KickStarter Monomyth - A first person action RPG/dungeon crawler - now available on Early Access

[Turn_BASED]

Guys (and girl i think, if memory serves well, you once posted a pic of you in a burka? God help me but i do recall that..) my apologies; to each their own, was admittedly overly edgy.

But to explain if i may:
I'm sick and fucking tired of the "hard monocled" 'Dexer. I really fucking am.
A good majority of them? Half the shit they cry for? I swear they don't even like, they cry for them only because that's the hive mentality here, always has been. Fit in by being like the others. Not me, soz.
A minority of them? Who legitimately want it "difficult"? As in their definition of difficult, more on it below? They have.. issues.. let's just admit it. Because, a mechanic that's:
i) repetitive, aka mind fuckingly boring (eventually)
ii) repetitive and for the game's entire duration, i mean fuck me Freddy
iii) purposefully made so as to take you away from /cringe warning intensifies "immersion", break that spell that's so very rare to be enthralled in?
Is fucking stupid; unless one has.. certain issues. Just admit it.

It's not the kind of hard in say, complex, difficult combat; it's not the kind of hard in grasping tactics or strategy; it's not the kind of hard of git gud; it's not even the kind of hard in your needing not to suffer from ADHD, aka be a normal fucking person.
It's the artificial, intellectually insulting, repetitive kind of 'hard' that only.. one with certain mental issues will find literally, genuinely entertaining.
Entertaining, key word.

And i really am sick and fucking tired of all the "monocled" people typing what all their friends expect them to be typing.
Had been years and years ago to be honest.

Learn to distill, learn what made those game the incline they were.
Breaking the spell? Taking away your getting 'lost' in a different world because oops, artificial mechanic, tick tock tick tock? That wasn't it.
Period.
Having thus explained myself, my apologies once more. It is insulting still, but.. now at least you get me.

 

[Netch]

Guys (and girl i think, if memory serves well, you once posted a pic of you in a burka? God help me but i do recall that..) my apologies; to each their own, was admittedly overly edgy.

But to explain if i may:
I'm sick and fucking tired of the "hard monocled" 'Dexer. I really fucking am.
A good majority of them? Half the shit they cry for? I swear they don't even like, they cry for them only because that's the hive mentality here, always has been. Fit in by being like the others. Not me, soz.
A minority of them? Who legitimately want it "difficult"? As in their definition of difficult, more on it below? They have.. issues.. let's just admit it. Because, a mechanic that's:
i) repetitive, aka mind fuckingly boring (eventually)
ii) repetitive and for the game's entire duration, i mean fuck me Freddy
iii) purposefully made so as to take you away from /cringe warning intensifies "immersion", break that spell that's so very rare to be enthralled in?
Is fucking stupid; unless one has.. certain issues. Just admit it.

It's not the kind of hard in say, complex, difficult combat; it's not the kind of hard in grasping tactics or strategy; it's not the kind of hard of git gud; it's not even the kind of hard in your needing not to suffer from ADHD, aka be a normal fucking person.
It's the artificial, intellectually insulting, repetitive kind of 'hard' that only.. one with certain mental issues will find literally, genuinely entertaining.
Entertaining, key word.

And i really am sick and fucking tired of all the "monocled" people typing what all their friends expect them to be typing.
Had been years and years ago to be honest.

Learn to distill, learn what made those game the incline they were.
Breaking the spell? Taking away your getting 'lost' in a different world because oops, artificial mechanic, tick tock tick tock? That wasn't it.
Period.
Having thus explained myself, my apologies once more. It is insulting still, but.. now at least you get me.

Your reasoning is fair and probably applies to a good deal of stuff. I just disagree about a food mechanic (at least one that's implemented well) being one of those things. Honestly I found it cool and fun to chill at a fire and cook up some food in Arx Fatalis; it added to the game's atmosphere and gave a little more depth to the gameplay experience. And I don't recall it ever really becoming a nuisance or irritation in either Arx or UU.

 

[Harthwain]

For the love of God, not that..
You want a fucking survival game? For real? GTFO.

Survival elements can be fun, if done properly. The need to eat serves as a timer of sorts, which means you can't be stuck forever and have to push forward. That said, unless you can heal up by resting (and can technically rest as much as you want), there usually is no need to have a sustenance mechanic (aside from having a timer for the sake of it).

 

[Bad Sector]

Survival game mechanics? Stop enjoying yourself because you have exactly 5,7695 seconds to find wheat or you die? That's something else.

No, that is a stupid eating mechanic. Even in real life (which, in general, is not a good idea to try and emulate for fun game mechanics, but it is a good source of inspiration when that makes sense) you don't drop dead if you haven't eaten - you can die from hunger of course, but it will take a very long time.

A good eating mechanic might give you bonuses (not for all foods) but also penalties - be it because of bad food or because you are hungry. Most types of games - with RPGs among the most obvious among them - have mechanics where at their core are about managing resources. Your health, mana, stamina, money, attack power, defense potential, etc and of course hunger can all be thought as "resources" you need to keep in balance. A game that requires you to be fed and drops food at you ever couple of steps is, indeed, boring.

The good application comes when you have to make decisions that concern an exchange of those resources: do you buy some food to lower your hunger? Do you risk your health (and perhaps a penalty) by eating some shady food you found? Do you try to attack an easily killable monster and risk trying to eat its flesh (potentially dangerous) or you risk attacking a stronger and rarer monster or beast that you know has edible flesh? What if you are far from civilization (and thus shops and other sources of food - e.g. stealing, which has its own pros and cons) and you need to fight your way back (you mentioned dislike on respawning enemies, but respawning enemies are great for eating away your resources which in turn actually enabled that sort of in-game decision instead of only being a meta-gaming concern of how long it'd take to travel back)? Or simply keep on going further in your quest/exploration in hopes of finding something decent down the line while accepting the hunger penalties? What if the game has a stamina meter that affects most of your other abilities (e.g. offense, defense, concentration for casting spells - spells fail to cast if you are too tired) and you need to rest? Do you rest and increase your hunger or keep on in hopes of finding food? Just these two being interlocked (your stamina recovers slower when you are too hungry, your hunger increases while you resting) adds a big source of decision making.

And all the above affect other elements - if you have a limited inventory space and/or weight you can carry you have to prepare before putting your character/party in a position where they have to make these decisions. Preparation can be as important as the actual exploration and combat. Having to take food with you means more weight and less space for other items (healing potions or the in-universe equivalent, if any) and weapons (what if some enemies can only/mainly be affected with specific weapons that degrade a lot over use?). Weight could affect stamina loss and the offensive potential of warriors. You may even be unable to carry as much if your stamina drops to low levels and you'd have to drop items - do you drop the items or rest for a bit (and increase your hunger). What if you food can give you positive benefits, but it goes bad after some time? What if some food going bad attracts enemies?

There are many ways eating/hunger can affect decisions you make in game, certainly more than those i mentioned above that just came off the top of my head.

The kind of eating/hunger mechanics you should focus on are those that force you to make in-game decisions that affect your character's state, not those that exist for the sake of realism or whatever. They are best when they can both affect and can be affected by other mechanics instead of existing largely in isolation and taking them out of the game would barely affect it.

Of course this doesn't work with all types of games - or even all types of RPGs. But it can be done in ways that add "meat" to the gameplay. That it can be implemented in a bad way doesn't mean the concept itself is bad.

 

[mediocrepoet]

There's certainly room in gaming for some food mechanics, even water and such, but they should be required sparingly before eventually killing or penalizing you, nevermind special consumables that may give bonuses.

I'm pretty sure what's triggering LostHisMarbles, or at least, what I was getting out of his post is a caution against having actual survival game mechanics as is in vogue right now, where you can watch your hunger/thirst/fatigue/peepee meter tick down in real time and you're basically trying to keep stocked of all this crap in order to stop the game from bitching at you. It's plagued a lot of games that might otherwise be decent and has spawned a subgenre that some people seem to love, but I think they should all be cast into Mount Doom and never be spoken of again.

Any and every game would be better off without survival mechanics a la Conan Exiles, No Man's Sky, etc. but there's a lot of room between that and something like Ultima or Pathfinder Kingmaker.

 

[LostHisMarbles]

mediocrepoet i was triggered, lol, true..
And you're close enough
I just have a thing with 'elitists', of all kinds, there's that to begin with.
When said 'elitists', ehm, how should i put this lightly? Can only be called 'elitists' inside a circle-jerking autism-friendly virtual venue? But play me the elitist card nonetheless? More so.
Yet more when decades later, the best their tiny brains have come up with is.. nothing.. just take what was, as was, reskin and publish. Best they can do.
(how many times would that work one wonders..)

As if no good game could have had superfluous, impeding or downright bad aspects.
As if no bad game could ever have had elements worth emulating.
They go straight to some inane, retarded one-liner like Asster did before:
"Stop asking for Decline".
The world's expert having spoken. Case rested i gather.

- I have my issues, i know of them. If only i could say the same for so, so many others.
- What issues i do have, plenty as they are, have yet to disallow me looking at the forrest; clearly.

As to the particulars of eating mechanics, or the extent of implementation thereof? I read all your replies and quotes; just have nothing further to add from my end; not here to start a flame war.
And my apologies, again, this time to RatTower for unwittingly heating up the conversation. Not my intention dude, sorry.

 

[Darkozric]

"immersion mechanics" baking bread at the fire and chilling like a little faggot LOL. So prestigious, I can't handle such an incline. How about reaching the next level of ummersium by adding a shitting mechanic. You can't eat without shitting.
I want to fully immerse myself and shit the food I ate all over the dungeon like a fucking rabbit and put the poop as markers to mark special rooms. Can I have it? No? Then take your food mechanic and shove it in your butthole.

LostHisMarbles How dare you asking for decline Mfuckah? Go find your lost marbles and learn to cook.

 

[garren]

I enjoy "survival" mechanics like eating/drinking in games, as long as it's done properly (not annoying and nagging constantly, like mediocrepoet's examples), rare as they might be. Bad Sector had some nice examples already for some implementations. Still, mechanics like that might filter out some people, that's why I suggested a separate hardcore mode (a pipe dream in case of Monomyth probably but hey, a man can dream).

In the Monomyth Steam demo food just healed you. Let's say for example's sake that the game had an optional mode for hunger mechanics. Something simple like, a change that food doesn't heal you fast anymore, only gives you a small "satiated" buff that lasts long enough not to be annoying (longer for better foods), but the food gives you a slight passive health regeneration, so you get health slowly back while exploring but it doesn't help you in combat. So now you have to use herbs and potions in combat (making them more valuable), food is off the list. That already changes the whole dynamic. If you go really long without eating you would get hungry and stop the slow health regen, really really long and you die, the game could even warn you somehow. So you'd have to eat occasionally without it being a pain in the ass, but the dynamic is changed because food is not a fast healing item anymore. Anyways, just brainstorming stuff, you get the idea.

"immersion mechanics" baking bread at the fire and chilling.

Monomyth already has that lmao.

 

[Darkozric]

Monomyth already has that lmao.

Monomyth doesn't have a shitting mechanic. Decline.

 

[garren]

Let's clean the air with some soothing sounds of a dungeon and the sweet smell of pestilence and decay.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/836367155/monomyth/posts/3775638

State of the Game: Video Devlog 3.0 | Beta Update 3​

Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

It's time for another project update! In this one, we will be talking about the latest beta patch and how development will continue after that.


Sorry for the delay this month. I wanted to make sure that the patch was largely finalized before creating the update. As always you will find the video transcript attached to this post!

Best wishes,

Michael


---------------------------------------

Time just flies! We are already in April but the development of Monomyth continues. The time to really wrap it up is drawing near, but there is still some stuff to do. So in this update, we will be talking about a massive amount of content that will be added to the game shortly and how we will continue from that. At this point, I don’t want to spoil too much, but I want to keep you updated on the latest work that has gone into the project. So let’s take a look at that.

I have been working on Beta 3 roughly for the last two months and it’s now close to completion. Right away I can say I am glad that for a change I have listened to my own advice and I learned from the mistakes made during the development of Beta 2.

Beta 3’s development was much better planned, much better scaled and unsurprisingly much better executed. I built most of it based on a blockout I did earlier in development, even before the refactoring. As a result, I didn’t go overboard in terms of scaling, and the geometry plus detail passes were done much faster.

This gave me a lot more time to make some unique assets that would add personality to the area. It also gave me time to implement more intricate and polished designs. This is reflected very well in the general engagement with the game environment. Or in other words, Beta 3 features more detailed level mechanics. This goes from secrets, to traps, to what I tend to call environmental sidequests or challenges.

I also had more time working on enemies and enemy encounters. So Beta 3 actually features multiple new enemy types, some taken over from older work I did, some made completely from scratch. None of these have been in the game so far.

There were some new enemy types in Beta 2 as well, but I couldn’t put as much work into them as I wanted so I pushed some of that into the polishing phase. Luckily some of the work I did for Beta 3 overlapped with that work and now all it requires are some finishing touches. That much just as a side note. All in all the new enemies should give you a nice, fresh challenge.

In this context, I should also mention I slightly adjusted my workflow for character creation. Now if you have been following these updates for a while, you know I have been rambling about the troubles of custom character creation for UE4 in the past. Without any tool support, it can be quite challenging to bind a custom character mesh to the standard UE4 skeleton. In the past, I have done this with a mix of vertex data transfers and weight painting. This method was rather restrictive when it came to humanoid characters that weren’t perfectly proportional. I have now replaced parts of my original workflow with a tool called AutoRig Pro and that makes things a lot easier.

Now what’s left for Beta Update 3 are a couple of narrative assets, meaning some dialogue and documents, as well as item distribution throughout the new area. After that, the patch will be uploaded to the beta branch and the beta-level backers will be able to test it. This should be done within the next week or so.

That’s another step on the roadmap I showed you during the last update - so what’s next?

In Beta Update 4, I will mostly focus on the game’s main social hub. I have already built a good portion of that level so geometry and detail passes should be done pretty quickly. The main part of the workload will revolve around implementing the main quest as well as a new trading system. There was an old trading system on the original codebase - you can see it by trading with the rat NPC in the demo - but this one will be replaced by a completely new system.

I will also include some new features concerning inventory management, among other things a separate inventory for quest items.

Once that is done the polishing phase will begin. Polish will cover pretty much everything from item balance, to AI. Two major tasks will be improving the Lysandrian Heartlands and the mines. Both areas are perfectly functional in terms of mechanics, but they need a bit of a workover to be on the level of beta 3’s quality. In this process, I will probably split the mine up into two areas. You may remember this area was overscaled. This also came with some technical issues which I seek to resolve.

As I said in the past, at this point of development I will bring in more people. The first step here will be an open backer beta.

After that, I will have to look at how I am going to release the game to the public. There are basically two ways to go about this. Either I will still implement the last portion of the game as well as the backer content and release the game in full later this year, or I will release an Early Access version and implement the final content patch during that phase. Currently, things are scheduled in a way that the latter is more likely, but it also depends on the backer's feedback.

During all of this, I will see whether I can release an updated demo. Maybe I can deploy a separate build once things are properly polished.

All in all, there is still a good bit of work ahead but we are getting closer and closer to a public release. As always I will keep you updated and I will see you next time.

 

[Gargaune]

Sounds and looks good!... But I do hope that magic weapon shader doesn't make it in the final game, that looks a bit goofy.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

KILL THE RAT!!

 

[Turn_BASED]

Man does this look good

 

[Kruyurk]

Sounds and looks good!... But I do hope that magic weapon shader doesn't make it in the final game, that looks a bit goofy.

It is drenched in the blood of smurfs. Time to bake some blueberry pies.

 

[mindx2]

Sounds like he's going Early Access... ugh! Hope that doesn't hurt the development especially if it's really buggy. Steam reviews will go into attack mode and sales might not recover from those early impressions. I miss the days of fully released games.

 

[sosmoflux]

All you need to do is add one hot snake-lady character, dude

Mommymyth

 

[Narushima]

the days of fully released games

These moments are gone, like tears in the rain.

 

[Gargaune]

Sounds like he's going Early Access... ugh! Hope that doesn't hurt the development especially if it's really buggy. Steam reviews will go into attack mode and sales might not recover from those early impressions. I miss the days of fully released games.

Truth be told, I'm a little worried about that prospect as well and what it might mean for the release window. My only experience with Early Access has been... less positive than I'd hoped...

Spoiler

But it's not exactly news, he's mentioned that possibility before, it'll depend on how things shape up in the polish phase.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

uhhh.....Is he fucking an eggplant?

 

[Nikanuur]

EA is horrible idea in general, it greatly contributes to fracturing and corruption of anything related to gaming world. It brings money, yeah, money's good, no problem there. If only at least one creator would have paused, taken a breath, and contemplated what behaviors and outcomes looked like when broad public was considered anywhere, anytime on the internet.

Dude, I still respect your skills and vision, you are one hell of a talent and a passioned being, obviously. If you'd ask me to support you, that you would probably finish this in some time, I'd send a few bucks your way. Many others would as well, I am sure. Should the project fail after that, I'd have been like "Oh well, a time to time one has to believe no matter the outcome." But EA... consider me rude or head against the wall for all I care, but I won't participate in this modern world fracking and I am unwishing the project. I thought you better then this.

Closed beta with selected participants that receive some goodies / discounts when the project is finished used to be the correct approach. Or if money is the issue, Kickstarter, albeit not much better in terms of success, at the very least tries to deliver a finished product.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Sometimes an eating mechanic can be good. In a NWN PW I played, the PCs had to eat and drink. There was an infested mine that served as a dungeon. This mine was scripted to have chances for cave-ins. When spelunking, carrying a pick-axe was vital to progress or escape. There was one long expedition when we suffered quite a few cave-ins and we started running out of water. It created a real emergency for our party. Our characters were suffering from exhaustion and we made it out just in time before we started collapsing.

 

[RatTower]

EA is horrible idea in general, it greatly contributes to fracturing and corruption of anything related to gaming world. It brings money, yeah, money's good, no problem there. But how about at least one creator would have paused, taken a breath, and contemplated what the behavior looked like when broad public was considered anywhere, anytime on the internet.

Dude, I still respect your skills and vision, you are one hell of a talent and a passioned being, obviously. If you'd ask me to support you, that you would probably finish this in some time, I'd send a few bucks your way. Should the project fail after that, I'd have been like "Oh well, a time to time one has to believe no matter the outcome." But I won't pay a single dime for EA and I unfriend this thread and unwish the project. Consider me rude or head against the wall for all I care. I won't participate in this modern world fracking, and I thought you better then this.

Closed beta with selected participants that receive some goodies / discounts when the project is finished used to be the correct approach. Or if money is the issue, Kickstarter, albeit not much better in terms of success, at the very least tries to deliver a finished product.

I think I should probably add some context to this:

The reason I am considering (!) EA is not because of payment. Well, technically it is, but probably not the way you think about it.
The reason is the 30k Kickstarter money that the project received. Let me elaborate on that and let me do it in the form of a tragedy in three acts.
So here is Act I:

I may have mentioned this earlier in the thread, but those 30k were booked as down payments. That has one big advantage: If you know you are going to work with that money for longer than a year (or rather, longer than until next January) you won't pay profit tax on that (due at the end of the year). Cause it's a down payment, right? There was no profit. There was no product exchange, so it's 100% legitimate and that's great, cause that's 24% of the money saved for a better purpose.

But: Those down payments are not part of your capital either. So when you close your books at the end of the year you throw that money out. It's like it doesn't exist on paper (it technically does in a very specific way, but for simplicity let's imagine it doesn't)

And here comes the tricky part: Despite the fact that the money does not exist in your capital, everything that you pay with that money still has to be booked as an expense.
Now imagine you spent the entire 30k (which isn't exactly the case for me by the way - again just for simplicity) you are now - on paper - 30k in the red.
Because the expenses you cannot throw out at the end of the year. Contrary to the down payments you have to keep those in the books.

So that's the setup.
Here is Act II:

Being 30k in the red on paper, due to down payments, is not exactly a real-world problem. You got 30k, you spent 30k. That's it.
All those expenses just put weight on the books. In practical terms, you simply have no money. Big deal.
But, you know who doesn't think like that? That's right:

The Taxman

Because the taxman only cares about the books. The taxman takes a look at those and he's like:

"Hey asshole, you are insolvent! Why are you not reporting this? You wanna go to jail motherfucker?"

And at that point, my accountant calls me and says:

"Hey dumbass, where is that game? It's coming right? Like, very soon. Cause I just had the taxman on the phone and he wasn't too happy!" (disclaimer: my accountant is actually much friendlier than that)

So we decide, we add a little "I.O.U." to the books - and that's literally just a little piece of paper, that promises, that we are gonna cough up that money soon. And by soon I actually mean soon. Not next year. Before we close the books this year. In fact, even sooner than that (but technically the state doesn't have any say in that - at least I think so, so take it with a grain of salt).

So that's the problem.
Here comes Act III: How to get out of this.

So, the problem is there are 30k expenses in your books that you wanna get rid of. There is a very simple solution: You just activate the down payments as revenue. Technically that also means you have to fulfill all KS pledges but the taxman doesn't really care about that, so let's ignore that for the moment. The point is: The 30k become a profit that counterbalances all your expenses. Well isn't that swell, now we are out of the woods, right? Nnnnope!
In fact, you kinda made the problem worse. Cause here in Austria (and in many other countries as well) there is VAT. And that is 20% aka 6 grands.
So what you did, was transform the theoretical debt of 30k into real tangible debt of 6k. So you are still in the red, but here comes the real issue:

You now actually owe a hefty sum to the state.
And. That. Is. Bad.

Cause if there is anything in the world the taxman hates more than a company that's in the red on paper, then it's a company that's in the red and owes him cash for real.
So you gotta deliver that money or you are literally going to jail. And they are quick with that too, believe me. There is a reason you gotta report VAT every quarter as opposed to every year.
So if you wait, they're gonna audit you, they're gonna visit you, and then they are going to arrest you.

Not an attractive option. As a little side question in the meantime: Would you care at this point if someone on an RPG hobby website said they'd unfollow a thread? I think we all know the answer to that.

Now, for solutions, there are basically two ways to go about this (both of which are preceded by booking the down payment + VAT):
a) Sell the game in EA, pull the books into the green, and pay the taxman
b) Withdraw private savings that cover the VAT + other costs, invest them in the company, cut down on all expenses (gotta do that anyway), pay the taxman, and carry on developing to the end while bleeding money

The latter option probably comes to around 10 grand in private costs (6 for the VAT plus some pre-KS expenses for establishing the company/equipment/insurance/etc, minus deposits that were made with the tax office in the past). That's a good bit of money. But it's temporary and it's manageable. The costs do not necessarily deter me, because, as others have pointed out, releasing into Early Access isn't all smiles and sunshine either. Not only does it anger some people but it will very likely lower the conversion rate of wishlists to purchases, and possibly (!) hurt the overall success of the game. That's speculative but realistic. On the other hand: It is not said that the full game (developed through option b) would be flawless. That's why the open backer beta is so important: Because we can nail down some major issues regardless of whether or not we have some sort of public early access version.

So, both of these options are on the table (perhaps more if I can think of anything else). I will retain my judgment on which is better for a later date. I will have to see the feedback on the open backer beta and assess how much work still needs to go into the project. Nevertheless, I have to schedule the EA now. The full 30k are not yet spent, but the writing is on the wall, and not planning ahead would be a bad idea. That's why I said in the video that "things are scheduled in a way that an EA is more likely", but that's not a final statement.
I am not writing this to somehow justify an EA. I will do whatever is necessary to finish the project and to keep myself out of legal trouble. That much should be obvious.
I know people don't like Early Access. I don't even like Early Access. But no amount of teeth gnashing is going to change the facts. I am providing this context because I am interested:

Given you were the protagonist of our little three-act drama, what would you do?

tl;dr:

Spoiler

"Take this down payment, but beware it carries a terrible curse..."
"Ohh that's bad!"
"You don't have to pay profit tax for it!"
"That's good!"
"Whatever you pay with the money still has to be booked as an expense!"
"That's bad!"
"You can later activate the down payments as revenue and balance out those expenses!"
"That's good!"
"The activation as revenue also activates the inherent VAT!"
"....."
"That's bad."

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Why on earth does The State care if you are solvent? How does an operating loss cause them to threaten you with jail time?

 

[KateMicucci]

Why on earth does The State care if you are solvent? How does an operating loss cause them to threaten you with jail time?

If ratman has taken salary/distributions, that looks pretty shady when your company has no revenue and a big liability. It also sounds like he has not invested much of his own money into the company.