Initial Impressions and Comments

[Pursang]

Hey everyone longtime lurker here, I wanted to say that I'm really excited about this game being in development. CoC was one of (if not the first) erotic games that I played, and it's remained one of my favorites all these years later. While TiTS is a technically fantastic game, it couldn't quite scratch that thematic itch for me. So imagine my excitement about finding out that CoC2 was in development, a fantasy game about corruption that was more technically advanced and borrowed elements from other excellent games like FoE. I'm sure Savin and his team will bring a breath of fresh air to an already crowded market.

With that being said, I have a few comments and questions after playing the demo a few times and reading through the design briefs.

I think one of the first things that hooked me into the original game was just how well it sucked me into the story, how it sold me on what it was trying to sell: You are a fish out of water who is completely out of his or her depth when you first start up. Getting assaulted by Zetaz, the random exploration scenes that tell a story without any exposition, until finally you get beaten down by a level 6 Tentacle Beast because you where only level 2. No it wasn't fair but that's the entire point; Mareth isn't a fair place - it's a world under siege, and you're just trying to survive it.

I'm not so much concerned about the sexy stuff, the waifus and whatnot as I'm already sure I'm going to like whatever is developed, after all I think Savin and I share a few kinks (is railing omnibus demon-queens a kink?). No, what I really want out of CoC2 is for it to nail that aforementioned theme of a nobody being dropped into a hostile, sometimes unfair world and prevailing in the end. I think one of the major missteps that TiTS made for me was just how easy it is, if you have any experience playing RPGs then it is a cakewalk to min/max your character so that you can easily go to scene-after-scene. I want a challenge, I want to feel satisfied as I stand over my opponents as I decide their fate.

I'm curious to learn what the main motive(s) for the PC are in this game. In CoC you where a hapless and naive stooge thrust into another world as a sacrifice in the guise of defeating the demons troubling his/her village. In TiTS you're a playboy going on an adventure to inherit your father's fortune. In the demo for CoC2 there's a sentence that seems to imply that the PC is concerned that Kasyrra will follow through with her threat of taking their soul, and what damage she could do to the rest of the world. I question if that is sufficient enough motivation (the fear that Kasyrra is telling the truth, as outlandish as it seems) for someone who seemed to cut through her cultists like a hot knife through butter. Kasyrra's power isn't well established at all in the beginning of the game, all the PC knows for sure is that she's a demon from another world. Hell, Kasyrra seems downright mild in temperament, allowing the PC to not sexually serve her! For all the PC knows she could very well be grandstanding and the troubles near Hawkethorne could be completely unrelated to her presence.

As I said, I'm really excited about this game, and I'm painfully aware that development has barely just begun and the demo probably can't even be considered to be in an alpha-state... but I feel like it's important to get these small but necessary details right to not only do well by CoCs legacy, but to improve upon it and potentially make an even better game!

Thanks for reading.

 

[OatmealNookie]

Playing through the intro, by far my primary impression was that I was entirely ready to dig into a highly detailed old school CRPG somewhere between Final Fantasy 3(6) and Wizardry 8. With a side of hot demoness action.

I realize the idea was to have the opposite; and that easily accessible pron that doesn't get derailed or bogged down with itself is what everyone expects here. That said, everyone here knows you will get the pron right; having that rest on top of a rock solid RPG base is the difference between having your cake, and pyrovision. Also, I am thoroughly burned out on fantasy, anything D&D/Diku/FF derived, and combat games in general; so if I'm ready to sit down and dig in, I'm definitely not alone in wanting a much more meaty game this time around.

The obvious issue is difficulty, Nintendo hard or gold star for participation, a static difficulty will frustrate/bore players and easily derail accessibility. The obvious solution is a multivalued difficulty level, either quantized or analog. That quickly gets into managing core heuristics from a spreadsheet with graphs everywhere, rather than actually assigning values, and that's not for everyone.

Kasyrra was awesome, still not into futa, but for once manmeat wasn't forced front and center on the pc. And the part I did enjoy was enjoyed very much. Really great to see actual player input directly affect the scene progression beyond choosing which sequence to start, definitely brings immersion and hope to see more in the future. Probably much harder to write that way, and may not be obvious, but that's a huge leap forward if you can populate the rest of the game that way.

Not really sure where this fits in, but I think the reason I want a more fleshed out rpg game is the party system. At least for me, putting a party together seems like it ideally should involve considerable investment in the characters I choose to bring with me, which is a very good thing. Unfortunately, assuming this continues as a (nominal) rpg combat game, the value of that investment cannot easily exceed the quality of the underlying rpg combat engine.
I am concerned that if the rpg game can't hold it's own, the party system can't either, and will become an unfun burden rather than a star feature.

Love what you've come up with so far, waiting impatiently to see what's next.

 

[Pursang]

Not really sure where this fits in, but I think the reason I want a more fleshed out rpg game is the party system. At least for me, putting a party together seems like it ideally should involve considerable investment in the characters I choose to bring with me, which is a very good thing. Unfortunately, assuming this continues as a (nominal) rpg combat game, the value of that investment cannot easily exceed the quality of the underlying rpg combat engine.
I am concerned that if the rpg game can't hold it's own, the party system can't either, and will become an unfun burden rather than a star feature.

Yeah for sure, considering that there's only three slots for your companions (plus the guest and pet slots) and I assume more than a few companions to chose from, it's going to be a difficult balancing act to both balance the game around different party compositions and just who people want to take with them. It seems likely that there will be quite a few interactions at play - the design doc implying that companions would interact with each other on a regular basis - which should be great for not only realism, but replay-ability.

In the end it's going to come down to one of those classical questions: Do you want a good game, or good smut? Not to imply that you can't have both of course, but the more ambitious you make the game the more tighter the tolerances are with the finite resources you have. It's relatively easy to make a good video game if it's nothing more than a visual novel using Ren'py, much harder to accomplish with fully-fledged RPG systems like party combat, re-specializations, and alchemy.

 

[The Observer]

Yeah for sure, considering that there's only two slots for your companions (plus the guest and pet slots) and I assume more than a few companions to chose from, it's going to be a difficult balancing act to both balance the game around different party compositions and just who people want to take with them. It seems likely that there will be quite a few interactions at play - the design doc implying that companions would interact with each other on a regular basis - which should be great for not only realism, but replay-ability.

To be perfectly honest, we have some failsafes in action. The affinity system is a big change in that players can't keep a stat at 1 the way they could in TiTS. At the same time, the only way to gain stats through level up and permanent TFs means that there is an upper limit we can assume. This is a great boon for actually creating and balancing challenging and unique boss fights so we don't have people with 1 aim/reflexes complaining they can't beat Amara by shooting her.

The champion should be the baseline; companions are there to fill in for weaknesses and synergise strengths. That's why they're allowed to have perks and abilities the champion usually can't get. At the same time, since you can't fuck with them too much, it means that they can carry the player to some extent if the player makes silly build decisions, not that you can't just retrain in town.

At the very least, your choice of companions should allow for different ways of overcoming obstacles, dialogue, and more story options. See GarthQuest1 for an example of what this should look like at the most basic level.

 

[Pursang]

To be perfectly honest, we have some failsafes in action. The affinity system is a big change in that players can't keep a stat at 1 the way they could in TiTS. At the same time, the only way to gain stats through level up and permanent TFs means that there is an upper limit we can assume. This is a great boon for actually creating and balancing challenging and unique boss fights so we don't have people with 1 aim/reflexes complaining they can't beat Amara by shooting her.

The champion should be the baseline; companions are there to fill in for weaknesses and synergise strengths. That's why they're allowed to have perks and abilities the champion usually can't get. At the same time, since you can't fuck with them too much, it means that they can carry the player to some extent if the player makes silly build decisions, not that you can't just retrain in town.

At the very least, your choice of companions should allow for different ways of overcoming obstacles, dialogue, and more story options. See GarthQuest1 for an example of what this should look like at the most basic level.

Huh that's fascinating! I didn't even think about balancing the party's power around the PC, that's a really elegant way of giving the player more agency while not strictly penalizing them for playing sub-optimally. It obviously makes sense, as by the end of the game the PC should be an unrivaled "demigod" with no peers, at least as far the story goes.

Awesome.