Your gripes with CoC II

[Muted_ReDead]

I should've been more clear about the "out-of-character" comment. I wasn't complaining about some headcanon OC acting differently in a game not written by me, that'd be a ridiculous complaint. It's internally OoC compared to other moments in the game.

I mean, you literally are an intruder in every sense. Even when you become one, you most definitely are not one in spirit yet. Some people are just going to have to get used to the fact that you likely won't be much more than a welcomed outsider until probably epilogue times.

Even an ignorant western gaijin like me finds the PC's behavior to his daughter deplorable, and that's where the complaint is. Respect is a universal language, and the pure PC demonstrates respect frequently throughout their adventure, whereas their possessiveness of Kinu is asinine, urealistic, and selfish.

But it's clear that tobs is set on writing the character this way during the events of Kinu quest, which is why that, if nothing else, I hope that they get the callout they deserve from another NPC. Maybe he gets frustrated with how Kinu behaves and talks with another parent like Gwyn or something, or mayeb one of the team-mates comments on his handling of Kinu's situation. Someone here described the game's story as the PC's journey of self-discovery when faced with temptation, adversity, and responsibility. This can play well with the writing Kinu quest currently has. But with how Kinu quest ended this tme around, I can't help but get the impression that the PC isn't learning from their mistakes. At this rate, when Kinu succeeds at capturing Raphael, it'll be in spite of the champion's "help" rather than because of it. After all, the champion has done the opposite of helping hime Kinu throughout the entirety of the questline, and hime Kinu closed herself off further from the PC, giving her one less pillar to lean on. What will happen if she loses Nakano too? If the PC doesn't have their act cleaned up by then, Kinu is going to go through a lot of struggle that wouldn't be AS bad if she thought she could trust the PC with anything involving her feelings.

Anything the PC could teach Kinu would be either messing with her existing melee/ranged training, or teaching her magic that would be considered strange in her people's culture and make her unfit as an example, as she'd be using foreigner magic.

No one in their right mind is going to shun her for using "foreigner magic," what the hell? Racial pride is bad but not in THAT way. They didn't exactly object to you giving them the Spiraled Blade/Staff. They wouldn't object to salavaging old Belhar technology to use for themselves. They wouldn't object to using Belharan portal magic for themselves. In real-world history and in-game history, imperialism includes assimilation of technologies into one's own culture. Thus, no kitsune would chastise Kinu for using "foreigner magic." That'd be hilariously dumb. "Kinu, I'm going to teach you a dirty technique called Dastardly Blow." "But father, あなたがパーティーをしている間、私はボイドを研究しました"

A few days to teach Kinu a few of our spells to use in her questline wouldn't hurt. In fact it'd be kind of cool. Aren't we already able to waste time teaching Shar and that one chick named Minerva how to fight? The PC already wastes a bunch of time doing other things, helping random people that don't matter in the grand scheme of things, so why not offer the same time to your daughter who currently has a very present threat aimed entirely at her. The "can't make time" argument is really weird in the context of what we can already do in CoC2.

 

[Mizukage]

The PC's behavior during the latest Kinu quest is seriously aggravating me. He seems to be justifying wanting to constantly protect Kinu from all the dangers of the world, but I find this desire very hypocritical for someone who's facing danger on a near-daily basis (you're about to deep-dive into the ocean to fight an eldritch monstrosity you fucking daredevil). Hime Kinu points this out a little bit during her closing dialogue with him, but he deserves a bigger callout than this. I hope that our PC has some serious introspective or a talk with another character about it maybe Miko, Mai or hell even Kiyoko, idfk I'll take anyone, even Nakano.

In my opinion, the fact that Hime Kinu felt the need to hide this information from the PC in the first place speaks volumes, and not about her; the closing sentences where she gives him the cold shoulder demonstrates why. Hime needs someone to open up to after bottling up her emotions for so long, but the PC's blatant hypocrisy has made her distrustful of the PC, and rather than focus on this unmet desire, the PC's inner monologue focuses AGAIN on how much her childhood innocence has been robbed, and to me this just smacks of selfishness. Too bad, you don't get to raise an adorable little kit, get over it, she nearly fucking died and you're focusing on "oh no your childhood, blz be safe". To me, this is a parent that's failing at their job, and if tobs insists on scripting the player's response to the Kitsune content in general like this, I hope the PC gets the callout they deserve.

I hate that this questline is making me hate my own character, my own avatar, when I know that this is totally out of character for him. Just shut the fuck up about her innocence or whatever and give her a fucking hug, tell her how strong she is for SUCCESSFULLY putting on a brave face for others while almost never crying the process, and then explain to her that it's okay to cry in front of you of all people, because of all the people she knows, you're the best candidate to be the target of her venting, being both her father and a foreigner. There are wolves, rape flowers and painted demons just outside her home, and you think you can preserve her innocence in this world forever you demon-hunting dumbass? Your cunning is maxed you stupid fucking idiot, I know you know better. Fuck. (edited an extra clause to a sentence to make it coherent)

It seems pretty understandable that a veteran adventurer might want to handle this kind of thing instead of letting their kid with minimal practical experience in fights to the death do it. Its easy for us to say 'she has to do this herself its part of her growth and the story of Kinu maturing and gaining independence' because we know if we screw up during Kinu quest we can just reload the last save file and do it again with no danger of ever 'really' getting her killed while the champion sits back and lets her have at it because 'she has to do this herself'. But from the Champion's perspective in story their daughter is trying to insist on taking on a powerful enemy who made total sport of them in a needlessly reckless manner that endangers herself and others when she has a plethora of less risky options. What sane parent is going to sit back and without complaint let their kid risk their neck like that when they have such a huge capacity to step in and lessen the odds of their fox daughter getting literally turned into a fur coat by a murderous maniac?

Again I feel you are kind of being unfair here. Waking up one day and finding out you have missed a decade or so of your child's life is a huge thing to deal with and the Champion has had little time to process it. You are asking a lot of them in saying they should already just be totally over it after maybe a few months. If anything this seems to clash with your rant about them being a bad parent, pretty sure that only a truly shitty parent would just go 'meh, whatever, so I missed out on most of your life time to move on' instead of being riddled with regret. Though I do agree that we do seem to be going too far with it and letting it prevent us from offering the best emotional support we could when our daughter is going through a crisis.

I do agree that it would be nice to have a bit more choice to choose how the character reacts, even if I find the current only reaction allowed completely understandable. I like the kitsune family plotline a lot (never expected to get that invested in family I made in a game like this) but it does seem to be tossing in a lot of low blows that we aren't allowed any chance to avoid between the drama of missing out on watching the kids grow up, having to deal with getting a cold shoulder from the rest of the kitsune and making our families reintegration to society somewhat awkward unless we literally sell our soul, and now being forced to sit back and watch Kinu take on murderers without our help (and even being chastised for the entirely reasonable stance of wanting to be involved in the endeavor, we don't even have the option to do something relatively hands off like insist she go through training with us or something) and watching it wreck our relationship with her. Also, it kind of hurt that she thought so poorly of my character that she was scared of telling me she was engaged to Nakano because she was afraid I'd react badly (haven't done a Inari Shoujo yet so don't know if she does something similar) and dragged her heels so long I found out about it by the rumor mill instead of from family. Was all like 'bad enough I missed out on stuff because of time speed differences but now I'm missing out because you actively chose to exclude me from hearing about your life? Just go ahead and bury the knife in my heart already kid'.

 

[Wint3rRyd3r]

snippety snip snip

We can help her without holding her hand and solving it for her by helping train her. Raphael just plays around while fighting her no matter what. She's not ready to face off against someone like him. A switch up to training could really help. As it stands, I agree. She's taking really unnecessary risks that could backfire on her and anyone near her. I don't want to try and visit her one day and find out she went and got herself killed out of pride or some other reason. To be fair, Inari Kinu said something to the effect "Don't turn into someone I don't recognize for my sake" after Kinuquest 2, and that felt like a more reasonable response than just "Gosh leave me alone mom! I'm a big girl now, I can totally win eventually!". Also Inari Kinu doesn't tell you because she's worried you'd react like Kiyoko did. Again, to be fair, she hasn't seen in you 10 years. She wouldn't know how you'd react. It still hurts though. Like Hime is ashamed of me and Inari just keeps at arm's length half the time. I get why they are that way, but feels like I'm being punched in the emotions because what were most likely Keros's actions and it's easier for Kinu to blame the player than the patron deity of her species. I'm not saying we impart all our abilities and knowledge on her, just help her expand her fighting experience.

Plus, what would happen if Raphael attacks the home again, while Kiyoko, Player, AND Kinu are out this time? It's not clear if the other floofs have any training at all, I'd feel safer if I could at least teach them something and I'd get to spend time with them. I mean, Aya's already turned to drugs, I'm failing my kids. She didn't even learn it from watching me. I couldn't even be a bad influence. And it'd be funny to see Nakano's face to see a squad of my kids fighting and kicking ass like *GASP* barbarians. And Kinu doesn't have to worry. If I really had a big problem with Nakano marrying her, we'd have had a very different conversation. And I'm sure even Nakano knows that. Hitoshi Gang 4 Lyfe.

 

[Ria Brew]

I don't think anyone is really arguing against the fact that finding out that much of your own daughters life passed in a mere few hours is damaging, we're more commenting on how the PC is essentially bottlenecked into handling this revelation. There's a healthy way to handle wanting to be apart of your child's life again and then there's this, which breeds the exact kind of resistance that Kinu is showing. Kinu went a majority of her life without you in it and even if circumstances made that unavoidable there's still no way to prevent that from influencing how she turns out. Just because you're back in her life now isn't going to instantly make her turn to you when something like this happens, especially when you consider that despite being back in her life you are still gone most of the time dealing with your own problems. Can you really blame her for not immediately coming to you with everything when you're hardly ever around? What she needs more than anything in this situation is understanding and support, not a parent who makes them feel bad for taking care of herself as she's always done.

At the very least I would like the option to simply choose whether or not my character can be that kind of parent. In most every other scenario in this game facing the consequences of actions you took are because you as the player chose to take those actions. This is one of the only instances I can currently think of where the choice was made for you and you get to feel bad for choosing it. Bad writing? Not in the slightest. Very well handled given what the characters have been through, and I'd happily eat this story up in a standalone context because it IS well written. But does it fit with how the rest of the game presents itself? Unfortunately not really.

 

[Wint3rRyd3r]

I don't think anyone is really arguing against the fact that finding out that much of your own daughters life passed in a mere few hours is damaging, we're more commenting on how the PC is essentially bottlenecked into handling this revelation. There's a healthy way to handle wanting to be apart of your child's life again and then there's this, which breeds the exact kind of resistance that Kinu is showing. Kinu went a majority of her life without you in it and even if circumstances made that unavoidable there's still no way to prevent that from influencing how she turns out. Just because you're back in her life now isn't going to instantly make her turn to you when something like this happens, especially when you consider that despite being back in her life you are still gone most of the time dealing with your own problems. Can you really blame her for not immediately coming to you with everything when you're hardly ever around? What she needs more than anything in this situation is understanding and support, not a parent who makes them feel bad for taking care of herself as she's always done.

At the very least I would like the option to simply choose whether or not my character can be that kind of parent. In most every other scenario in this game facing the consequences of actions you took are because you as the player chose to take those actions. This is one of the only instances I can currently think of where the choice was made for you and you get to feel bad for choosing it. Bad writing? Not in the slightest. Very well handled given what the characters have been through, and I'd happily eat this story up in a standalone context because it IS well written. But does it fit with how the rest of the game presents itself? Unfortunately not really.

I agree with this as well, don't get me wrong. She needs a lot of things, like someone to just listen to her and tell her she can come vent whenever she wants. But we're forced to be crappy parents. I don't blame her at all, and I'd love an option to react in a better way instead of breaking character. It is definitely great writing, we care enough to discuss it and analyze it after all. But I've gotta echo yours and others' sentiments that as a player, it's frustrating to be railroaded into being shitty and out of character and being punished for it when we had no option. Just having a different reaction shouldn't cause a big divergence and would feel better.

 

[zagzig]

I think there are a couple of issues at play here - one, the problem of the blank canvas RPG protagonist. Endlessly imprintable, but very passive. The solution is to write personality for your protagonist but then players will sometimes feel like it doesn't represent them. If the author is going to write the protagonist doing anything other than sitting there with a dumb look on their face it's going to invalidate someone's headcanon.

(This issue is greatly heightened when the author writes the protagonist taking sub-optimal action. I personally don't have an issue with my early 20s(?) hero with practically zero parenting experience who suddenly has an adult daughter nearly their age not reading the room properly, but being an inconsiderate boob ruins the power fantasy a little bit. Also if the player character had an option to violently murder Raphael and his little child-murder crew I would be there instantly those fox-morphs would be more dead than a cultist in the Winter Wolf flashback. Sorry Kinu, you can have agency and responsibility later.)

Two, time constraints. For every personality choice the player gets to make, that's exponentially more time the author has to spend writing it. And for better or for worse, we're at the point now where we know The Observer has a story they'd like to write and they're going to write it that way. You as a parent are a supporting character in Kinu's narrative, so you will be written to put you where you need to be for Kinu to shine. And if you don't like it, well, it's probably not changing.

Finally, it's an incomplete narrative. Kinu and the player character haven't reached a happy supportive resolution yet because we're midway through the story. The Observer is writing a character with flaws, it stands to narrative structure that some progress is going to be made on those flaws by the time we get to KinuQuest resolution.

Ultimately I think the fact people keep talking about it reflects well on The Observer's writing. Even if some of the talking is this thing made me mad and I don't like it.

(For the record the main thing that makes me mad is dying repeatedly against Raphael. I have four mains and counting which means beating that battle at least four times which is troublesome. Raphael aims an attack! Your arrow goes wide! Raphael stabs you to death!)

 

[Ria Brew]

Man, I just wanna be there for my little girl

 

[Muted_ReDead]

Its easy for us to say 'she has to do this herself its part of her growth and the story of Kinu maturing and gaining independence' because we know if we screw up during Kinu quest we can just reload the last save file and do it again with no danger of ever 'really' getting her killed

I understand the rest of your post but take offense to this statement. I'm not unwittingly arguing from a meta perspective, I deliberately avoided that. I'm saying that the PC doesn't realize just how often they risk their own life and I called them a hypocrite for it. They should instead be arguing that Kinu needs consistent aid with her at all times if she's going to do anything dangerous, emphasizing that the PC themself wouldn't last a second out there if they facef half the challenges they did on their own; and that Kinu needs to be more open-minded about accepting training from him. "But father, Kasyrra and the demon threat..." This "Lord Taoth" could be a terrifying threat to the whole of the Frost Marches in his own right, and thus warrants your attention.

If the author is going to write the protagonist doing anything other than sitting there with a dumb look on their face it's going to invalidate someone's headcanon.

Appeasing everyone's headcanon is doomed to failure, which is why there are a few set personalities the PC can have that are accomodated for in most in-game dialogue (pure champion, bimbo, and Dark Knight). But with KinuQuest we're inexplicably forced with into a singular personality that feels different from all the rest of them. idk what to call it but I don't like them so I'll call them Nimrod. Nimrod is not the hero we see outside of KinuQuest, and they will only exist in KinuQuest, and that's where complaints about the PC's behavior are mainly coming from.

Two, time constraints. For every personality choice the player gets to make, that's exponentially more time the author has to spend writing it. And for better or for worse, we're at the point now where we know The Observer has a story they'd like to write and they're going to write it that way. You as a parent are a supporting character in Kinu's narrative, so you will be written to put you where you need to be for Kinu to shine. And if you don't like it, well, it's probably not changing.

Finally, it's an incomplete narrative. Kinu and the player character haven't reached a happy supportive resolution yet because we're midway through the story. The Observer is writing a character with flaws, it stands to narrative structure that some progress is going to be made on those flaws by the time we get to KinuQuest resolution.

It's a narrative in progress, which means that the ending isn't set in stone. Authors can change their mind if they want to. Hopefully no one ever takes any this too personally and starts to harrass tobs over it (if someone considered doing this they should bap themself), and that's not what anyone here wants to do. We're allowed to criticize what we read and add our own thoughts. And yes, this does have potential to influence the author's decision making, and that's fine. You are trying to be thoughtful with this post, but this is either stuff that most people here are already aware of, or unwittingly gives off an air of "suck it up, buttercup," which feels disrespectful for the people actually experiencing the narrative. My concern with it was that the PC wasn't going to learn anything from their mistakes in interacting with Kinu until it was too late, and that they're going to continue to act contrary to how they act in the game. I and clearly many others felt compelled to point out, so maybe there's something to what we're saying after all. His writing is fantastic, but we're allowed to comment on its direction when compared to the rest of the game.

 

[Tide Hunter]

Waking up one day and finding out you have missed a decade or so of your child's life is a huge thing to deal with and the Champion has had little time to process it.

Honestly, this reminded me of when I was reading a thread about the Kitsune and people talked about how, after releasing their family and seeing the result and how they were treated and ostracized for releasing them because of the missing decade, they just said "on further playthroughs, I just won't let them out." This reminds me of that mentality, how it struck so hard that they'd be willing to go against what they'd otherwise view as right and basically betray their loved ones just so that they can have this idealized relationship, this perfect little bubble life where they could be set free but they won't because the alternative is having to deal with the mental turmoil of being treated like shit after loosing out on so much time.

That said, they weren't the only people in that thread, and they aren't the only people who play this game. The problem is, as many people have said, that in this game where the Champ is largely determined by the player's actions (even the aspects which aren't directly the player going "I want this" are impacted by things like corruption, transformations such as the bimboification, or just how you treat characters and people such as if you act caring enough towards Etheryn to raise her confidence), this is of absolutely no choice. Even just an illusion of choice, where your Champ will react poorly in a way that misunderstands Kinu and how she feels, would be better served by having some flavor choice. People would complain about an illusion of choice of course, whether it be the Fallout 4 method of giving you three different ways of saying yes or the Hive method of making one choice much more unappealing than the other, but it can still lend itself to showing the actual character of the Champ overall rather than taking every single type and pressing them into one tiny, unchanging mold.

 

[The Observer]

I think one thing that's been left out of all this is that your daughter isn't alone in all of this; she has the support of the entire colony behind her. Every individual to which you can talk about with regards to the situation has updated context after every step in the chain, and if you get Kohaku killed it's pointed out not so subtly that she sees it as her duty to die so your daughter doesn't have to. Now you too can be a human bullet, etc, etc, etc.

The important thing is that those are her friendships and connections, not yours. And yes, there is a disconnect from the PC in that I've deliberately kept him or her de-emphasised in this storyline.

 

[Muted_ReDead]

I think one thing that's been left out of all this is that your daughter isn't alone in all of this; she has the support of the entire colony behind her. Every individual to which you can talk about with regards to the situation has updated context after every step in the chain, and if you get Kohaku killed it's pointed out not so subtly that she sees it as her duty to die so your daughter doesn't have to. Now you too can be a human bullet, etc, etc, etc.

The important thing is that those are her friendships and connections, not yours. And yes, there is a disconnect from the PC in that I've deliberately kept him or her de-emphasised in this storyline.

The concept of a unique daughter that's the main character of her own story that you have limited agency over is very unique. It's a theme of parenthood, and the story wants the player to experience the struggle of being a parent that has to watch as their offspring is forced into life-threatening situations outside of anyone's control, and there's nothing they can do about it. It might be difficult to appreciate this theme in the middle of a power fantasy game like CoC2, and it's arguable that such a theme is poorly placed in any RPG, but it's also arguable that this serves to make the contrast more poignant. To me, this is a fantastic theme that doesn't get explored enough in popular media (or at least not with any nuance). This oft-neglected theme is what made me fall in love with this whole questline in the first place.

But the parent, the PC, just doesn't feel like the champion, the dark knight, or even the bimbo, all of which were the clever, persistent, and empathetic champion that managed to talk down the Goddess of Arcane Secrets. Such a character wouldn't be thinking so selfishly or short-sightedly with regards to Kinu's protection. Even within the amount of limited agency this questline forces on the player, the PC still manages to worsen the bond by, well, acting like an idiot. Not an ignorant gaijin, an idiot. I just don't believe that the core of this questline's theme would be challenged if the player had even the mere illusion of choice with regards to how they respond to Kinu. As it stands, the one line of dialogue we're bottlenecked into doesn't feel like they put their best foot forward in providing the support that Hime Kinu assuredly needs. She might have the "support" of the entire colony, but given Hime Kinu's character I have to wonder how long it's been since she actually cried in front of someone. Nakano, maybe? If not, then CoC2's champ would be well suited for the supportive pillar, but alas, Nimrod has taken his place. Edit2: Nimrod took his place because the player needed to know how it felt to be a helpless parent. And therein lies the core of the general distaste for Kinuquest: the robbery of a character for the sake of telling a specific story. But is Nimrod really necessary for the story to be told? You can take my opinion as you will, but I don't think it is.

With all that out of the way, let it be known that regardless of how most people feel about how the story is turning out, and how we all heavily dogpiled on the subject, each and every one of us still appreciates your story. I get the impression that this story comes from a very personal place in your heart, and that makes it anything but soulless. All of our complaints could mean nothing, and that's fine. Thank you for writing such a rich setting and characters.

EDIT: it's worth pointing out that I specified Hime Kinu because I haven't played Inari's version of the latest story yet, and I also haven't spoken to the other kitsune NPCs about the latest KinuQuest developments, so I can't speak with regards to her yet. I needed a break to process my emotions before talking with anyone in the den.

 

[The Observer]

The concept of a unique daughter that's the main character of her own story that you have limited agency over is very unique. It's a theme of parenthood, and the story wants the player to experience the struggle of being a parent that has to watch as their offspring is forced into life-threatening situations outside of anyone's control, and there's nothing they can do about it. It might be difficult to appreciate this theme in the middle of a power fantasy game like CoC2, and it's arguable that such a theme is poorly placed in any RPG, but it's also arguable that this serves to make the contrast more poignant. To me, this is a fantastic theme that doesn't get explored enough in popular media (or at least not with any nuance). This oft-neglected theme is what made me fall in love with this whole questline in the first place.

As I've mentioned before, Kinu's story is very heavily influenced by the Princess Maker line of games, especially Princess Maker 5. In it, assassins from the five worlds' rebellion forces arrive over the eight years of your daughter growing up, and as her father or mother you have to decide what to do. You can fight them off yourself as the retired hero who saved the worlds, let Cube your butler do it, or have your daughter step up and put herself into life-threatening danger.

To be sure, as a parent you provide her with the foundation in her youth to be able to face these challenges which present a very real danger to her, whether you send her to karate, kendo, magic, eloquence, or just use music to drain their will to fight (which for reasons, doesn't work against the final boss). You can also forgo all of these and have you or Cube fight them off for an instant win. And sure, you you can get a reasonable and even respectable ending that way.

But if you don't let her put herself into actual danger, if you don't send her adventuring, if you don't let her repeatedly confront her stalker Gateau without you around to back her up, if you don't let her deal with the assassins who come for her herself -- you can never get the True Queen ending. You've given her the foundation in her youth and she's standing on your shoulders, but ultimately she has to do these things herself, put herself in actual danger and realise her own destiny if she's to uncap her highest potential.

And like you said, it comes from a very special place in my heart.

I'm not deaf to your concerns and will consider them, even if I don't agree with the interpretations of some events, and that's fine.

 

[Mad Dog]

In light of all this serious character talk, I'll bring up some not so serious complaints.

Like why can't we pick up our fucking camps? I hate always having to buy them just to hang out with our Snake lady friend.

Also, does dumping all the wood and metal I collect at the den even do anything?

I wish there was a in game way to change background. It could reset the attributes in consideration of the stat boost your background gives.

Why is the thief class called "thief"? All their abilities seem more combative. Some of them are straight up murderous like [Mark for Death] or [Assassinate]. It should be called "Assassin" instead.

 

[TrustworthyTraitor]

I assume that the camping supplies have some non recoverable components (wood used when making a camp) they are cheap so eh, whatever as for the third point character's background cannot be changed because it makes no sense unless you have access to some mumbo jumbo space time magic , class names are not all that important since you can mix up the powers at will anyway.

 

[kiby]

The Salamander TFs still don't give you salamander dicks!

 

[Mizukage]

I think one thing that's been left out of all this is that your daughter isn't alone in all of this; she has the support of the entire colony behind her. Every individual to which you can talk about with regards to the situation has updated context after every step in the chain, and if you get Kohaku killed it's pointed out not so subtly that she sees it as her duty to die so your daughter doesn't have to. Now you too can be a human bullet, etc, etc, etc.

The important thing is that those are her friendships and connections, not yours. And yes, there is a disconnect from the PC in that I've deliberately kept him or her de-emphasised in this storyline.

It is bittersweet that she has reliable friends she is relying on while saying 'go away dad, I have to do this without you' and rejecting our help in particular. I get what you are going for it just kind of feels like a gut punch to have her actively treat us wanting to help as a nuisance instead of there being some other reason we can't step in (like how we just weren't there at the time during Quest 1). I guess I just feel kind of inadequate here, like in the princess maker series you get to go in depth in raising and training your daughter so you know you made them a badass who can look after herself and here I gave them a few life lessons as the events that give her hime/shoujo points come up but didn't really do anything like say 'and today I will teach you how to crush your enemies and see them driven before you' so that I can feel like I left her in a position to be able to handle herself before she became independent. And to be clear, I'm not saying Kiyoko did a bad job or anything. Just that sometimes it is really easy to headcannon up a champion who considers themselves a bad parent who didn't do enough and, because of that, has a lot of trouble accepting that it is time for Kinu to go solo already and its too late to really give them anything more like training or the head of her enemies on a silver platter without Kinu having to lift a finger.

Edit: Hmm, would it be possible to add more dream world stuff with training Kinu, maybe? Like that one scene where you give her a magic lesson.

edited edit: I was looking at this word document thing in another thread and apparently I just didn't get events where you can do things like that because of RNG luck on the dream scenes prior to getting around to freeing her. Guess its my characters fault for rushing to free them after I thought 'surely I must be getting close to running out of scenes by now anyway, right?'. I guess next time I'll have to keep them trapped in a magical bauble for longer while metagaming so at least my character isn't an asshole keeping them in longer then needed <_<

 

[WolframL]

In light of all this serious character talk, I'll bring up some not so serious complaints.

Like why can't we pick up our fucking camps? I hate always having to buy them just to hang out with our Snake lady friend.

Not so serious response: Because the Champ is a lazy slob and can't be bothered because that seems like hard work and stuff and that takes time away from fucking.

Serious answer: Just a gameplay mechanic, like how in ye olde RPGs you had full-heal items like Tents but could only use them once and only out of combat.

Also, does dumping all the wood and metal I collect at the den even do anything?

Ehhh, I dunno. But it will eventually have a use with the Wayfort refurbishment.

I wish there was a in game way to change background. It could reset the attributes in consideration of the stat boost your background gives.

You'll need to go on a long and perilous quest and learn the most arcane secrets of Time Magic for that to happen. And maybe some kind of massive causality manipulation if you wanted to do something like shift between Noble Scion and Slumrat or vice versa.

Why is the thief class called "thief"? All their abilities seem more combative. Some of them are straight up murderous like [Mark for Death] or [Assassinate]. It should be called "Assassin" instead.

The flavor text for the class says that you were a thief and had to skip town. Presumably all the stabby skills are applications of your knack for sneakiness rather than things you necessarily did in the past. The Champ canonically spends a year or so roaming around before ending up in Hawkethorne so they would have had some time to work out how to turn their existing talents towards self-defense. Would be cool to have some actual steal-y stuff in the future but that might be hard to code.

Alternate silly explanation: Before skipping town, the Champion was Zorro.

 

[Paradox01]

Why is the thief class called "thief"? All their abilities seem more combative. Some of them are straight up murderous like [Mark for Death] or [Assassinate]. It should be called "Assassin" instead.

Because "Assassin" is too dark for a character that starts out at the "Champion" end of the Corruption scale.

The main character starting out as a dark, murderous sell-sword and eventually finding redemption is a completely different game.

 

[Mizukage]

Oh, and this isn't really a gripe but just curious, why the design decision to have us need to stop off at the kitsune tree before teleporting to Kiyoko's homestead instead of just making the homestead directly on the way shrine warp system?

 

[Paradox01]

Oh, and this isn't really a gripe but just curious, why the design decision to have us need to stop off at the kitsune tree before teleporting to Kiyoko's homestead instead of just making the homestead directly on the way shrine warp system?

I'll hazard a guess and say that it's not a shrine destination because it's an optional area. People may feel cheated if they see a greyed-out shrine they can't use because they haven't yet or didn't want to finish all the Kiyoko content.



Also, there are LOADS of other spots on the map it'd be handy to teleport to directly. That doesn't make the ability to teleport everywhere balanced or good for the game.

 

[Mizukage]

Makes sense, and it amuses me to wonder if they have a betting pool going at the tree as to whether my next visit is an actual visit or if I will just pop out of the void for 5 seconds to switch teleport networks and go somewhere else.

 

[WolframL]

I have a feeling if the floofs are doing anything, it's snickering that the Champ is too lazy to walk the tremendously long distance between Hawkethorne and the house. Okay, looking at travel times it does appear to be a three hour hike or so but something something back in the Old Country they walked uphill both ways in a blizzard.

As an aside, I don't think I've ever visited the den without at least stopping to see what Kohaku has in stock that day so if there was a betting pool, someone would clean up handily until they noticed the pattern. Probably Kohaku.

 

[Paradox01]

Makes sense, and it amuses me to wonder if they have a betting pool going at the tree as to whether my next visit is an actual visit or if I will just pop out of the void for 5 seconds to switch teleport networks and go somewhere else.

I just had an image of the last Blockbuster Video store located next to a bus stop.

Employee: "Someone's getting off the bus!"
Manager: "Really?!"
Employee: "Aaaand they're getting right back on the next one."
Manager: "Awwwwww!"

 

[Karamaru]

Makes sense, and it amuses me to wonder if they have a betting pool going at the tree as to whether my next visit is an actual visit or if I will just pop out of the void for 5 seconds to switch teleport networks and go somewhere else.

I can imagine Kohaku setting up a gambling booth outside the shrine and playing "Guess when the native appears"

 

[Paradox01]

I can imagine Kohaku setting up a gambling booth outside the shrine and playing "Guess when the native appears"

Depending on the Champ's interactions, I can see him setting up a Whack-A-Mole type game at the shrine.

"Step right up, take your shot at Whack-A-Champ!"

 

[Mizukage]

Follow up: I was looking at this word document thing in another thread that seems to have all the dream events and apparently I just didn't get events where you can do things like train her to crush her enemies and see them driven before her because of RNG luck on the dream scenes prior to getting around to freeing her. Guess its my characters fault for rushing to free them after I thought 'surely I must be getting close to running out of scenes by now anyway, right? (I was very very wrong there, there were apparently so many more left lol) Might as well hurry it up now that IC I found a clue to go to the giant tree to free them'. I guess next time I'll have to keep them trapped in a magical bauble for longer while metagaming to avoid that knowledge so at least my character isn't an asshole keeping them in longer then needed <_<

 

[zagzig]

Follow up: I was looking at this word document thing in another thread that seems to have all the dream events and apparently I just didn't get events where you can do things like train her to crush her enemies and see them driven before her because of RNG luck on the dream scenes prior to getting around to freeing her. Guess its my characters fault for rushing to free them after I thought 'surely I must be getting close to running out of scenes by now anyway, right? (I was very very wrong there, there were apparently so many more left lol) Might as well hurry it up now that IC I found a clue to go to the giant tree to free them'. I guess next time I'll have to keep them trapped in a magical bauble for longer while metagaming to avoid that knowledge so at least my character isn't an asshole keeping them in longer then needed <_<

In one save I held off visiting the magic tree for 100+ days so I could get Kiyoko up to nine tails, which was totally worth it for Keros's "dude, respect" when Kiyoko and her 32 kits are spawned out of the Astral Plane. I wonder how long you'd have to keep waiting to get every scene?

And in a 'gripe' - though not really a gripe because I'm well aware of where the fandom generally sits on this issue - everyone's penises are too damn big. Quin's packing 11.5 inches, Arona's got a footlong, Brint's over there with a fucking mac truck between his legs. Even Etheryn's tragically shrunk junk is still around the human average at 4 inches. I don't know what magic people in Savarra are using that Brint can sleep with humans, elves, and catfolk without literally breaking them but it must be the good stuff.

Don't mind me, I'm just stuffing my character's faces with blue eggs so they don't feel inadequate.

 

[Undecided]

I wonder how long you'd have to keep waiting to get every scene?

So, according to this helpful post by Emerald, it seems you can force the dream sequence events with Kinu to trigger. There are 13 events ("The Prodigy" event being two parts), meaning 14 events in total. I'm unsure if all of the events (some account for Kinu's siblings) trigger even without Kinu having siblings. I'm going to work with the assumption that they do.

As far as I can tell, it takes 3 visits with Kiyoko to result in Kinu being born (1 for initial visit, 1 for sexing her and then the last 1 for the birth), so, taking that into account - wanting to get all the event scenes with Kinu as quickly as possible would theoretically take 17 days (by my estimates).
As mentioned though, this is done with the assumption that the some of the events still trigger without Kinu having siblings - and additionally doesn't account for any holiday scenes taking preference.

Spoiler: EDIT

Spoiler tag used to not affect the page spacing for other peoples posts. Seeing as I'm editing this quite a few hours after I initially posted - I don't want to mess up anyone else's posts.

The siblings assumption proved wrong upon testing. Testing reflected that 8/13 or rather 9/14 events can be gotten without Kinu having siblings.

Additionally, it actually takes Kiyoko 6 visits (from initial visit to birth) to give birth to Kinu (assuming you're speeding her gestation period up by sexing her).

This then means that in actuality it would take 17 visits at a minimum for Kinu to have had all the non-sibling related events (including the weapon selection one) - which as mentioned before would be 8/13 or 9/14 events (depending on your viewpoint).

Uncertain of how many visits it would take to get every event, but from what little testing I did on that front, it seems you need at least 4 / 5 kits to trigger the majority of the sibling events - "Beauty Advice" being the only exception. Unsure of the exact requirements for that one, but potentially Kiyoko having 9 tails - in reference to what Emerald said in their post


Apologies for editing this so long after I posted it initially (as well as it being quite a lengthy edit) - but I was just hoping to correct errors I had in my post.

 

[Kesil]

I everyone's penises are too damn big. Quin's packing 11.5 inches, Arona's got a footlong, Brint's over there with a fucking mac truck between his legs. Even Etheryn's tragically shrunk junk is still around the human average at 4 inches.

That's one of the reasons I have yet to create a thread on measures like I did for TiTS' - I feel almost everyone has absurd measures!

 

[Savin]

Would be cool to have some actual steal-y stuff in the future but that might be hard to code.

We've talked about a Steal skill before but it's a relatively High Effort endeavor.