Ilyza91
commented
2 years ago Currently the Layer 3 Wonders passage asks the player to make the choice between a willing or unwilling transfer. I think it would make sense to instead travel to the shrine before having to make the decision about whether the transfer is going to be forced or not. In particular, I think it would be good to show the curses that companions will accept voluntarily before having the player consider forcing curses upon them.
I agree with this one
The current narration for forced curse transfers is a bit awkward. For example, the narration speaks of an incapacitated companion before the player has picked a victim. Also the player character gets negative reactions from all companions, but is not hindered when transferring another curse without permission.
Yeah I see the point here, but this will be debatable. Will khemia or maybe even lily stop you when transfering curses? Yeah probably. For cloud that's already more debatable and I think cherry is really unlikely. That's my opinion and I imagine everybody opinion on this will be different
With that interpretation, the affection penalty for forcing a curse should be a lot higher than it currently is: receiving a single unwanted curse would be enough for the average companion to leave. Other companions witnessing this but not receiving curses would suffer an affection penalty but wouldn't leave immediately. Would they still be willing to accept curses they don't hate or is that option cut off as soon as a non-willing transfer is made?
I always interpreted as, they run away to a safe distance. Ready to give you an earfull when you catch up with them again. But I see how you can interpret it that way as well. @FloricSpacer what do you think?
Currently companions will block travelling to the shrine again if too many curses were forced. I like this idea, but maybe it should be decided using the affection score instead of using an explicit transfer counter.
I like this idea
What happens when companions leave the player character? The intro describes that they should not have problems ascending from the Abyss, so I guess they would go back to Outset Town (except for Cherry, perhaps). But if a companion is very upset with the player character, it wouldn't make sense to be able to re-hire them, so we should probably block that. Would this be done on an individual basis, or would one companion leaving damage the player character's reputation so much that no companion will want to work for them anymore?
I would imagine they wouldn't want to be hired by you again. While I do see how you could get a negative reputation and some people would not want to work with you again, the opposite point can also be made that they don't care, and in that case I think it would make sense to leave the option in (maybe a run-away character could contribute to a negative score for unhired companions instead?)
FloricSpacer
emmeken
On layer 3 there is the Skewed Shrine, which can transfer curses to companions. On layer 4 there is the Steady Shrine, which can copy curses to companions. In this issue, I want to discuss the implementation of the layer 3 shrine, although whatever we decide will affect the layer 4 implementation as well.
Currently the Layer 3 Wonders passage asks the player to make the choice between a willing or unwilling transfer. I think it would make sense to instead travel to the shrine before having to make the decision about whether the transfer is going to be forced or not. In particular, I think it would be good to show the curses that companions will accept voluntarily before having the player consider forcing curses upon them.
Once at the shrine, the player would have the ability to transfer any number of curses with a companion's approval, provided they can afford the increasing dubloon costs. At any point, the player can decide to leave or to switch to forced curse transfers.
The current narration for forced curse transfers is a bit awkward. For example, the narration speaks of an incapacitated companion before the player has picked a victim. Also the player character gets negative reactions from all companions, but is not hindered when transferring another curse without permission.
I have some doubts that incapacitating companions is the way in which the CYOA intended curses to be forced. The text reads:
This suggests to be that forcing one curse would cause a companion to run away and that there is enough time to force three more curses upon them before they've run out of reach of the shrine's power.
With that interpretation, the affection penalty for forcing a curse should be a lot higher than it currently is: receiving a single unwanted curse would be enough for the average companion to leave. Other companions witnessing this but not receiving curses would suffer an affection penalty but wouldn't leave immediately. Would they still be willing to accept curses they don't hate or is that option cut off as soon as a non-willing transfer is made?
Currently companions will block travelling to the shrine again if too many curses were forced. I like this idea, but maybe it should be decided using the affection score instead of using an explicit transfer counter.
What happens when companions leave the player character? The intro describes that they should not have problems ascending from the Abyss, so I guess they would go back to Outset Town (except for Cherry, perhaps). But if a companion is very upset with the player character, it wouldn't make sense to be able to re-hire them, so we should probably block that. Would this be done on an individual basis, or would one companion leaving damage the player character's reputation so much that no companion will want to work for them anymore?