lingerie and class bonuses
(by lingerie, I am assuming we are talking about the see-throughs and the latex, and not the entry-level red underwear, which iirc boosts charm and not sexuals, unless prostitution was changed to also scale on charm. I'm probably wrong since I have the memory of a goldfish, as should be evident by my posts.)
Both the see-through and the latex require mid/end-tier materials that, by the time players can get enough to spend on underwear, they should also have a roster of trained slaves better suited in worker other jobs. Even the prostitution classes are better taken for their XP-granting abilities (reward w/ sex, it's not much, but it's free XP for non-combat slaves) or stat buffs in other areas (true succubus boosts mage stuffs iirc, and one of the classes has the attract skill, which is a free stun).
I don't mind prostitution not scaling well. It's an early-game crutch as evident by it having no headcount limitations, so it, by necessity, has to be underpowered by design. (Really wish farming takes its place as the early-game crutch, will save me the need to buy food ingredients every so often. Oh well.)
We are discussing Strive for Conquest, Not Strive for Power.
I was mainly using S4P to illustrate the power fantasy lineage that S4C was built upon, which was to counter your brothel/prostitution implementation as I suspect players will find conquering foes more empowering than running a brothel. Ymmv.
Pokemon and combat capture.
The point about S4P and power fantasy specifically mentions capturing multiple (or all, if you have enough ropes) foes in a single combat, which Pokemon does not have. I will concede that both Strive entries have companionship elements in quests for named NPCs granting permanent stat buffs (Conquest) or traits (Power), which I guess links them to Pokemon? It's not an analogy I expected in a game series explicitly about slaves, and I can only hope PETA doesn't stumble upon this thread or we'll have another Pokemon parody to "grace" this timeline.
I hear what you say about some jobs losing their unique flavor, and I whole-heartedly agree. It's stupid how every social servant have to take headgirl and every combat character have to dual-class as archers to outspeed enemies and actually reliably land hits, so on and so forth. Some classes/class lines are too mandatory/optimal as of now.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. I never bothered to marry in any S4C playthroughs.
Since I don't have first-hand experience with those scenes, I am guessing they are also an one-off with no lingering consequences, which you mention you appreciated due to the added choices. That is exactly my point about prostitution. They can be here for flavor, but I don' think it is "core" enough to the Strive identity to warrant an expansion (ref. my power fantasy point as to what, in my opinion, constitutes "core" to the Strive identity).
Just like a servant needs to be special (named NPCs) and/or specialized to justify a spot in your mansion roster, a game needs a strong core identity to be relevant. I'll admit some games are designed specifically to be as wide but shallow as possible (looking at you, Lilith's Throne), and that's a viable niche, but also an incredibly dangerous one to take because the game risks getting so bloated and unfocused (reeeeally looking at you, LT) that any possible fetishes get so diluted that it doesn't make sense to play the game over a more dedicated counterpart.
Maybe in the distant future, when the combat and exploration parts are all properly fleshed out and refined, effort can be diverted to side pursuits like an enhanced brothel experience. Until then, I believe any such pursuit is better left for the modders.
I've already done the convoy thing. My party's at Millford but there's no fight button, guess it's bugged then.
Thanks anyway!
Wasn't this a known and supposedly fixed bug from some versions back? At any rate, I'm sorry to hear that your playthrough's affected.
