The Bleeding Problem
No, not that one. If you're having a bleeding problem you should see a doctor. I'm talking about the mechanic in Darkest Dungeon.
As we all know, or should, in Darkest Dungeon you can damage enemies by inflicting Bleed on them using certain skills.
The original Lustiest Lair lewdified this by changing the status effect from 'Bleeding' to 'Cum-Leaking'. It made a sort of sense when a monster, whose skill had also been renamed to imply penetrative sex (which is a whole other kettle of fish), used that skill on one of your heroines.
Sure. That works as a simple lewd through-line.
However, it led to another issue that has plagued the original Lustiest Lair since its inception:
Uh, did we just creampie that pigman?
That's a, uh, hell of a jarring disconnect, isn't it? The ludo-narrative dissonance - a turn of phrase I've been looking forward to using - is stark and immediate. We are supposed to be a band of roving heroines fighting off the legions of the perverted and the monstrous, and yet this implies that with our skill we are the ones fucking the monsters.
Suspension of disbelief has worked for many, but I don't really like it. This situation is not for me. I, for one, am not interested in creamng a pigman.
But Ancestress, why not just use a different damage-over-time effect for monsters?
That would be such a nice solution, wouldn't it? That would be the dream, right? The monsters inflict cum-leaking on the heroines, while the heroines inflict bleeding on the monsters they're fighting?
Unfortunately, that's not possible. The game engine is particularly hard-coded in many ways when it comes to DoT effects like Blight and Bleed. While Blight can be gotten away with, because 'Drugged' works quite elegantly both ways, Bleed is stuck as 'Cum-Leaking' in a way it's impossible to do anything about.
So instead, what if I made it easier to suspend disbelief?
I have a proposal:
Just 'Leaking'.
Is it more vague? Yes. Does it help bridge the gap between a heroine being hit by a cum-leaking attack, and a monster being hit by a bleeding attack? Certainly.
I can't change the hard-coding of the game, but I can make this discrepancy significantly less jarring and uncomfortable.
I will also change up the descriptions of the effects to make it clearer that for monsters they're leaking, but for heroines they're 'leaking'.
What do you think?
Let me know down below!
Kindly,
Ancestress
Comments (14)
For what its worth, I love the direction youre taking this. I always felt that some of the overlewdified parts were a bit overdone. Having the heroines actually FALL to pleasure makes it feel less like a bad porno and more like an actual lewd RPG scenario. Im also glad im not the only one who found "cum leaking" to be a bit odd when it came to enemies. Good fix imo!
Personally, I've never had a problem with 'cum-leaking' as I've always assumed that our heroines made the enemies cum, not dump a load in them.
As an week old newbie in Darkest Dungeon whose only reason of starting this game was LL:E's current porny settings... I'm not really into all this delewdifying you are planning for. To me heroines are going down there to have fun times, so orgy should be left orgy, therefore cum-leaking goes along just fine. But I do believe that final products can change my mind, so I'm really hoping that 1.9 turns out to be that case. You're the one on the wheel so do what you must. Anyways, back to this post, I don't like that half-cum half-blood icon for that. It looks too much of a placeholder for me. Dunno why, maybe it's because of that straight-line bisection... maybe make it more like two liquids trying to mix with each other in that droplet outline, looking like it's sloshing in there? Or maybe turn it back to a white droplet and give it a better name to back it up. Con-leaking? Short for confidence leaking, either because the heroine is full of cum, or the monster is bleeding out. Might be cringe and unintuitive but I wanted to offer some kind of a solution at least.
TL;DR: current icon looks like a placeholder and needs a revision Sorry for the long read, I love LL:E and appreciate you working into it. Keep it up!
To be honest, from the beginning heroines acted more like sluts in heat going there to get fucked by monsters than heroines descending into oppressive dungeons where everything wants to rape them. In that context cum leaking worked just fine. If LLE is getting a little toned down in that regard: this change can work.
Hi. Have you considered delewdifying back the hit points? The sanity/lust switch works well, driving the heroines mad with lust is fine. On the other hand, the hit points/pleasure one, not so much... I wouldn't mind if the ennemies physically defeated the heroines (as in the original game), to then capture and enslave them, vs giving them orgasm, which is klunky and lead to this bleed/leak conundrum.
Yep. Lots of things are being delewdified in the writing.
Leaking as a word seems fine, but I'm not sure the icon really helps. Since that is implying both cum and blood both ways. Which is maybe fine. But while the shift from orgies to encounters works because there's an ambiguity between the 'play' in encounters. Here it works backwards where it's implying both every time?
Leaking works well for both ways, yeah.
What's wrong with creaming a pigman? I don't see the problem here.
If we are delewdifying the heroines' attacks then I like the leaking name change. I always took the cum-leaking status as getting them horny and dripping, as the intended goal was to get them to cum thus "defeating" them.
Leaking seems best tho i don't mind much
Personally I don't mind either. But having a vagueness that can satisfy the entire user base ,even if some are aren't entirely satisfied, is better than leaving users entirely dissatisfied.
Leaking seems much better, but I’m interested to see if any other commenters have an idea we haven’t considered yet