HTML Free Cities: Origins [v0.0.2.2.7] [Mimus Studios]

[mimusstudios]

I'm getting a weird loop on the power struggles quest, where if I fail the manipulation check, I have to restart basically the entire quest. I also get semi-soft-locked out of her house.

Also, there's almost definitely a bug in increasing tact from the library. I studied 8 hours, for 60 days, with 40 intelligence / 100 education, which should net me around 10 points of tact. I increased tact a grand total of 0 times. Manipulation works, but feels like it's at about 1/4th or 1/2 the stated % chance of increase, which means increasing manipulation is a massive chore, and increasing tact is literally impossible.

There's a bug with Power Struggles right now, and actually reaching Emily's house is the last stage for now -- both of these should be addressed next update.

Also, the code for increasing manipulation and tact is identical. The only difference is a string key. If you can ever raise tact at all this means that the code is functional. If you are playing on a higher difficulty there's more stochastic chance involved, making raising the skills harder.

Finally, did you know that humans are very bad at approximating randomness? It sounds like you were extremely unlucky, in fact you should try playing the lottery. Not increasing tact a total of 60 days in a row has a .0028% chance (assuming intelligence 40)!

Here's the code if you're curious. I don't see any way it could be wrong unless SugarCubes randomFloat() function is broken.


EDIT: One last note, successive trials of Bernoulli become normal by the Central Limit Theorem, thus we can model your situation as a normal random variable with mean 9.6 and variance 8, meaning that it's totally normal to expect a yield of anywhere from 6 and 12 with probability 67% by the empircal rule, or evenmoreso 4 to 14.2 with 98% probability. To get 0 though is still a feat haha.

Finally, human psychology due to evolutionary pressures tend to value failure more than success (

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). Thus, this combined with the central limit theorem will always make it feel like the probabilities are 2x or 3x lower. This isn't a fault of the game, more a fault of humans.

 

[hhowlewd]

Finally, did you know that humans are very bad at approximating randomness? It sounds like you were extremely unlucky, in fact you should try playing the lottery. Not increasing tact a total of 60 days in a row has a .0028% chance (assuming intelligence 40)!

Here's the code if you're curious. I don't see any way it could be wrong unless SugarCubes randomFloat() function is broken.
View attachment 1846246

I'm a statistician actually, so yeah, I'm aware. I'm not sure what's going on, but basically as soon as I hit int 40, both tact and int stopped increasing (I assume int is hardcapped at 40). I gave it another 60 days of mindless work 4 hours → 8 hours studying + tact, sleep, work → library → sleep. It took me about an hour, and with 120 days, tact has still not increased once. I then did 30 days of 8 hour studying with manipulation, and it only increased once.

Even if I was being wildly, crazy unlucky, that's not particularly fun, and in fact I'm pretty annoyed I wasted a chunk of my life. I'd consider throwing in the gatcha equivalent of a pity increase with a counter, if someone strikes out more than they "should."

 

[mimusstudios]

I'm a statistician actually, so yeah, I'm aware. I'm not sure what's going on, but basically as soon as I hit int 40, both tact and int stopped increasing (I assume int is hardcapped at 40). I gave it another 60 days of mindless work 4 hours → 8 hours studying + tact, sleep, work → library → sleep. It took me about an hour, and with 120 days, tact has still not increased once.

Hmm... Let me test this empirically I guess. I have no idea why the code would do that though. Give me a couple of minutes.

 

[mimusstudios]

Hmm... Let me test this empirically I guess. I have no idea why the code would do that though. Give me a couple of minutes.

Alright, I have no idea why this is happening. I just set my intelligence to 40 and my tact to 99 and I raised it in 3 tries.



There's a chance you have an outdated version. I double-checked and redownloaded the game too and I still had no problems.

 

[heerwa2]

Looks super cool! Wanna be a low slave sleep the way to the top!

 

[mimusstudios]

I'm a statistician actually, so yeah, I'm aware. I'm not sure what's going on, but basically as soon as I hit int 40, both tact and int stopped increasing (I assume int is hardcapped at 40). I gave it another 60 days of mindless work 4 hours → 8 hours studying + tact, sleep, work → library → sleep. It took me about an hour, and with 120 days, tact has still not increased once. I then did 30 days of 8 hour studying with manipulation, and it only increased once.

Even if I was being wildly, crazy unlucky, that's not particularly fun, and in fact I'm pretty annoyed I wasted a chunk of my life. I'd consider throwing in the gatcha equivalent of a pity increase with a counter, if someone strikes out more than they "should."

Yeah I'm planning on adding more passive ways to gain tact and manipulation in the future. I believe you can raise a couple of points by reading some books found with Lost Knowledge. Sorry the game is still only just a month and a half old so I haven't been able to tune all the systems to make them work very well. I suggest maybe trying a lower difficulty, should make all the rolls much higher!

Also the game doesn't require you to have high tact or manipulation right now. I believe only one scene requires high manipulation (blackmailing Lia). You can supplement lack of tact by increasing affection with the slaves for example. As you're only a slave, it's not supposed to be easy to gain these stats till phase 1 subpart 2 at least.

 

[heerwa2]

A lot of MC in the site Wuxiaworld novels were starting from nobody finally to be badbosses ^__^

 

[hhowlewd]

Hmm... Let me test this empirically I guess. I have no idea why the code would do that though. Give me a couple of minutes.

I just went for another 5 minutes, or about 10 more tries, and it's just not increasing. Could it be a bug with stamina? studying for 8 hours zeroes my stamina, maybe there's an interaction there that's stopping a player from gaining stats when their stamina is 0? I do know that when I was raising manipulation, I had more luck with 4 hours studying than 8 hour studying. Over an earlier same period of switching between manipulation and tact, I raised manipulation by 15 points and tact didn't budge.

 

[mimusstudios]

I just went for another 5 minutes, or about 10 more tries, and it's just not increasing. Could it be a bug with stamina? studying for 8 hours zeroes my stamina, maybe there's an interaction there that's stopping a player from gaining stats when their stamina is 0? I do know that when I was raising manipulation, I had more luck with 4 hours studying than 8 hour studying. Over an earlier same period of switching between manipulation and tact, I raised manipulation by 15 points and tact didn't budge.

Weird, I'll PM you and investigate your save file.

 

[Argentus67]

Damn, I thought I fixed the softlocking. I'll give it another look. Thanks for bringing it up. As for the influence issue, I'll look into that as well. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

EDIT: Do you remember which influence action caused the error?

The second option.
The error massage I screenshot to you happens if you choose the first option.
but yep it soft locks you and rests the quest

 

[mimusstudios]

The second option.
The error massage I screenshot to you happens if you choose the first option.
but yep it soft locks you and rests the quest

I'm unable to replicate the error on influence, but I was able to fix the softlock. Since entering Emily's room is the last stage though, I won't be pushing it until the next update. I've already written too much unstable code for 0.0.1.9.

 

[Argentus67]

I'm unable to replicate the error on influence, but I was able to fix the softlock. Since entering Emily's room is the last stage though, I won't be pushing it until the next update. I've already written too much unstable code for 0.0.1.9.

That's okay though since it's the last stage of the update.
Thinking about it my save files are from 0.0.1.7. I'll retest it with new save file and see if it repeats the error. since it could be a bug from the auto-update.

 

[mimusstudios]

That's okay though since it's the last stage of the update.
Thinking about it my save files are from 0.0.1.7. I'll retest it with new save file and see if it repeats the error. since it could be a bug from the auto-update.

It might be easier to communicate in real-time if you join the Discord (link in signature). If not, I'll try my best to respond here, but I don't always see notifications.

 

[Argentus67]

It might be easier to communicate in real-time if you join the Discord (link in signature). If not, I'll try my best to respond here, but I don't always see notifications.

I agree the notifications function on this site sucks. I'll join the discord

 

[JaxMan]

Also, there's almost definitely a bug in increasing tact from the library. I studied 8 hours, for 60 days, with 40 intelligence / 100 education, which should net me around 10 points of tact. I increased tact a grand total of 0 times. Manipulation works, but feels like it's at about 1/4th or 1/2 the stated % chance of increase, which means increasing manipulation is a massive chore, and increasing tact is literally impossible.

I had same issue with studying in library for both manipulation and tact, 0 increase, although I didn't stay with it for as long.

 

[mimusstudios]

I had same issue with studying in library for both manipulation and tact, 0 increase, although I didn't stay with it for as long.

I triple checked along with asked some of the other players, and while they mostly all expressed they felt the probability was lower than stated, it was all working. Again, you aren't meant to spend too much time grinding in the library to begin with. Not too much in the game requires high tact and manipulation, there are other routes.

 

[JaxMan]

I triple checked along with asked some of the other players, and while they mostly all expressed they felt the probability was lower than stated, it was all working. Again, you aren't meant to spend too much time grinding in the library to begin with. Not too much in the game requires high tact and manipulation, there are other routes.

I figured it was needed to converse with the other slaves. It was needed to influence the females when interacting with them and I failed a lot. Also, you said that there were more books in library, so should keep searching even after getting the message nothing found many times.

 

[mimusstudios]

I figured it was needed to converse with the other slaves. It was needed to influence the females when interacting with them and I failed a lot. Also, you said that there were more books in library, so should keep searching even after getting the message nothing found many times.

There's only one book in the library, the other one is at the Divine Touch, just talk to the bartender. And you do need tact / manipulation for that but the thresholds aren't that high I believe on hardest difficulty it's like 30? Also having high affection makes the threshold even lower.

 

[WizD]

I triple checked along with asked some of the other players, and while they mostly all expressed they felt the probability was lower than stated, it was all working. Again, you aren't meant to spend too much time grinding in the library to begin with. Not too much in the game requires high tact and manipulation, there are other routes.

Not that I don't believe you just merely for the sake of the probability convo. It could be a 99.9% probability of happening and you just get the .1% of it not happening 100% of the time. That's the problem with rng.

 

[JaxMan]

There's only one book in the library, the other one is at the Divine Touch, just talk to the bartender. And you do need tact / manipulation for that but the thresholds aren't that high I believe on hardest difficulty it's like 30? Also having high affection makes the threshold even lower.

30? I have had 12 since start of my game and earned one manipulation point. haha I must be doing something wrong, I'm on Apr 26 and game begins Feb 1.