Amber Full Beta 1.0.1

[jack1974]

Change Request.

When you build some special handling for pebbles (are those the only items with more than one produced item with a single raw ingredient?) you should also enforce an even number as job offer. I don't think your crafting screen can handle decimal numbers ; )

Yes good idea Even if in many cases players could have existing items previously crafted that meet the requirements.

[myoksy]

Is it possible that additional XP are dumped when reaching a new level? I noticed this when I finished two jobs at the same day - the first one was enough to fill the level progress bar, so the second one should give the char XP "in the background". After leveling up over night the bar was completely empty. I WANT MY 18 (+/-) XP BACK!!11!eleven!

[jack1974]

No, I keep all the XP you earn when you level up, but if the amount is small it's hard to notice

Code: Select all

    if AmberSkills["EXP"]>LevelUpXP[AmberSkills["Level"]] and AmberSkills["Level"]<30:
        $AmberSkills["EXP"]-=LevelUpXP[AmberSkills["Level"]]
        $AmberLevelUp=True

[jack1974]

Implemented the "Pebble Fix" For the quality instead I checked and would have to check too many things, so sadly for this game I'm going to keep the scale to 100. However for the Jobs I'm going to have always a multiple of 10. It's hard to remember "Make a Rune of quality 63", while 30-40-50-60 is better.

[myoksy]

No, I keep all the XP you earn when you level up

found it - it's a displaying issue: the bar can look filled but actually the needed XP for the next level are not reached.

and while trying to figure it out I triggered the next display thingy: if the bar "overshoots" the status shows the current level but not a completely filled bar but the overshooted amount ; )

Implemented the "Pebble Fix"

yeah!

However for the Jobs I'm going to have always a multiple of 10.

also yeah! (do I repeat myself?)

completely unrelated observation: the char often complains that she's not allowed to become a witch or sorcerer and is unable to perform magic. the game title makes no sense as just realized : P

[jack1974]

No it makes sense: Amber can craft "magical items" (as something that would make someone living eternal life should be called) but she cannot even cast a simple "magic spark" spell

[Franka]

I give up. I can't do it. I can't play through the crafting game again.

There's this big problem. If you want to complete the good ending, you don't have to reach one goal. You have to reach all of them. All skills to 300. XP to level 30. Gold to upgrade your shop to level 3 rooms. Endlessly craft/do the same jobs over and over to get there. Queen of Thieves was grindingly harsh too, but at least I could run the shop for XX days if I got really tired of it. Not so in Amber, you have to make the most of every single day, or you'll fall behind and be unable to complete the game.

Young age works well, because your goal can be reached in several ways. Everything gives XP. Adult age is a complete chore to do over, because no matter what, you have to do everything, every time. Only real choice is what order do you want to do everything in.

It's probably too late to make any big changes, but here's what I might do:

- Getting romance endings is a goal that can be reasonably reached every time, but I'd really like to know in good time what skills should be focused on to complete each romance, so I don't have to do everything blindly. That would give me a clear goal to work towards, and that would be that. Have the romance as the end goal, focus on maybe 2 skills to raise, make it obvious what you need, and give more time to get there. The problem here is you don't lock into a romance until pretty late in the game, so it's a little hard to communicate clearly what you should focus on. I'm not sure what the exact solution would be, but it would in any case make for a shorter game where you wouldn't have to complete everything 100%. As the game is right now, I'd just stop playing after reaching the romance CG and not bother with the rest of the game. The ultimate ending with your partner(s) is just a bit of text anyway, right?

- Different victory conditions. Get to level 40 OR get 3 skills to 300 OR upgrade the entire shop to max/build the super duper room OR earn 300 reputation OR craft the McGuffin (that doesn't require everything maxed out, but where you also don't automatically get handed everything you need because story reasons, but actually have to use gathering, shopping, and crafting ordinary items to make). Numbers chosen to illustrate, not seriously thought through. Especially the last option, crafting the McGuffin, would have been so much simpler if you hadn't gone for quantity as a goal. Not to bring the whole thing down, but making 200+ recipes was really not such a great idea. Fewer, but more essential, recipes would have made for much more natural gameplay, where progression felt like it mattered. Now I look at each new recipe unlocked and think, "Great, another item I'll never craft." If the McGuffin required 50 iron ingots, 25 beryl thingies, 10 platinum settings, etc., the goal would be much more integrated with the actual crafting gameplay, instead of getting 4 unique recipes and being handed 80% of the ingredients without doing anything to get them.

As it is, doing the good end once, I can live with, it was a chore, but also a challenge. Doing it again just saps my will to live. Sorry for the rant and being all negative (I try to be constructive when I can), and I know most of your customers will probably just play VN mode and ultimately not care, but the gameplay has ended up too grindy to do more than once.

In my opinion. (TM)

[jack1974]

No worries, I actually agree with you. I was thinking how to make the adult age less grindy without having to do major changes as well!
A solution could be simply to have XP/skills increase quicker during adult age. Also, I could easily reduce the recipes if needed. That wouldn't be a problem at all. I could remove all the talismans/amulets/runes, or simply cut some tier (have like maximum tier 5).
I made the mistake (one of the many) to design ALL the recipes without trying in the game itself (but on the other hand, I needed the recipes to do it so, was a sort of catch-22 ).
And the final recipe can be easily changed to be like you said 50 ingots/25crystals/etc. Beside the plot ingredients maybe (or I could remove those).

[jack1974]

OK I just made an update. I couldn't make any big changes at this point, I tried but then more bugs would pop-up...
However I believe now it's much less grindy, I increased the XP/skill point you get while crafting and removed a lot of (admittedly useless) recipes/items, which hopefully will be an improvement!
Sadly not sure what else I can do beside this. I played a bit and progress seemed to be faster now...

[Franka]

I wrote this up while you were posting, so maybe it's not so much use, but here it is anyway.

No worries, I actually agree with you. I was thinking how to make the adult age less grindy without having to do major changes as well!

Thanks, I didn't want to sound like an ass, but I tried doing more testing, and I just couldn't, so I had to sit down and figure out where things went wrong for me.

Also, I could easily reduce the recipes if needed. That wouldn't be a problem at all. I could remove all the talismans/amulets/runes, or simply cut some tier (have like maximum tier 5).

Honestly, I don't think I've ever crafted anything higher than tier 4, so getting rid of the higher tiers, and making sure you can reasonably get all the essential lower tier recipes (buying some of them with reputation would be fine, if there's a way to make sure they show up regularly), would be great in my opinion. Then you could also naturally lower the requirements from 300 skill to less than that, maybe 200, I'm not sure.

And the final recipe can be easily changed to be like you said 50 ingots/25crystals/etc. Beside the plot ingredients maybe (or I could remove those).

They're kind of written into the story, so I guess you could keep them, but yeah, I'd really like to see the McGuffin made with common/uncommon items that you obtain through regular gameplay. That would go a long way to help integrate the normal gameplay of shopping/gathering/crafting with the final quest, because as it is right now, you only need to find those fuel items, everything else is handed to you. That kind of makes a mockery of all the work you've done unlocking a bunch of recipes with no real use.