Unreal Engine Re:Rapture [v0.0.3a] [ViatorMessorem]

[ViatorMessorem]

I'll play a bit more of it for larger feedback, but after completing Kein's path #1, going to the main menu, then completing #2, it then says #1 is incomplete, so there might be another issue with the save state. Could you have a look
View attachment 5619171

Damn it, thank you, I'll update the same link in an hour. Yeah, there really was a VERY stupid bug in the code that checks whether a scenario is marked as completed.

 

[damndatboi12345]

controls are infact harder than flying an airplane, please make everything usable via just the mouse, holy shit the spell system alone incredibly confusing, i am not realistically going to press TAB to change stance then input a spell starting with R then inputting : e + q + w + q then finishing with another R

 

[ViatorMessorem]

controls are infact harder than flying an airplane, please make everything usable via just the mouse, holy shit the spell system alone incredibly confusing, i am not realistically going to press TAB to change stance then input a spell starting with R then inputting : e + q + w + q then finishing with another R

Thank you for the feedback. Yep, in the last post before v003, I mentioned that the spell system will be reworked.

 

[ViatorMessorem]

I'll play a bit more of it for larger feedback, but after completing Kein's path #1, going to the main menu, then completing #2, it then says #1 is incomplete, so there might be another issue with the save state. Could you have a look

Update: This happened on lerdatrix's path as well, so after completing kein #2 and going to Ierdatrix #3, 1 & 2 are not completed but ierdatrix is complete.
View attachment 5619171

Link updated

 

[ViatorMessorem]

Question to the audience

Focus
​

I’ve taken all the feedback into account- including personal feedback- and realized that there are a few things that absolutely need to be changed. Thanks for your remarks.
Before going deeper, I want to mention one core shift in the rework concept: completely removing the pressure/tension factor from sex. This, however, will require other changes as well.
First of all, I’d really like to hear your opinion on a system I haven’t received much feedback on yet- specifically, the Focus and Concentration system.
I know it’s still rough and unfinished, AI doesn't even work with it (there are no code for that yet), but even at this stage, I’d like to understand how this mechanic feels to you.

 

[nossiob]

im assuming this is female on female now? i remember it there was a playable futa too

 

[ViatorMessorem]

im assuming this is female on female now? i remember it there was a playable futa too

Hello,
At the 4th stage and at the free fight, MC will got a spell for changing genitalia.
Not sure if it still can be called "futa", I think yes.

 

[armpitenthusiast]

Question to the audience

Focus
​

I’ve taken all the feedback into account- including personal feedback- and realized that there are a few things that absolutely need to be changed. Thanks for your remarks.
Before going deeper, I want to mention one core shift in the rework concept: completely removing the pressure/tension factor from sex. This, however, will require other changes as well.
First of all, I’d really like to hear your opinion on a system I haven’t received much feedback on yet- specifically, the Focus and Concentration system.
I know it’s still rough and unfinished, AI doesn't even work with it (there are no code for that yet), but even at this stage, I’d like to understand how this mechanic feels to you.

Having completed everything now, here's my two cents on focus/concentration.

In its current state I think it's too powerful and governs too much of the action economy. Your attacks don't really matter in terms of the hp damage they do, since just the concentration damage is a shorter path to defeating the enemy. The greater utility in hitting the enemy is without changing your focus and diverting theirs, and so having a health pool is trivial.

I find myself choosing the verbal action that my current focus is so that I gain double focus, and then I switch between hitting them (thrust or slash depending if they have clothes) and for example verbal action: my own lips. I then win the undressing minigame if they have clothes, get both myself and them to maximum overheat (so I don't have to worry about satisfaction, both people are guaranteed to have the same arousal and I gain an adoration slot). And then I win with Will Breaker. I know there's gonna be revamp on this, but for now it's just the current combo I use.

It seems like in an attempt to add variety to the abilities and discouraging spam, the focus system boxes you into only caring about it.

Not sure if there's any impact the disconcerted debuff meaningfully gives (from pummel), it seems there's not much difference if you do 14 focus damage or if you let them get down to 4, they gain 4 focus on the next round and pummel them (which does 8 focus damage) which brings them to 0.

There's almost no case in which blocking an attack will be useful in its current state. Now if there was a riposte option that allowed you to reflect the attack against them, gain stamina at their expense, an extra action point, apply some debuff, create some distance (maybe someone is spellcaster focused), enter close proximity, cast a spell for free, etc. then it would make more sense. I'm not too big of a fan of the "click at the same time the dots overlap" as well.

The only purpose of breathing removing your focus is just so that on a turn you don't attack or give yourself double focus, you don't get concentration damage from the opponent. Otherwise if they attack you on a turn you breathe, they just add whatever was going to be removed. Which is fine I suppose, but there's not much prophylactic strategy involved. You're just breathing as soon as you're out of stamina and that's it.

In terms of strategy there's a few routes you can take to make the combat more dynamic that's around with RPGs. You can go the pokemon route and use an ability against someone that's SUPER EFFECTIVE. The opponent would try to bait out this move by switching to a pokemon where it's not very effective and can take the hit and have a decent move to fire back with. The way this would apply in game is maybe some titcow has a vulnerability like having her boobs played with or being eaten out while she's standing and you're on your knees (not to be graphic) and so the AI tries to predict you're going to use this move and gains some kind of resolve against it, baiting out your move. When your move is on CD the AI can be more offensive now. Something like that.

Another mechanic would be getting them to low enough HP by first attacking their clothes (so whenever you attack you choose where - face does raw damage but if you destroy their pants and panties you get to rape them as a counter attack randomly). This might be a bit primitive, but just throwing ideas.

Having a talent of some kind signifying their next move would give out if you should attack or block in games that have a guaranteed block with no CD. You then slowly damage the opponent, heal up greatly and close the giant HP gap they have over you by hitting only when it's safe. Also a bit primitive but not too bad.

You could potentially make multiple different loadouts possible with a talent system, where the variety is the build you've made and not necessarily the buttons you press. If you're going the roguelite route this could be cool.

I don't hate the system ultimately, but it's not anything special.

As an aside:
I think you ought to add an indicator of how many actions you have left, like in Divinity 2: OS. It follows the "don't make me think" philosophy, and while you can mouse over a certain action to see why you can't make it, I shouldn't have to take extra steps to see why I can't do something, it should be readily apparent. You have no action points and the abilities on the ring are grayed out. Simple.

While I think the inner/outer ring looks cool, the design doesn't match the purpose of it being there. In a standard rpg you have box menus with labels "attack/spell/defend/item", and with a few tweaks you can replace everything you have with that menu system and it'll be much simpler. For the sex scenes while grappling the ring system makes slightly more sense (shift 3 to go up a level, shift 2 to go down a level, that is, if the person is flipped over you can return to the missionary root with shift 3, and you can upgrade to a prone bone with shift 2) but even then it's not as intuitive. There ought to be a better justification for the ring system design representing actions you can take rather than just using something simple.

There is a typo in #4, "you already the Ritual thanks to me". I think the fluff/backstory is interesting in there as well, but for beginners or the game's current state there should be more of a focus on explaining the concept. This is just an opinion, if there's a larger cutscene explaining the backstory and how to go about it, it'll be cool.

I think "enter close proximity" should just be renamed to grapple.

I for some reason can't go in first person mode when I press 0, is this a bug

 

[ViatorMessorem]

Having completed everything now, here's my two cents on focus/concentration.

In its current state I think it's too powerful and governs too much of the action economy. Your attacks don't really matter in terms of the hp damage they do, since just the concentration damage is a shorter path to defeating the enemy. The greater utility in hitting the enemy is without changing your focus and diverting theirs, and so having a health pool is trivial.

I find myself choosing the verbal action that my current focus is so that I gain double focus, and then I switch between hitting them (thrust or slash depending if they have clothes) and for example verbal action: my own lips. I then win the undressing minigame if they have clothes, get both myself and them to maximum overheat (so I don't have to worry about satisfaction, both people are guaranteed to have the same arousal and I gain an adoration slot). And then I win with Will Breaker. I know there's gonna be revamp on this, but for now it's just the current combo I use.

It seems like in an attempt to add variety to the abilities and discouraging spam, the focus system boxes you into only caring about it.

Not sure if there's any impact the disconcerted debuff meaningfully gives (from pummel), it seems there's not much difference if you do 14 focus damage or if you let them get down to 4, they gain 4 focus on the next round and pummel them (which does 8 focus damage) which brings them to 0.

There's almost no case in which blocking an attack will be useful in its current state. Now if there was a riposte option that allowed you to reflect the attack against them, gain stamina at their expense, an extra action point, apply some debuff, create some distance (maybe someone is spellcaster focused), enter close proximity, cast a spell for free, etc. then it would make more sense. I'm not too big of a fan of the "click at the same time the dots overlap" as well.

The only purpose of breathing removing your focus is just so that on a turn you don't attack or give yourself double focus, you don't get concentration damage from the opponent. Otherwise if they attack you on a turn you breathe, they just add whatever was going to be removed. Which is fine I suppose, but there's not much prophylactic strategy involved. You're just breathing as soon as you're out of stamina and that's it.

In terms of strategy there's a few routes you can take to make the combat more dynamic that's around with RPGs. You can go the pokemon route and use an ability against someone that's SUPER EFFECTIVE. The opponent would try to bait out this move by switching to a pokemon where it's not very effective and can take the hit and have a decent move to fire back with. The way this would apply in game is maybe some titcow has a vulnerability like having her boobs played with or being eaten out while she's standing and you're on your knees (not to be graphic) and so the AI tries to predict you're going to use this move and gains some kind of resolve against it, baiting out your move. When your move is on CD the AI can be more offensive now. Something like that.

Another mechanic would be getting them to low enough HP by first attacking their clothes (so whenever you attack you choose where - face does raw damage but if you destroy their pants and panties you get to rape them as a counter attack randomly). This might be a bit primitive, but just throwing ideas.

Having a talent of some kind signifying their next move would give out if you should attack or block in games that have a guaranteed block with no CD. You then slowly damage the opponent, heal up greatly and close the giant HP gap they have over you by hitting only when it's safe. Also a bit primitive but not too bad.

You could potentially make multiple different loadouts possible with a talent system, where the variety is the build you've made and not necessarily the buttons you press. If you're going the roguelite route this could be cool.

I don't hate the system ultimately, but it's not anything special.

As an aside:
I think you ought to add an indicator of how many actions you have left, like in Divinity 2: OS. It follows the "don't make me think" philosophy, and while you can mouse over a certain action to see why you can't make it, I shouldn't have to take extra steps to see why I can't do something, it should be readily apparent. You have no action points and the abilities on the ring are grayed out. Simple.

While I think the inner/outer ring looks cool, the design doesn't match the purpose of it being there. In a standard rpg you have box menus with labels "attack/spell/defend/item", and with a few tweaks you can replace everything you have with that menu system and it'll be much simpler. For the sex scenes while grappling the ring system makes slightly more sense (shift 3 to go up a level, shift 2 to go down a level, that is, if the person is flipped over you can return to the missionary root with shift 3, and you can upgrade to a prone bone with shift 2) but even then it's not as intuitive. There ought to be a better justification for the ring system design representing actions you can take rather than just using something simple.

There is a typo in #4, "you already the Ritual thanks to me". I think the fluff/backstory is interesting in there as well, but for beginners or the game's current state there should be more of a focus on explaining the concept. This is just an opinion, if there's a larger cutscene explaining the backstory and how to go about it, it'll be cool.

I think "enter close proximity" should just be renamed to grapple.

I for some reason can't go in first person mode when I press 0, is this a bug

Wow, I didn’t expect such a detailed and thoughtful breakdown of the problems, what a hero- thank you very much for the time you spent on this, I really appreciate it!

Yes, the Focus system definitely pulls too much weight right now, even in free fight scenarios where Yatori has two HP-focused abilities that are actually quite dangerous. Overall, blocking exists specifically as a counter to heavy and expensive attacks, allowing the player to gain a significant advantage in terms of action economy. You then mentioned something that can be described as telegraphing the enemy’s intent, so the player can make a meaningful decision: block / retreat / attack.

I actually had something like this implemented earlier, but hid it for later use. Specifically, there was a “bubble” button- pressing it would slightly consume the player’s Concentration, but reveal which ability the enemy would use next. For now, I decided to remove it, but that mechanic did exist.
I’m also not happy with the minigame- it’s fairly exhausting and I haven’t touched it in a long time. It definitely needs to be updated or the entire ability reworked.

Regarding the purpose of Focus: yes, to some extent this system exists to prevent attack spamming without introducing cooldowns on everything, and in some cases it succeeds, while in others it doesn’t.

Breathing, originally, was designed to avoid situations where the player is forced to wait- instead, it gives an active action that helps speed up gameplay.

As for the radial menu, the situation is as follows: originally, I had a separate action window- kind of a sliding panel.
However, it worked very poorly in Close Proximity, took up too much space, and didn’t integrate well with fast hotkeys. In the end, it may return in a different form, but it’s also quite possible that this will happen precisely because Close Proximity is moving away from the “quick decision” space.

Regarding clearer visualization of why an action is unavailable- I fully agree again. It’s also very possible that the radial menu doesn’t work well right now simply because there aren’t enough clear and readable icons yet.

As for character perks / talents- they are planned, the groundwork exists, but they will need to be adjusted to new standards set by another system that is currently being introduced, which will essentially change a large number of progression vectors.
That system is “Power” / “Authority.” It is still in the conceptual stage, but overall it affects almost every aspect of the game, removing many sources of overload while concentrating gameplay around a single core. This mechanic is intended to be useful both for the warrior’s path and the seducer’s path.

There are also plans to revise the Focus concept itself, moving away from limiting it purely to “focus switching.” However, these are only plans based on the issues you raised- since Power / Authority is still at the concept stage, many things may change, including on the Focus + Concentration side. I’ll only be able to talk about concrete changes once the system is fully implemented and I can actually see how it plays.

We’ll see where this leads. Once again, thank you very much for the time you spent- it's priceless.


P.S.

As for the first-person mode, I’ve disabled it for now. I thought I had removed all mentions of it from the game, but did you still manage to find references to it somewhere in the game?

 

[armpitenthusiast]

Wow, I didn’t expect such a detailed and thoughtful breakdown of the problems, what a hero- thank you very much for the time you spent on this, I really appreciate it!

I forgot to mention that I think very highly of this game and what you're building but even despite the lack of a preface I'm glad this came off as feedback and not anything negatively critical. Really looking forward to any updates!

The power / authority system sounds interesting, I imagine it meaning teasing past a certain threshold making the opponent susceptible to a two leg takedown. A potential direction could also be even though someone is grappled and on the receiving end, that they manage to overpower the opponent in some manner, effectively causing them to lose authority. In any case, the entire thing being holistically changed with an added talent system could be very fun.

I thought I had removed all mentions of it from the game, but did you still manage to find references to it somewhere in the game?

In the Codex under the 9. Camera section