1. You can already do repeatable quests for infinite money and XP
2. You can already harvest unlimited number of monsters for XP and loot (which can be sold for money). In fact after level 15 you do not even need to fight them anymore. it autokills them from the map as soon as you touch them.
3. Having dice rolls determine whether you will get literally 0 non mine building upgrades, or multiple building upgrades is not what I would call "balance"
4. The personal upgrades give very small bonuses (+1% +1 statpoint). Hardly balance breaking.
5. You literally said yourself that one of your goals in the future is to change the farm and fishery and alchemists so they are not useless.
Honestly from balance standpoint this does not even matter at all. Bonuses are too small to matter for balance.
The reasons this bothers me is:
A. OCD Completionist. It bothers me that I cannot build all the upgrades.
B. Trap option: upgrades. Spending gems on anything other than the mine (the sole source of gems) is a trap that requires you to replay the game from the begining to fix.
C. Trap option: sidequests. The fact I did not realize you cannot pass time. Had I known I would have left the optional quests for until after I have unlocked the collection chest. Instead I did every single optional quest as soon as I got it which wasted many days of collection due to the cap of 3 days of storage max. (and also the fact nothing is stored until you unlock the town hub)
D. Dice rolls for limited resources. There is a fixed number of day collections in the game, what they give you is random.
For all these reasons this mechanic just feels bad. Even if it is ultimately irrelevant due to how small the bonuses are.
Honestly I am genuinely surprised that the repeatable quest does not give a dayroll. As it requires quite the time investment to perform each time.
Thanks for your post, you've given me some good ideas. I'll reply specifically to some of your other points.
"1. You can already do repeatable quests for infinite money and XP
2. You can already harvest unlimited number of monsters for XP and loot (which can be sold for money). In fact after level 15 you do not even need to fight them anymore. it autokills them from the map as soon as you touch them."
I don't recommend playing like this. I added repeatable content at the request of some players. The rewards you get for repeated content are intentionally small to discourage players from grinding the fun out of the game. The main issue for now is that the game isn't finished, and therefore does not represent the full intended experience, but it is still built from the ground up with that experience in mind. Your main experience isn't intended to be repeating quests, or grinding mobs. The main experience will be tailored to keep moving the game forward to new places and new things.
"Having dice rolls determine whether you will get literally 0 non mine building upgrades, or multiple building upgrades is not what I would call "balance"
I'll have to disagree with this point. There's nothing inherently imbalanced about using random chance as a method to slowly distribute resources. Any unlucky single roll will get naturally smoothed over by your other ~12 rolls currently available within the game.
"4. The personal upgrades give very small bonuses (+1% +1 statpoint). Hardly balance breaking."
The current upgrades available are +1%, +2%, +3%, +4%, and +5%, representing up to a +15% increase overall. And at this point in the game, +15% on any single weapon, for example, would be a lot.
I'd say the problem with these upgrades is a problem with almost all the upgrades. They're all reliant on the exact same resources, and it can feel unsatisfying to spend them on one thing while knowing you're giving something else up.
"5. You literally said yourself that one of your goals in the future is to change the farm and fishery and alchemists so they are not useless."
I'm actually not sure why you included this one. I'll go into detail on what I plan anyway. In the next build, every item from the farm and fishery has been buffed to be very usable in battle. Carrots are no longer mere +30 HPs; they now heal at a rate equivalent to that of mini-potions. That's just one example.
Additionally, I have plans to add a café to the game, which will let you buff your party's stats in the same way you can use the minerals to buy bonuses from Alice. This may contribute to farm and fishing drops being as exciting as mine minerals.
"A. OCD Completionist. It bothers me that I cannot build all the upgrades."
Yeah, I'm sorry. I either hide every upgrade, and slowly drip feed them to you over the course of the game's development, or I show almost everything now and you get teased for the possibilities in the future.
"B. Trap option: upgrades. Spending gems on anything other than the mine (the sole source of gems) is a trap that requires you to replay the game from the begining to fix."
By the time this game reaches its "end game," I will go out of my way to balance it in such a way that you will have everything. Right now, you should feel comfortable spending it on whatever you want.
In the next build, I am reducing the cost of every farm and fishery upgrade by one tier, and once the café is introduced, there will be just as much value in upgrading the farm and fishery as the mine.
"C. Trap option: sidequests. The fact I did not realize you cannot pass time. Had I known I would have left the optional quests for until after I have unlocked the collection chest. Instead I did every single optional quest as soon as I got it which wasted many days of collection due to the cap of 3 days of storage max. (and also the fact nothing is stored until you unlock the town hub)"
The game instantly informs you of this when the mechanic is introduced, and if you ever visit the mine, fishery, or farm, you will be reminded of it upon leaving.
Additionally, in the newest update, the game will tell you if the chest is full.
I haven't had anyone else mention they had an issue here, but I'm still open to the possibility that improvements can be made.
D. Dice rolls for limited resources. There is a fixed number of day collections in the game, what they give you is random.
Yes, there is a fixed number of day collections so far. If the game allowed you to get an infinite number of days, this would encourage people to grind on an unfinished game, potentially burning themselves out on it before the next update comes out.
Overall:
1) If I'm correct, what you really want is an infinite source of days, so you can just get every single upgrade.
I hope I've made it clear that I don't want people to grind an unfinished game. There will probably be an infinite source of days much later on in the game's development, but now is not the time to open the floodgates on this hub. I want people to get the sense that Mistral Village is growing and expanding over time, and they're taking part in that with building and upgrading. Not only that, but currently, the days passing are canonical to the story, and are being kept track of.
2) One of your justifications is that the upgrades aren't very strong. So why not just let the player get everything now?
They aren't very strong
yet, there are will more upgrades to be added. Mistral Village is still an area that will see active development, with new buildings and upgrades.
3) The balance of the game is working quite well right now, here's what I was able to get on the newest build, which only has an additional three days compared to the public release:
Also bought: Furnishings, Training Dummy, Giant Bed, Library, Archery Range and House Extension.
Random Fact: The mine, fishery and farm upgrades gives you roughly 400% more resources when fully upgraded.
I'm glad you like what we've got here and want more. More is definitely on the way.