[PC][RPG] Legends of an Otherworld

[namida]

Okay, I was hoping to have the next dungeon (in terms of what's completed, not what's released) ready before another update, but with Crash Bandicoot: N Sane Trilogy coming out tomorrow, I don't see much work happening for a while, and at the moment I've only got the dungeon maybe 40% complete.

So, here's the V019 update, without that dungeon, but still wtih a couple of new ones that weren't in the previous releases (and the stuff that was accessible but crashed in V017x now works fine!).

Aside from this extra content, there have been a couple more very minor rebalancing touches, a few bugfixes, and two major changes to game mechanics:
- You can now save anywhere (from the menu). This does not recover your HP. Save crystals still exist, and do recover your HP, but they are now much rarer.
- An option has been added (in the battle commands menu) to turn the turn order display on or off. This does not take up the character's turn, just in case anyone was worried about that. It should default to on, but it's easy to change if it doesn't.

Fresh install: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpivtcoawqo7sy3/LoaO_V019_Fresh.zip?dl=1
Upgrade: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pnn8l8xod0b26q0/LoaO_V019_Upgrade.zip?dl=1

[Proxima]

So I feel this is a good point for me to pause and give my own feedback on the game so far

First and most importantly, I really love this game. I don't have much experience of RPGs -- the only ones I've played to completion are FF9 and Chrono Trigger, both a long time ago. This has the same elements of fun -- exploring dungeons, mazes and puzzles; beating up monsters in a simple turn-based combat system; developing your characters through level progression, equipment and new abilities; making choices for how to develop, with both immediate and long-term strategic implications; easily defeating monsters that had been a huge threat earlier in the game But this game adds an extra dimension, in that most of the bosses are really challenging and force the player to observe the boss's mechanics and weak points, and come up with a strategy to take them out. Sometimes this takes the form of single "aha" insights that are really satisfying when they click (as with that one boss in Taspia...); other times it's a gradual process of improving one's strategy and making further observations and tweaks, as with DT. It's been a huge amount of fun so far, and I really hope that's come out in my video series.

It's also a pleasure to be working with a developer who takes feedback seriously and improves those parts of the game that are less fun, like a change namida made just now to the second-last boss I've reached, which will make that fight much more fun and less frustrating.

Now I'm going to go into detail about parts of the game, and mechanics you might not learn for a while, so everything from now on may contain spoilers up to the part I've reached, namely the "W" (1 word, 6 letters) boss. Also, there may be some duplication with what I've already said in my videos; but it's more convenient for namida to have everything in a post like this than to have to rewatch 25 hours of video footage if he wants to look over my feedback again.

General comments

Title: Honestly, I prefer Curse of Saria over Legends of an Otherworld. The latter is very generic and doesn't give any clue as to the game's content; it could apply to virtually any RPG. I get the impression, from what you've said, that you dropped Curse of Saria because it was meant to refer to an aspect of the plot that you've dropped; but it's always seemed clear enough to me. In the early part of the game, we learn that several people from Saria have gone through the same experience as our heroines, disappearing and losing their memories; and there are unanswered questions surrounding this that I assumed would be resolved later in the plot. (Why does the Metaspe connect with Saria? Why does everyone attach so much importance to Cameron?)

Character names: Aisha and Alicia are definitely too similar, as are Lena and Leanna. (A pity, because other than the similarity, those are all names I like.) While less of a problem, I would also avoid Alicia/Amanda and Leanna/Brianna.

Boss names: I'm disappointed by how many bosses have a generic name that is just the type of monster they are, like "Golem" and "Ice elemental". Not that bosses necessarily have to have proper names; an abstract noun can be good if it's unusual and evocative. "Transient" is an excellent name.

Story and characterisation: There have been a few points where I've been disappointed at how the playable characters react to events.
-- Ben. There was no reaction at all to the fact that, for the first time in the game, a party member just killed a human opponent. Indeed, I was sure he'd just run off and would reappear, until Alicia referred to his death later on. I'd expect Tara and Leanna to be horrified and get nervous around Alicia; then she refuses to explain and walks off; and Harley calms them down.
-- Craig and Brianna. Similarly, Tara and Leanna should be more upset that they had to kill a girl around their own age. You could even have different dialogue depending on whether the player uses the Zombie/Regen trick; if they do, one of the characters could say "Well, it was really her own magic that killed her...."
-- Cult attack on Saria. This is Tara and Leanna's hometown, and they must have had friends and family; yet they only seem to care about Cameron. Sure, Tara has amnesia at this point, but on meeting Lena, she could ask about whether there are any other family members.
-- Yuki and Sasha. Sasha decides to fight Alicia to the death because "there's no choice", but the pier is right behind them. This dialogue and fight would pack much more of an emotional punch if it went something like this:
-- -- Sasha tells Alicia to stand aside, they have to fight the cult to get the Red Shard or the whole world could be in danger.
-- -- Alicia, still furious at her town being destroyed over a fairy tale, doesn't even tell Sasha she has the shard.
-- -- Sasha gets impatient and says "Stand aside, or we'll have to kill you."
-- -- Alicia shouts something like "Go on then, kill me like you killed Mitana and the others!"
-- -- The realisation dawns that Alicia isn't going to stand aside and they do actually have to fight her. One of them (maybe Yuki) says "Looks like we really have to do this. I'm sorry."
-- -- When Alicia meets their ghosts (earlier in the game) she could tell them she had the shard all along, and that would convince them of her sincerity. The player then wonders what the shard is and why it's important, and this gets answered in the flashback later.
(Also, I really don't think Alicia should swear as much as she does, considering her age.)

Dungeon layouts and mapping

Maps tend to be rather plain, with only one type of floor and walls, and few distinguishing features.

Maze dungeons, like the forest, the cave under Sturges, and the ice forest, were fun for me because I played them "normally". But having only random encounters means the player could trivialise the dungeons by escaping from every encounter (or equipping No Encounters once it's available), allowing them to get a lot of loot for free (or almost free, considering First Weapon, but he's not that hard). It's even possible to clear out the underwater temple and get a lot of good loot before completing the mountain.

I wouldn't recommend dealing with this by removing No Encounters, since that makes it much more comfortable to revisit old areas (and the ability appears at just the right time for that). Also, escaping from everything is still possible. Instead, I'd suggest having more touch encounters, as you did in the Nom Plant swamp and the Transient Lite dungeon, and never again after that.

Some maps had too little variety of random encounters, particularly the Nom Plant swamp and the mountain. (The mountain has about as much variety as most maps, but it's also much larger, and it repeats some monsters from the Sturges caves.)

Game mechanics

Save-everywhere: I've been on the RPG Maker forums for a while, and general consensus is that save-everywhere is good because some people only have time to play the game in short bursts, or could be interrupted at any time.

For myself, being in the lucky position of having large chunks of uninterrupted time, I enjoyed the challenge of restricted saving, particularly for the forest gravestone optional dungeon, where the monsters were much tougher and I knew there was always a risk I wouldn't make it out. Still, the player always has the option of challenging themselves to only save at crystals if they like, so save-everywhere is a good way of having it both ways. You could give the player an option to explicitly turn save-everywhere off, but I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Abilities and AP: Early on I was a bit frustrated about how far off some of the AP goals seemed, but later it became apparent that the system is well-balanced. For instance, at the point (around Corgent) that I had the choice between learning Haste or Regen with Harley, it would have made the game a lot easier if AP costs were lowered enough that I could already afford both. I haven't looked through the changes in the new version, but it looks like you've only made small tweaks rather than drastically lowering costs, so I'm happy with that.

Alicia should have more learnable abilities, and Mix should cost less.

Maybe consider more abilities for other party members? It's a bit weird that Harley still has a lot of good stuff to learn when everyone else has pretty much run out. And depending on how long the game goes on, more abilities at Level 45 might not be such a bad idea.

I like the fact that I have to choose which four members to receive AP, as this is an interesting strategical decision. But it means Ivy and Lena don't get much of a show in random encounters Also, I would like knocked-out members to receive AP, particularly for the Bolder crapshoot. (If you don't like the idea of doing this for all encounters, maybe just do it for bosses?)

Items selling for 1 Kx: I agree with Nepster, it's weird that upgraded versions of items sell for less than the originals. Also, it means there's no incentive to try for steals, except from a few types of monster. (It's true that post-Corgent, the player has the option of grinding for money; but since I avoid grinding, I've found myself being tight for money most of the time.)

But my biggest gripe with the 1 Kx pricetag is that it gives away whether or not an item will ever be sold in shops.

Also, "Kx" doesn't work for me as a currency name, unless you tell the player (as early as Caralint) what it stands for.

Osmosis: I would definitely prefer draining enemies' MP to prevent them casting. I don't think this would spoil any encounters; random encounters don't last long enough for it to be viable, and bosses could have enough MP that this strategy doesn't trivialise them; late-game bosses could even replenish their MP with Faith. If you made it a viable strategy, it could be a fun way to tackle certain fights, and an alternative strategy that would let the player get around certain roadblock bosses.

Escaping: I agree with Nepster, it's weird that Escape and Flee have dedicated tutorial battles (when several other game mechanics don't), yet there are almost no random encounters that are actually dangerous enough to warrant them. Stealth Snake (the tutorial battle for Escape) reappears as the first boss, and is easy to defeat even if you haven't levelled up. Zantetsuken (the tutorial battle for Flee) is laughable. The only random encounter to which my response was "Escape immediately!" was Blade x 2 in the invisible maze. Their physical attack one-shotted any party member at that point, and, there being two of them, they could typically kill all my party members before I could take them down. (Thus, Vince's comment on the Zantetsuken would make much more sense if it was a party of two.) Stealth Snake doesn't necessarily need changing; the player will almost certainly level before reaching the boss, and it's satisfying to take down a monster that was highlighted earlier as being particularly dangerous.

I don't know whether you've changed this in the rebalancing update, but I agree that Bloob is not a battle you'd want to Escape, as it's completely non-threatening, it just takes for ever to take it down.

Boss-by-boss breakdown

I don't have feedback on every boss; most of them are fun and about the right level of challenge.

Stealth Snake: Appropriately easy for the first boss, and a good test of what you've learned. The first dungeon is all about knowing which enemies to use Dark Attack on, and which to use Silence Attack on; for the boss, you just need to use both.

Phantom 1: This felt like a rehash of Stealth Snake, with no new features.

Craig and Brianna 1: Great boss, a nice step up in difficulty but not too much of one.

Meganom: Unlike Nepster, I took out the Nom Plants first. This was also a good boss fight.

Spirit: Mostly fine, but "Drain"-spamming got really annoying.

Transient: I like the puzzle of analysing the attack pattern, and defending before Trauma. However, even having solved this, the boss is likely to be too difficult for the levels you have when you reach it, forcing the player to grind. I'm not sure the best way to deal with this (and I'm going to have a go at starting a new game and attempting it at low levels, to get more of a feel for it), but even having five Softening Sand instead of four would make a difference.

Craig and Brianna 2: Awesome fight, one of my favourites in the game.

Grand Obbie: Seems impossible to survive Disaster at the levels you're likely to have before re-entering the Metaspe, when this fight becomes unavailable for a long time. When it's next available (after Dark Transient) you're about the right level for Disaster, but the entire rest of the fight (and the dungeon) is extremely easy. So, Disaster seems to be the part that needs changing. I rather like Nepster's suggestion of replacing it with Deathly Rain.

Microsient dungeon: This is where I gave up the first time I played the game. This time, I had enough AP to give Leanna Breaker Attack. Split Attack is also excellent for this dungeon. But it seems likely to be a huge roadblock if the player has made bad choices for which abilities to get. Again, giving more Softening Sand would be a lifesaver.

Craig and Brianna 3: Very hard until I got the idea to use Zombie, which was a lovely "aha" moment. But the fight was disappointingly easy after that. As I said above, I'd prefer it if draining Brianna's MP was a viable strategy, both so there's another way around the roadblock if the player doesn't click onto the intended solution, and because the fight would still be difficult.

Dark Returner: A very nice challenge. This boss really depended on understanding the mechanics and working out a strategy.

Dark Transient: Awesome. Probably my favourite boss of the game so far. This one really tested your understanding and strategy, and since every action counted, it was nail-biting all the way to the end.

Test of Knowledge: Okay idea, but the repeated questions were annoying. "Use something helpful" should totally have accepted Regen. I'm sure you could think up some harder questions for this.

Bolder: Pretty hilarious, since buying Omni Resist for everyone completely neutralised it. The finale, where Explode takes out a random party member and deprives them of AP, was really annoying.

Aisha: Long and tedious, and then she makes it worse near the end by casting Wall.

Yuki and Sasha: You've already addressed my complaint here, which was that it should be easier to get Sensor Spheres. With that out of the way, it's a pretty good puzzle boss.

First Weapon: Awesome! In spite of the very high HP, this was a really tense and enjoyable fight -- partly because so much was riding on it, whether I'd be able to get out of the cave and enjoy my loot, or have to go back to an earlier save.

Warrior Fish / Golem: Simple. Both can only single-target, so they can be taken out with physical attacks and reviving any knocked-out party members. Golem's very high defence makes this laborious, so I looked around and spotted the Zombie+Regen weakness.

Phantom 4: Excellent boss. But much harder than Warrior Fish and Golem, so why does it give less AP?

Craig and Brianna 4: A tough challenge. You've already addressed my main complaint (the unfairness of Craig's instant death attack) so all that remains is the question of whether, after the changes, the fight is reasonable for a party that hasn't done the cave dungeon. And I can't really answer that one

Wraith: Interesting unusual mechanics. I like the way that, counterintuitively, remaining at low HP is useful, and that this is achievable with Phoenix Dust, pretty cheap to obtain. Nepster points out that it's vulnerable to Regen, so perhaps that should be removed?

[Nepster]

Several comments on Proxima's suggestions

I mostly agree with his points in "General comments".

Maze dungeons, like the forest, the cave under Sturges, and the ice forest, were fun for me because I played them "normally". But having only random encounters means the player could trivialise the dungeons by escaping from every encounter (or equipping No Encounters once it's available), allowing them to get a lot of loot for free (or almost free, considering First Weapon, but he's not that hard). It's even possible to clear out the underwater temple and get a lot of good loot before completing the mountain.

I wouldn't recommend dealing with this by removing No Encounters, since that makes it much more comfortable to revisit old areas (and the ability appears at just the right time for that). Also, escaping from everything is still possible. Instead, I'd suggest having more touch encounters, as you did in the Nom Plant swamp and the Transient Lite dungeon, and never again after that.

What exactly do you suggest in your last sentence?
Anyway, perhaps one could even remove "No Encounters" and the ability to half the number of encounters. Of course one would need some way to be able to comfortable visit old areas. So why not disable random encounters entirely once the following two conditions are met:
- The main objective in that area is achieved. Mostly this would mean that the last boss in the area is defeated.
- All party members have reached the expected level set for this area. Of course this "expected level" should not be set as the average level when starting the dungeon, but to a point where the random fights mostly become pointless.

(The mountain has about as much variety as most maps, but it's also much larger, and it repeats some monsters from the Sturges caves.)

This depends on whether one has already done the Sturges caves. The difficulty of the repeats was pretty spot-on for my party (at least if they get some small resistances to status effects). But of course I don't have anything against more different monsters.

Abilities and AP: [...]

Given that that Cure is already a rather powerful curing spell, one probably doesn't even need Curona. The two cure spells afterwards (that I saw in Proxima's videos) seem entirely pointless. But I would like to have an all-party healing spell, that adds a relatively low amount of HP, similar to the Potion Jug. Ivy's Blessing should still recover much more HP (once you get to a level where you get this healing spell), but of course has the disadvantage to need at least two turns.

Mechanics that Proxima might not be aware of yet

I think the problem of having only few things to learn after level 40 isn't that much of a problem with the possibility to start whole new "professions". But with only 4 equippable abilities, the ability slots are far too precious to me to waste on "Use Blue Magic" or "Use Technique". Blue Magic is one of the weaker abilities due to the charge time and I have already two users of Techniques. Only Black Magic (and perhaps White Magic) might be useful in certain boss battles, but I wouldn't bother with them for random encounters. So I would suggest making them consumable items. Then they would be a lot more useful.

But my biggest gripe with the 1 Kx pricetag is that it gives away whether or not an item will ever be sold in shops.

This is in fact not totally correct. I have found one item, that can be bought in a shop, but only sold for 1 Kx.

Phantom 4: Excellent boss. But much harder than Warrior Fish and Golem, so why does it give less AP?

Because it is vulnerable to Regen, which does 9999 damage per turn and makes this fight trivial.

[Proxima]

What exactly do you suggest in your last sentence?

Touch encounters: RPG Maker jargon for visible events that trigger encounters when touched, like the Nom Plants and Transient Lites.

Anyway, perhaps one could even remove "No Encounters" and the ability to half the number of encounters. Of course one would need some way to be able to comfortable visit old areas. So why not disable random encounters entirely once the following two conditions are met:

Interesting idea, but it doesn't fully meet my objection. Since one can escape from any random encounter, dungeons that are just mazes with no puzzles and no touch encounters can be trivialised, allowing players to make off with all the loot for free.

* * *

A couple more points. I won't spoiler-tag these, as they refer to the very beginning of the game.

In the early game, Tara and Leanna don't have any tools other than "attack" or "attack with chance of status". There's some strategy in when to apply status, but the early game is still fairly monotonous. One possibility would be to give one of them a single-target ATK buff and the other a DEF buff; there is then a bit more strategy in that you have to decide whether to use these buffs, or try to inflict status, or just go all-out with attacks.

One of the tutorial NPCs in Caralint describes undead as "like having a permanent Zombie status", but this is before Zombie status has appeared or been explained. I'd prefer it if he just explained that being undead makes healing spells hurt, and then later, explain Zombie status as having the same effects as being undead. (Possibly, this explanation should appear in the description of Amanda's Curse, which is the first time Zombie status appears. Or introduce a monster that can cast Zombie in the forest.)

[ccexplore]

Since one can escape from any random encounter, dungeons that are just mazes with no puzzles and no touch encounters can be trivialised, allowing players to make off with all the loot for free.

It's a reasonable suggestion to compensate for this by adding more touch encounters like you suggested.  Personally I think a player who is over-reliant on escaping random encounters will already be missing out a lot (the random encounters are arguably a core part of the RPG experience, and you gain a lot of levels, experiences, etc. rewards from such encounters, which in turn affects your ability to deal with bosses), so trivializing the dungeon would probably just be yet another way they are ruining the game for themselves with their choices.

I would only add that if an area may be forced to be revisited in a later part of the game (but without introducing anything new in terms of monsters etc. so it's just basically forced walking), the part of the game when it is getting revisited, should preferably have much reduced touch encounters compared to earlier, since at that point it's arguably no longer about tackling the dungeon.

=========================

And +1 to Proxima's opinion on new vs old title.  Surely we can find a better title that is not so bland- and generic-sounding, but still accurate to the game (which was the main reason why the old title was discontinued).

[Proxima]

And +1 to Proxima's opinion on new vs old title.  Surely we can find a better title that is not so bland- and generic-sounding, but still accurate to the game (which was the main reason why the old title was discontinued).

I should mention that I completely sympathise with it being difficult to come up with a good title. The Descent of King Hesper, the currently ongoing DROD level set that I'm organising, went untitled for two and a half years before I came up with that one.

[namida]

Released a V019A update that fixes a bug that wasn't allowing save-anywhere on some save files. Links are the same as before, I just updated the ZIP files. If you've got the up-to-date one, it will have a text file mentioning this.



Found a bug that may affect some players. If you've beaten a very unusual boss fight, with a 9-letter name starting with M, and what you think you need to do next seems to be disabled...

Spoiler

That balloon near the boat shouldn't be there. Pretend it's not, at least for now.

It is possible to go about events in such an order that this bug never occurs, but I suspect the majority of players will do things in the order that does lead to this, as that's the order the game pushes you to do them in.

I don't see this as worthy of releasing another update just to fix, so I'm simply pointing it out. It'll be fixed in the next update.

[Nepster]

A few more bugs, with mild spoilers

1) If one has the Sensor equipped, it is not removed when updating to the new version. I sold it now, so this is a low-priority bug.
2) The blue-haired NPC in Sysona's pub says: "[...] You'll get the AP ba too. [...]" It seems there is a "ck" missing.
3) If one starts the balloon in the inn of Taspia, one gets placed at Nyatta on the world map. Similarly for other town combinations. Sometimes it looks like that you start with the balloon, where you landed previously, not where you entered the balloon now.
4) If you return to repaired Saria via the Metaspe, you still access the destroyed Saria. Note that the east jail exit is blocked, but the west one isn't.
5) I had now several fights, where Harley never participated but got EXP. This is not caused by any of his abilities, but I have no clue what else could cause that. It works perfectly fine for all other characters as far as I can tell.

Edit: Added one more bug to the list.

[namida]

Another bug. Read only once you've either fought (not necesserially defeated) a Specimen, or obtained a Lab Key, unless you don't care about mechanics spoilers (there are no plot spoilers).

Spoiler

The rooms containing the Specimens should not be accessible until the Lab Key is obtained. Because they currently open even without the key, the key appears to be useless, but that's its intended function. This is relatively minor - the key is obtained in the same area, and if you can even access a Specimen fight, you can almost certianly manage anything you'd have to fight to get the key.

While this one is a tad more significant, I still feel it can wait until the next update.



The bug Nepster mentioned, and Proxima also noted in one video, ...

Spoiler

... specifically, that you get Tara's graphic rather than a boat graphic after the Leviathan fight ...

... is now also fixed. This was quite a tricky one; I'm still not entirley sure what caused it, I just found a workaround that seems to work.

Anyone who the previous one isn't a spoiler for, has probably at least *guessed* at (if not outright discovered) anything that this will spoil

While there's no confirmation since no one's defeated him yet, I suspect the same thing will occur after the Suzaku fight too, so I implemented the workaround there too.

[namida]

An idea I'm considering and would like input on. I'm not sure how to spoiler-tag this in a way that makes it clear what it's about without the warning itself being a spoiler (it is only mechanics spoilers, not plot ones, though; but it is possibly one of the largest mechanics spoilers in the game), but I can say that this won't be a spoiler for either Nepster or Proxima. It's possible to play through all current content without this ever becoming a not-spoiler though, so read with caution. If you've completed the content in the current demo and have been making a point of finding optional stuff, this will probably not be a spoiler for you.

Spoiler

Specifically, this is about the abilities that let you use extra types of skills (eg. Use Technique, Use Special).

I'm considering adding a dedicated extra equip slot just for these. This extra slot would not be usable for anything else; and likewise, these abilities would not be possible to equip in a normal slot.

The upside to this would be that you don't need to use up an equipment slot to add an extra skill type; the downside is that you can no longer have two extra skill types on a single character at the same time (though you could still switch which type they have, including with in-battle equipment switching - although this could also be reconsidered, with it instead becoming a permanent thing that you only get to choose once). Of course, every character would still permanently have their normal skill type.

To those who are wondering about how I can do this after I mentioned that I can't add extra ability slots later in the game - it's very easy to add an extra permanent, always-existing slot like this. It's just not very easy to dynamically add extra slots mid-game. (The idea of adding slots mid-game is still something I would like to look into, but I doubt it will happen unless / until I do a full remake with a custom engine.) And we can now scratch that because I figured out a way to do it! Of course, that doesn't mean for sure I will, but it does mean I can at least consider this option now - possibly still in combination with the above.

[Proxima]

Thoughts on the above. Same spoiler warning applies. (Don't read unless, at the very least, you've reached and thoroughly explored Sysona.)

Spoiler

We've just been discussing this in chat, but I want to set out my thoughts in a post anyway, to make them clearer.

Around the time you get Trainer abilities, equipment slots become very tight; and even more so when Turbo abilities are purchasable. I want to make the most of these by having EXP Turbo constantly on, and AP Turbo for those party members for whom AP is still relevant, and keep the Trainers equipped. That leaves only one slot, which pretty much has to go to HP+100%. So I don't get to try out a lot of things that might be cool, like Double Cut (I tried this for a bit, but then had to unequip it).

Also -- as Nepster mentioned, and I referred to glancingly in my video series -- it's possible to turn the Trainer abilities into a complete game-breaker by constantly switching them around so that multiple party members benefit each level. (Then again, the player can always break the game if they want, so perhaps it's not so important to consider this.)

There are a few different ways you might deal with this:

(1) Leave this as-is, just as something the player has to work out the best way around.

(2) Don't sell Turbo abilities, keep it at just one EXP Turbo and one AP Turbo in the whole game. (Rejected in the chat discussion.)

(3) As suggested above, have a dedicated equip slot for the "use skills" abilities. In this case, I would suggest also making the Trainer abilities belong to this new slot. That would prevent stacking multiple Trainers on the next character to level up, but would allow combining Trainers with four other abilities.

It's true that it would prevent stacking two "use skills" abilities; but I don't see many players wanting to do that in any case, as it would take for ever to get enough AP on one character to make it worthwhile.

(4) Instead of making "new type of skills" abilities take up a slot, make them consumable items. This would mean you'd have to make the choice once and for all, but, again, you're unlikely to do anything else because of the AP system. And similarly, you could make Trainer abilities consumable items, which would prevent abuse and free up an equip slot. The disadvantage is that it's much harder to make once-and-for-all choices for Trainers, especially since the player should learn about "use skills" abilities some time after finding the Trainers. So I'm not wild about this option.

(5) Also as suggested above, keep the initial four equip slots (or even go down to three) and allow the player to acquire up to six later on. I like namida's suggestion (from chat) that at certain points in the game, you meet an NPC who sells the additional slots, but only one per party member, so you have to find a second NPC later (or a third, if you start with three slots). I'd suggest locating these NPCs at:
3 -> 4: Mysterious shop on the road to Taspia
4 -> 5: Hunting club
5 -> 6: Sysona

Namida suggests leaving 6 until the entrance to the final dungeon, but I think that would be a mistake. Sysona is where the player really wants it (EXP Turbo is purchasable, all Trainers can be found before then), and depriving the player of the slot just means they can't fit in things that would be interesting to try out. So, in short, this is probably my favourite suggestion, followed by (3).

Counterargument: In my playthrough, I found the Transient boss very difficult and needed all four slots to get past it. Possibly this boss could be rebalanced to be more appropriate for a party with only three slots.

[namida]

Regarding Proxima's run,

Spoiler

I was quite surprised to see a brute-force strategy work out well on the Specimens. But you should have looked at their status resistances... they're vunerable to both Sleep and Silence.

[namida]

As I mentioned in chat, the only thing left before I can make the next release is some more testing.

Progress:

Spoiler tagged just in case. Only details it reveals are how many new optional bosses, how many new storyline bosses, and how many new areas are in the next update (it doesn't reveal anything about *what* these new things are, just quantities).

New optional bosses:
-- 5 of 5 tested for correct event behaviour surrounding the battle
-- 5 of 5 tested for correct AI functionality in-battle
-- 5 of 5 tested for difficulty balance

New storyline bosses:
-- 4 of 4 tested for correct event behaviour surrounding the battle
-- 4 of 4 tested for correct AI functionality in-battle
-- 4 of 4 tested for difficulty balance

New areas:
-- 1 of 2 tested for correct event behaviour etc
-- 1 of 2 tested for difficulty balance

Other:
-- Nothing else remains to be tested

Current ETA: Within the next 24 hours

[namida]

V020 update is here at last!

This adds both some new storyline content and some new optional content. There's also bugfixes (as usual), as well as that you now start with three slots, but throughout the course of the game can expand that to six. There have also been some minor tweaks, as usual.

Fresh install: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5xm0jxnlcmsf9y/LoaO_V020_Fresh.zip?dl=1
Upgrade: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vpxpn1m0c5hnvnc/LoaO_V020_Upgrade.zip?dl=1

[Proxima]

A couple of issues:

Spoiler

On loading an old save, the message should tell players where to get 3->4 ability slots, so they don't have to look over the whole world. (I know where to get 4->5, since we discussed it in chat, but it seems I have to get 3->4 first to unlock it....)

With the NPC who offers to refund AP, if you hit Esc, she will react as if you selected someone.

Outside the haunted mansion in Taspia, it's possible to get stuck for a very long time if the slow-moving NPC blocks you. I suggest adding more space.