Alright after putting it off for a while i'm returning to this site and thread to read and address the responses.
Augustus i have little to object to in your latest response, most of what you've said is very reasonable. Also in retrospect i directed a good amount of vitriol at you and while you'd have been justified to respond in kind you didn't. I've probably misjudged you in many ways and a lot of my anger is coming from other places, that's not fair and i apologise for it. I do stand by that you have a tendency to be massively autistic about some things but i do the same in different ways so glass houses and all that. I'll address what i have issues with otherwise i largely agree.
I don’t want to spend my limited time playing an old version while trying to guess how someone else would respond to it.
I don't like dishonesty so I wish you'd just said you don't want to rather than you can't. You did admit it when called out though so points for accountability. Respect for time is a big deal for me as well so understandable. However you have to pick between either spending the time making sure the gameplay is in line with old versions or stop making that claim and dismissing players that say your version is off target. That's more qwerty's thing though so i'll address it properly in his section.
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.
Definitely not true but you're realising that so little to comment on. Manageable for you doesn't mean manageable for others. Also need to make the distinction between manageable and enjoyable, there are things i could do to achieve success on even harsher conditions than i already play under but the methods needed to do so are tedious and unenjoyable to me so i simply refuse to play that way.
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?
How did you ever come to that conclusion? Never said anything about ignoring rules, i have no idea where that assertion came from, even with these tests she still had simple rules to follow most of the time (may have forgotten to enable them for a few days at times to manageable levels of detriment however). No, i'm stating that in both prior versions i tested this is often possible with a fully naked slave but it isn't anymore so difficulty being in line with prior versions is way off. Also it's stupid and an active handicap to go that far but still works if you know what you're doing (mood in particular nosedives without careful management), just showing the polar opposite for comparison. Never said always either but as a general trend yeah absolutely, lessons rewards and punishments should be king. School and tutors are fine too but i see them as a plan b if player lessons aren't an option for whatever reason, often the case early on or with low energy. As far as equipment goes the "sane default" imo would be clothes of any variety so she isn't miserable being naked all the time, usually a collar as well and maybe shoes, specifics don't matter that much though sundress is the usual default since this is primarily for mood management, all other slots empty until wanted/needed on reaction to problems that arise (i'd like to point out that the sundress and slippers are available as gift rewards so leaving her fully naked until she's obedient enough to deserve clothes as a reward is designed to be a viable route). Also yes to all drugs and spells being optional, did many playthroughs where i never used either with the sole exception of auspex. Going beyond that should be viable, probably optimal, but optional. You already have a grade given when the game is beaten so players who want to optimise and get there faster have something to shoot for. If that's not enough there's always self imposed challenge conduct, haven't seen anyone mention that except me. Anyway, having several entire equipment sets to swap between each stacking bonuses for one thing plus assuming regular drug and spell use being the new "sane default" is blowing way past the point of being comparable and i think that should be obvious.
I would hope the current version is closest to what I want. Design thinking evolves over time.
I'd hope so too but is it really though? You clearly like having more things to optimise and micromanage as well as stricter margins for both in order to get by. There can be many factors pulling in conflicting directions and qwerty's comment reveals that suspicion at least to be correct. The implication was you turned up the heat too much too quick and had to walk it back and make concessions in order to keep your players. I am convinced at this point the motive behind it was internal conflict rather than malice at least.
I can provide a copy of the code. Image pack I’m not sure I still have.
Already have the code so probably pointless unless there's a difference between 1.7.5 and 1.7.5.1 other than the latter being russian and you have an english version of it. If there's a chance you have the image pack please check and preserve it somewhere. We've lost too many versions of the game already, let's keep this one as decently preserved as possible while we can at least. The russian 1.7.5.1 version on the wiki mostly or entirely uses the same images from what i remember but they don't work properly just copied over. Probably have to be renamed.
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.
The problem is not that you didn't remember what i requested over a year ago, it's that raising the issue politely and making short to the point cases for it back then got nowhere in all this time even with other people wanting the same. It only changed after a lot of time investment on testing and text wall posts by myself and others. And as stated earlier i think that level of effort expected from players just to have raised issues listened to is unreasonable. If you want your time respected then respect mine too, that's fair isn't it?
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.
That's not the way it was presented to me;
my main objective is to stay true to the legacy so that the game in normal mode is about the same level of overall difficulty and balance than version 1.7.5 and 1.2.1.
And that's what i've been checking and commenting on. A smaller set of viable playstyles and a more complex series of events for what's left is inarguably harder and less balanced. There's a huge gap between 2.whatever and 1.7.5 and an even bigger one between it and 1.2.1. To me both legacy versions are incredibly easy but this isn't just about me, even in 1.2.1 new players regularly found the learning cliff insurmountable and it gets taller with every change of dev hands. The thing i personally like about them isn't the easiness, although it's partially a result of it, it's the lower amount of tedium.
Also hard disagree that it doesn't matter if the time taken or actions required are different, it absolutely does. With anything turn based that's about all that matters in terms of difficulty.
Qwerty your post is cleanly split between things i agree with 100% and vehemently disagree with. Same rules, if i don't address it agreement is implied. This is too long already and will be longer still otherwise.
No one gets to demand anything, first of all. 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.
The bulk of your response is hinging on the assumption that i'm just mad my changes weren't implemented fast enough, which sure is one of the issues, a year is a long time to wait and the points i'd raised were never even addressed. However they'd become background issues at this point to just how much time and effort needs to be put into communicating them. They've been implemented already but i haven't downloaded the latest version much less played it, after both prior messages i'd entirely left the site for several days and stopped playing any version of the game so clearly not a priority or major source of frustration on its own. If this was really the core issue that wouldn't be the case. More than anything i'm mad about my time not being respected and being baited back here with some contentious remark that i feel i have to address over and over again. I regret commenting here in the first place and get more angry every time i feel compelled to respond again, i want to be done with this already. Which leads to the next point.
I again have to mention it:
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. 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.
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.
I will never do this. What's here is the closest you'll get and i'm determined to make this a once off. I mentioned earlier that i hate arguing and that won't change. Sure it's a more fair style of debate compared to some cherry picked alternatives but it's a debate nonetheless so i'll be angry at the end regardless of result. Even if i win this game i lose in more important ways, never worth it to me. If i can't condense my message to "this is the problem, this is why, this is what i want done about it, bye" then i simply won't express my opinions. No i am not implying you must incorporate everything i say but i do expect you to take it seriously and not drag me into a blog post battle again. If you want the silent majority to stay silent you need to honestly evaluate your reason for it.
I agree i'm going to have trouble persuading most people of anything with this approach but oh well, i know how my brain is wired and don't have much of a choice. Charisma is a dump stat anyway.
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.
A lot of my frustration probably stems from this which goes back to when the game was first released (over a decade ago??). In fairness to current devs that isn't your fault and i was a retarded asshole for not realising what i'm mad about before hitting send. That much was irrational of me and uncalled for, i'm sorry for that.
This game is cursed, there's a clear established pattern of development going down a bad path, player feedback not being listened to, the game being abandoned and picked up again by someone else with a different vision - repeat forever. I care about the future and preservation of the game so if i'm seeing the same pattern emerge again then naturally i'm going to try and course correct and get frustrated when my efforts seemingly fail. I'm probably entirely unqualified for the task though with the sole exception that it pisses me off so much. The "just go along with whatever state it's in until it dies again who cares lmao" crowd will never understand.
This is a bit disingenuous.
There are many negative things you could reasonably accuse me of being that i won't contest but disingenuous isn't one of them. It'll be a 2.2.2 johnny extreme difficulty no savescumming tier challenge to find a single statement of mine that isn't genuine unfiltered brutal honesty, it's the only communication mode i've got. I think this is projection and if anyone's being disingenuous it's you, here's a few examples;
The game is not worse for creating changes that make the wiki wrong
Reductive - the game is worse for taking away information the player used to have while simultaneously making it more important than ever to know it.
It was also giving false information back in v1.7.5
Pedantry - it was correct about the vast majority of things. Yeah sure, tiamat's page may have said she wants a singer but she actually wants a painter but be realistic here, this is a minor issue almost none of the playerbase will ever encounter. Fenris is the only player character that starts in the outcasts quarter and for the long period of the game's history where he didn't exist there were none. Most players don't change house affiliation from what they start in or at least didn't until the game was changed here so moving districts is needed to maintain stats and mood. Before that it was about preferred location for local utilities, a background element of low concern, or just roleplay. If there was ever anything important majorly wrong on the wiki for past versions i never found it.
Saying that new version is a downgrade because it makes the wiki wrong is implying that the wiki was necessary back then
It was in order to know a lot of things, yes. And as i already said earlier knowing those things is more important than ever so its absence is a bigger blow. I really don't think you can argue otherwise.
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)
And something i admitted was always an issue from the start and have reiterated many times, here's a quote from me;
Jont has always had issues with information clarity and usability but the wiki was mostly accurate for earlier versions, now there've been changes that make it and legacy information obsolete like for example the wedding dress no longer giving a devotion boost. In game information hasn't caught up to communicate these changes either.
Nope, he's simply counter-arguing better than most people so they want his head on a stick
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This isn't athens, we aren't philosophers and most people have no interest in joining the debate club. Expecting lengthy exhausting argument chains like that will absolutely chase most people away from ever raising concerns, the only question is whether that's intentional. I will assume not at this stage.
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.
This statement i agree with somewhat, an effort is being made and it's sometimes productive. I can think of many previous JONT devs alone where that wasn't the case so sure, much better by comparison.
We, devs, have other priorities in life than JONT, and for JONT we have other priorities than displaying the numerical value for player strength.
Yeah we all do which is why this approach is a problem. I think you're implying i don't have any other goals or interests than to demand changes for your version which is a blatant misrepresentation of myself and also very easily proven false, here's my mountain of evidence why;
Years of time where i played your versions on and off, had issues and yet never commented at all. When i finally did comment it was brief and then i left again for a year. When i returned to raise issues again i started to regret it near immediately, have stopped mentioning any other issues i have and left the entire site several times without checking for responses to do other things i care about more. When the changes i apparently care so much about were implemented i still didn't touch the game and my only interaction with anything jont related now is occasionally returning here begrudgingly out of obligation to correct misrepresentations which continue to pop up. All i want at this stage is to be done here so i can have my time and mental energy back and i've made that crystal clear many times.
So no, i call bullshit. You're arguing in bad faith and there's no way you genuinely think that's my goal. Speaking of bad faith arguments, that's exactly what the vast majority of debate techniques and regular debaters are which is a major reason why i refuse to participate in them. They're just an evolution of chimp shit-flinging to own the other guy hidden behind a transparent veil of civility. I respect the former more because while it's still disgusting and pointless it's at least honest.
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 ^^
Goalpost shifting - This all started because i believed you were insinuating anyone who thinks the new normal is too hard should just play on easy. That was denied and the claim was made that you're making an effort to keep normal in line with 1.7.5 and 1.2.1. I went back to check if this is true and reported it not only isn't true for either version but can't be because difficulty between those two is in no way comparable. Now you admit you aren't even checking and won't, and that you don't think anyone else should check because it's not important. Also that isn't the goal anymore and actually yes, anyone who doesn't like the new normal should just play on easy XD. This is so insulting and disingenuous holy shit.
First off I can beat this version on normal, i've done it twice with 2 of the hardest characters in the game and my own challenge conduct on top of that. I've stated this multiple times too, here's one of many quotes addressing it.
As for difficulty relative to past versions I haven't made up my mind on that. 2.2.2 was fucked but that's not a controversial statement. I've found 2.2.1, 2.2.3dev and 2.2.9 managable but that doesn't mean there aren't things i'd want changed, don't clearly remember specifics from other versions that well.
My gameplay gripes personally are more to do with tedium, grind and unclear mechanical changes than difficulty itself, easy obedience wouldn't solve those problems or be more fun so i can't interpret that as anything other than an insult. Changelog indicates most of the issues i mentioned are probably resolved already, which again i do genuinely appreciate, but i'm still burnt out from all of this so not going to check anytime soon.
Secondly i'm looking at this from a new player's perspective. I'm as far removed from new as you're ever going to get so whether i can cope with it or not doesn't matter much. We need new players to keep this going and they need to be catered to more than any other demographic in my opinion. I'll remind you it was exceptionally common for new players to bounce off 1.2.1 (the absolute easiest the game has ever been) with how much you need to frontload learning just to be halfway competent and even then get blindsided by unforeseen problems. Contracts that version thinks will take 3 decades take me 3 days when i'm barely trying (no i'm not saying we need to go back to this but keep it in mind if you want to avoid this game becoming just for veterans).
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.
Starting to believe it, think this is probably heading in a positive direction again. I'm going to need the issues i raised here resolved before i'll be willing to take an active role again though.
what you took as insults was actually a show of niceness.
Some of that i believe and for the cases where i buy it;
The rest i'll decide on later.
I understand you'll probably want to respond to some of the points i've raised and continue the discussion but please don't. If i see any responses to what i've said that i think I need to comment on i probably will and then wind up even more pissed off. I need a break from this thread and everything jont related for a good while. Unless the game or myself are truly dead the chance of me not returning in some capacity is near 0 so if you feel the need to ream my asshole over something i said do it after i've chilled out and gathered my thoughts.