Conviction Chronicles blog post #36 - Jade rework + Voting Motives

Due to some stuff that happened, I'm reposting the blog posts I make on blogger onto the steam announcements as well as blogger.

 Jade Rework

I've thought about it, and I think Jade should have more of a cost for dealing with injuries with how aggressive she can support. So I made some changes.

1. Jade cannot heal injuries with drugs, she can still die from them from it's effects. Overdosing only impacts the battery levels instead of outright killing

2. Resting at night doesn't automatically reduce injury levels. Instead of Jade has some metal sheets in her inventory, she will consume them for an accelerated healing. With how easy Metal is to get, it makes it so Jade can quickly and easily repair herself every night, with 3 days removed from the injury level every time this happens.

3. Holding in pee will also damage her internal battery.

4. Having too much energy will overload Jade and cause her battery to be damaged with her energy levels. This will also lower the max amount she can have and the overload due to her battery.

5. Medical beds will restore Jade's battery along with injuries.

6. Having Jade Rings will have them be consumed to add onto battery during the night by 2 energy levels.

7. The max battery can go over 10 normally when it's max is raised. Going over the max causes problems.

8. Having no energy capacity in the battery leads Jade to die.

This leads Jade to be more about battery management and allows more opportunities for her to be manipulated. She can be extremely powerful, she loses an easy free way to restore from injuries with a cost to doing it naturally. But also she can become much more powerful in the long run, in the short term someone can give her extra energy to make her start the day with 2 energy, which makes it easier to strike against her. 

This transforms Jade more into a burst character which makes her playstyle more unique and fits the idea I had for her at the start.

Aishia, Edgar, Crow, and Victor need some special ability reworks to make them more unique in the future. Shanks needs some added onto him for blackmailing.

The Wheel Backend

Before going into the voting motives in general, I made a new dynamic system for determining how a character votes. The easiest way to explain it is each character creates an internal wheel where the valuation is determined for how big of a slice on the wheel for every choice. Let's say that Shanks hates Edgar. Shanks won't consider Edgar to get a bonus as much as let's say Tina. This framework can be reworked for anything I really desire which I plan on adding onto certain things for the general character AI action framework to include this for certain actions so there is more depth and emotional weight with each action.

This does mean there is always a chance for a low chance option to occur unless it's set to 0 in the wheel so it's removed from the selection pool. Due to random chance for the pool, the more obvious selections will have a higher chance, but there is always a chance a curveball can happen. It's mainly an easy way to mathematically calculate multiple concepts and ideas into something simple so there is multiple factors that can influence how much room on the wheel a character gets.

Voting Motives

Like what it implies, this has some sort of group voting involved for the motive that isn't the Influence Game. Depending on what the vote is for, it will change how people perceive others since every vote is public and the mole cannot vote twice here.

-- The Territory Seal -- 

This is a vote to determine what floor will be more limited for the day, and it cannot be chosen twice in a row. For example if floor 1 is disabled, then the shop/furnace/public bathrooms cannot be used for the day. If floor 4, then the hospital cannot be used. etc. Adds more tension with the limited options and forces the player to act around them.

-- The Duel Mandate --

Whoever gets the most votes will be selected for a duel. The person with the least amount of votes, with at least 1, will be selected as the second fighter. This is to make it so someone with no votes cannot be selected. 5 days after the selection, a fight happens. If that is impossible, the duel happens the next day.

If one person gains every vote, then they are executed on the spot. But if that person is the mole, then everybody goes free.

Unless someone else gets murdered, which cancels the duel, then a trial doesn't happen when the duel does occur.

-- The Solitary Decree --

This motive isn't fully finished yet, mainly due to a little surprise/easter egg I have in store for it. 

Basically everybody votes for someone to be sent into solitary where they are fed, but mentally deteriorate. It also means they cannot be interacted with until the next day. It's very defensive and aggressive to block someone from gaining evidence, but also can protect them from being killed/harmed directly.

-- The Liberation Vote --

Technically this is a motive, but it will end before the cafe events are done once applied. A vote to free someone in the cast will go through. The catch is if the mole is dead already or the mole is voted out, then someone else is chosen to become the mole.

The day after this a new motive is placed, which makes this a little special as it's the only motive that ends right after it begins. The main purpose is to thin the herd a little and to add more tension about the mole. I think it would be best if it runs half way through the game, even closer to the end, but I don't want to regulate what conditions certain motives show up too much at the moment. I have to think about how effective it would be under certain conditions, but the more people that are already dead, the more impactful it becomes.

Anything else?

The surprise I have for the Solitary Decree is going to take a little while. Maybe a week or more, depending on how much time it takes to implement certain ideas I have for it. 

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