Thank you for the reply...
With regards to Frankie...On my first (now discarded) playthrough Sal did not show up after the street party.
I suspect that some condition were not met to trigger that. The downside is that Frankie is now also not introduced in the game. So I was 3 months into the game and no Frankie.
I now did a second playthrough and Sal showed up, and Frankie showed up a week later...unlike my first playthrough.
Hey there Alfius! Firstly, before I go getting into one of my long point-by-point posts, I've seen the comments and reviews you've left on all the origin story Mini-VNs we've put out.
Cheers for the kind words and feedback! Glad you enjoyed it all so.
To the points in your first post and reply, if I may...
Yes indeed,
Frankie should have showed up by now for you. It is clearly a bug and an issue, but nothing on our side of the line shows it to be an obvious problem in the triggering, which is why we've asked a few folks here to give us some more detailed situation reports. You are actually the first to do so (unprompted even, yay!), so we might just get to the bottom of it yet. Perhaps if you're up for it, we can get some added heads up from you should we need it? Seems like with what you've posted above as your stats and the fact Sal didn't show up might just be what we need to get a better look at where the trip is. Let's see!
To the point on the timer, and needing a walkthrough... We make one for those that want it, but you are right that you shouldn't need it. Context in game and some of the info menus should be all a keen player needs.
Unshi already covered the timer pretty much, but I'll also add that it's there to make sure players don't play far beyond the point where they are out of sync with the pace of the story. For example, you could play until Month 20 if you wanted, get debt down to near 0, and essentially mess up the flow of the game and scene openings after that... for no real reason since the more Gameplay Manager outcomes we add the easier is to clear that debt anyway.
Suffice it to say, the more versions we rack up on the game, the less that time window should be an issue and by the end it shouldn't be mush of a barrier (if it's even there anymore). Still, good that we know how people feel on it.
To the next piece, onward!
Hi guys, i see some of you are having troubles with gameplay here. I would like to share a little bir of my experiance.
First of all, never use cheats!. They block you to see many of the contents. It's quite easy to manage without cheats anyway.
My second advice would be that never use "aggresive mode on waitress job" It always ends bad at least for me.
To destroy Sal's restaurant, go passive for a while after you got Kriem, use her on promotion job with shield. This will get you earn some points.However, the real deal starts when you are closer to Sal because then he will start attacking you so check on him almost everyday. You can go aggressive mode on promotion job time to time but i found it useless as well. Just use shield when he is trying to set you up and it will destroy his business while increasing yours. I ended up with 5 stars while Sal got 0 at the end of update.
As for contents, first of all, there is no ntr in this game tbh. It is cheating since we are playing female MC. But it would be if we see things from Brad's perspective. You can follow WT but it is quite easy to open every scene with only 2 playthrough. Play as a loyal future wife to see Brad's scenes (romance points needed) or play as a competitive girl who can't handle loses and see Back's scenes (Brad's best budy + competitive points will be needed). There are other minor events as well like spying Sal or catching your old waitress with a man etc.
Alfius , yes, triggering events are a little tricky and i think they need re-work or at least money requirement should be removed. I had those problems early on while trying to figure it out. Some events never happened. For example, washing beck's car never happened or last waitress Keasley? (forgot her name) never showed up. But it is good game overall.
Hello there too MWeb! What have you got for us here?
Firstly, yes you're right, no cheats! Not that we mean to be preachy, it's just you shouldn't need them really.
I think it's worth noting that the reason Downtime Options are removed is not because of cheating, its that people are obviously setting them higher than the max values, so the auto close is kicking in. That's there to stop players who get stats to the max wasting their days off on unneeded activity and also to keep the values within the ranges we're set to handle without errors... and yes, jumping stats will make you miss content like that since they are stat value reliant, once more of the content is added over time of course.
The waitress Proactive (aggressive) should be helpful in fact, but being proactive will reduce your Rep since it basically means be a bit more of a slut for money in front of the community. We'll see more of that as more Outcomes are added as well. I figured that's worth a noting is all.
As for the gameplay, you've got one of the better strategies nailed down well it seems, kudos!
Worth giving try if people are stuck and such. You're right in that the higher your rep, the more Sal will have to take you down than spend time boosting himself, and the lower his rep, the less he as to lose so the bigger he'll swing (lucky for players though, those are still on the implement list)!
The discussion with content being ntr fetish or not is one we've had a long time ago so I'll not rehash it, but
you are right that it should be to most people's tastes for the most part, and we've learned by experience for future endeavors. Eventually there will be more than Brad and Beck content arcs to find (the list is already in the game), but you are right in that it shouldn't take more than 2, maybe 3 playthroughs to get everything by the time we're done, should all work out.
The triggers might seem a big tricky, and by all means we're open to play testing balances that make things better for the player (we get little constructive feedback on specifics that helps that though, so it's good when we get such detailed heads up). Money really is the only trigger for most scenes, aside from the arc specific stat, as it is as close an estimate to how well Noe's battle against her debt/her fight against Sal/the resolution of the game's premise is, given people can be at wildly different points in that battle but be on the same day and all.
As for the time requirements, scenes only take place after given days, not before, as a way of spacing out the development of the arc over time (we don't want it to go from first meet Beck to fuck him wild in 1 week, you know?).
There shouldn't be a case where you have to have done something by a certain day or you lose out, and we wouldn't put that in by design for sure. If you see something like that, flag it and let us know yeah?
One thing that I should disclose here on the trigger topic though is that only a few scenes have a prerequisite scene requirement other than the ones before it in the arc.
All so far (v0.8) are because characters like Frankie and Kelsey are in those scenes or mentioned by name, so they have to be unlocked. Another one to come requires Frankie's story to be progressed to her 2nd scene, so that's why it has a pre-req. That's why it seems little content is available if Frankie doesn't appear, but it's there. So let's get Frankie fixed, shall we? (That's an open invite to folks who'd like to help find this issue).
And yes, her name is Kelsey. She's a terrible person, and yet one of my best girls. Feel free to love her or loath her as you wish!
Now, moving on!
Yes, Everything worked much better on second playthrough... I left the poker games to late to get the very last Beck scene.
The game for me is a diamond in the rough... I loved the origins kinetic novels. (I see them as part of the game.)
I love every single character in the game...OK love to hate Sal.
I love the restaurant simulation, but I'm not sure if it's a feature or bug that Frankie did not show up in my first playthrough.
Someone less enthusiastic about the game than me, might have dropped it at that stage. You are basically missing 1/2 of your main cast for the whole game. (like Playing Witcher 3 without Yennefer or Tris)
If it's a bug, then I recommend them fixing it. If it's a feature, then I think it is maybe not a good feature. Only my opinion of course.
TLDR; Loved the game after my second playthrough, but fist playthrough felt like playing only part of the story... I knew these 2 characters must join the story...but they never do. So my first playthrough was not that enjoyable and did not leave a good first impression.
Hello again, long time no talk!
Glad it worked out better the second time round. Now all we've got to do is make it so the first one worked better!
Super stoked to here you and others are liking it that much though, so cheers for that. Let see if we can't parley some of this love into a better game all! Hope you and all the fans of Team Noe stick around and we'll surely see that it does become better all the time!
In fact, I'mma go make it so right now! (After some Agents of Heels work of course). Hurray!
(Note: I've put some parts of this response in bold to make those points more prominent and easy to find in the text, rather than make them seem yelly or pointed.)