Abnormality and ID Stories - What can be Improved

[♥♦Cross The Line♣♠]

Posting here in the hopes that the developers may see this, but one thing I've been rather disappointed with in Limbus Company is the notably thin pickings we get for Identity, EGO and Abnormality Stories.

So far - the main story's mostly fine, outside of how it feels like players new to the Mooniverse would be left out on what the hell Identities even really are, or some of the familiar terms from the past two games - but I feel frustrated with the thin showings available for the other aspects of the story and the world.

For Identities, we have... one extremely brief context story snippet and the voicelines.
For EGOs, we literally have nothing but the attacks and its voicelines.
For Abnormalities - we get an observation log... that you can only read in fights against those specific abnormalities.

It's a bit lacking overall,
Compared to Library of Ruina's Page stories, which helped me fall in love with the setting, the ID stories are a start, but painfully short. We don't even get a brief description of what the identity is capable of or the sentiments the IDholder feels about it and their alternate life! The page stories were brief too, but they often got to the point faster - and we had a larger quantity of them to work with. Some of them - particularly the ones about important characters, did get to be longer too.

The situation with the EGOs and Abnormalities is frustrating, because this is the second game in a row where the most pertinent and useful information about Abnormalities aren't present - the detailed story intended for the Abnos seen in Lobotomy Corp. This was irritating in Ruina when you encountered new abnormalities that weren't present in the original game - but because there was no way of learning more about ones like Jester of Nihil or Pinnochio, you only have a handful of vague snippets to glean info about them from. With almost all the new EGOs featuring new Abnormalities, I find myself desperately wanting to learn more about these cool monster designs, yet we don't get more on them outside of an in-character observation log that only focuses on how to FIGHT the abnormalities, rather than the contexts surrounding it and what the abno's story could be.

Ultimately, I hope improvements are made to this alongside improvements being made to Gameplay and User Experience -
Compared to how Page stories often really fleshed out and informed players about how the various workshops, fixer associations and other aspects of the City worked, and compared to how Abnormality Logs often gave you a strong context and impression as to how the Abnormality worked, what we have in Limbus right now is disappointing and thin.

[Fadeway]

I wish the dungeon events had more meat to them. I don't know if it is the art, or the text, or the framing, or something else, but the abnormalities depicted there don't grab me. It's just a parade of monsters who get picked for trinkets. Lobotomy's forsaken murderer was ultimately just a dude with a head cone yet somehow managed to be more interesting and compelling than anything I've seen in a dungeon event.

[Birp]

The keypage stories in Ruina were kinda interesting--it's something that like <1% of players would bother to read or even know that they existed, but whoever was writing them did a heckin good job.

The Pianist and Oswald, in particular, had great stories.

[Skittie]

I agree!! I want more side lore in this game!! And I REALLY love the abnormalities!! For example- imagine for Main story Dungeons, I can see that you also get a bonus of recovering some abnormality files from certain events in that dungeon. Like an easter egg of sorts, that would be really fun!! And there's a UI icon for reading those sort of things!
Its Unfortunate that a lot of lore for this game(esp for identities) is through reading Leviathan, but I don't think any new players would know of its existence unless they asked specifically what was going on with these snippets.

And I agree with the sentiment about the ID holder, It would be cool and funny that they gave little "logs" to each sinner about their experience with a certain identity, whether their alternate selves or others, not only would that give us more lore and character building for that specific character, It would also become something to look forward to see when new identities come out, it would be really entertaining and such an interesting read!!!(Like imagine certain identities makes the sinner in question recall certain aspects and taboos of the city that they personally never experienced before...)

(The thing i find sad about the abnormality stories is that likely Faust discourage learning more about the abnormalities...)

I know some stuff may be lacking because the devs are trying hard to lay everything down and its still early in this games development, but I genuinely hope they can add more to world building with this game. Especially with things to do outside of dungeons and story mode.

The most biggest thing I want personally: Interacting with the sinners.

So badly. One thing the LCB site mentioned was getting close with your sinners, but there's no way to properly interact with them(outside of preset events in story mode), and its kinda frustrating for me personally. I wanna talk with Gregor... I wanna take him to hamhampangpang for a meal.... I want to give him gifts to boost a danganronpa-esque affection meter..(this isn't a dating sim but i just want cut-scenes with my favorite characters..) I know it would take a lot of work that PM may not be able to afford if they take these character interactions in account for story scenes(where it can possibly change how it goes, or even outcomes as story is set in stone) but I would love if we could at least interact with them and "get into their hearts"(bonus if story is mentioned in these interactions).

Aside from that, I would be satisfied. I just hope with the following days, the devs can work on fixing these merging bugs and black screens many people get, it concerns me that people aren't able to have fun with this game because of these game breaking bugs, and they shouldn't go out of their way the change their region for something the devs made a mistake in for the first place.

(Last thing, as a fan who got into their series because of abnormalities in the first place, seeing so little abnormality lore or "crazy beasts" lore in the city makes me sad. I love monsters a lot and I want more. I loved reading their stories and interacting with them so I desperately want more. As much as I love our dear characters, I also want more monsters as well.)

[reaper2127]

Originally posted by Birp:

The keypage stories in Ruina were kinda interesting--it's something that like >1% of players would bother to read or even know that they existed, but whoever was writing them did a fkn good job.

The Pianist and Oswald, in particular, had great stories.

Which one was the pianist or are you referring to the Blue R? I recall his mentioning the pianist

[DragonCorpVI]

Its a bit strange how during the introduction sequence of introducing the Sinner's, we were given background info on like who they are and how they act, like as if we could interact with them but have to be careful on what we say to them and such

I was expecting there to be some sort of like Bond (Not a love relationship, just general work relationship) system or trust system.

Something like what Nikke has, where you can interact with your Sinner's outside of the main story, get to know them better, unlock lore for them and at the same time, slightly increases the base stats of your Sinner's as you level their bond or trust.

LoR had a ton of...well lore lol that you could read outside of the main story in the pages n such and its a bit weird that isn't here, they definitely should do something with the lore of the Sinner's and maybe their identity as well?

[Birp]

Originally posted by reaper2127:

Originally posted by Birp:

The keypage stories in Ruina were kinda interesting--it's something that like >1% of players would bother to read or even know that they existed, but whoever was writing them did a fkn good job.

The Pianist and Oswald, in particular, had great stories.

Which one was the pianist or are you referring to the Blue R? I recall his mentioning the pianist

I meant the Pianist's actual backstory, but now that I think about it, it might not have been in the game. Probably on the website they posted Wonderlab and Distortion Detective, then.

[Skittie]

Miss that feeling in LobCorp where you felt like you were part of the story, Interacting with Angela and the others. In Limbus I get that at times, but other times I feel as if I'm not part of it...(I'm glad Dante's not a shell(heh) but I want that feeling again that was kinda lost with LOR and is subtly present in Limbus)

[Skittie]

Originally posted by Birp:

Originally posted by reaper2127:

Which one was the pianist or are you referring to the Blue R? I recall his mentioning the pianist

I meant the Pianist's actual backstory, but now that I think about it, it might not have been in the game. Probably on the website they posted Wonderlab and Distortion Detective, then.

Yeah, I don't know where they posted it but I read a google doc containing the story and im like, lmao, poor bloke. And likely its not in game at all.

[♥♦Cross The Line♣♠]

Originally posted by DragonCorpVI:

Its a bit strange how during the introduction sequence of introducing the Sinner's, we were given background info on like who they are and how they act, like as if we could interact with them but have to be careful on what we say to them and such

I was expecting there to be some sort of like Bond (Not a love relationship, just general work relationship) system or trust system.

Something like what Nikke has, where you can interact with your Sinner's outside of the main story, get to know them better, unlock lore for them and at the same time, slightly increases the base stats of your Sinner's as you level their bond or trust.

LoR had a ton of...well lore lol that you could read outside of the main story in the pages n such and its a bit weird that isn't here, they definitely should do something with the lore of the Sinner's and maybe their identity as well?

Yeah, Arknights' Operator Files were excellent, and not only did they have a bonus ministage focused around the operator's strengths, they straight up had a whole mini story for the operators - whether it was through their modules, their mini story, or their operator files - they really made getting each character feel really worthwhile, more than just a ball of stats and skill. If anything, it seems a bit odd that the game doesn't already have some description musing on what kind of life that the Sinners are living in a given reality for a specific ID, or HOW the specific EGOs resonate with the sinners at hand.

[Paulie Walnuts the third]

What the last game excelled was developing the backstories for even the most minor of characters,mooks,dastardly villains and red shirts. You cared for them because even for a moment you can see glimpses into their lives .Maybe instead of key pages they can add snippets of psychological reports on certain truiple 000 sinners as well as interviews. conducted by Vergil .Furthermore project moon can up the ante on world building and characterisation by having certain sinners write diary entries about their day to day lives which you can read. Maybe something like Arknights' Operator Files will add a lot of depth and won't be as expensive as hiring VA's.

[WeltonCitan]

Man, have to say the Abnormality in Chapter 2's dungeon is a let down. Just a leg. Was expecting to fight that leg too.

[Reptiloid]

They will manage it somehow.