dragondeity
Recent community posts
It's an exaggeration, I think it's an extreme minority of people to the point that said people basically must exist only on patreon because I almost never ever see game balance suggestions here on itch.io.
Active? Eh, depends on how you define it. More active recently as I've tried to be heard.
Hatred? Strong word. Try frustrated.
Emotions? I'm emotional about a lot of things, particularly when I feel ignored. I've been the catalyst for changes in this game in the past (speed changes that made turn order more consistent largely stemmed from me btw) where aura dev had responded to me, as someone who bought the game I think I could've at least been respected enough to be communicated with. After so long of radio silence yes, I'm a bit less amicable.
Further, I paid for a game I liked, constant balance changes almost only ever in the negative has turned this in to a game I don't like, and would not have paid for. I bought Hollow Knight Voidheart cheaper than this.
I think the game balance is constantly made worse because they're made through the lens of the developer who knows everything and is an expert. They keep balancing the game negatively in the pursuit of challenge ignoring that the game already was challenging - they just had all the answers already. The game is being balanced around the most experienced players and the dev. I don't know how to tell you how absurd that is in ways I already haven't. 99/100 times if the dev is finding something too easy or lenient or strong in this game it's because they already have the solution, but they tweak stuff anyway, constantly narrowing down how strong we need to be to achieve something, how perfectly we needed to budget our money 20 days in advance, or even just limiting the strategies available down to having 1 solution for the boss.
Neither of you get it. Ironically his post highlights why he doesn't get it.
He's so far in to the game he basically has no idea how things feel in the early game anymore.
The recent harvest cost changes were beyond pointless.
The game was already 'challenging', and things are continually nerfed. If you're already significantly in to the game then many things that change DON'T AFFECT YOU. You've ALREADY benefitted from how things functioned before nerfs.
Edit - I should also add how ridiculous it is that the only people who seem to 'cope' with these nerfs are LONG term players that borderline know the game inside and out. That level of mastery should not be required. Day 248 on a pure run? Jesus christ, this game truly has bloated to high heavens.
It's insane. Your patreon must be filled with the most brain rotted gooners that just play story to jack it. It's like I'm the only person that actually cares enough to make non "this is my fetish will you add it?" suggestions.
Ever since I paid for the game, 90% of changes just made it worse. For the past like, idk, year, I regret paying. I never would have with all the horrible changes you've made.
You recently made a demo version instead of a free version, which means the early game needs to be more fun and fluid to convert people better, and your changes often just make the early game worse. Holy water prices, less money, now the harvest costs, god what else am I forgetting?
You'll realize eventually. You're surrounded by yes men.
> better to try and kill as few as possible until you kill the boss
Which would free them all and remove the enemies from the area, right? That's what happens in Draknor in my experience. Why would I assume differently?
> Using star knightess is also not cheating, and if you restrict yourself to never using it that's an additional optional challenge.
Feels like a crutch I should never feel so forced to use all the time just because I didn't upgrade and learn the perfect skills for 1 encounter 50 days in a row - but regardless, even if it's not 'cheating' it IS rather 'costly' with its corruption.
That said, your corruption limit also raises quite significantly through the game. If someone was using it quite often, it would be very very easy to just Star Knightess up and then throw it at like 15 or 20 late game bosses. But if we did that, things that IMO have poor balance would never face enough criticism to actually be altered.
> HP Cost for harvesting Base Materials except Ropes goes from 5 to 10 HP
Don't. This is really, really thoughtless. If you absolutely need to change this, make it a % HP cost with a max cost cap so it scales but not too hard.
This doesn't affect planning at all. All it does is either waste more healing items or create significantly more backtracking during cursed days where you're only mining things since you can't really fight anything.
It does little but artificially extend the length of a playthrough by making us do more trips through the same areas. It's time wasting. That's it.
> Gold Cost Factor for Blessing an item at the White Priestess goes from 5 to 4
This is a great change. (Paid for) Blessed bombs have niche uses early on to avoid party characters dying mostly, but the cost was kind of extreme. Items in general are such temporary power that it's sometimes difficult to justify money on bombs (for attacking) since long term the money will grant more permanent power with upgrades.
Probably every single corrupted meat there was in the region excluding whatever might exist past the excessive 5 bomb+ rock I never bothered with. I just checked. I had 29.
I didn't know how to get rid of the corrupted meat. It wasn't intuitive at all. Why would I attempt to use it on Aura or Slime? It'd curse Aura and kill slime - but apparently you have to click a character to use it on to find the option.
Even if I did know, that's 15 days of discarding meats assuming 1 per day discarded, and 1 killing the slime, barring emerald tea abuse just to throw it away. That's really, really dumb. Of course I want to kill everything in the region, human/oids drop money.
> And yet lots of people manage pure on not just normal but higher difficulties.
And I don't understand how barring ng+ cycles, lots of save scumming to progress past fights early, or somehow stretching out your playthrough for like 300 days and beating generals at full power, or just using star knightess. It's not like anyone has ever told me how. Just "nuh uh people totally do it."
> The developer definitely has a clue, and has beaten every boss in the game without popping the collar on pure. More strategy tips on the wiki would be nice though, I agree on that.
On playthroughs of what kind of length with what kind of stats? I've made many a thread asking them for information directly and never receive answers. Even a basic question they should know off-hand like "what are the different timing-based rewards in the game?" Never gets answered. I even list ones I know, like 20 day festival = 2 vitality potions, merchant gold and technically a bonus holy water. 80 day Belphegor. 100 day demon generals. Is there more? I don't know, I never even get a "yeah that's all."
A developer doing something isn't even the best argument. Resources in the game are not infinite. Our time is not infinite. The developer is armed with knowledge a normal player isn't. The required strategies alone is a big one, but they know what kind of stat focus they need to have right from the beginning of the game to be strong enough for something 50 days later. They know what materials need to be fed to slime, or used on Aura.
I'm at a point now where it feels like every playthrough I've ever done raising physical attack was a mistake, and I should have just pumped magic as high as possibly so light just nukes things in to oblivion.
Lol was fucking around in story mode and Beelzebub after demonfeasting is one shotting on story mode through radiance on story mode. on. story. mode. barring my tenacity
Literally star knightess or lose even before whatever timer this lot has.
Sorry, the games balance is a complete joke, especially post festival. I've always liked the game up through the festival, but everything after it just kinda sucks. The stat requirements, having like 20 quests active, constant progress limitations where something is only usable once a day (magic barriers to null curse traps for eg), things that waste 3-4 days to learn. The stat requirements not just for combat, but for exploration, like these 70+ agility gaps. Absurd mana drains like these 100 mp curse absorptions we need to do to save people in winterfall.
Literally don't know what you expect.
The balance of this game is beyond a meme at this point.
Even on story mode, apparently the game has completely abandoned any pretense that pure is a legitimate option.
I don't care if anyone wants to say I'm whining. I'm remarkably fair every time I talk about the game, and regardless of any post effort, the people that 'should' read the critiques never even dignify me with a response, or advice. Even just a "we're happy with the game balance" would tell me everything I need to know.
Everything in the game has become beyond a chore.
There's a reason nobody does your wiki for you. And the reason nobody on your team has done it is probably because none of you have any clue either.
Just completely nuke pure from the game and stop pretending like it's at all balanced.
That's the issue for sure, their survivability. Even if they just perma guard with the current balance, they will still die. Most relevant bosses from fairly early on in the game start to magnify their damage quite a lot. They'll avaritia your party, creating a dark weakness, they'll use a magic attack that reduces their defense and magic defense, granting tactical advantage, and then next turn SOMEBODY is dead if you don't get a lucky miss through either a flash bomb or a far too expensive blessed bomb tactical advantage. The only way for anyone to not be a walking corpse is to simply be so overpowered you kill enemies before they can do too much.
The same goes for Slimey. Slimey was nerfed a lot over time. Increased MP cost, 'digestion', it takes a while before it begins to reach any kind of relevance outside of providing air bubble and storm once you reach nephlune.
I don't play on nightmare, I used them as examples for how quickly things scale beyond what is 'advertised'. Your assumption is weird considering I detailed what it was on normal then said 'imagine' what the differences are like in nightmare. Let me give you a reverse example, I was very lazily playing story mode at one time, exploring the opposite side of the balance. Obviously it is quite trivial thanks to 10x gold and workshops not elapsing time. So I was fighting a boss, underprepared compared to a higher difficulty, just using regular attacks to ease through it. They were only doing 1 damage after all. So a boss on story mode dealing 1 damage, you wouldn't think is about to kill me right? It winds up, sure, something to think about if I was playing seriously on a higher difficulty, but it was flashing yellow so I just decided to test out if I'd kill it. I didn't. So this story mode encounter that was dealing 1 damage, with its enhance and wind up uses pierce, one shotting me on story mode. *The point isn't whatever you think it is.* I'm using *examples* for how egregious many enemies multiply their damage and disregard your defense.
Frankly you were quite rude and misunderstood the broader points throughout (often even echoing my point that many allies exist just to guard as a damage sponge while ironically trying to disagree with me.)
> Charlotte is very squishy to physical attacks yeah. That's why protect exists.
Which I covered, didn't I? "You either have to JUST protect her" I was also referring to times where she isn't accompanied by John, where she doesn't have that protection outside of Aura or a slime, which just turns other characters in to protect-bots. Obviously heat up is good, I'm not an idiot. But again, if you don't ignore the broader point, her existence then makes John just a protect-bot. Notably you completely omitted a response to John and Paul's magic vulnerability you CAN'T effectively defend against, ESPECIALLY post-avaritia.
> The game can be a bit rng at times, but if you need more than a few tries against a boss due to rng, it's usually because you're not strong/skilled enough and are trying to brute force it (which is a valid tactic if and only if you think it is fun)
You are mistaken if you think that this isn't the case for me, but if you think it's good balance to still be susceptible to RNG even when you ARE strong enough, then we just disagree. No amount of real consistency can be achieved.
> He contributes 50 extra hp, which is actually quite a lot at that point in the game.
You know, except it's not because avaritia > dark attack > tactical crit generally one shots ANY ally through their guard, especially if they reach enhancement.
> step up your game to meet the bar.
Sure I'll just dodge the moves like I'm playing Elden Ring. Oh wait it's a turn based RPG where even the standard difficulties are quite grindy. There's no such thing as 'stepping up your game'. There's grinding for more stats (something that uses precious time) and relying on luck. Your tactical advantage dodges are luck. Flash bombs avoiding damage are luck. It's luck and grind all the way down, which contradict many of the timed events and rewards in the game.
> you come across more as a whiner
And yet I must be agreed with on some level because this post had likes, which are rare here, and the linked comment to the weekly release had at least 3 last I checked. Even one of the other threads posted today mentioned they play on story because of poor difficulty.
Getting personal with me over a game like this is some weird shit.
I'm probably one of very few people trying to engage with the game outside of its porn elements. My experience is always the same, despite how much I like certain concepts, I usually delete it and try again dozens of updates later because of game balance. I can have strategies that will work semi-consistently within reasonable time frames, but the game relies so heavily on bosses not targeting the wrong characters, because 9 times out of 10 they have the capacity to one shot someone. It rarely matters how strong Aura gets for these encounters. Allies have the capacity to die long before Aura can kill something unless you're remarkably over-grinded, but time is not on our side. No amount of lore justification makes it 'fun' to disregard the other characters in combat. This is especially true of non-guild combat members like Edwin against the apparition that contributes zilch, or Albrecht on nightmare who only randomly survives basically goblins. (Because in practice, enemy numbers are actually far higher than 30% stronger. If I have 19 defense and take 2 damage from a goblin, on nightmare I would be taking 14. They're doing several times more damage. On tougher enemies that buff, debuff or attack ally weakness, you're once again relying on misses to not simply die to overwhelming exponential numbers that enemies feel designed around taking but not dealing.
A physical attacker renders Charlotte obsolete. You either have to JUST protect her, or guard with her ad nauseam to the point that fights are easier if she *didn't* exist - but you always want characters along with you on quests in order to gain that experience. Don't you think it's a little silly they exist just to guard and be meat shields?
Any kind of magic just turns John and Paul in to chumps. Even on a standard difficulty. They have around 50~ HP early on, but Demon's using dark on them will overkill them with 80+ damage magic attacks. The follow up tactical advantage will inevitably kill someone *through guard.* Think about what that means on nightmare.
It leads to a ton of scenarios where you're just relying on a flash bomb being enough to get you by, but it never will be because of magic and forced dark weaknesses, which then give bosses tactical advantage which leaves it down to chance whether our own critical turn will even connect.
*It isn't fun having to save scum every fight until RNG goes your way.* - About a year~ ago I was listened to in regards to speed, and I think it made the game a lot better, the game is a lot more consistent for it. For example, these days if you outspeed and one shot forest bandits, you don't need water skin to deal with bombs or an excessive amount of greater speed. You can just target the one presenting danger, adding more counterplay and consistency. It was a great change.
I left a similarly long comment on the original 46.1 page. https://aura-dev.itch.io/star-knightess-aura/devlog/794864/star-knightess-aura-v...
I understand I often get ignored. I get pretty lengthy, but I think I try to be fair despite being opinionated. I don't expect everything I say to always be listened to, but I would greatly appreciate some kind of response that indicates whether you will or won't take things under consideration - especially what I had to say in the linked page. (I can't seem to link my comment directly.) What are your opinions? How do you play the game to avoid the complaints I make? How quickly do you get through the game? What hidden items do you use I might be missing?
I understand my opinions get ignored a lot but please consider at least letting me know you read this one. Regarding your player-base.
As someone who obviously likes the game, but drifts in and out - personally I just think the game is incredibly over-tuned. We're always relying on some kind of luck to manipulate a fight's AI unless we spend an exorbitant time just grinding up our raw numbers, but if we do that, we'll miss every time gate there is in the game.
The biggest culprit IMO is that the damage formula is simple, which is good, but it means damage multiplies rapidly in battle, especially for enemies. A barrier I almost always have in the early game is Darry and Barry for example. When one of them does a stasis bomb > pierce for like 100 damage when I barely have over 110-120 HP it day 25~ it completely negates your stats. There are rewards for pre-20 and pre-30 festival, but it's pretty unrealistic outside of ng+, storymode, and star knightess to overcome poor balance. There isn't even a guarantee you can outspeed them in order to stasis bomb it and prevent it - we won't have thunderbolt if it's any kind of attempt at an efficient playthrough, because we'll get it for free post-festival. And when fights are often EXTREMELY tight, when they get tactical advantage and you miss your own critical hit, you might as well just reset the fight. Even just the demon in the northern mines - on turn three it uses avaritas, and if it uses its magic attack on paul john, they simple die at full health. 80 damage. They only have 50/48 at this point lol. And that's only on normal/hard, never mind nightmare.
Look at your post for 47 pre-release. You're still talking about all the punishments you like doling out. It doesn't matter if we're pure or lewd, you are sincerely committed to making the player's experience miserable just because Aura is supposed to be miserable.
The numbers you're getting are probably pretty good for a hentai indie rpgmaker game. Whatever label you want to put on it - but I wager people drift away before completion or never move to pay up for your effort because *they* don't feel respected by the design at times. I paid here a while ago, and I'm not sure I would have if I played the game in its current state. Compared to when I played the most and paid for the game, there's less money in the game (gourmet meats for eg) and the player is weaker now, because of stat adjustments you made to things like goblin teeth, where you moved a magic attack to an MP point.
I don't know what kind of pathing or decisions you take in the game, you've said you've done all of this stuff yourself without a cheat console, without ng+, but part of me doubts you reach any of your time barriers. Maybe you've hidden some items in random places I've never found that provide stupid amounts of power, I don't know. The game has gotten very big, and the bigger it has gotten the more difficult it has become to do everything the game asks of you (even optionally.)
I'm just a fat nerd playing your game, but now that you've got some endings going, I'd consider looking at a lot of the game balancing, especially for pure where we're poor AND weak. *Especially* with your new demo version that now needs to leave a positive impression on people to upgrade.
Yeah I can do that. What website should I use to post saves?
Some books look like they're -1/0 when they're supposed to be 2 required readings like your first magic book for eg.
https://easyupload.io/m/gam1e8
Hopefully that works for you.
- It's kinda weird the books you give to your party just disappear. They should either give them back directly, or maybe place them on the table to be retrieved. For example, if 3 people finished a book at the same time, interacting with a shiny spot on the table would retrieve the books. They aren't consumables
- Certain promises don't make sense that they end the day. Promising to work the following day doesn't end the current day, but for some reason something like agreeing to go to the festival of greed the following day ends the current day.
- It'd be kinda cool for there to be an item you can get that tells you have many items might still remain in an area. Some items are well hidden behind the environment and are fun to search for, but it would also be nice to know we found everything in an area or not.
- The Trademond Monstrologist feels a little outdated. 3 hits of 100 gold isn't a lot, and I think it'd be more fun if the gold either scaled up a little like 100/150/200 for each you report, or maybe that there was some kind of progression once you have all 3.
- New recipes being handed over to the alchemist should discount you similarly to handing over an ingredient. I've noticed sometimes early on that I might want a couple bombs, his starting mana stones etc, but I don't want to use a material yet, before I have efficiency upgrades. Maybe those are actually a waste of money to buy, especially on pure, but still.
Fallen back in to the game out of boredom the last couple days. Here's what I remember;
1. <20 day festival for maximum merchant reward + bonus holy water from restock + bonus vitality potion from maid
2. 80 day Belphegor for traveller reward
3. 100 day demon generals obviously
Is that it, or have I forgotten any?
Patreon versions have a cheat console I'm pretty sure, but yes, you are right. The more you play, the more you get punished for playing. You're consistently juggling more and more things until it becomes too much. They kept making more and more debuffs for like every unique situation that the further you progress, the less you can play the game.
Almost every discussion I've had with non-devs on this forum is generally negative towards any balancing changes. You make the game harder. You nerf 1 thing people find is strong, and when people use something else, you nerf that too. Some playthroughs simple don't have the money for anything, the more demon generals you add the less the 100 days is realistic. You alter and nerf the stat gains from different materials, you increase the cost of blessed water when we have the least amount of money. It's almost impossible to meet certain time barriers without being in NG+, like say the festival reward bonus or even 80 day Belphegor.
I can't tell if this is all by design to deliberately make your game miserable thematically, but that doesn't work. If your game isn't fun, people stop playing. This isn't Elden Ring. We can't just out-skill everything. The numbers matter, there's randomness in the game. The player needs to be able to attain power realistically. The 'darkness' of the narrative does not work as torturous game balance.
I understand you need to keep to a schedule. You've been at this a long time now, and I respect that commitment greatly - but the balance matters too. Even for fresh files. If certain difficulties are intended to be ng+ challenges, restrict them to that as appropriate.
As it stands I'd probably bet your game on the hard difficulties as a pure character is quite literally impossible.
I don't really play anymore. I dip in and read the updates, particularly skimming the balancing section. I don't remember the last time I saw a positive adjustment.
Pure run guide is beyond outdated and is getting harder and harder to manage since the dev generally nerfs things to balance corruption, while not accounting for pure. The main roadblock used to just be Belphegor due to lacking magical defense, but almost everything else was reasonably achievable until the lava dungeon started developing deeper and you needed the academy. At this point, pure is nothing but a ng+ pipe dream.
1. Starting Holy Water prices make money early on disgustingly impossible to manage without simply forgoing day 1 purchases which will bite you later since you'll need them eventually anyway.
2. Slime has been repeatedly nerfed. It's becoming increasingly unusable, especially given the 100 day time allotment, and is mostly a meat shield outside of the wind slime's benefits.
3. Materials have been nerfed further weakening one of the only ways pure can empower themselves - corruption plays get incredulous bonuses through passives that pure just cannot keep up with. It makes sense for corruption to be easier, but it doesn't feel like pure is controlled difficulty that yielding to corruption makes more difficult, it feels like it borders on to impossible.
I know I can be annoying - but genuinely, please reconsider the early game holy water price changes and how you've nerfed certain enhancement materials. Pure runs have it tough enough as it is. Lewd runs have it so easy - they gain multiplier on multiplier, with buffs and books that give them damage for lewd actions taken that double or triple when performed pink or with focuses, all while profiting at the same time. Pure is already more difficult without further handicaps to the way they grow, comparatively.
I think the creator underestimates the pure player base and their experience. There's been many fights that imbalanced to nigh unachievable at higher difficulties within the time frame allotted without the advantage corruption skills or stats provide. What's more, starting a new file, especially pure, has been made even harder now with the immense price increase to holy waters.
oh goblin teeth are also nerfed (no 1 mp is not a good tradeoff)
nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
that's all that ever happens. lets keep making this time-based resource game more and more obnoxious to stay within the 100 days. make things more expensive, take away money, weaken your upgrades . (I bet pure belphegor is still stupid too)
Genuinely the last completely positive change i remember was when i successfully argued the luck/rng point, especially when it came to agility.
I highly doubt that a brand new file can do everything within the 100 days as a pure character without using star knightess or drugs - ESPECIALLY meeting absurd targets like 20 day festival for more post-festival bonuses or other time-based things like an 80 day belphegor.
It's even more unkind on pure runs (especially nightmare) that wants to, and effectively needs to, buy them up front on day 1 at minimum price.
Day 75 is a LONG time. Yes, they might be cheaper after day 75, compared to before, but they still need to be bought in those first 75 days at their cheapest to be efficient. That is a LOT of money. The PRICES might break even at day 75, but you would have ALREADY spent much, much more than that prior I would have to imagine.
It feels to me as if the only maths done was that if you buy all the holy waters on 75 they're equal to before, and cheaper after.
But if you bought them at their earliest availability at each increment, they're much more expensive before, and will take longer than those 75 days to become functionally cheaper.
On nightmare for example, you're buying 5 x 504 for 2520 gold on day 1, this is absurdity.
The day 20/21 restock of 2 will cost 2 x 580/584 for 1060-68.
The day 40/41 restock of 3 (post greed) will cost 3 x 660/664 for 1980/1992.
All up these 40 days of waters costs just over 5.5K.
Previously.
Day 1 - 5 x 208 = 1040
Day 20/21 - 2 x 368 = 736
Day 40/41 - 3 x 528 = 1584
Totalling about 3400 hundred.
There is a magnitude of difference in the dent it is putting in the EARLY wallet. They might be cheaper at the equivalent time later, and eventually reach a point of overall superiority, but it is STILL cost effective to buy them at these points.
It feels like you're saying we shouldn't buy them until we need them, but that's ludicrous and cost-ineffective. The early wallet can't take this, but the later wallet COULD take what happened before, the increases probably just needed a cap somewhere as the game expanded.
IMO - the solution should be a reversion to the original base price with the reduced per-day increase, but with each restock itself having a separate unique increase.
The consequence on the early wallet is too great with the later pay offs not being worth it IMO, money management early is a far greater issue. 1500 early is worth WAY more than 1500, eighty days in.
Again, I also see that you're tackling this from a corruption playthrough view in regards to willpower maluses, but pure playthroughs need them incredibly regularly as a result of needing to avoid forced-masturbation and lack of other corruption removers.
The early cost is too great on beginning a playthrough.
I don't find day 100 a good benchmark because an effective playthrough needs to be beating those generals before then, so parity happening so close to that milestone is a problem that impedes progress. Think of it in the same way as using the church to bless bombs early. It costs money, and not using them is cost effective, but there are faster returns if blessed bombs allow you to make progress somewhere sooner. It's similar logic here. Losing this money to early holy water purchases impedes your expenditures elsewhere to make progress. If you don't buy them up front, you're spending more later.
What the fuck happened to blessed water prices
Why is it that every time I come back to this game it's balanced even worse
You guys know that every time you make a positive change you don't have to make a negative change elsewhere right? You never fix anything, you just move the problems somewhere else.
As much as that side of the game is what initially brought Aura to my attention, I confess that at this point I mostly only care about the gameplay, RPG elements, and pure side of things. I'm probably many times further behind the real world storylines than where I had mentioned I had last played.
Things like balancing and resource management are of greater import to me, but I wasn't about to read through dozens of updates, pre-releases, public releases, hotfixes, etc. I'll probably hold off until tomorrow's (?) release regardless.
Higher cost and less corruption removed, on top of the extra corruption earned now if you want to 'save' the civilians using knightess.
I saw so many good changes that made me want to come back but man, I didn't read every patch note. Somehow I thought the game was less "make everything suck for the player."