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AbstractLaser4 days ago (2 edits) (+2)

This is a fresh update.

This time, I got stuck at the second battle at last city (Wildemore?). I used all the best items I have and still the damage is not enough to finish the enemies. Every time I get their health low, they always heal up to full. I thought, aren't enemies in RPG suppose to have limits on healing items?. Since they always heal, eventually I used up my higher leveled items and left with weaker ones. I was stuck in a losing battle of attrition for 30 minutes and called it quit after. I played the game in total of 1h15min.

I like that the skill selection now filters out the relevant items to choose from. I see there's also a sort of a cooldown system to prevent players using more powerful abilities with AP requirements. This playtest, my strategy would be to select skills/items to build up necessary elemental AP when there are only few enemies left; then use excess AP on stronger enemies. I think it would be good to show the current AP somewhere in the same screen. Right now, I have to open my party member's status page to view the AP. 

The sheer amounts of options to choose for using skills is still too much for me. The filtering of category/elements did help in alleviating this, but I think there are too much options being presented at a time. When the enemies are low, I find myself always choosing the basic spit attack without using items to preserve them. 

I still have something to say regarding the other questions and will edit this comment later.

=======================================

(Addition)

If you were to ask me which I prefer between JRPG or roguelike game, I would choose to "play" JRPG regardless of the game. But that's just my preference of play. From what I can see, I think the game can still go either ways; But I do think Hungry For Loot is leaning towards wanting to become a rogue-like though. Since a lot of the updates are setting up the game to be a rogue-like. I still think it's worth experimenting both ways and decide which one you would prefer developing after having worked both.

Some pointers on bringing JRPG elements (game can still be rogue-like)

I feel there is a slight audio and event mismatch in the cut-scene where you fight enemies in their camp in-between Dandelionrow and the 3rd town (Dawnwood?).  So when the cut-scene starts, the music immediately starts with ominous feeling, even though the party members are still questioning whether the humans are hostile or not. With this me as the player will always immediately assume that it will be a battle. However, I think it's worth trying out music with less ominous feeling in it. Playing instead a little whimsical/mysterious music will probably induce a sense of mystery to the player as to whether the humans are friends or foes. Not to mention that it also matches the POV of the party members at the time.

The most intriguing town for me so far is Sunview.  Someone mentions this place is a place where sun don't set, even at night. Now, normally in a JRPG, you would then be shown with how the night will really look like when you rest at the inn. But since all the towns are still placeholder, I just felt disappointed we don't get to see how Sunview would look like. At the start of the game it is mentioned that most of the things is in placeholder, but the game is already in Steam Next Fest. Aren't Next Fest games usually near finish where most arts and gameplay are finalized? If everything is still place-holder, I don't think it qualifies to be in Next Fest as it doesn't showcase the final quality of what the game is (sorry for the rambling)

Then there is also Dandelionrow where they are proud of serving foods from dandelions. Please show us how the foods and drinks looks like; make us salivate for them. Or make us disgusted by them. Anything that elicit emotional reaction will be good from a story-telling perspective.

Enough talking about towns for now and let's go back to the combat...

I see all the characters (players and enemies) have strengths and weaknesses, and you can deal slightly higher damage when hitting their weaknesses. I think it would make the combat feel more alive if there are different visual and sound effect for hitting enemies' weaknesses (like the "It is super effective!" in Pokemon games).

But I think I said enough for now, Sorry for rambling bit in-between. But this is a very good update compared to last month! After several months, I'm still intrigued on what the game would be, I so hope you will keep working on it and create a unique experience of playing as slimes.

Cheers! (raising up a glass of Dandelion Wine)

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Dragon's Isle Software4 days ago(+1)

Thanks for the great feedback, as usual.

We wanted that final fight to be tougher for the Next Fest demo to show off more of the higher level abilities. We didn't run into the same issue with too much healing. They do have a limit on healing items, though the healer class does have their ability, and that may need to get more limits on how often it can be used. Of course, we know the game, so that likely had an impact, and this is why others playing is so helpful. We will take a look at it with an eye to balancing the healing. We also plan an overhaul of the demo when we next release one, so that whole fight will likely change. Those enemies are meant for a later fight, and you won't normally be getting the Demo Dragon upgrades.

When you select a character in combat their current and max AP is shown at the top center. You can see this in the first screenshot on the game page. It is in a more horizontal 3x3 grid layout, compared to the vertical layout of the character stats screen. We may need to do something to make it more clear what this is. If it is not showing for you, then that would be a bug.

We are thinking on ways to better handle organizing things for the non-Inventory Management mode. In the normal mode the idea had been that you'd leave all the low level or less wanted items in the Party Bag, so they would not crowd the combat screen. Now everything you don't send back for a quest is there, which can make it more crowded. We've been toying with adding a single extra bag for holding items you want to keep, but not see anywhere else. There is also the possibility we could add an attribute to items so the player could simply mark them so that it does not show in combat. Though I think that would need a good UI to not confuse players with why certain items aren't showing if they forget, or did it without realizing. The other thing I want to add is a player selectable filter for the combat item selection, but it needs to be more limited to fit the space. It also needs the right settings for what to retain between selecting items. For example, if you simply decide that you only want higher level items, should that stay for all characters and abilities, or just the current one. Some things like level work well across all abilities. Filtering by Affinity may be specific to the ability. We have not worked out how we want to handle this, so it is still on the todo list. We will be putting more focus on the combat in the near future, so hopefully we can work out a good way to do this during that review.

The basic spit does work well for cleaning up the last HP of enemies. One of the things we wanted in the combat is the decision between using items to do more powerful attacks and taking the enemy out sooner, before they use their items, or loosing the items the enemy uses. With the current version you get a fair amount of items, and the quests don't have any sense of urgency, so it is less needed to hold all items. This means using the lower level ones to finish fights when you need a bit more than item-less spit, can be useful, and not feel as wasteful.

Thanks again for your feedback. Looking forward to your thoughts on the other questions.

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AbstractLaser4 days ago(+1)

Just updated the parent comment with added feedback on styles

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Dragon's Isle Software4 days ago(+1)

Thanks for the additional comments. It did not seem rambling to me, but was useful feedback.

I'll start with the Next Fest detail. We had hoped that it would be better received and we could then finish fleshing out the story and art by the end of the year. With the poor reception, we are now stepping back and planning larger changes. We include all the placeholder and early dev comments in part to temper expectations, especially for Steam. Itch is a bit more forgiving, but Steam we want to be sure people know this is still a WIP.

I agree with your comments on the lead up to the camp fight. We added a new "danger approaching" track, and so thought to use it there, but you are right that from the character perspective it should be more questioning and not certain of danger.

I also agree that it would be nice to flesh out the towns a bit. We had some plans for this, including having you travel around the towns, instead of just using the menu, but even that felt a bit lacking. This is where a JRPG would allow for a better presentation.

We do plan additional animations and effects in combat, but it got delayed as we worked on other bits and tried to figure out how we could make the game work.


Now, the reason we asked about styles is that we are planning to split the game. We are currently doing some updates to the core that had already been planned. Once they are done, we will fork the code. The main project is intended to become more of a JRPG, including free roam of the world. This is going to require a lot more time to build out, and many things will need to be updated to fit. The other branch is tentatively going to be called Hungry For Loot Goes Rogue. That  will embrace the current combat and travel systems and build them out into a roguelike. We intend to base the new game in the same world setting, though have not worked out how it will relate to the core story that will be in the JRPG. This game will have much less story, though will likely retain the Bestiary and perhaps some other parts of the Compendium. The first version of the new game will be based on the current Hungry For Loot, reusing the characters and towns. Once the core gameplay is working and we see how it is received, we will flesh out where it fits and update the characters to be unique for it.

Some key things we are planning for the new game will be that you start with only 1 character, currently Phil. You will be able to unlock additional characters, at which point you can pick who to play as. After you get another character you will be able to start unlocking party slots, allowing up to 6 characters in your party. We also plan to expand it so you can have characters from other Slime clans, as well as non-Slimes in the party. The current breaking at towns will largely be replaced by resting at camps. Loot will be massively reduced, as you won't be doing the quests to feed your clan and arm the other towns. We have other ideas, but these are the biggest changes to the current core gameplay.

The core thinking behind this split is that we do not have the time to complete Hungry For Loot as a JRPG, but that is how the story will work best. We need to produce a finished game to start making money. We already have a lot of systems in place with our current code base, and the existing gameplay lends itself well to a roguelike style. Roguelikes are also very popular, and we feel like we could do a better job of presenting and marketing it. By keeping it in the same world setting it can also be used to help promote the core game as we finish building it out. We have a lot of work ahead, but plan to dedicate this month to getting the core roguelike game ready. The parent branch will likely get some releases as I finish pieces that will apply to both of them before they get split.

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