Unity Venus's Club [v9.5.0.1] [Disgruntler]

[ChubberLang]

Okay, here's my basic feedback for 9.5.0.1 and 9.5. First of all thanks for the fixing the bug. It was easy enough to work around once I knew what caused it but it was just irritating enough that it made me not want to play for a while.

Anyways, on to my pedantic feedback.

I appreciate the initial 4 gifts dispensers being cheaper but maybe 350 is better? That way nobody buys it instead of buying their first girl and running out of money?

Also maybe make the initial patronage purchase 3 points (and grant 3 via quest) to ensure nobody buys the we bring gifts options instead.

Boxes on the right side of the booth screen are not aligned perfectly. This has zero impact on gameplay but makes my ocd twitch every time I notice it. Additionally the investor icon is not fully inside the box.

The customer attraction box is not intuitive. I get the letter reaches the smiley level and then either reels in a customer or doesn't but I'm not sure why they switch positions in the box. Perhaps a view of the outside of the club--stick character moves towards door then either enters with smiley face or gets frowney face and moves on? A single timer and smile or no smile might be simpler to understand even. Also, getting a bunch of customer misses in a row suuucks. Maybe a pity timer in the early game? Having two girls and pulling a grand total of 150 bucks in a day doesn't feel great.

Does Eager Student need a buff since classes no longer have cost or is the skill gain sufficient?

I'm going over 125 rep. Is this a new addition? Also, I'm not sure on this, does rep still gain even if your at total? Like if an investor needs 30 rep in a night, will it count if you're at max? My weak memory is telling me it does but I'm not 100%. If so, maybe make that clear somewhere, so new users don't get frustrated by not being able to spend it all? If not it might be impossible to get to without crown jewels to reset rep to zero.

Overall pricing feels good at the start and not particularly onerous in the later game. I will say there is still the issue (from vanilla) where the gameplay feels humpy. As in the beginning there's tons of dancing to get to the next level, and then, should you choose it's a lot easier to mainline to the next available club level and buy stages only rather than fill out the clubs accoutrements at that level. Investors only strengthen this strategy since they're so strong and are tied to club level. What this means is that eventually you push to second last club level and start making enough money to eventually buy everything more quickly. Maybe require a certain number of upgrades before the next level unlocks?

There is still the issue of girls advancing openness dramatically once foreplay (and extending) become available, meaning the mixed openness of the early game gets lost as girls accelerate to the maximum allowed by unlocks that much more quickly. Again this is a vanilla thing too and I don't even know if I consider this to be an issue rather than just how the mechanics work.

I think that's it for now. Overall a strong update. Most of the options and mechanics feel mature and good. This is a nice stable build to keep us in good stead before 10.0.

 

[Disgruntler]

Okay, here's my basic feedback for 9.5.0.1 and 9.5. First of all thanks for the fixing the bug. It was easy enough to work around once I knew what caused it but it was just irritating enough that it made me not want to play for a while.

Anyways, on to my pedantic feedback.

I love it, let's go

I appreciate the initial 4 gifts dispensers being cheaper but maybe 350 is better? That way nobody buys it instead of buying their first girl and running out of money?

Also maybe make the initial patronage purchase 3 points (and grant 3 via quest) to ensure nobody buys the we bring gifts options instead.

Good call, I'd overlooked this -- I might actually look at making the autos more expensive.

Boxes on the right side of the booth screen are not aligned perfectly. This has zero impact on gameplay but makes my ocd twitch every time I notice it. Additionally the investor icon is not fully inside the box.

Easier said than done but I'll do my best.

The customer attraction box is not intuitive. I get the letter reaches the smiley level and then either reels in a customer or doesn't but I'm not sure why they switch positions in the box. Perhaps a view of the outside of the club--stick character moves towards door then either enters with smiley face or gets frowney face and moves on? A single timer and smile or no smile might be simpler to understand even.

I understand this. And originally this was my plan here (and easier to implement.)

There's something else going on here I'm not saying and it'll be clear in 10.0. Then you'll see the timer can't actually be any other way.

Also, getting a bunch of customer misses in a row suuucks. Maybe a pity timer in the early game? Having two girls and pulling a grand total of 150 bucks in a day doesn't feel great.

I can consider streak protection here.

Does Eager Student need a buff since classes no longer have cost or is the skill gain sufficient?

Maybe.

I'm going over 125 rep. Is this a new addition? Also, I'm not sure on this, does rep still gain even if your at total? Like if an investor needs 30 rep in a night, will it count if you're at max? My weak memory is telling me it does but I'm not 100%. If so, maybe make that clear somewhere, so new users don't get frustrated by not being able to spend it all? If not it might be impossible to get to without crown jewels to reset rep to zero.

Rep gain still counts for investors even if you're capped. CJs increase your rep cap for each CJ recruited now.

Overall pricing feels good at the start and not particularly onerous in the later game. I will say there is still the issue (from vanilla) where the gameplay feels humpy. As in the beginning there's tons of dancing to get to the next level, and then, should you choose it's a lot easier to mainline to the next available club level and buy stages only rather than fill out the clubs accoutrements at that level. Investors only strengthen this strategy since they're so strong and are tied to club level. What this means is that eventually you push to second last club level and start making enough money to eventually buy everything more quickly. Maybe require a certain number of upgrades before the next level unlocks?

Im not sure I want to force buying every upgrade but I am going to think about this.

There is still the issue of girls advancing openness dramatically once foreplay (and extending) become available, meaning the mixed openness of the early game gets lost as girls accelerate to the maximum allowed by unlocks that much more quickly. Again this is a vanilla thing too and I don't even know if I consider this to be an issue rather than just how the mechanics work.

The issue with slow openness gains (for dance/pose) is that it makes them grindy.

I think that's it for now. Overall a strong update. Most of the options and mechanics feel mature and good. This is a nice stable build to keep us in good stead before 10.0.

 

[mgunner2010]

Okay, here's my basic feedback for 9.5.0.1 and 9.5.

Exactly my thoughts, especially on the missed clients in the first stage and only pulling 150 to 200 bucks...I love the strong output in this fix and I am rooting you on!

 

[Thunderbolt]

Hello folks, i have one girl that openess still stays by 0 i try to give lessons or let her dance, but the counter still stays by 0. Any Idea what i could do?

 

[Disgruntler]

Hello folks, i have one girl that openess still stays by 0 i try to give lessons or let her dance, but the counter still stays by 0. Any Idea what i could do?

Read her trait description in the Staff list. It tells you how her trait works.

 

[Kane2607]

Small thing but when sorting by openness brats seem to be all over the place. It could say they have 16 but get sorted higher than girls in the 30s.

 

[Disgruntler]

Small thing but when sorting by openness brats seem to be all over the place. It could say they have 16 but get sorted higher than girls in the 30s.

Makes sense, brats are using a completely different variable to represent openness. I'll get the sort algorithm fixed up to see it.

 

[Dripping]

The issue with slow openness gains (for dance/pose) is that it makes them grindy.

I think Openness is done pretty well in this game. Maybe not perfect in its presentation, but it's paced fairly well: it's a big time gate early on, when the player still has only 1-6 girls. But with some obviously useful benefits and traits, it doesn't become a grind later on, for most girls, openness will start to grow every turn, even while they're resting.
So, I'm hoping the Brat trait won't result in just that: having to focus too much on progressing seperate girls when the player also has 60-300 other girls to consider.

For the future, I do hope we'll get multiple locations, all with their own set of upgrades and their own clientele, maybe with a manager position or a weekly rotation planner to set up who's on stage each night.

 

[Disgruntler]

I think Openness is done pretty well in this game. Maybe not perfect in its presentation, but it's paced fairly well: it's a big time gate early on, when the player still has only 1-6 girls. But with some obviously useful benefits and traits, it doesn't become a grind later on, for most girls, openness will start to grow every turn, even while they're resting.
So, I'm hoping the Brat trait won't result in just that: having to focus too much on progressing seperate girls when the player also has 60-300 other girls to consider.

Only requires 4ish uses of Negotiator to get her to the next tier. Because she's cheap to negotiate, there's actually no reason to rush her up.

For the future, I do hope we'll get multiple locations, all with their own set of upgrades and their own clientele, maybe with a manager position or a weekly rotation planner to set up who's on stage each night.

The problem with multiple locations is, at the end of the day, there's only one booth game. I've actually toyed with the idea but came to the conclusion that having to run the booth game multiple times per night doesn't really make for a good loop.

 

[Deleted member 39321]

Disgruntler Would you be able to create a Mac version for the game as well? Thanks

 

[saucepan35]

The problem with multiple locations is, at the end of the day, there's only one booth game. I've actually toyed with the idea but came to the conclusion that having to run the booth game multiple times per night doesn't really make for a good loop.

Still, some way to stagger girl progress could be good for gameplay I think. Finding my ideas around it hard to actually put into writing though, and I assume it's even harder to actually put into the game itself.

Anyway, my prefered gameplay loop revolves around leveling a team of girls/shifts. The game is by far the best in the early stages while you're gradually ramping up operations, need to rotate 2-3 shifts, manage girl energy, level up openness & gradually unlock and get to watch their performances, while buying club upgrades. I've written enough about it in previous posts that I won't go into further, lest it get on peoples' nerves

So the idea of staggered girl progress would be that you - instead of basically reaching 80-100 openness and max upgrades for all 200 girls (depending on personal pack library count - on a side note I think the passive training bonuses are a bit too good right now in that it seems you can basically maxlevel girls fairly quickly without ever actively utilizing them) simultaneously the way you more or less do now, you could instead be restricted to let's say 20 girls for a location. Once you max a location you could buy another at an increasingly expensive rate. And then, same upgrades but scaled prices so you'd need the income from the previous location(s). Also the ability to peek at the old locations for some nostalgia scenes if you wanted, but within the same game. Maybe a CCTV feature like what TUSC recently introduced (aware there's a gallery for each girl, but CCTV feels better to me in terms of being a game vs just a convoluted video player). To be clear, I wouldn't want to run the booth game five times per night. Would have to be something like pick an active location and the other ones would just run themselves and generate some kind of passive baseline income but not give you skill gains etc.

An additional idea would be that upon buying a new loc you could bring 1 favorite (and fully/mostly unlocked) girl from the previous location so that you could watch the occasional sexytimes alongside the dancing and posing at the new & non-upgraded location and not start completely from scratch performance wise. It's kind of an NG+ like mechanic without fully starting over, really. I realize you said you already had ideas in other directions, but just more water for the idea-mill I guess.

 

[Disgruntler]

Disgruntler Would you be able to create a Mac version for the game as well? Thanks

I have no means to test it and not enough space to host it. If anyone wants the source code I can upload it and provide it and they can use Unity on their platform to compile a version for their platform.

Finding my ideas around it hard to actually put into writing though, and I assume it's even harder to actually put into the game itself.

Figuring out costs and stuff for subequent clubs is a logistical nightmare, especially given the way the scaling already works. It's taken this long to get the costs and cashflow to the place I'm content with for ONE club. I can't even begin to think of how scaling would work with additional clubs. Not to mention, there is a hard 'I literally cannot exceed this exact value' limit on money in the game. I cannot exceed $2,147,483,648 in the club coffers without either rewriting everything or underflow errors.

I want to say this though with acknowledgement that I am fully aware that endgame needs more. Right now the goal is 'get to end game' without any real sense of what to do when you get there. And I am fully aware of how that may feel unsatisfying to a lot of people.

I can tell you what I don't think is problematic about endgame. Balancing girl traits, trying to get the right mix of girls to get good use out of negotiator... occasionally tossing a snob out to punt losers, this to me is a sweet spot, and I think there is a solid, fully realized gameplay loop here. The problem isn't that this stage doesn't have good gameplay, it's that there doesn't feel like there's a reason to engage with it outside of completionism.

I don't think the answer is to start all over again.

I think the answer is to give a reason to engage with this layer, and give everything you've built in to customize the club meaning and purpose.

I want to say that giving the game an idea of being a part of a larger world is very much in the spirit of what I have planned. The club currently exists in a vacuum, and I don't think that it should remain in that vacuum. Or more accurately, I think there should be an option to engage with the greater world.

And that greater world may not appreciate your engagement.

 

[Dripping]

Well, something you could maybe look into, is the girl skills, their effect on the girls' popularity gain, and the effect on the visitors we attract.
End game right now is swimming in money and having all the girls you have installed, even though you only have 6 girls on stage each night. There's a point where more girls just doesn't make a difference anymore, and where it doesn't even matter how well trained they are. Visitors will pay, with nowhere to spend the money.

So, I'd suggest that a girl who's actually low skilled at dancing, might put off a rich client who's asking for dancing (or sex, or whatever), resulting in less money, less tips, and more noticable degradation of the clubs' popularity. Maybe even introduce a chance to loose a broker level due to bad performances. Poor visitors would obviously set the bar to satisfaction much lower.

It won't really give an end game, but may extend the pre-endgame.

 

[Deleted member 39321]

If anyone wants the source code I can upload it and provide it and they can use Unity on their platform to compile a version for their platform.

If you could upload the source code, it would be great, I can use unity to create the mac version.Thanks

 

[Disgruntler]

If you could upload the source code, it would be great, I can use unity to create the mac version.Thanks

I don't mind doing that for ya, I'll let you know when I got it ready.

Just so you know, you need to use the latest 2019 edition for it, it will not work (out of the box) with the 2021 edition of Unity.

 

[mgunner2010]

Ok, it is really getting disheartening to watch that ticker chiming down and not having any clients hardly at all showing up. I feel like half the time I am watching nothing but idle dancers and money going down the tube. Could you look at your code and consider changing something to make the client's show up just a tad faster? I appreciate that it makes you buy the improvements to have clients show up faster but even with the improvements it still seems like I am staring at empty booths too often and waiting....and waiting.....and waiting.....
EDIT: Just as an example, was just in game, on Tier 1, with all improvements bought except Modular Booth 1 and Upgraded Club, with all positions filled but Hostess, with a Rep of over 50, with three girls dancing and three booths just watched 19 seconds just tick away....a little long for my tastes really. The main problem I face with this is not really money but the mission to get a girl over 20 openness on Scramble. It takes a very long time but when I get there the last couple of missions then snowball because of the time to get the girls to over 20 openness. By then I have way over the Rep and of course the Gestapo mission is a given at that point. In Normal mode it is not a problem because I can make a work around with the JSON's but I normally play Scramble where this become an issue within the game. Sorry for the bitching on this, it is late in the evening and I do love what you have accomplished with the game!

 

[CaptC]

I have watched 30 seconds click off with no customers and three booths open. Bad income that night.

I think deference to the fact that this is a game, and a player sitting around bored is a bad thing, so I propose a 10 second pity timer. If a customer hasn't shown up naturally for 10 seconds when all booths are open, make one show up.

 

[Disgruntler]

mgunner2010 CaptC

Agreed--streak protection will be included post-haste.

 

[mgunner2010]

I have watched 30 seconds click off with no customers and three booths open. Bad income that night.

I think deference to the fact that this is a game, and a player sitting around bored is a bad thing, so I propose a 10 second pity timer. If a customer hasn't shown up naturally for 10 seconds when all booths are open, make one show up.

CaptC, you did what I was supposed to do....when you state a problem then also have a solution, not just complain like I did. Sorry Disgruntler, I should have proposed a solution with my problem like CaptC did.

 

[Disgruntler]

CaptC, you did what I was supposed to do....when you state a problem then also have a solution, not just complain like I did. Sorry Disgruntler, I should have proposed a solution with my problem like CaptC did.

No, it's fine.

No need to apologize, you both have repeatedly given valuable feedback in the past which I respect and that is the spirit in which I have taken it.

I have been doing a playthrough recently and I have come to agree with both of your concerns, for the exact same reasons. So I'm going to be adjusting the probability calculation for how they come in juuuuust a tad, and then including streak mitigation so that you can still get streaks (it works both ways) but also that you won't get long dry spells like that.

In fact, I'll be working on getting that ready shortly. 10.0 is not close to ready, there's a LOT of math I have to sort out for it, but I can get a minor patch up sooner rather than later.

Regarding costs, I'm changing the auto-fills in crime services to 10 per. I just want to stretch out getting them for a bit. And this helps tutorialize getting Patronage better.

As well, I've increased the costs of the bar/pharmacy/condoms/ciggies by 25 each to prevent buying them with starting money in normal mode, but in exchange, the extra booth is available for cheaper, so the total cost comes out even.