But if game has progress system. *If i went out into the street, i died or fell into slavery. I want to play it safe - I’m sitting in an inn and farming experience and children. I gave birth to a child, now I can go out, but only to find out that I didn’t grind enough. Died. Wait... i can save 12% of my previous XP after reborn? Not so much, but still... I be solded to deepones- i gave birth deepone baby- i try to escape- i died. Wait, i can reborn as human or smelly human? And i can save 22% of my max XP? Not bad. I immediately went out of city after reborn- i I ended up with goblins- i give up- wait, i can reborn as human or smelly human? But in this run i have no babies? Also i can save 25% of my max XP? Good! If i reach any new end, even bad end, and born children from different races, i can increase saved % of my max reached XP? I want to explore this game! Also i dont need so hard grinding at start the new run. Damn! I was die in puridicator.... HOW?! I got achievement... *purified*... you kidding on me. Now i can reborn as human or smelly human, and save of..... 26% of my max XP? Even so? Cool! Even achievements in this game does matter!*
Well, i say all of i want. In my opinion, the current system wastes too much of the player's time, which causes game fatigue and greatly discourages players who want to join this game, and in fact they cannot even leave the city without being immediately sold into slavery or dragged away into the cave, where Game Over will begin for them. It’s not for me, of course, to decide how to further develop the game, but I sincerely believe that the system I proposed would stimulate the interest of most players in exploring the game, and not just the hardcore ones. At the same time, the hardcore nature of the game will not suffer, only the convenience of gameplay will increase and the players will have at least some goal other than *go wherever you want, suffer whatever you want for the sake of suffering*.
I finally have formed an idea that I want to convey - LonaRPG is a large and very complex and hardcore game. It's not meant to be played like a roguelike, but in its current form it wants to be played that way - it has a ton of features that take a long time to get to, and are very easy to lose if you make a mistake. But this is not Crypt of the Necrodancer, where the player loses everything upon death, but the races last 15-20 minutes maximum. Nor Dead Cells, where you can gain an advantage for future runs and accumulate progress even if you lose. Here you accumulate experience and prepare for a long time, and you can easily lose everything. This is extremely tedious and will turn off many players after a couple of attempts, who will get tired of losing everything and constantly starting from scratch.
If this game was intended to be that way - a purely hardcore game, purely for hardcore players who don’t need anything other than hardcore for the sake of hardcore, then fine. But if we consider LonaRPG specifically as *a game for players, not hardcore players*, then it has serious problems - it requires a lot of time and effort, but gives practically nothing in return. Game does nothing to motivate the player to explore her world. Game doesn't encourage player to try to figure it out. Game doesn't reward risk in any way. Game does not in any way encourage the player to go somewhere or do anything (unless they are complete masochists). *Why should I, as a player (not a hardcore player) play it, go somewhere if I know for sure that if I fail, I will lose everything, and then I will spend many tens of hours trying to restore it all, only to then lose everything the same way?*
At the moment, all that the game can offer to smooth out this moment is to constantly save and load, when you save before some action, do it, then load if you don’t like the result (on Doom difficulty there is no such thing). And also giving birth to a child to have 1 (one!) chance of error, and this process can realistically last more than a week (unless you have a huge pile of money to buy keys at the hotel and just skip the time... but this pile of money I still need to get it somewhere). Or take advantage of other opportunities that you still need to find out about. Without a smooth system for saving and accumulating progress, this game does nothing to keep the average player engaged.
As a result, the game will turn into a huge sandbox with a huge range of possibilities, but only a few will be able to play it; the rest will simply get tired of standing still, even if they are doing something, because the game simply cannot retain players who want their efforts to be somehow rewarded. Play for a couple (tens) of hours to see how Lona is constantly raped in all positions - yes. But to try to understand the game mechanics deeper, the game simply does not give players the motivation to do this.
Well, it's all of i want to say. Good luck with this project.
P.S. Players say that Dark Souls 1 is a *hardcore game*. I will say that Dark Souls 1 is not a *hardcore game*, unlike Dark Souls 3, but a *game with bad game design*.
thats more like it.
anyways lonarpg is niche for a reason spreading out would be kind of bad enjoy the game for what it is more or less.
game doesn't need to appeal to everyone there's also a feeling of satisfaction for actually doing well for once theres a reason why lonarpg is a ryona game at the end of the day and they aren't necessarily meant to be fair sometimes you just gotta start over because everything too fucked to continue, and as far as ryona games are concerned LonaRPG is actually pretty fair for the most part it just requires knowledge
which is to say you are meant to fall on your face over and over till you stop doing that
I have one question- you are a gamedesigner of this game?
I would love it if LonaRPG was more playable for many gamers without losing any of its hardcore appeal and brutality, and it was more like a game exacly. But if the goal is just to create a brutal, unforgiving gaming world inhabited only by a elite few hardcore players, who will dig into the game without asking for anything in return, then so be it. It's just a bit of a shame to see the wasted potential of a great game with deep mechanics that will only be played by few hardcore players (will explore the game anyway) and bunch fappers/shlickers (players for 1 hour).