10 responses to “Mini-Q & A”

1. 

   Victor Bladdy

   November 30, 2022 at 3:50 pm

   this is great but can you add big tiddy option for the squid waifu pls

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      MANOfWAR

      November 30, 2022 at 10:02 pm

      What about size options for all the waifus, hmm?

      Though it depends on how easy or difficult that will be to implement.

      LikeLike

      Reply
   2. 

      Ribonizer Zoog

      December 1, 2022 at 3:50 pm

      Dude, There’s 9 girls with big breast and you won’t even let the flat lovers have one girl?

      There are other porn games where the characters are empty vessel you can turn into whatever you want. Subverse isn’t that game, the girls are specifically crafted to their looks.

      I don’t think you could toggle breasts as that would require double the work for every pandora scene with her and scenes that take advantage of her flat chest wouldn’t work.

      Accept her as she is, and she will treat you the same (Once we beat her into submissiion)

      LikeLike

      Reply
2. 

   Ribonizer Zoog

   November 30, 2022 at 4:23 pm

   Always great to read these. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question!

   Regarding the Fatal Error that is plaguing some users. Being a wiki editor for the SubWiki I have to keep the game open a lot and I alt-tab quite a bit between the wiki and the game and I have noticed it being pretty consistent with triggering the crash if I’m not focused on the game while dialogue is playing. I find that rather odd but thought maybe that’d be pertinent information.

   Keep up to good work!

   LikeLike

   Reply
3. 

   Spanky

   November 30, 2022 at 4:41 pm

   I’ll just assume things are very up in the air. At the top you mentioned there would be 40 PP gained, 1 per Devo level to unlock scenes the player wants.
   But in the last answer you are dancing with the idea of the Captain scenes being tied to the Devotion meter?

   Doesn’t that escape the option for people have the option to unlock the scenes they want?
   If there are going to be other methods, I think all the scenes should have some “attached” way of unlocking so it doesn’t seem as if other kinks are lesser.

   LikeLiked by 1 person

   Reply
   1. 

      Spanky

      November 30, 2022 at 4:45 pm

      Otherwise, very good post with good information!

      LikeLike

      Reply
   2. 

      godlyfish

      November 30, 2022 at 5:39 pm

      100% this

      LikeLike

      Reply
4. 

   godlyfish

   November 30, 2022 at 6:17 pm

   I thinks it’s ok for the captain scenes to be gotten from the meter since its them building a relationship but I also want to see something special for the other scene’s instead of just getting them with points if you’re not going to do the points after all. I don’t think they should be from missions either, the events could be good for it. The waifu’s relationship with the captain develops through the game but the events can be used to have the waifu’s show development with each other and have those go into scene’s and show how they get to fucking the monsters too. The scene’s can be more connected to the story and it’s a lot simpler. I’m just throwing idea’s and know this might not work since there’s not that many events.

   LikeLike

   Reply
5. 

   xxedgelordxx

   December 1, 2022 at 2:09 am

   Thanks for the response Tibor, I tried to suggest things that would require the least amount of feature creep and the least amount of development time possible by working within the already created systems the game has, but I’ll be more liberal here.
   —
   For the battlepass-like level up system, I think it’s a good idea, the UI for it looks spiffy and readable.
   One problem you posed was that the entire experience system might have to massively change for a standardized XP rate as opposed to scaling.
   I believe removing scaling entirely might be a good thing.
   There’s no inherent need to have the XP system scale like it currently does, this includes stats that are tied to leveling up. This is a porn game, where the game is focused on rewarding the player with porn instead of the way normal games reward the player with progression.
   You could standardize all stats to no longer scale with level at all, that your stats at the beginning of the game will relatively be the same at the end of the game, outside of additional passives/abilities gained while leveling up.
   This would allow you to fine tune the balancing instead of having to deal with the difficulties of scaling balance, and as it stands, the scaling is almost completely unnoticeable from a player perspective. Players have no idea if they are overleveled or underleveled for an encounter, and if an event is too hard, some players just opt to skip the battle completely.
   Gaining more passives and abilities on level ups is good, and functionally make some gameplay easier, but stat increases on level up/level scaling is unneeded and just makes balancing headaches like my Lamarse 1-shotting everything in the game.
   I’d say, test it. Have every character/enemy balanced around level 10 or so stat wise and completely turn off scaling. See if it seriously impacts gameplay negatively.
   —
   For the brainstorming part about how to get different scenes not involving the captain, obviously it should be something the player would knowingly be able to pursue. I have some ideas of varying manpower.

   With Mantics, you guys already had the idea of them being customizable with level ups, so you could just reward scenes like that at different mantic levels.
   But I also think there could be an additional management option added to the Mantic Lab room, where you can pair up one of the girls with a mantic and it’d lock the two of them out from use for the very next mission. After you complete the mission/encounter, it rewards the Mantic with some XP. This allows you to have a catch up mechanic for Mantics and girls you aren’t taking out on as many missions.
   Now, you could have achievements tied to this that are greyed out on the Mantic info screen that shows Scene Unlockable (Spend some time with X girl), with which you will then have a % chance to receive the scene every time you come back from an encounter.
   This gives power to the player to be able to use characters they aren’t actively using and being able to earn things with them.

   With Lesbian/Group content, I think it might be interesting if you could do with having more than one girl on ground missions/space missions as a sort of special mission type.
   For Space Missions, you can have “Joyrides” where instead of the captain, it’s a special mission where it’s two of the girls and the captains primary fire is replaced with that girls secondary fire, so you have 2 secondary fire abilities.
   At the end of the special mission type, the player gets rewarded with a lesbian scene with them.
   For Ground Missions, you could have “Team Building Exercises” where it’s just two or more of the girls and no Mantics and they have to fend off against some waves of enemies or reach some objective.
   And of course, at the end, the player gets rewarded with a scene of the girls involved.

   An alternative to making new missions is to just allow 1 more waifu and 1 less mantic on missions in general, and just have achievements like “Complete 5/10/20 ground combat missions with this other girl/mantic in the party and it unlocks a special scene with them. It’d require the least amount of work to code into the game besides some balancing and interactions.
   I honestly feel like having 2 girls on ground missions will be a big deal in making so many things just click in the game and I really hope someone on the team fiddles around with the idea just to see if it spices up the ground missions.

   LikeLike

   Reply
6. 

   Neryxon 🔞 (@NeryxonArt)

   December 24, 2022 at 9:53 pm

   (I deeply apologize for this huge wall of text as well as the amount of time it took me to post it – I’d like to take this topic seriously.)

   Tibor, thank you so much for making these posts and letting us share our suggestions with you! I wish more people could see it – it’s such a great way to communicate with the audience.

   The way the Studio is putting more and more attention to the game design is also something very exciting to see.

   I know it’s been a rough time for the Studio for a lot of reasons – and in such circumstances, I’m glad that at least with this opportunity to make Subverse a better experience for every single player, the Studio can certainly cement its status as one of the best adult game developers in the world in the long run.

   This blog post also means a lot personally to me – among other reasons, it helped me decide to put off visiting PANDORA until later versions to get the best possible first experience out of it – especially now, with Fortune (and after her – Huntress and Blythe) being my favorite character in the game.

   I also have a few questions I’d like to ask and thoughts to share. It’s actually pretty enjoyable to ponder possible ways to make further enhancements to the game, while keeping the limited resources in mind.

   [QUESTIONS]
   1) In this reply:
   “The pooter points aren’t going anywhere. Initially, we considered removing them for the sake of unlocking sets of scenes as you progressed on the Devotion Meter, but that would take away your ability to choose the ones you wanted most.”

   To clarify, does it mean that each time upon leveling the player would be able to unlock any scene that exists in the game right away, or would they be able to pick a single scene from a small collection determined by their current progress on the Devotion Meter?

   What concerns me is, if the player were able to unlock the best and spiciest scenes possible right off the bat instead of following a more linear progression (from least to most desirable and from least to most hardcore scenes), wouldn’t it leave them with very little to look forward to, as they make further progress and complete more difficult challenges?

   2) Would girls in the future system be able to get Devotion levels even before they join the crew (like they do now), or would they have to become full teammates first?

   I can see it happening right now: it feels like the player might be getting so much rewarding content with new ladies almost for free right away that it’s pretty much ends the adult portion of the game for them as soon as a new character comes aboard and appears in PANDORA.

   3) If the player were to get 1 PP for every Devotion Level and could unlock all 40 scenes as they progress through the Devotion Meter, it means, all of these scenes are going to be attached to the Devotion Meter, right?

   At the same time, as far as I understand, another outcome is possible – when the Devotion Meter wouldn’t necessarily reward us with scenes ever new level in case some of these scenes were to be potentially acquired in some other way, after all – as it’s mentioned in the last Q-A paragraph, correct?

   [THOUGHTS]
   I. LEVELS AND DEVOTION
   The current plan is to merge Levels and Devotion Meter into a single system, right?
   Would it be possible if we were to keep them as two separate mechanics, but with different roles?

   For example, Levels could give us feedback solely on our combat skills’ growth, while Devotion would let us focus on building relationships and getting content with the girls without it affecting their ability to fight.

   I have 2 favorite examples:
   1) XCOM: Enemy Within (it has at least 6 sources of character progression: stats + ability trees + equipment + medals + genetic modifications + psyonics) – it also applies to other games of the franchise in general;

   2) Final Fantasy V (ability points greatly enhanced the gameplay and became an inseparable part of the franchise once they were first introduced in FFV as an addition to the traditional leveling system).

   I imagine preservation of Levels and Devotion as separate systems could:

   1. Give the player a more rewarding gameplay experience (by having 2 sources of progression instead of 1).

   2. Make it easier and more immersive to acquire certain things in a specific way.

   For example, mastering combat abilities and receiving loot – by fighting in battles; improving relationship with a character – by doing something that pleases them.

   3. Let the player utilize different gameplay mechanics to advance through these systems without making the progress appear too fast or too slow.

   In other words, to avoid situations when a character leveled-up through devotion ends up being stronger than another character who had a lot more actual combat experience.

   4. Let every character gain levels, but not devotion before they become a crewmember.

   As I mentioned in the Question sections (#3), it could help us avoid giving the player too many rewards at once, and instead practically separate the gameplay into two parts: before (when you only gain Levels) and after recruitment (when you gain Levels and Devotion).

   II. HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION
   xxedgelordxx made an interesting suggestion regarding a potential removal of scaling – in my case, I’d like to look at it from a different point of view: what if we preserved and increased the number of rewarding factors (including adult content and progression), while also making the use of horizontal progression?

   In this case I would imagine the traditional leveling could give us:

   1. Unlocking new abilities and improving the older ones as the main driving force behind leveling.

   I’m not sure how doable it would be to give the characters any new abilities that haven’t yet been implemented, but it feels like it might also be an option to work with the existing ones – for example, begin with only the most basic ones and unlock all others as we go. Those which the player has already acquired could then be upgraded a few times.

   Some other abilities might include:
   a) Reducing the number of adrenaline points to make a special attack;
   b) Increasing the fire/movement range;
   c) Being able to move after making an attack;
   d) Healing while defending;
   And so on.

   If the resources would allow it, I’m also thinking of a simple ability tree – maybe similar to XCOM, which would give the player more choice, and the game – more replay value. I imagine interesting scenarios, like “Should I spend this point to unlock a new ability or wait until I get 1 more point to improve the existing one?”.

   2. Only small stat increases per level.

   Instead of removing team’s stat gains entirely, we could preserve a certain amount of parameter progression, so that the player would still get a feeling of natural growth, without:

   a) changing the balance of power significantly – and thus, reducing the possibility of making all previous opponents too weak and boring (and also wasteful in terms of production costs), or:

   b) relying on scaling – enemies instead would keep their innate parameters throughout the course of the game.

   For example, the change between any given character’s characteristics on level 1 and 40 could be 2X or even less – as opposed to, say, 5X (an arbitrary value) – like if you compare a professional athlete with a hobbyist.

   Maybe the player could also collect something from weaker enemies that stronger ones do not necessarily possess – which would make earlier levels more replayable. It could be loot, points or anything else. It’s a curious thing I’ve noticed in Final Fantasy V too: at the beginning, tougher mobs generally give the player more XPs, while weaker ones, more APs – meaning, the player still have a reason to return to those previous areas, which also gives them more value production-wise.

   3. More focus on critical hits as the stat of most importance.

   XCOM is infamous for shot accuracy capped at 95% – meaning, the player practically gets punished for making certain attacks. Fortunately, Subverse doesn’t do it – all hits have a 100%-chance.

   What if we went even further, used positive reinforcement and rewarded the player for occasional hits – like Gothic 1 & 2 do that (there, it only applies to melee fighting, though)? So, any attack that the player makes would always reach its target, and on top of that there could also be critical hits, the chance of which could grow upon leveling and be capped at, say, 40%.

   Lore-wise, it could be explained that the characters are simply getting better at shooting/slashing/smashing more accurately.

   In addition, what could further enhance the player’s impressions after making successful critical shot might be extra sound and visual effects – but it’s something I’m going to return to later in this message.

   III. MORE ON DEVOTION
   Now, what about Devotion?
   I’m thinking it could potentially be acquired in the following ways:

   1. Every time we use a character on a mission (only after their recruitment).

   2. Upon finishing specific objectives.

   It reminds me of Fable 1 – there you could choose to start quests with special conditions (for example, defeating opponents with bare hands) which in return could lead to better rewards after completing the task.

   In our case, objectives could include:
   a) no damage to the hull received (Space Combat) or finish the mission with no less than 50% HP (Ground Combat);

   b) use a special ability at least once;

   c) defeat X number of enemies using the character (Ground Combat) or their special ability (Space Combat);

   d) collect certain items while on missions (for example, special containers right on the grid during Ground Combat, or minerals from asteroids during Space Combat);

   I imagine the player could receive extra tasks simply upon starting a new mission, which they then could choose to pursue or ignore entirely.

   3. Dating – as far as I understand, this system is likely to get an overhaul in the future, right?

   4. Global achievements – such as:
   a) defeat X enemies using specific character
   b) complete X missions with that character
   c) use special abilities X times
   (Each of them could have several levels – like: 5 – 10 – 15)

   The rewards for leveling up Devotion could include:
   1) scenes
   2) gallery poses
   3) outfits
   4) trophies
   5) warmer and more intimate voice reactions in Space and Ground Combat
   6) new dialogue options

   IV. SCENES AND THE GAMEPLAY
   As for scenes, the idea of acquiring Captain x Girl interaction through the Devotion Meter sounds very reasonable! A few people have already made suggestions on unlocking other types of scenes by some other means, and it seems like a great idea to me too.

   I imagine it could:
   1. Reduce the number of scenes the player gets each level (e.g., from 1 every level to, say, 1 every 3 levels), hence, each scene would become more valuable and enticing.

   It should also make them follow a more linear progression (so, starting with foreplay and ending with some intense action), which could further augment the player’s desire to get to the maximum level.

   2. Let the player choose which exact scenes they’d like to unlock without having to encounter anything they’d prefer to avoid.

   3. Give the game extra level of immersion by connecting rewards with various types of the gameplay which the player would likely expect them to have.

   4. Balance out other parts of the game and make them even more enjoyable by offering the player extra rewards in the form of adult content.

   In DevDiary #13 Bangkok( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) said that “Sidequests not ending with some kind of porn is a crime.”
   Existing scenes seem like a great way to reward the player for completing missions in general. Tibor, you also said that, “We are a bit skeptical about the rest of the scenes being rewarded via missions though.” Perhaps, not every single mission should include such rewards – but only a certain portion of them?

   (Another interesting question I’ve been thinking about is, if the final version of Subverse is going to have at least 40×10 = 400 scenes in total, where could all of them go in a way that would feel rewarding?)

   In case the scenes were to be unlocked depending on their type, I imagine the following:
   1) Captain scenes: Devotion Meter

   2) Girl x Girl scenes: Special Missions*

   *xedgelordxx made an interesting suggestion on a new type of missions that would feature several ladies at the same time – if it’s not technically achievable, maybe we could instead get a series of standard battles in a row with every single girl who would participate in each scene like that (similar to multi-layer ground battles in some story missions)?

   3) Group scenes: Devotion Meter (with fulfilled requirements for each participant) + Special Missions (same as above)

   4) Xeno + Tentacle scenes: Missions, Sidequests, Leveling+BIO*, Planet Events, Challenges, Items

   *Taking the sheer number of girls and mantics available, I imagine it could quickly become overwhelming for the player if they had to bond each individual mantic with every single girl to unlock new scenes with them.

   What if instead we could access those scenes by leveling up mantics themselves – akin to the Devotion Meter?

   For example, they could start receiving scenes at level 10 and then every 2 levels after that for every other girl (so, 10: DEMI, 12: Lily, 14: Killi, and so on – following the order in which they joined the crew) – and to actually unlock those scenes, the player would need to spend BIO.

   I’m thinking this option could also be mixed with others (such as missions) to balance them out.

   5) Whale scenes: Missions (a special anomaly type), Sidequests, Planet Events, Challenges, Items

   More info:
   a) Planet Events – I’m thinking, it doesn’t have to be a single event leading to a scene right away, but rather a number of them (on different planets) that make up an event chain;

   b) Challenges – ground battles with specific conditions and a predetermined party. It reminds me of some racing games (especially, of the Need for Speed series) in which you can only complete certain races with a very particular car.
   For mantic scene missions, it could be ground battles with a specific girl and a mantic that would participate in the scene;

   c) Items – similar to catalysts that are used to create mantics, perhaps, certain items could be discovered and then later used to receive a bonus dialogue sequence and then a scene with a character?

   V. SCENES AND THE STORY
   Speaking about the scenes, I can’t avoid mentioning another important question – how would we connect them to the story?

   One of the solutions that seems both simple enough and efficient to me could be brief story descriptions (before starting a mission) + short VN sections (before receiving a scene).

   (They don’t have to be lengthy – we don’t want to bore the player or waste resources, after all, right?).

   But that would require a lot of additional VA work, wouldn’t it? And the good news is, I don’t think it would be necessary. Remember how many games combine voiced sections with silent segments that rely solely on dialogue boxes – especially, cRPGs and games of Japanese origin? In this case, we would get the long-awaited story connection, and if the demand for any extra voiceover would be high enough and the available resources could allow it, they could always come later.

   Another crucial thing I’d like to touch on is a presence of choice – understandably, different players have different tastes, and not everyone share the same enthusiasm when it comes to polyamorous relationships that involve other male characters. At the same time, the other group would like to have fun too. How could we solve this issue without making unjustifiably grand expenditures? I know, many options have already been provided, and 2 of them seem especially curious to me:

   1) introduce a “Select your timeline” screen before starting a game – nothing fancy, really – it could simply let the player choose between two options: a) a more traditional playthrough with any existing adult content with mantics (or other male characters beside Captain) merely turned off (scenes, dialogues, etc.); b) a more polyamorous gameplay experience with such content enabled;

   2) make any scenes that involves mantics or other male characters optional and warn the player in advance each time they approach it (for example, with a special symbol or pop-up message).

   For example, currently the player can still see such scenes’ icons in the PANDORA screen even without actually unlocking them – and for a lot of people it can be a major enough factor to turn away from the game completely.

   And even if a certain mission could potentially lead to a scene with a mantic, had the player an ability to disable such content completely, the interaction simply wouldn’t be displayed.

   VI. OTHER GAMEPLAY IDEAS
   Just a few extra ideas I’d like to add.

   I’ve recently rewatched the “How Great Games Beat The Grind” video made by Adam Millard another time, and there were 3 main aspects he pointed out: a) juice, b) challenge, c) breaking the game into smaller chunks.

   1. Juice.
   One of the first examples Adam showed were seemingly repetitive games that are, nonetheless, incredibly fun to play over and over, because they have a myriad of elements that reward our senses – I’m not sure how many of such elements could potentially find their way to Subverse, but, fortunately, the list of possible options could be quite extensive:

   a) Voiceover (the famous “First Blood! Double Kill! Triple Kill!”, etc.)
   b) Sounds (anything that makes any given action sound more rewarding)
   c) Music (it already tends to get quite more intense in Space Combat, right?)
   d) Special effects (such as glowing auras)
   e) Loot (anything useful that appears on the screen after doing something right)
   f) New temporary weapons/ammo
   g) Boosters (attributes, damage, speed, etc.)
   h) Shaking of the screen
   i) Changes in the environment (e.g., fewer or more asteroids?)
   g) Splash effects/images
   k) Enemies’ remains
   l) High-score
   And so on.

   2.1. Challenge – Space Combat
   It’s something I think would mostly apply to Space Combat.
   What if we had a Combo Meter while fighting in space in a manner similar to Devil May Cry games?

   If the player destroys enemy ships without getting hit, their combo meter goes up (the number of points could also depend on a particular type of the ship destroyed) – and as long as they continue to avoid any damage (to the hull or even the shield), they also receive special bonuses (which could also grow in quality with higher combo point counter), such as:

   a) damage boost;

   b) faster movement speed;

   c) special visual and sound effects;

   d) inspirational remarks and sounds from the girl on the ship (potentially the most exciting part for a lot of players);

   e) extra rewards after finishing the level (maybe Subverse could show both the mission and combo rank in the reward screen – like Devil May Cry does it with its Style and Time ratings?)

   It could also encourage the player not only to actually finish those missions, but to also get better at playing them even after they achieve a high level of mastery.

   Then, we could take it a step further and reward the player with even more combo points if they actively switch between different weapons (LMB, RMB, Thrust) to take down the enemy.

   2.2. Challenge – Ground Combat
   To make the ground combat more challenging and rewarding, I imagine the player could collect extra items right from the grid.

   Some of the newer missions in Subverse have a similar mechanic as their main goal – what if in addition to such missions, we could also pick up extra TECH or BIO canisters in every ground battle as an optional task – similar to Meld in XCOM: Enemy Within?

   3. Smaller chunks.
   a) This is actually something I’ve noticed while playing the Fortune update – the galaxy map seemed so vast that, safe for the places marked as mission targets, I didn’t know where or why I should go.

   What if the galaxy maps were to be uncovered in a more gradual manner, giving the player more time to familiarize themselves with thereabouts, and any new system or a group of systems could only be unlocked after completing a set of requirements?

   b) another general idea could be little rewards for many different kinds of actions the player performs – they don’t have to be achievements which could easily become extremely grindy, but rather relatively obscure bonuses, like in Fallout: New Vegas that give the player an extra feeling of progression.

   For example, investigate 10/25/50 planets – get a 1%/3%/5% bonus to the BIO you receive after missions.

   Or, bring down a specific opponent 1/3/5 times – get a 1%/3%/5% bonus damage you deal to them.
   And so on.

   And with that, I’d like to finish this novel.
   Thank you!

   LikeLike

   Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here…

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Δ