Franka
Apr 11, 2017
Note how Metalworking once again is far, far behind. There are issues with that skill.
Very few early recipes.
Ore is almost never in stock in any of the stores.
Crafting takes longer than similar items from other skills, meaning you can only do 2 crafts vs. 3 in other skills in the same amount of time (or at least so it seemed).
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
Ah, so that's why I've never been able to study Enchanting. Yep, I haven't done any studying, just crafting. I'm fine without the level skill cap, you just need to update the description if you keep it like that.
Yes I think will just update the description
Anyway... 5 minutes into the game... and right during the tutorial when I try to click the scroll icon, this happens:
Grr it's probably one of the last changes I did. For now should work if you don't click during the tutorial but I'll fix it
There is a bit of an issue with time spent crafting. I only had 2 basic tools, so I could make 2 items. After that the game told me I had no more time for crafting. However, buying a third basic tool, doing the exact same actions (and spending the exact same amount of time), I now have time to craft 3 items instead of 2. This means I've been "cheated" out of a third item craft (and potential skill point) for several months now. We'll see how much of an impact that has on reaching the ending, but in any case, this seems wrong.
Wait, it probably wasn't the same item, each recipe has a crafting time. The higher-tier ones need more time, but I can tweak that, or have all items require same amount of time, it's not really an issue
Lynn's Light and Dark endings don't unlock, the plus/+ versions works fine though. After Lynn talks to you in your shop, the screen turns black and you get a generic description of the wedding, no ending or achievement. Then the story continues with the Blight.
I'll reply here since probably it's too hard to know (maybe I will also add a text in the game). Lynn's Dark/Light endings trigger only if you kissed her in the previous scenes (when there's the choice). Originally there was supposed to be a relationship value, but then that part was removed from the game completely. So maybe if it's too confusing I can remove that requirement completely?
Now that I do finally get customer requests, the problem is that they request items where I only have the recipe for the final item, not the items needed to craft that, so I can't actually finish any of the requests.
You can't buy the intermediate items? When I tested, I did that
Like the various figurines or talismans, I never crafted the required potion, always bought them. The problem is that unlocking random recipes I cannot know if the recipe who creates one of the required items is known or not, unless I don't unlock them randomly... it might also be if you continued a previous save though, I think now new players should get the early recipes all in order (pseudo-random).
I haven't had a random effect during all of adulthood. Could it be that Library and Office effect block new events from happening (maximum of 2 active events)?
Lol, yes that could be. The maximum could be 3 I think, but maybe by mistake I set it to 2. Anyway, since the discount thing might not be possible I could remove those effects completely and just give the other bonus (which are already good I think).
Never mind, I found it (Major Resist Poson Spotion) in a shop, it's not actually a recipe, is it? (This is pretty confusing.)
It's an item, you can create it with a recipe, or buy it
like the other things (Iron Ingot, etc).
I got an event! I just went maybe 100+ days without getting one.
Hurrah! Haha well it's not normal though, will look at it !
Is Ruby supposed to
You mean if you get the fail main plot wiht dark alignment? or her dark ending?
Unfortunately, this approach did not work out well. Not even close, as I ran out of time. Game over man, game over.
Haha well I'm pleased didn't work, would have been weird if did!
Very few early recipes.
This should be solved... but if you replay the game from young age
(I know, it's sad lol)
Ore is almost never in stock in any of the stores.
That can be fixed easily
Crafting takes longer than similar items from other skills, meaning you can only do 2 crafts vs. 3 in other skills in the same amount of time.
No, that's not true, each recipe has fixed time based on the TIER. So depends only on the item tier, metalworking doesn't require more than the others, for the same item level
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
There is a bit of an issue with time spent crafting. I only had 2 basic tools, so I could make 2 items. After that the game told me I had no more time for crafting. However, buying a third basic tool, doing the exact same actions (and spending the exact same amount of time), I now have time to craft 3 items instead of 2. This means I've been "cheated" out of a third item craft (and potential skill point) for several months now. We'll see how much of an impact that has on reaching the ending, but in any case, this seems wrong.
Wait, it probably wasn't the same item, each recipe has a crafting time. The higher-tier ones need more time, but I can tweak that, or have all items require same amount of time, it's not really an issue
No, let me explain in detail. Two days where I'm doing the exact same thing, no variation at all. One day I craft 2 of the same item, after which the game tells me I have to sleep. The second day I craft 3 of the same item. So you can craft 3 items at once, but not 2 items + 1 item. For some reason that takes more time.
Now that I do finally get customer requests, the problem is that they request items where I only have the recipe for the final item, not the items needed to craft that, so I can't actually finish any of the requests.
You can't buy the intermediate items? When I tested, I did that Like the various figurines or talismans, I never crafted the required potion, always bought them. The problem is that unlocking random recipes I cannot know if the recipe who creates one of the required items is known or not, unless I don't unlock them randomly... it might also be if you continued a previous save though, I think now new players should get the early recipes all in order (pseudo-random).
For Jewelcrafting, I can't buy settings. All settings must be crafted. NPCs love requesting talismans.
Never mind, I found it (Major Resist Poson Spotion) in a shop, it's not actually a recipe, is it? (This is pretty confusing.)
It's an item, you can create it with a recipe, or buy it like the other things (Iron Ingot, etc).
I couldn't find the recipe after spamming the Mages Guild 100+ times...
I got an event! I just went maybe 100+ days without getting one.
Hurrah! Haha well it's not normal though, will look at it !
I only had that single one random event happen throughout the entire adult part.
Is Ruby supposed to
You mean if you get the fail main plot wiht dark alignment? or her dark ending?
After seeing her dark ending, she left town at the time when she's supposed to leave if you fail to make her craft item. The text was also identical to the fail text. There was another Ruby text where you leave together after failing the main plot as well on dark path, so she's left town a couple of times now.
Haha well I'm pleased didn't work, would have been weird if did!
But honestly, I have no idea how I was supposed to make almost 200 more skill points than I did. That's a LOT.
No, that's not true, each recipe has fixed time based on the TIER. So depends only on the item tier, metalworking doesn't require more than the others, for the same item level
I see the problem. I have 1 tier 1 Metalworking recipe. I have 7 tier 1 Potionmaking recipes. I had never sorted them by tier, so I honestly thought some of the Potionmaking recipes were higher tiers.
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
I guess I should start over from the beginning, but it's really hard to keep doing the job search + crafting part so many times. I could play on easy, but that would be poor testing....
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
Oops, clicking the scroll when starting over and skipping both tutorials:
[code]
I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.
While running game code:
File "game/gui.rpy", line 796, in script
File "renpy/common/000statements.rpy", line 471, in execute_call_screen
store._return = renpy.call_screen(name, *args, **kwargs)
File "game/gui.rpy", line 224, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 224, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 226, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 314, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 316, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 322, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 323, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 34, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 34, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 91, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 92, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 93, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 105, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 107, in execute
NameError: name 'AmberRomances' is not defined
-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------
Full traceback:
File "game/gui.rpy", line 796, in script
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\ast.py", line 1706, in execute
self.call("execute")
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\ast.py", line 1724, in call
return renpy.statements.call(method, parsed, *args, **kwargs)
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\statements.py", line 145, in call
return method(parsed, *args, **kwargs)
File "renpy/common/000statements.rpy", line 471, in execute_call_screen
store._return = renpy.call_screen(name, *args, **kwargs)
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\exports.py", line 2526, in call_screen
rv = renpy.ui.interact(mouse="screen", type="screen", roll_forward=roll_forward)
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\ui.py", line 285, in interact
rv = renpy.game.interface.interact(roll_forward=roll_forward, **kwargs)
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\display\core.py", line 2538, in interact
scene_lists.replace_transient()
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\display\core.py", line 822, in replace_transient
self.remove(layer, tag)
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\display\core.py", line 1107, in remove
self.hide_or_replace(layer, remove_index, "hide")
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\display\core.py", line 1031, in hide_or_replace
d = oldsle.displayable._hide(now - st, now - at, prefix)
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\display\screen.py", line 443, in _hide
self.update()
File "F:\Temp\AMS-0.8.0-steam\renpy\display\screen.py", line 578, in update
self.screen.function(**self.scope)
File "game/gui.rpy", line 224, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 224, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 226, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 314, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 316, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 322, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 323, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 34, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 34, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 91, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 92, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 93, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 105, in execute
File "game/gui.rpy", line 107, in execute
File "<screen language>", line 107, in <module>
NameError: name 'AmberRomances' is not defined
Windows-8-6.2.9200
Ren'Py 6.99.12.4.2187
0.8.0
[/code]
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
So you can craft 3 items at once, but not 2 items + 1 item. For some reason that takes more time.
Yes that's true, it's how is working, if you have enough materials you can make "bigger batch", but if you stop (like you did) will take more
it's how the crafting works.
However, you were right on the metals, some (like "Liquid Gold") had custom time set, so I'm going to tweak them all
For Jewelcrafting, I can't buy settings. All settings must be crafted. NPCs love requesting talismans.
Oops. Going to add settings for sale
I only had that single one random event happen throughout the entire adult part.
Yep not normal! I think it's surely related to the library/office thing though.
After seeing her dark ending, she left town at the time when she's supposed to leave if you fail to make her craft item. The text was also identical to the fail text. There was another Ruby text where you leave together after failing the main plot as well on dark path, so she's left town a couple of times now.
The last one is OK (if you're on dark path and fail to make the cure, you leave). As long as it doesn't happen twice on the same playthrough should be OK
But honestly, I have no idea how I was supposed to make almost 200 more skill points than I did. That's a LOT.
Yeah I haven't tested it well. I thought with the changes I did would work. By the way, you can get new skill points in the Adventurer's Guild now, spending Reputation. Maybe that's the way to go?
I see the problem. I have 1 tier 1 Metalworking recipe. I have 7 tier 1 Potionmaking recipes. I had never sorted them by tier, so I honestly thought some of the Potionmaking recipes were higher tiers.
As said above, SOME metalworking recipes indeed had higher (not much, but probably enough if you craft many at once) times. Wil fix that
I will upload a version with the crashing bug fixed shortly, at least that!!
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
I've made the update though I forgot also to offer "settings" for sale
maybe with the new system you'll get those recipes though... now you get 2 recipes on each level up, and they should be randomized but more "sorted by level/tier" at least
Anima sent me a fix also for the discounts but should have tested it, and I preferred to do the update since there was that crashing bug. Also, after drinking a glass or two of Chianti (a Tuscany wine) I am not sure I can do it today
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
So you can craft 3 items at once, but not 2 items + 1 item. For some reason that takes more time.
Yes that's true, it's how is working, if you have enough materials you can make "bigger batch", but if you stop (like you did) will take more it's how the crafting works.
Ok, fair enough, I guess that gives extra incentive to buy more tools.
The last one is OK (if you're on dark path and fail to make the cure, you leave). As long as it doesn't happen twice on the same playthrough should be OK
So, just to be sure it's supposed to happen like this: I craft Ruby's stuff and get Ruby's Dark ending. Some days later Ruby sends me a letter to say she's leaving and skips town. Much later, I fail to craft the ending stuff and get the dark failure ending, leaving town with Ruby (she's now left town twice).
Yeah I haven't tested it well. I thought with the changes I did would work. By the way, you can get new skill points in the Adventurer's Guild now, spending Reputation. Maybe that's the way to go?
That would help, I hadn't actually noticed. But I can still only train to my levelx10, and I only got to level 25, even with gathering almost every single day.
By the way, Special Job at Adventurer's Guild looks like a total scam. 1 reputation to be offered a job you might not even be able to complete for a reward that seems no better than other jobs?
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
I can probably make it if I do some XP jobs, let me try that before starting over completely.
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
So, just to be sure it's supposed to happen like this: I craft Ruby's stuff and get Ruby's Dark ending. Some days later Ruby sends me a letter to say she's leaving and skips town. Much later, I fail to craft the ending stuff and get the dark failure ending, leaving town with Ruby (she's now left town twice).
Ah OK, no not like that. I need to look at it
thanks
By the way, Special Job at Adventurer's Guild looks like a total scam. 1 reputation to be offered a job you might not even be able to complete for a reward that seems no better than other jobs?
Ahh damn, I multiplied only the gold, not the XP
so yes, I need to fix that. If you check though, the gold reward should be much higher (depending on Amber's skill).
I can probably make it if I do some XP jobs, let me try that before starting over completely.
Well I managed to win using your save
but of course I know exactly what to do, etc.
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
Strangely, I'm getting plenty of events now, so it's a bit of a mystery why I didn't get any before.
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
I changed the shop thing, plus I also raised the limit by 1
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
I made it... on the very last day. Hooray!
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
Haha good. I think if you made it with the "old version" which was much harder, the current version should be possible for everyone (for sure in Easy mode). I just tried to start a new game in young age and with 2 recipes on each level up you have much more variety and you can level faster
I'll be doing a new update to fix some other bugs and then probably stop for today
Franka
Apr 11, 2017
One thing though: Reputation training at the guild doesn't cost any energy. That's close to cheating, but I might not have made it otherwise, of course.
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
I will have it consume at least a bit of energy - with the new changes, I think should still be possible to win without problems
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
OK hopefully this is last update for today. Unfortunately the "age bug" repoted by Darciecobalt can be solved only by starting a new game. However it only changes the age of the character shown, so beside that (and possibly some random visual artifacts) it shouldn't impact the game.
Also in crafting mode I noticed I was triggering the "fail romance" once the deadline arrived, even if you actually crafted the item ALREADY!! this was the bug Franka found with Ruby leaving Icesilia too many times
Minamber
Apr 11, 2017
I just finished the game on normal difficulty (using mostly the 0.7.9 version), it was pretty good, but I think there are some things to improve gameplay-wise.
Getting all skills to 300 is really grindy, I had to abuse the adventurers' guild training quite a bit to raise my skills in time to make the cure and its components, which I only managed 2 days before the deadline. Although for some reason, the docks and market guys kept offering me mostly gemcrafting jobs, so that skill ended up much higher (around 360) than the others despite never training it. That was partly because for some reason the recipes for pebbles make 2 at a time and actually give 2 skill levels per craft. That's probably a bug.
You might want to make increasing skills a bit faster, like giving 2 skill points for tier 4-6 recipes and 3 for the tier 7 ones, that way it would also give an incentive to try to craft harder stuff rather than spamming basic recipes.
Also, you should seriously make shops sell more basic ingredients. I frequently took a job, then never got enough of the ingredients from shops to fulfill it despite looking every day. The menu says the shops restock daily, but that's definitely not true, it's more like every 5 days. If you only have a few recipes, and therefore are always asked to craft the same things, you can run out of ingredients really quickly. It's especially bad for the ingredients you can't find by gathering.
Which brings me to my next point: gathering is seriously not worthwhile past the early stages of the game (where it's a decent source of xp/money/ingredients). It takes a lot of energy, it makes you miss out on opportunities to raise your skills which is the most important thing to do to beat the game, and the results are far too random. You can't be certain of getting the ingredients you want, and on average you get far less money then for doing a job.
Speaking of jobs, it seems like task givers always ask for the same 5 stuff, mostly because they seem to ignore the lower tier recipes. As an example, my first tier 2 recipe was in jewelcrafting, and it seems as soon as I got that, the jobs were all about crafting the same garnet pebbles (I think it was garnet, not sure) over and over. By the end of the game nobody ever asked me to do things under tier 4 or so. It would be nice to change that, because crafting the same thing all the time gets boring fast, plus you run out of ingredients fast.
Another problem with the jobs is that hard jobs are seriously not worth doing. Their rewards are barely higher than easy jobs and they're often pretty tough to do with the really short time and high quality needed. I'd say you should make the rewards for hard jobs at least twice that of easy (with medium being in the middle ofc).
My last complaint is that you don't get nearly as many recipes as I would like from training and levelling up, which imo causes the game to feel more gindy than it should. At the end of the game, I would have liked to feel like the ultimate alchemist and know every recipe, but I only knew about 50. The fact that it's random what recipes you get to buy from the mages guild is also a bad idea imo, it took me at least 30 minutes at the end of the game to find the recipes for the diamond crystal and orichalcum ingot you need to make the 3rd ingredient for the cure (yes I know I could have just bought them, but that didn't really feel like the sort of thing an alchemist would do).
That seems like a lot of criticism, and I apologize for the long post, but I actually really liked the game, it just feels like it needs some polish before release to reduce the grind.
jack1974
Apr 11, 2017
Thanks for the feedback, those problems were present indeed in that version. But in the recent ones (if you check the changelog at the beginning) I did several improvements, of which some SHOULD (of course I didn't have time to test properly) adress your problems:
- more recipes unlocked, and picked "in level order" (still a bit randomly, but not like before)
- XP now increases proportionally based on Amber's level, so in adult age should be much less grindy
- shops sells more items (maybe not enough, but should be much more than version 0.7.9)
Of course with such long and complex games, testing it again from start is really tiring. But I plan to continue my new playthrough tomorrow, after 4 levels I have already 16 recipes, so I think should be better
I might make the gathering yield different result based on Amber's level, that will require a bit of time to "make the new list of ingredients she can find" but should make gathering worthwhile again (I must be careful though to not abuse it).
Minamber
Apr 11, 2017
Ok, I'll probably do another playthrough on the dark side path when version 0.9 comes out.
A few more nitpicks that I didn't get around to mentioning in that huge post;
I felt getting to lvl 10 in the young age part was a little too easy, I did mostly half xp/ half gold jobs with some gathering, and little studying, and I was lvl 17 with 4k gold at the end. My skill levels were a bit low (around 85) expect for jewelcrafting though, so maybe I was supposed to do more studying. Still, I don't see how you could fail the exam the first time unless you deliberately refused to do anything that granted xp.
I couldn't find a way to tell how much time I had left until the deadline for the young age (the announcement was way before it actually happened) or until the deadline for making the cure. Would it be possible to add some kind of countdown somewhere? I don't mind having a deadline, but I would really prefer being able to tell how much time I have left.
I felt it was weird that you could level skills beyond 300, yet there is no point in doing so (as far as I could tell). Maybe you could either put skill caps at 300 like the xp cap at 30, or maybe give a small automatic quality boost to crafting for levels beyond 300?
Edit: One last thing. You might want to raise the price of finished products in shops. It's very possible to get a job to make 3 gold ingots that rewards 250 gold, then just buy the 3 ingots for about 50 gold each, netting you a 100 gold profit for doing a merchant's job instead of an alchemist's.
That works for pretty much every gold giving job (at least the ones I got), so it's basically an infinite money cheat, limited only by the fact that it takes a little time to get the job and then turn it in.
