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

[Negro Tercermundista]

Hi, new to the site, I just want to put this suggestion out there... if I remember correctly there was another patch before beside the loli patch that was about kemono/monster girls(never played it though cause it wasn't compatible with the loli expansion), so I thought, would not be a great addition if the 3 were merged into one, like making kemono/monster girls a pretty rare/lucky thing to come across in auctions or the fogs? like finding an exotic animal and thus them being of higher value? not only that could add more variation to the game (and the mod it's already there, would need some little changes in the code to make it compatible with the other patchs tho) but I think it could have great singergy with current features that I think they need more purpose, like giving an enhanced purpose to the pet training and farms, a cowgirl or harpy for instance wouldn't need to have a surgery for them to give milk or eggs, and certain characters could ask for monster girl slaves for higher difficulty quests.
Also, I tried hardcore mode with the lowest set of point distribution and money possible several times, and I think it is impossible (of course it should be hard but at least it should be possible somehow) and I believe it's due to the main character losing physical condition very quickly, if you start in the slums with no faction you're doomed to stay weak and die from illness in the short run before you can earn a faction's approval and then you could move from there.
And I want to cheer you guys, I feel like you did a great job balancing the game, there are still some small issues about balance that already have been voiced about rewards being more worthy than punishments, but I really believe that it's a great improvement from the previous versions, like it's getting closer to perfection.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Hi, new to the site, I just want to put this suggestion out there... if I remember correctly there was another patch before beside the loli patch that was about kemono/monster girls(never played it though cause it wasn't compatible with the loli expansion), so I thought, would not be a great addition if the 3 were merged into one, like making kemono/monster girls a pretty rare/lucky thing to come across in auctions or the fogs? like finding an exotic animal and thus them being of higher value? not only that could add more variation to the game (and the mod it's already there, would need some little changes in the code to make it compatible with the other patchs tho) but I think it could have great singergy with current features that I think they need more purpose, like giving an enhanced purpose to the pet training and farms, a cowgirl or harpy for instance wouldn't need to have a surgery for them to give milk or eggs, and certain characters could ask for monster girl slaves for higher difficulty quests.

I've never seen or heard of such a patch.

Also, I tried hardcore mode with the lowest set of point distribution and money possible several times, and I think it is impossible (of course it should be hard but at least it should be possible somehow) and I believe it's due to the main character losing physical condition very quickly, if you start in the slums with no faction you're doomed to stay weak and die from illness in the short run before you can earn a faction's approval and then you could move from there.
And I want to cheer you guys, I feel like you did a great job balancing the game, there are still some small issues about balance that already have been voiced about rewards being more worthy than punishments, but I really believe that it's a great improvement from the previous versions, like it's getting closer to perfection.

It's quite possible. I've done it several times. You need to be careful with your energy when your strength is low, but there are several ways to build up strength even when living in the Slums.

Feel free to share your thoughts on balance. Specific examples would be helpful.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

First I gotta say I like the changes in 2.2! You guys are doing a great job with this game.

I'm not sure with messing with the game economy is the answer or introducing penalties for lateness. If someone is having a too easy time training the slaves, that's not going to make it more challenging for those players. It will only punish the players that are already struggling. My problem is it's too easy to train the slaves with the same cookie-cutter strategy that ignores so many of the game mechanics. Given its hardcore mode, it feels like this should be a bit harder to do.

Fair enough.

It seems like the whole 'stick' aspect of the game is a bit neglected. I'm generally using 1 or 2 punishments max in total. Compare that to 1-2 rewards every day from day 2 onwards. I also don't bother with the rules until fear decreases to 0. They tank mood. For clothes, I just equip a sundress and slippers the whole time. I'm too lazy to micromanage outfits and mood is so important it doesn't make that much of a difference. I just spam the 2-5$ classes, auto-cast the rewards amplification spell, and get a 5* reward every day. Your slave automatically will become obedient and eventually devoted if you do this.

You want the slave to feel guilty more often, so you have more reasons to "legitimately" punish?

Guilt comes from disobedience (refusals) or low-quality performance of assigned tasks. Which of these do you want to see more of?

We tried making slaves get spoiled more easily. The feedback was that it didn't feel realistic.

It seems to me that your strategy of casting the rewards amplification spell every day is making it easy for you to stack up positive moodlets and this is contributing to your feeling of not being challenged. We could try to compensate for this by giving slaves more reasons to feel bad, or by making slaves who are feeling good more likely to become spoiled ... or we could make the rewards amplification spell less accessible either by limiting its availability or by introducing a trade-off for using it (for example, draining a slave's intellect).

Some personal suggestions to make the game harder/more interactive:

Perhaps raise spoiling if your non-devoted disobedient slave is given comfy clothes right of the bat?

Sure.

Make the optimal balance between punishment and rewards better somehow. My slaves are having such a cushy ride, and given the game's thematics, it doesn't seem right. "Carrot and stick" right? ATM punishing your slave really has only downsides, after you have raised a bit of fear in the first day or 2. Pride is easier to reduce later with other means. Maybe in hardcore mode, have spoiling raise every turn your non-devoted and disobedient slave has not been pushed outside of her comfort zone and has required to have been punished? There are lots of ways you could play around with the game mechanics to make punishment a more important part of the game.

Not sure about the idea of penalizing players for not continually escalating sexual training, which is what "outside of her comfort zone" implies.

I think it was better when you had to implement rules, regardless of fear. At least in hardcore mode.

There was some debate about this earlier. It was felt that a slave who is constantly afraid and is being given orders throughout the day is not going to become spoiled due to a lack of rules.

IMO make mood less important for your slave's working results. It's a bit silly for me that even a completely disobedient slave with 9 red buds will still perform well in class as long as she is 'pleased', and earn a big reward. Meanwhile, if you put the fear of god into her with horrendous tortures, she will still perform relatively badly if she is not 'pleased'. If it is was necessary to implement rules, punishments, and BDSM clothing for your slave, it would be much harder for your slave to remain 'pleased' at all times. Having a very low mood has other drawbacks anyway, such as raising despair, so you would still be incentivised to keep mood above depressed, even if the mood had a lower impact on performance, relative to fear/obedience, etc. It doesn't seem right that it's optimal for my slave to be permanently 'pleased' from the very beginning! This is Rome!

Can you give some specific examples (situations where the performance seems better or worse than it should, considering her mood, aura, etc.)? We attempted to balance it so that fear can motivate good performance in lessons when mood is poor.

Habitat/taming/awareness. A lot of effort has been made to make these interesting game mechanics, but currently, they can be ignored as they just rise themselves with no interaction. Within about 10 days I have 3-4 of each just by sending my slave to class and using rewards. Maybe make the specific clothes/rules/punishments that raise these more important, relative to whatever is making them raise automatically.

Aside from exceptional circumstances, these stats only rise over time. We could look at adding more ways for them to drop.

 

[Negro Tercermundista]

I've never seen or heard of such a patch.

Now I'm not sure if I'm trippin, it was long ago but I clearly remember 3 links somewhere, one for the main version, another for the loli version and there was a third one about monster girls I think, I'm not sure but I remeber Holo from spicy&wolf in the preview of said mod/patch but because it was incompatible with the loli version I never downloaded it... uh I'll try to find it

It's quite possible. I've done it several times. You need to be careful with your energy when your strength is low, but there are several ways to build up strength even when living in the Slums.

I tried the coliseum and the brothel but still died from exhaustion, I believe that the lack of good bed and food overwhelms the attempt of body building, but it only happens when I play in hardcore so I think that it has more negative impact in the code cause I could make it out of the slums in normal mode before.

Feel free to share your thoughts on balance. Specific examples would be helpful.

Pretty much everything has been discussed already, my main issues are that the hot springs reward feels too overpowered compared to the higher tier rewards, specially in the slums where you don't have bathroom, it almost feels like it is not worth enough to use the tier 4 and 5 rewards if you can give a mood buff with the tier 3 spending even less energy, maybe the real problem lies not in the hot springs but in the other 2 rewards not being valuable enough, then the sundress-soft slippers-ornamented collar strat has become a must in practice which takes away protagonism from the other accessories (spiked collar, leather shackles, etc), and the fiend milking and cow training process could be more clear, it took me less time and money to train an S tier slave than a cow, in fact I could never sell the cow to the public animal farm and got mad and butchered her for pennies in the end
And that's pretty much it, I have no complains about the rest of the game and I really like most of the new mechanics and fixes from the previous version, the weight control and charm window were great additions.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I tried the coliseum and the brothel but still died from exhaustion, I believe that the lack of good bed and food overwhelms the attempt of body building, but it only happens when I play in hardcore so I think that it has more negative impact in the code cause I could make it out of the slums in normal mode before.

Keep in mind that travel without the bull ring consumes energy. Spending energy when you have red stars weakens you. So, don't do that.

Be careful with drugs too. Faerie pollen has long term effects.

Pretty much everything has been discussed already, my main issues are that the hot springs reward feels too overpowered compared to the higher tier rewards, specially in the slums where you don't have bathroom, it almost feels like it is not worth enough to use the tier 4 and 5 rewards if you can give a mood buff with the tier 3 spending even less energy, maybe the real problem lies not in the hot springs but in the other 2 rewards not being valuable enough, then the sundress-soft slippers-ornamented collar strat has become a must in practice which takes away protagonism from the other accessories (spiked collar, leather shackles, etc), and the fiend milking and cow training process could be more clear, it took me less time and money to train an S tier slave than a cow, in fact I could never sell the cow to the public animal farm and got mad and butchered her for pennies in the end
And that's pretty much it, I have no complains about the rest of the game and I really like most of the new mechanics and fixes from the previous version, the weight control and charm window were great additions.

So:

1) Make hot springs give less of a mood bonus
2) Balance comfy clothes relative to other clothes
3) Fiend milking more clear = ?
4) Cow training more clear = ?

 

[qwertyu12359]

Now I'm not sure if I'm trippin, it was long ago but I clearly remember 3 links somewhere, one for the main version, another for the loli version and there was a third one about monster girls I think, I'm not sure but I remeber Holo from spicy&wolf in the preview of said mod/patch but because it was incompatible with the loli version I never downloaded it... uh I'll try to find it

I don't think that's it. Because there was no loli-patch before mid-2019. And I've been the OP of this thread since before that, yet I have no memory of ever putting something like that in the thread.

Aren't you mixing up Jack-o-nine and Brothel King?

Edit: or are you talking about the slave "Julia"? And the "sister mod" from the user called i100770? Because this has been implemented in the game a year and a half ago

 

[Negro Tercermundista]

So:

1) Make hot springs give less of a mood bonus
2) Balance comfy clothes relative to other clothes
3) Fiend milking more clear = ?
4) Cow training more clear = ?

1) I don't know if nerfing is the answer but I'm ok with increasing the energy needed to give that reward, at the end the mood bonus makes sense within the rules of the game and it also makes sense that the slave's attributes improves after having free time in the hot springs as a reward, maybe boosting the golden cage and the garden could balance that
2) Yep... or the other way around
3) & 4) I feel like there should be a more clear explanation in game of what requirements are needed for a cow instead of "if the cow is ready the trait of cow girl will appear by itself" it leaves you guessing on what to do once you get the cow training skill at B, maybe that was the intention but it's kinda different from the usual format of "you need x and y skills/traits at B for this specialization" with the fiend milking, I spammed "milk the fiend" with Isabella and never got a drip of fiend semen, don't know if she needs to have gladiatrix maxed out or something else but there should be a little warning as "if your slave is weak she may fail at milking the fiend"

I don't think that's it. Because there was no loli-patch before mid-2019. And I've been the OP of this thread since before that, yet I have no memory of ever putting something like that in the thread.

Aren't you mixing up Jack-o-nine and Brothel King?

Edit: or are you talking about the slave "Julia"? And the "sister mod" from the user called i100770? Because this has been implemented in the game a year and a half ago

I dunno man, I must be trippin cause I can't find it, I swear a year ago I saw a mod like that cause there was this pic of Holo naked as a slave, but it probably was just my assumption...

 

[tcallas]

Fair enough.

You want the slave to feel guilty more often, so you have more reasons to "legitimately" punish?

Guilt comes from disobedience (refusals) or low-quality performance of assigned tasks. Which of these do you want to see more of?

I don't think that's my issue. My problem is there are no gameplay incentives to use punishments past turn 1/2. While I really like the changes you guys have made to guilt/merit, It feels like the player should be rewarded for appropriately building guilt, just like merit, and that it should be a necessary part of the game to use appropriate punishments to build your slave's obedience. Perhaps a similar system to merit, in that 1/2 per turn would help training along, while any more will raise dispair. I would also give more importance to the slavers punishment specific skills, which are kinda useless ATM.

We tried making slaves get spoiled more easily. The feedback was that it didn't feel realistic.

Fair enough. I dont think spoiling needs to be changed. Just some sort of incentive given to use negative behaviour reinforcement.

It seems to me that your strategy of casting the rewards amplification spell every day is making it easy for you to stack up positive moodlets and this is contributing to your feeling of not being challenged.

I would say it is contributing, but the overall strategy and end result would remain the same without the spell, just delayed a bit. Perhaps if both Merit and Guilt had to be raised it would be more balanced and would offer more choice to the player as to how best to use the spell.

We could try to compensate for this by giving slaves more reasons to feel bad,

The mechanics that raise guilt seem to be well balanced now IMO. My issue is that raising guilt is usually the result of a misplay by the player, and is in general a bad thing to do.

or by making slaves who are feeling good more likely to become spoiled ...

I think if players were forced/incentivised to use a mix of Punishments, BDSM clothes, Rules, Sleeping on the floor, etc, to create obedience then, the constantly high mood slave would perhaps not be an issue.

by introducing a trade-off for using it (for example, draining a slave's intellect).

Seems good to me.

There was some debate about this earlier. It was felt that a slave who is constantly afraid and is being given orders throughout the day is not going to become spoiled due to a lack of rules.

Fair enough, but I believe using rules should be incentivised more in some way.

Can you give some specific examples (situations where the performance seems better or worse than it should, considering her mood, aura, etc.)?

I don't think over-performing is the problem anyway. It's more than it's too easy to start the Merit-Reward-Positive mood train.

We attempted to balance it so that fear can motivate good performance in lessons when mood is poor.

I don't believe my issue is with the balance in this regard, but rather that there is very little reason to implement the things which may reduce mood in the first place.

Aside from exceptional circumstances, these stats only rise over time. We could look at adding more ways for them to drop.

I don't think they need to drop, just raise less quickly without the player actively using negative behavior reinforcements, of which currently I really don't use any, yet they are all at 3/4 by day 10. If it was required for the player to use some mix of Punishments, BDSM clothes, Rules, Sleeping conditions, etc, to raise these stats, along with the positive reinforcement, the game would be a lot more interesting for me. There are lots of interesting ways in which the player might have to choose which would be best, depending on slave personality, slaver specific skills etc.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

I don't think that's my issue. My problem is there are no gameplay incentives to use punishments past turn 1/2. While I really like the changes you guys have made to guilt/merit, It feels like the player should be rewarded for appropriately building guilt, just like merit, and that it should be a necessary part of the game to use appropriate punishments to build your slave's obedience. Perhaps a similar system to merit, in that 1/2 per turn would help training along, while any more will raise dispair. I would also give more importance to the slavers punishment specific skills, which are kinda useless ATM.

Guilt represents the slave's belief that they did something that will lead to punishment. Guilt already does build in the sense that a slave won't immediately feel high levels of guilt. In 2.2 we introduced a ramp-up of guilt to represent the slave, over time, coming to expect harsher punishments.

The mechanics that raise guilt seem to be well balanced now IMO. My issue is that raising guilt is usually the result of a misplay by the player, and is in general a bad thing to do.

By design, punishing without guilt is (mostly) treated as a misplay. So if you want to have more opportunities to punish, then the slave needs to feel guilty more often. A slave feels guilty after a refusal or after performing poorly. A devoted slave experiences amplified guilt and the goalpost for "performing poorly" moves higher (a devoted slave feels guilty where a less devoted slave would feel meritorious). A spoiled slave experiences reduced guilt - they don't think they did something (that) wrong.

Are you suggesting that we should give players some benefits/incentives for punishing without the slave feeling guilt? That would be a departure from the core gameplay idea of matching rewards and punishments to guilt and merit.

If we're sticking to the model of punishing guilt, then you're asking for slaves to feel guilty more often, which means refusals, poor performance, or ... something else (what?).

I think if players were forced/incentivised to use a mix of Punishments, BDSM clothes, Rules, Sleeping on the floor, etc, to create obedience then, the constantly high mood slave would perhaps not be an issue.

Force = make giving only rewards non-viable for raising obedience = cap/limit obedience gains from rewards
Incentive = ?

I don't think over-performing is the problem anyway. It's more than it's too easy to start the Merit-Reward-Positive mood train.

Slaves feel less merit in 2.2 than they did before. How does it feel when you play without the reward amplification spell?

I don't think they need to drop, just raise less quickly without the player actively using negative behavior reinforcements, of which currently I really don't use any, yet they are all at 3/4 by day 10.

Are your slaves typically devoted by day 10? That's something that was basically impossible in 1.2.1, when devotion only increased slowly overnight after a slave reached a certain level of obedience and positive attitude. But, over time modders added devotion boosts to other high-level rewards. As a result, it's now possible to have slaves become devoted very quickly, particularly with reward amplification...

 

[tcallas]

Guilt represents the slave's belief that they did something that will lead to punishment. Guilt already does build in the sense that a slave won't immediately feel high levels of guilt. In 2.2 we introduced a ramp-up of guilt to represent the slave, over time, coming to expect harsher punishments.

By design, punishing without guilt is (mostly) treated as a misplay. So if you want to have more opportunities to punish, then the slave needs to feel guilty more often. A slave feels guilty after a refusal or after performing poorly. A devoted slave experiences amplified guilt and the goalpost for "performing poorly" moves higher (a devoted slave feels guilty where a less devoted slave would feel meritorious). A spoiled slave experiences reduced guilt - they don't think they did something (that) wrong.

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not complaining about the guilt/merit mechanics, which I feel you guys have done a fantastic job of rebalancing in 2.2. I'm arguing that raising guilt itself is generally a bad play, outside day 1/2 to raise fear. When I raise guilt it is normally a mistake I made because I made the slave do something she was not obedient enough to do. The problem is raising guilt beyond the initial day or two to raise fear, and using punishments, is just not incentivised in the current gameplay.

Slaves feel less merit in 2.2 than they did before. How does it feel when you play without the reward amplification spell?

Are your slaves typically devoted by day 10? That's something that was basically impossible in 1.2.1, when devotion only increased slowly overnight after a slave reached a certain level of obedience and positive attitude. But, over time modders added devotion boosts to other high-level rewards. As a result, it's now possible to have slaves become devoted very quickly, particularly with reward amplification...

Ok I just tried it twice without the rewards spell. Slave was Reactive, Dimwitted, Independent, Arrogant. So overall a pretty disobedient slave. First time I raised fear to three. Using two-tier 1 punishments to get 1 fear then using Threaten and the fear spell to get to 3. After that, I just sent her to classes and gave appropriate rewards. When she got more obedient I sent her to pet/pony/cow class as that built more merit. I then tried to get her to do sex training but she performed badly and got guilt. I'm guessing this is due to her Arrogant pride? Anyway, after 10 days she had 3 in each Habit, Taming, Awareness. No devotion. Only 3 green obedience. She had learned a huge amount of common skills though since I had been spamming them constantly.

I thought I would try it again this time making fear to 5, which I felt may work better due to the slaves disobedient personality. I did the same way as previously, but I used Threaten and Fear spell more. This raised despair to 2 temporarily but it reduced quickly. This time slave performed worse initially as the mood was lower. However, once despair reduced obedience was much higher and I could train sex skills, giving 3-5 merit each time. This let me spam more high-level rewards. At the end of the process, on day 10 the slave had 3 in each Habit, Taming, Awareness, plus 1 in devotion, which meant she was very obedient.

So from this, I can definitely say the reward spell is OP, as I would have had one devotion from reward spam in the first example if I had used the spell.

In both games I only used 2 tier 1 punishment, no rules, sleep in the bedroll. Clothes were sundress, ornamented collar, slippers. I switched these out for boots, leather corsets to train sex skills. Both times I forgot to use Put in Place past day 1, which might have helped some.

I think one issue here maybe is that raising fear to 5 was too easy. In fact, it is easier to raise fear using Threaten than it is using high tier punishment, which doesn't seem right TBH. My slaver was high rank, but I find slaver gets high rank very fast anyway, and if not you can go get a haircut and wear clothes. The mood was easy to keep at max because I didn't use anything that would have given a negative debuff.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

The problem is raising guilt beyond the initial day or two to raise fear, and using punishments, is just not incentivised in the current gameplay.

If there's no guilt, there's no punishments, right? So... you want more guilt, right? What am I missing? You want to be "meta-rewarded" for asking a slave to do things they feel guilty about, in other words you want the player to have incentives to act in ways that causes a slave to feel guilty more often?

Ok I just tried it twice without the rewards spell. Slave was Reactive, Dimwitted, Independent, Arrogant. So overall a pretty disobedient slave. First time I raised fear to three. Using two-tier 1 punishments to get 1 fear then using Threaten and the fear spell to get to 3. After that, I just sent her to classes and gave appropriate rewards. When she got more obedient I sent her to pet/pony/cow class as that built more merit. I then tried to get her to do sex training but she performed badly and got guilt. I'm guessing this is due to her Arrogant pride? Anyway, after 10 days she had 3 in each Habit, Taming, Awareness. No devotion. Only 3 green obedience. She had learned a huge amount of common skills though since I had been spamming them constantly.

Pride is mostly opposed to sex. B+ and C- for other personality attributes is overall below average in terms of obedience difficulty.

Threaten is a "high-level perk" ability ... very effective with high slaver stats. We could weaken it in general or reduce its maximum effect to make punishments more competitive/necessary for raising fear.

The fear spell is available from B+ mage skill and is a guaranteed level-up of fear in exchange for despair. One spell vs. many punishments tilts the balance in favor of the one spell. We could raise the required mage level to access the spell or reduce its effect to make punishments more competitive.

 

[tcallas]

If there's no guilt, there's no punishments, right? So... you want more guilt, right? What am I missing? You want to be "meta-rewarded" for asking a slave to do things they feel guilty about, in other words you want the player to have incentives to act in ways that causes a slave to feel guilty more often?

Yes, I think it would be an interesting gameplay mechanic. Currently, it's all reward, reward, reward. Since the mechanics were reworked, it's actually interesting gameplay to try to cause guilt now. As I said, I love the changes you have made here. If punishments were buffed - so that the player had to balance choosing activities that would raise both guilt and merit - it would be more interesting for me. Currently, punishments are only useful in raising fear. They have huge downsides, especially the high-tier ones. Now it's hard to raise Guilt, player should be rewarded for building it IMO, not punished. My suggestion was to make punishments more important in raising Taming, Habit, Awareness, and Fear over time - currently, bar fear, they all rise by themselves seemingly - and possibly cap over punishment via despair the same way rewards are via spoiling.

Pride is mostly opposed to sex. B+ and C- for other personality attributes is overall below average in terms of obedience difficulty.

I didn't try to pick a particularly disobedient slave. I guess I was just too used to reward amplification spell spam I guess I forgot that raising fear above 3 was ever necessary.

Threaten is a "high-level perk" ability ... very effective with high slaver stats. We could weaken it in general or reduce its maximum effect to make punishments more competitive/necessary for raising fear.

Currently, it seems OP IMO. Slaver becomes high level very quickly, and at the start, I don't take disobedient slaves anyway.

The fear spell is available from B+ mage skill and is a guaranteed level-up of fear in exchange for despair. One spell vs. many punishments tilts the balance in favor of the one spell. We could raise the required mage level to access the spell or reduce its effect to make punishments more competitive.

It's in the same boat as Threaten. Being able to have 5 fear at turn 2 consistently is a bit of a problem.

Perhaps if Fear were much harder to raise through other means, my issues with punishments being useless would disappear, IDK.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Perhaps if Fear were much harder to raise through other means, my issues with punishments being useless would disappear, IDK.

Try another run with that slave without using Threaten, sententia veritas or tremendio and see how it feels?

 

[tcallas]

Try another run with that slave without using Threaten, sententia veritas or tremendio and see how it feels?

OK, I tried it. It was much, harder to raise the fear, unsurprisingly. It took four days straight of spamming punishments to reach 4 fear. 6 days to reach 5. From there on the gameplay is the same, bar the bruises and hits to health. Positive is lower pride. Strangely, my slave had 0 despair despite being horrendously tortured for 6 days straight.

Overall, It's better, but still think the same problem exists. Perhaps if punishing more than 2 per day were to raise despair it would nerf this strategy and force a more balanced training regimen.

Also, not sure what use the high-tier public options are now. I tried it once and it raised 3 despair and didn't even raise one fear, ouch. It nuked pride but I'm pretty sure that's not worth it.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

OK, I tried it. It was much, harder to raise the fear, unsurprisingly. It took four days straight of spamming punishments to reach 4 fear. 6 days to reach 5. From there on the gameplay is the same, bar the bruises and hits to health. Positive is lower pride. Strangely, my slave had 0 despair despite being horrendously tortured for 6 days straight.

Overall, It's better, but still think the same problem exists. Perhaps if punishing more than 2 per day were to raise despair it would nerf this strategy and force a more balanced training regimen.

Also, not sure what use the high-tier public options are now. I tried it once and it raised 3 despair and didn't even raise one fear, ouch. It nuked pride but I'm pretty sure that's not worth it.

I've updated the master-ia and master-ia-patch branches with some experimental balance tweaks. Aura stats won't rise as quickly, and OP abilities are less OP.

High-tier public punishments raise awareness quickly, but only if matched to guilt. (Keep in mind they are also rape, so the effects are magnified on a virgin.)

Edit: I've updated the branches again, adding despair if you punish too many times per day, mirroring the spoiling for excessive rewards. Also tied into the difficulty settings, so easy difficulty ignores it and normal difficulty gets an extra daily punishment before penalties kick in.

 

[Arrkhon]

Since you guys are talking of difficulty and features regarding it you could keep in mind staggering features by difficulty like this

	Easy	Normal	Hard
Slaves running away	X	X	X
Mandatory guild contracts		X	X
Quality bonus to market slaves	X
Occasional forced fight while in slums			X
Low temperance slaves randomly skip actions due to constant crying			X
Slaves can fall in love at first sight if rescued from the mist	X	X
Slaves can be found without fight when exploring mists	X

Stuff like this

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Since you guys are talking of difficulty and features regarding it you could keep in mind staggering features by difficulty like this

	Easy	Normal	Hard
Slaves running away	X	X	X
Mandatory guild contracts		X	X
Quality bonus to market slaves	X
Occasional forced fight while in slums			X
Low temperance slaves randomly skip actions due to constant crying			X
Slaves can fall in love at first sight if rescued from the mist	X	X
Slaves can be found without fight when exploring mists	X

Stuff like this

In general the goal is to limit differences between the difficulty levels. We particularly do not want exclusive content at lower difficulty levels. Finding slaves without a fight for example, if we added it (not a fan of the idea), would be made possible on all difficulties. Market slaves are already quite variable, making them consistently generate with higher stats would make cheap slaves rarer, which could be viewed as a difficulty increase. Randomly skipping actions due to crying would just lead players to save/reload. We instead model reduced performance in tasks when slaves are unhappy. Slaves falling in love at first sight could be added as a rare trait, but again would not be gated away from hard difficulty in that case. Forced fights in the Slums is an idea we've been considering along with other ways to make living in the Slums more dangerous. Mandatory guild contracts could be a candidate for an easy difficulty waiver, but only if you are forced to take contracts. If it's voluntary to sign up for it, then no need for a waiver.

 

[Isilindil]

Nitpicking here a little, but this text probably needs one change. No rewards for guessing what I mean. Also, we could use Discord or something instead of texting here every single little thing people find, unless there is one already/we have thread for stuff like that outside of this one and I am not aware of it.

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[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

Nitpicking here a little, but this text probably needs one change. No rewards for guessing what I mean. Also, we could use Discord or something instead of texting here every single little thing people find, unless there is one already/we have thread for stuff like that outside of this one and I am not aware of it.

You can use PMs if you don't want to post in the thread. I'll adjust the text to match the hair color, thanks.

 

[tcallas]

I've updated the master-ia and master-ia-patch branches with some experimental balance tweaks. Aura stats won't rise as quickly, and OP abilities are less OP.


Edit: I've updated the branches again, adding despair if you punish too many times per day, mirroring the spoiling for excessive rewards. Also tied into the difficulty settings, so easy difficulty ignores it and normal difficulty gets an extra daily punishment before penalties kick in.

I tried it briefly so far and I really liked the changes. I had to use a balance of punishment and rewards. Using 'encourage' well was important, as I had to alternate between using punishments and BDSM gear to build fear and obedience, then improving mood and trying to raise merit to avoid a depression and despair spiral. I even got some more use out of the Rules, as the aura stats were so much slower to build. Threaten seems well balanced now, but the Fear spell still raising 1 despair a cast makes it pretty unusable.

Overall it's far more challenging on hardcore, and a new crappy slaver is going to have to pick very carefully what slaves he attempts to train.

High-tier public punishments raise awareness quickly, but only if matched to guilt. (Keep in mind they are also rape, so the effects are magnified on a virgin.)

Is the 3 despair on non-virgins working as intended? If so, it seems pretty disproportionate. Iron Maiden and Infected Pit are fine, but Public Toilet is 3 despair, even if the slave feels like it's deserved? I had to avoid using them on my Arrogant Pride slave playthrough, which kinda sucked. Three despair is gonna cripple your slave from doing anything useful for so many days.