- I increased rent for all my tenants up to 150. I have more money than I can spent. Increasing the cap doesn't really do much for me with the wire option. Maybe reduce the initial limit so you actually have some benefit from putting your points in it instead of just putting in the points because you have them and don't know what else to do with them.
I'm a min-max style player myself, so once I figured out how the basic mechanics worked, it seemed most effective to buy all the spy slots and as quickly as possible (to maximize intimacy per peek for each tenant). Exactly your experience; the Wire upgrade tree is useless (and feels like it would just increase the grind for no benefit; lose intimacy levels [which would give pictures, the only real payout of the game] to get cash... and there's nothing on which to use the cash?
After getting all the tenants (costs approx. $70k if using the choose 1 of 2 and choose 1 of 3 options), purchasing the spy slot upgrades ($720k for all 8 slots, $30k + $60k ea.), and getting all the spy gear installed on all the girls (costs ~$80-90k), there is nothing else to do with the money. Assuming you have all 36 tenants at $150/week income (easily achievable without grinding peeking over the same low intimacy levels multiple times over), generating the total required cash would take ~163 weeks or 1140 days.
Granted, your first ~35-50 weeks will be spent bringing in new tenants, so cashflow won't be as high... but the money management aspect is kinda disappointing. Playing to speedrun max tenants + max spy gear + max spy slot unlocks means by the time the spy slots are all upgraded, there is no use for any cash and so actually making use of the increased rent cap from the Wire spy tree is strictly detrimental; that spy tree is just there to gate advancement thru the servant/slave character "arc".
-> Let the player buy a diary. Unlock/buy a page for every girl (make it a bit more expensive, if you want). If you selected the right name for a girl and you get her again in an event where you have to choose the name color it green. If you get another girl and get the name of the girl you know already mark it red. (You know Elena, you selected Sofia in the event, Elena is one of the names in the multiple choice so her name would be colored red).
- Same goes for the topics when you take the girls to the movies or to the restaurant. Things get even more complicated as the list of the girls when choosing the date is different between these two places. One list with the same order of your tenants would help as well as showing their names (the first list seems to be the other way round in comparison to the second one). Whenever you list the tenants, please always provide the names.
-> Buy an extension for the diary to get her favorite topics and her hobby marked during dialogue after finding out what she likes/dislikes.
This is a fantastic improvement to the game, and gives something to do with all the extra money.
- the targets you spy on are deleted after returning to the main menu. A better way to choose your targets would be appreciated. Clicking though every girl one by one is arduous. Although I find the spy tree great, it's a bit too extensive for my taste. Longer time, less options would increase the gameflow in my opinion. There is already enough grind as it is and I already play on easy mode (and I normally appreciate some grinding).
100% agree, choosing spy targets after loading a savegame is just annoying. Should be saved in game state. And, while I love games that have research/unlock trees, this tree seems... mostly filler? Sure, it's nice to upgrade the intimacy per peek/date interaction (but the rent cap increase is useless, see above)... but by the time you've got the bottom of the tree "researched" (at least in my game) I already have half the girls at max intimacy? Maybe a side-effect of the rest of the peek-grind being unbalanced?
-I have yet to experience the Servant/Novice event, so I have no idea how you want to handle it, but I'd suggest to provide either an option where you can get both ways with some additional work or an option to switch between the paths (and keep the progress when switching back). Game is pretty grindy. I don't think I'd go for a second playthough just to see the other option.
In my first play session, I got to the first Servant/Novice event and thought "wait, what does one tree or the other offer? what am I missing?" I made a choice, and then wanted to see "can I go back and change it?" Yeah, being able to switch paths (even at the cost of losing all progress on the current path) would be appreciated, assuming there's actually different content on each path? Or, a way to save the game before choosing a path, then come back and try the other path?
Thank you for the good work, and keep it up. Looking forward to what comes next.
Me too. Looking forward to seeing this become a fun/engaging management game.