I don't really need the full final release, I'm just hoping to play a version with endings. Do you reckon that'll be sooner?
Having recently played and "finished" it (the free = stable version) for the first time, IMHO the game is in a great state right now because the now fully finished "penultimate crisis" also ties up a LOT of LONG-standing threads.
Personally, hidden stats and mechanics never did anything for me. Realistically I only see 2 logical reasons for it:
1. "muh immersion" for the fabled blind player who enjoys playing 50+ hours long RPGmaker games and that both hates ever seeing "the actual numbers" and also won't get upset for all the bad results of getting tripped on any of the many invisible variables and their obscure causality.
2. An "elegant" concession to the challenge of creating a complex RPG game while also presenting all the necessary information in a cohesive way that doesn't overwhelm the player: "I won't even try to give you the necessary information lol. Have fun reading the wiki once someone makes that".
For the first, I really don't think it is a real thing. I don't think that type of player exists, or at least they aren't the audience that reliably consumes this genre of videogames. From what I see, usually all the invisible variables do is get the average blind player confused by the time shit hits the fan, they then get in touch with the game's online community, get upset once they find out they sunk hours into a playthrough that never had any chance, then they either quit because they don't want to deal with that or begrudgingly restart the game with a guide in hand.
For the second, while I was a bit sardonic about it, I do kind of respect it. A dev working pretty much solo can't tackle all the big challenges of game design, but that should never be the reason to stop them from trying to make the type of game they want to make, so you make concessions where you need to make them. But concessions shouldn't be lauded as "intended" design choices or any kind of artistic statement, imo. The game needing to have a community-made guide to be "wholly completable" is not a credit to the dev.
I won't dismiss the idea that maybe there are some people that enjoy looking up information on guides as part of the experience of playing an RPG, partially as a nostalgia thing, but I can't understand how looking things up on external sources would be preferable over being able to find the necessary information within the game itself.
Lastly, I would argue there could be another less savory explanation. The complexity and obscurity of the variables at play in TLS basically forces a considerable amount of replaying the game, which is a way (even if one borne from frustration) of maintaining player engagement during the long patreon-style development of the game. In a sense, the choice of making the game invite failure upon a new player in ways they cannot overcome without community resources, it might make the "final product" less appealing to some people, but it generally does a better job of being a "patreon-game" product.
Uh, please don't tell me that I don't exist, thanks. (Or even that I wouldn't be interested - this is now the best RPG ever in my book !)
(Though partially this is because I did NOT expect THIS kind of length and scale, even
despite having been warned about it,
especially having been recommended it by a fellow
"The Erogamer" by Groon The Walker reader. See also : a bunch of reviews not expecting it either.)
Also I'm well aware of how looking behind the curtains IS going to dispel the magic,
especially for a plot-heavy RPG game.
My main frustration (and when I started looking up things outside the game) actually came from
too much information : I would have been blissfully happy not knowing that I was missing a potential fighter if the Harem screen wasn't showing the ????? where
that early elf should have been !
OtoH, it made me not culpabilize too much when I decided to
cheat (the first and only time) in combat (temporarily giving one of my fighters extra magic attack) vs the
Divine Claw twins, realizing (thanks to some recent hints from the game) that I was indeed missing one for this fight. (And I think I could have managed without it, by restarting until the first strikes fell
just right, but I was too impatient to continue with the story.)
I'm not sure why you insist so much on having to "fully complete" the game either..? I'm quite happy with trading that (and even considering how you can only be surprised by most story twists once) with the feeling that my not always best choices had
consequences - and the reason this works so much is because it's LONG, and you see them play out.
