Again, playing M'Lord. Good skills, good attributes, so I would expect punishment to have the desired effect: a more obedient slave. My experience however was that it would give me a more depressed and less diligent slave. Her obedience might also increase in the background, but in terms of performance that would be far outweighed by the other negatives, so I would not get the outcome I want. What good is an obedient slave that's unable to increase her stats (and thus sales value) because of mood problems. And so we are back to being forced into sugardaddy mode
I've updated the dev version with a modification to the diligence formula for normal or easy obedience difficulty. The impact of negative mood is now reduced...
The balance is kinda broken already, I did like a few other messages I read before typing this which I mostly agree with, so I won't repeat them. But at the moment, you're locked on a nice slaver path or a depression loop and game over. So there already is only one strategy to pick !
... which should help make the "harsh path" more viable (less dependence on item boosts), although there's still despair, night attacks, escape attempts and eventual suicide to contend with if you neglect mood.
And yes, going with fear should definitely have its consequences on the slave and the results you achieve, which should also depend on how hard on fear you went. Also, on the fear path, we'd ensure that the slave is not beaten for free. She is being beaten because I, the slaver, your master, had decided that you deserve it based on your recent behavior and results.
And the game in his current state, has absolutely no consideration for the past line. All that matter, is the slave !
Are you saying that you want to be able to punish the slave even if they don't feel guilty? You can do that already, it just increases her despair too.
The game clearly teaches you that rewards and punishments can also depend on the personality of the slave and to try to avoid mindless punishment / rewarding even tho she has the corresponding merit/guilt (why not, even if it had another layer of uncessessary complexity to me, I'll take it). The Slaver has no word on the matter ! I don't want to only have to punish/reward my slave because she feels like she deserves it. I also want a path where it's because I feel like she deserves it, and she has to understand that it's not her to judge - as a slave, a being deprived of freedom - what she could ever deserve, but her master's. And that's part of the problem when I said 'You are the slave of your slave'.
The game doesn't force you to match the slave's level. If you reward below merit, it just increases her awareness by a smaller amount. If you reward above merit, it increases spoiling. If you punish below guilt, it reduces fear and increases spoiling. If you punish above guilt, it increases despair.
Those side-effects don't prevent you from doing what you want. In small doses, both spoiling and despair can be useful.
Which reminded me of something ! I had raped a slave once on the current version, she was really obedient to begin with and liked it, there was no resistance at all she did her best to satisfy me and came during the act. Shouldn't it be just like "rough sex without much consent" for the already obedient and devoted slaves that are even tring her best and came during the act so there is no bad outcome to this ? Like, she already accepted her fate and admire you, she want to serve you in every way possible and is well aware that she is ours and is even happy with that !
We have that already. A fully devoted slave is happy to be raped, and partially devoted slaves are proportionally less affected.
You see, the problem in this quote - well, maybe it's not the full message but - is that here is nothing related to the slave here. It's on the master's side. And yeah okay cool, there is multiple way I can raise my master's stat, I like that. But there is still only one way to train your slave.
We've increased optionality for slaves also.
There are a couple of things that the game strongly discourages, like setting rules you can't enforce or not setting any rules on a fearless slave.
You get an end of day message if the slave isn't following the rules. The rule count is colored red on the slave's rules screen if you don't have enough rules.
When it comes to items, clothings and such.. I feel like it's already pretty good. I would not spit on a few more precisions but it's already fine. It's when it's directly related to the slave that then, it doesn't make any sense anymore ! And as previously mentioned by seomeone.. There are way too many tricky mechanisms and lacks orientation as what are your options in the game. Different viable ways to make money for exemple (you devs already stated that you could live without selling slaves).
Other ways to make money include: arena battles, winning races, "rescuing" slaves from the Fogs (ideally with healing balm to reduce costs) and disposing of them for sparks in some way [auction, butcher] ... but I suppose you would count this as selling, barn livestock (egglayer, cow, pig .. but again, selling). Arena battles give higher rewards if you keep winning with the same slave. Races give higher rewards if you keep winning, regardless which slave you use.