Alpha: Discussion thread ==>

[Xela]

This might do the trick, I doubt that there is an unpatched version still around somewhere, we'll track the version better with the next release, upping them as we release patches.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vq64j58c12377ac/library.rar?dl=0

===
I don't remember if we actually changed anything except code, prolly not. You'll have to start a new game if you were not playing patched version before.

[krakr]

many thanks.

I have no issues starting new game, learned a lot in first run through.

Will let you know if it makes a difference.



lol loading QS caused error, so yeah, your link is to the unpatched version.

[Xela]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4l1n4gyaw63fqo7/game.rar?dl=0

Might be useful as well, although I don't think it is required, just recall that it was updated sometimes during the patching.

[krakr]

OK, thank you.


Oh I finally understand what was meant in another post about the inventory filter.
I wasn't aware that when you set it in your inventory, it's universal.
Patch vastly improves training rewards for Arena among other things.


Not to be a dick, but I'd like to point out that by including "strip" in the XXX school, that makes it less likely to get a useful whore skill.
Theres a dance school anyway.
Also, are "joy" and "devotion" calculated like other positive outcomes? Just asking cuz all my ho's are 100/100 on joy, but sometimes that's the only result from a school session.

[Xela]

I'd like to point out that by including "strip" in the XXX school, that makes it less likely to get a useful whore skill.

It was a long time ago but I think that even old schools worked on per stat rewards basic, so adding strip stat there should have in no way decreased bonuses from sexual skills.

Also, are "joy" and "devotion" calculated like other positive outcomes? Just asking cuz all my ho's are 100/100 on joy, but sometimes that's the only result from a school session.

Yeap, those work similar to other stats, disposition and joy are best controlled through items and wages. Conversations are also a good way.

[krakr]

It was a long time ago but I think that even old schools worked on per stat rewards basic, so adding strip stat there should have in no way decreased bonuses from sexual skills.

Yeap, those work similar to other stats, disposition and joy are best controlled through items and wages. Conversations are also a good way.

You misunderstood, I give a rat's ass for a slaves disposition & when I chat up a free girl I don't hire till 900+ so upkeep is >10 or even 0. (and she won't say no when I ask her to change jobs)
I was asking because schools are prohibitively expensive & I'm angered when I get those types of results rather than a pertinent skill.
If I send a bitch off to school across town I want her to learn how to fuck/dance/be beautiful etc... not be more devoted to me or happy.
I'm finding really disappointing results from even the expensive highly rated teachers.
It's like sending a bitch to MIT or Harvard & she comes home with a smile on her face & fuck all.
I thought that by removing strip as a potential reward for XXX school it would force the code to reward in a more meaningful way.
I see "intelligence" was removed in the patch, so that can't be a factor.
I'm not a programmer, so feel free to bitch slap me if I'm outta line.


Another observation along this line is the EXP rewards far outstrip the skill rewards. I've had whores go into a whorehouse with maxed out skills & in the space of a few levels, she is now at 1/2 her potential. In my first game I got a free whore up to Lv 20 & had to use 3 rings of refinement to get her to famous. This is despite the fact that she had a laundry list of awesome stat boosting traits & she started out with CHA & REF nearly max when I hired her. She was earning 10k+ XP a day. Every few lvl's I had to send her back to school. By the time I scrapped that game, none of her sex skills was over 70, but joy & dispo were 100/100 & 1000/1000 since I hired her at Lv 1 & still being rewarded. Which is the more logical result of some filthy peasant ass fucking you? +1CON & ANAL or +1Joy & Refinement? I see that all the time though. Random outcome generators always set my teeth on edge.


On a positive & in no way critical note, the arena is awesome. Took me a while to figure out how to add ho's to my party, but when I did, I had a blast. Kudos.
Also like to thank you for taking time out to personally reply to me, I know you're on 1000 boards plus you're busy coding, so I'm very humbled & flattered.
Hope my comments don't come off as unappreciative, far from it, I'm just trying to give honest feedback in a constructive way.


[edit] I just realized I started another new game with the Game.rar patch (I think that's the one that removed Intell) & school results seem to be a bit better

[Xela]

You misunderstood, I give a rat's ass for a slaves disposition & when I chat up a free girl I don't hire till 900+ so upkeep is >10 or even 0. (and she won't say no when I ask her to change jobs)
I was asking because schools are prohibitively expensive & I'm angered when I get those types of results rather than a pertinent skill.
If I send a bitch off to school across town I want her to learn how to fuck/dance/be beautiful etc... not be more devoted to me or happy.
I'm finding really disappointing results from even the expensive highly rated teachers.
It's like sending a bitch to MIT or Harvard & she comes home with a smile on her face & fuck all.
I thought that by removing strip as a potential reward for XXX school it would force the code to reward in a more meaningful way.
I see "intelligence" was removed in the patch, so that can't be a factor.
I'm not a programmer, so feel free to bitch slap me if I'm outta line.

It's kinda off that intelligence was removed, even if it was, we're restored it. Schools shouldn't be too expensive, it's all about finding the right course. There is little point in sending chars to do expensive classes if they are not ready for them. Teachers should have two ratings, one for their ability to teach and another for their general knowledge. Ability to teach is the most important one while knowledge should be greater than that of a char that you're sending to school.

Availability of the courses depends on rng to keep schools interesting and not linear like they usually are (although there may be normalization routines, I don't remember).

Also, great bonuses are also awarded when a course is completed and a char followed (you noticed it soon enough and kept paying until the end).

Another observation along this line is the EXP rewards far outstrip the skill rewards. I've had whores go into a whorehouse with maxed out skills & in the space of a few levels, she is now at 1/2 her potential. In my first game I got a free whore up to Lv 20 & had to use 3 rings of refinement to get her to famous. This is despite the fact that she had a laundry list of awesome stat boosting traits & she started out with CHA & REF nearly max when I hired her. She was earning 10k+ XP a day. Every few lvl's I had to send her back to school. By the time I scrapped that game, none of her sex skills was over 70, but joy & dispo were 100/100 & 1000/1000 since I hired her at Lv 1 & still being rewarded. Which is the more logical result of some filthy peasant ass fucking you? +1CON & ANAL or +1Joy & Refinement? I see that all the time though. Random outcome generators always set my teeth on edge.

Yeah, we're still trying to figure out experience, stats, skills and etc. The problem is that we've started with recreating the original Sim Brothel, continued the same design with remaking WM to create WM2 and finally we've went with our own design using a lot of older concepts that got all mixed up.

It should feel a lot better in modern version since we've changed a lot of stuff but even now, there are issues like you describe.

As for jobs bonuses, joy/disposition are based on how well the job was performed, there are extra checks on place for chars getting pissed off when serving clients with ranks way below them (like courtesan serving a peasant), we've removed that from current version, at least until we restore castes, still, it was working in Alpha (I think).

On a positive & in no way critical note, the arena is awesome. Took me a while to figure out how to add ho's to my party, but when I did, I had a blast. Kudos.
Also like to thank you for taking time out to personally reply to me, I know you're on 1000 boards plus you're busy coding, so I'm very humbled & flattered.
Hope my comments don't come off as unappreciative, far from it, I'm just trying to give honest feedback in a constructive way.

Most useful comments are the once with criticism

It's been a while since the game was discussed, prolly because Alpha is very old and current version is not playable.

[edit] I just realized I started another new game with the Game.rar patch (I think that's the one that removed Intell) & school results seem to be a bit better

I don't think game.rar could remove intelligence, there should be nothing there to influence it.

[krakr]

Yeah, we're still trying to figure out experience, stats, skills and etc. The problem is that we've started with recreating the original Sim Brothel, continued the same design with remaking WM to create WM2 and finally we've went with our own design using a lot of older concepts that got all mixed up.

I can imagine. Shitloads of math & IF - THEN type statements. Virtual pie charts & whatnot.
Good luck on that.

[krakr]

I'm wondering if you are developing a dress-code type thing for next release?

Current game, I just bought the Maxed out brothel & have 1 Lv 7 ho, 3 Lv 6's & they're all fucking miserable because apparently filthy peasants have well over 300 gold to piss away on pussy.
My Lvl 7 refuses about 10 customers a day too lmao. Even so it's like -10 to -20 joy per day.
Having an option to enforce a dress code would nip that in the bud, then I'd just have to worry about the lesbo's taking too much cock ^_^
Alternate solution would be a Shower upgrade you can buy so you can make the customers get the cheese off their dicks first. (ignore caste check kinda command)

Another thing I noticed is that Service girls take about 130 fatigue/day & they all have to rest on the same days.
Not THAT huge a deal since you can auto-clean, but serious loss of revenue.
Similar for guards, but they take less fatigue sparring in the guard chamber.
I guess the only solution is to potion just 1 girl at a time to stagger them manually.


[edit] just noticed my Lv 6 free girl doesn't seem to be taking the joy hits that the slaves are. I assume that's by design.
A lot of little nuances that I've got to take into consideration I see. (if I can spot them lol)
Oh, & despite Intelligence no longer being visible, it most certainly is a factor, just now I can't tell if my ho is dumb or not.

[Xela]

I'm wondering if you are developing a dress-code type thing for next release?

Not yet. It depends on Lamoli being able to render or provide detailed instruction for custom renders for multiple chars. Generally, automated dress code type of a thing is not a good idea because all drawn chars are too different and come in a lot of shapes and sizes.

If we'll be able to come up with enough 3D renders, I will code in a dress code.

Current game, I just bought the Maxed out brothel & have 1 Lv 7 ho, 3 Lv 6's & they're all fucking miserable because apparently filthy peasants have well over 300 gold to piss away on pussy.
My Lvl 7 refuses about 10 customers a day too lmao. Even so it's like -10 to -20 joy per day.
Having an option to enforce a dress code would nip that in the bud, then I'd just have to worry about the lesbo's taking too much cock ^_^
Alternate solution would be a Shower upgrade you can buy so you can make the customers get the cheese off their dicks first. (ignore caste check kinda command)

Possibly, there is a reason why we removed ranks... the concept was not reasonable without a lot of extra logic. Rank/Caste checks are all ignored in modern code.

This was reported before... and should be fixed in the next release on one way or another. In fact, jobs are being completely rewritten using a really complex module called SimPy, professionals and scientists use it to simulate spearing of viruses, clients visiting malls, cars charging/gassing up at stations, trains/metro's and etc.

Almost three businesses are already working under SimPy so it will get more manageable for developers and hopefully a lot more interesting for players in the next release. Everything will be simulated as it was in real life, clients come in to the building, he/she is being greeted by manager or char, they pick the one they like in Brothel/Club/Shop and etc. Nothing is faked anymore, like some things were in Alpha. Everything is being checked, simulated and executed in real time and you can view general flow/results or specific reports for every business. Upgrades will also have real meaning, not just modifying one or two variables like they did in Alpha.

Another thing I noticed is that Service girls take about 130 fatigue/day & they all have to rest on the same days.
Not THAT huge a deal since you can auto-clean, but serious loss of revenue.
Similar for guards, but they take less fatigue sparring in the guard chamber.
I guess the only solution is to potion just 1 girl at a time to stagger them manually.

It's strange that noone reported this before, we've literally had a couple of people claiming to sink in days into the game... In any case, jobs are being completely refactored, there will be nothing left from the old loops except for the reports.

Specific complains about jobs in Alpha are no longer useful... unlike opinions and reports on Arena/Schools/Stats/Training/Taxes/Finances/Prices/Gold/Characters that are still similar in a number of ways.

[edit] just noticed my Lv 6 free girl doesn't seem to be taking the joy hits that the slaves are. I assume that's by design.
A lot of little nuances that I've got to take into consideration I see. (if I can spot them lol)
Oh, & despite Intelligence no longer being visible, it most certainly is a factor, just now I can't tell if my ho is dumb or not.

Good

[krakr]

Now I'm really interested in getting my hands on your next release  .
sounds very promising.

[krakr]

Holy shit, just had to wade through over 100 (342 page end of turn summary) refusals from my Free Tayu, Nami (One Piece).
She refuses to change profession & will only strip until her disposition goes below 900.
LMAO my reputation is now 4! Fame 1000/1000, Too funny
This is why I was asking about dress codes & such once you get to a certain lvl. The caste system can be brutal.
I thought the Joy hits on slave Tayu's was bad, this was rather shocking.
Killed hundreds of rep in 1 turn .



[EDIT] Just had an idea. If you were to put a check list of castes you allow inside on the Brothel set up page, it could present opportunities for your guards to fight off angry nomads or beggars that can't get in as well. I'm all for the caste system, just would like some way on the Player end to manage it.

[lothran]

I don't believe that there are centralized variables for those things even in the dev version. It's prolly simpler to give yourself a lot of cash, find script.rpy file, there should be:

Code: [Select]

label after_load:
    # Some code
at the end of it, add:

Code: [Select]

label after_load:
    $ hero.gold = 1000000
to it and load one of your saves. Make sure to delete that or it will be annoying having your gold reset all the time, that will mess up your finances as well (a bit). You can use hero.add_money(100000, "Cheating") if you want finances to remain intact.

This was an interesting experiment.  The money lasted quite a while but unless the girl had a good enough level to create an income that sustained the taxes and expenses, it was just a money drain. 

Two days ago I downloaded renpy and tried to recreate the .exe from the files that come with it, but it gave me a couple of errors where there probably shouldn't be any.  I wonder if they are python features that renpy didn't recognize.

I took a good look through the code, and while I don't know python, I know enough basics to follow the major intent.  I was going to change the jobs section to increase all girl income 10% and then recompile.  The errors I mentioned above stopped me for now.

My current opinion is that the game really needs 3 difficulty levels, the current one is HARD, 10% more income is NORMAL, ,and 20% more is EASY.  Changing the tax level would have similar results, but I don't think it would go as far as I am suggesting.  Still, it is probably the easier choice for a quick fix.

I think the rank system was a correct choice but not implemented correctly.  If each brothel gives a rank limit one higher than the previous (2, 3, 4, 5, etc.), then the fourth building with a max girl rank of 5 should have a target client and girl rank of 4, and no client will enter that is outside a +/- 2 range (rank 2 to 6).  That way most of the girls can be in the right range for the clients and rep loss goes way down along with most of the rejections.  Part of the selection could include a rank test first so a client does not pick an unsuitable girl.

By this plan, the 2 room house would never have a client above rank 3, and the fourth house would have clients of rank 2 to 6, with most of the girls being rank 4.  Any girls rank 3 or 5 can have a problem with some clients being too high or low for them.  This could be tightened even more so no conflicts occur, but having this much range will maintain some of the color of occasional rejections.

The clients should have a rank level based on their type, and maybe more descriptions should be made to maintain variety.
1=beggar, 2=peasant, 3=laborer, 4=staff, clerk, 5=merchant, businessman, 6=well to do, politician, 7=celebrity, 8=nobility, 9=royalty
... at least this is the idea, it needs about 9 or 10 steps, and some ranks could use two descriptors if possible to give good variety.  You don't really need to sort out the pics unless you feel a driving desire to make work.

In general I feel guards don't get exp fast enough, they are the slowest by far, and they also get Con the slowest by far which is wrong (I'm thinking weights don't work for them).  All girls should be evaluated by shift, and a shift should be about as tiring for each (slightly more for dancers, less for serving girls and guards), though guards currently seem to have more time for resting.  Currently dancers get worn out way too fast and servers tire too fast also. From what I've seen discussed you seem to be moving in this direction. 

Guards only generate revenue when they stop a fight and the client pays (they are not supposed to make money for the business). Servers make bar revenue and tips while keeping clients longer to spend more money.  Dancers make tips and increase the revenue of the whores instead of making money directly (maybe a cover charge) while also keeping clients around longer to spend more.  Whores rake in the main revenue augmented by clients who are drunk and or super horny, though a good bar can bring in a whole lot of money in a night also, that is why they are paired with strip clubs.

Personally I think maybe whores should be dancers, not separate roles, and clients take them to their room after a rousing dance, all part of the same shift.

Enough for now, the game has been interesting and I see it getting better (slowly).

[Xela]

This was an interesting experiment.  The money lasted quite a while but unless the girl had a good enough level to create an income that sustained the taxes and expenses, it was just a money drain. 

Well... that's the idea, bad workers = no income.

Two days ago I downloaded renpy and tried to recreate the .exe from the files that come with it, but it gave me a couple of errors where there probably shouldn't be any.  I wonder if they are python features that renpy didn't recognize.

I took a good look through the code, and while I don't know python, I know enough basics to follow the major intent.  I was going to change the jobs section to increase all girl income 10% and then recompile.  The errors I mentioned above stopped me for now.

My current opinion is that the game really needs 3 difficulty levels, the current one is HARD, 10% more income is NORMAL, ,and 20% more is EASY.  Changing the tax level would have similar results, but I don't think it would go as far as I am suggesting.  Still, it is probably the easier choice for a quick fix.

You can just change the files in the game, there is no need to recompile anything. Reason it doesn't work is that screen language syntax was adjusted syntax the release.

We'll add difficulties post beta, there are too many new systems that would have to be tested first.

I think the rank system was a correct choice but not implemented correctly.  If each brothel gives a rank limit one higher than the previous (2, 3, 4, 5, etc.), then the fourth building with a max girl rank of 5 should have a target client and girl rank of 4, and no client will enter that is outside a +/- 2 range (rank 2 to 6).  That way most of the girls can be in the right range for the clients and rep loss goes way down along with most of the rejections.  Part of the selection could include a rank test first so a client does not pick an unsuitable girl.

By this plan, the 2 room house would never have a client above rank 3, and the fourth house would have clients of rank 2 to 6, with most of the girls being rank 4.  Any girls rank 3 or 5 can have a problem with some clients being too high or low for them.  This could be tightened even more so no conflicts occur, but having this much range will maintain some of the color of occasional rejections.

The clients should have a rank level based on their type, and maybe more descriptions should be made to maintain variety.
1=beggar, 2=peasant, 3=laborer, 4=staff, clerk, 5=merchant, businessman, 6=well to do, politician, 7=celebrity, 8=nobility, 9=royalty
... at least this is the idea, it needs about 9 or 10 steps, and some ranks could use two descriptors if possible to give good variety.  You don't really need to sort out the pics unless you feel a driving desire to make work.

We dropped ranks for now. Maybe we'll add castes but that is still in plan phase.

In general I feel guards don't get exp fast enough, they are the slowest by far, and they also get Con the slowest by far which is wrong (I'm thinking weights don't work for them).  All girls should be evaluated by shift, and a shift should be about as tiring for each (slightly more for dancers, less for serving girls and guards), though guards currently seem to have more time for resting.  Currently dancers get worn out way too fast and servers tire too fast also. From what I've seen discussed you seem to be moving in this direction. 

Guards only generate revenue when they stop a fight and the client pays (they are not supposed to make money for the business). Servers make bar revenue and tips while keeping clients longer to spend more money.  Dancers make tips and increase the revenue of the whores instead of making money directly (maybe a cover charge) while also keeping clients around longer to spend more.  Whores rake in the main revenue augmented by clients who are drunk and or super horny, though a good bar can bring in a whole lot of money in a night also, that is why they are paired with strip clubs.

I don't think that's unreasonable... it would be weird if crew that just sat around or sparred a little bit got anything near what Arena fighters/Explorers (newer versions) would be getting. Sending them to train every now and then should make it better.

Jobs are being rewritten anyway so most of the alpha logic does no longer apply.

Personally I think maybe whores should be dancers, not separate roles, and clients take them to their room after a rousing dance, all part of the same shift.

They are separate rolls but something along those lines will be implemented as events/management tactic in beta or post beta. New logic will make that easier to implement.

Enough for now, the game has been interesting and I see it getting better (slowly).

Yeap

We're discussing/considering many concepts/improving the code and logic, but I doubt that game will get much easier, we're trying yo make it more interesting, not simpler.

[lothran]

I have noticed that booty lube is a negative penalty instead of helping.