Game Design/Ideas

[DarkTl]

Might be a good idea to add that... Nymphomaniac and frigid really sound like traits and not effects.

Yeah, it'll give a lot of new opportunities. Like health/mp/fatigue regeneration/degradation for some traits. While you add it, don't forget to add possibility of modifying exp and gold to items as well 
Gtg, let's continue this discussion tomorrow.

[Xela]

That remindes me, we have mechanism for adding new girls without starting a new game, but what about deleting? What will happen if you delete xml/json?

Post-save adding mechanism is disabled until we sort out all random girls/traits/items/tags and so on. Deleting isn't a problem since xml/json are all loaded at game-start only.

Most clones should die after a month or two anyway, but I'm afraid that the game could be quickly crowded with random girls if player actively uses and fires them (totally possible with captured monster girls).

We'll have game control the population if it starts getting out of hand.

Yeah, it'll give a lot of new opportunities. Like health/mp/fatigue regeneration/degradation for some traits. While you add it, don't forget to add possibility of modifying exp and gold to items as well 
Gtg, let's continue this discussion tomorrow.

Ok, I'll add all of that tomorrow, maybe acts control as well if I can get that straight in my head.

[DarkTl]

I was thinking about small daily regeneration/degradation of joy for optimist/pessimist traits, and remembered that we have Cherry's calm trait as well. I believe it means that joy value should strive to 50, just like optimist/pessimist strives to 100/0. So we either need a little more advanced mechanics for stats on daily basis or a new effect.

[Xela]

Yeah, it'll give a lot of new opportunities. Like health/mp/fatigue regeneration/degradation for some traits. While you add it, don't forget to add possibility of modifying exp and gold to items as well 
Gtg, let's continue this discussion tomorrow.

Finally got some time for the project so I took a look at traits code and remembered that we've decided a while back to back traits up with effects instead of coding allowing them to apply effects directly.

I was thinking about small daily regeneration/degradation of joy for optimist/pessimist traits, and remembered that we have Cherry's calm trait as well. I believe it means that joy value should strive to 50, just like optimist/pessimist strives to 100/0. So we either need a little more advanced mechanics for stats on daily basis or a new effect.

And this was the reason why... there are to many variables to take in consideration if we want to make sh!t good and interesting. So basically, we need to decide on what effects we want to be there and I'll code them in, then we simply enable those with traits (xml string to enable effects has already been there for a long time).

I am going to see how to add gold/exp thought items now.

[Xela]

exp and gold to items as well 

I am kinda at a loss here as well... something like this makes sense only for non-temp consumables and misc items, is that what you wanted?

====================
Edit:
Well, haven't tested it yet but it is now possible to influence gold and experience through misc and consumables.

[DarkTl]

Let's see, there are two consumable items in wm that give free exp, I'd like to port them. Maybe a couple of misc manuals as well, if they won't hurt the game balance. Also gradual reduction of exp could be used for some powerful misc items in order to balance them.

As for gold, I thought about misc enchanted pouch that give a small amount of gold from time to time, or a small upkeep for "living" misc items, like cats. Let's assume that if you have a cat equipped, you should feed it, while if it lies in inventory, it has enough free time to catch mice and birds.

[Xela]

Let's see, there are two consumable items in wm that give free exp, I'd like to port them. Maybe a couple of misc manuals as well, if they won't hurt the game balance. Also gradual reduction of exp could be used for some powerful misc items in order to balance them.

As for gold, I thought about misc enchanted pouch that give a small amount of gold from time to time, or a small upkeep for "living" misc items, like cats. Let's assume that if you have a cat equipped, you should feed it, while if it lies in inventory, it has enough free time to catch mice and birds.

Yeap, all of that should work, I'll update the DB version so you could test it.

======================
And DB version is updated.

It's just for items, SlaveDriver/Acts control is not coded yet. Service job control coded in but not debugged, Auto Rest should work as well as wage logic. Activation of girl control is not checked vs girls stats/class yet so no girl should refuse.

Also the sell girl (without confirmation) and sell brothel should work but not fully tested yet. Maybe more stuff, I forgot what was added since the last update.

[DarkTl]

First of all, we have to decide what will happen when gold will reach 0. Either MC starts to pay for it, item will be removed from equipment slot, or gold will become negative (let's call it a debt).

So basically, we need to decide on what effects we want to be there and I'll code them in, then we simply enable those with traits

It's hard to decide everything at once, I'll think about it.
Btw, what about natural degradation of joy to 50 independently of traits? Unless we talk about some optimist-lolita, it's hard to have max joy all the time without any reason.

[Xela]

First of all, we have to decide what will happen when gold will reach 0. Either MC starts to pay for it, item will be removed from equipment slot, or gold will become negative (let's call it a debt).

Right now it's debt.

It's hard to decide everything at once, I'll think about it.

Oki, effects system is more or less ready, I've coded in Poisoned effect a while back (not tested).

Btw, what about natural degradation of joy to 50 independently of traits? Unless we talk about some optimist-lolita, it's hard to have max joy all the time without any reason.

That's game design, we prolly have half a thousand decisions to make in that department... I don't have that mapped out yet, just some random ideas.

[DarkTl]

First of all, the game doesn't show girl's gold yet, so I cannot test it. As for exp, it should be excluded from the effect of cmax field (and gold too, if needed).

About effects, we need more than one poison effect (strong, normal, weak, etc.), or it should include specific values of reducing health (like poison(5-10), means random value between 5 and 10 every turn). Weak and strong mobs should have different poisons.

Athletic and Fragile should decrease/increase fatugue, I believe 1-2 per day should be enough. Artificial Body probably should decrease it too, unless the charater has Fragile as well. In that case they cancel each other out. Besides, Artificial Body should at least give immunity to poison, and maybe some other BE effects in the future.
Myabe healing/rest should work a liittle better with Tough and Athletic traits and worse with Fragile and Artificial Body.

Fleet of Foot and Dawdler we already discussed, there should be a probability to not spend AP/spend it twice than usual. In order to balance is properly, it should be once per day at best.

Sensitive not only means passive sex bonuses, but susceptibility to damage as well, no matter defence. Let's say, usual damage*1,1 or 1,2.

Magic Talent should restore mp, maybe 1-3 per day.

Yandere, Mind Fucked probably should cause random mood swings (=joy) from time to time. Maybe +- 10 and 20 respectively.

Depression and on a roll when joy is too low/high. Penalties/bonuses to max health and fatigue, maybe +-5-10% to girl's daily income.

Caught a Cold as effect instead of trait, penalties to constitution, joy, max health, fatigue. Probably will be applied with a certain probability when health is low, especially during the cold season (we have a calendar after all).

Small scratches, scratches, huge/horrific/whatever scratches as temporary, weakened analogs of scars. Only serious wounds lead to scars, but any wounds lead to scratches.

+/- 1 joy per day for Optimist/Pessimist, same for Collected, but aspiring to 50, maybe 60.

Penalties to any joy change for Impersonal, maybe *0.8 or even 0,5.

Extremely Jealous probably should have penalties to joy or even disposition every time MC spends time with someone else, if they already have, let's say, 500+ disposition. On the other hand, they gain more disposition when he spends time with them.

+- 5 libido for Nymphomaniac/Frigid per day.

Heavy Drinker and Always Hungry will buy liquor/food when they get a chance thanks to goodtrait field, so they probably don't need effects. Or maybe we need things like hangover and food poisoning for the excessive use 

That's all for now, maybe I'll come up with something else later.

[Xela]

First of all, the game doesn't show girl's gold yet, so I cannot test it. As for exp, it should be excluded from the effect of cmax field (and gold too, if needed).

Think this through... You can make valid arguments both for using and not using cmax for gold/exp.

About effects, we need more than one poison effect (strong, normal, weak, etc.), or it should include specific values of reducing health (like poison(5-10), means random value between 5 and 10 every turn). Weak and strong mobs should have different poisons.

Poisoned effect I've coded is meant to be used with clever items and events, not BE. It will consume health on a progressive scale until cured or the character is dead.

Otherwise, I've been giving it a lot of thought and decided not to improve BE other than porting 5 - 6 potions to it until after 1.0. We have to many things to do as it is.

Athletic and Fragile should decrease/increase fatugue, I believe 1-2 per day should be enough. Artificial Body probably should decrease it too, unless the charater has Fragile as well. In that case they cancel each other out. Besides, Artificial Body should at least give immunity to poison, and maybe some other BE effects in the future.
Myabe healing/rest should work a liittle better with Tough and Athletic traits and worse with Fragile and Artificial Body.

Fleet of Foot and Dawdler we already discussed, there should be a probability to not spend AP/spend it twice than usual. In order to balance is properly, it should be once per day at best.

Sensitive not only means passive sex bonuses, but susceptibility to damage as well, no matter defence. Let's say, usual damage*1,1 or 1,2.

Magic Talent should restore mp, maybe 1-3 per day.

Yandere, Mind Fucked probably should cause random mood swings (=joy) from time to time. Maybe +- 10 and 20 respectively.

Depression and on a roll when joy is too low/high. Penalties/bonuses to max health and fatigue, maybe +-5-10% to girl's daily income.

Caught a Cold as effect instead of trait, penalties to constitution, joy, max health, fatigue. Probably will be applied with a certain probability when health is low, especially during the cold season (we have a calendar after all).

Small scratches, scratches, huge/horrific/whatever scratches as temporary, weakened analogs of scars. Only serious wounds lead to scars, but any wounds lead to scratches.

+/- 1 joy per day for Optimist/Pessimist, same for Collected, but aspiring to 50, maybe 60.

Penalties to any joy change for Impersonal, maybe *0.8 or even 0,5.

Extremely Jealous probably should have penalties to joy or even disposition every time MC spends time with someone else, if they already have, let's say, 500+ disposition. On the other hand, they gain more disposition when he spends time with them.

+- 5 libido for Nymphomaniac/Frigid per day.

Heavy Drinker and Always Hungry will buy liquor/food when they get a chance thanks to goodtrait field, so they probably don't need effects. Or maybe we need things like hangover and food poisoning for the excessive use 

That's all for now, maybe I'll come up with something else later.

Skipping BE stuff:

Daily Fatigue mod on Athletic/Fragile/Artificial Body of 1/2 points is to insignificant to bother coding it in, even if it is easy. Same goes for healing/rest working better, why would we mess up code all over the place to make an insignificant change to the game?

Poison block on Artificial Body I'll put in today.

Fleet of foot/Dawdler, we can simply add a 33% chance to add/remove 2 AP on daily basis. That will be an overpowering effect already since the whole game is based around AP.

Sensitive doesn't usually mean that in Anime Also BE again...

"Magic Adept" effect  with 1 - 3 MP restoration is worthwhile, I'll add it today.

Yanedere we leave out of it since it usually means random "on spot" swings, not recurring daily effects. Mind Fucked maybe... we need to come up with effect name and range to describe this.

Depression I didn't get but messing with max/mins unless we want to make the change permanent is a bad idea. It means yet ANOTHER layer that keeps track of stats.

Caught a Cold should definitely not effect constitution as that stat is to important to the game. Health/Fatigue/Joy are fair game, also we do not have Moon Phase Calendar, not Date Calendar This effect should also go away after 5 - 10 days and never cause health go below 50.

Scratches I didn't get either.

Optimist/Pessimist +/- 1 upto/if below 60?

Nymphomania/Frigid we've discussed.

Impersonal, it's possible to code penalties to any joy change but it would mean turning joy into float which I tried to avoid but it's not that big of an issue...

Extremely Jealous I understand and it's perfectly doable but confusing... We'll need to discuss it a bit because there is pretty difficult to explain how every girl knows what player does.

Didn't get Heavy Drinker/Always Hungry.

[DarkTl]

Think this through... You can make valid arguments both for using and not using cmax for gold/exp.

The problem is cmax effects all stats equally. Cmax 90 for charisma is pretty high, cmax 90 for gold or exp is miserable. If charisma and exp both used in the same item, we have a problem.
A good solution will be individual cmax field for each stat that affected by misc items.

Daily Fatigue mod on Athletic/Fragile/Artificial Body of 1/2 points is to insignificant to bother coding it in, even if it is easy. Same goes for healing/rest working better, why would we mess up code all over the place to make an insignificant change to the game?

I'm afraid that significant change will hurt the balance. You could try to make them significant though, like 5-10, maybe 15, at least for Artificial Body. After all, the difference between android's/golem's and human's endurance should be significant.

Sensitive doesn't usually mean that in Anime Also BE again...

I believe even now girls could be hurt during fights with customers too. As for anime part, well, that part is already reflected via bonuses to sex skills. I guess people with sensitive skin feeling the pain better, so wounds are more dangerous for them.

Mind Fucked maybe... we need to come up with effect name and range to describe this.

Unstable maybe. About 20-30 should be enough, unless this trait will be too useful for the player due to penalties to character. Then we'll expand range.

Depression I didn't get but messing with max/mins unless we want to make the change permanent is a bad idea. It means yet ANOTHER layer that keeps track of stats.

Ok, then just +-5% and -5%, maybe 10% to girl's daily income. You work better when you happy and vice versa. Not necessarily to wait 0 and max joy, depression with joy<10 and on a roll with joy> 90 should be enough.

Scratches I didn't get either.

You cannot instantly and completely recover from injuries, unless magic or hi tech devices used. Scars, as correctly observed Rudi, should be permanent. Giving a scar trait after each small wound will be irritating for players. So I think we should use effects for that, and scars will be for really serious damage to body. Not necessarily scratches, call it "injured" or "wounded", etc.

Optimist/Pessimist +/- 1 upto/if below 60?

Let's see, optimist should gain +1 to joy per day unless joy is 70+ maybe 80+. Pessimist should gain -1 to joy unless jot is less than 30, maybe 20.
Girls with Collected trait should gain +1 per day if joy is less than 60 and -1 per day if joy is more than 60.
I guess I should make them all mutually exclusive.

Impersonal, it's possible to code penalties to any joy change but it would mean turning joy into float which I tried to avoid but it's not that big of an issue...

We don't need it. If joy will be rounded to the next higher, it should be enough. Unless the game engine doesn't have tools for proper rounding...

Extremely Jealous I understand and it's perfectly doable but confusing... We'll need to discuss it a bit because there is pretty difficult to explain how every girl knows what player does.

Hm, I guess there is a chance that a couple of girls will know about it. It probably will have more potential when/if we'll have relations between girls though.

Didn't get Heavy Drinker/Always Hungry.

Alcohol and food are basically cheap and common consumables that often give bonuses or restore hp/mp/joy/etc. Many of them should be infinite (it's not like the city is in the middle of the desert). It means that you don't need healing potions outside BE, you could heal all you want with alcohol and food as long as you have some money.
To prevent it, I propose effects like hangover and food poisoning, ie same things that will happen if you drink/eat way too much irl.

[CherryWood]

Fleet of foot/Dawdler, we can simply add a 33% chance to add/remove 2 AP on daily basis. That will be an overpowering effect already since the whole game is based around AP.

Maybe it's just my personal thing, but "Fleet of foot" doesn't sound to me like opposite to dawdler. I would prefer something like "hyperactive".

[Xela]

The problem is cmax effects all stats equally. Cmax 90 for charisma is pretty high, cmax 90 for gold or exp is miserable. If charisma and exp both used in the same item, we have a problem.
A good solution will be individual cmax field for each stat that affected by misc items.

Do you really think we need this? We can expand items system indefinitely but it's already advanced enough for 1.0. It's your call as items are your domain and noone's put more time into that than you (myself included since items were concepted and I've finished the code really fast)

I'm afraid that significant change will hurt the balance. You could try to make them significant though, like 5-10, maybe 15, at least for Artificial Body. After all, the difference between android's/golem's and human's endurance should be significant.

Than lets leave this out until we settle game mechanics to see what's what. Traits all have meaning already, if we cannot clearly define effects and there bounds, simply waiting until we can seems to be a better approach.

I believe even now girls could be hurt during fights with customers too. As for anime part, well, that part is already reflected via bonuses to sex skills. I guess people with sensitive skin feeling the pain better, so wounds are more dangerous for them.

This isn't helping, in most games/anime characters seem really sensible at one time and indestructible at other. Lets leave this one out until we have better concept.

Unstable maybe. About 20-30 should be enough, unless this trait will be too useful for the player due to penalties to character. Then we'll expand range.

That looks like a solid effect. Maybe once per 2 - 4 days at random? But the concept is sound and easy to explain.

Ok, then just +-5% and -5%, maybe 10% to girl's daily income. You work better when you happy and vice versa. Not necessarily to wait 0 and max joy, depression with joy<10 and on a roll with joy> 90 should be enough.

I still don't get this

You cannot instantly and completely recover from injuries, unless magic or hi tech devices used. Scars, as correctly observed Rudi, should be permanent. Giving a scar trait after each small wound will be irritating for players. So I think we should use effects for that, and scars will be for really serious damage to body. Not necessarily scratches, call it "injured" or "wounded", etc.

Wounded/Injured is when characters health is below it's max level, at least I've been coding the game under that assumption. Also, we cannot really display scars so we might be better off without them completely. I've never payed any attention to that in WM or any other game for that matter.

Let's see, optimist should gain +1 to joy per day unless joy is 70+ maybe 80+. Pessimist should gain -1 to joy unless jot is less than 30, maybe 20.

Another clear-cut and solid concept.

Girls with Collected trait should gain +1 per day if joy is less than 60 and -1 per day if joy is more than 60.
I guess I should make them all mutually exclusive.

I completely missed collected trait so I have no idea what you're talking about but I understand the requirement of the effect well enough, what should I call it?

Hm, I guess there is a chance that a couple of girls will know about it. It probably will have more potential when/if we'll have relations between girls though.

Yeap

Alcohol and food are basically cheap and common consumables that often give bonuses or restore hp/mp/joy/etc. Many of them should be infinite (it's not like the city is in the middle of the desert). It means that you don't need healing potions outside BE, you could heal all you want with alcohol and food as long as you have some money.
To prevent it, I propose effects like hangover and food poisoning, ie same things that will happen if you drink/eat way too much irl.

Are we going to add food/drugs before 1.0 as a major feature or as a couple of random items? We can add these effects after we decide on that.


=================
I'll brb in an hour or so and start coding some of this stuff. I want to make a screen for MC tomorrow and start putting together first layer of the forest. I am really looking forward to sneaking some basic battles into the game.

[Xela]

Maybe it's just my personal thing, but "Fleet of foot" doesn't sound to me like opposite to dawdler. I would prefer something like "hyperactive".

http://thesaurus.com/browse/fleet+of+foot

We have options