Okay, I tried a couple of variations on the puzzle with teammates blocking off boxes and blocking off lines from the sidelines, and pausing to move my teammates around to cover whereever Reed was walking, and none of it works.

Even with the explanation, I don't understand how to do this piece of the puzzle.

Edit: okay, pushing on since I can't figure out the puzzle.

-I'm finding myself skipping a bunch of random combats between locations. The levels of the enemies are too low to provide any challenge, but they still eat up a bunch of mp to kill, and I'm swimming in lockpicks, so there's no justifiable reason to confront them.

-Similar issue in the revisit of Snowberry Woods, compounded by the hidden chests and narrow chokepoints. This area felt like a trudge with the old enemies, rather than things that could present threat to the party.

-Melody's battle sprite is great

-Wound still overrides burning

-Fleshfly's bite does nothing, and I've also seen them use it on themselves.

-The combats in the marsh are really well balanced. No damage-sponge enemies, but everything provides a nice mix of threats

-Goblin drops in a single hit?

-So, I looked at sky's crit chance, since she gets that crit+ bow, and hers can go as high as 25, whereas Reed's is capped at 20. Is this a bug? This now seems like a bug.

-Bat at a distance uses a skill called "buff". Was this supposed to be it flexing its bat muscles, or is this a generic spell name?

-Oh thank god that's the last of the marsh chests

-Squid dropped a little too easily. Melody hit it for 1.3k, and then Sky followed up for 300, and it dropped on turn 1.

-Thoughts on Conjuring and Summoning magic: neither is worth the Skill Point investment. Summoning is worth maybe dipping into a single 1 Skill Point spell for the ability to throw up a weak shield against damage, but the summons don't seem to do adequate DPS or heals, even passively, to justify investing the number of points you need to invest in order to be semi-decent at summoning. At the same time, even conjuring major weapons (which is another significant investment of Skill Points) provides only a minor bonus--trivial compared to a buff skill like Rally or a DPS skill like Flare 3, Lightning 3, or Power Attack--and it eventually gets eclipsed by your gear.

-I love the underwater exploration sections. I haven't seen any other rpgs on the market that do this, save for maybe FFX, and I like the feeling of the ones in Tallest Reed way better.

-Trench Eels are HP sponges, but do no damage. I put about 1k damage into one, and it dealt 4 damage to me?

-One-shotted the Sudden Presence. Is this supposed to happen?

-Okay, so I killed all the ghosts instead of throwing away the stone, and it game-overed me? Is that supposed to happen? It's really not too hard to screen-clear all the ghosts if you have anyone with rank 3 lightning magic, let alone rank 4 or rank 3 plus charge

Still more notes:

-CRASHBUG: Sky used a weak potion of sorcery in the ghost battle where you're supposed to throw away the stone. Same summon weapon equippable crash that's been caused by other potions in other areas. Other types of potions (censers of sorcery, censers of healing) seem to work fine in this battle.

-Trick Shot seems to deal nonexistant damage. Sky can deal about 100+ with Power Shot 1 against the ghosts in hominid form. Trick Shot deals 18 damage against the same. Since it doesn't cause status effects like Power Shot, Trick Shot feels like its dps should really get a buff.

-Snowberry Woods gets more tedious with every mandatory backtrack. A few cutscene skip-to-locations would be really helpful here. Also, I don't think I've found a single ironwood nut on the ground in any of my playthroughs, although allegedly they are supposed to be here.

-Okay, I equipped a Fired Clay Shield on reed, and that brought my crit chance up to 30. As far as I can math it, that;s factoring in the shield, the mempo, the bladesman level 2 perk, and none of the three bolette blues I used.

-re: the grid puzzle, you can revisit the area with different numbers of party members. Are there certain numbers that make parts of the puzzle unsolvable? I don't think you can do it when it's just you and Vigil, for example.

-The map icon rename to fox village is a nice touch.

-Overall, I've found I had less need of food items in ch 3 than anywhere else in the game. Combats weren't really threatening, but at the same time enemy hp was lower, meaning I didn't have to sandbag everything with high damage specials to get through routine fights in a few turns. I think the difficulty on this chapter could be turned up overall, but I'm not sure the best way to do that. This is partly an rpgmaker engine limitation, I think, one that a lot of rpgmaker games seem to get around with aggressive use of status effects, but it's also a TES issue. My biggest gripe with everything from Morrowind on is that I never found the games challenging, since combat was mostly just whacking your numbers against someone else's numbers. Tallest Reed has a damn amazing world-feel, since everything is from the Argonian perspective, and the first chapter combats where pure dps is not the objective felt great. However, bog-standard dps-based combats throughout the game kind of drag in comparison--especially against random enemies. For the third chapter stuff, without bringing out lots of fight gimmicks, I think a mix of higher single-damage attacks and AoE wound effects would up the challenge without dramatically changing overall balance--and this could help to inject a little more tension into the chapter, too. Of course, even if this is desirable to implement, I have no idea what the time cost would be. That could quite reasonably be prohibitive to making a balance change.

-Nice nods to Morrowind in the dialog on the mountain. "No one person can do all of that."

-Nice obligatory Argonian maid reference

-You can't run from battle against clannfear. 12 out of 12 attempts to flee, all failed.

-Clannfear and scamps have vanishingly little HP. I'm one-shotting scamps with Reed, and Reed is...damage challenged.

-The mountain seems really bare. The layout is cool and looks natural, but it doesn't have much to interact with. The only treasure chest I spotted seemed to be completely inaccessible without a bunch of backtrack, so I didn't bother.

-Tried increasing Reed's Bladesman to level 3 to see if it would stack into the crit equation. It does not. Bladesman and Bolete Blue seem to only contribute up to a maximum of 20% crit. Everything after that can only be provided by gear.

-Re: the Daedroth. Melody one-shotted it on turn 2. It got off exactly one attack in the boss battle, a Weaken, which it missed with.

-GAMEFREEZE BUG: Right after Reed says there's a shortcut and Sandalwood arrives, the event breaks and everyone just stands there forever. I cannot proceed past this point.

More Stuff

-Poison doesn't apply when you use Precise Strike. You have to use poison and then do a regular attack. Bug?

-Caemlyn has thousands of potions of healing? I think it might actually be impossible to DPS him with Reed. Is the only way out of that fight to take out Sandalwood?

-That backtrack down the mountain is really long

-It's a little weird that Hunter and Scout fade out like ghosts after the talk underwater

-I was not prepared for the Flint and Fire-Eyes bit. This is surreal and awesome. Literally every detail of this sequence is amazing.

-The armor Mourning-Cloth sells is not equippable, although the weapons and accessories are. Bug.

-The call backs to chapter 1 are great, especially re: the game's themes and how everything feels different with Caemlyn telling the story.

- FWIW, the theme of letting go of your past makes sense now. It didn't fit until the turning point on the edge of the waterfall, but now it's clear that Reed's attachment to the very particular way things used to be has turned toxic.

-Was I supposed to find Melody before the finale? She isn't part of the crowd on the peak.

-The soundtrack is still really strong.

-Minor Bug: Hauling up one of the platforms on the peak during the finale temporarily turns the screen to daytime. It's the northeastern-most platform, and I think it only happens if you slip past the group and go all the way to the end.

-Apparently in the finale you *can* run from Dreugh.

-"No monsters here." Torchie, there's an imp standing right in front of me.

-CH 3 felt like it went a little slow in places, and the tone felt like a not-quite-right replica of the tone in CH 1, but narratively I think it needed that. As for the slow part, I think adding some skips ahead on the mountain, upping the fight difficulty / rewards, and decreasing the frequency of enemy spawns (especially on the mountain. dear gods) would make the chapter flow really quickly. I genuinely like it, even if the game is moving away from how perfect everything fit together in CH 1. Honestly, it's a testament to the storytelling that that move got under my skin like it did.

-Progress bug? "We have to take this rope up top to fix the lift." Get the rope, go up top, examine the lift. "The lift is broken and can't be used." I've tried examining every tile, so I think maybe the event is broken?

Oh. Oh man. That did not read at all, and I don't think I would've figured that out on my own.

The grid game's pretty cool. I'm at the puzzle where there's an arrow pointing left and, no occupied square, and the line goes from right to left.

More feedback:

-CRASHBUG: using a potion of healing in the chase to catch up with the wagon while in a battle with wolves causes a no method error "summon_weapon_equippable_by"

-"A pattering of adaedric footfall" should be 'a daedric footfall'

-Boosts stack between chapters aww yessssssssss

-In the chapter 3 map where you meet Melody you can walk into the bush on the top right and just vanish. It's kind of magical.

-I really like that the contents of the underwater cave on shell beach carries over from the first chapter. The netch is still there, guarding an empty chest. Hopefully this means I can get the treacle from the jar in the village and actually make the lightning wand this time around.

-Wait. No. Has the treacle pot moved on to more treacle-y pastures?!

-BUG: I've gotten everyone together to talk about what happened, and my goal is to check out the arboretum, but when I try to leave the village via the east exit of the screen with the big pond, the message I get is "we've got to get everyone together to talk about what happened". Leaving via the south exit works fine.

-I think I wasn't as tuned-in to it last time I played through chapter 2, because the little flourishes are much more subtle there, but the writing in this is consistently amazing, and I'm really digging the opening to chapter 3 so far.

EDIT: More stuff

-A Shalk lit me on fire somehow. Not sure quite how that happened.

-It's interesting that all the encounters on watermill rock ch3 are scaled to the same level as they were in ch1. I mean, it makes sense that an entire ecosystem wouldn't just upgrade to match the Argonians, but it makes random battles feel a little weird.

-Aaaaand I found a Dreugh

-Wait a second. The driftwood stick and treated silver didn't even stay in my inventory between chapters. Was it supposed to?

-Only two of the books in the writing spot are still examinable

-Crit chance values add weirdly. I've got 3 Bolette Blue bonuses (+15), Bladesman lv2 (+15), and Leather Mempo (+5). The game tells me the total is +20. Is there a maximum ceiling on crit chance? I don't think getting higher crit values is broken, since DPS from 1hand weapons is really low.

-Pleioshell dropped in two Power Attack 3's from Torchie. Total of around 1.4k damage? It felt like he folded really easily.

-That noise the fox makes is...unsettling.

-Whoah, the armor-crafting menu is awesome.

-The "We've got to gather everyone together to see what happened" text is permanently locked on that eastern exit out of the village pond area

-The puzzle box part where you're supposed to walk the grid in the opposite direction for the first time might be busted. I had my other two party members off the grid, facing in the correct direction, and traced the correct route and variations on that route just in case, and nothing.

More Feedback:

-Boss battle against the Hellkites feels really good. Having a win condition that's not straight-up DPS-based works really well for both balance and game-feel and the individual kites are tough enough that you have to actually try in order to kill them. I'm glad I tried a build for Vigil where I don't just napalm everything, since it made the encounter way more interesting.

-Spadetails hit really hard when you first encounter them. 130 damage, and they go first unless you've built pretty aggressively for speed and/or damage reduction. Their low HP doesn't really offset this, since they can kill most of a two-person party before that party can act.

-BUG: Encountered a fish that spawned on land on the third screen of Shell Beach. Battle takes place in the water.

-BUG: Southeastern most cliffside map, southeastern most palm tree, the tree trunk can be walked through by both lizardpeople and crabs

-NITPICK: In 'Bolete blue" the Blue isn't capitalized. In all the other dyes, both words are capitalized.

-I had Ironwood Brown made as a reward for getting the spring water. I used it, but it does not show up under Boosts on the status page. I'm pretty sure it was factored in, and the game said its effects would be permanent, but does this imply the bonuses from Boosts are temporary? They won't carry over into the next Watermill Rock chapter?

-Silver ore respawns at the burrow. Is this supposed to happen?

-Of the three Bretons that attack Reed at the notice board, the one at the top walks away sideways.

-Small bonus dungeon still not implemented in the crypt?

-BUG: Random battle wolf teleports across the map to attack the players. Escaping the battle causes the wolf to keep moving for a bit, then suddenly stop and spin like it's been successfully escaped from.

-Linegard's estate is screen-tear-a-palooza

-CRASHY THE CRASHBUG: Using a healing potion in the 'battle' with the beggar blocking the road produces the following:

NoMethodError: undefined method 'summoned_weapon_equippable_by?' for nil:NilClass

Script ' Arrow_Actor_SummonWeapon' line 19: NoMethodError occurred.

Also, I remember there was supposed to be a way to pay the beggar to leave, but that doesn't seem to be an option. You can only wait or attack and his dialog just loops.

The battles feel easy, at least until the big compound battle at the very end of the woods. That I'm getting murdered on because I didn't invest in multi-target fire magic, but I'm super glad the challenge has picked up a bit.

More feedback!

-Does skill point growth scaling happen every other level, starting at 5? People seem to be getting 2 SP some of the time, but not all of the time, starting at level 5.

-Combat balance feels shifted from previous builds. Or maybe I've gotten better at knowing the game's damage formulas, but birds and prairie dogs feel way speedbumpier than before.

-Sky, while on fire at the end of a battle: "This is great!"

-Overall, still excellent. And the mapping remains gorgeous. I'll keep playing forward and posting feedback as I go.

Man, I think the underwater cave is on that first beach every time.

And I'm super glad to hear the skill points scale up too. I think that'll almost make the skill system perfect, since it becomes dramatically easier to invest in new skills at higher levels, which definitely encourages more build experimentation.

That last sentence about shalks I read as being about sharks and was very impressed with your personal toughness vs. sharks.

No worries. The writing is stellar, so I legit do not mind replaying the same content a bunch. Plus, that's ultimately what testing boils down to.

I might not be able to test too much this week, since I've got a writing project heading into layout and a few other responsibilities I desperately need to catch up on, but I will power through more as soon as I can.

Edit: Feedback:

-Shalk sometimes don't act in combat. Not entirely sure why this is.

-New skill layout is really good. Scaling skill point costs still means there isn't too much room for build experimentation, but it still feels like there's a lot of freedom and all the skills feel useful.

-Birds, shalks, and hornworms drop drastically in threat the minute you get a shield. They go from 20 hp hits to 0.

-I feel like Darxyll's name gets dropped a lot more. Has that been changed from previous versions?

-Did the underwater cave get removed from the beach where you meet torchie? I searched the whole place on a grid and didn't find it.

All big reports, all the time.

Okay, back to playtesting.

-New summon and conjure spells look nice, although I'm not convinced the conjures will provide enough damage to be worth the summon. I'll try to test this out during play.

-No training points gained for level 2. Is that supposed to happen?

-No training points on level 3 either. Did something get bugged here?

-On the plus side, conjure weapon damage is a substantial bump from starting gear, so I am optimistic about its performance into the mid-game.