Unknown Squid
Aurani's Wife
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
- Messages
- 3,256
- Reputation score
- 314
Re: Honey Select (ILLUSION)
Well that's part of the thing. Whilst deeper gameplay via additional features would be great, I'm more actually talking about the design, and better using what they already have. With a better grasp for gameplay design, this would cost them nothing.
Example.
In the games AG3, AA, and AA2, illusion has maintained a strange tradition in their character customisers, that you are restricted to only picking a maximum of two personality traits for any single character (out of a list of somewhere around 30 traits). In every single game, the fan community disable this with mods. The games all run flawlessly without any new bugs or issues despite the change, regardless of any possible combination of traits, which demonstrates that this restriction is a deliberate design choice, rather than a technical limitation.
So taking one of my past favourite characters as an example, I wanted to add to the class a Shy and Passive girl (marking trait picks in italics). So that's both of my trait picks spent already. In the base game design that would be the entire extent of the characters personality.
I also however wanted her to be the sort that would be friendly and easy to get along with, even if only when others sought her out, so I added the Easy-Going trait. I figured that she'd have difficulty around guys, but also be the kind to enjoy romantic notions. So gave her the Romantic and Bad-with-guys traits. The combination of the traits so far resulted in a fairly fun and distinct behaviour for her. Finally, I gave the character a vulnerable side too, with the Exploitable and Obedient traits. All in all, it felt like a pretty cohesive and noticeable personality. If I'd been forced to pick only any two of those, the resulting character would have felt incredibly flat by comparison. Even more so if all the other characters she'd interact with were equally flat.
Which is why it's baffling that Illusion have consistently chosen to impose these very limiting and rather arbitrary seeming restrictions on their game. It feels like a designer at some point has included the limit because it just seemed like something a game should have, but without really understanding why, or how it would effect the game.
I won't ramble on with more, but there are just loads of examples of gameplay/design related things that could be considerably improved, without actually requiring any extra development work or budget, had they simply been better thought out in the first place. So that's what I meant bugs me about Illusion. That they demonstrate that they have all the resources that they need, but waste the potential.
Kinda like a high budget movie with a bad director. The special effects are on point, and the actors deliver their lines perfectly, but the rest is a mess of good ideas with bad implementation.
Well that's part of the thing. Whilst deeper gameplay via additional features would be great, I'm more actually talking about the design, and better using what they already have. With a better grasp for gameplay design, this would cost them nothing.
Example.
In the games AG3, AA, and AA2, illusion has maintained a strange tradition in their character customisers, that you are restricted to only picking a maximum of two personality traits for any single character (out of a list of somewhere around 30 traits). In every single game, the fan community disable this with mods. The games all run flawlessly without any new bugs or issues despite the change, regardless of any possible combination of traits, which demonstrates that this restriction is a deliberate design choice, rather than a technical limitation.
So taking one of my past favourite characters as an example, I wanted to add to the class a Shy and Passive girl (marking trait picks in italics). So that's both of my trait picks spent already. In the base game design that would be the entire extent of the characters personality.
I also however wanted her to be the sort that would be friendly and easy to get along with, even if only when others sought her out, so I added the Easy-Going trait. I figured that she'd have difficulty around guys, but also be the kind to enjoy romantic notions. So gave her the Romantic and Bad-with-guys traits. The combination of the traits so far resulted in a fairly fun and distinct behaviour for her. Finally, I gave the character a vulnerable side too, with the Exploitable and Obedient traits. All in all, it felt like a pretty cohesive and noticeable personality. If I'd been forced to pick only any two of those, the resulting character would have felt incredibly flat by comparison. Even more so if all the other characters she'd interact with were equally flat.
Which is why it's baffling that Illusion have consistently chosen to impose these very limiting and rather arbitrary seeming restrictions on their game. It feels like a designer at some point has included the limit because it just seemed like something a game should have, but without really understanding why, or how it would effect the game.
I won't ramble on with more, but there are just loads of examples of gameplay/design related things that could be considerably improved, without actually requiring any extra development work or budget, had they simply been better thought out in the first place. So that's what I meant bugs me about Illusion. That they demonstrate that they have all the resources that they need, but waste the potential.
Kinda like a high budget movie with a bad director. The special effects are on point, and the actors deliver their lines perfectly, but the rest is a mess of good ideas with bad implementation.
), like on hongfire.
