by Rein » Sun Jul 05, 2015 1:39 pm
Ok, first things first. Let me just say I love the way you're developing chapter 3. Chapters 1&2 were an unbalanced mess of grind and repetitive fights (with fun sex scenes that kept the game together), while chapter 3 reminds me of the much beloved Despair Labyrinth.
So since I want to maintain this direction, I will be very vocal on some parts:
1. Stealth. - Generally speaking, stealth is a pretty bad idea in RPG tactical RPGs, since sooner or later you will end up in a boss fighting, and if you avoided enemies on the way there you will be underleveled – potentially to the point where you have to backtrack and farm. Therefore it is generally a good idea to make disposing enemies through stealth give you some gameplay reward – either by a Exp & Monetary reward, or by unlocking unique battle abilites for the characters – poison blade, backstab, assasinate, you know the drill.
Maybe you already thought of that, but I didn't see any signs of it in the new release, so I'm putting it out.
2. Character development: There is this small part when Nimrodel is asked what to do, and selecting Saving Everyone gives her bonus stats, while Saving yourself gives her shit.
Stats gain through dialogue are a great idea, and I'm all abroad for them – but why should there be only a single „right” choice? Why can't playing it safe also be a good decision? Sure, it's not what the past Nimrodel would do, but maybe the current one thinks differently (wouldn't be surprising to have a minor brain damage when you already have amnesia) . Wouldn't it be wise to have „Just us” give Defense +5, or Stealth +1? Maybe even Wisdom +1 &Threat -1.
Hell, you could even give Attack +5 to the pissed out Chimera. The point is, you should never have people feel tempted to decide on plot/character development choices through Mechanical bonuses. Stat-wise there should be no bad choices.
EDIT: Ok, now that I finished all the new content, the way you deal with the quard later is exactly what I had in mind. Keep it up!
3. Resting – ok, this one is specific to the new dungeon. Basically, if you use all the 3 beds, and then lose any fight – you're f*cked. You are low on HP, and there is no way to regenerate it. This won't be a problem later when you can backtrack to a shop, but right now you basically have to reload.
What I would suggest, is to have a ingame justification of why the beds are usable only once – Basically, Nimrodel and her team try to hide away from their captors, so they don't risk sleeping in a single place more than once. Now, they could use the same bed again – but they are risking getting raped. Could be a percentage based probability, could happen every time. Point is, you would never get stuck because of low health – instead repeated usage would skyrocket your dick addiction.
5. Ogre badge – I'll say, that's a great idea! But I would cut down the amount of repeated sex scenes required, or have the sex already start with a couple of scenes. Building up to the badge takes ages, like, 12 scenes, and I lost interest way before I got there. If I didn't read the forum, I wouldn't know it was there.
Now, there is something I'm concerned about – how will this Deja-vu thing work? Will it some sort of Hypnotism thing, making Nimrodel relive her previous rapes, rising Dict Addiction, or just a convenient way to reuse scenes from chapter 1&2? As a stat it just seems really weird.