- Major Buff: Reduced BASICS Tests and Requirements by the following amount:
- Veronica: -3
- Olga: -4
- Elaine: -1
- Stella: -1
- Larissa: -2
- Terra: -3
- Major Buff: Ultimate Survivor Kit reduces Barricade damage by 25%, up from 0%. (Reason: This kit was comparably overpriced for its effect.).
- Added in most voice lines from the AD3 Trailer onto day 1.
- Minor tweaks:
- Added a cancel button for the character creation screen.
- Rearranged the order of buttons for the main menu.
- Fixed some more lines for day 2 tutorial.
- Fixed a line in day 1 after choosing to not take any unnecessary risks.
- Fixed some lines in day 1 involving sonic emitter and mapping system.
This is an incremental patch. We are still updating the game; more content is in the works.
There is a part of the game I do not understand.
ReplyDeleteOn day 11 I can't remove the wax anymore. Same goes for day 12 and 13. What am I missing? Am I supposed to let someone rest or something for the energy to return?
Also, I noticed Carmen's energy kept fluctuating... is that the cause? Not enough energy?
Please help.
Sincerely,
A nubcake trying to get by
You need at least 5 energy to attempt to remove wax. The attempt is not guaranteed, and it is recommended you save more by either waiting and building 5 energy a day, or by going to the hangar to recharge at 30 a day.
DeleteWhen you destroy wax or use any of carmen's powers, you pay the cost from the same energy reserve. Using her powers will make you stuck if you go overboard.
Thanks for clarifying!
DeleteSo does this mean I can't assign Carmen to do stuff in order to gain 5 energy per day?
Carmen is only exceptional in that she needs to be repaired to gain back HP, and she uses EP instead of SP. You may freely assign her to other tasks; anyone can work on an empty stomach.
DeleteSo long as you don't use her abilities, you'll regain EP.
Ahh. Thanks for the clarification.
DeleteJust wondering, does Carmen only have 1 scene? Or is there more. Cuz the file states Carmen 1. Hehehe
>1
DeleteKnew I shouldn't have turned her back into a hoebot hahaha
DeleteAlso, is it me or after she became a hoebot she literally can't do anything other than boost morale? Cuz cooking repairing etc is all zero for me.
You should still be able to use Carmen normally after choosing the breasts option. Maybe she has less than 20 morale when used?
DeleteWow it looks like a lot of progress is being made. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, cuz of the way the story goes past day 22, is there a deadline to "finish" the game? Cuz it seems I can not get enough basics for a certain character which has a 30 basic requirement, and from the looks of it the game may end on day 28?
Strictly speaking on whether or not the game ends itself, the game doesn't end until a year or so, when the slower rescue ship arrives. Nobody is expected to make it that far.
DeleteI feel some people may be like "Challenge Accepted"
DeleteI hope not. The only way you'd get to it is by using money. There should be a feature where the game just locks you out of buying if you're at like 40+ days, but that's just insane. Anyway, there is a token ending but it's really just me saying
Delete"wellllllllll ok u win"
anyone know how to get zoe's real ending still keep getting ghost no clue what I'm doing now and its not fun to keep making the same "mistake" over and over
ReplyDeleteStory 7 choice.
DeleteI'll repost the tip for you:
DeleteHint: Zoe tends to try and get relief of her sorrows quickly. What she really needs is time.
then can I ask, is there ment to be a second choose other then the "I want your body" you can skip text too it but its the only choice there
Deletethere aren't any choices in carmen that will help you get the second.
DeleteAnd yeah, you can ask. Design wise, we were trying to make dates be more important by increasing the risk of failure with the whole unknown number of points needed...
It worked fine in AD2 because you didn't have to do much, but I think the hidden mechanic in that sense may have been a bit too much for this game. It's not exactly something we can test either (seeing as we're aware of what these numbers are) so it's something we cannot account for in terms of difficulty (unlike combat).
If you want to know how to get Carmen's or Zoe's scene, just ask. Should the requirements be shown in the game? The jury is out on that one.
well Zoe has 2 ending right, but I dont know how to get it, the game just says at the end that you should play again, the hint I have is zoe needs time but I don't know how to trigger anything that lets me give her space other then just no trying to date her before doing the 7th date. That why I asked because it could have been that but if its not I'm kinda stumped.
Delete@anon
DeleteI'll explain Zoe's 2nd scene in more detail: Yes, if the requirements aren't yet fulfilled before accessing Zoe 7, then you will only see one choice. Once you figure out what that requirement is, you get 2 choices. Figuring out what my tip means will get you closer to your goal, but actually fulfilling that requirement might not be easy for most people.
I do them the non spooky ending, i keep getting the spooky one over and over.
DeleteAh so it's there words you use in the first 6 date that need in the first 6 dates? that or talking to other people i guess?
DeleteThe word/choice you use in the 7th date is the one that matters.
DeleteI can't handle all this information cheat sheet where are you?!
Deletethanks for the help, turn out I was just getting lucky and pass too early at least I think, time passes and I the second option.
DeleteInteresting update, still don't think it's enough. I'll let you know my thoughts when I can find the time to play tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHow many scenes for each girl are there in total? Would be nice to know so we don't need to backtrack just in case we finished all of them.
ReplyDeleteall but zoe will get you all the sence she has 2 ending, olga has an extra one but it will tell how to get it when you beat her story.
DeleteSoooo... I bought some ammo. But the ammo only stays in the current playthrough? Like if I load a save all the ammo seems to dissapear. Is it supposed to be like that? Damn thats a waste of money
ReplyDeleteHow the ammunition consumption works is that in each run, the local storage is used up first before the Andrograde supplies.
DeleteIf anytime that the local supplies are empty, then any Andrograde supplies used during any battle will be consumed and cannot be used again.
Hope this is clear to you.
Hey Jungl3Curr1 could you give a hint of whats gonna be in the next patch? (if there is another)
DeleteWe're working on getting more bunk scenes in, so stay tuned!
DeleteThis also ties in with the game balance.
I take it the lines from the trailer are the only ones that have been recorded so far?
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, hows about those old AD2 voice acting lines? Just a dump of the MP3s would be fine.
ad2 lines are...hmm. Well, there is an issue with what files I already have and have not released. It's sticky. AD3 comes first.
DeleteGood job with AD2, by the way. Rather than play AD3 any longer, I held off as long as I could on buying AD2 until yesterday. Though the graphics have improved since then, I feel the ancestor is superior overall.
DeleteWhy'd you wait so long for AD2?! its soo good!
DeleteI did what I regretted not doing in AD3 -- I waited to see how it would turn out. To distract me from my loss, I'll be focusing more on the second and just have faith that the third will be polished to something better in the new year.
DeleteHey guys any clue on how to get Carmen 2? Been trying combinations of her story but I can't seem to get it. Even tried both locations and most of the different choices.
ReplyDeleteIs AD3 already considered "completed", and you guys are just doing buffing/nerfing/bug fixes to improve the gameplay?
ReplyDelete"We're working on getting more bunk scenes in, so stay tuned!
DeleteThis also ties in with the game balance." From an earlier reponse
Content: Voice and H, expansion after.
DeleteUser interface: TBA
Balance: Uhh...nothing's really imbalanced anymore, lol.
Difficulty: TBA
I'm trying really hard to not be negative or come across as dismissive of your guys' work, but I really think you need to look back at your prior two games. I've played this game for probably 15+ hours now off and on and I've yet to unlock a scene. Now, I know I have the capability of unlocking scenes from Olga or Carmen, but those aren't the scenes I want. In AD1 and AD2 this wasn't an issue. You focused on a girl and you got them. It took effort, but not multiple RL work days worth of time kind of effort.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the effort in those games was fun, not frustrating. The combat system that was implemented, in my opinion, ruins the game. I've tried to like it. I even like strategy games and I kept giving it a go over and over. But there's no difficulty curve and no progression, so it's like you're constantly beating your head off of a wall. And it takes so long to complete them in order to get the points you need to progress the story. Not to mention that the combat is only bearable if you buy things from the store to remove some of the frustration, but then the time requirement is still there.
So you make your way through these countless, and in my opinion, just plain annoying battles, only to see a stat requirement change that tells you that you'll have to do upwards for 30 more of these battles to continue your current pick of a storyline. It's just not fun. At this point I regret this purchase. Hopefully something will be changed to turn the focus back on the story.
I know you guys have more changes in the works and I doubt you care much about the frustrations of one person, but I hope you rework this game. Make it so the battles don't happen every night; either lower the stat requirements for stories even further or increase stat point gain; allow save slots; and please just lower the difficulty in general, either through an easy mode or otherwise.
Right now this all almost seems like it has an intentionally frustrating set up in order to be a cash grab, and I really hope that's not the case and some changes can be made.
Addition to the post above:
ReplyDeleteI'll also note this, I never actually 'lost' the game. I only had my barricades breached once during this time. I learned some good ability combinations and figured out who work well together, so I'd appreciate if the comments of "get good" aren't made. I just restarted a lot due to frustrations.
It's interesting you should say you never lost, yet you're frustrated. You find the game too difficult, but then right after, you say "don't tell me to get good".
ReplyDeleteWhat would explain such contradictions then? Frustrations are from losses. Or are they merely due to time? No, because you state that the game is difficult... (although admittedly the game is rather long).
I don't have any proof of this, but from what I gather, people rarely *lose*. It's more typical to resign. Hard not to see why, as what comes before resignation is demoralization. Maybe you overestimated your luck and thought you could stop an enemy only to miss him. Many of your resources are important, and actually losing one only forces you to think how dire the consequences may be.
The players that win will tell you the game isn't that hard. Well, I'm sure the game actually is, but the point is that the losses you incur may not be as bad as you imagine (unless you're just a terrible player, heh). There comes a point in the game where you have learned enough on how to play, where you've become efficient, and when you can see possible threats to your defenses... and at that point the game is indeed stressful.
It'd be frustrating to reach a difficult point in the game and consider either buying an item to get past, or not buying the item because your skills are actually be getting better to make up for it.
"I doubt you care much about the frustrations of one person."
But I do. I care about all of your frustrations, all of you. Rarely do you see a game where people complain so much about the difficulty because if people thought the game was too difficult, they probably would just not play it. The reason for this is hentai. The reward in this game does not provide a mechanical benefit. It's supplemental to the accomplishment of victory, and it is the driving force to make you fight beyond what you're normally capable of. Stronger.
It's not intended to be a cash grab. Don't you think we'd be making more money if we made this game more conventional? It's actually the opposite of a cash grab. The frustration you're enduring was purposefully engineered by me, to an altruistic end. To stretch what you're capable of. To endure and accept loss, and ultimately overcome. If you don't overcome, then we've failed you in that regard.
This whole "frustrating altruism" concept is not a good business model though, so we will get to fixing the game for you. Players will be happy, and as will we when we grab said cash. And all that's transpired will only be remembered in a tiny blog post...
I thank you for your reply. And you do make a point, I think the frustration does mainly come from the time aspect. It just takes a long time to accomplish something and it becomes tedious with the current combat system in place. The difficulty does play a part in this as it is what forces the resignations you speak of due to the situations it forces the player into (though I've also restarted simply due to patches). I just feel like with the way everything currently is set up that I could unlock most of AD2's content in the time it'd take me to finish one story in AD3 without any frustration involved. Trial and error could take place in a matter of minutes rather than hours. You folks are fantastic writers, the things you put in crack me up. I'd just rather be more engrossed in that (and porn of course) than the battles.
DeleteAnd I'm thankful for your feedback.
DeleteWhile the game is a tad too long, I don't share your negative opinion about combat. It's fun, not tedious. Final Fantasy is tedious when you just attack without thinking. AD3 forces you to think, so it's not tedious in that regard and plenty of people find it fun.
I think you're right. The combat is pretty fun, but this game could benefit ALOT from there maybe not being an attack everyday. Like, maybe a 20% probability of there not being an attack. It would definitely reduce the frustrations and complaints a lot.
DeleteI give up. I've only unlocked Olga and Carmen scenes and have spent three days working on Terra and Veronica. This game is too fucking hard and tedious - like, it feels more like I'm grinding towards nothing than actually doing something fun. Aching Dreams 2 was a masterpiece. This is just a caricature. I know you guys put a lot of work into this, but there are so many benefits to just making it less of a bitch to play
Delete1. Less complaining
2. More sales (A lot more, in fact. People who play hentai games aren't looking for a "hardcore murder game" per-se, therefore, tend to be more casual. There is a very small number, to the point of nonexistence, of those who like hentai and hardcore gaming.)
3. People liking your game, giving you appreciation, showering you with compliments. Word gets out about the game, people don't regard it as a disappointment, and this flows back into more sales.
4. More sales from this game means more funds in making your next one.
5. Hentai scenes easier to access and more evenly spread out destroys the feeling of "five hours of work for two seconds of fun," which means people like it more, which ends up generating more sales. Think back to Aching Dreams 2 and 1 and their simple yet functional design.
AD2 was a simple game for the masses.
DeleteOnce you get good at AD3, it's better than AD2 in almost every way.
It's like comparing Michael Bay's Transformers to Kubrick's Space Odyssey.
Regardless, my response three posts up basically addresses your concerns.
I hope you don't get cynical about your fanbase. There are honestly a couple of people who sincerely like the game you're making so far. Well, it isn't like.....Kubrick-worthy, but I like the strategy. Most people who say it sucks haven't really put in the time to think it through yet. Although it can be really tedious at times.....I mean, once you've got it down...it's not too hard.
Deletety
Deleteye not saying I'm good as either director, just comparing the scale between the two games.
I mean, the writing is certainly better. AD2 was a joke compared to this.
Delete^lol, finally someone that hates ad2's story. AD2's story was certainly crap in comparison, I think the only thing that made the story memorable to people was the bunches of choices that made it look like an action packed "choose your own adventure" game.
DeleteAD2 was like a jerk-off-with-an-objective kind of game. AD3 is more of an objective-oh-look-I-can-jerk-off-too-I-guess kind of game.
DeleteSo do you want to be able to jerk off while playing a game?
DeleteWhy?
Why not just look at porn instead?
What is it about a hentai game that makes it more attractive than regular hentai?
Hentai games don't usually try to justify why they have hentai. They don't need to. How much game is too much game in a hentai game?
If you could turn any non-hentai game into a game with a hentai scene at the end, which one would it be? It probably wouldn't be a bejewelled game.
I enjoy a good hentai game where there's some work involved. A game that involves simply one or two clicks to get to the hentai is not really a game, in that it's not enjoyable. I understand your model of framing a game that's 'worth' the difficulty to achieve such hentai, at least more than I did before.
DeleteBut it's on a scale that I can and will never reach. At least, this is true for its current form. How do I dissect it? The skills are interesting and tactical, the barricades are a good buffer, the characters are certainly interesting and vastly different from one another... Then it's a matter of enemy that I have a problem with. Maybe there are too many. Maybe their numbers wear on our limited resources too fast. Decreasing them by a small amount will lessen the burden of difficulty and time in further in-game weeks by leaps and bounds. It may even become sustainable indefinitely.
That said, would there still be a difficulty involved if we could manage to sustain ourselves against any combination of enemy? Of course there would. If we aren't tactical, using our limited resources, we will be wiped out yet again. There would also have to be an investment in time in order to make it to the hentai scenes we desire. We can plan appropriately to sustain ourselves indefinitely, if we can learn how to do that. And you may say it's possible even now, but as the player, I disagree.
The sense of accomplishment achieved when enduring a hellish task for a short time and enduring a small burden for what feels like an eternity is the same. To attempt to endure a hellish task for all eternity? That's simply torture. Even if the hentai scenes were granted at the end of the torture (assuming all trials can be overcome, giving up is out of the question, etc), it is no longer worth it.
Thus, as it stands, Aching Dreams 3 is not worth my time. Aching Dreams 2, on the other hand, is. Yet you claim that the former is superior in almost every way. Maybe you measure it in the amount of time you spent on one compared to the other. But that is not a good measure.
You will never satisfy everyone. Where is the line you will draw in the sand? How many people will you continue to change your supposed 'perfected art' for before you decide that enough is enough? Whatever the case, you will have to change at least this much for me to be satisfied, and I'm probably among the lowest tier in terms of how far I've gotten in this game.
TL;DR:
Lower the number of enemies, and it will probably change a lot.
(other anonymous:)
DeleteI can see some merit in this critique, though for me it's really not the difficulty in itself.
The game has vastly more gameplay than it's predecessor, but it's not quite the kind of quality content that a large team spends years on.
Aka, it gets repetitive.
The combat is fun and challenging, as is the management part, but I don't think I'd repeat the process multiple times with the only difference being the ending and some tidbits of dialogue.
Even after just 10 days, I've more or less went through enough approaches that I could then either repeat until the end or restart and try something else.
Maybe it's just me, but I just get no sense of accomplishment from doing something I've already did before. The exact same way, to boot.
So, as you so aptly compared some posts ago, I'm basically just grinding to eventually see a porn scene.
(Hope that didn't sound too negative)
To iterate on my point directly above, and play some devils advocate:
DeleteYou said that AD2 was simple, and AD3 has a lot more gameplay, but if you break it down, isn't it just AD2 with a lot of grinding in between?
As far as I can tell, the "old part" and the "new gameplay", aren't connected all that much.
As for an actual suggestion or two:
A) It'd be nice if I could see a persons preferred weapon when assigning guards, directly at the portrait.
B) Maybe have most likely enemy types every day/area, from some sort of recon, so that players can play ahead a little.
I know you changed the save system, but while it's in place, a person can get into situations that are more difficult than average, and thus fail repeatedly from the same save within a 5 day period despite not doing anything factually wrong.
As an example, I had a case where with 7 difficulty, it spawned 5 Mike Moose bots. Had they all decided to target one survivor, and actually hit (3 did, but 2 of them missed), I'd have lost at least one girl after 2 turns of combat.
I accidentially used a mouse gesture after the fight, so I had to reload, and the fight had 1 bot and 3 kevlarsaurs that were comparatively easy to fend off with pushback weapons.
Having a rough idea of the most prevalent opposition might give players a bit more thinking fodder.
C)Maybe limit free actions to one per turn?
"As far as I can tell, the "old part" and the "new gameplay", aren't connected all that much."
DeleteNot connected? I take offense, lol. Allow me to dismantle AD3's design for you. Let us start at the beginning.
Hentai.
Standard Dating Sim.
+Enhanced dating sim choices-AD2&3's choices have risk behind them since choosing poorly will result in a loss of a day. BASICS simulate that not all choices should be guaranteed.
+The passage of time- One of the cornerstones of dating sim design. AD2 does this in a standard way that many other dating sims do. You simply do...something else (like training/ tactical battles), while days pass and simulate a relationship in 30 days.
The passage of time with your partner: This is where AD3 starts to diverge from many adult games, although this is an extremely important factor. All you have to do is give the player something to do with the girl, and it can't involve sex. Whatever the activity is, it acts as a build up. This build up is essentially the root cause for even playing a hentai game over going to a porn site. Dating sims can do this without any game mechanics, purely through story, but there's a lot of room for improvement. What if Final Fantasy was a hentai game, and you didn't have sex until 50 hours later into the game? That's good buildup. Mass Effect is also a good example of this in practice.
The battle system. You are giving commands to 4 girls, all of which are romanceable partners down the road. Before you even start dating Olga, you'll know she's a genius that cannot shoot worth shit. Hell, even in Larissa's story, you can pick a fight with her, but you know from guard duty that she can kick your ass for just one stamina.
An early playtester once said "There's just too much on the player in the beginning. Why do I have to control 11 characters?"
Because you're the fucking captain. You have to deal with mutiny. It's balls hard, but at the end of the day, they respect you. And then you have the folder with their dossiers/backstories. Who wrote those? Isabel. The whole crew acts as a general toolbox in the story; Larissa's your go-to guard, Elaine's the tech expert, You take your date to the cafeteria and Terra will serve you. She's a good cook, right? Assign her to cooking!
The story and gameplay are intertwined. The gameplay is INTEGRAL.
For AD2, you have random chicks getting their clothes beaten off. You only interact with some of them in the story. The shopkeeper is pretty well done though, good buildup there.
AD1. You click on the docks, then you click train strength. At least Taiyo/Selene shows up so you can look at them.
AD3: You COMMAND them.
If it's not apparent, AD3 tries very hard to establish itself as a "hentai game", and not a "hentai, with a game". Playing bejewelled and then fapping would count as the latter.
onto suggestions.
A)Sure it would (adds it to the task list with a low priority).
B)A radar that costed energy was considered but ultimately dismissed. I've covered this topic before, but simply put, the more experienced you are at commanding, the less you'll think that the enemy spawns are too much rng, and the more you'll be able to account for them. Adding a radar is adding something we don't really need.
C)Why? What does that accomplish?
To chime in on the gameplay part:
DeleteI believe there's 2 potential points of contention:
1st, the actual ruleset.
Your fighting a random amount of a random type of enemy, with random to-hit chances. I've seen cases where all survivors had hit chances upwards of 70% and they all missed.
It's sort of a game of chance, and games of chance are fun when the player can load the dice.
In the likes of an X-Com, Characters can actively take cover, or flank the enemy, something I'd like to call intuitive complexity.
Now, the abilities do that, but they are starkly limited by stamina;
As such, as resources get more scarce, the game might get less fun. This I could see primarily affect less experienced players, who thus get frustrated and leave.
The second is, oddly enough, partly the competition.
AD3 tries hard to be an actual game, but when it comes to actual games, there's just better. You can only do so much with a 2 man team.
F.Ex. there's no real character-Progress in the actual gameplay part, which despite the allegations of veteran players that they did just fine before has become a powerful motivating force in modern games.
That's why a stronger connection between the gameplay and the extrinsic motivation, aka the Dating-Sim, might actually help set it apart. It's correct that the CYOA part, for lack of a better word, has a minor influence on the management and tactics, but in turn the gameplay doesn't affect the Dating part much.
If there was a randomize-mode that shuffled the abilities of all crewmembers, it wouldn't actually affect the game much.
I think something simple like a crewmember visiting the captain to complain how she's used out of her specialty too often would really add to that connection.
I'm aware that it'd just be a counter with a threshold triggering a 3-line dialogue, and the worst that could happen would be a minor effect on mood, but it would feel like much more.
Like choices have an effect beyond success or failure.
PS: I don't see the game as bad, I just think it could be.... more. I dunno, gut feeling.
First off, XCOM versus AD3.
DeleteYou know what, regardless of how much more fun X-Com is, I actually like AD3's combat better because X-Com has a glaring issue in combat.
Men! At the ready!
Take one step!
Overwatch!
End turn!
The closest comparison to that in AD3 is when you spam pistols, and even then, we *want* you to do that. Sure, you don't have to do the "X-Com Tiptoe", but AD3 maintains that the best strategy to win is also the funnest way to play.
But that's the thing isn't it?
"The best strategy to win is also the funnest way to play"
Maybe you didn't do the X-Com Tiptoe. You may want your characters to level up, but I want the game to do the opposite. I want the enemies to level up because the only person that should be leveling up is me, and my ability to command.
AD3 is not for everyone and it is clearly focused with a certain player in mind, which is why it did not start off with an easier difficulty.
No, the thing is that players tend to go out of their way to use the most efficient strategy, even if that is no fun at all.
DeleteAs a former game Designer I've seen that enough.
It leads to farming and grinding in online games, which is not fun but provides satisfying +numbers, and using glitches and exploits, and abusing balancing faults without telling anyone about them.
Ultimately, the most fun way to play *should* be a valid way to win, but often it isn't.
That isn't the point, though.
The point is player control and repeatability.
On point 1, I used XCom as an example because despite random numbers, and the frustrating experience of missing with a 95% chance, it works due to players actively being able to influence those numbers by flanking enemies, taking cover, etc.
Another example would be a strategy game where you can circle around a hostile tank to hit it's rear armor for a better penetration chance.
In AD3, the most prevalent way to influence your chances is to expend stamina, which means the game becomes progressively less fun, as opposed to other games where you gain in options while the opposition ramps up even more. Spamming pistols isn't fun, I could write a script to do that for me.
The second point, that ties in with the first, is replayability.
I've went through the game once, and nearly finished it twice, and all my motivation to do it again is non-existant. I'd just be doing everything more or less the same, and while the gameplay at first was refreshing, there's just nothing left to try out. I know there's many people out there trying to master a system, get better at something or some jazz, but aside getting all the character stories, there's no reason to go at it again, which turns it into a chore; the gameplay is just in the way of the completionist, and I'm no completionist.
Maybe that's a bit of buyers remorse because I paid 20 bucks for something that didn't hold my attention for 5 hours, but I'm hoping to be constructive.
Now, I feel the point made above about the interaction between story and gameplay is an important one.
Let's just create a little imagery:
Let's call the dating aspect "story" and the survival aspect "gameplay".
Then we have:
Type | - - - | Dating - - - - - Management - - - - - Defense
Story | - - - | - yes - - - - - - a little bit - - - - - - - - no
Game| - - - | a little bit - - - - - yes - - - - - - - - - - - yes
Not sure if the formating came through, but the point here is that the dating part has an often neglectable, but still present influence on the Gameplay, but the Defense part has absolutely no influence on the Dating part. The survivors have no personally aside from some fixed events, or you talking to them.
No one complains that she has to do guard duty too often, or that they disagree with your expenditure of ammunition.
You said somewhere else that you didn't want this to be bejeweled with hentai, but if you break it down into it's parts, that's really what it feels like. Yes, it's with zombies instead of stones, and there's a side minigame that might result in penalties to your time limit or boosters, to use that analogy until it hurts, but it's still oddly comparable.
That is obviously just my opinion, so we might have to agree to disagree and call it a day.
One honest question though:
Are there choices in the dates(I haven't seen everything yet) where the player has to decide between equal options that affect different parts of the game? Like, sacrificing hp to boost another team members morale, or lose affection to gain ammo, or some such? So far, the only things I've seen are "lose something because you clicked the wrong button", and "trade affection A for Affection B".
Regards
To answe this question: "Are there choices in the dates(I haven't seen everything yet) where the player has to decide between equal options that affect different parts of the game? Like, sacrificing hp to boost another team members morale, or lose affection to gain ammo, or some such? So far, the only things I've seen are "lose something because you clicked the wrong button", and "trade affection A for Affection B""
DeleteWe only have choices that can hurt and incapacitate any survivor. Other than that, we didn't go too far with it.
Well with all due respect, the debate is only going in circles. I would love to reply more, but the energy cost to do so is barring. While I acknowledge your reformed opinion and respect it,
Deletewe are beating a dead horse
My apologies if this has been asked before, but is getting a refund an option?
ReplyDeleteA refund is granted if it is warranted; as such they are only granted to backers because the non-backers have good awareness of the overall product they're getting.
DeleteIf you're a backer and you've consumed a lot of the product, a refund is not offered either. Refunds are case by case; if granted, it comes solely out of my paycheck as I take responsibility for it, so I have to be able to afford it and you have to be able to justify it. It's based on good faith.
Ok, I'm a backer and I think I meet the second requirement as well; I'll send you the details of my case by replying to your message on offbeatr.
DeleteWhat does it take for a backer to become 'warranted'? Simply unsatisfied?
DeleteReply through Offbeatr/kickstarter for details.
DeletePeople asking for a refund are wrong. A good response would be offering to pay for a walkthrough; like another kickstarter tier.
DeletePrice gouging, eh? Pay for the toy, then pay separately for the instruction manual.
DeleteJust noticed this, and not sure it's been mentioned so far, but:
ReplyDeleteIn the Terms of Agreement, it says "You acknowledge and agree that any that you have no ownership or..."
I don't get the "that any"?
(sigh) "that any"'s obviously's not supposed to be there.
DeleteAlso, lol someone is reading the TOA
DeleteHey, there is one. I had the same thought while submitting this. :P
DeleteAlso some feedback:
In the gun tutorial, when it's Veronicas turn, it at first looks like a bug that there's no menu to click on, maybe the "switch weapon" should be more explicitly mentioned. Well, or maybe it was and I somehow skipped it. Is there a backlog in that specific situation?
To be fair, the arrow did point at the weapons to switch.
DeleteNevertheless, we will consider making that step more transparent.
Will you please consider removing the penalty that eliminates your "resume" save file? I know you have a mad-on against something called "save scumming" or whatever, but it's really annoying when it gets removed because the game freezes on the battle screen, or is taking forever to load, etc. I've had it removed twice now because of events beyond my control, and it's super aggravating.
ReplyDeleteAnti-save scumming is only in the game if the game is stable. Yours is but one of the few reports claiming otherwise, nevertheless the issue remains open and we are alert to it.
DeleteCould you please tell us more about the game crashes you have? We want to make sure there are no bugs severely affecting the game.
DeleteI'm not sure I can say exactly what happens. Often, I'll be in a battle and I will destroy all the enemies, and then nothing happens. Sometimes, this is resolved by telling my characters to skip their turn, and then the screen says "enemies incoming" then goes to white. However, sometimes this does not happen and I'm just stuck.
DeleteOther times the game has crashed/frozen has been in the midst of battle or during the loading screen for a story.
Mind you, this doesn't happen all the time - I've gotten around half the stories finished so far - so I appreciate how you've taken the half save penalty down.
Ok, how exactly does the save system work?
ReplyDeleteI've been told there'd be autosaves every 5 days, and now I got resume at day 12 and saves at days 2, 7, and.... every single day after that.
http://achingdreams.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/ad3-v106-draft.html
Deletetdlr: We removed the half save penalty for now, until we decide to put it back in.
And I was just getting good too. To be fair the game's gotten a lot less frustrating with the progression of patches. This is largely due to UI being more informative.
ReplyDeleteHonestly though this has only made me more curious as to why you decided to make AD3 such a weird mashup of mechanics that it is. And yes, I've read some of the posts concerning this. It makes even less sense to me now.
"I want the enemies to level up because the only person that should be leveling up is me, and my ability to command."
Have you played Monster Hunter? I don't see why a character getting stronger and player skill improving being a necessity has to be exclusive.
"You know what, regardless of how much more fun X-Com is, I actually like AD3's combat better because X-Com has a glaring issue in combat."
But you're making a game so shouldn't having combat being fun be the point?
"What if Final Fantasy was a hentai game, and you didn't have sex until 50 hours later into the game? That's good buildup."
No, not really. If characters randomly started having sex 50 hours later I'd just be confused. Good buildup is independent of time and nothing inherently makes longer build ups better just good character interaction/development. In AD3 those random nightly battles aren't building up anything.
"Frustrations are from losses. Or are they merely due to time? No, because you state that the game is difficult..."
Again, you assume they're somehow mutually exclusive. It could be both and it could be more than that.
"I don't share your negative opinion about combat. It's fun, not tedious. Final Fantasy is tedious when you just attack without thinking. AD3 forces you to think"
You seem to assume that being forced to think means it's not tedious or somehow inherently more fun. It's also a bit unfair to compare a classic rpg system in that respect to a tactical strategy system. While we are though perhaps consider that FF's battle system is enjoyed, relatively intact, to the present and that the fun of battle systems are more than just making you think or having to improve your own skills.
Essentially I'm just confused why this design path was taken. Why focus on so many mechanics that seem to be generally unrewarding? I hope you don't take offense but the design choices feel restricting and frustrating. Having a game be thoughtful or necessitate player skill is not exclusive to just having a more fun/rewarding design.
"Have you played Monster Hunter? I don't see why a character getting stronger and player skill improving being a necessity has to be exclusive."
ReplyDeleteYou're right in that AD3 could have been built where to beat the game, you'd have to have player skill and a well progressed character. We *could* have done that, but such mechanics add unnecessary complexity, (in regards to both production and player understanding). If the game is built around the player eventually losing, and we know this to be an absolute case (moneytransactions aside), then it's simply easier to balance for.
The concept of loss is a design principal that resonates throughout the game. I wanted it to be unified, and I didn't want to have to account for player skill *overcoming* loss.
"But you're making a game so shouldn't having combat being fun be the point?"
Yes, and I think it's fun.
No, not really. If characters randomly started having sex 50 hours later I'd just be confused. Good buildup is independent of time and nothing inherently makes longer build ups better just good character interaction/development. In AD3 those random nightly battles aren't building up anything.
What makes you so sure that simply controlling a character for a longer period of time doesn't actually increase buildup? Players will mod in their favorite character skins into other games. You can just as well argue the other way and say that featuring these characters in combat does not increase buildup. The thing is, we don't know. You can claim that it doesn't, and I can claim that it does. The difference is, I know that it does in my gut, and here we are.
"You seem to assume that being forced to think means it's not tedious or somehow inherently more fun."
As I said, it may not be your cup of tea to be forced to strategize.
The whole argument is summed up in this way. I get it, it's not your style of play. But you know what, you weren't on the playtesting team. For the vast majority, it was just me. And I loved it. These design choices certainly ARE restricting and frustrating. And I love it.
Could we have made AD3 like AD2? Yes. In fact, I made damn sure that the AD3's dating sim section dwarfed AD2's, just so no one could say "if you didn't focus so much on the strategy segments, the dating sim wouldn't have suffered".
But in the end, it's a love for the game. Innovation may mean greater rewards and risk, but what with the limited audience to begin with, it may seem more risky than rewarding. But that's only if you're speaking from a financial perspective.
I have a love for the game that blinds me of my financial burdens, hell even from my own audience. The design eventually lead to the game being only subjectively good instead of unanimously praised as its predecessor was.
Are there any hidden scenes besides the 17 the camera says?
ReplyDeleteAs of now, there are oboy 17 scenes total. No hidden ones.
Delete