Suggestions

[JanneShade]

Rather than going around to each individual topic to post my 2 cents on individual suggestions, I decided it would probably be a better idea to just make one topic with my suggestions and feedback for the game.

The job failures is a PAIN!! Not only do I not get pay, or get half pay for that week, it really hits the morale HARD. There's been times when, working at a basic job with over 60 skill, I've failed at the job, got no pay, got depressed, had to relax for a week, and come back to work to fail again, get depressed, have to relax again... Sometimes I end up going for 2 months or more without getting paid. My suggestion for this, is to change things so once you're a certain number of points over the minimum requirements for the job, you can't fail at the job (no pay). Say, for the basic jobs, make it, say, 30 points. So if you have 40 or so stamina working at the farm, while you can still have the half pay days, you're still good enough at the job that you won't get no pay. You could also make it so once you have another 30 points above the requirement for the job, you don't get half pay days anymore. So 70 stamina working at the farm always has at least normal pay days. Then another 30 points, or 100 stamina, always gives you extra pay days. If you do this, I would make normal pay days still have a chance to hit morale. For advanced jobs, you could make it so it counts the total number of points over the requirements for both requirements, in addition to needing a high level of the stat it teaches (the stat being taught is useful for the job, after all...). For example, as a Soldier (50 strength 50 stamina), if you have 70 strength and 60 stamina, that would be a total of 30 points over the requirements, good enough to not have no pay days once you have the necessary 40 combat skill. In order to not have half pay days, you would need to raise strength and stamina to an average of 80, and combat skill to 70. This would also go well with another suggestion I saw somewhere, making it easier at lower levels of skill to raise, and harder at upper levels of skill. That 70 each of strength and stamina would be very hard to get if it got harder to raise the stat the higher the stat went... Of course, this would make of jobs like Sexy Girl, where raising one of the required stats makes the other go down (farming raises stamina, lowers charisma. Sexy girl needs 60 charisma 40 stamina), overly difficult to get up to the point of never having bad days. Then for advanced jobs, you get complete mastery and the bonus money only once every stat for the job is 100.

The taxes are too much, too often, and have the potential to go too high. In one game, my taxes went up to around 60%. It's impossible to save money for the higher level relaxation options, unless you've mastered an advanced job. Please reduce the frequency of taxings, and put a maximum on how high they can go. Say, starts at 20%, doesn't go above 35% or below 15%, only happens twice a year? 60% every 4 months is just too much.

Some events need more options on how to solve them, and some events need to give options on how to solve them. For example, the bandit event, where you're robbed, if you have high enough seduction, you automatically seduce a bandit, which starts the bandits fighting, while you call for help. My suggestion here is to change the event, so you have the option to try to seduce them even if you don't have enough seduction skill... with failure having a morale and health penalty in addition to having your money taken. Also, other options need to be added... like fighting them off (requires combat skill or magic skill), or running away (requires stamina), or heck, even threatening them that you'll make sure they don't get away with it (requires reputation... you're well known, they know you have friends in high places that can track them down). There's LOTS of skills in the game, and I think it would add to the game to give lots of options for solving any given situation... and give more mileage out of having high levels of skills. Of course, if you choose the wrong option and don't have enough of the skill required for that option, there's consequences. But that's part of the fun of the game.

This is a fun game, but still falls short of its potential in my opinion. You've given us a game with a ton of options for skill combinations (though at this point limited to the specific skills required to gain certain boyfriends...), now you just need to give us more ways to use those skills.

[jack1974]

Yes your suggestions are good. I was already thinking to use your system to eliminate the no-pay days (if you have certain minimum value you never get the no-pay result).
I agree also on taxes, I'm thinking to make them once per year, and not a percentage but a fixed amount, so at least you can plan it in advance.
About the events, in your example I think there's the combat/magic option actually: the problem is that right now I'm just using a YES/NO system. You can choose an option only if your skill is bigger than a certain value (with a bit of random). Instead I'm going to change it, as you suggested, so that the options are always available, then I'll do a skill check and if you have very low chances to succeed doesn't matter, you can still try it.
After I finish the game I'm currently working on (Bionic Heart) will start on the Deluxe Spirited Heart version which will include this and other improvements.

[JanneShade]

More feedback here

Repeated events. Some of them happen entirely too often... For example, gardening event. The one where you have to choose whether or not to fix up an old lady's garden for her. I've had the event happen as many as five times in the same year. How many old ladies live in your town, that want to see their gardens fixed before they die? Must be a pretty big city to have that many. Guard event, where you're stopped by the guards because you look like a criminal. I can understand if I ran away from them, they'd still be after me, but after the third or fourth time I seduced them and brought them to my employer at the nightclub, you'd think they'd start to recognize who I was? Or do they just like being seduced?


Jobs which are overly difficult to do because raising one required skill lowers the other:

Sexy Girl (farming lowers charisma while raising stamina)
Gardener (builder lowers dexterity while raising strength)
Cook (guard lowers creativity while raising concentration)

I'm probably missing some here... You know better than I do which jobs will have a tendency to lower which skills. My point here is not every advanced job has requirements which are at odds with each other. Soldier, for example, since builder doesn't lower stamina, and farming doesn't lower strength (besides random decreases)


Jobs whose requirements just don't make much sense (to me):

Gardener: Shouldn't gardening require some creativity? Strength is good here, since moving dirt isn't always easy.
Cook: I'd think a better combo would be creativity and either dexterity (you work with sharp objects and a hot stove. Don't burn or cut yourself...) or stamina (you work around a hot stove. In the summer, this can be exhausting).
Beautician: I think creativity is more important than charisma here. Creativity+social.


A couple more bugs I unearthed as well:

The afore mentioned gardening event at one point drove me into the red just before taxes hit. I think it was either the same week, or the week before. Normally when this happens, you get a warning, either that week or the week after, but this time, I didn't get any warning, and when taxes hit, I had -4 gold. I was taxed somewhere around 50% ( -_-;; rotten high taxers...) for -2 gold, bringing me to -2 gold. (o.O;; They gave me 2 gold?) I think the bug has something to do with the proximity of the events... I was taxed before the game noticed I was in the red on my finances.

When you invite your fiance (Janimee for certain, unknown if this bug affects the others yet) to relax with you, on the relax screen it lowers the cost of the relaxation event, by about half. However, when you reach the end of the event, it charges you as if you went alone. This can put you in the red on your finances.

I had Janimee ask me to marry him at around 4 hearts. Shouldn't their heart meter be full before they start asking you to marry?


I hope you don't mind all the feedback and nitpicks.

[jack1974]

Some comments:
- I need to add more events, and put a flag so some events (like the one you mentioned) appear only once, then stop. I really had TONs of text/events in the game already, and I wanted to release it to see the response before investing more resources (writing all those events is really hard!). Now expect more stuff in the deluxe version
- Jobs skills: if you noticed I made the game in a way that each skill is required 3 times. This because the basic jobs are 8, while the advanced are 12, so I had to balance the game making advanced jobs use all the skills, and 3 times each. So you have creativity in Artist, Cook and Researcher, etc. It was really hard to find the "perfect fit" for some of them. While I agree with your changes, if I change some skills I should then check that each skill is present 3 times for advanced job. Believe me I messed with the skills placement/adjustement for over 3 days when making the game!!
- Thanks for the other minor bugs report, I'm going to add them to the list of things to fix!
- The fiancee asks you to marry when you're 4 hearts or more, and a bit random (with higher chances to happen if you're at 4,5 - 5 hearts). getting it at 4 means he really was eager to marry you!

Thanks again for the precious feedback, I don't mind at all when users provide such valuable informations so I can improve my games!

[jack1974]

This is my openoffice spreadsheet I used when making the game. I changed it thousand times!!

[JanneShade]

Some comments:
- I need to add more events, and put a flag so some events (like the one you mentioned) appear only once, then stop.

I would set it so it depends on how you solve the event. For example, the guard event, if solved via charisma, seduction, or magic skill, or if you followed them to prison, shouldn't happen again... on the other hand, if you ran from the guards, it doesn't really solve the event, they still don't know that you're not the person they're looking for... unless they happened to catch the real criminal.

I was able to replicate the taxation bug. 3 weeks before tax time, I went on a vacation with Janimee to the seaside (again, that bug hit that the amount it charges is more than it shows) and went to -40. One week of work as sexy girl with maxed seduction skill made me 22 gold, relaxed one week, and taxes hit when I had -18 gold. 50% tax charged -9 gold, I went to -9 gold. I have the file saved just before I relaxed, just let me know where to send these bug files.

Also, there is a major exploit associated with the mouse scrollbutton. You can scroll backwards past choices, so if you think you made a bad choice at a conversation option, you can scroll back before it and choose the other option. You can also scroll back through weeks, it seems you can go back as far as two weeks, and make different choices for what you do for those two weeks.

[jack1974]

Also, there is a major exploit associated with the mouse scrollbutton. You can scroll backwards past choices, so if you think you made a bad choice at a conversation option, you can scroll back before it and choose the other option. You can also scroll back through weeks, it seems you can go back as far as two weeks, and make different choices for what you do for those two weeks.

Yes this is a known one. I wanted to let some sort of small cheat in the game
About the money bug, no need to send savegame thanks, is a matter of negative value (it does two times - - so interprets it like a + and adds money instead of subtracting it!!)

[JanneShade]

On the taxation bug, if the game warns you that your finances are in the red, and your finances are still in the red come tax time, the guards threaten to throw you in jail next time. The bug is the fact it's not doing this for some reason.

[JanneShade]

When you invite your fiance (Janimee for certain, unknown if this bug affects the others yet) to relax with you, on the relax screen it lowers the cost of the relaxation event, by about half. However, when you reach the end of the event, it charges you as if you went alone. This can put you in the red on your finances.

I can now confirm this bug affects Mgorem as well. It probably affects all fiances.

[jack1974]

Thanks, fixed this one already. Today will check your savegame.