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Time for TLS 0.28.1, everybody.

Download:https://mega.nz/#!b4EBhQaY!be607Og8MeXxOHteg3lcPFn4B0GUyRHA4l_mnYD2nOg  

RTP Version:https://mega.nz/#!Okt3TaqQ!5dI5_nWveF7ZeE0fvrHtXrWXTl98RBIUnRElKD9TMYU  

TLS 0.28.0

  - Double update: the first two thirds of the war against the Incubus Emperor. 

 - Three new plot sex scenes.

 - Implementation of the new party splitting mechanics 

TLS 0.28.1

 - Riala balance update, unique combat reaction added

 - Character updates: Antarion and Sho equipment, Grubbak skills

 - Several internal mechanical changes

 - Misc polishing

0.28.1 NOTES

Riala Rebalancing: I've managed to buff Riala in a significant way while still having her be beatable by my worst possible save, but I would very much like input from people on how the battle plays now. She hits much harder, is immune to Disrupt, and is more likely to use single target attacks now. Using Dominate now leads to a unique event that weakens her slightly, but we should assume that the weakest saves won't have that ability.

Antarion/Sho Equipment: They were supposed to have it, but it got wiped from their characters. 

Grubbak Skills: He was intended to have unique elemental skills of his own, but was given the wrong character class.

ORIGINAL POST

If you like to play through each section only once, this would be a good update to wait for the bugfix version. I tested a lot before burning out a bit, so the whole thing should be entirely playable and relatively polished. But there is a 99.999% chance that I have made some error in the internal calculations that leads part of the war to have outcomes different than I intended.

I'm happy for all feedback on the war, of course, but I'd especially like feedback on battle balance. I had a harder time than usual trying to make things work for my range of saves. Some fights are obviously meant to be easy, but there are others that I want to be engaging even for very strong parties.

Though I tried to translate my huge set of notes into a unified event, there are enough moving pieces that it's possible that I've neglected something. If something seems to have been left out, feel free to bring it up, because it might have gotten overlooked. Some things have yet to appear (for example, Stark doesn't appear because he'll have a role later) but if there's a quest/variable that seems like it should impact an event that occurs this update, feel free to mention it.

As always, I eagerly look forward to hearing from the first person to finish the content so that I know I didn't accidentally introduce a bug at the last second. But I'd also like to hear from the people who provide in-depth feedback. If you guys think you can get through the content quickly, I think we can release the public version in a week. But I don't want anyone to feel rushed - if this version will take more time to polish, we can do the public release in two weeks as well.

Anyway... this update doesn't have many conclusions, but it does tie together a whole bunch of plot threads and I think it has a lot of satisfying content. I hope everyone enjoys. ^-^

-

Unrelated, if you were waiting for Crimson Gray to appear on MangaGamer, the preorder page is now online. I'm still mostly looking toward the Steam release, but definitely use MG if that's your preference:

http://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=1&product_code=1027 

Comments

Dorago

Oh that's great, I will try it tomorrow, I'm looking forward to see how the war will go :)

Censuur

Amidst greatly enjoying the new stuff I didn't really get to catch many problems, there's just some minor things I'd noticed: -At the Abbey in Aram there is a small shack with logs in it that you can walk over -At Steinford after the tower of mist there is a typo in Orcent's dialogue: "I also invested our investment in Stineford" Which presumably should be "investigated" I'll also chime in and say those screams where definitely on the mark, really good sound effect for what it was meant to convey. All in all this was quite a huge update, it took me almost three hours to finish everything and it was great seeing so many previous characters get a moment. Can't wait to see how it all wraps up (and how many of my impromptu choices where actually sound) Oddly enough the choice I'm most conflicted about was the Chosen, given the option to tell him to give up the power just had me scratching my head wondering if that was even possible (especially given what happened to our imprisoned Chosen) so I told him to go fight.

SSCat

You know what I look forward to the most? When the game is complete and I can play through the whole thing. Lol XD

Captain Hair

Just finished my playthrough, and man........ IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME! I kept waiting for it to cut off somewhere unsatisfactory, or you to pull out some asinine twist like killing Riala off, but all I got was one great moment after another. I mean, the Doom King throwing his weight around, the twist at the strategy meeting, the Arsehole of Arclent changing his name a few more times, the FUCKING ORDER OF SILENCE taking to the field, and so many new potential harem members. And the last fight and scenes following it..... just what I was hoping for. Bravo. Now, what I didn't much care for. Ivastan showing up again. Seriously hoping he dies a minor villain, hopefully in a moronic way. Say.... accidently locking himself in a room with 50 chosen? I really do not want this guy to get any major power. Mechanics wise, the first chunk with the seeds seemed.... overly hard compared to the rest of the content. I had to redo it many times to get through to my satisfaction. Granted, that may be as intended. And that's about it for my say. Quite the beautiful war you've crafted, but I'm still hoping for an ending that's a combo of Riala, Sarai, and Janine's. Doom King sacrifices himself so that Simon can fade into the background, living in a small corner of the world, ruling a minor nation that he bought for himself.

SJ99998

LOVED this update! Story's developing very nicely! Edit 2: I think I did find a small mistake; if Yarra tries to recruit the succubi in the tunnel entrance, the game checks if the Worn Whip is in the inventory. However, "include equipment" is unchecked; should it be checked?

wearMoniker

An epic update, both in actual size and in story. One issue I had was near the very end: the music that played with Riala's bedroom scene didn't mesh well with the story. It's the same urgent battle music as before she's taken to Simon's quarters, and it suffocates the big emotional climax. I feel like it should have different music, or at least pivot to different music either after her mind has been freed or during the morning after. Two nice bits I really loved: the maid sweeping during the school battle, and Sho's first battle. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but she was K.O.'d for me as soon as her first battle started. Since the battle itself was a sharp surprise, I actually wondered if Sho was getting killed off! A quick revival potion proved otherwise, thankfully.

Dustin null

I've got to admit that I love this game and this particular update. What I did find off maybe it was just me but I expected a certain enemies to either hit harder or present a larger challenge. Granted my team is all level 40 plus but it seems that certain abilities or even characters make otherwise challenging sections easier than what I would expect. Once again it maybe just me over analyzing the balancing. An example is Varia's Blade Dance seems overly powerful. With a team of Simon, Aka, Varia and Robin I managed to beat Riala in three turns. Just wondering if that was intended to be possible or if certain skills might be overly powerful is all? Overall though found no bugs and I can say this has been the absolute best game of this style of genre by far.

Darthjake

Done with no issues, this was freaking great, my only complaint is how long to wait for part 2... I joke, I joke, take your time Sierra, this was marvelous and well worth the wait! Like someone else said I sort of made quick choices, I too, encouraged the chosen to keep fighting, when you find one that is not made in the same mold you've got to encourage it otherwise you keep getting the same results. And I'm glad I sent Mestan after an orc commander. :D

Morningfrost

Just finished the update Sierra, and I loved it. Scared to know what some of my consequences are going to be, as I used my reserves to reinforce everything except the second Aram choice (Aram refugees, Stineford order, both Ardoheim fronts). Still have 2 reserve units left, but feel a little bit like I spread myself too thin. Loved seeing all the familiar faces coming back into relevance. Except Ivastan; fuck that guy. That last twist with Iris was great, didn't see that coming at all. Now though, it makes an obscene amount of sense. Also really loved the scene where the Fancy Walk orcs defended the palace. Love those guys, and also liked their respawns. Fancy Armor?!? Yes please! The Unsuccubus scream was just horrible. Creeped me out so much. Minor quibble with it, is that the scream slowed the game for a minute right before it took place. Not really a big deal, just wasn't sure if it was something that could be fixed or not. As a whole, this was an outstanding update. I was baffled at the sheer amount of content in it, and had a blast. ~Morningfrost

DukeLeto7

Well, I was very favorably impressed with the update, FWIW. Completed my first playthrough. Only bug I caught was a minor typo, my friend Tyna was referred to as the King's "neice" by someone receiving instructions from Simon. Looking forward to the grognards picking apart the new war secret stats and making a war walkthrough.

Lord Forte Games

Excellent update! I quite enjoyed it. I'll probably go back and play through things again, but I felt pretty happy with how stuff went this playthrough. I will agree with the comment that Riala felt very underwhelming as a fight. Even though I couldn't debuff her, her attacks were still doing next to nothing to my group, and in general... I felt a little sad more than anything. It's possible that was the intention given the scene after it, but still I thought it was worth mentioning. Also agree that the battle music during that scene felt off. I kind of expected the same BGM that plays during her actual fight. Out of curiosity, was that the "not exactly sexy" scene you alluded to writing a while back? I liked it, regardless. Bug I found: In the grove with the Aramite soldiers, you can bypass the blocking events that keep you from moving toward the map edge by camel guy if you go under the tree at the far south. Still looking for the shining sword that was hinted at being in that area... Another potential bug, text after the first battle using Sho implied that normal res spells wouldn't work, but Support Allies ressed her just fine for me. Was that supposed to go differently? The Ginasta/Chosen interaction was fun, also. I gotta say you did a nice job of making that village feel sympathetic, I got minorly heartsick when it looked like the three of them were just going to... tear through it after I had decided to spare it. So good job there. =P And the unsuccubi definitely had quite the effect as well. To echo the others, excellent job with that sound effect. Looking forward to seeing the outcome!

RiMa

Your game is a Gem... I had to subscribe after I found this 3 days ago... keep this up.. and please tell me you're not halfway through this game because this deserve not only 20-30+ hours but this deserves a 60-100 hours content... either way... this game is amazing no matter how long or short this game is. It is still a 10/10 for me. And just finished my playthrough, it got me worried on the part where the church and the others found out about Dargai looking forward on how will that progress and the end of the war, aftermath, and maybe a little Yhiiln governing 5? don't want to pressure though so I'll be patient since I'm satisfied for this great update you but trust me this is the best RPG maker game more so than those crappy RPG maker games on steam......

Darthjake

Minor grammatical error, at the end with Iris, she says "going own fighting", should that not be "going down fighting"? Yes, I'm already playing through it again, lol!

Seil

Holy shit. I tried my horrible save first. Being underleveled, missing Altina, not having good army. Things were... rough. Dominated Varia with her new wicked-sharp pointy toys is a murder-machine tho... Also the scope of the war is simply staggering. Now i am just wondering how this all ends.

werewindle

First patreon comment, heh. This update had way more content than I expected, especially given the amount of branching! I agree with everyone saying the music for the Riala scene was off... you could easily keep the weepy dramatic bit from the previous scene. Also the piles of wood to the right of the Abbey should probably be blocking? Oh and is the choice in Ardoheim when Vhala joins Aka just a fakeout? If not, that bit could perhaps use a save spot, because the Feroholm battles are on the hard side.

Ripe

WOW!!!! That was some update! Soo many things happening and soo many hard choices to make. And we're nowhere near done with the war... I have a feeling I'll be replaying full war quite a few times just to find out what the consequences of each action is. I did noticed one small typo: during "Meeting Iris" scene (kudos at having the scene play out from Iris' POV!) at one point she thinks about 'going own fighting' which I assume should be 'going down fighting'. One thing I'm not sure is a bug... for Riala confrontation Sho isn't an option which could be intentional.

Ferr

I like the first fight, witch make full use of the harem, (made paying atension to the hole harem paying of). And after this release the Replay value just whent through the roof, now i need go back to the summit and se what happen if things when diffencet with orc extermation and the unmen nosion.

wearMoniker

Minor typo: In the Ardford Military District, right before Simon is called out on his secret identity, the "Maid" character near the gate says "It's terrifying how many bodies [the] Incubus Emperor can throw into this war... and we haven't seen the end of it..." Her line is missing that [the], which the other characters seem to always use when referring to the Incubus Emperor, rather than something like "King John" where there's not definitive article attached. Also, I am now onboard with a Sister Kara / Orcent ship after that conversation they had in Ardford over Toethe. Didn't see that one coming, but it makes sense. (At least I think that's supposed to be Kara...) EDIT: Found another typo, in the final scene with Iris. On the 'page' where Riala says "Hello, Isis." There's... >>Iris abandoned her last potential plan of fleeing or calling for help: they had planned this and escape was impossible. She considered going own fighting, but then the Unsuccubi came to mind and Iris closed the door behind her quietly. I think you meant to write: "She considered going [out] fighting[...]" Given the Unsuccubi mention in the latter half of the sentence has a demoralizing spin to it.

BlazeLA

Just finished first playthrough and found it excellent. I found no bugs or typos not mentioned by others. Writing is fantastic, both in terms of plot and sentence construction. Character voices remain unique and easily identified. Without revealing spoilers, I feel bad throwing Cho into the mix like that. And I did not expect to run into something even more disturbing than Unpeople.

Argo The Ratfolk

Just finished the update, it was fantastic as always! I wasn't expecting quite that many different choices between the battles and such, so I might play around with them in the meantime as we wait for the next update. I didn't find any bugs aside from the typos already reported, so great job there. One of the things I am most curious about is if Succubus Lady as Qum named her, might be tied in with the small Kingdom you can buy, maybe Simon giving her and what remains of her people a real place to live again in the future? In other thoughts the random shipper in me wants to see something happen between Robin and Sho now xD

bibimonster

Got through the update, and it was a great one. The maps and inclusion of so many previous locations and characters really drive home how big a turning point this could be. And having to utilize the whole party and see them get their own badass moments is always good too like it was in the Yhilin invasion. People have already talked about the battle balance quite a bit- I thought most of it could have stood to be a bit more difficult since I made it through without having bought new equipment for a long time or having to use consumables. I assume the Riala battle was supposed to be relatively easy, but it was particularly anticlimactic since I used Robin's Qum-synergy attack to paralyze her for 6 turns right off the bat, so she only got one move. There was only one typo I think I saw that hasn't been mentioned and I'm not even sure if it is an error: in the cave when you're talking to Elleani or whatever the Givini woman's name was about her heritage, the conversation ends with Nalili saying "Nice! It's good to have pride in where you come from?" Not sure if that should be a question mark on the end of that sentence given that no one speaks afterwards.

No Agenda Studios

I'm still in the middle of the update. Just wanted to say all the new orcs are A++. Fancy Walk and his children are endearing as hell.

ECD

Excellent! Everyone else got everything I spotted (though I don't know what's going on behind the scenes), but I did want to say that 'disrupt' Robin's synergy skill, seems to be OP at the moment. I didn't find a single enemy who resisted the paralysis and so was able to handle even bosses without damage so long as I had her and Qum in the same party.

Bladestorm

Done with my second playthrough, and I got to say this war is Excellent from just all the differences between what is invested in and the choice and consequences of these action bring so much depth and character to the war that it blows the mind. I do feel though that the Riala fight needs to scaled. Now on to the review side, I got to say that I was not expecting that kind of twist(great job with the sound effect by the way) and just all these new orcs and characters and how they have been incorporated all I got to say is nice job! Love that part with the Fancy Orcs though and the Incubus's Orcs their personality and how they think about what's happening (love that Orc that is pretending to be a Orc). I got to say was not expecting more religious succubus but it was well done with a well deserved reward for that Succubus. I enjoyed the overall update, so happy to hear about that Order of Silence. And that New Orc though I am quite interested in seeing how that is going to go. I am also happy to see Orclent having a friendship with Sister Kate with will hopefully help with his problems he has been having and help towards resolving I hope him and Lucy. I am hoping that the Bloody Spire will have Orc bodies around it with either bloody walls or a black spire. Overall a great update to what is shaping up to be a amazing war with a massive conclusion. Now on to my questions I know we have Ships of war so I was wondering why they haven't been mentioned I know some ships are being used for supplies but you would think that a war of this magnitude would have those ships of war involved. Where is Stark because I know stark has a body in my playthrough and I haven't seen him yet? Why is the Order of Silence not completely restored because I gave them 100K way back when?

Captain Hair

Something I forgot to mention in my initial comment. During the meeting with the twist I was really hoping Simon would put the Church members on blast for the Chosen being the reason he switched gears. The Church as a whole seems a bit too firmly lodged up its own ass. And as for his former commander's comment about latching onto someone more powerful, saying something like "Do you think I'm the Doom King's second in command because of charm?" as an allusion to him being the brains behind the Doom King's armies would have been amusing. Alas, Simon is much too controlled for either of those things, no matter how much they need to be said.

Seil

Btw, how permanent Sho is going to be? Would giving her some gear be beneficial? Also it's kind of weird, when Antarion says they fights with the orcs and succuby are easy, when he can't do much aside from stunning strike and chugging down potions and Simon pretty much had to do all the heavy lifting.

Bladestorm

Ah I remember what I forgot to add to my review. This is just a suggest but what if we had a people militia form from the fighters of the slum fight ring and succubus ring where they either help during that Coup or help stabilize the area around the city where the effects depend on whether you have just the slum fight ring or both of them.

Lamsey

I started playing this update quite late last night. Big mistake. Couldn't put the controller down, ended up going to bed around 2:15am...! Highlights for me: FANCY CHARGE, Wynn coming good, Antarion's potion skill text, and FUCK YEAH RIALA. The whole Unsuccubus thing is unsettling as hell and the sound effect is perfect, so nice job there. If I didn't hate the Incubus Knobhead before, I sure as hell do now. War: I feel like I'm in a pretty good position, and it still feels pretty damn heavy. The scale and the consequences come across well. As usual, the internal mechanics are well-hidden, so it feels like a natural set of choices rather than manipulating internal counters, and it's difficult to know the consequences of some of those choices, which is exactly as it should be. Balance: as discussed elsewhere, Riala needs to be harder, even in her diminished state; otherwise, I found the balance generally fine. I found the Seeds section nice and challenging - I could generally ace three out of four fights, and then would struggle with the fourth, so it took some care with getting the right team selection. The mechanic works nicely IMO. I also appreciated the way that different party members would speak up if sent somewhere appropriate (e.g. Uyae -> Zirantia). The gameplay issues I noted have already been reported, apart from this minor one: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/i63w2kj9brs2ex7/Screenshot%202017-07-09%2001.38.11.png?dl=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/i63w2kj9brs2ex7/Screenshot%202017-07-09%2001.38.11.png?dl=0</a> Robin leads the party in this section and you can't swap Simon in as the party leader, leading to Simon being represented by Robin's sprite while he's being ministered to... Typoes to follow in a reply to this comment so as not to clog up the thread.

AN

Hi Sierra, I noticed in the code for the Aram forest code that it modifies Yhilin CD instead of Aram CD when checking the Guerrilla vs Direct attack. I also saw that there is no conditonal trigger for the dwarven explosives as well. Just want to make sure that's what you intended! Sorry about the double post

Skull Leader

After playing twice on two different save states, and the 2nd time following the events line by line in rpgmaker, I have to say this update felt awesome. I don't have any bug report that others have not given, but I do have a small comment that it feels odd that there is no stat hit yet for over extending you troops by using a troop with have none left in reserve. I assume the next update at the end of the war will hit the player for over extending. I will say for all of the worry on where to split up the war, you picked the perfect spot for the cut off. It ended on the final note that I expected with getting Iris to final change sides. The on thing that bugged me the entire war, was what were the second string team members of Simon up to in the war? People like Megail, Min, Dari etc. A few of them were used, such as Trin if you do not see the Fancy Walk scene but for the most part they not in sight. I can't help but feel that at least during the Coup that some of them might show up, like Dari showing how 'pleased' that she is that some of the rebels are taking out their hate on people that can't help be who they are. But given the number of moving peaces in all of this update I can understand why this did not happen. There is too many good lines for me to pick a line to highlight so I guess I can honor this go around another way. FANCY POST!

Skull Leader

So a small thing I just noticed is that while all the other votes that happen at the Ardford Summit affect the war, opening the war vaults has no effect that I can find. Now I think I remember Simon saying something like at the time of their opening that they would be a small drop in a bucket in the long run, but still shouldn't having the vaults open have a small effect? Also there is no check during the big Simon power check at Stineford Battleground for the Incubus King Helm, that was given for the vault opening. Seems odd when the item is similar to the two items it does look for, the IK armor and the ancient gloves.

Ripe

Just out of curiosity, did anyone got a "Robb Stark moment" when they saw Iris and others reaction to Unsuccubi? For those who didn't watch Game of Thrones, "Robb Stark moment" is when someone do a thing that is so stupid that it's going to loose them the war and get them killed...

Samshit

By far one of the most interessant release, good job !

Skull Leader

Riala Rebalancing: Well it feels like a battle now, as its much improved. It forces me to bring an healer in now. The one thing of a minor complaint is that there is no way to realize that once Riala suffers from melancholy that it lasts for the whole battle and you do not need to keep reapply dominate. A thing I just saw in 28.1 that I am not sure if it is correct is when you cause the Chalice Sabotage inside the IKD, it seems to raises the IK Morale, rather the lower it. I can see this one swinging either direction so I figured I would check with you on it.

Dustin null

The Riala fight is definitely harder now it took about five turns this time only because I had healing items prepped from the get go. if you haven't taken every opportunity to develop your characters she would definitely take a while. The only reason that she fell as fast as she did this time was luck. She avoided robin and varia this time and mostly hit simon and knocked out aka about twice. All in all challenging for someone who has not fought her before.

Bladestorm

28.1 Version I got to say the Riala Balance definitely made it more of a fight and a lot longer too. Sho is a bit better and has some equipment but it makes sense she would be weak due to her level and experience. Antarion is finally a decent fighter so Simon doesn't have to carry the team. Nice to see some interesting abilities with Grubakk, I am interested in learning his past and what class he is. This was on my strongest save.

No Escaping Destiny

I am going to wait until the war is finished and balanced before playing through the war, so maybe this comment has already been addressed. It could also be way off mark, who knows? I felt Nalili went from a naive but intelligent person to something of a comedic relief character. I like parts of her but I really hope some of those brains and intuition show themselves again.

Dr. Genesis

I chuckled to myself when Robin's old classmates kept referring to her as a commoner. With Simon acting as the Doom King, Robin could be considered a princess from a certain point of view.

DukeLeto7

Minor quibble. It seems there are significantly fewer subquests in 0.28 than there have been previously. I guess since the war is on rails to a large extent these aren't necessary?

Fulminato

I am digging in the game's files [v 28.1], the calculation effect of 'Stineford prep' after DK v AoA sequence have an oddity, the >= 10 and < 6 branch have 'instability' +1, but the >= 6 only 'Stineford CD' +1

Zyrus

So, my current feedback: Any seed fight you don't take a healer with you on is going to end badly. The aura the thing uses does lust mad a lot, and does a *ton* of damage. Suffice to say there's always going to be one fight you need to be lucky with. Secondly: I get why people were saying blade dance is too OP or whatever... but that can logically be said of any high end skill. They're only looking at Varia because physical DPS is the fallback. No ones saying a word about the Lancers, about divine touch, or about orgy of blows, which is almost the same thing, except functionally a lot more free. I am, therefore, completely against the 'balance' change made to satisfy the tunnel visioners.

Adam FakenameSon

Well, I had to become a patron for this update. I physically could not have survived without getting it right away. Some quick highlights: I loved the party mechanic for taking out the seeds, Robin's return to her school, and the Orcs were the big stars for me. I will always remember you, FANCY WALK Ogre. It was really nice seeing everyone in Yihilin band against those people attacking the Succubus, as well. And of course Riala. My favorite moment though was the discussion with the commanders where they reveal what the know. Very powerful. I almost want to go back and do a playthrough without the essence shielding just to see how that plays out.. although I'm guessing badly in the long run.

Lamsey

Just played through the updated version - balance is significantly improved with the changes you've made, especially Riala, who was a better challenge this time. The special Dominate effect worked well for me. The increased HP cost for Varia's Blade Dance is good, too - it's still damn powerful, but needs much more care in its use. No new typoes that I saw, but I did notice this line could maybe do with "and I take" becoming "and take" so as not to mix tenses: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/7a89fgimp02yacs/Screenshot%202017-07-13%2022.58.02.png?dl=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/7a89fgimp02yacs/Screenshot%202017-07-13%2022.58.02.png?dl=0</a> Another incredibly minor quibble: in the Elven forests, the Yhilini teleport mage uses a swooshy wind effect (same as the Redlight mage, so I assume representing arcane teleportation), but in this update it's the dark purple booming effect, same as the succubi (which I assume is sexual). See e.g. the cutscene with Yarra and the Impaler as they enter the Incubus Bellend's Domain. In the past I thought it was a nice detail that teleportation had different visual/sound effects depending on the type of energy used (assuming that I've interpreted things correctly).

Ripe

Hmm, one of the succubi at Gasm Falls say how "If the humans came, at least they'd probably fix the contaminated water..." which make me wonder if our investment in Ardohaim Sanitation Guild (provided we made it) will play a part there. After all, if anyone could figure out how to clear out that contamination it will be someone from that Guild.

ADragonDreaming

For those struggling with the seeds, I've discovered that with a strong enough Simon, he can solo the thing. That should let you put three characters in each other scenario (if you recruited Altina), which means less struggle overall. I gave him the Givini Pin and rotated Precise Strike and Lust Renewal for great justice. As to the actual reason for this post: I'm not sold on the change to Blade Dance. Forgive me if I ramble a bit here, my thoughts on this are being refined and discovered as I write this. The problem here is the utility of Varia in general. Her skills are expensive in general, causing her to require significantly more upkeep than most of the rest of the characters. For comparison, lets grab Nalili, and continue with Orgy of Blows: it's a three strike, random distribution attack costing 20 SP. Nalili gets 5 SP with each successful strike. Combine that with +5 SP each turn, and Orgy of Blows will pay for itself, making it functionally free barring a miss or death stealing one of the strikes. Not difficult to make up, you probably have Nalili with a buttplug so she should be at or near 100 sp at all times, and a quick combat mast or, hell, a regular attack turn will get her back to using her bread and butter. Varia's functionally equivalent skill, Furious Strikes, costs 20% of max hp and 20 mp - the former requires expenditure of Sx or more like MP on the part of a healer (5 mp or 10 depending) or regeneration via Servant's Frenzy, which is more MP, and the latter requires rest or mana pots, which expend Sx. Given Orgy of Blows is functionally Free, it's /always/ the mechanically superior choice. Varia has other options, of course, depending on route which could make you choose her over Nalili, and of course she's not vulnerable to sexbind, but she simply requires more upkeep. The other Damagers are also not nearly as expensive - AKA's attacks are strictly single-target, sure, but she's only expending MP, and only 10 for her bread and butter of Forceful Lunge with a high crit rate. Robin's Lances cut through even resistance for at least 2-3k by the time of the war if you're not actively avoiding battles, and they cost all of 25 mp. Altina's Quake is the most expensive thing out there, but properly equipped she's still doing 2k neutral with her 10 mp basic spells. In a longer slog, Varia's relegated to the less expensive options - Wild Blow (with a chance to do less damage than a regular attack), Powerful Blow, which is fine but oddly expensive for something less hurty than Forceful Lunge, and Blood Strike, which is also fine but again seems to be about as strong as Forceful Lunge while a little bit more expensive. Blood strike's health cost is also easily assuaged by secondary healing effects like from Shield of Purity or Arousing Aura and etc., but it nevertheless is more expensive than Forceful Lunge. So the really big thing is that she has Blade Dance, which, yes, is the single most damaging single-target move in the game, but it's honestly that much stronger than Robin's Lance. Blade Dance has Varia strike five times with a damage boost. In my playthrough, Varia is level 42, with 213 ATK (Zira claws and assault gear, she's reshaped). In immediate basic testing on an ogre, without any buffs, this resulted in ~950 to ~1100 per strike. It's in the 4750 to 5500 range-ish. With buffs and a critical hit or two, sure, that gets stupid large - but you can't pick the target in a multi-target situation, either. If you've got a boss and flunkies, she's just as likely to hit the flunkies first. Obviously you take them out with other options, but it's worth noting. Old version of it, it provided this physical striking power (no other physical skill puts out the same damage) for a cost of 10% max hp and 40 mp. The hp cost is entirely doable, the MP cost makes me leery of over-using. With the update, this is now up to 33% max hp and 50 mp cost, so okay I need to pay attention to the health cost now, especially since she's squishy to begin with. The problem is that another character can put out nearly this same kind of damage for less cost and with far more reliability. I mentioned Robin's lances before. Let's revisit this. A lance, unbuffed, neutral is gonna hit for over 3k on a Robin equivalently decked as the Varia I listed above. Personally I actually splurged on a Master Staff for her but you can still get similar numbers with the crusader staff or an elfy staff. It's worth noting she'll hit close to 3k /through resistance/. With a weakpoint or a crit she'll hit 5K easily. The other advantages include being able to pick which enemy gets hit, and because it's a magic attack, it's not affected by Evasion. She can't miss. And this costs her a paltry 25 mp. I fully understand and support Robin being stronger, overall - she's Simon's daughter, she's a major character if not a main character, she should be damn useful and it's fine that's she's got more overall utility than a secondary character. But the difference in cost is too high. I don't make games and I don't have a lot to say about Balance, but with the change made it's taken Varia's major reason for me to put her in the party without it being a forced situation and made it overly problematic to deal with. In my game she has 2454 max hp. She's likely to be hit from anywhere from 600 to 1700 hp in a single strike depending on what she's facing, and especially against a boss, which is exactly where you /want/ to use her Blade Dance ... and add the 809 cost of that on top of it and she's likely to get dunked on in a single round. Yes, there are buffs to mitigate - hold the line, (holy) shield wall to draw fire, shield of purity, and standard healing, and buffs to make it more useful, like arousing aura or encourage, and servant's frenzy gives her a regen. But she's still a glass cannon, and this feels like too much glass, and not enough cannon. I think it's gone too far, like most nerfs do on the first pass. Dial it back? 25% Max HP? Or heck, may 15% for furious strikes and 20% for Blade Dance? And honestly I don't think 50 mp is justified, the health cost increase alone is significant enough. Anyway, that's my two cents on it.

AN

Hello again Sierra! After looking through the code again, I'm not seeing when the 1582:Armor Hint switch (which is tested when talking to the inquisitor in the Aramite forest) was ever set to true. I tried looking through all the Eustrin code but I didn't see anything ever modifying the switch.

Skull Leader

Tower of Mist 2nd Floor: The elite succubus event that rewards the player for not setting off alarms/fighting seems to have an oddity that I am not sure has been reported as of yet and/or fixed. When the infiltration state equals 4 you get Elleani and Iris +3 points but if you some how do slightly better you with a score of 2 or 3, you get no points what so ever to them. But then if you get a score of 1, you get rewarded again.

Ripe

OK, I think there is a potential bug in Ardoheim 2 part of the war... depending on how many points (out of 3) I have there are three possible events. My issue is that with 1 point I should find myself on the Battleground and not on Ardford Walls. I know I have at least 1 point since my Simon always win against IK during there battle so there is no additional Stinford IK CD (which should grant a point). Or am I wrong and you should be on the walls with both 1 points or less?

TheButtGod

Thank you for the game update. I am new to your patreon and would like to know, were there any cgs in the game itself? Or is it all text based. So far the game is enjoyable and I am impressed with the effort put into it.