Thoughts on Modifying Game Mechanics AKA Internal Survival V3

Hello all, this is gonna be a big post about design thoughts. It'll likely be fairly long so I'll drop a TL;DR at the top.

TL:DR

Developing this game and it's base systems for a year has left me noticing a number of flaws with it's systems.
I'd likely need a code revamp to include the new visual ideas from previous updates.
I want to change how several mechanics of the game work to give me more options as the developer to reward/challenge the player. Such as adding a few more stats and changing how damage works when you're already weak.
All of these left me feeling like, fixing up the base event logic would be a great idea to improve the game. And I may take time to do this. This would mean a save reset in order to accommodate the changes. Since I plan to make some significant changes to how stats work.
Working on this may delay the current update since it'd be a big undertaking.

There's a lot more than just this but this is the idea.

Anyways, I've worked on this project for a year and I've had a lot of changes in my design philosophy for making scenes and challenging players. Many of these have lead to inconsistent design across the game. Sometimes in potentially frustrating ways.

And I also have come to terms with the game being rather simple with many of it's mechanics. And I'm not looking to over complicate the game. But some complexity could be appreciated.

But also, the game very much can feel like "I do the mechanics so I can interact with the pred." where the mechanics feel like an annoyance more than a hot point. Sacrificing interactions so you can absorb energy during the most interesting times is a big point to me that feels like the current design has failed in some way. I want to entwine survival and interacting with your pred better.

The game currently has a dominant strategy too. Which is pretty strong and makes certain kinds of scenes really only have one way to play them. And that's regenerating purely when you are prompted too.

So! What can be done to fix these issues of

Internal Scenarios too simple
No longer sacrificing interactions for mechanics
Removing dominant strategy

Well, my first step would be to change how absorbing energy works. It's been really inconsistent across the game. So it's due for a change.

My idea was to make sinful energy passively generate. But it would be in terribly small numbers. Usually running the player a decent deficit until they got strong enough.

So you'd slowly run out as the days roll by. Until you figure out a way to get the predator to drop a ton more. The goal of this design would be to thrust gaining your most important resource, sin, onto interactions with predators. I am not opposed to finding perfect survival loops. That's totally fine and kind of ideal imo. But the loops should be mandatory when you're close to on level for the pred.

So step one and it's already a basically complete reset for how the math of the system works xD

As well, I would like to add new stats that can influence how actions like Struggle or Arouse work. And may tie in when a predator has a mechanic like arousal or bellyaches.

My current ideas for stats to add look like

Struggle Strength:Reduces damage taken and will affect escape chances (we'll get to that change)
Sexual Prowess: Similar to above but allows for different interactions with a pred. Having two options for how you deal with a predator like this felt pretty important tbh. Either stat may be better or worse than the other in any given situation or predator. And both would be more prominent
Soul Resistance:Some predators have the unique ability to drain Alista of her sinful energies. This would be a resistance to that. Similar to how acid resistance works for general damage. Will be rare.
I have also tossed around in my head a luck stat. I do not want a ton of RNG added to the game, but some variance and some rewards may be nice spice. I would add bad luck protection so you don't get completely fucked too lol. But it's still being tossed around. Would likely affect minor stuff and be handed out for minor accomplishments or silly things. Note to self to add a message when it would proc.

This all would help the other two... but not the last one in dealing with the dominant strategy of just regen after taking damage. There needs to be some kind of punishment for taking the big hit imo.

I'm leaning towards a negative hp mechanic. Where hits can put you below 0. And you have to regen enough to survive. But also include a mechanic where each digestion state has different negative damage formulas. Goopy takes close to full. Middle state takes about half. Solid takes none.

This should also be less annoying with the new auto survival mechanic that regens when prompted to survive. Assuming you have enough. This one is already in the game.

also, side note. Math has been a bit wonky for a while. I want to tighten a bit more and make good tools on my end for calculating what survival will look like with this new system. SPREADSHEET TIME.

One last change would likely be escaping. Right now it's kind of the wild west. For every scene. But also consistent once you've found what works. I want to add a bit more to it imo. Give it a random chance to work, and let it be modified or increased based on previous actions taken. A fitting stat. And also bad luck protection lol.
Also labeling better when Escape isn't possible. I'll likely make it rarer when that happens too.
Also also actually displaying when the option is really "Ask to be released"

Also, I could make some design changes for image handling and create the skeleton for future additions and the new toggle for pov internally. I also want to create a new toggle just in case I do end up getting variants of internal images. Letting the player pick what they see may be really nice~

Small fixes across all the internal scenes I'd like to add but couldn't find a space to mention:

Day goals for the Ego/Id items and eternal stays being cumulative rather than consecutive. So the day goal of 10 for most scenes to get an equippable could be done across multiple visits to a pred as opposed to one.
Change masturbate slightly. It will likely be the same price or even a bit more, but skip damage potentially. So you can consistently set yourself up for the next time phase to be at the body state you need. Easy way to go up and down at will.
Fullheal outside of tummies... I really forgot my line of thinking on this. It's changed a bunch since release lol.

I'm likely forgetting some. Ive been wanting to get what I can down.

Thanks for reading. I don't want to make the game harder overall. But I do think several aspects are currently flat. I really want to do this before adding any more big internal scenes.

Unless there's large amounts of pushback, I may go forward with this plan. I really want EGS to be a good game and I think one more version of this combat system would be best! But this would delay the next update by many weeks since fuck its gonna be a good bit of work.
But I really do think it'll be worth it.

This update won't be private and will likely be shared around so I can hear a variety of takes. More feedback from people can help this be the best it can. So feel free to speak up if you have a take or a gripe with how the games been designed. Do keep in mind these ideas aren't final and will need to be tested.

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