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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 7:00:08 GMT -8
Well, for what matters, we're working hard to fix the most glaring issues. 1) Yes, I agree that the ending rubbed people the wrong way, which is why we're all working overtime to create what was planned as the beginning of the fourth installment to add into the game for free. 2) Yes, MoA voices certainly can be added to the game and Vaendryl planned to code this in eventually after the release anyways, we just had too many other things to do. We are adding them back. 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. 1) I know it'll sound rude... but I don't think that'll really fix much. I mean... you gave a 'To Be Continued', so most people already know that, in spite of how it looked, there was going to be more after this point. Taking part of the intro for the next game, breaking it off and sticking it at the end of LD might just make people more sore. 2 ) In hindsight... maybe you should have had full VA's be implemented well after the release. Like what Fate/Stay Night did in first getting a story made, THEN creating and implementing a speech pack (or I think that's what they did, right? At least as far as Fate/Hollow Ataraxia goes). At least then, nobody could say it was the cost of VA's that caused an upset. 3) Thing is... what's available right now might have been a bit more passable had there been more variation to it. Maybe having Kayto commit to anyone at this stage was actually just too early. And I actually seem to recall you saying that ensuring you had all the time to do all of this was precisely why you weren't going to rush development and instead did "when it's ready" taglines. My own suggestion on how it could have been avoided... well, make Liberation Day episodic, like a small-scale version of Telltale Game's template. That way you wouldn't have needed to do "hundreds" of mecha CG's and everything else all at once. And if you need writers to help with this, I should point out that you have no shortage of willing members - hell, after all the work I've done on the Wiki I'd be more then willing to contribute suggestions, if nothing else. |
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Post by vaendryl on Mar 9, 2016 7:47:32 GMT -8
I think you didn't receive feedback on the story because (A) there wasn't much story at the time to give feedback on, and (B) people kinda expected it to at least match the depth of the past games. They didn't think/know this was something to worry about. Speaking as a layman, but I don't see how you COULDN'T have seen concerns with having Kayto & Chigara get railroaded together.
IDK if you remember... but Chigara was once winning the popularity contests (She'd either be no.1 in or tie with Ava and Sola) - But do you remember when that stopped? When she got less popular?
It was when it became obvious that there wasn't likely going to be much choice in her being the Romance Interest.
And if what you're saying is true... I'm sorry, but that almost makes it WORSE - like you gutted romance development in this game for something so arbitrary. What happened in LD could have been done without making it a Chigara romance - with the exception of the sex-scenes and obvious flirting, a lot of those scenes could have worked for a brother-sister bond instead of romance, and Asaga's jealousy could still have worked because of disbelieving any claims it wasn't what she thought. And there's another problem - you're trying to pin the failing for this on the beta testers!!! A Beta typically deals with GAMEPLAY MECHANICS, not story stuff - if you wanted that reviewed, you tend to have to SPECIFY that, because the primary purpose of a beta is typically to iron out gameplay bugs instead of story ones. Plus, people thought LD was going to be much longer - not that what they saw in the beta was going to be 50% - 70% of the whole thing. I don't think Sam is trying to pin the blame on anyone, just offer a possible cause of why overall direction of the game veered away from general fan expectation. that said, I've seen some of the new post-ending content of V2.0 and I highly recommend giving that a chance when it comes out. |
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 9, 2016 8:37:15 GMT -8
I think you didn't receive feedback on the story because (A) there wasn't much story at the time to give feedback on, and (B) people kinda expected it to at least match the depth of the past games. They didn't think/know this was something to worry about.
Speaking as a layman, but I don't see how you COULDN'T have seen concerns with having Kayto & Chigara get railroaded together.
IDK if you remember... but Chigara was once winning the popularity contests (She'd either be no.1 in or tie with Ava and Sola) - But do you remember when that stopped? When she got less popular?
It was when it became obvious that there wasn't likely going to be much choice in her being the Romance Interest.
And if what you're saying is true... I'm sorry, but that almost makes it WORSE - like you gutted romance development in this game for something so arbitrary. What happened in LD could have been done without making it a Chigara romance - with the exception of the sex-scenes and obvious flirting, a lot of those scenes could have worked for a brother-sister bond instead of romance, and Asaga's jealousy could still have worked because of disbelieving any claims it wasn't what she thought.
And there's another problem - you're trying to pin the failing for this on the beta testers!!! A Beta typically deals with GAMEPLAY MECHANICS, not story stuff - if you wanted that reviewed, you tend to have to SPECIFY that, because the primary purpose of a beta is typically to iron out gameplay bugs instead of story ones. Plus, people thought LD was going to be much longer - not that what they saw in the beta was going to be 50% - 70% of the whole thing. I don't think Sam is trying to pin the blame on anyone, just offer a possible cause of why overall direction of the game veered away from general fan expectation. that said, I've seen some of the new post-ending content of V2.0 and I highly recommend giving that a chance when it comes out. Forgive my skepticism, but I would in turn highly recommend looking at the many reviews - the ending was not the real problem. It would have been perfectly acceptable had the mid-game content been done better - unless that changes, I feel no amount of post-ending content is going to rectify ANYTHING, especially not in the long-term. Hell, I actually think it might be tantamount to rubbing salt in the wound. |
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Post by KnightOfXentar on Mar 9, 2016 9:13:43 GMT -8
Forgive my skepticism, but I would in turn highly recommend looking at the many reviews - the ending was not the real problem. It would have been perfectly acceptable had the mid-game content been done better - unless that changes, I feel no amount of post-ending content is going to rectify ANYTHING true that Although "better ending" could help a little. Even though "Extended ending" by no means can be considered to "fix the problem", it is only simple "damage control"  and for the future: don't release game too early. Even though deadlines are important things, its better to be late than to release disaster. (just look on Witcher 3 - a year and half later than intended, but definitely best game last year. That delay was worth it.) 1) I know it'll sound rude... but I don't think that'll really fix much. I mean... you gave a 'To Be Continued', so most people already know that, in spite of how it looked, there was going to be more after this point. Taking part of the intro for the next game, breaking it off and sticking it at the end of LD might just make people more sore. 2 ) In hindsight... maybe you should have had full VA's be implemented well after the release. Like what Fate/Stay Night did in first getting a story made, THEN creating and implementing a speech pack (or I think that's what they did, right? At least as far as Fate/Hollow Ataraxia goes). At least then, nobody could say it was the cost of VA's that caused an upset. 3) Thing is... what's available right now might have been a bit more passable had there been more variation to it. Maybe having Kayto commit to anyone at this stage was actually just too early. And I actually seem to recall you saying that ensuring you had all the time to do all of this was precisely why you weren't going to rush development and instead did "when it's ready" taglines. Voice acting: Blaming VA is very irrational and people shouldnt focus on it that much. Problem is that, original First Arival and Mask of Arcadius were "western" games with english voices, so it atracted a lot of "western" players without any experience with japanese games. Obviously sudden change to " japanese gibberish" will feel unnatural to them. But people can get used to it in the end (we all started somehow). For now just stick with "optional" english battle voices. Story and romance: I think adding some romance at this point was necessary step. Motto of LiS on patreon is literally " Love in Space is creating Visual Novels" and lot of players expect some romance. That's one of the reasons majority of players don't feel like waiting 2-4 years for episode 5-6 where they finally could romance somebody (just read some comments on steam). Majority of players don't even know LiS was planning to make so many episodes |
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Post by worstwaifu on Mar 9, 2016 9:16:18 GMT -8
I think the romance issue takes a least a minor side issue to the fact that Love in Space (thus far) seems to cleave too far away from the VN side of things. I'm not saying having a game there is a bad thing, but I think when the cut gets made, the last two Sunrider games have come down too far away from a story focus.
Personal opinion, of course.
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Post by KnightOfXentar on Mar 9, 2016 9:39:53 GMT -8
I think the romance issue takes a least a minor side issue to the fact that Love in Space (thus far) seems to cleave too far away from the VN side of things. I'm not saying having a game there is a bad thing, but I think when the cut gets made, the last two Sunrider games have come down too far away from a story focus. Personal opinion, of course. and "Last 2 games came too far away from story focus?"WHHAAAAT??? People loved story in Mask of Arcadius (and First Arrival). Majority of players specifically complained about lacklustre story (linear plot, stupidly forced rushed romance, no choices, ...) So that pretty much sums it up, it's trully your personal opinion. But thanks for sharing regardless. |
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Post by worstwaifu on Mar 9, 2016 9:45:49 GMT -8
You misunderstand me (I seem to have misstated my point). I didn't say the story was bad, I think they didn't include enough story. I know authors are often paid by the word and then voice actors are paid based on dialogue that then needs to be voiced (except for Kayto, anyway), but my bias tends to favor more words and exposition over less.
I liked the story in Sunrider 1 and Academy, but I feel like Academy and Liberation Day both skimped on writing.
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Post by KnightOfXentar on Mar 9, 2016 9:51:06 GMT -8
You misunderstand me (I seem to have misstated my point). I didn't say the story was bad, I think they didn't include enough story. I know authors are often paid by the word and then voice actors are paid based on dialogue that then needs to be voiced (except for Kayto, anyway), but my bias tends to favor more words and exposition over less. I liked the story in Sunrider 1 and Academy, but I feel like Academy and Liberation Day both skimped on writing. oh sorry for misunderstanding. You explained it in misleading way and I assumed you were "okay" with less story, when in fact you were complaining about lack of story  |
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Post by worstwaifu on Mar 9, 2016 9:56:51 GMT -8
No need to apologize. Understanding another person is the point of conversation, after all.
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Post by failkin on Mar 9, 2016 16:26:29 GMT -8
The way samu said he thought there was too much story is just something i cant get over if you took the battles out the story would be about 20m long or less probably a lot less. an extended ending just cant help that much the game was far too short. thats what i see over and over again that it doesnt justify a 25 dollar price tag that at best 5 dollars and im inclined to agree. I want to see this succeed so bad i hope 2.0 at least soothes the beast enough to get to the next part in the series which is hopefully a much longer game
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Post by InquisitorJeeves on Mar 10, 2016 4:22:33 GMT -8
Spoilers for Version 2.0 (Seriously, big spoilers)
Oh I so am pumped for the next Sunrider game now! By the end of all of the new stuff I was grinning from the excitement. Everyone is safe and trying to find a way to strike back. Claude confirmed to be a time travelling dirtbag (If there is an option for punching her in the face next game I'm going to take it). PACT has a new character leading its fleets who's pretty attractive who I'm looking forward to facing in a fight. This ending is much more hopeful than the last one (and still provides that feeling of 'lets do this' that an ending with something coming after it should have).
Bring on the Reapers Ebon Fleet! I can't wait to see where this story goes next.
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Post by solstices on Mar 10, 2016 4:27:21 GMT -8
Spoilers for Version 2.0 (Seriously, big spoilers)
Oh I so am pumped for the next Sunrider game now! By the end of all of the new stuff I was grinning from the excitement. Everyone is safe and trying to find a way to strike back. Claude confirmed to be a time travelling dirtbag (If there is an option for punching her in the face next game I'm going to take it). PACT has a new character leading its fleets who's pretty attractive who I'm looking forward to facing in a fight. This ending is much more hopeful than the last one (and still provides that feeling of 'lets do this' that an ending with something coming after it should have).
Bring on the Reapers Ebon Fleet! I can't wait to see where this story goes next.
Seriously hyped. That was great, and was a surprisingly large amount of story to add. Punching a god might not be a great idea...
Lot of theories got proven today lads, good stuff
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Post by InquisitorJeeves on Mar 10, 2016 4:33:29 GMT -8
Spoilers for Version 2.0 (Seriously, big spoilers)
Oh I so am pumped for the next Sunrider game now! By the end of all of the new stuff I was grinning from the excitement. Everyone is safe and trying to find a way to strike back. Claude confirmed to be a time travelling dirtbag (If there is an option for punching her in the face next game I'm going to take it). PACT has a new character leading its fleets who's pretty attractive who I'm looking forward to facing in a fight. This ending is much more hopeful than the last one (and still provides that feeling of 'lets do this' that an ending with something coming after it should have).
Bring on the Reapers Ebon Fleet! I can't wait to see where this story goes next.
Seriously hyped. That was great, and was a surprisingly large amount of story to add. Punching a god might not be a great idea...
Lot of theories got proven today lads, good stuff
Her being a god only makes me want to do it more. It's not often I get a chance to deck a god in the face  |
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Post by eider on Mar 10, 2016 4:43:53 GMT -8
Well, good job in v2.0 Samu-kun - you managed to fix all the issues i had with story part of LD and actually explained a few things sooner than i expected while managing to still keep me hyped for more. You're getting seal of approval for me. (just a little sad it had to be done in v2.0 - lots of sales lost, but i guess you'll learn from it like from any other experience and improve upon) |
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 10, 2016 5:06:51 GMT -8
2.0 is pretty great, to the point I don't understand why some stuff wasn't simply put in the previous ending Like, the conversation between Claude and Alpha just screams to be put as an epilogue, probably before the Crow reveal. It explains the end of the game and hints everyone's survival. It alone would have basically avoided the outcry the ending.
Will do with a bit more polish, but well. Oh, and I called like 95% of what happened. Also, for those wanting more waifu, there was an incredible amount of flirting and 4 choices; none of the choices were really relevant, but it felt like our agency has more or less returned in waifu matters. |
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Post by vaendryl on Mar 10, 2016 6:30:22 GMT -8
[...] none of the choices were really relevant[...] you should check the new save export |
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Post by Histidine on Mar 10, 2016 6:42:23 GMT -8
Woah. Dude. Having already seen the old ending, the way the team is saved in the new one feels awfully convenient. It'd probably have been fine if I'd only ever seen the v2.00 ending, and/or the period of apparent certain death was shorter (cut short Kayto's ending soliloquy a bit maybe).
Not sure how I feel about Claude being a literal god... I mean there's sci-fi precedent for it (Star Trek's Q) but still. It seems like the whole problem with the Crow/Sola time warp would be fixed if she'd actually bother to use even half the full extent of her powers.
Looking forward to rebuilding the fleet with what little resources we can scrape up! Ah, just like the good old days.
...but with Chigara gone (for now), how are we going to upgrade the Sunrider SR-2? Don't tell me we use brainjacked Lynn for that.
What's Kryska thinking?! In any halfway realistic scenario she'd just be "disappeared" (temporarily or permanently) the moment she returns to the Alliance.
Kuushana will be interesting to deal with. I can already tell she won't just be another antagonist... wonder what role she'll play in the big scheme of things? Like, when does the inevitable heel face turn take place? |
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 10, 2016 7:01:38 GMT -8
HistidineI didn't see it as that convenient, though probably because I already expected something like that? It's what comes with pretty much this kind of cliffhangers; I suppose it's the difference between being used to seeing the kind of animes Samu-kun sees and not. On claude, I agree. I personally feel she will take more of an ambivalent approach, being kinda like "if you manage, ok; if you don't I'll just rewrite the world and then we'll party!  ". Probably Sola will be the critical point; I may think she may later offer to solve the conundrum in exchange of returning Sola to her timeline. For the rest, pretty much agree, though I feel that Kushana will be trickier than what it seems (Fontana being like "She's totally not anything strange! But sometimes it feels like she can see the future" doesn't help when we've just introduced 2 time-travelers in the series...)
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Post by worstwaifu on Mar 10, 2016 8:54:43 GMT -8
There's a new-new ending already?
I need to step up my junk and use that scheme the one tactical guy gave me to refinish the game.
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 10:11:29 GMT -8
Woah. Dude. Having already seen the old ending, the way the team is saved in the new one feels awfully convenient. It'd probably have been fine if I'd only ever seen the v2.00 ending, and/or the period of apparent certain death was shorter (cut short Kayto's ending soliloquy a bit maybe).
Not sure how I feel about Claude being a literal god... I mean there's sci-fi precedent for it (Star Trek's Q) but still. It seems like the whole problem with the Crow/Sola time warp would be fixed if she'd actually bother to use even half the full extent of her powers.
Looking forward to rebuilding the fleet with what little resources we can scrape up! Ah, just like the good old days.
...but with Chigara gone (for now), how are we going to upgrade the Sunrider SR-2? Don't tell me we use brainjacked Lynn for that.
What's Kryska thinking?! In any halfway realistic scenario she'd just be "disappeared" (temporarily or permanently) the moment she returns to the Alliance.
Kuushana will be interesting to deal with. I can already tell she won't just be another antagonist... wonder what role she'll play in the big scheme of things? Like, when does the inevitable heel face turn take place? I can't help but agree with you. It feels like an awful lot of handwaving to be done all of a sudden - if we'd had some sort of build-up to a bit of what we'd seen, this wouldn't be as terribly surprising. Again, probably beating a dead horse, but I feel that MID-GAME content would have softened the blow far more then post-game content, because - even if it is good in a stand-alone sense - it feels like rushed damage-control. With the Doctor Who references (playful, coy character who's hinted to be a time traveler and is a doctor - not to mention her chest is more then big enough to hold two hearts ) I kinda expected Claude to be a time-traveler. But... I didn't expect her to be some God-entity - if anything it kinda makes it a plot-hole to have a walking wish-wall like that. Again, mid-game content probably could have salvaged that. Kryska's a bit more understandable though, because she's kinda like Fontana in that sense - she desperately wants to believe her cause is still savable, even if realistically it's beyond hope. Granted, Fontana's position in PACT makes his attempts somewhat more salvageable then Kryska's current one. And while I give applause to there being more character-interaction choices... it feels kinda late for it. Again, just me speaking, but it feels kinda cheep since we were already forced into a romance - had the relationship with Chigara been something we could choose to make platonic or romantic, it would make it easier narrative-wise. As it is, with that being a forced plot-point, it gives me an uncomfortable "why bother - the romance was already locked in a while ago, so why would choice matter now?" feeling. |
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Post by vaendryl on Mar 10, 2016 10:41:31 GMT -8
And while I give applause to there being more character-interaction choices... it feels kinda late for it. Again, just me speaking, but it feels kinda cheep since we were already forced into a romance - had the relationship with Chigara been something we could choose to make platonic or romantic, it would make it easier narrative-wise. As it is, with that being a forced plot-point, it gives me an uncomfortable "why bother - the romance was already locked in a while ago, so why would choice matter now?" feeling. Shield's relationship with Chigara is an important part to the overall story - the impact of which will be felt for a long time. The flashback to when he was intimate with Ava is essentially not that different in concept as the player didn't choose that either. Yes, that was all 'in the past', but so is LibDay now. Basically, the player will choose who Shields will eventually end up with but the plot decides what happens up to that point.
I understand you expected to be able to choose your waifu this game but that is merely caused by miscommunication. |
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 10:55:37 GMT -8
And while I give applause to there being more character-interaction choices... it feels kinda late for it. Again, just me speaking, but it feels kinda cheep since we were already forced into a romance - had the relationship with Chigara been something we could choose to make platonic or romantic, it would make it easier narrative-wise. As it is, with that being a forced plot-point, it gives me an uncomfortable "why bother - the romance was already locked in a while ago, so why would choice matter now?" feeling. Shield's relationship with Chigara is an important part to the overall story - the impact of which will be felt for a long time. The flashback to when he was intimate with Ava is essentially not that different in concept as the player didn't choose that either. Yes, that was all 'in the past', but so is LibDay now. Basically, the player will choose who Shields will eventually end up with but the plot decides what happens up to that point.
I understand you expected to be able to choose your waifu this game but that is merely caused by miscommunication. You could have done that WITHOUT making it a ROMANTIC relationship, though. Remove the love-scene, re-work some of the dialouge and the entire thing works just as well as, if not becomes outright indistinguishable from, a brother-sister bond. And that comment about Ava is, quite honestly, the biggest goddamn strawman argument I've ever seen in my life - with Ava, you could excuse that because that was Shields when he was young, stupid, first learning about love, was from a point in his life well before he had a player-determined mindset AND he's had at least several years to put it (mostly) behind him - not the few short months between LD's current end and it's next chapter. So no, it's not "miscommunication" - it's more like plain bad plot-planning, and the fact that it got decried as much as the ending did ought to have proven that! LibDay obviously isn't in the past because you wouldn't have added 40+ minutes of extra content to it just six days post release if that was the case. Hell, you want to highlight this as a positive - why not endorse each chapter of LD being a chance to lock in a romance with a specific waifu? Part one you can commit to Chigara - abstain and you can commit to someone else in part two - abstain both times and you can commit to someone else in part three. Mass Effect did much the same - you had limited romance options among three people, but it let you pick to be single too and expanded in the second installment to let you pick from new ones that you couldn't before. This literally isn't something that's very hard to rectify - you don't even need to undo there being a relationship between Chigara and Kayto or add in other romances into (this part of) LD; just make the current one capable of being determinate as either platonic or romantic - because few things kill being able to choose a future relationship harder then thinking he's already got a commitment he's cheating on. It's all about choice - and doing it like this, it DOES make it feel like the plot decided who you'll end up with, which is why it was rejected; pretty much nobody likes having their choices taken away. Okay - obligatory rant done. Sorry if I sounded belligerent, but this is something of a trigger-topic for me. |
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Post by ariesbuonarroti on Mar 10, 2016 11:06:16 GMT -8
All I'm saying is, Shields and Sola are going to be stuck together for what, at least a month?
I will be very disappointed if there's no choice to have sex with her.
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Post by grayjack on Mar 10, 2016 12:37:10 GMT -8
This 2.0 business reminds me of Final Fantasy XIV. 1.0 was so bad they shut it down and relaunched it with version 2.0 which ended up saving the game. Still haven't tried LibDay 2.0, but it seems like it helped fix a lot.
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Post by BITE ME UNIVERSE on Mar 10, 2016 15:45:59 GMT -8
*** This post may contain spoilers. I tried to avoid any but some of the things were impossible to. *** I was shocked to discover on release day that people actually skipped most of the gameplay by playing on waifu mode, and breezed through the story in just 3-4 hours. Well, yeah, it's to be expected that the game would be short then, because you essentially took a tactics RPG, skipped all the tactics RPG, and just read the story. It's a pretty stupid reason in hindsight, but this time I think it was just a dumb misunderstanding caused by a bad feedback loop between the developers and the beta testers where the testers talked 80% about the game play, and then the developers thought that people want 80% of the game to be about the battles and figured the story should just be short and to the point so that they can just go back to the battles. It was a pretty costly mistake too because the game flopped, but I think we can survive. I really hope that next time, an entire product doesn't collapse just because of some dumb misunderstanding. You can't expect beta testers feedback to include story when you clearly state that it's in not-finished state and subject to change. There is no way we could've told you that the game is too short in time for you to fix it (say, Beta 5) because by that time we had no idea of how long the story will be. Because of that, everyone just focus on what can be tested - battles. Now that LD is released I can give you some feedback on story: - It's too short. You write "We make games with waifus in them." and "Love in Space is creating Visual novels". It seems obvious that people will look for story. It also seemed a lot shorter than MoA and FA (when i first played them i didn't even notice that MoA is addition) even tho i played both on the same difficulty.
- Forced romance - i don't personally care, but seeing how much resources were put into developing community around waifus in Sunrider it's hardly surprising people reacted like that. You said "Was also not really concerned about ... getting hitched with Chigara ... everyone on the dev team already know ..." - what dev team knows or does not know is not correct way of measuring things - you don't sell your product to dev team.
- Story itself is not realized good enough for me. I expected to get some answers (i played up to Beta 2 or 3) and i got none - instead we have more questions. I imagine most of people are confused as hell about whole Prototype, Diode, Alice and Alpha thing as I was (and partially, still am). Since i'm supporting you on Patreon i got access to the Veniczar novel which explained quite a bit about that part of story - sadly, while i now understand background more and can enjoy story of LD more, most people don't have access to that novel, and even if, you should never expect them to read it because it should be explained in enough details in game itself. While I don't have any issues with unknown things about most of things in Sunrider story (and there were quite a lot of things in MoA and FA), the excessive use of Prototypes in LD story requires some, even basic explanations to be done. I just couldn't enjoy parts of story because it seemed like i skipped something in between that would shed some light at what is happening. In fact, i feel like the whole part about Alice and Alpha meeting was in no consequence for the bigger part of LD story and only confused me (still does, who the hell is Alpha anyway and what's the deal with Prototypes anyway). As summary i can say that sadly it felt like LD carries near to nothing of story that's relevant to bigger image and important for next game.
As for other things: I have no problems with Japanese VA, i like OP and in fact i don't dislike ending that much - I'd imagine most people wouldn't if it wasn't the end of LD or the the story leading to it would be longer.)
As for battles: optimization - that's the only thing i have problem with, and as i wrote on Steam - i don't know about limitations of Ren'Py or how good your code is since i don't have time to examine it, hence i can't speak as fellow programmer to you about it, but just as normal player. Even with your recommended specs, the game is visibly laggy when trying to calculate and display all that shield coverage during battle with Alice. I don't even want to think what that battle would look like on first generation i3 CPU (technically within your specs since you don't specify any model or generation) - i would imagine it being nearly unplayable.
To take time out of my day to address this...it's better this way anyway because I'm extremely busy and currently missing out on things that I want to address and give feedback for. For Samu:Most of the content on the other forum may have discussed the battles but only to debate most of the code issues with it or what to do when having a hard time with the battles. We avoided talking about story publicly (with the exception of the Sunrider Steam Group) because we didn't want to spoil it with anyone. As well, only a few people were posting about the battles. Gorby, TLA, Leda, Akio, WingsofLibertyTwo...that was it really. Most of the steam messages I got from people about Sunrider were about the story content. People were adding me left and right, asking about beta content (for which I told them nothing), or to discuss plot point or thing that happened that they felt wouldn't fit a character's personality. Battles were fine. They were fun, but probably shouldn't have been the core focus of the game (mistake that Titanfall made, a game some people haven't heard since the fir. A 50/50 balance or even 60/40, 40% for battle system would've been ideal for most people on steam. Longer story is more desired than a more elaborate battle system. I personally love chess and this just adds a BUNCH of fun to the game for me. It's hard to find opponents for a chess game though because most people think it's "too complicated" to play the game/don't want to bother learning a game like that. And if they do play chess, most of the time they don't want to spend extra time playing someone who is slower or faster than they are, and are afraid of how long a game CAN take. Not Important but InformativeThere is a slight issue with the forced romance, and that's because of the # of girls but there are MANY games that rob you of a romance choice option so I don't think it's all that bad. I mean, the end result of this forced relationship was yuri between a tsun mercenary and an overconfident up-tight military nut, a sexy nurse who wants nothing but your [censored] and is an easy side girl, a genki who still looks at the bright side of things, and a peaceful moe moe girl who, even if you don't like moe, fits well with the end of the story. In all, it ended pretty well. It would end badly if the forced relationship was with a total bitch who was bossy as fuck. That's when complaints come in... But yeah, the forced relationship was mainly there to progress the story and keep the plot going. If it wasn't that way, and say, it was Asaga he chose, even if the story went the way it currently does, I HIGHLY doubt anyone can justify knocking someone back to their senses just by talking to them after their brain has been taken over. And you can't replace the person whose brain gets taken over because if you replaced it with Asaga you basically have a huge plot hole. Yes, I'm late to this party and idk if he's going to read it or care but that's just something I probably should've mentioned much sooner to him in the waifu wars.... UPDATE/DISCLAIMER:Please note that my opinions and views on the relationship part of this was objective. I threw in some extra stuff that are perks but it has nothing to do with the fact that I am happy with the turnout. Even if it was changed, even if Ava SOMEHOW won, I still wouldn't be bothered by it. Well, maybe that Ava won, but still, it's not like I'd cry for the "pick a waifu" option. |
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Post by SharrOfRyuvia on Mar 10, 2016 19:15:13 GMT -8
*** This post may contain spoilers. I tried to avoid any but some of the things were impossible to. *** You can't expect beta testers feedback to include story when you clearly state that it's in not-finished state and subject to change. There is no way we could've told you that the game is too short in time for you to fix it (say, Beta 5) because by that time we had no idea of how long the story will be. Because of that, everyone just focus on what can be tested - battles. Now that LD is released I can give you some feedback on story: - It's too short. You write "We make games with waifus in them." and "Love in Space is creating Visual novels". It seems obvious that people will look for story. It also seemed a lot shorter than MoA and FA (when i first played them i didn't even notice that MoA is addition) even tho i played both on the same difficulty.
- Forced romance - i don't personally care, but seeing how much resources were put into developing community around waifus in Sunrider it's hardly surprising people reacted like that. You said "Was also not really concerned about ... getting hitched with Chigara ... everyone on the dev team already know ..." - what dev team knows or does not know is not correct way of measuring things - you don't sell your product to dev team.
- Story itself is not realized good enough for me. I expected to get some answers (i played up to Beta 2 or 3) and i got none - instead we have more questions. I imagine most of people are confused as hell about whole Prototype, Diode, Alice and Alpha thing as I was (and partially, still am). Since i'm supporting you on Patreon i got access to the Veniczar novel which explained quite a bit about that part of story - sadly, while i now understand background more and can enjoy story of LD more, most people don't have access to that novel, and even if, you should never expect them to read it because it should be explained in enough details in game itself. While I don't have any issues with unknown things about most of things in Sunrider story (and there were quite a lot of things in MoA and FA), the excessive use of Prototypes in LD story requires some, even basic explanations to be done. I just couldn't enjoy parts of story because it seemed like i skipped something in between that would shed some light at what is happening. In fact, i feel like the whole part about Alice and Alpha meeting was in no consequence for the bigger part of LD story and only confused me (still does, who the hell is Alpha anyway and what's the deal with Prototypes anyway). As summary i can say that sadly it felt like LD carries near to nothing of story that's relevant to bigger image and important for next game.
As for other things: I have no problems with Japanese VA, i like OP and in fact i don't dislike ending that much - I'd imagine most people wouldn't if it wasn't the end of LD or the the story leading to it would be longer.)
As for battles: optimization - that's the only thing i have problem with, and as i wrote on Steam - i don't know about limitations of Ren'Py or how good your code is since i don't have time to examine it, hence i can't speak as fellow programmer to you about it, but just as normal player. Even with your recommended specs, the game is visibly laggy when trying to calculate and display all that shield coverage during battle with Alice. I don't even want to think what that battle would look like on first generation i3 CPU (technically within your specs since you don't specify any model or generation) - i would imagine it being nearly unplayable.
To take time out of my day to address this...it's better this way anyway because I'm extremely busy and currently missing out on things that I want to address and give feedback for. For Samu:Most of the content on the other forum may have discussed the battles but only to debate most of the code issues with it or what to do when having a hard time with the battles. We avoided talking about story publicly (with the exception of the Sunrider Steam Group) because we didn't want to spoil it with anyone. As well, only a few people were posting about the battles. Gorby, TLA, Leda, Akio, WingsofLibertyTwo...that was it really. Most of the steam messages I got from people about Sunrider were about the story content. People were adding me left and right, asking about beta content (for which I told them nothing), or to discuss plot point or thing that happened that they felt wouldn't fit a character's personality. Battles were fine. They were fun, but probably shouldn't have been the core focus of the game (mistake that Titanfall made, a game some people haven't heard since the fir. A 50/50 balance or even 60/40, 40% for battle system would've been ideal for most people on steam. Longer story is more desired than a more elaborate battle system. I personally love chess and this just adds a BUNCH of fun to the game for me. It's hard to find opponents for a chess game though because most people think it's "too complicated" to play the game/don't want to bother learning a game like that. And if they do play chess, most of the time they don't want to spend extra time playing someone who is slower or faster than they are, and are afraid of how long a game CAN take. Not Important but InformativeThere is a slight issue with the forced romance, and that's because of the # of girls but there are MANY games that rob you of a romance choice option so I don't think it's all that bad. I mean, the end result of this forced relationship was yuri between a tsun mercenary and an overconfident up-tight military nut, a sexy nurse who wants nothing but your [censored] and is an easy side girl, a genki who still looks at the bright side of things, and a peaceful moe moe girl who, even if you don't like moe, fits well with the end of the story. In all, it ended pretty well. It would end badly if the forced relationship was with a total bitch who was bossy as fuck. That's when complaints come in... But yeah, the forced relationship was mainly there to progress the story and keep the plot going. If it wasn't that way, and say, it was Asaga he chose, even if the story went the way it currently does, I HIGHLY doubt anyone can justify knocking someone back to their senses just by talking to them after their brain has been taken over. And you can't replace the person whose brain gets taken over because if you replaced it with Asaga you basically have a huge plot hole. Yes, I'm late to this party and idk if he's going to read it or care but that's just something I probably should've mentioned much sooner to him in the waifu wars.... UPDATE/DISCLAIMER:Please note that my opinions and views on the relationship part of this was objective. I threw in some extra stuff that are perks but it has nothing to do with the fact that I am happy with the turnout. Even if it was changed, even if Ava SOMEHOW won, I still wouldn't be bothered by it. Well, maybe that Ava won, but still, it's not like I'd cry for the "pick a waifu" option. The thing with that bit about the forced romance, though:
The crazy part is that there didn't HAVE to be any other romances; just the option to bypass this one. They could have endorsed each chapter of the game being a separate chance to lock-in with a specific waifu; first chapter can lock in Chigara - abstain from that and you get a different girl in the second - abstain both times and you can get a different girl in the third, ect. Making it possible to opt out of a rather hamfisted romance with Chigara didn't mean they had to add new ones into this part of the series.
There is very, VERY little that would need to be changed to make the relationship with Chigara switchable between platonic and romantic - the only major thing I could think of, in hindsight, would be making a new CG where Kayto hugs Chigara back to her senses instead of kissing her, but aside from that it would only take a few extra lines of dialouge here and there and you'd have a working alternate where Chigara is more the sister-figure instead of the lover. But having the CHOICE to romance "this chapter's star waifu" and implementing that system for future installments would be both very easy and take pressure off by axing the need to have like five routes in the final installment or the like. There is literally nothing about Kayto's supportive emotional bond with Chigara that needs them to be lovers in order to work - it functions both ways.
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Post by valikdu on Mar 11, 2016 6:30:02 GMT -8
Claude confirmed to be a time travelling dirtbag (If there is an option for punching her in the face next game I'm going to take it). But only Benjamin Motherfucking Sisko is allowed to punch ascended beings in the face! |
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Post by worstwaifu on Mar 11, 2016 6:37:50 GMT -8
The new ending was...well, amazing, for several reasons. And a little terrible since it erased the 'OH NO' bit, but that's okay. Claude is God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, am I the only person who thinks that Sola can't even kill herself because that'd cause a drastic change to the timeline? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, yeah?
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Post by eider on Mar 11, 2016 7:27:58 GMT -8
Claude confirmed to be a time travelling dirtbag (If there is an option for punching her in the face next game I'm going to take it). But only Benjamin Motherfucking Sisko is allowed to punch ascended beings in the face! Why would he do that to himself...? Oh wait... God i hope this won't start some argument about Prophets and that ending... On another note, Prophets in DS9 are more of a God than Q is, and Claude being more similar to Q in many ways - that's what i meant when i wrote to think of her as of Q, she's 'god' but not a good one - rather someone who has god's powers but really don't know what to do with them and feels hopelessly bored. |
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Post by admiralcheese on Mar 11, 2016 7:31:40 GMT -8
But only Benjamin Motherfucking Sisko is allowed to punch ascended beings in the face! Why would he do that to himself...? Oh wait... God i hope this won't start some argument about Prophets and that ending... On another note, Prophets in DS9 are more of a God than Q is, and Claude being more similar to Q in many ways - that's what i meant when i wrote to think of her as of Q, she's 'god' but not a good one - rather someone who has god's powers but really don't know what to do with them and feels hopelessly bored. Sisko punches Q in one of the episodes though... that's what that was referencing.
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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.
". Probably Sola will be the critical point; I may think she may later offer to solve the conundrum in exchange of returning Sola to her timeline.
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