How your feedback will shape the future of Hex!

I've spent some time over the last few days going through the feedback I've received, both from the feedback form, and from various comments on the game. I think I have a good handle on how people feel about the game in general. The overwhelming majority of feedback has been positive, much of it very positive, which has been great to see.

In this post I want to go through some of the feedback. I'll also respond to a few specific comments where I have something to say. Overall though, I don’t think that Hex needs to change much, at least not in response to the feedback so far. I think the game is on the correct path.

Combat overall

I want to start with combat because I think it's where I've gotten the most useful feedback. Given the encounter system is similar to SS and I'm pretty confident in my ability to pull off the story and the relationship with Meila (though input is still invaluable for both of these), the part of the game I was least confident in was the combat system.

While combat was the least well-received part of the game, it still was by no means poorly received. Most of the ratings on the overall combat system were 4s and 5s, with a very small number of 3s. Most of the issues people had with the combat system were either technical (performance issues with deflection) or preference based (e.g., they wanted  "battle-fuck" style content). Some people felt it was too easy, which I think is a better problem to have than it being too hard, but still perhaps not ideal. That said, even while giving these critiques, most felt combat was good overall, with decent depth and fleshed out mechanics that seemed interesting.

I was very happy combat was well-received as I worried it would be too much of a distraction from the lewd elements, or just not what people wanted.

A note on the "battle-fuck" genre: If you don't know what that is, it's a style of lewd game content where some of the combat moves are basically sex moves. So while you have normal attacks and skills and spells, you also have the ability to take an enemies' clothes off or maybe even fellate them or something as a part of combat. Hex does have sexual content and moves that are part of combat, and I'm not opposed to maybe making some sort of transition to encounters possible, but I do not plan to incorporate these elements in the game beyond that point. You won't have a list of sex moves you can do in combat, other than basic lust/seduction moves. I don't personally think very highly of this genre of game and I think it actually sort of takes away from both elements to have them smashed together like this. You may disagree, and that's fine, but it's not a direction I'm interested in going. Of course new skills and upgrades to seduction and lust moves in combat is planned, just not full-on battle-fucking. I mention all this because a few people asked for it/about it in the feedback form and I want to be upfront with you that I'm not intending to move too far in that direction.

Deflection

Other than performance issues, which will be worked on over time, the deflection mechanic was well-received. The overall opinion on deflection is that it was a little too easy, and that early deflections might be a little *too* strong for how easy they are. I always intended early deflections to be a bit of a crutch, but I will concede that 25 MP may be too cheap for them as the only enhanced cost compared to perfect deflections (at least most of the time).

Keep in mind that this is the beginning of the game, enemies have only used physical attacks so far. Magic attacks cannot be deflected. Most normal enemies don't have many (or any) magic attacks, but as the game goes on, stronger enemies will get more and more magic, which you will need to use other means to mitigate, like the madness and lust auras, among other mechanics and auras yet to be introduced. That said, when enemies cast magical attacks, in addition to having their own internal MP bars, with powerful spells costing potentially tons of MP, enemies also have cooldowns on their spells, so even enemies with multiple spells will still rely on physical attacks much of the time, meaning deflection will always be a core part of every fight.

Deflection is still perhaps too strong, but I want to see how magic affects the game balance before committing to major changes.

Combat difficulty

Again, with the understanding that magic attacks haven't really come up yet, most people have indicated that combat is easy, though many have also expressed approval of this. Combat will get harder when magic is introduced and becomes more common, but the player will also get stronger, with more actions and auras at their disposal, and with more MP to play with, so I think the difficulty increase will maybe push the game a little more toward being "just right," or at least that's my hope.

I mentioned in another post that I am also planning on adding a third difficulty that changes the game to be harder and more intense. I want normal mode to be pretty easy overall; easy mode is more of an "I don't really like the combat" mode. With that in mind, the higher difficulty mode will be more for people who really enjoy the combat mechanics and want to really experiment with different spells and builds and be pushed more into using good spell rotations and the right equipment to compliment it.

Sexual encounter artwork and interface

Sexual encounters were well received overall, particularly the artwork!

The single most common request was for animations. Never say never, but this is unlikely. I don't want to make any bones about it: Hex represents the absolute pinnacle of what I am able to achieve at the level of funding I am at and will probably remain at, given also the constraints imposed by making the game available on the web, and of course also factoring in things like time, my own level of skill, etc. The fact is that I can't afford a third person to make animations, and even assuming Ecchi and/or I could learn to create animations ourselves, neither of us really has the time.

I'm also, as a sole proprietor in the US, getting slaughtered in taxes. After I pay Ecchi, and pay for software licenses, cloud storage, and other stuff I use in development, I pay almost half of what's left just in taxes. My take home wouldn't be minimum wage in my country even if I worked a third of the hours I work. I don't tell you this to complain or garner sympathy–I'm doing just fine and always will be just fine–I only point this out to provide you with the reality behind what probably seems like a decent take-home on Patreon. Hex is being funded on a shoestring budget–actually a negative budget if I paid myself even minimum wage. The idea that the game is gonna have animated cut-ins is just outside our reality right now. Of course, the game could explode tomorrow, but lewd games are niche and female protagonist lewd games are a niche inside a niche, and overall I just think we'll probably continue to see slow growth over time, not an explosion of financial support.

Anyway, I am not complaining, I love doing this. But trust me that it's the love of the craft that keeps me going, not the immense wealth I'm generating. And most of what I'm earning is being put back into production one way or another.

So how about art (or non-animated cut-ins) that reflect the actual actions being done? This is much more likely to happen, and something Ecchi and I have talked about, both in the past and recently. It is not really a priority right now, but I do think it is a good idea. So we'll see.

More sexual encounter types

Some people have asked for individual sexual encounter types for lesbian content like with straight content, and I probably won't do this. I do have ten encounter types planned, though.

There's the five we have now, all the same ones from SS, but I also want to add two futanari encounter types, an erotic dancing/stripping encounter type which I think will be a ton of fun to write, what I'm calling a "soapland" encounter type for each gender. That's probably not all we will do though. The encounter system in this game is more flexible than SS and I think I could make really any of the activities from SS, like tongue baths or gloryhole stuff, into an encounter type if I wanted to. But variety is the spice of life, and I think everything being an encounter might actually be less fun than having some less interactive scenes, too, so those are by no means going to go away.

Sexual styles

I am going to probably remake the sexual style system completely, I think it is misguided. Instead, I will replace it with a system where the styles are basically leveled up independently, and you gain bonuses based on your level in each style. Your overall highest style will probably still be listed as your “main” style and grant some sort of additional bonus, though.

This is a mid- to long-term plan, beyond the scope of the alpha, but I am planning to go back to the drawing board with this instead of continuing on.

Meila

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. People were overall positive about Meila. She wasn't super annoying, and most people thought she improved the game. Some people really liked Meila–like really really liked her :), and a small number of people thought she detracted from the game. One person suggested she was "tsundere Paimon" which could really go either way!

Just to clarify, since the devlog about Meila was patron-only, you will slowly corrupt Meila over time, and her reactions to sex will change. It is also planned for her to have something like a romance path if you choose to pursue her romantically, and she has her own opinions about other romanceable characters which will cause her to be quite involved in some of these.

You can also upset Meila or cause her to despair, but these lead to small emotional outbursts, nothing super long lasting, you can't like permanently ruin your relationship with her. Also, her "corruption" is inevitable. It can happen slow or fast based on your actions, but she will become more interested in sex as time goes on.

The relationship with Meila will be dynamic, but not completely open-ended. I don't want to oversell it, the relationship will progress in a mostly linear way over time, with both characters growing closer and more friendly with each other over time, but it will have a few different flavors and reflect to some extent the way you treat her.

Overall story and game reactions

Reactions to the little bit of story provided has been positive. I know a standard "help a village with bandits" plot won't set anyone's world on fire, but the point is more about establishing the setting, the characters, and the dynamic of our two main characters, and a simple plot helps us do that better than something unique and multifaceted.

A lot of people seemed to like the writing and characterization overall, so that is really great!

Responses to specific comments

I’m gonna screenshot some comments and write responses to them. This isn’t all the comments, and a lot were really nice and encouraging, which is awesome! These ones just contain things I specifically think I should address.

I initially didn’t want clicking or tapping any part of the screen to advance the textboxes because I worried, even with the lockout I already have in place, that players would accidentally click and skip text after selecting an action in combat or sexual encounters. However, I also think this is a good point, so I added a setting to the game’s config to allow clicking anywhere to advance a text box. This is in the game right now, it was added in v0.0.4 (when the free edition released).

I do generally strive to give players choices when appropriate, so I think this is a good candidate for putting the decision in players’ hands. That extra little bit of friction can save you from accidentally skipping content, so I think it’s a good default, but if it annoys you, you can go ahead and opt out of it.

I am going to rewrite the text descriptions for most moves since many are just ripped from SS; I want each move to be two (right now they’re 2-4, with most being three) textboxes long. 

The main thrust of this comment about not knowing who is acting doesn’t seem relevant to me though. The text makes it mostly clear, and you can see when the bars change to clue you in. After the player acts, the partner’s bar is changed, and after the partner acts, the player's bar is changed. I don’t think I need to signpost this more, but do let me know if you think I should.

Turning combat into sex might become a thing eventually, I am envisioning some sort of lust then denial system that can make an enemy eventually just surrender from blue balls :). I think Fangs’ description is pretty clear, but I can try to reword it. Mouseovers, sure. Redoing menus: maybe but not in the alpha.

Early deflections are intended to be exploitable, and as mentioned earlier, magic attacks will probably change how OP deflection ends up being in the long run. That said, early deflections are probably a little too good right now, and I may increase their MP cost. I don’t really want to introduce a ring for early deflections around the ring for perfect deflections, but that is an option if early deflections start dominating the game.

I do intend to add accessories. There will be two slots, upper body and lower body, and you’ll be able to equip one of each. Upper body accessories will do things like enhance deflections, criticals, dagger attacks, and even some spells, while lower body accessories will focus on things like evasion, MP regen, HP, defense, etc. I’m splitting these into two groups instead of letting players just pick any two accessories to prevent certain broken combinations.

But yes, while cosmetics won’t affect gameplay, there will be more gear slots added in the future, but probably not in the alpha versions, so this is a mid- to long-term plan.

They mean fangs when they say claws (I assume). Easy mistake to make.

So for this, I actually think this is just a non-optimal rotation. A better rotation would be 2-3 lance, 1-2 fangs, finishing with a cleave. Lance doesn’t get the bonus after the first, but it’s cheaper, has a decent crit rate, and inflicts bonus wounds on crits, and is as efficient as fangs at inflicting wounds between 10 and 25 wounds even without critting, and for less MP.

Of course, I’ve been playing the game for dozens and dozens of hours at this point, so what’s clear to me won’t be to everyone, but I do still think this is operator error; don’t get too attached to a single rotation, there could be a more efficient one! Also, the expertise rank 1 passive in black magic, which you start with unlocked, gives end of round wound damage a small chance to inflict additional wounds, so you can actually gain wounds at the end of the round instead of losing them or break even, if you’re lucky. That’s not gonna happen every time, but if you get lucky with that and with lance crits, you can get away with doing only two lance casts to get to 25+ wounds instead of three. In my experience this is a pretty regular occurrence, though of course your luck will cause it to vary.

This is an interesting idea, and I do plan to incorporate deflections and other interactions into tidal attacks in the future.

There’s also a mechanic that’s coming in an alpha update called spirit deflection that you guys haven’t seen yet which is more of a mashing minigame. As you mash, you grow the inner circle, reducing the attack’s damage, and if you go past the target circle, the attack’s damage is reduced to 0 and you siphon MP from it. This will not be a super common type of attack, though, compared to physical attacks.

While running out of MP is a drag, this is by design. Make sure to get some flasks and store up some...ahem...some nut. The dagger is good for a tight spot, and some daggers will have unique effects that can be useful, but as a source of damage, if you are finding yourself having to whittle down an enemy with just your dagger, that is, in a way, the game punishing you.

Of course, maybe a "give up" option should be presented, or something like that, in case you'd rather just lose instead of slogging through it, so I'll probably do that once the defeat systems are in place.

A few comments in regard to Meila:

You got it! 

Seriously though, a sexual relationship (of a kind) with Meila will be possible, and I think it’s gonna be weird and wacky and hot. I already think the scene where you masturbate with her is my favorite in the game right now.

Yeah, this is a good observation, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that’s what’s basically intended. As you “corrupt” Meila to be more of a horndog, she’s corrupting you to be more humane/human. Why that is, and where we’ll end up, is spoiler territory though. This is great that this came through a bit in the writing, though, even just hints of it.

And finally, some other responses I have to some general comments:

I’m glad the hint (?) button has been a good way to inject some onboarding without going over the top. And yeah, I don’t think there’s anything I can do about the delay in assets for right now, there's like a limit or cap on how many things can be rendered at one time, and it's not a system resources issue, it's built into web browsers. There's like a set number of threads images can use and that's it, after you fill them all you just have to wait for one to be free, even if system resources are available to render more stuff.

I 100% agree about the art though and would add cocks to the things I think Ecchi draws well! I think the art is super sexy, though, like damn. It really elevates the experience, and Hex is definitely focused on and around its art in a way SS just isn’t. The art informs my writing, as Ecchi usually creates the art for characters or scenes before I write them, and that allows the art to, in my opinion, almost be the center of the game.

I am so happy to hear this because I do feel that this was the overall impression. I was actually the most worried about combat not feeling right or being received well, but everyone seemed to think it was pretty good. Even when critical, people tended to praise the overall concept and mechanics, so that’s just awesome; it means we’re on the right track!

The game is sort of in media res so it's already been a little bit of time. We'll get flashbacks, though.

Alchemy is not coming to this game, but most of the potions will be replaced by spells you’ll be able to learn for skill points. Everything that would require social skills or potions in SS is going to either be something you can just do, or something that costs some amount of MP in Hex. This is a design decision I made before even breaking ground on the game; to center the game around MP instead of ingredients and potions and stat rolls.

Futanari spells will be added to the game at some point, but probably not in the alpha. I am excited to get some futa stuff in the game, though!!

Yes! This is coming in an update to the alpha. Losing to normal enemies of human intelligence will either cost you some G, or you can seduce them to escape without being robbed. Other possibilities may also exist.

More feedback is always welcome!

There is more feedback out there in the form of comments and ratings on Itch.io and F95zone, plus the discord and of course, I'm sure some more filled out feedback forms will come in too! So I may do another of these if I feel it necessary!

Overall, I honestly couldn't be happier with the reception the game has gotten. I think Hex will be something special in time, and I have so many plans and ideas for awesome story moments and for sexy activities and scenes, it's really hard not to tease some of the things I have in store for you, but I'm gonna stay disciplined!

More Hex content is coming soon, probably next month! I plan to release an update to add the game's first dungeon and second story quest. That will be after the SS patch set to come out sometime before this month is over (probably). Working on two games at once is a lot, but realistically, the alpha is going to be dormant for a bit after a few updates until after SS is complete, so just know that ahead of time!

Anyway, thanks for reading this post. I'll have more to share soon!