- Jan 3, 2021
- 1,204
- 3,978
Cool, good to hear.
So taking you at face value, here are some of my thoughts about cleaning up the overabundance of slave traits.
Some of them are on the 0-100 scale, while others use a split gradient where the neutral value is 50. I think there are a few that could be simplified and combined, so that you had way fewer stats to worry about.
An example right off the bat, Frigid and Nymphomaniac. This is the easiest one to call, as they're opposite ends of the same spectrum. Get rid of both, and replace it with one of the gradient scores and call it Libido. Make <26 trigger the effects of Frigid, and make >74 trigger the effects of Nymphomaniac.
What about Oral Fixation? Why does this exist separate from the sexual skills? A few of these Traits really read like they shouldn't be gauged on a 0-100 scale. They seem more like the Perks from Fallout, unique abilities separate from the SPECIAL attributes or the proficiency levels of the various skills. Stuff like Oral Fixation, Daddy Issues, and Size Queen seem more like particular kinks, there for roleplaying flavor, and a lot of them cannot even currently be modified. I think putting them, and potentially other behaviors that represent particular kink-like behaviors or personality traits that can be expressed as a binary (either on or off), into their own category (e.g. Perks) would make a lot of sense. It would help distinguish them as a core part of a slave's personality, and not something that could easily be changed in and of themselves.
Now you actually had the right idea for having a system to negate or neuter these particular personality traits, and it is demonstrated in some of the traits like Feminist. Reaching a certain Affection or Corruption level should allow you to potentially bypass the negative effects of various traits. So for example Daddy Issues you could have the -20 to Charm/Persuasion rolls be negated once you reach a certain Affection level, representing the slave's love for you in particular overcoming her natural aversion to a more immature MC. So it's not a 0-100 skill, it's just always there, but you can bypass it by working around it rather then through it.
These are the Traits that I think would work better combined into a gradient scale, with a neutral middle ground. Also, not every trait would need to trigger the upper or lower effects at the same amount. Like, maybe being ashamed is harder to kick then being a Vanilla fan, so Ashamed kicks in at 30, while Vanilla kicked in at 20. Just some thoughts.
Frigid & Nymphomaniac -> Libido (Frigid > Healthy > Nympho) : Increased through orgasms, with more and different ones being better. Perhaps have it lowered by ignoring a girl who's reached Nympho, and letting their happiness fall too low. Perhaps once back to healthy, could be lowered into Frigid by further abstinence combined with Fear and/or Pain through punishment.
Vanilla & Perverted -> Perversion/Corruption (Vanilla/Chaste > Kinky > Debauched) : Similar to above, but with Corruption. Hell, this could make a separate Corruption score quite superfluous. Bonus points the kinkier the sex is.
Shamefast -> Exhibitionism (Ashamed > Average > Exhibitionist) : Just how comfortable they are with showing the goods to you, and to the public at large. Increase by getting them naked and keeping them that way. Possibly decreased through some sort of dialogue option or just having them in more conservative clothing more often. Maybe different outfits would have a passive effect on this over time, with casual outfits lowering, dresses being neutral, and stuff like bikinis raising it up to a point, with true exhibitionism requiring the training gear or being naked for extended periods.
Dominant & Submissive -> Submission (Dominant/Defiance > Average > Submissive) : Unless you plan on implementing a Switch option that would enable girls to be both Dominant and Submissive and you started making Femdom content, I don't see a reason why this shouldn't be combined into a singular scale. Another idea is that this could replace the Defiance attribute, with a low score on the scale representing a slave's resistance to your authority. I get that would require more work, and there is an argument to the utility of enabling/measure Defiance outside of Dominance/Submission. Conversely you could make it so that current Defiance gains result in much larger changes on the scale, not only because 50 would be the new baseline, but even doubling the current ones would result in effective quadrupling the relative change/loss in Submission.
Workaholic -> Work Ethic/Workmanship/Discipline (Sloppy > Average > Diligent) : Regardless of how skilled someone might be at something, not everyone shows all their work or does so without cutting corners. Then again, this could also make Discipline superfluous, or perhaps could even replace it. Making it a gradient scale and granting bonuses for very disciplined girls, and maluses for undisciplined ones. Potentially increased though dialogue/praise when at high Affection, or admonishment when at low Affection or high Fear. Lowered by being unassigned a task/job, or punishing without cause?
Jaded -> Outlook (Pessimist > Realist > Optimist) : The slaves general outlook on life. Increase it towards Optimist by completing personal quests, requests, and generally treating your slaves with affection and respect. Lower it by doing the opposite of that, making them more insular and jaded as a result.
Religion -> Faith (Atheist > Agnostic > Faithfull) : Unless you had other plans for religion, it's another thing that could be represented by a gradient scale. Not even sure if you'd want to actually allow it to be a scale that can be effected by the player. But it would allow differentiation between slaves that are really into their particular faith, and those that are decidedly less so.
Shy & Extroverted -> Sociability (Introvert > Sociable > Extrovert) : Honestly, this could potentially make Advocate superfluous, as the side effect being being a gregarious extrovert would be their outsized effect on others. Probably increase slowly through public group activities. Possibly decreased through a player dialogue option combined with low Willpower (repeatedly emphasizing that slaves should be 'seen and not heard' and reinforcing that through submission/corruption)? Likewise, it is a neutral trait, with being a Extrovert being potentially harmful or beneficial depending on the slave's outlook and how you want to them effect the other slaves. Do you want them steering their peers towards being a sisterhood of strong willed Amazons, or a pile of cock-hungry sluts?
Traits that I think would work more as stand alone Perk/Feat-like abilities that could possibly be negated or altered when reaching certain Affection/Corruption scores, or even other progression markers (e.g. certain levels of sexual skills).
Advocate/Feminist: Their natural inclination to share their opinions, with the opinion being shared changing with their temperament. Probably not distinct enough to have 2 separate traits for what amount to the same thing, that they're going to have an outsized passive effect on the rest of your slaves. Might not be needed at all depending on bonuses/maluses of the above proposed Sociability scale.
Brawler/Warriorress: Are they different enough to justify 2 different traits? Or should they be condensed into one more generalized 'she's an Amazonian badass' trait that your combat-oriented slaves would gain value from.
Daddy Issues: Keep as is, but perhaps negate the age malus with enough Affection.
Delicate: Keep as is, but perhaps negate the size malus with high enough sex skills or Corruption. Alternately, a high enough Masochisms score, is you ever decided to put Sadism/Masochism in as a gradient scale and did Femdom content.
Materialistic: Keep as is, nice flavor trait.
Nerd: Keep as is, nice flavor trait.
Oral Fixation: Keep as is, nice flavor trait.
Perfectionist: A side-grade to the old Workaholic, with a kill switch that ends the bonuses if Workmanship/Discipline falls below Diligent.
Size Queen: Same as before, but negate the size malus with enough Affection or Corruption.
Starlet: Keep as is, nice flavor trait.
Sweet-Tooth: Keep, but maybe remove the overeating malus? Or have some way to negate it with enough Discipline.
Techie: Keep as is, nice flavor trait.
Wildborn: Keep as is, nice flavor trait.
That being said, there are other duplicates across stat type, not just within the same category. Why have a separate Kindness when you already have Pure/Malevolent on a gradient scale? That's a few too many cooks in the kitchen, and should probably be simplified into a singular measurement of a slave's morality/ethics. Unless you want to get real elaborate with a cross-scale setup (the classic Good/Evil & Law/Chaos of D&D, or the 4-axis Myers-Brigg personality matrix), a simple good/bad scale with bonuses/maluses once you reach far enough either way will probably work well enough.
Do slaves really need separate Acrobatics, Dancing, and Performance stats? Couldn't you combine all of the together and just have a singular Performance stat? Cause both the Acrobatics and Dancing are done in the context of performing for others. Why have 3 different stats to do largely the same thing, especially when they only really matter for one of the current job assignments?
Why have Gardening separate from Domestic? Unless you plan on later expansions with would allow for the simulation of an actual share-cropper/plantation setup, it seems like a really niche stat. Now on a farm, expand that out to something more broad like Horticulture (alongside perhaps Animal Husbandry) as one of the primary stats for a farm worker slave, and sure, that makes sense. But for now? It's another 0-100 stat that seems like it isn't worth the effort, especially since you cannot homeschool any improvement for it.
Is there any reason for Academic and Science to be separate skills? Especially when, again, they both only matter in the context of effectively the same job at the same location?
Does Survival even do anything? How is it beneficial? How do you increase it? It has all of a single line of description on the wiki. "The survival skill determines a slave's ability to handle herself in the wilderness, including building camps, gathering edible materials, fishing, and tracking wild animals." Either it needs to do more so as to be worth more than a single toss away description line, or you should seriously consider culling it. Otherwise it's a stat for the sake of having a stat, and that just adds to the general clutter of the stats.
Coming from a background in D&D, how come accuracy in combat is governed by separate skills? Not that you can't do that, my beloved classic Fallout games did the same (Small Arms/Heavy Weapons/Energy/Melee/Unarmed/Thrown), but even they were effected by your base Attributes. If Dexterity is really only useful during a few conversation checks to do stuff like like hide, does it need to be on a 0-100 scale? Could it not replace the Ranged Combat skill, leaving you with one less thing you need to worry about grinding? Or perhaps put it on a 0-50-100 scale using (Clumsy > Average > Gymnast/Ninja), so that you can probably start somewhat closer to the middle and need less effort to reach the top? Could you do anything to make any of the stats increase Critical Hit Chance, or Critical Hit Damage (if anything, that should be how Intelligence contributes to combat, using knowledge to exploit weaknesses)?
Why not have a separate Constitution/Physique/Endurance stat that both Health and Stamina are derived from? This would make it so that you just couldn't cheese the current combat system with a scientist that can take just as much damage as a hulking melee brawler. Plus it would be nice to be able to increase your HP pool without needing to buy costly implants. This is something that could, again, be on a 0-50-100 scale, and picking certain big-brain academic options during character creation could be offset with a lower starting score. Now instead of Stamina 40 being a 'typical Ikaanos individual', you could have a frail MC with a starting Constitution/Physique/Endurance in the 20~30-ish range, denoting a life lived perhaps in luxury or seclusion and without the hardships of manual labor or combat.
Plus, on a meta level, just having more stats start with 50 as a baseline instantly cuts your grinding in half. As someone who thought that grinding stat progression was one of the game's largest weaknesses, I'm largely in favor of a move towards reducing said grind. Now I don't know how you are handling the underlying math in the background, but if you don't want to speed up progression like that, then you could potentially go with a -100 to 100 scale. Which would probably annoy me personally, unless you added in a difficulty/usability option for a game-wide stat gain multiplier like I mentioned before. But I think that being able to express a value as both harmful and beneficial along the same scale makes for more interesting and meaningful representation of what those numbers mean in practice. Of course, speeding up the grind a bit is a nice bonus.
Alright, that's enough theory crafting for one afternoon. I'm going to take a break and go play a terrible shooter, because I have a love/hate relationship with the dumpster fire that is Insurgency: Sandstorm.
