General Discussion

[Xela]

Bad for testing

I updated JSON items files to plurals, there is no point in writing convertion code for everything. Traits/Effects would not have worked for the same reason as locations otherwise.

[DarkTl]

^It's not like I didn't publish prototypes for traits and items jsons here before making them. I figured those minor changes in names are not a big deal, since no one said a word 

Anyway, some balancing will be needed, and there are possible typos that didn't break json structure, but items jsons are ready and up to date with current concepts.

I recall potions of serenity were too good, so now they are rarer and have cblocks. I'm not sure though how to deal with basis potions, like healing and mana. Should they be cheap or expensive, common or rare?

Because if they mostly will be used during explorations and battles as a last resort, they might as well be expensive and powerful. While in everyday life there are other ways to restore hp/mp, like misc items, food and rest.
On the other hand, in many games basic potions are cheap, common, mostly not too strong and often used during gameplay.

[Xela]

I thought it would work too, can't really remember how each system is working.

Either way it would have been easy to straighten out with code/replace editors functions.

There is no advice to be given on power of the items, they were too weak before due to gameplay changes but in order to get a feel, playing would be required.... I am going to be busy for a while meaning less time to work on the game but we should discuss additions to FighterGuild and exploration as you guys can now try out the base.

[DarkTl]

I'm not sure though how to deal with basis potions, like healing and mana. Should they be cheap or expensive, common or rare?

Because if they mostly will be used during explorations and battles as a last resort, they might as well be expensive and powerful. While in everyday life there are other ways to restore hp/mp, like misc items, food and rest.
On the other hand, in many games basic potions are cheap, common, mostly not too strong and often used during gameplay.

Cherry, Klaus, anyone else, any thoughts? 

[MrKlaus]

 Correct me if I’m being wrong. Basically potions in the end will be the life savers in the wild (while exploring) and food will be use inside walls of PyTFall to restore health. Or the potions also could be used in the arena between fights?

The issue is do You guys want to make this game an RPG with elements of owning the brothel (something like the sim brothel revival project is doing with theirs RPG Maker) or a simulator focusing more on owning, running a brothel and acquiring girls with some RPG elements. Basically it all comes to the main source of income for the MC.
When going with the RPG approach for most players it will end in daily grinding the arena, exploring the wild land  to get some serious cash (grind + heal). Go with a lot of moderated price potions that restore 10-25% of the MC HP would balance the potential income.
 
With the simulation approach, when exploring won’t be a daily thing (but used for acquiring new girls, being sent on a quest, looking for new gear or just exploring for fun/lvling up/treasure hunt) and brothel will be the main source of money; I would go with more pricy potions that restore around 25-50% of health but aren’t too common to get. 
 
Another though. For potions abusers, make the potions intoxicate or addict the MC. 
For the intoxication: More he drinks = lesser effect, would were off after 5-6 days without drinking.
For addiction: no potion in the morning (new day) 1-2AP less; cure: with some more expensive potion or a treatment from a healer/druid/shaman/doctor/moms chicken stew. 
 
Btw. I went with the annoying brat for the elements explanation.
 

[Xela]

Correct me if I’m being wrong. Basically potions in the end will be the life savers in the wild (while exploring) and food will be use inside walls of PyTFall to restore health. Or the potions also could be used in the arena between fights?

Another though. For potions abusers, make the potions intoxicate or addict the MC. 
For the intoxication: More he drinks = lesser effect, would were off after 5-6 days without drinking.
For addiction: no potion in the morning (new day) 1-2AP less; cure: with some more expensive potion or a treatment from a healer/druid/shaman/doctor/moms chicken stew. 

Yeah, I'll prolly code the crew using potions tonight. No item can be used in between chainfights *but you have full inventory/world access between dogfights. Real matches can only be fought once per day.

As for the potion abuse, I dismiss almost all proposals that just complicate logic to get a slightly different behavior, at least until we have a 1.0 release. Everything that was done in those areas so far didn't prove to be very fruitful. They wanna abuse it, let them

The issue is do You guys want to make this game an RPG with elements of owning the brothel (something like the sim brothel revival project is doing with theirs RPG Maker) or a simulator focusing more on owning, running a brothel and acquiring girls with some RPG elements. Basically it all comes to the main source of income for the MC.
When going with the RPG approach for most players it will end in daily grinding the arena, exploring the wild land  to get some serious cash (grind + heal). Go with a lot of moderated price potions that restore 10-25% of the MC HP would balance the potential income.
 
With the simulation approach, when exploring won’t be a daily thing (but used for acquiring new girls, being sent on a quest, looking for new gear or just exploring for fun/lvling up/treasure hunt) and brothel will be the main source of money; I would go with more pricy potions that restore around 25-50% of health but aren’t too common to get. 

Simulator, it's been decided. The only time we may resort to the "RPG Maker" style is during the exploration runs, Ren'Py wasn't build for that.

Btw. I went with the annoying brat for the elements explanation.

Oki
============================
But you've kinda missed the question

Here is what we have now:



You set up a party, area, risk, duration and behavior and send them on an exploration run.



All party member become blocked (you cannot access their inventories or profiles) until they return.



After exploration run is over, you get back a report. (*Note: Defeated in this context doesn't mean destroyed, overwhelming defeat is far more dangerous (but any defeat or even a victory can be potentially lethal depending on risk factor)).

==============================
Working direction:

- Girls using restoring potions.
- Option to try and capture girls.
- Guild Updates (Simple Prison/Dungeon (to hold captured chars), Bar, Training facilities and maybe something healing related).
- More interface (Service Jobs, setting girls to live in the guild, team details and etc.).
- Maybe some events.

If anyone has ideas for more options and/or events, let me know.

[CherryWood]

@Xela
I think that the items rewards should be much less common.
But aside from adding more favored texts and events, I don't think it's missing much at this point. I played a few games that have reports like this as a main gameplay and there were ok.

I may be good if its possible to make some map structures, like routes the girls may go at random and some that may need a special skills or items to go there.

Also:
Would it be possible to use this interface and reserving girls for another events too? Like sending girls to a dance competition, escort mission, custom scripted events etc.? That was actually one of the things I was missing a lot when thinking about making a character story - making a girl unavailable for a while or selecting a girls to accompany you somewhere. (but not like I plan to make one now)


@DarkTl
Dunno about potions... but I generally favor items to be rarer, especially if they are all manually created like in our case.

I recall that there was too much micromanagement involved while using consumables like makeups to my liking - they did too little for too short time.  Some misc items, like cat, costs you gold when you keep using them - wouldn't it be better to use the makeups in the same way without the need to reapply them on each girl every few days?


--------
Anyway, I finish gathering girlmeets lines (2-3 days I guess) and then I look what I can do for the exploration. Looks like it could be fun thing to work on. (I guess image tags need to wait a little longer again, couldn't bring myself to solve the problems with them, even if I really wanted too)

[Xela]

Also:
Would it be possible to use this interface and reserving girls for another events too? Like sending girls to a dance competition, escort mission, custom scripted events etc.? That was actually one of the things I was missing a lot when thinking about making a character story - making a girl unavailable for a while or selecting a girls to accompany you somewhere. (but not like I plan to make one now)

Tell me when you need this and I'll just right you a function. We may use this interface elsewhere but I am not entirely sure how we're supposed to me using it for events/escort/dance competitions.

PS: I agree that SE is too profitable atm, we'll straiten that out.

Edit: Structures can be created in JSONs, I am not sure about how to make a representation of them yet or if one is even needed. Special skills is an interesting suggestion but a bit too vague...

[DarkTl]

Another though. For potions abusers, make the potions intoxicate or addict the MC. 
For the intoxication: More he drinks = lesser effect, would were off after 5-6 days without drinking.

Btw, food already has a similar effect, food poisoning, if you'll try to eat too much.

I recall that there was too much micromanagement involved while using consumables like makeups to my liking - they did too little for too short time.  Some misc items, like cat, costs you gold when you keep using them - wouldn't it be better to use the makeups in the same way without the need to reapply them on each girl every few days?

Such consumables were created with an eye on autobuying system that we don't have yet. You don't have to force girls to buy and use makeup irl, they do it automatically if they have enough money, so in the game they should do it too 
Misc items sound interesting, but they are impossible with the current system. Misc items are able to change stats every N turns, they cannot just modify them once. And we already spent a lot of time on items, it's time to work with tags and girlsmeets.

I think that the items rewards should be much less common.
But aside from adding more favored texts and events, I don't think it's missing much at this point. I played a few games that have reports like this as a main gameplay and there were ok.

I agree. Moreover, maybe some nonlinear events, like those simple text quest dungeons in SM3.

Special skills is an interesting suggestion but a bit too vague...

In the absence of skill tree we only have traits and base races. Races and traits checks, I guess?

Also, we might need quest items category for things like keys from dungeons for example.

[MrKlaus]

@Xela
I think that the items rewards should be much less common.

@DarkTl
Dunno about potions... but I generally favor items to be rarer.

I agree with Cherry.

@Xela about restoring HP on exploration.
 Maybe lets drop the potions usage for exploration and implement something like a Combat Medic Kit. It would restore a certain amount of HP after every fight. I'm thinking it would be a onetime purchase for every team (u give every team a medic kit). Also could be different sizes. Small could restore around 20-30%, when large around 80-100%.

[Xela]

In the absence of skill tree we only have traits and base races. Races and traits checks, I guess?

Also, we might need quest items category for things like keys from dungeons for example.

We have some exploration relate traits like adventurer I believe. Also we could add some areas to be unlocked only with an elf on the team. I'll take a look after base stuff is finished.

Misc items are able to change stats every N turns, they cannot just modify them once. And we already spent a lot of time on items, it's time to work with tags and girlsmeets.

We will also need more explorable areas... Maybe we can add battle backgrounds to them and use them for forest like exploration in the future as well. Would be very simple but resources/development time friendly. Anyway, we'll need 5 - 6 main areas + 3 - 5 subareas each for the release. I am thinking that we should also specialize some items locations to be specific to regions, same with girls.

@Xela about restoring HP on exploration.
 Maybe lets drop the potions usage for exploration and implement something like a Combat Medic Kit. It would restore a certain amount of HP after every fight. I'm thinking it would be a onetime purchase for every team (u give every team a medic kit). Also could be different sizes. Small could restore around 20-30%, when large around 80-100%.

It would be harder to explain (I guess something along the lines of areas being too unstable to use potions safely so medkits are required). I see no reason why amount of medkits should be limited while space to carry other items is not. Medkits thing would be a bit of a stretch but definitely simpler to code, would also be an excuse to add that quest items category Dark mentioned.

I need more opinions on this one... not going to code either approach until we've decided.

[CherryWood]

Got this:

Code: [Select]

While running game code:
  File "game/library/screens/pyt - screens - nextday.rpy", line 134, in script
    python:
  File "game/library/screens/pyt - screens - nextday.rpy", line 136, in <module>
    result = ui.interact()
  File "game/library/screens/pyt - screens - nextday.rpy", line 1188, in <module>
    text (u"{size=-5}%s" % event.txt) color black
KeyError: u'red}%s has died during this skirmish'

For exploration screen:
- team leader is not easily changeable like the other members
- would be good to have HP bars there, or something like that
- also maybe some indication that a girl is part of MC party

Edit: Structures can be created in JSONs, I am not sure about how to make a representation of them yet or if one is even needed. Special skills is an interesting suggestion but a bit too vague...

depends on how enemies and rewards are handled now, I didn't looked at that yet


It's just that I played a game like that recently, where you send a team to a map, and it goes randomly route A (with goblins) or route B (with orcs), with some twists like they can go A-C-F only if there is a mage in team that will open a portal (or have a treasure map or whatever). With no MC control over it (other then assembling a good team) there would be no need for representation other then some different report texts I think. Like survival jsons, but with branches.

I am thinking that we should also specialize some items locations to be specific to regions, same with girls.

We could also add some cheap gameplay-prolonging tricks like gathering throphies/materials instead of complete items and then exchange them with some npc for real stuff. 

[Xela]

Got this:

Code: [Select]

While running game code:
  File "game/library/screens/pyt - screens - nextday.rpy", line 134, in script
    python:
  File "game/library/screens/pyt - screens - nextday.rpy", line 136, in <module>
    result = ui.interact()
  File "game/library/screens/pyt - screens - nextday.rpy", line 1188, in <module>
    text (u"{size=-5}%s" % event.txt) color black
KeyError: u'red}%s has died during this skirmish'

Right, game doesn't like girls dieing I guess I'll take a look.

For exploration screen:
- team leader is not easily changeable like the other members
- would be good to have HP bars there, or something like that
- also maybe some indication that a girl is part of MC party

- Leader is teambound, that took effort to code and will be explained in the future (Arena fighting at some point, legal issues (responsible for the team), law, etc.)
- Already planned
- Maybe... doesn't seem like it's a very useful bit of info.

[DarkTl]

Maybe there should be some requirements for leadership. Like enough character or absence of traits like shy.
Or, rather, the better the leader (good traits, high character), the better the team.

[Xela]

I need more opinions on this one... not going to code either approach until we've decided.

Guys, I really don't want to decide this thing myself, both options (normal potions and medkits) are really good. Just comment your thought on this thing, I wanna code this in tonight.