Perhaps I'm rather ignorant, but when you manage to make the game borderline unplayable so you end up frustrated 99% of the time, it might not be the best rework in existance. I've had fun with previous versions, but this makes me want to gauge my eyes out.
There's a change you might be biased. You probably had a max stat slaver where you left previous versions. Or apply strategies from outdated guides which were all about exploiting the game mechanics to opimize the time you spend. Think of 2.2 as picking up Sekiro after beating up all 3 Dark Souls, you'll fail at first but then there's a steep progression.
The evidence of that is that we've kept the first "thresholds" of obedience roughly the same. It's even arguably easier than before to first get obeyed (minus the previously almost garanteed fitness lesson).
Maybe you still disagree, in that case I invite you to be precise and describe the difference between your playthrough and what you'd have expected instead of what's happening. (please also provide screenshots of your slave's aura screen+attributes before she disobeys something you think she shouldn't).
That said I also kind of just stopped playing the next day. Its easy to tell that a lot of thought went into this new update and its nice to see the numerous attempts at teaching people that are mentioning their problems the new obedience and guilt curve, but after figuring it out Im just not a fan of it. Training is just too linear now and its more of a regimented job than anything else. I feel like during meetings when the creators/updaters were working on the game no one brought up the fact that it really shouldnt be this hard to get someone to sweep your floor.
For example an earlier response told me that I should ask a female friend how theyd react in this situation to justify the new difficulty but I feel like no one also told them during development that theres also the context of being set for sale with literal vampires that wish to drain them and dump their corpse, beastmen that simply want to eat them alive and say as much during the auction, or butchers that want to chop them up for meat before their very eyes and they narrowly missed certain death from the luck of the player being there at the right time. Its not like they were taken from Ireland to Brazil so they just need to get to a police station or embassy to be free and in game this is apparently understood when your words "fell on fertile ground" yet even then they would apparently choose 100% certain death over house chores after understanding their situation. Its silly.
The thing is they might come from "Ireland"; a lot of us were educated with values of non-servitude. Of death before dishonor. And a lot of slaves in-game might not have seen the outside world enough to think she doesn't have a chance at surviving outside.
But that's not even the point. Human beings are not immediately rational. They were abducted by a non-vampire guy, they'll not immediately think: "oh okay that's better, I'll obey his orders". No, they'll probably find solutions, like cutting their hair to be unsellable and hope the slaver will live her be, etc.
Unless you can make the slave
aware that obeying = in her interest, which is exactly the point of the awareness stat in the aura.
I demonstrated you can get the slave to obey a command from day 1 with only two actions. I personally tried to ensure that the game's normal difficulty would not be made significantly easier nor harder than before, to keep the legacy intact. But sure we removed exploits and some OP mechanics, and a byproduct of logical changes is that some of the previous working strategies are not viable anymore and it's time to adapt to the new meta (which is in theory more balanced, more instinctive, leads to more possible strategies, and is more rewarding).
One advice I have is to get the slave out of depression into a calm or happy state. Then try to get to -5 obedience (seeable in the aura) leading to a lot of actions to be obeyed by then.
First, How long does it take to have the traces of beatings go away? It's annoying to have these last for 30+ days, especially in the beginning where I can't successfully punish slaves without beating the shit out of them. Plus the fact that heavy make up doesn't at least drop them by a few levels. Is there some way to at least have makeup cover regular bruising, but not the more extreme traces?
Second and along with the first point, if I have the leather shackles on my slaves, how can they resist to the point I have to beat them unconscious? I would think that buying the shackles should remove that option to have to fight my slave, especially with something as simple as spanking or flogging.
You can successfully punish slaves in the beginning without beating the shit out of them. You have your method of training and it involves getting your slaves beaten up, some players have other methods with different perks and drawbacks. You're free to keep doing it or try other approaches.
The idea of makeup covering the body bruises is interesting. We could make that happen, but in turn it would lower your reputation after a few days when the client discovered that you just hid the visual flaws of a good with a bit of paint and glue. In turn, it wouldn't be a viable strategy on the long term.
But if you give your slave the reward of resting, it helps with the recovery of her bruises (that's new in 2.2).
Lmao, it seems annoying. Well, I'll quicksave before going to see anyone then. Thanks again.
I totally agree that it's annoying ^^ But when debating about removing it... it seemed like betraying a legacy, so we didn't feel like it. But it can still be up to debate. In the original lore, the clients are super picky and annoying, that's told time and time again in-game. That's up to the slaver to be successful in this ultra competitive world.
We've still made it easier, for exemple, in all previous version, the charm check would make the slave be refused... Even if the client required a D+ slave, the slave needed to have B+ style and some exoticism and model-like physique, ugh'. We've made the charm check rank correspond to the general rank requirement.
