Thank you for the extensive feedback!
1: Is there any chance of improving visibility when moving around in the forest and mines? The darkness in parts of the mines can hide rats perfectly, and the only decent way to fight them is to wait for them to move out, or run around mashing to try and start a fight. It's not too bad, as they usually do move out while mining, but an alternate would be nice.
There are a total of 6 Rats and they do respawn if you re-enter the mines. To be honest they were designed to be that way, skittering in and out of dark places. I do plan to implement Torches, Candles and Lanterns but they will likely mostly boost visibility near you rather than effecting the whole map's light level.
, and a lasting way to remove trees or remove them from view(or just an option to hide them?). Maybe the NPC spawn locations+movement could be adjusted so they stay in visible locations? Maybe their spawn rates could be improved above 25%, so that hunting for them is easier? Maybe a check for NPCs in the room? Like "There are 2 Rats" or "There is a Swordsman", similar to how we can just press T to bring up the clock while walking around.
I'm going to pay closer attention where I spread out the spawn locations so they don't get covered up by trees, however, the NPCs move around at random and there is no way to pre-plan their movement path when their spawn locations are so random, so it is possible they will walk behind a tree. Removing the Trees or hiding them is unlikely as they are drawn on a Parallax layer, if I was to hide that layer it would make the whole map look like a flat field with stumps where the trees were.
And it sort of makes sense that an NPC could be harder to find in a forest in my opinion. With extra maps getting added in there would be a higher chance of finding a traveler on at least one of them. Though I should mention, their spawn rates do go up when they are needed for a quest, and the likelihood of the correct one spawning also increases.
That said, I have been considering adding a supernatural ability to "sense" nearby humans, which will notify you if there is a human traveler that spawned on the map you just entered.
Traveling Priest(10k coins for white magic seems massive, especially since his appearance is random, and income is poor). If it is someone useful, I have to guess at how much Intimidate I need for the Student Traveler, or what stats I need to win against the ones I fight.
Intimidate works of both your specialisation level and your Strength value. You can also knock out the Student if you are invisible by approaching him and hitting him over the head, owning a Wooden Club significantly raises chances of success.
Which leads to the next problem(2): The most useful NPCs are actually very strong in battle, alt methods to capture might not exist/be available to the player, and getting the stats to beat them isn't easy. I had 125 Max VP(10 from Commoner, 10 more from chest-found Twine Amulets), 2 Shivs(best 1h weapon I've found for offense), Iron Chainmail, 4 STR, 4 TGH, and 3 AGI with my equipment(4/2/3 when naked), and I had almost zero chance to beat Swordsman or Thief with this gear. I got crushed by both of them because of their 30~ damage per hit.
So I went and spent the next in-game week or two grinding in the mines. I opened up all 3 extra rooms, I pushed all Mining sections except VP to max, and managed to get an Iron Shield, Iron Platemail, and a Mace(for a chance of stun). I also pushed Athletics to 4 and its Arms skill to 3. This put my at 10 TGH and 1 AGI, so Swordsman now dealt 5~ damage per hit, and my best source of damage was still Hail Strike. Swordsman still managed to deal 30 damage before Hail Strike could take him down.
Without the Charisma skill, I seemed to be unable to Intimidate the Student Traveler, who I need for Saffron's sidequest, which meant that I was unable to advance that part without beating the Swordsman.
Well "most useful" is likely to vary from person to person, the NPCs weren't really designed to be similar in battle. The Thief is actually a pretty random fight in general because he has a high crit chance, he is pretty RNG heavy in terms of how the fight will go. However the Swordsman was designed to be one of the hardest fights.
You don't need the Charisma skill to take down the Student, it just gives a big bonus. You can also just knock him out by buying and using an Invisibility Potion or Scroll.
Also, you can buy the Charisma skill from Azalea on the second floor of the Goblin Brothel on Saturdays, so you don't even need the Swordsman NPC for that.
Are NPCs meant to be this strong, where 7+ TGH seems needed to endure their attacks? If not, perhaps they could be weakened a bit? If NPCs are meant to be this strong, perhaps better gear could be made available? Or perhaps a reliable alternate way to obtain better gear, such as better stock from the Smith as you do something? Smithing takes quite a while to level even once, and it feels like Iron Shield and/or Iron Plate is needed for some fights, like Swordsman and Thief. I only have Smithing level 2, so no idea what gear later levels give, or how reasonable it is to make, or how good it is.
The NPCs are sort of where I want them to be strength wise, but they could do with a bot more balancing. 7+ TGH should be more than enough to win against them, I'll do some testing on a more combat focused build with no consumables to see how they feel, though I have beaten all of them with 5+ before.
Better gear will be available, it's just at the moment there is only Iron as a material for Smithing, which was planned to be a Tier 1 material. There really isn't much past Smithing Level 2, as neither the materials not gear for higher levels have been designed yet. Same applies to pretty much all crafting disciplines, Level 2 is as high as it gets. There are a few things at Level 3 for some professions, but I mostly stuck them there because they aren't fully implemented and I didn't expect anyone to get that far. The Leveling curve on the crafting professions wasn't really designed to deal with anything above 2 at the current leveling pace.
3: Weapon variety that I have seen seems rather barren, as none of the weapons give STR, and most of the extra details don't seem too important, except for the Iron Shiv and Iron Mace. Iron shiv swings an extra time on normal attack, and using 2 of them stacks that effect, for 3 swings. Iron Mace has 10% chance to stun, which seems to be checked on each hit of multi-attack skills. Neither of these have any penalties attached either.
Maybe harder to make/more expensive weapons could be made stronger, so that the Shiv doesn't beat them on normal swings?
I will re-evaluate the weapons, the Shiv is going to get changed for sure. I plan to add more weapons too, though I would need to think of how to make them different to what is already available.
Related(3.5?)The purpose of weapon skills is not clear, as there is no info suggesting they are any stronger than a normal attack, so hit count is the only damage detail clearly given. Most weapon skills swing once, maybe twice with a follow-up skill, yet one of the basic skills given by Athletics(Arms, I think?) is Hail Strike, which swings 5 times and has a follow-up for a sixth hit, and the only penalty seems to be it's 20 TP cost(yet Focus gives 30).
Bladed weapons have a hidden +30% damage boost against fleshy, non-armoured, non-homogeneous targets. Hail Strike should be from Martial Arts, I will double check it though. That said, it would be hard to use Hail Strike every turn due to TP cost and using Focus does take a whole turn as well. Focus was mainly designed to help you power up to a Limitbreak skill which you get at Level 2 of the Specialisations.
Weapon skills are stronger than the basic attack, however, they are not as good as Abilities like Hail Strike. This is because a person with no Athletics skill can still use a Sword and the weapon skill associated with it, but they can't use the skills you get for actually taking the specialisation and really excelling at combat.
Maybe weapon skill info could be clearer, if there is more than just dealing damage X times + maybe an ailment? If that really is everything to weapon skills, maybe they could be improved, so that they aren't outclassed by a normal attack?
I will re-check this, as Weapon Skills did have a higher damage assigned to them in the equation than the normal "Attack" command.
4: Some amount of grind is good, and is in fact part of what kept me interested in this game, as I want to see the other talents and what they unlock, as well as other sex scenes. I don't mind going through the Mines a few times to make an equip, but the amount of Money needed to pay for everything right now seems to overwhelm all sources of income, especially since so much of that Money is spent gaining talents or opening up other things.
For the most part the pricing wasn't really designed to accommodate anything beyond Level 2s in most skills. There are a lot of "placeholder" cost values as well, especially on some of the material prices.
Despite earlier mention in the thread of the Brothel being good money, visits consume a base of 20 VP and WP(more if gangbang)(affected by Sex level it seems, which is slow to boost, but 12 at best?) along with multiple hours, and the best pay I have seen was around 83 coins, and I have seen many cases of 0 coins due to the client being unsatisfied for no clear reason. Is the pay chance and rate affected by Sex level? More in-depth info about Brothel pay and mechanics would be very helpful.
They pay rate actually varies depending on the client. There is essentially a satisfaction number for each client, with Goblins and Goblin Virgins having a pretty low number while MILFs and Gangbang groups have pretty high difficulty. There is a very large number of things that affects your performance in bed with them, ranging from your looks, traits, skill level, fetishes, titles, backgrounds, whether you Impregnated her, and actions you take during the actual Sex Scene. Getting significantly above the number (about 50% more) gives a significant pay off as well. A character which is focused on bedroom services can get 80-100 per shift on average.
I'll need to find some convenient way to insert a better explanation of this into the actual game without forcing anyone to read it. Maybe I'll add some book on the table that can be read for this info or something.
The best money grind I have found so far(with my available talents) seems to be the Mines by day with max Mining and Geo by day, and killing Wolves all night. With my 5 TGH, a hit from a Wolf does 1 damage. Each mining node is 6 VP at max(10 base), and the materials given are enough that I can consistently smith at least 1 Iron Shield to sell, along with any jewels, crystals, and Copper Ingots I got, while selling the Meat and any Leather not used in the Shield(s). Smithing is my only item creation talent, and I didn't realize during CharCreation how powerful the others could possibly be, even just for income.
You can still pick up most of the other skills from the NPC that appears in the Brothel on Saturdays. Artificing is probably a bit better (depending on the luck with jewels) because both Copper and Jewels are found by mining, so you don't even need to deal with Wolves at night. The down side is availability of Copper nodes though.
Even if the expected pay per Day in the mines with max Mining is worse than a Night of Brothel with max Sex, it's very consistent due to the Brothel often not paying anything. It also gives Crafting and Battle Exp, which can be used on so much, while Sex Exp seems much more limited.
You do get more Sex EXP in general per action, though it is mainly used to lower your Fetishes if they start getting out of hand. You can also use it to buy permanent boosts to Vitality and Will Power. You can do that with other skills too, but Sex EXP allows you to purchase both and the max cap for them is higher than from other skills.
Overall, I suppose most of my issues can be summed up with: Information is lacking(including visual/area design), ways to obtain it without asking the Dev or other players are minimal, and making up for that requires blind luck or sheer effort, which can be annoying and time consuming. Making the info available in-game would likely solve most of what I mentioned above(except maybe the stats for fighting NPCs)
That's understandable, I'm trying to slowly add the info as I go. The downside of making the game is that I know how everything works, so it is not easy to determine which parts I need to explain so I have to rely on people telling me which parts need more info on, to better nail down the explanations.
Again, sorry if I came off as overly harsh.
Not at all, it was a very useful read for me! Sorry the reply took a while though.
