I'm willing to work on this, since I'm pretty sure it's not going to be particularly difficult - though I will need to learn exactly how to make specific buttons edit flags, but after reading through the short description on the release I focused on this part:
"a Steele that can reach into other’s minds at will and exert his own mental pressure on other NPCs requires a game bespoke tailored to that sort of experience – something we aren’t doing."
I don't think it's necessary for it to be tailored to psychics - we can instead have backwards-tailored psychics. Instead of making the content fit psychics, you make psychics fit the content. Every other class only has a few specific things they can do thanks to being that class - so let's say Steele can only use their mind powers to nudge things in the direction they want, and only in some situations. Kind of like the jedi mind trick - not really mind control, just things that might have happened anyway, being nudged into happening.
For example: on Mhen'ga, say you can bypass the Zil pacification on Penny's first encounter. Make them stand down without fighting or submitting to them. On Tarkus, be able to break out of hypnosis from the salamander hypnotist (i forget their name..), etc. - things that are already programmed to happen one way or another, just able to skip. Same way engineers can skip bypasses sometimes.
I'd also make it so any major choices can be made to go the opposite way of what you chose - say you accidentally picked the wrong things to entice Taivra -> after defeating her, you're not locked into making her submit to you, you can still offer marriage. Say you wanted to make her submit to you after you've already enticed her into being open to marriage - similarly, allow that to happen with a psychic button after picking the correct choices to entice Taivra.
It wouldn't actually influence any content in a major way - it's the exact same outcomes, it's not creating extra situations. Just like other classes, you can just skip some things. Basically the gimmick of it is save-scumming without saving and loading and skipping some content if you want. Nowhere near game-changing. Obviously wouldn't be available to any boss fights, the game still has to be a game.
I'm perfectly fine with writing short stubs of text that describe it happening for any of the given situations people would want a skip / choice change for, and coding new buttons and assigning them the right flags - but I'd need to know exactly how the game is programmed. An example of a dialogue's programming language (one that also has flags and a requirement for the button to show up in the first place) would probably be enough to get me started.
"a Steele that can reach into other’s minds at will and exert his own mental pressure on other NPCs requires a game bespoke tailored to that sort of experience – something we aren’t doing."
I don't think it's necessary for it to be tailored to psychics - we can instead have backwards-tailored psychics. Instead of making the content fit psychics, you make psychics fit the content. Every other class only has a few specific things they can do thanks to being that class - so let's say Steele can only use their mind powers to nudge things in the direction they want, and only in some situations. Kind of like the jedi mind trick - not really mind control, just things that might have happened anyway, being nudged into happening.
For example: on Mhen'ga, say you can bypass the Zil pacification on Penny's first encounter. Make them stand down without fighting or submitting to them. On Tarkus, be able to break out of hypnosis from the salamander hypnotist (i forget their name..), etc. - things that are already programmed to happen one way or another, just able to skip. Same way engineers can skip bypasses sometimes.
I'd also make it so any major choices can be made to go the opposite way of what you chose - say you accidentally picked the wrong things to entice Taivra -> after defeating her, you're not locked into making her submit to you, you can still offer marriage. Say you wanted to make her submit to you after you've already enticed her into being open to marriage - similarly, allow that to happen with a psychic button after picking the correct choices to entice Taivra.
It wouldn't actually influence any content in a major way - it's the exact same outcomes, it's not creating extra situations. Just like other classes, you can just skip some things. Basically the gimmick of it is save-scumming without saving and loading and skipping some content if you want. Nowhere near game-changing. Obviously wouldn't be available to any boss fights, the game still has to be a game.
I'm perfectly fine with writing short stubs of text that describe it happening for any of the given situations people would want a skip / choice change for, and coding new buttons and assigning them the right flags - but I'd need to know exactly how the game is programmed. An example of a dialogue's programming language (one that also has flags and a requirement for the button to show up in the first place) would probably be enough to get me started.