https://store.steampowered.com/app/2468300/DommeBreaker/ Today, as per the most recent poll, we will discuss our balancing philosophy for the game and the reasoning behind it. Our core principal when it comes to balance is that everybody should be able to complete the game, whether they're good at the combat or not. The point of a kinky hentai game is getting to the sexy scenes and art, obviously. It doesn't make sense to us for an adult game to be overly difficult or grindy, but that doesn't mean it can't be challenging and reward perseverance. As mentioned before, each time you beat a Domme, she'll progress to the next Stage out of 3. Each subsequent Stage will be stronger than the last and each Domme will use more varied abilities based on their unique style of combat. In order to keep up, the player can unlock various player upgrades and power up some of their combat abilities. These unlocks are being designed to fall into Tiers that match the Stages of the Dommes. Tiers 2 and 3 will not only let the player level up previous unlocks, but will add more options to increase the player's strength or weaken the Dommes. [b]Stage 2[/b] therefore has proven to be much trickier to balance just right than Stage 1. As we continue to test the game, sometimes we encounter hiccups. I mentioned a couple of months ago that nobody had tested a purely defensive build yet. I did that this month. Turns out, after unlocking all the defensive abilities, pure defence was super busted to the point it was impossible to lose. Rather than redo all the abilities for the Dommes, we nerfed the player's defensive abilities. This then required some re-testing of Stage 2, but we feel fairly confident that the Stage 2 fights are now where we want them to be, although we will take tester feedback into account for potential tweaks. [b]Stage 3[/b] is, if we're being perfectly honest, still kind of a mess. The abilities for Stage 3 are designed, but we need to test them a lot more to tweak the values. Also, we expect players to get better at the game as they figure out strong combinations of abilities, along with understanding each Domme's combat style and learning how to counter it. This, then, brings us to the actual explanation of our intended balance and the reasoning behind it. [b]Stage 1[/b] will logically be the most lenient, as players are still mastering the mechanics. The player can theoretically beat Stage 1 Dommes with no unlocks, but should have no problem beating them once they've managed to grind out the Tier 1 player upgrade and one or two combat abilities. So far, 1 of our 3 testers has managed to beat the Stage 1 Dommes with no unlocks purchased. We're happy with that result, because it proves that it can be done, but it's certainly not easy. With all Tier 1 unlocks, it's practically impossible to lose. [b]Stage 2[/b] Dommes should not be beatable with only T1 unlocks. Players should be able to make it to Phase 2 with Tier 1 unlocks and testing has shown Phase 3 can even be reached with only Tier 1 unlocks, depending on strategy and RNG. Players should lose a couple of fights at Stage 2, because this is where the Dommes start to show their unique combat style and buffs/debuffs. We've found that it's just barely possible to beat Stage 2 Dommes with just Tier 2 combat abilities, but unlocking and using all Tier 2 player upgrades makes Stage 2 beatable even with misplays and bad RNG. [b]At Stage 3[/b], players should be getting their butts kicked with only the Tier 2 unlocks; barely making it to Phase 2, if that. Domme health will out-scale the player's Tier 3 combat abilities and their damage will out-scale the player's Tier 3 health upgrade. Not to fear, because the additional player upgrades, combined with the Tier 2 upgrades, will give players considerable strategic advantages. How many of those advantages you need will depend on your skill, but unlocking all of them should make the game beatable for pretty much anybody. The costs of unlocks are also balanced around this Tier/Stage link. So Tier 1 abilities will require very few points, since losing a fight at Tier 1 will reward hardly any points. Beating a Domme at Stage 1 will reward enough points for a Tier 2 unlock or several Tier 1s. This incentivizes beating all 3 Dommes at Stage 1 before moving on and will make the other 2 easier after beating your first. We expect each player to have a preference for one of the 3 girls. Ideally, players will start out challenging each Domme once in Stage 1 before figuring out which one is their type and use the points from those first 3 losses to then win a Stage 1 fight. The player will then beat the other two at Stage 1 and repeat the gameplay loop in Stages 2 and 3; just with sexier content and more complex combat. Ultimately, we want players who get the combat to feel like it's worth figuring out and trying their best, but we don't want anybody to miss out on content due to difficulty. We're still considering how to balance the endgame, but we may also add a 'bonus' upgrade that massively increases player health, if people are struggling to beat the game. We'd rather add a safety net than lower the overall difficulty. After all, if a game is too easy, why bother putting any effort in? For next month, there will be no poll. Why? Because we want to take next month to explain how the game has expanded and grown since it's initial design. Hopefully this will make it clear why the game is taking so long (certainly much longer than we initially expected) while simultaneously getting you all excited for all the stuff we've added and are still planning to add. Let's not forget the [b]Roadmap update[/b]: FINISHED: [list] [*] Jitsuko Stages 2+3 Combat art. [*] Jitsuko Stage 2 Combat re-design. [/list] CURRENT: [list] [*] Jitsuko Victory Scene 1 art. [*] Jitsuko Stage 2 Combat re-test after re-design. [*] Re-writes and additions to various scenes. [/list]