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Post by Drath on Mar 7, 2016 21:53:51 GMT -8
3) I'm not so sure we can make more story by cutting the voices. The voices were actually contracted out to an agency, and in reality, I personally only had to spend 4 days directing to get all of them. So even if I cut then, I only get 4 days of my time back to add more story, whereas with less gameplay, I get months back to write hundreds of pages of story. I really don't know why the voices are being treated as the scapegoat. I mean, I need to allocate my time since there's only so many hours in a day so I can't draw hundreds of mecha CGs, design and balance dozens of battles, and write a thousand page story, I gotta decide what to focus on. Thanks for the reply, description of the work process and difficulties involved. Having never been a game dev, I admit to not understanding these very well. As a player, turn based gameplay and story are the 2 things I value most though. As for choosing between mecha design, design/balance battles and story writing, I can't choose. I like them all and I can say you do ALL these things well. So my suggestion would be cut VA and funnel all funds there into hiring an additional writer under your supervision to write a side quest/scenario which would then link up back with the main story. You seem to trust Wooly, agree that he reads your intent well and has a decent writing style, so I'd say he should be your first pick. Failing that, I would say task either Vaendryl or Melonbunny to write the short scenario. They've been with you for 2+ years. Surely giving them a bit of creative control isn't too much. Of course make sure you clarify what kind of side quest you expect it to be and what are the potential rewards possible from it. Failing that, I suppose you could get a community member to do it, but the writing quality is going vary widely here so I wouldn't really recommend it. The other idea if you still want absolute control over the script is to outsource some of the mecha art. I really like your style though, but I guess if you can find someone who can mimic your style closely, I wouldn't mind seeing that design of a few new units be passed over to said person. Lastly, battle design and balance testing in side missions can also be relegated to another staff member. Personally I would pick Vaendryl for obvious reasons. Get him backed by a tester pool if you think things might go wrong. If things are still not 100% balanced, it's still ok, as it's just a side mission and can be skipped. In other words, instead of hiring people to do additional VA, outsource some less crucial parts of story or art or other jobs to reliable personnel and let them help share your burden. You retain the final say as to whether the completed story, art, balance has been done to your satisfaction and will then pay them an agreed 1-time payment sum. Finally, make some general polls on what people want to see for the series and what they feel is currently lacking as mentioned by Blackhead. At some point, yes I guess you might need to make some sacrifices. Well if it comes to that and you feel that the VN audience is bigger/ turn based audience is too hard to satisfy then make the relevant changes. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If you guys go under, there won't be any games in future and everyone loses. My final thoughts on handling the ending narrative (I'm leaving it to you all to decide what's best, no further interference from me): On 'resurrecting' dead people, rescuing people via implausible plot devices, I'll just say that if you do this, IMHO, it cheapens the impact of the narrative and the attachment to the character(s). Protagonist A dead, no problem, click fingers, ressed! Protagonist B mortally wounded, no worries, time travel, solved! etc... At some point, nothing is permanent, everything is changeable and seriously why even care about the story or the main characters when they have 100% plot armor and can't die?
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Post by Drath on Mar 7, 2016 9:48:35 GMT -8
I don't think it's really meant to be 'ha ha' funny, but it is playing with the trope that in many mecha stories the situation at some point or another turns particularly sour and hopeless only for some ridiculous twist to save everyone. Sam hasn't told me a thing about what's going to happen, but my perspective is that of 'how in the world are they gonna get out of this' rather than 'omg it's hopeless. it's all over. we're DOOOOMED' we saw the Bianca get shot through but then again, from the sound of her voice Claude is clearly 'the wanderer' who Alpha was talking to when they referred to the 'Ebon Fleet' (totally not the reapers). She's always been mysterious but that confirms she is nothing at all who she seems. After the credits Crow refers to a woman timetraveler who absolutely has to be Claude. she's certainly not dead, and I'm saying this as a fellow fan. Sam tells me nothing. Then there's Chigara and she's very clearly dead. Well, sure would've been useful if there were like a near infinite number of clones of her. oh, wait. I mean, if Alice could put her mind into Chigara's body, I'm sure Chigara could put her mind into another clone. how that works, no idea. that's what deus ex machina plot devices are for. She'll be back one way or the other for sure. The rest is alive when the story cuts out, and although their situation is grim any number of things could be thought up to turn things around. even if timetravel is required to do so. What did Ava find amongst Claude's stuff anyway? I don't know if any of this is true, but I have a good feeling about it. My point is that depending on the framing of your perspective on the ending you can get away with very different things, and it's only 'funny' when put into context with the great mecha anime and space operas of the past where the heroes got out of similar situations somehow. My perspective was they are NOT going to get out of it (none of them, except Asaga and Sola) and that it was a deliberate attempt to wipe the slate clean and to start with mostly new characters. Ha you see that's why I am reluctant to make comments on the story. I don't get certain things. I don't watch mecha anime. So my views are probably not the same as those who do so. I don't think either way of seeing things is wrong but that's how I see it from my side. I hope you paste this on Steam though. Might cut the negative reviews by half. I also hope they mostly agree with you though and don't feel that it cheapens the plot. Yea I caught the Teehee and all... mannerisms-wise she certainly fit Claude... So I guess essentially you're saying that Claude took Crow's time travel device, whisked herself out in the nick of time before she got shot and came back to alter the timeline where the catastrophe happened and the ending was completely rewritten? Maybe? Dunno how acceptable that will be to others though.
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Post by Drath on Mar 7, 2016 6:34:42 GMT -8
Uhh yeah, obviously we could have added more story content if we had focused less on the battles. Absolutely NOT. The battles SHOULD retain at least the same quality as they are now, or even better with a few new added units/abilities. It's the story parts which need to be dragged up to the same quality and quantity as the battles. If you don't think you have enough resources to do both, cut art or VA or the opening song or do another small scale kickstarter. I thought everyone would have seen enough mecha animes to just say "lol this is stupidly entertaining and over the top." I don't think you should take Sunrider *too* seriously, parts of it are just meant to be a parody of the genre, and it pokes the fourth wall a lot, while other parts are more serious. My reaction was basically "this is stupidly depressing and unbelievable". I work in a profession where death and disease are commonplace, and even if I'm doing the more academic side of things these days, I can say I've seen enough people die in front of my eyes. They are in no way subjects to be taken lightly. If you have lost a loved one, you should know what I mean. You jumped around from being very serious in mood in Ongess to serious at the end of MoA and so I expected the end of Lib Day to be serious as well. The tone of the writing in the ending was in no way a joking tone. The music was sad. The pics with Kayto slumping down defeated and resigned, making his last speech, did not convey a joking tone. If you now say it was meant in jest or not to be taken *too* seriously as you put it, I will straight out say you outright failed to convey the right mood, this time round. You might say I'm wrong but I can tell you from the Steam reviews that there are heaps of people who feel the same. Why do think there are so many negative reviews? I don't think it'd be fair to insist that the VAs to all get thousand dollar microphones and software... Studio grade equipment is very expensive. I would feel like an ass insisting on even hundred dollar equipment, unless I was the one paying for all their stuff. On the equipment, try to settle for a little less than studio grade perhaps. Offer to pay half the price of the equipment. If they are serious voice actresses, they should want to upgrade their setup. Anyway I leave the matter to you but if you insist it's impossible, I suggest NO VA. Pour all resources into storyline, double its size and do 'WoW raid mechanics' for battles. Ask Vaen on WoW if you don't understand what I mean. There's lots of crazy stuff that can be done still. Blackguards with their interactables in battle, etc... Stormguard with their flanking/debuff/zone of control mechanics... all very impressive games. One last reason to do English VAs for Lib Day: Remember those old Cosette voice files by Jill Harris that were never EVER EVER used in FA/MoA because she never joined you? Well guess what, you now have the opportunity to use them in Lib Day. I will not defend you if people say you had an obvious chance to use existing VA material for no cost and passed it up. Just imagine Jill in front of you and you telling her that all the work she did was all done in vain and it's going to be all Japanese from now on. It wouldn't be pleasant for either her or you.
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Post by Drath on Mar 7, 2016 4:37:24 GMT -8
Samu-kun On the VA, I'm a total outsider on these matters, but if I were given the choices you have put up I would take: Get the VAs to record at home and then email it over. Also: 1)Insist that all get the same microphone 2)Insist that all get the same recording software Get Mike Salyer/Steve Green to help out with the details? No need to go to their homes but Mike Salyer, Steve Green and yourself should be on Skype with them, and maybe Vaen and Melon as well, when they are doing the recording and they should do it till all of you are satisfied with the end result. THEN and only then pay them. They know you know legal-fu. So I'm pretty sure they wouldn't dream of messing with you or they'd have their pants sued off before they could say 'Sunrider'. In any case, Amber Lee Connors seems like a fairly reasonable person from her posts. On FB she stated that she liked doing Ava so I don't see why she wouldn't do it again. Don't really know about the rest. As mentioned above, I've no idea how directing VA is like so I'm probably completely wrong here but that's what I think could possibly be feasible. Again if I'm flat out wrong, that's fine, I profess being ignorant about the process but it doesn't change the fact that I don't understand Japanese and it adds virtually nothing to me in terms of my enjoyment of the game. I suggest putting up a poll on Steam or somewhere to get opinions on whether to go for Japanese VA or English VA in future titles. State your difficulties to them and straight up tell them the projected costs involved if its English VA. Let them decide if they want: a)Japanese VA b)English VA c)NO VA at all. Use the budget for better story and better coding (the core of the game) Also on the time crunch: What??? The reason was AX conventions and Kickstarter deadlines? I thought you were doing crunch time because you were getting married in the following week after release I mean obviously THAT'S why it's called Liberation Day right? Being liberated from a 2 year project into the arms of a loving RL waifu xD
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Post by Drath on Mar 7, 2016 3:29:23 GMT -8
I legitimately thought all this time that we were making an indie Japanese tactics RPG game with some VN elements. Basically, we spent the majority of our time analyzing the huge game play analysis write ups that our beta testers provided, and devising new units, strategies, items, and balance which will appeal to them. We didn't receive much feedback regarding the story during the beta test, Likewise, I wasn't really concerned with the lack of choices, since most of the JRPGs I've played didn't have many meaningful choices and mostly had linear story lines. On why I didn't submit much input storywise: I'm primarily a turn based fan as I've stated on many occasions and that's still what I feel most strongly about and what I feel most qualified to do (as I've been a tester for HoMM5 and ToEE and my main role then was also on balance and bugfixing). So yes, as a result most of my feedback is on gameplay. It's not that I don't care about the story or the characters. I've said before I enjoyed Ava-Kayto's flashbacks and that it really touched me. I also really like how Ongess was written/handled. I can tell you when I found out that basically everyone was dead at the end of Liberation Day with no way out of it, saw the bad Steam reviews and then saw Vaen's post on forums mentioning me, I honestly broke down and wept because I felt like a goddamn failure; failure to do anything that mattered at all in-game, failure as a tester and in no way a hero. Laugh at me all you will but that's how invested I was. I did say that you should have lengthened the game when I realized that beta 11 was the 2nd last beta. However I prefer to leave story comments to VN fans as: 1)I might not understand the VN market well enough, so my suggestions might actually be counterproductive and I don't want to give stupid suggestions that might jeopardize your work 2)Story is a subjective thing. Different people prefer different styles of writing. It really depends on who you're trying to reach. By beta 12, I was too caught up fixing bugs and going through game mechanics to even pay much attention to story. You know the deal. 2+ weeks of testing, going through bug after bug after bug, looking at various new features and 5 patches, which is honestly the craziest beta testing schedule I've done. I came home from work every day and plonked my butt down in front of the computer trying to help iron things out. 85 threads and 400+ posts say we weren't idle. Mostly input was from Magpie, but Histidine, Marx, truebeliever, bailong, saotome, stevethepi and myself, amongst others all helped out too. In other words, I was too distracted to focus on story (Feb was also a very busy month for myself) and the real bomb which was the ending was NEVER seen by any tester. But as you ARE asking about story input, I will try to write what I personally feel now. Again I submit this with the disclaimer that I DO NOT know if this is truly what all VN fans want (I cannot speak for them AT ALL). It is only what I as a reader would like to see. If this isn't appealing to you or to others, kindly ignore everything below. You said before you wanted to keep the ratio between VN segments and battles fairly even. I think that's a good balance actually. I thought you had that in mind all along. Have a strong storyline with MULTIPLE branching options, some trivial stuff on exploring the ship and chatting to various crew members as before, maybe some simple puzzles even (do have a look at my mod, but don't make it that difficult lol, it's too complicated if it stumps a Physics masters student ) and have romance (seems like that's what a lot of people want). I've seen you do romances before in Sunrider Academy and I'm confident you can pull it off. Most importantly you MUST make sure that whatever option is picked, there is immediate and strong feedback on the consequences. Subtle might have been ok in the past, but right now we're in damage control mode so please make it as blatant and as obvious as possible. 1)have decisions that entail CP again (the only significant decision in the past was the Legion). Expecting at least 5 decisions that use CP for a game. Squeeze that in, wherever it may be. 2)have options that only come available with a certain level of affection being reached. Personal quests for characters. I'm sure you've played RPGs with those. 3)have your morality axis affect how others perceive Kayto and his interactions with them. Will Kayto be known as someone who does what's right? Or someone who would sacrifice anything to achieve his goals? This should be reflected in conversations and result in different further options (maybe being able to get closer with the Union or Alliance). If you've played Choose Your Own Adventure books or the more advanced ones called Gamebooks (Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Blood Sword, etc) you'll know that these emphasize having the reader be an integral part of the story, making choices and seeing how they turn out. The appeal of these, besides having a good combat system was always the thrill of adventure and feeling of being in control of your own destiny. Of course later on, many RPGs refined this. Pillars of Eternity is a shining example of choice and consequence and freeform exploration. When you railroad the plot into total, complete and irredeemable failure, you convey a sense of helplessness to your audience. You convey the message that all that they did before didn't matter. The slate is wiped clean and you're starting with a set of new heroes after this one. Yes I'm probably wrong to think so after reading your words later (but the explanation for how and why they survived better be 200% logical and 1000% acceptable, or you really would be better off just leaving them ALL dead - also bear in mind what is acceptable reason to you may NOT necessarily be acceptable to others). Also if there had not been such a commotion on Steam, did you really honestly think it would have been acceptable to leave everyone's fate unknown till 1-2 years later. Most people would have lost interest by then. Unfulfilled Kickstarter goals after 3 games: New Game+ Character Epilogues (I know this will be done later... but your initial promise was all done in 3 games) Explore and Trade (this is a BIG one) Faction Influence (another BIG one) All Hail the Emperor (I know this will be done later... but your initial promise was all done in 3 games) Yes you delivered the trilogy, but it was not a complete saga, and you did not fulfill all stretch goals. Anyway at the end of it all, I just want to say that despite whatever dissatisfaction I have, I will endeavor to stand with you all. But please make it easier for the testers to defend you. Let's just try to move forward and salvage what we can, together, as I do feel you have good ideas, you build up emotion really well and provide keen balance to battles, Vaen is a great coder and I want to see you all grow as a game company. I've probably said too much, too bluntly... If you were offended, I apologize, but at this point, I'm past caring about sugar coating my thoughts. P/S - btw, this is the best Steam review IMHO: steamcommunity.com/id/Negatist/recommended/358750/And yes I know Mirilene more or less said the same as well lol
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Post by Drath on Mar 6, 2016 10:03:42 GMT -8
Claude doesn't outgrow anything, but, you know -- boobs and comic relief.)
Well Claude obviously outgrew her bra Sorry couldn't resist... it's an eroge VN anyway right xD But yea on a more serious note I completely agree with your views. I'd have Ava disobey orders for the first time, to come back for Kayto. And yea if they could make one special Tactical Paradox torpedo, they must have the blueprints and should be able to make another.
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Post by Drath on Mar 6, 2016 5:19:31 GMT -8
]Also, try to put a tad more dialogue in the side-missions. We basically only have a short line before and after, even after finding freaking ghost ships (and somehow managing to partially restore them); in MoA we at least had the map with a tad more explanation of what we were doing and where, but here is "Ok, just have 3 long battles to get money" *After 3 hours of fighting and upgrading* "Done? Okay, let's continue~~" It just totally and utterly wrecks the pacing, and the game never recovers (it doesn't help that then it just jumps on the Battle for Cera without any kind of crescendo). Yea I had wanted to voice this before as well but I initially thought it was because they were focussing too much on the battles and would patch up the text later. Didn't happen. We are currently sitting at 49% on Steam and there is no way in hell that this game even remotely deserves that kind of rating. Tread very carefully, v2.00 MUST NOT fail. Better late than half assed. It would be tragic if this game goes down the same route as Blackguards, mostly abandoned, 95% discount all the time, with haters/trolls on their Steam forums 24/7, despite being a quality title, in their case all because initial reviews were bad, unclear mechanics, incomplete wiki and some nonsense about RNG.
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Post by Drath on Mar 6, 2016 4:44:05 GMT -8
I think a lot of complaints are based on the fact that it is short. I hope people are not comparing it directly vs Mask of Arcadius because that's technically 2 parts of the trilogy, not one. The returning players will know that but the new ones might not realize this. Comparing 2 parts against 1 part isn't fair but I suppose expectations were very high for this one given that the wait has been 1.5 years (MoA released in Oct 2014). In terms of battles, things are basically almost equal, you'd fight around 9-10 for each part, and battles in Lib Day involve more units so I don't think it's this part which is lacking (or short). In terms of plot, I suppose you could say it is a bit short. Short as in the action takes place over a short period of time. The scene moves directly from Paradox Core right to Cera with only a few interludes in between and no real side missions by choice. Also short as in total lines of real text in script.rpy. The old MoA script.rpy has nearly 3 times the amount of lines of text compared to LibDay script.rpy. Anyway I've mentioned this way back during beta 11. Others too. Add that to the fact that this one is commercialized and MoA was free and its easy to see why people think that less effort has been put in here. Some other complaints have focussed on the lack of choice and consequence which I think is one of the more major issues. Any variable which isn't used really might as well not be there and things should be made a little more obvious for the average player. Have that ship map and let Icari have a discussion with Kayto on cloaking devices if her affection is high enough thus leading to the item being available. Just putting it there in the store all of a sudden is a bit of a jump. Also as mentioned above, it has been a really long wait and expectations are high. If you've waited 2 years to see whether your previous choices or affection levels have had any impact and don't see it clearly, it's understandable to conclude that it will never matter. This last part is entirely my personal opinion and completely subjective: I don't really care for the new voices even though some sound quite good (Icari in particular, I like Ava too though and Asaga towards the end was good), mostly because I can't understand what they are saying. I used to giggle at stuff that they were saying in combat, when it was English VA but I can't do that anymore. If you can't really understand something, I think the quality of it doesn't really matter much, not at least to me. I'd rather have Samu-kun or Vaendryl or Melonbunny just say some funny stuff for the units. Sure it won't be professional VA quality but it would have a personal touch and that to me is what counts. Not looking for AAA quality VA. I play turn based tactic games for the gameplay and in this game also to enjoy a good thrilling narrative. Voices for me are mostly secondary/supplementary.
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Post by Drath on Mar 6, 2016 4:24:11 GMT -8
Nemjen Apparently Steam chat is advanced enough these days lol. I mean seriously who would've thunk it I wonder if it supports more than 2 people... hmm
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Post by Drath on Mar 6, 2016 4:16:31 GMT -8
I hope you're okay and don't let it get to you too much how bad things seem at the end of LibDay. There were many hints hidden throughout the first three parts that allude to what's to come, and this is not the end of the story of Sunrider. Thanks for your concern, I'm feeling better today after 2 scoops of Baskin-Robbins I recommend that any others feeling the same way should get some too xD As for the story, sorry to be skeptical but I will believe it when I see the script in v2.00 and then I will decide for myself if it actually makes good sense. A deus ex machina plot device to restore matters back to 'normal' would be a greater disservice to the characters than to allow them to pass on into the afterlife with dignity.
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Post by Drath on Mar 5, 2016 23:18:49 GMT -8
The true question is: Does that include the new, epic Cera Gunboats and Battleship voice overs? Or will it be outsourced in a mod, and we've got to wait longer for this. I like to think that the team is going to pull no punches and surprise us with v2.00, who knows we might see that Vaendryl and Samu community sound pack that we all really want. Maybe when our glorious overlord appears he will shed more light on the plans. Cera Gunboat on using Assault: "fire our shit.ogg" ?? It's already in MoA. Sunrider\game\sound\Voice folder Still taking suggestions for other lines /Drath runs and hides
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Post by Drath on Mar 5, 2016 21:15:40 GMT -8
I'm still feeling a little raw to comment on the storyline side of things for Liberation Day. So I'm going to focus on the mechanics side of things which is what I'm mostly good for anywayWith no changelog, no link from the Liberation Day store page to a manual (the wiki) and no display of armor/shield mitigation and number of pulse/missile hits, it's going to be difficult for new players to catch up. So here I'm making a list of things which have changed since MoA or beta 12.4a (yes there are still a good number of undocumented changes that no tester has seen previously) 1)Liberty's Aim Up now grants +25 accuracy instead of 15. Tooltip was wrong and has been addressed by Vaen for next patch 2)Bianca's Atk Up now grants +30% damage instead of 20. 3)Battle tweaks from beta 12.4a to Release version 1.00 a)1st battle: now has 1 less Pirate Ironhog and 1 Pirate Destroyer and is very much simplified. b)Cera Gunboats no longer purchasable for 2nd battle c)2nd battle: No order available for first two turns
Will update as I go along. Might take a while though.
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Post by Drath on Mar 5, 2016 20:40:22 GMT -8
ZOMG, it's Graph!!! Damn, I've missed you! /Drath glomps Graph inappropriately. So very glad you're back! You're the best thing that happened in the last few days! And I mean that quite seriously xD Ladies and Gentlemen, the one and only Graph!! Our resident strategist/ Youtube playthrough man! and Artist as well!! Now back with a new exciting series !! Carrier has arrived!!!!!Sorry for hijacking the thread but I couldn't help myself. xD And yes there's some wonkiness with the screenshot tool. And yes, I also still use printscreen and paste into Paint as before for now.
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Post by Drath on Mar 5, 2016 20:28:17 GMT -8
Today as I was going to work, trying not to think too much about things, I saw the following graffiti scrawled onto a wall There once was a man from San Diego who wrote of a character called Kayto he got us all stoked and then [censored] off the bloke which made us all here go LOCO! True story... maybe
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Post by Drath on Mar 5, 2016 3:12:46 GMT -8
Drath: not the hero we deserve but the hero we need! One and a half years ago, a dev took time out from his busy schedule to write a piece for me, to get me into beta testing. Certainly not what I deserved either, but I did need it and was very happy to get it. He gave me one of the best turn based experiences since HoMM and for that he will always be a hero in my eyes. So yea thank you for the kind words, but to be honest, Drath is currently in a very dark place emotionally after seeing the ending (no he hasn't finished SW from scratch, but he loaded up a 12.4a save to take a peek... he couldn't resist after seeing all the horror stories >_<). Yes I know it's just a game and I shouldn't get emotional, but it's been 2 years that we've shared together, throughout the early betas till now. It's hard to not get at least a little emotionally involved with the game, game characters and of course the people in the community, devs and fans alike. I did say I was always a sucker for happy endings before so yea I will leave it at that. Kindly grant me a day to reflect on things and get back to my normal self, as I'm no use to anyone anyway in this state and I don't want to say dumb things that I will regret later. There will be no further promotion from me until Sam clarifies his stand on Magpie's thread. It's ok he can take his time. I'm sure he's completely exhausted after pulling 2 all nighters and I totally salute his dedication in doing last minute polishing. Let him write when he's well rested and has organized his thoughts properly. I'm patient. Right now I'm almost scared to say anything anywhere anymore and will be treading VERY VERY carefully.
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Post by Drath on Mar 4, 2016 10:12:40 GMT -8
No worries, Nando's is good stuff. At least I know I lost out to a worthy foe Have a good time I'll probably nap a couple of hours in that case, else I'll be a zombie for launch later.
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Post by Drath on Mar 4, 2016 9:59:34 GMT -8
No takers yet. Ol' Drath is feeling lonely tonight Sign up for some hot chat! xD Or he will have to resign himself to going to bed all lonesome, in an hour's time
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Post by Drath on Mar 4, 2016 8:37:34 GMT -8
Time to hire you as a publicist I think! Too bad, I only work for free and I only do it for the deserving ones xD Stupid mentality I know but I never claimed to be bright Btw, our modding section here is still looking quite bare. I think everyone is waiting for our main modder (YOU!! ) to take the lead so that others would get enough courage to follow P/S - Welcome to the new forums
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Post by Drath on Mar 4, 2016 1:49:25 GMT -8
Hey ho Developers, after liberation day are you planning to continue on sunrider series? Or is it a secret? If yes then please add multiplayer. I know on renpy is not possible to make that, but what about others creation tools? xd Multiplayer not possible on renpy? Ahem, Drath points to a particular thread back on the old forums As for after Sunrider? Uhm we had an old thread on that too Not sure what tools you are looking for (I think you were referring more to tools for making multiplayer, which I think we can probably manage a simple one for hotseat). As for tools for mods, there are already some mods back on the old forum, mostly for MoA but Histidine has made one for Liberation Day
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Post by Drath on Mar 4, 2016 0:11:03 GMT -8
Marx-93 On UI:
I also prefer the old upgrade UI in MoA. The table for future upgrades made things clearer and easier to plan. Now it's just clicking back and forth till the values are to your liking. But as mentioned in my other threads, I'm not big on UI issues. Whatever works is fine with me and having played for so long, no functioning UI should be difficult for the old gang of beta testers to navigate/interpret. I'm just concerned on how well it will be received by new players. On enemy missile units being less threatening:
Yea agreed on missiles feeling less dangerous these days with all the Cera Gunboats helping on flak. Quite a few missions also feature Alliance units (like Battleships and Carriers) which again help considerably on flak. On Suppressive Fire:
On this special skill, I don't really use it that much either. It's basically a trade off between 2 assaults for higher accuracy on kinetics. If I have other units ready to do finishing attacks on enemy units and the kinetic accuracy isn't ideal, I opt for Suppressive Fire. If kinetic accuracy on targets are already good (say 85%+), and there's a lack of other Gunboats in range to deal finishers, I usually opt for having 2 additional assaults. On Ryuvian Falcons:I don't mind making Ryuvian Falcons a little more expensive. It's somewhat of an advanced or elite unit and we have too much Funds anyway. On money and CP being too much:
My suggestion here remains reduce Funds gain by 50%, which even then means we're essentially gaining resources at 1.5x the rate in MoA (current total resources gain is 2x that of MoA). On repairs based on total damage, consumables and general balance:
Repairs are currently damage taken/2 and are directly deducted from Funds gained. So if by not using a rocket leads to incurring more than an extra 600 damage, you are better off in terms of Funds by just using said rocket and buying back the rocket later. For really dangerous opponents like Nightmares on higher difficulties, I could see this happening. Their laser hits for 400+ even with partial shielding on SW. If you expose yourself to more than lasers, you're in for a world of pain. In the past losing ryders was not a big deal as you always had Resurrection which was cheap back then and CP was aplenty. Whereas people used to fret about using merc units as they were scared to lose money if they got destroyed. No idea how their games go but I seriously disagree on gambling with their fate by deliberately putting them in precarious positions. They're mercs lol not sacrificial lambs. With repairs being based on total damage incurred: Losing a Cera Gunboat (400hp) costs 750 Funds. Losing a ryder with 400hps costs 600 Funds Losing a Union Frigate (475hp) costs 750 Funds. Losing a ryder with 475hps costs 712.5 Funds Losing an Alliance Cruiser (1200hp) costs 2000 Funds. Losing a ryder with 1200hps costs 1800 Funds. In other words, now losing either mercs or ryders is equally painful/not terribly different in terms of Funds lost under the new system and is a good step forward in terms of balance! In-game reason put forth by Vaen some time ago on dry dock repairs over Liberty repairs makes good sense as well. So yes, repairs based on total damage is an excellent step forward, preventing players from gaming the system by leaving 1 unit alive to have 0 repairs, equalizing penalties for unit loss and damage between ryders/mercs and reducing the excess of Funds we currently have (it is STILL not enough to completely address this last issue though IMHO). On having the same setup for packed formations for flak/shields and not needing to change tactics for the whole game: **cough Stealthed enemy units, snipers and Prototype Dreadnaught cough** Implementation (all credits to Bigfoot, our modding genius xD) On making Rockets and other store items more expensive to purchase:
I prefer cutting Funds gain by half rather than increasing costs for each store item individually, but I guess this could work too.
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Post by Drath on Mar 3, 2016 23:00:17 GMT -8
Lol well it's kind of a relic from my WoW playing years as we used it for raids. Yes I know some people prefer Teamspeak or Mumble or even Skype. Dunno, I guess I'm old fashioned Look forward to seeing you there xD P/S - On skiving the work social, just say you have a bit of a headache and would prefer to rest (tension headaches, migraines aren't that uncommon )
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Post by Drath on Mar 3, 2016 22:47:27 GMT -8
Will be online on Ventrilo for voice chats till launch (minus dinner, sleep and bio breaks that is ) Get a headset (if you don't have one yet), download Ventrilo and join me at: Drath's corner IP: thorium.typefrag.com Port: 9200 pw: libday
Please use your regular forum handle or Steam handle for easier identification.
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Post by Drath on Mar 3, 2016 15:27:57 GMT -8
Well I did say I'd try to flesh out the upgrades part of wiki, but the format is rather wonky and I'm not sure if it's understandable for others. Anyway here it is: Curiously, now Blackjack/Paladin/Seraphim gain armor more easily than Sunrider... doesn't really make too much sense to me but then who upgrades armor anyway right... so it should be a moot point
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Post by Drath on Mar 3, 2016 15:13:35 GMT -8
Googled for internet hype and apart from Siliconera.com and Hardcoregamer.com, I don't see Liberation Day getting much mention at all. Seeing as the devs are probably still busy with last minute fixes and getting launch ready... on top of fixing the forums (lol such a bad time for this to happen), I've gone ahead and put Liberation Day posts on: 1) Steam group for Turn Based Tactics 2) Facebook group for Turn based Tactics/Strategy 3) a review request for MoA and also hopefully Liberation Day later to Spacesector 4)and a review request to RPGcodex I leave the hyping on: Fuwanovel VNDB Lemmasoft forums Reddit also probably steamcommunity.com/groups/Visual_Novels to the more capable hands of our devs and/or VN savvy members. You don't want somebody who might get shot on sight to go to those places Would also be good to put up some news on Japanese VN sites as the devs have gone to quite a bit of trouble to get full Japanese voiceacting done. So I'm hoping it pays off. Me no speak Japanese, so that's about as far as I will go on the matter xD I'm open to further suggestions on where to put up notice on Liberation Day but personally I'm only tackling sites which involve turn based tactics.
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Post by Drath on Mar 2, 2016 7:46:25 GMT -8
Noting Steamspy figures for owners and players for existing games right before Liberation Day launch: Sunrider: Mask of ArcadiusOwners: 434,685 ± 15,523 Players total: 127,771 ± 8,420 (29.39%) Sunrider Academy (which by the way is having a hefty discount at the moment) Owners: 23,866 ± 3,640 Players total: 20,083 ± 3,339 (84.15%) So uhm wanna make bets on how sales and activity (owners and players) for Liberation Day will look like in 1 month's time, 2 month's time, etc? (It's not accurate for 2 weeks post launch, so early data could be skewed or wrong) Let's hear some predictions perhaps based on MoA and SA figures. Also I say the devs should promise us something if they hit certain sales figures... you know like making a free voice over mod (I mean you should see the hoo-ha on Steam forums over English voices not being there anymore), not that I'm forcing them or anything like that of course ...totally no coercion here Lately I've found this article from them quite interesting (especially the part on things to watch for when watching others play) and thought I'd share as perhaps others might find it intriguing as well. Old thread on MoA/SA sales at Hyperspace forums for comparison of sales figures about 1 year ago. Gamer profile ( how it was developed, what it does) and the tool itself. Here's a recent article from them looking at strategy games and age, based on their data from the profiles... Their conclusion was the interest is relatively stable for strategy games and doesn't fluctuate much with age. Well d'uh they didn't need to tell me that... I've been playing TBS for years so I know how it is Hopefully next time they'll tell me something I don't know Here's another article looking at strategy games, "Easy fun" and "Hard fun".... makes me wonder where Sunrider falls if plotted on those graphs (say Excitement vs Strategy xD). I don't necessarily endorse their views (and I'd like to think I know what's fun for me ) but it's nice to consider other views, especially if you think such a viewpoint makes good sense to a sizable audience and could lead to better sales if taken into consideration. Old thread on Gamer motivation profile at Hyperspace forumsAnyhow this is me wishing the devs a successful Liberation Day launch and many sales ahead. Hope the articles above are able to provide some very limited help/insight for you guys and if not, well hope they gave you a good laugh at least
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Post by Drath on Mar 2, 2016 5:53:30 GMT -8
Time for some last minute polish work on the script. As of beta 12.4a, the following typos/grammar issues have not yet been addressed. Fixes taken from lists by truebeliever and montagohalcyon. All credit to them Added script.rpy numbers for quick searching. 747 "What do you what?" to "What do you want?"
921 "on the floor of the bridge!" to "on the bridge"
1208 "would cease be a man" to "would cease to be a man"
1427 "and bond then" to "and bond them"
1452 "remain to dry dock" to "remain in dry dock"
1467 "He leaned in to Chigara's ears" to "He leaned toward Chigara."
1550 "warrant a court marshal." to "warrant a court martial."
1554 "C-court marshal..." to "C-court martial..."
1600 "all of this is all top secret information." to "all of this is top secret information."
1609 "which whither away" to "which withers away"
1648 "isn't it." to "isn't it?"
1751 "Rememberence Day." to "Remembrance Day."
1842 "high tailed it back" to "hightailed it back"
1936 "over sized" to "oversized"
1964 "solder boy's" to "soldier boy's"
2112 "tenant of the Treaty of Vespa." to "is the central tenet of the Treaty of Vespa."
2871 "prescript some remedies" to "prescribe some remedies"
2889 "Claude offered to Shields" to "Claude offered Shields"
2936 "Asaga lied awake" to "Asaga lay awake"
3096 "on route to Cera" to "en route to Cera"
3116 "occuring" to "occurring"
3140 "Last week, PACT has docked" to "Last week, PACT docked"
3142 "arranged an Alliance fleet" to "arranged for an Alliance fleet"
3144 "Union made missiles" to "Union-made missiles"
3162 "cause enough of mess" to "cause enough of a mess"
3398 "a squad sank during" to "a squad sunk during"
3400 "a old battle site." to "an old battle site."
3406 "we scavage the battle site" to "we scavenge the battle site"
3619 "Nothing will going to stand" to "Nothing will stand"
3769 "not want I want" to "not what I want"
3855 "Acadius" to "Arcadius"
3946 "on his lap on at his bureau." to "on his lap at his bureau."
3961 "can be annoying as hell, and honestly, she talks way too much..." to "could be annoying as hell, and honestly she talked way too much..."
4162 "Out numbered. Out powered." to "Outnumbered. Outpowered."
4530 "Shields patted Chigara on head." to "Shields patted Chigara's head."
4822 "Chigara lied beside Shields" to "Chigara lay beside Shields"
5098 "brain washed" to "brainwashed"
5143 "back up plan" to "backup plan"
5193 "prototype's neural link" to "prototypes' neural link"
5622 "the would be savior" to "the would-be savior"
5623 "We allowed your free reign" to "We allowed you free rein"
5924 "Pathethic!" to "Pathetic!"
5979 "single handedly" to "single-handedly"
5986 "long dead" to "long-dead"
5998 "it can be fallen by the same." to "it can be felled by the same"
6048 "laughstocks" to "laughingstocks"
6441 "on foreign lands." to "in foreign lands."
6504 "W-who the hell do I think I am..." to "W-who the hell do you think I am...
6628 "held hands" to "shook hands"
6706 "must also commemorate" to "we must also commemorate"
6719 "Shields stood to his feet." to "Shields rose to his feet."
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Post by Drath on Mar 2, 2016 0:40:20 GMT -8
Samu-kun vaendrylI've enjoyed playing through missions 7, 8 and 9 on v12.4a and do feel that they are all nicely scripted. Mission 8 feels a little short, but it's ok to have a breather from time to time. Here are some further thoughts on various game aspects. General balance for Intel upgrades As before I remain quite happy with how things are with this section. Generally if you have been focussing primarily on offensive upgrades, you should be running out of good options towards the end of the game and are not going to get something unbalancing like an Octapulse or higher Sunrider, without very heavily sacrificing all other offensive means, which would defeat the purpose of upgrading that far.
Pulse still looks good for Sunrider and Blackjack but no longer with the extreme margin it had in v7.2 MoA. Also you get enough enemies with shielding and armor (ie Assault Carriers now have 2800hps, 40 armor and are no longer an ideal target for pulse) that good use of it still requires some thought and calculation. Lasers remain one of the go to weapons against high evasion units which are placed at range.
Kinetics still occupy a strong role in initial damage and getting armor low enough for other attack options to be effective. This is further boosted midgame by having more kinetic capable ships in Ryuvian Falcons (4 extra strong kinetics per turn is nothing to be trifled at).
Missiles are back in strong form in Liberation Day, with a few cost reduction upgrades sometimes contributing greatly to turn 1 burst damage.
So yea, in terms of offensive options, upgrades for these are well balanced and the units themselves well designed! Now if only there were enemy units that forced you upgrade defensively xD
Final boss (further thoughts) As noted previously, the boss only meleed Phoenix in turn 2 during my play and did not use BossRocket as per library.rpy, which would have been quite damaging. Furthermore it totally froze in turn 3 when surrounded by Cera Gunboats and did nothing. It has some pretty mean abilities like BossLaser after it awakens. Some additional testing is probably warranted here. All help/suggestions to help improve/fix the AI is heartily welcome.
Vanguard Cannon The original VGC was 800 damage for 6 hexes, which could be further augmented to 1000 damage for 7 hexes. Let's assume we take the augmented version as baseline, 1000 damage for 2500CP, the new VGC in Liberation Day is more efficient CP-wise and stronger (2000 damage for 4000CP). Couple this with unlimited range and you further extend the lead that the new VGC has. Being able to deal more than twice the expected damage CP wise is also incredible in terms of burst damage.
This was not so evident before as we were capped at 4000CP, so essentially the CP cap made it difficult to use SRW to reposition Sunrider for optimal kills. But now that we have a store item that increases it to 5000CP, VGC damage should be seriously reevaluated. 1600 damage for 4000CP would only bring it back to parity with the old damage/CP VGC ratio. Factoring in beam extension is situational, as is factoring in the impact of greater burst damage. 1500 damage for 4000CP would hardly be amiss though broadly speaking, as increasing the number of targets is not difficult when you have multiple applications of Gravity Gun (Bianca, Union Battleships). Vanguard Spread Field throws balance even further out of whack, increasing effective VGC damage by 1.5-2.0X in some cases. Yes the Funds required to get it are high, but quite achievable after mission 3. That still leaves 6 missions open to VGC domination.
Funds (final call) My original suggestion was to have Funds pared down to 20% of the current value. With Repairs tied to total damage instead of end of battle hps, perhaps 20% is too harsh and it could be raised to 50% of enemy destruction reward (instead of 100% as it is now with repair cost reduction). Then the choice would be meaningful. Do you want all additional mercenary ships? Or MIRV and Summon Alliance Battleship? Or Vanguard Spread Field? As Histidine as stated above, you can still buy everything in the store with current Funds and that's really too much. There is no longer any choice on the part of the player. Just get everything regardless of usefulness/importance.
Some figures for endgame balancing purposes: Current total enemy destruction reward (missions 1-8): 82k Assuming 12k (which is quite a lot, as half of that is possible with careful play) spent in repairs, that still leaves 70k, which is really very much in excess. I propose a Funds gain of 50% of enemy destruction reward as stated above, which would come up to 41-42k and leave the player with roughly 30k after repairs. The starting sum of 13000 Funds is more than enough to cover the old merc ships (2 Alliance Cruisers, 3 Union Frigates) in addition to the 4 new Cera Gunboats and the Gravitino Generator, Portable Repair Booster. 30k doesn't cover Vanguard Spread Field, Quantum Torpedo License, MIRV Torpedo License, Extended Torpedo Storage, Summon Alliance Battleship amongst the more major items, so some decision needs to be made as to what to go for.
Multiple Orders per turn This allows CP to be spent more freely and the main abuse of it in terms of Summon Battleship spam has been curbed. Still I just want to state that the game remains quite playable with 1 order per turn (with SRW being the exception) as before in MoA. Having multiple orders simplifies gameplay decisions considerably. Have Sunrider well protected and Vanguard early on to attract aggro and you can repair to full easily with Liberty and Repair Drones. As noted previously, FF+AG in crucial turns maximizes damage output while also minimizing damage taken.
No penalty on downgrades I've kinda made peace with this one as in I tolerate it being there, but won't use it. I suppose if attack options are balanced enough it should not matter too much and encouraging experimentation is probably not a bad idea.
Concluding thoughts and suggestions: Battles in Liberation Day remain as fun as they were before in FA and MoA but the scope feels more epic as you now have a very sizable fleet accompanying Sunrider. However, despite being the final part of the trilogy, in terms of difficulty the battles here really aren't more difficult than their FA/MoA counterparts. There are no escort missions with massive reinforcements. Or missions with different objectives (ie kiting an enemy, destroying a particular structure that gives invulnerability to enemy units, taking a base within a given amount of turns, etc). In some battles, the challenge can be trivialized by using overpowered store items (ie Marx's 1 turn kill of all Ryuvian units). Suggest reducing Funds, consider lowering VGC damage as balance tweaks and have another look at Nightmare Ascendant AI
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Post by Drath on Mar 1, 2016 16:05:54 GMT -8
I'm not really sure if this is a bug or is intended design, but I've found that: Blackjack gets a 15% increase in accuracy and a 20% increase in damage in base stats to all weapons, when viewed from Upgrade page. This occurs after Mission 7. Originally I figured this might have been intended, since she went berzerk and that might have transformed her somewhat. I upgraded her accordingly as she now had higher base damage. However after Mission 8, it seems the 15% increase in accuracy and a 20% increase in damage was taken away and she was back to her regular set of stats. A quick confirmation would be nice on whether the boost is truly intended for Mission 8 only or is a bug and the boost was not supposed to be there at all. I can't find sufficient in-game justification to be sure of it being either case.
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Post by Drath on Mar 1, 2016 15:56:47 GMT -8
I sort of wish there was more testing time to be honest but then again I guess that is partly my fault for not joining the team until beta 11. *Awkward foot shuffle. I'm just glad you DID join. We'd have missed a ton of things in this beta otherwise. If I only kept looking at what we've lost and who we have lost/or didn't join/or strayed away throughout these 2 years (First Arrival being released in July 2014), I'd be a very sad panda lol. I like to think that we have pinned down the majority of issues in this version but I have a nagging feeling that there are still interactions undiscovered or that might be created as a result of version 12.5. In my mind there have been enough flags in beta 12 that there should really be at least one more beta just to iron out and confirm that the testers cannot confirm anymore bugs and therefore efforts can be focused on optimising. With the release literally just around the corner though all we can really do now is as much late minute flagging as possible and hope that Vaendryl has enough caffeine to get him through a few more nights of work. Yea I pretty much feel the same, and yes we'll just do what we can for now. Ideally I would have wanted a little more content, maybe a couple of more battles (yes I know I'm greedy but this is a commercial release and people tend to expect more) and all major plotlines fairly well tied up. Also all promises made on Kickstarter fulfilled or coded as close as possible.
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Post by Drath on Mar 1, 2016 15:32:31 GMT -8
Sorry for the late reply, Histidine . My thoughts on the issues you've raised: Gameplay: Funds I had 51+k playing on 12.4a (repair costs now based on damage taken) before the last battle. Decided to get Vanguard Spread Field and the whole rocket package (Quantum Torpedo License, Expanded Torpedo storage, MIRV torpedoes), so that left me with 19k or so. Didn't really bother with the rest. I think having Vanguard Spread Field already trivializes any battle.
Final boss I also liked the debuff resistance and of course being immune to Liberty's Disable (would otherwise have been totally trivial). I didn't experience a AoE laser attack. I opened with Vanguard Cannon and after all my units fired, all that was left was the boss and a flier.
1st turn: it shot Sunrider twice from far. Didn't move. At 70% shielding, its lasers don't really do that much damage. 2nd turn: it meleed and killed Phoenix (for being too near I guess despite Stealth). Should have gotten the Union Battleship to pull Phoenix away a bit. 3rd turn: it actually did nothing (melee AI acting up? Couldn't find a spot to hit Sunrider?) It didn't get a 4th turn as it was quite dead by then.
I also agree that having PACT destroyers in the sub-15000 hp reinforcement wave is probably going to cause some rage. I'd rather not take it out to preserve difficulty, but a warning that the boss's troops are waiting in the wings at 16k hps would be good.
The Research and Store screens were no longer available after the boss battle so I'm thinking this really is the end? (at least for battles)
Vanguard AoE I still think the final battle is doable without it, but using it early trivializes the initial bunch of enemies. And yes, flier drones will require quite a bit offense devoted to them otherwise as they have insane evasion.
Mercs Union Battleship is now patched to only be available after mission 5. Cera Gunboats have always been available since mission 2 and there's no in-game code to indicate that the devs think otherwise. I take it that the remnants of Cera's forces decided to join up with Sunrider after the victory against Legion. For greater glory and freedom for Cera! Story: Claude I giggled as well at her scene. Well I wouldn't wish her dead but if some pilot had to die to service the plot, in terms of gameplay, I think she would be the least missed. She's mostly either a Gravity Gun bot or a Atk Up buffer these days. The Gravity Gun part is now covered by the Union Battleship. Loss of Atk Up is just damage.
Also there is time still to retrieve any Intel invested in Bianca before she gets shot. I didn't do it though. Didn't feel quite right to me. Lost 1.4k, not a big deal.
Bug? Yea the Lynn part kinda confused me as well. Might have to go back and see if I can make any sense of it.
Wishall Well it would be nice to see more uses for it. That being said, allowing the player to tick a box and get it for free at the start of the game is rather cheap. I assumed I was continuing my SW MoA run and had already sold it.
Cosette I have a sinking feeling this is NOT the end and we're going to have more Sunrider. I'm fine with more episodes, but I think this one should have at least a feel of completeness to it. Right now's there just too many loose ends like Cosette, the Ebon fleet, the Alpha...
Ending I was quite shocked as well. There is definitely more story here. I think Ava after reading Claude's holo will hurry to the rescue or discover something that might partially salvage the situation.
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