devolution

Author Topic: A pair of suggestions  (Read 11823 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline null

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
A pair of suggestions
« on: November 30, 2009, 11:36:01 PM »
First, regarding training, how about redoing the system so that instead of being purely dependant upon how many girls you have training / how long they're doing it for perhaps there could be a max-training benefit determined by the highest stats a girl training currently has? Ie, your best girl can teach the others to be as good as she is but not any better. It'd make having a few girls that earned their stats through leveling a prerequisite to simply training everyone up.

Second, could you maybe halve the count of player actions per turn but double their effectiveness? Trying to actually do ten things per turn really just slows the pace of the game down terribly.

Offline Mehzerz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 564
  • Rockin' the after life after party
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2009, 02:59:06 AM »
Since training is the only thing that alters a girls stats your first suggestion wouldn't work.
As for the talk options being halfed but doubled in effectiveness I agree. Wouldn't hurt to even drop it to 3 choices per turn and make them even slightly more effective.
Starter girls image additions progress:
26 girls, 18 to go

Offline DocClox

  • Dev Team
  • *****
  • Posts: 1867
  • Messing Around With Python
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2009, 06:54:21 AM »
Training does need looking at. :)

Actually, I quite like the idea. Girls get some on-the-job learning, so training isn't the only source of stat increases. Also, it would allow things like hiring a trainer for a particular stat.  And the PCs one-on-one sessions with the girl constitute training of a sort, too.

I think I'd also like to see training be a bit more formal. Currently, it's a bit like a "workshop" approach, where they all get around a big table and compare notes. I think I'd like to see one girl appointed trainer, with maybe 5 pupils max, and probably training one skill (maybe with some minor improvements in a couple of others).


Offline Mehzerz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 564
  • Rockin' the after life after party
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2009, 09:38:21 AM »
That could work. I suppose the higher her skills are the more effective a trainer she is? That means at first if you want gains that get higher you'd need to change the trainer out consistently unless the trainers stats increase as well... but maybe at a much slower pace?
I thought maybe you could hire a trainer for a small fee, like send the girls off to a "training camp" for a couple weeks and then they'd come back with higher sexual skills depending on how much you're willing to pay.
Starter girls image additions progress:
26 girls, 18 to go

Offline DocClox

  • Dev Team
  • *****
  • Posts: 1867
  • Messing Around With Python
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2009, 10:05:52 AM »
That could work. I suppose the higher her skills are the more effective a trainer she is?

How about the greater the difference in ability, the faster she trains? So if one girl is 20% and the other is 25% it's slow progress. And if one is 90% and the other 95%, it's just as slow. But if one is 5% and the other 95%, initial progress is quite fast, although it slows down quite quickly.

The other thing I sometimes think about is having a "teacher" skill, so that the higher the skill, the more effective the training.

I thought maybe you could hire a trainer for a small fee, like send the girls off to a "training camp" for a couple weeks and then they'd come back with higher sexual skills depending on how much you're willing to pay.

Except... in Crossgate, who would you send her too that you could trust to send her back? I think (speaking in my capacity as a brothel keeper) I'd prefer to hire instructors to come in and teach on-premises, unless I had some guarantee of neutrality from the teacher. On the other hand, offering a training scheme for the other gang's girls and then not giving them back afterwards sounds like a good idea for an event...

Offline dcb42

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 52
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2009, 03:10:06 PM »
I think I'd also like to see training be a bit more formal. Currently, it's a bit like a "workshop" approach, where they all get around a big table and compare notes. I think I'd like to see one girl appointed trainer, with maybe 5 pupils max, and probably training one skill (maybe with some minor improvements in a couple of others).

While I like the idea in theory, in practice I think this takes micromanagement far, far too far, considering the sheer number of girls. If, between turns, I'm spending twenty minutes organizing my training schedule and shuffling girls around, I'll get bored and stop playing - and I suspect I'd not be the only one.

Training as it stands is borked, sure, but it's simple, abstracted; I don't see that as a particularly bad thing. What I'd do, frankly, is make training cost money (for supplies, hired instructors, et cetera). Not a lot - 10, 15 gold per girl per session? - but enough that it'll add up if you're training 65 girls at once (which I, I must admit, tend to do).

Offline LordShame

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2009, 06:11:34 PM »
The fee seems like a good idea. It could even be more balanced if the fee increased with the girl's ability, to show how teaching a new girl the basics would be much less expensive than perfecting an expert's talents.

Offline DocClox

  • Dev Team
  • *****
  • Posts: 1867
  • Messing Around With Python
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2009, 06:36:42 PM »
Maybe somewhere in between? Set aside some girls as trainers, and others as trainees and let them organise their own grouping. No maximum size for a class, but pupil-teacher ration does have an effect.

Offline zodiac44

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 560
  • Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2009, 10:49:42 PM »
Why not set it so you can assign some girls as teachers (who can teach students up to a max of their skill levels), with each teacher contributing some total number of skill points to be divided among all students (with some minimum per student if students exceed total xp).  As an example: each teacher gives 15xp total, assign two teachers and 3 students, and each student gets 10 points to her skills each turn, up to the teachers' max.  Teachers could improve their skills very slowly while teaching (slower than working in the brothel), so it isn't a total loss for them.

The player could assign his own girls as teachers or outsource the job, where more skilled teachers would cost more to hire per turn.  That way, the player either loses revenue by taking girls off brothel duty or pays for someone else to teach.

If you want higher skills to be harder to reach, assign an xp total to each skill and cost out the skills using a pyramid system (ie, the cost in xp to raise a skill to the next level is equal to the value of the next level - 1 costs 1, 2 costs 2 more, 3 costs 3 more, etc.  Total cost for a skill level N = N*(N+1)/2).  Skills advance rapidly to begin with and then slow down.  The highest levels of skill would take forever to reach (of course dependent on the xp rewards - 5xp per turn using a skill would take over 1000 turns to get to a 100 from a 0).  Under such a system, the game might not even need a cap on skills.  Time would take care of the problem by itself.  It would also be beneficial for girls to specialize in certain activities, further differentiating them from one another.
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse."

Offline DocClox

  • Dev Team
  • *****
  • Posts: 1867
  • Messing Around With Python
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2009, 03:20:01 AM »
Why not set it so you can assign some girls as teachers (who can teach students up to a max of their skill levels), with each teacher contributing some total number of skill points to be divided among all students (with some minimum per student if students exceed total xp).  As an example: each teacher gives 15xp total, assign two teachers and 3 students, and each student gets 10 points to her skills each turn, up to the teachers' max.  Teachers could improve their skills very slowly while teaching (slower than working in the brothel), so it isn't a total loss for them.

Good enough for me.

If you want higher skills to be harder to reach, assign an xp total to each skill and cost out the skills using a pyramid system ...  Under such a system, the game might not even need a cap on skills.  Time would take care of the problem by itself.  It would also be beneficial for girls to specialize in certain activities, further differentiating them from one another.

Yeah, that's something I've been considering as well. Make those higher levels harder to reach.

Of course the real fix for this is to balance the money supply.

Offline dcb42

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 52
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2009, 03:34:25 AM »
Of course the real fix for this is to balance the money supply.

This, this, a thousand times this. I don't see training as utterly broken as it sits now, but I DO think it's an issue that I can have two brothels full of girls doing nothing but training while another brothel supports them all with a healthy profit. Money balancing is the real problem, because once you need more girls working in order to keep yourself out of debt, then you'll have fewer girls, by necessity, training.

Offline DocClox

  • Dev Team
  • *****
  • Posts: 1867
  • Messing Around With Python
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2009, 03:43:02 AM »
This, this, a thousand times this. I don't see training as utterly broken as it sits now, but I DO think it's an issue that I can have two brothels full of girls doing nothing but training while another brothel supports them all with a healthy profit. Money balancing is the real problem, because once you need more girls working in order to keep yourself out of debt, then you'll have fewer girls, by necessity, training.

Well, the plan was, and still is, to address this through the config screen necno is adding with this release. The plan was to add a slider that let players decrease the amount of gold from various activities. So maybe cut brothel income by 50%, movies by 25%. Then I was going to encourage people to have a play with the levels and see what best suited their play style, with a view to creating some presets that could be used like difficulty levels. Hopefully this will be faster, and more accurate that just tweaking a variable for each release and hoping to get it right at some point.

Of course, none of us thought that next major release would be quite this long in coming.

What I can do is add (another) config file to the game and let players edit that and see where that gets us. Not as convenient for the players, but it does move us forward.

Thoughts?

Offline Mehzerz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 564
  • Rockin' the after life after party
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2009, 11:07:22 AM »
I like the way this training system is starting to sound.


Interesting idea for the config menu. Letting the player adjust the income themselves. Only problem I can see with that is if you do have unlockables after the game it'll make it far too easy to gain points for unlockables.
If we stick with making unlockables... I think if you have straight up easy/normal/hard/chaos whatever. Then a Free play mode. In Freeplay you can alter the incomes like you mentioned Doc but you won't gain any unlockable points. As you said though, we can have the various players play around with the sliders and we can alter them to affect the various modes that could be added later on.
Most of this is probably FAR FAAAAAAR down the line though.
Starter girls image additions progress:
26 girls, 18 to go

Offline DocClox

  • Dev Team
  • *****
  • Posts: 1867
  • Messing Around With Python
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2009, 11:30:33 AM »
If we stick with making unlockables... I think if you have straight up easy/normal/hard/chaos whatever. Then a Free play mode. In Freeplay you can alter the incomes like you mentioned Doc but you won't gain any unlockable points. As you said though, we can have the various players play around with the sliders and we can alter them to affect the various modes that could be added later on.
Most of this is probably FAR FAAAAAAR down the line though.

Yeah, that would work. I like that.

Offline Zeus

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 108
Re: A pair of suggestions
« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2009, 11:56:47 AM »
... would it be possible, that the game read pictures with ( ) in it? (like "Sex(1).jpg" "Anal(10).jpg") so that the rename for the files is easier. 
why fear 6 7? 7 8 9! (just say it loud and you understand ... mh... jokes you have to explain are crap... Sorry ^^)