Hell-Strain

An erotic survival-horror RPG! · By Finchy

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Difficulty settings?

A topic by NeonFryingpan created 15 hours ago Views: 54 Replies: 6

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NeonFryingpan15 hours ago

Wanted to post as i really really like the game, the gameplay system, the monster art and all, but it feels way too hard, and a difficulty setting would definitely be great.

Here are a couple of my complaints :
- The grab QTE is basically impossible to do. There are too many arrows you have to press to complete it (especially when you have poor eyesight as the arrows look to much alike), in a too short time. I believe less lust means you have less presses to do, but you basicly spend all of your time 75% lust if you don't want to go back to base after every single encounter, and waste more ressources.
- Speaking of resources, the fact that all of them depend on one another doesn't make it fun, it's never fun to waste ressources because you slept so now you have to eat again. I know that you can survive with zero in your meters, but the debuffs are so big the game is barely playable.
- The fact that stealth uses stamina makes it very annoying, stamina regenerate by itself when unstealth and doing nothing, so it's just a straight up waste of time to have to unstealth, wait 3 minutes and re-stealth, just a pointless time sink with no challenge.
- Lastly some enemies have horrible spells; The first i saw was the SCP one at night, that grabs you, wich you can only free yourself with focus struggle (already almost impossible to not game over without the right talents), and then uses paralyze on you, just to re-grab you straight away (game over, GG BG). The second i saw was the big goat mommy cultist boss; 3 hypnosis stacks and then you can't fight, then what? You just let yourself game over?
This goat boss was definitely the worst, after trying everything possible, i just ragequit and didn't touch the game again. If you're supposed to have specific talents to make the boss beatable, it means forcing the player to play in a certain way, and it's terrible game design.

I think the game really has a lot of potential, that's why i wasted the time to talk about everything that's annoying in the game.
If QTE are simpler or at least more readable, if thirst/hunger only depletes when doing active action and not when sleeping or leaving dungeons, if stealth stop using stamina for no reason, if you could respec at all saferooms or if you could get hints on some enemies or bosses, well i think it would be a better game. And if my opinion seem unreasonable, then refer to the post title; how about a difficulty setting like that?

WhiteWhale15 hours ago

I do have one tip for the goat boss. Every time she puts a stack of hypnosis on you, you gain access to a skill that removes it.

The way I beat her was by staying at close range and removing the hypnosis effect as soon as it's cast on me.

FinchyDeveloper15 hours ago (1 edit)

Hey man, thanks for the extensive feedback!

- For the QTE with the arrows, I've changed the arrows themselves to be much more readable in an upcoming update to the demo, and will likely be tweaking the difficulty of them as well down the line. They are supposed to be difficult if your Arousal is high, so if you acquire the 'Deep Breath' skill in the upgrade system (Which is quite cheap in terms of EXP), you can help manage that and make them easier.

- As for resources and stealth, I'll be tweaking those too. I'm considering removing the Stamina cost from stealthing entirely, just to see if it's an improvement overall and doesn't take away from the overall difficulty of the game.

- The special enemies at night are intentionally strong, and should be avoided unless you've grown a lot stronger. The Cult Matron's hypnosis can be removed by using the 'Slap Self' skill, which is available as soon as you get one stack of hypnosis. Sorry if this wasn't more clear. (I think the State tooltip for it, which you can see by hovering over the crosshair at the bottom, should mention that it is removable.)

Again, thank you for the constructive feedback, which is always helpful. I will be adding difficulty settings later down the line, as well, so there's that!

NeonFryingpan14 hours ago

I tried again and indeed there is a slap skill, but since it only appears on hypnosis 1&2 and then is removed on hynosis 3, you simply are not aware of this option if you only attack, or if you glance over the skill menu, so i simply did not know of it existing untill it was too late.

BTW now that i think of it, i had a few extra little things :
- Since the memory room on this game isn't filled by encountering the events but instead using the "scan" skill, i hope all bosses and event enemies (like goat or succubus) are replayable, or they would be missable, making the memory room unable to be fully completed.
- The description of "retail threads" chest equipement does not match the stats it gives when you equip it.

That's all for now, but i"ll be sure to continue pestering whenever i get back to it and find more to complain about!

Once again, good game, cool concepts, I take the time to provide feedback because i really believe we got something with potential on our hands here.

lucaspl9o13 hours ago

So there is a box that when hovered over it displays all current status effects, I think by default it is on the top of the screen rather than the bottom. If you don't mouse over it, it will still show you the icons of the effects, just watch it cycle through all effects passively throughout any fight (Default 3: Hunger, Hydration, Sleep.) If you are worried about resources, there is an armor that adds a chance to gain 1 credit after any fight you win, and you can buy Food or Water from vending machines throughout the world. Also small tip: Scavenging building might drain your current hunger, hydration and sleep, but once you hit rock bottom you can keep delving without any new debuffs... Just be sure you have a great rout home, you're on borrowed time if you get in a fight.

Once you complete the Demo (No more area's to explore,) you will be given a unique currency that can either buy "Skill" Books or any missed boss scan data with. Hope this helps.

NeonFryingpan12 hours ago(+1)

I knew about the stat box and the armor (wich is called "retail threads" BTW), but the rest of your comment was indeed helpfull.
First time i tried scavenging a building i found nothing in exchange for 1 segment of time so it felt incredibly unrewarding and not worth it, but if you can do it with full 0 on all survival metrics i might try it.

FinchyDeveloper1 hour ago

Thanks for giving the game another try!

For the Retail Threads, they should give +2 Endurance and +3 Resistance, which is what it's set on my end. If you're changing into it from a different piece of gear, the menu shows you the difference in stat changes, instead of just the flat value. So, if you had +1 Endurance before, then equip this, the menu will show a difference of +1 instead.

Hope this helps, and keep the feedback coming!

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Hell-Strain

Difficulty settings?