devolution

Poll

What should I prioritize next? (a * after a choice means I am currently working on that)

Player Stuff
20 (8.5%)
Girl's interactions (with each other)
25 (10.7%)
Scripts (interactions with the player)
46 (19.7%)
New Stats, Skills and Traits
10 (4.3%)
Existing Stats
1 (0.4%)
Existing Skills
3 (1.3%)
Existing Traits
6 (2.6%)
Customers
5 (2.1%)
Gangs
12 (5.1%)
Rivals
8 (3.4%)
Buildings
7 (3%)
General Jobs
4 (1.7%)
Farm Jobs
9 (3.8%)
Matrons
9 (3.8%)
Items
2 (0.9%)
Remaking the interface
15 (6.4%)
New stuff
8 (3.4%)
Whore Master Editor
4 (1.7%)
No priority
3 (1.3%)
WM7
This poll will be reset when I start a new section or add more choices so check back often.
37 (15.8%)

Total Members Voted: 136

Author Topic: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.04.01  (Read 937832 times)

0 Members and 7 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline aevojoey

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... What, are you going to complain about having to move the mouse, too?
I would complain about that too, yes, because its a usability concern too which apparently "hackers" like you fail to grasp. But in this case i'm not complaining, because its no big issue here.
There is no need to move the mouse.
A/D changes the girl,
W/S changes job type,
Q/E changes jobs,
Z/C changes Day/Night

Also, holding control and/or shift when choosing a girl allows you to select more than one girl to change them to the same jobs.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 02:14:37 AM by aevojoey »
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Offline dmotrl

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I'm complaining about the game choosing the initial state, based on a context i never care about (prior assigned task). When i assign orders, i already know what NEW orders i want to give - i don't care anymore about the prior orders. But since the game preselects day/night and task category, based on the prior settings, i for every girl have to check again what the prior orders were.
Unfortunately, we haven't developed computers that can read the user's mind, so your complain applies equally to absolutely everything.  You have to type in a new website (or select it from your favorites, or whatever) when you want to look at a different web-page, don't you?  You have to open up a different program if you want to play a different game than the one you're playing right now, don't you?  And when you do, you have to make sure that you aren't already on the page you want to go to, or already playing the game you want to play.  It's the exact same thing.

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I don't. It's just that it is confusing. In usability, when the user is presented with a choice/dialog, he first needs to orient himself "where am i?". Three things can happen: A) The user doesn't even have to think, because he knows ahead of time where he will end up (best case). B) The user has to doublecheck but can quickly find out (suboptimal case). C) The user has to spend multiple seconds to figure out where he ended up (worst case).
No, the 'worst case' is having to redo about five seconds of "work" because he thought he was in one cycle when he was actually in a different one.  But gods forbid someone with a functioning brain have to spend several seconds thinking!

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If when deciding to issue new orders, the initial choosen time-of-day and category were always the same, then case "A)" applies.
Unless the person playing the game is keying down the girls and wants to change only one Time Cycle at a time, in which case he needs to manually adjust the Time Cycle each time because someone though it would be a great idea to have it reset on each girl instead of stay static.

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... since the UI doesn't make it very visible if i.e. day or night is selected (the visual difference is very subtle),
I would honestly suggest you see an optometrist, then.  Because the visual difference is pretty much the opposite of "very subtle."

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I would complain about that too, yes, because its a usability concern too which apparently "hackers" like you fail to grasp. But in this case i'm not complaining, because its no big issue here.
... How the hell does having a functioning brain make me a hacker?

Offline Destont

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  • Destont Tengoto - Tengu of Darkness and Sorrow
I'm going to just throw my opinion on.....whatever this discussion is and make a few statements in response to mika.

In regards to the complaints about non-static girl images. This honestly seems like an incredibly frivolous complaint and I would state that making images static in certain situations would not necessarily improve the experience. To be fair though, I use an mid-late game mindset when playing this and so only check the turn summary for important events, to do otherwise quickly becomes impractical or idiotic once you progress.

I would like to state just in case mika is under some sort of misunderstanding, all buildings come fully equipped with every facility that is attached to that type of building. for example all brothels have bars and gambling halls etc. the only kind of upgrading you can do to a building is expand the number of rooms to increase the amount of girls you can station/assign there.

Item costs is again in my opinion a somewhat pointless excuse due to how quickly such minor things become hard to notice. Also I'm surprised nobody stated in the healing salve vs turducken example that the turducken technically accomplished more then a healing salve to make up for its higher price point, we just thankfully (and i will personally murder you guys if you even think of putting something like this in...... <<'') do not have to deal with a hunger stat in this game. I mean looking at it from a world building point of view makes the price difference justifiable, although I am not saying that this could work for all such price oddities it was just something I thought of while typing this post.

Lastly, mika's main theme with his complaints about the gui seem to boil down to it not being streamlined enough for their liking and I would like to state that I am of the opinion that streamlining does not necessarily make something better.

Well I think i'll put away my soapbox and return to my regularly scheduled lurking now.

Offline mika

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Lastly, mika's main theme with his complaints about the gui seem to boil down to it not being streamlined enough for their liking and I would like to state that I am of the opinion that streamlining does not necessarily make something better.
Umm, it IS too "streamlined" now, which IS what results in unneccessary clicks. One example out of many: Why do i even have to click a button to switch between day and night? There's enough space for a day and night column.

Likewise, i find it funny how making non-unique girls have ANY visual identity is "frivolous".

But okay, *i'm* implied to lack a functional brain, while the veterans in here, who have become used to all the issues of the game (nothing unusual for game communities - this kind of discussion is common, and it is how community developed games get stuck in their defects, by their fans over time turning issues into features: "It has always been like this, so now its a good thing")... while those people would rather add more quantities and complexity to the game... rather than doing polish.

Fine, keep eating your own dogfood, but then please stop asking for publicity in other communities, when all you want is to stay among yourselves, and not bother about stuff like documentation, interface issues - or even just a short install guide, that could be written in less than 3 minutes (the links and DL-threads exist already, after all, so this is like a matter of typing maybe 5 sentences and copypasting the rest).

*Shrugs* Your priorities. Have fun.

Offline GonDra

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Umm, it IS too "streamlined" now, which IS what results in unneccessary clicks. One example out of many: Why do i even have to click a button to switch between day and night? There's enough space for a day and night column.
The game is quite old and went through several hands before ending up in Crazy and aevojoey's hands (Heck I joined this forum more than 5 years ago and the game had been around for a while before that), as such the interface and lots of the code are dated.
The people that worked on it the last few years often only had a few hours of time each week and the interface really wasn't high on the priority because people worked on what they liked or burned out (something which happened far too often).
As such the resolution of the standard interface is still intended for small 4:3 monitors because that is what was in use when it was made.

Likewise, i find it funny how making non-unique girls have ANY visual identity is "frivolous".
I am pretty sure static profile images for random girls were around at some point, but I couldn't say where or when it was the case.

But okay, *i'm* implied to lack a functional brain, while the veterans in here, who have become used to all the issues of the game (nothing unusual for game communities - this kind of discussion is common, and it is how community developed games get stuck in their defects, by their fans over time turning issues into features: "It has always been like this, so now its a good thing")... while those people would rather add more quantities and complexity to the game... rather than doing polish.
Yeah the brain comment was uncalled for.
I don't think being blind to usability problems is the case in this community, there is more of a problem with features being not well documented, for example you can select multiple girls to assign the same jobs to all of them at the same time (Ctrl + click and/or shift + click work like you would expect them).
Yes there were more features being added in the last few patches instead of adding polish, but the reality is that the game is open source and worked on by volunteers, in their free time. You need to understand that people prefer to use their free time to work on things that interest them, although aevojoey is already working on a 16:9 interface that will probably alleviate some of the problems you have with the game.

Fine, keep eating your own dogfood, but then please stop asking for publicity in other communities, when all you want is to stay among yourselves, and not bother about stuff like documentation, interface issues - or even just a short install guide, that could be written in less than 3 minutes (the links and DL-threads exist already, after all, so this is like a matter of typing maybe 5 sentences and copypasting the rest).
And this is the kind of nonconstructive criticism that people new to game communities spout instead of thinking of solutions. I mean if it only takes a few minutes to do why didn't you do that? It would have been more productive.

You have quite a few good points, but the way you voice them does not help fixing them.

Now If you would excuse me I had originally planned to write down the ideas for a rework of the whoring system in the game.

Offline dmotrl

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Umm, it IS too "streamlined" now, which IS what results in unneccessary clicks.
That's incorrect.  Something that is very streamlined is very efficient, and as such would result in no unnecessary clicks.

Offline Wirbelwind

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Hi aevojoey, noticed that you have tried to remove the space in front of "crazys-wm-mod" folder, but I couldn't find out what was the issue why it was reverted.
Was it that commit history wasn't updated to new files?

If the folder could be renamed, it would make it easier to follow your changes with desktop clients. It's just that git desktop clients don't handle that space in front of name very well (at least on Windows) and the only way to see diffs and blame is on Github webpage.

Few days ago, I was experimenting on renaming the folder while keeping history and the results you can see in my fork. https://github.com/Hezer/crazys-wm-mod
Most of the commit history for file still disappears(couldn't find a way to keep them), but all previous commits are still visible when using blame.
It's also few commits behind, but you can see there if it has the same issues as your attempt to rename the folder.

These were the git shell/terminal commands I ran to make the changes:
Code: [Select]
git mv \ crazys-wm-mod/ crazys-wm-mod/
git add -u crazys-wm-mod/
git commit -m "Changed base folder name, removing whitespace in front of the name. Fixing git GUIs not showing diff or blame."
The explanation for those commands here

Offline mika

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The game is quite old and went through several hands before ending up in Crazy and aevojoey's hands (Heck I joined this forum more than 5 years ago and the game had been around for a while before that), as such the interface and lots of the code are dated.
The people that worked on it the last few years often only had a few hours of time each week and the interface really wasn't high on the priority because people worked on what they liked or burned out (something which happened far too often).
As such the resolution of the standard interface is still intended for small 4:3 monitors because that is what was in use when it was made.
I suspect it has more to do with ease of technical implementation: Go to the girls management screen. Look at the list with the available tasks, for a given category. Even at the current interface size (was it smaller in the past?), there is enough space to have two columns with check-box like buttons. So, for each task, right aligned there would be two small buttons to set it as the daily or nightly task. BUT: I haven't seen this kind of interface element - a list with checkbox-style button columns - anywhere else in the game, so it might be that no code for something like this exists to begin with. Hence, for the coder it is easier to just add another state-switch button. Likewise, the other obvious solution is, to axe the bottom left area for task selection entirely: Instead, one could just rightclick in the list of girls, in the cell for the daily or nightly task, and then dropdown-menu style change the task. BUT (again): I haven't seen cascading menus anywhere else in the game, except for the dialog popups... and a centered popup obviously would be annoying. So again: Code for such an interface element probably doesn't exist yet, and coders prefer to reuse existing functions, instead of writing new parts. In general, interface coding usually is among the most annoying and least satisfying things to work on as a coder.

EDIT: If the issue is one of implementation, then a third option to make things more clear would be, that instead of having a button to switch between day and night (which has to be set ahead of time), have two buttons: "Set dayjob" and "Set nightjob". This would entirely avoid accidentally setting something for the day, when one wants to set it for the night (and the other way around). It also implicitely would get rid of the entire preselection mechanic: The category would just reset to "common" and "rest" whenever one selects a girl. No more guesswork and irritation.

One last thing i'd suggest is, to add "rest" to the top of all categories, instead of just "common". That's because resting is the single most frequent option to pick - it is the primary reason why one so often has to switch back and forth between common and other categories.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 05:47:11 PM by mika »

Offline crazy

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Having a static image for random girls code is in my version if the game. But it may be out of date at this point.  I'll have to check in to it if I get time

Offline aevojoey

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.04
« Reply #489 on: June 25, 2015, 11:41:08 PM »
.06.02.04 is up.

Hopefully the image problems are finally fixed.
GIFs should use less memory.
The Items folder can be moved like the Characters, DefaultItems and Saves folders.
A few more bug fixes and item updates.

The 16:9 interface is in there but not all screens have been updated.
Fixing the game is a better game than actually playing it.
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Offline mika

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.04
« Reply #490 on: June 26, 2015, 03:04:22 AM »
@aevojoey

Noticed in the changelog you were experimenting with health and tiredness recovery. This reminded me of something i noticed yesterday: If you give a girl with mediocre constitution two assignments, it may happen that they exceed the 100% cap even when they were at say 30% at turn begin. If one has a matron, the turn summary then tells one that the matron took her off work, because the girl was exhausted - all great thus far, but odd thing was the result in the next turn: The girl's health dropped from 100% to 30% (!!!) - i'm almost certain this is exactly the same, as if i had no matron, so the flavour text about the matron stepping in is just that.... flavour text, colliding with the actual facts. I'd think one additional benefit a matron could provide is, to in situations like those limit the damage caused (in the given example, i could imagine a drop from 100% to 60% - for a really good one perhaps no lower than 75%).

I mean, the way skill and stat progress works (mostly across the board instead of selectively, and usually by whore assignments) already ensures, that your matron is often be best girl you have - her rebellion reduction effects on everyone of course are already very valuable, but i'd think she could do with minor secondary benefits .... nothing overkill. I mean, she basically becomes your assistant and to a major extend runs the place, so in-character with this, i think it would make sense if she competently takes care of matters, like exhausted girls.

(Before anyone asks: no, there was no accident or random event for the given example - the girl really went from 100% health to 30% health just by a single overworked game round, under the supervision of the matron).

Offline Hanzo

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.04
« Reply #491 on: June 26, 2015, 06:43:03 AM »

I mean, the way skill and stat progress works (mostly across the board instead of selectively, and usually by whore assignments) already ensures, that your matron is often be best girl you have - her rebellion reduction effects on everyone of course are already very valuable, but i'd think she could do with minor secondary benefits .... nothing overkill. I mean, she basically becomes your assistant and to a major extend runs the place, so in-character with this, i think it would make sense if she competently takes care of matters, like exhausted girls.

I was thinking about things for matrons too.

The idea I have was to lose one personal action per building you own without a girl assigned to the corresponding "matron" job for it (right now you have 10 PAs per turn which I think is too much and slows down the game, but that's another story). It kinda makes sense that you have more free time if you have someone that helps you run the place.

What I don't like is that you can assign any free girl to the job, it doesn't matter if she isn't trustworthy. Maybe add some stat requirements (obedience)?

Offline mika

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.04
« Reply #492 on: June 26, 2015, 07:44:58 AM »
News on the random crashes:

I'm a bit cautious about saying this and possibly provoking the wrath of the RNG, but with the new version posted today, i haven't had a single crash for hours, when previously the game would crash every few minutes (most often when switching to a girl's detail page or the dungeon). Can't see anything obvious in the changelog, except for multiple reworking of subsystems - or maybe its just compiling, no idea.

(I expect to update this post any minute now, when the game proves me wrong for having the audacity of saying the words "no crash")

Offline aevojoey

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.04
« Reply #493 on: June 26, 2015, 07:47:54 AM »
@aevojoey
Noticed in the changelog you were experimenting with health and tiredness recovery. This reminded me of something i noticed yesterday: If you give a girl with mediocre constitution two assignments, it may happen that they exceed the 100% cap even when they were at say 30% at turn begin. If one has a matron, the turn summary then tells one that the matron took her off work, because the girl was exhausted - all great thus far, but odd thing was the result in the next turn: The girl's health dropped from 100% to 30% (!!!) - i'm almost certain this is exactly the same, as if i had no matron, so the flavour text about the matron stepping in is just that.... flavour text, colliding with the actual facts. I'd think one additional benefit a matron could provide is, to in situations like those limit the damage caused (in the given example, i could imagine a drop from 100% to 60% - for a really good one perhaps no lower than 75%).

(Before anyone asks: no, there was no accident or random event for the given example - the girl really went from 100% health to 30% health just by a single overworked game round, under the supervision of the matron).
What job was the girl doing?
Whore jobs for girls with low sex skills can injure them and being too tired increases that damage.
The Matron takes girls off work at the start of the shift if their health goes below 20 or their tiredness goes above 80.
If the girl was at 79 tired at the start of the day shift, the Matron will let her work that shift then reevaluate her for the night shift.


I mean, the way skill and stat progress works (mostly across the board instead of selectively, and usually by whore assignments) already ensures, that your matron is often be best girl you have - her rebellion reduction effects on everyone of course are already very valuable, but i'd think she could do with minor secondary benefits .... nothing overkill. I mean, she basically becomes your assistant and to a major extend runs the place, so in-character with this, i think it would make sense if she competently takes care of matters, like exhausted girls.
The Matron of the Brothels is not as smart (the code has not been updated) as the Matrons of the other buildings.
I plan on rewriting the way the brothels run eventually and I will fix a lot of things then.


The idea I have was to lose one personal action per building you own without a girl assigned to the corresponding "matron" job for it (right now you have 10 PAs per turn which I think is too much and slows down the game, but that's another story). It kinda makes sense that you have more free time if you have someone that helps you run the place.
So you normally have 10 PAs and assigning a matron would free up some of your time and give you more PAs?
But then if you buy more buildings, more of your time would be taken up with travel between them and you would loose PAs.
Then you can get some of that back and more if you assign a Matron to that building.
10Base
+3 for Matron in BrothelShe frees up your time and has the girls brought to you.
+2 for Head Girl in HouseShe wakes you up earlier and sets your schedule so you can better manage your time from the start
-1 for each buildingIt takes some travel time between the buildings...
+2 for Matron there... but you called ahead and the matron prepared the girls for you to inspect.
I think that might work, what does everyone else think?

What I don't like is that you can assign any free girl to the job, it doesn't matter if she isn't trustworthy. Maybe add some stat requirements (obedience)?
You can hire a fox to guard the chicken coop if you want... whether you should is another thing.
Most of the job restrictions are only Free vs Slave girls.
The only job I can think of with skill requirements is Doctor in the Clinic needing 50 Medicine and 50 Intelligence.
This can be explained a Public Safety Laws preventing inexperienced Doctors from killing their patients.

News on the random crashes:
I'm a bit cautious about saying this and possibly provoking the wrath of the RNG, but with the new version posted today, i haven't had a single crash for hours, when previously the game would crash every few minutes (most often when switching to a girl's detail page or the dungeon). Can't see anything obvious in the changelog, except for multiple reworking of subsystems - or maybe its just compiling, no idea.
(I expect to update this post any minute now, when the game proves me wrong for having the audacity of saying the words "no crash")
Do you have pregnant girls in your buildings?
I think most of the crashes were caused by the missing branches in the pregnancy alternate image tree.
So the fix for that may explain why you are not crashing as much.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2015, 07:51:16 AM by aevojoey »
Fixing the game is a better game than actually playing it.
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Offline mika

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Re: Updates and Notes for Crazy's Mod --- Current Version .06.02.04
« Reply #494 on: June 26, 2015, 08:41:32 AM »
What job was the girl doing?
Whoring for day and night - don't exactly remember what kind. And yes, she was a rookie. Was 30% tired and at 100% health at turn begin.


Quote
So you normally have 10 PAs and assigning a matron would free up some of your time and give you more PAs?
But then if you buy more buildings, more of your time would be taken up with travel between them and you would loose PAs.
Then you can get some of that back and more if you assign a Matron to that building.
10Base
+3 for Matron in BrothelShe frees up your time and has the girls brought to you.
+2 for Head Girl in HouseShe wakes you up earlier and sets your schedule so you can better manage your time from the start
-1 for each buildingIt takes some travel time between the buildings...
+2 for Matron there... but you called ahead and the matron prepared the girls for you to inspect.
I think that might work, what does everyone else think?
Fine by me - only addition i'd mention, is making remaining actions for the current turn visible (it might be hidden somewhere, but i haven't found it. Similiar visibility issues for current remaining gold: It's not visible in quite a few screens, and in the overview screen with the stats about your brothel (where you can also go to town), it's a tiny number among the other stats. Not kidding: I regularily leave a screen in the middle of setting something up, just to figure out how much money i have left in another screen.

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You can hire a fox to guard the chicken coop if you want... whether you should is another thing.
Most of the job restrictions are only Free vs Slave girls.
The only job I can think of with skill requirements is Doctor in the Clinic needing 50 Medicine and 50 Intelligence.
This can be explained a Public Safety Laws preventing inexperienced Doctors from killing their patients.
I find a few ways how the game calculates job ratings quite.... mystic. How for example is customer service calculated? Seems to have nothing to do with "service" skill, nor cleaning, cooking, intelligence, charisma or other obvious and intuitive criteria. I'm starting to believe its just based on level.... which is also how the matron rating works, right? (i have a "quick learner" at "only" level 4, most nearly all skills way up - yet she only gets a matron rating of C - there's not much left in stats she could improve, EXCEPT of level.


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Do you have pregnant girls in your buildings?
Not a single pregnancy yet in my game. Perhaps that was the problem?
« Last Edit: June 26, 2015, 08:43:58 AM by mika »