Post by MightBeKevin in Feedback (Demo & Public Versions)

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First off, Phantasmagoria. It was a ride.
Whilst I overall really liked the game there were quite a few things that broke balancing quite a lot.

First off, some of the quests to acquire new forms were quite hard, probably due to chosen difficulty, however:
You start on lvl 1 for each form you acquire. This is not the issue.
The Problem is that, at least on hard (I haven't tested on others), you can only really defeat groups of 1 enemy at a time.
2 is a really hard time if you're prepared and 3 is nearly impossible.
This made defeating the bosses for that transformation quite difficult for some forms.
The ones I had the most problems with were:
The wolf boss and survival challenge (Through you can simply run away during the survival challenge but might as well fight when you can easily heal)
And the Manticore level (The robots are a tough fight even if they are alone. I'm sure I got one-cycled by them more than once)
A possible fix would be reducing the chance for multiple enemies to appear during Form-Acquisition.
You could also look at the sewer-quest, which was quite alright, even through the boss took a few tries.

On the other hand there are some attack combos that made it trivial to steamroll most enemy groups in human form:
Acquire Mouse and Salamander
Learn "Grazeful Vulpine Movement"(Fox) (damage all), "High Alert"(Fox)(evade all),
                 "Can't catch me!"(mouse)(evade all)
                "Draconic Strike"(probalby bugged, I think it casts a hit all attack as well)(salamander)
                 "Dragon Vein"(salamander) (attack up)
Cast "Dragon Vein", "High Alert", "Draconic Strike" and weapon damage skill of your choice
Most enemies will be dead or close to it by now.
You still have "Can't catch me!", "Grazeful Vulpine Movement" and probably a high damage single target spell to finish off most encounters on hard without even taking a single point of damage.
In the worst case Scenario you can then transform into fox and get another round without damage and another hit-all attack.

Salamander can easily be acquired by engaging an enemy in the desert, casting "Spiritual Boarder"(doesn't use turn) and\or "climax" (skips enemy turn if I recall correctly), then running away.
Once I acquired the form the fights were quite easy (as mentioned above I played on hard, I think they were balanced quite alright if you don't compare them to the PAIN of the other encounters [I am looking at you manticore]).
Overall this makes getting a rather good form (at least in my opinion) easier than it was likely intended to be.
Sadly I don't think there is much one could do to prevent this. Maybe making one walk a little bit slower so you can't keep your HP topped up as easily on lower levels (since it takes you longer to reach them) or adding something that makes desert exploration harder until a perquisite like another form or item are acquired

"Phantasm Barrier" can also easily be abused against enemies that hit only once (since you can just spam "Herbs", which are quite abundant, until a good healing option like "climax" is off cool-down. Early game this isn't a problem since "Herbs" are still somewhat limited, but later you have more than enough of them.
A fix you could try is setting the activation threshold to 15% of maxHp or something. (Still plenty against strong hits, but you can't keep blocking attacks whilst waiting for your skills to go off cool-down)

Finally the fights to upgrade the forms were way easier than acquiring them, partially due to having a full team with you.

All in all a fun game I enjoined quite a lot (through getting one-hitted on hard all the time was somewhat frustrating). I quite enjoyed the endings in the demo (I've found Fox, Kitsune, Rabbit, Mouse and Golden retriever, through Fox took me way too long considering I found Kitsune quite quickly and way earlier).
The artwork was decent as well, so I am quite looking forward to the next version.
I am currently playing through the game again (for some reason on hard, again, through I am planning on doing a normal run afterwards to see how well that is balanced [hard usually isn't the main focus of balancing after all]) and would be happy to give some more insights into my experiences if I find something else noteworthy. I'm also happy to answer further questions about the feeling of certain encounter (like mimics without signs. They're tough on hard) or other topics related to the experience.
Best of luck with further development efforts.

Furandre336 days ago (2 edits)

First of all thanks for the detailed feedback, it's very appreciated!
And I am pleased to hear that you had fun with it^^
Balacing is one of the hardest parts to get it just right so it's very helpful.

On hard all enemies have new skills and a 10% boost to all their normal stats, 10% higher Hit Rate, 5% Critical Rate, 25% more HP and can use ultimates.
The chances for bigger encounters are lower so it could be that you partly just had bad rng luck.
The chance to encounter 2 foes are around 60% and 3 foes are around 40% in most areas where a transformation takes place.
I will decreases the chances by around another 10% to 20% and see how that turns out.
I would also really like the Idea you have proposed.

Sadly as far as I am aware the rpg maker is pretty limit in this setings, you can only set the chances and encounters for each map but can't do things like changing the encounter rates after certain events or so.

Since Manticore has life recovery through some skills I made them a bit toughter.
You would say to reduce their attack power a little bit?
I saw that I forgot to lock some skills on the Roboter to certain difficulties, Now they use only 2 skills on easy 3 skills on normal and all on hard.
This dosen't changes anything on hard but makes them easier to deal with on the other difficulties.

Mouse already got strongly nerfed and the effect of blindness reduced, getting less dodge rate up and enemies have a higher stun resistance while bosses being immune to stun. This changes aren't just in the demo.

Using "Draconic Strike" with 5 stacks of "Ignition" makes it becomes an all enemy hitter.
I thought I mentioned it in the description, if it dosen't show I will need to take a look at the skills description.
Thanks that is also good to know.
I will weaking the skills that can be learned for human form to make them only around half as effective as their original counterpart.
I changed Cimax to come with a 3 turn warm up and only 25% hp heal for the human form and a 2 turn warm up for rabbit form, so it shouldn't be that easy to abuse anymore.

I certainly could just increase the damage tick that is inflicted every few secounds in the desert as well.
How much damage is recieved also strongly depends on the type of clothes the main character wears.

Yeah you are right "Phantasm Barrier" is pretty usefull since at least on easy and normal most enemy skills have one hit skills but on hard enies also have more multi hitting skills.

You refering to the normal herbs that heal 75HP?
Or the Rare Herbs that heal 100%?
They can certainly be nerfed.
Normal herbs for exsample could inflict Def Down or Healing Effects Down or even "Can't Heal" so that healing next turn is not possible.

This unfortunately isn't in the demo as well but I already complete revemp those as well.
Each of those encouner is now tailored with unique skills and stats fitting for the form it's fighting.
I was thinking of maybe removing team mates for those battles, if they still too easy after those changes I certainly could do that as well.

Yeah on hard this still easily can happen with some bad rgn or too big stat difference.
I balanced the difficulty around normal since most players told me they played on easy or normal.
Also happy to hear that you enjoyed them, I am absolutely not a writer so I would say the writing is sadly the weakest point of the game.
And you found all, even kitsune which was the only one not mentioned at all!
Interessting that you found that before fox.
I would love to hear more feedback if you should have any!
Yeah since mimics are filled with a lot of rare lot (If rgn is with you) they are supposed to be on the tougher/unfairer side.
Did you read the sign before trying to open the fake treasure chest?
I assume most people would just open the chest first.

Yeah I have a few questions i you don't mind.
Did you encounter any Gold Slimes?
Which form did you enjoyed the most to use?
Were there some areas/quests where you didn't really understood what you needed to do?
Did you encounter any bugs or glitches?
I assume the Robot was the hardest/most annoying enemy if you had to choose one?
Did you found the secret shop in town that lets you change your playstyle?
And if you have any ideas or suggestions to improve either gameplay story or anything else also let me know!

And also thanks, I adjust a lot of the things you mentioned!

MightBeKevin336 days ago(+1)

First off, you indeed mentioned "Draconic Strike" being able to hit multiple enemies.
I was talking about the inherited version, which does state that it hits 1 enemy.

Second, I was indeed talking about the 75hp herbs.

Also I indeed read the sign first telling me it wasn't an ordinary chest. Through I went back and fought them as soon as Serina joined the team for a short while.

As for your other questions:
>Did you encounter any Gold Slimes?
There are gold Slimes?

>Were there some areas/quests where you didn't really understood what you needed to do?
Not that I could mention, although this might be due to me having played games where navigating the objectives was way more callenging

>I assume the Robot was the hardest/most annoying enemy if you had to choose one?
Indeed, through mostly due to bad luck with often getting larger groups.
Also I just obliterated most groups out of form-aquisation-quests by using the same combo, so I can't really judge them.
However I can certainly share my experiences after finishing my next play-through

> Did you found the secret shop in town that lets you change your playstyle?
I did, however I can't remember where I got the card from, nor did I use it.

>Did you encounter any bugs or glitches?
'sadly' I didn't, I will however keep an eye open.

>Which form did you enjoyed the most to use?
Salamander. I also enjoyed Manticore quite a lot (through mostly because I like the concept of it in the lore)
Following are my impressions of the forms currently in the game:
I really enjoyed the salamander form.
The abilities were fun to use and felt useful and stayed relevant even throughout later stages of my play-through.
I also quite enjoyed the mouse play style.
The concept of the cat transformation was also nice, through I didn't really get to utilise the kit since, despite playing on hard, most fights didn't really last that long (normal encounters 1-2 turns)
I also saw a lot of potential in the squirrel, through I didn't really use it since I could just inherit the skills I wanted to use.
The Golden Retriever I didn't use at all since it took me way to long to find the item (I was in the correct room quite often but didn't realise I could interact with the object to get it until the hint told me there was something hidden in that room) and when I unlocked the transformation it already was quite obsolete for me.
The fox form stayed relevant for me mostly for the "High Alert" action and solid stack actions
I really wanted to like the slime-tf but just couldn't find a use for it (besides the field ability)
I did like the concept of the manticore. The attacks felt solid and the lifesteal was a nice ability.
However I was a little bit sad I wasn't able to get a bad end by continuing the tests on day 2.
I honestly can't say much about the rabbit since I didn't use it that much. The quest was alright but it just moved to the background for me.
As for the Kitsune I cant say anything either since it was the last transformation anyway, so I didn't really use it before ng+. The shortening of the tf-ability cooldown was nice through.
I also didn't get much use out of the wolf since I didn't use the sleep function until I had a quest that required it to be night (through that is entirely my fault)
I also haven't gotten around to try the aquatic one and will probably wait for the mission to be added before I do.

As for improvements I'd suggest mentioning that one can craft potions in the magic-store once one talks with the store-owner for the first time. It took me way to long to figure that out on (I think about 20h of playtime) (that's mostly on me through, in hindsight the red exclamation mark is rather obvious)

I will certainly keep my eyes open for anything noteworthy whilst playing.
I'd be happy to write another reply if I find anything else of note.
If any other questions arise feel free to reply, I'd be glad to be of assistance.

Furandre336 days ago (1 edit)

Oh you were talking about that version. You are right that ones discription is a little bit off. I adjusted that now as well and also nerfed all inherted skills a little bit and changed "Dodge All" to "Dodge Rate Up" for the inherted versions. They are all now somewhat weaker, thanks for the feedback on those. So human form shouldnt be too overpowered now.

I will change that one to inflict Cant Heal for 1 turn on the character that uses it. This should nerf it a good amount. Will test that out and see how it goes.

I see. So you didnt got jumpscared by them.

Yes, together with Fuwa's they are the rarest enemy currently in the demo. Gold slimes gives tons of exp and materials but mainly only can be found at night with field ability of the wolf form that makes rare enemies spawning at night. They also have a very low chance to spawn in the sewers i think as well.

Thats gkood to hear. A lot of people had problems finding the bough forest home so it seems you had no problem with it. Did you use the hint system for other things besides the golden retriever?

I see, now that combo should be nerfed and not possible anymore. I also sligthly reduced the robots atk stat by a few points. And reduced the chance to encounter groups in some tf areas.

The key is hidden in the eastern part of town, just was curious if you managed to find it. I have hidden some things very obscure that are not needed to beat the demo and also have no hints on how to find.

Thats good to hear. I beaten that demo so many times that there shouldt hopefully be many big or game breaking bugs left. Besides spelling mistakes.

Yeah i also got that feedback for the cat form before. It has not much time to shine. Maybe adding somestronger enemy variants with more hp. Yeah bad endings are missing for most forms. I didnt knew if people would be interessted in them so i only included 5. I certainly would like to include more if there is interessed in them. If you have some ideas to maybe make slime form better or more interssting to play, i gladly take suggestions! Also yeah aquatic tf story and areas are what i am currently working on, which will be focusing on underwater exploration.

You mean adding a sentence telling you about crafting when talking to her? I certainly can do that! It certainly dosent hurt to add a hint! Also 20h is quite some time!

Oh yeah that reminds me, did you use the half or full support feature?

Thanks a lot for the feedback^^

Also if i have missed to response to something just say.

MightBeKevin336 days ago(+1)

I also used the hints for the Kitsune-tf (likely easier to find when there is a reason to go exploring after meeting the elf. Maybe have him dispel a force-field in a main-story event as a hint)
and the cat-tf (as I mentioned I didn't really sleep so this would've been hard to find, my fault through)
As you might be able to imagine I explored the map quite thoroughly in my 20+ hours. (I think i spent around 29 hour on the first play-through, more considering the game doesn't count reloads to that time) so I found a lot of the areas easily enough.

Since you mentioned the forest home, I actually went right to it after getting the key. I found the door during the tutorial and figured that'd be the only place to use a key in the forest.

As for the support feature, I didn't use it at all.
In my opinion most of the time it is actually a bad idea to use all skills at once.
For example: In human form you have 2 abilities that grant you "dodge all" for 1 turn. Since the system would use both in the first turn you'd waste 1 turn of invincibility. Same for the mouse form where you can delay casting defensive abilities by 1 turn if you use "dodge all" as your first move.
Altogether it just seemed to waste valuable resources (after all 1 turn of invincibility is worth a lot if some of the enemies can one-shot you)

I also remembered one detail that might be a bug:
If I recall correctly Serina reacted differently depending on how you bypassed the puzzles in the first dungeon, however I don't think she commented on rolling the boulders (I did it in human form), instead commenting on the digging ability.
Might just be me having done something wrong through.
Anyway, nice detail.

Whilst starting the game again (to get names right and see what hints I used) I actually found some other stuff:
The description of the "Hand Pistol" is "Effect:"
And whilst the "wooden dagger" has a description bow, axe, spear and sword do not

When exiting the secret shop in the north it displays the area as daytime. Going to another area switches back to the correct time (night time)

I also remembered there is a magic-system for the human form.
I think weakening the inherited skills will have the the positive effect on making it more relevant.
Whilst it doesn't seem to end the turn it easily got overshadowed by the much stronger inherited skills.

If any other questions arise feel free to ask, I'm happy to help in any way I can.
As for me, I'll start figuring out how to break the game some more. (probably later this week)

Furandre335 days ago

That is a good point, I now added a one new sentence where he will mention sensing some powerful magic in the western plains. And the witch mentioning potion crafting.

I see, it's also not in the demo but I actually added a picture of the location, that gets shown, once its bought to make it even easier. But great to hear that you had no problem with it. You may actually be the first taht found it with no problems from what I heard so far.
And yeah that is very thoroughly!

I absolutely agree with that, its more useful for either short fight or when playing on easy or normal. It certainly wastes some buffs and debuffs that could be played a lot smarter manually. I personally don't use it either but there was a high demand for it since most played not on hard I assume.

Nah you didn't do anything wrong, I didn't add some extra dialogue there because on how the boulders worked. I changed that now as well, now she is commenting on that as well. Thanks for reminding me!

Probaly have forgotten about it, now all wooden weapons have a description and Hand Pistol got an effect as well.
And you're right, seems like I forgot to set a check for lighting in the northern part of town, that is fixed now as well, thanks for finding!

Yeah Human and Kitsune Form can used learned magic.
That is right, with the inherited skills greatly weakend the magic system definitely has more chances to shine! That's one positive side effect^^

Thanks, I will!
And thanks for the feedback!
Also good luck with that xD

One morequestion I can think of right now is:
How balanced would you rate the bossfights?

MightBeKevin335 days ago(+1)

I think most of the fights were alright.
The boss-fight for the rabbit quest was defeated easily enough (I think around 5 turns, without acquiring enough points for the ultimate)
Whilst this was done on NG+ with 400% XP it wasn't much more difficult on my first run.
I also didn't have to use the water-ability. (or better: the bosfight would likely have lasted longer if I did)
The Fairy-Boss was rather difficult, through likely because I mostly ran into larger groups which made leveling up hard.
This should get easier with the change in encounter size you mentioned through, so I can't really say how bad will be with those changes implemented.
As for the Manticore Boss, it should definitely be doable with decreased group sizes, as long as you're able to get past the robots of course.
The Slime boss was a little bit difficult. Nothing a few more levels shouldn't have helped with but I defeated the ones reachable before getting the tf. I'll test defeating it with a bit more xp on my NG+ and see how that works out. Depending on the result I'd recommend adding a few more enemies (for this region I don't think reducing group sizes is necessary since the encounters weren't that hard)
I can't say anything about the demon boss (after which Serina joined the party) so it was probably not that much of a challenge.
However, the most problems I had were with the swarm of enemies once you try leaving the forest.
(I know very well you're not supposed to beat them)
It took me level 60 and quite some luck to get through them alive.
The wave defence (Kitsune TF) however was quite easy if I remember correctly, through that was due to having teammates with me.

I think the most important takeaway from my experience with the bosses is that they are disproportionately easier if you bring teammates.

In summary I can't say that much about the Fairy and Manticore fights since those will likely get a lot more manageable with a smaller chance to get attacked by larger groups.
The slime fight should be alright, through I'd prefer some more enemies to get XP before the fight
And lastly the swarm at the end of the tutorial hits like a truck. It's quite hard to survive a few rounds (probably as intended)

Finally, as I read through the skills today I rediscovered the "Fourth Tail". I probably didn't use it (not even once) since 90% of MaxHP is quite a steep price to dodge an attack that is usually cast at the half point mark of the battle (Through I didn't really have any problems with boss-ultimates anyway, especially for bosses one can bring a teammate).

If other questions arise or you want me to test something I'd be happy to offer my assistance once again.
Also let me know if I forgot some bossfights (not counting the demons for form-improvement, they were rather trivial if one brought teammates)

Furandre335 days ago (1 edit)

I could certainly just increases the HP of bosses, if they just hit strong enough, letting them have more hp makes it a bit more challenging and some buffs and form would have more time to shine.
I also could increase the hp only on hard difficulty.
What do you think?

The fairy boss certainly is the hardest in the game. Even more so then you play on ahrd since she can use some unfair skills then.
And that I easly can do, i will add a few more encounters in the sewers.
I am not 100% sure but i think saving the game and relaoding the save or quitting may respawn enemies as well but I could be wrong, never tried that out. But I also now added more enemies in there so there is more to grind on.
I also agree team mates help a lot. Original I intended to have four members take part in battle but reduced it to three for balancing reasons. It felt better.

And yes I reduced the chances to encounter larger groups by 10 to 20% in most areas where a tf story takes place, wit the excpetion of the beginning forest, restaurant and sewers. It should make a difference.

Yup that is fully intended to be "unbeatable", beating it will not change much beside on extra line of text I think.

I made that skill so expensive since it can dodge ultimates which the normal "Dodge All" effect cannot do. So i thought it needed to be expensive. I could lower it to 80% if you think its still too much.

Thanks, i will!
Your feedback already was a big help to make the game better^^
I don't think there is much to test left in the public demo.
And you didn't forgot any bosses.
Well the rabbit counts more like a half boss imo since it isn't that strong.

Edit: Actually I just remembered you forgotten the golem boss.

MightBeKevin335 days ago(+1)

I think most of the bosses are already strong enough, at least in the current version.
You said rabbit counts more as a half-boss, so there shouldn't be any problem with it being on the weaker side.
I'll take another look at the demon once I'm back at that point of the story.

As for the "fourth tail" I'm not quite sure what to do either, through I'd assume you'll just die to the next normal attack if you use it (if you don't have any healing items at least)
However I think a bigger problem is that most people won't be able to use it at all, since at the halfway-point of the battle most won't have 90% of HP left (and usually cant heal that much after the ultimate indicator is already shown).
Furthermore, if one still has over 90% of HP left at the 50% mark I doubt they'll need the ability that much.
It is also quite inferior to the "first tail", which only uses 50% and revives one instead (which is a lot better if the boss only hits once)

All in all it is a lot harder to activate than another skill which can save one from more (meaning not only ultimate) attacks (and the effect of "first tail" persists if one were to survive the attack) and leaves one very defenceless if one doesn't bring some good healing potions. (
I think the key-problem is that the skill is very hard to use since you have to get to 90+% of HP before triggering the ultimate so you can use the skill.
Maybe replace the dodge with strong defence and require an amount of currentHP% to lower the requirements to use the skill during combat.

Also I tried Salamander again and think it could use a single-target attack that doesn't consume "ignition" stacks.
All its attack skills (except "Tail Whip" and the basic attack action) use at least 2 stacks which can make it a little bit annoying to gather stacks for "Multi Fire Shoot" (Might be a typo, through shoot is a noun that can refer to an occasion when a group of people hunt and shoot game for sport)

Another thing, through I think there isn't much that can be done in rpg-maker, is that one can't attack a mimic again after fleeing from it (which one might want to do for the ones where no sign is provided).

I'll certainly test the changes and leave another comment once I get my hands on a version where they are implemented.
Naturally I'll also comment on other things I deem noteworthy (exploits and abilities where you usually have better option to choose from)
If there is any other way to help you with the game I'd be happy to assist.

Furandre335 days ago (3 edits)

I see, that is good to hear!
I do play with the idea off adding an higher difficult later that can only be unlock on ng+ but that currently is just a concept idea for later.

Yeah those are soem good points, it's too risky too use and gives to less of a reward.
Another idea "fourth tail" other solution would be instead of costing life it could cost the ultima bar instead and inflict maybe can't heal or something on the caster and has a long cooldown.
I also am open for other ideas!

Yeah makes sense, I certainly could add one such skillin the dojo that can be learned, I was planning to add some more leanarble skills for all other forms anyway, just hadn't givien it a high priority.
It's a typo, english isn't my native language, I will fix that as well, thanks!

This skill now can be learned at the dojo as well.
Salamander Sign: "Offensive Defense"
Strong 2-hit fire damage to one foe.
Increases Casters defense buffs by one level.

You are right that isn't possible by default but I think I can write some script that makes it possible. I just am undecided if I wanted the mimic to stay or disappear when fleeing so I never did that. I felt the mimic fleeing gices some more high risk highr eward feeling.
Maybe I make it stay there only on easy and normal and leave it the same for hard.
Souds like a good compromise, what do you think?

Sure, I sadly can't say when or how a new version will come out. I still haven't decided how I will continue with the game.
-I am torn between a few option, like making it free and releasing new content updates when they are ready and accepting donation to cover development cost.
-Or not release any new version until I finished the game and then sell it for 5 to 10 dollars.
-Or maybe do a patreon and all that plead there can play newer version like some kind of early access.
Updating the demo just with the new quality of life changes is also dificult since people can just datamine the game and spoil all the surprises and new content for themself or others.

Sure, I always happy about feeback and suggestions!
Thanks^^
Sadly I think there isn't much besides testing that cna really help me but I appreciate the offer : )
Also i would liek to include your name in the credits i you don't mind.
Just tell me which name you would prefer.

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