TLS 0.29.2 Released

If it helps: My strategy with Hilstara was to give her the beefiest armor possible, putting her AGI firmly at 1. In the final wave of orcs, I just spammed her "Indomitable Will" ability until the burner orcs burned themselves out.

FinetalPies

I tried and tried but I could not get past Hilstara's round four. It was too difficult for me

Ben Wilder

I thought about removing Varia but decided against it. Having her fall in battle and Hilstara fighting on still fits the scene. New Givini is built in one of the wasteland areas, so I was thinking that it still starts without critical infrastructure and such. You're not the only person to suggest changes to the Impaler. After some thought, I think I'll keep Cull the Weak as it is (don't want him to be able to clear all berserkers in one action) but I'll give him an Impale skill. I agree, cohesiveness is something we want to foster.

Sierra Lee

A reasonable suggestion, but I'm not sure where entirely to include this hint. As I've mentioned, I believe this mechanic does have a flaw, in that players going in blind simply won't know how far their reserves need to spread regardless.

Sierra Lee

Not this version. Hopefully in the future.

Decanter

Hi can anyone tell me if this contains CG?

If Hilstara loses a fight with Varia in the party, Varia will still be in the party during Last Stand. She's probably not going to do much before getting KO'd, but she's there. Don't know if you want to remove her at the start of the scene or account for it somehow via dialogue. Is New Givini supposed to have a negative starting value as well? I wasn't sure if "outside influence" was supposed to be interpreted as an asset or liability, but when reading the scenes it didn't sound as though they were in quite as rough of a starting spot as as the orcs. Minor thoughts on the Impaler, feel free to disregard: -It feels like Cull the Weak could do one more thing than it already does. Right now it clears berserkers, but most of the other orcs have an ability that does the same thing but can still be used in other situations. I kind of like the idea of making it target all opponents since it'll do nothing to most strong opponents but will take out the trash, which feels appropriate. -Since Impaler is the only orc Simon's group has actually fought, it seems like there's an opportunity to make him feel more like the opponent they battled. Specifically, you could create an "Impale" attack by tweaking the attack or defense multiplier of either Agressive Attack or Piercing Attack (probably upping the damage a bit on Piercing Attack, since they're thematically similar). Technically it also did fire damage when he used it, but that might be Grubbak's niche.

So I am walking through the conference room watching petitioners storm out in disgust, presumably because I used all 3 of my reserve troops in the war. Suggestion: Can you make it a little more clear that there is value to not using all your reserves during the actual war? It's an interesting tradeoff to be sure, but not one that I had any idea existed. I saved one reserve to the end of the war and then spent it just because I could. Had I any hint that I might need them *after* the war I would have played it differently.

Dubsington

Hilstara's sequence is winnable, yes. It depends on your Aramite front variable - you'll improve your results by having her win more fights regardless, though.

Sierra Lee

For the fight with the one you are supposed to endure hilstara would have been nice, if I save scum and this time don't waste my healing potions on the orcs (forgot they have separate potions) is the fight sequence winable or does it always end with her going in super mode and thrasing the three ogres? Well I managed in the end to keep Vhala alive long enough. Edit: Ah damn I could have used my reserve troops for petitions couldn't I? Well not that I know what the exact benefits of that were or what the benefit of using them in the war was, but I would have kept one or two if I thought they were likely to matter after the war (a bit weird though that they aren't freed up again after the conflict, travel times are a possible answer of course but that didn't matter when first using them.)

Pete

Other people may be able to help you with some suggestions, but meanwhile: have you played my other finished games? Since you've been supporting for a while, you can have free copies of them! Anyway, glad you liked the new content!

Sierra Lee

Thank you very much for your feedback! Though gameplay feedback is nice, story thoughts are just as helpful! I put a lot of time into all the character moments, so I'm always happy when they work for people. ^-^ And I'm really happy for everyone who likes Iris, I've been looking forward to including more content with her for a long time! Thanks for your feedback on Geoff's death, too. I will keep thinking about how this could be executed better. Look forward to a post with more info about future content later today!

Sierra Lee

Thanks, glad you liked it! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying Crimson Gray, too! If you haven't yet, I hope that you leave a review of the game once you finish!

Sierra Lee

Thanks for your support! As for Hilstara, I actually made a conscious choice with this - the equipment she was wearing was either damaged or completely destroyed depending on how badly the battle went.

Sierra Lee

Love all the new content and have just finished :) I now have a HUGE problem... I NEED MORE!! Can anyone give me some suggestions for any type of game that will tide me over for the next Last Sovereign update?

Hakkira

Finally I have time to write proper feedback! It will not be very helpful, though. I wasn't good player so there will not be gameplay feedback. At first I'll comment about individual things and then about whole war. - I'm very glad that Ginasta remained true to her character. I like her even more now and I'm little sad that she suffers. I think she's excellent antagonist for Simon. - We've got more scenes with Tyna! Yay! Okay, now she is interesting character and not just a cute girl. I like how she is simultaneously competent and inexperienced, how she wants to help all nations and seeks recognition. And of course I like her conversation with harem members in the beggining of second update. - Just a small note: I was so happy when Wynn decided to make peace with Simon! - Iris! Oh god I love all about Iris. I fell in love with her during Yarra's route.I just can't remain unadmiring when I see such pure passion and sincere concern about people. Every scene with Iris was excellent. I'm so happy that now she serves under competent ruler and can overcome her guilt. Scenes from her point of view were wonderful. And she has some of your best comic moments! - Hey, we have actually got some character development for Incubus King! It was little creepy. And after that I like him more. That madman was losel, but he was very good at it. - Teaser of next chapter! After it I thought: "She did it again!" I mean... It was so different from chapter 3. And it's awesome. - Unsuccubi! Many players already praised them so I will not say about most creepy things in TLS. And now my feeling about whole war and aftermath. It was intense and huge. And I truly felt consequences of my past actions. I was unprepared for the war and it was hard to see my failures or inability to help. I was very sad after Kara's death. And for the rest of the game Hilstara will not be able to fight. I don't think that I'll be able to continue this save. Not until I'll have a save with good results. I'll start new playthrough this month or so. Only minor negative thing I'll say about the war is Geoff's death. I don't have answers why I felt that way so I'll just write my honest impressions. After scene I even did't understand if he was dead or not. When characters confirmed his death I felt confused. Scene itself wasn't rouse any feels in me and I didn't see any meaning in killing of that character. That's why I felt confused. Maybe I was in bad mood when I saw those moments or I wasn't observant enough. I hope I'll become good player after my second playthrough. Thank you! P.S. Of course there were other things I like, but I decided to write about my favorites.

Andrey Kulikov

Bonus: Here are some (horrible) Forum jokes I made that you might appreciate. "So... Ginasta has a secret location where the soul shards, artifacts of great power, can be destroyed. And Simon has found one in the fiery volcano lair of an evil overlord in the middle of his orc-infested wasteland empire. What are the betting odds that the place to destroy shards is a small and idyllic rural halfling community?" "I think I know how Alonon does his insta-teleport thing without any kind of shard. I think he's trained his magical royal perogative to be able to misidentify individual people as scrofula infections , and then cast them out accordingly."

DukeLeto7

I've got a couple of leftover questions about historical chronology and geography which I don't want to bother you with at this point in your design cycle, but here are some minor things I noticed in my 0.29.2 playthrough: 1.) The Unsuccubus treatment scene after the party reconnect has Simon's stream of consciousness refer to the AoA as both the "Incubus King" and the "Incubus Emperor". It might make more sense if this were consistent. 2.) In terms of investment returns Fulminato noticed that Premium Steel's manufacturer investment and its ownership investment both seem to return 100k ProN, I wanted to be clear that was the intent.

DukeLeto7

i jsut finished the chapter and boy did i loveit and so much fun and it just being all around hillarious as usual also i revently played and still am playing ur game that u got officially launched on the STeam and my god is it good besides the chick is just scary (dumb thing because she is a yandere she is just scary in general like chi-chi and bulma from Dragon ball Z & Super) overall great update cant wait for the next update Sierra keep up the good work

Irish

Hello, fan of your work for a while now. It looks like most of the stuff I had thoughts about was either brought up by others or already fixed. Though if people lose access to Hilstara after Aram they should probably have a chance to take her equipment back like they could with Sho.

Hey, thanks for reporting things! However, when reporting typos, it helps immensely if you can quote the beginning of the line in which there is an error.

Sierra Lee

For the first, because it does no harm and it's less prone to error to just apply benefits to both. For the second, yeah, I definitely screwed that up. Fixed, thanks!

Sierra Lee

Typo notes: -During his introduction, Grubbak is once referred to as "Grubback" -During the postwar orgy, Iris talks about a "strange mage whose magic she doesn't understand," but she went on a mission with Trin earlier.

DMG

"Truer altruism has never been witnessed." That cracked me up. Robin gets some of the best lines.

Dubsington

He didn't have "Yhilini Orc Armor" on?

Decanter

While replying this section, I remembered that the knights created custom armour for Orcent. I was wondering what happened with that or if it was meant to be as weak as the orc armour he had on during the gathering

Edward Culham

flicking through the game file, in the 'last pass' map why after alredy make the separation for dominated/reshaped varia still add the xp bonus to both version [character 10+11]? in the aftermath of the battle pass [HQ Camp fire] there first a check is "aramite front >= 32" but the next check is "aramite front >= 36", the third is "aramite front >= 22" [fourth >=10, fifth <10] this don't seem to be right

Fulminato

Fixed, thanks!

Sierra Lee

That is actually really good point about Arclent Acceptance. If it had occurred to me when doing that section, I'd definitely have included it. As things stand, I will still seriously consider it.

Sierra Lee

Hadn't played since 27 (right before the war; I wanted to wait and play through the whole war in one go), and I promptly got my butt handed to me on 3/4 seeds of corruption. Yikes! I must be back in Sierra Lee country. Time to revert and pay a bit more attention. This is gonna be fun :)

Dubsington

Minutiae: When the captured and escaped teleport mage reports to Simon and Janine in the War HQ after the death of Geoff and the interlude at IK castle, he says that he was captured as part of the IK's attack on >>Aram<<. ardoheim="" be="" because="" being="" but="" captured="" geoff="" groups="" it="" likely="" mages="" maybe="" multiple="" of="" ought="" referred="" seems="" teleporters="" that="" there="" this="" to="" were="">

DukeLeto7

One thing that surprised me about available reserves during Aftermath is that there is no bonus reserve for high Arclent Acceptance... I mean, if anything would give DK political capital it's high acceptance. Also, you might want to consider adding reserve for those players who did exceptionally well during the War (for example, if you have Yhilin CD <5 you get additional Economic reserve).

Ripe

Thanks for the feedback! Quick responses: - Yeah, my intent was that since Hilstara is one easy way to do the challenge, her presence is an advantage potentially worth spending resources on. Plus plot/character repercussions, of course. - Hmm, Unperson Aura has the same tag, not sure why. Will look into it. - On music: those are times when the player returns to the central palace, right? If so, fixed.

Sierra Lee

That's correct. If I had to guess, your reserves were reduced by a high instability variable.

Sierra Lee

Thanks for the feedback! Especially glad to get your thoughts on the fights and on ProN values. And of course I'm happy that everyone enjoyed the Qum Bomb and conclusion. ^-^

Sierra Lee

Thanks for the feedback!

Sierra Lee

So, replayed through with the new version... Darn you for making me actually wonder if I should've spent those reserves on the Aramite front! =P I think it feels better this way, though. Doing the unsuccubus in the Incubus Emperor's palace without Hilistara was hard, but Carina managed to tank her with Divine Touch spam. Orc section felt much better to me. It didn't necessarily feel massively easier, but I used significantly fewer orc potions, so I think you struck a good balance. Grubbak feels much less useless now that the armored fighters are weak to magic. The new buffs look great and the improved speed feels excellent all around, glad that suggestion was useful! I'm not sure if this was intentional, but in case it wasn't, Unperson Aura still uses individual buffing animations. In two places, the music from a prior scene sticks when going back to Yhilin. The first time, before Trin's choice. that feels mostly fine. But the Ziratia music from Uyae's translation scene stays through the reunion orgy and into Ginasta's scene afterward, so I might suggest seeing if you could change this. It doesn't feel right for either of those scenes. Petition changes... Darn, guess I can't get that 50k Sx... Alas =P Honestly it feels better this way, it seemed a little gratuitous to be able to clear everything. With the fix to the Ardan CD for that petition, I actually did only miss the Sx of what I'd gotten last time, but taking that over doing real good feels like trading ProN for Sx, so I'm content with this. Minor nitpick, Iris never looks back toward her counter after you do the magical communication. PS: "Admittedly Better Succubus"... Bahahahahah, that cracked me up to see. Also, I never listed my three scores, so Chalice: 33, New Givini: 17, Tak'Kan: 14

Lord Forte

I won't play an optimized run until the whole game is released, and in my save I had only two reserves of each kind, despite doing pretty much everything I could find (and afford) in Yhilin. Does this mean I will get even fewer reserves if I replay this section?

onodera

Did you fix the bug in 29.1 where Robin and Riala's teams are swapped for the "Incubus Superboss" dungeon? re: 29.1, I managed to beat the Orc Summit in that version but with considerable difficulty. I'm glad you've made that easier. On the other hand, I already had very few reserves in the aftermath (2 economic, 1 political, 0 military) so I am kind of glad that I did the aftermath in 29.1! Other stuff: - Beating the Magekillers in 29.1 was very tough. Much like the orcs, I pulled it off, barely. Between the orc fight and the magekiller fight I think I've depleted most of my Sx and good healing items. I'm broke and my pockets are empty. - I don't know how much Pron you're expecting players to be making. I had 880 000 which was enough for one big investment and three small ones (including a mushroom farm). - the Qum sex scene was brilliant. You must have enjoyed writing that. - The Incubus Jerk's final speech was perfect. - This was a big, incredible and satisfying conclusion to the plot arc you got rolling at the start. You have me very intrigued for where the game goes next.

Dream Fractal

The orc summit was ahrd o.O i manage to beat the shaman the first time after some tries but the one that looks creapy one shoted me, great game and hope to see what ells you come up with, i know ill stick around for long, also i still need to fix that lack of fanart :3

Leveler All

You get a base number, modified by multiple different factors. What I've done is lower the base number. It's entirely up to you how you play, of course.

Sierra Lee

Hmm is the reserves based on any numbers or are we given a certain number? Overall while it feels a bit cheating I think I ll keep my save where I was able to get all of them besides the army ones.

Bladestorm

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoy all the attention I put into the details! It's pretty unlikely I'll end up working for Bioware, haha, but I'll keep working and try to increase my production values as I'm able! I'll probably never be doing AAA games, but I also promise that I won't become EA, how's that? XD

Sierra Lee

I'm afraid I'll probably have to consider that one a casualty of the iterative release process.

Sierra Lee

Just wanted to say fantastic work Sierra as each visit to govern Yhillin really makes you feel the choices you have made with all the things that change. Most is the orcs dialogue changing depending on their stats which I found immensely fulfilling. Please go work for Bioware so they can actual start writing good coherent stories with meaningful decisions again :p Anyway fantastic work once again :)

Hakkira

FYI, in case Fulminato didn't report it elsewhere, the STARK REVIVED flag I suggested that you implement (indirectly) is causing problems if people start the 2nd half of the war from a save that isn't at the end 0.28.X.

DukeLeto7

No, I won't retroactively change things. You can keep that save if you like, just be aware that you're getting a slightly different experience. Like the people who give themselves infinite Sx - I have no problem with it, I just imagine they aren't challenged by any of the fights because they're overpowered.

Sierra Lee

Post it here! =D

Sierra Lee

Thanks, happy you're interested! The main reason I haven't done an endscreen like that is because it would actually have a gameplay impact, letting you get maxing conversations before you normally would.

Sierra Lee

The fights themselves aren't much harder - the main change was the invisible variables that determine the results. If you last played with the bugged version, you'll probably want to replay on the public one, your Hilstara will likely have better results.

Sierra Lee

I'm really glad to have all of you as well, so I try to include bonuses when there's an opportunity! Happy you're interested in my work!

Sierra Lee

So, what happens if we have a save with most-all requests fulfilled? Is that going to be effected moving forward, or should I go back and do-over to stop it being a "cheat" save in future updates?

L.S

T-T my poor reserves ... Oh well tis probably fair/more realistic this way. On on other note i made a picture of Qum and her bomb it's not something all that great given a hurryed it up an only used pencils, but still, is there a place i should post it ?

I'm not sure if this has been said, but I personally think the end of update map should be the queens chambers or the commamd center. After I'm finished playing through the current versions, I'd like to go around and talk the harem and maybe get some relationship scenes I missed or something. Just a thought. And I agree with epoxy, I'm more interested in the gameplay and story than the adult content and yours is the best around.

Hmmm, I'll be glad if the orc summit is easier, but even with good gear my Hilstara fight was not easy, I even considered quaffing a mana pot after she ran out of mana, but then I saw where the bug was headed with her continued retreating and allowed to to lose gracefully. Still a shame, I would have liked to have her with me for tanking that partially transformed Unsuccubus, with whom I have still not gotten 5 rounds yet... grrrr....

Darthjake

That's really awesome if you letting us dollar store shoppers join the fun. Part of the reason I stick around instead of deleting my pledge all together, I'll end up raising it back to the $10 tier when I get a better paying job. Your games are way more entertaining than Netflix and Hulu combined I'd rather the talent making the content I like getting my money.

epoxymoron