QSP Jack-o-Nine-Tails [v2.3] [ImperatorAugustusTertius / qwertyu12359]

[drebin]

I'm not saying you can't do it, arena was always enough to live off, but it artificially lengthens doing your first slaves, which already took a lot longer with no skills, making it a huge grind.
I think the change is too restricting without adding the option of obtaining/buying food in the slums.

Also a slum run is pretty much just punishing yourself right now. Even before you wanted to get out, since you didn't have access to a lot of things, you had to use classes and other options for bathing and such, which basically made up the extra cost you saved from living in the slums. Right now it's just actively punishing you for starting there.
It basically makes you not want to start there on custom, because of the tedium.

 

[qwertyu12359]

Right now it's just actively punishing you for starting there.

Why? Just because of the food change?

I mean, what would be your immediate proposition to make the Slums great again?

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I don’t think a grocer or restaurant in the Slums would fit, but there’s another option. If, as you suggested, we remove the nightly -1 for eating the cans, then it would halve the time needed to reach C- (or higher) health by eating at the Hip. That time saving would compensate for the travel energy if you don’t live in the Serpentine. Once you reach C- health, you don’t have to stop exercising/sparring/eating out either, you can continue raising health. You just have to maintain it.

 

[qwertyu12359]

Then the naming needs to be changed. The average human is unfit, not weak.

Once again, C- =/= average. C- = mediocre, below average.

Average is present virtually between C+ and B-.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Note that currently maintaining can be done by eating out every other day. So once you reach C-, you have an extra energy star and you can keep it by some combination of the methods discussed earlier...

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

In effect, what we have done here is made the cost of living in the slums with good health closer to the cost of living in another district. Whether you measure it in sparks or in energy.

 

[drebin]

Why? Just because of the food change?

I mean, what would be your immediate proposition to make the Slums great again?

Did you ever actually start in the Slums with no points allocated? It already had added costs. Now you either take a decade off from training and only improve your stamina, burning your 200 sparks along with it, or train your slave over a period twice as long or maybe more, since you lose out on stamina with every dinner, and lose out stamina from not having higher strength for longer.

I made like 10 propositions by now to make it less punishing, just scroll back.

Edit: Not to mention that you can't train slave endurance anymore if your strength is not above her endurance, so she can only do gymnastics, which is less effective as far as I know.

[/QUOTE]

Once again, C- =/= average. C- = mediocre, below average.

Average is present virtually between C+ and B-.

Also, I thoought you meant, that D- is supposed to be average.
If C- is below average, than that should be fine with a bad diet. D- is horrible if that's the case. So I disagree with F- food taking you to D- even more.

 

[drebin]

I don’t think a grocer or restaurant in the Slums would fit, but there’s another option. If, as you suggested, we remove the nightly -1 for eating the cans, then it would halve the time needed to reach C- (or higher) health by eating at the Hip. That time saving would compensate for the travel energy if you don’t live in the Serpentine. Once you reach C- health, you don’t have to stop exercising/sparring/eating out either, you can continue raising health. You just have to maintain it.

I think removing the -1 would be a lot better. Even in the world's perspective, you already ate that day. Good food at that. Why do you take out your cans at night and force down some slop you don't even like on top of that virgin meat?

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I think of it as needing more than one meal a day. That would argue for skipping the canned food if you ate out twice that day, which we could do easily enough. On the other hand, if we skip the home meal whenever you eat out, then you would be skipping potentially better quality cooked food at home and missing out on a health bonus if you stopped at the Hip once you are in a position to eat well at home. To me that’s a bit incongruous.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Did you ever actually start in the Slums with no points allocated? It already had added costs. Now you either take a decade off from training and only improve your stamina, burning your 200 sparks along with it, or train your slave over a period twice as long or maybe more, since you lose out on stamina with every dinner, and lose out stamina from not having higher strength for longer.

I made like 10 propositions by now to make it less punishing, just scroll back.

Edit: Not to mention that you can't train slave endurance anymore if your strength is not above her endurance, so she can only do gymnastics, which is less effective as far as I know.

Gymnastics is a +3 to endurance as long as she has at least minimal diligence. She can also spar in the arena for +2 endurance, or entertain you with acrobatics or dance. Fitness lessons are +3 endurance minimum as well but can be better. As an unskilled master, you lack some potential bonuses. Offhand I’m not sure if you can train her better than gymnastics with all F- but you can try it and see...

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Or rather, you can’t, because you can only train F- endurance and they are unconscious...

 

[drebin]

Or rather, you can’t, because you can only train F- endurance and they are unconscious...

Making her do her own lessons can, but you can't.

I think of it as needing more than one meal a day. That would argue for skipping the canned food if you ate out twice that day, which we could do easily enough. On the other hand, if we skip the home meal whenever you eat out, then you would be skipping potentially better quality cooked food at home and missing out on a health bonus if you stopped at the Hip once you are in a position to eat well at home. To me that’s a bit incongruous.

Then let the slaver check a box to take home food or something, or half the end of day penalty since he's only eating it once. it could be done by a variable in the code that's active when you're in the slums and inactive when you're not. (Never coded qsp in my life, but I assume it works somewhat similar.)

On another note, since qwerty said that C- is below average, then the food that would make you D- weak should be rotting meat/fruit and molded products, not canned food.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

We don't want food alone to raise master strength to S+. From that, we decided that S+ food can raise strength to A+, A+ food to B+, and on down from there: B+ is neutral, C- food; D- health. We couldn't go lower since F- health = game over, so any food lower than B+ grade is considered unhealthy.

I hear you that the Slums are punishing but that's sort of the point of them, isn't it? They are meant to be the most challenging living conditions. In fact, the description of the shack mentions that living there is very dangerous. Probably not intending to imply diet but the fact remains, living in the Slums wasn't really a challenge for a skilled player before. Now it is more resource-constrained, and therefore more challenging, but aside from the canned food, all sparks costs are voluntary. So you can stretch your sparks for quite a while, plus you can get more sparks from guild contracts, moneylender and arena battles. We can't ignore those possibilities for balance purposes - we should assume that players will use the options available to them.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I don't mind suspending the canned food penalty if you ate out that day, though. Effectively shortening the time to reach higher endurance, but still requiring some effort.

 

[drebin]

We don't want food alone to raise master strength to S+. From that, we decided that S+ food can raise strength to A+, A+ food to B+, and on down from there: B+ food, C- health; C- food, D- health. We couldn't go lower since F- health = game over, so any food lower than B+ grade is considered unhealthy.

I hear you that the Slums are punishing but that's sort of the point of them, isn't it? They are meant to be the most challenging living conditions. In fact, the description of the shack mentions that living there is very dangerous. Probably not intending to imply diet but the fact remains, living in the Slums wasn't really a challenge for a skilled player before. Now it is more resource-constrained, and therefore more challenging, but aside from the canned food, all sparks costs are voluntary. So you can stretch your sparks for quite a while, plus you can get more sparks from guild contracts, moneylender and arena battles. We can't ignore those possibilities for balance purposes - we should assume that players will use the options available to them.

I'm not arguing that Slums should be easy, I'm saying that there is a point after which it's no longer a fun challenge, but an exercise in frustration and tedium.

Having more tiers of food quality doesn't mean you have to pair a health value to it as well. The limit could easily be C- instead of D-.
E-/Infirm health is basically your deathbed. To be D- from eating unhealthily you would have to eat some extremely vile stuff, but you're not a scavenger to eat everything and anything.

Letting the slaver have C- health in the slums, really that unbalanced?

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Regarding the apparent inconsistency in that slave food seems to be healthier than the master's canned food. Perhaps the slaver is simply too prideful to eat slave food. Or perhaps the nutrient mix is only suitable for females and would not meet the nutritional needs of the male slaver, therefore being no better than eating his canned food, which at least tastes slightly better.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I mean, this is the Eternal Rome. It isn't exactly a welfare state. There's nothing to say that the canned food the slaver can buy for 2 sparks a day is good for him. Of course, there's a bit of an incongruity still with the 1 and 2 spark meals at the Hip being healthier than 2 spark canned food. Probably those meals are underpriced.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Letting the slaver have C- health in the slums, really that unbalanced?

He's not prevented from having C- health in the Slums, he just has to work for it and then maintain it. The nightly health drain only operates when his health is above D-. Once you're at the D-/C- threshold, if you stop raising health, you'll drop to D- and stay right on the border-line, so you can get back to C- by doing anything that raises his health.

 

[drebin]

It's still a game no matter how harsh Eternal Rome is. If we purely went off of the world and its lore, you could be attacked in the allies of the slums and be left for dead, but you're not, because it would add nothing to the game other than frustration.

 

[drebin]

He's not prevented from having C- health in the Slums, he just has to work for it and then maintain it. The nightly health drain only operates when his health is above D-. Once you're at the D-/C- threshold, if you stop raising health, you'll drop to D- and stay right on the border-line, so you can get back to C- by doing anything that raises his health.

I think you know that I didn't mean capped overall, I meant the food cap.