Mod QSP Jack-o-Nine-Tails Developer Versions and Mods

[DankMemesAndCreams]

I must be fucking retarded.
Every slave I've gotten ends up depressed as fuck or insane (permanently calm, low temperament, low nature.)
Slaves are always low energy despite trying to pump up their athletic level and keeping them from going into red stamina.
Slaves are disrespectful until their pride is utterly broken. Pride always seems to jump straight from Arrogant to Unashamed.
Slaves will never follow any of the rules of their own accord at the start. Enforcing Toilet Denial and Silence can help bring down pride, but they always lead to insane slaves.

I cannot train any D-class contracts in an economically viable amount of time. My current attempts have been with an A/B stat Trainer. I'm using Isabell as my assistant, though I do the training personally most of the time. I've put about 8 hours into this and I've just about fucking had it. The guides I've been using are from 2014-2016 for version 1.2 something. I'm assuming some of that's out of date, but I'd think the general ideas would still apply. What the hell am I missing here? What's the secret formula to getting slaves out of the depression rut and actually obeying simple orders? If they'd just shut up and do aerobics and clean I'd be happy but even that is proving to be too much.

 

[Plebejer]

I must be fucking retarded.
Every slave I've gotten ends up depressed as fuck or insane (permanently calm, low temperament, low nature.)
Slaves are always low energy despite trying to pump up their athletic level and keeping them from going into red stamina.
Slaves are disrespectful until their pride is utterly broken. Pride always seems to jump straight from Arrogant to Unashamed.
Slaves will never follow any of the rules of their own accord at the start. Enforcing Toilet Denial and Silence can help bring down pride, but they always lead to insane slaves.

I cannot train any D-class contracts in an economically viable amount of time. My current attempts have been with an A/B stat Trainer. I'm using Isabell as my assistant, though I do the training personally most of the time. I've put about 8 hours into this and I've just about fucking had it. The guides I've been using are from 2014-2016 for version 1.2 something. I'm assuming some of that's out of date, but I'd think the general ideas would still apply. What the hell am I missing here? What's the secret formula to getting slaves out of the depression rut and actually obeying simple orders? If they'd just shut up and do aerobics and clean I'd be happy but even that is proving to be too much.

Try Explaining the Situation to them and give them the sundress (as a present via merit) as early as possible.
And depending on your stats, encouraging is a great way of boosting happiness

 

[Mee&Mee]

Links to download are down... pls fix it, thanks in advance,
P.S. nevermind, somehow they are just blocked for my region.

 

[Fugitive Red]

I am the guy that did v1.8 - a massive clean-up and debug of the code, rewriting of All the text into something closer to English and much more descriptive, and adding features like Uncle Tom and Johny, the Slaver's Guild group training, the Humiliation detail, and set the menu at the Virgin's Hip.

I just checked out v2.2 and most of the changes I think are great improvements. Graphics are greatly improved, that easter egg mechanics is much cleaner, the bidding makes much more sense... so many improvements, big and small! And a HUGE thank-you for keeping most of my changes!

However – and please believe me that I hope this will be taken as constructive input – there are a number things I have noticed that you might want to look at:

• Generally I like the re-balancing, but with Obedience being more challenging to obtain, taking longer, and require more dedication and work from the slaver it is very difficult - even on Easy – to get higher level slaves ready before you run out of money. I think the re-balancing may need a bit more re-balancing.
• Also, anything that makes it take longer to train a slave is adding more grind. Is that what most players want? After the first slave or three I am wanting less grind, not more.
• The release notes say that on Easy it is impossible to spoil a slave – I actually would have said that would be Too easy – but in fact they seem to spoil much more easily than before.
• Fast travel now costs energy. Yeah, makes sense, but it is little things like that that will slow down the training process and put pressure on not running out of time. Not sure that when a number of small tweaks were added to make things more realistic, enough thought was given to how they would add up against the ever-ticking clock of cash flow. Keep the greater detail, but make sure you rebalance the other side of the equation, like, you may need to increase how much money you get for selling a slave to compensate for the extra weeks it takes to train.
• I seem to have gotten into a place in my combat training where the slaver cannot beat a Shinobi so cannot improve, but kicks the Wardess’ ass too easily so cannot improve. The remark on interaction_city, lines 1449 and1470 say "and zero for tiers equal or below current skill" Why no improvment if equal to. Surely if I am fighting someone at my own skill level it is fair tht I learn something, win or lose, so I am not "Cheating" in this "Oh my god, we can't let players have too much fun" paradigm you are focused on. Maybe here and a number of places you need to make it "or equal if played on Difficult" and lighten up on Normal so everyone else can relax a bit and the keeners can still fight their uphill battle. Fair?
• In 1.8 I made it so that if you gave a slave a sundress or collar but then sold her wearing something else you then owned the dress and collar so did not need to buy a new dress for the next girl. Why change that? They are slaves, they will wear whatever they are given. Is it just to make me go out and buy more stuff because that was seen as some sort of cheat? It is inherently a fairly grindy game so to me, anything that can reduce that a little is a good thing. And I thought my way was more realistic: if she was sold wearing a gown, where did the sundress disappear to?
• One thing I wish I had done but didn’t: On the Attributes/Characteristics section of the character profile it would be really helpful if each attribute was labelled – ex Endurance: Tough
• I like how the rewards was tweaked in 2.1 but there is not much feedback to understand whether a reward was not enough or too much. And since it is now quite specific to the particular girl, the feedback should be more specific too. If you are going to make things more difficult I feel you need to tell the player how to improve, otherwise it is a black box as to how a reward was received and why.
• Same for the overhauled Obedience system. It is much more dependent on that specific slave’s attributes which makes sense, but unless you are the guy that programmed it how would you ever know that “an intelligent slave with strong temperament is more likely to accept gladiatrix training when she hates you than to accept to sit and learn about magic”? If you are going to add that level of complication, I feel you kind of need to be fair and add enough feedback to help the user out. I guess I could go to a wiki and learn all that, but wouldn’t it be better if the game told me why this particular girl sucks at magic but would make a great gladiatrix? Farid could tell me when she first comes on stage “Not pretty enough for a concubine but an intelligent slave with strong temperament like her would make a kick-ass as a fighter”
• Similarly - and again, I should have done this myself - wouldn’t it be great if, when a customer rejected a slave, he actually told you why so you could go fix that?
• " Sleep in my bed’, ‘Boudoir’, ‘Fresh Food’, and ‘Eat my leftovers’ were re-written to make them rewards for excellent obedience and gained devotion. Before, they were easy exploits to obtain good slave mood without penalties. Giving these rewards too early will result in a rapid spoil increase and possibly other smaller penalties." Listen to yourself. Oh no! God help us a player could not find an easy way to do something. What are we as developers, Cops? Our roll is not to beat the player, make sure they struggle, it is to give them a fun, satisfying game. If they want to do something an easy way, who are we to stop them. Maybe just dial that sort of 'Kill all the Exploits' thinking back a bit, yeah? You don't lose from the exploits so don't make the game too tough.
• There was an exploit where you could dave before a Fog fight and then get a different opponent each time you reloaded. That was "fixed". Again, you are not the police. The Fog battles are Much more difficult now so I do not see it as the developer's job to block all exploits. Let players define their own level of difficulty/just here for some fun.
  
  From the fairly basic logic of the original game mechanics we have added a ton of depth and realism but maybe now some effort needs to be put into helping a player understand, in game, the intricacies of these improved mechanics. Otherwise it is just frustrating. I Know the game, I Know the code (or at least the way it was) and yet I find it mystifying as to why what I am doing with a slave does or does not work. Surely many a noob will just throw up his hands and walk away; not ideal for a game. To me, while the game is better with more realism, the very first thing it needs to be is fun. Make it too challenging and painful and confusing and playing golf becomes a viable option.
  
  All my whining and suggestion aside, I really do appreciate all the work you have put into it and think it is a vast improvement. Many thanks and if you prefer me to make some of these changes I would be happy to.

 

[qwertyu12359]

I am the guy that did v1.8 - a massive clean-up and debug of the code, rewriting of All the text into something closer to English and much more descriptive, and adding features like Uncle Tom and Johny, the Slaver's Guild group training, the Humiliation detail, and set the menu at the Virgin's Hip.

I just checked out v2.2 and most of the changes I think are great improvements. Graphics are greatly improved, that easter egg mechanics is much cleaner, the bidding makes much more sense... so many improvements, big and small! And a HUGE thank-you for keeping most of my changes!

However – and please believe me that I hope this will be taken as constructive input – there are a number things I have noticed that you might want to look at:

• Generally I like the re-balancing, but with Obedience being more challenging to obtain, taking longer, and require more dedication and work from the slaver it is very difficult - even on Easy – to get higher level slaves ready before you run out of money. I think the re-balancing may need a bit more re-balancing.
• Also, anything that makes it take longer to train a slave is adding more grind. Is that what most players want? After the first slave or three I am wanting less grind, not more.
• The release notes say that on Easy it is impossible to spoil a slave – I actually would have said that would be Too easy – but in fact they seem to spoil much more easily than before.
• Fast travel now costs energy. Yeah, makes sense, but it is little things like that that will slow down the training process and put pressure on not running out of time. Not sure that when a number of small tweaks were added to make things more realistic, enough thought was given to how they would add up against the ever-ticking clock of cash flow. Keep the greater detail, but make sure you rebalance the other side of the equation, like, you may need to increase how much money you get for selling a slave to compensate for the extra weeks it takes to train.
• I seem to have gotten into a place in my combat training where the slaver cannot beat a Shinobi so cannot improve, but kicks the Wardess’ ass too easily so cannot improve. The remark on interaction_city, lines 1449 and1470 say "and zero for tiers equal or below current skill" Why no improvment if equal to. Surely if I am fighting someone at my own skill level it is fair tht I learn something, win or lose, so I am not "Cheating" in this "Oh my god, we can't let players have too much fun" paradigm you are focused on. Maybe here and a number of places you need to make it "or equal if played on Difficult" and lighten up on Normal so everyone else can relax a bit and the keeners can still fight their uphill battle. Fair?
• In 1.8 I made it so that if you gave a slave a sundress or collar but then sold her wearing something else you then owned the dress and collar so did not need to buy a new dress for the next girl. Why change that? They are slaves, they will wear whatever they are given. Is it just to make me go out and buy more stuff because that was seen as some sort of cheat? It is inherently a fairly grindy game so to me, anything that can reduce that a little is a good thing. And I thought my way was more realistic: if she was sold wearing a gown, where did the sundress disappear to?
• One thing I wish I had done but didn’t: On the Attributes/Characteristics section of the character profile it would be really helpful if each attribute was labelled – ex Endurance: Tough
• I like how the rewards was tweaked in 2.1 but there is not much feedback to understand whether a reward was not enough or too much. And since it is now quite specific to the particular girl, the feedback should be more specific too. If you are going to make things more difficult I feel you need to tell the player how to improve, otherwise it is a black box as to how a reward was received and why.
• Same for the overhauled Obedience system. It is much more dependent on that specific slave’s attributes which makes sense, but unless you are the guy that programmed it how would you ever know that “an intelligent slave with strong temperament is more likely to accept gladiatrix training when she hates you than to accept to sit and learn about magic”? If you are going to add that level of complication, I feel you kind of need to be fair and add enough feedback to help the user out. I guess I could go to a wiki and learn all that, but wouldn’t it be better if the game told me why this particular girl sucks at magic but would make a great gladiatrix? Farid could tell me when she first comes on stage “Not pretty enough for a concubine but an intelligent slave with strong temperament like her would make a kick-ass as a fighter”
• Similarly - and again, I should have done this myself - wouldn’t it be great if, when a customer rejected a slave, he actually told you why so you could go fix that?
• " Sleep in my bed’, ‘Boudoir’, ‘Fresh Food’, and ‘Eat my leftovers’ were re-written to make them rewards for excellent obedience and gained devotion. Before, they were easy exploits to obtain good slave mood without penalties. Giving these rewards too early will result in a rapid spoil increase and possibly other smaller penalties." Listen to yourself. Oh no! God help us a player could not find an easy way to do something. What are we as developers, Cops? Our roll is not to beat the player, make sure they struggle, it is to give them a fun, satisfying game. If they want to do something an easy way, who are we to stop them. Maybe just dial that sort of 'Kill all the Exploits' thinking back a bit, yeah? You don't lose from the exploits so don't make the game too tough.
• There was an exploit where you could dave before a Fog fight and then get a different opponent each time you reloaded. That was "fixed". Again, you are not the police. The Fog battles are Much more difficult now so I do not see it as the developer's job to block all exploits. Let players define their own level of difficulty/just here for some fun.
  
  From the fairly basic logic of the original game mechanics we have added a ton of depth and realism but maybe now some effort needs to be put into helping a player understand, in game, the intricacies of these improved mechanics. Otherwise it is just frustrating. I Know the game, I Know the code (or at least the way it was) and yet I find it mystifying as to why what I am doing with a slave does or does not work. Surely many a noob will just throw up his hands and walk away; not ideal for a game. To me, while the game is better with more realism, the very first thing it needs to be is fun. Make it too challenging and painful and confusing and playing golf becomes a viable option.
  
  All my whining and suggestion aside, I really do appreciate all the work you have put into it and think it is a vast improvement. Many thanks and if you prefer me to make some of these changes I would be happy to.

Hello! You were a hard man to find! So was your version of the game, I think it was a good thing we based ourselves on your 1.8

I'm out of home with no computer so I don't have time to address your every points even though I would love to. But let me try to address difficulty:

The rebalance makes some things less easy, indeed. For exemple we made it so Delikacia would require 5 merit, so that people couldn't just spam it and literally forget about every other reward (since it's literally the best reward and it was available since 1 merit). We also made it so slaver skills would take on average half a "become patrician" playthrough to max from F- to S+. I think the jump in difficulty here is for the best, making more "intuitively" balanced. Same for clothes, after a lot of thinking we decided that it made no sense that you buy clothes for a milf and after you sell her you could keep the clothes and give them to a loli.

On the other side, we made the game easier on other points. For exemple, in 1.8, a girl would accept doing sport at -10 obedience, but wouldn't accept cooking before 0 obedience. This is a huge jump and not an intuitive one, especially since a girl would simultaneously accept doing a handjob, making it seem like cooking is as daring as strocking a dick. Now we've made it so every normal lesson could be accepted before reaching 0+ obedience, and depending on the slave's attributes! So for exemple, an intellectual prideful slave will hate being asked to act as a maid for you, but she will more easily accept sitting down and listen to a rhetorics or a medical lesson. A slave with a need to express herself will easily accept artistic lessons. A disobedient slave with a lot of temperament will accept gladiatrix lessons as she won't leave an opportunity to try to fight you, even for a sparing. And a low endurance slave will hate you asking to do some cardio and rather do some low intensity effort such as cooking for you. So we made the game significantly easier in fact, but in turn making every slave feel more unique due to many possible combinations of stats and therefore lesson preferences. But now guides for 1.7 are obsoletes; you cannot apply the routines that worked before, since it was always about training endurance first to get more energy stars and get the first obedience points. Now you really have to "play" the game.

About actions costing energy, they were in original version and we decided to make it that way again. It makes getting the Bull Ring more rewarding, even though it's significantly less cheaty now (it used to give unlimited energy, now it used twice as less).

Also, we've made it so there's no need for a nutritionist if you or your assistant have enough medical skill to prepare the meal yourself. Quality of Life improvement!

About the rest and especially the combat, I think ImperatorAugustusTertius will be able to address these points as he was the co-developper of v2.2. Have in mind that for 2.0 we received some 1 star reviews because the game was "a noobified version of Jack-o-nine"; and I do agree to an extent that we should stay true to the original design philosophy of Old Huntsman.

I'm happy you liked most of the improvements of last version, a lot of work and passion went into it. Even 2.2.1 makes me excited, the adding of new art will make it more than a simple hotfix

 

[Fugitive Red]

Thanks for getting back. It seems Imperator enjoys a substantially tougher game than I do. I have managed to get my Fighting skill up to S+ (by hacking the code so I could lear something against an equal opponent), am well armed and yet I am getting smoked in two rounds out in the Fog against middling opponents. And frankly, if I was looking for combat realism I would be playing Assassin's Creed or some such, not Jack. I just needed some freakin Mucus and like doing a bit of hunting for fresh meat on my days off so I was forced to hack the code so it was anywhere near possible to win those death matches

 

[qwertyu12359]

Thanks for getting back. It seems Imperator enjoys a substantially tougher game than I do. I have managed to get my Fighting skill up to S+ (by hacking the code so I could lear something against an equal opponent), am well armed and yet I am getting smoked in two rounds out in the Fog against middling opponents. And frankly, if I was looking for combat realism I would be playing Assassin's Creed or some such, not Jack. I just needed some freakin Mucus and like doing a bit of hunting for fresh meat on my days off so I was forced to hack the code so it was anywhere near possible to win those death matches

It's a phenomenon I was experiencing in 1.8 too. Hacking my way into S+ wouldn't make me win fights at the fog, even with top tier weapons and armor. As opposed to grinding my way there, which after a while would make me OP. I don't remember why.

I'm not a fan of the fighting system anyway, we want to give it a complete overhaul eventually.

However we'll still be keeping the original game design philosophy, and JONT wasn't meant to have easier combats than Assassin's Creed (since you're taking this exemple). Nonetheless some if your critics about it make sense, like how loosing could grant you some EXP because you have to learn something from your defeats. Then again, in many turn based RPG this is not a thing; even in Pokemon you don't gain EXP when losing, so now we're in a position where it's commonly accepted that realism makes it easier but also less "fun". A good middle ground could be to gain a little EXP, so that winning would still be more rewarding, but even then you could see your level go up even by losing and it'll make the whole fighting system seem worthless.

 

[nononomaybe]

About actions costing energy, they were in original version and we decided to make it that way again. It makes getting the Bull Ring more rewarding, even though it's significantly less cheaty now (it used to give unlimited energy, now it used twice as less).

The Original JONT had a bunch of crappy design choices alongside good ones. Doing something because it is in the original is a poor justification.
I suggest that the player just traveling/looking around the world should not cost energy because the energy cost punishes newer players for looking around. Veterans who know the game won't have trouble remembering that medical treatment is in the Serpentine, but to a newer player it isn't obvious where important things are located.

About the rest and especially the combat, I think ImperatorAugustusTertius will be able to address these points as he was the co-developper of v2.2. Have in mind that for 2.0 we received some 1 star reviews because the game was "a noobified version of Jack-o-nine"; and I do agree to an extent that we should stay true to the original design philosophy of Old Huntsman.

I suggest that the difficulty setting could be a useful mechanism for the masochists who want maximum grind and impossible fights.
As a player, my general priority is to See New Content and feel a sense of Progression. After seeing the "Train Kissing" dialogue for the 20th time with a slave, seeing it a 21st time does not improve the experience.

At least on Easy difficulty I suggest that the player should be fairly successful and see rapid progress at the actions attempted (Training/Combat/etc).

I'm happy you liked most of the improvements of last version, a lot of work and passion went into it. Even 2.2.1 makes me excited, the adding of new art will make it more than a simple hotfix

Thank you all for your work!

 

[DLeith]

Is there a way to add master portraits?
I tried renaming it but it doesn't show up. I tried using the batch scripts on the OP but to no avail. I can rename over the ones already in the folder and that works but I want to add not replace.

I suggest that the player just traveling/looking around the world should not cost energy because the energy cost punishes newer players for looking around. Veterans who know the game won't have trouble remembering that medical treatment is in the Serpentine, but to a newer player it isn't obvious where important things are located.

This happened to me lol it took me a long time to find certain things because walking around is a waste of a day and going backwards and forwards for things burns energy. If you forget something it can be annoying such as if you buy new armour but you have to go home to put it on then come back for the collesium, if you forget to do something with your slave and you have to do multiple trips, if you fail a charm check on a resident and you have to add something or go somewhere else.

I eventually wrote down what all the residents wanted so I didnt have to check, including the stores. The alternative is to quicksave constantly so if you fail a charm check you can quickload and try again without running around all over the place. Theres no feedback so you could have missed it by an inch or you could have missed it by a mile.

 

[qwertyu12359]

nononomaybe

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DLeith

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[DLeith]

Right I got it, you have to add a character in #master_base with the image reference, then increment the $scroll_heroes and $scroll_ava numbers in #dynamic. I can add a character to hero_customisation too but it won't line up with the scroll background but thats fine because I was trying for custom avatars.
qgen is pretty easy to use, fairly starightforward other than the russian

the requirement correspond to the needed general rank of the slave

Oh it's that simple? Just add that line to the specialisation objectives tab, just call it style because there isn't a charm stat that you can see or say that charm = style + exotiscm.

It's part of the game experience. Just like endurance in Dark Souls can make you momentarily unable to wield your sword after a few swings, doing things in JONT can tire your character and ruin your day, teaching you to eventually plan your schedule better. This is the difference between an effective JONT player and a new JONT player. You'll get there eventually!

I agree with you when it comes to teaching slaves or fighting but I don't think it adds value when you lose energy simply for going places, it's more akin to drops in dark souls where you have to take damage like going to Nito. When you buy a slave you have to go to white town, get her checked out in the medical center and then brand her, thats 1.5 energy you have to burn everytime you buy a slave at auction and I don't think it servers a real purpose. It's not a big deal but if you've just started it can put a damper on exploring everywhere and finding everything.

 

[qwertyu12359]

Oh it's that simple? Just add that line to the specialisation objectives tab, just call it style because there isn't a charm stat that you can see or say that charm = style + exotiscm.

Wait ^^

I don't have the game on me right now but I'm almost sure the Charm level is seeable in the anatomy tab. Charm is not style, it also takes into account the spoil level and other stuff that you see in the Aura. So it'll ask you to cast Auspex to have access to it.

I agree with you when it comes to teaching slaves or fighting but I don't think it adds value when you lose energy simply for going places, it's more akin to drops in dark souls where you have to take damage like going to Nito. When you buy a slave you have to go to white town, get her checked out in the medical center and then brand her, thats 1.5 energy you have to burn everytime you buy a slave at auction and I don't think it servers a real purpose. It's not a big deal but if you've just started it can put a damper on exploring everywhere and finding everything.

It's just the way it was meant to be. When you don't "fast travel", you use energy to go from one part of town to the next. The game considers that you spent time and energy walking (which partly helps make sense of the town topography).

A modder later added a fast travel menu. But let's be clear, the game doesn't make you character travel faster, it's just a shortcut for the player. So there's no reason that it's any different than normal traveling (until we add a lore justification for that). And there's also no reason that travels in general take 0 energy at all.

So about it putting a damper on exploring and finding everything, I'll defend the game by saying that precisely, you are not supposed to explore and find everything on the first days. About the 1,5 energy spending for buying a slave, you are not supposed to have a lot of actions available right when buying the slave (let her sleep it off). But it does give you an incentive to reduce that energy cost eventually by obtaining the bull ring, buying the stethoscope and buying a place in White Town.

Anyway, any game decision can be interpreted as bad or good subjectively. But here, the list of pros and cons are in my opinion largely in favor of moving around costing the slaver energy.

 

[DLeith]

the Charm level is seeable in the anatomy tab

Haha no way you're right it is, I'm just a dumbass then.
You should still add the charm rank gate to the specialization tab so you know C+ concubine requires C+ charm. Or add it to the aura since it requries auspex? The anatomy tab seems like a weird place for it since it's not really anatomy.

Charm is not style

The wiki says style is x3 in the equation so it's the strongest factor and getting style to A is really easy and works everytime. It's hard to get to C+ rank or above without devotion or with spoiling because you have to do all the sex stuff. Maybe the other factors matter more at A+ for residents; I have no idea if it affects auctions, I'd assume so. I wouldn't mind if it was harder, if the style multiplier was reduced, but it's getting that information across thats tricky.

the list of pros and cons are in my opinion largely in favor of moving around costing the slaver energy

I don't want to argue with you too much but you didn't list any pros. Maybe you could say town topography is a pro but it takes the same energy to get anywhere so everything is equidistant and that doesn't make sense. Maybe if it took more energy to go from camira to white town because you have to go through the other 2 places first but then you still have the problem of having to go home to use your sword because you cant equip things outside; you walk into a clothes store but you cant walk out wearing the clothes you bought; so it's swings and roundabouts.
I'm just saying there is no benefit to the mechanic.

you are not supposed to explore and find everything on the first days

Why?

 

[nononomaybe]

Thanks qwertyu12359 for the considered response. Your points persuaded me that the travel energy is a good compromise between realism, atmosphere, and player fun.

As to the difficulty settings, I often find myself starting a new game on Normal, and within ~30 minutes I hit some or other patch of grind, and notch it down to Easy to see/read something different, never to return to Normal.
In particular the Combat & Horse Races even on Easy difficulty are often an exercise in constant failure or savescumming. I try to sync up my War Crys, Roundhouse Kicks, etc, to get off good damage, but even with S+ combat skill I often find a well armed/armored MC dead in the Fogs within a few rounds. Maybe I'm missing something.
The one combat segment that always seemed well balanced was the Slave Gladiator fights. A well trained slave stands a suitably good chance of winning, though bad luck can get her smacked down.

Will think and play some more to see if I can come up with concrete suggestions.
Cheers mate!

 

[Fugitive Red]

A good middle ground could be to gain a little EXP, so that winning would still be more rewarding, but even then you could see your level go up even by losing and it'll make the whole fighting system seem worthless.

To me, that is ideal. Reward for winning but still nudge forward if you are in a place where you cannot beat your current level opponent

 

[Fugitive Red]

I suggest that the difficulty setting could be a useful mechanism for the masochists who want maximum grind and impossible fights.
As a player, my general priority is to See New Content and feel a sense of Progression. After seeing the "Train Kissing" dialogue for the 20th time with a slave, seeing it a 21st time does not improve the experience.

YES. This. Some people will like this game for the challenge. They should get what they want out of it. I am playing for fun of role playing a slaver and only want a basic challenge and less grinding. Ideally I and others like me should also be able to get what we want out of it. What better way to give both camps what they are looking for than by simply using the existing Easy/Normal/Difficult parameter, which as far as I know only effects obedience at this point, to tweaking everything from combat to speed of learning to earning respect in society. I am not suggesting taking all challenge out of it - no spoiling or always winning a battle makes the game pointless - just taking the edge off.

 

[Fugitive Red]

nononomaybe

As a player, my general priority is to See New Content and feel a sense of Progression.

As a developer, my job is to make the new content feel earned. Otherwise you wouldn't be playing "jont" but a watered down version of it.

I would respectfully disagree. I would suggest that your job as a developer is to try to give as many people as possible the experience they are hoping for, not just the one you are hoping for. And I say this admitting that I was guilty of making the game more to my taste - that "feature" that certain sex lessons teach other skills in lesser amounts was partly because I thought it made sense but mostly because It is Such a slog training a concubine if you have to completely teach Every skill.

If nononomaybe and I would prefer less grind and quicker progression, that is not "wrong" or "Not JONT", it is just different than the experience you enjoy. So by all means use Normal to give exactly the experience you want - it seems like that would be a good Normal difficulty - but expand the use Easy to cater to us popcorn-players who are just there for a bit of slavery fun and to kick the shit of a monster once in a while to put some fresh MILF-meat on the table.

 

[qwertyu12359]

nononomaybe
I would respectfully disagree. I would suggest that your job as a developer is to try to give as many people as possible the experience they are hoping for, not just the one you are hoping for. And I say this admitting that I was guilty of making the game more to my taste - that "feature" that certain sex lessons teach other skills in lesser amounts was partly because I thought it made sense but mostly because It is Such a slog training a concubine if you have to completely teach Every skill.

If nononomaybe and I would prefer less grind and quicker progression, that is not "wrong" or "Not JONT", it is just different than the experience you enjoy. So by all means use Normal to give exactly the experience you want - it seems like that would be a good Normal difficulty - but expand the use Easy to cater to us popcorn-players who are just there for a bit of slavery fun and to kick the shit of a monster once in a while to put some fresh MILF-meat on the table.

We are entering the "philosophy of games" realm ^^

One could argue that several experiences of difficulty in one game is harmful for the playerbase. As an exemple, imagine difficulty modes in Dark Souls: it would prevent the player from saying to himself "okay I'm dead but other people played the exact same game and made it, so the problem is with me". This explains the success of Dark Souls which was released in 2011, a time when gamers were given every possible hint and checkpoints to minimize their frustration because the industry thought they were giant babies. And yet, people that enjoy the difficulty of Dark Souls don't necessarily pick "Hard" or "Ultra Hard" in other games like The Witcher 3, they just want a good default gaming experience. I think one cannot deny the ressemblance between JONT at its core and Dark Souls; Dark Fantasy setting, being likely to fail many times during the tutorial, beginning the game totally lost, the frustration to overcome, the rewarding sense of succeeding, etc. I don't want this game to follow an Electronic Arts/Ubisoft/Bethesda route and become dull, easy and lifeless, for the sake of appealing to a broader playerbase, under the pretext of "inclusivity".

With that being said, the game modders added difficulty modes before me and I don't intend to have them removed. To the opposite, it would be good to make them encompass broader aspects of the game such as combat and moneymaking. Preferably, just tweaking multipliers, otherwise it'll be a nightmare for future development (better for future decisions not to always have to think about how it'll impact the three difficulty mods in terms of balance and bugs). But still, making it good experience for the current part of the playerbase you seem to be a part of.

As a parenthesis, have in mind that starting on Easy Difficulty makes the Cheat Menu available in the options. So people that want the "popcorn experience" can still cheat their way out of any trouble. That wasn't in the game prior to 2.0, so it's a proof we did some decision in the favor of the "popcorn fanbase".

But maybe you don't like cheating, and you want people to still play a game, not just have access to a hentai gallery with a slave setting. If that's the case, I can propose you to enter the game development. You would be able to focus on Easy mode and make it a better experience than it is now.

Also I agree with you, specializations are unbalanced. It's easier to be a maid than a concubine, and yet you get paid just as much for the two? This is the kind of things I want to be tweaked eventually, I even put in the game's OP roadmap a while ago.

 

[qwertyu12359]

You should still add the charm rank gate to the specialization tab so you know C+ concubine requires C+ charm. Or add it to the aura since it requries auspex? The anatomy tab seems like a weird place for it since it's not really anatomy.

But they don't need charm everywhere. Only for special clients in their own apartments. Other clients like in the tavern, real estate, or even slave contracts don't need charm, as far as I recall.

I completely agree with you however, I want players to know about charm requirements before proposing their non-charming slaves. I proposed to ImperatorAugustus that as long as the charm was below C-, the general rank wouldn't go up. Clicking on the slave's rank would open a pop-up like currently, and similar to the indication that obedience or sexual skills are too low for the slave to rank up, charm would be too low to rank up.

But I got reminded that, as I said above, not all clients need that. And second, that charm can easily go up and down, and cost money to get up, making it impossible to truly know the slave rank.

After that, putting it on the anatomy tab seemed like the best place. But maybe we can make it clearer.

My idea would be to mention it in the tutorial explanations (the ones nobody reads). Then after the first charm requirement fail, open a pop-up that explain that these clients are picky and need a certain level of charm. Said in the words of the main character, similar to how you discover the slave clothes are soul-bound.

The wiki says style is x3 in the equation so it's the strongest factor and getting style to A is really easy and works everytime. It's hard to get to C+ rank or above without devotion or with spoiling because you have to do all the sex stuff. Maybe the other factors matter more at A+ for residents; I have no idea if it affects auctions, I'd assume so. I wouldn't mind if it was harder, if the style multiplier was reduced, but it's getting that information across thats tricky.

Careful about the wiki, I don't know how accurate the informations are. The best place to look at is the code.

I don't want to argue with you too much but you didn't list any pros. Maybe you could say town topography is a pro but it takes the same energy to get anywhere so everything is equidistant and that doesn't make sense. Maybe if it took more energy to go from camira to white town because you have to go through the other 2 places first but then
I'm just saying there is no benefit to the mechanic.

I'm kind of tired about this debate to be honest ^^ It's been a full page of arguing back & forth and it's not that important of a mechanic at all.

The things that come to mind is:
1) There's no reason a menu shortcut makes you spend less energy than the regular action. That comes from a modder's oversight.
2) Actions that make you go outside (such as accompanying the slave to school) also make you spend energy to walk there. Why should it if you can basically teleport otherwise?
3) It makes you need to plan your actions better, which gives a feeling of progression to the player
4) It prevents the player from doing too many actions in a day as if he had the Bull Ring as soon as he begun

And there are more arguments that we used during the arguing back and forth in the dev' private conversations.

The pros of reverting back is to satisfy "new players that need as much energy as they can and can't bear losing it in exploration". That's too light of a reason to turn back a shortcut into a cheatcode.

About the topography, there are some nonsense things I believe, indeed. Like spending as much energy to go to any place, from anywhere. And not spending energy to go back to your place of habitation (is that still a thing or have we changed it?). Still, makes more sense that it would spend equally as much energy, than no energy at all. And reminder, it's always been the case, just not for the menu shortcut.

you still have the problem of having to go home to use your sword because you cant equip things outside; you walk into a clothes store but you cant walk out wearing the clothes you bought; so it's swings and roundabouts.

You would hate previous versions ^^

Before, just clicking on your slaver's or slave's face would instantly teleport you home. You weren't able to see the rules you set, the characteristics of your slave, nothing.

We made it better. Your idea of being able to equip a sword before going home makes sense and I like it. Though you already can equip it just before a fight as long as it's in your inventory so it's not a dev' priority. About equipping your clothes from the boutique, hmm, do people do that? I think that's quite rare, you first need to buy so the store guy to remove the anti-theft (magical ) thing. Then what do we offer, a second confirmation prompt with written "should your slave go to the cabin to change into the clothes you just bought"?

It shouldn't have to be "either that, or make walking home not spend energy". That's a false dilemma.

Why shouldn't we be able to explore limitlessly?

I partly responded a few days ago. The reason is it feels adequate. The town first looks menacing, the main character gets lost in it. Until progressively he climbs up the hierarchy and is better able to know where to go, the music changes to signify the change of emotions.

It's a good gamefeel. It's always sort of been there, until someone made an oversight so the travel shortcut became teleportation. We corrected it.

Reverting back to it would be recreating an oversight, and giving a cheatcode back to everyone. It's not good for the gameplay, it's not good for the player's suspension of disbelief, it's not good for the lore. It's only good for noobs and casuals, the first group will git gud, the second will play with cheatcode or do the BullRing mission.

 

[Fugitive Red]

With that being said, the game modders added difficulty modes before me and I don't intend to have them removed. To the opposite, it would be good to make them encompass broader aspects of the game such as combat and moneymaking. Preferably, just tweaking multipliers... But still, making it good experience for the current part of the playerbase you seem to be a part of.

But maybe you don't like cheating, and you want people to still play a game, not just have access to a hentai gallery with a slave setting. If that's the case, I can propose you to enter the game development. You would be able to focus on Easy mode and make it a better experience than it is now.

Perfect. I agree, Easy should not be mindless and even small nudges to the multipliers would help without completely nerfing it. Since your focus both in development and play is Normal - I believe you said you always play Normal - I can understand it would be painful to put much of your efforts into Easy so yes, I would be happy to take over the Easy tweaks and testing since that is more my interest.

I have never collaborated on scripting with anyone so you will need to tell me how you work it so we are not tripping over each other's changes