Here are some ideas to help improve the gameplay. Note that I'm going to be very careful not to mention stuff that may interfere with future additions relating to support characters, player abilities, or player items. I'm pretty sure that you have all sorts of buffs/effects already in mind when it comes to those things, so I'll be suggesting universal improvements that can easily work in tandem with what you're already doing without breaking the game's design paradigm.

- Game Pity: The player should never roll two 1s in consecutive rounds. This scenario is so devastating gameplay-wise that it is easily the #1 cause of player frustration. If you haven't considered anything else in this wall of text, I beg you to please consider this one!

- Game Pity: Related to the first game pity, the enemy should never roll two max rolls in three consecutive rounds. This is just as devastating as the player rolling two 1s consecutively.

- Game Pity: If the player keeps losing multiple fights in a row, then they get some free stuff the next day as a handicap. These handicaps shouldn't happen too often, and should only occur once after three lost fights or so.

-- Jessica can make a comment that she felt bad for you and worked extra hard to marshal some extra troops for you, immediately gaining you 20 Troops.

-- Hana and Pixie can make you a special meal that they worked on together that gives you +1 to all stats for the entire duration of your next fight only. This effect can be used in tandem with other meals, and also stacks with the personal meal.

-- Ard can mock you and say that you suck at fighting, and then give you a special item that he charged up with his own Fey magic powers. This  item automatically activates for the next fight only, rerolling any of your 1s over the course of the fight.

- UI Improvement: Players need to be able to forfeit a fight at any point during the fight. Right now, there is no way to do so, which causes defensive enemies like Terri & Tammi, or [shudder], Hazel, to kill you oh so slowly while you're just waiting for the fight to end. In this way, Ophelia is preferred because she will just kick the player's ass and be done with it, quickly freeing the player to do something else.

- UI Improvement: In a fight, the enemy dice should always be shown. However, depending on how the player used their troops, the dice shown will be different.

-- If the player used neither Send Troops or Scout, the enemy dice should appear as circles with question marks.

-- If the player used Send Troops without Scout, the enemy dice appear as their die types, but the values would still be question marks.

-- If the player used Scout, then the enemy dice appear as their die types and proper values.

 (Note that this issue is related to one of the Troop Rebalance issues below that discusses Scout and Send Troops in further detail. The main point here is that the enemy dice should always be shown in some form, regardless of troop usage. Show the player that they used troops for it. Or didn't use troops. It's up to them.)

- UI Improvement: The current meal should be shown on the Stats page, preferably near the Troops number, and preferably with the actual effects listed.

- Meal Rebalance: Considering how long fights are, the player's personal meal is too weak for lasting only 1 round. Instead, personal meals should last for 3 rounds to make it more competitive with Fresh Baked Bread.

- Enemy Rebalance: Goons MUST be made easier to defeat! They're mooks, and yet their difficulty level is too high! The number one reason they are too difficult is because their clash ability is -1 Defense, which is the strongest effect in the game. To make them easier, you should change their clash ability to deal -1 to Attack, Seduce, or Clash, chosen randomly. Not only would this change make Goon fights a lot easier, the unpredictability of their clash ability would also make fighting them more interesting and more fun. Remember that Jessica says that these guys are bad shots, so this change would be in line with her statement.

- Enemy Rebalance: Speaking of Goons, the Trainer Goon is a very tough battle since you can't use any troops or stat boosts. In order to encourage players to try out the new battle system instead of simply turning on auto-win, this guy needs to be made even easier to defeat. The best way to do this is to apply a permanent -1 Attack to the Trainer Goon. Jessica says that these guys aren't shooting to kill, so they shouldn't be hurting you as much, right? Right?!!

- Troop Rebalance: Send Troops needs to do more than simply report die types. I can always look it up on the Corrupted Kingdoms Wiki and save myself the troops. Instead, Send Troops should report on die types, initial AI type, AI switches at low health (if any), and the names and effects of all clash abilities. Jessica shouldn't be giving you any free combat info -- rely on troops instead for your combat info to make troop spending here feel more relevant.

- Troop Rebalance: At 5 Troop cost, Scout is much weaker than Reinforce and seldom ever necessary. To make the die reveal actually relevant in gameplay, the Scout ability should be included with Send Troops, allowing the die reveal to be used in tandem with Reinforce. In other words, the new Send Troops would work like this:

-- Send 1 Troop: Reveal all enemy info

-- Send 2 Troops: Reveal all enemy info, reveal Die 1

-- Send 3 Troops: Reveal all enemy info, reveal Die 1 and 2

-- Send 4 Troops: Reveal all enemy info, reveal all dies

- New Troop Abilities: Right now, Reinforce is mandatory and needs viable alternatives to make gameplay more interesting. Here are some ideas:

-- Preparation (2 Troops): After the dice roll, the player may choose to reroll all dice. When this ability is used, the player must wait two more rounds before using this ability again. (This ability exists for when the player is low on troops. The player should never choose the option Go It Alone unless they are looking for a special challenge or unless they are feeling masochistic. This ability exists as an alternative to forcing the player to go back to the Manor and sleeping for a bunch of days just to build up more troops with Fresh Baked Bread.) 

-- Distract (2 Troops): Enemy suffers -1 to Attack, Seduce, or Clash. This penalty is applied to only one of the aforementioned stats, and is chosen randomly at the start of each round. (Of course, -1 Defense is not present here due to its power. Otherwise, this ability would become an RNG battle unto itself, where the player hopes to get -1 Defense for that round. It's better to remove that temptation and leave -1 Defense out of this.)

-- Bolster (2 Troops): If any die rolls a 1, the player may choose to change them to 2s. When this ability is used, the player must wait two more rounds before using this ability again. (Rolling even a single 1 can ruin a round, and so this ability exists to mitigate that common scenario.)

-- NEW Scout (5 Troops): After the dice roll, the player may choose to reroll one die of their choice. (This turns Scout into something very useful. This should be a direct alternative to Reinforce, where the player must ask themselves, "Is it better to guarantee a more optimal roll on an existing die? Or is it better to upgrade the die type to achieve a potentially higher value at the expense of optimal rolling?")

-- Reinforce (5 Troops): Works exactly how it does in the current version -- upgrades 1 die to the next highest die type. (Very useful. In fact, all the other troop abilities are balanced around this ability's power level.)

-- Backup (5 Troops): Player gains +1 Clash for the entire fight. (Another direct alternative to Reinforce, as this grants the player a steady +1 stat bonus, compared to Reinforce which can still give you 1s. I am also foreseeing new player abilities that can be activated on a successful clash, like Endure, which would make this ability much more useful in future versions of the game.)

-- Sabotage (10 Troops): After the dice roll, the enemy is forced to reroll any dice that had a max roll. (For example, a 1d4 that rolls a 4 is rerolled, a 1d6 that rolls a 6 is rerolled, a 1d8 that rolls an 8 is rerolled, and so on. This can really take the sting out of RNG that gives enemies optimal rolls for consecutive rounds. Note that this forces a reroll on ALL max rolled dice, not just one, so it is possible for up to two dice to get rerolled. The reason Sabotage doesn't cost more is because it is also possible for the enemy to reroll their max roll and keep on going like nothing ever happened. It really sucks when that happens.)

-- Gambit (10 Troops): This ability may only be used up to 10 times per fight. The player may use this ability only when one of the following conditions are met:

--- If the enemy wins the clash, the player can choose to stop the enemy's clash ability from taking effect.

--- If the enemy wins a critical attack (dealing 2 damage), the player can choose to negate the attack and treat it as a normal attack instead (dealing 1 damage).

(This ability exists for players who want to play a slower and more tactical game. The main benefit of Gambit is that it allows the player to safely place 1s in Defense and Clash without getting completely destroyed. While the player can't do this forever due to Gambit's limited uses, it should be enough for players looking to win with Shatter.)

-- Guardian (10 Troops): Once every three rounds, the player gains +3 to Defense. (Note that the player should never receive any permanent bonuses to Defense, or else they will become virtually invincible! If for some reason the player would receive a permanent Defense bonus anyways, it should be purely for plot reasons only!)

-- Breakthrough (25 Troops): Enemy suffers -1 Defense for the entire fight. (The Defense stat down is currently the most powerful effect in the game, and should be treatedly very carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if this effect is still too powerful for a troop ability. Maybe it would be more appropriate as a support character ability for a very high level character. The only reason I'm listing this as a troop ability is to have a universal solution for breaking the defense of highly defensive enemies like Hazel.)

- New Fight Mechanic: If the enemy successfully defends for three consecutive rounds, the player gains a point of Guard Break (max. 3). Then, at the start of the round, the player may choose to spend a Guard Break point to deal -1 Defense to the enemy. This effect can stack. Also, Guard Break points reset to 0 at the beginning of each fight and do not carry over to other fights. Note that this ability should only be given to the player, but not to the enemies! Players should be allowed to use stalling tactics (the player trades their time for potential future progress), but enemies should never be allowed to stall (immediately impedes player progress). This change would make fighting defensive characters, like Hazel, a lot more enjoyable. It's perfectly fine to have slower paced fights in the game, but it's extremely annoying and unfun to have enemies endlessly stall like Hazel does. Adding a Guard Break mechanic is the way to break such stalemates.

Other Thoughts:

I haven't really thought these things through very much, so take these additional thoughts with a grain of salt.

- It would be really cool for the combat system to take stats into account. Even with all of the changes above, the combat system would still be very RNG based if left as-is. By using stats as base numbers and using dice rolls as additions, it is possible to reduce the randomness without eliminating it completely. Enemies would be given their own stats to provide extra balancing knobs for tuning their difficulty.

- If stats were used, then I'd set up the values like this:

-- Attack = Martial + Physical + [dice roll]

-- Seduce = Charisma + Insight + [dice roll]

-- Defense = Martial + Insight + [dice roll]

-- Clash = Charisma + Physical + [dice roll]

I'm already assuming that Magical will be used for certain clash abilities, which is why I'm not discussing it here.

- If player stats are used, then in order to not punish players who didn't stat grind during Act II, all stats should be fixed at 2 or so upon starting Act III, until the game allows the player to stat grind again. When stat grinding is allowed, the player's stats unlock and revert to what they were at the end of Act II, which would immediately reward the players that did stat grind. The locked stats could be explained by The Beast keeping the player's original power locked away, but the player can feel some of The Beast's power leaking out through him, hence the small amount of stats that he would have. And then the player does something or meets someone that unlocks his original power again.

So these are just a few of my thoughts about the state of Act III. I can already see a lot of huge potential for the combat system to be fun in the context of an eroge visual novel, without turning into some long-term grinding experience like Disgaea. TheArcadean, I truly wish you the best of luck and I  hope that something in this wall of text helps you in making Corrupted Kingdoms even better than it already is!

First off to TheArcadean, awesome job on this game! I started playing this game about a week ago on v0.19.9, and couldn't put it down. The story, though still a work-in-progress, is filled with great writing, intriguing concepts, witty humor, and the 'ahem' you-know-what, that this ranks very highly for eroge visual novels! Words cannot express how much I have enjoyed playing Acts I and II so far, even though the game is still unfinished.

However, I am literally waiting with bated breath for something to be done with the combat system in Act III. It is far too dependent on RNG, and can become an extremely frustrating and downright infuriating experience, so much so that I have felt tremendous temptation to just turn on auto-win and be done with it. (And thank you so much for even making auto-win an option, because a lot of players like myself have ZERO tolerance for hard RNG-based combat systems due to the frustration that they bring.) But because I love this game so much, I decided to deconstruct the combat system and give you my thoughts.

When it comes to ANY combat system with RNG elements, the number one rule is to never let the player feel as if their progress is being blocked by RNG! This is the fastest way to turn off players to a game. There must ALWAYS be some means for the players to make progress. RNG should only be used a a means to either speed up (in the case of good luck) or slow down (in the case of bad luck) the player's progress, but never block the player completely.

I have given my computer monitor multiple middle fingers for giving me many series of crappy rolls while the enemy got superb rolls. My most unfun experience was when the Trainer Goon (the one Jessica first introduces you to for the battle tutorial) beat me 3 times in a row because he kept getting long strings of 3s and 4s against my long strings of 1s and 2s.

Most games rely on some kind of resource and/or stat grinding, but I've seen games have pity on the player if they lose enough times, such as giving them a handicap or simply asking the player if they want to skip the battle. Because this game already has both resources and stats, I say that resource/stat grinding would be the appropriate choice to allow the player to either buy their victory or outstat the enemies. Essentially, grinding allows the player to trade their time for potential future progress. How much time is consumed in grinding is up to you, but I would implore you not to make the grinding time too long. Remember that Corrupted Kingdoms is primarily an eroge Visual Novel, not a JRPG like Disgaea!

And before anyone accuses me of being a gaming noob: Yes, I am aware that the goons uses only physical attacks and uses the aggressive AI. And yes, I am aware that you should never ever place a 1 on Defense against such enemies due to the risk of getting hit by a critical attack. Just trust me that I know my stuff here.

Speaking of the Trainer Goon: This guy is actually one of the hardest fights in the game right now, which may be a big turn off to players who are expecting the tutorial battle to be easy. Unlike Regular Goons, where stat bonuses and troops are available for use, the Trainer Goon denies you these tools. So a new player might think that the Trainer Goon is supposed to be an easy win, but ends up repeatedly getting their ass handed to them by bad RNG, when in reality, Regular Goons and some boss girls are actually easier to beat. Let's talk about the enemies in the game so far.

Regular Goons: These guys use only physical attacks and start off aggressive, but transition to defense at low health. They become extremely annoying if you aren't lucky enough to take them out quickly with two critical attacks in a row. If you do get them down to low health and aren't running Reinforce, then you have to slog through their defense and hope that RNG eventually favors you, which could take a very long time depending on the RNG. Also, you really don't want to lose a clash with these guys because they deal -1 Defense, which is the most dreaded stat down in the game. To note, physical attacks combined with -1 Defense is an extremely powerful synergy in this game, and so this makes Regular Goons more difficult to beat than Noelle and Chelsea. Considering that Regular Goons are supposed to be this game's mooks, the fact that Regular Goons are more difficult enemies than two of the boss girls is a real turn off.

Noelle: She is by far the easiest enemy to beat in the game since she only uses Seduce, which guarantees that she will do at most 1 damage to the player. This means that the player has the option of placing a 1 on Defense in favor of using a higher roll for a critical attack or to win a clash. However, Noelle is easier still because you don't even need to win the clash against her. All she does is deal -1 Seduce, which means no Defense stat down, which makes it safe to lose the clash against her. As one of the first fights in the game, I find the fight with Noelle to be both appropriately easy and fun. However, she does transition to defense at low health, and so fights can drag on if you aren't running Reinforce to break her defense. Unfortunately, this is a common theme for enemies that go defensive, which makes Reinforce mandatory for such battles.

Chelsea: She may have a 1d6 at her disposal, but she's arguably easier to beat than your Regular Goon. Like Regular Goons, Chelsea is aggressive and only uses physical attacks. But unlike Regular Goons, Chelsea doesn't go defensive at low health (only goes defensive when both HP and WP are low), which makes the battle pacing actually tolerable. But what makes Chelsea an easy boss is the fact that losing a clash results in -1 Attack, which means no Defense stat down, which makes losing a clash safe. For all of these reasons, Chelsea is the only boss girl where Scout is actually useful since Reinforce is not necessary for breaking a defense in this fight. Chelsea is an appropriately easy early game fight and is decently fun to play.

Rachel: Now the difficulty is starting to ramp up! She is like a Regular Goon in that she is aggressive and only uses physical attacks, but she also gains a 1d6 die. She also has the dreaded -1 to Defense if you lose the clash with her. But unlike Regular Goons, Rachel doesn't go defensive at low health (only goes defensive when both HP and WP are low). This single difference is what makes Rachel easier to beat than Regular Goons if you are looking to win through physical attacks, since she usually remains open to attacks while at low health. You can get away with substituting Scout for Reinforce for these reasons, and also because she only has one 1d6 die -- otherwise, Reinforce is mandatory. Rachel is probably the most fair of the early game fights, as she presents a decent challenge to the player without the fight turning into a defensive slog. Sadly, Rachel also represents why Regular Goons are too strong at this point in the game, since winning through physical attacks is actually quite easy with Rachel. Also, players can challenge themselves by choosing more difficult win conditions through Seduce or Shatter, which are not choices for Regular Goons. These extra player choices make Rachel a more fun fight than Regular Goons, which are boring and unfun by comparison.

Terri & Tammi: The twins are the first of the boss girls to feature two 1d6 dies, which makes them more difficult than Regular Goons, but not by too much. The reason is because losing a clash with them only deals -1 Clash. That's it. This means that you can safely throw away your 1s on Clash without a care while preserving your higher rolls for more important things. Terri & Tammi begin the fight with the defensive AI, and so Reinforce is mandatory here to match their defense and, hopefully, RNG through it eventually. At low health, they become aggressive, which helps make them more open to your attacks. This is my favorite fight in the game so far, since it is difficult enough to require some tactical thinking on the player's part while not being overly difficult. Once you figure them out, this battle becomes reliably winnable.

Hazel: Here is a massive jump in difficulty over the Regular Goon. Hazel has two 1d6 dies and starts off defensive, making for a long and drawn out slog with seemingly no end in sight. What's worse, losing a clash deals -1 Defense (and also -1 Attack to those who care), which forces the player into using good rolls to avoid losing the clash. This makes winning against Hazel take even longer than it already does. You better be using Reinforce now, because this fight is nigh impossible to win without it. Due to all of these reasons, Hazel is by far the worst fight in this game and should be reworked. It's boring and it takes far too long, making bad RNG an always looming threat that ruins good gameplay and frustrates players into using auto-win and saying screw you to the battle system. The fight is just that awful.

Ophelia: With three 1d6 dies, Ophelia is obviously a broken character when you consider the lack of tools available to the player in v0.19.9. Even with Reinforce and eating the player's personal meal, this is a tough fight. Ophelia starts off aggressive and remains so at low health (only goes defensive when both HP and WP are low), so she will try to kill you as quickly as possible. This actually makes this fight a lot more tolerable than the fight with Hazel. Ophelia fights are quick and decisive, so if RNG isn't going your way, you can lose quickly and try again. For example, if Ophelia wins the clash, then you already know to throw the fight due to her dealing -1 Defense AND -1 Clash (and -1 Attack and -1 Seduce for anyone who cares about that), which is a virtually unrecoverable scenario. Make no mistake -- this is still a frustrating fight that will tempt players to turn on auto-win, but at least the fights are fast enough where the frustration is a lot more manageable. Fights are short enough when the player can easily go through a hundred fights with Ophelia in under 10 minutes (unlike -cough- Hazel -cough-). Save scumming and fast clicking WILL eventually get you your victories against Ophelia through sheer number of tries, unlike Hazel who takes her sweet time in killing you slowly.

And just in case anyone is wondering -- yes, I have beaten Ophelia through Attack Seduce, and Shatter.