RPG Unknown/Hiatus Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Heya guys.

So, I just made a post on Patreon regarding some of the hot topics of V0.04, but I know some people will see it here before they see it there, so I'll post the most important bits.


Dat Puzzle.

A lot of people aren't too fond of the new puzzle, and we hear that! Even I have a couple major issues with how it turned out that I'm glad some of you have echoed. Those issues basically boil down to:

1. This puzzle is really involved for being so early in the game.
2. Too much trial and error / there should be a more structured method for navigating through it.

Luckily, I had a solution for #2 ready to go that I feel will refine it significantly, and we've already come up with a solution for #1. Basically, we're going to move the refined version of this puzzle to mid-late game (maybe even a side dungeon), and replace it with some straightforward exploration for this area that will trim it down some. After all, this area is basically the prologue of the game, and shouldn't take more than a couple hours to get through.


Dodgy Monsters.

A second area of concern for people is that the difficulty has seemingly increased. This was largely unintentional, and is in fact a side effect of skills no longer being guaranteed hits. Enemies haven't been buffed or anything, but their evade apparently should have been nerfed significantly to make up for this (especially this early on since you have no access to gear to significantly improve your hit rate). Simply put, my bad! Expect some edits in an upcoming patch that will fix this and a number of other lesser bugs.


Bugs! (and Upcoming Fixes)

The outstanding bug right now a potential crash during the "elevator battle" segment. This crash happens when a new enemy joins the battle (one could say they *crash* the party, aha). It's conditional, so it is possible to make it through without any issues, but it happens enough that we want to put a hotfix out for it ASAP. Expect that soon!


Thanks for the feedback guys, and I hope that clears up some of the concerns people have!

 

[dd-209]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

I think the idea of making that labyrinth mid-game or optional content (like that place in Final Fantasy X with the uber-boss) would definitely work. The difficulty could still be set pretty high but the rewards near the end of the door combinations would be worth it. I know plenty of people (including myself) never really bothered with super-hard side content in JRPGs.

That said, I'm pretty sure a lot of the difficulty of the second area was people like me not finding Malise and doing the whole thing solo I'm not sure general evasion or miss chance necessarily needs to be toned down, it's specifically enemies being able to evade Neon's ability-interrupt shot that wrecks balance.

One final point I forgot to mention in terms of balance is that Malise feels...kinda useless compared to Neon. Her pistol seems to do less damage, misses more frequently, and has a special ability of dubious use (double damage...in the event it actually hits). Perhaps she should be faster in general or have some other important ability, like being able to paralyse an enemy for a couple of turns or something. I dunno.

 

[Deleted member 166393]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Do any of the enemies even drop 15 amps? I used mine when the game was still bugged.

 

[dd-209]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Do any of the enemies even drop 15 amps? I used mine when the game was still bugged.

To my knowledge enemies only drop 5 and 10 amp fuses. 20 amps can be found in chests and from the robot after giving him the oil. I seem to recall picking up a 15 amp fuse in a chest somewhere, but there are no 15 amp fuse options on the control panel. I think people are getting confused by the text reading "You picked up 1 5 Amp Fuse" and thinking they picked up a 15amp. Or maybe 15 amps exist as a bug.

 

[MartinX]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Something story related - did anyone else think Neon recovered a bit too quickly after that Fleshfather scene? At first I actually thought we were controlling a different clone of Neon after the scene, considering how casual she is: "Can't contact Doc, gotta move on".

 

[dd-209]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

one could say they *crash* the party, aha

---_____________---

Something story related - did anyone else think Neon recovered a bit too quickly after that Fleshfather scene? At first I actually thought we were controlling a different clone of Neon after the scene, considering how casual she is: "Can't contact Doc, gotta move on".

I thought she was an android or cybernetically enhanced or whatever.

 

[CrazyPerson]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

On difficulty: Beware of numbers. Especially when grapples are involved, a 1v3 battle is WAY more than twice as difficult as a 2v3 battle:
Damage you take highly depends on how fast enemies get killed, and "your entire party is unable to act" is way more severe than "half your party is unable to act."
Unfortunately, basically every starting GM / game author assumes that encounter difficulty is linear in the number of enemies, but it really isn't.
Unless you take special care to balance it: Having enemies much slower skews the "enemy actions vs. player actions" ratio back in the player's favor, for example.

Personally, I found the difficulty of the first part reasonable - I assume enemy HP was scaled down to compensate for not having Malise,
so I generally was able to take out most enemies before they did much.
That said, I was also doing a conservative low-lust run, so grapples were not a problem. I can see how they would be, though.

I think this does point to a problem where lust has an unexpectedly heavy impact on difficulty:
At 0, you're demigods of war murderizing everything, while at 1000 you're pretty much fucked.
Constantly. With mathematically no escape, particularly without mana / an active teammate.
This makes sense in that it makes lust basically an "exhaustion stat" that forces the player "back to base" periodically, but the details could use work:
To win, you'd want to minimize lust at all times. However, that would also mean you never see most scenes. And keeping a separate "slutting" save is bothersome.
So players are conflicted between trying to see content, and trying to avoid gameover.
IMHO, the consequences of gameover (reset to savepoint) are too severe. In theory, you can just save after every battle, but who does that?

One thing randomly in the middle: IMHO, the total fleshfather cutscene is now too long.
Leaning on the X button, it takes just under 3 minutes from the end of the battle until I regain control of my character.
Which isn't as bad as I had expected: I've certainly seen much worse in japanese RPGs.
But still, considering players might be running through it a lot, it may tax the attention span more than a game should.
A "skip already-viewed scene" button would help, as would making X speed up delays between text boxes as well (though that may require breaking animations.)
Alternatively, it really feels like the second part wants to be a cutscene for another mid-boss, but there wasn't one in the game yet.

On the puzzles: I found them reasonable, but I'm not a good metric for puzzle difficulty.
That said, the exact mechanics of the maze seemed nonobvious:

Spoiler

• You can't enter the same letter more than 2 times
• It took me a long time to figure out if room content depended on "depth + letter to get there" or "number of times you took each door"
• 27 rooms is a bit much, innit?
• There seem to actually be MORE circuitboards than you need.

I can certainly see how it gets frustrating, particularly with constant random encounters. I did have the unfair advantage of learning the maze during the encounters-disabled bug.

Concrete suggestions:

• As long as your party contains 1 hero, never give them a 3-enemy encounter, unless you can one-shot them, or they take at least 1.5 times as long to act than standard.
• Provide a rare (adrenalin-level rare) item that reduces lust, and perhaps repairs armor.
• Allow escaping while one hero is grappled: You could get the "captured" hero back at 1HP, but this would help high-lust encounters feel less hopeless.
• Gameovers should never result in title screen in this day and age - just dump the player to hub / ARIS area with the items they had at death.
• Armor damage should be more obvious. Either use consistent style (all high-armor-damage attacks have a slashing effect), or do floating combat text for armor damage as well as HP.
• In the maze, provide an image on the wall or an interactable that shows "current position" in the way the maze is implemented (perhaps something like "3A" or "5B")
• Perhaps have a short message play when you enter an "illegal" door, hinting at the puzzle condition ("Hey, you can't keep entering door B. Be creative!")
• Instead of refunding via poopbot, consider having fuses persist but these terminals allow removal of a fuse without blowing it
• Make the stairs you enter the room on backtrack rather than resetting, so that there's less running through enemy-infested areas (sorry, AltairPL...)

On the boss battle bug: Based on what I've read, I highly suspect the bug occurs when you trigger the boss by killing one fleshpod, while the second one is grappling a hero:
I'd assume the script used only removes battlers from play, and doesn't reset ongoing grapples, so it crashes trying to run a grapple from a now-empty enemy slot.
Edit: The error mentions release_hold, so maybe it does try to reset the grapple, but does so in the wrong order?
Relevant error log (output.log is effectively empty):

Spoiler

MATM_WIP => Error Log
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exception NoMethodError occurred!
MATM_WIP 0.041 @ 2016/05/17 13:15 UTC+2
undefined method `release_hold' for nil:NilClass

Backtrace:
Game_Enemy:375:in `release_hold'
Sprite_Battler:703:in `call'
Sprite_Battler:703:in `block in update'
Sprite_Battler:680:in `each'
Sprite_Battler:680:in `update'
Spriteset_Battle:275:in `block in update'
Spriteset_Battle:275:in `each'
Spriteset_Battle:275:in `update'
!!!Victor Engine - Fog and Overlay:561:in `update'
Scene_Battle:156:in `update_basic'
Scene_Battle:256:in `update_for_wait'
Scene_Battle:392:in `process_event'
Scene_Battle:106:in `update'
Scenes_:184:in `main'
SceneManager:31:in `run'
Main:25:in `<main>'
ruby:in `eval'

 

[AltairPL]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

• Make the stairs you enter the room on backtrack rather than resetting, so that there's less running through enemy-infested areas (sorry, AltairPL...)

Why sorry? You're not doing/suggesting anything wrong... one way or another this puzzle will be revamped... how, when, and where? only time will tell .

On the boss battle bug: Based on what I've read, I highly suspect the bug occurs when you trigger the boss by killing one fleshpod, while the second one is grappling a hero:
I'd assume the script used only removes battlers from play, and doesn't reset ongoing grapples, so it crashes trying to run a grapple from a now-empty enemy slot.
Edit: The error mentions release_hold, so maybe it does try to reset the grapple, but does so in the wrong order?
Relevant error log (output.log is effectively empty):

Spoiler

MATM_WIP => Error Log
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exception NoMethodError occurred!
MATM_WIP 0.041 @ 2016/05/17 13:15 UTC+2
undefined method `release_hold' for nil:NilClass

Backtrace:
Game_Enemy:375:in `release_hold'
Sprite_Battler:703:in `call'
Sprite_Battler:703:in `block in update'
Sprite_Battler:680:in `each'
Sprite_Battler:680:in `update'
Spriteset_Battle:275:in `block in update'
Spriteset_Battle:275:in `each'
Spriteset_Battle:275:in `update'
!!!Victor Engine - Fog and Overlay:561:in `update'
Scene_Battle:156:in `update_basic'
Scene_Battle:256:in `update_for_wait'
Scene_Battle:392:in `process_event'
Scene_Battle:106:in `update'
Scenes_:184:in `main'
SceneManager:31:in `run'
Main:25:in `<main>'
ruby:in `eval'

You're right... again. Bug occurs when one of the player characters is being held when Ven comes down guns blazing. Don't want to go into details right now, but this illustrates that battle system will still require a lot of work to be "flawless".
Well, this bug and another minor issue (not game breaking, but can be annoying in some cases) are already fixed and tested. Eromancer wasn't feeling well so he had to lie down for a bit... hotfix will probably be released when he gets up.

 

[CrazyPerson]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Why sorry? You're not doing/suggesting anything wrong... one way or another this puzzle will be revamped... how, when, and where? only time will tell .

Because I imagine implementing an "undo" for the room selection would be a lot more difficult than implementing it forwards.
Not impossible, just more work

 

[AltairPL]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Because I imagine implementing an "undo" for the room selection would be a lot more difficult than implementing it forwards.
Not impossible, just more work

Oh, yes it will... in more way than some may think, but... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it .

 

[NLL]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Hm, are you guys planning on adding any difficulty settings? I wouldn't mind an option to turn off enemy telegraphs. I feel like that would up the tempo, especially if you also upgrade the enemies so that they need to fill up only one bar before groping or using a special attack.

 

[Iloiine]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

it's specifically enemies being able to evade Neon's ability-interrupt shot that wrecks balance.

One final point I forgot to mention in terms of balance is that Malise feels...kinda useless compared to Neon. Her pistol seems to do less damage, misses more frequently, and has a special ability of dubious use (double damage...in the event it actually hits). Perhaps she should be faster in general or have some other important ability, like being able to paralyse an enemy for a couple of turns or something. I dunno.

I agree with both of these. I think you could keep the miss chance and evade chance if the interrupt shot had a large accuracy bonus... if that's possible.

As for Malise being less useful, I think part of that is having 2 rifle upgrades for Neon and only one revolver upgrade for Malise, which means that her damage ends up being merely on par with Neon's (I think Malise is supposed to do more damage). Malise seems to be the DPS while Neon handles support, but without revolver upgrades, Malise is just an extra pair of tits to occupy tentacles with while Neon does all the hard work.

I've mentioned before how it might be good to move the interrupt to Malise's revolvers. Now, Malise will be getting a dual katana weapon set later, which I've read will (probably) be more of a tanking set, and Neon will eventually be able to use a (probably) AoE-oriented minigun, but that still leaves Malise's dual revolvers as that one weapon set that... sucks. Which brings me back to putting the interrupt on the revolvers. That way, both girls have a high-value utility move (Neon still has her super-useful heal) that they bring to the table from the get-go.

I would also suggest having Malise's double-shot be targeted instead of random. It costs energy, and I think that's enough of a cost for the second shot.

And then maybe Neon's rifle could gain some sort of "suppressing fire" ability that debuffs enemies: slowing their action speed, imposing a miss chance, reducing damage, or any combination of useful things. To balance it against a hard interrupt, it would need to last across multiple enemy attacks to, over time, add up to approximately one negated attack (or a little more, since the tactical value of stopping "this specific attack, right now" is inherently higher than stopping "an attack, whenever."

Obviously, this would make the fleshfather fight almost impossible to finish with just Neon... but considering that he rapes her even if she wins, it wouldn't be a huge loss (if a loss at all) to let that fight be effectively unwinnable and have the game continue after you loose. You could then revisit the fight later with both girls at the end of the area or upon your inevitable return (due to what Neon finds down here, it seems inevitable we'll return later in the game) and enjoy having the tools necessary to kick his ass. Also, this would make Neon more vulnerable against early encounters, especially ones like the triple leeches and double vioreapers. On that note, I second the suggestion that the number of enemies in the early map be toned down. IIRC, the enemies you meet in "dat puzzle" are a touch tougher than on the floor above. Perhaps, instead of having higher level enemies lower down, just have the spawns up top be 1 or 2 enemies and the spawns below be 2 or 3 of the same enemies (and just as individually powerful).

Source of my expectations regarding the other weapon sets.

Regarding weapons, the differences will largely surround the skill sets available to each weapon type. Malise's katana type will likely have defensive and counter attack skills which can be further bolstered by one of her armor types. In contrast, Neon's minigun will likely be based around the concept of heavy AoE damage at the cost of tactical capability.

 

[11007]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

I agree with both of these. I think you could keep the miss chance and evade chance if the interrupt shot had a large accuracy bonus... if that's possible.

As for Malise being less useful, I think part of that is having 2 rifle upgrades for Neon and only one revolver upgrade for Malise, which means that her damage ends up being merely on par with Neon's (I think Malise is supposed to do more damage). Malise seems to be the DPS while Neon handles support, but without revolver upgrades, Malise is just an extra pair of tits to occupy tentacles with while Neon does all the hard work.

I am aware that Malise will also have swords and Neon will also have a minigun, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that we're just seeing Neon's support weapon and Malise's DPS weapon right now and will see the reverse later.

Still, or in case that isn't the case, I think it could be good to move the interrupt to Malise's revolvers. That way, both girls have a high-value utility move (Neon still has her super-useful heal) that they bring to the table from the get-go.

Obviously, this would make the fleshfather fight almost impossible to finish with just Neon... but considering that he rapes her even if she wins, it wouldn't be a huge loss (if a loss at all) to let that fight be effectively unwinnable and have the game continue after you loose. You could then revisit the fight later with both girls at the end of the area or upon your inevitable return (due to what Neon finds down here, it seems inevitable we'll return later in the game) and enjoy having the tools necessary to kick his ass.

Fleshfather is simple you just have to always have an interrupt attack ready after he attacks.

 

[honjcat]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

For what people are saying about the difficulty of combat, what "time" setting do you think offers the most options?

I switch between the one that waits on action and input, and the "no wait" setting. You take more damage with the second, but it's way easier to time interrupts, especially on bosses, and so much better for escaping H-attacks. Even at max lust, you can get out of one in 2 rounds max (or at least I can) while that's just plain impossible on any other setting due to the lack of manual resist.

With the "wait on action and input" setting, you get a lot more efficiency because the animations don't cause you to lose time, so you can manage lust better, but you're in deep trouble if lust builds up. You also can't delay to time interrupts. Would be interesting if we had a button for these modes to "save" an action until the next threshold is reached by any other actor in combat.

I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if the "wait" modes were changed to permit manual resist. Like it's Malise's turn to resist, and you can do a full manual struggle by separating that one slice of time from the rest of the combat? I dunno if that's viable from a programming standpoint here, but that would be interesting.

 

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

For what people are saying about the difficulty of combat, what "time" setting do you think offers the most options?

I switch between the one that waits on action and input, and the "no wait" setting. You take more damage with the second, but it's way easier to time interrupts, especially on bosses, and so much better for escaping H-attacks. Even at max lust, you can get out of one in 2 rounds max (or at least I can) while that's just plain impossible on any other setting due to the lack of manual resist.

With the "wait on action and input" setting, you get a lot more efficiency because the animations don't cause you to lose time, so you can manage lust better, but you're in deep trouble if lust builds up. You also can't delay to time interrupts. Would be interesting if we had a button for these modes to "save" an action until the next threshold is reached by any other actor in combat.

I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if the "wait" modes were changed to permit manual resist. Like it's Malise's turn to resist, and you can do a full manual struggle by separating that one slice of time from the rest of the combat? I dunno if that's viable from a programming standpoint here, but that would be interesting.

We actually are considering implementing a button that allows you to manually pass time when it is a character's turn during wait mode. The 'Wait' modes are meant to let the player move at their own pace, not be put at a disadvantage because a character gets a turn at an inopportune time.

What do you guys think?

 

[Demontom]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

I was actually coming here to suggest something like that, Eromancer. I was thinking about how bosses were actually easier on the full active setting, since you could hold back and react based on which action they chose to take. That would be a good way to address that, while also adding another level of strategy to the turn based mode. I'm all for that option, because delaying turns is definitely a trade-off. Do it too much, and you'll get fewer actions over the course of the fight, but it allows you to hold off and see just which move of your's is most optimal now.

Perhaps something akin to the escape button, that while you hold it, it temporarily switches to the No Wait mode?

 

[jadex]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

We actually are considering implementing a button that allows you to manually pass time when it is a character's turn during wait mode. The 'Wait' modes are meant to let the player move at their own pace, not be put at a disadvantage because a character gets a turn at an inopportune time.

What do you guys think?

That would be preferable. Since Malice joined the party a bit late, she was underleveled compared to Neon. I've been trying to enter combat with Neon at low health so that she can do DPS and get defeated so only Malice gets exp. But since the only current way to switch turns is the defend command (unless i want to attack, but having Neon attack would have ended combat too fast), Neon actually gets enough dmg resist and regen during that stance to stay alive unless she is grappled, and being grappled is random sometimes so its pretty frustrating trying to level only one character with that method.

 

[CrazyPerson]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

We actually are considering implementing a button that allows you to manually pass time when it is a character's turn during wait mode. The 'Wait' modes are meant to let the player move at their own pace, not be put at a disadvantage because a character gets a turn at an inopportune time.

What do you guys think?

Sounds good. Perhaps just make the "pass turn" button (X?) subtract a tiny amount of charge from the turn-ready bar -
put differently, make it an action that has no effect, except that it refills 95% of your action bar.
That way, it can still be used to switch to the other character in wait mode, but also lets you nudge time forward to see if that enemy is about to start a grapple.
I think I've seen this exact mechanic in a number of other games, with no complaints - I was actually a bit surprised it worked differently here.

On the topic of action bars - I noticed that getting grappled resets your action bar to 0 - is that intentional?
It feels a bit unfair, having to wait another full cycle to begin struggling.

While we're tossing around suggestions: Perhaps you could make the revolvers feel more distinct by giving them increased crit chance.
It's thematic, since it's easier to headshot with one pistol shot than with rifle spray-and-pray.
And being more likely to one-shot stuff may help Malise feel more impactful, without having to upset balance or mechanics much.

 

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

Perhaps something akin to the escape button, that while you hold it, it temporarily switches to the No Wait mode?

That's actually the idea.

This point however makes me think the Escape button could be used for this (or at the very least should function similarly to this other idea). Right now while in wait mode Escape only functions while a character does not have a turn. This is kind of annoying since you have to act with that character before you can continue escaping.

That would be preferable. Since Malice joined the party a bit late, she was underleveled compared to Neon. I've been trying to enter combat with Neon at low health so that she can do DPS and get defeated so only Malice gets exp. But since the only current way to switch turns is the defend command (unless i want to attack, but having Neon attack would have ended combat too fast), Neon actually gets enough dmg resist and regen during that stance to stay alive unless she is grappled, and being grappled is random sometimes so its pretty frustrating trying to level only one character with that method.

You can switch turns with the X (or Cancel) button. Defending isn't required, and no turn is lost. As for Malise's starting level, that may get tweaked, but I think right now it's set to Neon's minus one.

 

[Demontom]

Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

While we're tossing around suggestions: Perhaps you could make the revolvers feel more distinct by giving them increased crit chance.
It's thematic, since it's easier to headshot with one pistol shot than with rifle spray-and-pray.
And being more likely to one-shot stuff may help Malise feel more impactful, without having to upset balance or mechanics much.

I imagine Malise's revolvers will end up being the go-to single target killer. We'll likely see an upgraded double shot, maybe as a triple shot, and other direct damage abilities. But that leads to another question of mine, how will new skills be learned? Will it be character level based, or will there be some kind of weapon skill level increased by using said weapon more? Or perhaps some other method that I didn't think of?