Hi, so I'm implementing a new feature for 0.3, which is a 'no story' mode that some people have been asking for. It would be unlocked after a first playthrough with the story on.
Given that this mode has no story, the only gatekeeping between chapters will be the chapter goals.
Now, I know that several people have mentioned that the mid-game goals are too easy to achieve. The aim, obviously, would be to pace the chapters properly (ideally, each chapter should be somewhat longer than the previous one).
So I would like to open a discussion:
What would be good goals for each Chapter in a no-story game? (they may or may not differ from story goals)
For the record, here are the current goals as extracted from BKsettings.rpy:
Spoiler
## CHAPTER GOALS
# Goal types can be: 'gold', 'ranked' (reach rank X with Y girls), 'reputation', 'prestige'
bro_cost = {1 : 0, 2 : 1000, 3: 5000, 4 : 7500, 5 : 15000, 6 : 25000, 7 : 100000}
chapter_goals = {
1 : [Goal("gold", bro_cost[2])],
2 : [Goal("gold", bro_cost[3])],
3 : [Goal("ranked", 2, 6), Goal("gold", bro_cost[4])],
4 : [Goal("ranked", 3, 8), Goal("gold", bro_cost[5])],
5 : [Goal("ranked", 3, 10), Goal("gold", bro_cost[6])],
6 : [Goal("ranked", 4, 12), Goal("gold", bro_cost[7])],
7 : [Goal(None, channel="other")], # No goal for endless mode
}
What I don't like about the current goals is that they're all identical. Even if you tweak the numbers, everything is still completed on autopilot from beginning to end.
On the other hand, if you make the challenges too specific/unique then I think that goes against the spirit of a no-story mode. Eg: Why would the game demand that I have XX girls of rank X to reach endless mode? Maybe I want to create a challenge for myself by reaching it while having the least amount/lowest rank girls possible.
I think ideally the goals also give the player a small taste of new gameplay mechanics as they become available, without forcing them too far down a certain road.
1) Gather 1000 gold
2) Recruit 1 free girl + complete 2 classes + gather 5000 gold
3) Complete 4 quests + complete 1 contract + gather 7500 gold
4) Reach rank 3 with 8 girls + gather 15000 gold
5) Make XXXX* gold in a single night + gather 25000 gold
6) Serve XXX* Nobles + gather 100000 gold
7) -
*I haven't been playing enough of the lategame to put a number on this.
Quote from: Jman9I think the best goals are already in the game: "X girls of rank Y". You can tweak these numbers if they seem too easy.
Other ideas: I once had both the "X girls of rank Y" goals and MC prestige goals. At least in early game, these were pretty substantial from player feedback. OTOH, the environment where they were more substantial was quite different, so not sure that'd transfer over.
Another idea would be to take inspiration from Papa Freak: have at least one girl satisfy some quite strenuous stat/job requirements.
Or a similar take: have at least one (or ten, or ten thousand) customer(s) get a 'perfect' score from entertainment+whoring. And not just any old customer, but one from the highest tier available in that chapter. So no cheating via beggars, and you also need to unlock and invite those customers.
Possibly also a requirement for brothel fame and/or some number of successfully completed contracts. Or even taxes paid. :devilish:
One could also look to achievements for more inspiration.
Given that a 'no story' mode would focus even more on the 'make the numbers go up' game, cash + girls + girl rank is a perfectly adequate way of gating progress, since those are the numbers you want to make go up, and the ones the player has the most control over.
There are ways of masking the cash requirement and making it less about just building a big war chest when you want to move on to the next chapter: Cash spent on brothel upgrades, taxes, or perhaps some kind of 'total net worth' that adds up cash + brothel value + slave value + item value.
'Number of customers served' or anything similar is functionally a time requirement. Given that furniture is already a big time gate to making numbers go up, I'm inclined to think it's not really needed.
Quote from: Calob on Jul 25, 2022, 01:02 PMGiven that a 'no story' mode would focus even more on the 'make the numbers go up' game, cash + girls + girl rank is a perfectly adequate way of gating progress, since those are the numbers you want to make go up, and the ones the player has the most control over.
This really depends on your playstyle. The game becomes boring to me once you're required to manage more and more girls. You forget their names and personalities and they just become numbers on a spreadsheet.
Once I reach the storyless later chapters, I tend to get bored and restart. That's why (paradoxically) I'm especially interested in a no-story mode, primarily for the early game.
So if the game/goals would allow me to somehow reach the late-game with 8 girls, I would vastly prefer playing that way. (If not, no harm done - since a no-story mode will make restarting easier than ever)
Thank you for the great insight. One thing I'd like to make clear: for me, Goals should not corner a player into a specific playstyle. Meaning goals that require maxing out girls in the brothel, or having girls with specific jobs, skills and so on are probably off the table.
On the other hand, I like the idea of variety in goals, so not gating everything with total gold is appealing. Some of the alternatives you suggested such as gold spent on upgrades, or gold made in a single night look very interesting, even if they amount to the same thing they offer some variation for players.
Quote from: neroneroQuote from: Jman9, post: 8619909, member: 1528105[USER=3301737]__neronero[/USER]'s numbers seem way too low for me, but I am admittedly not a vanilla player.
You're probably right, I'm overcompensating a bit too much because I'm looking forward to this no-story mode for my casual runs, not for the "new game +" challenge that some might want from this.
In my eyes the no-story mode shouldn't be converting the skipped story-time into more grinding-time by changing the chapter goals significantly. Bigger challenges should be accessed through the difficulty options instead.
Quote from: JmanQuote from: neroneroI believe chapter goals that are too specific should really be achievements instead.
The trouble with that is that achievements are optional. But I imagine this is not really a discussion of these goals Goldo wants to have, but rather a proper new game+/challenge run mode. Which would be a separate and different thing altogether.
^A simple implementation of "Challenge runs" could be converting these chapter goals into some very specific challenges (activated by checking a box in the difficulty screen)
Quote from: Jman9, post: 8619909, member: 1528105Well, in that case alternative ways of expressing 'gold made' would seem best, since that's fully within player control and tends to reflect most other not-too-specific goals. Gold total, highest gold per night, highest gold per customer, taxes paid, quest/contract income earned, perhaps even highest price you sold a girl for?
^I especially like taxes paid and quest/contract income earned
Are you and Jman the same person? Is this all happening in your head? ;D
:o Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever been in the same room as Jman!
Quote from: neronero on Jul 26, 2022, 05:07 AM:o Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever been in the same room as Jman!
At least you didn't say, "I don't think I've ever been in the same room as me!"
If you play on bk difficulty, girls will always have maximum stats (if you want income). That is, the requirement for rank is nonsense. The girls immediately raise him worth going to a new brothel(Most tedious to raise the price of raising the rank). With the current requirement to move into a new brothel, it takes many times more money to develop a new brothel than just the requirement to move. Not developed brothel = risk of bankruptcy, few customers with small amounts in their pockets will not even pay for the maintenance.
I recently played on bk difficulty and my transition for chapters 5 and 6 was immediately available as I moved to a new brothel (in 6 after raising the rank of girls). If you make prestige a requirement, you need to keep a bunch of whores pumping their relationship to sex acts on the farm all the time.
In general, any requirement will require the player to play in a certain way ;D ;)
honestly, i never used the farm. for me it could not be there it would be the same
"have X Gold" or "have X number of girls at Y rank" are definitely way too easy, and i definitely find it a bit annoying immediately after finishing one chapter the button to advance to the next one is just there when you want some time to get ready for the next chapter and build up some extra funds before moving.
i like the "earn x gold in a single night" and "complete X contracts" ones, and i think giving people options for more specific/difficult chapter progression goals could be interesting, like having a basic general set of goals then a challenge mode that asks you to do the harder or more specific things "get x girl(s) to make y amount in z job" or "sell a girl for a profit of x", that kind of thing.
Quote from: cosmonight19 on Jul 28, 2022, 04:14 AM"have X Gold" or "have X number of girls at Y rank" are definitely way too easy, and i definitely find it a bit annoying immediately after finishing one chapter the button to advance to the next one is just there when you want some time to get ready for the next chapter and build up some extra funds before moving.
i like the "earn x gold in a single night" and "complete X contracts" ones, and i think giving people options for more specific/difficult chapter progression goals could be interesting, like having a basic general set of goals then a challenge mode that asks you to do the harder or more specific things "get x girl(s) to make y amount in z job" or "sell a girl for a profit of x", that kind of thing.
i don't know how easy it would be but having 2 sets of actually goals could give a little extra bonus if you do it could be nice.
That would be... extremely easy to do to be honest. I only need help calibrating the goals with actual player feedback, because I literally never have time to play past the first 2 chapters.
Personally I think the current chapter goals are about the right difficulty.
If there is a issue with balancing the goals, maybe tie them to the player-selected difficulty level. Players who have selected the easy difficulties have indicated that they want an easier time. Players who select the harder difficulty have indicated that they want more of a challenge. So give each what they have shown that they want.
I like playing with the goals amended to include "Have MAX girls of rank MAX" for every chapter. It makes the game slower, so it's obviously not for everybody, but it's something I enjoy.
Now there could be an option for player-selected difficulty called "Marathon", which - if selected - could add the above conditions to each chapter. It could also mitigate the "advance to chapter N+1 immediately after advancing to N" issue somewhat. Not completely, though: a player can prepare for this using the farm.
Guess I'm a little late to the discussion, but here's my thoughts about the goals:
- I'm for one common set of goals. I think that will make it easier and less troublesome to keep things balanced in the long run.
If you were to have different goals for different difficulties, you would have to balance and also maintain that balance for multiple sets of goals.
Since it easier to earn money, etc. on lower difficulties, the same goals will still be easier to reach. A lot easier, if you compare the "Gigolo" to the "Brothel King" difficulty. - That's even more true since you said you don't want to corner players into specific playstyles - meaning the goals should be a common divider, meaningful in any case, whether it is between different difficulties - or even within the same difficulty, but between different playstyles.
Taking a look at the current goals, there are two kinds: money goals and girl goals.
I think the current girl goals are somewhat of a MIX of "have at least X girls" and "have at least X max-ranked girls".
What I mean is that the number X is more balanced around "have at least X girls" at the moment - but they actually need to be max rank. "Have 12 girls at maxrank" in the last chapter means you will almost always have to spend time waiting for the last one or two girls to catch up, while 10 girls already are at maxrank.
Personally, I recommend sticking with "have at least X max-ranked girls" but substantially reducing the amount. By reducing the girlcount you could
- Accomodate players like me and neronero who prefer playing with a lower number of girls.
- Still require that players have at least a few girls on max level. E.g.
3 : [Goal("ranked", 2, 3)
4 : [Goal("ranked", 3, 4)
5 : [Goal("ranked", 3, 6)
6 : [Goal("ranked", 4, 8 )
- So e.g. with a 8-girl playstyle like neronero, you could still reach the last difficulty. If you play a more common playstyle, it still requires at least half of your girls to be max-rank, which is not trivial.
Finally, I think the most relevant goal is the gold cost. It's not only a good money-sink, but also a good indicator whether you can stem the increased upkeep costs of the higher tier brothel.
Also, you do get a lot of things with the new brothel - e.g. bedrooms, master rooms, larger capacity for common rooms like okiya, access to advanced furniture. I think it is only fair that you pay for that.
Last but not least, that kind of goal is not cornering into a certain playstyle - everyone is expected to earn more money later on, which is also reflected in item prices etc.
At the moment, I feel like the goals are "alternating". One goal is hard to reach (upgrade you girls to new maxrank, the required gold also increases substantially), followed by an easy goal (have a bit more girls at that same max-rank, and a bit more gold). Taking a closer look at the monetary goals:
bro_cost = {1 : 0, 2 : 1000, 3: 5000, 4 : 7500, 5 : 15000, 6 : 25000, 7 : 100000}
In percentages, the increase from 2 -> 3 is very high, while 3 -> 4 is very low . I think reducing level 3 to e.g. 3500 or 4000 would help even things out.
To be honest, I would have to play a game with my newly proposed "girl" goals before I can really provide feedback about the monetary goals. In the past, I felt the monetary goals only mattered for the first few chapters - then it were the girl goals that were harder to meet.
I think the biggest danger is advancing to a new chapter, without having enough girls to even pay the upkeep, sending you into a downward spiral you cannot escape.
Thank you all for your input! I must say I tend to agree with most of Chris12's reasoning.
Although I'd like to add the option to configure custom goals as well, just not closely tied to difficulty level (for the reasons Chris12 mentioned). This could be used to create custom challenges for oneself, but the balancing would be kind of left to the player. This would have to be with achievements off (although there could be a specific achievement for finishing a game with custom goals).
People could then even suggest their own challenges on the forum for others to take up. Just an idea.
IMO Be careful about making goals like "Complete X contracts". Regardless of playstyle, or how badly/well you are performing, a goal like that will always take a minimum of X months to complete. That is, it is tied almost exclusively to time, and the player has very little control over their ability to complete that whenever they are ready. You don't want to create too many situations where the only thing someone can do to make progress, is just sit and wait.
If it is just part of 1 chapter's progress, that is probably fine, but as a recurring + scaling objective, it can get pretty annoying (especially on lower difficulties where making money/training go by so quickly). On higher difficulties, furniture already serves as a time gate, because moving up a chapter tends to be a pretty major step, and you usually want to prepare as much as possible before pulling the trigger.