RPGM Completed WIP Quarta Knight Emerald [1.15][Kudarizaka Guardrail]

[sportsfan30]

Definitely the main problem with the game is that most fights can easily be skipped or avoided. There are few reasons to actively chase for fights yourself.
In addition, fights that catches you from behind are the only challanging ones witch will progress your corruption stats (unless you have already been corrupted with bastes). However it is easy to avoid such suprise fights.

Since the enemies doesn't really become stronger statwise in further levels, there is no incentive to go for extra fights. You don't really need to, and the bountiful of chests and random drops covers your need for gear and consumables. Level ups are as you say, minor changes in your stats.

Further than editing the config file, I have no skills in modifying the game to the level you speak of. I do however have some ideas for making fights more meaningful.

Option 1 - when beating the boss of an area, it will inflict you with some Stat decreasing baste. To cure it, you would need some expensive item from the base, or dropped loot.
Would it maybe make sense if going for the loot option to make the loot drop in the next area? That way you have to take some fights with reduced stats.

Option 2 - make level ups more impactful, (more stat increase on level) lower the starting level and make enemies in each zone progressively more difficult. This way you would need to fight for XP instead of dodging fights. Would definitely need to adjust the XP drain baste, and maybe make progress a bit strange.

Note I haven't played beyond stage 1 of this game so some of my input might be off.

Option 1 - That kinda is like how the stages in the previous game and stage 1 are designed. A mechanic you have to solve/deactivate to make the boss fight easier (or beatable). But I can see how a boss might hit the MC with a special attack / baste when they realize they are about to lose. This baste could/would be crippling and require the MC to re-explore that stage to find the means to remove the baste or maybe the only method to remove it will cost the MC a ton of money and can only be cured back in the base.

Option 2 - Lowering the starting level is counter to the game lore of the MC being a super hero that can normally one shot ollicts, which is why they use lewd attacks to corrupt & win. But I do like making levels impactful. Maybe make xp loss permanent and add other ollicts that can drain xp or other traps/means for the MC to lose xp. Or create an event on stage 1 that causes the MC to lose most/all of her levels and is forced to relevel throughout the game.

Couple of issues with option 2. Firstly, level drain as a mechanic is hard to implement while keeping the game fun for the player. Most games have a hard time doing this well and usually turn into a tedious grind for little payout. Secondly, balancing is going to be a pain in the ass, not just exp adjustments, but tuning each fight for specific level ranges or you could make certain parts of the game impossible to beat without cheating. Finally, I am not sure how the developer is coding the events for xp drain and there is a chance for new bugs to be introduced.

 

[MuninKai]

Definitely the main problem with the game is that most fights can easily be skipped or avoided. There are few reasons to actively chase for fights yourself.
In addition, fights that catches you from behind are the only challanging ones witch will progress your corruption stats (unless you have already been corrupted with bastes). However it is easy to avoid such suprise fights.

Since the enemies doesn't really become stronger statwise in further levels, there is no incentive to go for extra fights. You don't really need to, and the bountiful of chests and random drops covers your need for gear and consumables. Level ups are as you say, minor changes in your stats.

Further than editing the config file, I have no skills in modifying the game to the level you speak of. I do however have some ideas for making fights more meaningful.

Option 1 - when beating the boss of an area, it will inflict you with some Stat decreasing baste. To cure it, you would need some expensive item from the base, or dropped loot.
Would it maybe make sense if going for the loot option to make the loot drop in the next area? That way you have to take some fights with reduced stats.

Option 2 - make level ups more impactful, (more stat increase on level) lower the starting level and make enemies in each zone progressively more difficult. This way you would need to fight for XP instead of dodging fights. Would definitely need to adjust the XP drain baste, and maybe make progress a bit strange.

Option 1 is interesting. I do have some plans for the boss fights to make them more challenging, making deactivating the traps more costly or difficult, and enhancing some of the field effects so that fighting on unfavourable terrain is more dangerous. I'll keep that one in mind though. I prefer the lower grind option, which would be making it curable with an item from the next stage, not a money sink. It also made me think about a low magnitude baste that is unremovable. Over all 4 stage bosses it would accumulate, making the Misty fight more challenging without buffing her. Similar to the Lewd Telepathy field effect in Misty's Castle getting worse based on previous encounters.

Option 2 interacts too heavily with the XP Drain mechanic, and I'm kind of on the same page as sportsfan30 in terms of how hellish it would be to balance and boring it would be to recover from. I'm generally not a fan of the 'bash trash to level up' progression of JRPGs, and actually rather appreciate the Quarta Knight series for just starting you off as a strong protagonist with a limited skill progression.

We identify the same issues though. I want more ambush fights and more attrition. First one is being accomplished by having more enemies chasing you, and enemies that chase moving faster. I also plan on removing all helpful items from combat drops and replacing them with olict tainted versions, so using recovery items will either be consequential or will come with consequences either in the short or long term. I also have some ideas for replacing equips with olict tainted versions. Balance will be tricky, but something to think about once they're implemented.

 

[Brobat]

Option 1 is interesting. I do have some plans for the boss fights to make them more challenging, making deactivating the traps more costly or difficult, and enhancing some of the field effects so that fighting on unfavourable terrain is more dangerous. I'll keep that one in mind though. I prefer the lower grind option, which would be making it curable with an item from the next stage, not a money sink. It also made me think about a low magnitude baste that is unremovable. Over all 4 stage bosses it would accumulate, making the Misty fight more challenging without buffing her. Similar to the Lewd Telepathy field effect in Misty's Castle getting worse based on previous encounters.

Option 2 interacts too heavily with the XP Drain mechanic, and I'm kind of on the same page as sportsfan30 in terms of how hellish it would be to balance and boring it would be to recover from. I'm generally not a fan of the 'bash trash to level up' progression of JRPGs, and actually rather appreciate the Quarta Knight series for just starting you off as a strong protagonist with a limited skill progression.

We identify the same issues though. I want more ambush fights and more attrition. First one is being accomplished by having more enemies chasing you, and enemies that chase moving faster. I also plan on removing all helpful items from combat drops and replacing them with olict tainted versions, so using recovery items will either be consequential or will come with consequences either in the short or long term. I also have some ideas for replacing equips with olict tainted versions. Balance will be tricky, but something to think about once they're implemented.

I have mentioned it before, but certain bastes being too easy to remove is a huge problem for me. The nipple/clit rings being the best example in this game. I think the combination of making ambush fights more common and difficult/impossible to avoid plus making bastes require some sort of side quest to remove (not grinding, that is boring) would already be enough for me to be satisfied personally.

 

[Devastator325]

I'm definitely excited to see a better release of this, and the extra hard mode discussion sounds fun as well, played through the previous game with one and it made it a lot more enjoyable

 

[angr8]

Yeah option 2 is definitely not the smoothest way to solve things. I like the idea of making fights harder to avoid.
I do think the move that hits all enemies should be nerfed or made harder to cast (make it a last resort kind of move, instead of the current spam alot move). Most groups of mobs are easily 1-shotted, not leaving them a chance to pull of even one attack. Maybe some more ambush battles could tip the balance and make the corruption accelarate?

Anyways looking forward for your hard mode, game is fun but way too easy. Kinda ruins it when you have to go out of your way to lose. Too many hrpgs does that already.

 

[ryuujinx]

Yeah definitely not a fan of option 2 even ignoring the xp drain baste, grinding stuff to progress is awful. One of the things I like about these games over a lot of corruption games is there's no grinding.

 

[ShadyGuy15]

I almost got to the very end before discovering that there's an updated translation
You might want to update the Lag Fix + Translation patch here

 

[MuninKai]

I almost got to the very end before discovering that there's an updated translation
You might want to update the Lag Fix + Translation patch here

There isn't an updated translation yet, I haven't released anything in months (but I'm working on it). The lag fix patch doesn't do any translation and only corrects a plugin file.

 

[shahc0Ax]

In the original game all I do is use Triple Strike, and when it try to restrain me I use Magic Barrier and in 99% of cases this is enough to win. Nova helps with opponents who do not allow you to escape from restrain. In the case of the boss, it is enough to wait for Quarta Invention, after which the same Triple Strike will destroy the boss under the camp in a couple of moves.
I tried modifying the game so that the magic barrier (and Wild Shalsh) only works in 55% of the time and that already made the fights less boring.
I think that Magic Barrier and Wild Shalsh is OP, and this event doesn't affected by Bondage Enthusiasm, so its should be nerf.
In addition, I added the accumulation of A / V /B sensitivity / shame / lust depending on the use of consumables found in dungeons (I borrowed the mechanics from the mod for the previous game), which significantly speeds up the accumulation of negative debuffs and also complicates the walkthrough
I also changed the cost of fixing the suite. Now only 30 internal durability points are repaired every 5 units. This is probably not the best solution yet, but still, as for me, it already feels better.

 

[ShadyGuy15]

There isn't an updated translation yet, I haven't released anything in months (but I'm working on it). The lag fix patch doesn't do any translation and only corrects a plugin file.

Gotcha, thanks.
Is there a way to contribute some small fixes like replacing some [、] with [,] or some other small stuff?

 

[MuninKai]

Gotcha, thanks.
Is there a way to contribute some small fixes like replacing some [、] with [,] or some other small stuff?

Not really. Anything that still contains those is just dialogue I haven't manually edited yet.

 

[Shion_And]

I haven't implemented those ones yet. I included them in the mod notes as a roadmap, but at this point, only the enemy ambush speed has been changed.

I read the roadmap and I really like the proposed difficulty, how is the progress?

 

[MuninKai]

I read the roadmap and I really like the proposed difficulty, how is the progress?

Good. I have almost everything figured out technically, so it's just going to be finding the time to make the changes.

 

[NB1758]

There's Steam page of Quarta Amethyst and Emerald name is translated as Quarta Emeraude.

 

[Kurzwaltz Messer]

There's Steam page of Quarta Amethyst and Emerald name is translated as Quarta Emeraude.

The katakana エメロード is read as emero-do, so "Emeraude" is correct.

That said, "Emeraude" is just the Middle English word for emerald, so it's not that far off.

 

[bebe2803]

Just read the steam page, really surprised me that emeraude's character setting is an "cunning alter ego" I though her personality is nicer than amethyst because she has less hate against the enemy and works like an office lady

 

[d2cmp]

Hematina is a spanish word for a chemical, maybe the dev was trying to give everyone a name in a different language? amethyst=english, emeraude=french, hematina=spanish, the problem with this theory is that it should be hematita to be a mineral and follow the pattern of heroines named after minerals

 

[tsmaniac]

Since my brain is fried from other stuff bare with me. Is the game in this thread a different one from Quarta Amethyst on steam?

 

[Mrobe2021]

Since my brain is fried from other stuff bare with me. Is the game in this thread a different one from Quarta Amethyst on steam?

It's sequel of Quarta Amethyst.

 

[Totti000]

+1