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[Feedback] Gameplay and Balance discussion

Started by Goldo, May 18, 2022, 02:32 PM

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FederalAgent

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 07, 2022, 07:15 PM1) The limited number of actions per day and how they are managed overall and what actions require action points.
Upgrade your speed on level up.
Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 07, 2022, 07:15 PM2) The ninja game is a bit ridiculous as the times you can look for a ninja girl is a bit frustrating to deal with. Had to actually save the game and retry to get trought that bit to advance into the story a bit faster as it felt a hit or miss when going trough.
True, even with a touchscreen there seems to be about 33% chance that a hit actually registers. It is annoying, but it doesn't really cause the story to drag, since you don't actually need all of the ninja interactions to progress right away, and the timing in which I typically do it seems to match with the pacing of my brothel upgrades quite well.
Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 07, 2022, 07:15 PM3) Training the girls stats: I personally feel like randomness with stats is really weird and being able to completely control the way a girl's playtrough is important. I like the idea of the talent trees but it can become a bit restrictive and annoying as well.
I think at a certain point mid game you could obtain training as a master to directly influence stats as you wish instead of random chances in sexual acts could go a lot better into getting those girls properly trained.
I think the biggest point of making rng so critical to a game like this is making each girl feel unique and upping replayability. if you can control every stat of every girl and mold her exactly as you like, every girl will feel the same and her personality and traits simply become flavor text. Though I think that you have a decent point about training in the mid game, but I think those traits are meant to be covered with items + class trainings.

Unkmess

I do see your point of view but, I think there's also the possibility of having myself a contrast over the situation itself.

When I see a brothel king, a slaver, and such, I think of somebody in power and capabilities to train and control his slaves. That is my point of view on it.
Though I do agree with you again, on your points of view. They should offer a bit more flavour to the girls overall. But The girls themselves can be random, as my current playtrough the game again I decided to go around making girlfriends so I can see their stats beforehand and make a choice free of money use.

Also because my purpose is to experiment and try different things with different girls, I also went ahead and modified the game files so there would be no fear and love daily modifiers.I thought by itself that is a bit meep as it forces you to spend unecessary time into talking with the girls daily to make sure love and fear at a decent level.

GoldoTopic starter

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 07, 2022, 07:15 PMHello everyone !
So I have been grinding this game for a bit now and I trully love it and noticed some things that were actually a bit frustrating to say non the least.
1) The limited number of actions per day and how they are managed overall and what actions require action points. [...]
You are aware of the Master bedroom feature, which allows you to give free training at night, and the farm? Both are AP free. You can also increase your Speed through leveling or items.

Quote2) The ninja game is a bit ridiculous as the times you can look for a ninja girl is a bit frustrating to deal with.
You might be interested in this previous discussion.

Quote3) Training the girls stats: I personally feel like randomness with stats is really weird and being able to completely control the way a girl's playtrough is important. I like the idea of the talent trees but it can become a bit restrictive and annoying as well.
I strongly disagree with this one, for design and world-building reasons.
Design: Giving players 100% control on girl traits is sure to result in completely identical builds and gameplay for, every girl, with very little incentive for players to get out of their comfort zone and try new combinations.
Realism: A world in which every girl is the same and has no specific quirk or skill set is not really believable. The girls are not blank slates, they have history, and some things they're naturally good or bad at. I think this is important for flavor.

If you do want more control over girls profiles, you may want to use Jman's Headhunter mode (a similar feature will eventually be implemented in-game from Chapter 4, although it will be costly).

Quote4)Another thing I noticed that masochist girls will end up being hateful towards you and their talk options are really awkward and not optimized.
Normally I would like her to still love me though she is masochistic, but if you push her too much she still ends up hating you instead. I might be doing something wrong but I think when a girl is masochistic, the more you push this trait the more she would end up loving you and dialogue options to be different when she is trully dominated.
I'm not sure exactly what you are experiencing, but it could be normal:
Spoiler
Masochist girls enjoy being brought down and will not react well to basic 'Love' generating actions.
[close]
Or it could be the result of some of the new community-made dialogue (not sure about this one). Concrete examples might help us narrow it down.

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 08, 2022, 06:05 AMAlso because my purpose is to experiment and try different things with different girls, I also went ahead and modified the game files so there would be no fear and love daily modifiers.I thought by itself that is a bit meep as it forces you to spend unecessary time into talking with the girls daily to make sure love and fear at a decent level.
You can achieve similar results by providing generous upkeep to your girls, although this may reduce your margins a bit.
Maker of BK. Looking for the latest patch for BK 0.2? The link doesn't change, so bookmark it!

Hareb

Quote from: Goldo on Jul 08, 2022, 03:39 PM
Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 07, 2022, 07:15 PM
Spoiler
Masochist girls enjoy being brought down and will not react well to basic 'Love' generating actions.
[close]
Or it could be the result of some of the new community-made dialogue (not sure about this one). Concrete examples might help us narrow it down.


Masochist slave dialogue hasn't been written yet. If they get their lines from others, it might not fully fit their tendencies... but would need to know more specifics

j01ntr0l1a

well for me it would be to be able to put a note or description on your girls to remember what you where gunna do with her after you do something with her thats not her normal routine.   ex. have her training as a whore but her main is geisha cuz i be forgetting what i wanna do with them sometimes with 30 girls lol

Unkmess

#20
Quote from: Hareb on Jul 08, 2022, 06:45 PM
Quote from: Goldo on Jul 08, 2022, 03:39 PM
Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 07, 2022, 07:15 PM
Spoiler
Masochist girls enjoy being brought down and will not react well to basic 'Love' generating actions.
[close]
Or it could be the result of some of the new community-made dialogue (not sure about this one). Concrete examples might help us narrow it down.


Masochist slave dialogue hasn't been written yet. If they get their lines from others, it might not fully fit their tendencies... but would need to know more specifics
Hello,
so ......
I had a masochistic girl in my brothel and I will be fair that I regularly abused her.
My love was still high for her as she was still in love with me but at a certain point she broke down and started despising me though she was masochistic.
I went away from that save but the issue I was having with masochistic girls is that if you provide them with love they would end up losing fear arguments and keeping it balanced was a bit risky.
In my case I was losing fear on her and I pushed her and then fear went down big time and she started despising me. I don't know how better to explain.
Also don't mind me but the reason I went ahead to look into the files to change the fear / love daily movements to 0 was because I thought it was a bit awkward and funny. The girls had a continous good mood throughout the gameplay and high security as well so fear shouldn't go like that.
love wise, again I think that unless you do something stupid to push them shouldn't go down. But this is a personal opinion and as long as I can modify it in future versions for my own gameplay I am alright as far as that concerns me though I would love to have easier access to it.

In regards to masochistic girl, I will try to get another one and experiment on her and write down again what goes and such and what happens. As a probable feed back !


After a reading of one of my replies I wanted to share and Idea that came to mind. And yes, I do agree with the fact that girls need to have their own specific traits and such feel different one from another.
But the idea that came to mind is traits that build over time with a girl that does repetitive actions such as:
Dancing, Servicing, Anal and so forth as long as she gets comfortable with the actions themselves.

To give more details :
If a girl that works consistently as a dancer would benefit from dancing related traits that would then boost her qualities upwards.
Same for girls that give service:
A girl that does blowjobs a lot would earn a trait that would make her provide even better satisfaction to customers.

As for the initial traits, they should be used to determine the basics of what a girl can do and where she can perform and her different qualities.
Negative traits though should be able to be eliminated trough said performed actions as well.
Sick girl, trough enough training and pushing about she should improve her lifestyle or just die ( sounds really stupid but ) Instead of having a sick girl then you could heal her and make her body better :).
Same for lazy girls, that can be trained trough obedience to get rid of the lazy trait.
but won't burden you guys with too much stuff :D Also I played the last week almost everyday ( the game captivated me too much I would say )

Also What I noticed ( idk if it's because of the mods or not ) but there's a trait called mentor.
Now I think that shouldn't be a trait by itself but rather a girl with higher rank should be able to always provide support to the new girls around to increase their stats bit by bit overall. But that only if the girl goes trough a set of training trough the postings so to say. So if she did loads of dancing classes then she could be a mentor.

Or rather classes provided trough postsings to offer her general traits in regards to the specific actions and at a certain point offer her mentor status over those as well. ( when you go trough a lot of training you are able to train others I would say )

neronero

Regarding masochist: I think that intentionally raising fear might be too difficult with the current Community Dialogue. Continued in this topic.

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 10, 2022, 12:22 AMBut the idea that came to mind is traits that build over time with a girl that does repetitive actions
I'll take this into consideration for Trait King, but I think I would then also want to see the flipside of that: Forgetting certain traits over time. And you run into the problem Goldo was describing; each player has their own gameplay habits so you risk creating lots of similar girls over time.

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 10, 2022, 12:22 AMNegative traits though should be able to be eliminated trough said performed actions as well.
Currently with Trait King you can start to eliminate (or rather, improve) negative traits once a girl has no negative fixations. She'll approach the MC and request special training to get rid of her bad trait/habit. This training needs to be repeated a few times and then the negative trait changes into something else.

I do like your idea of making the process more automatic through gameplay actions. That would be better than the current system, but its also a very complicated system to fully design and implement for every trait (How would "Deaf" or "Blind" girls be cured through repetitive gameplay for example? How would the player know to take & repeat that action?)

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 10, 2022, 12:22 AMAlso What I noticed ( idk if it's because of the mods or not ) but there's a trait called mentor. [...]
This is indeed from a mod. In the vanilla game it's a perk which kind of works as you described -> If a girl becomes high enough level you can eventually give her the "Leading by Example" perk from the Bride perk-tree. Think of all the perk-trees as special trainings/instructions which you can give to your girls. Every girl has the potential to become a mentor, but you'll have to request it from them by giving them the "Leading by Example"-perk.

And in the Trait King mod, certain girls don't need to be told. Maybe they've grown up as the oldest sibling with lots of little brothers and sisters. It's not about being an expert at their field. It's about having the mindset of wanting to help those who have fallen behind, even if you yourself perhaps are barely doing any better.
My Girl Packs: [ link ] - Trait King mod: [ link ]

Unkmess

QuoteRegarding masochist: I think that intentionally raising fear might be too difficult with the current Community Dialogue. Continued in this topic.

Quote from: Unkmess on Today at 12:22 AM
But the idea that came to mind is traits that build over time with a girl that does repetitive actions
I'll take this into consideration for Trait King, but I think I would then also want to see the flipside of that: Forgetting certain traits over time. And you run into the problem Goldo was describing; each player has their own gameplay habits so you risk creating lots of similar girls over time.

Quote from: Unkmess on Today at 12:22 AM
Negative traits though should be able to be eliminated trough said performed actions as well.
Currently with Trait King you can start to eliminate (or rather, improve) negative traits once a girl has no negative fixations. She'll approach the MC and request special training to get rid of her bad trait/habit. This training needs to be repeated a few times and then the negative trait changes into something else.

I do like your idea of making the process more automatic through gameplay actions. That would be better than the current system, but its also a very complicated system to fully design and implement for every trait (How would "Deaf" or "Blind" girls be cured through repetitive gameplay for example? How would the player know to take & repeat that action?)

I don't know how to post fancy quotes to be honest.

So for negative traits such as blindness, deafness, let's say scars as well. Those would be permanent traits and you would know they are permanent.
Sadly for blindness I see no solution as unless the game suddenly goes into another era of medical practices I wouldn't know. But a work around would be for her to become a whore only ( with a trait called fuck-toy increasing her knowledge about sex ). I legit have no clue to be honest other than that.

While deafness ( with high enough carisma ) you could learn to communicate with her. At the end of the day charisma is a skill for speech. Don't get me wrong, I can go around systems and such that are hard to implement. So I will stop here.

While with the process becoming a bit more automatic, that would be Sill to introduce us to it. We have a lovely slave girl that does all the explaining so using that would be the introduction to it all.

"Over there you can notice a girls traits, over time and working the girl will obtain different skills and traits "

But it's a complicated idea and I agree, I am looking at the code for the game and I find it hard to understand what's going on many times in a row. So I might pick up to learn renpy :)

Again I love the game concept and how everything is implemented.

I am going to look over the trait king mod code to check a bit it's implementation and such.
Maybe if I learn a bit more I could help out with the implementations of certain ideas.

vadi92

#23
An updated version for city encounter from Mistrun.

And a message from him: You have to deleting your old Encounter file in game\NPC before adding mine, otherwise the old pictures will remain since i converted mine to webp and they are mostly jpgs
As for the rpy files you can just replace the old ones
I recommend a back up in case i missed something while testing, but it should work fine
However i'm pretty sure you'll need to start a new game for it to work properly, can't do shit about that
Enjoy!

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 10, 2022, 01:58 PMI don't know how to post fancy quotes to be honest.
You mean this?
Just select the part of the text what you want to quote and a new option pops up down below with this:  Quote selected text

neronero

I think this suggestion is interesting so relaying it here:

Quote from: nahitsnotimportant, post: 8516301, member: 785391Make a gameplay difficulty option where it would be viable and possible to have one girl perform all jobs without restrictions for extra casual play. Less constant clicking and switching around would feel so much better, plus a good way to squeeze out content from some of the extensive girlpacks out there.

Although to simplify the code/design implications I would slightly tweak this suggestion into a "Random"-option (name for it needs some brainstorming), where the girl will decide for herself what job she will perform, and that job can change every night. I implemented something similar in my Fran girlpack and called it her "Free will".
My Girl Packs: [ link ] - Trait King mod: [ link ]

Unkmess

#25
I got a question in regards to energy regeneration:
If you get her better beds does the energy regeneration increase as well ?
From what I noticed the formula is based on constitution
            x = (25 + self.get_stat("constitution")/4) * self.get_effect("boost", "energy when resting") + self.get_effect("change", "energy when resting")

X would be the energy level recovered.

            if self.hurt > 0: # Hurt girls recover half as fast
                x = x//2

            x *= mod

#                renpy.say("", "Changing " + self.fullname + " energy recovery from " + str(x))
#                renpy.say("", "To " + str(x))

            r, case = self.change_energy(x)

            resting_changes += "\nEnergy{color=[c_green]} +" + str_int(r) + "{/color}"

            if case == "recovered":
                if context == "farm":
                    resting_text += "\n{color=[c_emerald]}She is now fully rested and can go back to her training.{/color}"
                elif self.job:
                    resting_text += "\n{color=[c_emerald]}She is now fully rested and can go back to work as a " + self.job + ".{/color}"
                else:
                    resting_text += "\n{color=[c_emerald]}She is now fully rested and is waiting for a job assignment.{/color}"

            return resting_text, resting_changes


Wouldn't increasing the girls sleeping conditions help on improving energy regeneration as well ?

neronero

Quote from: Unkmess on Jul 10, 2022, 06:43 PMWouldn't increasing the girls sleeping conditions help on improving energy regeneration as well ?
Currently it only improves mood & customer satisfaction. You could argue that the ranks are more about upgrading their decor & visual appeal rather than about optimizing sleep.
My Girl Packs: [ link ] - Trait King mod: [ link ]

vadi92

An updated City encounters. There are a few pic's what Mistrun forgot to change to webp and the game throws error message for them.

QuietBob

#28
This may have been discussed at some point on the old forum, if so I apologize, but the limit on effectiveness for repeated discipline can get frustrating sometimes.
I can understand constant, unnecessary punishment getting less effective over time, but when a girl refuses to work 5 nights in a row, you better bet I'm going to punish her every time.
What I already do, but doesn't seem to have an in game effect (at least not the one I'm looking for, there could be something I haven't noticed), is ramp up the severity of the discipline as the disobedience is repeated.
Scold->remove upkeep->force to go naked->etc.

I think that allowing for increased severity could allow for more concurrent punishments without lowering their effectiveness, especially if it's for something as serious as refusing to work.


Completely unrelated and, again, something that could have been brought up before at some point, is an alternative method for obtaining slaves.

Currently, afaik, the only methods are through purchase and convincing free girls to be enslaved. I remember and old simbro clone, though, that allowed you to hire thugs to basically serve as raiding parties and capture slaves from villages and whatnot. It was still expensive and they were usually especially obedient, but personally I like the idea of enslaving girls yourself instead of just buying them or talking them into it. Not sure if that works with the legality of slavery in Zan, but maybe they could go to foreign lands and take a bit longer?
Alternatively, instead of just raiding parties, potentially getting bounty hunters on the payroll that could catch criminals and give you first dibs at a slave contract. Another fun set of somewhat unique personalities and backgrounds could crop up through that.
Also beneficial is that the old simbro game used this as a method of capturing Monster girls. I think we've got a few packs that fit, and the same style of unique monster girls could be used here.
Edit: Another, less obtrusive option, might be monthly auctions for high-profile slaves.

I get that any of this would be a whole new set of game mechanics so it won't be implemented anytime soon if at all. Idk if this was something specifically avoided for any reason, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

GoldoTopic starter

Quote from: QuietBob on Aug 26, 2022, 01:29 AMThis may have been discussed at some point on the old forum, if so I apologize, but the limit on effectiveness for repeated discipline can get frustrating sometimes.
I can understand constant, unnecessary punishment getting less effective over time, but when a girl refuses to work 5 nights in a row, you better bet I'm going to punish her every time.
What I already do, but doesn't seem to have an in game effect (at least not the one I'm looking for, there could be something I haven't noticed), is ramp up the severity of the discipline as the disobedience is repeated.
Scold->remove upkeep->force to go naked->etc.

I think that allowing for increased severity could allow for more concurrent punishments without lowering their effectiveness, especially if it's for something as serious as refusing to work.

I will have to double check how it works in the code, but yeah I agree it should be possible to increase punishment and get better returns. Something that can be fixed in 0.3 if it doesn't work as intended.


QuoteCompletely unrelated and, again, something that could have been brought up before at some point, is an alternative method for obtaining slaves.

Currently, afaik, the only methods are through purchase and convincing free girls to be enslaved. I remember and old simbro clone, though, that allowed you to hire thugs to basically serve as raiding parties and capture slaves from villages and whatnot. It was still expensive and they were usually especially obedient, but personally I like the idea of enslaving girls yourself instead of just buying them or talking them into it. Not sure if that works with the legality of slavery in Zan, but maybe they could go to foreign lands and take a bit longer?
Alternatively, instead of just raiding parties, potentially getting bounty hunters on the payroll that could catch criminals and give you first dibs at a slave contract. Another fun set of somewhat unique personalities and backgrounds could crop up through that.
My issue with that is summed up in your last sentence: unless there are some special traits or mechanics that come with it, diversifying channels to acquire girls will not add any depth, and be functionally the same as buying a girl from the slavemarket and deciding in your head cannon "before I bought her, she got enslaved by a raiding party".

The work involved in adding new channels to catch slaves would be significant to be interesting, and then it would still be redundant with game mechanics that already work in-game (the slavemarket...), with no guarantee that it would improve fun. For the time being, I'd rather work on mechanics that need improvement (such as the Farm) or don't exist yet (the vanilla BK equivalent of the Headhunter). If it ain't broke...

With that said, you might want to look at Jman's bonanza mod. I think it had some of the gameplay elements you're discussing.
Maker of BK. Looking for the latest patch for BK 0.2? The link doesn't change, so bookmark it!