Puppetmaster Behaviour Poll: (Patreon)

Hey there, lovelies!

I've been wracking my brain about how to actually implement the puppetmaster's behaviour.

The idea is that the puppetmaster is encountered, and summons the empty crosses. From there on we have three options:

Option A:

As the fight progresses the Puppetmaster captures your heroines of your choice one by one, and the final leg of the battle must be fought 1v1 with the last heroine you didn't choose.

Option B:

The Puppetmaster captures three heroines of your choice at the very start of the battle. It is up to whoever you leave to last to 1v1 the Puppetmaster. The other heroines are released when the Puppetmaster is defeated.

Option C:

The Puppetmaster captures three heroines of your choice at the very start of the battle. It is up to whoever you leave last to 1v1 the puppetmaster. As the fight progresses the Puppetmaster releases them one by one.

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Advantages and disadvantages:

Option A

Advantages: Slowly ramping up the difficulty. Fight leads to a crescendo in a similar fashion to Thing From The Stars

Disadvantages: It's harder to balance this fight. The puppetmaster's attacks have to get weaker as time goes on to compensate for the reduction in player agency. Also, with this option it is possible for the player with a particular setup to instantly burn down the puppetmaster and skip all phases.

Option B

Advantages: Simplest to balance. All stats and damage can be built around there always being just one heroine.

Disadvantages: Possibly the least interesting option thematically and fun-wise. Just a normal battle but with one heroine.

Option C

Advantages: This version of the fight can't be burned down. It can also be better balanced around a proper 1v1.

Disadvantages: It's weird to balance later in the fight because it's a battle that will get significantly easier as time goes on which feels counter-intuitive.

Which version of the fight do you think would be best?