devolution

Author Topic: General Discussion  (Read 3821264 times)

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Offline MonkeyBoo

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2865 on: June 30, 2014, 03:09:12 AM »
Hey, don't know how far along you are till the next update, but I pretty much finished everything, killed all the survival stuff, massed up a ton of items and girls, got the palace to see what it has, could have about 15 level 8 girls in it but will wait before that.


A couple of gameplay problems, girls seem to start making levels like crazy after about level 40 I think, I don't remember exactly, but they don't require any rest because of that, also max stat level rises like crazy at certain points and it get's too difficult to train them and maintain them, unless I ignore my hero and just next and save up money while in training, whatever the choice it became a click / next fest real quick. Arena has no more purpose once you kill the final survival thing because it's just next next next... nothing meaningful and the money I get from my 15 high level girls is more than enough for anything I would want. No point in playing at this time.


As a bug, for taxes, if you sell the brothel before you click next on the tax day, you get to keep any tax money you would have owed, for me it was like 150000... and with the upkeep of the girls I would still keep a big portion of that.... I can't imagine how advantages it would be later on. I hope it's not intended.


Another bug, if you move the file the game loses the location for the sprite of the main char in the arena... a bit annoying since I now have to keep it in the same place, probably works for new games, didn't try.


Item management also sucks at late game stages, we as players could really use something like equipment per action. as in if a stripper is working she has all equipment on, and if she is training she has it off so she can level up... also when you have so many girls keeping track of whatever they have on is hell to deal with, that takes most of my playtime actually, same goes for my hero, if I want to talk to a girl I need charisma items, if I want to fight I need fighting items, if I need to click next turn I need to change to constitution items, another time sink. Time sinks that have low gains and repeat often make the game play feel worse than it should. Idk how you can fix it with the system but it could be usefull to think about these issues in the future at least.


Also the training money sink sucks from level 30-40 till like 200 when you can afford it and not care, actually at about 150-200 the game starts being pointless anyways so from level 30 we can kiss training bye bye... it would be usefull if we could pick a stat and pay more depending on how much we would want to level it up, I don't feel like having it has a money sink really serves much of a real purpose, at least at the current setting the income is either too low or too high to justify the logic. I found myself either being unable to use it at all or very little, using quicksaves since I was low on money, or use it a lot and not give a damn about results when my income got too high to care.


As a final short complaint the filters for the girls deactivate once you leave the screen which is not ideal at all, but from what I read it might not be necessary to do so judging by the looks of development. however it would be nice if we could have a checkbox somewhere and send 15 girls at a time to a training school instead of going through it 15 separate times.


Probably should have posted in bugs but meh, you'll see it faster here.

Offline Xela

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2866 on: June 30, 2014, 05:20:29 AM »
Hey, don't know how far along you are till the next update, but I pretty much finished everything, killed all the survival stuff, massed up a ton of items and girls, got the palace to see what it has, could have about 15 level 8 girls in it but will wait before that..

Mostly the interface, user input and balancing have been updated. There isn't much in sense of new content.

A couple of gameplay problems, girls seem to start making levels like crazy after about level 40 I think, I don't remember exactly, but they don't require any rest because of that, also max stat level rises like crazy at certain points and it get's too difficult to train them and maintain them, unless I ignore my hero and just next and save up money while in training, whatever the choice it became a click / next fest real quick. Arena has no more purpose once you kill the final survival thing because it's just next next next... nothing meaningful and the money I get from my 15 high level girls is more than enough for anything I would want. No point in playing at this time.

The leveling thing has been fixed, I tied their experience to the money they earn in the Alpha and that proved to be stupid. Also we forgot to add the actual delimiters for ranking up girls in the Alpha, you could rank up to level 8 in the Old Shack while in fact by game design, maxrank field was supposed to limit that to 2.

As a bug, for taxes, if you sell the brothel before you click next on the tax day, you get to keep any tax money you would have owed, for me it was like 150000... and with the upkeep of the girls I would still keep a big portion of that.... I can't imagine how advantages it would be later on. I hope it's not intended.

We'll prolly redo or at least lower the taxes but selling brothel should not be profitable because you'd still have to pay for your slave girls and you actually SELL brothels cheaper than you can buy them back, so you'd be paying (20% I think) to the realtor instead of 4 to the government. Income should not be effected by the sale (profit would be but we don't tax that).

Another bug, if you move the file the game loses the location for the sprite of the main char in the arena... a bit annoying since I now have to keep it in the same place, probably works for new games, didn't try.


Item management also sucks at late game stages, we as players could really use something like equipment per action. as in if a stripper is working she has all equipment on, and if she is training she has it off so she can level up... also when you have so many girls keeping track of whatever they have on is hell to deal with, that takes most of my playtime actually, same goes for my hero, if I want to talk to a girl I need charisma items, if I want to fight I need fighting items, if I need to click next turn I need to change to constitution items, another time sink. Time sinks that have low gains and repeat often make the game play feel worse than it should. Idk how you can fix it with the system but it could be usefull to think about these issues in the future at least.

It will work for the new games. It is fixable but it's a bit of code that would have to be maintained and updated as we develop and that proved to be a bit timeconsuming. Changing most stuff, even the location of some files/entire game will be possible closer to the Beta.

Auto-Equipping items and allowing "sets"... it's doable and isn't too difficult but will take some thinking through...

Also the training money sink sucks from level 30-40 till like 200 when you can afford it and not care, actually at about 150-200 the game starts being pointless anyways so from level 30 we can kiss training bye bye... it would be usefull if we could pick a stat and pay more depending on how much we would want to level it up, I don't feel like having it has a money sink really serves much of a real purpose, at least at the current setting the income is either too low or too high to justify the logic. I found myself either being unable to use it at all or very little, using quicksaves since I was low on money, or use it a lot and not give a damn about results when my income got too high to care.

Actually that's about how it should work per design. At some point when you have a lot of the greatest girls money can buy with some of the best building out there, you're supposed to be a millionaire and being able to buy anything you wish. While on the road there it should feel really expensive and to be used with caution.

As a final short complaint the filters for the girls deactivate once you leave the screen which is not ideal at all, but from what I read it might not be necessary to do so judging by the looks of development. however it would be nice if we could have a checkbox somewhere and send 15 girls at a time to a training school instead of going through it 15 separate times.

It's not ideas but the other wise of the stick is players constantly forgetting about filters and claiming that "girls/items" have disappeared. Buy filters thing is in the TODO lists so I'll be taking a look at that.
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Offline MonkeyBoo

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2867 on: June 30, 2014, 05:13:26 PM »
Something I forgot to mention, I was also in a big hurry to leave for work... but having those 15 girls that can get to level 8, and I'm keeping them at 5 for now, is my basic pot of gold, however it takes a long time to level up other girls after that, and isn't really necessary since pretty much all the game has been explored except for the last two brothels, I'm at the 175000 gold one because of the lack of girls for the other bigger one. But am training 25 girls, however I got bored since I can pretty much beat anything. Would be nice if you found a system that would work in indefinite increments.


For the filters, I don't care if they turn off as long as we could get a check-button to set 15 girls to a task at the same time, with one click, because if the castle has 100 girls, most of the time I have to check and change girls tasks, and if I don't have to do that, let's say I have 100 girls at level 8, I would make more money than I would know what to do with, and the game is pretty much over at my current level, with 15 girls capable of that. Of course it might take let's say double that for other players, since I used quick saves a lot in the beginning, but total time should be the same. I do have to admit it has taken a lot of time for such a small 'package', I'm just a bit sad it's over for now :)


In other words... it might be nice that the girls in the world level with you, at a lower pace maybe but it would be better than having to start over with x number of girls on each new brothel. I'm talking about end game stuff for most suggestions, it would be nice if they came sooner but whenever is possible is ok in the end. They do seem to level up extremely fast with training though, compared to the beginning, but I used next like crazy almost, so I could be wrong.


And one last thing, I save 150.000 gold if I sell the 175.000 brothel before taxes since I only have to pay girls upkeep and salary, with a wooping 1.700 gold for slaves owned taxes. That is a lot of money even with the 20% because you are no longer taxed on your girls income either, since the brothel is gone. Is that really intentional? I mean I want to be clear, all the taxes are reduced to 1.700 gold from 140.000 gold + If I sell it.

Offline Xela

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2868 on: July 01, 2014, 09:55:51 AM »
And one last thing, I save 150.000 gold if I sell the 175.000 brothel before taxes since I only have to pay girls upkeep and salary, with a wooping 1.700 gold for slaves owned taxes. That is a lot of money even with the 20% because you are no longer taxed on your girls income either, since the brothel is gone. Is that really intentional? I mean I want to be clear, all the taxes are reduced to 1.700 gold from 140.000 gold + If I sell it.

That's odd, most likely instead of drawing taxes from MC fin module, I coded it to iterate over the MC's owned brothels and get into from them. I think it'd be as simple as changing on line of code to fix.

===============
As for the rest, we still haven't decided on if there should be main storyline or limited amount of days and NG+ or multiple endings based on progress. Also there are currently no content creators on the team except for Klaus so it's not very likely that there'll be a lot more rewards for playing at the end game. Writing/thinking things through is required for that and we don't have the time between the new modules and re-balancing to work on that :(
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Offline DarkTl

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2869 on: July 01, 2014, 11:25:09 AM »
In other words... it might be nice that the girls in the world level with you, at a lower pace maybe but it would be better than having to start over with x number of girls on each new brothel.
More like there should be both low and high level girls rather than only low level ones.

Offline Xela

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2870 on: July 01, 2014, 11:38:54 AM »
More like there should be both low and high level girls rather than only low level ones.

It's easily done, automated or set-up by players or a combination of both. I just feel that it's too early for that.
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Offline CherryWood

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2871 on: July 08, 2014, 09:47:18 AM »
Ok, I'm back.
But not sure what to do now...I kinda lost track of where we are with the game... is there something easy for a start?

Offline Xela

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2872 on: July 08, 2014, 07:36:45 PM »
Ok, I'm back.
But not sure what to do now...I kinda lost track of where we are with the game... is there something easy for a start?

We have a TODO list :)

You could try to unify and organize interactions and girlsmeets bonuses, not easy but important. If you need something hard to code to happen there or base disposition bonuses on difference between hero/girls stats, just tell me what/how it needs to be coded and if possible I'll take care of it. Also, maybe we could use a simpler menu similar to AA2 (recently played that), we prolly have too many choices at the moment.
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Offline CherryWood

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2873 on: July 09, 2014, 12:02:47 PM »
What do you plan to use disposition for? I mean, for general gameplay... I would like to get better estimation of how much effort and complexity is worth doing there, because for example, I feel that gm for alpha was totally off (too much time for little value).

Offline Xela

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2874 on: July 09, 2014, 12:22:15 PM »
What do you plan to use disposition for? I mean, for general gameplay... I would like to get better estimation of how much effort and complexity is worth doing there, because for example, I feel that gm for alpha was totally off (too much time for little value).

I always thought that for free girls, disposition should be used for almost everything. For slave girls disposition should be used for a lot of stuff but often with combination with obedience. We're talking about all sorts of iterations here obviously. Maybe even bonuses during jobs.

I do not believe that it requires too much effort and complexity, we shouldn't go far beyond what we have now or maybe even scale it down a bit. System can always be expanded later.

Value of having free girls working for you has already increased drastically with latest changes and will be even more so. I don't feel like the time required to establish relationship with a girl was off.
==============================

Otherwise, one major improvement that we should definitely introduce is a method to a girls class that handles disposition bonuses based off stats (maybe some traits as well but we cover those with effects and forks during the gm/interactions very well as it). Like chr charisma vs hero charisma should always be considered. Reputation/Fame and class relevant stats should also be at play. Maybe classes themselves as well.

This will be an improvement already, maybe different menu + simpler answers as well.
==============================

It would be hard to mimic AA2 (You said you borrowed some concepts/lines from there but I've never played it and I was kinda surprised by the game, especially how well it can mimic some Anime chars) so we'll have to meet it somewhere in between our system or theirs. Or come up with something else.

Anyway, I'd appreciate a concept as you see it, maybe something from other people as well. There is too much to do with the new exploration module and not enough time atm. I barely made any progress since the last update :( I can write base code, but a plan would be required for that (more time goes time into thinking things through on the fly nowadays that into writing actual code since I got pretty good at the latter.)
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Offline MrKlaus

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2875 on: July 09, 2014, 03:26:22 PM »
 First of all I don’t know nothing about coding a game, so my ideas/opinions can be idiotic; sorry in advance. I PM with Xela for a while now and he encouraged me to speak up here if some ideas pop up in my head about this project, so here I go.
 
Disposition could be expanded to something like a ladder system (from worst to best):
Nemesis
Hostile/malign
Unfriendly/bad
Neutral
Friendly/good
Favorable
Love
 
Every girl would start from neutral. Growth or decline would be determined by the MC interactions and work types assigned to girls.
 
Slaves could only get disposition between Unfriendly and Friendly zone, where free girls could get any.  In work it could be used like this (I’m basing on Xela’s assumptions that slave girls would have a lvl that couldn’t be passed). In Neutral disposition no bonuses just the normal thing, AP = number of clients, normal bonuses to stats growth etc. When the disposition would be Unfriendly, there could be a chance for a customer’s complain and in overall worse performance and earning less gold then predicted, chance to get reputation down and the girl lose her fame/lvl, also a possibility of client being disappointed in the service leaving after a short while without paying (for example Unfriendly slave girl with 3AP could get 3 not paying customers). Also could get tired more quickly and resting longer before getting back to work. In the Friendly zone there should be a small chance to get better payment for the service, reputation growth etc, total opposition of unfriendly.
As for the free girls they could be the MC best dream or greatest nightmare.
A free girl with the highest disposition would get the best bonuses for works and maybe some boost for fights.
On the other side. A girl in Nemesis zone could randomly appear in the wild while exploring, wanting to get even with MC (some harder fight when exploring). And if she would be working for MC it would cost a LOT more than a normal.
 Or something easier I think. Let slaves and free girls have a possibility of getting form nemesis to love status, but the free girls should bring more profit and more trouble for the MC from their disposition. 
 
But how the disposition would grow and decline. It should depends from the WORK and girls status (slave/free). Whores would get the most negative growth (for example a daily count: -1 being a slave, -1 for a customer that force himself on her; -1 for being beaten/threaten, some other) but also positive (+1 nice weather; +1 nice customer; +1 MC positive action, +1 getting a gift; and so on).
Or just make it a daily dice throw, with chances for negative/positive result depending from girls stats like health tiredness or/and special traits like pessimist/optimist, lucky/unlucky. Or make it into a dual dice (one for positive boost one for negative) add the numbers and that would be the daily growth.

Offline CherryWood

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2876 on: July 09, 2014, 04:37:24 PM »
@MrKlaus
We have a lot from this already (or is planned to) - but it depends more on "joy" i.e. current mood of the girl (maintained by good work conditions) then on disposition.
The point is, that free girls primary do the job for the good money it provides and not for your affections, so even it they do not like you, they would be against themselves if they do worse job and therefore earn less money. Also, free girls are free so if they are unhappy (=low joy for a number of days) and do not have a good reason to stay (=good disposition towards you) they simply quit. And slaves do not have that choice - negative disposition on them probably just means you control them by fear, but unless they have some unbroken problematic traits, they do the job regardless. (all slaves currently in game auction are supposed to be "trained" and content with their fate atm. and do not cause troubles - that was mend to be part of Slave Training module, but that was postponed)


I personally favor using joy for most related job checks, like mentioned performance with customers. Disposition is currently used to check if girl stays with you even on hard times (like if you can't pay her wage for few days) or if you ask her to do something out of her profession or even change it. And to agree with intimate interactions from your side.


I believe that's a good way to use disposition for... for a brother management game with a lot of girls. But it's simple gameplay-wise so it doesn't really justify making options and text heavy interactions and gms/dates/whatever, if there is no more into it.  So that why I asked.


(I'll write about my option about gm tomorrow.)
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 05:32:08 PM by CherryWood »

Offline MrKlaus

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2877 on: July 09, 2014, 05:32:57 PM »
 Ok, looking at disposition, currently it is a dead stat, so maybe something like this:
Disposition would determine how much cut for the MC would be (for example, starting 30/70 going in girl favor, higher more like 50/50) also would affect, a signing fee/daily cost; for a free girl. More she likes the MC the less she want to rip him off.
 

Offline DarkTl

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2878 on: July 10, 2014, 03:50:56 AM »
I'm back as well  :)
Would it be an acceptable structure for items jsons? Specifically, I'm not sure about boolean types here.
Quote
[
    {
        "id": "Simple Training Dummy",
        "desc": "This low quality, straw dummy helps to keep fit a little, but do not expect it to be useful for professional Combat Training.",
        "icon": "content/items/misc/std.png",
        "price": 2550,
        "sex": "unisex",
        "chance": 55,
        "badness": 80,
        "hidden": true,
        "infinite": false,
        "slot": "misc",
        "type": "upgrade",
        "mtemp": 1,
        "mreusable": true,
        "mdestruct": false,
        "cmax": 50,
        "mod": {
            "constitution": 1,
            "fatigue": 2
        },
        "location": [
            "Work Shop"
        ],
        "badtrait": [
            "Fragile",
            "Athletic",
            "Artificial Body"
        ]
    }
]

Offline DarkTl

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Re: General Discussion
« Reply #2879 on: July 10, 2014, 04:09:08 AM »
Every girl would start from neutral. Growth or decline would be determined by the MC interactions and work types assigned to girls.
Yup, unless stated otherwise in girl's data file or by scripted events. Like when you saved someone from bandits or for example forced a girl to work for you somehow.