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Deleted post
(2 edits)

Lipstor, I understand that but the game still is in beta, so we don't know if the dog mechanic may come up elsewhere or if Cynthia is even a required encounter to finish the game. In other words, we don't have the full context of the game yet. Besides, It's not uncommon in games to have secrets or situations where the solution is very vague and even nonsensical. When thinking about this my thoughts immediately go to Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars, a game for the Super Nintend or Super Famicom. In that game there is a hidden quest to obtain the ultimate equipment, however the game never obviously mentions or hints at this quest in any way. The quest is not necessary for finishing the game, but there are very slight hints to its existence. At a certain point in Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars, the player gets a key item that has seemingly no use at first. Later in the game, there is a secret path that has no indication that the player can walk onto it to find an NPC that gives the player another item that would seem like it has no purpose if not for the fact they had the previous item. In order to make use of the two key items, the player has to back track to an area that they had already visited and then find a secret path that wasn't there when they were in that area before. After presenting the two items to another hidden NPC the player has an event that eventually leads them to the secret ultimate gear.

Like I said, the sequence of events in Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars to get the ultimate gear is very vague. However, by giving the player the  knowledge that there is something that they have yet to find a use for, they start wondering what they can do with this one hint that they have. Cynthia presents a similar situation. An average player may not think to have the dog trail them to Cynthia. Once the player finds Cynthia and sees that they have no way to further interact with her, they begin to wonder what the solution could be. Now this is where the player could do a multitude of things. The player could go onine and ask how to progress with Cynthia, as you, Lipstor, say man people do. Another possibility is that the current player is very persistent and actually likes to try to figure things out themself. So, this persistent player begins testing things on Cythia, such as weapons, gear, actions, items, and whatever else they can think of. Eventually they may give up and go complete other content. At some point the game tells the player that they can have followers, and they may also remember the strange dog that they didn't interact with earlier. The player then may try interacting with Cythia while they have a follower. Maybe they'll try with a puppet first, and see nothing happens. So then the player goes back to the dog and tries to see if they can get it to follow. Once the player gets the dog to follow they then try to interact with Cynthia and realize they've found the solution. This whole scenario tells the player that they are rewarded for attempting multiple different interactions. Maybe they are a bit annoyed that the quest was so vague, or the opposite, maybe the player is satisfied that they figured out the solution on their own.

Both the possible players I presented for the Cynthia sequence, are the same possibilities that occured from the Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars secret quest. I think both those possibilities are good for the game as a whole. In the possibility that the player decides to go look up the solution, or ask for the solution online, the player sparks conversation about the game. That's good! It's good for players to go online and ask for advice or talk about the game, it helps to keep a community. The other possible player that decides to continue to find their own solution for Cynthia's even will feel good that they figured it out on their own and that the game didn't disrespect their capabilities by making the solution too obvious.

I'm not saying that making Cynthia's event solution easier is a bad thing, but I can see why Mofu may not want to add such a hint as well, since it is a common thing in a game to add content that's so well hidden that players may not find the content for a long time. Regardless, the game is still in development and maybe the context of the rest of the game may make Cynthia's event more easy to solve. Like I said, I don't think Mofu means to disrespect you by not adding your solution. I think it's good that Mofu is actually deciding for themself what they want to do with Cynthia's event. It shows that they may not be as pliant as we think. I think you, Lipstor, in particular should be glad, since you've always seemed so worried that Mofu may add whatever is asked of them to the game. Mofu saying that they don't think the issue that you've mentioned with the Cynthia event is important shows that Mofu still has his own vision for what they wants to do with the game. Maybe all the other suggestions Mofu did add before might of been because the game is still early in development and that Mofu views now as a good time to experiment with certain content and abilities. Mofu could also be a bit over zealous and was trying to add too many ideas at once. Maybe now Mofu is realizing that they need to be more concise with their own development, and work on larger scale problems and content before trying to correct minor things. I hope this may help you consider other possibilities for development, Lipstor. Thank you for reading.

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Alright, I'm interested to see what gets added going forward.