My thoughts on the current version of Wicked Rouge:
Currently, I feel this is shaping up to be an incredibly enjoying experience. The girls are rendered very well, animations as well. One gripe I have is some of the animations look crazy when sped up. There's no easy fix for this so lets move onto my next point.
Replaying the game is a chore. I've been following this game since its first release on f95, and have replayed the game several times. Once this patch as well because old saves do not work. As many others have said, training takes too long. Some solutions to this might be:
1. Include a skip that you can use in the middle of training. Of course, there will be a penalty. The exp gained should be equivalent to as if you played the game without interacting at all.
2. Allow a training multiplier that costs more action points. For example, multiply the EXP gain by 3x by using 3 action points.
3. A variation of the first solution: fast training. I envision this to be something like when you go to sleep, and you get renders of what the characters are up to, and get money/exp accordingly. Fast training would be a render of training the girls, and they get a small amount of experience.
These are just changes I believe can be made to speed up the training portion of the game. I also have other things I'd like to see changed about the training in general.
1. Training positions should be able to be chosen, instead of randomized. As I understand it, there are 3 animations for each girl for every type of training. However, it is random which one you get. Sometimes when your jacking it, you want to see a specific one, so having an option to choose would be nice.
2. If you wish to make the training not too stale, more systems such as the girls' moods can be implemented. For example, a girl could be more horny or more sensitive, and that would make certain types of training grant more experience.
I feel the current design of the training is made with replayability and a bit of realism in mind, thus the randomness. However it can be done with more player agency in mind, right now it feels a bit grindy as many have said. While not inherently a bad thing, a grind has to be enjoyable as well to succeed.
More options would be nice, as well as a replay/gallery feature. Currently, the gallery is composed of bonus renders. Nothing wrong with that, but it could be expanded. A player could also save right before they engage in those sexy events in order to replay them(which is what I did) but if they are saved in the gallery that would be just icing on the cake. Extra options I would like to see would be a way to skip transitions to make skipping faster.
Thanks for reading. Fidless, if you read this, please take it with a grain of salt. I still spent more time on Wicked Rouge than I'd like to admit, despite all the above.
Including a skip and a penalty... when you make every training a chore while not offering enough incentives, that's just a grinding with a harder punishment. Honestly, the mini-game is not challenging enough to make it worth replayable... and not skipping with a penalty... frankly, we have no problem playing the mini-game all over every time, but not the majority of the market. Understanding your target audience and refining the system accordingly help a lot. If I were to create a new mini-game for training, make it something like actual selecting training procedures, props used, pose used, where you will be touching or conversation choices, every accurate choice accordingly to the girl's preference//in-game character's sex technique will affect the outcome of the XP gain by certain percentage (stack up to 200% at max.); while skipping the training session (without a perfect training record) will give 100-120% XP; finally for players who have perfected the mini-game may skip the training session with a 140-190% XP. That will give lazy players the proper incentive to drive for perfection and casual players a proper amount if they insist on skipping the session. Sounds amazing on papers and probably very complicated in programming and coding, so ignore that if it is too complex to go there.
EXP gain seems like a good implementation, but there is already a system in-game for now in terms of gold. As for action point cost, increasing that makes it unlikely to train the other girls in early game (new players do not know how to utilize the action point efficiently; look at the number of players asking for a guide on financial management, designing a game with a very high bar on errors for an erotic game, that seems extra punishing). Perhaps implement that as a late game alternative.
The issue is not with the training time. There are 4 variables for stage performance while all training sessions take 1 day and only 1 variable shall increase. Drop 2 variables (or merge 2 as 1) will make it more reasonable and training time will be reduced effectively. (Inner beauty and appearance, two easy factors to manage, just for reference)
If you want to make training more interesting, increasing variables or giving choice of poses are great ideas. But remember, forcing a player to play strategically instead of training the girls as they please, that's not what some players might want. (Example, if I am making the sister a performer while the game offers me more EXP for prostitution instead...)
Other than those mentioned and one other member complaining not able to refrain the 2 main girls as lovers instead of sending out as prostitute, there are other finer details we can go in depth.
The building upgrade system is rather odd. Realistically, as a boss of the house, you don't need to go to shop yourself to buy ingredients bit by bit. Your minions should be handling those fine. That goes along with the food and wine supply. They should be a part of the expense, overlapping those seems redundant.
The current training system does not make it easier to manage all the girls fast. Also it makes assignment of duties complicated than most management games. Since there will only be one performer, just setup a slot and players can choose whoever responsible for the performance right there (I will skip out the prostitution management part; I assume someone else has a better plan in the foreseeable future).
With the current structure of the game and the story, I understand it is least likely for any players who are really in love with either of the sisters, can keep them from prostitution until mid to late game. Hopefully, new girls after Mei may get other better options (I know how the majority prefers harem, but having the option there for those desperate kids seems fine).
I haven't played anything related to combat and fighting yet, so I will come back to suggest more on that later.