User:Zobo

To DerelictHelmsman on the new changes to BotN:

Positives:

First, the surprise sex system is better than it used to be. Still not quite there, but better is better.

Excitement is a decent mechanic, nothing bad to say about that.

Stats having ranks is.. mixed. The ranking is pretty ubiquitous in anime-related matters, JRPGs and such. Feels derivative, but is ultimately just fine.

Now for the critique: This game is not at all following your stated goal

It's a lighthearted adventure in sex heaven, so I want to add more to the adventure and exploration elements

Sadly, I can not call the beginning of the game a lighthearted adventure in sex heaven. A new player, knowing nothing, has to:

Find a npc in town to buy barns from, know _which_ barn to buy, then realize either that you can use fluids - and which ones - to capture the correct nephs with, or that you failing the wild sex capture still gives you XP and that you can capture them later on. This really is so much I expect people will put down your game before they get any grip at it.

Furthermore, when you finally capture some nephs and get to breeding yard, you know _zero_ sex positions. The place to learn sex positions has an empty area you could look at and if you don't know just see there's nothing there and go away.

Suggestions:
 * Move Falene next to the foxen barn place. Have her :
 * Tell the player about barns, and build the foxen house. (not others)
 * She could also give the player the starting funds, if the player was newly summoned where'd the money come from anyway. She could explain to get more money you can sell milk and semen to shopkeepers in town.
 * Alternatively: no starting funds at all. Get the free foxen barn, earn your money yourself.
 * Tell the player to head to the woods and lure foxen to live in the new barn with wild sex. Explain to player they will likely not succeed immediately, and keep trying because you will get better at it.
 * When you say goodbye have her tell the player to find her in town she can help with building more barns (and with.. tensions)
 * Change the sex position system to be more newbie frienly
 * Have the player start out with missionary, doggy and cowgirl
 * Put up a new "position" of random, which is selected if you haven't selected anything yourself: it will select a random position that animates.
 * Whenever player selects a sex position, that selection is retained after the scene concludes.
 * Make the sex position learning area circles more enticing to approach, a glowing light, or a shadowy figure or anything.
 * for sex positions the player has not yet learned, the breeding yard ui should display "unknown" with a tool tip "you can learn this somewhere in the world"

World level is tedious

This design of the game uses so-called Skinner box mechanics, which are common : familiar and addictive. The user gets progress indicators and works to unlock stuff. There is a sense of accomplishment, so it is natural for people to find the game interesting - at first. However what they are doing is work that is not actually fulfilling and thus with enough repetition will cause a loss of interest.

I thought money mechanics were something you wanted to get rid of? Granted world level points are not called money, but they essentially are a very focused form of it.

The system calls to capture and release a number of nephs of each barn, and this work will only increase with future new neph types and every save reset will cause another hit. Several people skip the gate progression with cheats but many actually enjoy playing the game with them again - that will not happen with world level. There is no skill involved, just repetitive capturing and releasing. 13 different levels to raise, with a buttload of nephs for each.

Also, once you level up your world you may lose access to some neph presets, and if you do not have access to creator mode you can not get that access back. It is also not clear when or why this happens. There will be frustration.

Suggesions:
 * Have raising the world level be a task that requires you to breed something specific:
 * Possible: have the breeding tasks in task board (normal) raise world level on completion. Revamp the system so you only get asked for things you have barns for and only for traits you have access to (not in your barns)
 * Possible: have the world level be raised in temple with special ascension. To get the world level of foxen to raise to level 2 you need to breed a foxen that is rarity 2, and ascend that. (The player obviously needs to be able to breed such a neph at world level below what one wants to raise it to in everything.)
 * Have the area spawn all neph rarities up to world level, not just the highest.
 * Make the particle effect of nephs that spawn broadcast the neph rarity spawned.
 * Make the newly spawned nephs that are not interactable not steal the targeting reticle.

Loss of breeding focus

The introduction of trait levels could be handled better. Your fertile 1 is approaching obsolescence once fertile 2 nephs start to show up, which in turn will be made next to useless by the final tier of fertile 3.

This is even worse because these higher trait levels are not created, they are discovered. Remember your opinion used to be to make nephs in the wild have less traits because this is supposed to be a breeding game? Finding nephs with many traits and high level ones reduces that.

The nephs at higher world levels spawn with loads of traits, this makes traits less unique, interesting and quite frankly a bit messy. Once you have over 7 traits it becomes "a bunch of traits" to many people.

I have followed the chatter and already "too easy" is said by several people. The system as created does not satisfy "end game content" goal.

Suggestions:
 * Have the higher level traits be bred, not discovered. The wild nephs should never, at any world level, have rank 2 or 3 traits.
 * Suggestion: have romy be involved in upgrading the nephs. To reach trait level 2 you need the breeding nephs be at level.. something, say 40, and both have the same trait, and then pay romy a sum of money for special item or service. Similarily to reach 3 you need two level 80 nephs with the same level 2 trait. After you have highher level traits it works like now.
 * Suggesion: breeder traits. (this is of course a larger one). One of the traits would be the ability to breed up to level 2 traits. Another trait (needs the previous) is to go from trait levl 2 to trait level 3.
 * Suggesion: have the breeder, if level is high enough (40 and 80?) give a small chance of breeding two trait level 1's to offspring getting trait level 2 and two trait level 2's to trait level 3.
 * Tweak the nephs traits and stat ranks.
 * Have the rarity level of neph be the amount of traits they may be spawned with. At world level 1 they can have 0 or 1 traits, at rarity level 5 they would spawn with 4 or 5 traits. (body type is not a trait in this.)
 * Have the traits themselves be so that some traits are only available in two or so neph types at world level 5, so finding the rare ones is very difficult.
 * Have stat rank of S only be found at world level 5 in very specific neph types.

Bad scaling

The stats go up wildly. Numbers in the thousands are there, and if they are not overpowered that means the low numbers in the early game are pretty much useless.

A way to have scaling that is meaningful in low and higher numbers exists in the logarithmic function space, but simple linear ones just can not work with early and late game both. In those cases handing the design over to someone who understands probabilities and mathematical functions is required.

The extra xp traits make levelling too fast once stacked which in turn means levels are pretty much not achievements anymore. More numbers is not inherently better.

Meaningful numbers are always preferable. Going from 1325 to 1456 is not as inherently significant as going from 13 to 14, regardless of the fact they have the same ratio - mathematically speaking. The numbers are too large to be intuitive.

The number of times one can have sex now is pretty ridiculous. You start out with 3 and within a few levels you already get to 5 or 6. Without needing specific traits.

Suggestions:
 * Reduce the amount of times you can have sex to have each be more interesting. At level 1 and with no traits you should be able to have sex about 2 times. Barring special traits having one more added each 10 levels or so would be best.
 * Make the fertility better at low levels: have repeat breeding be a useful addition, not a necessity.
 * I know they are scary, but logarithmic functions allow for better scaling. At low levels you get more effect from levels, at high levels you get less but still some.

Following the rules makes for a worse sex game.

Fertility was nerfed hard because the scaling was cut back. Then a new mechanic of repeated breedings was introduced so you could get offspring at somewhat tolerable rates. That requires UI work which you love, and.... Ask 20 people this: which one is hotter? Having 2 nephs have at it 6 times, or have a single female bred by 6 different nephs in turn, or have a male (or futa) go on 6 different females? I would wager your answers would NOT include the first choice once.

What about using the same sex position again and again? Same thing. You spawn your nephs with desired sex, species, sex position (failing to have a preferred time of day) which in fact can mean to many people if you choose your partners just how you want, use a sex position you like (or just vary it up from one breeding to another) you are actually penalized.

A bonus in one thing is also a penalty for all others, because the game is balanced thinking that one thing will be chosen most of the time. While many of the preferences can be changed, the fact remains every neph has all of them from birth, and the sex part of this game is guided to have a best route for each neph. To quote a user: "so many nephs... this wasnt how i played before at all.."

Presently nephs can really want something they would never have seen or experienced. You don't have the barn or the access to them. How does a cave-dwelling goblin really fancy a seraphim who are still isolated in the sky island?

A mechanic of favourites might be decent, if you gained those upon experiencing them. Breed your foxen with dragons and have a chance the foxen will really like dragons from that point forward, or she finds out just thinking about lifted position makes her wet. Having such prejudices from the start really doesn't make the neph unique, since they all have them.

Gaining these should be occasional at best - so having them has meaning, and balance is calculated without them so they are things that are a straight benefit from the mass, which make the neph have more personality.

Suggestions:
 * Have the newly created preferences not tell the player what the type is. You know the neph has 1 preference slot, but not if the preference if of sex position, or size, or species, or whatever.
 * Option: preference of "variety", where you get the bonus when you change things up.
 * Have the chance of acquiring preferences be lower.
 * Option: Have some nephs already have the preference selected, but do not tell the player what it is. Only upon experiencing it should the neph gain the positive effects.
 * Some positive effect from variety in positions/partners.

Throwing non-futa under the bus:

When I joined the game there were only a few nephs that used fluids you could never harvest from nephs if you didn't have futas. Every single time you have added nephs (exception: minotaurs) they have required semen of type not from males that exist in the game.

Similarily of hybrids only griffons could not be made without futa. Now we have Kujata (Minotaur/Titan), Unicorn (Mare/Elf).

The addition on higher level traits means now there are traits you can never pass on unless you use futa. (Like busty-2).

Learning sex positions as a female is just a "futa is disabled" text. It works, but is not sexy.

Every new addition you make is another slap to the face of those who dislike futas.

Suggestions:
 * Every species that uses a fluid that can not be harvested without futas should have an alternate that is harvestable from non-futa nephs. Not necessarily one you'd have a chance of acquiring at the time when you first meet them.
 * Bring out that male tiger soon, make it so kujata can be made with a bull+titan, unicorn with a bull+elf.
 * Make it possible for males to carry busty/buxom and females carry hung. If they have it, it's displayed as grayed out and does not funcion, but will be available for offspring.
 * Have Pawsmaati summon a male neph for teaching the female sex positions, spawned using a random preset.

Wild sex is annoying:

The wild sex is now based on the preferences of one specific individual. Several people have complained about the extreme aggressiviness of nephs in the wild. I have personally turned it off. It's just too annoying.

Instead of having wild sex be a toggle, have the player able to set the neph's horniness:
 * None: the nephs will never initiate wild sex (maybe the player is unable, maybe not)
 * Low: the nephs will rarely initiate wild sex (something like once a few minutes?)
 * Medium: the nephs will often initiate wild sex
 * High: most of the time most nephs will be seeking sex with something.

There are people who want all of these settings, and no single one will satisfy them all.

Some people want wild sex to be passive, something you enjoy, which is what it is now. Not all do.

Suggestion:
 * Make a mini game out of wild sex, one that is opt-in.
 * Have each of the stats in the minigame be represented as a technique, which you choose to use one at a time. If you choose the same as the neph (revealed after you choose yours) you win regardless (or gain some bonus to your stat), if you choose another there is some penalty to your stat (the size should change depending on your choice) and the stat is compared.
 * Alternative, have the techniques be always certain advantage against certain technique of opponent.

The names of techniques would be something like Str: Deep thrusts/Vaginal squeeze (obviously different for giver/taker)