sierralee
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July 14 Update
🕑 Added 2024-07-14 17:00:06 +0000 UTCThat overview of the coming updates is still on its way, but there's no time for that, there's progress to discuss! This week's post will cover various updates, ranging from standard to exciting to a request for assistance from any resident coders.
The next update will be the last optional dungeon, which will also be the last real combat in the game (the epilogue is more story than challenge). I figured this is also a good time to reconsider various details about combat, rather than before when new scripts/details might have gotten in the way of people enjoying the final battle.
Now, in general I'm going to leave TLS's combat as it is, because whether people love or hate it, the general balance is part of the game's character. However, I do intend to make some tweaks in order to make it a better version of itself, which I'll get into below.
Uyae's Stances
I've never liked spending a whole turn on her stances, but when I first designed her combat, I didn't have options. Now I know about scripts that can change things: Uyae's stances are now free actions that don't use up her turn. There's a cooldown so she can't switch constantly, but you can adopt a stance and then still choose an action.
And since I included scripts for that...
New Skills For Everyone
Every main combat character is getting one or two new skills to supplement their main set. These aren't meant to deeply alter balance, just make all the characters a little more flexible and interesting. Maybe they get an ability to do something they usually can't, once per battle. Maybe they get a skill that's minor, but a free action that doesn't take their turn. That sort of thing.
The plan is for these skills to be learned at set character levels, which means they'll be just retroactive changes for those up to date, but I hope they'll make the game and the harem continue to feel dynamic throughout. The characters build their base skills early on for obvious reasons, but I hope between these and the synergy skills the game overall has a nice arc of growth. When I see people make comments about characters shifting in usefulness throughout the game I consider that to be good; a game with this many characters should encourage changing them up throughout its runtime.
There will be no equivalent boost to enemies, though, so on average these skills will make the game easier. Unless things really feel unbalanced, I think that's fine. The new skills may need some workshopping to get them all balanced, though.
Vhala Equipment
So, when I gave Vhala her base equipment, I wanted her to start with a good off-hand to imply she's competent and has her own history, but I underestimated how useful this item is. Thus, according to optimizers, this is still her best-in-slot item, which isn't what you want in an RPG.
I've added a bunch of off-hand equipment for her, ranging from alternate build items from different stores to items that only appear under certain plot circumstances, building up to superior equipment tied to major decisions/quests. Again, this is a minor thing that will be almost irrelevant to finished saves (other than going to buy one thing), but I hope it will improve the game overall.
LUK and RPG Maker
People say all sorts of things about the Luck statistic, but those familiar with RPG Maker know that it really doesn't do much. Some games go out of their way to invoke it more, and I've done a small amount with it in TLS, but it isn't the most important statistic.
So I was thinking... can't we just change that? The problem is, I think I'd need a coder to make this happen properly. I've seen the formula for LUK's influence on status effects and think it could stand to be altered a little so each point has more effect. But just changing the code directly is bad practice, and if we're already doing the script, maybe we could do a little more as well?
I don't know if I'll get any volunteers, or I suppose it's possible a script already exists, but this is one of the things I can't do myself. (EDIT: Got everything taken care of! Thanks much to Lord Forte.)
Anyway
The combination of these things is just one of the components I'm working on for the next update! I do want to get as much of the game finished this year as possible, but I'm also looking forward to the long term and trying to make TLS the most satisfying version of itself that I can. Thanks for your support. ^-^
Comments
Sierra Lee
Thanks for sharing all your thoughts in detail! You made a few interesting points, and my own ideas for new skills are all over the map in terms of being near or far from yours, so I'll be curious what you think once you see them. ^-^
midorigreen
Sounds good, after investing a number of hours in this game I can share my own options though unlike some other posters I'm not really a minmaxer and don't really subscribe to the option of maximum damage at any cost like some of the guides do. When it comes to who is "Best" I find that can be some what situational especially when the game often splits the party up and throw different combinations and challenges at you. Simon is a solid generalist with good physical attacks, a strong healing secondary roll and some strong situational status effect/crowd control abilities which is good because you'll be using him 90% of the time. He's doesn't really need a new skill throughout much of chapters 3 and 4 and just keeps getting better with new equipment that buffs his SP rate. If I had to offer a skill suggestion it would be something late game that uses up a large chunk of SP. Aka is primarily a boss killer, but she is still pretty useful overall. How useful will often depend on how easy it is to land status effects. Deathblow is fantastic for quickly eliminating dangerous mobs if it lands and Forceful Lung does pretty good damage overall if it lands a critical. To be honest given how luck based most of her skills are it feels like she would benefit the most from the luck rework. As for new skills pretty much anything would switch things up for her. Most of her synergy skills are elemental stabs and a single target heal which can be useful given her speed letting her heal a low health ally before ANY enemy attack. Robin is an overall Beast being able to easily kill bosses and mobs as was highlighted in an above post. Her one weakness is low health/high damage enemy swarms that create a damage race she can't win by herself. I wouldn't give her an AOE skill to deal with this weakness though. Her new skill shouldn't tread on the specialties of anyone else in the party given how good she already is. I would probably give her some sort of single target buff skill. Better than the AOE buffs of Qum and Carina, but on a potentially short duration forcing her to split her focus between buffing and attacking. Yarra is actually a character I really like to bring along against mobs all the time. Her Haze of Sex AOE skill is better than Riala's at shutting down a large group of enemies especially when combined with Simon's own Commanding Presence skill. She can top off an allies MP and keep them going against multiple groups of mobs without having to worry about conserving MP for a boss. Her elemental whip synergy skills deal almost as much damage as Robin's elemental lances. Her main weakness is she doesn't really synergies well with most boss killer teams. For a new skill can I just suggest that it makes use of Yarra's attack stat in some way. One weird thing about Yarra is that between the Reborn Whip and the First Slut Pin she gets +80 attack, but all of her skill only use her magic stat making the extra attack feel somewhat useless. Qum is in a pretty good spot overall as a solid healer and offensive buffer with a little SP recovery on the side. Honestly, given the fact that she buffs offense and already has a pretty powerful offensive synergy skill with Robin I don't think her new skill needs to be offensive. I think that a better option would be to add the equivalent of Mass Heal as a straight spam-able AOE heal. Qum's Arousing Aura is a powerful buff and a decent heal all in one, but it lacks the HP recovery to deal with catastrophic damage to the whole party that would usually require Simon, Carina or Uyae using there AOE heal as well to fully recover. She has Orgasmic Thoughts and Illusory Orgy to act as AOE heals for the whole party, but Orgasmic Thoughts can only be preformed once per battle and Illusory Orgy requires a full 100 SP in order to use, making it difficult to rely on for continuous AOE healing. Hilstara is in a weird place throughout chapter 4. After Chapter 3 most player will have at least the Mammoth Armor equipped letting her act as a damage sponge at the cost of her offensive potential. She has only two offensive skills and one of them Bash becomes completely useless after equipping the Mammoth set making her go last and wasting the stun if it lands. She's still pretty good against bosses with her ability to soak up single target attacks and buff the party in a variety of ways, but she struggles outside of certain team comps until Aegis Assault lets her even the score and even lets her almost solo certain bosses. She needs something in chapter 4 that will keep her viable outside her preferred team comp though I'm not sure what that could be. Altina is another character in a weird place as she is overshadowed by Robin and Raila, but it's also acknowledged as part of the narrative. The weakness of her AOE skills has already been pointed out and looking at the damage calculations(a.mat*5-b.mdf*6) I can see why. The AOE attack will do a lot of damage against an enemy that doesn't have a lot of magic defense, but that stat is difficult to track unlike elemental weaknesses and often times when face enemy mobs you're likely facing a mix of enemies with there own elemental weaknesses and lowering Altina's AOE damage potential even more. She has another issue where due to her ability to equip Sexual Armor and Headgear most build her for a high magic-low defense setup. I do the same, though I usually try to balance magic and defense as much as possible so she doesn't go down after just one attack. This kind of setup is easier for the Succubus with life steal or a dedicated healer like Qum instead of an almost purely offensively oriented mage like Altina. Varia is one of the team's go to boss killers along side Robin and she's the glass cannon. Blade Dance can decimate a boss if you get lucky, and Furious Strikes is also a solid damage dealing skill at a much lower cost making it effective against mobs. How she plays often depends on if you Reshaped or Dominated her with Reshaped being better balance towards survival instead of the raw damage of Dominated. For a new skills you would probably need a different one for both options though if you wanted to keep it thematic have the skill be based off the luck stat. Carina is pretty solid overall. While Simon does come into his own as a healer if you have the Incubus Glove, Carina's defensive utility and reliability as a secondary healer never really goes away especially if you need Simon to focus on other tasks like damage or stalling. Giving her Smite has also fixed her main problem of a lack of damage options while the party is at full health. I could see two different skills that would augment her existing skill set. The first would be some sort of enemy buff purge designed to prevent an enemy from double buffing themselves and one shot the party. It probably wouldn't debuff the enemy just remove the buffs. The other would be some sort of buff to the parties max HP to further increase survival. Nalili has two builds you can use depending on if you equipped the Tormented Shield or not. Using the Shield turns her into a powerful damage dealer that takes at least one turn to ramp up if she equips the Charm of Great Perversion, but it limits several skills like the healing of her Masturbation skills or high SP skills like Sexual Aegis. Without the shield she does less damage, but can equip a Buttplug and is able to go all out right at the start. I'm not sure what sort of skill would mix things up for her, but I would recommend any skill take the Tormented Shield build into account. One other thing you should look at is a few more Sexual Accessories for Nalili and Qum who only have a paltry selection. Uyae is a pretty solid unit overall that plays a little like Simon with a number of physical offensive skills and magical healing skills. I can't really say too much about the changes to her Auras, but I will say that the skills she learns from her request feel more like side grades design around a Uyae specializing in either attack or magic. Vhala is a solid unit overall with tools that let her debuff bosses and powerful mobs, inflict anti-sex damage and some decent attack skills. You're already dealing with her equipment issues, but one nice thing about her armor and helm is that she is free to equip whatever specialized accessory she likes. As for a new skill Vhala already has a good mix of single target offensive and AOE debuffing skills so maybe another support skill of some sort. Raila is honestly the one character that probably doesn't need a new skill. She is already pretty stacked for options. Ginasta could really use a new skill. I don't really think she's a bad as some say, especially once she gets all her unique equipment and the Wild Armors. Between Tactical Strike, Suppressing Strike, Neutral Strike and Tyrant Strike she has a good set of single target physical attacks and high attack to make use of them. I haven't really had much chance to make use of Lilith yet so I can't comment of her, but having at least one consistent skill that doesn't rely on the rest of the party would be nice.
Sierra Lee
Feel free, though my final decisions will be based on the combination of all input plus my own feelings about balance.
DankPotatoes
I think it's fantastic that you are retroactively adding some new skills! Just 5 minutes ago I completed yet another playthrough of the game, where I really tried to challenge some of my usual party combinations and what party members and skills generally concider to be the best. I'd be glad to share some thoughts on what I have found to be really strong, and who/what I just never really use.
Sierra Lee
They're actually all purchased, some just only appear in stores if you did different quests. It's mostly things like boosting the Unpeople leads to more items appearing in the Unperson HQ in Ramasta.
Hansworth
Can endgame saves only buy Vhala’s new equipment in stores or do we retroactively get the ones given from earlier quests?
