Emergency milk nerfs
So a few of you had rightfully pointed out that the Bovine potions were kind of insane. I already thought they were powerful, but I didn't realise quite how much of a wall they actually were. So in the interest of allowing more folks to see more of the game's content I've put out a quick fix to make them more reasonable.
With the bovine potions I wanted to make them evocative of the gradual loss of self and agency you see in a lot of hypnosis and transformation erotica. As such I wanted to maintain their 'slowly overtaking you' nature - just slow it down enough to give players time to react. This means I didn't really want to remove their duplication mechanic and I also still need to give players a reason to actually play them or else the entire gimmick is pointless. With that in mind I came up with the following potential tweaks:
- Bovine potions can now be rerolled but with a penalty of some kind, potentially losing points or increasing the brewing time of your concoction. This would require a lot of tweaking to get the numbers right, but could be effective.
- Each bovine potion remove a single bovine potion from the deck when cast. This would mean at peak performance the number of them gradually go down. I'm less crazy about this one.
- When Bovine potions combine the duplicate is of a higher potency. This might sound inconsequential at first, but baring in mind potions only combine with potions of the same potency this actually gives you a lot more breathing room.
- Each Cowbell ingredient can now only be cast once per round. Part of the problem I think with the current implementation is that even if you were playing perfectly, you would still wind up gradually flooded with bovine potions at the hands of your opponent. This change would mean that only a limited number of Bovine potions each round can come from your opponent.
For now I've gone with a combination of the last two. This might potentially be an over correction, but for the time being my priority is just letting more of you guys see more of the game so I hope this quick update accomplishes that! Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to check this game out!
Comments
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Oh yeah, this is a lot better, feels fairer, if it's an overcorrection I'm not sure? It feel good to me. Still works, still have to be very careful where you deposit the bottles, but now getting a single two bottles in your inventory won't lose you the game, I like it :3
The changes have improved things a good deal, but it doesn't solve the issue. The core problem is having a deck bloater that you can't get rid of. I get that you want it to be a slow mental "you can't resist" sort of deal, but that kind-of thing just unfortunately isn't conducive to fun gameplay in this kind of game. It's a lot less likely for you to just immediately lose if the enemy witch has cowbells, but I'm still finding myself in situations where it's just impossible to win. Hell, I got the witch to 5 allure, but by then my deck was almost completely full of bovine potions, and it just went downhill from there until I inevitably lost.
The limit on how many cowbells can be cast at once is a good start to fixing this issue, but cowbells are still just not fun to play against and it's still way too easy to just end up in a lose-lose situation.
Something you need to consider is how many potions the player has as well. Speed is a big factor in beating the cowbells, particularly with these changes. But you get a random choice of potions in each after-witch scene, and a random choice of potions to change to. Some are significantly weaker than others (like the expansion potion), and others are must-haves, but you sorely need accelerants and sometimes you just never get the chance to get more.