Post by VaDu in Gameplay/Mechanics Discussion

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Seeing how this game is much less forgiving than the last Mezz really needs either a different or accompanying initial attack ability that lets the player to attack specific targets with at least comparable amount of effectiveness to the random hits. Trying to save the Hard Times had to restart over a dozen times for each trainer fight just to get the RNG to line up and prevent a submission, which are so rare as to practically needed to be saved for specific fights 1-1. It is a good thing that you provide so many moderate heals and max out TP after fights because you need to clear you need at least 180 TP for three Hard Knocks to have a chance to get out without a submission for just the regular fights, but that chance isn't very high and you'll need a Hard Times to get through the ones with stun. All of this combined with Hard times also being RNG makes the game far too luck-based in my opinion.

Also, on the first playthrough ended up getting soft-locked due to reaching the final mob fight on a final submission and lacking a Hard Times. With that in mind I'm curious what fights you designed to have the Hard Times in mind for, and the rate of submission stacks the player is expected to go through.

bitshiftgames1 year ago(+1)

Lot to parse here, so forgive me if I miss or gloss over something. In general, you should have quite a few opportunities to use Hard Times if you're saving it for ambushes and the big fights at the end. And those are exactly where it's needed, and should be used.

I should say that in the normal, middle-of-the-road fighting style for this chapter, you should expect some battlesex to happen. The goal isn't to avoid it, so much as to prevent it from backing you into a corner and forcing a loss. If you want to try to style and avoid it you can of course, but the balance, especially in the later game, isn't designed with that in mind, so it's going to be challenging. I can re-play the last three fights with hypno stuff on again eventually just to test, but from memory it shouldn't take more than one or two reloads to get past them if you're saving after each, and that's just if you're unlucky.

And that soft lock on the final 3 fights when lacking the special Dazzle for Hard Times is intentional. Right now it's just a bit frustrating, but eventually it will end up forcing players who screwed up their item management to go the host club route instead.

VaDu1 year ago(+2)

Thank you for responding, I will address each paragraph in turn. To begin, would you be more specific? There are after all more Hard Times than there are ambushes, so do you mean to say than one should be used for any particular encounters? Seeing as one of the big fights is just a trainer fight is that a situation where Hard Times is intended to be used, since if so in my initial playthrough I did use one for each ambush and those fights. Though further elaboration leads into the next paragraph.

You cannot prevent it from backing you into a corner and forcing a loss if you cannot avoid it. This is why I was asking specifically for the "rate" you expect the player to go through. I would absolutely recommend playing the way the player does. To break down the combat from my experience:
1) For standard encounters you have one turn before they start building up submission (sub). If you defeat none that means they can catch you as early as that turn, but that is not usual. If you have 180 TP for three Hard Knocks there will most likely be one or two sub triggers on you, but the enemy will be down to one injured, and you can defeat them before they provoke a serve. If you can only afford two Hard Knocks (or miss multiple times with three) then one or two will survive and they will provoke a serve during your Focus or the following turn.
1.5) Either two or three standard fights are hard-coded to cause a stun on the beginning of your second turn, or its on some sort of invisible encounter timer. Didn't experiment much so don't know. Importantly its on "your" turn, interrupting your attack while all the enemies go as normal, and you take two turns to recover so that's three turns the enemy can do as they please, and since its the second turn that's when they begin building submission. Fortunately they can't hypno you even at 100 as long as you're stunned, but since you use a turn to lose daze they can just hypno you immediately following and provoke a serve. Either you use a Hard Times and take out one or two while you can, or you take the L.
2) Strikers, easiest to deal with since two basic mobs can't usually build submission faster than you can clear the encounter even with the Guard delays. Ideally you take out the basics since the striker never builds up.
3) Trainers. If you do not defeat the trainer on your second turn you will be made to serve. This requires hitting four hits (3/1, 1/3, 2/2) which is at a guess and incredibly low percentage chance. Hard Times reduces the odds considerably, but since that can miss-target or just plain miss as well it's not a guarantee.
4) Ambush. You will need a Hard Times to avoid serving, but from what I've experienced it's mostly safe after that as the subsequent Hard Knocks will take out enemies easily.
5) The final mob fight. If you do not have Hard Times it will be difficult to beat serving or otherwise, if its even possible (untested on my part). I used my Hard Times on the trainers and forgot to collect the one in the fridge so I was one short, though that wouldn't have helped much because...To avoid serving if you have one Hard Times you will need to reset many times since you absolutely need to defeat one of the strikers the first turn, low odds even with the extra attacks due to the extra spread. The strikers cannot do their combo a second time or it will be two late and Hard Knocks is too unlikely to finish them in the one turn you have to attack. With two a second Hard Times can decimate them.
6) Final boss. If you have somehow saved two Hard Times as I did through liberal resets then you can beat the boss without the musk item. It's possible that the final boss functions by HP thresholds so save your Hard Times until you hit 50-75% to maximize their value. With only one the musk item was used, but it came down to the wire.
Theoretically it would be possible to calculate exactly how many defeats the player will on average take based on mobs, but that does sound like a hassle. I wouldn't say it's excessive much since I was only on my second sub defeat in the soft lock.

Do you mean to say that regardless of my submission stacks it would have resulted in an instant defeat? If so I would say that's just going to far. You say its for players who "screwed up their item management", but from my experience it only takes a single mistake, which is a mistake the player has no way of knowing to avoid. I can go through the first game reliably without being defeated once. Conserving Hard Times I cannot see going through this without liberal resets and/or being pushed to the absolute brink, so even with item management the room for error is practically binary.

bitshiftgames1 year ago

Hard times is most useful, and is most intended for use, with the ambush in Ent. Dist. I and the three fights in the gauntlet of Ent. Dist. III. If you have any left over, you can obviously use it as you like.

You should always go into a fight with full HP and Energy. Doing otherwise is risky. Having done that, it's all about crowd management and speed. It's a race to see who can get there first: you to eliminating the hyenas, or them to getting you under. If you fire off Hard Knocks until you run out, then use your single attack to pick of stragglers quickly, you should usually be able to eliminate a group of three before they get you under. Not always! But 80-90% of the time. The Dazzle stun (not the item) messes with this, and sometimes you get bad RNG. But it usually works fairly well.

The dazzle stun hard-coding is actually reverse: They're just prevented from using it until the second turn. After that, they use it whenever RNG dictates. They're also forced to use it at least once every five battles, and forced NOT to use it after 3 battles they have used it in, to guarantee some kind of relief from bad RNG.

So let's take one example, going off yours:

First turn, no daze, you get in a Hard Knocks. None down, but several weakened.

Second turn, daze. they get you up to 100 sub while you're stuck.

You come out of it. You do another Hard Knocks. Most of the time, this will take down AT LEAST ONE, often two of the three. Let's say you're unlucky and there are still two standing.

Could those two go 1. Open status 2. Hypno ? Sure, but that's unlucky RNG and it's not guaranteed. There's at least a 50% chance that they WON'T perfectly line up their moves like that.

Let's say they go Open, and the other whiffs with a regular attack. You can now unload with your last Hard Knocks, which has a good chance of taking them both out. If you only get one, can he now take advantage of open and pull you into hypno? Sure, but again, not guaranteed.

The general take-away here is that yes, some of this is dependent on RNG. That's intentional: there's supposed to be a certain amount of unexpected and uncontrollable risk. Sometimes you're just screwed (heh). But if played right, you should be able to mitigate the damage a lot. The overall goal for Ent. Dist I was that a player, trying moderately hard, should be able to get to the end with only one defeat (ie going back to the plaza). Trying a bit harder, that player should be able to get all the way through without any defeats, though this will require a few re-tries from saves. And in my playtest this seemed to be roughly the case.

Bottom line: you shouldn't NEED a Hard Times anywhere but the ambushes and final gauntlet, but since you have extra, you certainly can use it as a get out of jail free card to avoid having to savescum a particularly unlucky battle.

I will admit the Trainer mobs are a bit spooky, and if I was in a hurry that's probably where I'd use my extra Hard Times. Try legit, and if damage isn't happening fast enough, just say fuck it.

Using Hard Times on the boss is unintentional, and I'll probably gate off Dazzle Blast from that fight eventually.

Again, I think we may be defining "loss" differently: I mean actual defeat. You can go through a sub cycle and still win the fight. After...four cycles I believe THEN you lose, but unless you're really slacking it shouldn't get that bad too often. You seem really intent on avoiding hypno in battle altogether, in which case either use the charm, or the keys (italics to make this stand out in the sea of text, not to be snarky).

I don't entirely follow what you're saying in the last paragraph. What I was saying was that when the player comes to the final gauntlet, they'll need at LEAST one dazzle blast for Hard Times, ideally more. With one, it's possible but tricky. Without at least one, I'm doubtful it's possible. But there are MANY Dazzle blasts, and only one fight that you absolutely, 100 MUST use them on. I've won the ambush fight without using them (though it's a pain in the ass). So if the player comes to the final three fights and they have ZERO dazzle blast, they fucked up somewhere.

Overall, I feel like SOMETHING in your overall strategy is missing, though I'm not sure what, and I wish I could be more helpful. I've played through Ent Dist I multiple times from beginning to end with this play mode (regular fights with hypno), and while I did have to reload a few times (Maybe four or five overall?) it certainly wasn't to an infuriating degree. I don't just trust my own experience of course, but I'd expect my beta testers to give me an earful if it was as punishing as you're experiencing, and I didn't really hear anything. My general concern with that section was actually that it was a bit too easy, which is why the dazzle/daze ability exists.

Sorry I can't be more helpful though. I will make a note of all this, as one more data point, and if similar complaints come in I'll certainly consider reworking the balancing.

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