Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Upcoming changes and some talk

I've been mostly working on the upcoming repeatable quests and exploration details recently, and at least quest engine is mostly finished. My main idea is to switch money making from passive stuff (jobs) to the more proactive ways. Not that I'm going to remove job income entirely, but my end goal is to make it far less subsustaining at least on initial game stages. It's just not quite feel right how you can assign couple of workers and spam 'end day' button forever. I also wanna make more job related small events (like getting more/less income, finding something unusual and so on) so jobs will be somewhat more interactive as well, but I do realize its not very fun to keep eye and maintain 20+ workers 1 by 1.




But that is for later, for now I wanna tell bit more on the idea behind current exploration/repeatable quests. So my idea is pretty straightforward - introduce more core areas of hub kind instead of linear progression sorts. If previously you'd slowly explore area from Shaliq until eventually clearing undercity or traveling to the sea, now you would have more potential options to start from. Namely, there will be multiple towns and you'll be finding slaves either in their guild or around them. In case you'd need an Orc, you'll be going to the Orc town; for elves or fairies there would be some elf forest village kind of location. From there you'll be able to scout around and try to capture slaves of desired race. Some areas would be more difficult and present different rewards. Rare species like dragonkins or monster girls will be especially difficult to locate on first run. Teleportation will cost mana (honestly should've been so long time ago) and you'll be able to unlock teleport to the hubs, instead of random places.

Current repeatable quests will involve some fluff and request for specific kind of slave from local slave guilds. You might get a request for certain race, skills, beauty or characteristics. For the start it will be about dozen different presets with slight randomization in them, but system should be easily expandable. There will be time limit based around when quest is taken and inability to complete it in time will be penalized. On the side note, as first part of economy balance, skill training cost will be reduced by twice.

While making quests and towns, I also thought about necessity of reputation system. Basically, I'd want world to recognize both your contributions and misdeeds (such as capturing and enslaving adventurers or losing your slaves/having them escape). This is just a thoughts and I don't quite have system in mind to punish/reward player accordingly, but eventually I'd like to explore this idea in more ways.

So, for now plan is to finish on adding repeatables and rearranging exploration bits around new towns and hopefully new version should be out before 15th.

33 comments:

  1. Will you add option to sacrifice slaves for magic power?

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    1. Not specifically planning for it, but with reputation system I certainly might.

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  2. From that screen shot I have one balancing comment, a slave likely to have stats that high, wouldn't they cost FAR more than the reward to purchase. Unless capturing and exploring is in it would seem a fools errand to even attempt those quests.

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    1. Well gold balance will be adjusted heavily at all parts, as I said, firstly training cost is reduced by twice which already make skill requirements a lot cheaper. Sell/buy prices and gold production will take some time to balance out though.

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    2. I was just making sure. Sorry if I seemed harsh. Too many games have things that cost you gold and reward you with copper. Like crafting in many MMO's. :)

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    3. Well, modern mmo crafting is all about 'grind to the highest level to minmax your gear a bit', not actually about making money. Obviously, this shouldn't be an issue here :)

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  3. The trick here sounds like the balancing between making the early game interesting while preventing the late game from becoming tedious. Maybe have more "manager" positions you can assign slaves to, which automate some of the more tedious functions, but which take time to develop and implement in-game.

    As for the rest of it. I like the idea of exploration hubs, and teleportation costing mana. But, I will point out I tend to find random quests more tedious than rewarding. Will you also be expanding plot driven side quests as well? I'm kind of interested in seeing how Cali's quest develops and whether we will see more characters like her.

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    1. Randomization is a core part of the game already, so quests will only naturally fit there. I also have some plans for repeatable quests which would reward you with slaves (tied with exploration most likely).

      Story quests are certainly on my plan as well. Perhaps they will get more attention right after this issue and will be followed by combat.

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  4. What does the submissive/dominant stat do?

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    1. Should be covered in in-game help section 'Preferred role'

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  5. So, with the new engine, this doesn't run on macs anymore, right?

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    1. It doesn't, but I will add mac version probably on the next update.

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  6. When I try to start the game it says it is not a valid windows 32 application.Is there a version that works on my computer and if there is one where may I find it? Thank you.

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  7. Some comments on the Slave guild randomizer and questing;

    -Unlocking the Brothel is trivial with three races eligible.
    -Having a Fairy on hand, since any will work, is again trivial.
    -Human female of average appearance or better. That makes for about only 30% of the humans generated. Making for a early game roadblock.
    -Slave to act as Magical Assistant, pretty rare to have the proper stat spread, as well costing 1000 or more to purchase and a further 900 to train. A roadblock you cannot even really search for until you can cast mind read, or wait to get Cali.
    - Tauren girl, fairly easy to acquire as long as you watch the market and keep cash on hand.

    Once I have an explorer trained up, Combat, Body and Survival to Apprentice or better, it is easy enough to acquire human and elf slaves through the portals. It is just random luck if a human shows for sale earlier. The least amount of time has been 22 days, the worst case was 96 days until the guild generated one to fulfill the Mage request.
    The Magic Order Assistant is a pain to get randomly, (wit-50, charm-25, L5) but Cali seems to qualify for the stats almost all the time.

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    1. Sorry, was reading the wrong notes on skills needed, Laboratory Assistant not Mage Assistant. DOH!

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    2. You do realize there's a beauty potion to boost looks and stat growth via actions now?

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    3. Actually, forgot about the beauty potion, last time I tried using it, it didn't change anything. But that was some time ago.

      Maybe I have to buy a more complex Library, something I always regarded as low/no priority. But I have never seen anything listed the connection between skills and actions. So it is a black box, working the library seems like it would raise Wit, Public Entertainer raising Charm, but ...??????????????? I need to write down the stats and work all the jobs enough times to discover the causality between Job XX, raising Stat YY, by ZZ.

      The Laboratory Assistant seems able to oversee her own modification. Which seems counter-intuitive.

      After the Taurus girl quest. Opening the quest window generates the following error;
      SCRIPT ERROR: _on_questnode_visibility_changed: Invalid get index '11' (on base: 'Dictionary')
      At: res://files/scripts/Mansion.gd:1318

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Doh! The skill/stat connection is in the stat mouseover, I was looking in the help and library. I almost never moused over the stats. Checked stats by using skill training eligibility and using Mind Read if I cared about the exact values most of the time

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    6. Ah, when I chose to modify the Lab Assistant, Cali, it chose another girl as assistant, even though she is unqualified for the job.

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    7. I don't believe you should be able to choose your assistant for modifications, at least I can't do that as game blocks everything if lab assist == selected slave.

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    8. Even though I have been promoted to Adept, the mansion Inspect Self says I am a Journeyman.

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    9. Game Save 'LabSave' Cali is the Assistant, yet when you click on the Lab it shows Hanni as the one assisting. Save Game follows:

      https://mega.nz/#!SEsknIIR!tt4PsMYnIGR_PriZFQoEf-L_JZmFEQGJTeunhHUx258

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    10. Curious, but how exactly you assigned hanni as the assistant? I reassigned her and can't quite repeat it

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  8. I just selected Cali as a modification target, and it accepted it. Only noticed later Hanni was now listed as assistant as well as her normal job.

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    1. Curious, probably something assigned it wrong on end day sequence.

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    2. The incident did demonstrate the effects of the Assistant.
      With Hanni, the unqualified, as assistant the cost in gold for a lab procedure was 800.
      Once I moved Cali back with minimal qualifications, the gold cost was 660, iirc. A 17.5% reduction.

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  9. Is there any effect or purpose to leaving a slave qualified as an assistant in the assistant role when the lab isn't in use? The same applies to magic order assistants and Nurses.
    Is there any effect to job loyalty, or can slaves be moved job to job with impunity?

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    1. Right now there's no penalty on job movement and I don't think there's gonna be one. You don't really need to keep assistant, but when I add apiary back it will certainly be required.

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  10. Just got done with a short, and not very thorough test. Started two games, both games I tried keeping hands off slave Obedience and Stress.

    Game 1 I went Management style, with a Strict Headgirl. By day 47 of her reign all the stressful job slaves had died or run away.

    Game 2 was an Allure based, Patronage style. 100 days later, spamming end of day, the Fuck Toy spends much of her time yellow, the rest green. The Prostitute and Public Entertainer flicker to yellow, but never for long. 2x Foragers, Hunter, Cook, Nurse, 4x shop girls. Food and Stress stable, gold growing.

    Later I will try a Allure/Strict and a Manage/Patronage Headgirl.

    BTW, not all screens the Headgirl button appears on, is the button clickable. Specifically, Lab and Alchemy screens.

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    1. Well, in all honesty, strict behavior is more aimed towards keeping captured and low obedience girls in check, rather than full-time mansion support.

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