Problems and my rebalance solution.

[Ravensdark]

A while back I found myself a bit bored with how little variety this game had in the characters so I went and downloaded a bunch of the add-on packs for both unique and random girls.  I went and added a massive amount of girls to my game and then found myself in trouble.  All of a sudden I had turned a rather fun game into something that was completely unbalanced and no challenge at all.  About 2 weeks ago I decided to do something about this problem and figured out how the character creation process works and figured out much of how the modding for this game works.

I started out with the random girls.  I found that the vast majority of what I downloaded was way overpowered and I decided to almost universally make them much more realistic.  I crippled their 100cha/100bea stats sending their combined stats down to anywhere from 20 to 50 points, then I had to eliminate or reduce the instances of the stat boosting traits, and finally I dropped their starting skills down into the 10's for the most part.  Additionally I universally eliminated the charming, charismatic, and incorporeal traits.  All this I saved into a single large 170k combined .rgirlsx file.

Now I had to tackle the problem of the unique girls that I added on.  I also took them all into a combined list so that I could just eliminate duplicates and clutter.  I started off making it so there were no unique slave girls.  I wanted to have all my unique girls be available only through the catacombs or through the normal unique channels.  I did this because it was my intention to have the unique girls start off significantly better then the random girls.  I found when I played a game after downloading all these girls that I would just buy a superior girl from the slave pens that was unique for a lower price because she was not listed as a virgin.  I went and had a game with all unique girls and no randoms that was so unbalanced it was pathetic.  I had to split them between normal and catacombs which was tedious especially since I had to look up several of the girls to get an idea of who they were, and then had to rewrite some of the description to eliminate how they were captured and brought into slavery.

Universally I am having my unique girls start about 15 - 20 points better then the randoms, this gives them a strong boost over the random girls but makes them still need a lot of work before they bring in tons of cash.  Again as with the random girls I have universally eliminated all instances of charismatic, charming, and incorporeal.  I have also been modifying some of the settings such as making certain actions more costly. 

I also went and added a few items that are consumable permanent stat boosters that are only available in the catacombs.  I only wish there was a way to rank items so that we could increase or decrease how likely they would drop.  The same goes with the unique girls.  I think that it would be a good way to balance some of the super high quality items and girls that seem to be very easy to obtain.

I found myself a true rattle of entropy on my first try through the catacombs with one of my gangs and then went and equipped it onto a girl and found enough stuff to shortly there after increase her combat ability into the 80's after the negative from the rattle.  Then went and put her into duel dungeon crawling mode day and evening.  This made it so I was often obtaining more items and girls that were way overpowered.  Anything that gives the trait "Incorprial" is way overpowered.  Unfortunately I have not figured out how to balance these overpowered items.  The only options are through various rarities in the shop and the catacombs which just has a single listing.  I would also like a feature that allows an expensive item to not be bad for a girl but bypass the love and happiness boost checks so that giving it to her would not automatically make her love me.  Of course that would also be a good way to deal with some of the love problems in general.  Make it so that the super-cheap items do not give a love boost.

Oh yes one other thing I had to do with a number of the girls was to rename a lot of image files, so that they would be in the correct format.  I am glad I was using a Bulk Rename Utility tool to do it.

Overall I do not mind if I find one or two girls with 100 looks and great overall stats I just want to make sure they are rare and very difficult to obtain.

I have not finished with my re-balancing so I do not know how these revamped girls will play, but I think that it will be a lot more interesting and certainly a challenge.

[necno]

Yes, many agree myself included that a lot of downloadable girls are overpowered, and there are items that are also to strong and should at least only be temporary effects. It sounds like you have done an excellent job with rebalancing, balancing is something that hasn't been done in the official release as more focus has been on new features and bug fixing.

One of the lessons I learned from creating this game was that balancing is just as important as bug fixing and that new features should come as a 3rd priority.

Hope you can release your work when it is complete, also maybe posting a guide on balancing and your observations in the modding forum so that other modders can follow your example. Although many like to create overpowered girls especially unique girls as they like the characters to be like they are in the various animes and games. I think thats fine but they should make them as though they were in-experienced versions of those characters so they have room to grow and don't behave as godlike items.

I see the problem with having unique girls available in the slave market. Perhaps I shouldn't have put it there as it makes getting them a bit too easier and removes the original use for unique girls. But cant remove it now as it is in there and people don't like features being removed once they are there (unless there is compensation).

[Ravensdark]

Thank you for the complement.  I hope that I can do a good enough job of re-balancing to warrant it.  As far as releasing anything I think that I will end up releasing my .girlsx and .rgirlsx files but no images that go along with them, seeing as it would be too extreme in size (2+gig).  I mite post a list of which mods I used in creating it but even then I am not sure if I know all of them and I will probably have to search them myself. 

I think that I will probably include the guide you asked for in my release as part of the combined download.  It will probably be several weeks before I am able to complete my re-balancing, and then I guess I will need to do a writeup.

As far as new features I think that they should only be included after an analysis of how they effect the balance.  I do not mind having the ability to edit characters however you like but I think that some of how the game is implemented just throws off the balance.  An example of what I would like in a game like this would be to have standard basic parameters for the character's attributes such as cha, bea, lib, ect...  Then maybe have a racial tag that can adjust that standard parameter, and have included into an editor the ability to create such racial tags.  Then have a separate component to all those attributes for traits and then maybe include a temporary component to those attributes.

50% for standard and racial component then 50% for traits and then a 10% overage potential for temporary items.  With a system like that I think that the balance would be much easier to keep.  With a separate component for traits in the attributes, every attribute would need several traits that increase or decrease them by small amounts.

Just one of my many ideas that probably will never get implemented, mainly I think that the coding is so far away from what is already coded.  Then of course the traits need an overhaul in re-balancing.  One of the big things that I need for re-balancing is the ability to adjust the rarity of drops for items as well as how easy it is to find certain girls for both randoms and uniques.  This will enable me to utilize some of the more overpowered items and girls while still maintaining balance.  This would even enable me to utilize the overpowered traits.

As far as my work goes I am currently trying out my a test run of my re-balancing.  I may have to go through everything and adjust.  I have found that when I set the girl's looks too low and her skills too low she does not get any costumers until she has trained for a while.  This I do not mind.  I think that for the most part I will be dropping most of the girls skill to next to nothing in the 0 to 15 range for everything.  Those skills raise very quickly through training but as long as there is no one with high skills it takes a little bit longer.  I am finding that I wish that I could increase the effect of room quality. 

I am finding that the gangs are really unbalanced as well.  Once I start training a gang I never have a problem loosing it except if I try for grand theft which does not seem to be very profitable.  This means that once I start training my gains having any extra in the list for recruitment is just useless.  There is no chance of me ever switching out gangs.  I think that the option to train should be removed or make it very expensive.  I it is removed then make it so attributes are increased through missions.  It mite be a good idea to remove training from the girls as well and make their skills increase based on their assignments and results.  Or at least limit how high girls can be trained, as well as the gangs.  I know that there is already a diminishing returns system in place but I think there should be a hard cap in place for training that can only be increased through experience or some other method. 

Of course I realize that there are so many other suggestions on the table as well as having only so much time to work on the project that my ideas will likely never get implemented.  I am not criticizing. 

I will try to update as I progress on my re-balancing project.

[HuiBui]

Well done !

I did similar changes with the game.

But one big problem is still existing and i can't change it with the Editor: The skills!
While playing the game ,latest  at Level10 each girl has 100% on each skill.

The solution would be a dynamic raise of skills.
For an example : Lets say a girl has now 1% for normal sex and she gets more experience , then the change to improve should be 99%.
If she has 50% , the chance should be reduced to 50% and finally if she has already 99% skill then the chance to raise it up to the highest level should be only 1%.

Or is there any possibility to change the height of the "learning effect " included in the editor which i didn't found out ?

and sorry for my Bad English but writing in German would not be helpfull 

[DocClox]

If you haven't looked at it, there are a lot of balancing options in the config file, too. I'd always hoped to get a community effort to get some sort of decent balance sorted out. (The trouble with doing it as a dev is that you're constantly balancing for the last release, while adding changes that will knock the balance out of whack again).

Which is a roundabout way of saying that it's great that someone is making the effort.

@HuiBui: all you can do at the moment is make training more expensive. The trouble is that training uses integer skills, so it's not really feasible to dial down the learning rate. We have discussed overhauling the training system a few times, but never to any clear outcome. I'd like to see a system where  learning gets progressively harder as skill levels rise, but for various reasons, that's not going to happen any time soon.

[Ravensdark]

One change that mite be somewhat easy to implement into the game is to have a level system for the traits from like 1 to 10.  That way we could give the girls the traits that we want to but the trait only has a slight effect at low levels.  For example level 1 charismatic gives a +2 to charisma while level 2 would give a +5.  It would require some thought on what to have each level of certain traits give but I think that it would be worth while for balancing as well as making game-play more workable.  You could have level-ups have a random chance of increasing some of the trait levels.  Certain events could have a chance of decreasing or increasing trait levels.  There are a lot of options that could be worked through this method.

I am finding after having reworked to balance the girls that I have not gone nearly far enough.  I am having to eliminate many of the traits period for all the random girls as well as further cutting in their attributes and skills.  The problem that I see is that there is no real way for some of the traits to return into the game.  Maybe if I create some catacomb drop items that add some of the traits that I am removing.  Maybe I can increase the chance of a drop by duplicating the item in the item file.  I will have to come up with a lot of items and plausible descriptions for them.

[DocClox]

One change that mite be somewhat easy to implement into the game is to have a level system for the traits from like 1 to 10. 

 
Hmm... I've wondered about this, and generally resisted the idea, on the grounds that if we're going to give numbers to traits, they should really be skills, leaving traits as binary flags. The problem there is that there are no user definable skills in the pipeline, so that doesn't really help much. Of course, we could implement skills and traits as being the same things behind the scenes, but that would be a a pretty major change, and I'm not supposed to be doing them any more

  I am having to eliminate many of the traits period for all the random girls as well as further cutting in their attributes and skills.

User defined traits with scriptable outcomes are in the pipeline, however. It'll take a little longer than originally planned (would be there now but for RL) but they are definitely going to happen. So there's hope in that direction.

[fires_flair]

any tips on balancing would be awesome. also if you haven't maybe pm (or post in their topic) the girl makers with faulty naming, I'm sure most of us wanna know if somethings wrong so we can fix it.

[ShiningRadiance]

any tips on balancing would be awesome. also if you haven't maybe pm (or post in their topic) the girl makers with faulty naming, I'm sure most of us wanna know if somethings wrong so we can fix it.

Wish the editor would highlight girls that have no related folders...
And have a checkbox that would delete the folder it's associated with when you delete the girl file...
And a different colour highlight for files that have the same name...

Maybe a way to associate the folders with the files instead of it doing it automatically based on name... could also logically do the same with images so they'd be renamed automatically.

Well, whatever.

[Ravensdark]

I have been working today mostly on trying to get the girls to buy items when they have the cash and are resting.  I would like the overall chance of the girls going shopping to be increased.  I do not think that I have the ability to modify that.  I have adjusted the chance of certain items being bought but I would like the overall chance for it to trigger to be increased probably doubled. 

I would like for the girls to be willing to go out and buy consumables and use them.  We already have them able to use up to 3 per day on their own.  Right now as it stands you pretty much have to keep them supplied with the consumables.  I went and made some of the lesser consumables infinite so that I could do so but it is very tedious.

[Venusblue]

I think balancing would be much easier if there was a quota for how points should be spent. For example, each girl has between 400-600 points available as well as like three starter traits


I'm just throwing these numbers out at random, btw.


So her skills like beauty, charisma and thinks like that will take 1 point each. All skills must add up to a minimum of 400, exactly, and a maximum of 600 exactly.


Traits could be ranked, certain ones would cost more then others and you would get one free negative trait which must be picked.


You would then get an additional 400~ points to be spent on other things, such as starting items, other traits, skills such as Anal and BDSM and things like that, and possibly could also be used to increase stats such as beauty as well.


The extra 400 points prevents all the girls from being too "Cookie cutter". Perhaps every point put into a girls primary stats would cost three points from the surplus points or something like that. This stuff would be picked at random for the non unique girls.


Perhaps unique girls can get an additional trait or two, and an additional 150 to both the surplus and initial stats.


I would also make unique girls a bit more uncommon, because I feel that they should be. It would also make them a bit less overpowered.

[ShiningRadiance]

I think balancing would be much easier if there was a quota for how points should be spent. For example, each girl has between 400-600 points available as well as like three starter traits


I'm just throwing these numbers out at random, btw.


So her skills like beauty, charisma and thinks like that will take 1 point each. All skills must add up to a minimum of 400, exactly, and a maximum of 600 exactly.


Traits could be ranked, certain ones would cost more then others and you would get one free negative trait which must be picked.


You would then get an additional 400~ points to be spent on other things, such as starting items, other traits, skills such as Anal and BDSM and things like that, and possibly could also be used to increase stats such as beauty as well.


The extra 400 points prevents all the girls from being too "Cookie cutter". Perhaps every point put into a girls primary stats would cost three points from the surplus points or something like that. This stuff would be picked at random for the non unique girls.


Perhaps unique girls can get an additional trait or two, and an additional 150 to both the surplus and initial stats.


I would also make unique girls a bit more uncommon, because I feel that they should be. It would also make them a bit less overpowered.

...Level ups? No?

[DocClox]

I think balancing would be much easier if there was a quota for how points should be spent. For example, each girl has between 400-600 points available as well as like three starter traits

It's a good idea. I proposed something similar (limiting the number of traits a girl could have) a year or so back. Unfortunately one our more outspoken modders took exception to the notion that his creative impulses should be subject to interference from a mere developer and the idea was dropped.

We could put a points system into WMEdit, but that on its own wouldn't be enough, since you could get around the restrictions by directly editing the XML files. We could put a points checker into the game, but that breaks a lot of existing girls, which is unlikely to be a welcome development.

There was one thing I did consider at the time, but never got around to doing, and that was doing "lite" versions of existing girlpacks. The pictures are already collected; all it needs is for someone to produce a balanced girlsx file for them

Which admittedly, would probably be easier with a points based WMEdit app... Hmm.

[slpowerhouse]

I think one of the biggest problems with modders and making the girls to OPed is that the modders don't really understand what they are doing when they make the girls.

I know that when I look at the different aspects to add to a girl I start to get confused because I don't understand what each attribute dose / trait dose.  The trait problem was fixed by one of the other modders who put out an updated trait list that just changed the descriptions to let modders know what they did.   Now I just need a list of what the attributes and skills actually do and I can make balanced girls that still feel like they are who they are supposed to be.

A few fixes to the game would clear up confusion.
1. skills should be tied to the girl's stats, traits, and in game training
This change would save the girls from getting to OPed early on,  I try to not make the skills OPed but I don't know good values for that purpose so I just generally do one of the randomize buttons next to skills. so if the skills were based on their stats and traits at creation you would start seeing more realistic girls.

2. change the stats to a more D&D like system.
You already have 3 of the 6 D&D attributes, you would just need to make one for strength, wisdom, and dexterity.  just having 6 stats would allow the game to start being more of a balance and would make each stat easier to understand.

3. Hide the stats in the editor that the modders should not be able to change.
This would be the stats/ skills that are based on a formula since this would make the modder no longer able to just OP a girl form changing a stat such as fame before she is even brought into the brothel.  I do understand that some girls may be famous before they get sold into slavery but make that type of fame a random value when they get placed into the brothel.

4. fix the incorporeal trait
as of right now this trait seems to automatically add the sterile trait. I don't think this should happen because I am currently working on making pokemon / digimon random girls for the game and I want to make them incorporeal since that is what pokemon and digimon are.  I mean in Digimon is a digimon dies it turns into a digital egg and starts life again (thus no real death) and when is the last time you heard of a pokemon dying in game? If the incorpreal trait is supposed to be for girls that are ghosts then add that to the discription and add a immortal trait into the game that does the same thing but does not add sterility.

[Venusblue]

It's a good idea. I proposed something similar (limiting the number of traits a girl could have) a year or so back. Unfortunately one our more outspoken modders took exception to the notion that his creative impulses should be subject to interference from a mere developer and the idea was dropped.

We could put a points system into WMEdit, but that on its own wouldn't be enough, since you could get around the restrictions by directly editing the XML files. We could put a points checker into the game, but that breaks a lot of existing girls, which is unlikely to be a welcome development.

There was one thing I did consider at the time, but never got around to doing, and that was doing "lite" versions of existing girlpacks. The pictures are already collected; all it needs is for someone to produce a balanced girlsx file for them

Which admittedly, would probably be easier with a points based WMEdit app... Hmm.

I don't think that it would matter if some one edited the XML files. If they wanted to do it, they could do it for their own enjoyment, but it stops most players from having an easy, run of the mill game experience every time they played it. Some one would have to go out of the way to edit their girls and make them stronger, in which case they would probably find another loophole anyway. If some one were to post the girls packets, it should be mentioned that they're over powered, as it probably should mention already.


The point would be more to normalize girls, anyway. To give an "Average", to some extent, which makes it slightly more challenging.  I think having a restriction on traits would be a good idea, at least initially. Perhaps even an option to help a girl develop certain traits with certain forms of training. As Whore Master is now, that would be a bit tedious, but if the amount of girls was scaled down a bit, I think that would be great.


I still think that it should be scaled down. Instead of 25 girls making up a full brothel, maybe 7 should be full. Every girl makes more money, and getting new girls is a bit more of a mile stone. Maybe even different forms of jobs, too, which could be unrelated to the brothel, and they could work in town to do these things... Such as a fighting instructor at a dojo, or a secretary at an office. This would train them in certain skills while still giving some money.


Back to the original point though, I think that would be a great idea to have them done by skill, and each level up would give them another amount of stats, say between 50-75 distributed semi-randomly with a 50% chance of acquiring  a new trait. Traits could be ranked on different tiers, with stuff like small boobs and lolita as the first tier, up to things like incorporeal as the third tier, that way a girl doesn't randomly turn into a construct when she levels up... Maybe there could be a fourth tier for things like non-human, which she would not level up in to.


I don't know how most of this would work out for a programmer, just kinda throwing out ideas I suppose.