether, it's a game about melee combat, it's unavoidable that we're going to dance around enemies all the time and stand next to them waiting for their move.
2. The "struggle" mechanic. You have to struggle for a very long time. What I understood from the mod description is that you need to struggle in short rapid bursts to have the greater chances to escape (low stamina consumption = good escape chance), however I still manage to struggle free only what feels like 50% of the time.
The funny part about randomness is that it is random even if you have good chances. I suggest tying the randomness to the luck stat, this way those who get caught often can compensate the randomness. Maybe even writing out the exact chances at full stamina and given luck. Or make a different mechanic, for example the "The downfall of Hasumi" mod for the "Mission mermaiden" has a great one. It can screw you over too but at least that happens mainly when you are low on HP and not ALL THE TIME.
3. Le "you can't get up until you have 100% stamina". I HEAVILY suggest decreasing the percentage to 50%. Because what happens is, if you are kicked to 0 stamina by a heavy blow and are not in reach of any enemies you just lie for idk like 20 seconds (you can spam attack to cut the time to 18 seconds, very useful (no)) and during these 20 seconds I can go and grab a snack in the kitchen, for example. Complete waste of time.
How to fix: half the percentage required to 50%, maybe make the "cast magic" button refill stamina using mana.
All these problems together create a horrible abomination of an experience: you get punched to 0 stamina from 100, you wait for the monster to slowly approach you, you don't manage to get up in time with 95% stamina and 80% hp, you now struggle through the whole animation despite having "high chances" to escape, you are let go, you dash into another/the same enemy's radius trying to escape and it goes on. It doesn't make the game hard, it just makes the game punish you by wasting your time. It's often faster to alt+f4 and retry from the last save then to go through the punishment phase.
The mod needs finetuning. I like the ideas in the mod, they cover the game in places where it lacks but they are implemented in such an irritating way it just takes away all the fun.
Everything else is cool though! Especially aphrodisiac, it was extremely underused in the game. I hope my insight is useful.
I hope you'll look into it, I gave you my posting virginity for that XD
