god im conflicted. the True Ending for pokemo nascent has a lot of cool stuff written for it but its also bullshit for the party to put the pieces together and id be compromising a lot of its thematics if i just made it easier directly.
@raindare im thinking aobut how this could be handled. i wonder if theres a way to implement save scumming into the story so we can first discover the requirements and then carry them out. like in [Undertale] or cave story
@raindare or maybe an [Epitaph] for the players to solve to determine the steps required
@voyagerwitch the problem is the epitaph is a riddle someone wanted solved, ultimately.
@raindare that doesn't mean it has to be an in-universe riddle made for that purpose. remember that fay is a character that exists.
@voyagerwitch fay is too much of a dumbass to give them an epitaph about this
@raindare its a loose comparison. little vague hints and hearsay. i don't think it's necessary that the party finds their way to the true ending on their own; it's almost more interesting to me if the miracle ultimately happens because of the non-adventurers.
@voyagerwitch oh its not necessary. its just that the way is so well-hidden that its unlikely for there to be much good help.
@raindare i mean, taht's fair, but like... there are people who are very strong and knowledgeable and with some degree of goodwill that we already know, too. quillaia. uxie. tempel.
@raindare itd be almost impossible for someone intentionally to find azure's grave, too, but one day a diglett might just dig a tunnel right through it by accident. things happen, and towers fall.
@voyagerwitch that's true. however, this isn't a "one day" thing. it requires the party, this party, to do specific stuff. otherwise, it would've happened before or will happen later... and that's hardly a "true ending" for them when the party is the real heroes, right?
@raindare i'm thinking about our party in actuality and i'm not sure "the real heroes" describes them in any way, shape, or form. they're more like a group of devotees among many groups of devotees. if anything distinguishes them it's the number of legendaries and mythicals, but i'm not sure i'm comfortable with that being the determining factor here and neither would you be, i think, so i doubt that's it.
@voyagerwitch i mean from a meta, dungeon world-esque perspective. there are many other votary parties, but as witches, we know these are The Ones.
@voyagerwitch i mean, its possible that theyll fail or fall short, but i think its unlikely that most of the players would be satisfied leaving it at that. though i just realized something important too:
@voyagerwitch theres a BIG metagame clue that implicates the true ending, the party tries to 100% stuff anyway, and if the party is totally lost as to where to go with that, you can just start spending AP to learn that.
@raindare thats fair. and all we have to do to get that AP is keep fucking up, which we're good at.
@voyagerwitch (theres an entire floor devoted to the true ending so sooner or later if the party doesnt find it Theyll Know just by looking at where they havent been.)
@raindare oh shit i bet that's why keldross knows shit
@raindare CLARIS KILLED HIM CAUSE HE KNEW!!!!
@voyagerwitch "dont be a fucking snitch" claris and bay say in unison as they kill the same person
@raindare persona 5 critical kill screen with that text
@voyagerwitch which of the two would even have that
@raindare its a team animation. like with the velvet room attendants
@voyagerwitch thats gay.
@raindare if you re-fuse claris and bay you get the ultimate liar who incidentally has really good stats and knows mamudoon
@voyagerwitch mudodyne
@voyagerwitch (mudodyne was a real skill in one game)
@raindare we know they're the focus of the story. we don't know that they're the heroes of it. i guess that's a well-established difference of viewpoints between us, though.