Pink Petal Games
Feedback => Bugs and Game balancing => Topic started by: sgb on May 30, 2010, 01:27:18 PM
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I sometimes forget that not everyone enslaves everything in sight. Certainly, free girls would want paying. (http://pinkpetal.org/Smileys/DarkB/smiley.gif)
Which is probably a good sign that the whole free vs. slave balance needs to looked at in the near future. Wasn't Necro planning on some sort of 'license fee' or such for enslaving girls at some point?
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Which is probably a good sign that the whole free vs. slave balance needs to looked at in the near future. Wasn't Necro planning on some sort of 'license fee' or such for enslaving girls at some point?
I remember the discussion. Didn't it evoke howls of protest from people who thought that slavegirls were underpowered?
Really, I don't see why a well-managed slavegirl shouldn't be more efficient than a free girl. What should probably happen is that slaves get unhappy more easily than their free counterparts, and need more management. To an extent that happens already when the free girls go shopping. Maybe we need to give that a bit more emphasis.
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The main question is what is the status of women in society of crossroads? We know a father can sell his daughter into slavery. So what rights does a free girl have that a slave does not?
As odd as it may sound a slave girl who has no choice being a whore may be treated socially better then a free girl doing the same after all a free girl can get married and work at the husbands business or keep house.
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If you ask me, Crossroad seems to be more of a slave market town then anything else. And a very dangerous one too, to females. There seems to be slaver gangs running all over the place, kiddnapping and enslaving anyone they can find at will, and the police there don't really seems interested in keeping order. And you have a whole banch of different gangs running around in a huge gang fight that doesn't seems to have much impact on the city itself. I have had gangs wiping themselves out without me even doing anything...
It seems to me to be a place where no sane girl would want to visit, less they risk getting enslaved themselves. Most of the girls seen there are either of the poor people, or random girls popping up due to the dimentional distortion...
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I remember the discussion. Didn't it evoke howls of protest from people who thought that slavegirls were underpowered?
Really, I don't see why a well-managed slavegirl shouldn't be more efficient than a free girl. What should probably happen is that slaves get unhappy more easily than their free counterparts, and need more management. To an extent that happens already when the free girls go shopping. Maybe we need to give that a bit more emphasis.
Back then they were underpowered. If I recall, free girls made vastly more money whoring than slaves and rebelliousness was much easier to control, so enslaving them actually downgraded them. I definitely agree the income potential isn't the place to balance things, as there should be no reason why a slave can't do their job just as good. In fact, they probably should do their jobs BETTER since keeping their masters happy is probably their only ticket to freedom. Edit: Happiness hits are an annoying way to balance things, disregard what I said previously.
I suppose the whole problem is the whether you think that WM was meant to be about a brothel full of slaves or running a business (or both). Again, the whole expansion on the job system in 1.30 seems to suggest it's about the business. You can still be a slaver, torturing people, demanding daughters from customers, kidnapping, and generally just being a jerk. But I think the general consensus is that people want a 'good' way to run things as well, which means free girls need advantages over slaves. Right now, there are none at all beyond the chance a girl attacks one of your gangs before she gets branded.
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Happiness hits could work out. Slaves don't get paid, so instead you'd have to keep rewarding them with items to keep their happiness up. It's more tedious than simply giving them a cut of the brothel pay, so the benefits they have over free girls would be fair.
That sounds like it could be really... really annoying. That sounds about how it'd be logically, but from a gameplay aspect it'd be incredibly tedious and not fun at all. If there was some less annoying way to keep girls happy rather than talking to them and buying them gifts that'd be fine. But as it is now, forget about it.
I agree there needs to be more incentive to choose one over the other, but I don't think that's the way to go about it. Personally, I like that there's jobs only free girls can do. So I figure there should be jobs only slaves can do. (Unless there is already) I would assume (unless you seriously break them) slaves would be more rebellious than free girls. They'd be more likely to steal, possibly injure customers or guards. Where as free girls may be more against sex working. I guess that's where a "slutty" trait could come in if need be. They'd also more than likely be against particular sex acts as well.
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On second thought, yeah that's a really stupid suggestion.
Job restrictions don't really make sense. Why couldn't I order a slave to promote the brothel or serve drinks? And the current system where slaves are less rebellious makes more sense IMO. Slaves would certainly be less happy, but I don't seem them refusing to work often, in fear of being sent back to the dungeon. A free girl on the other hand would feel far more inclined to skip work if they don't like you or the work.
What about suspicion? Having more than, say 5, slaves would start to cause massive suspicion increases leading to more police raids on you. Eventually you'd have to decide to either suck up the losses from this, or start freeing some of the slaves.
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I think what needs to be done is to balance the sides their should be a clear set of differences between a slave girl and a free girl.
Do free girls pay any bills or do they keep all the money? They should be paying out of their out of their own pocket their own support costs and the player would pay nothing. They can set the level of accommodations they want. But the higher the choice is the higher their rent should be. They can refuse to do certain jobs and or acts. But if they do not work they do not get paid and still have to pay their bills. Unless they are caught cheating the player or getting highly in to debt the most that can be done is to fire them. Player really does not need to worry a bought their happiness it is their choice to work or not.
Slave girls should cost more money and be rarer. Support cost should be higher after all these girls are an investment. Their should be more rewards and punishments available to the player. Slave girls are allowed to by freedom. Slave girls can refuse jobs or acts but can be punished. Here are some ideas I had.
Rewards
Keeps tips
Gifts
Gifts of Money
Better accommodations
Exemptions from acts or jobs
Declare Holiday Party (group reward)
Freedom
Punishments
Not allowed tips
Take away gifts
Take away money
Lower accommodations
Forced to do some acts or jobs.
A beating
Dungeon
Rewards and punishments should have effects on more then just the girl directly targeted. If the player rewards and punishes correctly they will have a bigger effect on the group then individually. I think that if a slave girls gets her freedom it should big deal with a positive effect on their slave sisters as they will see if they work hard they can get their freedom too.
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Back then they were underpowered. If I recall, free girls made vastly more money whoring than slaves and rebelliousness was much easier to control, so enslaving them actually downgraded them.
I think there's an element of "the other man's grass is always greener" that applies as well. People tend to think that their preferred play style is underpowered compared to the alternative.
Of course, both styles must still be playable. But I don't see that they need to be precisely balanced. It's not like we're doing this competitively.
Edit: Happiness hits are an annoying way to balance things, disregard what I said previously.
Hmmm... don't think happiness hits. Think maybe a small bonus for free girls. And maybe existing negative modifiers hit slaves a little bit harder, so that once they get upset, it takes a little more attention to cheer them up.
I suppose the whole problem is the whether you think that WM was meant to be about a brothel full of slaves or running a business (or both).
Well, the original conception was (IIRC) SlaveMaker crossed with SimGangster. So it's always been basically a crime sim, which is one reason it's quite hard to support a nice-guy route. The amoral aspect of the game was built in from the start, and there's still a lot of stuff that assumes the player is a bit of a hardcase.
But fundamentally, it's about being a sim. Consider the SimCity games. They aren't about investing in renewable energy sources, or creating really nice parks. You can play them that way, but you can also create distopian hellholes, or maximise pollution because you enjoy the clean up job after Godzilla trashes the place. They're all valid options.
Similarly, I don't think WM is about owing slaves, or running a business, or carving out a criminal empire. It's definitely about setting up a sex-industry empire in a generic-but-sleazy fantasy city. Beyond that though, there are a lot of things it ought to be able to encompass
But I think the general consensus is that people want a 'good' way to run things as well, which means free girls need advantages over slaves.
Why? Not why should there be a "good" path, I accept that. Rather why do free girls need advantages over slaves? Why can't it be enough to know that you're doing the right thing in a world awash with temptations? Doesn't your "goodness" mean more if you're actually giving up certain advantages in order to maintain it?
Right now, there are none at all beyond the chance a girl attacks one of your gangs before she gets branded.
Job restrictions don't really make sense. Why couldn't I order a slave to promote the brothel or serve drinks?
I agree with you here. Why shouldn't I have a slave to act as matron? Or torturer for that matter. On the other hand, I can imagine that free women on average might be more efficient for some jobs. It's something we should look at.
What about suspicion? Having more than, say 5, slaves would start to cause massive suspicion increases leading to more police raids on you. Eventually you'd have to decide to either suck up the losses from this, or start freeing some of the slaves.
I assume the extra suspicion still gets canceled out by bribes at they mayor's office? If so, then you're basically talking about upping the bribery rate needed by slaveowners. That's a bit tough to justify in a city that has an openly operating slave market, but it's workable as a mechanic as long as the penalties aren't too "massive".
Continual, non-bribable raids however would quickly make the game unplayable for those of us who like pretending to be bad lads, so I'm not so keen on that.
Do free girls pay any bills or do they keep all the money?
Currently room and board is part of the employment package.
But if they do not work they do not get paid and still have to pay their bills. Unless they are caught cheating the player or getting highly in to debt the most that can be done is to fire them. Player really does not need to worry a bought their happiness it is their choice to work or not.
All very free-market libertarian, but the game tends to assume conventional employment models. The PC is the Boss, and he gets to boss the floozies around. Restructuring to support an arrangement where the PC was basically the landlord would take quite a bit of work, and if all we're after is game balance, I'm not sure there aren't better ways to achieve that.
Slave girls can refuse jobs or acts but can be punished. Here are some ideas I had.
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Rewards and punishments should have effects on more then just the girl directly targeted.
Yeah, I'd like to see more along the AI/ALife aspects of the game, and from past comments, so would necno. On the other hand, it's hard to do well and to keep balanced. It's a lot of work, too, since you tend to get swamped in lots and lots of decision trees and the complexity increases non-linearly as you increase the the number of factors under consideration.
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Of course, both styles must still be playable. But I don't see that they need to be precisely balanced. It's not like we're doing this competitively.
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Why? Not why should there be a "good" path, I accept that. Rather why do free girls need advantages over slaves? Why can't it be enough to know that you're doing the right thing in a world awash with temptations? Doesn't your "goodness" mean more if you're actually giving up certain advantages in order to maintain it?
I completely agree with this. Personally I most often favor the good guy approach (though I do indulge in being a complete monster every once in a while), and I don't have even a little bit of a problem with the game being just plain harder if you play nice. In fact, the prospect of making both "paths" into rough equivalents with near-identical difficulty sounds kinda boring to me.
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Oh, I agree the game overall requires the player to be at least somewhat bad, as using your gangs is mandatory to eventually win. Which is perfectly fine, as the law enforcement in Crossgate is not supposed to be a major force, so you need to take matters into your own hands and start cracking some skulls to ruin your rivals. It's more of a matter of how you're treating your girls. If there's no benefit to being nice, why even have the free girls? Why not just have them instantly become slaves once they join you? Don't get me wrong, it's a not a complaint; I'm just saying. If the game has choices, then the choices need to be more than a self-imposed difficultly increase. Certainly one choice can be easier than the other, but there needs to be SOME benefit to being nice. Right now, there's no reason at all not to enslave every single girl you get right away, and I don't think this was the intention of the 'Brand' option.
I assume the extra suspicion still gets canceled out by bribes at they mayor's office? If so, then you're basically talking about upping the bribery rate needed by slaveowners. That's a bit tough to justify in a city that has an openly operating slave market, but it's workable as a mechanic as long as the penalties aren't too "massive".
Continual, non-bribable raids however would quickly make the game unplayable for those of us who like pretending to be bad lads, so I'm not so keen on that.
Yeah, that's was what I meant. It would work out best if the penelties start of very low, but start double or tripling once certain thresholds are hit. Asspulling some numbers, lets say every 5 slaves generates 1 point of suspicion until you hit 20, then every 3 slaves after that generates a point until you hit 40, then every 2 after that, etc. It isn't 'special' suspicion, you'd just be generating more suspicion than if you had all free girls. The law enforcement in Crossgate is weak and corrupt, but they're not going to turn a blind eye to a huge slaving operation forever without getting their cut. This seems the fairest way to balance things out without drastically changing anything. Slaves earn you more and refuse work less, but you have to allocate more bribery money over the course of the game. In essence, it's kind of like a slavery tax but you can still have a modest amount of slaves without triggering too much heat. If you go overboard, then you have to start sharing the wealth.
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If the game has choices, then the choices need to be more than a self-imposed difficultly increase. Certainly one choice can be easier than the other, but there needs to be SOME benefit to being nice.
The thing is, unless the two options are precisely balanced then there's always going to be one side claiming there's no benefit to doing X, purely because it is less efficient than the alternative. My worry is that since game balance is fairly subjective, the only way to make folks happy would be to make the free girls approach noticeably more efficient than using slaves. By which point of course, the slaver faction is up in arms, and we're no further forward.
In essence, it's kind of like a slavery tax but you can still have a modest amount of slaves without triggering too much heat. If you go overboard, then you have to start sharing the wealth.
I think on balance, I'd be a lot more receptive to ideas that found advantages to having free girls, rather than penalising the slave owners. When people start talking about applying massive penalties to slave owners, I always worry that there's an element of political correctness creeping into the discussion, and that the aim is not so much game balance as social engineering. Now I don't want to suggest for a second that this is your motivation in this discussion, but all the same, I'd be happier with suggestions that enhance the free side of things. We have a murky, morally ambiguous game here with strong BDSM themes, and personally, I'd like to keep it that way :)
Now, with that said, I spent a few hours last night playing as a Nice Guy and have a few observations.
- Running a (if you'll pardon the term) Free House is certainly harder than I'd like in comparison to a slave brothel.
- Addiction is a pain for free girls. They get unhappy, and then they walk out, and all this while you're waiting to have both the money and the opportunity to buy a cure. I think making addiction cures cheaper and more frequently available would take a lot of the pain away.
- It's quite difficult to get a Free House started. Between the girl's increased reluctance to perform, and the natural difficulties of getting established, getting a stable business can be challenging. I think I'd like free girls to have a bit more pulling power than slaves. Maybe one extra customer a shift compared to their enslaved sisters to reflect the fact that poorly trained slaves are not as much fun in the sack as girls that are doing the deed by choice.
- I still think there's scope for free girls to be more resistant to depression than slavegirls.
And I think that would probably do it. It's still going to be a bit less financially efficient to use free girls, you'll still make more money with slaves, and some of your girls will still need a bit more coaxing before they're happy dropping their knickers. But it shouldn't feel like playing on a whole different difficulty setting.
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Now, with that said, I spent a few hours last night playing as a Nice Guy and have a few observations.
- Running a (if you'll pardon the term) Free House is certainly harder than I'd like in comparison to a slave brothel.
- Addiction is a pain for free girls. They get unhappy, and then they walk out, and all this while you're waiting to have both the money and the opportunity to buy a cure. I think making addiction cures cheaper and more frequently available would take a lot of the pain away.
- It's quite difficult to get a Free House started. Between the girl's increased reluctance to perform, and the natural difficulties of getting established, getting a stable business can be challenging. I think I'd like free girls to have a bit more pulling power than slaves. Maybe one extra customer a shift compared to their enslaved sisters to reflect the fact that poorly trained slaves are not as much fun in the sack as girls that are doing the deed by choice.
- I still think there's scope for free girls to be more resistant to depression than slavegirls.
And I think that would probably do it. It's still going to be a bit less financially efficient to use free girls, you'll still make more money with slaves, and some of your girls will still need a bit more coaxing before they're happy dropping their knickers. But it shouldn't feel like playing on a whole different difficulty setting.
Hrm... sounds fair to me.
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Hmmm... an idea, instead of having a slave tax or something, how about only being able to safely enslave someone when they're in debt to you? If you force a slave tattoo on them when they're not in your debt, make it a massive suspicion/hate/unhappiness spike and hate/unhappiness that will only slowly drop over time and can't be gifted down, I mean you did just ENSLAVE HER AGAINT HER WILL after all . Of course in the game its currently impossible to make a girl in your debt so some gameplay mechanics would have to be added. Girls having to pay for room and board, and there would have to be ways to get her in debt to you, say maybe getting her addicted to something and her going into your debt from getting her drugs, or alternatively, giving a girl an expensive cure to make her in your debt. You could also have an option to ask her to voluntarily become a slave, but it will only work with very high love and obedience, and low rebel, spirit etc. Having to plan how you're actually going to turn this 5 star girl into your slave could add a fun aspect to the game, I think. And making an easy way to hire free girls legally would have to be added though, a chance to get one a day from a walk ain't enough, we really need to be able to start out our business hiring free girls on day 1.
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I think enslaving girls should have a greater effect on suspicion, currenlty i enslaved everyone an still managed to get the "town hero" status wothout needing to lift a finger.
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first point I think that any girl should be able to be a matron, I mean if you look at history (roman I think, and maybe some other places), some times slaves had more power, and respect, then free people. it does nothing except cause me to grant a slave freedom.
besides from that I think free girls should get a bigger happiness benefit from getting items, since you are not expected to provide them with anything extra (you are just their boss). they should also get a bonus when they do things like training or cleaning (clean better), and get higher customer satisfaction since they want to do this, and they want to be there. While slave have to do these thing they will not be as effective as they do not have a choice. and free girls should be able to bring in other free girls and slaves should be able to turn your free girls into slaves. and instead of advertising there should be a whole whack of different jobs, or a couple of jobs but quite a few different texts used (some slave only or free girl only). like free girls should be able to go to parties or social events to attract customers (or do what a slave does). while slaves would only be able to go to the market or bar to attract customers. the higher her fame the more customers she brings in, this could also make fame higher this would cost money and only work when a girl works at it (with a little splash say 10 days, or so). there should also be a job for sending girls to parties (like in slave maker), where both slaves or free girls entertain the guests. I also agree with the slave penalty sgb mention (and I use mainly slaves, it would be a money drop), but I think slaves should not be able to refuse to serve a customer without immediate punishment if you have a matron or some one acting in a position to punish them. I also think that when a free girl gives birth her kid should not automatically become yours, or at least there should be more of a story behind it. Like “she does not want her baby so she sold it to you” or “she decided to keep the baby and will send it to live with her parents when old enough”. and then you should earn less money when you sell any monster kids or boys from free girls (like 5-10%)
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My suggestions:
Replace the random-encounter-in-town mechanic with a 'marketplace', basically a slave market for free girls (that you don't have to pay money to acquire).
Give free girls libido bonuses.
Recruitment job, where a girl goes out asking other girls to work for you (does Advertising do this already? Maybe it could be a checkbox or something). Better suspicion = more girls, but worse disposition = they run away easier.
Free girls buy you gifts (which go in inventory, dur).
Free girls ask for loans to buy stuff. Which you then charge crazy interest on.
Free girls GIVE loans if you need them.
Free girls have lower base rebelliousness, but it rises faster than slaves.
Bigger initial penalty to happiness for branding as slave, and lower happiness gain for giving items to slaves.
Free girls running catacombs could recruit monstergirls rather than just whacking them on the head. This might require more coding than it's worth on it's own, so maybe just leave it for when you want to look at catacombs as a whole.
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mmm... there's definitely a need for a way to recruit free girls other than hoping for a random encounter, week-on-week. And a recruiting job is one job that could plausibly be restricted to free girls. (I mean you can send a slave to do the job, but it's bound to discourage a lot of the potential candidates.
For the most part though, I'm still not convinced that the slave game is broken. I'd accept that the free game is harder than it should be, but the way to fix that is by making the free game more fun, not by making it less enjoyable to keep slaves.
That said, there are a couple of slave tweaks that I've been thinking about, on and off.
- I think that some jobs should be dangerous to give to slaves, unless they're very loyal. Advertising for instance, practically begs an unhappy girl to run away.
- Others (like barmaid) encourage her to raid the petty cash before she runs.
- I also think I'd like recapturing runaways to be less of a formality. Give it a %chance with the stats of the girls and the recapturing goons both affecting the odds.
- That said - the bug where little girls turn suddenly psycho and massacre all your guards needs fixing too
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honestly, I don't see where the "free girls game is hard" thing is coming from
I, for one, would like the game to be more challenging
like adding some strategy elements, diplomacy, or something like that
unless you are taking this free girls thing too far, like immediately releasing everyone from the dungeon and making them whore themselves out, in which case, that's not the game's fault, that's you being stupid
also, how does slavery work exactly?
if I understand, they get a magic brand or something, and it compels them to obey you. how big is it? does it show? do they feel pain if they disobey you? does it just make them want to please you?
maybe the slave girls could have a chance (based on certain stats and items) to try and run away, which the guards, or the security girls try to prevent
I know they should run away if they are unhappy, but it never happened to me, and I had some pretty unhappy girls
and I'm not sure if guards affect that
about the refusal to work
I think it should be the other way around
the girl are there by their own free will, getting paid to do whatever they are supposed to do
having someone who I'm paying to guard my property, or serve drinks to my customers, suddenly say "I don't want to do this right now" does not make sense, nor is it acceptable
slaves can rebel, on the other hand, and it is up to me to have them under control
I don't see a reason why I should coddle my workers so that they actually do the job I am paying them to do
but, rather than just making free girls mindless robots, maybe their traits could could determine what they want to do
like adventurers, tough, etc. not minding to go into the catacombs, while regular girls would be scared
also, I agree that slaves should be allowed to do the work of a matron
them being slaves doesn't make them unable to take care of other workers or slaves
they'd probably prefer it to whoring themselves out so I can make money off of it
I know I'm not being very coherent, but it's late and I can't think that well
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I'd also like to argue for slaves being able to be torturer, I currently have my custom girl Asuka, who's sadistic, twisted, has 100% BDSM, and generally enjoys whipping people, and I had to free her to allow her to work as my torturer, whereas she should have been begging me to let her do it even as a slave, its a rather dumb, pointless restriction.
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honestly, I don't see where the "free girls game is hard" thing is coming from
I, for one, would like the game to be more challenging
like adding some strategy elements, diplomacy, or something like that
Well, it's hard in comparison with the slave game, or so it seems to some of us. If you want the game to be harder overall, try fiddling with the financial settings in the config file - you can make it as hard as you like.
Improved enemy AI would be nice, but it's a way down the list at the moment.
also, how does slavery work exactly?
if I understand, they get a magic brand or something, and it compels them to obey you. how big is it? does it show? do they feel pain if they disobey you? does it just make them want to please you?
As I understand it, the brand is proof-of-ownership plus some magcial tracking for runaways. I don't think there's any element of compulsion beyond the initial reduction in rebellion.
maybe the slave girls could have a chance (based on certain stats and items) to try and run away, which the guards, or the security girls try to prevent
They do - but I think it's kind of broken at the moment. It's something I might look at once the Lua stuff is stable.
about the refusal to work
I think it should be the other way around
the girl are there by their own free will, getting paid to do whatever they are supposed to do
having someone who I'm paying to guard my property, or serve drinks to my customers, suddenly say "I don't want to do this right now" does not make sense, nor is it acceptable
slaves can rebel, on the other hand, and it is up to me to have them under control
I don't see a reason why I should coddle my workers so that they actually do the job I am paying them to do
You can argue that both ways. Logically, a well trained slave girl is going to be obedient, while an experience free girl is more likely to "do a diva" and act up because she's goign to be hard to replace. Although I can't imagine that going down well with the non-slavers in the audience :)
but, rather than just making free girls mindless robots, maybe their traits could could determine what they want to do
like adventurers, tough, etc. not minding to go into the catacombs, while regular girls would be scared
Better AI is on the list of things we'd like to do.
I'd also like to argue for slaves being able to be torturer, I currently have my custom girl Asuka, who's sadistic, twisted, has 100% BDSM, and generally enjoys whipping people, and I had to free her to allow her to work as my torturer, whereas she should have been begging me to let her do it even as a slave, its a rather dumb, pointless restriction.
I could always add config file settings for matron and torturer. Ideally we want a .jobsx file where the basic parameters of any job can be held, which would probably let us simplify a lot of the jobs code as well, but we probably want to let the jobs system settle down a bit first.
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I have an idea. How about for important unique jobs like Matron and Torturer, they have to go through a special 4 turn or so training period where they're trained in the job but it costs some predetermined amount of money, and at the end they're given a special trait that reflects this and allows them to preform that job, plus a large boost to the relevant stats. I see this also being useful in the future building update where more unique or specialized jobs will be available most likely, so having the code in place might make that easier. Hell you could even have specialized training that costs money but gives girls larger boosts for normal jobs, like stripping and whoring, it'd make a good money sink, and speed up the training process without making the game stupidly easy.
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I have an idea. How about for important unique jobs like Matron and Torturer, they have to go through a special 4 turn or so training period where they're trained in the job but it costs some predetermined amount of money, and at the end they're given a special trait that reflects this and allows them to preform that job, plus a large boost to the relevant stats. I see this also being useful in the future building update where more unique or specialized jobs will be available most likely, so having the code in place might make that easier. Hell you could even have specialized training that costs money but gives girls larger boosts for normal jobs, like stripping and whoring, it'd make a good money sink, and speed up the training process without making the game stupidly easy.
I like this ideal. Would be a nice thing to add.
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Not sure if it's been suggested, but...
How bout another level of a slave tattoo?
One type would barely affect happiness. It would be basically, "I own you, but you can do pretty much anything you want." The second one would cause happiness to plummet completely, take hp to apply, and damage them every time they refuse to do a job, forcing them to do it anyway. Basically a more 'magical' slave tattoo than the one now.
It would have clear advantages and disadvantages. It would be dangerous to use on fragile women, so it's essentially for strong ones with high rebellion, or for incorporeal women who slaughter a whole gang because they can't hurt them at all. It would increase suspicion by a lot, because it's clearly noticeable when a woman gets shocked by it. Make it so the second kind of tattoo is illegal, and the first one was made to provide a less dangerous way of binding people. With the second type of slavery, it would be unnecessary to call your gangs to control a girl in the dungeon, too. It'll just shock her if she fights back.
The first type of tattoo being placed on a woman would be seen as sort of a good thing in comparison, as opposed to anyone with this attached, who would basically be either pitied or seen as a doll to do whatever you want to.
Also, for girls with masochist applied, it would increase obedience with each shock.
I think either way, adding another option that's worse than slavery would create an interesting angle.
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Nice idea
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Some things I was thinking of about the whole slavery thing.
Using Slavery as a threat for bad performance and girls reacting to you following up on one of them would be neat. Probably be better off scripting that. hmm That gave me an idea for my triggers thread. I flesh it out there.
Using freedom as a dangling carrot for slaves to perform better, be loyal, would be neat as well. Reactions for not following through would be good to.
I don't think Giving slaves certain jobs would be a problem as long as they're loyal enough. (Pin a Rebellion amount to a job and if it ever goes over they get the hell out of there. With cash, a few dead guards and destroyed property to boot.) Reasoning behind that is the same thing that keeps people in abusive relationships or children with abusive parents. Combination of fear and love with enough gifts and random acts of kindness to always put a thought of "they're not that bad" in the back of their head.
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On slaves vs free girls.
Free girls:
+ Enjoy working more and have better customer satisfaction.
+ Learn faster.
+ Don't need to be purchased.
+ Can work streets.
- Earn less per customer.
- Can refuse to do some kinds of sex / accept some customers.
- Can quit.
Legal Slaves (purchased at slave market):
+ Earn more per customer.
+ Can't refuse anything.
+ Can't quit (but might run away if your security is bad).
- Dont like working and have worse customer satisfaction.
- Learn slower.
- Cost lots of money.
- Can't work streets. (they'll run away).
Illegal Slaves (girls you kidnapp):
+ No cost.
- Huge problems with law.
Monster slaves:
+ No legal protection (not human).
+ Exotic (good brothel ratings).
- Rare (much harder to get then now).
- Dangerous (can kill customers/other girls).
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Two things. One, I really like Zanfib's ideas. The "rare monster slave" thing might also go a long way to balancing the game a little better for the "game is too easy" school of thought. Availability of monster girls to enslave could be controlled via config, perhaps?
And two, to counter this:
about the refusal to work
I think it should be the other way around
the girl are there by their own free will, getting paid to do whatever they are supposed to do
having someone who I'm paying to guard my property, or serve drinks to my customers, suddenly say "I don't want to do this right now" does not make sense, nor is it acceptable
slaves can rebel, on the other hand, and it is up to me to have them under control
I don't see a reason why I should coddle my workers so that they actually do the job I am paying them to do
This is going to sound like sociology, but I didn't start it.
Employees act up. They just do. I've worked any number of jobs where someone pulled a stunt. Obviously at that point, you must either fire them and get a new one, or "convince" them to do it. That's part of the free-girl simulation.
Slaves revolt, too, but generally less often, as they are more likely to fear for their lives. Nat Turner led an insurrection and killed 60 people, but the backlash from the white community was to hang him and anyone else who had anything to do with it (and several people who had nothing to do with it at all). There wasn't another uprising like that, from within the slave community. This is history, as it happened.
Granted, we are talking fictional people in a fictional place, but my point is, people are going to refuse to work on either side of the equation, but probably less so if they actually believe 1) their life depends on it and 2) they have no where else to go.
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Look I will only say that so far this good guy route is really sucking balls, I mean,they say they want to work and then they just skip, and you lose money and more money....until you 1000+ like me.
I gave em a 50-50 deal and still they skip work...so far i am not seeing any reason other than a moral light path reason to play the good guy....which is why i am trying this out....sucking balls so far though.....
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Look I will only say that so far this good guy route is really sucking balls, I mean,they say they want to work and then they just skip, and you lose money and more money....until you 1000+ like me.
I gave em a 50-50 deal and still they skip work...so far i am not seeing any reason other than a moral light path reason to play the good guy....which is why i am trying this out....sucking balls so far though.....
Quoted for much truth. I suggested before that girls might be less likely to refuse work for less Sexually oriented jobs like bartender and waitress. Would make finally breaking them all the more rewarding. ;D
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That's the other thing, I am not making them do stuff they don't like,you don't want to whore?ok you are a singer etc. ,yet still they won't work....and with my negative gold i can't but them stuff
It is getting better though, more of them are working,and thanks to my lead girl i am almost out of th red
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Here is idea: slave should be generally less rebellious than free girls, who should in turn be pain in the ass. Reduce percentage, they rebel significantly up (free girls), they refuse to work on lot more occasions. As to why not brand every girl a slave, answer is simple: put in taxes. Taxes for slaves: say for every 20 slaves town/courts or police take 1% of your earnings, this can go up to 90%. So you can have 1800 slaves, but you would get amount of money the same as if you have 180 slaves and don't pay taxes at all. My math could be wrong, but now it becomes arithmethical problem instead of existental one.
As for "free girls", those you capture (customers daugters) shouldn't be automatically branded as slaves, but as "working under contract" - they legally couldn't go free because of debt, but they would earn some percentage of the money (less than wandering free girls, but still significant and as far as refusals go they would still be as bad as free girls).
As for captured monster girls, there should be some similar catch as for customers daughters above.
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Ah... we could have done with your input back before we decided to shut down active WM development.
Eminently sensible, and probably not going to happen, I'm afraid.
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Ah... we could have done with your input back before we decided to shut down active WM development.
Eminently sensible, and probably not going to happen, I'm afraid.
So that means 1.30 beta is last version of WM?! ???
At least is there a way to make catacomb girls non-slaves from the start?
If there is just a few lines in code that needs to be changed for that could you write it down, so everybody could change it at his own volition?
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So that means 1.30 beta is last version of WM?! ???
More or less. There was quite a lot of controversy a little while back - the debates and polls are still on the forum. The upshot was that necno said he'd like game development halted, and at the end of the day, it's necno's project. I expect there'll still be bug fix releases, mods and the like, but there's no more major features planned outside the stuff we have half done already.
Personally, I'm planning to pick up where I left off in WM with a new project called CloneMaster. But I have some maintenance work to do on WM first.
At least is there a way to make catacomb girls non-slaves from the start?
If there is just a few lines in code that needs to be changed for that could you write it down, so everybody could change it at his own volition?
Should be possible to add a config option so that girls from the catacombs aren't auto-enslaved. I'll keep it in mind.
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This of course doesn't stop a Whoremaster 2 from coming out down the road. And clonemaster is looking to be a superb spiritual successor to Whoremaster. ;D
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Should be possible to add a config option so that girls from the catacombs aren't auto-enslaved. I'll keep it in mind.
Thanks. It would be nice if that option could be set pre-game for all girls except those in slave market.
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catacomb girls don't default to slaves, only the kidnapped/taken from family girls do that
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Most of my kidnapped girls are free. Then again I'm on 1.30 which allows kidnapping of uniques. And it's 50/50ish on slave vs free if I grab a customers family for non payment. These all go in the Dungeon though.
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catacomb girls don't default to slaves, only the kidnapped/taken from family girls do that
It's much more fun to brand the kidnapped/taken from family girls after they spent a lot of quality time in your dungeon than get them already branded.
It's funny though. You can automatically brand girls before they get in your dungeon, but if you try after they might escape...
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Actually, you could always kidnap free girls IFAIK. In 1.30, the gangs will sometimes persuade them instead of kidnap them which results in their starting rebeliousness being the same as if you met them on a walk. Once you have a gang with near-max stats, this method is actually preferable to walks unless you jacked up the walk encounter%.