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

[Rule 34]

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

I've stopped supporting a game before because they said they'd have futa and then they backpedaled on that.

 

[Torgent]

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

I agree, to a point. I'm sure this is a fairly big issue (fetishes) with differing opinions, but the way I see it, there are some fetishes like scat, vore, yaoi, furry, loli, and futa (etc) that are just huge turnoffs for some people (like me), in which they wouldn't even buy/play the game if one of those fetishes were included. Others, like pregnancy or bestiality (I dunno, anything abnormal) may be not preferred but are tolerable for some people. Finding that balance is crucial.

I think the devs really need to gauge what's mainstream and/or what's popular/what's approved and not approved.

If you think pregnancy is abnormal you should have a word with your mom about how you were born
Jokes aside. I think those fetishes should all be included (even the ones I dislike), but grapples should be more avoidable, like some monster having a stage 4 grab, and if you break free until stage 4 you entirely avoid getting parasited and growing a futanaridick. It should be incorporated into the gameplay so the people who don't like a fetish can avoid it if they want to, I think it is better then an on/off switch, since people have more reason to fight against their heroines getting raped. Maybe give the heroines a scan modul that, while its skill activated warns the heroines, what kind of rape moves (oral, anal, impreg, milking etc) it uses. While pregnancy is my biggest fetish I also dislike games where you are actually forced by the storyline to be pregnant, like shoku's games. It is more fun to me if it isn't supposed to happen.

 

[Shiri garu]

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

Well, I don't Pledge very often. Infact I don't support much patreon anymore due to game creators often dropping their games but as I come back to see this game again this game has made a good steady pace that offers alot of game content.

I'll throw in my support and will try out v0.5

 

[Emerald_Gladiator]

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

If you think pregnancy is abnormal you should have a word with your mom about how you were born
Jokes aside. I think those fetishes should all be included (even the ones I dislike), but grapples should be more avoidable, like some monster having a stage 4 grab, and if you break free until stage 4 you entirely avoid getting parasited and growing a futanaridick. It should be incorporated into the gameplay so the people who don't like a fetish can avoid it if they want to, I think it is better then an on/off switch, since people have more reason to fight against their heroines getting raped. Maybe give the heroines a scan modul that, while its skill activated warns the heroines, what kind of rape moves (oral, anal, impreg, milking etc) it uses. While pregnancy is my biggest fetish I also dislike games where you are actually forced by the storyline to be pregnant, like shoku's games. It is more fun to me if it isn't supposed to happen.

The stork brought me.
I meant that some people don't like pregnancy as a fetish. Sure, it's normal and natural, just like birth, but I know quite a few folks who would never want to see either process in an H-game. Some people think it's gross and just don't want to be reminded of it while they're trying to, uh, enjoy themselves, while others would prefer the female form without a swollen belly (I'm with you though; I'm all for pregnancy in H-games).

TBH, I'm slightly curious on why people like what they like (for instance, I have no idea why the previous posters, and others, like futa), but I'll avoid the Freudian rabbit hole and just accept that we all like weird stuff, lol. I definitely agree with you on being forced into something in a story. Maybe I'm spoiled by the evolution of modern customizable RPGs (Skyrim, FO) in which you can essentially chose your own destiny. However, I think the games that aren't linear and don't necessarily force you into a specific fetish are more appealing to me. It's just not as simple as "if you don't like it, don't play it". For instance, while I enjoyed the Scalegarden games, I detested the fact that their fetish was, as a virgin PC, you're constantly raped by an enemy BBC...and it's unavoidable in every one of their storylines.

Anyway, no comment on the solutions you presented, but I agree with the premise of your idea.

 

[Deleted member 166393]

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

Neon with a big robot dick would be great but then again I'm a degenerate so...

 

[Ashiel]

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

TBH, I'm slightly curious on why people like what they like (for instance, I have no idea why the previous posters, and others, like futa),

Women are hot.
PiV is hot.
???
Profit.

 

[BooFoo]

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

uh I just noticed eromancer changed the pledge rewards. Is eromancer still going to honor the "pledge $20 to get the full uncensored game when completed"? Or is that idea scrapped now? I was a patron before.

 

[AltairPL]

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

uh I just noticed eromancer changed the pledge rewards. Is eromancer still going to honor the "pledge $20 to get the full uncensored game when completed"? Or is that idea scrapped now? I was a patron before.

Don't worry, it's still there and will be honored.

 

[Ashiel]

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

Don't worry, it's still there and will be honored.

Any feedback on the "lust as pros/cons" suggestion? Even if you guys don't go with that route, I'm curious about what you think of it from a game theory perspective at least.

 

[iamnuff]

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

At the risk of delving further into H-game-theory,
I'd argue that you're oversimplifying when you say "maybe difficulty is too high", as if a game had a single "difficulty number" that can be compared and scaled.

Instead, I'd argue that your difficulty curve has a bad shape.
Imagine a graph where "chance of success" is the y-axis, and "effort player puts in" is the x-axis.
(Works similarly with "player skill/experience" or "player luck" on the x-axis)
Obviously, the line trends from top left to bottom right, often sharply, but I'd argue that in this game, it drops TOO quickly:
A player that prioritizes lust enemies, hits interrupts, and in general "plays seriously" gets through the game quite easily, as a number of comments prove.
However, the bad effects reinforce each other: Higher lust increases the rate of H-attacks, which means you can't consistently interrupt anymore, and struggling becomes very slow.
All in all, once you hit the breaking point, things go downhill very (too?) quickly.

If this was a normal game, this would be a good thing: Many games live for the "a-hah" moment where the player understands,
"oh, so lust is the main damage mechanic, avoid it at all costs" and suddenly life becomes much easier.
Unfortunately, playing that way removes a good part of the mechanics of the game, and leaves a mediocre punch-heal-interrupt combat loop with good art,
which isn't what people came to this game for.
I think this is why people complain about tedium/repetition: They feel that the game restricts them to a small subset of mechanics, which isn't what they came for.

Can be solved by keeping a "tryhard" save and occasionally branching off a "get fucked" save where you go nuts, but this may be too much effort for a casual player.
I think I'd definitely like to see a "gameover is fatal?" option - the hardcore crowd that likes the edging aspect can play with fatal gameovers,
but us filthy casuals could play a more forgiving game, where falling off that sharp difficulty edge doesn't immediately wipe your progress.
A seasoned gamedev would have plenty more suggestions on how to "soften" the difficulty curve - unfortunately, I am not a seasoned gamedev, so I'm out of ideas right now.

I'd also like to see more interaction with the lust mechanic: Right now, it's solely affected by combat, so players good at combat can keep it very low.
If you had map areas/events that cause unavoidable lust increase/decrease (say, having to run through a gas-filled room), you level the playing field a bit -
that way, all players would play some of the game with half-full lust, with the resulting changes to balance.

TLDR: Some of us are struggling because we're playing with one hand on the controls. Literally or figuratively.

 

[Eromancer]

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

uh I just noticed eromancer changed the pledge rewards. Is eromancer still going to honor the "pledge $20 to get the full uncensored game when completed"? Or is that idea scrapped now? I was a patron before.

It's still in the campaign overview section. The blurb from the reward description boxes was removed because it was confusing people as to the actual requirement to earn the reward. The actual requirement, in case anyone is interested, is as follows:

"If you pledge a total of $20 or more over the course of the project you will receive an uncensored completed copy of the game at the end of the project!"

Any feedback on the "lust as pros/cons" suggestion? Even if you guys don't go with that route, I'm curious about what you think of it from a game theory perspective at least.

I've had related ideas for awhile to have modifiers/effects on gear (and potentially skills) that add positive effects based on lust. One idea was to have sort of a lust berserker archetype that has expanded offensive abilities at greater lust.

Things like this are something I've noticed a lot of people have failed to consider when suggesting ideas, but it's possible that the scope of the project still isn't entirely clear (or maybe it's the out of sight / out of mind thing, since the equipment system hasn't been fleshed out yet).

The big thing I want to investigate in the near future are some some major ideas for the Lust system in general that I kind of foreshadowed in my response to rickbuzz in this post. Removing the restriction that I mention there could allow for the Lust system to be much more dynamic, though I still need to see how plausible it is.

 

[Ashiel]

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

I've had related ideas for awhile to have modifiers/effects on gear (and potentially skills) that add positive effects based on lust. One idea was to have sort of a lust berserker archetype that has expanded offensive abilities at greater lust.

That's cool and it's good to hear this is a consideration. I will say I'd hope it would be more of a passive thing that simply had synergy with certain skills/items, rather than requiring you to specifically equip lust-based options.

My reasoning is that it would (or at least I think it would) imply that Malise and Neon were doing so intentionally (which would detract from the fetishism discussed previously). All I'm asking is please continue to be careful as you have been.

That's one reason I think passive +/- stat %s and charge rates would be a fairly simple and unobtrusive system as a baseline. It makes lust a double-edge sword automatically and can serve as a basis for gearing and skill building around (since some gear and skills would have better synergy depending on you condition because of the change in things like combat tempo or damage per turn), and it doesn't prevent building skills and gear that have different effects based on current lust either.

I know it'd be a pain in the butt in RPGmaker (or at least I haven't learned how to do it yet) but if you guys could figure out a pratical way to make a skill act a little differently based on lust, that could be ideal. Having skills that work well when not lusty but simply changed as you became lusty would be really cool and make it feel less like you we intending to go get ravished.

For example, if you have a taunt skill that normally inflicts a heavy amount of damage normally, having the skill lose damage but gain the ability to inflict a status ailment on targets would be great. Say without lust sickness the attack was roughly 200% regular attack damage and makes an enemy attack the taunter. Useful. However, at lust sickness it only deals 125% normal attack damage but debuffs the target's ATK/DEF significantly. At advanced sickness, it only deal 50% normal attack damage but inflicts an H-berserk status and further penalties, causing the foe to become very vulnerable as all they can do is think about and attempt to continue rutting with the object of their desire.

And, in this case, it wouldn't necessarily imply that Malise or Neon were explicitly attempting to allure them, it's just a side effect of the pheromone overdose and the disorientation.

However, I realize that could be complicated to do (though thinking about it in my head, it might be doable with common events on skill use...I'll need to play around with something similar and see if I can figure out something like that).

The big thing I want to investigate in the near future are some some major ideas for the Lust system in general **LINK REMOVED DUE TO POSTING LIMITS**. Removing the restriction that I mention there could allow for the Lust system to be much more dynamic, though I still need to see how plausible it is.

I personally would adore having broken-armors pre-lust sickness so I support that whole heartily. I really like the gameplay of M&tM, so I'm very interested in discussing game theory surrounding it whenever possible. I'm hoping that after I transition to my new job in the coming weeks, maybe I can up my patronage to inner circle levels so I can follow the project more closely. Really the only thing standing in the way right now is financial concerns.

 

[Slam Sector]

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

Don't let people brow-beat you into making a different game than you want to, Eromancer. I want to play a game that you planned on and believe in, not one designed by committee.

 

[MegatronYES]

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

Don't let people brow-beat you into making a different game than you want to, Eromancer. I want to play a game that you planned on and believe in, not one designed by committee.

 

[Ooblex]

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

Especially with regards to the context from whence that quote is drawn, I, for one, will not play a game if I know it includes mandatory pregnancy (as well as inflation/bulging), so that is definitely a lost sale.

As I said, other than that, sounds good.

Btw I never said mandatory pregnancy. I did say that having unprotected sex with monsters should have consequences. Pregnancy/impregnation is a likely consequence of having sex and happens to be a relatively popular fetish.

However, if you manage your battles so you don't get impregnated, then you shouldn't have to deal with pregnancy

Spoiler

beyond what's already there, anyway

.

 

[torkenstiem]

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

I did say that having unprotected sex with monsters should have consequences. Pregnancy/impregnation is a likely consequence of having sex and happens to be a relatively popular fetish.

yea, especially when some of these game makers add a lot of dialogue where the heroine says, "dont cum inside, ill get pregnant", after getting gang banged or raped by 10+ mobs. its disappointing when pregnancy never happens.

 

[Ashiel]

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

I'll be honest. The threat of pregnancy from having enemies cum inside you would be soooo good. Shudders. I think this may be one of my fetishes.

However, from a realist point of view, I understand that even considering something like that would entail a shizload more character models, so I wouldn't want the devs to focus on that if it wasn't something they felt was practical within their means.

Perhaps I will just consider it a wishful thought, unless the team reaches a point where doing so would be practical.

 

[Zoom]

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

I'll be honest. The threat of pregnancy from having enemies cum inside you would be soooo good. Shudders. I think this may be one of my fetishes.

However, from a realist point of view, I understand that even considering something like that would entail a shizload more character models, so I wouldn't want the devs to focus on that if it wasn't something they felt was practical within their means.

Perhaps I will just consider it a wishful thought, unless the team reaches a point where doing so would be practical.

I would like it. But can a cyborg like Neo get pregnant? From monster ennemies? (Yeah, ok, the eggs laying thing scene... )

 

[AltairPL]

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

I would like it. But can a cyborg like Neo get pregnant? From monster ennemies? (Yeah, ok, the eggs laying thing scene... )

Hey, it's a game, so monster impregnating a cyborg is possible . On the other hand, for the same reason, everyone and everything in the game can be sterile/barren .

 

[Zoom]

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

He, he.