The Chosen Ones

I'll check out this cinematic. Usually when I play games I like to see how other games have done their games. I'm usually like "hah" those games cameras suck! And of course I like to boast how lively my cameras are. Heh, I guess mine aren't that great after all. Maybe I just overuse the cameras or use wrong angles. I've never been any schools how to actually use the cameras so everything just comes from my own head.

Overall, cinematics are fine. If I was forced to comment on every single detail such as cinematics, then I would simply state what I had noticed. What I mentioned is neither good nor bad or even an issue.

I'm quite pleased that throughout the campaign you took the time to create them.

Grinding

I've made the campaign in a way that farming gold or honor points isn't possible inside a chapter. Instead I've created this give up function and when you complete the campaign you'll have your resources for the next game. I like this way because I feel like it's better way to make this campaign more repetitive. I mean, instead of grinding in a forest enemies hours and hours you can play chapters again and again finding more secrets. Also things like Synthesis Items and Interludes will bring more enjoyability.

Fair enough. I suggested some form of farming and I hope you didn't misinterpret it to the extreme where the "experience given is lowered so grinding is required". In case I wasn't clear, the reason I was hoping a possibility of farming was because:
1. Earning experience was a bit too easy
2. By having farming and my suggestion of improved potions, vitality... players would use potions more often and 'maybe' strategically eat food (instead of waiting for vitality to drop to 5 and then spamming the "eat food" button. NB: This suggestion would probably apply if changes were done to potions and food system.
3. This is more of a personal touch, but it would apply to the RPG feel?

There could be a compromise where the creeps are harder and tougher to kill (even on easy) but also provide slightly increased experience (hypothetically on the next version) so that grinding isn't required? Because if not farming, then I find the creeps too easy to kill ? or no real effort required to defeat them. Either way I'm still here to promote my suggestion of potions/food change, and farming OR making the creeps harder would work towards that.

Anyway, it's entirely theoretical and who's to say my ideas would work for the better.

Difficulties

Difficulties are the greatest weakness at the moment I think. It wasn't before, but now that so many new items and abilities are created they started to "rival" each other making a circle of becoming more and more powerful. Now they are so powerful that bosses are nothing but a joke anymore.

My plan to fix this situation is that I'll give more health and attack damage to all enemies on higher difficulties. Also another solution is this.

I might need to be clarified on the "Zozi" - but to my understanding, is it a concept that:
a. limits a character from acquiring high leveled items too early?
b. limits a character from acquiring too many high levelled items to be too powerful?
c. both?

I agree the difficulties are flawed where; the Harder the game is supposed to be, the easier it becomes because of the extra gold. You mentioned that you like the extra resources because it makes the game repetitive. I understand what you mean but only if the repetitiveness leads to something new in the game. For instance, I started the game on NORMAL and gave up at chapter 7 after completing 1 optional quest when I realised I had missed nearly half of the rare/expected items. The game was challenging at that time and I enjoyed it. (Forgot to mention, this was version 1.6f) I re-started the campaign again on NORMAL with the extra gold and actually finished everything on chapter 7 with the items that I didn't get previously. Repetitiveness wasn't an issue then.
BUT the experience playing on HARD was lessened because it was the same as the 2nd play through but everything took slightly longer to kill. My issue on "repetitiveness" is this: what has higher difficulties got to offer?

You mentioned discovering secrets etc, I actually found most of the dark merchants/dig spots/flowers etc in the 1st play through and eventually all of them in the 2nd play through. And on the 3rd play through (hard) - I stopped playing at chapter 5 (a few months ago) because I was bored.

I'm hope I'm not be disheartening because that isn't my intention.

On HARD+, players are experienced with The Chosen Ones AND want a challenge. The issue is that it?s NOT a challenge because of extra gold.
SO - have the mindset of making these difficulties as IMPOSSIBLE and BUFF EVERYTHING.
Assume that the characters have the best items to offer (at the relevant chapter) and test it out. If the play through is exactly the same as the previous play through then the difficulty is not hard enough.

One example of a game I could think of is Chrono Trigger. Please tell me you've played it as it is one of the classics! It had a New Game+. The issue was that the 2nd play through became too easy because you would start the game again because of the continued characters (high level, extra money etc) HOWEVER there was a reason for the New Game+ and that was to unlock possible endings. Repetition was permitted in that game.

Anyway I feel as if I'm starting to go off track, so to summarise:
1. Difficulties: the game should become harder exponentially. Notable differences between EASY and NORMAL, but from there, dramatically BUFF everything up. Something like 1,2,5,10,25. Numbers don?t mean a thing, just notice the increasing difference.
2. Repetition: Offer players something that can't be found from the previous difficulty but shouldn't affect the gameplay that much. E.G. new starting items, extra cinematics, side quests - they could be trivial such as: Fradz wants to go fishing.... and then after completion of this side quest there could be a cinematic... something like that. Please don't assume the extreme! I'm not referring to "Sword of IMBA can only be gotten on HARD+" or "HARD+ starts with IMBA item", just small additions to playing the game again and on higher difficulties.

Vitality

The vitality system is updated in the next version and it is better. However there are still some problems the current system has: for example the food... The beginning food is just better than the late game food. I don't know how to solve this and I need help with this case. How to make this system more balanced.

For the food part, how about allowing players to purchase low tier food throughout the campaign? The higher tier can only found from killing creeps etc. Finally, please remove those non-consumable items that restore vitality!

Professions

About your Treasure Hunter idea I don't know. I really don't know. I must hear more opinions first before I make my decision about it.

What I've seen from Killa's gameplay Alchemist is very useful profession if correctly used. Many people just don't use it at all.

The differences among the professions is that ?Treasure Hunter? is fixed in a sense that all you need to know is the digging locations (FAQ). Because it relies on strength for the 100% success rate (either you have the digging level and strength OR you don?t), any smart player would obviously get Phodom to do all the dirty work.
Stealing is chance based and quite difficult in early chapters. Players already have the knowledge of who to steal from and it?s a matter of time before they get the prize. Again, any smart player would obviously get Fradz to steal.
Now, I don?t know what you mean by using Alchemy correctly, because I use it ? buff certain stats up for digging/stealing as well as saving it up for levelling Galeoth up at later chapters. So I use correctly and incorrectly . Anyway, the issue isn?t the usage because it?s entirely upto the player.

To summarise my points:
Treasure Hunter feels more like a side quest of ?find all the locations? rather than a profession like alchemy and stealing.
If stealing applied to normal creeps (the prize would probably be gold) then it would strengthen the ?stealing profession?.
Alchemy really needs no changes in how it?s made to be BUT I want to use it more. Like I suggested in the questionnaire, if I could find more flowers, it would give me a better range of choices. Now remember, I?m not suggesting the extreme of ?generating infinite flowers in a chapter?. I?m not suggesting an imbalance to the game. It?s just a possible idea that could interest players into using alchemy more often. Quantity would have to override quality so you?d have to reduce the stat gain from the concoctions.

Potions

I've heard some opposite things about potions: some people say that potions are like old technology how games used to work, but shouldn't anymore. You, however, say that potions should have a bigger role in the gameplay. Sometimes it's hard to please everyone, but I'll try my best.

Your idea is very interesting, by making potions percentage. That way the potions would be always useful. I also must hear more opinions about this case.

I also agree that for example Elixir is "holy grail", I don't use it either! Why did I made it!? I don't know! Oh noe!

That's some good allegory. If that's the case and you're leaning towards it, then by all means remove potions. Because it's a waste of item storage (later chapters) and the only reason I keep it in the storage is "just in case" I lose all my mana in one go OR all my health to 1. Ironically, I should be keeping Elixirs for that case.

I empathise with you on how hard it is to please everyone. And I'm sure you'll agree that you simply and realistically can't! But go with what you think is best for the campaign. I feel that you've already compensated the lack of potion usage with life steal, damage resisting passives, Meditate, healing active abilities. I believe one item need to be balanced (3% life steal per hit! -33 attacks with Fradz and his attack speed (buffs/items and his AGILITY gain!) but that's a whole different issue.

Because The Chosen Ones is not a completed campaign there's always room for improvement, changes, etc and you learn new things with each chapter you're creating. I wouldn't worry too much about potions yet. They are "old technology" and still have their uses. It is a life saver in the solo levels except for Galeoth?s chapter 3 because he is a beast


Best of luck.