You have cheated yourself the quest item making the game think you are ahead of the quest, most likely.
Sir Edward Ross
Newbie
- Oct 4, 2020
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This game is ridiculously good, I'm so impressed. Probably my favorite thing about it is that the way the game is designed and balanced naturally pushes the corruption and lewd events - ye olde gameplay/story integration. This is something I've really wanted from similar games but I could generally just avoid anything 'bad' if I'm roleplaying the character, which makes any lewd or corrupt actions more my choice than something the character would reasonably do. With this game, I started a new run on Story difficulty b/c I do want to see the pure route before I get too far on the corruption route, but even there I'm accumulating a fair amount of Corruption (even though it doesn't matter, and I do have enough Blessed Water that I could significantly reduce it - but Alicia could be spending some of it if I let her!). On Normal, I was going through the corruption events very naturally, and even if I manage to get through that playthrough without triggering many or any lewd events, I don't doubt that if I crank up the difficulty, the constraints on money and willpower will effectively force my hand.
That's not the only thing I like about it, though. The writing is excellent, the gameplay has depth, and it's just fun to play. I haven't seen that much of the art yet; I think the art for Alicia and Roya!Aura is particularly good, but I think the pose for Earth!Aura is a bit odd. It's more demure than her character is written to be. I could see that being something that changes with the corruption, as I've already seen her clothes and hairstyle change, but she already starts out with a ton of self-confidence (which is great) and is going around kicking people's asses (or their nuts), so...
I haven't finished a full playthrough yet, but I did want to share a couple of small criticisms, especially since I know there's a (the?) dev reading this. Nothing that would prevent me from giving this a 5/5 once I'm done (although honestly this deserves like a 7/5 lol), but since they're on my mind, in rough order of importance:
- The load menu should be accessible in combat, even if only via keyboard shortcut. I understand disabling save, but I frequently get into combat and immediately (or quickly) want to load my save, and instead I have to either close the game or play through the combat.
- I would expect that on harder difficulties, save-scumming to get the back attack, or just avoid enemies entirely, will be really important (it feels that way on Normal), and really annoying for certain enemies that move really erratically. I think it would be nice if all the enemies either clearly could or could not be stealthed past/back-attacked. IMO the erratically moving enemies are just frustrating to interact with, to the extent that it matters. I like the design where some enemies have their backs to walls in ways that indicate your inability to stealth past/back-attack them as applicable. I think the twitchy aspects of trying to thread your way through enemies is less compelling than the thinky version. And there's enough challenge in the game that I think it's okay if stealthing and back-attacking is pretty easy when it's available, with added challenge coming in via exploration elements.
- The wind mechanic in the avian area is not fun, I don't mind having it be a combat element but the effect on the map is just annoying. Kind of an extension of the previous point.
- I know there's no reason for Aura to tell Rose about Roya, or for Rose to have any insight into what's going on with Aura and Alicia as the corruption progresses. Still, I'd like to see Rose have more of a chance to fight back. If nothing else, it feels a bit arbitrary that the lack of non-corruption events after a certain point means that Rose relationship points don't accumulate passively over time. Seems like Alicia should have to overcome that more than she does, at least insofar as it's established early in the game that relatively innocuous interactions build their relationship. Granted, I haven't seen the entirety of this storyline play out yet (haven't gotten into the second room in the mind palace, but am close to unlocking switching Rose & Alicia in going home).
- I get why you can't see Aura's shoes, but as much focus as there is on shoes... maybe you should be able to see her shoes.
- There are some situations where it's not clear to me whether something will end the day or not. I'm not sure if I'm just missing a subtle wording difference or I'm dense or what, but there are cases where you can learn something without it ending the day, and cases where it ends the day but isn't a promise, and I can't always tell them apart except via trial & error.
That's not the only thing I like about it, though. The writing is excellent, the gameplay has depth, and it's just fun to play. I haven't seen that much of the art yet; I think the art for Alicia and Roya!Aura is particularly good, but I think the pose for Earth!Aura is a bit odd. It's more demure than her character is written to be. I could see that being something that changes with the corruption, as I've already seen her clothes and hairstyle change, but she already starts out with a ton of self-confidence (which is great) and is going around kicking people's asses (or their nuts), so...
I haven't finished a full playthrough yet, but I did want to share a couple of small criticisms, especially since I know there's a (the?) dev reading this. Nothing that would prevent me from giving this a 5/5 once I'm done (although honestly this deserves like a 7/5 lol), but since they're on my mind, in rough order of importance:
- The load menu should be accessible in combat, even if only via keyboard shortcut. I understand disabling save, but I frequently get into combat and immediately (or quickly) want to load my save, and instead I have to either close the game or play through the combat.
- I would expect that on harder difficulties, save-scumming to get the back attack, or just avoid enemies entirely, will be really important (it feels that way on Normal), and really annoying for certain enemies that move really erratically. I think it would be nice if all the enemies either clearly could or could not be stealthed past/back-attacked. IMO the erratically moving enemies are just frustrating to interact with, to the extent that it matters. I like the design where some enemies have their backs to walls in ways that indicate your inability to stealth past/back-attack them as applicable. I think the twitchy aspects of trying to thread your way through enemies is less compelling than the thinky version. And there's enough challenge in the game that I think it's okay if stealthing and back-attacking is pretty easy when it's available, with added challenge coming in via exploration elements.
- The wind mechanic in the avian area is not fun, I don't mind having it be a combat element but the effect on the map is just annoying. Kind of an extension of the previous point.
- I know there's no reason for Aura to tell Rose about Roya, or for Rose to have any insight into what's going on with Aura and Alicia as the corruption progresses. Still, I'd like to see Rose have more of a chance to fight back. If nothing else, it feels a bit arbitrary that the lack of non-corruption events after a certain point means that Rose relationship points don't accumulate passively over time. Seems like Alicia should have to overcome that more than she does, at least insofar as it's established early in the game that relatively innocuous interactions build their relationship. Granted, I haven't seen the entirety of this storyline play out yet (haven't gotten into the second room in the mind palace, but am close to unlocking switching Rose & Alicia in going home).
- I get why you can't see Aura's shoes, but as much focus as there is on shoes... maybe you should be able to see her shoes.
- There are some situations where it's not clear to me whether something will end the day or not. I'm not sure if I'm just missing a subtle wording difference or I'm dense or what, but there are cases where you can learn something without it ending the day, and cases where it ends the day but isn't a promise, and I can't always tell them apart except via trial & error.
- Mar 7, 2023
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I'm really glad you're enjoying the game! Your positive comments mean a lot and I'm sure aura-dev will appreciate them too. To address your points:
- The problem here is that in the engine as it exists, *nothing* about battles is saved. We would have to save the entire battle data to a save file, and that would balloon save file size considerably. If you think about everything that would entail: HP/MP/states for all party members, HP/MP/states for all enemies, the current actions if you were partway through choosing them for the turn, the actions the enemies had queued up, anything in $gameTemp that might be relevant to the battle since it isn't included in saves, the turn count, the interpreter in case you saved during a battle event...
- This should largely already be possible. Enemies rarely if ever move randomly, and you should always have a spot you can stand where you can observe their pattern before attempting to engage. They either move in a set route, or they stand on the spot and turn in set directions. If there are any in particular you find it very difficult to do this with, let us know and we may look at individual tweaks if they make sense and improve the game.
- I'm not sure we can do much with this as it's not clear what about it you find not fun or annoying, nor can I think of a way to improve it that would be universally fun to everyone. This is the first time I've seen negative feedback on this gameplay element, so I'm not sure how widespread the sentiment is among the players as a whole. Do you have any ideas on how we could do such a mechanic in a way that's fun to you?
- Without spoiling anything, this becomes a major plot point in the Earth scenes at a certain point in the corruption path, and aura-dev recently added a number of relationship-related passives to Aura, including one for Rose Bond.
- This is largely an art budget thing, as I understand it. Not showing her feet in the art means we can make plot-related/mechanical changes to her shoes without needing a new piece of art for every shoe variation that comes up.
- This should be clearly signposted, so please highlight any specific places it isn't. A promise is mechanically "I will spend the day after this one doing the thing", and any events that immediately end the current day should tell you that it will take the rest of the day to do.
bimboform
Newbie
- Feb 13, 2020
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They asked for a LOAD button, not a save button. They even point out that saving mid-battle would be inappropriate.
At present to load from combat you need to either lose and End Game in the menu after the day finishes or close the application entirely and open it back up.
Ironically the normal RPGM combat interface can have something like that added as standard. A layer ‘above’ the normal menu you access by hitting the cancel key that can have things like ‘retreat’ ‘check status effects’ ‘examine enemy’ or ‘load’. The custom interface (which I presume is good for touch pad but is at best no better on pc) likely doesn’t have that option.
Incorrect. Many enemies move randomly. In particular the majority of the optional bosses, enemies you need every advantage against, move randomly and usually quickly which makes them almost impossible to ambush.
The wind mechanic used to be vastly worse, as it could outright knock you off cliffs. The newer version is less painful but still annoying. Most players just accept it is something the dev isn’t willing to completely remove even if they can’t find a way to make it fun.
- Mar 7, 2023
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- You're right, I misread because someone else had asked to be able to save in battle and I got my wires crossed. I was correct though, just not in the way I originally presented.
Loading a game requires moving from the current scene to the load/save scene. Because no battle data is retained in the engine, if you cancelled out of that and returned to the battle, it would reset because you're technically starting a new Scene_Battle. It would require the storing of every single applicable battle variable prior to switching scenes in order to prevent this.
The other option is to include game-loading functionality into the battle scene, but then we get into the topic of separation of concerns and I'm not sure that the work required for that would be worth the benefits. Perhaps something to talk to aura-dev about.
- You're right, I'd misremembered how many random movement enemies there are so that one's on me. If it's something a lot of people are struggling with, maybe that's a discussion topic too.
- You're the second person who's said it's annoying and not fun but haven't specified what's annoying about it or how it could be made less so. I'd rather it weren't just something players accept as a shit aspect of the game, so if you have any thoughts on how it could be better I'm willing to make a case for you.
Pretentious Goblin
Devoted Member
- Nov 3, 2017
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That wind-blowing segment takes like 5 minutes, it's not long or difficult enough to degrade the experience. But yeah, mechanics that make you struggle with movement have been unpopular since time immemorial (I can't think of anyone praising levels with slippery floors, or water levels in most games that have them).
For the erratic moving enemies, Trihan implemented a note tag to make it so randomly moving enemies with that tag can not randomly move backward except if they have no other option. I can't find the time to test it and put it on all appropriate enemies sadly, because I'm always busy with content production the plan would be to put that onto those enemies.
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bimboform
Newbie
- Feb 13, 2020
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Possibly a simple ‘exit to title’ option would serve the need. As long as it isn’t something you can hit by accident there is no particular need to get back to the battle you are trying to get out of.
Primary issue is that it wastes your time without adding anything. It doesn’t make the area more challenging, just more time consuming. There is no way to puzzle it out or trick to avoiding it, you just have to struggle through.
There is nothing wrong with the battle mechanic, that adds some variety to the area and gives it a unique feel.
Having no out-of combat effect would be good. If you absolutely must have something on the world man then have it slow Aura to walking speed rather than be random movement.
- Mar 7, 2023
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That's the other issue we've discussed. To implement something you couldn't hit by accident, it would have to be a key (like F9 for opening load from other places) and that would mean Android players wouldn't have access to it. To make something everyone could use, it would need to be a button, and we'd need to figure out where such a button would fit without being intrusive in the UI.
What would you consider to be the major difference between pressing F5 to restart the game + 1 press to skip Disclaimer versus navigating to and using such a button?
bimboform
Newbie
- Feb 13, 2020
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Something of a conflict in response there. Does Android have F5 functionality, or some equivalent?
In either case if you say there is no easily implemented method that would give significant improvement then I defer to you as the experts.
The original post was about a keyboard shortcut to reload from battle. Android doesn't have keyboard shortcuts so wouldn't profit from the discussion in the first place. Android would require an additional UI layer (e.g. if you press the Back button on the first character) but I only see this valueable for very few power users using Android.
YetAnotherGamer
Active Member
- Jul 28, 2018
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Most players don't know you can push F5 to restart the game in RPG Maker MX/MZ games (by default, if not disabled), while having it on the user interface makes it discoverable in the same way as practically everything in every RPG Maker game?
I personally don't care either way; I'm used to close-and-restart from years of pre-MX RPG Maker games and still do it with the current ones.
I do miss being able to arrow-and-Return through the combat UI. I don't know how many times I've hit the wrong Page Up/Page Down (and Up/Down, to a lesser extent) key when trying to pick combat options. That's a whole different topic, though.
Just want to say that i appreciate the give and take between players and dev team in these recent posts. It's refreshing! 
- Mar 7, 2023
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Although it's not *entirely* what you're asking for, moving between the skill type/item lists with the arrow keys is on the list of interface improvements I'll be adding in a future update.
I guess he could try, but the Slime is much, much stronger. Plus I feel like I owe it to the Slime Summoner Club to try.You don't want it to be John?
- Mar 7, 2023
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