Your gripes with CoC II

[Ria Brew]

I've stumbled across that place long ago when looking for an answer to something and I wouldn't necessarily cite them as being the most... objective collection of people. A lot of what I saw felt very emotionally charged, with an emphasis on the charged part. I'd take anything you see there with a generous pinch of salt.

I guess I have a weird outlook on the whole thing, as someone who spent 2 years in a poly relationship, I never felt third wheeled by anything with Lia and Azzy. To me it was exactly what some poly relationships are: your partner has their partner and you aren't always gonna be involved with them and that's okay. As far as I'm aware, mine, with 4 people all dating each other, is kind of rare in poly.

 

[Animalistic]

The scenes I remember people having specific problems with are--
1)Anything involving Dawnsword quest. How Azzy seemed more enamored with her girlfriend while just paying passing glances for the champ. I think this one should be fixed, since Aly alluded to it.
2)The voyeur scene. People do not like the fact that you can walk on them having fun, which either results you in being kicked out as a guy or the girls paying lip service as a girl before going on their marry way. Just seems unnecessary.
Those are the ones I can think off off top of my head.

But I think a lot of frustation also stems from peoples perception of Azy prior to her becoming a companion.
The first time you meat her, she seems deeply enamored with you if you fuck her, so a lot of people assumed that she was more in vain with Brienne and Kiyoko in terms of waifus. So when she latter gets enamored by Liaden, who, quite frankly, has done nothing during the entier quest or had any real interaction with Azzy prior to justify their love for each other. So a lot of people felt betrayed. Which I get.
I think that the Azies speach about her peoples poly tendencies should be moved somewhere in her initial encounter. The one she gives player if you refuse to help her with Liaden (which people also seemingly have problem with).

 

[redlightnin55]

some people felt "cucked" (somehow, despite you having to be the one to even set them up to begin with, and being given the option to tell Azzy no)

While I can't speak for the, uhh...extremists on the subject, there is something to this with the content as it was. I can't vouch for recently added things mind you, steam is my platform and we only get the one update per month generally between the 16-20th. So this post will be written from a perspective that doesn't take that added stuff into account.

The problem is that their relationship comes very much out of nowhere when prior to it, she's very deeply into the champion, and then she loses any sort of focus on the player once Liaden gets involved, though it's not really extreme enough to come off as proper cucking. It's more neglectful and not so much fetishized. And it becomes a recurring event with a special CG and everything that gets forced on you, serving as kind of a constant reminder that Azzy literally races off to be with Lia (stated outright through the narrative) as soon as she can but she never has an event where she approaches or expresses the same level of interest in you, regardless of your gender.

And my issue with telling her no is that, well, the champ comes off kinda psycho in that particular dialogue. I personally would rather just have another choice that says "go for it" but still removes the content for the player, that way you don't get forced to contend with that stuff if you happen to be a huge Azzy stan/play a male character period, and you don't act like a lunatic.

Though again, this is not accounting for any new content added. Purely based on previous version experiences.

 

[zagzig]

The problem is that their relationship comes very much out of nowhere when prior to it, she's very deeply into the champion, and then she loses any sort of focus on the player once Liaden gets involved, though it's not really extreme enough to come off as proper cucking. It's more neglectful and not so much fetishized. And it becomes a recurring event with a special CG and everything that gets forced on you, serving as kind of a constant reminder that Azzy literally races off to be with Lia (stated outright through the narrative) as soon as she can but she never has an event where she approaches or expresses the same level of interest in you, regardless of your gender.

Is the issue that you want a recurring event where Azzy propositions you for sex as an equivalent for her scene with Liaden? Because Quin can have that from his holiday event and it's quite unpopular. For the player experience, I personally prefer that we be the ones to initiate as many things as possible. That's the only thing I can think of regarding 'losing any sort of focus' on the player character, as her dialogue is always very affectionate and eager to make love to the champion.

 

[TVGuru]

Any Liaden parts in particular? You can now approach Liaden in the chapel and talk through the relationship with her, along with sex scenes and a date. And Aly has mentioned that there are rewrites to the High Ground quest which haven't been implemented yet.

Maybe if you’re a woman. As a man, all I get is the same chat and a hug. The relationship talk just boils down to me telling her to talk to Azzyran about it, stating advice from me is apparently unneeded. Even weirder the hug scene refers to Liaden as my girlfriend despite us never talking about that or even doing anything to imply it. Azzy calls me a pet in one scene, her King in another, and her platonic savior who might share her hive in the next. It’s just all so inconsistent.

 

[Animalistic]

Because Quin can have that from his holiday event and it's quite unpopular.

Because it is bad. People really do not have problem with Brienne milking or Kas/Kiyoko events.

 

[redlightnin55]

Is the issue that you want a recurring event where Azzy propositions you for sex as an equivalent for her scene with Liaden? Because Quin can have that from his holiday event and it's quite unpopular. For the player experience, I personally prefer that we be the ones to initiate as many things as possible. That's the only thing I can think of regarding 'losing any sort of focus' on the player character, as her dialogue is always very affectionate and eager to make love to the champion.

I think people not liking the Quin one is probably because it's Quin, and while I don't really think much of him one way or the other, other folks love to hate him for some reason. I don't see people complain about Brienne's all that much, so I doubt they'd hate a decent Azzy one either. I wouldn't mind it personally if it functioned the same as Brienne's does, where you can say yes, no, always yes, or always no.

As for anything else, I've talked about this ad nauseam in the past, so I don't really have the energy to dig every bit of it back up to re-explain my feelings. If you're curious about my personal feelings about their relationship, I typed them all up here a while back as I refreshed myself by going through the whole thing scene by scene and writing as I went. If you're uninterested in the entire spiel, just read the "My final verdict is that..." portion of the post and what follows after it.

I think I'd rather just get the aforementioned "go for it but still remove it for me, the player" option when she approaches the champion about Lia. I don't like Lia much even without her relationship with Azzy so that option would be the ideal solution for me, personally.

 

[zagzig]

Maybe if you’re a woman. As a man, all I get is the same chat and a hug. The relationship talk just boils down to me telling her to talk to Azzyran about it, stating advice from me is apparently unneeded. Even weirder the hug scene refers to Liaden as my girlfriend despite us never talking about that or even doing anything to imply it. Azzy calls me a pet in one scene, her King in another, and her platonic savior who might share her hive in the next. It’s just all so inconsistent.

Looking at the hug scene, it seems gated that only people who aren't lovers with Liaden can get it which seems like another bug. Other than that, well yeah, Liaden is a lesbian. The patch is that champ and Lia can interact and be friendly outside of Azyrran.

And between pet, king, and platonic savior, the latter seems like the outlier. For the record, one of the devs on Discord was informed of the "and yourself, platonic or not" line and replied "god damnit". So honestly it seems like a lot of this is beefy patch jank.

EDIT: Nope, misread code which happens a lot. The scene is definitely written as if it's only meant to trigger as a liaden.isPoly interaction though

EDIT EDIT: The hug also got an exasperated response. The lesson here is report things that seem janky because a lot of the time they just are, lol.

 

[Sacremas]

I don't mind Quin approaching the player, what I do mind is him approaching the player with the exact same damn content over and over. If he came up and was all, hey, I really miss you, want to hang out? And by hang out I mean have a lot of sex? And a yes just triggered his normal sex scene collection with that "taleer package" scene as another selectable option, I'd be a lot more okay with it personally.

 

[zagzig]

Perhaps, though I definitely prefer the game shy away from random or recurring events. I know the scenes I want to proc, game! You don't need to be throwing events in my face to remind me that [character] exists!

 

[Sacremas]

EDIT EDIT: The hug also got an exasperated response. The lesson here is report things that seem janky because a lot of the time they just are, lol.

Lol, guess I'm keeping away from Azzy/Lia content on my male characters until next patch...

 

[TVGuru]

Looking at the hug scene, it seems gated that only people who aren't lovers with Liaden can get it which seems like another bug. Other than that, well yeah, Liaden is a lesbian. The patch is that champ and Lia can interact and be friendly outside of Azyrran.

And between pet, king, and platonic savior, the latter seems like the outlier. For the record, one of the devs on Discord was informed of the "and yourself, platonic or not" line and replied "god damnit". So honestly it seems like a lot of this is beefy patch jank.

EDIT: Nope, misread code which happens a lot. The scene is definitely written as if it's only meant to trigger as a liaden.isPoly interaction though

EDIT EDIT: The hug also got an exasperated response. The lesson here is report things that seem janky because a lot of the time they just are, lol.

So even a hug is off the table. This really fails to endear me to her in any capacity.

 

[zagzig]

Lol, guess I'm keeping away from Azzy/Lia content on my male characters until next patch...

You could say that the bug had a lot of bugs

(I absolutely stole this line)

 

[morii]

I find the Harpy event annoying as hell and I don't know how to get rid of her besides kicking her out of my room. Does it disable her permanently if you do that? I only have bedmates when I'm looking for something in particular, and I think that's the only other way to stop her from appearing. =w=

About the Quin holiday thing...I liked being a holiday slut once or twice. But how do you stop him from asking if we have holiday events on? Can you opt out permanently or something?

 

[zagzig]

I find the Harpy event annoying as hell and I don't know how to get rid of her besides kicking her out of my room. Does it disable her permanently if you do that? I only have bedmates when I'm looking for something in particular, and I think that's the only other way to stop her from appearing. =w=

About the Quin holiday thing...I liked being a holiday slut once or twice. But how do you stop him from asking if we have holiday events on? Can you opt out permanently or something?

Yeah, if you keep kicking the Wingleader out she stops showing up. And the answer for 'how do you stop him from asking' is... you can't. Ever. There's probably a console command for it but otherwise it's an infinitely repeating event. To the end of time, Quin will be asking if you'd like to be his holiday hussy.

Like those poor folk stuck impregnating Brienne every fortnight because they selected Always and refuse to use birth control.

 

[A1teros]

I sort of wish Brint and Brienne were two completely different characters, like adventuring mino brother and sister that you run into together instead. I have several characters that would enjoy playing with Brienne a lot, but it's just not in their character to leave their friend to suffer under the cursed armor without taking them Brother Sanders to at least look over it, which then stops things, so to get my favorite waifu, I have to intentionally betray my friend. It comes across as just insane meta-gaming in the end, which has led me to just ignore Brint and Brienne entirely out of frustration for a good while.

Man, I remember having to plot out a very specific route in order to end up with a scenario where it's acceptable for Brienne to happen, something like timing the trip back to the Frosthound so that Atugia shows up, leading to you getting inside the Frosthound without Garth talk triggering, then that scene where Brint is in heat happens because of amount of time it took to get back, then it's too late to see Sanders so you go to bed, then right after you wake up Garth asks you to go find Garret, and you can't just leave Garth's son to die that man is your benefactor, so you go do Dog Days and at that point it's been long enough that the armor should trigger. It doesn't because of anti-frustration features, so you don't end up with Brienne by accident, but with that much time having elapsed it should have.

 

[A1teros]

Man, I remember having to plot out a very specific route in order to end up with a scenario where it's acceptable for Brienne to happen, something like timing the trip back to the Frosthound so that Atugia shows up, leading to you getting inside the Frosthound without Garth talk triggering, then that scene where Brint is in heat happens because of amount of time it took to get back, then it's too late to see Sanders so you go to bed, then right after you wake up Garth asks you to go find Garret, and you can't just leave Garth's son to die that man is your benefactor, so you go do Dog Days and at that point it's been long enough that the armor should trigger. It doesn't because of anti-frustration features, so you don't end up with Brienne by accident, but with that much time having elapsed it should have.

I think it also involved using Ahmri to pad your time getting back, just overall a doozy trying to create a scenario where reasonably you would not be able to get the armor off, they really do give you quite a bit of time even before the anti-frustration feature of having to go through each scene in the process a set number of days from the previous one. Instead of one countdown it's a set of countdowns that trigger in sequence so no matter how long you take to get the first scene in the transformation, you still have a fixed number of time before the next scene.

 

[WolframL]

The collar was intended to keep her under control for the immediate future as we're busy infiltrating the castle and can't leave her free to interfere for the next half hour or so; magical obedience collar was the quickest way to restrain her and it was right there to use. The fact that it ends up unremovable because we forgot to establish a safeword is explicitly an accident.

 

[MarcoPolo121]

Plus Etheryn doesn't want to kill her because Jae'lyn was genuinely kind to her in the past but doesn't want to risk her pouncing on people and fucking them without consent or turning into a Demon, even if that can end up happening anyway. That's why all those extra bits get involved. I'm sure in epilogue slides she'll get a bit about how the collar came off and she and Delilah shacked up and had a bunch of elven kids or something.

 

[WolframL]

Yeah, this is a setting where magical enchantments can be broken with some combination of time, power and the right knowledge, it's just that these things aren't always within the intended scope of the game. See Cait's brand for the most prominent example of 'Yes it can be broken, yes it could come up in the ending, no it's not happening during gameplay'.

 

[CasualAntlerEnjoyer]

These events happened because the author wanted them to happen to justify enslaving Jael'yn, they don't feel natural one bit.

That's honestly a pretty fair take, it is kinda straight out of left field with that sequence.

 

[Animalistic]

That's why all those extra bits get involved. I'm sure in epilogue slides she'll get a bit about how the collar came off and she and Delilah shacked up and had a bunch of elven kids or something.

Ahahaha, no. The game forced me into enslaving her at the time, so, by all gosh darn Dallizas "sapphic" sparks, I am monopolizing that dick all to myself.

Still waiting for a threesome with Jaelyn and Arona. 2 big subs at your beck and call sounds divine.

 

[cloer]

These events happened because the author wanted them to happen to justify enslaving Jael'yn, they don't feel natural one bit.

If it doesn't feel natural to you, you haven't seen enough shit hit the fan. To paraphrase a quote I've heard somewhere but can't remember who it's attributed to:

Real life can get away with stupid shit no one would think would happen, but you can't argue with it, it's real life and it did happen. Meanwhile, fiction is held to certain standards regarding things that can and should happen because of how it seems logical and natural. The more real you make your story, the more unreal it can seem.

Personally, I had no problem with that scene. And as a writer of a story, EVERYTHING you write is in service to where you want things to go. How else are you to progress the story?

 

[CasualAntlerEnjoyer]

Real life can get away with stupid shit no one would think would happen, but you can't argue with it, it's real life and it did happen. Meanwhile, fiction is held to certain standards regarding things that can and should happen because of how it seems logical and natural. The more real you make your story, the more unreal it can seem.

Eh, yeah, the unexpected and crazy perfect storm situations can and do happen in our reality, but the problem with this line of thought is that is often lacks the nuance needed to make it any more valid then the views it's put in opposition to. There's a whole literary world that has to respond to the nigh impossible occurrence you just dropped in it's lap, characters nearby would naturally acknowledge the seeming hand of fate at work in one for or another.

Hell, when you exist in a world with trickster gods and demon sorceresses, you'd probably be extra attentive of things occurring that seem highly unlikely, especially when they seem to exist solely to enable you to do some twisted sexy shenanigans.

The real issue is the characterization though. Ryn suddenly becoming a curious idiot and going 'wut dat' with the conveniently enchanted slave collar and cock ring that will handily enable you to enslave a dickazon elf in an incredibly fetishistic way, the fact that a low/no corrupt champ raises no concerns with what putting a possibly corruptive item on someone that is already on the brink of demonification might do, the fact that they instantly start flashing some strong domineering vibes with the "MY good girl" line even when they're actually enslaving someone and not just play acting in the bedroom.

Though you are in a tainted fuck palace at the time, so it's possible everyone present is being subtly influenced by ambient dark magicks into being just a wee bit more soup-brained then usual.

---

For a proper gripe of my own, Jael is worthless as even a slave since there isn't an option to make her compliment one's antlers. Might as well send her to wayfort and let the blue hobo merchant eat her soul since she clearly was not using it to begin with. Despicable.

 

[morii]

My wayfort has become a wretched hive of scum and villainy; I always let Jae'lyn loose, and if there was an option to make her less subby I would. More demon chicks to break me, please.

 

[Necros]

I feel like the PC's role in causing the corruption and downfall of NPCs has been too passive.
We ignore Zo, her mind breaks after being raped by centaurs
We tell Jael'yn to chill at the Wayfort, she turns into a demon because of Farrah or the Alraune
We don't tell Viviane that the milk is demonic in origin, she turns into a demon after unsafe experiments with the milk
We fight Taldahs, Ahmri gets kidnapped in the confusion by Tollus and is set to be corrupted by him and his cultists
The most hands on we get is pushing Azzy and Lia into the bimbo pool, but the pool does all the work of turning them into sex obsessed bimbos for us
None of the above fills me with a feeling of a job well done since the job was done by someone else. I'd like it if future corruption content had the PC more involved so we can proudly point to ourselves as the reason so-and-so betrayed whoever or whatever they held dear to instead live life as your toy (or make you their toy? whatever rocks your boat)

One one hand yeah, i would definitely want more direct corruption of some character by Champ. On the other i have some extremely vague memories of devs not wanting to go in that direction or something along those lines.

 

[morii]

On the other i have some extremely vague memories of devs not wanting to go in that direction or something along those lines.

Why tho

There's nothing wrong with the Champion - the viewpoint character - taking on a more active role in the story as an unscrupulous bastard. I would find that very entertaining, and it would be our choice as a player.

 

[YEsManKablaam]

Last I knew it was more corrupting options would start to appear during the later half of the game otherwise if you just corrupted everything at the start there's a lot of spots where the story just kind of wouldn't work so you can't really run counter to your own story goals right now.

 

[zagzig]

Regarding champ being the one to cause the downfall of an NPC, the most active case is definitely Milly in Khor'minos. Champ drugs her, pushes her boundaries, takes advantage of her, and eventually causes her to manifest signs of demonic corruption. So if that's what you're looking for, look for a baker in Khor'minos.

There's also Nihara in the Undermountain, though it's more of an inadvertent thing. She's a watercatte who takes in influence from liquids, so if a corrupted champ keeps giving her liquids she becomes corrupted.

There are obstacles to champ corruption content - whatever happens, it needs to be justifiable in universe that your companions don't all leave you and you don't get kicked out of the essential story hubs. If you do something so corrupt they kick you out of Khor'minos for example, either the story breaks completely or they have to write a whole separate story path for the narrative to continue. Also, finding people to actually write it, and questions over whether the paying audience would support more direct corrupt content. If champ corrupting people doesn't boost paying subscribers, it's much harder to justify putting time and money into developing it.

 

[MarcoPolo121]

Hey question: why does the upcoming BriHaus expansion consist of 500 pages? That's so many sheets of paper that even if you went double sided you could fit two movie scripts, a monologue and an enormous book of poetry.