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Tales of Androgyny

A game about birds, bees, flowers and trees. · By Majalis

Food and Hunger

A topic by RinandTonic created Oct 01, 2022 Views: 1,222 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(+2)

I wanted to post feedback on this game because I *really* really love it and I really want to offer it more support because the art is awesome and the scenes are really well written but there's a HUGE glaring gameplay issue that I need to offer feedback on because it's been a consistent issue. The hunger mechanic is really really REALLY not fun as it currently is in the game.

Each tick you travel takes about 5 hunger, it also takes 5 hunger to scout, 5 hunger to increase stealth level, and 5 hunger to heal 5 HP. So it takes hunger to do literally *anything* on the map and it is your only healing resource (aside from potions, but having an empty stomach drains health and you need it to do anything anyways). If you run out of  hunger (which you WILL), you lose some HP and enter an event where you get a little food for free (sometimes this results in a debuff, such as getting drunk or losing some mental stats), you lose a bunch of mental stats (dignity and willpower) but gain a little fullness back (and I think drop to 0 HP because time passes and you're starving), or you can buy food,. Let's go over each of these outcomes in turn:

Firstly, getting free food, this is obviously the best outcome but it also has caveats. First is the fishermen event which gives ~45 hunger and gets you drunk--being drunk drops a bunch of stats, and your stats already drop from a LOT of sources (being low HP, being cum-filled, etc...) so that makes it even more annoying to pass checks since you now need to overstat yourself. Secondly is the foraging outcome which I think gives about 25 hunger back. The first annoyance with these is that as "good" outcomes, they're rare. I don't know the percentages but I ALWAYS stack perception (Which it apparently scales off of) and the perk that makes it so foraging outcomes are better but it never seems to matter, I have to saveload 5 or 6 times just to get a good event most runs. 
The second problem with these is that it's not enough. Early game you can probably clear fights without losing but mid to late game I will often be run down to 5-10 HP after most of the harder fights like the wasp and the vampires, or even mid-game fights like the beastmistress which will necessitate resting which necessitates hunger. And with a max of about 60 HP, but about 20-40 food per event, that means I'll need to rest x4, saveload event, rest x4, saveload event. But that's not all, because most encounters on the map you will auto-fail if your scouting or stealth aren't high enough so then I need to saveload MORE to  get enough hunger to bring the levels up high enough that I can actually get to play the encounter (oh and being drunk drops your scout and stealth levels too so that eliminates the fisherman option for most scenarios). 

Second is the "fail-state". This happens if you reject an event that could give you food when you're starving (such as not sucking the guy off) but I will also count this as sucking the guy off or the pet scene since functionally they are the same. You take a hit to dignity and willpower, but get some food in the process. Now aside from making you cumfilled most of the time which gives you a debuff, dignity is important--there's a HARD late-game enemy that you just insta-lose to and get a bad end if your dignity isn't high enough. It makes you fail checks, it's nearly impossible to get back, and I always end up getting some but try to keep it in moderation so I can experience all the content without running into bad-end stonewalls, so this is right out.

Third are money-based hunger checks. I will lump resting at the inn (which you can technically do for free but again, you might not want to suck dick every time for the dignity hit), the merchant event, and buying food in store here too because this ties in with money as an issue in the game. Money is SCARCE. You do not get money from a lot of encounters, barely any really. And the bulk of the money you start with should go to the stat equipment (shoes and gloves) needed to loot the spider dungeon outside of the town of Monsters, so you really can't afford food. Even if you could, buying food or resting at the inn gives you around 8-40 hunger which is STILL not enough seeing as how you need about 15 hunger to scout up to full, 15 hunger to stealth up to full, and 60 hunger to heal up from 0. Even if you take a loan out from the bank, which you can do infinitely, it adds an extra enemy on the map that can give you a game over if you run out of money and lose a fight so it's just not worth it since there are so few sources of money you'll never pay it back anyways. Even if there were more money, there are too few places to turn that money into large amounts of food since there are only 2 guaranteed settlements in the early game but the map stretches out way way further than you could reasonably reach them. (This also makes it so traveling back to Silajam for quest purposes is a pain in the ass since you basically wasted all the hunger you used getting to that point).

Now, are there events in the game that can give you hunger? Yes! There's the dryad, there's the lake elf, there are food caches, there's the hunger charm which slows loss. But these are not random events that benefit you, these are just events that can stave off you needing to constantly saveload since even if you play THE most optimal build in the game (which to my understanding is spamming armor sunder with high STR) you will STILL bleed HP and run out of hunger inevitably. And these events often also have an opportunity cost! You just don't get any of the elf's sex scenes if you drink from the lake, the dryad deals damage to you, and the hunger charm is RNG and is in chests which could contain mimics or tentacles, but is literally essential if you don't want to spend half your playsession saveloading. There's also a perk that lets you gain hunger from swallowing cum but what if I don't want to swallow cum from every single monster I pass and just want to play as an adventurer for a little bit and only flirt with monsters that I click with? It's not fun just to autolose every fight even if you're playing the damsel submissive just to swallow cum for hunger because there are bonus scenes for winning.

This is actually a game-ruining issue to me. It makes it so the mid-late game is just spent on a single tile grinding out beneficial hunger checks over and over and over again. The game has lots of things that could use tweaking. Like I mentioned, money is pretty bad, the upgrade system is confusing, some enemies are nearly impossible with certain builds, the stat demands are too high across the board for most checks like getting Kyrlia on the team, combat HEAVILY favors STR based melee fighters, magic is pretty bad, the fact that sleeping in your tent ALWAYS spawns a goblin even if you have companions makes it so I've never actually slept because I just end up HP-negative, but the hunger problem is the worst. It makes it so I actually don't want to support the game because I don't give a shit about playing the new build every month because no matter how sexy the content is, saveloading for 2 hours is just awful.

I always like to be a constructive criticizer so I'm going to offer some potential fixes:

-Make money more frequent: winning money after every fight, even if it's like 10-20 gold, makes it actually worth stocking up on food in town and taking the merchant random encounters, which would reduce a lot of the headache from needing to reroll until you get one that doesn't require money.

-Make actions take less hunger: reducing the scouting, stealth, and camp actions to 1 or even 3 hunger would do a great deal for allowing the player to heal back up after fights, which is necessary to play the game, and allowing them to get their stats up if their passives don't cover it. It would make the 20-ish food you get from the free event not put you at a standstill.

-Make foraging feats more powerful: Perception and Forager should give massive bonuses to foraging or potentially even add entirely new events or double the amount of food you get from foraging. This makes it so it's still a necessary feat but it actually gives quality of life benefits.

-Increase the amount of food: You could easily double, triple, or even quadruple the amount of food that can be bought in shops, earned at the inn, and gained from foraging, and it would not negatively impact the mechanic in any way whatsoever.

-Remove the hunger mechanic entirely: This is the most extreme, I'll admit, but why is there a hunger mechanic? It's not like it's thematically appropriate for a fantasy action exploration RPG with no other survival mechanics. I understand it serves as a limiting factor for stealthing, scouting, and healing infinitely, but it's an arbitrary limiter since it's still infinite as long as you're willing to take the dignity hit and waste your time. The starving events don't even have fun sex scenes or pretty art, it's just a sceneskip with text and a generic photo. This would make the game easier, sure, but it's already a HARD game. I've struggled through most enemies at max HP on most characters, but learning the combat is sort of like an engaging puzzle, and worst case you get a fun sex scene. Managing your hunger is not challenging, it's just frustrating and boring.

I love the game but I seriously put off playing more of it because I find this aspect so distasteful. I think it would warm me and a lot of others on it if it were tweaked in some way. Thanks for reading! (Also Alma and the Fire Elemental are best girls).

(+1)

1. You can get healed for 20 by resting once. It happens when you rest on tile with bonfire icon.

2. Successful foraging probability gets higher when you learn Forager perk. But I never do that because I found ways of not foraging.

3. I think there are no enemies that don't let you win with 0 Dignity. There was Dark Knight, but it was changed. Basically every such occurrence now is avoidable by spending Willpower, and I personally also never ran out of it at least.

4. If you spend 15 food for scouting, it seems you don't have enough Perception. It should be 5 to play comfortably. If you are struggling with getting high Stats, you definitely should farm some achievements in Iron Man mode, then access Beginning Bonuses (look them up on ToA wiki). Also there's +1 stat armor you should buy.

5. Money are not really scarce. They're just not farmable, but one-time gigs. This game is working the way you have to suffer some failed walkthroughs to memorize each one. I will give you a list:

• Brothel Madame quests - 150+120 gold

• defeating Ogre once - 50

• Arachne with Perception 5 - 50

• Felling Quetzal quest - 300, claim on Town Square

• Travelling to the end of Verdant Valley - 100 + gauntlet that saves you 50 because you don't buy it

With those money you can buy all the food you want. Plus gear like best armor and weapon.

Hey! Excellent points, learning a lot about the game since there isn't really a proper tutorial in place yet, let me respond to each of these in turn:

1. I had NO idea what those bonfire tokens do, VERY good to know! Still a little obnoxious since I find myself having to rest to at *least* half health every tile or so in the late game which may constitute backtracking which consumes more food so still an annoyance but definitely an improvement over 5 health.

2. Anecdotal since I never did like a proper Chi-Square on it or anything, but I've maxed out on forager on a ranger build I did once just to see if it would help and I *still* got bad events pretty darn frequently. And again the events it considers "good" are still either debuffs or usually not enough.

3. That's great to know!! It happened to me once against Dark Knight in the old build and I'll be totally honest with you I've been so paranoid about that shit since then that I never let it drop to 0. I also don't know any way of getting extra willpower (I know one-time events and whatnot give it). Even still, sometimes it's fun to challenge yourself not to lose dignity! Maybe you're doing kind of a "top" run or a virgin run so there are still reasons it shouldn't ever be really inconvenient not to take a hit.

4. Oh shoot that's  a great recommendation! Perception doesn't give a clear tooltip about how much benefit it confers (although some events like the Naga do require stealth which scales off of DEX and also eats up lots of food). I also had *NO* idea achievements actually did anything. I'll be totally honest I download the new patch once every couple of months and make a fresh save just to see the new scenes and content. The game isn't super-duper replayable so grinding 2 playthroughs out for stat points isn't really appealing but I'm glad that's an option! 
I always buy a full set of the stat armor but find I'm still under-statted for most scenes (because of the aforementioned injury penalty, drunkenness penalty, cum penalty, etc...). You raise a point I made in that getting high stats on a *fresh* run (assuming you are a first-time player trying to play the game) is pretty hard. I usually want all companions in any game I play, especially this one where they get new scenes added all the time. That necessitates a LOT of charisma, like 7 or 8 I think? Then utility stats so I don't auto-fail important events, like 5 or so for both dex and per, then an offensive stat like str or mag. That's a big ask for some classe, especially with the aformentioned stat penalties.

5. Okay, you're correct! But I still see that as a flaw; since this game is not linear, not having a farmable source of money is a *problem*. Firstly, the brothel madam quests, while they give a chunk of change, are a grind, are not really fun to replay, and take resources (food from map travel and combat) to complete (some of which you will likely have to buyback with the money you get). If memory serves, the full array of stat armor you mentioned earlier is like 200-300 gold or so, maybe even more if you have armor or a weapon you need for your build, so that's a HUGE amount of your opening funds. I don't spend money on *anything* until I have that. I'll be honest, I never stock up on food at the inn because in an older patch it never came back and it's something like 64 food total? Nothing that would make a significant dent in what I'm expending.

The Quetzal fight is also really hard, especially for certain builds. Maybe I have no idea how to optimize the mage build I'm running with but he just gets flattened, so I eventually gave up. All the random events you listed are also early-game, which means in the mid-late game you are just *bleeding* money at any food event. Maybe you're not having an issue with that, but in my experience, it incentivizes me to make unfun decisions (saveloading hunger events, resetting combats to lose less health, sub-optimal stat allocation to try to save on hunger) to try to curb that loss.  Any game that has exploration as a core pillar of its gameplay and requires a resource to continue or streamline travel should have a way to renew that resource. 

ToA wiki has explanation on what different Stats do, it also has Achievements page that tells you how to easily edit achievements if it seems bothersome to farm them. 

About Charisma, I usually take either Charisma or everything else for a run. If I play with high Charisma, it's either the character that won't be leaving the first location, or I actually get 8 Charisma in the very end (it's possible with other stats still high on high level and using additional charms and a little upgrade). Then I can return and get me companions. 

Stat equipment isn't costy. It's helm for 25, heels for 25, gauntlet you can find, or it will be additional 50. And you get +1 Perception, + 1 Agility and + 1 Strength. Must have. Also really great armor is around 400 or 350. Reinforced shield is 50, Broadsword is 50. And after that you're unstoppable with adequate stats.

If you can't beat Quetzal, well, your character is weak. She actually is a low tier enemy. With efficient build she can be taken out with 0 things bought beforehand. Even without farming achievements, if you're precise. With many achievements farmed you can have plus 100 gold or so to the beginning 50 by default, also more stats and perks. You get some money from Brothel, and it really all goes in breeze.

Also you can steal stuff. With Agility around 8 I wouldn't even bother spending 100 for a weapon and shield, just steal. And if it's lower, you can steal Cat Potion from General Shop and Strange Merchant, it will temporarily give you +3 Agility. With 12 Agility I can steal 400 gold armor. As you can see, there are opportunities to make life easier if you look for them. Some of the info can be found on wiki.

(1 edit)

if you need the wiki just to find out how game mechanics work, the game has a problem.

Wiki is a guide for easier walkthrough. You can figure anything out on your own. Think a little, experiment, and you will notice Perception affects scouting levels. But it isn't the case there, that's why game faqs were there long before.

(+1)

Never had this issue before even when i chose to not accept the lake healing, i usually just stock up on food at the inn with the money i won from the brothel quest + killing the quetzal goddess. That's enough to carry me around the map even with a full party 

Really! In the past the food at the inn was I think 8 stacks of 8 food, so like 64 non-renewable food? So I never bothered in favor of saving up for the stat gear. Good to know though, I'll give it a shot on my next run to see if it makes a difference.

Wait does having a full party increase the amount of food you use?? Maybe that's my problem because I get the squad together every time.