1231

Please report these values to the writer:
Ellena Florés:
Strength: 20
Intelligence: 36
Charisma: 6
Total: 62 (New save.)

Hopeful: 56
Mundane: 48
Lawful: 61

Ædmund: 68
Charlie: 77
Dahlia: 61
Helena: 65
Kevin: 62
Max: 65
Teri: 55
Xiulan: 65
Artie: 55
Professor Karline: 63
Ædmund bonus stat: 3

1 Like
1232

Strength: 22
Intelligence: 20
Charisma: 20
Total: 62 (New save.)

Hopeful: 52
Mundane: 38
Lawful: 52

Ædmund: 63
Charles: 54
Dahlia: 59
Helena: 66
Kevin: 65
Max: 60
Teri: 71
Xiulan: 62
Artie: 60
Professor Karline: 62
Ædmund bonus stat: 4

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1233

How long is the demo going to be?

Also do you have to max one stat to unlock all the dialog choices, or can you split them between two?

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1234

Strictly speaking, this is an open beta rather than a demo. (Well, even more technically, it’s probably an alpha because a beta generally implies that it’s pretty much complete, but this is getting super pedantic… :sweat_smile:) The eventual demo would be much shorter, although I’m still trying to work out where would be the best place to end it (CoG recommends having it end at a cliffhanger, so Artie’s first appearance makes sense, but that seems quite far into the story).

As for the beta, I am thinking of moving it over to a closed (private) beta in a bit, although, again, I’m not sure exactly when. :thinking: There are certainly a few places in the future which it would be super evil of me to leave the story as a cliffhanger, so obviously I’m considering one of those… :smiling_imp:

I try not to make the stat checks too hard, but at the same time, I don’t want everyone to just be able to do everything in one playthrough… :sweat_smile: But yeah, as long as you’ve got good int or cha you should be able to get most dialogue options.

And that brings me onto a bit of an issue I’ve been noticing: Strength is a pretty useless stat. :sweat_smile: Both Intelligence and Charisma are very useful in conversation, but Strength isn’t (which makes sense). And while Strength is useful in combat, so are Intelligence and Charisma (and combat scenes are pretty few and far between…)

So I kinda want to replace Strength, but I’m not really sure what with; maybe something like “Instinct” or “Street-Smarts”, which could conceivably be used in more strength-related situations, but would also let the MC see through others’ lies better… :thinking: (And this would knock onto Charisma, which would now only be about making friends and influencing people, but without knowing when they’re lying…)

What are people’s thoughts on this? :thinking:

Oh, and finally, happy Pride! :partying_face::rainbow_flag:

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1235

Ah okay, the demo thing make sense.

As for your question. Mmm. Well intelligence is you figuring things out, charisma is getting other to tell you, so what about presents? Like how big you make yourself in the community, or how involve you are into the investigation. So that you don’t have to ask or figure events out to much, you character is told, of course not everything because they are a chosen one, but people don’t know that.

I probably didn’t explain the idea to well.

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1236

Honestly, I’m not a fan of that, because I feel like Charisma is already pretty “weak” compared to Intelligence. Charisma allows to see people’s lies and stuff like that, but I don’t really recall instances where it unlocked dialogue options to me, or at least not much. Everything was always locked behind Intelligence, which is my lowest stat. If you remove the “lie detection” from Charisma, then Charisma would become the useless stat. Because what good does convincing people if you lack the Intelligence to think of good questions to ask or the would-be-Instinct to see something is amiss…
I wouldn’t mind Street-Smarts that would allow MC to notice things that are not related to people lying but to environmental things, and to have some knowledge exclusive to someone self-taught instead of pure Intelligence though, as it wouldn’t overlap with anything nor overshadow Charisma or Intelligence.

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1237

I like the strength stat as it’s basically my only stat with any points I would want it to be kept and possibly changed to something like Athletics or fitness something along those lines

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1238

Ah, but maybe you could also leave Charisma and Intelligence as they are, and change Strenght to Toughness or something like that? :thinking:
It could serve as physical strenght, but also as mental fortitude - for example to resist mind control better down the line, to avoid being intimidated or panicking, things like that. That would be another way to not make Charisma useless and make Strenght more useful, without changing what people may like about it.

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1239

Well…unless the author has changed his mind I think the mc is always supposed to be at least somewhat above average physically as their main challenge is always supposed to be the complete and utter lack of magic in a magic school setting.

Well the mc could basically become Trump…which isn’t all that great. :anguished:

But I like the charisma stat as it is. I think good looks are also supposed to be a part of charisma and if the stats are re-balanced it could maybe lean into that aspect more, as pretty people do tend to get away with more. On the flipside people also tend to notice you more which can also be a negative in some situations. If the stats are rebalanced maybe charisma could also include muscles for show, instead of combat ability?
The main drawback to this approach is how young the mc is and the best benefits of being really good-looking are not things generally open to people as young as the mc.

I think some degree of street smarts should always be part of the mc because it is their background. I’ve never really met anybody who came out of the foster or child services systems with anything less than at least a reasonable level of street smarts as it just isn’t an environment that is kind to purely shy, bookish do-gooders. That’s just a background limitation, so tying that to strength seems less than ideal given who and what the mc starts out as.

I think strength should remain the combat stat but what it could encompass in addition to that is an instinctive grasp of tactics in combat situations.
What it could open up in dialogue in certain situations would be choices to intimidate some people, where charisma is more about persuasion. It is a distinction some other games have long used too.

2 Likes
1240

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I’ll try to work something out with them… :thinking:

Yeah; that would also fit better with it boosting Natural magic… :thinking:

Oh, don’t worry. You’ll keep your strength, but it’ll probably have a new name and will give you more options, too. :slight_smile:

That works too… :sweat_smile:

That is true. :slight_smile:

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1241

Physical intimidation I agree on and the whole flight/fight/freeze thing, less so the mental fortitude and perseverance. Like the street smarts thing I feel mental fortitude and perseverance in real life is more of a personality trait than being tied to either physique/strength or raw intellect. And, again, with a background like the mc’s you need at least a good amount of it, much like with street smarts.
Again the environment the mc comes out of is not one conducive to the shy, the bookish and most of all the weak-willed.

That said you could definitely do more with threat assessment and the more combat relevant aspects of observation and instincts/muscle memory. As for it boosting natural magic…the mc hasn’t got much to boost in first place now that they have lost the fancy artefact that allowed them to do magic, eh? :sweat_smile:

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1242

That was SO good! The writing is excellent, the characters are unique and interesting, and every scene is captivating. It is obvious that ParrotWatcher is a very skilled writer, and the story is amazing because of it. Keep up the magnificent work!

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1243

Overall I rather enjoyed this story and am interested in the future of this wip. However there was one scene that almost made me quit reading. Beware spoilers ahead

At the end of the scene where it’s revealed that your not actually the chosen one you are given the option of staying in the magical world or having your memories erased and returning to the mundane world, with the duke(forgot his name) offering to give you (presumably) enough money to live the rest of your life comfortably. Though he’s does threaten that if you stay and fail at school (likely given your lake of magical ability) you’ll be sent back anyway without any support. The problem is if you choose to agree with the duke’s offer your character says no anyway. While I didn’t expect to actually be sent back to the mundane world ,as it would end the story, the fact that my choice was so blatantly false and pointless is the issue. This greatly irritated me and I think might be better off rewritten. If you have read this far I thank you for listening to my complaint and would like to offer some suggestions on how to rewrite this, feel free to take any of them or ignore them after all your the author. 1. Have the Mc be unable o have their memory safely wiped ie thy risk severe damage to the brain possibly due to the time they’ve spent in the magical world and/or because of the trauma they endured in their youth. 2 give some reason as to delay your departure to a later date (so some other issue can prevent you from going back to the mundane world).3 just don’t give us the option. This is in my opinion probably the laziest and weakest solution, but I’d rather not have a choice than have a blatantly false choice.

Regardless keep up the good work I look forward to the final release

Let’s also hope I did the spoiler tags correctly

3 Likes
1244

Wait but… from what I see when looking at that scene, I think there’s obviously some (not so) subtle mind controlling or compulsion or something going on. The way MC’s opinion shifts from what they wanted to say at first (the choice option) and what they said in the end (the outcome) is pretty similar to various instances of mind control and alteration along the story.

I mean, I’m obviously just offering my opinion as a fellow player here! But I’ve never seen that scene in any other way than what I described, so eh :rofl:

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1245

If you want spoilers, yes, it’s mind control, and the fact that you don’t remember deciding to choose differently is part of that. It is also something that will be addressed later, should you have chosen that option. The fact that it’s a blatantly fake choice is supposed to be somewhat annoying, but it’s annoying for actual narrative reasons, not just because I couldn’t think of another way to handle it… :sweat_smile:

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1246

Ah that makes more sense, guess I’m replaying to see if I can realize this. Thanks for the response

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1247

Please report these values to the writer:
Lotte Mayfair:
Strength: 0
Intelligence: 0
Charisma: 62
Total: 62 (New save.)

Hopeful: 56
Mundane: 46
Lawful: 31

Ædmund: 66
Charlie: 76
Dahlia: 60
Helena: 66
Kevin: 58
Max: 63
Teri: 68
Xiulan: 60
Artie: 55
Professor Karline: 48
Ædmund bonus stat: 8

1 Like
1248

Okay, this might sound a bit repetitive, but in the next chapter you’ll have the ability to ask questions of… well, someone who has even more answers than the previous guy you asked. So, if you have any questions at all, from “Can there be multiple Chosen Ones?” to “Why did the chicken cross the road?” (both already options :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ), please let me know. Once again, I can’t promise that every suggested question will get in, but they’re very useful for helping me thing of things I might have missed.

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1249

I’ll refer you to my previous question who let us out hopefully this is the person who will have the answer

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1250

Okay how about…shouldn’t a “chosen one” have some actual powers?
I mean if Artie is powerful enough to not so surreptitiously manipulate stuff to force a sports match in Atlantis to a draw then what the heck is our power.
Unless the mc’s kind of “chosen one” power is as the “chosen” sacrifice…in which case…forget it. I mean ever since the possibility of two chosen ones was sprung my mc is well read enough even from the public libraries to know that in fantasy there tend to be two types of chosen ones, the ones who do cool stuff with cool powers and the ones who exist only as a sacrifice of sorts and since we are not the former sort my mc is beginning to dread the possibility of maybe being the latter. :unamused: :worried:

8 Likes