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Author Topic: balancing girls  (Read 18643 times)

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Offline tiamat343

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balancing girls
« on: November 19, 2009, 11:30:29 PM »
One problem with this game is that it's really too easy to max out skills and looks. The ONLY distinguishing factors between girls are a few traits (most of which are just fetishes, which all act the same anyway).


I think it'd be better if a girl's total max skills were capped at a certain amount. For example, one girl might be able to reach a fairly decent max in all skills and looks, while another reaches 100% in a few while the other stats are low and having only average looks. This would also make traits like "psychic" actually useful, because it'd boost the cap besides maxing out magic/sex skills one or two weeks earlier. I mean, as of now, stat boosting traits are prettttty much useless.


I just don't think it's very interesting when all girls have looks maxed at 100% with 100% skills, nor does it make much sense. Morrigan, for example, is supposed to be much more attractive with 100% beauty and charisma, but it only takes a dress, shoes, and a few packages of makeup to take any common girl to that same level.


These maxes don't have to be absolute. Perhaps a regular dress increases looks by 8% or so, but a very very expensive dress will also increase looks max by 5% (making it more cost effective only once you reach the max, obviously). Or training can continue to increase past a girls "cap", but would be more expensive and take much more time. Something to spend all that end game cash on, anyway.


An alternative would be allowing girls to reach 100% as they have been, but make only certain traits/girls capable of going past that 100%. Really, that'd be the same thing I suggested above but I bet people would complain less about being able to go past 100% rather than being capped before it. I just personally think skills going above 100% is a silly idea. But whatever works.


Notice that this also gives more room for customizing brothels to service a few types of sex rather than all of them (perhaps specialize one for bestiality, for example, and put all the girls with relevant high skills in that one) meaning that buying more buildings has more meaning than just more rooms. I think this is an interesting possibility that wouldn't really have any point the way girls are currently set up.


So yeah. I've seen in other threads that custom girl modders obviously don't want to make their girls subpar for sake of game balance. Not trying to force it on anyone. I just think that this would make the game more balanced and fun (because it's more difficult to max, it gives you something to shoot for), and makes each girl more unique. Also, you can still make a girl as unique as you want, as opposed to other proposals such as limiting the number of traits.


Thoughts?

Offline letmein

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2009, 11:46:44 PM »
Some of this has been suggested before, and I'll say here what I said then:  something should to be done, for balance purposes.  I won't say anything "has" to be done, because the current system actually works fine so long as you don't mind that all the girls are essentially carbon copies of each other in stats and looks, if not traits.  Anyhow, what that something that should be done should be is very much up for discussion.

Really, there are three options: 

1) change the way stats are computed, as you say here

2) have someone manually alter every girl's stats

3) set up a system to automatically and semi-randomly alter girls' stats


Of these three, I prefer the last option.   Number two is by far the worst choice, as it is both arbitrary and time-consuming.  Your option, the first one, isn't exactly *bad*, but in my opinion it's a bit tougher to balance, and couldn't really be put under player control.  An automatic system would guarantee balance - or at least a pretty distribution of stats - so long as it's done properly, and allowing players to alter values for it would serve as a good difficulty modifier.
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Offline Mehzerz

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2009, 12:10:51 AM »
I agree that something SHOULD be done to stop girls from being so much alike. It's not just custom girls though, I've actually seen a good number of custom girls with looks at 60-80% which is fine. But I've run into many many random girls already at 100%.

So yes, I agree something should be done. I don't know what, and i'm not sure how. But stats, looks especially shouldn't be so easy to max or find someone already maxed. Looks shouldn't be able to be maxed to begin with. Maybe add a cap that it can only be increased 20-30% because not even all the makeup and pretty dresses in the world are going to change a womans face or body to make her drop dead gorgeous.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2009, 12:16:05 AM by Mehzerz »
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Offline tiamat343

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2009, 12:20:09 AM »
Quote
Of these three, I prefer the last option.   Number two is by far the worst choice, as it is both arbitrary and time-consuming.  Your option, the first one, isn't exactly *bad*, but in my opinion it's a bit tougher to balance, and couldn't really be put under player control.  An automatic system would guarantee balance - or at least a pretty distribution of stats - so long as it's done properly, and allowing players to alter values for it would serve as a good difficulty modifier.
? It doesn't seem to me that semi random stat values is a very good idea. Random girls already have random starting stat values, and the point is that it's far, far too easy to reach 100% in any area (except looks, but pretty much every unique girl can hit that by now). I'm not sure how this option would be put under player control, either, except for the fact that random stats really don't mean ANYTHING beyond +/- another 3 weeks of training, at the most. What it does is make unique girls more generic, by being random (which defeats the point!). I'm not sure how my suggestion is tough to balance. It's simple: all skills, when capped, can only total to a certain amount. For example, with 10 skills (and possibly 1000%) you might set the cap at 700%, so I could have 4 skills max out at 100% and the other 6 at 50%. Now, this would take more time for girl creators if they choose to do this, but only because they're customizing the girls and making them more unique, which I don't think is necessarily a bad (or difficult at all, really) thing. Balance only comes into play when regarding that some stats are more useful than others. Combat? Totally useless. This, however, is more of a problem with how the game is currently set up. And it really doesn't pose a problem, either; more valuable skills can be weighted to be "worth" more, meaning a 1% decrease in cap of, say, regular sex might allow a 5% increase in service skill. Or 5% increase in looks would necessitate a 15% decrease in overall skill cap. However, I don't think it'd take very long and actually would not be a problem once skills are all actually balanced in of themselves.

Offline letmein

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2009, 12:34:39 AM »
While the girl modders may very well be willing to add extra customization to their new girls, I would doubt that they'd be willing to go back and do a lot of editing on their old ones - and the shouldn't be expected to.  Since there are already a hundred-ish already made girls, I think that completely revamping stat maximums and making them obsolete would be a bad idea.

I don't want to be too vague, here - by "semi-random", I'm looking at a nice bell curve distribution, meaning that there will be some great girls, some bad girls, and mostly average girls available at the start of the game.

You make a true statement in that it *is* too easy to reach 100% in any area - however, this is a problem with stat gains, not with the stat values.  To me, it's a separate issue.  It'd be much easier to keep the system that exists, and change how stats are gained to make it harder;  plus, simply changing the stat maximums doesn't really fix the issue of stats being way too easy to max out.  All you'd do is turn all your super-girls into mediocre-girls.  What fun is that?  It *should* be possible, albeit difficult, to get all your girls to 100% for those people who are OCD about that sort of thing.
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Offline DocClox

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2009, 01:16:12 AM »
Really, I think it's all part of the same balance issue. There's too much money in the game at the moment. That means that the PC can afford to train his girls a lot more often than was intended. Once we tighten up the cash flow a little, I think a lot of the problem will go away.

I also agree that random girls are coming in too high at the moment, and that probably something special should be needed to get to that coveted 100%, but first things first. Let's try and get the cash balanced, and then we can see what else needs tweaking.

Offline letmein

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2009, 01:23:14 AM »
Of course.  However, as I think about it, I like the idea of introducing a means of stat drain more and more - I just can't come up with a good way to do it without it being completely arbitrary.  I don't want it to happen on every rest period, since that would punish the lower constitution girls even further; I don't want it to just be a daily thing;  events are too rare and too random to do it properly...   perhaps make it a function of how good your matron is?  I could see that as being reasonable once regular girls can become matrons.  That way, with a truly exceptional matron, you could still get a full brothel off maxed-out women.
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exodia91

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2009, 01:40:34 AM »
That assumes the player even bothers to use matrons. Although I am against stat degradation as a whole, a better way to implement it would just be to have them degrade due to pregnancy. Realistic, logical, and actually gives you a reason to use protection potions/coat hangers.

Offline letmein

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2009, 01:42:46 AM »
Hmmm...  I guess I don't see your logic behind this being 'realistic' and 'logical'.  I'm not really arguing the point (yet...  ;) ); I'm just not understanding.
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Offline zodiac44

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2009, 02:28:30 AM »
We've already beaten this dead horse quite a bit, but one of the implementations of a level system I thought of could fix the issue.  Cap skills and stats at (base skill/stat) + (X * level), where the proper value of X would be determined through testing.  Levels should have a pyramid cost in XP, so each additional level becomes harder to achieve than the last.  With a small value of X, training could become moot with this system, as girls would almost certainly make small gains in every stat/skill through working in between levels.  With a large value of X, girls would quickly hit the hard cap of 100 for each stat/skill.

I'm not a fan of that system, though.

It could also be fixed with a level system by handing out skill and stat points at every level and doing away with all other means of gaining stats and skills.  Give the player the option to have all girls level automatically and you get rid of the micromanagement problem.  If the skill points available through leveling to the max level are insufficient to max out an average girl (and by average, I mean character-pack average), then a) girls become differentiated and b) skill/stat boosting items have a point in the mid to late game.

As an example: assuming the average character-pack girl has an average of 30 for each skill, and levels are capped at 20, then as long as each level gives less than 35 skill points to distribute, an average girl will never max out at 100 in each skill.  This could be exploited by modders, as they could simply up each girl's stats to a sufficiently high average to ensure they all max out.

The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder what the point is.  Since nearly all the girls are contributed by the community, and the tools to mod them are readily available and easy to use, any system that doesn't ignore the pre-packaged stats will be surpassed by those who want to "cheat" (for lack of a better word).  If we make the game ignore those stats by default, what's the point of having them in the first place?

hmmmm.......... (long stretch of thinking to myself)

Ok, new approach.  What if we have 3 sets of caps: a cap to each base skill/stat, a cap to the contribution from items, and a cap to the contribution from traits.  The net skill/stat will be equal to base + items + traits, with the caps imposed pre-addition.  So if skills are capped at 100, items at 50, and traits at 50, then a girl with a skill of 90, +30 from items, and +70 from traits will have a net of 170 (90 + 30 + 50 (capped from 70)).  The total would be capped at 200 instead of 100, but girls without the appropriate traits would not be able to reach 200.  The goddess of anal sex can hit 200, but the girl next door can't no matter how many times she takes it in the back door.
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Balmung60

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #10 on: November 20, 2009, 02:34:55 AM »
Just going to put this out there, but it would be nice to be able to check what the in-game looks value would be while making the girls (and any other trait effects while we're at it) so that it would be easier to balance the girls before loading them, which could make it a lot easier.  I've actually got some revisions I'd make if I could do exactly that since some things turned out a but higher than I wanted, but manually tracking down actual in-game changes (such as combat plus adventurer) and changing them is very time consuming to say the least.

Just something like a looks box that changes with traits and stats and a "+/- x" next to each stat that's affected by traits in the included girl maker would do wonders for making balancing my own (and presumably others') girls easier.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2009, 02:38:02 AM by Balmung60 »

Offline zodiac44

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #11 on: November 20, 2009, 02:36:16 AM »
I'm fairly certain the looks stat is just beauty + charisma / 2.
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Offline letmein

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2009, 07:07:55 PM »
That's right.  Or at least, it was right the last time I checked, which was probably a couple versions ago.

@Bal, you should talk to Solo.  He's the one that made the girl editor/creator, so he'd be the one to know how viable that sort of thing would be.
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Offline Mehzerz

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #13 on: November 22, 2009, 06:51:48 AM »
If charisma and beauty change how a girl looks then why not adjust how much one stat effects it?
.75 for beauty and .25 for charisma ( I think it's .85 for beauty and .15 for charisma? Which isn't all that bad to begin with... but the randomizer doesn't seem to consider this.)
With the new buildings stats may have multiple uses anyways. Even though charisma offers a .5 for beauty it could offer .75 for advertising and something else (possibly even beauty) could add the extra .25
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Offline lordyar

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Re: balancing girls
« Reply #14 on: November 25, 2009, 06:27:17 AM »
A limit on stats has to be set or players will not feel theaccomplishment of reaching max stats.  Therefore, base stats should becapped to best players enjoyment.  On the other hand, to counteract thefact that all the girls are carbon copy of each other, allows skills topush stats pass 100.  This allows the players to feel both theaccomplishment of optimizing and the feeling that his favorite girl(s)is unique (players can use editor to give skills to girls he likes andchanges the effect of skills depending on preference).

There's another huge problem in this game: it's way too easy.  There'sno satisfaction in either capping girls stats, obtaining mountain loadsof gold, or any other things.  There little feeling of accomplishment. Therefore, I suggest several radical changes to gameplay:

1.  You should able to assign a girl as captain and make the girlsstats effect the gangs performance.  By allowing girls to be captain ofa gang, stats like physical attack and magical attack don't suckanymore. This will also add a strategic element to the game to make itmore exciting and satisfying to win. Plus, this will add a strongfemale element to the game (some people find that sexually exciting).
   1.1  That stats of your captains also effect training speed andimprove the gangs stats (bonus stats from captain should allow gangsstats to be over a hundred to make captain still useful when the gangreach max stats
   1.2  Add abilities to the game that specifically makes certain girlsmore useful as gang captains.  This will add more uniqueness to thegirls and make some better story elements.  After all, I heard GuardCaptains, Paladins, Tacticians, etc to the game.
      1.23  Examples of skills:  Drill Instructor- increase trainingboost; Quarter Master- reduce gangs cost; Mary Sue- the captain cannotbe killed in the gang;  Battle Craze- doubles attack and casualty rate;Adventurer- increase gold and items find; and etc.
2. As a result of making gangs more important to the game, the gangs need more to do something to do.
  2.1  Create several different levels of the catacombs with differingaward quality and monster quality.  This will also get rid of thecurrent catacomb imbalance by requiring higher gang stats to adventurein the lower catacomb with higher catacomb giving smaller rewards. Players will now need a balance of recruiting good girls to lead thegang and good gangs to advance to lower to get more powerful items andmore gold.  A need for progression will make the game more enjoyable bygiving more accomplishment.  Add superboss that makes player focuseverything they have to get the gangs and girls needed to win.  (thiswill add replay values since players should not be able to optimizegangs/girls captain and the harem at the same time)
3.  Suggestion #2 leads to my third point, an aimable goal to the haremgame.  Greatest World Harem? Most Beautiful Woman in the world? Etc.
  3.1  Much more upgrades to the brothel and allow only one brothel.Let me explain.  More than one brothels is just unfun micromanagement(moving form one brothel to the next doesn't take much but doing it acouple hundreds time certainly gets old; making the game different eachday is where it's all at; more points on this later).  Instead, allowmore options to upgrade your brothels.  Instead of adding more rooms,the upgrades should have path: rundown shack > poor flat > smallhouse > etc.
  3.2  Allow more costimization.  You can purchase different terrainsaround the brothel that will have various effect (you can't have allterrains; you have to choose).  You can upgrade/buy things likelighting, alcohol, food, music, magic show, etc.  All these to increasefame and make your brothel famous.  The more fame, the more customersand the more high class customers like kings,princes, celebrity, famousscholars, etc. that will improve your girls happiness or some otherbonus
  3.3  Create a goal that can only be attained if the players put theirfocus to it.  Make a story like element where your whorehouse (at ahigh enough fame) becomes the Forbidden Palace and the you just conquerthe world/country/city because your courtesans are too amazing. Generals too exhausted from sex to fight?  Kings addicted to yourcourtesans and gave you the throne?  Whatever you want the story to be,make the players work for it.
  3.4  Ultra expensive items and bonus optained from mission/quest. Both for gangs captain and courtesans.  Add the goal of creating theworld most alluring woman or the world saving captains.
  3.5  As the prostitude ability increase, she should drastically gainmore gold per customers.  This will encourage quality over quanitywhich will improve the game in several ways.  Players can more easilyattach themselves on girls they work hard on improving.  They will gainmore satisfaction in the accomplishment if they are attached to thegirls.  Second, the lower number of girls that the player will managewill lower the micromanage so the players will feel less tedius. Taking care of 10 high stats girls are more statisfying more and lesstedius than taking care of 20 girls and so on.  (currently, thedifference between a max stat girl and a girl straight from the slavemarket is rather small)
  3.6  Allow the prostitude to gain skills. More feeling ofaccomplishment. (some skills can be gain from random events to addunpredictablity which lowers tediousness)
4  The brothel should have random events (customer accidentally burning rooms, wife looking for their husbands, etc).
  4.1  This will reduce repetitive nature of the game and add unpredictable elements that give a challenge to the players.
5  Girls should have personality and events corresponding to them.
  5.1 Increase chances of girls breaking out/running away/causing ariot/attacking you/etc based on their feelings toward the player, theirpersonality, and their obediance/loyaty/rebellious (whatever the gamecalls it)
  5.2  On the opposite spectrem, girls that loves will you will getjealous, buy you gifts, give you some meaningful bonus, etc based ontheir feelings, personality, and other stats

On a side note, if you decide on adding jobs likewaitress/stripers/dealer/etc., make sure the jobs are actually useful. In 1.29, the strippers and dealers suck as a job.  The whore joboutclass both of that in every single way. 
If you're going to add waitress,security, dealer, etc. give a reason for the players to have that job.  Here's some way:
1.  Remove the abilities to hire goons, forcing the players to give girls waitress, barmaid, etc.
2.  Girls working as waitress, barmaid, etc. can gain an exclusive skills/trait
There's some other comments I want to make but the todo list isn't clear so I'll keep quiet.

Hope my suggestion helps.