Ren'Py The Fixer [v0.3.4.01] [Sam_Tail]

[Gibberish666]

Sam_Tail
I have previously mentioned pricing items in the game before, and claimed a lot of the costs of items in your game being arbitrary and overpriced. With the v0.3.2.05 build, I can see the new items you're adding are priced in the same way.

I looked up the price ranges of some of these things. Not every item, just enough to get an idea. This list is based on prices I found mostly on Amazon or Etsy. Brand name clothing could be easily be 2x or even up to 5x the given price ranges.

Spoiler: Price List

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It's mostly the items you have that cost $100 or more that are troublesome. A lot of them are easily more than 5x the cost of what they are IRL. With some prices being as high as $500 ($700 for the maid outfit) it only serves to prevent the player from accessing content over unncessary grind.

With the game's economy as it currently is, The Fixer leans towards having the same problem as those RPGM adult dungeon crawlers where the goal of the game is to reach the end of the dungeon and not see any sex events, and only get scenes by losing. In other words, the goals behind the intended audience and the game itself contradict each other: lewding is difficult, purity is easy. This makes absolutely zero sense when a game is meant to be played for the lewds.

I am not saying you ought to adjust the prices of every item down to what they are IRL to make the game more realistic. I am recommending many of the item costs should be reduced because high costs of lewd items discourage a more lewd MC. The IRL pricing should only serve as a guideline to achieve a game economy that is more in-line with the design of an AVN like Fixer: lewding should be easy, purity should be more difficult. When the world has gone to shit, it's harder to get nice things and keep to the high road, and easier to take the low road with whatever you can get your hands on. I think the game's shop economy ought to reflect that.

If you agree with my reasoning, consider trying to keep things between 1.5 and 3x its IRL value; and determine the price modifier as higher or lower depending on how lewd the item is, and/or if the item's function is purely costmetic. So a T-shirt should probably cost $80, not 200. Short gym shorts $30, not $180. Crotchless panties, $20, not $150. Hair dye, $50, not $500. A permament marker $2, not $150.

 

[Penitensary]

While true, it's also a setting where the world has gone to shit, and it is very likely most mechanical processing will have shut down as well. That in turn means a lot of stuff, either completed or its base materials, comes out of an ever shrinking pool of available materials. That would jack the price up quite a bit. Even permanent marker requires a mixture of chemicals, and $2 would simply be way too cheap for what would now be a lot of manual labor as the ingredients you would be using would also need to be made by hand. If anything, there would be a wider collection of (stronger) alcohol available as people would be brewing their own from wood burning stills, currently only Haven has something of the sort with everything else (even the Bar) only serving beer.

I would however disagree that purity is the easier route though. To remain pure means a dedication to keeping your stats up high enough to avoid said content, including the elusive Willpower, and not engaging in the (ingame) goldmine that is selling herself in order to easily make her rent payments. Lewding is as easy as not caring how drunk Sammy gets or how low her stats are when she walks around in a skimpy outfit in the middle of the night... and having an easier time affording rent and Nice Things to boot.

I am kind of curious why you believe the goal of the game is to not see sex events. It's what i prefer to do myself, but i know that is my own personal choice and the game doesn't slap you on the fingers if Sammy goes around with more people inside her than the town bus and had enough kids to populate a small village. So where would you get that idea?

 

[kvier]

The pursuit of realism in a game is a great way to accidentally make it not fun anymore.

High prices on everything, even if extremely realistic, aren't fun.

 

[Gibberish666]

While true, it's also a setting where the world has gone to shit, and it is very likely most mechanical processing will have shut down as well. That in turn means a lot of stuff, either completed or its base materials, comes out of an ever shrinking pool of available materials. That would jack the price up quite a bit. Even permanent marker requires a mixture of chemicals, and $2 would simply be way too cheap for what would now be a lot of manual labor as the ingredients you would be using would also need to be made by hand. If anything, there would be a wider collection of (stronger) alcohol available as people would be brewing their own from wood burning stills, currently only Haven has something of the sort with everything else (even the Bar) only serving beer.

I agree that if the world has goes to shit prices of goods would all go up, hence why I'm still okay with some item cost inflation. But we don't actually know how high prices would go - or for which items. Look at when COVID hit, it was reasonable to expect the price of water would go up, but not toilet paper. All that aside, for the sake of being able to play the game and access content in a timely fashion, prices should still be reasonable.

I would however disagree that purity is the easier route though. To remain pure means a dedication to keeping your stats up high enough to avoid said content, including the elusive Willpower, and not engaging in the (ingame) goldmine that is selling herself in order to easily make her rent payments. Lewding is as easy as not caring how drunk Sammy gets or how low her stats are when she walks around in a skimpy outfit in the middle of the night... and having an easier time affording rent and Nice Things to boot.

Right, Fixer is pretty good about this in general. Lewding isn't hard in Fixer. But I'm talking specifically about the cost of items and how they do not reflect that. It's harder to get lewd clothes because many of them cost so much. For example, the landlord will ask you to get a maid outfit. You can't see any of that content until you've saved up $700, at which point you could just as easily pay for rent almost twice, before accounting for the labor of cleaning the apartment. That doesn't make much sense to me, as far as achieving game goals (ie, lewding).

I am kind of curious why you believe the goal of the game is to not see sex events. It's what i prefer to do myself, but i know that is my own personal choice and the game doesn't slap you on the fingers if Sammy goes around with more people inside her than the town bus and had enough kids to populate a small village. So where would you get that idea?

I believe the opposite, that the goal of Fixer is to see sex events. I don't know where or how you read I felt the opposite. But some people might try for a pure route, and it should be difficult. Well, if lewd clothes are expensive and regular clothes are either cheap or moderately costly, then the opposite effect is achieved.

 

[Penitensary]

I agree that because the world has gone to shit that the prices would go up. Hence why I'm still okay with some item cost inflation. But we don't actually know how high the prices of things would go for - and what items. I mean, look at when COVID hit, I expected the price of water would go up, not toilet paper. For the sake of being able to play the game, in a timely fashion, is another reason why I suggest pricing things between 1.5x and 3x, not 10x.

From a game standpoint i can somewhat understand, in that once you buy all the things there is no longer a reason to save up beyond making rent, so as a natural reaction you try to push that point as far ahead as possible. Rent helps with this since you're never really done with paying it and as such works as a money sink, though as a result store prices would indeed need some rebalancing as Sammy now has several hundred of disposable income less to spend each week.

Right, Fixer is pretty good about this in general. I'm talking specifically about the cost of items. It's harder to get lewd items because they cost so much. Like with the landlord, he will ask you to get a maid outfit. Well, you can't see any of that content until you've saved up $700, at which point you could just as easily pay for rent almost twice, before accounting for the labor of cleaning the apartment. I see this as backwards.

Ah, i see what you mean. I thought you were talking about the game in general. And yeah, it is kind of backwards that, in order to get discounts on rent, Oskar is expecting you to pony up for something that expensive. A better option would be him providing the uniform (like with the Bar work) as part of your duties, but being unable to take it home with you, and only when buying it would it actually get added to your wardrobe.

I believe the opposite, that the goal of Fixer is to see sex events. I don't know where or how you read I felt the opposite. But some people might try for a pure route, and it should be difficult. Well, if lewd clothes are expensive and regular clothes are either cheap or moderately costly, then the opposite effect is achieved.

Ah, to be fair that may have been due to this quote:

With the game's economy as it currently is, The Fixer leans towards having the same problem as those RPGM adult dungeon crawlers where the goal of the game is to reach the end of the dungeon and not see any sex events, and only get scenes by losing. In other words, the goals behind the intended audience and the game itself contradict each other: lewding is difficult, purity is easy. This makes absolutely zero sense when a game is meant to be played for the lewds.

You mentioned that The Fixer was leaning towards the same problem of favoring a 'pure' run over lewd ones. That was what i was talking about when i asked why you felt that was the current game's goal, rather than your view that the goal should be on watching lewd scenes.

In all fairness, that may just be a balance thing as lewd players tend to have a lot more disposable income, so lewd items are comparatively more expensive to counteract that. Ingame one could reason that the demand for lewd items is a lot higher with the popularity of prostitution in the area and that is reflected in the price points, but i see your point.

 

[Gibberish666]

You mentioned that The Fixer was leaning towards the same problem of favoring a 'pure' run over lewd ones. That was what i was talking about when i asked why you felt that was the current game's goal, rather than your view that the goal should be on watching lewd scenes.

In all fairness, that may just be a balance thing as lewd players tend to have a lot more disposable income, so lewd items are comparatively more expensive to counteract that. Ingame one could reason that the demand for lewd items is a lot higher with the popularity of prostitution in the area and that is reflected in the price points, but i see your point.

I think I see the misunderstanding. I'm making the comparison in "relation to." I think it's a mistake to disincentivize sex scenes and lewd content in an adult game. Expensive sexy clothing creates a barrier to achieving exactly that. It's not a tall barrier, but we do agree it is unbalanced as things are.

I think as the game continues to be developed more money sinks will eventually get added, and the high prices are leftover from the old economy. But the way I see it, excess funds during the development process is hardly a problem. The end result is what we all care about.

I'm also starting to vaguely remember Sam_Tail may have mentioned they're already planning on reducing the prices of items in the future, and I may have forgotten. Ultimately, whether the cost of items is set now or later, the end result is the same. I think it would be less work to set them correctly now instead of later. But if that's how Sam_Tail wants to roll, who am I to argue?

 

[Penitensary]

To be fair, it would make sense for prices to get reduced now that money sinks are being added to the game, since (for example) rent now means you won't need to keep adding enough items to the game to convince players to spend around 400 per week on it. Lewd items are likely to remain more expensive though, as Lewd income will almost always beat non-lewd income levels.

 

[SadPiff]

Same, can anyone help?

Same

 

[XulOnTuesday]

Is scavenging now the only way to obtain lighter fluid in Haven? It looks like there's a 1-in-1200 chance of grabbing it per round, 1-in-300 per attempt, or a 50% chance of getting it after 208 scavenge attempts. I don't want to be in Haven that long.

 

[KiraKiraKira]

Is scavenging now the only way to obtain lighter fluid in Haven? It looks like there's a 1-in-1200 chance of grabbing it per round, 1-in-300 per attempt, or a 50% chance of getting it after 208 scavenge attempts. I don't want to be in Haven that long.

Unfortunately, that's not how RNG really works. But you could use the add items cheat to or do some savescumming to save a bit of time, maybe.

 

[XSilverxdragon]

Is there simulator game like this let you dress female and decide their fate like this game?

 

[souldead341]

Is there simulator game like this let you dress female and decide their fate like this game?

That's an entire genre, called a lifesim.

 

[XSilverxdragon]

That's an entire genre, called a lifesim.

Ty looking for new game waiting for this update

 

[XulOnTuesday]

Unfortunately, that's not how RNG really works. But you could use the add items cheat to or do some savescumming to save a bit of time, maybe.

That's what I wound up doing, but cheating to get the golden ending feels bad man. What do you mean, that's not how RNG really works?

 

[KiraKiraKira]

That's what I wound up doing, but cheating to get the golden ending feels bad man. What do you mean, that's not how RNG really works?

No shame for that one, I've never found the lighter fluid without cheating it lol.

But why... that's a complex answer (too complex for me). Simple answer is gambler's fallacy, the incorrect idea that previous chances impact the current one. Each attempt is independent of the others, not additive.

 

[Sam_Tail]

Sam_Tail
I have previously mentioned pricing items in the game before, and claimed a lot of the costs of items in your game being arbitrary and overpriced. With the v0.3.2.05 build, I can see the new items you're adding are priced in the same way.

I looked up the price ranges of some of these things. Not every item, just enough to get an idea. This list is based on prices I found mostly on Amazon or Etsy. Brand name clothing could be easily be 2x or even up to 5x the given price ranges.

Spoiler: Price List

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

It's mostly the items you have that cost $100 or more that are troublesome. A lot of them are easily more than 5x the cost of what they are IRL. With some prices being as high as $500 ($700 for the maid outfit) it only serves to prevent the player from accessing content over unncessary grind.

With the game's economy as it currently is, The Fixer leans towards having the same problem as those RPGM adult dungeon crawlers where the goal of the game is to reach the end of the dungeon and not see any sex events, and only get scenes by losing. In other words, the goals behind the intended audience and the game itself contradict each other: lewding is difficult, purity is easy. This makes absolutely zero sense when a game is meant to be played for the lewds.

I am not saying you ought to adjust the prices of every item down to what they are IRL to make the game more realistic. I am recommending many of the item costs should be reduced because high costs of lewd items discourage a more lewd MC. The IRL pricing should only serve as a guideline to achieve a game economy that is more in-line with the design of an AVN like Fixer: lewding should be easy, purity should be more difficult. When the world has gone to shit, it's harder to get nice things and keep to the high road, and easier to take the low road with whatever you can get your hands on. I think the game's shop economy ought to reflect that.

If you agree with my reasoning, consider trying to keep things between 1.5 and 3x its IRL value; and determine the price modifier as higher or lower depending on how lewd the item is, and/or if the item's function is purely costmetic. So a T-shirt should probably cost $80, not 200. Short gym shorts $30, not $180. Crotchless panties, $20, not $150. Hair dye, $50, not $500. A permament marker $2, not $150.

I remember this topic coming up before and I agreed, and agree with what you say now. Have been meaning to adjust prices based around the new economy but it keeps skipping my mind or getting pushed back. Now that rent is in in a simple form, it is something I need to revisit soon.

Is scavenging now the only way to obtain lighter fluid in Haven? It looks like there's a 1-in-1200 chance of grabbing it per round, 1-in-300 per attempt, or a 50% chance of getting it after 208 scavenge attempts. I don't want to be in Haven that long.

That is for the RNG. It also has a fixed location in the lounge next to the fire. Scav there when the room is empty and you will find it.

 

[souldead341]

That's what I wound up doing, but cheating to get the golden ending feels bad man. What do you mean, that's not how RNG really works?

Yeah, unless there's something else going on, every random number generated is supposed to be independent of the previous result. This is a whole field of study, to find a formula that isn't predictable, since computers can't really using human methods of generating random numbers (fair dice, spinning a wheel, flipping a coin, exc), but that's more detail I'm not going to go into.

As was mentioned, the gambler's fallacy assumes that the more negative results you had, the more likely you're to have a positive result. As an example, roulette has a basic bet on red or black. Many gamblers will see a string of red and think "It must be about to hit black" and bet on black. But each spin of the wheel is independent, having between a 48.6 and 46.2 percent chance of hitting either a red or black space (depending on the number of green house wins spaces). It doesn't matter how many times the same color is picked, each individual spin has the same odds (assuming a fair table).

What you did is assume the full string of your results is the odds of getting the final result. So in roulette this would be (using 50% for simplicity) thinking that the table rolls red 4 times, then it only has a 3.125 (.5^5) percent chance of getting red again on the next spin. The odds of the specific streak of red is low, but that doesn't change the odds of each spin, since there's no memory in the system of the previous spins.

Video games often have some kind of pity / anti-frustration feature with required things like this. This can be having a memory of previous results, forcing a result, or having some other way around the RNG. In this case, as was just posted, there's a specific location to get the lighter fluid 100% of the time and a low chance all other areas.

 

[Dept of Public Worms]

~50% in 208 attempts, an attempt being 4 rounds, is about right.
1/1200 is 0.00083333
That leaves a 0.99916667 chance of not getting it each round.
With four rounds per attempt, the probability of not getting it all four times is 0.99916667^4, or 0.99667083, per attempt.
208 attempts is a 0.99667083^208, 0.99916667^832 or 0.49976246 chance of not getting lighter fluid all 832 times you try.

The gambler's fallacy would be believing the 208th attempt has a 50% chance of succeeding where the first 207 failed.

Believing that 208 consecutive attempts have a 50% chance of succeeding at least once somewhere along the way isn't a fallacy. It's mathematics.

 

[XulOnTuesday]

That is for the RNG. It also has a fixed location in the lounge next to the fire. Scav there when the room is empty and you will find it.

I tried that, and it just gave the default RNG scavenge. At least in 0.3.2.05, the dis_haven_scavenge_lounge_fluid label appears to be disabled and isn't called from anywhere I can find.

 

[Dept of Public Worms]

~50% in 208 attempts, an attempt being 4 rounds, is about right.
1/1200 is 0.00083333
That leaves a 0.99916667 chance of not getting it each round.
With four rounds per attempt, the probability of not getting it all four times is 0.99916667^4, or 0.99667083, per attempt.
208 attempts is a 0.99667083^208, 0.99916667^832 or 0.49976246 chance of not getting lighter fluid all 832 times you try.

The gambler's fallacy would be believing the 208th attempt has a 50% chance of succeeding where the first 207 failed.

Believing that 208 consecutive attempts have a 50% chance of succeeding at least once somewhere along the way isn't a fallacy. It's mathematics.

Facepalm, is it?
Here, check with Google:

Here's marginally over 50% at 832 attempts:

Here are the first 20 rolls, with a straight line for comparison:

Go ahead. Facepalm that, too, if you really want everyone here to know you don't understand the fallacy you accused someone else of committing.