Tuesday, September 6, 2016

So, unsurprisingly, after I got introduced to the new horizons, I realized new potential possibilities pretty soon. This time I wanna cover some of the future changes and stuff I have in plans.



Even though main purpose right now it to transfer old strive to the new platform, it is actually nearly direct rework, so naturally instead of simply copying over everything I look for a ways to optimize stuff or change what wasn't so good previously. Probably, the biggest offender was a combat system.

I can't really blame myself for what combat system was, as it was really done from nothing and I did with having absolutely no any experience. Idea was pretty solid - introduce easy to understand, yet not completely brainless ways to deal with combat interactions. The problem, which came up - it probably is TOO simple and also very reactive. Being reactive is not very fun though, so in the new version I wanna switch focus from being reactive.

Firstly, there will be introduction of actual stats - strength, agility and magical affinity which will vary from slave to slave, with cap mainly based on the race. They would start pretty low and require training, but in the end they it shouldn't take too long to get some sort of competent fighter. After that stat Cap could be increased by lab modifications, maybe some obscure interactions and other stuff. These stats will affect main resources in combat - STR will affect health, AGI will affect energy which will be a resource for abilities and MAF will be mostly supporting/magic stat. Besides that, these 3 stats will play main role in determination of abilities your slaves would be able to learn. Abilities would have a type which will decide which stat gonna affect certain ability in the most, so in other words there will likely be different builds, be it high health, or high energy with related skills shaping your combat style. In my plans, though, to make energy vital, as without it you would not be able to escape, or use those awesome skills. Enemy energy will also likely affect their chance of escape, to be captured, use skills and so on. Naturally, there are plans to make it being affected by your actions and abilities, but overall, instead of hitting 'continue' button as you do now, you will have to be more proactive instead and make your moves in first place, instead of counteracting enemy skills with 'defend' option.

Another thing I have on my mind and really wanna push out - origins, which will also party tied with traits. Origin is basically slave's past/childhood which will permanently affect their character and behavior. I quite enjoy the idea, as that will give plenty of additional depth and a lot of interesting pieces can make it in. Being raised at the farm, orphan, bullied, wild child is just stuff from top of my head which could make very distinctive stats and traits.

Speaking of traits, the most obvious solution now, that I'm not bounded by axma's limitations, is to make all possible traits a same class and remove any limitations on them. They still could be categorized like 'deviant', 'sexual related', 'social related' etc, so they could be affected by some specific actions/items, + would require some additional checks for traits which are opposite (dom/sub, fickle/monogamous kind of stuff). The sad part though, is that it gonna take quite bit of time to plan and introduce it into the game, but that is still a very important part of the game.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions, you know what to do. :)

31 comments:

  1. I love the sound of this. I have one suggestion on traits, personality types (I'm assuming courage, wit, etc will still be a thing) and such.

    I get that you don't want it to be possible to make a "perfect" girl, which is completely understandable. That said, with the variety of jobs there should be enough race/background combinations to make a girl that is essentially perfect for a particular job. For example, if most jobs required two skills that say, required one attribute and two personality traits to be maxed out to max the linked skills, then there should be a reasonable amount number of race/background combinations that would allow you to maximize a job appropriate for that race. For example, it should be relatively easy for orcs/dragonkin/catgirls to cap out physical combat related skills, and it should be relatively easy for foxgirl/bunnygirl characters to max out prostitution/escort skills. By relatively easy, I don't mean you shouldn't have to work for it a bit, but you shouldn't have to cycle through a dozen kidnapped girls or market slaves to get one with the right trait combinations. A simple solution to this would be to weight background generation. It would make sense lore wise as well. Races sound trend fairly heavily towards backgrounds that make sense for their natural talents, though occasionally you'll find the odd duck that's an exception. Also, please make sure to include some indication of how the background effect traits. "This girl had to spend her childhood fighting to survive. She could potentially become more courageous than others."

    Another thing that would make getting the slaves you want less tedious is to change how to cap on personality training works. Rather than making it so they simply can't train personality anymore after reaching max willpower, perhaps put a cap on total personality trait points. So if the trait cap is 6 for example, make the cap between all personality traits something along the lines of 16. This would allow a slave to be great at two traits, and mediocre at two traits, or be good, but not great at all four.

    When you get the basic mechanics hammered out to your liking, I'd eventually like to see some more quests. What's there right now serves as an amazing tutorial. Learning by doing is a great method of teaching someone your mechanics. Maybe after all the tutorial missions are done, have a system of random crisis. Once your a competent, trusted member of the guild you start getting important missions, which could be anything from diplomacy, to clearing a dungeon, to having to solve puzzles to find rare experimental materials. This could also be a way around the girls' stat limitations. There are already a couple of unique girls in the game. You could make it so that these higher end quests provide opportunities to get uniquely named girls with higher than average stats.

    I know that's allot, but I really like where this is going. This game has allot of potential, it just needs some of the more tedious mechanics fixed up a bit and some fleshing out to go from good to great.

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    1. No worries, I do realize, that latest willpower stat training was bit too... loose. Total cap may be a good idea, but I also was thinking about just limiting ways to train and make it hard to get while also lowering dependence on the willpower stats for performance, so willpower would be more of an interaction and training stat. Combat will certainly be way more dependent on girl's abilities and new combat stats.

      Backgrounds will also affect willpower stats and yes, there will be extra weight to generate some archetypes with higher possibility.

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    2. Perhaps instead of classes, have jobs and how you treat the slave effect personality over long periods? For example, someone on the fuck toy assignment might slowly gain charm but lose wit. Each combat could cause a character to gain a bit of courage, but lose charm. If you can find a logical way to make it work for each type of assignment, it could be an easy way to balance stat growth without giving the player a bunch of grinding to do, but with a cap. Extreme changes (5+) could be done safely through triggering rare events, they could be done at more risk to the girl through rare mental manipulation magic that's hard on your mana pool, or perhaps through a specific lab upgrade and a costly procedure...my brain just conjured an image of a girl strapped to a table with electrode pads on her head.

      "M...master? What's going on?"

      "Sorry, you're not smart enough for my tastes so I'm going to zap your brain until it functions better. Either that or it'll wipe your mind, but hey, no risk no reward right?"

      ...I'm a sadistic bastard. XD

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  2. Just a cosmetic thought, would it ever be possible to 'move' a girl in the residents tab? Just moving where the girl is in the lists. It's purely something I'd want to do to put children next to mothers.

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    1. Yep. This is one of the reasons why I made a decision to switch. UI will be much more user friendly.

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    2. That would be awesome. The biggest hindrance in the game at the moment (in my opinion, at least, barring the limited content currently, which is normal for a game still in dev) is in the UI and presentation. The menus are kinda clunky and when you have larger numbers of servants very hard to navigate, as well as disorganized.
      Some of the description elements also could use some more flavor as well. You end up with too much sameyness among slaves at the moment.

      I would also love to see more options for potentially permanently assigning servants to specific jobs, so as to not have the servant list so cluttered with servants that you aren't doing anything with. Maybe change the 'hide servant' option to set up a sub-menu that lists all the hidden servants in a different menu, with a link to it from the normal servants list?


      The combat is also a little too simple at the moment. Get a decent apiary and rejuvenation, and then you can faceroll anything that doesn't do lust damage with even a mostly untrained slave. The other issue with combat at the moment is the lack of descriptives and variety.

      The combat rewards could also use a look, as at the moment, there is no reward for combat. It levels servants slower than the library job, the servants you obtain via combat tend to be low-quality and require a ton more work to be even remotely worthwhile, and with Sebastian's presence, there aren't even any unique races to combat, aside maybe from arachne, which can't do some jobs and are generally worth less from a gameplay standpoint than the other races.

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  3. it sounds good, i hope the combat would avoid unnecessarily large amount of clicks to progress though.
    The previous system has some completely redundant clicks that could be eliminated which made combat cumbersome

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  4. Due to my own... reluctance to ensnare an innocent bystander, hypocritical I know, what is the purpose of the giant snails you receive in game, and is there another way to get them besides the girl?

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    1. They have use at farm.

      No, you can't get them any other way currently.

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    2. So, do I generate a stock in the forest, implant them, and then harvest? Do I lose them if I use them and then take the girl out of the farm? Do I regain the worm? Or is it just gone then?

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    3. also, when I was trying to set a manager for the farm, the game kept saying I had no manager set, even when I did...

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    4. I don't really understand. What stock? What worm?

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    5. The mana worm. Is it possible for me to get more by hooking girls up to the mana worms.

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    6. Mana worms are not limited, you only need free reservoirs.

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  5. Is there currently a way to cause a girl to become deviant? Only one I've reliably been able to get is bisexual via actions with companion.

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    1. Try tentacles that's how I got mine on accident.

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    2. Wait, there's tentacles? XD Is that a lust loss event with the amoeba's or something?

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    3. Well I did a couple of versions ago, but in the underground ruins after you reach the cellar for the first time you can get a tentacle spell.

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    4. So apparently I've been missing some content. I've done the whole thing with the snails, the gnome, and finished the entire mage quest line, but I've never once found a cellar or underground ruins.

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    5. Wait I see. The cellar is the farm. Never found it because I assumed that was the capstone of the content for the moment. I feel dumb. XD

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    6. Nah, content is never really supposed to be linear :)

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    7. Fair enough. I THINK the ruins are the only thing I've missed but I'm going to go back through and see what I can find.

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    8. What are the specific steps to getting the tentacles? I've been in my farm many times, but never found it. Also, I've finally gotten a handle on this game, 10000 plus gold on day 200 plus

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    9. Scratch that, day 207, 18036 gold, 3311 food, 2451 mana...

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    10. Explore the areas through the portal. After you get your cellar built and buy farm equipment from Sebastian the entrance to the ruins become available in the swamp. At least I'm pretty sure that's the trigger, that's when it happened for me.

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  6. Started a new game tonight and on reaching Apprentice with the magic guild, I had this show up. It looks like the Apiary is overwriting the Lab equipment which I hadn't bought yet.

    — 500 goldPurchase Apiary Reservoir — 250 gold

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    1. Mage Guild quest for Melissa's Youthing potion, Sebastian gives you;

      You recieved Minorus Concoction, Fluid Substance, 2 3

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    2. Odd, I get 2 2 instead of 2 3. I know the numbers are a debugging thing since Sebastian was giving out the wrong combo amounts before. For some reason that keeps getting broken.

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  7. Oh, also, what level Survival do you need to meet the 'Special' encounter in the Shaliq Woods? Failed at Journeyman just a bit ago.

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    1. Journeyman should actually be enough I believe?

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  8. Sorry if issue already been posted, but if that still unfixed, assume thats ok to post: configuring your starting girl and after confirming the face is always changes, thats a bit unconvenient due to you cannot change that. Is that whats it supposed to be?
    P.S. I hope you get that, my eng is not perfect

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