ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,106
803
how does it lowers energy exactly?
I've just revised this. Next day after taking kamra, if addicted, start the day with a half star of energy less, so kamra becomes half as effective. You can choose to continue with half star benefit or wait for addiction to clear so it returns to full effectiveness. Addiction also applies a next-day strength penalty.

My new slave doesn't have any devotion yet, but her pride is rising because she's unhappy.
Intended effect of negative mood. Stops at Aloof. Makes the "getting her ready for sex" phase slightly more interesting as pride raises refusal thresholds for sex. Tends to drop fast once she is obedient, if not sooner, depending how you manage her mood.
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,106
803
Is custom start the same as Normal Start (Story Mode). Or is custom start (Sandbox Mode)?
Normal start is equivalent to custom start on normal difficulty, except that normal start provides some starting items and does not allow you to customize the slaver you choose. Also there are soft caps on certain slaver skills and/or strength depending which slaver you choose. Those soft caps are optional for a custom start, not applied by default but can be enabled using the checkbox under the slaver portrait when you are setting up the game.

Sandbox mode is how we refer to custom start, easy difficulty. It has a checkbox under the slaver portrait to start as a patrician (unlock end-game content & start with a free randomly-generated assistant), and it has a cheat menu under the in-game options where you can edit the slaver and current slave and adjust some other parameters.
 

BliniKot

Newbie
Nov 2, 2021
70
29
ImperatorAugustusTertius
Can you do a Johny start and note how fast it is to level any skill with the recent change that requires A+ diligent or better?
I think nothing would change difficulty wise but it will make the process of raising skills significantly longer and raise the amount of money needed to invest into each slave (need to do more contracts to cover to cost of schooling, need to buy uniforms, etc)
essentially longer early game
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,106
803
ImperatorAugustusTertius
Can you do a Johny start and note how fast it is to level any skill with the recent change that requires A+ diligent or better?
I think nothing would change difficulty wise but it will make the process of raising skills significantly longer and raise the amount of money needed to invest into each slave (need to do more contracts to cover to cost of schooling, need to buy uniforms, etc)
essentially longer early game
The slaver's starting skill levels matter more if it's more effort to raise them. This distinguishes the starts more, which is good for replayability. We're going for a "jack of nine tails all skills, master of few" experience rather than a "master of everything" experience for normal starts. The caps are soft caps, but it will be very difficult to maintain mastery in everything. If you don't want that kind of experience, you can disable the skills decay with a custom game.

The slaver's energy is best spent on what only he can do: sex, rewards and punishments. Slowing down slaver development encourages focus on unique capabilities.

Energy is the most limited resource in the game, and time is money.

School and tutors are perceived to be expensive but if you consider that the guild pays 10$ daily for early completion of contracts, spending 10$ per day on lessons is break-even. If you see that your chosen slaver has a teaching skill of Incoherent F-, that's a strong hint that personal lessons won't be optimal for training in subjects where better teachers are available.

Johny's starting 200$ can be supplemented with 60$ from a guild contract, 50$+ (minus medical costs) per decade from arena battles, race prizes (even third place pays 20$), and 500$ from the moneylender (with the 30 day timer started just before ending a decade with insufficient funds to pay the bills, so as to maximize time before the deadline).

That's more than enough to pay for tutoring up to B+ common skills for at least one specialization, plus a variety of training aids for developing obedience.

With normal obedience difficulty, even a slave who is Passionate, Intelligent, Willful and Arrogant with 13 thorns of rebellion can achieve D- or better outcomes from school or tutoring lessons. Just keep her mood out of the red.

Even on extreme difficulty, it is possible to avoid loans and achieve positive cashflow from arena/race income, so the first slave acquired can be trained all the way up to S+ and never sold, if you wish.

I consider early game the period until you have enough sparks to take on longer projects. That could be just until you sell your first slave, depending on difficulty and where you choose to live. While surviving in the Slums isn't pleasant, we stop F- meal strength decay at D- (except on extreme difficulty) so it's more viable.
 
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BliniKot

Newbie
Nov 2, 2021
70
29
>50$+ (minus medical costs) per decade from arena battles
Assuming your first contract slave is heathy and bodyable
can you even third place race without any training?
never even thought about race with untrained slaves
>With normal obedience difficulty, even a slave who is Passionate, Intelligent, Willful and Arrogant with 13 thorns of rebellion can achieve D- or better outcomes from school or tutoring lessons. Just keep her mood out of the red.
I would like to see this
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,106
803
>50$+ (minus medical costs) per decade from arena battles
Assuming your first contract slave is heathy and bodyable
Correct. If she's Dying, 50$ will revive her with C- endurance. If she is Feeble, supplements and nutritionist can fix that quickly too. I just made the tier 1 fights slightly harder but should still be able to win without armor. Even with a Weakened slave. Unless you get hit with a doubled attack in the first round. Learn the "safest" defensive stance for each style of opponent.

can you even third place race without any training?
never even thought about race with untrained slaves
Sometimes not all of the competitors finish. Slow and steady can win the race, or at least place. Even if not, losing a race still has training benefits. Buying pony gear and armoring the chariot may be required depending on the track. Not all slaves will be able to do this.

>With normal obedience difficulty, even a slave who is Passionate, Intelligent, Willful and Arrogant with 13 thorns of rebellion can achieve D- or better outcomes from school or tutoring lessons. Just keep her mood out of the red.
I would like to see this
Start an easy custom game, change obedience difficulty to normal under settings, edit the slave to have those stats, raise her mood and send her to school.
 

Max&Chloe

Newbie
Mar 16, 2021
54
12
Her fear wears off quickly because she is devoted.

You are enforcing rules on her (checkbox on rules screen). When her obedience drops because of lack of fear, she would refuse some of the rules you set. Her inability to refuse is what is lowering her devotion.

Her arousal is maxed, so she is unhappy about the chastity belt, among other things. Your Johny's sex skills are D- so even if he has sex with her, it's not very effective. You have deny orgasm and no masturbation rules set, so she gets no relief.

Your Johny won't be able to keep her tamed her until he either improves himself (aura strength) or acquires a weaker slave to show off his dominance. (Actually, if you add heavy piercings, her overnight taming is more manageable, so escalating punishments would also work. Just don't give her tasks that she will refuse; let her guilt come from poor performance. Refusals would also lower taming.)

For example, if he gets a haircut and cosmetics to improve allure to S+, wears noble regalia, raises strength to B+, raises personality to C-, and casts magna magnifika, his aura will be stronger than Isabella's in the saved game you shared.

Or, if he's using Isabella as an assistant while training a slave weaker than him, Isabella's taming will rise overnight if she is wearing anything with that effect.

In short: when playing with a weak slaver, use Isabella as an assistant, not as training slave, for optimal results.

If you do want to train her, you can raise her obedience (minus taming) by focusing on the other aura stats. The taming items aren't helping and are making it harder due to mood penalties, so swap those out, and remove the rules she doesn't want to follow without forcing so that you don't lower her devotion.

Example of a weaker slave (even without magna magnifika or noble regalia, Unfit/Rube/Irresistible/Passive Johny's aura is stronger):

View attachment 3661367
Of course, I know why. I come here just want to say this design is not reasonable at all. No matter what your original purpose is, in my game, my own game routine, this mechanic makes Isabella's Obedience out of control and her level switchs between F-, D+ and C+ accordingly. I do not think you are intended to make this game like this, but it really happened. In this case, I have to claim this design is a totally fail. In fact, none of your changes I think highly of about trainning system compared to version 2.2.0. In recent versions, taming is somewhat too seperated from other factors. I do not think it is the initial intention of designer of those factors. A slave can have 5 awareness, 0 taming, 4 habits, 3 devotion at the same time! Actually, it is bad and can never been rated high.
Isabella herself, I think, is introduced to ease newbies' gameplay, but now her herself can be a big obstacle in gameplay. This is ridiculous, a slave with 3 devotion started is more troublesome than those with 0 devotion started. In old version 2.2.0, once you have enough time or sparks, you can easily conquer her and make her one of you family. But now her is the source of trouble.
As you say, you know it is impossible to have Johny tame Isabella in the early part of game. So here comes the question what is the meaning of get Isabella in this timing, the very beginning of game, just to make this game harder ? or only to occupy one slot in croy room ? and you need to pay for it.
Since you made taming bound with aura strength, if Johny do not train Isabella once you getting her, her taming will inevitablely get to lose to ZERO. Then her level will become F- at the same time. As you know, to a poorly trainned slave, its mood is restricted to very low. In this case, whatever her cook skills is, B+, A+ or S+, she can only make C+ or D+ food everyday. How can Johny get B+ strength if he can only get access to C+ food ?
And a slave weaker than Johny, that must be a junk, can fetch no money in slave markt.
Other factors ? even I raise her other factors all to five, her obedience is no more than 5. In this version, taming is an inevitable part of trainning.
Last of all, I am disappointed to your changes in trainning system, it makes the system weird and irrational. You have more intention than wisdom.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts, though I do not think high of them.
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,106
803
Of course, I know why. I come here just want to say this design is not reasonable at all. No matter what your original purpose is, in my game, my own game routine, this mechanic makes Isabella's Obedience out of control and her level switchs between F-, D+ and C+ accordingly. I do not think you are intended to make this game like this, but it really happened. In this case, I have to claim this design is a totally fail. In fact, none of your changes I think highly of about trainning system compared to version 2.2.0.
I agree we need to improve this for Johny (and Uncle Tom). Which are, incidentally, the highest difficulty normal starts.

Most of the other normal starts do not seem to have this problem with Isabella.

Do you like the changes since 2.2.0 outside of the training system?

In recent versions, taming is somewhat too seperated from other factors. I do not think it is the initial intention of designer of those factors. A slave can have 5 awareness, 0 taming, 4 habits, 3 devotion at the same time! Actually, it is bad and can never been rated high.
These factors are different motivators for obedience. This says she is strongly rationally motivated to seek rewards and avoid punishments (awareness is her "it is better/safer to obey" self-talk) and is highly accustomed to following orders (habit is her acceptance of slavery) but does not instinctively feel that the slaver is superior (taming is reflexive obedience, her motivation to obey before thinking about it). Finally, she is motivated to obey because she has begun to adopt a slave morality (judging herself by how well she serves and pleases her owner before attending to her own desires).

The idea that taming can diminish without aura superiority didn't come from nowhere. Quoting the tutorial in 1.7.5:

In addition to reasonable obedience, there''s also an instinctive obedience, when your slave subconsciously feel your superiority and strives to please you. Less temperamental people are more prone to this type of obedience.
...
I will now say a few words about the superiority and physical resistance. It will be much easier to subdue the girl who initially feels that you are stronger and, on the other hand, if she feels that she is stronger than you, she will not want to obey.
Whether or not she will feel your superiority is influenced by several factors. First - of course - your physical strength. Second - your spiritual strength and charisma. Third - the experience of command, the ability to dominate. Finally - your appearance. Good looks make it easier to submit to you.
With the goal of making training more varied, we've increased the extent to which attributes influence outcomes. A slave with S+ nature (willful) is consequently harder to tame. A couple of points difference here or there can have a big impact, as in the scenario you are experiencing. We can make this better without discarding the concept that taming can decline with low aura strength.

Isabella herself, I think, is introduced to ease newbies' gameplay, but now her herself can be a big obstacle in gameplay. This is ridiculous, a slave with 3 devotion started is more troublesome than those with 0 devotion started. In old version 2.2.0, once you have enough time or sparks, you can easily conquer her and make her one of you family. But now her is the source of trouble.
Isabella used to be a bit of a "cheat" - or at least we felt so - because of how good her stats were. We wanted to reflect her back-story better. She is desperate to escape from the Slums and she trades conditional obedience ("Just do not go too far; I will not work in fear") for safety. She also was not able to get into the city on her own merits, because of her age and appearance. So we adjusted some of her attributes and traits to better align to that concept. But we took it a bit too far since she is not fulfilling for you her promise ("if you treat me fairly I will do anything you command"). A boost to her obedience is clearly justified.

As you say, you know it is impossible to have Johny tame Isabella in the early part of game. So here comes the question what is the meaning of get Isabella in this timing, the very beginning of game, just to make this game harder ? or only to occupy one slot in croy room ? and you need to pay for it.
Johny is a weak child so it's not unreasonable that he has trouble taming a mature, strong-willed adult. Even if Isabella's taming drops to zero, she still is useful as an assistant. I gave several examples earlier of how she can be tamed even in the current version. We've updated the tutorial to describe additional methods of raising taming.

Since you made taming bound with aura strength, if Johny do not train Isabella once you getting her, her taming will inevitablely get to lose to ZERO.
Let's examine whether Johny can prevent Isabella from losing taming in the current version by boosting his aura strength:

1716569474773.png 1716569566373.png 1716569601216.png 1716569636176.png 1716569660548.png 1716569721871.png 1716570380898.png 1716570420788.png 1716570445593.png

Johny is labeled "maximum difficulty" and "cannot afford an apartment yet". So it is expected that some time will be spent living in the Slums before acquiring Isabella, during which time Johny's dominance characteristic will develop. If Johny moves into the Serpis apartment, his Personality will rise and stabilize at D-. If he raises his Allure and acquires Noble Regalia, his aura almost matches Isabella's. If Personality rises to C- or strength to B+, no taming loss will occur.

So we could adjust Isabella's attributes here so that she is weaker, but I think a different solution (see end of post) will be better.

Then her level will become F- at the same time. As you know, to a poorly trainned slave, its mood is restricted to very low. In this case, whatever her cook skills is, B+, A+ or S+, she can only make C+ or D+ food everyday. How can Johny get B+ strength if he can only get access to C+ food ?
And a slave weaker than Johny, that must be a junk, can fetch no money in slave markt.
C+ food only drains B+ strength by 1 point. Johny has a high libido so he can gain multiple strength points each day either from sex or from physical punishments (if sex is refused). Even if Isabella's taming is zero, one point of fear is enough for her to accept sex currently.

Other factors ? even I raise her other factors all to five, her obedience is no more than 5. In this version, taming is an inevitable part of trainning.
Devotion can increase even with zero taming, which would double her obedience in the current version. For example, raise Johny's allure (spa men's treatment) and Isabella's mood and put a wedding dress on her:
1716583256991.png 1716569243875.png

Last of all, I am disappointed to your changes in trainning system, it makes the system weird and irrational. You have more intention than wisdom.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts, though I do not think high of them.
All feedback is appreciated and will be taken in good faith, especially when it is detailed and constructive as yours has been. Thank you for taking the time to test and share your observations. While we may not (yet) see eye to eye on design, I hope we can continue to look for common ground.

For now, I've updated the dev build to 2.2.6.15 with a backwards-compatible boost for Isabella's obedience and a reduction in the rate of taming fading overnight so if you load your game with the new version she should be at least D+ (limited from C+ by lack of common skills) even with zero taming.

I've also updated her profile so that when she is acquired in a new game she will start with zero taming. After all, she barely knows the slaver when she is first acquired, and she is brave and willful.
 
Jul 25, 2022
27
14
Abandon hope all ye who enter, this shit's going to take a while.

What would you want to have had happen differently? By my reckoning, it has only been a couple of days since you shared your views - with specifics
In short to not require that level of proof to be taken seriously. My second post on this site was in this thread on may 27th 2023 and all the way back then it was addressing another poster also unhappy with the poor information clarity and unexplained mechanics changes, specifically regarding strength gain. We both agreed that seeing a numerical value for player strength would at least make it clear what's making it go up or down which is needed to even evaluate the cause let alone whether we agree with the reasoning behind those effects. I've just started a new game to grind out a leviathan for the raven crown to check in case it's needed for some reason (another day of my time irl and 112 ingame just to check this one thing i'm certain is an issue regardless, insane) but to this day you still cannot get a numerical value for player strength even with the crown. Even before that post i'd been playing and lurking since your initial release but didn't bother commenting about my issues after seeing how common it was for players to have concerns dismissed. You're implying i've lost my shit overnight for no reason but even though just the recent events are bad enough the reality is this frustration has been building for a very long time. I despise both drama and arguing and rarely engage in either, the fact i had to do this before i felt heard is obscene.

- and I multiple times expressed appreciation for your taking the time to do so.
That much is true and appreciated. However the cause of contention isn't that my high effort wasn't responded to favourably, it's that i had to go to that length in the first place.

Difficulty is an ambiguous metric. I have to rely on others’ perspectives to know if the game is meaningfully more difficult, because I don’t play like others do.
I doubt you're incapable of it, more likely unwilling. Devs of other games are able to put themselves in someone else's shoes despite knowing exactly how everything works and what the "correct" response is.

Glad you admit your playstyle is different though, until this comment i thought you didn't realise or didn't care. To be blunt, you have an autistic view of difficulty and normal play. My impression is you assume maximum efficiency no matter how tedious is the default and anyone not playing like that wants to but doesn't know how and simply needs to be told how so they can. This simply isn't true and i'll reiterate - i want the option of using equipment, drugs etc to help training if and when i deem it necessary, not the expectation i'm making full use of all of them all of the time. I care far more about what's fun than what's efficient. The end result of this design process won't be 1.7.5 plus bug fixes and QOL improvements, it will be turbo-autists optimisation adventure and the niche for that is tiny.
If I didn’t, I wouldn’t.
Continuing from above i think that's what you want the game to be because you personally fall into that camp. However you realise admitting it upfront would alienate the majority of your audience and make this branch fall into obscurity like a kaizo mario romhack, so you have to pretend you're making what they want and then try to gaslight them into believing it. Nearly worked even on me, until i managed to find a copy of 1.7.5 and confirm i halfway believed the claim the difficulty was comparable and i'm just rusty. The state 2.2.2 was released in that devs thought was fine and the overwhelming backlash needed to walk it back is the most damning evidence supporting my theory, I think it's the closest yet released to what you really want.

Going back to check is unreasonably difficult, an english version of 1.7.5 is not on the wiki and while i was able to find a copy anyway not everyone will. Also the copy i found is from the decline where they implemented shitty gifs replacing the quality static images and i've had no luck finding the original image pack. Couldn't find a working link for the moo mod that's compatible with it to see how its presence impacts difficulty either. The branch as a whole is at risk of becoming lost media.

Sure. ( these effects to be mentioned at point of sale )
I hope you do because not knowing what items do anymore is a regular complaint and clear downgrade from legacy. Can't check the wiki anymore to find out and unlike legacy where use of any of these items was often completely optional it's damn near mandatory to have at least one if not several full sets every time now.
Not sure why you take what I write that way.
Exceptionally hard to believe, i clearly think you're being duplicitous but i don't think you're stupid. Do i have to make a wall of quotes from players raising concerns, getting disheartened by your response and never commenting here again before you acknowledge this is a common issue? It won't be short. Still not gonna address those specific points personally, my wall of text is tall enough as is, he can come back and reiterate his case if he feels its worthwhile. I think you're using pilpul to chase away players willing to object to your changes. Once they're gone you can inch towards the real goal of making what you want to play with only the in-group who understand the real assignment left and anyone else not willing to speak against your vision.

Thanks for the feedback, and hope you feel better…
I did, until i came back and noticed you were celebrating my departure like it's a victory for your goals yay he gave up.png (yes you could argue i'm misinterpreting since i don't have absolute proof, i don't buy it, split that hair i know how this game is played). Every time i start to think i was wrong here there's something else to throw all of that generated good will in the trash. Assuming you're being honest about both your design goals and inability to understand a normal playstyle wouldn't players like me be exactly what you need to stay on target? I came back to say i'm considering doing a full run of 1.7.5 as fenris on hard obedience. I have never beaten this game on hard but i have a theory that legacy hard will be substantially easier than modern normal especially since i've picked up habits from your branch that are extreme overkill there, preliminary testing confirms this so far. However if my perception is right i'll be wasting days, weeks, maybe even months of my time for no benefit. I don't want to do that playthrough right now personally, i'm only willing to if it'll lead to a better version of JONT.

I sincerely hope i'm wrong about all of this. If I am our goals are aligned and there's no reason not to cooperate. If i'm right though then the best thing i can look forward to is player dissatisfaction possibly leading to a third active dev branch of this game thus splitting the community even further and making the rules of the game even more arcane for anyone new, wouldn't that be great?

I've focused a lot on the negatives here because my confidence in both the future and history of this game are at an all time low but in the interest of fairness i do like some of your changes. 1.7.5 has an issue with artifacting when hovering over text and images, it also causes an endless number of lav audio decoders to appear in my taskbar until it's closed - i'm glad to see both of these bugs fixed. Being able to click on the slave portrait in town to double check is a great quality of life feature so i don't have to go all the way home and back if i think i'm misremembering a stat while shopping. Slave personalities and willingness to do different trainings based on stats is nice in theory, in practice i can barely notice the difference. Much of the new art is nice however swapping it to ai being on the cards fills me with despair - it's shitty gifs 2.0. Reverting super-isabella is also good, railed against that on hf back when it was implemented, she's meant to be a poor man's assistant right now with risks to accepting her. And of course i like that some of my requests are finally being implemented. Everything else i can think of is either an improvement in one way counteracted by a downgrade somewhere else, something i'm indifferent to, or just worse. Playing 1.7.5 again has made me realise how much i miss it. Really hope i can find that image pack someday.
 

dbxhfl452

New Member
Apr 15, 2022
13
25
Wow you people really have a lot of free time

So angry and emotional over a free hentai game lol
Yeah how entitled and butthurt some people get over a game these guys are putting out for free is pretty ridiculous

But its f95. a lot of autism

I'm personally happy to play whatever the devs put out although I might make suggestions every now and then.

It's free. Who cares
 
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BliniKot

Newbie
Nov 2, 2021
70
29
The point is, it’s free, but yeah.
Personally, I am okay with the current state of the game, but I understand those guys’ frustration.
I got into this game way back in the Hongfire days and somehow understood how to play after a lot of tries.
This game is not exactly the easiest, and your first experience can be vastly different depending on the kind of slaver you play as and the slave you get.
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,106
803
In short to not require that level of proof to be taken seriously.
Fair.

seeing a numerical value for player strength
If you check the changelog post that I’ve been keeping up to date you’ll see that this was added yesterday.

That much is true and appreciated. However the cause of contention isn't that my high effort wasn't responded to favourably, it's that i had to go to that length in the first place.
Fair.

I doubt you're incapable of it, more likely unwilling. Devs of other games are able to put themselves in someone else's shoes despite knowing exactly how everything works and what the "correct" response is.
Fair. I don’t want to spend my limited time playing an old version while trying to guess how someone else would respond to it.

Simple example: Should I assume someone who sees that their slave is Feeble will enable Supplements? If they explored the rules screen and toggled the options, probably yes. Do I need to test both ways, or test in the least efficient ways I can think of…? Multiply this uncertainty by every other decision about whether or not to do something.

Aside from specific reported issues, I focus my testing (which doubles as my chance to enjoy playing the game so I have motivation to keep working on it) on the current version on extreme difficulty with the theory that if that is manageable then normal must also be… however I realize that isn’t always true, as in the recent example with Isabella. To find cases that need adjustment, aside from my own testing, I rely on reports because there is a large surface area of possible play styles and we don’t have automation for any of this testing and I am only one person.

Glad you admit your playstyle is different though, until this comment i thought you didn't realise or didn't care. To be blunt, you have an autistic view of difficulty and normal play. My impression is you assume maximum efficiency no matter how tedious is the default and anyone not playing like that wants to but doesn't know how and simply needs to be told how so they can.
Fair. I think it’s somewhere in the middle. Not maximum efficiency and not smooth sailing in a straight line. The overall trend lately has been towards making the game easier.

I think there might be a perception that when I answer a reported issue with examples of how it can be solved that I am saying that is how it should be. What I am doing is providing context for a discussion about how it should be, if those solutions don’t satisfy the one who raised the issue.

This simply isn't true and i'll reiterate - i want the option of using equipment, drugs etc to help training if and when i deem it necessary, not the expectation i'm making full use of all of them all of the time. I care far more about what's fun than what's efficient. The end result of this design process won't be 1.7.5 plus bug fixes and QOL improvements, it will be turbo-autists optimisation adventure and the niche for that is tiny.
If I am understanding correctly, you want to be able to take any slave, leave them naked, ignore their rules, use only lessons (school + tutors allowed?), rewards and punishments, and always achieve an outcome where that slave can be sold for a profit. Anything else would be an optional efficiency boost to increase profit for time. Is that right?

Continuing from above i think that's what you want the game to be because you personally fall into that camp. However you realise admitting it upfront would alienate the majority of your audience and make this branch fall into obscurity like a kaizo mario romhack, so you have to pretend you're making what they want and then try to gaslight them into believing it. Nearly worked even on me, until i managed to find a copy of 1.7.5 and confirm i halfway believed the claim the difficulty was comparable and i'm just rusty. The state 2.2.2 was released in that devs thought was fine and the overwhelming backlash needed to walk it back is the most damning evidence supporting my theory, I think it's the closest yet released to what you really want.
I would hope the current version is closest to what I want. Design thinking evolves over time.

Going back to check is unreasonably difficult, an english version of 1.7.5 is not on the wiki and while i was able to find a copy anyway not everyone will.
I can provide a copy of the code. Image pack I’m not sure I still have.

I hope you do because not knowing what items do anymore is a regular complaint and clear downgrade from legacy.
I did.

Exceptionally hard to believe, i clearly think you're being duplicitous but i don't think you're stupid. Do i have to make a wall of quotes from players raising concerns, getting disheartened by your response and never commenting here again before you acknowledge this is a common issue? It won't be short. Still not gonna address those specific points personally, my wall of text is tall enough as is, he can come back and reiterate his case if he feels its worthwhile. I think you're using pilpul to chase away players willing to object to your changes. Once they're gone you can inch towards the real goal of making what you want to play with only the in-group who understand the real assignment left and anyone else not willing to speak against your vision.
I think the change log says otherwise. Expecting me to remember what you said months ago isn’t realistic. If you got disheartened and stopped engaging, that’s on both of us. It isn’t my intent to shut anyone out.

I did, until i came back and noticed you were celebrating my departure like it's a victory for your goals
”Yay, new update” is how I respond to posts reporting an issue / asking for a change when I implement that change. I was attempting to draw your attention to the fact that I had added point of sale item effect displays.

Assuming you're being honest about both your design goals and inability to understand a normal playstyle wouldn't players like me be exactly what you need to stay on target?
Yes!

I feel the need to clarify that “similarity to 1.7.5” is not an overriding design goal. 1.7.5 was popular in some ways and unpopular in others. It is part of the legacy of the current version which derived from the HF series and we have kept some of its design choices. I would frame the goal as: if a player could be successful on normal difficulty with 1.7.5 after completing its tutorial and a few hours of trial and error (less error if they follow advice from the tutorial), the same should be true now. That does not mean that the same outcomes should be achieved within the same amount of time or with the same sequence of actions.

I came back to say i'm considering doing a full run of 1.7.5 as fenris on hard obedience. I have never beaten this game on hard but i have a theory that legacy hard will be substantially easier than modern normal especially since i've picked up habits from your branch that are extreme overkill there, preliminary testing confirms this so far. However if my perception is right i'll be wasting days, weeks, maybe even months of my time for no benefit. I don't want to do that playthrough right now personally, i'm only willing to if it'll lead to a better version of JONT.
I think it would be a waste of time to do a full playthrough with 1.7.5 for the purposes of testing. Playing for fun is another story. You can’t play them side by side with the same actions and achieve the same outcomes. So you have to decide on a standard, and you might as well just apply that standard to the latest version.

i do like some of your changes.
(y)

Slave personalities and willingness to do different trainings based on stats is nice in theory, in practice i can barely notice the difference.
It shows more on extreme difficulty. But even on normal, try a side by side with two slaves that differ only on a single attribute (one F- the other S+). You can set this up with custom easy start for the slave editor, and set obedience difficulty to normal under settings.

Much of the new art is nice however swapping it to ai being on the cards fills me with despair - it's shitty gifs 2.0.
We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.
 
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qwertyu12359

Jack-o-nine-tails
Game Developer
Aug 1, 2017
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1,697
In short to not require that level of proof to be taken seriously.
I again have to mention it: . This is the art of dialoging in order to reach a common ground. This requires efforts to be able to convince your interlocutor which will in turn try to do the same, but from the contradiction emerges a new idea which is ultimately better than the sum of both parts.

Other methods?
  • The american way, which is about doing test runs on the lowest common denominator until they are satisfied so investors are reassured. The result is watered down games which sell well but stay in no one's memory.
  • The japanese way, which is about never giving any feedback. The results are games with a lot of artistic integrity that can be tone deaf to long known problems
  • And the slavic way which is about telling the audience how their criticism is stupid and doubling down on choices that makes everyone mad. The result is ultra chaotic niche frustrating masterpieces
With the last two, your ability to convince the devs to make changes that fit your point of view is reduced to 0. It might sound like a stereotype but everyone familiar with developers of these cultures will know what I'm talking about. So trust me, you have it good with us.


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Put yourself in our shoes, we can't and shouldn't be convinced too easily.
  1. Some players want the game a certain way but nothing tells us it will convince the majority of the community (proof is that the current dev team is entirely made of these players to begin with: we are random players who want the game to be a certain way too)
  2. Some complaints about the difficulty can stem from lack of knowledge of the entire system; some if not most propositions left as is can lead to viable broken strategies that will lead to a 100% successful flowchart.
To be convincing and persuading, one's opinion must at least pass these two filters. And in general, convincing a stranger that he's doing something "wrong" on something subjective requires efforts. Try to convince a musician to change a playing habit, or an IT guy to code another way... It'll require you to demonstrate your points, or you won't change anyone's opinion.

My second post on this site was in this thread on may 27th 2023 and all the way back then it was addressing another poster also unhappy with the poor information clarity and unexplained mechanics changes, specifically regarding strength gain. We both agreed that seeing a numerical value for player strength would at least make it clear what's making it go up or down which is needed to even evaluate the cause let alone whether we agree with the reasoning behind those effects. I've just started a new game to grind out a leviathan for the raven crown to check in case it's needed for some reason (another day of my time irl and 112 ingame just to check this one thing i'm certain is an issue regardless, insane) but to this day you still cannot get a numerical value for player strength even with the crown. Even before that post i'd been playing and lurking since your initial release but didn't bother commenting about my issues after seeing how common it was for players to have concerns dismissed. You're implying i've lost my shit overnight for no reason but even though just the recent events are bad enough the reality is this frustration has been building for a very long time. I despise both drama and arguing and rarely engage in either, the fact i had to do this before i felt heard is obscene.
Well, calm down. No one gets to demand anything, first of all. Suggestions are welcome and the roadmap is filled with them, but just because one wants something doesn't mean a developer ought to do it for him. An asked feature appears if it appears, when it appears.

We want to have civilized conversations. We do our part of the bargain by being nice, responsive, and not insulting anyone even when personally attacked. Being civilized is overcoming frustrations when one doesn't get things his way, or soon enough. We, devs, have other priorities in life than JONT, and for JONT we have other priorities than displaying the numerical value for player strength. You don't get angry at the hospital when you have to wait more than you'd like because you know the nurses and surgeons have other pressing matters, this is the same here.

Second of all, stable version has not been released yet. It's not even like we've decided to ignore you. We are exactly stalling until everyone is more or less happy with the game's balance.

I might appear condescending but I don't know how else to make my point here: your frustration is visibly irrational and stems from entitlement. It is bad for you as you become less persuading, it is bad for us because if we don't demonstrate it this will set a precedent.

So what I hope, or expect, is that your emotional response was accidental and came from initial distrust. And that setting things clear on our ambition will allow a more direct exchange between us. Which in turn, might or might not lead to change within the game if we're convince they make the game unarguably better.

Glad you admit your playstyle is different though, until this comment i thought you didn't realise or didn't care. To be blunt, you have an autistic view of difficulty and normal play. My impression is you assume maximum efficiency no matter how tedious is the default and anyone not playing like that wants to but doesn't know how and simply needs to be told how so they can. This simply isn't true and i'll reiterate - i want the option of using equipment, drugs etc to help training if and when i deem it necessary, not the expectation i'm making full use of all of them all of the time. I care far more about what's fun than what's efficient.

Continuing from above i think that's what you want the game to be because you personally fall into that camp. The state 2.2.2 was released in that devs thought was fine and the overwhelming backlash needed to walk it back is the most damning evidence supporting my theory, I think it's the closest yet released to what you really want.

The end result of this design process won't be 1.7.5 plus bug fixes and QOL improvements, it will be turbo-autists optimisation adventure and the niche for that is tiny.
I happen to agree with you ^^ ImperatorAugustus won't deny it, he wants the game to be what most people would call "brutally difficult", this is fun and realistic for him.

He also is has an encyclopedic knowledge of this game and knows more things about it than anyone else, even past developers. We are lucky to have him work on it almost non-stop for 4 years and a half.

Me I want the game to be v1.7.5 but more realistic and intuitive. i thought v2.2.3 was it but I was apparently wrong... Still, I don't think v1.7.5 is better

Him and I discuss and reach compromises. v2.1 was "my" version (was called too easy here more than once), v2.2.2 was his version (brutally hard), v2.2.3 is ours (somewhere in the middle but not yet to your taste). Sill, I think the game is better for it now than at any point before, and improving even further with recent community feedbacks.

The branch as a whole is at risk of becoming lost media.
This is sad, I hate when media are lost forever and I like preservation work.

Still, it could have been worse. Before I took back the game development, it was really, really dead. Hongfire became defunct, the community didn't migrate and simply disinterested itself from the game. The links were getting censored from ULMF and other places, nobody was working on it.

Now, the community is revived. Our job was that, now it's the playerbase's responsibility to keep it alive.

I hope you do because not knowing what items do anymore is a regular complaint and clear downgrade from legacy. Can't check the wiki anymore to find out and unlike legacy where use of any of these items was often completely optional it's damn near mandatory to have at least one if not several full sets every time now.
This is a bit disingenuous. The game is not worse for creating changes that make the wiki wrong ^^ It was also giving false information back in v1.7.5. Saying that new version is a downgrade because it makes the wiki wrong is implying that the wiki was necessary back then, which was exactly something that was a reproach.

Since then, we work (little by little) to make information sources from the game be the cannon; including, in last dev' versions, exactly what you complain is missing (that was never in-game to begin with).

I think you're using pilpul to chase away players willing to object to your changes. Once they're gone you can inch towards the real goal of making what you want to play with only the in-group who understand the real assignment left and anyone else not willing to speak against your vision.
Nope, he's simply counter-arguing better than most people so they want his head on a stick .

Evidence is everywhere, he replies, more nicely than he's obliged to, and adresses most of people's points. He also ends up agreeing with me in private when I ask to make portions of the game easier if I'm convincing enough, happened dozens of time.

I did, until i came back and noticed you were celebrating my departure like it's a victory for your goals View attachment 3668543 (yes you could argue i'm misinterpreting since i don't have absolute proof, i don't buy it, split that hair i know how this game is played).
Misinterpretation ^^ He's saying "yay" to the other part of your post which is about you being happy about one new change. "yay new update" is the name of this emoji, and it's a celebration that the game is becoming better with your input, as not to discourage you from giving your opinions.

Every time i start to think i was wrong here there's something else to throw all of that generated good will in the trash. Assuming you're being honest about both your design goals and inability to understand a normal playstyle wouldn't players like me be exactly what you need to stay on target? I came back to say i'm considering doing a full run of 1.7.5 as fenris on hard obedience. I have never beaten this game on hard but i have a theory that legacy hard will be substantially easier than modern normal especially since i've picked up habits from your branch that are extreme overkill there, preliminary testing confirms this so far. However if my perception is right i'll be wasting days, weeks, maybe even months of my time for no benefit. I don't want to do that playthrough right now personally, i'm only willing to if it'll lead to a better version of JONT.
Makes one wonder if "easy" obedience difficulty is like "normal" 1.7.5, and therefore would be, before stable version release if we decide to lower the difficulty, the best experience you can have with JONT. Don't let ego get in the way of you trying, you might have a good time ^^

I sincerely hope i'm wrong about all of this. If I am our goals are aligned and there's no reason not to cooperate.
Our goals align, we want to make the game awesome, not have it be our personal thing with no regard to what the entire community thinks (actual beginners, returning averages players, and hardcore veterans).

The way to achieve it is however difficult, takes time, patience, trial and error.

Much of the new art is nice however swapping it to ai being on the cards fills me with despair - it's shitty gifs 2.0.
It's good you voice it out.

See my post about artificial intelligence. I respond with reserves to a contributor that was celebrating it. Up until now I was one of the only one to show resistance (proof that listening to what we read from the community is sometimes detrimental to have an understanding of what the silent playerbase actually thinks, and that we have to trust our judgements more than anything).

In short, . As of now, the way it's implemented in dev' version is good to me. Further down the road, we'll examine if it's unarguably better (very possibly) and if so we'll implement it, if not it'll be a mod.

I've focused a lot on the negatives here because my confidence in both the future and history of this game are at an all time low but in the interest of fairness i do like some of your changes. 1.7.5 has an issue with artifacting when hovering over text and images, it also causes an endless number of lav audio decoders to appear in my taskbar until it's closed - i'm glad to see both of these bugs fixed. Being able to click on the slave portrait in town to double check is a great quality of life feature so i don't have to go all the way home and back if i think i'm misremembering a stat while shopping. Slave personalities and willingness to do different trainings based on stats is nice in theory, in practice i can barely notice the difference. Reverting super-isabella is also good, railed against that on hf back when it was implemented, she's meant to be a poor man's assistant right now with risks to accepting her. And of course i like that some of my requests are finally being implemented.
Thanks, it's actually nice to read, and important for motivation.

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ImperatorAugustus visibly responded to you while I was writing the message. Might be mucho texto. No need to be intimidated or address everything.

TL;DR: We require efforts from the playerbase when they suggest things we don't necessarily agree with, but it's ultimately a good thing for the fate of the game. However, while we end up implementing most suggestions we receive, we don't take orders; any frustration that it cause is rooted in irrational entitlement, which we hope is accidental. We are nice to the community, read everything, reply to most things, even complaints, and what you took as insults was actually a show of niceness. Ultimately, we have the same goal, and we as devs do more efforts than the playerbase for it (obviously), so in return, we'd like to be cut some slack and be also told what's we've done good, receive good ratings, and encouragements. :Kappa:
 
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