itch.io

Really like it so far. A bit too much luck-bound for my taste, but still very nice!

Thanks!

Still waiting for succubus evolution for Ava (at least to see!)

Seems decontamination chamber in vault (Sector 105-B) isn't working properly (did not reduced corruption).

OK. Given some thoughts on the topic.

First of all, we have two weapons with slightly different stats - the rifle and shotgun, fully upgraded rifle does a bit more plasma damage, and fully upgraded shotgun doing physical damage with better critical chance.

Then we have second skills: piercing shot (increased damage, good vs armor), concussive strike (a bit of physical dmg and reduces enemy's iniative for 3 turns), adaptive nanites (heal by 20 for 3 turns), and bloodlust (+20% dmg for 3 turns).

Then we have heavy skills: explosive grenade (good damage, good vs armor), cryo grenade (half as much damage, freezes enemies for 2 turns), and fire grenade (half damge, set on fire for 3 turns).

The thing is I can't switch anything mid-fight (obviously). Basically, that means that I have to choose some set that'll be good or at least viable against most enemies. Most enemies are slightly vulnerable to energy (except deeper xenos), robotic and deeper xenos are also vulnerable to corrosive and piercing damage (robotic also have some strong resistances, against fire, for example).

So, the weapons are more or less equal, with rifle being more consistent in terms of damage output (and shotgun maybe statistically slightly better against deeper xenos).

Second skill - piercing shot is perfect addition to plasma (and shotgun, too) as there are no one with resistance to piercing. Concussive strike that just slightly delays enemy's actions (thus giving a little chance to kill it before it acts) doesn't look appealing to me. Adaptive nanites are somewhat interesting, as deeper xenos do noticeable damage, but on higher floors is totally covered by allies (good for solo, maybe, but I'm coop man). Bloodlust is basically a negative skill (20% damage boost for 3 turn, but skip every 3rd turn of shooting, at least description doesn't say agent will shoot in same turn with skill activation).

Piercing shoot - good (guaranteed good damage of different type from main weapon). Concussive strike - basically, enemy MAYBE skips one last attack, made it 20% to 30% enemy's damage reduction (maybe even 35%). Adaptive nanites - looks better than in the beginning of the game, still, some 10% reduction on ALL incoming damage (and corruption and/or maybe chance to avoid debuff) will look even better! Bloodlust is... well, lacking. Look at piercing shot and turn bloodlust, for example, in a basic shot with doubled crit chance and then reduce that bonus, like, x1.75 on second shot, and x1.5 on third. That will definitely work great with shotgun and will please risky-gambler people. To summarize: one second skill aimed at rifle (piercing shot, check), one second skill aimed at shotgun (adjusted bloodlust), some universal offensive (concussive strike) and some universal defensive (nanites). With such approach, better adjustment for concussive strike is not weakening enemy's attack, but enemy's defense, like, some +25% on incoming damage to that enemy (an extra chance for allies to shine).

Grenades. Basic grenade is rahter useless - on higher floors agent is still too weak to get damage boost from stats, on lower floors enemies are too tough for it to have meaningful impact. Fire grenade - AoE DoT is good against larger groups of weaker enemies, but most of the time there only two or three of them (and solo on higher floors). Cryo grenades - all your enemies are paused for free shooting... The only thing I can think of is adjust/balance blast/DoT so, firstly, it's appealing at all, like, a chance to (almost) one-shot regular enemies - some 10% chance for basic grenade to do, say, triple damage, separate for each enemy. Secondly, balance numbers so it'll be hard choice.

The logic of adjustment is simple: offensive skills make combat faster (less turns to kill enemies), defensive ensure that agent's received damage is noticeably lower than without them (and even if using offensive skills). Just take some estimation of per-turn damage output of agent's expected team and effective HPs of expected enemy unit, and vice versa, and calculate expected combat length and received damage/corruption (there are a few complications, like number of enemies still alive affecting their damage output and effects of healing abilities).

Sorry for "wall of text", the topic suddenly is quite captivating (yep, I love numbers).

Is it me being blind or is it a 0.3 feature that we can now select the enemy to attack? Anyway, that's good!

What will be even better - a possibility to rearrange enemies in the list so allies will attack them in given order (now they attack first enemy on the list after killing designated one).

Many thanks! Great story, great characters, great game! Keep it up!

I second that ice grenade is far better than other.

Some ways to improve other skills:

1. Greatly reduce enemy's damage output for longer periods, like, after concussion enemy has some 50% chance to miss completely for, say, two turns, and overall damage decrease by 25% for three to four turns (overlapping with miss chance), so, basically, you can keep SINGLE enemy mostly locked out of combat indefinitely.
2. Some kind of friendly fire from fire grenade, like burning enemies additionally damage each other (will be useful against larger groups), maybe chance to miss, too, or even attack each other instead of MC.
3. Bloodlust can be adjusted or reworked by adding EXTRA very random attack. Either 50% chance to shoot enemy for half damage (improved), or just no damage increase and extra attack against random enemy for some percent of damage, likely half or 67%.
4. Nanites can grant very temporary immunity (or very high resistance) to corruption gain OR to statuses from enemy's special attacks like corrosion or fire or whatever.

The biggest problem, of course, is balancing. These are just ideas of something that will make me personally consider using other skills, and even then these numbers are extremely preliminary.

Some strange problem in 0.2.8 about leaving the castle.

Taking save from previous version I can go freely, but when started game anew, after walk with Morgana or being sent by Sybille I can't leave castle.

Oops. Got it. Completely missed part about wardrobe, got too used to just going to gatehouse...

UPDATE:
When loading save from previous version (0.2.7) and going into gatehouse I see option to "sneak out of the castle". When playing in current (0.2.8) version from scratch - no such option, have to go to "my room", use wardrobe and select "disguise". Didn't checked if this works in older save (probably should, doesn't really matter).

Hope this helps in debugging. :-)

Something along the lines of separating body shape changes and corruption... Can be fun.

Just as a suggestion - on some higher stages of corruption give MC option to take image of some earlier stages? With some sidequest and/or help of side characters like Ava or that forgot-her-name (damned covid!) scientist-from-a-box which MC can wear instead of armor... On the other hand, this draws in something from the robotic assistant as well, for balance (maybe evolved Ava if in company OR scientist/robot couple).

First of all - MANY THANKS! The game so far left exceptionally great feeling! Can't put my finger on it though, it's just that - a feeling.

The question: are there plans for selectable TFs? Like, MC to choose between tail/tentacle or horns, just for example? Not neccessary for MC, however, that's preferred.

I know this will add a tons of lots of extra work if they aren't just minor decorations, but really like to see those!

And again, MANY THANKS!!! Great game so far, best of luck out there!

Same here.

Also, even if I raise required stat enough to take a skill - it's not possible, since skill reqs aren't rechecked on stat raise.

There are other sites akin to Patreon. I use boosty.to for my projects: there's definitely some small drawbacks but it takes very little time and effort to place content there. I don't know exactly about their policies on content, though (mine is rather far from most borderlines), but maybe it's worth a shot?

Anyway! What I wanted to say: whatever you do - we do support you!

BBS. Just be careful! :-)

Take care and be extremely careful AFTER that dreadful thing's over. Got this twice, rather easy, fortunately, but in a couple of months after "complete recovery" got my typo rates skyrocketed. Mostly missed keys or pressed 'em in wrong order. Took me another two months to just get them under control and about two more to reduce to acceptable level. It's over a year since last case and I still make more typos than I had when just started to learning blind-typing.

So, be VERY careful and ask around how to prevent such consequences in first place (I believe it's something about brain's blood supply and/or veins).

Take your time! And take care! Just you know, we're somewhere out there and we do care!

Extremely nice update! The only thing I'm missing is option to answer those girls asking about my 100+ level that "I was bored and there was nothing more to do". :-)

Great work! Great progress! And best wishes out there!