I saw that in the new dev branch you've increased rentals like the laboratory with the idea that you cancel them when you don't need them (and to change the income curve in general, granted). Now, this is a way to test the player and increase avenues of optimization, but it's also really tedious. In my recent Johny game I did this with the dungeon and lab because the money was tight and it just annoyed me. It's unecessary fiddling in a game heavy with fiddling. These kind of running costs are things that I prefer you can ignore once you're established, it's part of the draw for that. So I'm not the biggest fan of increasing the incentive.
Thanks for the feedback.
The laboratory at 200$ might need to be reduced a bit, but it was set so high to encourage renting for one decade, focusing on training and brewing during that time, and then cancelling it until you need it again. This also keeps the school in play as an option for alchemy training when you don't have the lab rented.
The dungeon and boudoir are still cheap (20$/30$ in Camira and Serpis, "included" in higher tiers [Taurus charges 50$ for boudoir because it's an expensive district, so effectively the step-up cost to Korvus is 50$ less]).
The barn is "included" in Camira and costs 100$ everywhere else. The barn can produce income from egglayer, cow milk and pig. The barn also enables you to keep more slaves unfrozen for training, which can significantly augment your income. The barn should be able to pay for itself purely on the basis of its "products" alone, so the rest is bonus.
While the idea is to make the rentals expensive enough that just leaving them running isn't necessarily optimal, they are still dwarfed by other costs of living in the late game. An S+ intellect assistant with the secretary trait can reduce the variable portion of the billing by 35% to 75%, which translates to a savings of at least 280 to 420 sparks or as much as 600 to 900 savings per decade with the highest cost of living (in White Town). [Without the secretary trait, savings are 10% less.] In exchange for one negative moodlet and dropping S+ personality to A+, you can reduce the variable cost by 400$ to 600$ by maintaining the penultimate living standard instead of the maximum, which also reduces the possible accounting savings (140 to 210 sparks on the low end, 300 to 450 sparks on the high end).
Also I see plans to make living in the slums more costly. I'm not convinced that this is really necessary. This play through I instantly upgraded to living in Anthill because my previous try to was no gold, no reputation custom start was in the slums for a while and I found that the way slums passively drained your stats in various ways (bad food, no bath, having to move to the city for services, bad moodlets, etc.) got really expensive in terms of slaver skill development. I felt that while during the time I took to train my first slave I saved some sparks, I paid double for that in the how much slower the next few were because my skills were still hampered and it ended up being rather expensive. This Johny run I feel like I got going a lot faster, even if I had to take a few loans. These are old memories though, so I could be wrong and a big difference was that in the slum run I never used Isabella, who is like a free 2k+ value infusion.
The way I've implemented it, costs in the slums go up after 20 decades (200 days played). The costs increase one more time after another 10 decades (300 days played). Still cheaper than living in Camira, but it becomes even harder to justify not moving out... and staying out. By day 300, most players will have completed training at least five slaves and have access to supplemental income from the arena. If it's a zero-start with no faction reputation, they might still be living in the slums, but otherwise it's unlikely. So this is mostly an added challenge for zero starts and a disincentive to moving back to the slums when you have other options.
Speaking of Isabella, since I'm using her this run I found that it kind of annoys me how you get her for no real cost. If possible, I'd prefer there to be some kind of a delayed cost to her. Like after four decades of having her, you'd have to do her a bit of a favour, or someone would come after her that would cause problems for you, etc. She could still be a good deal, but would make her feel a bit more of a choice. A good chance to introduce a bit more of a story to her too.
Can you expand on these ideas a bit? What kind of favor, or what problems, or...?
Also saw that in the next branch you might make it make it harder to increase your slaver guild reputation. I'm of the opposite opinion, I feel it probably should be easier. I've played a few playthroughs of the game in various earlier states and I don't think I've ever bothered to max guild rep even after hitting patrician. It just feels stupidly grindy, having to repeatedly do the same job for them. Part of this issue is that what gets you what rep and how much is pretty vaguely communicated in game. I think the last time I tried to raise guild reputation, I trained to S- slaves and sold them at the slave auction and the first time I did it shot me to B and the second time it didn't move at all. Might be misremembering though.
No, no. I want to make guild rep progression easier, not harder. I also want to make it more valuable, by using it to gate the bonus income of using multiple arena contestants. Brand rep becomes exclusively about being able to sell slaves easier (contributes to charm threshold, meaning you don't need to spend as much prepping them for sale) or for more sparks (in variable-price sales like when you negotiate with business owners or sell at auction).
Brand reputation, on the other hand, feels too easy, especially early on. This time, since I had the excess energy and was in white town already, I spent a bit of time spreading rumours in the forum and ended up with C brand rep before I finished my first slave. Was a bit of a pain, when Johny started to bitch about living standards.
Agreed. I want brand reputation to rise slower up to A+. It's already slow from A+ from S+ because nothing moves the needle except selling A+/S+ slaves or socializing at the club (at most once per day, not always successful).
Anyway, on reputations I'd prefer if it were really clearly communicated when it's moving/how much you need. Could see just showing player the exact point amounts or at least making clear when it's going up. Being crystal clear selling what level slaves to where gives me rep with who. I remember training a guild contract slave, turning her in and having guild rep move and wondering if I had trained a too low rank slave in respect to my rank or what.
We currently do not show the master's detailed progression and I'd prefer to keep it that way because it adds an element of uncertainty (will
today be the day?), but I do understand the frustration of not knowing if what you're doing is moving the needle at all. Guild contracts at least do tell you explicitly if you're making progress.
Selling slaves to district clients advances your level with the district if you're fulfilling a contract rank above your current rep with that district. That's it. Unlike other reputations, faction rep has no hidden progression. When you gain rep, you go up a level immediately. There is no bonus for exceeding the requested rank. Any ideas how best to communicate that in-game?
For example, if your rep with Camira is already D- (visible in objectives tab), then fulfilling a request for a D+ slave doesn't move the needle, but fulfilling a request for a C+ or higher slave does. Even if you skip a level (say you were D- and you fulfill a B+ request), you only gain one rank of faction rep (D- advances to C-), so you'd have to fulfill another request at the same or higher level (another B+) to advance again.
Pony racing should give be more rewarding as long as you finish a race. I barely scrape together a second place finish and my slave is spent, wounded for a few days and feeling guilty, my slaver is in a bad mood because he didn't win (a long lasting negative moodlet) and I have barely anything to show for it. Having something positive come from finishing the race would incentivise bringing ponies mid training to the races just to see how it goes. Now I just skip them until the slave's fully trained.
I agree. Completing without winning should be a more positive outcome if you were second or third. Being last should still be a negative moodlet, I think. You can complete many races safely by slowing down to minimal speed and inching through.
There are a few quality of life changes I'm also desiring.
A big one is being able to have item sets for the slaves. A simple example is that pony training gear tanks the slave mood (I kind of feel that pony training should mitigate this at least somewhat. I get that they're restricting, but that's the fantasy of this game, that you're training them to accept it. Bug I digress, as I do.) so at the end of the day I want to remove them and give them some slippers. That's a lot of clicks. You already have the nice gear buttons at the top of the screen, though you can't change things trough them. Would be nice if you added a few slots where you could save the slaves current gear. Put pony gear on, click on a slot to save, change to night clothes, save those too. Now you can just press those to instantly change all relevant stuff.
I agree. Being able to save equipment sets and swap them would be very convenient.
Pony gear doesn't bother the slave if they have the Brony trait. Also, if they have the trait "Loves Helplessness", they enjoy wearing the harness (or petsuit / leather shackles). The tail is also acceptable to slaves with the pet trait.
Another is allowing your assistant to use the facilities you are using. Like you go to the salon to give the slave a massage. Would be neat if you could have the assistant have one too without making an extra trip. This is especially relevant early on when you don't have the ring to reduce travel cost or the dungeon so you can stash you slave there, move your assistant to slave and then get them the massage. The same applies to other locations, like the Colisseum event fights (you can already do this with sparring).
Being able to take multiple slaves with you on outings is definitely something that should be possible. In concept, you should be able to select who accompanies you, and they should spend energy for the travel just like you do. They could also refuse, or try to run away, etc. There's even a partially implemented feature from the original game where travel cost could be offset by having a "chariot" slave, with the idea that you'd attach a trained pony to your chariot or cart or whatever, and ride in style while only spending the slave's energy. We could then allow you to change their outfits without going back home, as long as the slave is with you. We could even allow slaves to assist you in battles at the border of the fogs. Lots of possibilities here.
Also same with alchemy, at least I haven't found a way to assigning a specific character to do alchemy. If you have a slave and an assistant, it's always the assistant who does alchemy. No assistant, then it's the slave. Inconvenient if you don't have the dungeon, you have to like go to the cryo lab to stash slave, move assistant to slave, stash assistant, come back with the slave. Then you can have her do alchemy.
There's a toggle on the assistant's rules screen to decide whether or not she is the assigned alchemist. If not her, then it's the slave. We could move this to the brewing screen.
Alchemy could also use quick buttons for the recipes, once you've made them once. Would make things faster when you have to make 5 tonics. Could also enable some way to make multiple batches at once, but that's less relevant with energy costs etc. Just having a potion at one button would be enough.
To not make the current interface irrelevant and retain the need to remember recipes (or revisit Mystra for a reminder), how about a "repeat last recipe" button? You'd have to brew step by step each time you change what you're making, but the repetition would save a few clicks. We could even skip the cut-scene and bring you right back to the brewing menu so you could just click-click-click as many as you want.
Also when you get the home cryo, the guy presents it as having one at your home, but it's actually a portal to the one in Serpentine, so you're still paying the daily charge for storage, no? If so, might make the daily cost being on top of the monthly one more obvious.
Maybe the home cryo pod should be exactly what it sounds like, a separate pod. So you'd have the six in the cryo store plus the option of one more at home for 20$/decade (a lot more expensive than the six other pods, but being able to keep a seventh frozen slave can be valuable - I always fill up all the pods in the late game as I collect trophies faster than I can train them). We could give access to the quick swap buttons even if you don't have a home cryo pod, but you'd have to pay the travel energy cost if you don't live in Serpentine. I'm not in love with this idea -- reinterpreting the home pod as a portal might be better, effectively meaning you're paying 20$/week for the convenience of the quick swap feature and no travel energy cost.
