Iām keeping mechanics as they are. Iām using fairmath for primary stats, relationships, yay, and ouch.
The Power option will use integers instead of faithmath (as itās mostly going to go down). It will let the player try to avoid stat checks that might be difficult for their specific stat-set. Again, these mechanics are now pretty much identical to Zipās, but a tad more involved.
Iām keeping the mid-game goals/end-game goals as they are, although obviously people reading the Demo have only encountered 3 of them yet.
Elements I need help with! Some examples below!
Continuity Iām making this my top element for now. With so much material in the previous installments, I need to be careful that I donāt write stuff in CCH3 thatās inconsistent with previous material or that seems like a significant deviation. Yes, stuff like eye color counts, but Iām worried about getting to the end and someone reads it and asks, āWait, this doesnāt make sense because in Part 2ā¦ā
Is there a coding or continuity error ? Please bring it to my attention! I can only play the game so many times myself.
Can a scene be restructured to be more effective? Like when someone mentioned that Downfall would probably delay punishing the MC until AFTER the battle. That just makes sense, and so Iām accepting that suggestion and making changes. And the people who suggested maybe reworking the first scene, having the MC tell the story first off, and THEN show off, well Iām still thinking about that too. There are merits there! (although I do like currently having the āfā word in the very first line)
Pacing - Is there a nice mixture of fast scenes and slower scenes? Did you want more of something in a scene? Did you want less of something in a scene?
Choices - The most important aspects (for me) for choices are: A) Are they balanced? This means no choice is clearly better than the others. B) Do you understand the stakes? This means, if one option is meant to be tougher than the others, do you understand that from the prose and context? C) Goals - most choices are designed to further one of your goals. Do you understand which goal you are pursuing by picking the option you chose?
ā Fun Factor ā Could a scene be more fun? More exciting? Sadder? Scarier? Whatever Iām going for in that scene, could I have cranked it up even more? If so, feel free to suggest something specific. It doesnāt mean Iāl incorporate it, but if you say, āHey if you would have written xyz, it would have really cranked up the tension here!ā see THAT is some potential actionable feedback!
And obviously typos and small grammar errors. Although I do my best to give you folks a fairly clean product, these do sneak through!
I hope this maybe clarifies what I would find helpful! Again, I say this because I donāt want anyone spending a lot of time with āwish listsā that Iāll have to essentially ignore. That doesnāt use anyoneās time wisely at all, and we all only have so much time in the day.
DEVELOPMENT UPDATE: OCTOBER 2021: GOAL IS TO POST NEW CCH3 CONTENT IN DECEMBER
Hmmā¦the idea has a lot of potential for conflict, which is always a good thing, but I wonāt have any room to add any new characters. Itās incredibly crowded as it is. Perhaps an idea for another project, though!
I understand completely. I mean there were a lot of characters that could be romanced in the books and then more that you canāt. Like the chevalier and many others. I like the direction though in all that itās going even if I didnāt like little details which to me makes a story great.
You already mentioned my big one; a few more romance/friendship scenes. I mean, I loved the dinner parts with Tress/Dirty girl, but a few more would be nice.
Sort of along those lines, I think it could be amusing if someone is in a romance, and your mom meets them formally.
Also, if you are going the Dr. Stink path, I hope we can change that name. I mean, I could imagine Tress breaking up with the MC for that alone
Instead of a romance, you could do something where the MC is concerned that they might be related to a villain. The stronger this possibility, based on evidence or research, etc., the more the MC goes into a reflective mood and wonders why they and the villain are so different, and where things went wrong. This could be a neat little philosophical vehicle used to explore the nature of āevilā and its causes, with the potential to offer the villain a chance to (partially) redeem themselves by defending the MC in a critical time.
Either that, or the villain-relative ends up dying and the pain of loss felt in the MC causes their Zenith powers to manifest dangerously; temporarily without any control or limits. Under the right circumstances, the burst of energy could even open an unstable portal to the Zone. If you do it that way, then you could create some lore like Zenith powers exist because they are actually drawing from the other-dimensional energy of the Zone. And if thatās the case, and the MC is drawing on Zone energy without limit, then they themselves become the biggest threat to the city. I wonder if this was a villain plot all alongā¦?
Maybe a more āVigilanteā path ? given the less than lawful good decision you can make in that knowledge is power
a bit more info on the āwider settingā and situation ?
an updated āpower levelā list (one that maybe take our character into account) ? since they donāt really seems in line with what we saw of āthe Dozenā level villains IMO
thatās pretty much all i can think of, most of the stuff i though could be improved in trial by fire were already done in knowledge is power, except maybe the ability to change your hero name once you get āupgradedā ? i just find the idea to call my no-kill hero āWarCrimeā once he get his āDr Stenchā thingy extremly funny
for the idea of a villain romance, i agree it has a lot of conflict potential but it has also a lot of humour potential if you romance some try hard innefectual villain, with all the heros basicaly seeing you as very weird for it but not actualy caring enough to hold it against you, i think it would be a funny situation