[RELEASE][FEEDBACK]HERO CORRUPTION V1.05b

[Waverunner02]

Loved it as always. Love the new girls and addons. I still love a lot of the old girls. Their methods are still very hot! I know the endings so I won't always want to end with them though, but still great for buildup!

I get if people want to skip through, but for me i only place this tease if i want to relax and kill some time. So this is perfect for that. The buildup is nice.

Only issue i had was once i saved on normal mode, and picked up another day at day 15, it wouldn't let me do a castle run, and i definitely did not do a castle run before i saved or at any time during that run. So when that occurred i was just like oh ok, I guess i'll go get broken by someone lol.

I went to the tavern to see what may happen there, but she wouldn't give me jobs! Said they wouldn't due credit to my cause or something lol.

Only suggestion i have is two continued suggestions :D. 1 the girl who gives me the codex. she is really awesome. if no pics of her for more, that is fine im sure someone looks similar to her

anyway, good stuff!

[diogaoo]

Hey guys, thanks everyone for the support and compliments, I really appreciate it.

I could be wrong, but I get the feeling you guys are a little afraid of me getting frustrated with certain types of feedback. If this is the case, you don't need to worry. Compliments are very important to keep me motivated and let me know that I'm going in the right direction. At the same time, constructive criticism like the one that Indyc brought is equally important because it makes me take a step back and rethink certain things that I already had as granted

Being totally open with all of you, one of the things I don't like about game development is devs who can't take criticism. Sure, sometimes I'll have to stand my ground, but turning a blind eye to criticism and pretending my work is perfect is arrogance. I will probably make a lot of mistakes in the future and I need people who point them out as much as I need people to reinforce my successes.

What I want to say is, all kind of comments are very important for the health and development of the game, please don't hesitate to let me know what you really think, and thanks to all of you who already do this

Another quick error. Thirsty Dragon recipe when looking in your backpack says that it costs a pearl and some other stuff. Actually crafting at the blacksmith shows the right component and forges properly.

Fixed

[indyc]

Randomness is something present in Hero Corruption, but not the way you think, I agree that some runs can be frustrating due to bad luck, but as we've already talked, I don't want it to be a purely skill-based game, Hero Corruption is not meant to be a competitive game.
Replayability is something very present in the game and removing or decreasing randomness will only make restarts even more boring, which is one of the points you mentioned.

I really appreciate your feedback because it's always honest and straightforward, but I often get the feeling that we're talking about two different games, where you portray a linear game and without a lot of surprises and twists, which is a very good concept, but not is my plan for this particular game

I know your sentiment in the past is that we have different visions of the game that take it away from your goals. I honestly don't think so and it makes me want to rephrase my statements. I think your game should be difficult, I think it should have discovery, I think it should have fairly high randomness, and I don't think there need to be any major changes to fulfil what is on my personal wishlist for your game. "A little bit goes a long way" will be the theme for my following opinions/requests/argument.

I get the sense that you think randomness creates variety on replays. While this is true, it is my argument that choice will have a greater impact on those replays. This is so much so that I regret highlighting randomness to the extent that I did in my prior post, I think it took away from this message of wanting to increase player choice and reaction. While I currently hold to the opinion that what happens to you is more impactful than what you decide to do, this can be affected in both directions and doesn't take much.

I hold true to the opinion that increased choice will actually add to the replayability that you seem to desire. I have a laundry list of things I would suggest if you want to hear ways. Please reach out to me by PM on discord, it would probably be a better format to discuss. I've spent about a decade in game design and would love to talk about systems and how to forge them in ways to better accomplish the goals and vision you already have.

The other thing about randomness is that it doesn't take a whole lot to make things FEEL really random. You have a whole system now about peak hours to find girls but in my last playthrough, I found the ghost on day 8 which pointed to Laura. It took me until day 13 to find and defeat her because she either did not show up during those times, or other events like wishing well, boxes on the ground, or potions kept happening. This happened because of the intersection of a lot of random elements that on their own are reasonable along with a bit of bad luck.

Reducing the initial enemies' health and their gold would accomplish nothing really, the player would have to face more enemies to compensate for this readjustment and consequently, the game would become more repetitive. Starting a new version can be a little time consuming, but after two or three runs you'll be running over the first few enemies without too much trouble.

I think that you believe it won't accomplish anything is that because you are probably thinking of decreasing their health by say half and then decreasing their defeat rewards by the same ratio. Yes, this would actually increase the number of clicks required. But my suggestion instead was to not keep the same ratio. The better way to solve the root cause of what I speak of is to lower the resource costs of the "gates" that are somewhat required to get to the next zone. Chiefly the cost of the deep forest map and forge. Imagine cutting deep forest down to 10 gold cost and forge to 20 gold. Now a player is not forced to click through the forest so many times to progress.

Now imagine starting forest health bars reduced by 75% without decreasing their rewards. Now the click requirement goes down both by how many it takes to defeat them and by how much rest is required by the player. You could then increase the amount of damage they do in return if you want to keep the forest difficulty set where it currently is. With additional thinking about this since my first suggestion, I actually would not decrease the forest rewards if I were you. To further reduce clicking, resting when critically injured or lusty could give a bonus % to make it more "push your luck" and an easy way to give decision space while keeping it random.

I agree that player actions themselves are limited, but I seek to bring diversity to battles not through player actions, but through the way enemies interact with the Hero (Addiction checks, status effect, gold manipulation, special moves, etc), rather than flooding the player with hundreds of choices just to create the illusion of choice, when in practice, they will only be used to reduce the enemy's HP value.
That being said, I have a feeling that I could improve a lot more in this aspect, a great observation brought by you is the "Wait" button which, for the most part, has no practical effect. I tried to circle this issue in the battle with Kitty,

Spoiler: show

if the player chooses to wait, Kitty's lust will decrease and the hero can use this to control the battle and keep Kitty in a stage that is most beneficial for him (Kitty's stages change according to her lust and each stage is focused on a different addiction)

In other words, you can literally manipulate Kitty's attacks in order to have an easier run.
This kind of interaction is reinforcing my previous point, although many fights seem simple, there are some things going on the background that you might not have noticed, If anything should be improved in this aspect it's the transparency of such mechanics, for sure, there's no point in having this kind of diversity in battles if the player can't see them

To be clear, my request for more decisions is not at all hundreds of buttons. At most it would be to
1. Make wait have more of a purpose
2. MAYBE once you are happy with every other system and things are flowing well to give button that lets you increase the girls lust. This could also be incorporated in the wait function.

Making the wait function have more of a point would go about 80% of the way towards my choice concern in battles. Currently getting a lot of lust is my favorite thing in the game because I have those dreams to look forward to.(even if those could use a few more pictures, low hanging fruit and all)

Imagine if the wait function gave me that same choice of handicapping myself further, seeing the girl do different actions that weren't possible without wait, and making my run through harder by doing so. And potentially your waiting is increasing the girl's lust creating a new avenue to defeat the forest enemies and opening up a new playstyle for high lust runs while at the same time finding out which girls this "works" against. Doing this along would explode your current replay-ability even if it is more work. I also suggest this because I feel like your current system is setup to do exactly that but it doesn't do that.

Though the new Anastasia is an improvement, why not have both versions for variety? You already put the work in for the previous one, why throw it away? (Plus each region is lacking variety already in my opinion) I think it would be fun to see a girl in a different outfit sometimes.

I specifically removed her because you said the early fights were very repetitive without much complexity, and she seemed to fit your description exactly. I also remember you commenting on Anna, who also got a new move.
What made you change your mind?
Anyway, I agreed with your previous position and that's why it was removed, but I have nothing against the same enemies in different situations. I actually didn't like repeating enemies before, but I've been liking the idea more and more.

I am so sorry if I gave you the impression that I was asking you to remove either despite me finding them both so repetitive. I just wanted either more encounters or more "things to do or see" in each encounter. I only suggest repeating Anastasia because the work was already done and it could fix some of my issue by just bringing the OG encounter back. New girls will always be more fun for the effort put into making new encounters.

I have no idea what "aroused" does without looking at your game code.

There is a description for every status effect in the Codex, was it too confusing there? Maybe I should rephrase?

While I admit I didn't originally go to the codex to find out what it does, it highlight a deeper concern. If that game state is not as obvious (or example dominated where your dmg is cut in half or being naked where I didn't need to look at the codex), does it need to be in the game? Consider making it more impactful as to make it obvious and a rare thing to be feared. That all being said, I looked at the codex again and it isn't mentioned.

The gabby 3 way scene triggers the failure loop way too early randomly sometimes which ruins an entire run.

You meant the "dominated" attack? It is not random either, you need to attack her at the right time to avoid this move

Yes that is an example of something that was not random that appeared random. Simply communicating the players oversight better would go a long way in making it not feel random. A badly written example: "Ha! You were so distracted attacking Gabby that you let me sneak up on you!"

Thank you so much for taking the time to state twice that this kind of feedback was welcome. For a while it was making me feel like I went too far in this community considering I don't see anyone else doing this and I was going to do the rest through PM. I also wouldn't spend hours trying to figure out how to help if I didn't think you both had something good but that also through adjustments could be so much more. While I get the feeling that TOTS isn't for you (It's honestly not my type of "game" either) I welcome you or anyone else to be as critical as they want. I am practically starving for more actual critical feedback of what didn't land or kept so many people from seeing the deep systems before giving up and wanted to help you in that way.

[completely_average]

I honestly have no clue how to beat this game, I collect the torn maps from the first 3 areas, but then I cannot seem to find someone to beat more any more map pieces on like day 6, no matter which area I go to. In the backpack, it says the map is incomplete but I have no clue how to complete it. I believe I beat all of the available bosses.

[mckig]

I honestly have no clue how to beat this game, I collect the torn maps from the first 3 areas, but then I cannot seem to find someone to beat more any more map pieces on like day 6, no matter which area I go to. In the backpack, it says the map is incomplete but I have no clue how to complete it. I believe I beat all of the available bosses.

Have you encountered the Dark Woods boss? It's not as straight-forward finding her, so I put it behind this spoiler if you really want to know.

Spoiler: show

After exploring the Dark Woods for a little, there is an event where a girl, with her face blurred out, is shown. You are meant to clearly know which girl it is, as she is from one of the previous areas.

You have to go back to that area, find that girl, beat her (she is now slightly buffed and harder to beat than normal just this once) and get the Old Talisman.

Once you have the Old Talisman, keep searching the Dark Woods until you are prompted to enter the Cabin. There, you will fight the boss of the Dark Woods.

It sounds like once you beat the Dark Woods boss, it will be a little more straight-forward.

After the Dark Woods boss, the map leads to the real final challenge:

Spoiler: show

The Castle is the clear ending. It's a boss rush, so be ready for all the baddest enemies and more. After you beat the Castle, the game technically doesn't end, but that is really the culmination of the content.

Edit: Thank you Slagblah for catching that! I made those changes from "Dark Forest" to "Dark Woods".

[Slagblah]

I honestly have no clue how to beat this game, I collect the torn maps from the first 3 areas, but then I cannot seem to find someone to beat more any more map pieces on like day 6, no matter which area I go to. In the backpack, it says the map is incomplete but I have no clue how to complete it. I believe I beat all of the available bosses.

Have you encountered the Dark Forest boss? It's not as straight-forward finding her, so I put it behind this spoiler if you really want to know.

Spoiler: show

After exploring the Dark Forest for a little, there is an event where a girl, with her face blurred out, is shown. You are meant to clearly know which girl it is, as she is from one of the previous areas.

You have to go back to that area, find that girl, beat her (she is now slightly buffed and harder to beat than normal just this once) and get the Old Talisman.

Once you have the Old Talisman, keep searching the Dark Forest until you are prompted to enter the Cabin. There, you will fight the boss of the Dark Forest.

It sounds like once you beat the Dark Forest boss, it will be a little more straight-forward.

After the Dark Forest boss, the map leads to the real final challenge:

Spoiler: show

The Castle is the clear ending. It's a boss rush, so be ready for all the baddest enemies and more. After you beat the Castle, the game technically doesn't end, but that is really the culmination of the content.

Just to clear up any potential confusion, what you mean is the Dark Woods. This should not be confused with the Deep Forest.

[mckig]

If you're looking for constructive criticism, the player's turn during battles is boring. The most interesting variation that usually happens is an unexpected lust check. The most effective way to play the game is to click fast through the encounters, but it can still take 4 or 5 turns. Sometimes that feels like forever. Like I mentioned before, only Gabby and Abby feel like they have some true diversity, where Sigrid is a close second.

I can make a bunch of stuff, but I really just want to get the point across that most encounters are boring. In other games, the less meaningful enemies are usually meant to be steamrolled, basically unnoticed. I understand that this is a tease at heart and making some girls obsolete isn't the solution, but going back to indyc's point, that early game encounters are too long, I think it's a really good point.

Other than repetitive encounters, battling also feels the same every time. There is no variation, which leads people (or at least me) to spam click through stuff quickly and stop appreciating the work you put in. There has to be some quick fix to this.

I've thought about the possibility of allowing enemies to gain statuses like the Hero, but that just makes the game easier.

Alternatively, the Hero should have a variety of attacks. Adding heavy and light attacks feels like a good first step. There could be some attacks that work well on girls that do anal, or big breast girls, or shemales, or any category of girl. I understand that weapons are already a thing, so this could just be additive to that system.

Spoiler: show

You could unlock certain attack types by buying them in the shop... just thinking out loud.

I think all of this would succeed well with some form of stamina. The player should be punished for trying to brute-force encounters. If stamina runs out, the player must wait at least one turn. You can even slap some sort of "exhausted" negative status effect on the Hero that allows the girl to take advantage (maybe it automatically fails the next addiction check).

I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but this is by far the place that I have noticed is falling behind the most. The Hero's turn has not fundamentally changed since this tease first released, other than potions now being drinkable mid-battle. But there are so many creative opportunities like a potion that forces the enemy to ONLY attack (no Lust increasing moves) or consumables that increase attack for a turn. I would want this aspect of the tease to get an overhaul, or at least some attention, since for some players, it is the main function of the tease.

I want to be very clear, I'm not trying to downplay the tease as-is. Again, I find it very enjoyable encountering new stuff every version, and that is enough for me to keep coming back. If that's where you put your focus, I'm happy with it. I just saw you were inviting criticism and I've been thinking about this one for a while.

[Slagblah]

Alternatively, the Hero should have a variety of attacks. Adding heavy and light attacks feels like a good first step. There could be some attacks that work well on girls that do anal, or big breast girls, or shemales, or any category of girl. I understand that weapons are already a thing, so this could just be additive to that system.

Spoiler: show

You could unlock certain attack types by buying them in the shop... just thinking out loud.

I like this idea, but...

Spoiler: show

... better than unlocking in the shop, you could learn from the Heroine Guild (the not-yet-available expansion of the Heroine character in the City).

I see a training process with different trainers offering different skills, maybe like the Tavern Jobs. If the player succeeds, the skill is gained, if not, then the player must try again some other day. I'm of mixed feelings on whether more than one training session should be mandatory or not. With this latest release, visiting the City has become almost a full day excursion (assuming you do anything significant). So going there has to be rationed now to avoid wasting days.

[Kristycookie]

I can see how some encounters could be boring if you're playing Hero Corruption as a game. I play it more as a tease. I'm enjoying the pictures and imagining being in that situation... so encountering the same enemies a lot and not having to do a lot of strategic thought during battle are totally fine for me.

There are a lot of better video games out there. But Hero Corruption is a better game than any tease I've played, while also still allowing people who want to enjoy sexy encounters like other (non-game) teases. If you add a bunch of complexity to try to make it more of a game and less of a tease then I'd probably enjoy it less.

In the end it's not up to me if this is a game with some sexy pictures, or a tease with an above average game component. But it is uploaded as a tease and I enjoy it as a tease, so I personally hope it remains that way. Adding interesting elements to the enemies rather than the player is a great approach for this, and I'm impressed by what you've managed to accomplish so far.

My only real suggestion come from a place of wanting more content that I like, or just content in general. Personally I think more enemies, new enemy mechanics, new special event areas (like church, amazons, the house), more tavern job events, more random events in areas, etc will help more than trying to adjust the core combat.

[Slagblah]

Ownership of the Recipes for the Lich's Grasp and Thirsty Dragon are not reset between Normal Mode Games. As soon as you get them once, you can Forge them both from Day 1 in all future Games.

On a related note, I do like the new Bosses, even though it makes it harder to get a specific Loot drop from one of them (something that was already a long shot at best). I'm wondering though, what do you think about randomizing each Region Boss from day to day, rather than between Games? Of course you would still only get 1 Boss per Region per Game.

[grelgen]

On a related note, I like the new Bosses, even though it makes it harder to get a specific Loot drop from one of them (something that was already a long shot at best). I'm wondering though, what do you think about randomizing each Region Boss from day to day, rather than between Games? Of course you would still only get 1 Boss per Region per Game.

I would actually like it if the bosses would respawn on day 16, or every 10 days. just something to allow us to try to get the drops they have if we are going for a specific build.

[indyc]

On a related note, I do like the new Bosses, even though it makes it harder to get a specific Loot drop from one of them (something that was already a long shot at best). I'm wondering though, what do you think about randomizing each Region Boss from day to day, rather than between Games? Of course you would still only get 1 Boss per Region per Game.

I like that idea. It would probably take a tiny bit of work to make sure the same boss didn't show up in 2 regions at once but I think it would be worth the effort. For some reason, in the VAST majority of my runs, it defaults the the original bosses in the original areas confirmed after many runs.

[clshngnr]

Played a few rounds when this version first was released and went to write a review but the session timed out and everything I wrote was erased. In frustration I resolved to play again and write a review later but forgot so here is my review take it for what it may be worth.
The first few rounds I played were purely to try some of the new content so I'll leave my review for those first. Also will split my comments up to minimize spoilers, tho the version has been out for a while.

For Kitty:

Spoiler: show

This was an awesome new feature and exactly what I was hoping for when Chloe was first added. This type of enemy really fills the game out more IMO. I hope there are more bosses and potentially regular enemies added in this same vein, if possible. The change in battle technique also prevents the game from getting stale by always clicking attack.

For Maxine:

Spoiler: show

Another really solid addition, and while this was not as new of a battle system as Kitty, it still added new intrigue and peril if one didn't have their addictions in check. I'm a bit of an ass man so I knew this was going to be my favorite new addition as soon as she appeared. Again, I hope there are more enemies added like Maxine to further increase the diversity.

For Sasha:

Spoiler: show

Sasha was a pretty normal new boss in the sense of the battle system, but aesthetic was new and enjoyable for a boss. I really hope there are more bosses added in optionally like Sasha, as well as the others.

Concerning other new content:

Spoiler: show

Enemy peak hours: liked this aspect, it made ghost hunting, the heroine objective, and character farming much easier.

Multiple bosses: A few versions or so ago I had suggested that random addictions for the bosses would be cool, but I also thought it might be impossible. Super happy to see that you engineered a better way to diversify the first few area bosses and hope that more are coming for the remaining areas. The dark woods seems like it should remain Kira's territory but hopefully the swamp and potentially new areas if there ever might be a such thing will incorporate random bosses.

I haven't gotten a chance to use any of the new equipment, but I usually have awful luck with collecting equipment. I have read some of your replies stating that the game is not competitive and that randomness is a big part, but I would like to see an easier way for people to collect recipes. I understand this is probably difficult, because you don't want to be just giving recipes away as the game would likely become too easy, but I tend to only get 2 or maybe 3 recipes per round.

Kinda funny story about my last run:
When I returned after the window closed, I played through another run and made the decision to challenge the castle. I only had one green potion but lust and hp were rather high, plus addictions were low due to stacking a few blues to use right before the castle run. I had my trusty ice pick and eyepatch and when I made it through Gabby and Abby I used the green potion, thinking that Chloe was still the last Boss in the castle. I was pretty much hitting myself for being so stupid as I had forgotten about Sigrid. Anyways I fought and was sure that I was going to lose, but by the hands of the gods I ended up beating her. I was so impressed with how close I was I marked down my remaining hp and lust capacity. I finished with 3, yes 3 HP and 56 points to spare in lust. I honestly don't think I've ever been so satisfied with a run as I was after this hard-fought victory.

Anyways I enjoyed the game as always and appreciate the work you put in, in creating such a great game.

[BigggBoy0]

Hey love the game but most of the time when I play I can only get to like day 12 and then the game restarts on my phone. Does anyone know how to fix that or how to save the game from that day in normal mode.

[diogaoo]

Hey love the game but most of the time when I play I can only get to like day 12 and then the game restarts on my phone. Does anyone know how to fix that or how to save the game from that day in normal mode.

Hey Bigg, are you playing on an Apple phone? / Using Safari?

I've received reports of some incompatibility issues with these products, unfortunately there is not much to do in this situation, I could suggest you to download Chrome, which is the browser I use for game development and testing, but this behaviour can persist if you are using an iphone.