about game's difficulty

Life simulation game in a fantasy world: http://www.winterwolves.com/spiritedheart.htm
Post Reply
User avatar
mastro
Young scout
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2005 7:19 am

about game's difficulty

Post by mastro »

Probably I'm the only one that find the game difficulty properly set.
If you do what you said in a future update and increase the skills range, then I believe the game would become even too easy for my tastes.
It's already quite simple to reach the 6 marriage endings, some are a bit difficult like the Janimee because having enough skills value to work in the Night is not easy.
A few tips:
- spend the money before you have to pay the taxes
- in early stages the best strategy is just to max out one skill , my favourite is the builder since pays well. reach at least 50-60 in strength and you'll be able to earn some good money
- once you have some savings, you can use study menu and increase the early value of stats easily. I went from 1 to 25 in charisma just studying! that saves lot of early frustration when you want to move from basic to advanced jobs

my 2cents :)
wolfdaddy2002
Young scout
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Bellingham WA

Re: about game's difficulty

Post by wolfdaddy2002 »

i have to agree, the difficulty is just right. I don't think making the skills higher is a good idea. This game is ment to be light and fun, not murderous. The only thing i can think of for expansions would be one more girl (maybe) , a couple of extra backgrounds, I DON'T think the game needs more skills or professions.
User avatar
jack1974
Pack leader
Posts: 15470
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: about game's difficulty

Post by jack1974 »

Well that's sure, I mean, I wouldn't add more skills or jobs.
My plan is just to add a sort of goddess mode where you have to max 2-3 more skills to get a special ending, but that's it.
KnockOut
Young scout
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:01 pm
Contact:

Re: about game's difficulty

Post by KnockOut »

Well, I have just seen all 6 marriage endings and what the regression does is make all non-job stats irrelevant.

Can't save money because you'll lose it to taxes.
Can't build up combat skill to fight bandits because you'll lose that too.

The game is basically four phases:

1) Meet Boy in Job. Get all encounters.
2) Use vacations, training, and jobs to get stats to open job for boy encounter
3) Do job and get all encounters.
4) Possibly switch jobs that pay higher and do vacations until you marry boy.

What removing stat decreasing and increasing the range would allow you to do would allow the questions at the beginning of the game to matter. The only ones that matter are those that give you cash or increase the job you do in phase 1.

If you had access to other attributes(if they weren't constantly decreasing) you could take advantage of other encounters and add more strategy. You could take advantage of the faith increase in the building job for instance. It would open up strategy.
User avatar
jack1974
Pack leader
Posts: 15470
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: about game's difficulty

Post by jack1974 »

Well yes, those are good suggestions, but having such combo like wisdom influencing building job there would be really lots of combinations possible (20x20... 400 different combinations! or maybe more?). It would be lot of work!
I'll change the stats decrease for sure though, but have bad events that decrease them (there are already some, probably will add more). But won't be a continuous decrease like now, except for the jobs decrease.
Right now you have a decrease of a certain skill if you do a job (like farmer, increase stamina, decrease charisma), plus every 1-2 months you get a decrease on all unused stats randomly (not big but of 1-2 points).
I will remove the latter decrease, and probably enlarge the skill range to 0-200.
Another option would simply be that after a certain value, like 60-70 the skills would be much harder to train. So could take you 1-2 in-game year to raise your strength to 50-60 but then, would take you 5 years to raise to 80-90. Probably that's a better solution :)
KnockOut
Young scout
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:01 pm
Contact:

Re: about game's difficulty

Post by KnockOut »

No, no. I wasn't referring to wisdom influencing the building job, I was rather refferring to the event where you fall down the hole and lose health but gain faith. Right now there's no point to it because that added faith will go away fast but with no stat decrease there could possibly be some use for it.
User avatar
jack1974
Pack leader
Posts: 15470
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:43 pm

Re: about game's difficulty

Post by jack1974 »

Ahhh ok, now I understand :)
Well, I think my new idea is good, is a method used in many games, the first/low levels of any skills are easier to learn, but as you go up, it becomes harder and harder. So if to raise 1 point from 1-50 can take 1-2 weeks of work average, raising 1 point from 80-90 could take between 4-6 weeks :)
Post Reply