Well, I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will say that there is a possible sequence of events that would fit the trope. It’s not our intention to guarantee that anything ends badly, but a certain combination of choices, positions on the issues, and relationship stats would combine in what I’d call an ill-fated way, sure.
Well, I hope you’re okay with the consequences of enabling. Normally, August and I try to restrict this kind of thing to each other (since we write for different characters and don’t know everything about each others’ planned storylines), but if you all want in on the torture also, feel free to ask us stuff and we will respond vaguely and cryptically as necessary.
Lurker since the demo was first released, commenting for the first time! I can’t believe it’s almost been a year.
I’ve always loved the in-between segments, where we spend time with our group, and this time was no different. Baby deer, gah. And he didn’t say it isn’t a present for somebody…
I was also very impressed by all the different choices our captains have, down to our choice of whether to eat at the feast or accept Balthasar’s drink . It definitely helps with immersion, and I at least learn a lot about my captain from these seemingly minor choices. I hadn’t realized quite how paranoid she is.
This duel might be one of my favorite fights so far (though I said the same about the harbor fight and about sparring with Sangarinus, so. Your fight scenes are just that good). That said, I do have a question. Is it possible to win a duel that’s only to first blood at all? Or is it just a matter of our captain’s build? I have a captain whose peacefulness and seriousness are both in the 60s, and whose worst quality is strength. From the language of the choices in the final round for the duel, I suspect that she might simply lack the traits needed to win this particular fight. Which would be realistic, of course; some opponents need a more specific mix of traits to be beaten. But it’d also be a little disappointing to know I’m doomed to lose with this character.
It’s entirely possible to win the “first blood”. For example, the build that I had (Int=5, dex=4, ch=3, st=2, high intuition, low aggro and even lower humor) allowed for 2 successful starting rounds and one slightly muddled final (with no way to pick an option that guaranteed a win, they all were going to fail, but maybe some could have failed harder than others? Because the one I picked at least used 1 of my better stats, while the rest were all relying entirely on my worst).
From your description, your MC should be pretty similar to mine, at least personality-wise, so maybe you’ve just picked one of the “epic fail” options that checked 2 of your weakest stats?
@violet_dewinter - Hello! Thanks for dropping in to comment; I actually hadn’t quite realized we’d been at it for this long. Believe it or not, we originally planned this to be an entry in the contest with the deadline this January. Then it exploded and became huge word-wise and various life things got in the way and here we are, probably not even halfway done yet. Oops.
I’m glad the little things are paying off for you; it is kind of interesting to be confronted with things like that, which don’t have a huge effect on how the scene goes, but add bits of personal flavor to it. Something I generally like about choice games, I guess. My test run character never turns down a free lunch, and is more of a lush than I expected.
It’s awesome to hear that the fight scenes are enjoyable. We do have a lot of experience with those, but translating them to ChoiceScript has been an adventure, from one-check fights like the spar up to multi-round, multi-check endeavors like the duel. It is actually possible to win it with your stats; it should in theory be possible for most spreads to win, if the character’s personality has been at least somewhat consistent. If you can succeed in the first two rounds, you’ll do fine overall as long as the last one isn’t completely botched, as @Ekaterina noted. I think you’d do fine if you picked the first option on the last round, which requires low humor/high seriousness. Even if the second check doesn’t succeed, you’re far enough ahead at that point not to worry.
Hm. So I’ve run through the duel with my main captain a few times, and no matter what option I pick, I always lose the second and third rounds.
For reference, my traits from highest to lowest are Int, Dex, Cha, and Str. My peace stands at 54, my solemnity at 61, diplomacy at 38, intimidation at 1, and intuition at 47.
At the moment I think that my peace is in that gray area where it’s too low to win the second round by waiting her out, but too high to win the third round with a violent attack. Strength being my lowest quality probably dooms the option of remaining silent in the last round. Would you say that’s right, @Jaybirdy?
Out of curiosity will we have an Iskendi join the team? Or at least a mission with them involved as allies? I’m liking the idea of Pan looking like they’ve eaten a lemon at the thought of helping them out (but obviously not being able to show that)
And is it a spoiler to rate how angsty the romances are?
I think I found the issue. It seems your peace stat is just 1% too low to make the second round go in your favor. The option to “keep your cool” requires Int 4 and aggro at or below 45 to work. If I’m reading your comment right, you’ve probably got 46 aggro, which is just a touch too much. In general, the personality options require +/- 10% in either direction, but it’s actually been harder to get peaceability points so far, so we adjusted that one to 45/55. That said, it’s definitely possible to have that by this point.
@squarelyblue We have now spent valuable writing time discussing the finer points of extreme angst in our romance plotlines. I hope you’re happy. (Just kidding, we love talking about this kind of stuff.)
These were actually really difficult to rate, since we have to consider the different ways all of them can turn out. Some of the romances are vastly more angsty if your MC disagrees with them or wants to change some of their core values (examples: romancing Cormac but you’re strongly against fighting/raiding, romancing Aisling but you’re anti-magic, siding with Iskendi but romancing Sangarinus, that sort of thing).
With that in mind, we did two lists, the first rating the romances assuming you mostly agree with the character’s beliefs, and the second assuming you disagree with them.
From most angsty to least, agreeing:
Pan
Izzy
Sangarinus
Aisling
Cormac
From most angsty to least, disagreeing:
Pan
Cormac
Sangarinus
Aisling
Izzy
We’ll let you do with that information what you will.
As for the Iskendi, we don’t have plans for any Iskendi to “join the team” necessarily, but there will be opportunities for the player to work with them, including characters that haven’t yet been introduced that we hope you’ll like. We’re very aware of the Castulia/Iskendi imbalance at the moment, and while we’re a bit too far in to introduce a full companion character (with sidequest and romance and everything), we’re going to be doing what we can to even things out a little more in the eventual paths between the two of them.
Relative to the others, yeah. Which is to say that there’s a fair bit of angst there, but the amount doesn’t really change too much based on whether you share her views on things. Another way to think of it might be to say that the storyline has a certain amount of intrinsic angst, whereas some of the others are only that angsty relative to how PC reacts to things. If that makes sense.
Just finished the demo and wow. I loved it. Can’t say I have any complaints with the general direction, tone or story of the game. The world is interesting as well. Looking forward to the full thing!
My demeanor is all over the place. I keep seesawing between wanting to bath in the blood of my enemies, and wanting to have a nice drink with them ugh. (Also, is there a variable tracking how much of a heavy drinker we are?)
Is there an option to track lies? My captain has a habit of agreeing with everyone and telling them what they want to hear, while keeping her own opinions close to her chest. Right now there are a lot of benefits, but I’m curious if there will be any consequences for that kind of behavior.
)
