Release v0.45

This release brings an entirely new screen: the Building screen. You can add housing and traps to your lair. You now start out with space for 6 minions, and have to build structures to house more than that. Traps thin out the ranks of any intruders in your lair.

Other changes:

  • The mana production of a concubine and beast pair is now limited to 60 per day at maximum. This is a stopgap fix for astronomical mana production in the end-game, until I figure out a classier way to approach the problem.
  • You have a chance to find tomes after you’ve successfully recruited a minion. I had the stupid idea that tomes might make a nice consolation prize (and close the gap between the most and least successful players), but it just means that people who really have the game figured out never get to see any variety because they never lose. So I’ve corrected that.

Bug fixes:

  • Moved a cock enlargement transformation into the default tome so that when beginners recruit a male concubine, and they don’t have any scavenged tomes, there are options that aren’t all feminising.

26 thoughts on “Release v0.45

  1. ArgentRain says:

    Pretty excited about this one.

  2. evie says:

    i like it so far ^^ and the building addition is great. I dont see there being a problem a with high mana production could just make the end game stuff really expensive to acquire. limiting the mana production seems like it would waste all the special bonuses that minions have like one or two levels into their transformations. was also curious if was intentional for you to have the best minions and personal mana and lust everyone has to eventually be a hermie

  3. jackoekaki says:

    I had a look at trying to fix it with pricing, but between minion level bonuses, minion upgrades, concubines and beasts multiplying each other, and the fact that it’s production over time, the amount of mana produced turned out to be proportional to turns^4. I guess I could make my peace with the very large numbers, but it’d massively diminish the impact of your prior performance. (Woo, I saved up 100 mana in the early game, but now everything costs half a million)

    If herms are significantly better than other genders, that’s an imbalance. I guess herms will always have more verbs during the encounters, but I’m intending to balance it so that men, women and TG variations are all equally viable.

    • ArgentRain says:

      Aight, so I took a look at this new build, and some things were pretty great, and some… I can’t say I’m happiest with, personally.

      As to the stopgap mana limitation fix, I don’t see that there was even remotely a problem which needed to be “fixed” in the first place, in a stopgap way or otherwise.

      If you have a lot of mana, you have a lot of mana. That’s why you got bonus-mana concubines and bonus-effect beasts, after all.
      Or did you pick them out because you wanted to be mana-poor?

      As to the upkeep costs, they seem like an interesting idea to me, but I’m not particularly happy with the fact that you now have such limited space because of how the housing works.

      If anything, I’d personally probably switch the upkeep costs of the housing and the traps – especially since I see no reason for “housing” to cost any mana anyway.

      As to the lair defences, they’re the reason I was excited about this update, and they seem pretty helpful, actually.

      Usually even with upgrades I’d somehow end up losing a beast in some invasions without being able to do anything about it, and the traps seem to really diminish the chances of that occurring somehow.
      But maybe it was just luck, I should give it another test sometime.

      As to the tome fix, I’m pretty happy to see that in place.

      • ArgentRain says:

        Oh, and another thought on the housing: If it was some sort of luxury quarters to get better performance out of your minions, then fine – there’s no problem with picking and choosing which minions go where.

        But why should you end up in a situation where you have to release minions from service outright, just because later in the game you get better ones with better multipliers?

        Not only from a mana-economy perspective, but from a roleplay-immersion perspective, having to just up and throw away the minions you spent time transforming doesn’t sit right with me.

  4. Darwithe says:

    ‘aight I’ll have to play again to say more, but to be honest the beast/concubine multiplicative gains really dilutes the value of both.
    I’d suggest changing beasts considerably, either make their bonus be how many different concubines they can service, or make it a combat bonus, and then check un-capped mana levels again.

  5. NotImportant says:

    I think the max output is good. it make the game more balanced. but will it be possible in the future to perhaps increase this limit via buildings or research?
    also will it be possible to mutate more then 1 person at a time?

  6. Kazard says:

    The mana stopgap isn’t particularly great. For now the excessive mana isn’t all that big of a problem and it just makes late game players groan because now they’re awesome augmentations are kinda useless…
    I’d suggest maybe introducing Single Day buff items?
    Things that reduce horror gain, increase mana drop from orgasm, reduce mana cost, buff mana pool, etc etc etc.
    Then go through and work it so that being fully buffed costs more than (max possible mana gain-max possible mana upkeep) so that if you go fully buffed then you end up with a net decrease to mana reserves.
    Then to make sure players are still interested in capturing mortals, even if they can’t use them for one of the three current uses, make them stored currency that might be used to unlock special upgrades, TFs, and bonuses that you can’t get using mana.
    Sort of like a Matrix human battery thing, but in this case Mana, and when you whip them out you can cash in all at once to get something interesting….
    Alternatively have them “use” concubines to get certain things that way they have to go out and get more etc…

    I dunno…
    TL;DR
    60 mana cap is super lame, especially for late game folks.
    Finding clever ways for upgrades that raise output beyond the cap to be used would be key if you leave it in.
    Add 1 time buffs for players to use that allow a net decrease of mana per day.
    Add a use for human seduced when capacity is maxed, perhaps as currency for top tier upgrades.
    or
    Use concubines for said currency so player has to replace them etc…

  7. evie says:

    were 150% concubines and quintuple research effect minions removed too? I know I had found several before the update but now I can’t find better than a 100% and quadruple. Also isn’t limiting the number of minions you can have already limiting mana enough? Limiting Mana and limiting minions is a little annoying now there really isn’t a whole lot to do after I get 16 minions. Getting a 200% beast and leveling the a 100% concubine twice gives me max mana for the pair.

    I feel bad replacing my minions though too. I like the idea of potentially “merging” extra minions together or with for bonuses. Like instead of finding minions with bonus concubine or beast effects you have to merge minions together. That would be great cuz it would be like adding the person to genital fetish 😛 (like thread on freakshow) I’d totally turn someone into my vagina in real life if I could so doing it in game and getting a magic bonus for it or torturing someone by turning them into someone else’s so I get more mana for it would be amazing ^^

    • Ringen says:

      I’d totally love to merge 3 beasts into something like a cerberus beast, or hydra, or something. Would be good for adding variation, too. Heheh. ♥

  8. mrtt says:

    I think the issue that those late game concubines are giving +250% bonus and the ridiculously high multipliers from beasts.

    This also renders most concubine upgrades irrelevant.

    the ridiculously high bonuses occur because the base income is an integer with a low value of 4. If it was a float or a larger number (better to use larger number) then you could add 10% a level rather then 25% a level… or (10-n)% where n is current level. Or any number of rebalancing acts.

    With concubine multiplier starting out at 2x and increasing by 0.2x per levelup and 0.1 per quality (quality being when you find a prospective target that has a bonus to certain traits).

    Also, rather then prospective having an affinity to a single task with a fixed bonus/penalty, it would be nice to have each one have a compatibility rating with EACH task. Which can be positive OR negative.
    So a prospective might have -10% apprentice, +40% beast, +30% concubine

    • mrtt says:

      Actually… IIRC the highest I have seen was +300% not +250%

    • acac says:

      I came here to say exactly this. I think the biggest cause of mana inflation is the wildly high bonuses the later victims get (both beasts and concubines). Instead of +25/50/100% etc, why not just lower it to like 10/20/30% etc?

      Actually, to make it more interesting, why not make it +10% +/- 2%, then +20% +/- 4%, etc… ?

      • mrtt says:

        This will solve it, yes.
        However at the moment bonuses can only be given in 25% increments (any other bonus just rounds to nearest 25%) because its a small integer figure. Hence why he needs to make it a float or make it a larger integer.

  9. mrtt says:

    “Strap On (will replace cock)” – OUCH! >.<
    So, do you chop it off or what?

    • jackoekaki says:

      There are a lot of ridiculous problems with strap-ons right now, mostly stemming from me not treating them any differently from a cock that’s actually attached. It’s in the bug list.

  10. acac says:

    I have another mana sink idea:

    When you reject a potential victim, how about making that cost X amount of mana? With this mechanic, early on you’re desperate enough to take anyone, but later on you can be more selective.

    This also works well with my above suggestion of slightly varied minion bonus: cycling through potential victims for a great candidate costs you mana.

    • Ringen says:

      But.. why would skipping over someone cost mana?
      There’s a lot of things that can be done to lower mana, or whatever, but it would be good if they made sense, too. >.>;

      • acac says:

        It takes time to find new targets, and time spent not draining mana is time spent bleeding mana instead. It makes sense actually. Imagine you’re walking around a forest, and you get thirsty. You come across a stream, but you’re not sure if it’s clean. You can either take the chance and drink from the stream, or wait until you find sanitary water. But, the longer you wait, the more dehydrated you become, right?

        Balance wise, this is also good. It forces the player to balance between saving up mana, and finding the perfect candidates.

      • Razor75 says:

        I would say it would make since for a day to pass, not just mana to be magically gone.

  11. Richard says:

    A mana sink idea: have your character consume a daily amount of mana with their level/number of upgrades. The problem would be what to do if you run dry …

    • mrtt says:

      If you run dry you lose.

      This is actually what the attackers say when they kidnap your concubines “he will come back when he gets hungry”. Aka they are trying to starve you of mana to make you come crawling back.

      However, unless crippling high this will not be an issue anyways. The real issue is how high the bonuses are on later conquests. So you combine 300% bonus beast with a 300% bonus concubine and then upgrade them for an utterly ridiculous income.

  12. Kacl says:

    A few better ways to deal with skyrocketing mana production is that instead of capping it are as follows:

    1) Simply lower the base amounts to begin with

    2) Make the player choose between either ‘combat’ upgrades or pleasure upgrades.

    3) Have certain projects or transformations cost a ‘maintenance’ in mana.

    4) Make it so that instead of visiting the surface, you can send existing beasts with at least one apprentice as a leader, on some ‘mission’, which can result randomly in fights, tomes, magic objects, wahtever. But you would be able to increase the success of these missions by spending mana on them.

    Lair improvements are a good start.

  13. chuckie says:

    How about an option to spend the night looking for or purchasing tomes (with mana) instead of adventuring on the surface?

    Tomes could be exponentially more expensive based on the number you have, which could solve some of the mana issues.

  14. ArgentRain says:

    Oh, also, just tried out the elbow-length gloves, and they don’t seem to affect “fist”.

    Granted that gloves go on your hand, they probably ought to.

  15. Speedlover says:

    wish i could donate, but i cant because i dont have an online credit card just a normal eftpos. not only that the donation site doesnt seem to like my email address… if i could $30 would be your way in a jiffy because i really enjoy playing and hate hitting the limit.

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