I played this game a long time ago, and I just tried again.
In my memory, the management part was way more intuitive than right now. Even with the tutorial stopping when you have to contract someone, a lot of things seem counter intuitive.
For ex : when you try to finish a contract for model, and if you finish it, you come back in studios screen where... you cant try to finish another contract. You have to come back in your office, then dashboard to select contracts. This problem is more about HUD btw. edit : change made in v84b
Other example, when you make an interview with a girl, you have almost no chance to recruit her, except if you give her a lot more money for every scene and so, you cant have rentability while making scene with her. The only way is to improve relationship with her and the best way is to... give her 2 days off even you didnt even recruit her xD. Thats pretty dumb ^^
I feel balance really bad right now, game seems almost impossible to play in normal difficulty. Price of actresses when lvl>2 are so high than you cant make money or just a few. Same issue with salary of PA and other staff, than cost you 50% of monthly budget, even with lvl 1 staff and only director for studio. You cant make daily money with photostudio (just with contract) and camshow are really not effective at the beginning. Hidden scene always give you few hundreds of dollars, even with a girl with high stats.
I made some test and the auto production mode sometimes make profit when paying 5000k a scene to earn 8000k, and sometimes dont (5000k for 3000k). So there is no way for you to let it in auto mode, you have to deal with it yourself. And you only have 3 scenes per week, when you could have 6...
I think the main issue is the transition between lvl 1-2 girls and lvl >2. For example, a scene for a lvl 2 girl cost 200$ for a boy-girl, then it costs 1000$ for a lvl 3 girl. Then a lvl 4 costs 2000$ per scene and lvl 5 costs 2500$ per scene. So the main issue is this upgrade between lvl 2 girl and lvl 3 !!!
Price of scenes costs so much and sometimes your earn some money, sometimes you dont. Its pretty shady over here and I dont understand why for a scene I get 8000k and for a similar scene I get 3000k. Trends I guess...
I didnt remember the game was so grindy, when I played almost 10h to be at the end of 4th months with a few thousands dollars and no contract with anybody cause its just too expensive.
Overall i really like the game, models, dresses, unique characters and a lot of stuff to do. But I think, dev have to rethink about economical balance, cause its seems really almost unplayable right now, or just sooooo grindy !!!
Some ideas of change for devs :
- have possibility to lower salary or price for scene for girl after some time when you work with her or if relationship is higher.
- reduce prize for scenes, specially difference between prize of scene for lvl 2 and lvl 3 girls (see above). Right now, for example, in good month, I earn 100k per month, and scene cost 50-70k and rest is price for staff. Scenes have to always do twice cost of scene and sometimes x3. Same for contracts, when sometimes you pay more to make the scene than the reward of contract...
- Improve tutorial about how earn money every week, importance of price of scene for girl, ...
- I discover you could lose a unique girl you recruited (Lena Van Houten for ex) if happiness is too low. The would leave your company and you cant recruit her anymore...
I think game is too hard at the beginning and curve of progress is pretty bad. It means a lot of players would leave after few hours cause you cant earn enough money to improve your mansion and buy buildings. So its frustrating. We just need to have to grind at the end to buy last lvl of mansion and expensive buildings.