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Friday, March 16, 2012

Business Job Updates/Skill Caps

Business Job Updates

I think I'm about 90% done with the business jobs for this update. Got some interesting mechanics in there, I think.

For example, one of the potential random events while you're working as a Personal Secretary is that you overhear some people making...disparaging comments about you. Now, the obvious reactions are there (Ignore it, adds to submissiveness, enjoy it, adds to...something?), but there's also some unexpected reactions (complain to human resources, complain to human resources and make some stuff up to get even, and cold-cock one of the sons-of-bitches). Nothing really too impressive, right?

Except that the immediate results of those actions aren't necessarily the only results. If you complain to HR, you get a response stating that they'll look into it, which is fine and dandy and gives you some results (generally Job Performance +1 and some other stuff). But, three days later, you get the results of that investigation. Did you make things up in an attempt to get those two jerks fired, and if so, did HR fire them...or did they find out you were lying and subsequently punish you?

And since I don't want you to be suffering from harassment every day of every week (it's a pretty good random chance for it to happen, about 1 in 6 per day), while the investigation is ongoing, people will comment on it. Or, if you punched the guy in the face, they'll comment on that. And after the investigation is complete, you don't have to worry about harassment for a little over a week before the cycle starts up again. And if you punched the guy in the face the first time, and choose to do it again? The game will remember and react appropriately (you'll be demoted if Job Performance is positive, fired if it's negative). Maybe you think it's worth it, since you get to punch a womanizing son-of-a-bitch in the face, which also preserves your masculinity, and that's your choice. Well, good for you.

But then, what if you get back to that position and punch the guy a third time? You can kiss that career goodbye for the rest of the game.

Like I said, interesting stuff, at least mechanically, and to me. Whether or not you people think the same is up for debate.

Skill Caps

After these two jobs are complete (which should hopefully be within the next day or so), I'll work on implementing the skill caps. There's been some discussion about this in the stream, but I figured I should clear the air about it, so there's less confusion.

Skill caps aren't going to be overtly restrictive. Basically, what I'm doing is controlling the pace of development of your character, but I'm pretty sure it'll be done in such a way that unless you're intentionally grinding, you'll never even notice. Here's how it'll work.

You start off with a pool of 150-200 points in the "skill pool" (I haven't decided on the actual amount). For most skill training, any time you gain a skill point, it corresponds to an identical decrease in the skill pool. So you gain three points in Dancing, which lowers the skill pool by 3 points. Easy enough, right? If you don't have enough skill points in the pool to correspond to the skill increase, it doesn't happen, and you get a message to that effect (i.e. "You take the dancing class, but when it's over you just don't feel like you've learned anything from.")

At the start of every month, on the first (or the last) day of the month, you get an additional 100 points added to the skill pool, allowing for more skill increases. So, over the course of the game, you'll have 1250-1300 skill points able to be divided among your skills. So, skill caps don't necessarily limit your character growth, so much as they slow it. Why am I doing this? Because in order for me to set up reasonable challenges (like the lab in the first mission), I have to know how your character is developing. If you're grinding for the lab, that's fine, I don't really mind, but what the skill cap does is allows me to set up things like that so if you are grinding to overcome those challenges, it's at the expense of other aspects. So maybe you're building your dancing and tech apt skills for the lab, which, as I said, is fine by me. But, because you're focusing on those two skills, your other skills are going to suffer a bit, meaning you might not get enough skill points to get a promotion as quickly as you'd like. And that's the point: basically, you have to choose between being good at your job, being good at doing Maria's requests (and other missions), or being a jack-of-all-trades and possibly having more difficulty with the tasks that come up.

In addition, the Skill Caps system might allow me to do something at the beginning of the game, namely allowing you to start with slight bonuses in various skills based on your background (which you get to choose), which would correspond to decreases in the skill point pool. So, if you were a computer help line call center person, maybe you start with a dozen skill points in technical aptitude. Or maybe you were in a band on your days off from your day job, giving you a bonus to your Music skill (oh, yeah, there's going to be a music skill). Things like that.

So that's the reasoning behind the Skill Caps. Hope that makes things a bit clearer. This also isn't a new system: I've been planning on doing skill caps for at least the last four months, but couldn't actually find the time to do so.

19 comments:

  1. I think the skill caps is a great idea. Are you going to add some sort of explanation in the game so people who never read your blog or played your game before would know about the caps? Something that tells them They can continue learning next month?

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  2. Wow.... Just wow, I have no words to explain that post, nothing that can sum it up in one word (Interesting, clever, extensive)
    Yeah... well done and it looks good :)

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  3. "You've learned as much as you're willing to learn this month."

    Did you catch my request for the option to quit your job or opt to be unemployed?

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    1. I did. Not sure how it would work, though, within the mechanics of the existing game. Maybe if you were supporting yourself (barely) on side jobs, but completely unemployed? You'd be lucky to pay rent by the end of the month.

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    2. If you're spamming the test item for money, it would be a convenient option. Alternatively, you've saved up enough money that you just don't want to have to go to work for a few weeks and don't want to continuously piss off Maria.

      On the other hand, just being able to quit so you can change careers without having to wait to be fired would still be nice, and could maybe save you some of the consequences.

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    3. The ability to quit is probably a good idea.

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  4. The only thing I'm worried about is the game seems to be getting more and more restrictive, with skill caps, the possibility of being "discovered" if your getting tfed into something non human, and the implied bad end/complications that will eventually come.

    Is, there plans in the works to eventually customize your game play a bit?

    For example: CoC has Debug mode, FS has a way to customize your start and what kind of encounters you can opt in or out of, and perks that help with your experience (Automatic survival, male/female/herm preferred, one pair, and so on)

    I find Cursed to be an interesting game because it focuses on daily life, but.. there are times when I want to play a Cowgirl/succubus nymphomaniac who can do anything she wants.

    In other-words while I think the detection system will be cool, and skill caps definitely add challenge, what about the times when you don't Want the challenge, just want to experience the story, experience the joy of creating the character you want without drawbacks and well get fucked (this is a porn game after all.)

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    1. While the game will still have some restrictions, there will be an "Easy" mode eventually where, for example, your skill pool is set at 10,000 points at the beginning of the game, more than enough to deal with any skill gains for the rest of the game. A mode where money starts at $10,000 and you get free money every week or something. Where, if you get a bad end, you get the option of ignoring it before/after it happens and going back to where it was before.

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    2. Ok glad to hear it. Love the game but especially with having to repeatedly start over it gets old getting to a certain point.

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  5. the stockings are not remove able
    just has option for examine
    i am using ver 3/8

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  6. The pregnancy aspect is one of my favorite things about this game. I hope to see more things like that in the future, especially multiples or ways to get really big, that one dream was hot.

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  7. It might be a good idea to add at testing item to add 100 skill points, so people can still raise skills fast if they want to.

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  8. Oh, I thought of one other idea to make the mail box more useful and to give the player a reason to check it each day. Every day there is a chance of there being a sale at the mall in one of the shops. If there is, then you receive a flyer in the mail telling you about the sale.

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    1. That's something I have considered. It would take a while to code, but it would be possible.

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  9. I have odd question can you still get pregnant, if your becoming a sexdoll, if so what kind of baby woud you birth.

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    1. The sex doll TF resolves so fast that it would be impossible for it to happen.

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  10. Perhaps, rather then +100 at the start of the month, something like 3 points per day? So rather then 'New month, YAY! I can learn stuff!' it becomes more of 'What do I want to learn today?'.

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