Here you can suggest anything from new mechanics to new enemies and balance adjustments.
Diary is not that useful right now. I plan to use it as a tool people can use when they forget something. Things like showing you the motorcycle controls and speed switching with speed potions. It will also have a main quest summary and track important events that happened and locations you visited and unlocked.
I could use it for tracking recipes and items, but I don't really wan't to go overboard with this since I want to strike a balance between giving enough information and keeping some things secret. I actualy want people to miss things on their first playthrough, so that the second one is different.
The unlocks screen kinda fulfills that role alreay. When you finish the game, the title screen changes and new "unlocks" option shows up. Here you can see all the things you unlocked while locked items are shown as "???"
I plan to add bestiary into the game at some point as well as weapon / armor collection. I will most likely put these in the main menu showing progress from all your saves.
Oh, that's cool. Now I can't wait for the full released game in the future. This game is gonna be a great one for sure.
Suggestion! Can you also add like a hint for how can you get these items instead of just straight up just "???" ? Maybe you can even make it even more interesting by making the hint in a form of riddles with scattered hints for the said riddles. I think it's more helpful that way because if someone wanted to get this "???" item but don't know how, he at least can get a hint of where to start searching. You know... the game itself doesn't have a walkthrough yet, so adding this later on even when it's not fully released yet will really help the player wait patiently for new update while trying to get the "???" items they haven't found (at least I think so).
I might just straight up add the exact conditions for unlocking those outfits / cheats. "???" is really not enough and not everyone has the patience to try everything.
Few versions ago, the game had achievements, but I removed them because they didn't really fit in. Showing conditions for unlocking things by finishing the game seems more interesting than ordinary achievements that do pretty much nothing.
Oh ok, I guess that'll do just fine. No need to waste time for some riddles that'll take weeks to complete.
What if you make the achivements as like the name for what bonus/cheats that you got after completing the game? You got a 100 level on pistol and an achivement pops out saying that you'll receive a bonus/cheats after completing the game, whatever that is.
Edit: Make the achivement's name a fun one if you can, maybe a pun or a reference to something? (yea, I edited the post just to add this lol)
Also, can you add something on the pub? It's really empty there and it got so much empty places that you can use to put something. There's always only those two guys who previously sold you the bike and now they're just standing there, can't even interact with them. How about making them playing cards and you can join them to do some gambling? Would be a fun little mini game to earn a few quick money, probably 50/100 silver is enough for a game. But I think that'll be too much to code huh... how about making the gambling about rolling a dice and you gotta pick high or low from a certain point? I think that's the easiest and simplest gambling game (or at least the one that I can think of right now).
That pretty much already happens. When you finish the game, you get the simple text ending and after that you get popups saying what things you unlocked.
As for the names, I will probably just show the "???" slot and after you scroll on it, a text with "End the game with 999 units of food" will show up. To keep things a little mysterious, even though most unlock conditions in the game right now make sence for the item you are unlocking.
The pub is actualy pretty realistic. It is empty most of the time, but on some days characters decide to hang out there. It is pretty much full once that happens.
And those two guys will have a purpose in the future. Mainly talking between them selves and you just listening to them. They will talk about things you did, things that happened and things that might happen. Kinda like newspapers.
Alright, can't wait for that update later. I was wondering tho, how much story progress has you been put into the game for now?
Suggestion! I think the insane kobold inside the underground cave is kinda un-matching to the outside kobold. The one inside looks more like a ratman than a kobold with their lizardman-like character. Maybe look for a kobold sprite but with different color and artstyle than just a completely new sprite? You can also just make the one inside the underground cave a ratman instead of a insane kobold.
Edit: Also the crude crossbow and the simple crossbow have the same weapon look. Changing the color would do the trick maybe?
Story is progressing slowly, but surely. Previous main update added two story cutscenes and I want to finish the first story dungeon before the end of november. That's just one path though. Your goal for act 1 is to meet Mr. White. Going with the generals is one way, focused on combat characters. Non-combat oriented characters will be able to get a job in one of the three settlements and get clues to his hideout that way.
Sprites for enemies are placeholders. Kobolds in this game are pretty much small humanoids with animal characteristics, so there will be lizard kobolds, rat kobolds, frog kobolds and so on. I will be redoing all of the sprites for all enemies at some point. Also, there is a reason why those kobolds in the cave are insane.
Same goes for the weapons. Some use duplicate sprites, but that is only temporary. Entire graphical side of the game can be considered to be placeholders.
Ooh! Now that we're on the topic of kobolds, maybe we could add some consequence to genociding liberating the Kobold cave. I took out the whole of the garrison there but there's still a bunch of kobolds running amok and just respawn after I blast them all down. Although removing them after you take out the game is dumb since you can grind easy exp with them, maybe there could be a cutscene where some kobolds who survived show up and declare the player to be their mortal enemy.
Eyy I like that idea! More job = more money = more fun!
How about making a casino somewhere later? We can play it for earning money and also for entertainment that increased our mood. Too much money but can't use it to increase mood is weird. You also can only use a certain item to boost your mood once a week. At least make it twice a week maybe?
I have location with minigames where you can gamble money planned for one of the major settlements. I also want to add one gambling NPC into the Riverstone pub, but this will probably take some time. Making minigame like dice and slot machines is quite easy, but anything with and AI, like card games, will be much harder. It is planned though.
I will add more ways to increase mood, but these will still be limited in some way. Simply don't want to allow players to go from -100 mood to +100 in a single day. It was way too easy to do this in previous versions. Wellness fixed that a little.
Technicaly, drugs and alcohol are a way of using money to raise mood, but I will add a more direct ways. I have a plan to add locations like a theatre / cinema and events like a band playing music in the pub. The former will have to wait for the map expansion, the later will be implemented rather soon.
Taht's pretty much my goal for the december faction update. This update will consist (unless I decide to change something) from a faction overview screen, where you can see your faction relationship and rank. The initial release will have some simple activity you can do to raise your relationship. Church faction will ask you light up candles near shrines, kobolds will want some meat and random materials and militia will ask you to patrol around the village, which will simply advance time by half a day with a random chance to stumble into some trouble.
Once you do these things enough times and raise your faction relationship, there will be some kind of event / quest you have to complete. This will increase your rank which will give you more money and new activities to raise your relationship.
I will also "add" one unjoinable faction, wild mutants. This is pretty much already in the game in a form of wild kobolds attacking you and more spawning around the island if you keep killing them. I will simply tweak this system a bit and add some cutscenes and more mutant types coming after you together with a way to make them happy so they stop showing up in large numbers.
Those are my plans for the initial version of the faction system. Will serve as a good base for the future updates as I make the island bigger and add more factions.
That is something I will definitely add in the future. The top bar that shows the item description is too short to do that though. I will add a dedicated "info" screen that will show up if you press a key and it will show you more information about selected item from the inventory, shop or equip window. This was on my to-do list for quite a while.
That would require a lot of work. Basicaly redoing parts of the game from scratch or making pretty much a second game.
Not saying I won't do anything similiar. There is something like this in the curent version, where the starting part of the game is slightly different if you ngive your character a certain name. Won't spoil it though. Small things like that will be in the game. Large changes like what you suggest might happen too, but only after the base game is finished.
Is the name easter egg already a thing? If it is I'm gonna start smashing my keyboard and hoping to get it right.
Also, are you currently working on the gameplay mechanics, story, items, or the intro scene? Oh wait...
Suggestion! What if you make the game intro not like a cut scene that you can only watch but also as a playable scene? If you do a certain thing in the intro you'll unlock or get something when you start the game. Maybe a starter supplies, some clothes, weapon, or perhaps even a hidden skills that you can only unlock in the intro? Now THAT is cool.
The name thing is already in the game and was there for almost a year. There just aren't any hints in the game right now about it. You will get a hint once I finish the story dungen and after you meet Mr. White properly.
But it is really nothing to get that excited about. You get some dialogue telling you some backstory and you get an item that triples your stats and stops you from aging. Nothing more yet. I want to turn this into fully fledged mode, but I simply have different priorities right now.
I'm pretty much jumping from thing to thing as I feel like. Burnout is a real thing, especialy when you work on one project alone for years. However, Sinathir is pretty big game and there is still a lot to do, so if I don't feel like programing, then I make graphics for new outfit or weapons. If I don't feel like making graphics, I write some event or quest or try making music. And if I don't feel like doing any of that, I simply think about new mechanics or altering old ones. This is how I managed to work on one single project for so long. No matter what I do, it still moves the game forward.
Your suggestion is pretty much what I have planned for the intro from the start. Instead of selecting your personality / hobby, you go through a intro section taking place before you get sent to the island. There you make several decisions and you will make asigned a character background depending on them. This will also give you different items and might alter your look a bit. This section will be mandatory for first time players, but people doing second playthrough will be able to skip it and simple select from the menu, like you do now. I want to do this section once I start making my own graphics for terrain. I don't want to work with default rmxp tilesets too much because I will be replacing all of them in the future anyway.
Ooh. I don't know too much about a secret ending like that. If you need to unlock all the other endings to get it then I don't think ANYONE would really play it. It takes a long time even if you're speedrunning a single year and if you're doing that for multiple endings you'll have to grind for a lot of hours just to play as a mutant. It'd take hours to code the mutant route only for like 1% of players to actually see it.
What if we also use the strength stats to make a combo attack by smashing a random letter on the keyboard or maybe not the combo part just make it easier to code, just press a random key and it'll increase the attack by 10 to 20%? Maybe more if you can. Idk about the dexterity but maybe you can use it to increase the chance for the dodging part.
Combat is something I'm still thinking about often and I'm still not entirely sure what to do with it.
Curent combat system works and it is not horendous, but it is pretty boring and doesn't allow players to do much.
One step above is the top down grid based combat, similiar to games like tactics ogre or disgaea. I found a script online that worked well and I was thinking about implementing that. The problem is the speed.
Right now, if you overlevel your self and attack a scavenger, you can kill him in one hit. Entire fight takes about 10 seconds. Grid based combat would take much, much longer. Not a problem when you have intense fights with strong enemies, but it gets boring quickly once you have to fight large group of weak enemies too often. I could make very weak enemies just die automaticaly without a fight taking place, but that seems like a lazy solution.
And now we are at your suggestion. There are two things are realy dislike about most RPGs.
One, main character goes from weak farmer to a hero saving the world in a matter of days or weeks. I really hate that and pretty much every rpg does that. Sinathir doesn't.
Two, Player skill is often more important than character skill. For example, in Gothic 2 you can defeat pretty much everyone from day one if you have enough patience with slashing them for hours before they go down, because you can dodge and parry all attacks. Not the main character, but you, the player. Same goes for pretty much every action rpg, like dark souls or elder scrolls games.
In Sinathir you, the player, act as a guide for Nika. You tell her what to do and she tries to do that. The result is entirely in her hands.
Only way to really achieve this in combat is to make it play itself like a mobile game, but that would be really boring (Although I was thinking about doing it) so I have to balance everything. Make player skill less important, but not so little important that he does nothing and just watches flashy lights. Fighting is very common and there are plenty of weak enemies you have to fight quite often, so the combat itself has to also be quick to not get anoying.
So I can't really make the combat completely action oriented because it would make players skill too important. Can't make it autoplay because then there is no player involvement. Adding player action input like in that one south park game is somewhere in between, so I can't really say no, but I can't say yes either.
Combat will definitely be changed in some way. I might decide to implement the grid battle system and do something about the speed. If I decide to keep the curent system in, then I will definitely spice it up somehow. I improve it graphicaly by adding backgrounds and animations and I will improve it mechanicaly by adding more active skills and passive skills like if enemy misses you, you instantly attack back. Stuff like that.
This is something I will have to think about.
Yeah I get what you're saying for the combat. There's not much change to be done because not that much really works. The grid combat would turn Sinathir into more of a Strategy RPG, like Fire Emblem. But since usually in Sinathir you're either too strong for a foe or too weak for it, there's not much to be done. I also get how it'll make it too slow for mid-late game players since they'll have to wait an extra few seconds for the dodge button to show up which is gonna add up after a while.
There alredy is a reason why she is improving so quickly compared to normal people, so that will be explained once I get to developing later story quests and cutscenes.
Same goes for the god and magic. All of it will be explained in the game at some point.
I'm also thinking about adding story sections where you control someone else, but these will take place near the end of the game, if I decide to add them.
I plan to give companions some use in the war minigame, but I'm not fully decided on the specifics yet.
The plan I have right now is to make a "leader squad" unit type, which will contain your main character and the companions you selected. Companions will affect not only the strength of this squad, but will also give you special abilities. Slots for the leader squad will be limited at the start so you will have to chose who to pick instead of taking everyone.
Thanks for writing down all of this. I actualy enjoy reading through long posts so I don't mind them at all.
except getting past age 13, I did not want to sit there constantly resting until I reached age 18
That's fine. There are not enough things to do right now to justify waiting for so long. For now, it is just something for people who really want to see everything. Reaching age 18 will be much more enjoyable one I add more stuff in.
Stances/Formations
This actualy was in the game in the past, but I removed it because the were not that useful with the curent system. Enemies attack random targets and there is no taunt move, so setting people into different stances didn't really work. However, I will be redoing / improving the combat system in the future. I wrote more about that some posts above:
Combat will definitely be changed in some way. I might decide to implement the grid battle system and do something about the speed. If I decide to keep the curent system in, then I will definitely spice it up somehow. I improve it graphicaly by adding backgrounds and animations and I will improve it mechanicaly by adding more active skills and passive skills like if enemy misses you, you instantly attack back. Stuff like that.
Fallout-style limb system
This might work, but I will have to do some adjustments to this system. I remember playing the first fallout game and I started using targeting only near the end game and I aimed pretty much only for the head / eyes, because it is pretty much always better to kill something faster, than make it weaker and making the fight take longer.
Skills tied to a weapon class
That's my current plan for making combat more interesting. Just like you can learn new trade skills if your stat is high enough, you will learn new combat skills if your weapon stat is high enough.
More stats listed about a weapon type or explanation for it
This is something I plan to do for all items. The small top bar is not enough to show all the information I want to, so I will be fixing this.
As for the weapon differences, there will be more to them as I expand the combat system. Right now, they are pretty much divided into melee and ranged. Some enemies have minor resistances to certain weapon types (White is pretty much immune to ranged weapon damage), but that's pretty much it.
Custom Ammo
I was thinking about this some time ago. It is on my list of things to do once I start improving the combat.
Information screens
I also have this on my to-do list. I want player to earn this first so pretty much everything you suggested will be in the game at some point. I want to add a bestiary in the future that will get expanded by you killing more of the same enemies, reading books or hearing the information from some NPC. Future cyber implants will also help with that. This will make stats like HP, ATK and so on visible in the combat screen.
Combat needs a lot of work. I will most likely get to improving it this year. Want to make fighting stronger enemies more interesting and combat items more useful.
Colour customisation for clothes
I played around with this some years ago. I have pretty much two options. Engine can control hue of images, or I can simply make separate sprites for different colors (Just like hair dyes work). This is something I will deffinitely add into the game. Same goes for more hairstyles, make-up, jewelry and other cosmetic items. Definitely on my to-do list.
Helmets
This was actualy in the game like five years ago.
It wasn't hard to do, I just couldn't decide on the proper way to do it. Helmets make sence when you are fighting, but you can't see your character sprite in the battle. Wearing a helmet outside of battle is really uncomfortable, especialy the heavy medieval ones. Some people will want to see the helmet, but some want to see their haircut and hair color. I didn't scrap the concept completely. I'm still thinking about adding it back in some way. One solution I had in mind was to make helmets visible / invisible depending on your location. You will have your helmet off while in town or low danger locations and you will put it on in dungeons or other dangerous locations. Still have to think about that.
Repeating crossbow
I a list containing a lot of weapons I want to add at some point. Going from things like flails or morningstars through modern assault rifles up to futuristic laser and plasma guns. I will be adding these from time to time to Mr. Whites inventory. They will get their proper place once the game expands more.
Speed up button
This is something I don't really want to do. I'd rather make the game faster in a "believeable" way, like the speed potions already in the game, or by making the combat play faster if you AGI is high to show how faster you are than your enemies. Combat speed is something I will be adjusting for sure and I will be adding more vehicles and types of speed potions, but dedicated speed up button is something I will most likely not be adding.
Radio
Another thing I will be adding. My plan is to add a cassete player you can get. Then I will spread music tapes around the world you can collect / buy and play. First I will have to get some original music though. Don't want to plaster the royalty free audio I'm using right now all over the game. I will be replacing the current music with original tracks at some point.
Relationship hints:
I will have to think about this, because I want players to stumble upon those things naturaly. Stardew valley I think does the exact same thing, but Sinathir will have more events than SV. Telling players that some events are happening might be necesary.
Add a way for people to donate to you
I'm making this game as a hobby. Money would just complicate things. Best way to support me is to play the game and report bugs, suggest new ideas or just show the game to other people that might be interested in it.
Add a way to craft basic weapon parts,
You should be able to make these by learning the basics of smithing from Valdemar. You can make them at the anvil in his house. Unless I broke something in previous updates.
Ability to spare enemies?
This is something I will deffinitely add. You can play as a pacifist right now, but once you get attacked, enemies will fight untill they die. I will adress this at some point in the future.
Mutated syringes sell for 50k silver
Prices of most items will have to be adjusted. I kept the price of certain items high on purpose(for now) because once you get them, you are pretty much at the end of the game anyway. You can sell them and buy all the expensive stuff to play around with. This will be changed in the future ofcourse.
Beans are too rare
Another thing that will need adjusting, but you should be able to get raw beans from the small garden next to Billy's house once you finish his potato quest. Recipe for seeds should be in the game also.
Kill reputation:
Those dialogues are really old. I will be removing them and replacing them with cutscenes that will show the first time you kill certain enemy type. You will will also get new cutscenes once you kill certain amount of different enemies.
Extra hints:
I'm still working on that. There are plenty of things that are not explayined properly or at all. I will be adding hint icons that show up if you have the hint mode set to ON, but this will be a temporary solution.
Once you build a barn, Billy will start selling animals. All you have to do is to have them in your inventory. You can sell them or butcher them and you can feed them and get eggs / milk.
Wellness gains:
You can increase maximum wellness level by giving Ichor containers to Mr. White, or by joining the church faction. Wellness is not suposed to give you huge buffs instantly, but to make you stronger over time. Clearing the dungeon and training with Mr. White is better, but that is a temporary feature that will get removed / moved to different place as the game expands. Maximum wellness level you can get is 20. At that point, you will be getting something like 10HP/SP and +5 in physical stats per week. A nice bonus that even non-combat focused characters can get.
Dynamite combat sound:
Will fix this.
Strong enemies combat:
Like I said above. Combat will get improved and this means enemies will get more interesting abilities
Random stuff:
I'm not entirely sure right now, but your physical stats can get to something like 9999 and your HP can go to 999.999 if I'm not mistaken.
Mr. White fight is not canon. It is there to give you something to do with all those weapons and stats you have. He should be getting slightly stronger every time you fight him. But he is still going easy on the player.
He is using one of the premade RMXP sprites, but in that fight, he is suposed to be using ordinary sword only. I might make another temporary boss fight with him where he uses the lightbringer.
Also, he is pretty much immune to ranged weapons.
Learning the basics of farming from him is pretty much a joke right now. He will be teaching you advanced combat skills, but these are not in the game yet.
Again, thanks for writing all of that. It's always good to see someone care enough to spend all that time playing the game and then writing about it. If you have any more ideas, don't be afraid to write again.
Thanks for the insight into your game.
I'll definitely revisit this game as time passes on! Around every couple of months, or whenever I see you've implemented a major patch. I'll be writing suggestions again and looking out for bugs when that time comes.
I have to admit it's pretty inspiring to see a solo game developer make a pretty ambitious game, I'm glad to see you work fast and seem to be quite passionate and consistent. I completely understand that you don't want to monetize, because then you have to start making the game based on your consumers preferences and not your own.
Speed up button: I like the idea of combat being sped up when your agility is higher, I think this is the best option for making sure the player won't be spending too much time fighting weaker opponents.
Weapon parts crafting: I had a look at the anvil in the Riverstone Smith, and there is the ability to craft weapon parts, I missed that.
Helmets: I'm not entirely sure what the best option is either, perhaps the option you mentioned, or give the player the ability to toggle the helmet on/off whenever they want? I don't know if that is possible with just a button press in RPGMaker.
Fallout style limb system: If you were to add something like this, you could definitely make some 'gimmick' enemies that have high resistance to damage or has access to a powerful ability until you deplete the limbs health. For example: fighting a cyborg that has an inbuilt cannon inside their arm, they would deal tons of AOE damage until the cyborg's arm reaches 0 health.
I also want to mention Suong is the best character followed by Billy, then Helena. Helena's fire spell is super powerful with the [in flames] damage over time effect.
Thanks. I'm glad you like the game. I don't plan on quiting any time soon so you can look forward to more updates coming.
I can make helmets visible / invisible when the player presses the button. I might do that as a last resort, because I like playing around with small details like this to make them in some way different from other games.
For example, if you get hurt enough, your character will have visible wounds. If you get hurt often enough, these wounds will turn into scars once you heal. It doesn't really affect the game in any way but it is a nice detail that most other games don't have. Most games have the "toggle helmet" option, but I feel like there is a better way to do it. I will have to think about that.
I was actualy trying to make one boss enemy consisting of multiple parts in the past and it wasn't bad. Doing this for bosses and other very strong enemies is something I will most likely do, but I don't think it will be useful or interesting when fighting againts weaker enemies.
Suong is the strongest companion once you "upgrade" her. Zacharias is right after her. Valdemar, Olaf and Roman are also quite strong.
Helena and george are the only companions in the game right now that "level up" with you and get stronger with time.
That entire menu thing is mainly me testing main menu changing depending on game progress. As you said, all the lore is not in the game yet so it doesn't make sence yet, but will in the future. There is already some dark stuff in the game if in some specific bestiary entries, mainly the ghouls and abominations.
Being able to change between menu styles is doable, but I'd like to add atleast one more background before I do that.
Also, the menu music is royalty free track from youtube:
Thanks for writing these. I like reading new suggestions,
Escaping from battles is something I have planned. I just didn't get to it yet.
it would be nice to have more advanced crafting/recreation/other furniture that the new weapons can depend on
This is pretty much what I want to do with custodian artefacts. Powerful unique items and equipment I want to add. Getting these will be more involved than just doing a quest and finding them.
It would be cool if abominations got harder over time.
All planned, but these things will depend heavily on your decisions in the main quest, which is not finished yet.
It would be cool if you could lose limbs or get serious inflictions on limbs a-la-rimworld
This is something I think about from time to time. I have plans to add bionic limb / organ replacements into the game, but losing your limbs in combat is something I'm not fully decided on, mainly because of the sprites I would have to do to support it. I might be able to "cheat" a little by making your limbs crippled / heavily damaged instead of being cut off, which would require only a simple sprite to be placed on top of a existing limb, which is much easier to do than altering all sprites to acount for certain limbs being removed.
It would be nice to have more ways to get planks other than cutting down trees.
As I expand the map, I will be adding a lumber camp where you will be able to work or just buy raw materials.
Probably something you already have planned but the Mr. White dungeon
Not sure I get this one. The story dungeon is complete. The dungeon that unlocks afterwards is graphicaly unfinished, but can be completed without any problem.
You should be able to hide your mutations to some degree
I have plans for that too, but for now you can just put on the cult robes, which will make NPCs talk to you again. Hunters will still come after you though.
Being out in a certain type of weather should worsen your mutation
Weather will get more love in the future. It does nothing now, but I want it to do more things in the future, like unique enemy spawns in the rain, better crop growth and so on. Highly mutagenic areas are also something I want to do.
It would be cool if there was a "resist" system, with very simple physical, elemental blunt and kinetic armor levels shown on enemies.
This is partialy already in the game. Enemies have resistances to certain weapon types and weaknesses to others. These however are not that well balanced so they are not that noticeable and they are not displayed anywhere yet.
Weapon accuracy bonus is something I will add to the descrition menu, but I will have to adjust these values somewhat to make more sence. Comparing two weapons with 1500 accuracy and 1200 accuracy doesn't really tell you much because you don't know how many % of hit chance this 300 point difference means.
Thanks for the offer. I'm not looking for help those fields. Only things I might need help with are graphics and music, but I plan doing these on my own too.
But you can still help in other ways. Suggesting ideas and even quests always helps. And you can also recommend the game to your friends, if they are the kind of people who might enjoy it.
Thanks for suggestions. While some of them are already planned, there are some that will sadly not happen.
I'm glad you liked the game and took your time write all of this.
I was half asleep when I was writing this but I might end up trying to complete like 100% completion on your unlockables or as much as you programmed because mysterious illness really interests me so what I meant run I meant to say run away for combat there was times where percentage was zero on hitting on chicken and I didn't want to reset my game I didn't know if there was a run away and i look at your read me to check and i think it not in there if there was
Option to either wait or defend in combat. It would make it easier to raise weapon ranks that way.
Defend option was in the game at some point, but it was not very useful and didn't work properly. I could add the wait command though.
Crafting should improve your skill level in something, even if not as much as training with a teacher. Maybe a similar system to other games where higher-level recipes grant more skill EXP?I was thinking about adding an XP system similiar to the weapon leveling. I didn't get around to it just yet, mainly because it will require quite a bit of balancing. I don't want the system to turn into something like skyrim smithing or runescape, where you make bunch of useless items just to level up, but I still want there to be some kind of reward of actualy making something instead of just buying or looting it.
Stat progress early game is pathetically slow, practically requiring at least one level of the fit perk in order to do anything in a meaningful timeframe.
That's partialy intentional, but I agree that balancing and speed of certain things is not ideal.
The idea is that you are very weak and practicaly useless at the start and you have to rely on help of others. Fighting anything on your own is a bad idea, but you should do fine againts scavengers and kobolds after few weeks of intense training and working out. You should let the NPCs do most of the work at the start of the game.
With that said, there are multiple ways to get stronger relatively fast. Raising your wellness is a good way, working out at your hideout with George in your group also raises your stats more. Take Billy with you and clear the wild dogs and boars around the map for a few weeks and your weapon skill should also increase enough so you can start fighting scavengers by your self.
And as you said, there are traits that help you out quite a bit. Big stomach practicaly doubles the amount of wellness you get from food, mutation related traits will also make you stronger as will workout related traits. Stat boosting traits like fit are nice too, but they loose their usefulness after some time.
You can also finish the church membership quest early, which should give you +1 random body stat after each fight.
One of my plans is to allow player to schedule each work day instead of doing one thing the entire week. This will also include doing activities like woodcutting or mining.
NPC that sells wood is also planed. As a temporary solution, I could place respawning wood piles around the forest areas that will give you a little free wood each week.
Sure, I could do that. But I still want the woodcutting to be relevant so I don't want traders to sell too much wood, but if they sell too little, then they will be less useful.
My idea was to add a logging camp where you can order wood. The more wood you order, the longer you will have to wait before it is ready, which would balance things a bit.
But the Riverstone NPC could sell a little wood to you. I don't really see an issue with that.
Her starting weight and height should be fine. There is rule my grandmother had, where your weight had to be height - 100 (which means toddlers shouldn't weight anything I guess). I also checked her BMI, and she is supposed to alright. Even leaning towards being overweight a little.
That said, the way she gains height and weight is not ideal. These stats are affected by her age, maxhp, agi, str and a a item bonus, which increases depending on the food you eat (milk or meat type food give you bigger bonus than vegetables). Wellness doesn't affect it directly, but the stats you gain from it do. Mutations also affect your weight and height.
I will be changing the way these stats are calculated for sure, since wellness and working out don't affect it yet.
By the way, maximum height you can get is 230cm and weight is 95kg.
As for the abomination fear, what you are suggesting is in the game, but I didn't update the tutorial messages to reflect that. Raise your morality and the abomination penalty will decrease and even turn into a bonus.
I think this was already suggested and I'm not fully againts it.
My goal is to make combat in general less dependant on player skill and more dependant on the character skill. I can't go this way completely, since that would mean turning the game into auto-battler, which is not entirely fun.
I would like to rework the combat system in the future and depending on how it goes, I might add something like what you are suggesting.
have you considered that perhaps both player and character skill could enhance eachother?
lets say that once you level up a weapon skill enough, you can learn special skills to use in battle and in the overworld. so combat options become more expanded.
say if i were to level up one of my gun skills, i'd become proficient enough to shoot from a range at the overworld. or if i was to level up my sword skill i could make a disarming attack to reduce enemy attack. or level up my shield skill and learn to stun enemies with a shield bash.
basically the more character skill you have, the more options you have and the more player skill can have an effect.
I did think of this but as I said, I want to limit player skill as much as possible in that regard.
This a personal pet peeve of mine, but I always found the way most action RPGs work weird. you start the game as nobody and if you, the player, know the game, then you can pretty much negate the personality and skill of the in-game character by achieving things that shouldn't be possible. Soul level 1 runs in dark souls are a good example of that.
In Sinathir, the player is supposed to be something of an "advisor" to the main character. You tell her what to do and she tries to do it. If she fails and succeeds is entirely up to her skill, not to the player skill.
As I said before, having no player input is boring so I can't really go all out on that design philosophy, but I want to get as close as possible.
Try playing the old "Princess Maker 2" game. This game is heavily inspired by it and it will show you what kind of feel I'm going after to some degree.
well what i was sort of going for is that with low character skill, player skill can't effect much (limited options in combat). basically player skill is sort of "capped" by character skill, so a skilled player is in charge of making strategic decisions to use what the character has trained and learned to its full potential, but no more than that.
i guess when i said player skill i meant more like the players strategic ability. the player can decide how they use the characters capabilities. the more the character knows and learns, the more tactical options and advantages the player has access to.
in a battle you still are telling her what to do in the same way you would tell her to attack or use an item, but with a higher character skill level you're telling her to use the special techniques she learned over the course of the game.
and for the last thing... i don't have enough money :(
Exactly. The battles are pretty much already when I want them to be regarding the player control. It's the overworld activities that I will need to think more about, since things like stealth also fit into that category.
And there is an abandonware dos version of princess maker 2. The steam version and dos versions are pretty much identical content wise. It's just graphics and music that are different. You can get the dos version for free on the internet and you can get dosbox to play it on modern operating systems. Sites like abandonwaredos.com, or gamesnostalgia.com should have it.
ah, i was a bit confused since as of now i don't see very many skills that the character can use in combat.
but for overworld stuff, i think they should have an influence on fights but unless theres a high power imbalance not beat them entirely.
say you were to have an overworld skill that let you make a charge attack with your weapon in the overworld. if you manage to hit it you start the combat with an extra first attack. though if the enemy was very significantly weaker than you (like you would one shot them anyways) then it could be an instant kill.
shooting an enemy on the overworld could have a similar effect. if it doesn't one shot them then it would simply weaken them for when you fight them.
basically, stuff that gives an advantage in a proper battle, but won't win it altogether unless you would have already won easily anyways.
I played few games with system like that. Stick of thruth or persona 3 comes to mind. I was thinking about doing some kind of system to make weak enemies run away from you, or they instantly lose the battle when you touch them to cut down the number of simple fights. Having some skills to help with that might be nice. Maybe even skills that give you first strike or something like that. Having those skill usable in the overworld is possible also possible, but I will have to think about that.
I second their suggestion. That would make hunting feel more like hunting and less like...going over and punching a bunch of wild pigs until they give up their meat.
It would also favor using bows and crossbows, as guns would be noisy and alert the rest of the animals around about your presence and go over to fight you, thus making the player try to use a larger variety of weapons regardless of wether they choose to stick with a main weapon they level up a lot for or not.
You are right that the combat feels off and "old school" in a sence where enemies just chase you and they initiate combat sequence when they touch you.
Being able to press a button and shoot to initiate combat from affar would look nice, but would pose a lot of chalenges to get it right.
And these are just things I came up with on the spot. Sure, solution to most of these can be quite simple if you compromise, but I want to come up with creative solutions to simple problems like these if possible.
I'm experimenting with top down grid combat system that I found somewhere on the internet, which would solve this entire problem, but I have no idea when that's going to get implemented, if at all..
That's deffinitely going to happen. There will be more hideout stations and cheese making stations will be some of them. Just like there will be ways to make your own beer, vodka or cigaretes.
As for the oven, that is going to happen too. First, you will get a wood stove which you will later upgrade to electrical one.
That sounds amazing. Yet, I bet that'd need to be tweaked, since I've also been thinking about how milk on its own is a better food than cheese. So, either cheese will be getting buffed, or you'll get a lot of cheese from a few milks, right?
Also, maybe something not that important, but I'd love to be able to equip certain characters with better weapons - let's say I find the Reflex Bow, but I'm neither interested in using a bow, nor I have a good enough level with bows to be effective with it. Giving it to Suong when I have her in my party so she can use it a lot better than I would would be great. And same with the rest of the characters. At least having a mission that allows to re-equip your party upon finishing it would make a lot of hard encounters fairly easier, like the ghoul or the wyvern (I seriously have no idea how to kill either without basically losing my entire party while standing just a few steps away from heaven's gates when I do get to win against them).
Ofcourse, I can tweak the numbers on the recipes and items. Getting more cheese from single milk sounds like the easiest option that also makes more sence.
Equiping characters is to a degree already in the game, but not in a traditional sence.
You can get a quest from Billy to get him a new shotgun. Finish the quest and he will start using it instead of the blunderbuss.
I plan to do this for the rest of the cast too. I want you to be able to specialise them even further. For example, Helena:
You will be able to make her focus on supporting magic or damaging magic. You will have a choice between high armor, low damaging weapons and low armor and high damaging weapons.
I don't want NPCs to equipable in a same way as you can equip your main character, but I want to add some NPCs that will be easier to equip and improve, like the golem companion I'm working on.
I wonder if you'll give them passive skills that contribute to the player even if they themselves don't have them, like you did with Billy's Plant Knowledge II, which let's you pick grade 2 wild plants, or Suong's Butchering, which gives you the meat of the animals and abominations you kill. You know, stuff like chopping more wood with Marcus in your party, or finding bullets/minerals on dungeon chests being more likely with Olaf/Valdemar respectively in your party.
I genuinely expected Tadeas to have Plant Knowledge III as a passive skill on my first run, haha.
i'd like every NPC to have some kind of utility out of combat. It's just a matter of thinking of something and adding it. What I will proabably do first will be NPCs in your party raising your crafting limit depending on their trade. Then I will most likely do what you said. Tadeas plant knowledge, Olaf minerals and so on.
