General Discussion

[Xela]

I actually always thought that ranks are like more or less officialy earned status in the city that customers can orientate by. So lot of higher ranked girls existing in the city and having ranks for strippers and service girls didn't sounded wrong to me in the slightest...

Yeap, that's the idea.

It's not that strippers can't have them, it's there is a chance that we'll have 20 - 30 professions in the future, coming up with rank names and stat delimiters for all of them is not an option.

[Xela]

It is now possible to rename the (slave) girls and give all girls nicknames:



*I'll need to check the code to make sure we don't have any old dict counters that was based of names/fullnames instead of using object as keys.

[livingforever]

Hi!

It's not that strippers can't have them, it's there is a chance that we'll have 20 - 30 professions in the future, coming up with rank names and stat delimiters for all of them is not an option.

Let me try to clarify it once more: You already named the four general categories for professions. I already named the four general categories for professions. DarkTI already named the four general categories for professions.
The system I proposed was never intended to be used for every single profession - it is intended to be used for every category (regarding both rank names and values) because it doesn't matter if a prostitute is working on the street or in a brothel as long as (s)he is a good prostitute.

I actually always thought that ranks are like more or less officialy earned status in the city that customers can orientate by. So lot of higher ranked girls existing in the city and having ranks for strippers and service girls didn't sounded wrong to me in the slightest...

So this is why Xela wants to drop the reputation stat.
Essentially (simplified as much as possible) you want the rank system to be a reputation stat for every job category - and I completely disagree with that.
I mentioned the reasons earlier - it's repetitive, unincentivizing and therefore boring.

What I proposed is based on the open market and having limits for each rank makes perfect sense.
I don't want to explain the details of supply and demand here, so let me try to give you an example: If there are too many leadership persons in the city there is a strong competition between them. Eventually, some of them will either get pushed down the ladder by others or they will move out to an area with less competition.

In gameplay terms, that would mean to lose high ranked characters frequently (as soon as there are too many of them) - which would be insanely annoying for the player, which is why my proposed system simulates this behavior with hard limits for every rank. The player has full control over progression and regression, which is a hundred times better than automatic regression, which is ten times more interesting than strictly linear progression.
Have fun!

[Xela]

Let me try to clarify it once more: You already named the four general categories for professions. I already named the four general categories for professions. DarkTI already named the four general categories for professions.
The system I proposed was never intended to be used for every single profession - it is intended to be used for every category (regarding both rank names and values) because it doesn't matter if a prostitute is working on the street or in a brothel as long as (s)he is a good prostitute.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said... It's not a good idea to do this thing for every single profession.

So this is why Xela wants to drop the reputation stat.
Essentially (simplified as much as possible) you want the rank system to be a reputation stat for every job category - and I completely disagree with that.
I mentioned the reasons earlier - it's repetitive, unincentivizing and therefore boring.

What I proposed is based on the open market and having limits for each rank makes perfect sense.
I don't want to explain the details of supply and demand here, so let me try to give you an example: If there are too many leadership persons in the city there is a strong competition between them. Eventually, some of them will either get pushed down the ladder by others or they will move out to an area with less competition.

In gameplay terms, that would mean to lose high ranked characters frequently (as soon as there are too many of them) - which would be insanely annoying for the player, which is why my proposed system simulates this behavior with hard limits for every rank. The player has full control over progression and regression, which is a hundred times better than automatic regression, which is ten times more interesting than strictly linear progression.

I agree with CW that ranks needs to work on game level and not on player level as proposed earlier. We may move to city live and maybe even playing vs simple AI in the future and ranks can be a great part of that.

I want there to be 8 ranks in total, bottom three representing:

Novice, Intermediate, Expert levels of general classes. Advancements in those will be without any limitations in their amounts as long as the characters fit the requirement.

Rest will work along the lines of the system your proposed but the maximum will not depend on how many girls of the previous are in employment of the player but how many girls of the previous rank are their in the world. Those will also be VERY expensive and require VERY high stats if not achieved through quests/events.

In any case, that's how I am planning to work the system after the next release.

===
Tomorrow I am planning to put some time into the project, to fix autobuy/autoequip and take a look at ST.

[livingforever]

I agree with CW that ranks needs to work on game level and not on player level as proposed earlier.

First problem: You are actively taking away control from the player, which is a really bad thing to do in a simulation.
Random events that influence the rank are one thing, not giving the player options in the first place is completely different.

Novice, Intermediate, Expert levels of general classes. Advancements in those will be without any limitations in their amounts as long as the characters fit the requirement.

Second problem: Every character needs to be an expert before even getting to the lowest leadership rank.

Rest will work along the lines of the system your proposed but the maximum will not depend on how many girls of the previous are in employment of the player but how many girls of the previous rank are their in the world.

Third problem: That number should change severely every day, making any kind of prediction or strategy useless.
Fourth problem: Leading employees are magically related to the amount of people in the city. Neither prostitution nor arena combat is a part time job.

Those will also be VERY expensive and require VERY high stats if not achieved through quests/events.

Fifth problem: You are planning to harshly limit those ranks by number, money and stats. Damn, that's tedious.
Have fun!

[Xela]

First problem: You are actively taking away control from the player, which is a really bad thing to do in a simulation.
Random events that influence the rank are one thing, not giving the player options in the first place is completely different.
Second problem: Every character needs to be an expert before even getting to the lowest leadership rank.
Third problem: That number should change severely every day, making any kind of prediction or strategy useless.
Fourth problem: Leading employees are magically related to the amount of people in the city. Neither prostitution nor arena combat is a part time job.
Fifth problem: You are planning to harshly limit those ranks by number, money and stats. Damn, that's tedious.

1) Player cannot control everything in sim game with opponents, that doesn't make any sense. But if my way doesn't work out, it can be easily adapted to work differently.
2) I never said anything about leadership ranks. Also I don't understand why.
3) That's a good point... well, not based off total amount of characters in the world than. Maybe a good option is to allow a specific amount of promotions when you buy a business. As characters are promoted, points are spent...
4) Arena combat can be... but this can be straitened out with a proposed option to solve 3.
5) True, but it's not too bad with only four main occupation groups.

[livingforever]

Hi!

1) Player cannot control everything in sim game with opponents, that doesn't make any sense. But if my way doesn't work out, it can be easily adapted to work differently.

It's not about controlling everything, it's about controlling your own employees. What's the point in hiring and training them otherwise?

2) I never said anything about leadership ranks. Also I don't understand why.

That was bad phrasing on my part.
What you are trying to do is combine (3) unrestricted experience ranks with (5) restricted reputation ranks.
The problem is that in your scenario, a character would need the maximum possible experience in order to gain any reputation.

I think we should stick with reputation ranks (leadership ranks) only and handle experience with stat requirements for the ranks.

5) True, but it's not too bad with only four main occupation groups.

Well... I guess it's just a balance issue that can be solved at any time.

The option of "rank up"-points that can be spent seems interesting. Can you give examples of when exactely the player should get them?
Have fun!

[Xela]

The option of "rank up"-points that can be spent seems interesting. Can you give examples of when exactely the player should get them?

One way would be to give points (per general occupation) when buying a business. Maybe through events/quests as well.

Lower ranks are points free but for the rest:

r4: 1 point
r5: 3 points
r6: 9 points
r7: Special Rank (Only through events)
r8: Special Rank (Only through events)

I didn't give this too much thought. We are unlikely to do it before the next release.

[DarkTl]

I have a small question.
Who is that "Vyse I" who joined dropbox 01.01.2015, and why the f##k he deleted ALL files from my and CW folders (about 6200 files in total) without a single word?

Thanks DB for restoring system. I just love it.

[Xela]

I have a small question.
Who is that "Vyse I" who joined dropbox 01.01.2015, and why the f##k he deleted ALL files from my and CW folders (about 6200 files in total) without a single word?

Thanks DB for restoring system. I just love it.

I think it's Dusk. Not sure what happened there but he prolly doesn't know that he could delete the folders from everyone from his PC.

[DarkTl]

What is the password for that archive in Gismo's folder?
And why do we even have passwords in a closed environment anyway?

He has absolutely amazing pictures for items in his folder, so I don't want to just delete the archive without knowing what's inside.

[Xela]

What is the password for that archive in Gismo's folder?
And why do we even have passwords in a closed environment anyway?

He has absolutely amazing pictures for items in his folder, so I don't want to just delete the archive without knowing what's inside.

The map he created for us is inside... in photoshop format so we could create new locations or tweak it without him.

Password is the name of the game with all the correct capitals in place. File needs all of the RAM you've got (he maxed out at 16 GB after a few hours of work but I could run it even with 4 GB).

I am not sure why he protected it in protected...

[DarkTl]

Aww, I thought there are more cool sprites since it's called humans 

I attached a picture to this post, that's example of icon for personality, yandere in this case.

[Xela]

Aww, I thought there are more cool sprites since it's called humans 

I attached a picture to this post, that's example of icon for personality, yandere in this case.

It would be really hard to associate these pics with personality types. Almost as hard as to focus on personality types during gameplay with so many characters. Also when I see that picture, what comes to mind is a Heart Breaker because what I see on that picture is a burning (with love or passion) heart of a free, almost angelic person being stabbed witha knife. But I am awful at interpreting art, same us with creating it. When in museums, hearing/reading explanations about expressionist arts, I actually think that people giving them are (to a degree) insane

Simpler example is with Alkion, I actually hate the icons for stats in use there... even if they do make sense.

[DarkTl]

That's what yandere do, right? They can protect you (right side) and they can kill you or anyone else (left side) 
If you want hidden traits, at least we can have icons to hint about them.