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[Feedback] Gameplay and Balance discussion

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

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neronero

#30
I love the idea of "exotic" personalities & monsters from foreign lands arriving in your brothel through a special mechanic. To me this sounds like a feature that could easily be added through a mod (See Goldo's instructions here, the mod creator could add unique girls that could only be obtained through the mechanics of such a mod)

At one point a kidnapping mod did exist on the old forum, although I wasn't a big fan of its mechanics (it was more like a cheaty way to obtain the free-girls of Zan without all the dating nonsense)
With time and effort it could be recreated, but I agree with Goldo that it's not really worth it if it's just for some head-canon (and if it practically circumvents existing game mechanics)

One more thing I'd like to propose, perhaps as a special feature for the non-existent Headhunter, is a monthly mystery-girl subscription. You pay a fixed fee each month and recieve a steady supply of girls in exchange. But you have no idea what exactly you're going to get every time.
I think this could be fun, because I notice myself being too picky sometimes when visiting the slavemarket & the city. Theoretically the Headhunter could go even further in that direction of narrowing the player's mindset ("I must have a girl with these exact traits!") so it would be fun to counterbalance that tendency with something like this.
My Girl Packs: [ link ] - Trait King mod: [ link ]

QuietBob

Quote from: QuietBob on Aug 26, 2022, 01:29 AMIt 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.

Meant especially disobedient. My bad.

Quote from: Goldo on Aug 26, 2022, 04:00 PMI 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.

Good to hear! It's not a major detractor, but it will still be nice to see some changes when you get to it.

Quote from: Goldo on Aug 26, 2022, 04:00 PMMy 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.

You're completely right. I was thinking as I was writing it out about how to turn it into an actually useful and unique mechanic beyond head cannon. The best I came up with before were the monster girl and auction girls.
Like neronero said, the 'exotic' personality types could work really well here. Monster girls from raids and from auctions, basically girls similar to the ones Kosmo is always gloating about. Famous pirate queens and thieves, destitute nobles with royal blood, maybe even famous bards or artisans.
Honestly, I'd also be happy with an option to let you keep the thieves you sometimes catch breaking into your brothel that you usually just let security use for the night.
I'd be willing to look into how to mod things myself, but I have the coding skills of a dry, crisp, autumn leaf, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
Another idea that might make it more viable, probably after the completion more imminently viable features like the Farm, would be to make the raiding parties more of a gamble. You might get a normal girl with low stats and obedience, you might get a diamond in the rough with at least one gold attribute, you might get nothing, or you might even get a big fat fine because your goons raided the wrong village.
But I agree this still doesn't make it worth much compared to the already existing slave market unless the idea to use individual girls for advertising, security, and cleaning is implemented.
In that case you could assign specific security girls to your raiding squads to alter success chances and experience gains etc. But that's another big change reliant on another big change.
I do still like the monster hunter, auction, and thief enslavement ideas, though.

Last thing sorry, I didn't mean to write a book today lol. I'm not sure where to find the Bonanza mod since the old site was lost. Does anyone still have a link?

vadi92

Quote from: QuietBob on Aug 26, 2022, 10:40 PMI'm not sure where to find the Bonanza mod since the old site was lost. Does anyone still have a link?

Most likely Jman have it. But i didn't seen him write anything here so far.

tili

I think can add a dynamic balancing mechanism to the number of customers, such as decreasing reputation for each unserved customer.that can make some mechanism more effective

I'm not a native English speaker, so I use translation software to help me

Leortha

Quote from: vadi92 on Aug 27, 2022, 07:19 AMMost likely Jman have it. But i didn't seen him write anything here so far.

When we had the changeover to the new site, JMan said he was mostly tired of BK and was not going to participate in discussions here any more.   That said, he's been unable to stay away from the BK discussions over on F95, and still contributes to those discussions semi regularly.   But not over here any longer.
Mega link for all my Brothel King girl packs:

https://mega.nz/folder/Fcg2lBID#yKalC_e47WAS8jsbHPyOvQ

Mega link for my loli packs:

https://mega.nz/folder/BMwizTwD#89Lqk4Q2cFxFNVQEzTzXDg

GoldoTopic starter

Quote from: QuietBob on Aug 26, 2022, 10:40 PMI'd be willing to look into how to mod things myself, but I have the coding skills of a dry, crisp, autumn leaf, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
Honestly, the coding is not the hardest task here, and I could lend a hand to get around the tricky parts: most of the work lies in writing events and designing special traits/backgrounds for the girls. There should obviously be enough variety to them too, so that the mechanic doesn't feel overtly repetitive. In comparison, the coding challenge is trivial.

Quote from: tili on Aug 27, 2022, 08:21 AMI think can add a dynamic balancing mechanism to the number of customers, such as decreasing reputation for each unserved customer.that can make some mechanism more effective
That mechanic is already there AFAIK, the effect might not be very noticeable, but I wanted to avoid brutal swings in reputation and customer numbers so the changes are kind of slow.

Quote from: Leortha on Aug 27, 2022, 02:11 PMWhen we had the changeover to the new site, JMan said he was mostly tired of BK and was not going to participate in discussions here any more.   That said, he's been unable to stay away from the BK discussions over on F95, and still contributes to those discussions semi regularly.   But not over here any longer.
If I recall correctly, he said he was tired of H games in general. I hope he didn't get burnt out because of BK.
Maker of BK. Looking for the latest patch for BK 0.2? The link doesn't change, so bookmark it!

neronero

Quote from: Goldo on Aug 31, 2022, 04:08 PMIf I recall correctly, he said he was tired of H games in general. I hope he didn't get burnt out because of BK.
Not BK, as far as I understand.

He had a mod for a different game - kinda similar to Bonanza, a supermod that offered a completely new experience. It was very popular and a portion of its 'fans' on F95 were hostile/demanding/entitled which sucked all the joy out of it for Jman.
My Girl Packs: [ link ] - Trait King mod: [ link ]

GoldoTopic starter

Quote from: neronero on Aug 31, 2022, 09:19 PM
Quote from: Goldo on Aug 31, 2022, 04:08 PMIf I recall correctly, he said he was tired of H games in general. I hope he didn't get burnt out because of BK.
Not BK, as far as I understand.

He had a mod for a different game - kinda similar to Bonanza, a supermod that offered a completely new experience. It was very popular and a portion of its 'fans' on F95 were hostile/demanding/entitled which sucked all the joy out of it for Jman.

One thing I've learned over the years developing BK is how little the average person understands about game development and design. There are lots of well-meaning commenters who don't realize when their suggestions would break fundamental mechanics irreparably or require overhauling the game from the ground up. Now I cringe a lot when I read forums for other games, seeing completely unrealistic demands from some players ("Why don't you make the game massively multiplayer? With random world generation, destructible environments and a cameo by Elon Musk?").

It's not their fault really, unless they act overtly entitled, most of the time they're well-meaning. I am very comfortable picking and choosing what I like about player suggestions and leaving the rest aside. But I can see how someone like Jman would feel burnt by it, as he has always been quite intense when engaging with strangers on the Internet... :(
Maker of BK. Looking for the latest patch for BK 0.2? The link doesn't change, so bookmark it!

Alpha_and_omega

Sad to hear the JMan is no longer active. While we were not always agreeing on some subjects, he was a big part of the community.

On the topic of "changes without breaking the game", I updated the job-selection-mod locally, and with some more testing could put it online. (provided I have enough alone-time, which is not certain)

cosmonight19

i've had some ideas floating around in my head for a while but before i start throwing out any suggestions for additions or potential mod ideas, i got a few questions.  main one is, what's the intended reward of the farm and fear actions compared to the risk that it seems like it brings over just being nice to your girls?  having girls run away seems... not great?  and maybe i just haven't gone 'evil' enough to see the benefits but every time i try to play that way it ends up feeling just... suboptimal and i go back to being "good."
some of my ideas and suggestions involve figuring out some ways to make the farm and other evil/fear based actions more "tempting," but me avoiding it could be just me not getting it and i wanna make sure i understand what the purpose is supposed to be first.   

Leortha

No.   You're getting it.   Both those options have been sub-optimal for a long time.   Getting them to be desirable options is far, far from an easy job, which is a good part of why they have languished.   There's always been something more important (and much easier) for Goldo to do.

This is the kind of thing, if you come up with a good idea, and especially if you come up with a good implementation, there's a non-zero chance that Goldo would take it into the core game.   I cannot speak for him, and until you actually propose an idea there's not much for him to say, but it's something to think about as a possibility if you come up with something that he approves of.
Mega link for all my Brothel King girl packs:

https://mega.nz/folder/Fcg2lBID#yKalC_e47WAS8jsbHPyOvQ

Mega link for my loli packs:

https://mega.nz/folder/BMwizTwD#89Lqk4Q2cFxFNVQEzTzXDg

cosmonight19

well, i think a solid place to start would be a resource/currency that you can only get from training girls at the farm.  small amounts for soft training, higher amounts for sexual training, maybe making the gains scale up with the girl's fear but scale down with time spent at the farm so you're not just buying girls and leaving them at the farm specifically to generate the resource and forgetting about them.  then you can trade that resource to Gizelle for either furniture-esque brothel upgrades or unique items. 

like, maybe one of the upgrades gives mood bonuses to counteract fear on non-masochists or one of the items is a collar you can equip to a girl that's talking about running away that either tracks them to make finding them later easier or stops them from escaping?  mostly stuff that'd be for that "evil" and fear-based gameplay, and gives some actual rewards to help outweigh the risk, but have some of them be powerful/generally useful enough that even "good" players might want to at least interact with the farm even if they otherwise treat their girls well.

GoldoTopic starter

So, Chapter 3 will have a completely new mechanic tied to the Farm and geared towards evil players (but not entirely useless for neutral and good players). Suggestions are welcome but the design is advanced already so no promises.
Maker of BK. Looking for the latest patch for BK 0.2? The link doesn't change, so bookmark it!

Veien

Story progression ruins all of the investments made in a brothel. This is bad, unfun design imo.

Problem: When you move from one chapter of the story to the next one (i.e.moving from slums to the city) you lose your previous brothel and all the upgrades and money invested in it.

How the problem affects gameplay: Knowing that in the next chapter the profit margins will be better, the player does not want to invest in the current brothel and instead is expected to make the bare minimum of money to finish the chapter mission. The player has to either prioritize the story or avoid the story to have a more rewarding management gameplay.

Solution: Let the player keep their previous brothel, move the upgrades at some reduced cost or sell it and refund a percentage of the investment back. (Arguably since this is magical universe the player's brothel could be located in a pocket dimension and change locations based on current rank)

vadi92

Quote from: Veien on Mar 24, 2023, 11:16 PMSolution: Let the player keep their previous brothel, move the upgrades at some reduced cost or sell it and refund a percentage of the investment back. (Arguably since this is magical universe the player's brothel could be located in a pocket dimension and change locations based on current rank)

You already get a certain percentage back by selling the brothel. You can pretty much move to the next chapter for free. The only downside that you lose the rooms and for a few days you dont make any profit. But by the end game you make so much money that you cant even spend it. (You can make millions in just a week)