Mod Ren'Py Abandoned Time For Dragons - Defiler Wings: Deranged Dragon Mod [29-07-2020] [Jman]

[jasonthe13]

are there alot of bugs with the current build?

 

[Jman9]

Well, I'd like to think not too many. Pretty much anything that's come up so far has been fixed. Some of those fixes haven't got a proper mini-patch yet, but if you run into anything, you can probably find it in the last couple dozen pages of the thread, or if not, I can fix the bug relatively quickly.

Balance is a different matter, and there are stretches of excessively boring grind (as opposed to fun grind) in late game.

 

[Laxard]

How would that manifest in a meaningful manner? It's not as if she's bossing you around right now...

Oh, okay, I will say it straight, entralled to the dragon cock.

Balance is a different matter, and there are stretches of excessively boring grind (as opposed to fun grind) in late game.

I think balance is much worse in the early game, where you are basically running around two locations, savescuming and and running away quite a lot just to find enough food and not being dead due to high rage.
When you are actually having money, minions, magic and start to cheat for satiety, the game is actually less grindy and you have much wider pick of the targets.

I am not a fun of current managment of the captives, thought, not only it's barebones, but also pain due UI. So I kinda ending up putting bunch of sexy creatures into cages and use them to increase number of minions and that's all. Well, I sometimes bother to turn quest characters into Dragon Priestess but it is limit of my patience.

 

[Jman9]

...entralled to the dragon cock.

Eh, since regular maidens don't get that in this game (outside of some rape lines that can be interpreted several ways), I don't see why she'd be susceptible.

I think balance is much worse in the early game, where you are basically running around two locations, savescuming and and running away quite a lot just to find enough food and not being dead due to high rage.

What two locations? There are legit reasons for even a tiny dragon to visit all of: a farmstead, a small village, hunt peddlers on the road, hunt farm animals, hunt forest animals and hunt stray dogs/goblins. Plus the occasional visit to stock up on goblins, turn in a quest or see the Witch. And manage your minions and possibly a weak captive or two. Plus the sea if you started blue.

A pet dragon running away a lot is quite 'realistic' and adds tension. When the price of failure is an endless knight loop or instant death, you can't afford to be careless, so you either consider your options carefully or savescum (and this time, it was a choice to do so).

Edit: I will also remark that there are quite a few tools to manage rage: either stock up on disposable girls for snacks and soothing sex (which is more midagame+ territory), sleep off some anger, or go raid a farm/small village when you hit 'furious'. Or 'angry', if you want to hedge your bets against the starving horse, etc. At leas early and mid-game, villages are never useless and provide you with all the basics: food, XP, loot and occasionally maidens.

And if you don't like grinding up a little dragon any more, there's the option to skip that stage. I, and several others, happen to like this part of the game.

I never had great issues with food while small. In fact, I was usually unhappy to see all these extra cows go to waste.

When you are actually having money, minions, magic and start to cheat for satiety, the game is actually less grindy and you have much wider pick of the targets.

The issue is not grinding. This is a grind-heavy mod. It's pointlessly heavy grind, like the food issues for monstrous+ dragons, and especially the late-game sacrifice routine. Maybe all the clicking in combat and crafting, too.

I am not a fun of current managment of the captives, thought, not only it's barebones, but also pain due UI.

What else do you want to do with them? And what's wrong with the UI? If it's the lack of direct access to minionette sex, easy reordering, access to everyone from the 'Captives' screem, these have been taken into account. Sex is a single-button affair if you wish it to be, and there will be a 'mass mate' button.

So I kinda ending up putting bunch of sexy creatures into cages and use them to increase number of minions and that's all.

Torturing and milking are equally easy and useful. And eating/sexing your captives for rage management or just for fun is also a thing. Takes like 2-3 clicks and CTRL per.

Well, I sometimes bother to turn quest characters into Dragon Priestess but it is limit of my patience.

I suppose you're not into management, then. I have had great fun microing 20+ captives and 50+ minions as a small-medium dragon.

 

[Laxard]

What else do you want to do with them? And what's wrong with the UI?

The old stuff is changed into some monster where it's takes too much screens. And clicking switches.
There is two options to manage girls.
We have this screen instead of cell map:

Spoiler: Info 1

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Which is only convenient to use in this form

Spoiler: Info 2

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Which requires two additional clicks instead of being default. And there is no way to sort the buildings.
Clicking on cage will bring us into cage menu. Clicking on the girl name will do nothing.

Spoiler: Cage 1

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

And then by clicking on the girl you will go into interaction mode

Spoiler: Cage 2

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Which doesn't even have some important info, hidden under Inspect button which will open submenu which is bugged when pressed Close, bringing player to Captives where you can't see anyone already in cages.

Then there is Assign screen with poor choice of the background image that is here so long as you have any captured woman not assigned to cage and weird alligment making stats hard to see.

Spoiler: Assign

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

The fact that it's also called "assign" instead of "Cages" is also making it hard to remember to actually go into this screen, so for quite a while brain defaults to use Info screen instead of Assign screen even when you have enough cages available for everyone.

The Info sceen can be much better if you get rid of all buiding managments here, leaving only hatcheries (and even then not by separate entity but by types, which I believe requires some rework of the building system) and giving general info of number of minions by type, cages total, empty cages, captives without cages status of traps (so player reminded to check other screens when needed) and maybe 3 closest births. Then it will perfectly serve "judge by glance" purpose, which is should be the goal of, basically "end turn screen".

There is actually much more issues with lair UI than this, but this is the part that turning me off from investing too much time into managing harems.

There are legit reasons for even a tiny dragon to visit all of: a farmstead, a small village, hunt peddlers on the road, hunt farm animals, hunt forest animals and hunt stray dogs/goblins. Plus the occasional visit to stock up on goblins, turn in a quest or visit the witch. And manage your minions and possibly a weak captive or two. Plus the sea if you started blue.

Actually I found that disregarding minions altogether and hunting in the forest and farms is the best option to go until you reach the of the grown man. Goblins don't seems to be able to help you by holding woman anyway and almost worthless in the battles.

And it's against my draconial moral eithic to eat perfectly breedable woman or sacrifice them to rise power of some goblin. Dragon kinda cares. So no eating girls when you can refrain from doing this.

And while managment games aren't my favorite genre I still like them pretty much. But there is stuff like too much clicking and too much micromanagment. So GearCity and games like this are in my avenue but games where you personally equip every single soldier among hundreds in your army are not.

 

[Jman9]

The old stuff is changed into some monster where it's takes too much screens. And clicking switches.

The 'old stuff' looked like this:


It wasn't even a UI, just a series of menus. I found it excessively infuriating to navigate after trying it again sometime last year.

You can now have a lot more stuff in your lair and perform many new actions. This can't be done without 'too much screens. And clicking switches'. A management game has to have a management UI, not a 'CYOA' UI.

...instead of cell map...

The cell map was before my time, but I can tell you it was insanity. It would have made all actions even more cumbersome, because you now have to hunt down the right cell, too. For anything else, it was just a pointless extra overlay that maybe looked nice.

Which is only convenient to use in this form...

Not for me. And that can and has been changed by anyone who dislikes it by altering the default value of 'lair_list_rooms_display_active'.

And there is no way to sort the buildings.

Known issue and the reason for the building filter being the way it is, displaying inactive rooms instead of all of them, as you seem to want. Sorting is added in the WIP version:

Clicking on the girl name will do nothing.

What should it do? It's an information display, also used in various places of the game. I'm not keen on complicating it without a compelling reason.

Which doesn't even have some important info, hidden under Inspect button...

What is important enough that you need it so frequently that clicking once more is an excessive chore? There is not a lot of vertical space left. The only thing I can think of that's missing is maybe 'power', but I've never felt the need to see that during interacting. I have added a reminder for virginity:

...which will open submenu which is bugged when pressed Close, bringing player to Captives where you can't see anyone already in cages.

Both fixed since and languishing in dev hell.

Then there is Assign screen with poor choice of the background image...
...weird alligment making stats hard to see.

I happen to like that image. It's there so that you know you've got unassigned captives. Plus some lair backgrounds fuck stat numbers up even worse, which is why the image is aligned to cover all the numbers.

You don't like it, nothing blocks you from replacing it with something else. An all-black or -white image, if you wish. I want my lair to be a bit immersive.

You don't happen to be colorblind? Such complaints about hard to see colored parts of a UI are surprisingly frequently related to that.

The fact that it's also called "assign" instead of "Cages"...

The reason is that there are other rooms besides 'cages' in there. Farms, pits, guard towers, non-torture cells now, too.

...so for quite a while brain defaults to use Info screen instead of Assign screen...

That's a problem with your brain. If you don't feel the need to manage a long list of assignments via a proto-spreadsheet, it tells me only that you're not a strategy/management gamer, not that the UI is bad or useless.

The Info sceen can be much better if you get rid of all buiding managments here...

What for? Filling e.g. a single empty cage or hatchery is easier and quicker via 'Buildings (I)' than anything else. Especially once reordering buildings is a thing.

...leaving only hatcheries (and even then not by separate entity but by types...

Why? If it's about ease of filling hatcheries, there's now a semi-intelligent 'fill all hatcheries' button.

...giving general info of number of minions by type...

How would you interact with or inspect your minions, then? And why is that information even useful in-game? I never felt a great need to know exactly how many goblins I had.

...cages total, empty cages ... 3 closest births...

These can all be seen (maybe with a little scrolling) from the 'Assign' screen. And you can take action (fill cages, reassign imminent birthers, remove torturers from dying captives, etc) immediately from there.

...captives without cages...

That's what the header of the captives list counts now:

...status of traps...

What status? They don't break, now do they? There's a trap counter now, that's the '(6)' in the above screen.

Then it will perfectly serve "judge by glance" purpose, which is should be the goal of, basically "end turn screen".

But the lair screen is not an 'at a glance' screen. It's the management hub of everything going on in the lair. Maybe it'd be worth it to add a 'summary' screen...

Actually I found that disregarding minions altogether and hunting in the forest and farms is the best option to go until you reach the of the grown man.

How? How do you even fight a pig herd with a small dragon? It's a tossup at best. Forests have surprise rangers who are unbeatable by almost any solo small dragon, and the only animals you can play with at the start are foxes and bunnies, who are not very filling. Deer run away and boars hurt/kill you.

I don't really see how you can get enough food to evolve without tanking your seals game, unless you play on easy or savescum like a maniac for sheep and foxes. That is, it might be possible, but I can't see how it's 'the best option'. Four goblins will make the rangers and swineherds beatable, no matter your dragon.

Goblins don't seems to be able to help you by holding woman...

That feature and anything else minion-related (hunting parties, mines, farms, villages ruled by puppets, etc) is not included because I don't want to give minions more agency. Doing that properly would mean something like doubling the size of the mod, and consequently me abandoning the thing altogether.

...almost worthless in the battles.

Goblins make it possible to even fight anything as a tiny dragon. They are also disposable, cheap, and at least save you healing if nothing else. One reviewer quit because he didn't manage to figure out goblins were a thing, so I don't think your assessment is even remotely true. They are also a cheap way to boost party power so running away as a small dragon takes less HP.

Furthermore, you get better minions later on. In most non-endgame saves I've seen, the dragon is not the main source of combat power.

And it's against my draconial moral eithic to eat perfectly breedable woman or sacrifice them to rise power of some goblin. Dragon kinda cares. So no eating girls when you can refrain from doing this.

Then you're playing a self-imposed challenge game.

Goblins don't need training, anyway, they're too frail. Cockatrices and basilisks are your first 'trainees'. Or 'drainees'.

But there is stuff like too much clicking and too much micromanagment.

I don't disagree. But my (and consequently DDM's) threshold for micro is pretty high. I used to play and enjoy microing 150+ colonies in the original MOO2.

Some things are getting automation to reduce the clicking: auto-combat, auto-sacrifice, auto-mate , auto-fill hatcheries, more food options at the tribes and elsewhere. Sky hunting is already there to allow you to skip straight to the interesting encounters, and will be overhauled further. Auto-crafting has even been released in beta form.

If you have further suggestions that don't involve gutting current features, I'm listening.

There is actually much more issues with lair UI than this, but this is the part that turning me off...

So to sum it up, you want to

1. pollute your building list with both active and inactive rooms by default;
2. click on girl names (to rename them?);
3. save a click on the interaction screen to look at some yet unidentified statistic;
4. hate the 'free captives' background, despite it doing exactly what you want from an 'at a glance' screen;
5. have a hangup with how 'assign' is not 'cages', despite being able to assign maidens and minions to non-cage buildings;
6. want a summary screen instead of rather than in addition to detailed management.

1., 4. and 5. you can easily change yourself, and seem to be personal preference. 2. and 3. might be of use, if you elaborate further. 6. as a separate screen would be a new feature, one with a significant dev time overhead and no guarantee that the result would satisfy anyone. Unless you provide at least a mockup and I get feedback from others as well, I don't see this happening.

And if "can't be bothered to use the Assign screen" is your biggest complaint, it kinda does not look like the issue is primarily with the UI. You don't really want to play a dragon sim with all kinds of detailed numbers and stuff. I doubt the mod is ever going to fully accommodate you, but I guess we can try to find some middle ground.

 

[Laxard]

pollute your building list with both active and inactive rooms by default;

What is why doing it by type, instead of by entity will save soo much space. It's difference between having like 10 buiding buttons in the end game and 30 in the mid game like it currently does.

click on girl names (to rename them?);

To open the interaction screen.

save a click on the interaction screen to look at some yet unidentified statistic;

Yes, battle potential statistic. Because currently when I need to check it for just 10 of girls it tooks me 50 clicks and insane amount of mouse movement.
And if I remember right, then battle power not only effects the result of breading, but also ability to breed at all. But it is not very related thought.

hate the 'free captives' background, despite it doing exactly what you want from an 'at a glance' screen;

You don't like it, nothing blocks you from replacing it with something else. An all-black or -white image, if you wish. I want my lair to be a bit immersive.

You don't happen to be colorblind? Such complaints about hard to see colored parts of a UI are surprisingly frequently related to that.

No, I am not colorblind, but it's pretty much UI design basics. While I give no shit about "meaning of color" at all, but depending on the text color and background color the ease or reading is changing. And there is no point to exhaust yourself by just trying to read some regular info.
Honestly, Old Huntsman, despite being quite adept at using color indications still never was good with choosing color paletes in the first place and every further "remake" makes situation even worse.
And Bended Korra makes it so there is no good color pairs even by chance.
Black bacground is exactly the best option here for utility sake. Red on brown and light blue on white aren't cool.
And honestly, too much stuff is colorized when there is no need for it. I get while stats and "friendship" status are colored, by there is also coloration in very random places that have no meaning.

have a hangup with how 'assign' is not 'cages', despite being able to assign maidens and minions to non-cage buildings;

Good point, it's should be called Dungeon.

want a summary screen instead of rather than in addition to detailed management.

Yes, and detailed managment being on separate screens being in the other menu, with only most often used interactions being available from here, without taking much of actual space.

What status? They don't break, now do they? There's a trap counter now, that's the '(6)' in the above screen.

I mean traps by type.
Like
4 primitives
4 tentacle
2 ice
2 fire
And upgrade can be here as a small interactable arrow up icon (if it's even usefull).
But on the other hand, traps managment and guard posts can move into other (and new) screen called "security" or something.

It's not like I really want less screens, I want less moving between screens while I am working on some aspect of the lair.

And to be clear, yeah, it's possible to change many stuff of this mods by myself and I even did this in some places (I actually launched your "vanilla" version of the mod with my saves from the moded version just to make some screenshoots) but there is an issue of what I will need to do when you will release a new version of your mod.
Between making my own (non-hentai) game of ironically managment genre, lending my hand in some fan translations and some other extra stuff, there is just no chance that I will remember all the places that I changed and if I start to write log even for this I just completely lose my motivation to even play.

Amount you did is amazing, it's just sometimes goes into weird direction from game design point of view.

How? How do you even fight a pig herd with a small dragon? It's a tossup at best. Forests have surprise rangers who are unbeatable by almost any solo small dragon, and the only animals you can play with at the start are foxes and bunnies, who are not very filling. Deer run away and boars hurt/kill you.

I don't really see how you can get enough food to evolve without tanking your seals game, unless you play on easy or savescum like a maniac for sheep and foxes. That is, it might be possible, but I can't see how it's 'the best option'. Four goblins will make the rangers and swineherds beatable, no matter your dragon.

Smart choice of the first head, some investment into battle mastery and A LOT of savescumming.
My dragon is also my mainpower, pushing for 98 damage from breath while being not fully evolved Drake.
The amount of money, saved from having small number of minions, I put into Battle Mastere even before I even started to cheat was giant. I am actually not alowed to put more until I increase the size. And I already can wound the king while hiring 4 guards from the island (even if all of them tend to die in process) which gives me so much gold in exchange that there is no point to bother with caravans because that fight, while reaching other goals in process, is gives me several time more gold that cost me with both hiring and recovery. Angels can still own me for now, but it's because I am completely exhaisted before fighting them. I always had above couple thousands of gold coins. Well, I actually used console to cover army equipment in the end, because I wasn't fan of repeating the same 3 battles another hundred of times, but as I said, when easily acessed market become available money ceased to be an issue.

Also, I had above 560 seal power before reaching drake because sectants was more puny than some farm animals and it's only once when I meet 3 at the same time.

 

[Jman9]

What is why doing it by type, instead of by entity will save soo much space.

That would only work (well) for generic buildings, like empty cages, hatcheries, unused altars, etc. I guess I can try adding a 'by type' filter and make that the default.

To open the interaction screen.

Adding name/race as interaction triggers is simple enough, done. Since sorting buttons also live on the 'battle cards' now, that's about it for easy changes.

Yes, battle potential statistic. Because currently when I need to check it for just 10 of girls it tooks me 50 clicks and insane amount of mouse movement.

Which one, 'power'? Why do you even need to look at it for 10 girls in a row? If there's a good reason, I suppose I can add that, too.

In any case, it's now a matter of clicking 'inspect' and right-clicking out of that screen. So two fast extra clicks.

And if I remember right, then battle power not only effects the result of breading, but also ability to breed at all.

Uh, what? No, breeding only fails if you kill her. Well, okay, too much 'power' makes you unable to rape a captive, but that doesn't need you to look at the stat and do a manual comparison. First, because it's now more complex than just comparing the two, and second, the game handles it for you. No 'rape' button means raping is very hard or even impossible. The same goes for anything else, the buttons only appear when you can perform the corresponding action.

Honestly, Old Huntsman, despite being quite adept at using color indications still never was good with choosing color paletes in the first place and every further "remake" makes situation even worse.

I make no claim of being a frontend dev. Or a dev at all.

All the colors are 'primary' and chosen so that I can see at a glance where the interesting stat is, without hunting down how that particular piece of the UI is ordering things, or even if it labels the numbers. You want different colours or a better scheme, make a mockup, give me the colour codes and I might be able to do something. What's there right now works well enough for me, and I started modding the game to make it more playable for myself.

And there's no need to put 'remake' in quotes. TfD is an actual remake, with a new engine and considerably different management details. 1.4.1 was basically a mod similar to DDM, but for the original game.

Black bacground is exactly the best option here for utility sake.

I'll put in a 'No Korra!' user option. The result looks like this:

And honestly, too much stuff is colorized when there is no need for it. I get while stats and "friendship" status are colored, by there is also coloration in very random places that have no meaning.

Colors are there to make it easier to skip reading the labels for the 1000th time. Maybe your mind works differently than mine, but I can get used to, say, 'energy' always being yellow or 'egg number' dark blue, and just looking for properly colored numbers.

Good point, it's should be called Dungeon.

But it's not really a dungeon, either. Living in a cloud castle, abandoned palace or manor means the prison rooms are just regular rooms with a heavy door. Or cages are plopped straight into the throne room. Defense towers can be the originals, or some dungeon fortification, or an outdoor one. It's not remotely accurate to call all of these 'Cages' or 'Dungeon'. You could call your entire lair a 'dungeon', then. This isn't DnD.

Yes, and detailed managment being on separate screens being in the other menu, with only most often used interactions being available from here, without taking much of actual space.

Okay, what would need moving? I guess I can make all the triggers return lists of room/prisoner/minion/trap types and numbers as default:


The corresponding 'normal' screen:

And upgrade can be here as a small interactable arrow up icon (if it's even usefull).

Not really useful for traps, since only one is upgradeable, and the new sorting buttons already claim all kinds of up and down arrows. Upgrading everything from the proper trigger sub-menu is easier, IMO.

(and new) screen called "security" or something.

No room, and 13 isn't evenly divisible. I don't even know how this would save any time, the traps trigger and 'Assign' menu minions are not excessively 'clicky'.

It's not like I really want less screens, I want less moving between screens while I am working on some aspect of the lair.

But you do want extra screens, one for security and another as a summary. I hope I can avoid both, and just add new trigger sub-menus.

...there is an issue of what I will need to do when you will release a new version of your mod.

Two solutions:

• the 'proper' one: comments ;
• the one I use, being a single-man hack: save a copy of the current release scripts, diff your mod-mod against these and update where necessary.

...it's just sometimes goes into weird direction from game design point of view.

Well, it says 'personal tweaks' on the tin. I'm not exactly the average gamer, so a bunch of game design conventions don't apply, or are easily ignored. Kinda similar to Dwarf Fortress, but nowhere near as crazy.

Smart choice of the first head, some investment into battle mastery and A LOT of savescumming.

Yeah, but how do you even get the cash to start investing? Without goblins, that is. And while you can savescum yourself through near-impossible battles, I don't really see how it's fun to reload a battle with two peasants for the 20th time while a couple of goblins would eliminate that need altogether.

My dragon is also my mainpower, pushing for 98 damage from breath while being not fully evolved Drake.

You mean the fiery breath spell? That's a cheat right now and will get nerfed.

A medium Drake should have at best 34 ATK and 26 ATKM. Which is good, but only for a very specialised build, and you'll have a mere 40 HP and no resistances. The other extreme is 50% physical resistance, 220HP and 9+9 attack. Neither of these nor anything in-between is tough enough to sneeze at the help of even 4 basilisks, never mind anything tougher. So I don't really see how early and mid-game minions are 'almost worthless', and I don't really see how you get to that point without minions or insanely excessive reloading.

The amount of money, saved from having small number of minions, I put into Battle Mastere even before I even started to cheat was giant.

At least as of HF 3d, you should have bought a Homunculus instead. These things are ridiculously durable, and much better than even +6 Attack Mastery, the best you can normally get for the same price.

And I already can wound the king while hiring 4 guards from the island (even if all of them tend to die in process) which gives me so much gold in exchange that there is no point to bother with caravans

Caravans/airships/galleons can be robbed repeatedly, while the King hides behind the dude in a dress robe after you get him once. And even then, the treasures from the palace aren't much better than what you get from a single airship, while the cost is a lot higher.

...several time more gold that cost me with both hiring and recovery.

I see you haven't tried to do the gold quest properly yet.

I always had above couple thousands of gold coins.

That's peanuts. The army quest requires 1000 times that, and I'm making the dragon unhappy if he has a paltry hoard.

...I wasn't fan of repeating the same 3 battles another hundred of times...

Wars aren't won with a single battle. Especially when you're basically a guerilla. And crafting is supposed to be the big endgame money-maker.

...when easily acessed market become available money ceased to be an issue.

Regular expenses, yes. Although others have been complaining about money being scarce early on.

Also, I had above 560 seal power before reaching drake because sectants was more puny...

But cultists aren't what eats up all your seals. I don't still understand how you accessed altars fast enough to avoid the demonpocalypse without using minions to get rolling. Unless you played on easy or modded the seals mechanic out.

Edit:

...there is also coloration in very random places that have no meaning.

Where? I'm pretty sure HF3d has like 99% coloration on just stats. Okay, minion info is more colorful, but there it serves the purpose of being an alternative to stat boxes, because I was fed up with Ren'Py grids and frames by that point.

 

[Isilindil]

I would like to vote for "no background at all". I understand it is supposed to remind you have unassigned girls, but at times I find it more annoying than anything else. Same with Captives screen.

 

[Jman9]

You sure? Not all lair backgrounds are nice and dark/green.

Edit: Okay, there are three options now:

• 'Korra': as it was.
• 'Darkness': the Korra image in 'Assign' is black, as per the above screenshot, 'Captives' Korra remains.
• 'No Korra': both are gone, lair backgrounds only.

I don't really know what's so offensive about her in the captives screen, but it's not as if I haven't spent the day coding the trigger change and can't spare ten minutes.

Edit2:
Gave the traps overview an upgrade button while I was at it. It'll upgrade your first basic trap. Making one for the full traps list would look bad and be clumsier, so I'm not doing that.

 

[Laxard]

Which one, 'power'? Why do you even need to look at it for 10 girls in a row? If there's a good reason, I suppose I can add that, too.

I tend to check battle mastery to see who aren't generic mobs and worth putting a bit more effort into recruit by torure.
I also checked resistances at first, but they are basically same by class, so eventually I stopped to do it.

Uh, what? No, breeding only fails if you kill her.

Eh, I think the moment captive turned to have 0 points of power (throught minions sucking or tentacle pits) she supposed to become unbreadable.

All the colors are 'primary' and chosen so that I can see at a glance where the interesting stat is, without hunting down how that particular piece of the UI is ordering things, or even if it labels the numbers.

You are using, hm, oversaturated colors that overstimulate eye retina. Not sure I calling it right, since I only known how this issue is called on Russian, but I hope you are understanding what I mean.
Primary color doesn't mean good color anyway, it's very technical definition.
And like I already said, they are on backgrounds that make them very hard to read.

It's hard to explain for me, trying to remember all that English terms, but here is decent short article about font on background issues.

You must be registered to see the links

And plenty of people just use vidgets to pick colors without trying to remember all the rules like this one

You must be registered to see the links

And please, don't make "Minions" and "Captives" on the info screen colorised...

But you do want extra screens, one for security and another as a summary. I hope I can avoid both, and just add new trigger sub-menus.

Basically I want interactable tables instead of the hell of subforms.

• the 'proper' one: comments ;
• the one I use, being a single-man hack: save a copy of the current release scripts, diff your mod-mod against these and update where necessary.

Yeah, both are pain.
I mean, it's possible to use that other Git-like repository to make second approach half automatic, but still pain.

, and you'll have a mere 40 HP and no resistances. The other extreme is 50% physical resistance, 220HP and 9+9 attack. Neither of these nor anything in-between is tough enough to sneeze at the help of even 4 basilisks, never mind anything tougher. So I don't really see how early and mid-game minions are 'almost worthless'

Eh, no, it's unvinged wasps, Kobolds and goblins that are useless. Chickens are usufull tanks. But they also something that is not easy to get early on because you are constlantly humilated by girls. Bandits my "go-to" trash troop from the moment I can hire them, because I can hire 1-3 each turn so they are really disposable.

Caravans/airships/galleons can be robbed repeatedly, while the King hides behind the dude in a dress robe after you get him once.

But during high mobilization you are not likely to get much of caravan events and galleons and airships are random too. Meanwhile castle raid is a sure event. Yeah, Archimage can own you if he is having resistance to your heads, but personally fights against Adamantium Golems are a bit toughter for me. And Gnome Champion dies pretty fast but can take half of your minions with you. If you are don't have couple of Homunculus in the squad.

Yeah, but how do you even get the cash to start investing?

Girls robbing. I do lone peddler for a very little time, straight up skipping to plains raids and then to mountains wandering when I am able to beat most of defences and have ability to make treasures. Craft is hard to increase, but it's not like selling poor small treasures isn't profitable. But really, It's opens too late and makes you start to pushing for another lair stat for quite a while. To make profit from simple buying the resources and making treasures from them... Too much time. But make it from whatever you looted? Always fine.

But it's not really a dungeon, either. Living in a cloud castle, abandoned palace or manor means the prison rooms are just regular rooms with a heavy door.

Dungeon - a dark usually underground prison or vault.
Actually inner castles is an origin of the word. So it can be just a separate building for all what it's matter.

I don't really see how it's fun to reload a battle with two peasants for the 20th time

Eh, no I just go into other location to skip the event. Reloading battles is mostly futile exercise, I do it only when I am understanding that I loosing because I conserved mana early on.

That's peanuts. The army quest requires 1000 times that, and I'm making the dragon unhappy if he has a paltry hoard.

Yeah, army equip and "1000 childrens" quests are most pointles grind in the game. Doesn't make it hard.
By the way, Kingdom fully recovering from povetry in a month and ready to be plundered again is kinda weird.

But cultists aren't what eats up all your seals. I don't still understand how you accessed altars fast enough to avoid the demonpocalypse without using minions to get rolling. Unless you played on easy or modded the seals mechanic out.

I actually stolen magus tower.
And then I gone from Green Hatchery to straight up Everything Goes by conquering Dwarf Kingdom. I think it's actually locked me out of some quests.

 

[Jman9]

I tend to check battle mastery to see who aren't generic mobs...

But you really don't need to do that, maybe once at most. The more unique captives have special titles, and you can rename girls. Put a * after their name or something when you first get them, problem solved.

...captive turned to have 0 points of power ... become unbreadable.

Not true. They're likely to die if you rape them, but besides that you can breed them just fine.

Primary color doesn't mean good color anyway...

Did I claim they were? But they're easy to define and noticeable on even badly matched backgrounds. If I went from 'F00' to some sort of hand-picked pink, it would never stand out as well.

And like I already said, they are on backgrounds that make them very hard to read.

Not quite. E.g. if you check out any kind of command line on a black background, these also tend to use bright/oversaturated colors to contrast with the black. And DDM tends to have dark backgrounds.

...decent short article...

Which also says 'above all we must seek the contrast between background and text colours'. These 'pure RGB', 'programmer colours' I use are an eyesore, but you really can't accuse them of not being contrasted. They're maximum contrast.

And plenty of people just use vidgets to pick colors...

Helps me none, because one flavour of e.g. lime looks the same to me as any other, and many of the backgrounds used in-game against any single text colour can vary considerably.

...don't make "Minions" and "Captives" on the info screen colorised...

So what should I do with them, instead?

Basically I want interactable tables instead of the hell of subforms.

What tables and how would they work better? Because right now I don't see the practical difference in terms of clicks and screen transitions, and 'hell of subforms' seems more personal preference than anything. Most buildings/captives have a single use, so any table will have just two columns, ID and 'perform action'. Which is what the filters give you. The exception are cages and similar, which do have a separate table. Which you don't want to use.

I did ask for a mockup, remember?

Yeah, both are pain.
I mean, it's possible to use that other Git-like repository...

You can just use direct comparison software as well, with nearly zero setup. I don't see where the pain is here if you use something that can compare whole directories, the only effort is in keeping a backup of last release's scripts.

Eh, no, it's unvinged wasps, Kobolds and goblins that are useless.

Asps are your first swimmers, don't cost money and stack well against thieves. And are nearly free from all the peasants you can acquire.

Kobolds are good for trading in for food at the tribe. Goblins... Even the most combative starter dragon at least triples his combat ability with them, and fodder for lessening the HP cost of running away. All become less and less useful as the game goes on, but I think it's dishonest to call them outright useless.

Chickens are usufull tanks.

Er, what? That's one thing they aren't. Artillery, yes. Tanks, no. Lowish HP, no armour, troublesome to get and keep many of them, at least early on.

Bandits my "go-to" trash troop from the moment I can hire them, because I can hire 1-3 each turn so they are really disposable.

Depends on how you play. If you have a constant stream of eggs, whatever hatches from them can easily replace hireables. Or you can not bother and indeed spend cash instead. Although the bandits are kinda scarce, you only get one per week instead of daily, like goblins. So you can't spend their lives quite as freely.

But during high mobilization you are not likely to get much of caravan events...

Well, that's an issue with your mobilization management. AKA you're in a fail state for making money by pillaging, and need to get out or find an alternative.

...galleons and airships are random too.

Everything except airships (merchants, galleons, other ships) can be hunted directly from the air with no randomness. I'll be adding airships, too.

Meanwhile castle raid is a sure event.

The 'good' raid is not, the one where you get lots of treasure or a princess. You can do it only once per week per dragon size category. The other raid is at best half as lucrative and has the Archmage.

Girls robbing. I do lone peddler...

But without goblins, how do you fight peddlers without savescumming and get girls with more than peasant trinkets on them?

...plains raids...

Is that village raiding? It'd really help if you used in-game terminology...

But really, It's opens too late...

How so? The only big quests in your way are Scourge of the Plains and Desolation, which should be early-mid-game. Scourge itself puts you at 8 fear+mobilization, and you need just 10 for Desolation.

To make profit from simple buying the resources and making treasures from them... Too much time.

Did you try the 'auto-crafting' beta script with multiple workshops?

Dungeon - a dark usually underground prison or vault.

Yeah, but even your prison cells aren't necessarily underground, dark or heavily fortified. The ice palace, for example.

Actually inner castles is an origin of the word. So it can be just a separate building for all what it's matter.

Keep is what it's called these days. For the dragon, the equivalent is his hoard room, and other buildings aren't necessarily connected. Or disconnected, either.

There just isn't a single word that encapsulates cages hung from the ceiling of a palace throneroom, sleeping cells in a monastery, dungeon prisons in castle basements, the towers of a mountain fortress, ramshackle guard posts near a ruined farmhouse, etc etc. Hence 'assign'.

Reloading battles is mostly futile exercise...

Okay, but then how is your tiny solo dragon winning anything he needs to progress? Subsisting exclusively on rabbits and foxes is slow. Combat and throwing fights eat up your HP fast, and thus profits or time. Patrols are much worse. Etc.

Yeah, army equip and "1000 childrens" quests are most pointles grind in the game. Doesn't make it hard.

But they are hard, if you're resorting to cheating. Not as any individual event, they're meant as challenges to push you towards optimising a dragon and a gameplay cycle that makes it easier to do both in bulk. Like a lair with 20 workshops and a dragon with enough crafting to make non-trash crowns. Or a lair with 20 breeding pits and Hakim to get girls in bulk for breeding, no girl-eating minions, not too much fear so that rape doesn't kill them. Maybe access to something durable like mermaids, or a bunch of Homunculi immune to death by birthing. Basically, you don't seem to want to adapt your playstyle.

That being said, some fine-tuning might be necessary. 200k was originally 1M, and 1k will become 500.

This is a grinding mod if you haven't noticed yet.

By the way, Kingdom fully recovering from povetry in a month...

Er, how? 100 poverty should need 7*25 + 5*25 + 3*25 + 2*25 = 425 days to go back down to 0, that's well over a year.

I actually stolen magus tower.

But it doesn't address the issue of how a solo dragon gains power fast enough to get altars before too many seals crumble. Never mind that more dragon power makes seals decay faster, while adding minions doesn't.

And then I gone from Green Hatchery to straight up Everything Goes by conquering Dwarf Kingdom.

Hatcheries will be sequential to avoid that shortcut.

I think it's actually locked me out of some quests.

I doubt that. Which ones did you have in mind?

 

[Laxard]

They're maximum contrast.

No, they are not. Because contrast can only be relative. Violet and dark brown isn't "maximum contrast" Black on white (or white on black) technically is.

If I went from 'F00'

And that is what I mean with oversaturation. They are so bright they hurt the eyes.
FF0000 is "all the power end of the spectrum red" basically the most catchy color for the human eye but put it on Korra and it's barelly readable. Put it on black and it's worse readable than yellow, light-blue (I guess it's cyan if you are using "primary" colors even if colors of substractive system of CMYK isn't technically primary in the first place) or green but still much better than brown. Why? Because brown is mostly Red in the RGB. So it's not enough of contrast.

So what should I do with them, instead?

Leave them as they are, just same as the rest of the text. You can make font bigger if you want, but it's not really necessary.

What tables and how would they work better? Because right now I don't see the practical difference in terms of clicks and screen transitions, and 'hell of subforms' seems more personal preference than anything. Most buildings/captives have a single use, so any table will have just two columns, ID and 'perform action'. Which is what the filters give you. The exception are cages and similar, which do have a separate table. Which you don't want to use.

I did ask for a mockup, remember?

Look at the "assign" screen you can easily make stuff from two screens fitting here and bring all the other interactions from "interact" into small buttons. It will loose the ability to see portrait thought, so you can make bigger lines and a bit bigger buttons and portrait to the said. I will draw a scheme when I am at my main PC.

Asps are your first swimmers, don't cost money and stack well against thieves. And are nearly free from all the peasants you can acquire.

I wasn't even aware they are able to swim. But yeah, having exactly one asp is usefull against thieves.

Er, what? That's one thing they aren't. Artillery, yes. Tanks, no. Lowish HP, no armour, troublesome to get and keep many of them, at least early on.

Cockatrices have 30 hp, basilisks have 60 hp. Troublesome to get, yes, but putting basilisk at the directly left and right sides and cockatrices at the flanks is making them usefull in most middle-level battles to fight without casualties. Lizardman are slightly better but harder to get and I need them in couple other places. Advanced types even harder before you are really strong. So cocks are non-disposable tanks for me.

But without goblins, how do you fight peddlers without savescumming and get girls with more than peasant trinkets on them?

Quantity is quality on it's own. Easy no risk girls don't require fights.
And as I already said, I go for peddlers when I am strong enough to solo them (and it's not like I even really intend to go for them at that point, only when in crysis).

Did you try the 'auto-crafting' beta script with multiple workshops?

No. Is it even available when you have only one?

Is that village raiding?

Yeah, farm, village, small town etc.

Okay, but then how is your tiny solo dragon winning anything he needs to progress? Subsisting exclusively on rabbits and foxes is slow.

And this talk started from me telling that I found progress in the early stages as slow and boring comparing to later stages.

But they are hard, if you're resorting to cheating.

Yeah, it's a bit of the pain to find the value to change)
Especially since just hiring more from the army screen do not count toward completion.

Keep is what it's called these days.

You must be registered to see the links

Word of French origin still used in French and some other languages (including Russian) instead of keep.

Dragons also tend to be bosses of the dungeons xD

not too much fear so that rape doesn't kill them.

Fear is actually sink state for me, because it's only good when you have much of it anyway and it's easier to just increase size.
This is making some quests harder thought.

Er, how? 100 poverty should need 7*25 + 5*25 + 3*25 + 2*25 = 425 days to go back down to 0, that's well over a year.

Only I need to go to sleep much earlier than I have 100 povetry. Destroying dosen towns don't give me that much. My only working way to climb the povetry is gathering bunch of minions and then sending them to be free at the same time so povetry tends to stay low. I think there is optional storyline with Marquise that can help you to have bigger povetry?

fast enough to get altars before too many seals crumble.

I don't give a shit to half of seals crumbling, it's just adding rare annoyance. I didn't reached 0 seals and don't know what it's does, I remember giant demon in the old versions who was an optional boss, so prabaly makes me fight him? And I remind you that while I started with the smaller dragon I am playing on easy.

 

[Jman9]

No, they are not. Because contrast can only be relative. Violet and dark brown isn't "maximum contrast"

Sure, but a purely B&W version of the game wouldn't be much fun. And, as you say, it's relative. The 'programmer colours' are 'maximum' among all similar colours.

FF0000 is "all the power end of the spectrum red" basically the most catchy color for the human eye but put it on Korra and it's barelly readable.

That's the point. Any different shade of red would actually be unreadable if it happens to hit brown.

It's the path of least resistance. Because I'm not developing the mod for public, it's just a bonus that maybe gives others some fun, helps me catch bugs and occasionally discuss interesting stuff. I'm not doing it for people with sensitive eyes or taste like you. I can bear looking at these just fine, they serve my purposes well enough, and I have trouble maintaining motivation to continue messing with the gameplay-relevant parts of the mod. If you assume I'm going to spend my free time on learning to be a frontend dev (which will give me zero benefits, personally and professionally) and trying to test a UI on a playerbase consisting of maybe one dude per week, think again.

And that is what I mean with oversaturation. They are so bright they hurt the eyes.

Not mine. I acknowledge they're oversaturated. But I'm not a UI dev, I can personally handle these colours just fine and I'm definitely not going to spend two months hand-tweaking every colour in the UI for a someone who can't even come up with a constructive solution. You don't like them, use a mass replace and change all '{color=#XXX}' into '{color=#000}'.

Leave them as they are, just same as the rest of the text.

No, I mean the colour changes are there for a reason. The screenshot was just an example, there are more colours than that which can apply. The headers are still white if your lair doesn't have problems.

Look at the "assign" screen you can easily make stuff from two screens...

Which ones?

...bring all the other interactions from "interact" into small buttons.

Too many things to fit everything on a single line without being craptacularly tiny. Why is clicking on 'interact' so bad, anyway? You can cycle through captives with arrow keys as well.

I wasn't even aware they are able to swim.

That's what the bestiary is for.

But yeah, having exactly one asp is usefull against thieves.

The point is that asps are coming plentiful from all the peasants you'll get in the early game, and thieves only care about numbers. The only other minions who are as easy to stack as both of the asps are goblins, who cost money, eat captives and count as half for purposes of thief-catching.

...cockatrices at the flanks...

As I said, artillery.

Advanced types even harder before you are really strong.

Hakim for elves and princesses. The rest are indeed unreasonably rare. Although even one can give you lots of lizardmen.

Quantity is quality on it's own. Easy no risk girls don't require fights.

But that's not a 'solo', 'minions are useless' dragon. I was under the impression that you claimed minions were worthless, and a solo dragon hunting farm and forest animals was the way to go.

And the 'easy' girls don't give much if any worthwhile treasure.

And as I already said, I go for peddlers when I am strong enough to solo them...

By that time the few hundred silvers are probably too little, and you should be using minions to raid large villages or bigger merchants. For XP and emergency cash, I suppose soloing is workable.

Is it even available when you have only one?

It's available, it just won't save you time.

And this talk started from me telling that I found progress in the early stages as slow and boring comparing to later stages.

Which is why I created the 'medium' start, and have reintroduced some other 'advanced' starts. Read back a bit, there are WIP screenshots.

I like the slow start, but I acknowledge others might not, so there are options to avoid that part of the game. The current guide even advises new players to pick medium size.

But this whole discussion started from you saying

basically running around two locations, savescuming

Actually I found that disregarding minions altogether and hunting in the forest and farms is the best option to go until you reach the of the grown man.

I don't think either are true, and you're not really supporting either claim. The converse, if anything.

Now, how you play is your business. But I was curious if there was indeed some balance issue that made minions genuinely useless, or locked you into only one optimal action. Players have claimed such things before, and upon examination it's usually been them misunderstanding or ignoring some aspect of the mod.

Especially since just hiring more from the army screen do not count toward completion.

That's the whole point of the quest, avoiding you just buying the army out of thin air.

Word of French origin still used in French and some other languages (including Russian) instead of keep.

But we're not discussing a game in French or even Russian (any more). DDM is English, at least for now.

Dragons also tend to be bosses of the dungeons

Perhaps, but this is still not DnD. Dragons have lairs, dungeons are practically nonexistent (if you discount Darkwood and castle dungeons) and maidens are kept in a variety of places.

Fear is actually sink state for me, because it's only good when you have much of it anyway and it's easier to just increase size.

I have plans to make extorting more powerful, since fear is indeed not very good right now.

Only I need to go to sleep much earlier than I have 100 povetry.

Well, then it isn't "Kingdom fully recovering from povetry in a month". A couple of towns being rebuilt on average is okay, the Kingdom is big and I don't want to track individual town recovery.

Destroying dosen towns don't give me that much.

Poverty is hard to get going. But it's also hard to get down once it's high.

On the other hand, destroying a dozen towns should give you 12*10 > 100 poverty, more than enough to tank the Kingdom. Why isn't it? I just tried, and destroying 10 towns in a row gives 97 poverty. Three months of sleep lowers that to 84. So I don't understand this criticism.

I think there is optional storyline with Marquise that can help you to have bigger povetry?

Not de Ad, de Proa. Isabella (and also Marianne) can be released in exchange for 50 poverty.

I didn't reached 0 seals and don't know what it's does, I remember giant demon in the old versions who was an optional boss, so prabaly makes me fight him?

Hitting 0 seals means the Demon Prince comes out, claims the Capital and starts conquering other locations. I think only the original DW (pre-Arhin) didn't have him? He's not too bad right now, but still not something a mid-game dragon should be tangling with.

And I remind you that while I started with the smaller dragon I am playing on easy.

Ah, okay, that explains it. Easy tones the seals game down a lot, and you're thus not playing the 'management' version of the mod because your actions now have far less of an opportunity cost attached to them. Personally, I find that kind of exploration-focused gameplay pretty boring, but I (re)wrote most of the events, so there's that.

 

[Laxard]

But that's not a 'solo', 'minions are useless' dragon. I was under the impression that you claimed minions were worthless, and a solo dragon hunting farm and forest animals was the way to go.

I mean "number of attacks" as a quality.
Any minion who is not likely to survive at least two attacks is a waste of resources for me. Because we can't call second wave of minions, we can't even ask them attack specific enemy.

That's the point. Any different shade of red would actually be unreadable if it happens to hit brown.

And that's why you put info on different shades of brown?)
Also, white and light green are readable on dark brown in my experience.

I just tried, and destroying 10 towns in a row gives 97 poverty.

Interrupted by patrols events (I have like 3 before managing to actually hit a town on average), auto-day changes and need to sleep for an almost a month due to exhaustion of stamina from time to time. And I have 18 stamina.

Hitting 0 seals means the Demon Prince comes out, claims the Capital and starts conquering other locations. I think only the original DW (pre-Arhin)

I not sure, but I think that it's Old Huntsman who added him, but not at initial release. And I don't remember seal system being a thing before, at least there was no seal counter on the screen.

Also, here is Paint version of not-dungeon screen, I-Can-t-Draw-A-Shit-in-2D-And-So-Will-Give-Up-Halfway edition.

Spoiler: Mock-up

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Weird shape near portraits supposed to be boot. I didn't really wasted any time to find fitting icons so it's and the + are handdrawn and ♥ is just an alt+3

 

[Jman9]

Any minion who is not likely to survive at least two attacks is a waste of resources for me.

Not disputing that. Some minions are indeed worthless in some fights. But e.g. goblins are almost always useful against peasants or other goblins, murlocks against a shark, etc. Of course, these encounters become less beneficial as the game goes on, and nobody expects a huge and up dragon to run around with a goblin entourage.

...we can't even ask them attack specific enemy.

I kinda like how there's an interesting 'battle formations' dynamic due to this; making UI for targeted attacks would be a minor pain and I'm nowhere near certain the end result would be any more interesting except for adding more fiddly bits to the battle screen. I'd also have to make some kind of mini-AI for enemies to pick their targets. So I'll pass.

And that's why you put info on different shades of brown?

No, that's why I made them 'eye-destroying' red. I think Korra came after.

Also, white and light green are readable on dark brown in my experience.

As I said, you can make the entire 'coloured stats' thing go away with a regex and mass replace. I can't use only light green for colouring stats, that'd defeat the entire purpose.

Interrupted by patrols events (I have like 3 before managing to actually hit a town on average)...

You seem to have a rampant mobilization problem. Hmm, smugglers only kill mobilization in this version. I'm making them cause poverty instead. And it's indeed kinda hard to get out of high mobilization in this version.

What you can do is perform a terror campaign (hire smugglers to sow chaos, release minions, spend your time hunting patrols and sacking towns for a few sleep cycles) to get poverty up to 50 or so. And reduce your infamy level to 15 by running away or using the 'demand tribut&flee' route. Then mobilization will be capped to about 10, you can sack another town per month to remain at about 50 poverty, and 1-3 will change to 1-1 or better.

I'm not sure I actually like this, but there's got to be some kind of change due to high infamy.

...auto-day changes...

Happened to me, too, and only matter while poverty is still very low.

And I have 18 stamina.

Should be enough to get to 50 poverty in a few sleep cycles. I just tried, and spending 14 actions per month to try to raze towns, and hiring smugglers twice each time to cut down on patrols even further got me to 50+ poverty in two sleep cycles.

I not sure, but I think that it's Old Huntsman who added him, but not at initial release. And I don't remember seal system being a thing before, at least there was no seal counter on the screen.

I looked and couldn't find 'demon', 'seal', or any 'mistress' dialogue referencing demons in 1.01 ENG. So I assume it was Arhin's doing, or just didn't migrate to the English version.

Seals existed in DW 1.4.1 but without a counter. Eliont added the counter, but it still went down only when you met cultists. I made it into a doom clock.

Also, here is Paint version of not-dungeon screen...

I've still got to ask, why do you want the interactions here? Because it's quite a bit of work to move them here, and will most definitely be quite buggy at first, while clicking 'interact' and right-clicking back is nearly as fast, plus let's you see the big profile images for eye candy. And you will be able to sort cages manually and cycle between captives (caged or not) with arrow keys.

Both profiles are a no-go, because they're too large (and thus too poor quality when scaled down). Same deal with the vertically stacked stats. The whole point of this screen is to squeeze in as many rows as possible. I hold no truck with the modern notion that all UI buttons must be as big as possible, and every queue must show no more than four items at once.

There's also the computation overhead for all these new buttons. Ren'Py is hideously ineffective with refreshing the UI every couple of moments, and I'm getting some lag even without your 'zillion button' spreadsheet of doom.

The one thing that might be genuinely useful are the x/y numbers showing building occupation levels, but these now exist on the main screen as part of the 'Buildings (T)' filter. Which also provides the ability to go and fill the first empty building with a single click.

Finally, while such a grey (and your '2829AD' is not the gray in the picture) screen is much more legible, it's also very unatmospheric.

To sum it up, it's a lot of work (especially due to how messy the current code is), it won't make me any happier with the UI (looks worse from an in-game POV, no significant mouse economy or screen transition savings, very likely a performance headache). And ultimately, wrestling with Ren'Py UI tools and rewriting most of that screen's code to get it all done will probably kill all of my desire to continue with the mod.

So, I do appreciate the input, and maybe I'll play with some of the elements in your mockup, but in all likelihood the assign screen's appearance won't change much.

 

[Laxard]

and right-clicking back

Wait, what?

2829AD

Lol, yeah, my fault, it was A8A9AD.
I looked the codes on pallete, spoke to myself once and then wrote them down. And this is how a vosem' become dva vosem' and a devat' become dva devat' :-(
And AD is still AD because association with Anno Domini. But looking at this now, I obliviously received some shade of blue with this mistake. Boink.

 

[Jman9]

Wait, what?

Part of the 'all the hotkeys' UI overhaul that's still sitting in dev hell. Virtually any screen can be canceled out of by right-clicking (an idea I stole from Brothel King).

I feel your pain about having to manually hunt down those 'close' buttons.

Lol, yeah, my fault, it was A8A9AD.

Yeah, . I tried to make a background for each row (which didn't work very well, these Ren'Py styles are a pain) and was really surprised to see some kind of weird blue instead of grey.

 

[Isilindil]

Something I noticed about Darkwood, and I wonder if it is intended to reduce save scumming: after I get event there and load save before that, I'm still getting the same event. No matter how many days I wait, it stays until cleared. The only exception is when fun-sized (but not too small) dragon gets in and tries to avoid getting killed. Same stuff when I'm trying to spend my knowledge: right now my 50 points thing is meeting an angry tree.

 

[Jman9]

Something I noticed about Darkwood, and I wonder if it is intended to reduce save scumming

It's indeed a feature of Darkwood. This is not exactly about discouraging savescumming, because you can reload and 'prepare' for the next time you enter. But what it does is ensure that you get a roughly intended distribution of events out of Darkwood. Not 98 Beastkin girls, a worm and a demonette, or something equally silly.

Spending knowledge should upgrade the result, though.

The only exception is when fun-sized (but not too small) dragon gets in and tries to avoid getting killed.

I don't recall ATM, but I think you still get the same event if your dragon lives?


Knight and thief generation also have this, so just reloading when one starts taking an interest won't work. But reloading and spending money/lowering infamy does. Not sure if it's actually a discouragement to reloading.