Re: Negotiation/RNG
The money requests aren't as evil as they look, at least sometimes. As you get to know the various demons, you may notice differences in the wording they sometimes use for money requests: these differences can indicate how amicable they will be to attempts to haggle them down, which can make a huge difference if you are haggling regularly and at the right times. (Of course, I'm not a great writer, so it's entirely possible I only imagine it is possible to figure this out from their dialogue.
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Wording can also be useful to examine for item requests: Demons use different wording with the requests for items that can indicate how happy they'll be to receive it / how forgiving they'll be if you refuse.
The amounts may still be a bit off though: Credits is (relatively speaking) still a relatively new concept to Demon compared to most of the game, and is probably going to get another pass at the same time I do another pass on Relic Upgrades, since the two are fairly related.
Sacrifice requests are rough. I agree they're probably usually not worth it on mundane demons... but when they come up on a particularly impressive unique or modified demon, that's when they shine, at least from my point of view.
HP requests are basically a level check. Shoggoth grunted at the 24 HP because he was much higher level than you. Granted, it's still better than him getting angry because you refused probably.
Still, I don't disagree there are some RNG elements (or at least, not easily discernable elements) involved. I can experiment with some flavor questions and see how I like them next time I take a swing at negotiation. There are other non-flavor ideas I have for negotiations too, just need to get to it on the list, so to speak.
The in-progress build is a big one, so I can't promise that'll be anytime soon.
Re: Downloads
I initially went with Google Drive because it was one of the low barrier few ways (at the time) to get the game downloadable without Chrome issuing dire warnings about it being an EXE you downloaded from an untrustworthy source. I have itch setup now as getter pointed out (thanks getter!), but still keep the Google Drive links front and center on my blog because I don't want regulars (who are usually the ones who end up there) to get poked about the donation box each time. (I do *want* a donation box, I just don't want to jam it in regular players' faces every time I have an update. That probably makes no sense to anyone but me, but I'm rolling with it.
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That all aside, I do agree Google Drive's interface is capital T Terrible though. I wish to heck it was better. Sorry about that.
Re: MaxHP things
You may not have been seeing immunity so much as the AI deciding not to bother trying. Akateko are a bit infamous for being willing to punch if their HP/MaxHP drains aren't going to work out for them. If the target is weak to Impact (as Artemis and Turdak both are), this will only make it even more likely that they'll just bump attack instead of using spells. (Not having weak to Impact might be why they were still willing to try draining you even through resistance... they are much better at Magic than Strength, after all.)
MaxHP draining is definitely powerful stuff.
I won't claim I've got the balance perfect on it by any means, but it's there as an extension of one of Demon's main philosophies: "If the enemy can do it, the player should get to too if they want." Allowing MaxHP draining by players is a relatively rare and unexplored territory balance-wise. I don't agree it's necessary to have a chance, but I will agree it's probably one of the more straightforward ways to improve your chances.
Overcoming enemy healing is definitely important. MaxHP drain is one way of doing it, but I think there are plenty of others: Silence, Mind magic, Infection, high DPS, beating them on the SP front, etc.
Re: Lioth
Lioth has been the most hated unique in the game literally from the moment I added him.
Madevra's a close second probably, but Lioth still holds the crown I think.
Re: Codex summoning
Codex summoning would be messy since it operates in three different modes depending on your option settings, but I could see expanding the coffin size as a thing perhaps, or being able to "save" certain demons for assured later revival access. I'll take a look at it on the next upgrade pass.
Re: Resolution woes
It seems like there's definitely something going on here. Unfortunately, a combination of "FerretDev isn't a great graphics programmer" and "tiles are tricky to get working without seams" forced me to disable the usual Unity resolution pop-up: going through that for any reason caused tiles to have seems. I'm 100% certain there is a problem here, but I'm going to need to carve out some time to dig into it and it's probably going to make me weep blood.
Please accept my apologies on this one: I will look into it, but it's probably going to be a bit.
Re: Explicit
I try to be explicit about such things.
When I'm not, someone yells at me and I fix it.
If something seems super unclear, lemme know.
(Bloodthirst, by the way, does indeed work with reactions. One of my favorite Titan's Fist builds is to start with Bloodthirst + Riposte.. I sort of think of it as a vampire?
Probably a weird concept for a relic called Titan's Fist, but it's pretty fun, especially once you stack some goblin passives and get Riposte firing much more often... and if you swipe Parry from Madevra... or start using Spin Slash + Evade Step... )
Re: AI and resists/immunities
The AI is very good about this.. in fact, it is almost evil about it. Not only will it account for resistances/immunities in your enemies, it will in your *allies* as well. i.e.: If you have one ally with Flame Orb, he won't hesitate to bomb your own Fire immune allies with it if he needs to to maximize his damage to enemies, since he knows your Fire immune won't care.
One odd note worth pointing out re: Ice though. Since Ice resistance doesn't protect against Chill status at all (only immunity does), you will sometimes see your buddies use Ice attacks on Ice resistant targets more readily than you might expect, particularly if they feel the Acc/Evd/Move debuff would be useful for some reason.
Re: Ukobach and smite spamming
Ukobach is probably preferring the Light spell since it can't miss... but, that is a little odd since they don't have much trouble hitting with Ember Burst, and as you say, they have plenty of reasons to want to use Ignite. It may be that it's not probably accounting for Warmth in some way, I'll take a look.
Re: Buffbotting
Buffs don't last super long: a buffer with more than one buff is probably going to have to spam it in order to keep both going on the party 100% of the time. Buffs tend to be a high priority when available on a demon, since they can't miss and have a pretty big impact on combat performance. It can be dicey if you have both a buffbot and a healer out though: as you say, that puts a lot of pressure on the other two combatants. One solution might be to experiment with the self-buff cantrips instead. It does eat up skill slots on more party members, but they never get spammed, and are also cheaper SP wise too.
Thanks for the commentary and feedback everyone.
This is great to read and I'm glad you're all enjoying the game.