jack1974
Feb 25, 2014
As long as he doesn't burn their homes I guess so!
Grodul
Feb 25, 2014
That of course will change based on the personality. Draco would be happy to meet everyone again, while Chambara or Mesphit might be less enthusiast or not shown it publicly (of course, ignoring a possible romance with any of them).
Oh, yeah. I did forget to ask about the reappearance of the romance partner. I do hope for some tender moments for them during the
whole game. From the first meeting to the last moments of the sequel. Lots of love over there, thank you.
And I would not say no to a situation where Elenor happens be climbing in high places (again), when she happens to fall (again), and Karen happens to catch her (again), and cradle her lovingly before letting go, and Elenor being badly embarrassed the whole time. It was a very special moment from the first game. More situations like those, please.
(As a side note) I think Draco's a well made character. He made me laugh couple of times. And I really wished to cheer him up when he didn't receive any love from anyone else.
gamesempie
Feb 25, 2014
(As a side note) I think Draco's a well made character. He made me laugh couple of times. And I really wished to cheer him up when he didn't receive any love from anyone else.
I know what you mean as a straight guy I had no desire to romance Draco but I did feel bad for him.
Perhaps in Draco's personal quest this time around there will be a way you can play it so you can play match-maker for him.
megaman12321
Feb 25, 2014
I don't know if this was addressed or not so I might as well ask. I'm straight, so I never pursued the romance option with Draco when I played Saren, yet reading through the romance thread make it clear that Draco's route is very sweet and such. I like Draco as a character and want to be nicer to him, but I never really got a chance to really see all sides of Draco as a normal friend. Are you guys gonna add a way for their to be more of a neutral way to get to know each other? You know, like a bromance rather then a romance, cause I want to be friends and know about the people with me without necessarily needing to romance them, like how Loren trusts Saren even if you don't romance her.
jack1974
Feb 26, 2014
Well of course we can't do a SEPARATE friendship for every route (there is already an insane amount of romances for the sequel). What could be done is a more direct way to unlock the romance scenes, so that you have a confirmation yes/no instead of automatically play them based on the prerequisites. Like "Draco invites you to spend the night with him, you accept yes/no". Something like that.
Even in the first game, up to the final scenes, the route is pretty much of friendship/bromance (I'm going by memory since I don't remember every single dialogue). Then the last scene OK, that is different
MarSel
Mar 01, 2014
See people are beginning to want the FRIENDSHIP END!!
trueKieran
Mar 09, 2014
When you start a new game, you will be able to select:
- Gender (Saren or Elenor)
- Class (Warrior, Thief, Mage, Healer)
- Outfit and color scheme, based on class
- Starting weapon (or at least what your character will be seen wearing, with the option of no weapon showing)
- Background job; Healer, Trainer, Guard, or Harem Spy
- Your current job will be dependent on your character class (may change this)
- Which path you chose in Chp1; Empire (Ember Blade) or Elven (Hawk Blade)
- If you let Mesphit live
- If you adopted Trouble
- Which expansion party members you recruited
- Who you romanced (only 1 choice), with the option of choosing no one.
- Who killed Fost. Currently deciding which options to allow, since sacrificing certain characters would create a completely different story. Currently considering disallowing Saren/Elenor and Loren options, but including Karen, Zeal and Sauzer options.
If I left anything out that you think is important, just request it.
You will be able to break off your current romance in-game, if you wish. I will try to incorporate the background job more in the story.
I'll probably consider checking for a rival romance that you rejected in the previous game, but that is not high priority at the moment. I may check it in-game, through dialogue with the character. How important is it to everyone that (at least one) rival/rejected romance be remembered by the game? How important is it to everyone that you be able to re-start that relationship, at the expense of the current one? I can get certain characters on board with polygamy, but let's not count on it at the moment.
I could kiss you for number 3 and 4 of that list. If you really did go with the no items system, this would make it much easier to sell it to the people btw. So far the weapon of choice and the outfit are for many two very important of the in total often few options to give your character a personal note. There is one more option I'd like to suggest, even though it may seem minor and somehow out of place since we already played with these chars in the first game... but I'd really really love to change the hair colour of my character. I originally wanted to ask for beard options too, but I'm willing to take Jack's word on the "shaving ritual".
jack1974
Mar 09, 2014
The problem is that in 2d games, those that don't use pixel art, if you change a detail you need to change ALL the game scenes in which the characters appear. Like in the romance scenes, and so on. Since in the romance scenes in the sequel they wear more casual/appropriate dresses (or they don't wear much at all depending on what you choose in options!) doesn't matter what is their outfit on the battlefield. But if you can change the colors of the eyes,hairs or even worse hairstyle, then it would become a total madness (would need to make overlay sprites for all the romances).
A full customization like that works better in 3d, or 2d pixel art, since is easy to change details
trueKieran
Mar 09, 2014
I see, well it was worth a try.
Becca2828
Mar 10, 2014
I can see the benefits of a default character, even if they did make overlay sprites (no idea what that is) people would want different hair colours from the ones that had been given out and different hairstyles and so on and so forth. I mean seriously, who doesn't want their character to have bright pink hair because that totally wouldn't be a dead give away to all your enemies... I like the characters as they are anyway, well drawn and awesome.
I've just realised the text box is american, it made me worry I can't spell colour or realised or spelt...
renke_
Mar 11, 2014
Most points are already discussed (partly by me
) but as Loren 2 is still in early(-ish) development I thought I place them here as master list/collection (no specific order)
* More context-sensitive artwork (a warrior shortly before a combat should wear not only a bikini, even one made of chain mail ^^)
* Retraining (resetting of all attribute and skill points and the possability to allocate them anew). This should not be some simple option but embedded in the story-line, e.g. at some point the party meets a NPC willing to train them (for gold, a fulfilled mission or even just because the NPC is nice without any preconditions)
* I liked the skill system of PS more, instead of multiple unique archetypes I prefer the system of generally available skills. Some classes can easier reach higher values for a specific sub-set of skills, but a combination of e.g. two-hand weapons (warrior) and poisoning (thief) shouldn't be impossible (only stupid/ineffective
)
* Many of the dialogues in Loren are part of the romances, without (Romance) them the story line is much shortened (this is subjective, I could be wrong...). As the atmosphere is mostly talk-driven "just pal" dialogue lines would be greatly appreciated.
* This may be my fault but often the talk options (joking, friendly, forceful) were not connected to the actual line presented by the game. A system more like PS with a preview of the actual comment would be imho preferable
* The option (Romance) is just lame. There, I said it
jack1974
Mar 11, 2014
Point 1, no worries, there'll be real armors. The PC is customizable though, so if people want to have a lighter outfit, is their choice (still won't be like the first game, more realistic)
Retraining, if Anima (coder) says is possible with the new framework, yes sure, as you said integrated with the story and not something easy to do.
About the skills I'm not sure yet what system I'll use, so can't say much about it
As for the romance, will depend on writer, but since romances are one of the key aspect of this game, this might be the same as the first game, HOWEVER as said already, there won't be anymore the joking/friendly/forceful choices but a real preview of what the character is going to say. I might skill keep the "tone", and display it like:
"This is not your concern (forceful)"
"Yes let's talk about it! (friendly)"
"Do you know why elves have pointed ears? (joking)" (this is made up, I don't know any joke about elves ears!)
either with text or with an icon. And no clearly marked romance choice otherwise is too easy
renke_
Mar 11, 2014
Great! (realistic wishes are advantageous - most of my issues are already addressed :D)
yayswords
Mar 11, 2014
A thought on that response system. In Dragon Age 2 there is something similar, but the response you pick is the concept of your reaction, not the exact words. For example, let's say I pick the conversation option: I wanna bang you (flirt) Then my character will try to seduce that person, but doesn't outright say I wanna bang you. It's really nice in case your response is gonna be way too long, and when you respond with a joke you get twice the value since the response title is usually a joke and then you get to be surprised by how your character actually expresses the joke.
It would be the finishing touch to your system as far as I'm concerned.
jack1974
Mar 11, 2014
Yes, I like that system too, so hopefully we can do something like that
Lonestar51
Mar 11, 2014
HOWEVER as said already, there won't be anymore the joking/friendly/forceful choices but a real preview of what the character is going to say. I might skill keep the "tone", and display it like:
"This is not your concern (forceful)"
"Yes let's talk about it! (friendly)"
"Do you know why elves have pointed ears? (joking)"
This solves the biggest gripe I had with the first Loren. I just hope we will have a lot of options (unlike Loren, but like N'Mar) where I can choose like:
"Your sins are too great, you must die! BURN HERETIC BURN!"
"I will forgive you, now go and don't do it again."
"Hey, maybe technically illegal, but you are my man. Nicely done. You want a place in my party?"
Grodul
Mar 11, 2014
I have come up with more feature suggestions for the upcoming sequel. Here are two of them:
XP for everyone. In the first game it was troublesome to have to grind the popularity side quests again and again to have my character up to the level I desired (even though I do enjoy grinding to some extent). Not only that, but only those characters that were present during a battle will earn XP. This is understandable, but to speed things up a little could the “not-in-battle” party members earn maybe half the XP the rest earn.
More loot. I find it weird when after every battle there is so very little loot. For very enemy there should be at least one item. I could understand this if we were to believe that some of the armor and weapons used by the enemies got destroyed during battle.
What do the rest of forum followers think of these suggestions?
renke_
Mar 11, 2014
With so many party members each have something interesting to say but nothing to keep track of their conversation is a big turn off for me. [..] There is nothing to show if a party member have any new to say so I have to go through them all.
Found this gem in the attic (urgh, dusty) - a valid point and imho easy solvable: Simply don't highlight the character if the only response will be the base line.
Another wish would be a more restrictive approach for fixed encounters (city tasks et al), maybe similar to the swamp in Loren 1 - but this is already planned (if memory serves correctly).
More loot. I find it weird when after every battle there is so very little loot.
I never had the feeling I'm not getting "paid" enough, the drops were in a range I expect from a combat.
Though one thing was irritating from a story POV: Early on Loren realises that she will not have access to the Amazon's gold as she left the citadel. Later she's appointed as military leader and designated queen and she STILL has to pay the dealer
jack1974
Mar 11, 2014
Some short replies (I'm busy working on SOTW
):
- more options to solve the quests are cool, but the expansion with all the various combinations was quite painful to debug. not saying we won't do that, but remember that it takes a lot more time
- shared EXP, yes I agree, depends also on other things. I'm talking from time to time with Anima about the rules and we have brainstormed some interesting ideas (well mostly him
)
- more loot, not sure. I am wondering if the "MMORPG loot/inventory" is actually cool or not. For PS2 for example we have much less inventory slots, I think will make my mind after that game is done and see how it works. Personally as played I'm not a fan of having huge amount of items, if then I have to sell them all. I mean for example: I kill 100 groups of mobs, each one gives me 5 items, and of course out of 500 items probably there are 20-25 really powerful ones/better than the one I have equipped in my party. Result, I have to dig and find them and resell all the rest since is garbage. Wouldn't be better if those 25 powerful/useful items were result of a quest or a few boss battles? I guess this depends on tastes though
yayswords
Mar 12, 2014
Another thing that comes to mind with the Dragon Age 2 conversation system. You did this in Loren already - the answers you typically pick define the personality of Saren/Elenor; it decides how they respond when you aren't allowed to choose for them. That's a good thing. However in Dragon Age 2 it's taken one step further. As a direct example from the game, let's say you usually pick "forceful" responses. Not afraid to be blunt, not afraid to speak the ugly truth. You gain an aura of seriousness; when you speak, you don't fuck around. There is one situation where you can try to threaten your way to the objective, but only if you have a "forceful" personality will the NPC actually believe you even though he doesn't know you are always a serious person. You simply radiate it; it's part of your charisma. Similarly if you have a joking personality you can make everyone laugh even in the most depressing situations and if you are friendly you can inspire great loyalty. Would be cool with a bit of that.
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