Black Garden [Fantasy Adult RPG]
- Thread starter FeyRing
- Start date
I ran in to a similar block but I think you need to raise Saffron's affection (gifts work well) and then she should give you the next quest. At least that's what worked for me.
How do you gift her things? Whenever I talk to her the same 3 dialogue options pop up with no "talk normally" option. Also what kinds of items count as gifts? Do you have to buy them from the merchant?
Items that can be used as gifts should have the [Gift] tag in it's description right now it is mostly gems, flowers, and some clothes/dolls. The manual says that to Gift to an NPC you must first select it in your inventory or on the hotbar, this will place it into your hand and allow you to offer it to the npc upon interacting with them. However, I just put a gift in my hotbar and used it's button after I started talking to someone and it worked.
though I have to say this still feels clunky and could be better handled with a gift menu like what is used for outfits as this kind of proves that the system isn't easily accessible to most players. However that also comes from that fact that the player doesn't have to read the manual and has no tutorial quest for this system.
I'm using https://pastebin.com/7rmGgUZW it seems similar. I tried adding
UP = [KEYMAP[:LETTER_W],[:UP]]
UP = [KEYMAP[:LETTER_W,:UP]
The first gives an error saying "Can't convert Array into Integer" and the second says "Invalid number of arguments, 2 instead of 1.
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The next few start at Affection ~30. Have to use gifts before talking and they are usually tagged as [Gift].
The difference between the two is that there are a very limited number of outfits so a list of them can be presented easily. There is a huge amount of gifts however and a menu list for them would be unreasonable. Even if the [Give Gift] approach is used, players would still need to use the item first so the game will track the Item ID to know what was selected last.
Lapis does mention how to give gifts if you ask her about your new job, I added that bit of exposition in the last patch to assist those that don't want to read manuals. I really don't want to force tutorials on people as I know many people hate exposition dumps and just want to get into the game faster usually.
It doesn't, the ones that do are Crafting skills, Perception and Agriculture. I'll look into adding the rest in the next update. You can get Guile by kidnapping the Thief traveler and giving him to one of the households though.
I'll try to add other ways of acquiring skills too, aside from donating people and chests. Sorry about the inconvenience. Though it's a bit surprising they don't show up, their spawn rate is set at 25% chance per day per map.
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ah I see
UP = [KEYMAP[:LETTER_W],KEYMAP[:UP]]
this should work as in the first case it evaluates :UP as an incorrect type and in the second case KEYMAP can't handle two variables in a single function declaration it's not designed to work that way.
Now I feel that the gift system issues still need some work and I have three possible solutions though I can't recommend the first as it in involves adding sprites to show when the player is holding an item. It is probably the most intuitive way to solve it as it gives the player a good amount of feedback on what is happening but the spritework and integration makes this approach take a fair bit of time compared to the other methods. The second solution is a clarification on what I suggested above as right now the loop is Inventory -> talk -> gift code what I propose is talk -> give gift -> a sorted inventory screen that only shows the gifts you have ->gift code. This is a solution that makes it easy for the player to understand their options and can be done by adapting menu code from other systems (the inventory already has item tabs and the equip menu can exclude items that don't meet specified criteria). You also can still use the previous system with this solution it just provides an easier to understand and more accessible option. The third is also fairly simple just add an item box to the hud that shows what they player is holding. This again gives the player more information to work with and understand how they are interacting with the world.
One last quality of life thing can you please make it so pickpocket has it's own item and not have to bring up the guile menu every time I want to use it. It just makes it flow smoother as closing the menu is kind of slow compared to every other held item and again having to use the hotbar to use it when it can't pull up the menu is not an ideal solution compared to having a dedicated item. Though again I could be doing it wrong.
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Oh god, so much MATH!
Yeah, is there any reason to get drunk OTHER than to overcome the morality system to let you work at the brothel? Because if not, and if the brothel pays out such a pittance, you really didn't think the economy through.
But it's not a "choice"- I literally cannot get my morality to go down! I want to work the brothel, but I can't because my "morality" won't let me, despite my best efforts. And frankly, binary moral choice systems have almost ALWAYS been crap in games because, like I said, they only exist to force you to play through the game twice- once the way you're naturally inclined to play it, a second time doing the OPPOSITE of what you're naturally inclined to do. From my current position, the morality system is just a pain in the ass that doesn't let me do what I want.
I don't see how not having a hotbar would make it hard to use restoratives. What's wrong with going to your inventory, selecting an item, and then using it- repeatedly! All you have to do is make the game not automatically close the menu after we use it- if we want to close the menu, WE will do it! You know, like almost every other RPGmaker game does?
OMG... it works!! Thank you!!
You have saved me from a HUUUUGE headache that's been plaguing me for over a week now!! The next version of the game will have both WASD and Arrow movement!!
To be honest, the first version is actually not that hard to do, it's just that I probably wont have exact icons for what you are holding, rather you will have a "Wrapped Present" icon over your head.
That said, all three options do sound good. I was hoping to eventually get to the third one, where the item is displayed on your UI, though the second and first options could be a transition to that. I'll do some testing with option one as it feels like the one that will require the least amount of effort for now.
Alright, I'll do that in the next release!
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At the moment no. Many of the values were selected as placeholders, an economy is not an easy thing to balance when the game is not fully made yet.
I was under the impression the binary moral choice systems existed to let players that had different opinions on how to progress in the game have a choice that they were more comfortable with. At least I was never inclined to replay something for choices that I didn't pick (due to their low appeal to me personally).
As I mentioned earlier, I will add more modifiers, mostly Goblin themed to decrease the difficulty. For now, all I can suggest is acquiring the high value Fetishes from sleeping around the village, it shouldn't be that hard anymore as I drastically decreased the sex threshold in the flirt option.
The removal of the Morality system would not solve your problem. A player with zero morality who lost all their virginities and enters the brothel will NOT be able to just instantly whore themselves out either way as the difficulty is set by the max WP pool. I know it's a porn game, but even in porn games which are similar to this, where a heroine is controlled by the player, the option to instantly slut out at the whorehouse is usually blocked off until the character is fucked senseless a few times, more so if the heroine has some sort of a "Noble" background.
That's because of how the food items work, it calls a common event that has all the food items in it with their various effects, if it didn't close the menu to notify you that you got poisoned and such then you wont know it and continue to eat things that you shouldn't. plus otherwise you would be able to do weird things like feeding slabs of meat to a Bunny. That said, the Food system could potentially be smoothed out, however, this wont change the fact that the farming system needs the hotbar.
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So I got some more time to play around and test and found an inconsistency in that persuasion is available from both the guile and the charisma books which is odd that it is the only skill in two books. Just seemed odd for their to only be one exception that no other skills are shared between books.
The other thing I need to touch on is everyone's favorite subject the item economy. Though this is also tied in to crafting skill balance and the usefulness of skills. Right now the best crafting skill is smithing and the worst is construction. This is because even without mining you can obtain materials for smithing every day because you can buy some of you basic materials from a vendor that never changes. smithing also provides a immediate benefit to player in that they get both weapons and armor to increase their strength and ability. Now the second best is tailoring as with foraging you can get plenty of basic materials and it also provides easy access to increased abillity through armor with even basic materials. after those two is where the problem starts to show up though the third most useful is artifice cause you can't do alchemy with the artifice bench to get mortar and pestle and the materials to craft the alchemy table (random shops are not a solution to getting a source to use a skill as it could take 100 days before the crafting tables show up.). Furthermore nothing easily availble at level one provides any tangible benefit to the user (gem crafting is nice but relies to much on random chance and again requires the player to have geology and stone or metal crafting which again is not guaranteed that a player will have artificer and mining thanks to how character creation works.). In a far Fourth is alchemy which is to much of an advanced skill right now and suffers from a terrible synergy with farming that makes crafting cost a massive hurdle to get over but then a joke after you get past the cost as well as requiring have both mining(Crystal) and foraging(cause even basic alchemy requires rare ingredients bestowed by RNG gods (100 days and counting with no dandelion seeds)). Honestly it is real difficult for a starter player to even begin to get any benefit from alchemy it is a waste of a memory point with how you can learn it in the field and how hard it is to get started to even begin to get any benefit. It breaks the rule that all skills should be worthwhile to purse on their own (synergies can help but must not be required for the player to get some benefit). Which gets to why Construction is the worst as almost all Construction projects require varnish and/or glue which can only be obtained through alchemy or absurdly rare world drops. Which means if someone just took construction they can't use the skill without alchemy and all it's required synergies and there is not enough points for a legitimate character to have any chance of getting all of that or even knowing they need them until it's to late and have to start over. There are no benefits to the player without synergy thanks to varnish and glue.
Now there are few approaches on how to fix this one is to make the merchant sell basic materials in a static shop menu to put everyone else on equal footing with smithing and also have another shop tab/menu that still randomizes every day with rarer and more valuable items and materials (like wolf pelts). The second that might workout better in the long run is to rework and redesign all the crafting recipes ( most recipes (60 to 85%) available at level one should be easily accessable(one to three days of work) in the starter area that is the goblin village and surrounding forest. the third approach mainly fixes alchemy which is to add more reliable sources for plant ingredients (see 100+ days and no dandelions also no plantago) RNG sources for what should be basic ingredients are not good design.
The last issue is farming it is currently an infinite resource/money factory. This throws a huge wrench in the item economy on item rarity and makes it basically required to do alchemy (because when one seed becomes infinite items and seeds what does 20 of a plant even matter). Farming should not give out as many seeds as it does other resources( especial flax, forest plant, and juniper seed which can't be used for anything else right now). To be honest it really is a nightmare to balance without destroying some other systems (mainly alchemy via oil but still). First the drop rates for seeds should be a CHANCE of one at level 1 farming and then a guaranteed drop of two or three seeds at max level this makes a loop more similar to other skills where they need to go out and reacquire seeds at low levels and more sustainable at higher levels without a complete explosion of resources. In addition to this there needs to be a constant shop for basic seeds so farmers are incentivized to sell their crops to get more and newer seeds and get more crops especially at lower farming levels. This is what I came up with there are probably some better solutions out there but it is a problem that needs to be monitored and addressed before it completely throws everything else out of balance.
The other thing I need to touch on is everyone's favorite subject the item economy. Though this is also tied in to crafting skill balance and the usefulness of skills. Right now the best crafting skill is smithing and the worst is construction. This is because even without mining you can obtain materials for smithing every day because you can buy some of you basic materials from a vendor that never changes. smithing also provides a immediate benefit to player in that they get both weapons and armor to increase their strength and ability. Now the second best is tailoring as with foraging you can get plenty of basic materials and it also provides easy access to increased abillity through armor with even basic materials. after those two is where the problem starts to show up though the third most useful is artifice cause you can't do alchemy with the artifice bench to get mortar and pestle and the materials to craft the alchemy table (random shops are not a solution to getting a source to use a skill as it could take 100 days before the crafting tables show up.). Furthermore nothing easily availble at level one provides any tangible benefit to the user (gem crafting is nice but relies to much on random chance and again requires the player to have geology and stone or metal crafting which again is not guaranteed that a player will have artificer and mining thanks to how character creation works.). In a far Fourth is alchemy which is to much of an advanced skill right now and suffers from a terrible synergy with farming that makes crafting cost a massive hurdle to get over but then a joke after you get past the cost as well as requiring have both mining(Crystal) and foraging(cause even basic alchemy requires rare ingredients bestowed by RNG gods (100 days and counting with no dandelion seeds)). Honestly it is real difficult for a starter player to even begin to get any benefit from alchemy it is a waste of a memory point with how you can learn it in the field and how hard it is to get started to even begin to get any benefit. It breaks the rule that all skills should be worthwhile to purse on their own (synergies can help but must not be required for the player to get some benefit). Which gets to why Construction is the worst as almost all Construction projects require varnish and/or glue which can only be obtained through alchemy or absurdly rare world drops. Which means if someone just took construction they can't use the skill without alchemy and all it's required synergies and there is not enough points for a legitimate character to have any chance of getting all of that or even knowing they need them until it's to late and have to start over. There are no benefits to the player without synergy thanks to varnish and glue.
Now there are few approaches on how to fix this one is to make the merchant sell basic materials in a static shop menu to put everyone else on equal footing with smithing and also have another shop tab/menu that still randomizes every day with rarer and more valuable items and materials (like wolf pelts). The second that might workout better in the long run is to rework and redesign all the crafting recipes ( most recipes (60 to 85%) available at level one should be easily accessable(one to three days of work) in the starter area that is the goblin village and surrounding forest. the third approach mainly fixes alchemy which is to add more reliable sources for plant ingredients (see 100+ days and no dandelions also no plantago) RNG sources for what should be basic ingredients are not good design.
The last issue is farming it is currently an infinite resource/money factory. This throws a huge wrench in the item economy on item rarity and makes it basically required to do alchemy (because when one seed becomes infinite items and seeds what does 20 of a plant even matter). Farming should not give out as many seeds as it does other resources( especial flax, forest plant, and juniper seed which can't be used for anything else right now). To be honest it really is a nightmare to balance without destroying some other systems (mainly alchemy via oil but still). First the drop rates for seeds should be a CHANCE of one at level 1 farming and then a guaranteed drop of two or three seeds at max level this makes a loop more similar to other skills where they need to go out and reacquire seeds at low levels and more sustainable at higher levels without a complete explosion of resources. In addition to this there needs to be a constant shop for basic seeds so farmers are incentivized to sell their crops to get more and newer seeds and get more crops especially at lower farming levels. This is what I came up with there are probably some better solutions out there but it is a problem that needs to be monitored and addressed before it completely throws everything else out of balance.
I do want to add a bit more more "cross skill" specialisations like that, including the existing ones. that one was mostly a test to see how well it plays out.
I planned to have certain regions specialising in specific skills, it just happens to be that Mining and Smithing were fitting for Goblins. To build on that, the static availability of these crafting resources was done to reflect the fact that the village is practically built on top of a mine. The availability of Smithing resources will not be static in other regions, and instead would follow the General Merchant's system and would likely also have an increased cost. Thus, if the person wishes to buy the material cheaply and with a guaranteed chance, they will have to head to the region which specialises in it.
That's why you can learn the Mining skill so early from the NPC near the entrance to the mines. Though I had gotten a decent amount of gems from chest drops too.
On a side note, I will look into adding the Mortar & Pestle to the General Merchant.
I think I may put on hold the expansion to the cave area and instead make another forest map. This will allow me to place some specific plant nodes which are most commonly used in Alchemy, like Plantago and Dandelion to be harvested directly with no RNG.
I suppose having some sort of a merchant that sells basic herbs could help salivate this issue.
Yes, this has been brought up before, I'll add Varnish and Glue to the General Merchant for now!
On a side note, I realise that the crafting tables don't have a very good way of acquiring them right now. I will try to set up some quests that gift them as a reward to have a more predictable way of gaining them.
A few people have suggested the first approach too. While I don't rule it out as a possibility, I want to see how well more merchants out in the world will work to solve the problem. In general I don't want to concentrate any more content in the actual Goblin Village. I think that by expanding the playable area with more maps, nodes, merchants etc, a lot of the balance issues will iron themselves out.
With how random the rate of seed acquisition is right now, making "a chance" at level one would be rather brutal. I think making the seed number equal to the Farming Level would be more viable. Though it will affect the availability of Oil production as you mentioned.
Also, I sort of disagree with being an infinite resource/money factory. You are still capped by your Vitality when harvesting and by the fact that it takes a day for stuff to grow, in addition to the fact that you have to physically water everything if it is not raining, which requires even more Vitality to draw water from the well. It is certainly a better way of earning money than collecting junk on the forest floor, but it still falls short of selling crafted items (if ingredients are obtained from harvesting) and short of the money you earn at the Brothel.
I will try to combine this static seed merchant with the merchant that sells the basic herbs most likely, at least for herb and flower seeds. But you are certainly right in the statement that the issue needs to be monitored and addressed soon.
While it is not truly infinite it is still 45 sources for controlled drops is still far more than any other resource currently. Also with level one alchemy and the right seeds you can produce a vitality potion for 45 VP which restores 60 VP and the cost to produce this in VP goes down the more you level it up as again 45 sources of craft exp can level you really fast compared to other sources. It also can be further broken if you get white magic as cure is even more efficient at VP recovery to WP potion made but the money wall to get white magic makes this difficult to obtain. I just thought it was important to note these as they are ways to break the system
Also you might want to put in a warning for starting as a noble. It is massively more difficult to play as a noble thanks to less sleep recovery and just how hard it is to get into the brothel as a noble in the current build. This is currently due to there not being as many sources for losing virginities right now as again I don't want to get thrown in prison or lose to werewolves to have access to a good source of money. I am aware that this will be fixed as more areas are added but it can be frustrating right now. To be honest I wasn't even aware of the morality system as a commoner but as a noble I still can't use the brothel with all of the common fetishes at level 2 ( I haven't done saffron's quest with this character so I don't have access to the piercing fetish). It makes it real hard to get money at the start which really slows down the early game. Letting the player know how it can restrict them will avoid people being forced to play in a way that they don't want to.
On a more positive note I am curious how broken I can make goblin punch. It was a real interesting discovery that I didn't find in my commoner play through from the first version. It also could theoretically be used in a non-combat or minimal stat setup. I look forward to finding other hidden skills and abilities in future builds.
I initially made it that farming does not yield EXP but later changed it to diminished EXP... I might go back to it giving no EXP again. It does seem like it needs to be looked at again.
The difference between Noble and Commoner should really be in just 1 Fetish equivalent. I had already added the warning for sleep penalties but I suppose I should put a brothel related warning too... it's just hard to fit stuff in and make it look neat right now.
At the moment it's the only hidden skill, and it also scales infinitely right now but it will likely be reigned in later to have a maximum damage cap... it will still be really strong though!
I am considering this, though I am a bit worried that when I would later remove this NPC, people might complain.
Balancing is always tricky most of the time minor adjustments can work better than nerfing something to the ground. What I would propose is to track how many harvests of farmed goods are done in a day and then scale down based on that. For example you get full exp for the first 10 in a single day then less up to 15 then even less up until 20 when you stop receiving exp for farming in a single day. This way you don't punish people who aren't exploiting farming for exp as I assume most people won't try to break the game. it also makes sense as has very low risk after it is set up as you no longer need to go to combat zones to get materials so it's reward should be somewhat less than the other harvesting skills. The numbers for the exp ranges might need a little refining but it shouldn't be that hard to implement as there are several things that reset on a daily cycle. However it could have an issue of someone updating the value as it is trying to reset which might throw some rather strange errors though the timing on that would have to be absurdly precise. It could end up being more trouble than it's worth but it does give some exp reward to people who are using it as intended while putting a limit on the exp gain for those who try to exploit it. You could also just put a hard cap on the amount of crafting exp you can get in a single day which again requires tracking it. So there are options on how to deal with this that don't completely turn farming into extension of alchemy.
Alright, I will risk doing this!
For now I decided to remove EXP from farming, I'll see how this plays out, another option could be to split it between Hero and Minion game modes.
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Another Quality of Life Update. As some people were not happy with the new control layout, this version will address this issue again and hopefully be acceptable by most now. As always, consider making a save file backup before updating! The following changes were implemented in the 0.1.2 release:
- Movement can now be controlled with either WASD or Arrow Keys!
- Changed the Smithing Satchel description to correctly describe it having Smithing components and not cooking!
- Removed Fire II, a debug ability that was never meant to be in the game. I didn't find what allocates it so if anyone ever notices it a heads up would be appreciated!
- Goblin Punch now correctly deals BLUNT damage instead of BUNT.
- Standardised all chores to give the same tier of EXP and added the +50% modifier on Laundry in Hero Mode.
- "Extra Options" is now usable!
- The ability to Sprint with SHIFT Key has been returned into the game. You can now Sprint while holding down SHIFT or using the Sprint Toggle.
- Added a separate item "Pickpocket", bindable to Hotbar, for initiating the Pickpocket action instead of using the Guile Skill Book.
- Gathering nodes on your farms no longer grants any EXP to balance better with other skills (This may change later).
- Agriculture level no longer affects the amount of seeds gathered on the farm, the amount now depends solely on Luck stat. In the case of replenishing bushes it affects the likelihood of a seed drop instead.
- The price of Beer has been lowered by 50%!
- Mortar & Pestle added to the General Merchant on days when Alchemists are robbed.
- Added Glue and Varnish to General Merchant on days when the Alchemist Hut is raided (they are not cheap).
- Added a lot more modifiers that will improve chances of working at the Brothel, including: Species that took Virginities, Circumstances of it's loss (Whoring/Gangbangs etc), Number of Goblins fucked, number of times Gangbanged, Submissiveness to Goblins, Perfect Goblin Fucks, Species of your First child and whether you knocked up your first sex partner on first try, and more!
- Noble Background now mentions the inhibition to Prostitution during character creation!
- The Goblin Overseer now explains to you that she will only reward you for the first 5 Quest items that you bring back every time you report back to her.
- Black Magic, Charisma and Guile Skill Manuals added to the loot table of Wooden Chests as Rare drops.
- [Gift] tags added to a few more items, Silk, Cloth, Leather, Wolf Pelt, Goblin Dildo, Lavender Lily. These were giftable before but lacked description tags!
- The Actor Sprite now shows you holding a present if a [Gift} was last selected. Select any non [Gift] item to stop holding the present!
- Demon Queen's daughter Azalea has been added. She will act as a temporary NPC that sells Skill manuals. She can be found on the second floor of the Goblin Brothel on Saturdays. Manuals will cost 20 silver each.
- You will now be set to 1 VP after fights if you get KOed and Snuffles finishes the fight on their own!
- A more "Sexy" Game Over screen has been implemented for the Enslavement Game Overs.
- A Menu Toggle Item has been added. It can be bound to the Hotbar to allow access to the game Menu without needing to use the [ESC} key for those that prefer to have this function on a different key.
It was an issue with the "Updater" event setting the number of displayed text lines to more than the default 4. So using any item that opened a window with more than 4 text lines would have fixed it and reset it back to 4 as well.
how does the traveler system work? the reason i'm asking is because i found the merchant in the woods. saved just in case and then loaded my save when my persuasion attempt failed. and suddenly the merchant who was literally right in front on me is nowhere to be found.
They disappear after you leave the map, and saving the game and then loading, counts as re-entering the map so any NPC that is randomly spawned will be gone unfortunately. They have a 25% chance to spawn on each map once per day (Emerald Forest and Emerald Forest Road). The chance is a bit lower if it is raining that day and the calculation is done the moment you enter the map. Their location on the map is random, so in Emerald forest they can spawn in the Beehive glade but since the area there is very small, chances of them spawning there are lower than on the rest of the map.
Also, they wont spawn at night.
How does one obtain such game overs? I tried making the goblins detest me but that only got me in prison like a serial offender.
It only happens in the Brothel so far. One ending is with a Goblin Virgin who can ask you to marry her. This ending is voluntary. The second ending is with a Goblin Breeder where she tries to enslave you, for this one you are given a choice whether to subimt or not, but if your Goblin related Fetishes are too high and if you have Flaws like Submissive, the penalty to your will power may get too high and the choice is taken away from you with you instantly submitting and getting the Game Over. The trigger for both Events only happens if you perform really well in bed with them.
The Game Over screen isn't race specific though.
Just wanting to be 100% certain: Does it matter *which* house we give the captured NPCs to, to get the skill? Like the Thief for Guile. I've tried handing him over to seemingly each house, and then talking to everyone in it, but none of them did anything special, or offered to teach Guile, or anything. I even tried checking back the next in-game day, and still nothing. Feels like I am missing something, and I am not certain what.