Monday, February 13, 2017

Next plans

For next update I will be focusing on mainly two aspects: tutorial and 'counters to placidity'. Tutorial is pretty self-explanatory part - you'll get short sequence of forced actions to introduce new player into the game and main mechanics. Yeah, its a kind of thing which is not terribly exciting for those who know their ropes, but strive being so heavy on so many mechanics obvious gets somewhat out of hand for new players. Even without of combat I've seen too often people struggling with food not realizing they should just send their first slaves to forage. It will also allow me to push game into the 'beta' stage.

Now the second part is a bit more interesting. I don't think strive is being very good management game right now, mainly because with enough loyalty and good setup you can just spam 'end day' all day and swim in gold and food. Two new quests somewhat broken this routine with small timed events in them, but that's not nearly enough. I mainly planned two things for now:

1. Cleanness: your mansion will get dirty with time. The more residents, the more dirt. To counter it you will either have to issue manual cleaning (probably costing energy/gold etc) or assign a slave to 'maid' job, which will make them take care of cleaning. The rate will probably be about 1 maid per 6-8 slaves to keep mansion clean and perhaps some actions will increase 'dirtiness' too. High 'dirtiness' will be affecting residents' stress and health. Overall it will be slightly similar to JoNT concept if you are familiar with it.

2. Slave events. Basically every few days one of the slaves will do something or ask for something requiring you to react to that in some way. Events will be good or bad and your decisions will be influencing resources, stats and so on. This should mainly break the routine and end-day button spam, although (naturally) it will require quite some number of events to not feel repetitive. Right now this idea is very sketchy, but hopefully it will get enough ideas to get going.

58 comments:

  1. I'm waiting for slave events :)

    I found strange behavior with elixir of regression. Slaves have to drink elixir twice unless uncivilized trait doesn't remove. Also civilized slave after drank this potion get "shadow" uncivilized trait. Not visible at gui but visible in save (sorry I check save file :P) It should work this way?

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    1. I've checked the potion but I don't think there's any 'shadow' traits. Are you sure you don't mean 'regressed' trait instead?

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    2. Kay, nvm, I got what you mean, will try fix it.

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  2. A suggestion: Maybe have an option to allocate your energy for the day, like say, lock one energy cleaning your mansion, or having sex with one of your servants, or doing some other day to day task.

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    1. Making a 'task list' would require quite some work and planning im not really ready to accept. Especially since you can do stuff like go exploring and that will influence energy etc.

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    2. Fair enough, what about a passive way to gain your character experience then? Like maybe have a list of jobs or hobbies they can do when not terrorizing the countryside

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  3. 0.2.8 Alpha Bug (don't see them fixed in patch-notes) :

    1) Youngering potion still turn child into adult. (and I had reported that... well, long time ago :P)

    2) Sandbox mode : attempt to recolor skin in Laboratory killing slaves. Tested both with novice/novice demon assistant and journeyman/yourneyman assisant. Increasing slave endurance to 2 don't save it too.

    Question : what stimulant potion doing in 2.0 version? I tried use it to get "nymphomaniac" trait like it was in 1.0 version, but can't.

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    1. Currently it only seems to affect getting 'sex-crazed' trait. I'll probably add more functions to it later.

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    2. And how it's work? Because I'm tried to use stimulant potion and have a lot of sex (like it worked in previous game), but can't get anything after several attempts.

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    3. Lust must be above 90 and masturbation should be forbidden. Then you have a chance to get it, stimulant potion makes chance 100%.

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  4. How to trigger Cali quest?

    Also last screen during Emily introdution has $sir/$master text errors

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    1. You meet her at market after 2nd promotion (or in sandbox since start)

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    2. Im pretty sure that she is unreachable when you finish guild quest in older version and load game into new version. Will check this later.

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    3. If you recruited her in older version you won't be able to trigger her quest, yes.

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    4. No, I havent met her before. Only receuited Emily.

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    5. Ah, Cali is that thief. Ok everything is now clear :)

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  5. Question, what's the evil way to get Emily's sister Tisha? I keep trying various things and making various potions, but there never seems to be any way to do it, unless it comes in an event after the first.

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    1. Brand Emily before first event

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    2. Hrm. That was one of the first things I tried, but it only really seems to let me keep Emily, not get Tisha. Does it require the advanced brand?

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    3. Nevermind, suddenly struck me to try it without Emily enamored with you, and apparently that was causing a scene without the option to take place.

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    4. Just curious. In my save Emilly was branded, dominated twice so she has obiedience and loyal at 100. Then wild sister appears and I have only option to keep Emilly or let her go. Is there second event to replace Trish with Emilly?

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    5. If Emily's loyalty is high its irrelevant if she's branded or not. You can let her go and she'll come back. I'm planning to add bit more of events involving getting Tisha after that.

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    6. But in current version of game is it possible to get Tisha?

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    7. Yes, you need to brand Emily, but not raise her loyalty.

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    8. Have you considered getting both sister in some twisted way? Black mail or something? :-P

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    9. Yep, thats one of the bad options right now.

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  6. > Events will be good or bad and your decisions will be influencing resources, stats and so on.

    Sounds like a good way to disrupt any stretches of boring/repetitive gameplay.

    My chief concern would be "optimization". After playing Free Cities for a while, I would react almost automatically to random events. I had learned which choice was optimal for that character or game-state and so the choice wasn't really meaningful anymore.

    Let's assume that "Be Nice" is the optimal choice. It boosts the girl's affection while reducing obedience, but a high affection value tends to boost obedience in the long term.

    Possible countermeasures:
    -PC side effect: "Be Nice" applies a temporary debuff which slightly reduces the PC's stats/abilities related to combat (or torture, or whatever). Player needs to decide whether being nice would interfere with their current plans.

    -group side effect: "Be Nice" yields a small obedience penalty on *all* slaves (without boosting their affection). Player needs to decide whether the individual gain is worth the group loss.

    -cumulative side effect: "Be Nice" influences a global counter (or reputation system). Some NPCs or quests will be less likely to cooperate with a nice (or mean) PC. Player can roleplay a particular alignment, or can try to maintain neutrality. But they can't just reflexively click "Be Nice" every time that it comes up.

    -hidden effects. The "Be Nice" tooltip doesn't really explain the mechnical consequences of the action. The player is asked to make a blind decision, and it might have bizarre or unpredictable consequences (e.g. "Be Nice" automatically involves sex, whereas the player was trying to maintain that girl's virginity). This is the worst option IMO because it's still optimizable; it just encourages the player to save-scum in order to learn about the hidden bullshit.



    > assign a slave to 'maid' job

    There's a problem here because skills in Strive are very heavily quantized. In JoNT I could assign a girl to clean and she would slowly improve as a maid. It wasn't as quick or efficient as dedicated training, but it made intuitive sense. It was a reasonable assignment for a partially-obedient slave who couldn't be trusted to leave the house.

    We can't really apply the same idea in Strive without really goofy math (e.g. each day of maid service has a 0.1% chance of incrementing Service by one level).

    Maybe change skills to floating-point? Practical experience could increase a skill, but never above the next integer value. Each increment would still require offsite training, but partial progress would reduce the cost and/or time needed. It would be cheaper to go from 4.9 to 5.0 than from 4.0 to 5.0.

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    1. (@Maverik I hope you don't mind I throw my few thoughts)

      I think this game has a big potential of grind breaking in traits, but unfortunately this requires some hidden vars. I.e. ff you choose "be nice" too many times girl gets "spoiled" and gets constant penalty to mood. You can remove this trait either by constantly ignoring her (which may transform this trait into something more negative) or just by beating her back into submission. There is big gamut of such perks, i.e. depressed, broken, timid, bossy, frigid, in love, hates you etc. In general if you overdo "optimal answer" for an event you would get opposite effect.

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    2. Thats partly what I have on my mind, but not to such extent, as it requires hell lot of work to implement and balance. Once I start working at the everyday events I'll see where it going.

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  7. Cali quest needs some time to trigger?

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    1. Cali quest starts after 2nd mage promotion or in sandbox mod. You'll have to start over if you recruited her before 0.2.8 though.

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    2. Yes I have her, but I wonder if there are any other events and how to trigger these events :)

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    3. Follow the notes in questlog.

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  8. Hi!
    New cleaning logic is quite erratic: I've just loaded save from v0.2.8 and kept pressing end day to see how my team would degrade. Unfortunately [sic!] with nurse and headgirl everything was fine and stable - even on the "verge of breaking" I observed no stat loss and girls were coming back to max happiness for no particular reason (I presume it was headgirl, but I'm not sure). Also nurse kept everyone alive, I stopped this when I hit 6k gold.

    if you need save for whatever reason you can find it here:
    http://pastebin.com/uN97JP1w

    Regards

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    1. Will take a look, thank you.

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    2. Okay, apparently due to minor bug there's no actual stress penalty right now hence nobody really suffers from it. Will fix in next version.

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  9. The only thing driving me crazy is the "cleaning duty" glitch.

    The maid set to clean stops cleaning once the mansion is spotless so with the amount of slaves I got in 2 turns is filthy and in 3 I get the stress and health penalty. :/

    Also, been checking portal slave markets, outskirts of the regions... can't find a taurus girl for the quest anywhere (bull/cow girl right? right? that's what Taurus means!).

    There needs to be a better forum for this game. Totally deserves it.

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    1. Apparently I made a mistake in cleaning duty sequence so probably your latest slaves in list will take care of more dirt. Will fix it next version.

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    2. For taurus girl you can try sebastian request.

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  10. Can you add option to change PC nickname?

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  11. When you use last action point on charm raising sex action you get strange description:
    http://scr.hu/2re6/i0hlh

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    1. https://d3higte790sj35.cloudfront.net/images/rn/fm/991501f4b61587b87e5fe4b4986ab98f.jpeg

      can you open it now?

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    2. Yes, will try get it fixed next version.

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    3. Also you mentioned something about orgy. Are you going to add this feature soon? :)

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    4. Did I? Well, raping defeated will be back next version, if that counts as orgy...

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    5. Not exactly but It's something :D


      I may be wrong but I think you mention something about orgy before Strive 2. You know something which include more than two slaves may be interesting. Some ritual with colddown or something. What you think?

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    6. Main issue - no writers. Don't really plan on adding another mediocre on its own part which gonna take whole lot of work.

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  12. Won't it become that same routine?

    You'll need shitton of different events for it not to be repetitive too fast, and even then it is just a matter of time.


    End are there any plans on expanding the lab? Maybe changing leg/hand types, completely removing sexual organs as opposed to only growing them and such.
    Apologies if it's already implemented, haven't played last versions.

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    1. Once system is in place it will be only matter of time to include more events of any kind. There's also tons of things game keeping track on which can have their own events dedicated to them. Plus I'm not going to make events too frequent so they shouldn't be very notorious. Although I did face that problem in FC when I was playing so I know what you are talking about.

      Laboratory just got enhancing modifications last patch. And I think you can remove penis/balls from slaves if they have them. Should add some clearer options to change gender though.

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    2. what about something like jont levels of living expenses with really weighty benefits and equally weighty prices for higher ones?

      some sort of branching during slave training.
      skill/perk branching to make mass production of perfect women not as easy as it is now.
      if you had some writing, then it might have been personality/preference branching for sexytimes

      more love for individual slaves would be nice too, but you don't have a writer yet

      sorry for being idea guy
      <3 u, hope you won't die in a ditch before finishing this thing

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    3. If you can make up an actual design (numbers, action lists etc) I'll see how applicable it is. As of now I'm afraid I have bit different priorities.

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  13. Could you add button targeting in battle? Mouse clicking is okay, but i wanna use keyboard.

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    1. You mean so like double clicking 1 would use first skill on first opponent? That could be done, but it's a bit of a chore to implement and fine tune.

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    2. Yeah, something like that.
      Not sure if this is worth it, maybe I'm the only one who wants it.

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    3. I will probably eventually do that, but keep in mind that I had literally no programming skills just a year ago. What has been already done took me long weeks at the very least.

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  14. Where can the snails be found? I cant find the "mystic grove."

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