Demo Feedback Update
Thank you to everyone who has enjoyed our demo and submitted feedback! We really appreciate hearing what is troubling our players so we can try to help them find the fun.
We recently reviewed all submitted feedback. Feedback is 100% anonymous, so unfortunately we can't provide any special thanks or CD keys to people who helped us out - but we can leverage what we learned to help make the game better for you!
In general we saw 3 broad classes of feedback:
People got softlocked in Kidnapper's Tower
The bosses were too challenging
The mechanics were non-obvious
Other than the easily fixed Kidnapper's Tower issue, we've spent hours pouring over the other two in order to try and find the "right" solution.
Kidnapper's Tower
For anyone who likes jumping into holes, this was a huge headache.
Before the NextFest release, we paid an artist to clean up some of our maps and add some extra details to really breathe life into them. Unfortunately, an unexpected consequence of this artistry was the addition of unwalkable elements to Kidnapper's Tower. As a result, if you jumped into either of the following two holes, you'd find yourself stuck on top of a rock and unable to move:
We've updated both of these holes to drop you in locations beside the rocks, so your progress will no longer be lost if you fall into one of these unfortunate death traps.
Boss Battles
One of the hardest parts of game design is how everything is interconnected. Add a new skill to make one area easier, you trivialize another. Reduce mana costs across the board to add more versatility to combat, suddenly you negate the value of regen armor. Change the damage formula to make new weapon upgrades feel impactful, suddenly spell scrolls are doing half as much damage as intended!
It seems like it's impossible to touch one thing without breaking another. This led to some pre-NextFest balance issues that we failed to catch before our last demo release.
Of course there's also some fully intended difficulty curves that just had us laughing when we saw the reports. The Human Shields in the battle against Kidnapper have a limited mana pool -- they can only use Charm 5 times each. If you don't attack these children and instead focus on the real enemy in the room, then they will quickly run out of mana and start passing their turns. The reason this battle was so difficult was because people were attacking innocent children. I guess that's on us.
We've been going through every boss battle with a fine-tooth comb and made some adjustments to make the game a bit more enjoyable and less like hitting your head against a brick wall:
Kidnapper
Charm was originally intended to give players a choice for how to approach this boss: either ignore the adds and focus on the boss, or try to micro-manage the adds so they don't overwhelm you. It was not intended to make the battle a painful experience where you watched your party kill themselves and you had no control over any of it.
To that end, we've made several tweaks to make this battle more bearable:
Kidnapper now summons replacement Human Shields every 5th round instead of every 4th
Human Shields now run out of mana after 4 casts instead of 5
Charm now has a 50% chance to land instead of 75%
While under the Charm condition, your ATK is now reduced by 50%. This way you aren't killing yourself at the same time you're getting killed
Einstein
There were several different methods we had come up with for beating Einstein: maybe you purchased Manamuse in Good Kingdom and trivialized the fight by draining his mana. Maybe you explored Stone Cave early and found the guitar so you could silence him, trivializing it once again. Maybe you purchased Effulgent Eclát and nuked him down with Light magic so powerful it would make the gods weep. Or maybe you just spammed items at him!
However we found when watching play testers that most did none of these things, and instead went into the battle entirely unprepared.
What made this battle particularly sinister was that it seemed easy... until you were about to win. Once he fell below 30% HP, Einstein would switch from his single-target 200 damage attacks to his new multi-target 400 damage attacks. This swap was devastating for a party who had just spent resources to burn away 70% of his health, and after a grueling 10 minute battle it was a slap in the face to have to start over.
We wanted to find a way to fix this that didn't completely break the boss balance, since we felt it was otherwise in a good place. So we settled on the following:
Reduced Einstein's Max MP from 1000 to 150. This means he can cast -ra level spells at most three times, and if he casts 6 normal spells before this happens he'll only have sufficient mana for two
One consequence of this tweak is that using Manamuse with ATK UP is now an instant-win, but... eh. Have fun.
First Villain
When designing this boss we had a few different ideas in mind.
First, a "standard" player (not doing a zero-friends run) will have just added Einstein to their docket -- so having a boss that's defeated through the use of Black Magic would make Einstein immediately feel like he's pulling his weight.
Next, up until now the dominant strategy against Kidnapper and Einstein was basically "ATK UP + Double-Tap". This devastating combo meant that experimenting with new styles of play wasn't worth the effort.
Third, villains are uniquely supposed to be weak to Light magic. We wanted to guide the player towards using this purpose-built spell instead of relying on their sword. If for not other fight, then for this fight you should be casting Light! Heck, you just go a Goddess Blessing to boost your Light spell!
Finally, we hadn't really had a good reason to stock up on "Anti-" status effect items (Anti-Silence, Anti-Blind, etc).
This culminated in the idea: "what if the boss kept you permanently blind?"
This seemed like a good idea to us. There's a lot of options for counterplay. Did you find the hidden Cane? Anti-Blind spell! Didn't find it? That's alright, just buy Anti-Blind. Don't want to buy Anti-Blind? Just spam the Light spell! If you use M.ATK UP and grabbed the Red Goddess Blessing then Lightra should be hitting for over 1,800 damage!
What we found in practice? People don't find the Cane, they don't buy Anti-Blind, and they hate feeling permanently crippled. So let's fix that:
First Villain now casts Blind ALL every 6th round instead of every 4th round, meaning you get 2 rounds of non-Blind
Guardian of Duality
Just like with Einstein, getting the boss very low just to be destroyed by an unexpected attack can be a huge disappointment. In the case of the Guardian of Duality, that disappointment came from Feral Strike. So we turned it down a little bit:
Reduced damage from 500 to 250
Reduced chance to inflict Blind from 50% to 25%
Reduced chance to inflict Silence from 50% to 25%
It's still an AoE against the whole party, but we think this is a little bit less punishing.
Elemental Masters (Rocco, Pam, and Sella)
For these three bosses there weren't actually any complaints about difficulty, but we did feel that they didn't really fit the desired mechanics as well as we'd like. So both to lean into the elemental weakness stronger and to set the stage for the new Forbidden Fusion fight, we made some minor changes:
Increased HP from 10,000 to 20,000 for all elemental masters
Increased damage taken from the appropriate element from 150% to 450%
Forbidden Fusion
The original idea with Forbidden Fusion was that by this point you had access to Blink (granting 100% immunity to damage from the boss), and you could always guard on rounds the boss was attacking then follow up with a massive amount of damage on following rounds. Alternative strategies included using MP Drain to prevent the boss from using his larger attacks, or using a combination of buffs and equipment to nuke him down in 2 rounds before the battle started ("Mage Hero" is particularly OP if you find Effulgent Eclát)
In practice, none of these mechanics were heavily utilized - leading to a boss that did lethal AoE damage and felt incredibly unfair.
Given the nature of this boss, after much thought, we decided it made more sense to turn this into a light-hearted victory lap rather than a real mechanical challenge.
Reduced damage by 80%
Increased damage taken from the appropriate element from 200% to 400%
Enemy now hits itself on accident with all AoE attacks (e.g. Rocco's Fury of Rock will hit Sella) - causing them to whittle away at their own health
Current form is now announced and displayed with a status icon
Special resistance to Light magic was reduced. Instead of taking 10% damage from Light, now takes 50% damage from Light
Second Villain
This boss was actually taking far less damage from the -aga tier spell scrolls than intended. See "An Unexpected Bug", below. This has been fixed
General Boss Changes:
Along with these changes, we've added a whole new mechanic! For those who just want to enjoy the plot and aren't interested in grinding or learning mechanics: after losing to a boss, Mentor will appear and ask if you want aid. If you agree, you will get an opportunity to re-do the battle with her companionship!
This was unfortunately more challenging than just "add Mentor to the party". Mentor was designed and balanced around Chapter 3 battles, so it turned out she was too weak to be useful in some of the later fights. Consequently we've had to level her up as the story progresses, tune her auto-battle logic, modify her skills, and update her stats significantly. The goal was to ensure every boss battle could be won entirely by relying on Mentor with auto-battle, while still letting the player feel like they contributed.
An Unexpected Bug
As mentioned in our "New Demo Release" post:
So now we've updated the "general" damage formula to apply mitigation after the skill's damage calculation. All skills now only report their damage, and mitigation is applied by a separate system.
When we made this change, we updated over 100 skills... but we forgot about the items! It turned out spell scrolls were still factoring in the enemy's magic defense directly in their damage calculation! This meant that enemy magic defense was being applied twice for spell scrolls, massively cutting their damage! If an enemy had sufficient magic defense to take 50% damage from spells, they would only take 25% from spell scrolls. This was a huge mistake.
It was as a result of this mistake that the Rockaga, Paperaga, and Scissorsaga scrolls found in the Second Villain's tower were so underwhelming against him. A third-tier spell should be hitting much harder, but even with M.DEF DOWN players were reporting damage numbers of 25-50. With the corrected formula, this was now doing a more appropriate 400-600 damage.
But we've done one better. Spell scrolls now have partial magic defense penetration! In order to encourage clever play using consumables, we want spell scrolls to feel genuinely better than regular spells. So with this change you'll now see close to 1,600 damage against the Second Villain if you pair an -aga tier scroll with M.DEF DOWN!
Mechanics
When we designed Trope Tales, we didn't want anyone to feel like there was only "one right way" to play the game. So we have a variety of ways to tune and tweak your characters:
Princess, Einstein, and (soon) Lionheart all have "secondary" weapons with a completely different skill set
Hero has special swords which modify how his attacks work or what strategies you might employ
Accessories let you tune stats well outside the standard ranges (Mage Hero, anyone???)
We had plans to add, and have now added with this update, "Hat Tricks" -- special hats that grant new skills, changing how a character may play (e.g. a physical damage attack on Princess, or a heal on OCG)
Despite all of this effort to make the game very customizable, we did anticipate that many players would probably just follow the "standard" path, so we wanted to make this path interesting and fun in its own right. So the "standard" way to play, if there is one, is:
Princess will use a Harp and cast buff magic
Einstein will use a Book and cast black magic
(soon) Lionheart will use a Glove and cast stances
So we designed a game that played into this. Buff magic is incredibly powerful and can make you 3x stronger if used appropriately. Enemies have elemental weaknesses so learning which spells to cast on which enemies will deal double damage.
For players who don't want to bother with learning these mechanics, we also provide the route of "just over-level and cast Light a bunch".
Somehow despite our best efforts to give people ways to beat the game, they repeatedly stumbled into the least optimal build possible. User error is a bug, so this is completely on us.
Preventing Mistakes
We've added new "character intro" text whenever someone joins the party:
We warn you that Princess's heal is terrible
We inform you about enemy elemental weaknesses
To assist in discovering these, the Deerstalker is introduced very early so you can start using Scan on enemies
Guiding Towards Diversity
We've updated all weapons and special weapons so that at the same tier (e.g. Wooden, Bronze, Iron, etc):
The "standard" weapon and the "special" weapon give the same ATK (or M.ATK for books/canes)
The "special" weapon gives a tiny bit extra (e.g. a tiiiiiny amount of luck, or attack, or defense)
By giving the special weapons a tiny bit more, it means that the auto-equip feature will favor these. Our hope is that this will cause people running through the game on auto-pilot to notice these weapons and, importantly, notice their skills changed!
At the same time, we've updated all shops in the game. Previously the "special" weapons were always one tier behind the "standard" weapons (e.g. if you can buy an Iron Harp, you can only buy a Bronze Guitar). We've eliminated this gap, so Iron will be available for both now!
Kick-starting Builds
We've updated every character's starting equipment to include one accessory, carefully chosen to introduce an alternate method of building:
Hero will start with a Ring (+M.ATK) guiding players towards a Light-heavy / magic build
Princess will start with a Cape (+EVA) guiding players towards an attack provoking tank build
Einstein will start with Earrings (+ATK) guiding players towards realizing the Cane is as mighty as the Sword
OCG will start with a Bandana (+CRIT) guiding players towards an all-in high-RNG strategy
Additional Updates
Along with addressing demo feedback, we have some more goodies that have made it into the demo. We're waiting to extend the story with the full release, but we've been going back through and adding new features to the game that can be enjoyed during the demo!
Hat Tricks
We've added a number of "special hats" to the game that grant the player a special skill when equipped:
The Deerstalker grants Scan
The Cleric's Mitre grants First Aid
The Miner's Hat grants Piercer
The Pilot's Goggles grant Air Strike
The Brawler's Band grants Throw Hands
These can be equipped on anyone, meaning you can now give Princess a strong attack or Hero the ability to heal! Try to find these hats hidden throughout the game and see how they can augment your play style.
Beastiary
Having trouble figuring out an enemy's weakness? Wondering when that boss will finally die? Curious if draining their mana is even a viable strategy?
Wonder no more! We've added a beastiary to the game!
When you first encounter an enemy the beastiary will show their HP
If you use the Scan Hat Trick then more information will be revealed!
Random Interactions
We've added a handful of bookshelves, scrolls, maps, and other things you can interact with on various maps - so keep clicking random stuff!
Sword Merchant
We've added Sakura to the floating castle, ready to sell Hero any special swords he may have missed earlier in the story -- if he's able to prove his worth.
The Elevator
Those who ascend the stairs show they have great honor.
Those who take the elevator show they have great wisdom.
New Harp Graphic
Princess will no longer fire a crossbow when playing music for her party (the guitar is still a pipe for now, sorry).
Venomous Swords for all!
The hidden Venom Sword was not spawning unless you added Mentor to your party. This has been fixed, so the Venom Sword should now appear even for solo runners.