ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,213
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I would prefer it if instead of the food directly increasing/decreasing the stats it worked indirectly by it more difficult to raise some of the slaver's stats and making them decrease easier. This could also be extended to the slaves as well, forcing the player need to choose whether to value quick stat growth at the cost of the slave feeling entitled or slow stat growth while focusing on obedience. I feel this indirect approach would give food quality meaning while not making it overly tedious for the player.
Please elaborate your proposal. Under what circumstances would you see the master's stats lowering? They mostly only go up. I'd also note that if you eat well (which is easy enough anywhere except the slums), food at A+ or S+ level will passively raise your health rather than draining it, and B+ food is neutral. So this is mostly making the slums harder.
 

Crell

Member
Aug 6, 2017
482
1,861
Have you played through the tutorial?
I even tried a step by step guide, using slave collars, setting rules, spamming slave interactions, casting obedience spells and everything. She still won't even do gymnastics.

Even going the extreme route with physical punishment and abuse she'd rather be beaten to death than do a single workout set.
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,213
862
What are her stats, and her aura? High nature/temperament/pride and a lot of despair?

Easiest is to just alt+print screen (copy window screenshot to clipboard) and paste into the forum...
 
Last edited:

coledrmd

Newbie
Nov 15, 2018
21
30
"In 2.2, eating F- quality food (which is what you have in the slums without a kitchen) is unhealthy and will lower the slaver's health to D- over time if he doesn't compensate for it with sufficient exercise. "

I mistakenly used the word stats there to refer to the slavers health, in reference to your earlier comment. It should instead read:
I would prefer it if instead of the food directly increasing/decreasing your health, it worked indirectly by it more difficult to raise some of the slaver's stats (and health) and making them decrease easier. This could also be extended to the slaves as well, forcing the player need to choose whether to value quick stat growth at the cost of the slave feeling entitled or slow stat growth while focusing on obedience. I feel this indirect approach would give food quality meaning while not making it overly tedious for the player.

I should also note that I've yet to play 2.2 and never play the slums. I was just thowing out an idea that came to mind while reading the discussion.
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,213
862
Health is a stat, too. And the current mechanism does make the stats more difficult to raise... by draining them. You can still raise them, you just have to swim up-stream a bit... and not stop swimming for too long, once you get where you want to go.
 

Crell

Member
Aug 6, 2017
482
1,861
What are her stats, and her aura? High nature/temperament/pride and a lot of despair?

Easiest is to just alt+print screen (copy window screenshot to clipboard) and paste into the forum...
Slave.png
Nothing I do affects those values at all. All my possible non-violent interactions are at the "You did this too often" level. Every day I lower her depression level to Calm only for her to be depressed again the next day.

This game is frustrating as fuck.
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,213
862
From those stats and obedience level I can see that you're on normal obedience difficulty. She has 2 spoil, which makes her more resistant, and she is depressed, which means she will have very low motivation to do anything even if she doesn't refuse outright. She has high temperament (Lively), so she hates you, which also makes her more resistant.

You can either raise her fear with more punishments at the appropriate tier (matching her guilt) until she becomes obedient (if you raised her fear to 5 without changing anything else, she would have two thorns in her aura, but you'll get some awareness at least along the way and her spoil level will drop faster as fear increases, and with the spoil is cleared and 5 fear she'd have positive obedience with the other stats as they are)

... or you can lay off the stick routine and try carrots; raise her mood, starting by stopping some of the things that are upsetting her. Disable the rules she hates, which are making her miserable, and set rules she won't refuse right now like just no masturbating and orgasm denial (on normal you only need two rules). Buy her some comfy slippers and a sun dress. If you don't do anything else to make her more spoiled, she'll become less spoiled over time, accelerated by her fear and despair.
 
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qwertyu12359

Jack-o-nine-tails
Game Developer
Aug 1, 2017
1,639
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... I was wrong, although spoil doesn't go up with only 2 rules on normal, it doesn't drop overnight unless you have at least 3 rules or make the slave sleep on the floor.
Change it to two. For normal; it used to be linked.

Unless you want to put it at 4 minimum in hard for making it drop overnight? If not it wouldn't be equivalent between difficulty levels.

Also, the indicator tooltip inside the number of rules activated could hardly hint at two things at once ("you need two rules to keep her from being spoiled, but three if you want spoil to drop overnight").
 

Aklackadaka

Newbie
Feb 9, 2020
49
23
*I'm going to assume you're talking about a normal playthrough and not a no punishment one.

Unless you're talking about purposefully doing a slum only run, you can move into a district after you do a contract for a faction.
Starting in the slum is definitely the hardest, but if you're not hell bent on picking the most difficult slaves, it's not that bad. Even if you do want to do a slum only run it is manageable, but you'll be very dependent on the Salon and bathing as a reward to keep up hygiene. (Also, training witchdoctors and servants are basically School dependent, since you don't have a kitchen or lab.)

On the issue of strength, you simply rest. If you keep yourself in good health and the house tidy without exhausting yourself, your strength improves by itself, no need forcing it in the arena. If you're not overexerting yourself it basically takes 3 days for your strength to become C.

You give gifts according to merit, and if for some reason her spoiling rises, you put her in place, don't reward her when she deserves it or make her sleep on the floor. You don't have to keep her always happy, you just have to avoid her going into a depression spiral.

Finally, rules. You already have 2 rules which she can't even break at the beggining. No masturbation and deny orgasm. You just have to get a 3rd that she obeys and you're basically done. (You don't even need a 3rd if you're playing on Normal.) You can also just force rules if you buy the items for it. Force rules also counts as a rule.
Strength recovery seems to have been changed at some point. I can't gain strength just by passing time, even if I go to the Virgin's Hip to eat. I loaded up Hongfire version 1.7.5 and tried, and you do gain strength with the same method (even without eating). I'm also having a slave with low empathy, pride, and nature refusing to follow no masturbation, deny orgasm, and maid (even when the house is immaculate). The current rules menu is heavily implying that force rules doesn't count as its own rule.
 

Aklackadaka

Newbie
Feb 9, 2020
49
23
Okay didn't notice the 5 pages of new posts. The rules thing is still on my mind, though. Why can't I get such an easy slave to follow rules that basically require no change in behavior?
 

qwertyu12359

Jack-o-nine-tails
Game Developer
Aug 1, 2017
1,639
1,824
I'm also having a slave with low empathy, pride, and nature refusing to follow no masturbation, deny orgasm, and maid (even when the house is immaculate). The current rules menu is heavily implying that force rules doesn't count as its own rule.
She's probably just refusing to be a maid. You can click on "refuse rules" to see exactly which one she refuses.

Check if she agrees to follow housekeeping lessons, if she doesn't, then she probably won't want to be ordered to clean the house.

There used to be no obedience check on the rules, but you're literally ordering her something. Your slave might think she's worth better than that (high intellect) and therefore she needs more obedience to do that, or she feels that she's too weak for that and she'd rather sit her ass on a stool and learn how to paint... (y)
 

Aklackadaka

Newbie
Feb 9, 2020
49
23
She's probably just refusing to be a maid. You can click on "refuse rules" to see exactly which one she refuses.

Check if she agrees to follow housekeeping lessons, if she doesn't, then she probably won't want to be ordered to clean the house.

There used to be no obedience check on the rules, but you're literally ordering her something. Your slave might think she's worth better than that (high intellect) and therefore she needs more obedience to do that, or she feels that she's too weak for that and she'd rather sit her ass on a stool and learn how to paint... (y)
I thought that by making her the maid and then cleaning the house for her, it would prevent her from refusing it. Does that not work anymore, or has it only ever worked for cooking?
 

Crell

Member
Aug 6, 2017
482
1,861
Okay, I tried again. It is literally impossible to train slaves. No matter what the fuck I do, they are either depressed all the time, become spoiled or so rebellious they'd rather endure torture than cook a fucking meal. My current slave managed to get all of those things together.k How does one become spoiled by being tortured and sleeping on the goddamn ground?

And yes, I read the tutorials and other guides. I tried every approach possible. It just doesn't work.

Not even once have I seen "taming" and "devotion" go up. Fear goes down almost instantly after a punishment, while rebelliousness skyrockets no matter what I do. I even picked the easiest start this time. That Johnny Depp dude.

Is this game supposed to be impossible or something?
 

ImperatorAugustusTertius

Engaged Member
Sep 12, 2020
2,213
862
It's supposed to be challenging, not impossible. Spoiling that you didn't intentionally accept as a trade-off for some short-term benefit means you're doing something the game considers incorrect. Spoil goes up from insufficient overnight rules (minimum 2 on normal difficulty), punishing her with punishments that are ranked below her level of guilt (if you hover the little tooltip arrow on the punishment icon, it shows the punishment level for example =3), or rewarding her above her level of merit (likewise, tooltips show the levels), among other things. Do any of those apply here?
 
Jan 13, 2018
59
250
Okay, I tried again. It is literally impossible to train slaves. No matter what the fuck I do, they are either depressed all the time, become spoiled or so rebellious they'd rather endure torture than cook a fucking meal. My current slave managed to get all of those things together.k How does one become spoiled by being tortured and sleeping on the goddamn ground?

And yes, I read the tutorials and other guides. I tried every approach possible. It just doesn't work.

Not even once have I seen "taming" and "devotion" go up. Fear goes down almost instantly after a punishment, while rebelliousness skyrockets no matter what I do. I even picked the easiest start this time. That Johnny Depp dude.

Is this game supposed to be impossible or something?
Looking at your slave's stats she doesn't have high temperament and pride, the two stats that make slaves very disobedient. All I can really think of is she might have come with at least 1 level of spoiling that you didn't immediately quash with Put in Place, and then it may have escalated with ineffective punishments. The only other factor I can think of is her mood, slaves with negative mood will almost never obey even the most basic tasks. Use the encourage command to try to put her mood to at least neutral and let her get a massage at the spa to raise her energy and mood. She should do the basic tasks (exercise, maid, cooking) as long as her mood is in the green.

Aside from bedding fresh food is another way to spoil your slave early on. Start by either giving her canned food or no food, no food can raise obedience quickly at the cost of despair but after 1 or 2 days without food I start feeding my slave once more. I'd recommend save scumming to get a slave with similar stats (low pride and low temperament) and trying once more. Check her aura for spoiling and use Put in Place as necessary. Try the basic training tips once more, ensuring her mood is at least neutral before you attempt any training.

And like others have said before, the game's definitely not impossible but it does have a steep learning curve. If you find the game too tedious and difficult then it's ok to stop playing, it's not a game for everyone.
 
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