Hi, thanks so much for streaming the game and for your great feedback. Glad you had fun with it, and I will definitely catch the VOD since I had to step away partway through the stream. The way you took extra time to really analyze the choices was awesome to watch!
So, uh... I guess I only have a single ring slot for game balance at this point. Like, there's a "feasible" lore explanation that magic rings have to be attuned to a person and only one can be attuned at a time, or something. (I think D&D does something similar?) To be honest, re-balancing everything around a second Ring slot would be a considerable undertaking which I'd need to really think about. But I can definitely see your point there!
I get what you mean about the Tech skills as well, though that one is a bit more nuanced. Some of the basic Techs granted by weapons are only slightly more powerful than a regular attack, but that's enough to (for example) drop a low level foe in a single shot. So they're more useful in some contexts than others. Whereas Tech skills attached to stronger weapons, or granted via scrolls, are a bit more impressive at least in terms of single-target damage. That all said, if it feels too weak, it's 100% worth it on my end to review the numbers one more time.
And YES, most importantly: the dog! Gosh I wish I had thought of this, haha... OK so while I can't promise making the "animal companion" suggestion into an actual feature quite this late into development, I can assure you that I am working on other projects where you can, indeed, pet the dog.