Bugs: 1.30 Alpha

[sgb]

Odd, I've played about three test games past two years since 1.30 I have never seen any of the crazy difficulty you encountered.  While starting out is a little slower now, the game still quickly gets to the point where money is irrelevent.  Cleaning is a non-issue as well.  2 cleaners (or one high CON girl going two shifts) is sufficient to maintain a 0 filth level with eight girls whoring (more than that seems pointless as there aren't enough customers, even with level 10 advertising).  It SAYS 250-300 customers came, but there are girls only getting 3 clients at that point, so I assume assigning more would serve no further benefit and it's time to open another brothel.  How many gangs to you buy at the start?  I just buy the two boosted gangs, leave one on guard and one on training.  I never add more until I'm consistantly making over 1000 gold a turn.  Which usually doesn't take more 20 turns or so.  The only time I run into trouble is if my first few girls are extremely rebellious.

I fully agree training gangs is too slow.  Even the starting gangs with 50's in all stats take nearly a year to max out.  That's 52+ game turns of that gang doing nothing but suck up money.  They should, at a minimum, be going up +2 per stat per week.  That would still require at least 30-35 turns to train your average starting gang, but that's about twice as fast as it seems to take now.  I'm sure not about the girl wiping the gang.  On one hand there needs to be some way to lose maxed gangs late game or there's no way to lose (sabotage never seems to result in casulties).  Many girls in the game are anime/video game protagonists who can and should be wiping the floor with mooks.  On the other hand, as you say the time investment to get a fully trained gang back is excessive right now.

[Dagoth]

More changes done.

Fixed:
* Starting a new game was not clearing out number of beasts owned from a previously loaded game
* Items with a non-zero "How bad is it" stat crash the game 100% of the time when going directly from the store inventory to a girl's inventory. Buying to the player's inventory then transferring to a girl is still fine.
* using make-up items or any other items which provided a temporary stat boost (not skill boost) was bugged
* items which were set to impregnate or inseminate did not work correctly; now, it uses the "Amount" value as a multiplier for the chances.
    So, assuming the default config of 8% chance each for pregnancy, player pregnancy, and insemination, these item effects would have 80% chance of success (8% * 10):
    <Effect What="GirlStatus" Name="Pregnant By Player" Amount="10" />
    <Effect What="GirlStatus" Name="Pregnant" Amount="10" />
    <Effect What="GirlStatus" Name="Inseminated" Amount="10" />
    An "Amount" of 0 still removes any of the above, that hasn't been changed.

* When transferring an item on the Item Management screen, the selection is much better maintained and tracked (transferred items are selected in target inventory)

[Dagoth]

OK, answering some reports.

There also seems to be something the game isn't reporting properly that is causing major cash hemorhaging if playing for extended periods of time.

  Quite possibly. At some point we probably need to do a serious accounting of how all money-related actions at end-of-turn work. Hey, it's an alpha.

The read me file (yes, a few of us actually do look at those) says that ALL girls are 18+. Despite this disclaimer there are quite a few 14-17 year olds running around. There really isn't any point in having the disclaimer at all if the game clearly marks the girls otherwise.

With the default girls (no additional packs), you should be seeing them aged as low as 17. The readme should indeed be updated. As for 14 year olds, that is possible with unique girls if you're using an additional girl pack or something; the age isn't as limited for them for whatever reason.
 

I was fairly certain from the 1.29 line that sons matured faster than daughters, and this seems to be true for the 1.30 line as well. I was able to play long enough for several sons to be sold, but not long enough for any of the daughters to appear.

  I've tested pregnancy pretty extensively a few days ago (pregnancy and maturation values set to 2 weeks) and did not find this to be true. Boys and girls matured at the exact same rate.

It's possible for more than 1 matron to be in a house by forcing a matron to rest and reassigning another girl to be matron. When the first girl is through resting she auto-magically becomes matron again resulting in two matrons. Also, matrons occasionally have problems over and over and over again "comforting" a tired girl when she needs instead to be taken off-line to rest.

  Thanks, I'll note that down.

Had extreme problems with the "filth" on my first game. In a house of 20 girls, 6 of them were cleaing both morning and evening and I was still accumulating 100 pts a day. It was 1500 when I obtained my second house and moved all the girls to the second house. I left three girls there in the first house to clean full time and it took 4 turns to clean up.

My second game I was able to control the filth with just three girls cleaing just one shift a day, so I don't know what was going on the first time.

  Filth removal rates could probably be increased a bit.

I had the game crash once, when moving a girl with 0 happiness from the dungeon, but the auto-save game loaded in like a charm.

I just tested this and couldn't reproduce it.
  If you have this happen and have a save from before it happens, and it's reproducible, please pass the save on to us.

I also like the old picture handler a bit better than the current one. The aspect ratios for some of the pictures look rather wierd right now, although this is just as much the fault of the pictures as well.  I did see that support for animated pictures is being added to the game which I look forward to being implemented.

Are you sure you're using r349? The aspect ratio should be perfectly standard, as it was with 1.29, though an older 1.30 alpha did have stretched aspect ratios.

i don't realy know if this is the Problem: When i say a Girl to do a Job for the Movies (i told in first One girl to do the Fluffer job) The Games Crashed when i click on the next week button (same after i told 2 girls to be fluffing), i don't tried with any other Movie job...

Like the release thread says, Movie related jobs do not currently work. I guess I could just remove them from the job list for now.

I fully agree training gangs is too slow.  Even the starting gangs with 50's in all stats take nearly a year to max out.  That's 52+ game turns of that gang doing nothing but suck up money.  They should, at a minimum, be going up +2 per stat per week.  That would still require at least 30-35 turns to train your average starting gang, but that's about twice as fast as it seems to take now.  I'm sure not about the girl wiping the gang.  On one hand there needs to be some way to lose maxed gangs late game or there's no way to lose (sabotage never seems to result in casulties).  Many girls in the game are anime/video game protagonists who can and should be wiping the floor with mooks.  On the other hand, as you say the time investment to get a fully trained gang back is excessive right now.

It could be increased a bit. However... it is entirely optional how much training you give or how many gangs you choose train up to 100 in everything. I don't think getting 100 in every stat should be easy at all (super-gangs!), and gangs can certainly function very well with all stats around 50.

[LordShame]

Learning could be on a curve, so that taking a gang to 50-60 is faster than it is now (so you can invest in crappy gangs if that's all you have to work with and not feel like you're entirely throwing your money away), but it'd slow down gradually after that, so 90-100 could take a very long time. That way in the early-to-mid game you can put a less skilled gang or two on training and have some visible returns on your money, and perfect gangs are still something you'd have to work on for several months at least.

[sgb]

Well, there's two issues main with gangs from a gameplay point of view.  One is that gangs cost money regardless of their success rate.  I'm not paying to have rookie gangs go steal if they're going to fail 80% of the time.  The other problem is that gangs do not improve except when training.  This leads to a situation where the only sensible strategy is to have them train until the success rate is maxed out, THEN start actually using them.  If gangs saw improvement while on other duties, the slow training wouldn't seem so bad.  It would simply be there as a 'safe' training option.

Another issue is that there's no real pressure on the player, thus you don't NEED gangs until you're ready to mass-acquire land or finish off all the rivals.  At which point you might as well have them fully trained.  One super-gang on guard duty seems to sufficient to hold off everything by themselves.  The income from thieving is small-time compared to whoring, and the risks greater (increased chances of getting raided), and so no worth bothering with.  It's even worse now that girl can run the catacombs, further reducing the usefulness of gangs.  Every game I just wait until I have enough income from the brothel to hire the full number of gangs, train them to 100%, and then send all but one to acquire/sabotage.  Raids from other gangs should be more frequent, to the point where you have to choose between having large number of guards or start pulling off more girls for security.

These are difficultly/balance related things that can wait until the bugs are dealt with, but I feel gangs should be addressed sooner than later as right now the whole gang mechanic is just kind of there when you need new brothels.  There's no real way to 'lose' at Whore Master once you get stabalized early game, and the whole gang war thing is the key to making things more interesting IMO.  If people don't like that, consider making a 'difficultly' modifier in the config file, with hard requiring the player to put much more effort into survival.

Alternatively maybe just phase them out entirely and have girls take over all their functions.  They already provide security and can explore the catacombs.  It would be a small step to have the girls lead raids and threaten businesses, with stealing just dropped entirely.  It would make +combat items actually useful, and give more uses for all those extra random girls you pick up late game from customers and monster girls.

[RyRain]

Actually I disagree. I think the gang training is perfectly balanced, and to be perfectly honest, I think it almost get's too easy when you have them maxed out.

What I usually do:

I like breaking girls either through torture or items before I start out so I don't have to deal with the hassle of them refusing to work (Yes I'm an evil bastard and most of my girls get branded at slaves except a couple I keep in the new version for matron and torturer, but I still break them to keep from having obedience/I wanna quit issues) and usually have my gangs either searching catacombs, or stealing (or if I feel I've built up enough to survive for a bit capturing neutral territories) in the mean time with at least one with a combat rating over 50 guarding at all times. I won't get rich off of it, but it's enough to cover my expenses and keep my head above water until I can start using the girls without much hassle. When I can start getting a decent income from my brothel I set half of them to training and the other half to guarding/making money for me via the previously mentioned methods. As one set maxes I switch them. To be honest, early game is the only time I have even the slightest chance of losing. Once I reach the point in which all my gangs are at 100% across the board, I just set a couple to guarding, and the rest to taking territories and watch the money roll in, occasionally checking to make sure I don't have to set one of them to recruiting.

The game is really meant to be played over a long period. If you could trounce all of your rivals in the first year it would be too easy.

[Dagoth]

A few more fixes done (not committed yet though):
* removed availability of movie job types for now, since they were indeed entirely broken
* Whore jobs in Bar and Gambling Hall renamed to reflect location
* It was possible for more than 1 matron to be in a house by forcing a matron to rest and reassigning another girl to be matron. When the first girl was through resting she auto-magically became matron again resulting in two matrons.
* People who were consistently getting a crash immediately on running the game can now play

[Midnight_Amratha]

not sure this is the right place to report but here goes:
Whore Master Editor 0.66 (the game one) refuse to load item list from resources, all i get is error parsing EntityName line 4511 position 199

[HuiBui]

I have found a bug about earning money as whores in brothel .

The girls suddenly, dont see any customer , so they earn no money.
But the brothel has , at the same time , each week : "65524 customers visited the building"

[Wispowill]

Concerning girls ages.... My very first game I only used the games default pack, and Rei Ayanami showed up as a 14 year old. During my second game when I used other girl packs, she showed up as 17. I had a bit of time this afternoon and double checking the default girlsaddon.girlsx file Rei is indeed listed as a 14 year old. Looking further, Kiki is 13,  Kooh is 11, Hanah is 14 (Not listing the 16 and 17). These ages are right from the xml files in the default pack. I don't really have the time to play another full fledge-game, but it seems to me that the game is sometimes going by the xml file rather than whatever filters you may have in the game engine itself.

[sgb]

Concerning girls ages.... My very first game I only used the games default pack, and Rei Ayanami showed up as a 14 year old. During my second game when I used other girl packs, she showed up as 17. I had a bit of time this afternoon and double checking the default girlsaddon.girlsx file Rei is indeed listed as a 14 year old. Looking further, Kiki is 13,  Kooh is 11, Hanah is 14 (Not listing the 16 and 17). These ages are right from the xml files in the default pack. I don't really have the time to play another full fledge-game, but it seems to me that the game is sometimes going by the xml file rather than whatever filters you may have in the game engine itself.

I just tested this with the current build and haven't been able to reproduce it.  All unique girls are generated with the correct ages.  Are you sure the default girl files weren't edited in one of the bugfix patches to make them all 17?

Actually I disagree. I think the gang training is perfectly balanced,   and to be perfectly honest, I think it almost get's too easy when you   have them maxed out.

That's part of the problem I expanded on in my other post.  The game is still way too easy.  Making training easier, but making maxed gangs less godlike would be anothe way of fixing this.

[Wispowill]

I checked again to make sure, and the XML files I'm looking at are from the r349. As the base package is r327 with the r349 to be copied over it, I can't speak to any other releases. These files with r349 are from 5-6-2010 and GirlsAddon1.girlsx with CRC B99D2CE9 and Girls.girlsx with CRC 44E674E3. The problem may be sporadic, which as a technician myself, I know are the hardest types to troubleshoot. However, as someone who owns a car over 20-years old, I also know the frustration of taking a vehicle to the mechanic four or five times before he is able to see the problem himself. 

With the pregnancy rates I did a real quick-like game with four pregnancies with the pregnancy set at 10 weeks and the maturity rate set at 5 weeks. The son and two of the girls were player induced with the last girl induced by customer. These were my results:

 (Used Windows calendar to determine weeks)
03-04-09 Reimu - Pregnant
26-06-09 Reimu - Son sold into slavery (Did not show when born)(12weeks)
10-07-09 Hiiragi - Pregnant
20-09-09 Hiiragi - Birth Girl (10 weeks)
02-11-09 Hiiragi - Girl appears (16 weeks)
10-07-09 Helena - Pregnant
20-09-09 Helena - Birth Girl (10 weeks)
02-11-09 Helena - Girl appears (16 weeks)
24-07-09 Lum - Pregnant
04-10-09 Lum - Girl (10 weeks)
16-11-09 Lum - Girl appears (16 weeks)

As you can see, the son was 3 weeks early and the girls were all 1 week late.  I wish I had the time to redo this with a greater sample for sons, but even if only once, this clearly shows that at least some of the time the sons are short circuiting their time routines. Without a greater son sample I can't tell if the result may be from the pregnancy, rather than maturity, routines. The majority of the time I do get birth messages for the sons (I think) so am not sure why I didn't on this one. I think I still have the game log and save game for this if those would be helpful.

Other things I noticed:
Practice skills don't work at all unless at least two girls are set.

Girls provisions are set to very poor when being sent to the dungeon from the management screen, but not returned to adequate or whatever when released from the dungeon.

Selling slaves or withdrawing money from the bank is included in profits for next day. This probably isn't really a bug, so much as game design. Still, from an accounting view, withdrawing 20K from the bank isn't the same as generating 20K income from an ongoing concern.

[James]

i think its just chance, duno about the new version but one verson down, i had a girl then a boy. lol i even resetted a few times on the boy to see if the gender stat was determined befor or after then birth.

[sgb]

As for inconsistant bugs, I've noticed starting house% isn't initiallized correctly some of the time.  Sometimes it's 0, other times 60.

[Shinteo]

Regarding age of girls, what I notice is that on a new game, the age would follow the xml files. After saving and then reloading, they would then change to 17. Game code seems to support this, as there are several places where the age stat would be changed to 17 if below.