[UE4] Feign - An Adult Fantasy RPG [In Development]

[Just Checking]

1 hour ago, slaen said:

I'm not sure how to really handle it at this point.  Your point of adding an initiative system is good but as you mention once a player recognizes that pattern they can begin to game the system.  But adding in some randomness to everything could also get frustrating if a couple enemies just all decided to attack at the same time.  Seems like that could get really spiky with times of none of the enemies acting and then too many of them acting.  Maybe write like an "overview" AI system?  something that has control of all the currently acting AI in combat and then decides who, how, and when one of them will act. 

All stuff to think about in the future for now though.  Plus it might be something that gets confusing or overcomplicated for people that just want to play a porn game.  That and even though people aren't super happy with Skyrim's combat that doesn't stop anyone from playing it.  Between both versions of Skyrim on steam there's still roughly 25k concurrent players. 

I'm thinking of the enemies now being controlled by a singular dungeonmaster who decides how they'll each act throughout an encounter simultaneously.  That sounds fun.

 

But yeah, the thing about skyrim is they don't really need that because most enemies aren't very fast attackers, the ones that are will only usually swing a few times and even then they won't hit very hard, except for maybe a couple exceptions on things like trolls, which gives players plenty of time to react.  I don't much like how much time melee builds have to spend chugging potions in skyrim, but it works for a simple game whose gameplay loop is find dungeon->explore dungeon->kill goons->steal loot->sell loot->find new dungeon.  I feel like exploring the large worlds was always more the point of elder scrolls games, because all of their combat lacked a good degree of finesse, it was just a matter of how fast each one was.  On top of that, a lot of games that don't have those engagement limites, including skyrim, tend to limit the number of enemies you'll conceivably encounter at once.  Skyrim, you'll rarely be in a room with more than three enemies without mods, Dragon Age has extended fights with lots of enemies but just funnels them in over time so you aren't usually dealing with more than 6 or so at once, things like that.  I recently started playing Pathfinder Kingmaker and as cool as that game is, the difficulty spikes in it are absolutely wild because your party can get wiped by literally any encounter that can attack more often than your guys can, whether it's a large mob of gormless peons or a single tough enemy that just swings twice as fast.  The point is limiting the number of opportunities to get punched helps players keep on top of things, whether your using an initiative system or just not putting so many guys in one room.  If big group fights that carefully decide when each one will attack to make the player feel like some kind of OP badass isn't an option, just keep the number of guys at any one time low and let them be tougher individually so the player feels like they're fighting worthy opponents.

[AttritionofContrition]

6 hours ago, slaen said:

Exactly along the lines of what I've been thinking about for combat. I was playing the Mad Max game from 2015 the other day and looking at how they handled the encounters.  Mostly because that games melee encounters are sort of a stripped down version of "modern" third person combat.  The whole press x to dodge, press z to counter, all that stuff.  Similar to the Batman games or Shadow of Mordor games.  In Mad Max they just had the enemies group around the player and sort of attack randomly.  The funny thing was that if the player doesn't actually attack anyone, at least in the early game, it breaks the illusion pretty badly because then most of the enemies are just there shuffling around the player and not doing anything. 

I'm not sure how to really handle it at this point.  Your point of adding an initiative system is good but as you mention once a player recognizes that pattern they can begin to game the system.  But adding in some randomness to everything could also get frustrating if a couple enemies just all decided to attack at the same time.  Seems like that could get really spiky with times of none of the enemies acting and then too many of them acting.  Maybe write like an "overview" AI system?  something that has control of all the currently acting AI in combat and then decides who, how, and when one of them will act. 

All stuff to think about in the future for now though.  Plus it might be something that gets confusing or overcomplicated for people that just want to play a porn game.  That and even though people aren't super happy with Skyrim's combat that doesn't stop anyone from playing it.  Between both versions of Skyrim on steam there's still roughly 25k concurrent players.

I've got a few concerns if you do go down the "fable style" of combat, the main being in how you'll get it to work in first person. The thing about fable, the newer batman games, assassins creed, mad max, etc is that the combat is built around controlling a character from a third person perspective. The combat in those games wouldn't work in first person because you have to have full vision of the area immediately around your character in order to parry/dodge/counter attacks. Some games have tried to circumvent this by having indicators appear on screen to show what direction an attack is winding up from but that may make the game a little more fast paced than what most people would be expecting. Combat is easily one of skyrims weakest aspects in my opinion but at its base it isn't that bad, they just could have done more with it. There's very little feedback or weight behind most standard attacks leading to you feeling like you're swinging a wet noodle. Most of the special attacks have no purpose, there's never a moment where you'll go "Oh! I should have used the backwards power attack in that last fight!". Parrying/shield bashing also doesn't reward timing as much as it could. Oblivion's combat was worse, it did get much better in skyrim but at the end of the day there weren't any fights you couldn't just spam left click and occasionally chug a health potion and get through just fine.

I still believe the "skyrim style" combat is the best choice and easier to balance/build around and even at its worst it can still be an enjoyable - if mindless - experience. I guess what it all boils down to is how much work do you want to put into the combat system? Complaints aside, I wouldn't mind combat like skyrim but with some refinements I think there's a lot that could be expanded on. I'm going to pretend to be a dev for a second and act like I know what I'm talking about, here's a few things I would change, spoilered, so anyone can opt out of my noise:

 

Spoiler

-No attacks that can't be dodged or blocked
Skyrim is bad for this and this is probably why health potions are instant. If you're in melee range and someone attacks, you can't back up/side step to avoid it. I get that its to prevent people from just cheesing every fight with a quick weapon and backpedaling but this is where a backwards dodge would have really come in handy. Some magic attacks can't be avoided either which causes a spike in difficulty every time you run into certain mages, especially so on the higher difficulties.

-Potions regenerate over time
This is the biggest challenge killer and takes tension out of going low on health. I think healing magic should be an exception because of mana cost and cast time. Alternatively make potions require your character to physically drink the potion in real time like dark souls or monster hunter.

-Parrying/countering timing should be rewarding and different
I would like to say punishing too but I think shieldless blocking should, at the very least, feel different and function differently than blocking with a shield. More of a risk vs reward situation where a shield is the safe route always blocking either all damage or a fixed %. Parrying on the other hand, when timed correctly, should either create an opening and/or block all damage.

-Special attacks that do more than just more damage
There's only so many things you can give to the melee playstyle before you run out of tricks. You could add skills that knock enemies down, a temporary disarm, or snare, things that can control the flow of a fight. Say you're fighting a big dude surrounded by smaller, weaker enemies. You could focus on the big guy while the little ones nip at your heels or disarm/snare the big guy long enough to safely disperse the easier monsters. Diminishing returns are important here, but I've gotta admit I don't really know how I would go about adding a skill like "Disarm" that wouldn't either make it useless or too strong given the circumstances.

 

[slaen]

 

Working on finishing this armor set.  There's still some cleanup and another detail pass that I want to do but I think I finally settled on a color scheme.  Need to make the different shapes for the body types next and then paint some weights and put it in game.  

 

Did some cleanup on the melee weapon systems and some of the minotaur's files.  

 

I was also messing around with a new shader for the slime girl trying to give her a bit more depth look on her "skin".  I was looking at the Rippley skin in Fortnite and I have no idea what type of black magic they did to make it look that good.  But I'm trying!  Once/If  I get something I'm happy with I'll post some updates of her too.  

 

On 2/25/2020 at 3:25 PM, Just Checking said:

I'm thinking of the enemies now being controlled by a singular dungeonmaster who decides how they'll each act throughout an encounter simultaneously.  That sounds fun.

 

But yeah, the thing about skyrim is they don't really need that because most enemies aren't very fast attackers, the ones that are will only usually swing a few times and even then they won't hit very hard, except for maybe a couple exceptions on things like trolls, which gives players plenty of time to react.  I don't much like how much time melee builds have to spend chugging potions in skyrim, but it works for a simple game whose gameplay loop is find dungeon->explore dungeon->kill goons->steal loot->sell loot->find new dungeon.  I feel like exploring the large worlds was always more the point of elder scrolls games, because all of their combat lacked a good degree of finesse, it was just a matter of how fast each one was.  On top of that, a lot of games that don't have those engagement limites, including skyrim, tend to limit the number of enemies you'll conceivably encounter at once.  Skyrim, you'll rarely be in a room with more than three enemies without mods, Dragon Age has extended fights with lots of enemies but just funnels them in over time so you aren't usually dealing with more than 6 or so at once, things like that.  I recently started playing Pathfinder Kingmaker and as cool as that game is, the difficulty spikes in it are absolutely wild because your party can get wiped by literally any encounter that can attack more often than your guys can, whether it's a large mob of gormless peons or a single tough enemy that just swings twice as fast.  The point is limiting the number of opportunities to get punched helps players keep on top of things, whether your using an initiative system or just not putting so many guys in one room.  If big group fights that carefully decide when each one will attack to make the player feel like some kind of OP badass isn't an option, just keep the number of guys at any one time low and let them be tougher individually so the player feels like they're fighting worthy opponents.

Haha that Kingmaker game, there was an encounter early on that I think they patched out.  It was one of the very first side quests and there were these insect swarms in a cave that could only be damaged by AOE attacks or something.  My party wiped there the first time through because I was expecting it to be more like a tutorial fight.  So yeah, I've experienced those difficulty spikes first hand. 

 

I think at some point it's going to be a matter of polishing up the first person animations, sounds, and visual effects and then seeing how that all feels as a package.  Then seeing what feels good to fight - if it's groups of enemies or single enemies at a time and also figuring out if it's better to have longer drawn out fights or more the 3 melee swings and then onto the next enemy.  But I keep coming back to this video

 

and I really need to do that sort of thing to the combat in Feign. 

 

On 2/25/2020 at 11:03 PM, AttritionofContrition said:

I've got a few concerns if you do go down the "fable style" of combat, the main being in how you'll get it to work in first person. The thing about fable, the newer batman games, assassins creed, mad max, etc is that the combat is built around controlling a character from a third person perspective. The combat in those games wouldn't work in first person because you have to have full vision of the area immediately around your character in order to parry/dodge/counter attacks. Some games have tried to circumvent this by having indicators appear on screen to show what direction an attack is winding up from but that may make the game a little more fast paced than what most people would be expecting. Combat is easily one of skyrims weakest aspects in my opinion but at its base it isn't that bad, they just could have done more with it. There's very little feedback or weight behind most standard attacks leading to you feeling like you're swinging a wet noodle. Most of the special attacks have no purpose, there's never a moment where you'll go "Oh! I should have used the backwards power attack in that last fight!". Parrying/shield bashing also doesn't reward timing as much as it could. Oblivion's combat was worse, it did get much better in skyrim but at the end of the day there weren't any fights you couldn't just spam left click and occasionally chug a health potion and get through just fine.

I still believe the "skyrim style" combat is the best choice and easier to balance/build around and even at its worst it can still be an enjoyable - if mindless - experience. I guess what it all boils down to is how much work do you want to put into the combat system? Complaints aside, I wouldn't mind combat like skyrim but with some refinements I think there's a lot that could be expanded on. I'm going to pretend to be a dev for a second and act like I know what I'm talking about, here's a few things I would change, spoilered, so anyone can opt out of my noise:

So very true how the newer games are built for that 3rd person camera.  There are ways of keeping the AI within a cone area in front of the player so they would be on screen when they were actually attacking.  But yeah, I completely agree that it's something to keep in mind.  That and potion spam.  The designers for Diablo 3 did a design talk about all the ways they tried to design around potion spam and making those systems feel fun and natural in game. 

 

I'm with you about making sure attacks can be dodged or blocked.  Or at the very least give each class a way of mitigating damage through gameplay skill.  The potion stuff I was also thinking about doing the Dark Souls thing where it takes a few seconds and an animation to use a healing potion.  That's going to mostly depend on how combat ends up panning out I think and keeping damage from being really spikey and overwhelming for the player. 

 

The parrying system I'm torn on.  I've played some games where as soon as you figure out how to parry then you just always time your parry correctly and always deal a ton of damage.  To the point where you'll deal more damage if you wait for the enemy to attack you first and then parry rather than trying to get your attacks in first.  There's also the overhead of animations and AI to handle.   It's a good idea and might be something that fits in really well with the combat system eventually but it seems like one of those higher level systems that I should test out after having a really solid combat foundation.

 

The special moves - yes.  I think a lot of these are going to fall into the lewd end of the combat systems.  The lust potions, once I finish all of the animations and then turn on the systems, will probably be a prime example of being able to "stun" your enemies and do some crowd control that way. 

 

 

These are all good.  I also just wanted to say thanks too.  Having other ideas thrown at me here on LL is awesome and keeps making me think through decisions or just flat out gives me new ideas I didn't consider beforehand.  So yeah, I appreciate the help!

 

 

[Just Checking]

On 3/4/2020 at 2:10 PM, slaen said:

Haha that Kingmaker game, there was an encounter early on that I think they patched out.  It was one of the very first side quests and there were these insect swarms in a cave that could only be damaged by AOE attacks or something.  My party wiped there the first time through because I was expecting it to be more like a tutorial fight.  So yeah, I've experienced those difficulty spikes first hand. 

In case you're curious, no they didn't patch that out.  The swarms could only be hurt with fire or acid, meaning you either swing at them with weak torches, burn all your grenades hoping to kill them, or spam the VERY weak fire and acid cantrips (because blowing a whole leveled spell on them just wasn't worth it) while they nip at your tank, slowly killing them and applying crippling stat debuffs with every attack.

 

On 3/4/2020 at 2:10 PM, slaen said:

The parrying system I'm torn on.  I've played some games where as soon as you figure out how to parry then you just always time your parry correctly and always deal a ton of damage.  To the point where you'll deal more damage if you wait for the enemy to attack you first and then parry rather than trying to get your attacks in first.  There's also the overhead of animations and AI to handle.   It's a good idea and might be something that fits in really well with the combat system eventually but it seems like one of those higher level systems that I should test out after having a really solid combat foundation.

If you want to find a way to put in a parry system that doesn't just feel like "spam parry to victory" I'm reminded of Assassin's Creed again, at least earlier games, I never played anything beyond 2.  But in that tougher guys required you to parry and riposte them several times before you could finish them off.  I imagine you could rig together something kind of similar, maybe a kind of poise system where enemies that take consecutive hits become vulnerable to a well timed riposte that will deal that big damage, kind of like how they did it in Sekiro, you deal damage on each swing but the big damage comes from breaking an enemy's guard and throwing them off balance to get in that big hit.  Failing the ability to code something like poise, you could alternatively just have some kind of toughness or stamina that gets depleted alongside health.  When it's below a certain threshold the enemy is vulnerable to powerful counter attacks or at least takes significantly more damage.  Or hell, even just breaking enemy armor so when you parry them you can actually get at those soft parts that don't like things like knives.  Hit an enemy several times and they have a chink in their armor or whatever defence.  Now you can gut them if you can just get that pesky arm to stop blocking your shots.

[Theklek47]

Damn it would be fascinating if could just join the progress..i really want's to learn making my own game..but i just too lack of basic knowledge due to my educational background

[AttritionofContrition]

11 hours ago, Theklek47 said:

Damn it would be fascinating if could just join the progress..i really want's to learn making my own game..but i just too lack of basic knowledge due to my educational background

It's never too late to start learning. There are plenty of people who are self taught that have found success, you only really need a degree if you're planning on working for a company. Otherwise if you're indie all you need is a lot of time and perseverance. There is no better time than now to start learning considering just how many engines - many of which are free - there are to choose from. Derelicthelmsman, the creator of Breeders of the Nephelym is raking in well over 14k a month and he's self taught, not everyone will find such success but it serves as a good example that anything is possible.

On 3/3/2020 at 8:10 PM, slaen said:

The parrying system I'm torn on.  I've played some games where as soon as you figure out how to parry then you just always time your parry correctly and always deal a ton of damage.  To the point where you'll deal more damage if you wait for the enemy to attack you first and then parry rather than trying to get your attacks in first.  There's also the overhead of animations and AI to handle.   It's a good idea and might be something that fits in really well with the combat system eventually but it seems like one of those higher level systems that I should test out after having a really solid combat foundation.

 

The special moves - yes.  I think a lot of these are going to fall into the lewd end of the combat systems.  The lust potions, once I finish all of the animations and then turn on the systems, will probably be a prime example of being able to "stun" your enemies and do some crowd control that way. 

 

 

These are all good.  I also just wanted to say thanks too.  Having other ideas thrown at me here on LL is awesome and keeps making me think through decisions or just flat out gives me new ideas I didn't consider beforehand.  So yeah, I appreciate the help!

Yeah parrying really only works when it's both difficult to pull off and punishing for failure which wouldn't fit the tone of the game. I really like how monster hunter/dark souls handles potions so I'm all in on that idea. As far as special moves are concerned I goofed up due to formatting my text and made it less clear. I was mostly referring to how melee playstyles tend to have less "toys" than other styles. Like in skyrim you don't have much outside of shield bashing and power attacks that don't seem to do much other than damage whereas with magic you can do all sorts of neat things, I really miss morrowinds absolute freedom to screw around and break the game in that regard.

Thank you for listening to us, it's fun to shoot the shit about this kind of stuff with someone who will listen. Most people find this kind of stuff boring so it's hard to find an outlet for discussion.

[slaen]

 

 

I was playing Dragon's Dogma and realized that there's nothing to smash in Feign.  Well, there will be now.  Some stuff will now be smashable in game and will possibly drop random loot items.  I'm still messing with the sounds, fx, and the overall look but the functionality is ready.  

Other than that, the minotaur has enough animations to be fully functional now.  I just finished up his loss scene.  His battle axe needs to be textured if I can find time before the next build.  The different body type shapes are also ready to go for that new armor set.  Mostly now it's a matter of getting everything in the game and running before the next build.

 

On 3/5/2020 at 10:33 PM, Just Checking said:

If you want to find a way to put in a parry system that doesn't just feel like "spam parry to victory" I'm reminded of Assassin's Creed again, at least earlier games, I never played anything beyond 2.  But in that tougher guys required you to parry and riposte them several times before you could finish them off.  I imagine you could rig together something kind of similar, maybe a kind of poise system where enemies that take consecutive hits become vulnerable to a well timed riposte that will deal that big damage, kind of like how they did it in Sekiro, you deal damage on each swing but the big damage comes from breaking an enemy's guard and throwing them off balance to get in that big hit.  Failing the ability to code something like poise, you could alternatively just have some kind of toughness or stamina that gets depleted alongside health.  When it's below a certain threshold the enemy is vulnerable to powerful counter attacks or at least takes significantly more damage.  Or hell, even just breaking enemy armor so when you parry them you can actually get at those soft parts that don't like things like knives.  Hit an enemy several times and they have a chink in their armor or whatever defence.  Now you can gut them if you can just get that pesky arm to stop blocking your shots.

That's crazy that Kingmaker left that encounter in the game still.  I wonder what their thinking behind that decision was. 

 

Yeah, I usually bounce off the Assassin's Creed games, the trailing missions just aren't my thing, but I did grab AC Syndicate not too long ago.  I'll see if I can test out the parry system the have there.  Maybe the stamina meter thing could work too.  I've also thought about making an armor breaking system too.  I don't know how clear that would be to the player though since doing the models and textures for multiple levels of armor damage would be a massive amount of work and the alternative I think would be to just unequip the armor from the character and play a breaking / ripping sound at the same time.  I think I saw a Skyrim mod that did that at one point.  Maybe that would be worth trying to dig up.

 

On 3/9/2020 at 1:13 AM, Theklek47 said:

Damn it would be fascinating if could just join the progress..i really want's to learn making my own game..but i just too lack of basic knowledge due to my educational background

Exactly what AttritionofContrition said.  There's never been a better time to get into game development.  UE4 is free to download and start messing around with they have a ton of free example content and projects.  If you want to get into the 3d aspect of things Blender is a great free alternative to Maya or Max.  There's so many resources online and just googling stuff will give you a ton of results.  It's a lot of fun too and great when you see your first character running around in game. 

 

On 3/9/2020 at 1:33 PM, AttritionofContrition said:

Yeah parrying really only works when it's both difficult to pull off and punishing for failure which wouldn't fit the tone of the game. I really like how monster hunter/dark souls handles potions so I'm all in on that idea. As far as special moves are concerned I goofed up due to formatting my text and made it less clear. I was mostly referring to how melee playstyles tend to have less "toys" than other styles. Like in skyrim you don't have much outside of shield bashing and power attacks that don't seem to do much other than damage whereas with magic you can do all sorts of neat things, I really miss morrowinds absolute freedom to screw around and break the game in that regard.

Thank you for listening to us, it's fun to shoot the shit about this kind of stuff with someone who will listen. Most people find this kind of stuff boring so it's hard to find an outlet for discussion.

Oh, I see.  So give melee more depth rather than just spamming left click the entire time.  Now that I think about it, the fighter path seems the the default class for most games and also the "easiest" or simplest from a mechanic standpoint.  Drop all your points into health and stamina and buy the latest and greatest gear that you can afford then just jump into encounters and left click everything to death.  Which I mean does have some appeal to it if the combat feels good.  But I do agree with you that having more toys can be more fun and I miss Morrowind too.  That sandbox feeling and having the freedom to experiment and break things was great. 

 

Hah, no problem.  It's funny. The last studio I was at had this really hostile "us vs them" sort of mentality when dealing with "the community".  It was really strange and sort of dehumanizing the way that company interacted with people.  I mean, for me, it really comes down to I like video games and I like talking about video games and if other people want to talk about video games with me then that's awesome.  None of the watching engagement metrics or how to best drive user retention and ROI.  In my experience being at a games company the decisions are now mostly driven by those types of arguments.  Buzz words get thrown around and people that don't actually play games are the ones making decisions based upon random charts and graphs.  It sucks a lot of the fun out of the process.  So, yeah it's a breath of fresh air just talking about games with actual people. 

 

[Just Checking]

36 minutes ago, slaen said:

Yeah, I usually bounce off the Assassin's Creed games, the trailing missions just aren't my thing, but I did grab AC Syndicate not too long ago.  I'll see if I can test out the parry system the have there.  Maybe the stamina meter thing could work too.  I've also thought about making an armor breaking system too.  I don't know how clear that would be to the player though since doing the models and textures for multiple levels of armor damage would be a massive amount of work and the alternative I think would be to just unequip the armor from the character and play a breaking / ripping sound at the same time.  I think I saw a Skyrim mod that did that at one point.  Maybe that would be worth trying to dig up.

Don't know how you want to work a lot of the UI down the road, but one thing to consider is visual status effect indicators for things like stuns, magic effects or armor damage.  Elder Scrolls games have always used that, but if making visually distinctive enough particles and overlays to tell people when an enemy is continually burning or suffering a slow or something, maybe just a small icon over an enemy could serve the same function.  In fact, it might even work a little better with the stylized aesthetic you've got going so far.  It'd also be pretty easy from there to drip feed players useful information, like how long an enemy will remain under an effect for with a fading icon or color draining from it as time runs out, and it'd also give players an easy indicator of how abilities or effects interact, whether an ability refreshes an effect or if they stack with a small "x2" or whatever next to it.  That kind of stuff tends to be more common in JRPGs, but they're useful indicators.  Maybe not exactly immersive, but not overly intrusive either and they're certainly useful.

 

Of course if you want a less cluttered, more minimal UI then yeah I suppose sound effect indicators could be better, or maybe just a brief spark or particle that flashes for a second off an affected enemy, then another "recovery" particle or sound effect that indicates they've cleansed that status.

 

46 minutes ago, slaen said:

Oh, I see.  So give melee more depth rather than just spamming left click the entire time.  Now that I think about it, the fighter path seems the the default class for most games and also the "easiest" or simplest from a mechanic standpoint.  Drop all your points into health and stamina and buy the latest and greatest gear that you can afford then just jump into encounters and left click everything to death.  Which I mean does have some appeal to it if the combat feels good.  But I do agree with you that having more toys can be more fun and I miss Morrowind too.  That sandbox feeling and having the freedom to experiment and break things was great. 

This part will probably be the hardest.  Making melee combat interesting seems to be one of the hardest parts of making games like this.  The closest you usually get is that it feels good to use.  You can give melee combat different advantages on different weapons, or ways to augment your attacks with added affects, but a lot of the reason magic or stealth or something is seen as more interesting is because there's a different application of skill involved.  Magic lets you combo spell effects together and often puts an emphasis on controlling the battle from safety because you're fragile, while stealth and archery put you in a position of remaining unseen and out of reach, forcing you to re-position if you can't take down an enemy fast enough.  Melee, though, puts characters in a different kind of role.  Needing to be right in the fight means they also usually need to be able to take a hit, and that's easy to exploit into a mindless super-tank.  It's also often less satisfying to kill a guy in one hit with a sword than it is with a spell or arrow, since it doesn't really feel like you had to set it up so much.  This is probably why games like Dark Souls or Mordhau are seen as being interesting melee games, because while the combat's not easy to get into, it minimizes that feeling of just wading in and clicking to victory because you have to be smart about it or you just straight up die.  DMC games are popular hack and slash titles, but honestly the combat itself isn't so interesting to me as the flashiness of it and the fact that the game tells you to do lots of different combos or you don't get as many numbers at the end of a level.  Without the rating system, a lot of its appeal kind of falls off, and again that makes the game quite heavily skill driven if you want to actually get those decent scores.  Something tells me you're not going for high skill requirement combat that takes a lot to learn, so if you want your melee interesting you'll probably have a tricky time of it.

 

I also support the idea of trying to emulate what made Morrowind so enjoyable, but the problem with trying to plan for a system that can be creatively exploited is that it'll almost definitely cause serious balance issues in your game.  Case in point, every TES3, 4 and 5 all suffered from the same broken exploit of alchemy, enchanting and scaling abuse.  It worked exactly the same in each game and could turn a level 1 character into an unstoppable killing machine in only about fifteen minutes.  Unless you can find a way to lock those kinds of exploitable powers behind some kind of progression, it could easily end up feel cheaping and people will lose interest having nothing to work toward.  If you want to go down the augmented melee route with enchantments or something similar to how Morrowind did it, you might be able to tie that into other aspects of the gameplay.  Maybe you find runes that can be bound into weapons like in Diablo or Fable as loot or quest rewards, or maybe you learn a power that can be imbued in your gear by interacting with enemies in different ways (thinly veiled tie in to the sex stuff, but also maybe by studying remains or resource drops from fallen foes).  Here's one people might not remember.  The old Xbox 360 game Two Worlds.  This game had atrocious combat and was janky as all hell, but you know what it did have?  Enchanting crystals that could be made from ingredients or found as loot.  Once you put an effect on a weapon, it was locked.  If you put 15% spirit damage on your cleaver, you couldn't change that later.  But you COULD add more spirit damage to it with another crystal.  You could stack the same enchantment on gear infinitely, to the point I spent most of the game using admittedly mediocre weapons but they had like a 2500% damage buff from their enchantments.  That's exploitable, and makes you work for it a little.  With a little adapting, maybe the ability to put more than one effect on a piece of gear, or adding more effects creating new effects via combination or something, you could end up with a way to add a degree of uniqueness to melee or build choices that rewards players for being creative and exploring, as well as let minmaxers and game breakers work their magic.

[slaen]

 

Just a quick note: there's a lot of crazy stuff happening in the world right now and I don't want to diminish that but I also see games as a way of escaping and taking your mind off of things and I want to avoid giving people constant reminders of the real world.  So all I'll say is that I hope everyone is staying safe out there.  Alright, now back to regularly scheduled content.

 

I was watching a GDC talk about early access and how to handle constant updates.  The developers found that it was better and more exciting for the players to have more of a focused content update, almost like a mini expansion, rather than just a list of updated features each month.  I felt like that was a good idea and way of framing everything and so I figured why not give that a try?  The only warning is that I think I can get all of this stuff done and ready in roughly a month's time but I might slip the date a little bit one way or the other because I want to have the content done before I put out the build.  

 

So this month the focus of the build will be adding in a Goblin alchemist just outside of town.  She'll have a small shop where she sells basic potions for the player to buy.  The plan is also to allow the player to perform quests to unlock higher tier or more specific potions from her.  

 

On 3/10/2020 at 8:08 PM, Just Checking said:

Of course if you want a less cluttered, more minimal UI then yeah I suppose sound effect indicators could be better, or maybe just a brief spark or particle that flashes for a second off an affected enemy, then another "recovery" particle or sound effect that indicates they've cleansed that status.

I've always been a fan of minimal ui elements.  Maybe not to the point of Deadspace but the fewer things on screen the better I think.  Personally I dont like stuff like Borderlands where damage numbers come out of enemies on each hit but then again I'm ok with how in Fable 2 each hit sprays out those xp orbs.  Maybe it's more that there's a line where this ui element fits inside of the game world and doesn't remind me that I'm playing a video game.  Also with the clothes ripping system - what happens after combat if the player wins?  or if they heal themselves during combat?  does their clothing reappear automatically?  or do they need to open their inventory and re-equip it?   I just think of the games that have a disarm mechanic for player weapons and that then after combat it's time to look on the ground to find the weapon then open my inventory and equip it again.  Just not a fun addition post combat. 

 

I'm still wrestling with how to handle weapons, stats, enchantments and all that stuff.  Part of me wants to just make different weapons and tiers of weapons primarily cosmetic.  If the player picks up a two handed sword it would always do 10 points of damage no matter what tier it was and then the only difference between an iron sword and a steel sword would be the in game visuals and how much it would sell for to the merchants.  This was mostly after playing through Oblivion recently and looking at their leveled content.  Because of the leveling the player is always dealing relatively the same amount of damage to the enemies even though they're using glass weapons and armor instead of leather now. 

 

Dark Souls also comes up all the time when discussing melee systems in games.  But for me personally the combat encounters themselves are what makes that game.  Like the moment to moment of attacking, dodging, healing really isn't super exciting all on its own especially when fighting one of the filler npc characters.  Where the game shines is when encountering a new boss and suddenly there's a puzzle the player has to figure out.  They have their set of base mechanics but now those need to be applied in a creative way to defeat the current enemy.  It's almost like Portal in some ways, the reapplication of simple mechanics in novel ways.  The thing with Dark Souls though is that creating those encounters needs a ton of handcrafting and different elements to fit together correctly.  The layout of the surrounding level and the AI of the boss have to play well together otherwise the encounter simply would not work.  Which when making a giant open world game like Skyrim it becomes pretty much impossible to handcraft the encounters to that level of quality and still release a game.  

 

Hmm, I had a point when I started that paragraph, at least I thought I did.  Oh well, too much coffee.  But I'll try to dig up my copy of Two Worlds and check out the enchanting system you're talking about.  It's been years since I've played that game. 

 

[Seras666]

Really fascinated watching this whole project come together. I'm downloading 1.5 to finally give it a try, and I understand you've probably got so much more on your plate - but has there been any progress in terms of magic? Playing a pyromancy-obsessed sorceress is probably the only thing I can think to layer on this that would peak my interest that much more. I did read some pages back that you've got a charge system in place for spells, so I was just curious!

Great work overall, hoping to be able to support the project soon. ?

[Just Checking]

Hey man just dropping in this time to say I like your goblin.  Don't know what made you go for those glasses, but they work.  Safe to use in a lab?  No.  Stylish?  Yes.

[AttritionofContrition]

14 hours ago, slaen said:

I was watching a GDC talk about early access and how to handle constant updates.  The developers found that it was better and more exciting for the players to have more of a focused content update, almost like a mini expansion, rather than just a list of updated features each month.  I felt like that was a good idea and way of framing everything and so I figured why not give that a try?  The only warning is that I think I can get all of this stuff done and ready in roughly a month's time but I might slip the date a little bit one way or the other because I want to have the content done before I put out the build.  

 

So this month the focus of the build will be adding in a Goblin alchemist just outside of town.  She'll have a small shop where she sells basic potions for the player to buy.  The plan is also to allow the player to perform quests to unlock higher tier or more specific potions from her.

Focused updates are better, in my opinion but like you say that comes with the caveat of being unable to release on consistent dates. If that's fine with you and doesn't burn you out quicker it sounds good to me.

14 hours ago, slaen said:

Also with the clothes ripping system - what happens after combat if the player wins?  or if they heal themselves during combat?  does their clothing reappear automatically?  or do they need to open their inventory and re-equip it?   I just think of the games that have a disarm mechanic for player weapons and that then after combat it's time to look on the ground to find the weapon then open my inventory and equip it again.  Just not a fun addition post combat.

In most of the clothing destruction games I've played there was typically an item that the player could use to repair clothes. Vindictus comes to mind, it's probably the only non-adult game I've ever played with clothing destruction. Plenty of Japanese H-games have clothing destruction with that usually being a prerequisite to accessing the sexual content. Thing is most of the time it's an Rpg Maker game which means drawn 2D images, something much easier to manage as you can easily modify 2D images and implement them compared to 3D meshes. Such a system would be nice but only if you could make damaged clothing states, that would be more trouble than would be worth, I think. Additionally I wouldn't want every attack to damage clothes because not only would that be a second "health bar" to manage but you would have to balance it in such a way that you wouldn't spend all of your time running around naked or healing/repairing just to get your clothes back.

14 hours ago, slaen said:

I'm still wrestling with how to handle weapons, stats, enchantments and all that stuff.  Part of me wants to just make different weapons and tiers of weapons primarily cosmetic.  If the player picks up a two handed sword it would always do 10 points of damage no matter what tier it was and then the only difference between an iron sword and a steel sword would be the in game visuals and how much it would sell for to the merchants.  This was mostly after playing through Oblivion recently and looking at their leveled content.  Because of the leveling the player is always dealing relatively the same amount of damage to the enemies even though they're using glass weapons and armor instead of leather now.

That would be easier, much less of a balancing headache too when the time came. Problem I have with Oblivions leveled system is that it removes any sense of progression, every dungeon you enter, every enemy you fight will always be an even challenge which takes out any sense of danger. To make matters worse you can also, in some cases, get weaker by leveling if you don't level the appropriate combat skills. It's interesting how Kingdoms of Amalur handled leveled content. In that game every zone you entered had a level range but it scaled to your level depending on what your level was when you entered that zone. Say the 2nd zone you can enter has a level range of 5-10, if you enter at 5 that zone will always be level 5 so if you explore the world early on you'll find that you outlevel most content pretty quickly. It was bad and the only way to fix it was to mod it with cheat engine. Back to your game though, I sympathize where you're coming from, balancing can be an absolute nightmare especially as a lone developer, and while you aren't bound to investors demands of making a game as easy and accessible as possible you have many patrons playing your game for different reasons and they all have different expectations. Looking over comments posted on your patreon I can already see a difference of opinion. Regardless of what you decide on I would love to see a system where you can equip armor cosmetically, like armor slots that change the appearance of the armor you're wearing but retain the benefits of the armor you actually have on, like starbound/terraria/most mmo's these days. I don't know how difficult that would be to make happen but I think everyone would be pleased with it.


I recall last year you mentioned wanting to allow players to have the option of playing a more "peaceful role", will there be any skills associated with that? Kind of like a "fourth" skillset in addition to melee/ranged/magic? Think "Charisma", skills could include better trade prices, easier time persuading npcs, easier time getting in their pants, stuff like that. Just a thought.

[-Ayleth-]

Very impressive. Honestly didn´t expect this from only a proof of concept. I like it !

[slaen]

 

I've been mostly working on the exterior to the Goblin alchemist's hut this week.  It's in game and just needs a polish pass to finish up the textures and do a few more tweaks to the model.  Also had some time to work on the props for the interior and start on the low poly for the alchemist's outfit.  

 

The overall lore surrounding her and the goblin faction is also in the works.  So far the general idea for her story revolves around collecting specimens from the different characters in the world in order to research bigger and better potions while possibly using the player as a test subject. This would tie into the goblin faction's possible endgame of attempting to conquer the world.  

 

On 3/24/2020 at 6:16 PM, Seras666 said:

Really fascinated watching this whole project come together. I'm downloading 1.5 to finally give it a try, and I understand you've probably got so much more on your plate - but has there been any progress in terms of magic? Playing a pyromancy-obsessed sorceress is probably the only thing I can think to layer on this that would peak my interest that much more. I did read some pages back that you've got a charge system in place for spells, so I was just curious!

Great work overall, hoping to be able to support the project soon. ?

Thanks!  Let me know what your thoughts are after trying out the demo. 

As for the magic system I haven't had a chance to work on it just yet.  There's 2 hurdles in the way, well 3 if you include time, but I need more fx practice before I can make the spells actually look good.  The 2nd hurdle is mostly design and implementation stuff.  The charge system, mana system, and ranged combat stuff is functional in the game but there needs to be some time dedicated to figuring out how the individual spells will work.  The easy way out would be to copy Skyrim's destruction magic system and make everything a projectile that does slightly different damage based on the elemental type.  I'm hoping to make magic a bit more in depth and powerful feeling than that.  But I hear you - adding a pyromancy skill tree would be awesome.  In most RPG's I play a spell caster so I really want to get started on the magic system but I also know that it's going to take a good chunk of development time.  Hopefully sometime this year I can make the time. 

 

On 3/25/2020 at 5:44 AM, Just Checking said:

Hey man just dropping in this time to say I like your goblin.  Don't know what made you go for those glasses, but they work.  Safe to use in a lab?  No.  Stylish?  Yes.

Hah, at first she had the standard tall pointy hat but I thought that was too wizardy looking but without some accessory she just sort of felt a bit too plain.  I think the glasses give her that bit of extra character.  I'll have to save the wizard hat for a proper goblin spellcaster. 

 

On 3/25/2020 at 7:50 AM, AttritionofContrition said:

That would be easier, much less of a balancing headache too when the time came. Problem I have with Oblivions leveled system is that it removes any sense of progression, every dungeon you enter, every enemy you fight will always be an even challenge which takes out any sense of danger. To make matters worse you can also, in some cases, get weaker by leveling if you don't level the appropriate combat skills. It's interesting how Kingdoms of Amalur handled leveled content. In that game every zone you entered had a level range but it scaled to your level depending on what your level was when you entered that zone. Say the 2nd zone you can enter has a level range of 5-10, if you enter at 5 that zone will always be level 5 so if you explore the world early on you'll find that you outlevel most content pretty quickly. It was bad and the only way to fix it was to mod it with cheat engine. Back to your game though, I sympathize where you're coming from, balancing can be an absolute nightmare especially as a lone developer, and while you aren't bound to investors demands of making a game as easy and accessible as possible you have many patrons playing your game for different reasons and they all have different expectations. Looking over comments posted on your patreon I can already see a difference of opinion. Regardless of what you decide on I would love to see a system where you can equip armor cosmetically, like armor slots that change the appearance of the armor you're wearing but retain the benefits of the armor you actually have on, like starbound/terraria/most mmo's these days. I don't know how difficult that would be to make happen but I think everyone would be pleased with it.


I recall last year you mentioned wanting to allow players to have the option of playing a more "peaceful role", will there be any skills associated with that? Kind of like a "fourth" skillset in addition to melee/ranged/magic? Think "Charisma", skills could include better trade prices, easier time persuading npcs, easier time getting in their pants, stuff like that. Just a thought.

 

Yeah, I want to avoid dealing with multiple "health" bars as much as possible.  When designing stuff it's so easy just to add a bar to something and call it a new system when it's really just another health pool.  And the other thing with 2d games with clothing break systems they don't have to worry about re-equipping the clothing after combat since it's turn based and menu based they don't need to worry about that continuity in the character visuals.  Just roll the victory screen then reset the character's visuals for the next fight.  I still think it could be an interesting mechanic but I think to make it work in Feign I'll have to simplify it significantly if I end up using it.

 

Those cosmetic armor systems from Terraria and Starbound are actually one of the things I was thinking of and trying to design around with the armor and weapon systems.  Like as a player I want to look cool in the game and I don't like when I'm forced to change out the armor that I like the visuals of just because it doesn't have good enough stats.  But then if the game has those cosmetic slots and armor slots what's the point of having armor as an item in the game?  The stats from armor could be tied to anything or could be like magic orbs that get equipped separately from the cosmetic armor.  People want to decide for themselves how they look and not how the designers think they should look.

 

I completely agree with you about leveled content.  Flattening out any sense of danger or progression makes the game super accessible to anyone but sacrifices the character and nuance.  I dunno, I haven't come up with a decent answer yet but a lot of these systems, leveled content, cosmetic armor slots, it seems like they've designed bandaids for symptoms without addressing the actual root of the issues. 

 

The charisma systems should be fun.  They might end up just being skill checks based on stats because I haven't found a decent example of how to gamify those systems. I don't think anyone want to bring back that persuasion wheel thing from Oblivion.  But at the same time I think Arcanum did a decent job with handling this stuff mostly through clever dialogue trees.  In Arcanum having a high enough stat would unlock a new dialogue tree where the player had to choose the correct path through that dialogue tree or else they would fail the persuasion.  It wasn't just a single button that said persuasion check.  Instead they wanted the player to read through the dialogue choices and pay attention to the conversation.  I'm hoping to steal some of those ideas and use that when I get to the charisma systems. 

As for specific skills though?  Probably?  Seems like there could be things like charm spells, or pheromone potions, telepathy type stuff.  The more I think of it don't most games just sort of have like a personality or charisma stat?  No specific skills that go along with it?  I'm probably missing a ton of examples right now.  But yeah, if you've got any ideas or examples that work let me know. 

 

On 3/25/2020 at 6:14 PM, AkiKay said:

Very impressive. Honestly didn´t expect this from only a proof of concept. I like it !

Cool, thanks!  It's slowly getting to the point of transitioning over to an alpha now.  Finally at the point where I can start to work on story elements and lore rather than just the gameplay mechanics. 

 

 

[AttritionofContrition]

4 hours ago, slaen said:

I completely agree with you about leveled content.  Flattening out any sense of danger or progression makes the game super accessible to anyone but sacrifices the character and nuance.  I dunno, I haven't come up with a decent answer yet but a lot of these systems, leveled content, cosmetic armor slots, it seems like they've designed bandaids for symptoms without addressing the actual root of the issues. 

 

The charisma systems should be fun.  They might end up just being skill checks based on stats because I haven't found a decent example of how to gamify those systems. I don't think anyone want to bring back that persuasion wheel thing from Oblivion.  But at the same time I think Arcanum did a decent job with handling this stuff mostly through clever dialogue trees.  In Arcanum having a high enough stat would unlock a new dialogue tree where the player had to choose the correct path through that dialogue tree or else they would fail the persuasion.  It wasn't just a single button that said persuasion check.  Instead they wanted the player to read through the dialogue choices and pay attention to the conversation.  I'm hoping to steal some of those ideas and use that when I get to the charisma systems. 

As for specific skills though?  Probably?  Seems like there could be things like charm spells, or pheromone potions, telepathy type stuff.  The more I think of it don't most games just sort of have like a personality or charisma stat?  No specific skills that go along with it?  I'm probably missing a ton of examples right now.  But yeah, if you've got any ideas or examples that work let me know.

I've always thought of cosmetic options as a win-win, the player can choose how they appear and the designs don't end up potentially going to waste being discarded a few minutes/hours in. I'm not too fond of how world of warcraft is currently but they nailed it with the cosmetic system, so many armors and weapons that you would never see have all of a sudden become relevant again and collecting old gear has become a game of its own. If the player wants they can still not use it and keep with the developers/designers intended progression, which I usually do on a first playthrough or until I beat the game and have the option to continue playing.

Something very few RPG's do and what I wish more of them would do is have a static leveled world that changes as you complete the main quest. Events bring about change, defeat a boss and all of a sudden his minions become enraged or perhaps he was holding back stronger forces that suddenly become unleashed on the world. Kingdom hearts 2 is the most recent game that comes to mind that I think did it fairly well. Mid game and end game the enemies become shuffled, not only increasing in level and numbers but in types as well in areas you once thought safe. Very few games make the world feel dynamic and alive, even with such a linear system as KH2's it still left an impression on me and made me really feel like things were ramping up. That's my answer to a leveled system but I can't say that there is really something that could be considered a "decent answer" to those questions without dipping into preference but I'm no game designer so take that as you will.

I've never played Arcanum but I've played other games with a similar speech system and loved them, they're much more interesting than just making sure you have the required points but would such a system fit the theme? What I mean to say is if such a system were in place would it be just for non-sexual content? I've played other adult games where I was all hot and bothered but suddenly I came across a section where I had to calm down, put my dick away and figure out a puzzle or memory check and every time it was kind of distracting to what I was originally trying to do. I love games that require memory and problem solving and I love porn games but I turn into a cave man when I'm playing the latter and can't remember a damn thing. Well, unless there's a lull in the "action" but if you keep creating short stacks and big hips on everything I doubt that's going to happen for me. Probably a me problem but I'm just throwing it out there.

Bit unfortunate wording on my part again about charisma "skills". I meant more along the lines of passives instead of active skills, considering the theme of the game I think everyone should have access to lust causing states, be it a rogues aphrodisiac poison/traps or a mages lust spell, or a warriors....ah....showing off their muscles? Would be cool to have some special active skills for the Charisma line but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't fit better or be just as good with the other classes.

[slaen]

 

She's almost there.  There's still a polish pass to do on the model and textures.  Then it's onto rigging and putting her in game.  

 

Coming up this next week I'll be working on the interior of her hut, getting all of the basic potions put together, and putting together the initial ingredient gathering for healing, stamina, and mana potions.  

 

On 4/1/2020 at 12:25 AM, AttritionofContrition said:

Something very few RPG's do and what I wish more of them would do is have a static leveled world that changes as you complete the main quest. Events bring about change, defeat a boss and all of a sudden his minions become enraged or perhaps he was holding back stronger forces that suddenly become unleashed on the world. Kingdom hearts 2 is the most recent game that comes to mind that I think did it fairly well. Mid game and end game the enemies become shuffled, not only increasing in level and numbers but in types as well in areas you once thought safe. Very few games make the world feel dynamic and alive, even with such a linear system as KH2's it still left an impression on me and made me really feel like things were ramping up. That's my answer to a leveled system but I can't say that there is really something that could be considered a "decent answer" to those questions without dipping into preference but I'm no game designer so take that as you will.

I've never played Arcanum but I've played other games with a similar speech system and loved them, they're much more interesting than just making sure you have the required points but would such a system fit the theme? What I mean to say is if such a system were in place would it be just for non-sexual content? I've played other adult games where I was all hot and bothered but suddenly I came across a section where I had to calm down, put my dick away and figure out a puzzle or memory check and every time it was kind of distracting to what I was originally trying to do. I love games that require memory and problem solving and I love porn games but I turn into a cave man when I'm playing the latter and can't remember a damn thing. Well, unless there's a lull in the "action" but if you keep creating short stacks and big hips on everything I doubt that's going to happen for me. Probably a me problem but I'm just throwing it out there.

Bit unfortunate wording on my part again about charisma "skills". I meant more along the lines of passives instead of active skills, considering the theme of the game I think everyone should have access to lust causing states, be it a rogues aphrodisiac poison/traps or a mages lust spell, or a warriors....ah....showing off their muscles? Would be cool to have some special active skills for the Charisma line but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't fit better or be just as good with the other classes.

A static leveled world would be really cool to do.  I think a lot of why Bethesda stays away from them is because you would need a very broad view of the entire project all at once and it seems like they have a bunch of separate teams working on a bunch of separate pieces of content at once.  Which for building a huge open world game is probably the most efficient way of doing things.  But I really like that idea of gating higher level content a bit like you mentioned.  So the player is sort of responsible for when they progress the game world and can stay at whatever point in that progression that they want to. 

 

Arcanum is great and worth picking up if you liked the old Fallouts and can find it on sale.  It's a very flawed game but it also has some brilliant moments and you can really get a sense of the huge project they wanted to build compared to the project that they actually released.  But I hear you about a conflict of content and sex systems with dialogue trees.  I don't really know to be honest.  Most other adult games seem to stay on pretty linear trails once the sex content comes in so I don't know if doing dialogue trees in the middle of that will break the immersion? I wonder if there's examples of it working in other games or mods someplace.

 

Hmm, in some ways there could be like another class possibility of the "seducer" or something?  Like the entire class could be based around skills that just cause lust damage in their opponents.  Then if anyone playing a warrior, rogue, mage could just add some of those skills into their build if they wanted to or avoid them if they chose to do that as well.  I have no idea how you would go about designing that though and it would depend on the stats / skill / leveling system that actually goes into the game. 

 

 

[AttritionofContrition]

13 hours ago, slaen said:

A static leveled world would be really cool to do.  I think a lot of why Bethesda stays away from them is because you would need a very broad view of the entire project all at once and it seems like they have a bunch of separate teams working on a bunch of separate pieces of content at once.  Which for building a huge open world game is probably the most efficient way of doing things.  But I really like that idea of gating higher level content a bit like you mentioned.  So the player is sort of responsible for when they progress the game world and can stay at whatever point in that progression that they want to.

I never considered that but it makes sense, I always assumed it was more of a balance thing or maybe they just scaled the world as a whole to appeal to the casual market and put the difficulty options in as a sort of "band aid" fix for the more hardcore folks. I can see why most developers stick to scaling, compared to static levels I'd imagine it's less time consuming to balance and the payoff is probably not worth it.

13 hours ago, slaen said:

Arcanum is great and worth picking up if you liked the old Fallouts and can find it on sale.  It's a very flawed game but it also has some brilliant moments and you can really get a sense of the huge project they wanted to build compared to the project that they actually released.  But I hear you about a conflict of content and sex systems with dialogue trees.  I don't really know to be honest.  Most other adult games seem to stay on pretty linear trails once the sex content comes in so I don't know if doing dialogue trees in the middle of that will break the immersion? I wonder if there's examples of it working in other games or mods someplace.

I'll have to check it out, after looking it up I now remember years ago I was planning on getting it but never did. Can't say I've ever played an adult game with a dialogue tree, actually, most of my troubles came from puzzles and those were mostly in Japanese games. I figure as long as you get the pacing for it right it could be done well but I may be misunderstanding the question out of ignorance.

13 hours ago, slaen said:

Hmm, in some ways there could be like another class possibility of the "seducer" or something?  Like the entire class could be based around skills that just cause lust damage in their opponents.  Then if anyone playing a warrior, rogue, mage could just add some of those skills into their build if they wanted to or avoid them if they chose to do that as well.  I have no idea how you would go about designing that though and it would depend on the stats / skill / leveling system that actually goes into the game.

That sounds even better, I do hope cross classing comes in some shape or form because I love playing as stealthy types with a little bit of magic sprinkled in.

Also I gotta say

Spoiler

 

[slaen]

 

 

1.7 is open now to all patrons and the 1.6 build is now open to the public.  I'm hoping to have 1.8 ready for next week.  Links for downloads over on the patreon.

 

Most of the stuff for the goblin alchemist's hut interior is ready to go.  I do need to do some material tweaks so that everything isn't the exact same shade of woodgrain.  Then there's also all of the potion bottles to do and a couple carpets to really tie the room together.  And of course a taller stool so that she can actually reach the top of the counter.  

 

The local witch has disappeared and this goblin alchemist has taken up residence in her shop (which is why none of the furniture is goblin scale).  The alchemist is only just getting set up and could use some help with fetching a few basic ingredients.  Once that's out of the way she has some interesting ideas and experiments that she's wants to pursue for other potions but she's going to need a test subject.  Of course any volunteers will be amply rewarded.  

 

Last things left to finish for this patch are getting her dialogue into the game, the initial game loop and fetch quest to help her find some potion ingredients.  Then if I have the time I'll see about polishing the original goblin animations and maybe even doing some that are specific just to the alchemist.  I'm hoping I can have all that ready to go for the 1.8 build next week - but nothing is set in stone just yet.  I want to have her stuff mostly whole before I send her out the door. 

 

 

On 4/8/2020 at 8:45 AM, AttritionofContrition said:

That sounds even better, I do hope cross classing comes in some shape or form because I love playing as stealthy types with a little bit of magic sprinkled in.

Also I gotta say

I think with stats / leveling / class stuff I'm leaning towards an open ended system sort of like earlier Elder Scrolls games.  I've also been checking out the new Mount and Blade game and they've done sort of a modified skill system where the player can add focus points into skills in order to level them up faster.  Looking at the current combat system in Feign adding in a handful of checks whenever the player makes a successful hit on a target seems relatively easy.  The problems will probably start when there are other skills that aren't quite so straight forward as to when they have been used successfully.  I'll have to sit down and rough out an entire skill list first and then start to see how feasible a use based system would be.   

 

Hah, you can't go wrong with short skirts. 

 

 

 

[Just Checking]

Oh no, the gobs have arrived.

 

It looks pretty good though.  And if you're looking to M&B for some inspiration, that's probably not bad.  Their system seems simple but elegant.  I wouldn't mind more options when getting perks, or at least not taking quite so long to get there, but I guess the way they have it set up if you just invest hard into one attribute you'll be leveling its skills at light speed.  The difficulty comes from quality builds rather than specialized ones, I suppose.

[slaen]

 

Still chipping away on the goblin alchemist's content and fixed up some bugs this week.  More info in the post over on Patreon.

 

On 4/15/2020 at 2:02 AM, Just Checking said:

Oh no, the gobs have arrived.

 

It looks pretty good though.  And if you're looking to M&B for some inspiration, that's probably not bad.  Their system seems simple but elegant.  I wouldn't mind more options when getting perks, or at least not taking quite so long to get there, but I guess the way they have it set up if you just invest hard into one attribute you'll be leveling its skills at light speed.  The difficulty comes from quality builds rather than specialized ones, I suppose.

That's what I'm starting to find with Bannerlord.  That it's relatively straightforward to understand, it feels like the player's choices have consequence while leveling, but at the same time the player is completely crippled by having a low level character.  Like there's still a considerable amount of player skill involved in melee combat regardless of their stats.  The stats just seem to add in more margin for error. 

 

The only downside like you've mentioned is in crafting quality builds and giving enough interesting choices to the player.  There's clearly very optimal strategies in how to build a character for Mount and Blade which makes sense.  But for Feign where I want to give the player multiple solutions to problems and create more of a fantasy life simulator than a combat game it will probably be more complicated. 

 

I'm still sketching out the skillset for the game and the entire system is really up in the air.  There's positives and negatives to pretty much any leveling system right?  The original Fallout games had a decent stat system but it could be overwhelming to new players and it was easy to create a build that just did not work, especially in the 2nd game.  Then in Elder Scrolls games with a skill use system the player will sometimes find themselves doing repetitive tasks just to level a skill, like smithing hundreds of iron daggers to level up smithing.  There's also the option to hide the leveling system a bit more too.  I've been looking back at GTA San Andreas and they have a very clear progression of skills and content but there's only the small "gun skill" chart as far as systems and numbers exposed to the player.  There's also something like Fable 2 that has a simple stats page, skill unlocks, and 3 types of experience depending on the skill group the player is using.  But the biggest downside there is XP and skill progression is all (I think) focused around combat.  They have all the systems for interacting with people but they don't develop them beyond collecting new expressions.  I'm not sure which way to go just yet, but it isn't a decision that I'm taking very lightly since it's going to really shape the gameplay experience. 

 

[Just Checking]

I've always liked skill use systems like elder scrolls and things, but you're not wrong, the grinding can become irritating for players, or just exploitable.  I can't think of any way to remove grind unfortunately.  If you wanted to go for more of a life simulator than a direct action rpg, I suppose you could work a more drawn out skilling process into it.  All I can really think of is ways to make skilling less of a "grind to godhood immediately" process, soft caps on daily experience or something.

 

One idea I was thinking about was perhaps you don't earn experience on the fly but instead it gets awarded at the end of the day or week or something.  That way you actually need to DO things for a while before you become an unbeatable master.  I kind of liked how earlier fable games awarded specialized experience depending on your play style, but the fact that the majority of your level contribution came from general xp sort of made it meaningless.  I was thinking at the designated time to get your experience it doesn't award it to your exact skills but rather gives you categorical experience to spend into your related skills.

 

A different, maybe less stupid way you could work it might be the way old dating sims worked, where you had to invest an arbitrary amount of automatically passed time into training activities.  Skills you have some kind of actual focus or something in would raise faster, or maybe you could have some kind of minigame to affect speed.  Most people find they earn most of their real life experience through practice anyway.  I was thinking you could spend time during the day doing menial practice activities, in a training yard or apprenticing for tradespeople or something.  These facilities are obviously closed at night so you can't just spend all your time grinding.  Maybe they can only raise your skills so far before needing to upgrade the facility, or find a better trainer.  I'm not saying remove skill use leveling, but maybe this could be the more efficient way to raise your abilities.  Obvious disadvantage here is you're not really playing as much as just passing time quickly and getting skills up out of it, but I figured it'd save having to do repetitive tasks for hours on end.

 

Honestly I think it's just going to be a matter of picking a system you like and sticking with it, like you said, each one has its advantages and disadvantages, and I'm not smart enough to think of anything that won't involve grinding.  Good luck, man.

[ScrollSerrayt]

I played the public build today for a while, has potential and is pleasing to the eyes. Impressive, especially for a solo project. I really like Fantasy RPGs, and I especially like how you said you want combat to take a lesser role and make Reign more of a fanstasy-life-sim, because it seems like every open-world fantasy rpg game being made is just a glorified action-adventure game. Comabt is fun, but it's not the only type of engaging RPG content. Also the fact that you actually want to make a fun game and aren't just focusing on the sexual content is even more promising. I like the way you are headed. 

 

The advice I want to give you is that leveling is not game play. There is no miracle skill progression system that will make your game non repetitive, what you need right now is content, figure out progression after you have a good idea of what you want to progress to. Right now you should build and play a representation of how you want the late-game to play like, completely disregarding how someone would get to that point for now. Progression only matters if there is something fun on the other side of that progression. The only way to know how to encourage people to try lots of play styles is to start by actually developing lots of fun play styles. Choice and progression will come naturally. You are being a text-book over-thinker with this project. You are trying to solve the wrong problems. 

 

If you want to make a fun play style, just brainstorm and implement lots of abilities and challenges. Only after play testing these will you actually know how the difficulty of challenges compare and how the fun the abilities are to use. Then it's just a matter of organizing the game by putting the easy but fun challenges first, and putting the weakest abilities first, then you will know what type of skill tree you need to distribute abilities at the right times and for the right challenges. This of course can be a bit messy because every skill tree for every skill will turn out differently, let the game come naturally to you. Experimentation is a part of the art. 

 

I'll give you some ideas that come off the top of my head. Thief challenges / quests ideas; sticking up a moving carriage of goods, a platforming challenge to get to the top of a building and steal a priceless bell, smuggling in contraband through a strict border, scamming a guy by selling him a fake potion, trying to steal the necklace off of a paranoid person, breaking into a secure military fortress to steal plans, try to sneak into a castle to get evidence that the princess is having an affair with a peasant, trying to frame someone by breaking into their house and placing a stolen item inside, disguising as a cult member to steal a magical artifact, attempt kidnapping a guarded prince for a ransom, steal candy from a child, decode magical puzzle locks in an ancient cave to steal an artifact while avoiding traps, and trying to repair a broken marriage by breaking into their home and leaving forged notes (or just having try starting a threesome).

 

Here's some ideas for thief abilities: forging handwriting, balancing on wires, climbing up rough walls, disguises, setting trip wires, shooting silent blow darts, stealth grappling and restraining, noise grenades for distractions, deft hands for picking locks, ability to craft make-shift lock picks, a silent quick dash, hiding items in inventory (maybe secret pocket), enhanced hearing to notice guards around corners, ability to whistle like a bird to issue commands to quest allies without raising suspicion, disabling booby traps, being able to see foot prints for tracking, and an ability to mimic any voice. 

[slaen]

https://gfycat.com/farawayquarterlyemeraldtreeskink

 

Super quick and dirty video this week but I wanted to show off the systems that I just got working.  Also the UI and everything will eventually get an update to actually look better.

 

Inventory Item Display and Description:  Items in the player's inventory will now have a 3d preview of the item as well as a description and stats for that item.  This is roughly how Skyrim handled things.  Mouse over item buttons in inventory to examine.  I'll probably add mouse control to spin the items around in the viewport as well as unify the item display and orientation so that the presentation is cleaner.

 

NPC animations can use props: The polearm the guard is holding in this clip is a prop object that is loaded by the idle animation he is playing.  This is the groundwork system done and functional now it's a matter of making the props and the animations to use them.

 

Prop placement system: The player can now move and place certain objects in the world.  The plan is to make a system in between the housing systems in Skyrim and Fallout 4.  I don't want to go as far as Fallout 4 and allow the player to build actual buildings but I want the player to be able to buy a prefab house / room / whatever and then customize the interior of that space.  I'm pretty sure the system would be optional and most prefabs would come with a base level of furniture if that's what the player wanted but then for other players they could edit or delete that furniture.

 

 

On 4/21/2020 at 6:08 PM, Just Checking said:

I've always liked skill use systems like elder scrolls and things, but you're not wrong, the grinding can become irritating for players, or just exploitable.  I can't think of any way to remove grind unfortunately.  If you wanted to go for more of a life simulator than a direct action rpg, I suppose you could work a more drawn out skilling process into it.  All I can really think of is ways to make skilling less of a "grind to godhood immediately" process, soft caps on daily experience or something.

 

One idea I was thinking about was perhaps you don't earn experience on the fly but instead it gets awarded at the end of the day or week or something.  That way you actually need to DO things for a while before you become an unbeatable master.  I kind of liked how earlier fable games awarded specialized experience depending on your play style, but the fact that the majority of your level contribution came from general xp sort of made it meaningless.  I was thinking at the designated time to get your experience it doesn't award it to your exact skills but rather gives you categorical experience to spend into your related skills.

 

A different, maybe less stupid way you could work it might be the way old dating sims worked, where you had to invest an arbitrary amount of automatically passed time into training activities.  Skills you have some kind of actual focus or something in would raise faster, or maybe you could have some kind of minigame to affect speed.  Most people find they earn most of their real life experience through practice anyway.  I was thinking you could spend time during the day doing menial practice activities, in a training yard or apprenticing for tradespeople or something.  These facilities are obviously closed at night so you can't just spend all your time grinding.  Maybe they can only raise your skills so far before needing to upgrade the facility, or find a better trainer.  I'm not saying remove skill use leveling, but maybe this could be the more efficient way to raise your abilities.  Obvious disadvantage here is you're not really playing as much as just passing time quickly and getting skills up out of it, but I figured it'd save having to do repetitive tasks for hours on end.

 

Honestly I think it's just going to be a matter of picking a system you like and sticking with it, like you said, each one has its advantages and disadvantages, and I'm not smart enough to think of anything that won't involve grinding.  Good luck, man.

Thanks, yeah I keep going in circles on the skills.  Like you said I thought about doing a grinding level system with menial practice tasks but thought that if someone doesn't want to grind then that could be a major turn off.  I'm also working on getting a clearer idea of the overall experience that the player will have.  Right now there's 2 modes of play that I want available to the player:  the power fantasy of exploring a fantasy world and interacting with all of the fantasy creatures,  and the "life sim" side of things where the player has a home base that they can customize, show off trophies, hang out with their spouse/harem.   It's sort of the gameplay loop from Starbound if you replaced the mining and resource gathering with Skyrim's open world gameplay.

 

So from there now it's figuring out what would compliment those systems with skills and make that feel fun and not tedious or stressful.  I'm thinking of systems like in Oblivion or Morrowind where I would plan out my levels before hand in order to get all +5 stat boosts whenever I leveled up as well as planning out which skills to use as my major skills in order to make that process as painless as possible.  That's the sort of thing I want to avoid.  Needing to take time to plan out a character and then feeling like you screwed something up and need to start over again isn't fun.

 

I also considered doing the soft caps on xp and skill use per day like you mentioned too.  But then I was trying to play Stardew Valley and their stamina system really feels limiting to me.  I know a lot of people that love that game and maybe I'm missing something but to me that need to stop all of my actions and playing the game in order to sleep wasn't fun.  That's sort of what I picture with daily xp caps happening. 

 

Hah, which is to say I'm really wrestling with the idea still.  I have a vague notion of what I want it to be and an idea of what I don't want it to be but not a clear vision of what it will be.

 

 

On 5/3/2020 at 1:47 AM, ScrollSerrayt said:

I played the public build today for a while, has potential and is pleasing to the eyes. Impressive, especially for a solo project. I really like Fantasy RPGs, and I especially like how you said you want combat to take a lesser role and make Reign more of a fanstasy-life-sim, because it seems like every open-world fantasy rpg game being made is just a glorified action-adventure game. Comabt is fun, but it's not the only type of engaging RPG content. Also the fact that you actually want to make a fun game and aren't just focusing on the sexual content is even more promising. I like the way you are headed. 

 

The advice I want to give you is that leveling is not game play. There is no miracle skill progression system that will make your game non repetitive, what you need right now is content, figure out progression after you have a good idea of what you want to progress to. Right now you should build and play a representation of how you want the late-game to play like, completely disregarding how someone would get to that point for now. Progression only matters if there is something fun on the other side of that progression. The only way to know how to encourage people to try lots of play styles is to start by actually developing lots of fun play styles. Choice and progression will come naturally. You are being a text-book over-thinker with this project. You are trying to solve the wrong problems. 

 

If you want to make a fun play style, just brainstorm and implement lots of abilities and challenges. Only after play testing these will you actually know how the difficulty of challenges compare and how the fun the abilities are to use. Then it's just a matter of organizing the game by putting the easy but fun challenges first, and putting the weakest abilities first, then you will know what type of skill tree you need to distribute abilities at the right times and for the right challenges. This of course can be a bit messy because every skill tree for every skill will turn out differently, let the game come naturally to you. Experimentation is a part of the art. 

 

I'll give you some ideas that come off the top of my head. Thief challenges / quests ideas; sticking up a moving carriage of goods, a platforming challenge to get to the top of a building and steal a priceless bell, smuggling in contraband through a strict border, scamming a guy by selling him a fake potion, trying to steal the necklace off of a paranoid person, breaking into a secure military fortress to steal plans, try to sneak into a castle to get evidence that the princess is having an affair with a peasant, trying to frame someone by breaking into their house and placing a stolen item inside, disguising as a cult member to steal a magical artifact, attempt kidnapping a guarded prince for a ransom, steal candy from a child, decode magical puzzle locks in an ancient cave to steal an artifact while avoiding traps, and trying to repair a broken marriage by breaking into their home and leaving forged notes (or just having try starting a threesome).

 

Here's some ideas for thief abilities: forging handwriting, balancing on wires, climbing up rough walls, disguises, setting trip wires, shooting silent blow darts, stealth grappling and restraining, noise grenades for distractions, deft hands for picking locks, ability to craft make-shift lock picks, a silent quick dash, hiding items in inventory (maybe secret pocket), enhanced hearing to notice guards around corners, ability to whistle like a bird to issue commands to quest allies without raising suspicion, disabling booby traps, being able to see foot prints for tracking, and an ability to mimic any voice. 

 

Lol, thank you.  I do have a tendency to over think and over engineer things, especially after that 2nd or 3rd cup of coffee. 

My biggest worry is since I need to rely on the Patreon for income that supporters will get frustrated if I start experimenting too much.  I've seen some projects where people get really angry about changes in direction or gameplay styles.

 

But I do agree with you and I like how you recommend starting with the big picture ideas and brainstorming rather than starting from base core mechanics and making everything fit those.  It's a lot to think about.  It's also the opposite of the trends I've experienced in a lot of games and seen in game design.  I guess it's like that saying "when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" mentality.

 

Thanks again, getting that outside perspective really helps me.

 

[Just Checking]

Hey man, watched your gif, really like the look of the object placement.  To that end, I'm curious if you'll want to eventually implement crafting, or if you'll want decorations and furniture and stuff for your house to be bought from a merchant in town or something.  If you have crafting, materials would be one more thing to help fill loot tables out with, but of course purchasing furniture is one less system to have to write, so whatever you want to go with.  As much fun as crafting can be, it can also be... not fun depending on how it is put together.

 

However if you wanted to do crafting, you could save the players a little hassle by giving them the option to employ craftsmen or gatherers for things they don't want to do or scrounge for.  One more thing to do with our money, which in a lot of RPGs ends up having limited uses after a certain, early game point when you've found gear that works for you or have progressed beyond the point merchants sell stuff that can compete with the things you find or get rewarded with.  Money in skyrim is more a way of keeping score of how well you're doing than anything else.

 

If you're worried about changes you put in upsetting patrons, there's only one thing you can do to help prevent that.  Make it abundantly clear on the page that this is your creative project, and you're going to make experimental, sometimes major, changes for the sake of seeing what works and what's fun.  If any given person doesn't like the idea that a game in development where the most clear design intention is "fantasy rpg/lifesim" might be subject to change as the developer discovers where they want to take it, that's on them.  Personally I think it's really interesting watching this all evolve.  If you want to experiment with an idea, just drop that idea here or something and you'll get feedback.  I personally love brainstorming things.  Worldbuilding is my favorite part of the creative process, personally, so I'm happy to chip in my opinions on anything like that.  And while I'm hardly an expert on game design, I still like to hear about proposed aspects of a game and toss ideas back and forth.  As long as you think it's doable to put it in, of course.

[AttritionofContrition]

On 5/12/2020 at 11:04 AM, slaen said:

...I thought about doing a grinding level system with menial practice tasks but thought that if someone doesn't want to grind then that could be a major turn off.  I'm also working on getting a clearer idea of the overall experience that the player will have.  Right now there's 2 modes of play that I want available to the player:  the power fantasy of exploring a fantasy world and interacting with all of the fantasy creatures,  and the "life sim" side of things where the player has a home base that they can customize, show off trophies, hang out with their spouse/harem.   It's sort of the gameplay loop from Starbound if you replaced the mining and resource gathering with Skyrim's open world gameplay.

 

So from there now it's figuring out what would compliment those systems with skills and make that feel fun and not tedious or stressful.  I'm thinking of systems like in Oblivion or Morrowind where I would plan out my levels before hand in order to get all +5 stat boosts whenever I leveled up as well as planning out which skills to use as my major skills in order to make that process as painless as possible.  That's the sort of thing I want to avoid.  Needing to take time to plan out a character and then feeling like you screwed something up and need to start over again isn't fun.

 

I also considered doing the soft caps on xp and skill use per day like you mentioned too.  But then I was trying to play Stardew Valley and their stamina system really feels limiting to me.  I know a lot of people that love that game and maybe I'm missing something but to me that need to stop all of my actions and playing the game in order to sleep wasn't fun.  That's sort of what I picture with daily xp caps happening. 

 

Hah, which is to say I'm really wrestling with the idea still.  I have a vague notion of what I want it to be and an idea of what I don't want it to be but not a clear vision of what it will be.

I was meaning to ask about housing but you beat me to it. I think how the combat feels will impact the enjoyment of progression more than the progression itself. Take monster hunter for example, it's incredibly grindy but the combat has weight behind it, it's satisfying to fight things just for the sake of fighting them, well, to me anyway. Inversely I can't stand elder scrolls onlines combat, it feels like you're hitting everything with a wet noodle. Though anecdotal, and a lot of people like ESO, one of the most common complaints I've heard is that people dislike the combat.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who min-maxxed those +5s and hated every second of it, I do like character planning but not if that means I have to use skills outside my intended role just for the sake of not gimping myself 10 levels down the line, that drove me crazy. It's hard for me to say what I think about stats when I don't know how much they will impact performance, will every "class" have a single governing stat such as strength, agility, intelligence, and charisma? Or will there be other stats like endurance for health/stamina, wisdom for mana/regen, etc.

Stardew does indeed have a rough start that can paint a bad picture for the rest of the game, truth is stamina becomes a non-issue the moment you get your fishing up to 3 for the crab pots and the house upgrade for the kitchen. Almost everything the pots catch is classified as "fish", even snails, that can be cooked into sashimi which gives 75 energy a pop. Part of what made stardew so fun for me was slowly seeing how everything became much easier over time, like initially spending almost all your energy watering your crops to having sprinklers do all the work. Or being able to barely catch those quick fish in spring/summer to catching them every single time. I think what matters most is expectations going in, knowing that you have to take it slowly one day at a time makes it a bit easier to accept that initial slow loop.

On 5/12/2020 at 11:04 AM, slaen said:

My biggest worry is since I need to rely on the Patreon for income that supporters will get frustrated if I start experimenting too much.  I've seen some projects where people get really angry about changes in direction or gameplay styles.

I think if Sunbay City can do what they did and still manage to grow that you're safe. The only time you should worry about that is if you just force changes out of the blue on everyone contrary to what was previously implemented. I say experiment away and hold polls to get a feel for how everyone feels about whatever it is you're doing even if it's disliked, people love being a part of the process and seeing their input change the game. Currently you haven't really implemented a gameplay style so if anything this is the time for it, then when you've found something that you feel is right, everyone on board from there on will have more accurate expectations.