Your gripes with CoC II

[Tide Hunter]

I'm not entirely sure who you're referring to here, I'm guessing either the Alraune or Azzy's queen (I forget her name, have only done her quest once.) The Alraune choice is particularly odd since she IS corrupt, but not a demon, yet you're given the option to kill her. Yet, later on when the full-fledged demon kitty merchant shows up at the fort, your options are "fuck yes," "only if you behave," or "no fuck off." This is probably another multi-writer issue, but the PC's mercy is rather inconsistent it seems.

The thing is, the Alraune is practically a demon, while the demon merchant is practically not a demon. The Alraune came into existence because of Kas, was instructed by Kas, and basically only knew to do what Kas told her to. This resulted in her essentially being a mass-rape demon, despite not technically being a demon, and she violates many innocents. Farrah, the previously catfolk demon, is not evil. She has not committed any evil act, no rape, no murder, no theft. She has no desire to take souls, as she has no use for them, and she has no reason or want to bring corruption. She was raped by Kasyrra while she was traveling on a road, her soul forcefully taken from her while she was in a daze. She shows no hostility to the Champ even though the Champ's first reaction is to pull a weapon on her, unlike the Alraune who's first interaction was to attack the party, and when the Champ makes clear that they don't want Farrah's presence, she flees, rather than attacking. I'd guess that even if the Champ tried to attack, she'd just flee immediately.

Basically, the Alraune acts like a demon, committing heinous acts on mass numbers of innocents, while Farrah does not act like a demon, she's just an innocent victim who got caught in the crossfire. She has no victims of her own, and she holds no desire to, as she mostly just wants to continue trading like she used to. The Alraune can be seen as too far gone, a danger with an extreme likelihood of bringing further harm should she be left alive. Farrah is not an extreme danger, and she's not too far gone, despite the demonhood.

 

[Lone Wolf115]

The thing is, the Alraune is practically a demon, while the demon merchant is practically not a demon. The Alraune came into existence because of Kas, was instructed by Kas, and basically only knew to do what Kas told her to. This resulted in her essentially being a mass-rape demon, despite not technically being a demon, and she violates many innocents. Farrah, the previously catfolk demon, is not evil. She has not committed any evil act, no rape, no murder, no theft. She has no desire to take souls, as she has no use for them, and she has no reason or want to bring corruption. She was raped by Kasyrra while she was traveling on a road, her soul forcefully taken from her while she was in a daze. She shows no hostility to the Champ even though the Champ's first reaction is to pull a weapon on her, unlike the Alraune who's first interaction was to attack the party, and when the Champ makes clear that they don't want Farrah's presence, she flees, rather than attacking. I'd guess that even if the Champ tried to attack, she'd just flee immediately.

Basically, the Alraune acts like a demon, committing heinous acts on mass numbers of innocents, while Farrah does not act like a demon, she's just an innocent victim who got caught in the crossfire. She has no victims of her own, and she holds no desire to, as she mostly just wants to continue trading like she used to. The Alraune can be seen as too far gone, a danger with an extreme likelihood of bringing further harm should she be left alive. Farrah is not an extreme danger, and she's not too far gone, despite the demonhood.

I thought Kas saved the Alraune from the blizzard by pumping her full of cum and turning her into a demon in the process.

 

[Mogrir]

The thing is, the Alraune is practically a demon, while the demon merchant is practically not a demon. The Alraune came into existence because of Kas, was instructed by Kas, and basically only knew to do what Kas told her to. This resulted in her essentially being a mass-rape demon, despite not technically being a demon, and she violates many innocents. Farrah, the previously catfolk demon, is not evil. She has not committed any evil act, no rape, no murder, no theft. She has no desire to take souls, as she has no use for them, and she has no reason or want to bring corruption. She was raped by Kasyrra while she was traveling on a road, her soul forcefully taken from her while she was in a daze. She shows no hostility to the Champ even though the Champ's first reaction is to pull a weapon on her, unlike the Alraune who's first interaction was to attack the party, and when the Champ makes clear that they don't want Farrah's presence, she flees, rather than attacking. I'd guess that even if the Champ tried to attack, she'd just flee immediately.

Basically, the Alraune acts like a demon, committing heinous acts on mass numbers of innocents, while Farrah does not act like a demon, she's just an innocent victim who got caught in the crossfire. She has no victims of her own, and she holds no desire to, as she mostly just wants to continue trading like she used to. The Alraune can be seen as too far gone, a danger with an extreme likelihood of bringing further harm should she be left alive. Farrah is not an extreme danger, and she's not too far gone, despite the demonhood.

Not entirely true, though. Alraune was alive before Kas, but was weak and near death iirc, and Kas promised her power for her soul, though she never collected on the soul bit and just buggered off. Still heavily corrupted and altered, of course, but saying she only exists because of Kas is a bit misleading. And if you take the "Dominate" path with Alraune, you can pretty clearly see there is a path of redemption open for her if the Champion isn't going the corrupt route themselves.

Farrah, though, is more of a gray area. It seems pretty clear that she'd be happy to turn someone into a demon herself if they want it, but won't force it like it was on her, since she's so fixated on trade and sex. Also, though she states she doesn't quite know what she would do if she did have souls, that to me says that she's not against the idea either. Hell, I've just remembered, if the Alraune is dead and you send Jae'lyn to the Fort after Winter City, she ends up being fully demonic. I wonder who might have caused that final change to happen? :^)

 

[Burnerbro]

I thought Kas saved the Alraune from the blizzard by pumping her full of cum and turning her into a demon in the process.

Yup. Both Alraune and to lesser extent, Queen Nyzerrah can be considered Kasyrrah's victims as she exploited their biological imperatives and traditions respectively before corrupting them and siccing the onto the world - only to seemingly stop caring about them almost immediately, fully consumed by her new, ever bigger schemes. For both the Flower Mom and the Whornet Queen one can also argue that after the transformation their mental capacity and inhibitions were compromised enough to make them incapable of bearing full responsibility for their actions. It certainly made them incapable of clear moral judgement, or of seeing their and their ofsprings' deeds as malicious.

In any case, I'd have been fine with the binary choice of Alraune's fate if later, upon seeing that your mercy is being abused - something the game explicitly brings to the player's attention - you would get an option to confront Alraune and either threaten/reason with her in order to make her stop, or to encourage her, saying that you've come to enjoy her debauchery (or that you may need a plant-girl army of your own).

This is probably another multi-writer issue, but the PC's mercy is rather inconsistent it seems.

The centaur marauder leaders are possibly the most jarring example of this, since you are repeatedly given the option to kill them for attacking you (like everyone else) and being visibly corrupt (which you can be even more so).

 

[Mogrir]

In any case, I'd have been fine with the binary choice of Alraune's fate if later, upon seeing that your mercy is being abused - something the game explicitly brings to the player's attention - you would get an option to confront Alraune and either threaten/reason with her in order to make her stop, or to encourage her, saying that you've come to enjoy her debauchery (or that you may need a plant-girl army of your own).

If we can get just two people to purify the pool of an entire hive's honey and purge pretty much all traces of the corruption from it, I don't see why we can't either do the same for Flower Mom (love this nickname lmao) and her daughters. At the very least, there should be something along the lines of "Hey, you don't even need to be forcing yourselves on people to reproduce, they will literally come to you of their own volition. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure this was one of the resolutions you could come to with the Sand Witches in CoC1 or some places in TiTS, but I don't remember 100%.

The centaur marauder leaders are possibly the most jarring example of this, since you are repeatedly given the option to kill them for attacking you (like everyone else) and being visibly corrupt (which you can be even more so).

Honestly, there are other characters I would rather snap the necks of than the Centaurs or Alraune, or even the damn Imps. I'm looking at you, Byvernia, quit fucking ambushing me every time I go into the hills. Once per day my ass, one time I bumped into her three times in one day.

 

[Burnerbro]

At the very least, there should be something along the lines of "Hey, you don't even need to be forcing yourselves on people to reproduce, they will literally come to you of their own volition.

I was only half joking earlier when I suggested a direct Kitsune Den - Wayfort Gardens pipeline, heh. 'Cause there are almost no other (techically) non-demonic beings that will be as receptive as Flower Mom and her daughters towards kitsunes' sex for life force scheme. Edit: Or have as much raw vitality to give, judging by their ability to outfuck and outdance the Champ so hard it's frankly embarassing.

For some reason I haven't considered the possibility of completely reversing the Alraune's corruption, and if something like that ever gets implemented it will immediately eliminate my biggest gripe with the game.

 

[Savin]

Hell, I've just remembered, if the Alraune is dead and you send Jae'lyn to the Fort after Winter City, she ends up being fully demonic. I wonder who might have caused that final change to happen? :^)

Considering the state of Jael at that point I maintain that Farrah still did nothing wrong. Not her fault Jael's soul fell out while they were having a quick bone-down.

I'd have been fine with the binary choice of Alraune's fate if later, upon seeing that your mercy is being abused - something the game explicitly brings to the player's attention - you would get an option to confront Alraune and either threaten/reason with her in order to make her stop, or to encourage her, saying that you've come to enjoy her debauchery (or that you may need a plant-girl army of your own).

I'll look into adding something like that. Good idea.

 

[Lone Wolf115]

Considering the state of Jael at that point I maintain that Farrah still did nothing wrong. Not her fault Jael's soul fell out while they were having a quick bone-down.

Yeah you know stuff like that just happens it was a heat of the moment thing.

 

[SmithEK]

Minor gripe but I noticed it's a theme in this game and CoC, that our MC says they love a certain character or a certain NPC says they love you, then the next minute they are off buggering someone else. I just don't feel it's a need to include something as weak as love in a game, but that's just my opinion.

 

[Lone Wolf115]

So the problem is furry parts, you are fine with centaurs but wish less parts of them were like animals.

Have I got a gift for you then...

Spoiler: The Centaur Dilemma

View attachment 17583

No this is the real centaur dilemma.

Spoiler: Actual centaur dilemma

Just my little (horrifying) joke.

 

[Mogrir]

What I really gotta bitch about is the boss fights though. So often I find that myself or party members are getting one-tapped before whoever is tanking has a chance to even get into their stance. Warden Azami is probably the worst with this, but Byvernia and Elf Queen whatshername are pretty bad too. I get why solo encounters give the boss multiple rounds per turn, because it keeps action economy roughly equal, but sometimes this just leads to you getting completely dabbed on with no counter. RNG is RNG, but MAN is it frustrating. Azami in particular tilts me every time because of how often she gets a free Nerves of Steel in the first turn that instantly deletes someone.

It would be less obnoxious if for some godforsaken reason, you only get one "Retry" per encounter before having to do the ENTIRE dungeon all over again unless you're on the last boss.

No, I'm not salty, why do you ask?

 

[SmithEK]

What I really gotta bitch about is the boss fights though. So often I find that myself or party members are getting one-tapped before whoever is tanking has a chance to even get into their stance. Warden Azami is probably the worst with this, but Byvernia and Elf Queen whatshername are pretty bad too. I get why solo encounters give the boss multiple rounds per turn, because it keeps action economy roughly equal, but sometimes this just leads to you getting completely dabbed on with no counter. RNG is RNG, but MAN is it frustrating. Azami in particular tilts me every time because of how often she gets a free Nerves of Steel in the first turn that instantly deletes someone.

It would be less obnoxious if for some godforsaken reason, you only get one "Retry" per encounter before having to do the ENTIRE dungeon all over again unless you're on the last boss.

No, I'm not salty, why do you ask?

With Azami you don't need to fight her if you wait to encounter a group of Kitsunes and either let them feed off you or share your camp supplies before you defeat the alrune plant. With the jewl you get to access Kiyoko in the astral plane and helping the group you get to walk away from Azami.

 

[Burnerbro]

A couple of minors gripes of mine are tied to the initiative and turns mechanics for normal and mini bosses: I don't like how the status effects ticks down with each turn those enemies take instead of each round. The ones that cut their offensive stats remain somewhat effective, but ones that cut into their defences are often gone before you get to attack; thieves are especially buggered by their main damage perk being far less useful.

I'm also bummed up by the absence of 'Wait' option in combat, which makes deliberately setting up chains of abilities that much harder.

 

[Lone Wolf115]

I'm also bummed up by the absence of 'Wait' option in combat, which makes deliberately setting up chains of abilities that much harder.

I th that's the point plus there's people who probably fight with AI companions instead of manual.

 

[Burnerbro]

It would be less obnoxious if for some godforsaken reason, you only get one "Retry" per encounter before having to do the ENTIRE dungeon all over again unless you're on the last boss.

Didn't catch it righ away, but haven't this been reported as a bug and fixed relatively recently?

 

[Alypia]

I'm also bummed up by the absence of 'Wait' option in combat, which makes deliberately setting up chains of abilities that much harder.

There's "Defend".

 

[Animalistic]

There's "Defend".

What they mean by waiting instead of you doing an action the round your turn was given, you have option to delay it to lets say, turn after your allies. Which is different to defend since it takes up your action.

Like this. Lets say we have a combat encounter with A(llies), E(nemies) and C(hampion).

Round start: CEEEAEEA (starting turn order).
Champion chooses to wait: so the turn order turns into EEEACEEA .

So in this scenario, enemies after the champion go first since they chose to wait, then their Ally then champion. This is all by the way I think it would work.

I am not really advocating for this since game already has problem with manual control over entier party just turning game into easy mod. This, while having some obvious risks to it, could still make game even more mind numbing.

Just wanted to explain what they ment.

 

[Rear Admiral Chimera]

I think BurnerBro means delaying their action in the initiative order to act later during the round. Many GMs hate fucking with an established initiative order, and I doubt many coders (and Savin) would want to implement a system that allows such a feature in this game.

 

[Savin]

I'm also bummed up by the absence of 'Wait' option in combat

It's called "Defend." It's just Wait but lets you live, too.

 

[Burnerbro]

As others have described, 'Wait' would set the turn of a party member back on the initiative order, partially or all the way, so you can trade getting dunked on for the first part of the combat round for more reliable combo setups. It has been my favorite tactical flourish ever since playing HoMM 3 as a wee baby. And without spacial maneuvering it isn't anywhere near as broken when used against AI.

As a side note, 'Defend' action is currently bugged, so if a character uses it twice in a row you skip your turn on the second go without keeping the defense buff. Made a report some time ago.

(Edit: I gree with the point made below by TH that 'Ready' will work better as a name, avoiding unnecessary confusion)

 

[mikethor007]

My gripe for combat balancing is how adept certain enemies are at disarming the champion. Especially the imp group.

It was especially bad once in that they managed to keep my champion eternally disarmed. Disarm should be like getting knocked down, spend a turn to grab your weapon.

 

[Tide Hunter]

It's called "Defend." It's just Wait but lets you live, too.

As a bunch of people have interpreted it, I think that what Burner intended with the "Wait" suggestion, given that

I'm also bummed up by the absence of 'Wait' option in combat, which makes deliberately setting up chains of abilities that much harder.

is the full sentence, is that it would let us delay an action until after another party member's actions. Given the use of Wait within previous games, I think it would probably be better to refer to it as a Ready, since that's what it's called in D&D 5e (I know that the combat/powers of CoC2 is based on D&D 4e, but as far as I'm aware 4e does not have a Ready action in its rules, unlike 5e, though it does have actions that can happen on the turns of other characters). Basically, delaying your turn until latter in the round so you can strike at a more opportune time for your party's tactics.

 

[Lone Wolf115]

I actually forgot about that it's better than standing there like an idiot staring at the sun.

 

[Mogrir]

Didn't catch it righ away, but haven't this been reported as a bug and fixed relatively recently?

Apparently not, most encounters I only get a single Retry before being booted back to the main menu, which is part of why boss fights frustrate me so much. If RNG fucks me twice in a row, and it often does, I have to go through all the fights leading up to it again.

 

[Savin]

Apparently not, most encounters I only get a single Retry before being booted back to the main menu, which is part of why boss fights frustrate me so much. If RNG fucks me twice in a row, and it often does, I have to go through all the fights leading up to it again.

That's a bug.

 

[Irmo]

Hm, not really a gripe, but it was a bit annoying that in Undermountain, you reach the limits of the available content at such a massive distance from the waystone. It's a huge trek back, and twice in the same zone.

 

[Xenosium]

It feels like a lot of the Undermountain combat encounters are designed for a higher level we don't have access to yet. My main character is almost exclusively designed to take physical hits like they are nothing and Earth Elemental goes "Don't care, 75% of your health is gone, also I get to go three times, so enjoy dying before its even your healer's turn." and then just walks off. Putting Frenzy on it really feels like a personal insult for even attempting to fight it. It already hits like a jet liner without it, all Frenzy does is make ALL moves instakill.

Every other fight is SWARMS of enemies with huge healthpools. Any team without a dedicated support-only character gets whittled down to nothing very fast, which is even more of a problem with the Undermountain currently being both the biggest area and the area with the least ways to exit, with only a waystone and the front door at the very start nearly 20 spaces away from some parts of the map. Not to mention any team without AOE is in for either a long fight or a very short loss.

 

[NEEToskihime]

I feel like the Champion is kinda stale. It feels like they are simply doing quest because that is the right thing to do. I know this isn't made by Fenoxo but in CoC 1 you understood the champion motivation was and whatever path they took felt natural for their character. While in CoC 2 I don't get why everyone has so much trust in the Champion. Weren't we basically a rando in a bar when Cait came barging in?

 

[Tide Hunter]

I feel like the Champion is kinda stale. It feels like they are simply doing quest because that is the right thing to do. I know this isn't made by Fenoxo but in CoC 1 you understood the champion motivation was and whatever path they took felt natural for their character. While in CoC 2 I don't get why everyone has so much trust in the Champion. Weren't we basically a rando in a bar when Cait came barging in?

Basically? But it was said, very clearly and multiple times within the prologue segment (and perhaps also in some scenes after) that Kasyrra has promised that she is going to steel the Champ's soul. The Champ has the choice of either giving up, laying down, and letting Kasyrra take their soul (something both Kas and the champ don't want, as Kas wants the Champ's soul to develop and become much stronger first) or playing into Kas's plan while trying to thwart her by getting stronger and fighting. If you go with the Romance route, presumably the Champ's motivation goes from "beat the shit out of Kas" to "fuck the shit out of Kas," but the journey still starts with the motivation of wanting to keep your soul safe.

 

[NEEToskihime]

Basically? But it was said, very clearly and multiple times within the prologue segment (and perhaps also in some scenes after) that Kasyrra has promised that she is going to steel the Champ's soul. The Champ has the choice of either giving up, laying down, and letting Kasyrra take their soul (something both Kas and the champ don't want, as Kas wants the Champ's soul to develop and become much stronger first) or playing into Kas's plan while trying to thwart her by getting stronger and fighting. If you go with the Romance route, presumably the Champ's motivation goes from "beat the shit out of Kas" to "fuck the shit out of Kas," but the journey still starts with the motivation of wanting to keep your soul safe.

Good point, I guess I am waiting for a twist like in CoC 1 and a more complex reason that isn't going to happen. I think I am expecting a similar story as CoC 1 in CoC 2. I still like CoC 2.