Saturday, August 13, 2016

FAQ

So I received plenty of interesting thoughts and opinions, and since I can't kinda answer everyone personally, I wanna make a post regarding some of the more usual requests/questions.

I'd prefer more homosexual content
Strive originally was made as purely M/F (and some side F/F action, not mentioning futa). I did add male slaves and option to be female PC only due to popular demand, but I'm not going to go heavily out of my way to focus on M/M content variations. If there will be more stuff provided from submitters, I might include it, but otherwise you shouldn't expect much.

Add more pictures/images/illustrations to girls/events/scenes
I can't really do that, because I'm not an artist. The small amounts of stuff you see in game are what come mostly free/really generic. When I decided to make this game, I knew it can't depend on art, because then I simply won't be able to sustain its production on my own. On the other hand, I can't really use random art on the internet and expect to get far with it (copyrights), plus I want to retain overall consistancy in style. Ideally, I'd be able to switch engine, implement dynamic image for characters and hire a full-time artist. But currently that's simply not an option, as project is very young.

How do I raise girl's willpower stats? 
There's a few minor ways to boost them slightly, and I plan to add a bit more, but I don't really wanna make it easily accessible. The point where you can easily turn every girl into 'all green' superwoman, they also lose any individuality. It also makes pointless to capture and train high willpower girls, because you can simply train weak girl and then boost her willpower (and it's harder to build obedience and loyalty with stronger girls).

I want more niche details for characters/Free Cities have something I want here
Let me say first, Strive is not a fantasy themed Free Cities. It may look like one, but if I liked free cities, I'd settle with couple of fantasy themed mods for it. My inspiration from free cities stopped at the point where I took multiple pregenerated slaves and made it so you can assign them to various jobs.
With details, I'll only say, that tattoo/piercing will make it into the game, but you shouldn't expect much of everything else. I prefer not to know how many freckles on the girl's face, her accent or areola diameter. You can fill it with your imagination, or maybe i'll add a function to enter whatever custom description you would want to fit there.

I want to upgrade my mansion/more slaves/prisoners
You have to advance through main quest for now. Once you get to meet Sebastian, follow his sidequest to unlock shop in the Shaliq. (will probably ease it in next versions)

I will likely add more stuff to this list later on, but for now I also gonna make another post addressing some specific requests and my next goal.

33 comments:

  1. Regarding Pictures:
    This is a great stance on this issue and honestly the addition of pictures is more or less fluff and window dressing that should be added to an already strong game. If you take Fen's CoC and TiTs games as an example they are extremely successful because the primary focus was always on solid writing, bug smashing, and great mechanics. Of course, those are games with a focus on a singular entity whereas SfP has a generic protagonist and seems to focus on a stable of girls. Pictures would be more important if they were already established entities like SlaveMaker or the Brothel type games with fan service, but becomes a crutch with a more open game where there are plenty of possibilities.

    Regarding stat raising:
    I like super girls actually. There is something to be said for the accomplishment of crafting somethings towards perfection. If you want an example, then take pokemon and the EV stat leveling and breeding system. Sometimes you just want to be the very best. And yes, I did just equate pokemon training with slave capturing and breeding. ^_^
    A possible far far far future possibility for the game may be the ability to release or grant freedom to slaves so that we can interact with them differently than our slaves and receive some incentive for doing so. We see a small lean towards this actually with Cali and the fact that the easiest recruitment method with her is to promise to help her get home.

    Regarding excessive customization:
    I don't want SfP to become FC. They both fill a niche and if in infancy they are similar it is how they eventually grow and flourish that they will be unique and differentiated. Already SfP has a more 'hands on' feel to slave ownership than FC and I think it should polish that aspect and have solid interactive and engaging mechanics rather than broad sweeping mechanics with granular details.

    Regarding Acronyms:
    Now me being silly.
    SfP = Strive for Power
    FC = Free Cities
    CoC = Corruption of Champion
    TiTs = Trials in Tainted Space
    JONT = ??? Was mentioned in a previous post, but can't place it actually.

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    1. JONT is a jack of nine tails, another piece I was inspired by :) Thanks for the input.

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  2. Oh yeah, wouldn't be a post from me without a bug or suggestion as my two cents.

    Suggestion:
    Make growing a kid through the guild cheaper so that it is either profitable or no loss when sold. To speed grow a kid is already 10, 15, or 20 days that a slave space is occupied (child, teen, and adult growth) in addition to the 500 gold. Offspring were suggested to be an improvement of their parents so it sounds like you can get progressively better slaves with each passing generation and an interesting idea for growth and progression. However the system is currently busted with stats very frequently being the lowest in all fields which makes the time and money poured into the child less impressive when you can't recoup losses.
    This seems like a natural move with the new goblin race and goblin racial that makes pregnancies faster which means the racial somewhat implies you could then breed goblins to either get progressively better goblin girls or as some sinister 'sell all my kids' business plan. If there is no incentive to having and keeping kids then the racial just becomes worthless and the race pointless. Just like the Orc race and health regen racial when you already have a heal spell.

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  3. The suggestion wasn't to make SfP like FC, but to follow FC Author's example of putting gameplay before story content and fleshing out your systems better before implementing them. Like I said in the survey, SfP has a lot of potential, but as it stands, I don't enjoy playing it as much as I could because the gameplay feels rushed and ill-thought. Each system has a flaw that's not major on it's own, but even small flaws can stack into big problems, especially in games where those flawed systems rely on each other to function. There's no telling how many other people felt the same and because they probably didn't stick around for more, but I'm gonna keep watching SfP grow and see where you can take it. Just remember; you can always right out a story for the game, and set it aside to formulate the game's systems around that story, without having to actually insert that story into the game until the game can fully support it.

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    1. I wasn't referring specifically to you, but I'll say it again. FC has different focus, and it aims at different parts. I also don't feel like working on just one feature for weeks, instead I rather return to it to polish with new approach later.

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    2. You don't have to obssess over each individual feature like that. In fact, I recommend creating a poll to get player input on which features they feel needs the most work and which features they enjoy the most. From there you can decide how to schedule your time, like dedicating more time to improving the direst systems while dedicating a bit of time to plan and code expanded content for the more popular ones, allowing you to fine tune the game without burning out on individual features in the process. The poll would also help further community relations. Combine that more frequent progress updates and you'll go a long way towards convincing more players to donate to your cause, which can then be used to help further improve on SfP.

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  4. I don't get it, is there a cap for stats you can raise on a girl? If you are gonna make stat raising a grind then at least say how to raise it. If you aren't going to tell us how to raise it then give a clue in game through interactions. "This whore's confidence increased a bit because she made some other whore bleed like a pig."

    This faq is shit.

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    1. You can train them in current version on same screen as you train skills. Thanks for your valuable opinion.

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  5. hello, would you kindly consider a laboratory enhancement for permanent lactation?

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  6. I get not making a super one, not bad game best in devolpment one I touched in ages, including steam games. But A little bit of improvement would be nice, I can't seem to have any luck finding good ones. Not asking for ability to train pros but I haven't even been able to assign a prison guard, Just need to be able to train the ones little off just a hair more.

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    1. Jailer require 50 confidence and good loyalty (Minimum of 50 i think ?) I like putting a demon as a jailer, make it extra spanky :D.

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  7. Oh any one got a guide of sorts like a cheapo wiki, not looking for cheats just kind of feeling in the dark with this great game, but trail and error is horrible way to learn this, had to restart like 4 times tonight because basically if I screw up my first one I am just SOL. I saw they can do lust damage for instanc at least the fearies, does this mean I could train one to just lust them out? Because that is more my thing, like in COC and what not I go for more of the turning them into masturbating wet messes then beat them down.

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    1. New engine version will have in-built help section and hopefully overall improved readability.

      Currently, lust based fighting is not in plans and won't be for quite time since it breaks my personal suspension of disbelief. I might consider adding lust-based spells for combat so you could win non-physical way, but that is to see.

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  8. how do you capture a fairy for the guild

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    1. Elven forest. You can buy them too, but its really rare i think. Only saw one once :D.

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  9. what does each thing in the alchemy do?

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    1. Would be nice to get a description of the potion, but here are some :
      Amnesia Potion : Erase memories, but wont affect the backgrouund or any important event (Never used yet)

      Aphrotisiac : Augment Lust, simple and usefull sometime.

      Beauty Mixture : Can make a slave cute, but only temporary (last a few day i think ?)

      Deterrent Potion : Dull a person sensitivity and weaken mental response. So i guess that make them empty minded zombies ?? Like most potion i guess this is temporary.

      Elixir of regression : Make the person to regress mentally. So make an adult a teen, or a teen a child. Keep the body, and temporary i think, never used it yet.

      Hair dye : Change the hair color.

      Hair Growth Elixir : Make hairs grow instantly. Simple as pie, never used but could be usefull for some request that need special hairs lenght.

      Majorus Concoction : make a part of someone anatomy grow fast. Dont use too much i think, or it might get bad. Mainly useful if you need someone to grow her ass, or her boobs, work on most bodypart that can be changed, like dicks and tails (i think ?). Useful for that tauren quest :D.

      Maturing Elixir : Make someone grow physically, so a child become a teen, and a teen become an adult. Used once on fairy child that i had, i think she was still mentally a child. Can be usefull.

      Minorus Concoction : The reverse of the Majorus one, make any part that can change size get smaller. Like boobs or dicks. One concoction per area (Boobs count as one).

      Miscariage Potion : Make baby be gone. Pretty much the only use. Only used it once, when i discovered that my lover (Childhood friend) was pregreant. Since i did not want here to suffer having our child be taken away cause i was not hight enough in the guild to have child, i RP that i secretly gave her that, then had all of my slave take the herbal tea. Cant support loosing another child...

      Nursing Potion : Make (female?) slave lactate, so usefull for the farm, and new mother i think ?

      Oblivion Potion : The character suffer a targeted amnesia, so it dont lose memory but forget all skill. Never used it but i guess that you gain back all the SP that you spend ?

      Stimulant Potion : Reverse of the Deterrent one, make a slave more sensitive and strengthen its mental response. Useful ?

      Youthing Elixir : Reverse of the Maturing elixir, make a body younger, but i guess the slave keep its mental age ?


      If i forgot a potion, sorry that was all i had in my inventory :D.

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    2. Some of those are incomplete, and at least one is outright wrong. Providing corrections for the ones I know.

      Beauty Mixture: provides a PERMANENT boost to beauty. This is an increase to the base beauty stat (the numerical value), and it will generally require several potions to increase beauty 1 tier (less needed for low tiers). It apparently causes genetic changes (it's a magic potion so I guess that works), as the enhanced beauty is passed to offspring.

      Youthing Elixir: Lowers the age of the character by 1 tier (minimum child). Has a chance to decrease height and asset sizes. Only way to get a child MC.

      Maturing Elixir: Raises the age of the character by 1 tier (maximum adult). Has a chance to increase height and asset sizes.

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  10. Are the slugs you need for the farm located in the Frostford Marsh?

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  11. Ok, so quests have been around for a bit now. Emily's quest seems to be recruit->her sister shows, then nothing regardless of choice. Considering Tisha has been mentioned in a few posts, I'm guessing it's VERY easy to dead-end the quest (or is it just incomplete and leaves her locked out of sexual action?). Cali's quest has been referenced, but can't seem to get anything to actually happen with it. Am I missing something obvious?

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    1. Not sure why would you get any problems with Emily's quest. Order is - you get Emily, her sister comes, if you let her go away and she returns, her sister's quest line gets triggered. There were some issues in previous versions, but in latest public it should generally work.
      For Cali's quests you should basically follow quest log for the most of it.

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    2. Odd, been playing the most up to date releases since the engine swap, and Emily's sister's quest-line never seems to start for me(emily does return, but nothing further happens. Cali's questline never progresses past meeting/jailing her. Just confirmed both of these with a fresh game on the current patreon version. Kinda wondering if there's some leftover artifact from one of the older updates that's causing this (although with the .zip rather then .pak structure now that seems unlikely)

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    3. Well, there's _some_ conditions for quests to start (girls should be present, not jailed, not hating you kind of stuff). For Cali you have to talk to her after recruiting (although I think questlog should explain that).

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  12. How do you get Fluid Substance in the current version?

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    1. Oozes, or purchase from Gorn's alchemist.

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    2. Gorn's alchemist... Event related I'm guessing?

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    3. Opens after progressing through main quest.

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  13. First of all, I like your game.
    I've sunk quite some hours in this game already.

    Though after a while, ending the turn started to take quite some time and annoy me to no extent.
    Being a programmer I decided to see if I could do anything about it.
    I managed to reduce the lag quite a bit.
    Though given what I could do with just the scripts, not without compromise.

    To improve it further, edits to the source code would be needed. Since I am quite sure you won't trust a stranger with your code (I wouldn't).
    I would like to (after doing some testing on my own) give you some pseudo code or a working example of what I come up with.
    So that you can then implement it in the source.

    I think both you and the community would benefit from this.
    Let me know if you would be interested.

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    1. The source engine is not mine, its godot, and its open source. If you want, I can give you source for strive, but you won't find there much more than you can already access, either way I'd like to see what you have.

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    2. I figured out that the autosave was what took up most of the time (about 500ms, while the full end turn takes about 550ms)

      The compromises I made were: having less autosaves, and the possibility of them not containing 100% correct data.
      In short:
      I limited the autosave to once every 5 days, and made the autosave run on a seperate thread.
      Because I don't have access to the save_game function (at least I didn't find it), I decided to offload it to another thread.

      While this makes sure that the end game goes a lot faster, it does not make the save faster.
      If you press the end turn faster than it can save, It could launch a new thread before the first one finished so joining is needed.
      If you then start spamming the button, the code will have to wait for the join before continuing, which will limit the speed again.

      Thus I opted for having less autosaves.
      Because I don't know how the save actually works, it is possible that the game progresses while it is saving, and as such it might save data from the next day.

      I uploaded the changes I made to pastebin
      https://pastebin.com/m73HN6E5

      EDIT: Accidentally posted in separate comment, sorry for that

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    3. Save function can be found at globals.gd and I can imagine it causing issues due to how it implemented (pretty incorrect due to my inexperience with godot, but it gives users limited access to it so I haven't changed it yet). Not sure you can actually run saving separately, so yeah.

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