Combining the big mods aka crazy's mod .06 is out now

[PinkPervert]

HuiBui ,

I agree, I try to stay focused on what I consider important, but that is not always easy.
My priorities are usually..
1. Bug fixes
2. Balance tweaks and easy of play tweaks
3. Getting current features fully implemented
4. New features

I'm not real strict on that priority list, but it is generally how I view things.
--PP

[crazy]

Next patch gallery will have all image types so no more hidden images.  Well not the preg types but those are kinda broke so when they are fixed I'll add them.

[PinkPervert]

Also in the next patch, Studio fixes. I have spent the last week trying to make the studio playable. I have worked out almost all of the bugs, but there are still a few minor ones. I may put of some of the less important bugs for later (such as the arena try out button appearing in the studio).

Other bugfixes..
1. Hitting the space key on the turn summary screen will no longer crash the game if you are on a screen other than the girls screen.
2. Various problems with girl's pay *should* be fixed.. still not 100% certain on that because the code involved is very complex, and scattered all over the program.
3. Transfer girls screen... should work properly now. There was basically a large portion of code missing from one section.
4. Girls Detail screen.. will no longer show multiple copies of job types.

Pretty much everything else I have been doing has involved improving the movie studio.

[PinkPervert]

On a separate note. I am looking for a bit of feedback, especially from those who make girl packs.

One of the problems with the game in general is that it is not clear what is a good / average / bad statistic for the girls.... And the game is not consistent in the way it treats them. So, looking at a stat such as charisma, in some parts of the game, it basically starts at 0, and the higher it gets the better it is. So this means that a 0 charisma would basically be average.. and anything higher is treated as a bonus. In other parts, it will treat anything above 50 as bonus, and anything below as a penalty... which would meant the average should be 50 instead.

This is not helped by the fact that almost all traits have some kind of effect on stats. But at least they are relatively consistent.

So.... one of my most important projects is to balance the game, try to make it a bit more challenging and fun. In order to do this properly, we need to decide on how the stats *should* work. So the question I ask.. is would we prefer to have a 50 be the average, with anything above it giving a bonus, and anything below that giving a penalty. Or should all stats start at zero, and just give a bonus as they go up?

Personally I prefer the start at 50 option, but I am not someone who creates girl packs. Also consider, that whatever the answer is, the different girl packs should be balanced to fit what option we go with, it is not absolutely required, but keep in mind that no matter which option we go with, it is likely to effect how good any girl is at doing any one task.

Thanks
--PP

[hewhocumsbynight]

I know that I have a problem with keeping the numbers low, as I tend to overpower my packs, and I think that we all have the same problem, except for Lurker, who usually has really low stats.  That said, I think that, for the most part, the skills should be in the teens or twenties, unless they are canonically exceptional at something, in which case, all bets are off.  In regards to the stats stats, I think that a similar rule be applied, except moved up to forties to fifties.

That's all!

[crazy]

Also in the next patch, Studio fixes. I have spent the last week trying to make the studio playable. I have worked out almost all of the bugs, but there are still a few minor ones. I may put of some of the less important bugs for later (such as the arena try out button appearing in the studio).

Arena tryout button is now fixed it has a new button for the next patch.  A lot of new buttons for next patch.

[crazy]

Personally I prefer the start at 50 option, but I am not someone who creates girl packs.

I agree 50 should be the average makes more sense to me that way.

[trex]

Well I tend to base new girls with around 20-50 charisma & beauty. 50 I think would be above average, as I aim to have 40 what a normal baseline would be (some above/below average gives the 30-50 mark).


I think that's fairly in tune, or even slightly beneficial for the way the game is currently setup. Very low char/beaut = low looks = very little income from a girl, so it either forces a player to avoid that girl entirely (select girls with higher stats from other packs ect) or invest in items.


I like items, but with stats for girls one would of downloaded all over the place, the former decision would be the most logical and used.


So, setting it a 0 base (and getting 0 for looks), without a game overhaul would be rather pointless, <50 (looks) would allow naturally acquired (through longer term job placement, leveling ect) traits to boost in and be effective, as well as item usage.


I think anything above 50-60 (looks) can too easily be boosted with very little items & progression, as well as if set as a base in the editor, may lead to 80-100 (looks) girls in-game once their traits kick in. If a girl is canonically beautiful ect, having her naturally start with 55-70 looks should give a boost over average (30-45) & above average (45-55) girls, using this proposed scheme.


Or whatever scheme, I think keeping beautiful girls under 70 to start with would be optimal, but the bulk (average girls) around 50 in looks to begin with is a good balance.


The temptation to make girls 'Outstanding' from the start can be hard to do when making them, but for gameplay, it should be curbed.

[dpman03]

Ok, so this post is long, but I'm hoping it might be helpful in some way.  Since the two of you have spent a lot of time working on the game, I thought contributing some ideas would be the least I could do.  Feel free to ignore them, work with them, claim them as your own, yell them at passing strangers as insults, or even use them as part of some plot for world domination.

So.... one of my most important projects is to balance the game, try to make it a bit more challenging and fun. In order to do this properly, we need to decide on how the stats *should* work.

As it stands, it's not difficult to get most girls up to 100 in multiple stats.  I don't know about other people, but I rarely settle for less than 100 in both beauty and charisma (after equipment).  It almost feels obligatory in a way, which can take away from the game being fun.  The same goes for traits, as well.

As you hinted, making the game fun is one of the most important concerns.  (It is a game, after all.)  Being challenging can certainly contribute to that.  At the same time, sometimes adding challenge can just make the player have to deal with things that seem boring.  Challenge causes the player to invest time doing something, and the question becomes whether or not that something is enjoyable.

I can easily think of a good example.  Girls can usually be "set-up" with equipment, etc.  But after that, they end up being pretty autonomous.  There's obviously some room there for the player to come back and do more over time.  It would be simple to require the player to do some micromanaging, but that's going to be more of a chore than actual fun.

Keeping that in mind, the implementation of "levels" in the game is probably underused.  People tend to like gaining levels, especially when there are some good, meaningful choices to be made.  The important thing to recognize is that you're then rewarding the player by giving them the option to advance something, rather than requiring them to spend time keeping things the same or only marginally improved.

As it stands, girls already can gain traits with levels.  The player isn't involved, though, so it isn't fun.  There really is a lot of potential there, including ways to better deal with stats and traits.  It would be awesome if there was some kind of level-up screen with choices on how a girl can improve in skills and traits, although I suspect that might take a lot of effort to implement.

As a simpler example, there could be limits on when high stats and the best traits will actually provide benefits, which then improves with levels.  Alternately, the total number of traits a girl is "using" could be limited in relation to level, and the highest stats could only be available with certain traits.  I can think of numerous other ideas, and it all comes back to how fun something is and how/whether it can be easily integrated into the existing code.

After your next update, I'm hoping to familiarize myself with the source code a little more.  (I actually majored in computer science, but I concentrated more on theory and discrete math than traditional programming.)  Like I mentioned, I don't know whether I can do a lot of actual coding myself; however, I could at least contribute some ideas for easy improvements and dealing with existing problems.  Also, thanks again to both of you guys.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you do in the future.

[Parlarkey]

Concerning the stats of girls, just basing out their starting statistics isn't going to be enough. Traits often add stats as well, which are really difficult to see until you load a girl in-game to see what extra buffs she got from her stats (for example, traits like Long Legs, Big Boobs, Great Ass, Cute but many more). While no one wants to make girls with only three or so traits (as they WILL be ignored if you see a girl with ten more traits for roughly the same amount of money), girls end up even more beefy after gaining all their trait bonuses. Perhaps a new WMEdit, that makes the bonuses from the traits visible already during creation, would help balance things? Or maybe giving every trait a cost, although this would mean changing the way the prices of girls are calculated would have to be redone.
 
Or a simple roundabout way, just increasing the amount of money girls cost manually (I suppose the AskPrice modifier might help there, although I'm not sure what it does and don't know enough about coding to check how that modifier is used).
 
In any case, an initial step might be to create a separate topic with a .girlsx file library (without the images, only the .girlsx files) that are rebalanced according to one and the same set of guidelines. As long as there are dozens of players who all make their own packs and .girlsx files according to their own ideas, the statistics will always be all over the place.

[PinkPervert]

I'm glad to get a decent amount of feed back, so to explain myself a bit further, what I am looking for is what stat level should represent a completely average girl ignoring all other factors such as traits and item bonuses. We can balance those other things out around what the stats are, but the stats are the BASE on which everything else is built. The reason I bring up both 0 and 50, is currently that is what the game does. At some points it treats 0 as the base from which to measure stats by, at other points it treats 50 as that base. Because it is inconsistent, it makes it difficult to have a good decision on just what the proper stats to give a girl are. So I want to re-write things using a consistent policy regarding stats... they should either start at zero representing the stat a low level girl would NORMALLY have for any particular stat, beauty, charisma, etc.. and just give bonuses as the stat gets higher.... or they should start at 50 as the stat that a low level girl would have if she was considered average.... and have a smaller bonus or penalty as it gets away from 50.

I personally kind of like using 50 as a base, because I like the idea that having a bad stat could give the girl a bit of a penalty for whatever she is trying to do. If we went with this method, I would either reduce the modifier effects that items/traits have (this would be necessary, because any change in the stat would have a larger influence)... or change it so that instead of effecting the stat.. they change the bonuses (I lean more towards this option). This would have the benefit of allowing you to always know exactly what a girl's "real" stats are. I also think it will require a lot less changing around of girl packs already out there, since I suspect most of them are designed with something like this closer in mind.

On the other hand, if we start with zero as the baseline... the benefits are that the stats can have a much wider range of effects.. meaning the bonus range could be something like +1 for every 5 points in that stat, whereas the other method would have larger bonuses over smaller ranges, (to get the same effect it would have to be +2 for every point higher than 50.). BUT.. there would be no penalty for having lower stats.. only smaller bonuses...

Either method works just fine... we just need to pick one so that we can have a consistent rule for both us (the modders) to follow, and for the players and girlpack creators to use when designing girl files.
--PP

[trex]

For Parlarkey:

True. I have provided a traits file in my thread (in the Misc Section) that afaik is still fairly relevant for what trait does what.

However, you're also correct in a new WMEdit could make traits more transparent. A compromise could be tooltips with not only the verbal descriptions for the trait, but also the exact stat modifications it does. I have to consider the traits I wish to add, to get my desired stat numbers for a girl, so I rejig the stats lower, add traits and check it out in-game. Rinse/repeat until I think I have achieved a fair balance.

Modify your config file. You can get a nice difficulty boost in the early game, and if things get too hard/frustrating, just grab some gangs while you can and also mine the catacombs. Easy money if you're in a tight situation.

The game has a nasty (or nice?) cpu-gangs issue where quickly two gangs will die out (sometimes 3) and the remaining will accumulate millions of gold before the end of the year. Finishing missions = x00,000+ gold rewards sometimes. Make your choice early on, do I take out the first 4 gangs or don't use gangs? A difficulty modifier that's player based it just to not use gangs at all.


For the girlsx idea, you could simply create one auto-updating archive with a companion readme (also linked separately  that noted whose included, and what's changed. This could be done for each author posted in their thread. They could also decide to put up links in their first post, and write whatever descriping what it does ect.

Of course, there should be somewhat of a consensus on what it is that we'd like the re-tuned girlsx files to come out as lol.

PP:

Yeah 50 sounds good. You get some backward compatibility, while also giving the option for girls to be penalized if they aren't very good in some stat.

Also, how do I make underwear items in WMEdit 0.7.1? Apparently you open up the items file itself (not using editor) and manually add in?

[PinkPervert]

Addressing some of the other things brought up.

For game balance I am looking at quite a number of things, not just what the girl's stats are. I agree that we need to re-evaluate how girl's are priced for one. Both how much to purchase them, how much they charge for various services, and how much the player can expect to make off of his girls for any situation.

I want items to play a more important part in the game. (But I plan to look at that at a later time).

For the more immediate future (if I can every get time away from bug hunting) here is what I am looking at doing. I want to make the game more about managing your girls to try to get an income, in order to reach a goal. Instead of just hiring as many girls as possible, and dumping them into a job, then forgetting them. I also want the goal to be to try to manage your customers some.  But I want to avoid making this tedious. I want to make happiness and tiredness to play a more important factor than they do now. Currently they mainly effect how likely a girl is to refuse to do a job... which I have never liked. Especially since the job refusal is also effected by a lot of other things. So I want to get away from this. (There should still be a small chance of it, but it should not be the PRIMARY means of presenting a challenge to a player, since the player has only a few ways to address it as it is.)

So.. instead of just checking if a girl refuses to do a job, then cranking out some semi-random text, and prices. I plan to have it do a "job performance" check each time a girl performs a task. This check will effect a LOT of things...
If she rolls dismally, there is a chance she will refuse the job or try to run away, or other bad things (snitch to the police, whatever). Also how much both the customer AND the girl is satisfied will be effected by this. These will effect quite a few things as well (fame for both the girl and the brothel being one). Also a happy customer will tip a girl, but instead of being the mostly flat rate the girl gets now, it will be based on how much he has, and how much he enjoyed. etc...
So, the job performance check would largely be based on the girl's skills, her current status (happiness etc), relevant traits, items, accomodations etc...

I am also looking at how a girl goes about charging for services. Instead of making a fixed amount, plus a small random amount based on 2 or three stats (the current method). I plan to make it a negotiation between the customer and the girl. He would approach her, and either make an offer, or ask how much, and she would respond, and they would haggle until either they reach an agreement or not. How much he is willing to pay would be based on her stats, her fetish categories, how much money he actually has, and how many other things he plans to do that night (he may need to budget some). How much she wants to charge will be based on... what is he asking her to do?, how much she enjoys doing it... how skilled is she? what kind of mood is she in? (happy/tired), how does he look? (his stats).. also how intelligent is she compared to him (whichever one of them is smarter will try to negotiate better), and of course there is room for plenty more.

One other current problem is that there is almost no reason to use free girls. But my planned changes can help with this.... Since the girl's happiness would be very important to her job performance, free girl would get a serious bonus here. Where slave girls would be less likely to refuse a job if they do very bad, but will just do a bad job instead. I also think that free girls should gain skills/traits/stats etc faster than slave girls. The balancing goal would be to make it so that Slave girls are a good investment with a steady, but lower payout.. where free girls may not start out very good, but in the long run will be the BIG money earners.

Another balance between free/slave girls is that I want to make it so that occasionally girls will ask the player for favors. Things like, time off... a change of job, items, better pay, etc... granting/ignoring those favors will have an effect on happiness and job performance. Free girls would ask for more favors than a slave girl, but the benefit would be higher.

Just some of the ideas I have had on the back burner for some time, I actually have about a dozen pages of notes for more ideas, but some are sketchy and not worth mentioning right now, and really who wants to read that much

--PP

[PinkPervert]

Oh, and I agree that a new WMEdit would be very nice, I actually dont use the current one, since I don't even know if it works properly for this mod. I usually do all my editing in a text editor (notepad ++), which honestly I prefer anyways, since you can do mass search and replaces when you have to edit a lot of girls at once.

I do not have the source code for WMEdit, but would be willing to look it over if someone can point to me where to find it. Otherwise, I almost think it would be better to rebuild it from the ground up.

[dpman03]

For Parlarke
Also, how do I make underwear items in WMEdit 0.7.1? Apparently you open up the items file itself (not using editor) and manually add in?

Here's what I've done.  I basically just create what I want for the underwear item in WMedit, except I make it as another type of item.  Then I save it to a new .itemsx file and open that with a text editor.  At that point, I change the line Type="Whatever" to Type="Under Wear" in the XML for the item.  Then you can open any other .itemsx file and just paste the code for the item you just made at the bottom.

Make sure to note both the space and capitalization in "Under Wear" because it won't work if it isn't identical.  Also, once you add underwear or any non-vanilla item type to an .itemsx file, you'll have to make changes to the file by hand from then on.  If you try to open the file in WMedit after you've added underwear, it will error message the hell out of you and very possibly screw up the XML if you try to save it.

If you decide to make some underwear, I'd probably recommend creating a seperate .itemsx file just for it.  That way you can edit the other items normally.  I have a separate file myself, with a dozen or so underwear items in it.  I can see about uploading it somewhere and posting a link if you think it would be helpful.

EDIT:
I figured I would go ahead and upload the file in case anyone else would like to use it.  It's only ten items, but I did write up descriptions for each of them.
http://rapidshare.com/files/859460307/Underwear.itemsx