Star Knightess Aura

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Every time I come back and read changes I'm a little disappointed.

A topic by dragondeity created Jun 29, 2023 Views: 2,124 Replies: 20

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dragondeity316 days ago (1 edit) (+3)

The changelog and bugfixes are generally always really good - but the balancing changes are almost always awful, and never targeting any real problems in the game like pure run Belphegor or that any and all allies are just fodder to be one shot. You always take money away from players. Make things more expensive. Make it more expensive to summon slime, make slime weaker. Reduce the cost of tons of mental changes and have some automatically unlock, making it harder to offload corruption on pink runs. High corruption runs have become borderline unplayable for 'completionists' because the majority of your time ends up spent removing willpower losses with Herman or Roland, and consequently having debuffs as a result of doing so to begin with - which is why I started playing pure runs more often, but pure runs can't even beat Belphegor without drugs or star knightess. It's unreasonable for them to ever traverse mount firestorm because of a 20k tuition fee, and nothing at all has changed regarding the 80 and 100 day timers that only compound with every negative change you make. The game was already intensive on resource management, in whatever shape that comes in, and the more you keep taking away from players, the less interesting it becomes. Even if a player had given all (most if you considered verdeux) of their star metals to the workshop, it takes 80 working days to earn your way in to the school, which actually comes out at least 160 days seeing as you can't work back to back days. You can't buy enough holy waters to stave off the curse forever, and you can't even earn enough money to continually buy them on refresh eventually. There's a time limit, wherever it is, especially because holy water's price is uncapped.

I wasn't likely to play again soon as a result of FF16 and Lies of P, but I gotta say, I don't see myself ever playing again at all, for as long as the balance changes only ever continually hurt the player.

I understand your vision for the game as Aura struggling or lowering herself to manage in her quest, and roleplaying that - but it doesn't matter if the game doesn't stay fun or it doesn't feel like our time as players is respected.

Annogiemouse316 days ago

The sell price of holy water is also uncapped now. [Drug]+ used to give +2 corruption per dose, ogre/giant bone used to be a +3 DEF with no +5 hp, and goblin teeth used to only give +1ATK/+1 MATK.

That said, the game could do with another opportunity for Aura to earn some college money. Maybe if there was another novice-level monster-hunting quest with a non-lewd opportunity for star metal. Or perhaps the winged pig thief quest should give double the gold if she solves it without Charlotte...

Annogiemouse315 days ago

With the v0.32.0 update, it looks like mount Firestorm is to be a post-Winterfall area. The increased number of bosses also means more breathing room to new game+ air bubble I on pure nightmare runs. Between Winterfall gold and the golem quest, the gold issue is greatly ameliorated.

Coming back to the points, they're reaching a level where picking expensive skills just to save on gold later in the run is starting to become appealing. It could be good for build variety if the non-skill clear room gems had a +4 state and/or if there were gems for stuff like ally stats and starting blessed waters.

dragondeity298 days ago

Coming back to this, I just think the clear room needs revisited in general. The point balance on skills, items, money etc is all incredibly unbalanced even if you are taking part. A very simple example is that fire costs like 8 points. It's a spell you learn for free within the first week of the game. Meanwhile light, is what, 3 points and saves you 100 gold on top of the same day. Anything fire gates is irrelevant and not worth the extra 5 points unless you've had a like, seriously successfully nightmare run.

Annogiemouse294 days ago

While I don't exactly disagree with your overall point, fire I vs light I is arguably one of the better balanced parts of new game+, with the former being cheaper to cast, having more base power, being useful out of combat, and being gated behind Charlotte not being in jail(+1 day, 400 gold, lewds, or a 14 day wait) whereas deliver medicine is basically a freebie and light I is mostly useful for advantage.

Fire I also gates workshop level 5 if you have access to the refugee camp, which can translate to an extra ally level when clearing the Northern mine vault and festival of greed. This mostly impacts lower difficulties and early parts of the game where allies are quick to level.

More egregious are horror I and radiance I. The first only costs 10 points in new game+, is practically unobtainable during pure runs, and gives you a low-mana way to trip up enemy casters for defensive builds. The second costs 35 points, is pretty much unusable in chapter 1 due to its mana cost, and mainly serves to save(an admittedly large sum of) money unless you very specifically intend to chug another energy potion or two on Belphegor.

Another thing is the stat crystals having the same cost for all three stages. Changing something like a 5/5/5 cost of ATK/MATK to a 4/5/6 for +1/+2/+3 would increase the temptation for higher-score players to downgrade starting bonus stats for the sake of a skill pick, make the weaker tiers more accessible for low-score players who need that boost the most, and brings it more in line with the chapter 1 experience of escalating workshop prices.

dragondeity294 days ago

Those are fair points. Can't really argue much. I still think the fire vs light cost is imbalanced, because I (personally) cannot justify leaving Charlotte in jail whether I had ng+'d fire or not. I genuinely despise her losing exp in jail, so I never leave her there. Pure, I chill with her in the bar, pink, I'll just do the scene ofc, 1 point isn't a big deal. In the grand scheme, neither is 14 points...but still. It could be the difference in a level.

Just a personal view there.

Annogiemouse294 days ago

Yeah, it does feel wrong to just leave her . It used to have a use case on the old hard/now nightmare mode because resources are more important and human allies are less useful in combat. The addition of lake Roya's star metal deposit pretty much ruined the strategy though.

dragondeity313 days ago

Balancing

Reduced corruption reduction from Purification to 3 and raised Perika cost to 6000

Lol.

Does the Dev hate their players?

Olapsokalii303 days ago

Damn, I wanted to pick the game up to see what it was, but it just sounds like a chore. Thanks for the warning man !

dragondeity303 days ago

It should be a good game. The RPG concepts underneath the horrible balance and anti-player design is genuinely good. And I'll give the dev credit where's it due, they listen to feedback, such as when they changed the speed formula to make turn orders more consistent. That was great. I just don't think the 'feeling' they want to instil in the player through gameplay is a feeling that makes for a fun game. Instil it in the story. Have systems that represent it, sure - but when your games fundamental premise is "make the player miserable" because AURA is miserable, then you're just hurting your longevity. The game is more important than the porn elements, otherwise people won't GET to the porn elements.

The thing that's crazy to me, is that the difficulty of many things in this game should be much more fine-tuned than they are. This is a game in which levels only come through quest completion, meaning it should be easier to say 'players are X strong vs Y boss', and balance appropriately. However, levels are lucky to even be 5% of your power, and so players that haven't prepared for a day 80 boss from day 1 are up shit street.

Belphegor pure seriously ruined this game for me - but watching corruption costs get lowered pissed me off a lot. How many holy waters do pink runs now need to use to not overload on corruption they could previously discard in the mental world? There are a TON of days when I was playing where I'd end days over the limit on pink runs specifically with the knowledge I'd drop 3-5 corruption on an act 2 mental change. And now with the last balance change, players on either side (pure vs pink) can't even offload as much corruption during the festival.

I don't know what's going on over at patreon, but I have to imagine half the players are like, story-mode players just here for porn instead of being real about the game, and if you just want the porn then why rpg maker games lol

Annogiemouse302 days ago

While a preponderance of story/explorer/normal players is one explanation, I think the bar for nightmare might be something along the lines of "Auradev is able to clear this, so it's theoretically winnable." Which would explain why the game became harder after the turn orders lost randomness, why the festival purification strategy got nerfed after we started talking about it on the forum(I rather liked being greedy with that one but respect the position of it being an oversight), and why new (plunderable) additions to the game seem to come with a reduction in loot elsewhere.

It should also be noted that the deluxe edition has a built-in cheat console. This might be skewing the perception of some patreon players.

dragondeity302 days ago

Given that I've spoken on nightmare mode's poor balance in the past, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'm referring to it. I'm not.

Belphegor (Pure) is a nigh impossible fight on NORMAL/HARD without one of three things. New game +, drugs (especially bloodshot since lascivious won't offer much to pure) or star knightess. NG+ obviously shouldn't be necessary, but radiance is very strong. Star Knightess obviously shouldn't be necessary, as it's an instant-win crutch against anything and frankly defeats the point of playing. And while I think drugs are the most legitimately arguable since they do not affect ng+ points, and thus can technically be used on pure runs, I do not find this satisfactory. That a 'pure' run would require drug abuse goes against the very point of playing pure.

There is but one answer left. From day 1, Aura must desperately focus all of her stat-increases in to as much magic defense as she possibly can. She must save and bless every single vitality potion she can, specifically for this fight. Then, and only then, does she have a *chance* at standing up to Belphegor. The dual assault of Belphegor and Luciela deal indefensible amounts of damage to anyone not using the above 3 options. Only a pink run with ludicrous amounts of magic defense (thanks to lascivious' *past* use during scenes) can hope to defeat them without any of the above.

There are many posts over months if not dating back to Belphegor's introduction to the game that discuss it's poor balance. People talking about how they have 60-70+ magic defense and still cannot win....because they deal like 50-60 damage each per turn against a character lucky to have 300 health. Meanwhile, especially thanks to Luciela's reflection spell, that amount of damage output will kill you even BEFORE you can take Luciela out, never mind taking on Belphegor's what, 8k HP? Can't remember what it has right now, been a while.

> the bar for nightmare might be something along the lines of "Auradev is able to clear this, so it's theoretically winnable."

Even that has proven untrue upon the introduction of Firestorm's final floor and boss.

> " Nightmare mode will kill you though :'D"

> It should also be noted that the deluxe edition has a built-in cheat console. This might be skewing the perception of some patreon players.

Frankly think it's skewing the position of the dev. Only god knows where they supposedly get 20k for tuition on a pure run.

Olapsokalii299 days ago

Boys, I ain't reading all that, easy on the walls of texts. But we can see you are passionnate about this game, so it's a bit sad to see so much passion being somewhat ignored.

That said, something I picked up in all you said there :

"> It should also be noted that the deluxe edition has a built-in cheat console. This might be skewing the perception of some patreon players."

So basically, the game is pay to enjoy ? Kinda sad.

Trihan298 days ago

I mean...no? I've never used the cheat console and I really enjoy playing the game. Heck, I get paid to create it, so I'm literally the embodiment of the polar opposite of the conclusion you've drawn. :P

Annogiemouse298 days ago

Basically, what I'm saying is that people with voting power have a blind spot with regards to how difficult the game might be for new players.

The game remains enjoyable without cheats.

But the game is becoming more about puzzling together the one "correct" way to play instead of trying to make fun builds work.

dragondeity298 days ago

I'm not necessarily suggesting you're saying this about me specifically, but I'm hardly a new player. I have posts going back months and months. I would say I understand the game quite well, well enough to identify where the issues currently are. Maybe not enough to offer answers, but enough.

The games difficulty isn't a problem for 'new' players. It's a problem for players who;

Don't focus the right stats from day 1.
Play on anything higher than like story or explorer.
Don't employ the use of cheat consoles.
Wish to avoid the use of Star Knightess.
Don't want to have to rely on luck to succeed. This is different to save scumming because it means spending more time empowering Aura before taking on fights to AVOID it. (Turn orders were fixed, but tons of fights are only winnable in an enjoyable timeframe with save scumming dodges.)
Wish to play a pure run.
Wish to play lewd/pink runs that still engage with the story/combat of the game. Runs like these because an utter slog to get through because of Roland and Hermann, as well as later mental change debuffs, and that's ignoring your corruption completely ruining your baseline willpower. It basically means that if you engage with this content, it feels like the game thinks you aren't engaging with other content. Emerald Tea tax.
Don't save scum nearly every fight to properly manage resources and health. There's no way I'm going to take half my hp to a goblin fight early in the game for example, when there's a completely realistic chance through tactical advantage I no hit a fight.
Don't know about Belphegor's 80/100 day timer, or Sathanas' 100 day timer.
Wish to actually defeat them within those timers.
Don't know what spells exist in the academy, can't afford it because pure, and try to do Firestorm without a tier 2 spell. (P.S I did this once and got all the way through to the double lizard fight spamming potions.)

I wouldn't even say necessarily it's becoming about puzzling together the correct way to play (though that IS an issue for some styles of playthroughs) It's that it increasingly feels like the balance of it's gameplay is entirely designed around ng+ carry over and exploiting the point system as much as you can with constant resets.

Like friendly reminder it takes 160 days (80 working days) of 250 gold (max) workshopping to afford tuition. Which isn't even accounting for doing anything else with your time or how long it takes to gain said star metals.

I like a lot about this game, but not that it requires an obscene level of time management perfection just to STILL need luck.

Annogiemouse298 days ago

#1. #9, and #11 are all knowledge checks, you get better at them as you refine your builds on subsequent playthroughs but your first run will hurt the most. #8 too to some extent, as getting tactical advantage is largely a matter of understanding mob patrol patterns and knowing what skills/items to get.
Disagree on #2(and, on some level, #6), I'd say the game is still fine on normal. Then again, I may have played too many runs.
#4 and #5 are arbitrary restrictions that you placed on yourself. And while a case can be made for not obligating players to use the collar, not wanting to rely on luck is akin to not wanting to use drugs or the slime. If you fail because you deliberately handicapped yourself? That's a you problem, not a game problem.
While #7 somewhat ties into my point about the game having "correct" routes, the fact that progress on the pink path tanks your victory score is a pretty big hint that you're not actually supposed to be carving your way through the pure paths while on a pink run.
Hermann and Roland basically excluding one another due to how their downsides interact can be pretty healthy for the game so long as it doesn't require both to max out your defeat score. Pink having multiple routes increases replayability, and something like "mostly pure except Roland, and I used SKA on ABC bosses" is one of the more newb-friendly ways to get through the game.
#10 is similar to #8 if you accept #1, #4, and #5 in the sense that the demon generals don't offer enough leeway for players to beat them without resorting to the collar unless they metagame and don't handicap themselves.

Personally, I think luck currently feels a little underpowered at either end of the graph compared to other non-agility stats. Buffing it to 3% per point of difference or having it cap out at a difference of 15 could be nice.

dragondeity298 days ago

I would say discussing point by point would prove fruitless, as we'd inevitably continue to disagree, so I'll just say this.

It says something about the game that your first playthrough (or more) is doomed to failure.

I'll make the obvious time management and life/rpg comparison to Persona. Imagine if with improper time management your playthrough of persona 5 was doomed to fail. No, you might miss some confidants, maybe not max social stats, or get to see all the random mini-games or events etc, but the game stays able to be finished. Removing the collar isn't a real collar. Removing the collar is just a crutch for poorly balanced fights.

HeroicSpirit298 days ago (2 edits)

Is it bad I read "Removing the collar is just a crutch for poorly balanced fights" in the voice of Jasper from Steven Universe?

Annogiemouse298 days ago

And in a similar vein to how you might miss a few things and fail at some stuff in Persona, a first-time player trying to go pure on normal difficulty will probably stumble through to the end with about 10-20 mental changes, a few points of lewdness, and having had to resort to the collar for the three demon generals because they failed the timer and/or killed the drug dealer. Or they ended up with soul break after using the collar like a crutch instead recognizing that the limit break ability is balanced by its limited use, similar to bombs in a danmaku game.

You seem to be conflating things like difficulty and complexity with poor balance. Like I said before, that's more of a "you" problem.

DrunkedOwl295 days ago

Not gonna lie, when some enemies and bosses can one shot you on story difficulty, it's pretty ridiculous

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Star Knightess Aura

Every time I come back and read changes I'm a little disappointed.