Your gripes with CoC II

[CasualAntlerEnjoyer]

though I still feel like the hive should not count as a proper kingdom

It's the spear's call what does and doesn't count for royalty, and the problem with that is anything that is not me is liable to be at least a bit foolish now and again.

In the spear's case, it's been sitting in a cave for years on end with no one to talk to but a dying dragon. When do you think the last time it had any food or water was? Some fresh air and sunlight? It's honestly no wonder the spear is a bit out of sorts here.

 

[Sacremas]

In a separate but related gripe, maybe I just haven't stumbled my way into it somehow or forgot, but I really feel like the noble background is the most useless one. I can clearly recall instances with the other ones coming in handy or being clearly indicated on, but noble really escapes me. The only time I can recall it being referenced off the top of my head is an instance in the kitsune content where it's used self-deprecatingly to say despite being a noble you're still basically a savage compared to the foxes. Which isn't really...my favorite background call ever, understandably.

The Noble background will be called on when meeting Lusina at her camp, letting nobles recognize her family name and its background. It also allows you to flawlessly dance with Etheryn at the Ball, which is also enabled by a Courtesan background or having a high Agility score. There's a few knowledge-related call outs also, but overall I'd still agree that it's a bit more useless than others. Soldiers for example both get the Strength bonus as well as can do soldier-training with the manticore girl, and a few other things.

 

[WolframL]

Then you'd have way less people complaining about this character or that, or even their own champs who took the noble background not getting special spear treatment.

The spear looks for royalty in its bearers, not nobility. Shockingly there is a difference between the two concepts. Even with that background, the Champ is a non-inheriting member of provincial nobility, not a potential heir to a throne.

In a separate but related gripe, maybe I just haven't stumbled my way into it somehow or forgot, but I really feel like the noble background is the most useless one. I can clearly recall instances with the other ones coming in handy or being clearly indicated on, but noble really escapes me. The only time I can recall it being referenced off the top of my head is an instance in the kitsune content where it's used self-deprecatingly to say despite being a noble you're still basically a savage compared to the foxes. Which isn't really...my favorite background call ever, understandably.

In addition to other examples mentioned, Noble Scion Champs have a shared check for one of Kinu's events (the math one), a negative check for Adult Kinu's description (if you don't have it or another relevant one, it'll comment on your simple upbringing), Tetsuya and Evelyn both have checks to interact with a fellow noble, Kiyoko's main doc alone has multiple checks for it, Ryn's dates have several checks for it, Serena has a couple of checks for it, Anni has checks for it...

Oh, and while she's not in the game yet Savin has mentioned that having the background will let you potentially skip some of the checks in Kythie's plot.

 

[Nuin]

It's a porn game, guys, you don't have to make things so convoluted. "Magic spear make choice magically." That's all it takes.

While I understand your sentiment there, I strongly disagree on this statement.
Being a "porn game" doesn't mean storytelling get's a free pass and it's only reason for existing is it's pleasing fapability.

Mind you, the very best "porn game" I ever played had such a damn great storytelling I seriously got pissed in most cases it delivered it's fap content - because that meant I lost while I just wanted to progress on the plot. I honestly came for the porn, but stayed for the story. THAT, in my opinion, is a porn game done well and serves as golden standard for me ever since. It's called Monster Girl Quest by ToroToro Resistance btw. If you didn't play it yet I strongly encourage you to do so. You'll thank me later.

Anyway, a well told and thrilling story is very important for me - even in a porn game - and I bet I'm not the sole player here thinking that way. That's also the reason why I often bicker about being held off of huge plot content by reasons that don't make much sense imo, making it applicable to just one limited group of players for one.

 

[redlightnin55]

While I understand your sentiment there, I strongly disagree on this statement.
Being a "porn game" doesn't mean storytelling get's a free pass and it's only reason for existing is it's pleasing fapability.

Mind you, the very best "porn game" I ever played had such a damn great storytelling I seriously got pissed in most cases it delivered it's fap content - because that meant I lost while I just wanted to progress on the plot. I honestly came for the porn, but stayed for the story. THAT, in my opinion, is a porn game done well and serves as golden standard for me ever since. It's called Monster Girl Quest by ToroToro Resistance btw. If you didn't play it yet I strongly encourage you to do so. You'll thank me later.

Anyway, a well told and thrilling story is very important for me - even in a porn game - and I bet I'm not the sole player here thinking that way.

The story overall is quite important, and I didn't mean to say it wasn't. I'm simply stating that I don't believe the rules of this one random magical spear are worth so much specificity or special treatment.

It just seems weird to me. No other item in the game is treated this way, not even the Dawnsword.

 

[sumdude3456]

I really liked the pub patch for the most part, SkoW is a master at writing dragons as shown with Aileh and she aced it again with Ashe. The sentient mace has just the right amount of input and commentary to give you a reason to keep her in the inventory even if you never use her as an actual weapon. She's a great addition to the game! (Hell, she screams "BONK" on a crit, she's fucking adorable.)

I've brought this up before but it's relevant to my only gripe with the dragon content so far; generally speaking, I don't recruit Azzy because the game always treats it as though you're in a relationship with her. Her recruitment dialogue has you telling the queen bee that you'll assuredly fuck her daughter, then the Lia/Azzy dialogue where they bring up polyamory has them both treating you like you're one of her partners by default. I'd rather relegate her to the friendzone but still bring her along because while I genuinely like her character, I am completely disinterested in her sex/relationship content. Other companions like Brint and Cait start as just friends and while they have the option to become lovers, they don't refer to you as their partner unless the romance is active, whereas Azzy post dragoon TF (aside from one line of dialogue where she says you can stay platonic) constantly refers to you as her "hive-spouse" and the fact that you can't set actual boundaries with that companion still bothers me.

As for the spear not going to the player, I don't really care about the PC not getting it as there are already plenty of unique and interesting weapons (including a literal fuckin god-powered lightsaber) so another one getting added to the list would just be another storage slot taken up and God knows those poor storage chests in the Frosthound are already bursting at the seams.

Evelyn's not my cup of tea most of the time but giving her content a try to see the new stuff was pretty neat, and I love the idea of throwing a wrench into the warring fiefdoms by way of a dragon queen; the implications that you accidentally created Genghis Khan 2.0 scratches my itch of the player character actually being important to shaping the world of Savarra, even if it's by proxy.

Savin's mentioned a Tychris princess he wants to write, imo that'd be a great potential spear-wielder. Her bloodline's gone weak so draconic power could help her strengthen it, and the fact that you wouldn't have to fuck n' suck her 10 times to find out that she's royalty might make her a decent alternative for folks who don't vibe with Ev.

All said, you can just recruit the hornet, have her pull the spear out, then never interact with her again, so my issue has a very easy fix and I've aired my Azzy complaints enough so this is the last time I'll bring those up. I genuinely liked the new update and having the new mace gave me a reason to try a shield-tank warrior build which was more fun than I expected. Solid work!

 

[Nuin]

- snip -

If I could give a comment more then one like, I would do it right now. Your post exactly reflects what I think about the topics addressed.

 

[wolfraider13]

In addition to other examples mentioned, Noble Scion Champs have a shared check for one of Kinu's events (the math one), a negative check for Adult Kinu's description (if you don't have it or another relevant one, it'll comment on your simple upbringing), Tetsuya and Evelyn both have checks to interact with a fellow noble, Kiyoko's main doc alone has multiple checks for it, Ryn's dates have several checks for it, Serena has a couple of checks for it, Anni has checks for it...

Oh, and while she's not in the game yet Savin has mentioned that having the background will let you potentially skip some of the checks in Kythie's plot.

Way to convince me to make yet another character @WolframL I have to see the noble checks now...thanks buddy...

 

[War Demon]

You know what really grind my gears, when you can't find the droids your looking for.

No but seriously no one is selling Ursu Bulbs, I also don't like the idea that my bearfolk PC. Looks like the cowardly lion, from the Wizard Of Oz. I at least want the snout of a bear, other than that I love the bearfolk stuff. Other that World of Warcraft, and Skyrim with the Werebears.

This is the only game you can be a humanoid bear. And the ones in World of Warcraft were almost, made in direct response to Kung-Fu Panda. So it's like "look at all the Po's" anyway as for the kitsune I just put up with them to get the CGs.

CGs are kinda like achievement points, in my view. Also I would love to remind all of those foxes that all it takes. Is to step one foot outside that tree and their in America, baby. Also that I'm probably the only one that can vouch for them not being a threat.

But I can't so I just unlock the CGs, leave and never come back. Seriously Momma Kas May be a demon but even she's more welcoming then the kitsune are by a long shot. But I really just want more Bear stuff, their really overlooked. Well thanks for letting me talk about what really grinds my gears, anyways.

 

[Nuin]

I also don't like the idea that my bearfolk PC. Looks like the cowardly lion, from the Wizard Of Oz. I at least want the snout of a bear, other than that I love the bearfolk stuff.

Wrong TF then, as the Ursus Bulb is Bearfolk, not Bear-morph.

Slight difference there, as example Lupines could theoretically be called dog/wolf-morphs, while characters like Drifa would be half-lupine or for better understanding dog/wolf-folk.

Afaik there's presently no ursa-morph TF obtainable in game, or even planned. If you really want it, you can however attempt to get it into the game. Just write it as a Google doc yourself and post it into Event Submissions.

 

[War Demon]

Wrong TF then, as the Ursus Bulb is Bearfolk, not Bear-morph.

Slight difference there, as example Lupines could theoretically be called dog/wolf-morphs, while characters like Drifa would be half-lupine or for better understanding dog/wolf-folk.

Afaik there's presently no ursa-morph TF obtainable in game, or even planned. If you really want it, you can however attempt to get it into the game. Just write it as a Google doc yourself and post it into Event Submissions.

I'll try doing just that thanks for the tip.

 

[MarcoPolo121]

If you're giving the spear to Evelyn, it's because you're into her content and want to see a different side of it, or you're interested in the fairly obvious story implications of what Evelyn wants to do with that power (that the game warns you about in bolded text will have consequences) or some combination of the two. It's not meant to have a mechanical benefit.

yeah I never even tried to give it to her. I knew from the moment I saw the announcement on Patreon that if I was giving the spear to anyone, it was the party's resident cuddlebug. So far I've had no cause to regret it.

Obviously if you're not interested in either of those things, that's totally fine and so is giving it to Azzy, but 'Azzy gets more out of it' isn't really an accurate statement unless you're only looking at things through a gameplay mechanics lens.

I am, to an extent anyway. This game may be a porn game but that's still 50% game by volume. Big adventure games like this love them some mutually-exclusive choices and branching paths, and when playing such games I always consider the benefits for the party as more important than for NPCs unless prioritising the party would be objectively immoral or just straight up evil and I'm not playing a villain. Azzy is a companion I bring into the field and have sex with, so she gets a lot out of it. Evelyn is an NPC I've long accepted is just not my scene; at most I might do it once sometime down the line out of curiosity but it's not at all a priority especially when she's already an older lady dickgirl domme so that fundamental truth wouldn't change.

Also would it be weird if I asked of which of your companions. Remind you of Harley Quinn the most, I feel it's Cait.

Hahahahaha-None of them. Harley Quinn is easily the worst comic book character I know of, overrated, overexposed and terminally obnoxious. None of the companions remind me of her.

 

[IrrepairableEntropy]

I'll begin this with one of my usual disclaimers: This complaint feels pretty selfish and it is absolutely subjective, and I could just be wrong. In addition to that, writing is hard work and I know firsthand just how difficult things can be. So there's absolutely no intended disrespect in anything that I'm saying here. Hopefully nothing comes off that way, and I'm terribly sorry if it does. Words are hard.

With that out of the way, this touches on one of what I feel is the core attraction of Corruption of Champions in specific over other NSFW games like Subverse: The transformations.

In specific, I'd like to focus more on the transformations that you witness rather than undergo, as the transformation descriptions for the player are overall pretty good, though if I went digging I'm sure I could find plenty where I'd like to see more detail. But the transformations that happen to your companions have begun to feel kinda... Lackluster?

In specific, I'll point at the scenes that I think do a pretty nice job, and a few scenes that I wish were a little bit better.

On the positive end of the spectrum, we've got Brints transformation into Brienne. The overall transformation scene itself isn't that long, but it does provide you with an exceptional amount of detail as to what's happening to them. Following this up is Cat's transformation into Leo Cait, although this scene is itself not my favorite since I think Liresh and Syrish overwhelm the scene instead of just letting Cait transform, it's overall not that bad in terms of actually telling you what's happening, although there are some details that I think could be better.

On the other end of the spectrum, we've got Viv's Demon transformation and, unfortunately, Azzy's new set.

Demon Viv's transformation is nestled at the end of an excellently written scene, but the transformation itself feels very meh. We're told the basics of what happens, but it feels like there's no passion to it. It almost feels like a copy and paste of a basic bullet list and then nothing. (Also as an aside I wish that she could be pushed into undergoing more intense transformations, potentially making Kasyrra envious?)

Meanwhile, Azzy's new transformation/set doesn't even feel like it gets a transformation at all. Azzy grabs you and goes "Hey something's happening" and it's just completely glossed over. We get a pretty good writeup of how she looks afterward but how we got there is completely skipped over.

Truth be told, it's kinda spoiling my enjoyment of these scenes. Not that I'm saying they're bad, but it's more the difference of something being 6-7/10 rather than 8-10/10. Again, as I said in the disclaimer, it's very much that this is an extensively subjective gripe, but it's something where a good chunk of the reason I'm here feels like it's falling by the wayside, and I can't help but be a little disappointed. I know a good chunk of the response will probably be "Would you like to write that?" and I could certainly give it a go, but I can't help but think that the writing for a game with an extensive focus around transformative items wouldn't skimp on said transformations, even if they aren't yours?

Maybe I'm wrong, but this has been itching around in my brain for a good while.

 

[War Demon]

Hahahahaha-None of them. Harley Quinn is easily the worst comic book character I know of, overrated, overexposed and terminally obnoxious. None of the companions remind me of her.

And that your story and your sticking too it lol. Then good for you myself though I can think of more overrated comic book characters.

But I won't I deleted the original post anyways, because this is where we talk about the gripes. We have with the game, that post about "which companion reminds you of Harley Quinn". Felt out of place here that wasn't a gripe, so I deleted it.

However I do have one gripe with that Raphael guy that tries to kill Kinu. Did you have to give him the same name as my Favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, lol?

 

[Sacremas]

However I do have one gripe with that Raphael guy that tries to kill Kinu. Did you have to give him the same name as my Favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, lol?

Raphael is a callback to the similar fencer thief character from COC1 of the same name, who shows up in Champion's camp and steals from them, to then become their teacher in fencing in return for a date, and later met running an orphanage in Tel Adre (with options along the way to rape him and make him vanish, or later give him up to the Tel Adre city guard). Apparently Tobs felt his character felt very predatory and skeevy, so the Raphael character in this game is sort of a protest character of sort towards that. At least that is the explanation given in the Trivia section of the Wiki.

 

[War Demon]

Another gripe I have is that it seem like the only weapons, that get enchanted. Are swords, "Champion your going on a mission to retrieve, a powerful artifact." "Let me guess it's a Sword right?"

Where's the enchantment love for Axe's. So far Kas is the only one wielding a powerful, enchanted axe. Maybe even Aileh, but the champ don't get to join that party, why?

 

[WolframL]

Another gripe I have is that it seem like the only weapons, that get enchanted. Are swords

Right now there are an enchanted hammer and a mace, multiple spear/javelin types, a brace of magic throwing knives, a magic flaming knife, the Chrysanthemum Petal is a magical throwing star and there's a couple of magical staffs/rods to be found. Oh, and one magical Horni Whip. Just off the top of my head.

No magical axes for the player though, yet at least.

 

[waterpanther7]

Right now there are two enchanted maces, multiple spear/javelin types, a brace of magic throwing knives, a magic flaming knife, the Chrysanthemum Petal is a magical throwing star and there's a couple of magical staffs/rods to be found. Oh, and one magical Horni Whip. Just off the top of my head.

No magical axes for the player though, yet at least.

Two mace's?

 

[WolframL]

Mistyped that, should have been a hammer and a mace.

 

[War Demon]

Right now there are an enchanted hammer and a mace, multiple spear/javelin types, a brace of magic throwing knives, a magic flaming knife, the Chrysanthemum Petal is a magical throwing star and there's a couple of magical staffs/rods to be found. Oh, and one magical Horni Whip. Just off the top of my head.

No magical axes for the player though, yet at least.

Riiight I forgot to add all that, and you also forgot the War Scythe, the Beast Killer Bow, and Storm Glaive.

But still no Axes, I wonder if I could write out an event submission for one.

 

[WolframL]

Submissions are open, but Savin has said previously that they generally do not accept any submissions for equipment alone, especially for Uniques. You'd probably need at least an involved event or a mini-dungeon to get a special weapon considered.

 

[CasualAntlerEnjoyer]

Apparently Tobs felt his character felt very predatory and skeevy, so the Raphael character in this game is sort of a protest character of sort towards that.

I like how this is possibly a thing and yet they also wrote Komari and her collection of some of the most fucked up bad ends in the game, and then the rest of her content tries to paint her as pitiful and sympathetic when she'd pull that shit on you for walking in to ask about a missing bag.

That rapist bitch feels fairly predatory to me, but what do I know?

 

[valk42]

bad ends are non-canon, essentially

 

[CasualAntlerEnjoyer]

bad ends are non-canon, essentially

Of course they're not, the game doesn't just forcesave the moment you get one, it's a scenario that could of happened if the champion had lost there.

Seeing as there are three of them possible for Komari in this encounter alone with escalating levels of sadistic cruelty, though, I think it's a safe bet to consider it a substantial enough addition to her characterization.

If they were just supposed to be crazy 'what ifs', they would of been actually relatively crazy and varied, rather then three and a half substantial word dumps detailing how much of a genuinely morally repugnant shithead she is. Actually has one of the games more realistic depictions of rape under her belt.

 

[War Demon]

Submissions are open, but Savin has said previously that they generally do not accept any submissions for equipment alone, especially for Uniques. You'd probably need at least an involved event or a mini-dungeon to get a special weapon considered.

Should've known that would be the case. I'm still trying to come up with some Bear-Morph TF, stuff. So I'll see how that goes before I try even thinking of a mini-dungeon.

 

[Cannibal Cravings]

In specific, I'd like to focus more on the transformations that you witness rather than undergo, as the transformation descriptions for the player are overall pretty good, though if I went digging I'm sure I could find plenty where I'd like to see more detail. But the transformations that happen to your companions have begun to feel kinda... Lackluster?

I believe the lack of companion TF's is due to the difficulty that comes with coding/writing them. Not the transformation scenes themselves but all the extra parts afterwards. The biggest example that I see cited pretty often is Rin, due to her confidence/submission score on top of having access to breast and booty TF items. Multiple transformations means that a writer has to go over one scene multiple times to make sure that all the different possible transformation combinations are planned and accounted for. The bigger the game gets the more work that one character becomes as you need to continue to add in all their variations to every scene they participate in. So while I agree that I'd love to see more descriptive scenes of our companions undergoing a transformation I can also understand why they probably just won't happen.

I also wanna add that my favorite transformation scene is giving Rin purple eggs. I think her reaction to suddenly being THICCC is hilarious.

 

[Melancholy Man]

TLDR: I got a lot issues with CoC2 some of them opinionated, others technical, and some I think are just straight up gameplay design flaws but I think it does a lot good in the narrative gameplay space. Since its nowhere near finished I think if these are highlighted I think this game would be all the better for it.


First I'll start of with the positives; I really like the fact the appearance of the PC is given a semi-concrete look that is customizable and acknowledged to a certain extent, the erotica on display is horny and varied asf (speacial shutout to SkoW, B, Savin, and Observer, they don't miss). The context sensitive nature of companion dialog is a treat and its nice to discover and its a habit of mine to save at times where I think are major events to replay it with other comps just to see who says what, there's a nice combinations of quest types some even having 4 or 5 variations on how things playout (whoever or the ppl that designed the Spectres of the Wyld, the mission that intros Hethia, The Cowgirl mission at the outskirts of Khor'minos and Convocation of Mirrors; I just have to say y'all are going places, well funking done), descriptions of moves during combat tend to be hit or miss but they are nice and the context sensitive items that give comments during combat are a nice touch. The overall artstyle of the game feels consolidated because there aren't 20 different artist with 20 different styles of drawing to mucking up the aesthetic so the game gets to develop this sense of a cohesive artstyle even though you can tell the differences in "penmanship" and skill level between the few.

Now for the Cons: 1. Grammar Errors and Redundancies are abundant and flourishing, I do not envy the Editor if there even is one, I'd recommend for the writers to dl Grammarly, I personally use it for projects, texting, and work emails so maybe it can help them too.
2. The writers need to come to consensus on whether they want to give us a character with established traits and personality or a blank salute for us to mold using actual roleplay (if I see someone reply to me about imagination, I'm going to tell you to imagine yourself not being up your own bum so you talk less shite) because the character's personality changes from writer to writer drastically even if the content that you swing for is in the same ballpark, because of this the PC becomes a blob being everything all at once while being nothing at all for the player. (very similiar to the protag of P4 or Dragon Born of Skyrim)
3. Combat is boring most of the time and the difficulty just sliding damage modifiers isn't enticing either, tho I'm told that there is another difficulty being considered and I hope the neglected resource management portion of the gameplay loop comes into focus for this difficulty. If the game designer does go this route Darkest dungeon and its mod scene are the best sources for inspiration on how inventory and resource management can be used to create difficulty for a game based around tile movement.

Opinions: Player agency is something that should observed and taken into when writing scenarios/scenes, for every scene that takes into account the players stat for roleplaying purposes there are several others that force the player to agree to something regardless of how they'd feel (looking at Kiyoko's content <_<) or change their personality to fit the scene or fetish. If anything I'd say that the game needs more options that are not just subtle stat checks but are solid decisions similar to choosing what positions and what body part to touch that take into account the origin of the player (those are used in a way that is way too niche to be important) that isn't just flavor text and perks are absolutely neglected when they would be perfect for writing smutty scenes e.g. Cum cascade and Messy Organism are begging to be written into the 69 sex scenes for never-ending ouroboros shenanigans'. (SkoW is a saint for even giving the player options) I'm saying all this because I think there is lot of potential here that could be realized with a few steps. And if anyone doesn't understand at all what I meant in the this massive paragraph here's a couple vids that breaks it down even further and in bitesize pieces:

and should you need more info or you're just an game design-info goblin like myself check out GMTK for more information and techniques.
Gameplay needs a shot in the arm; its really boring seeing the text saying the player and comps swing everything not sure how hard it is to code lines specific for specific weapons but it would definitely lively up the combat that my character doesn't just swing his spear but thrusts it the exposed flank of his foes or Slashes his sword across his foe and vice versa for the enemies. Another thing I'd like to ask of the head gameplay director/designer (I think their name is Hilde) is if the environment can be factored into combat? Whether it be by simple buff like classic Fire Emblem or you could do a deep dive in a way similar to other games ( an example is a romhack for Pokémon that bring locations in account, here's' a link should you or anyone be interested https://pokemon-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Field_Effects)

 

[MarcoPolo121]

And that your story and your sticking too it lol. Then good for you myself though I can think of more overrated comic book characters.

Not most overrated, worst. An overrated character can still be good. But for me, she's basically DC's Wolverine. A new character introduced some time after the start of the original franchise who was a big hit with the fans, but the suits' efforts to cash in on that popularity brought with it an extended push into both other parts of the franchise and crossover stuff, even if just in a minor role, to bump up sales and in the process a lot of what made them interesting and likeable was lost. I look at DC shoving her into places she arguably doesn't belong just to pump up the mainstream appeal and I groan audibly now. But, moving on.

However I do have one gripe with that Raphael guy that tries to kill Kinu. Did you have to give him the same name as my Favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, lol?

As has been said, the shared name is coincidental. Though it does remind me of this hilarious image.

Another gripe I have is that it seem like the only weapons, that get enchanted. Are swords, "Champion your going on a mission to retrieve, a powerful artifact." "Let me guess it's a Sword right?"

Where's the enchantment love for Axe's. So far Kas is the only one wielding a powerful, enchanted axe. Maybe even Aileh, but the champ don't get to join that party, why?

Yeah they should give us some magic/enchanted axes. My Orc main is feeling left out.

Raphael is a callback to the similar fencer thief character from COC1 of the same name, who shows up in Champion's camp and steals from them, to then become their teacher in fencing in return for a date, and later met running an orphanage in Tel Adre (with options along the way to rape him and make him vanish, or later give him up to the Tel Adre city guard). Apparently Tobs felt his character felt very predatory and skeevy, so the Raphael character in this game is sort of a protest character of sort towards that. At least that is the explanation given in the Trivia section of the Wiki.

For a game designed as a direct sequel to the original CoC, it's kind of funny how much salt they apparently still have over fan behaviour and/or characters from back then. But really, this universe's version of Raphael being a jerk is the least of the Kinu sidequest's problems. I wish there weren't so many walls of text in it.

I also wanna add that my favorite transformation scene is giving Rin purple eggs. I think her reaction to suddenly being THICCC is hilarious.

You know that reminds me. Please Savin and co. don't make transformatives you can give to companions so hard to acquire. Purple eggs are not at all cheap or easy to find in bulk, and Shar needing several days to grow 1 egg makes her an inefficient delivery service.

Edit: No, I'm not sorry for posting links to TV Tropes. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Sacremas]

When not just save editing them in, these days when I can't randomly find the purple eggs just doing the regular quests there and maybe one or two Shar eggs, I just wait with the embuttening until after I've taught the foxes their natural place in life (warming my feet that is) and buy all the eggs from Kohaku once they randomly show up there, while getting the other randomly occurring stuff I need from her.

 

[Melancholy Man]

TLDR: Plague of gripes about mechanics and loot.

Back again with a plague of gripes to spill, there are a few technical issues I’d like to point out and a couple of unsolicited opinionated recommendations for game design I’d like to suggest. I understand that money, time, adherence to the development schedule, and just straight-up conflicting ideas might trigger an eye-roll from some, but hear me out, first “technical” issues:

1. This is something I’ve noted with The Observer’s content specifically: I’ve read a lot of books from A Song of Ice n Fire to Lord of the Rings; Lovecraft and various books in his expanded universe to various interactive novels; to official erotic books like Fifty Shades of grey and Anonymous Sex. I have never seen characters answer another characters’ thoughts when lines were used to portray the character thinking and not in a “out-loud” way unless telepathy wasn’t involved. There are a lot of these disrupted dialogues and I know they’re disrupted because the other writers have done similar scenes where the PC thinks to themself then inquires the other character into dialogue.

2. Underutilized and un-incentivized mechanics are an issue. I did not know Taxanomy existed in this game until the Wiki; here should be perks that give you an edge against a specified type and, as a balance, give us some sort of weakness or debuff of some sort. Ashelander dialog options should have an additional benefit other than just smut; mediation removing 1 corruption is a step in the right direction if stingy (it should be an rng roll of 1-3), Cleaning her should give you a buff to either attack power, crit damage & rate, or adds bleed damage to each attack, shafting could give you defensive buffs like getting 30% of fire damage taken as health; porn for porn's sake is masturbation, but if that porn as a function that is tied into another core gameplay element like combat, tile exploration, or roleplaying & narrative, then it's a mechanic. There need to be more perks in the game that also focus on other elements besides dick-length; combat & gameplay is one element and narrative is another. Regardless, they need to be mentioned more and used in scenes, dialogue, and erotica. Perks from Fallout1 and Fallout New Vegas, and quirks from Darkest Dungeon are good examples y'all could use for inspiration.

3. This more of a pet peeve than anything but alternate routes for side quest should be rewarded properly; one good example of great quest design whose rewards were lacking is the Dog Days quest, specifically the point where you talk Hethria down. There is no reward other than a slight variation on the same sex scene; there are no long-term changes in your relationship with each-other, no item unique to that situation, or some permanent stat increases/changes or Perks. Meanwhile, Convocation of Mirrors is what I'd consider perfect, but it's unfinished, as much as I love how emergent Spectre of the Wyld is it suffers from the same issues as Dog Days; it rewards every route with increasing loot and context.

Spoiler: Lore Spoiler

It even has what I'd call a BloodBorne-insight/Lovecraftian moment where you learn the Gods were all tentacle monsters; which is also immersion breaking when the PC greets the gods like everything thing is good when they know these gods were voidborne soulsuckers. (<_<)

Wishlists: There should be some interplay between DoTs in a mechanical way. I do like that they effect at least two stats at a time but they could be more unique and less dependent on numbers; say if a unit is blighted and bled, they get an initiative penalty, bleed itself should stack; burn is really strong so it should have pros and cons even working against other dots by removing bleeding upon cast but increasing bleed damage taken by a percentage once the burn sticks, having a unit bleeding and burning at the same time should trigger the dots every turn another unit takes a turn. Frigid should stack and upon having 3 stacks should freeze the unit (Pokemon style freeze is perfect for emulation but with crush resistance getting a bigger buff); It's another stun, but it's mechanically driven by turn economy. Dots are mostly ignorable outside the characters like Kiyoko and Vivianne, so giving them a lot more presence and combat depth would make them more interesting and threatening.