Maids & Masters (& A Release Date For v0.15)

Kinda weird to think this is already the "end" of the first half of Act 2. There's obviously still all the side content coming in v0.15.1, plus v0.16 to act as the actual narrative mid-point, but this is pretty much it. I'm not totally sure how I want to handle the second half, either, despite it being literally right around the corner. Plus there's some story things that are mentioned (I would say foreshadowed, but it's a little too on-the-nose for that) in this update, which hopefully won't feel like it's spoiling anything that's coming. But now I feel like I'm saying too much, so let's talk about things that aren't so story relevant.

This segment is a little different from how I originally envisioned it, but I feel like this version is a little more in character for the Master of the new Estate. Mechanically speaking, that means this update is kinda reduced to the basics - a couple of character growth conversations and one big story conversation and otherwise functions as an introduction of a new feature. But I'm more or less okay with that.

There's two parts to this new feature. The first part is being able to participate in exhibition matches, where you can have your usual engagement team go through a shorter series of fights and make bets on the fight, so you can make a little Silcrow for winning. The second part is the arena, which will limit your party to a single Maid for one-on-one matches, just for the sake of seeing if you can win (though you do still get XP for winning). The second part is also where the trophy is, and where you'll need to figure out things like how to make, say, Ella win a relatively difficult fight without someone else there to pick up the slack in terms of damage. Which will probably make you wonder where Archibald got all that confidence all those updates ago. 

 

In both cases, these fights are limited, so there's still a limit to how much XP you can earn, but it helps solve a problem. Act 2 has been a lot lower on the combat end of things than I originally wanted it to be, which means characters are still going to be around level 20 going into the end of this first half instead of level 25-30 like I wanted them to be. Without the opportunity to gain those levels, it affects how difficult I can make Act 3 unless I do things like adjust XP values of enemies earlier in the game, but doing that would require a restart for existing saves, which I don't want to do. It's kind of a difficult design problem to have, and setting this arena up to create an opportunity to grind levels and make the later parts of the game easier on yourself is one way for me to avoid compromising my vision for how the gameplay fits into the story based on how hard or easy the game is.

As for what's left, v0.15 just needs the cult segment story-wise, so the test build will definitely be available to VIPs on Patreon this Friday. It may still not include the cult segment, as I have a lot of testing as well as some finishing touches on how exhibition and arena progression works to do between now and then, but it'll for sure be available on the 8th. That puts the early access release date for v0.15 on the 15th, which I suppose is about as appropriate as a release date can get.