Suggestion: More buffs and debuffs.
- Drought debuff: During this time the barista has lowered milk production. This forces the player to buy fairy lattes to keep up with customer's demand.
- 'Secret Candy' side effect: The barista gets a small permanent milk production increase(1-2ml). This can be seen as a buff or debuff. (Ties in with fresh milk score. This does not undermine milky mode as this is much less frequent but still provides a feeling of being rushed to the goal of a larger size.)
- QOL: Increased production event: New barista lines (i.e. "I feel like today I'll be producing more") and/or a sound effect showing this event has started.
- QOL: Strange production event: There are few downsides to this and can be negated during milking, the production spurts should be carried through milking. These spurts seem to be only 100ml, they should scale somewhat with capacity or current milk production. (i.e. 20cm or 40cm breasts are only 100-200ml and having this event early really hurts, while towards end game it means very little).
- Perhaps the strange production event could be updated with my 'Secret Candy' side effect. While you are gaining large amounts of milk its also increasing production on every spurt(maybe only 2-4ml per event). (This is definitely more interesting.)
- Another balancing aspect could be at smaller breast sizes there are smaller and fewer production events during it while larger breast sizes there are larger and more production events. (Otherwise I was thinking there could be variations of this event where one event could be many small bursts while another could be few large bursts.)
- QOL: Temporary overfilled status: During increased milk production and strange production events the barista should be able to be overfilled (1 breast size) prior to decreasing happiness.
Suggestion: Happiness rework: As others have suggested the game feels unbalanced with the current happiness score. Early game it's hard to please the barista, and late game it's far too easy. The happiness score should be tied directly to the barista. (Customers are tied to popularity score below)
- The barista's main goal is to grow and she is happy when you buy her stuff, such as milk coffee, stretchy candy, and fairy lattes.
- Milking still provides happiness but should be closer tied to maintaining.
- However giving her a bitter coffee to reduce production will make her unhappy.
- Not giving her treats (upgrades) will make her upset and after some time she will have an outburst and it will decrease happiness until she is given an upgrade or simply an 'extra break'. (There are already lines for her asking you to buy new ingredients or buy stuff for her, this would work well together.)
- Also, wasting breast milk to boost happiness is far too easy. Instead wasting breast milk by overflowing cups, throwing away cups that have breast milk in them, or not adding/skipping orders that ask for breast milk decreases her happiness.
Suggestion: Coffee shop popularity score and fresh milk score. Screwing up a drink currently negatively affects the barista where it should instead affect the shop (the player). The popularity score promotes the cafe and income while the fresh milk score brings in more customers looking for that special ingredient only the barista can provide.
- Introducing a new score such as popularity would ensure the player should strive for accurate drinks. Having lower quality drinks decreases this score while having accurate drinks increases this score. The score's benefit could be as simple as the current system where the quality of the drink is tied to increased or decreased profit of the drink's base ingredients. Thus having a high popularity score rewards the player with more income for good drinks, and punishes them with less income for bad drinks.
- Ruining a drink could either greatly negatively affect the score or takes longer for a customer to come back. (Forcing the barista fill up.)
- Currently having any other drink mix-ins (not toppings) hurts the player and has close to no benefit. They need to be rebalanced. Maybe having extra mix-ins will affect the popularity score more greatly than basic drinks (i.e. just coffee and milk, toppings little or not included) on top of already promoting more income.
- As suggested in my previous post this having more store ingredients could still be improved with a QOL update that adds a complexity slider for the drinks customers ask for. Low complexity gives simpler drinks with less ingredients, while high complexity gives difficult drinks with more ingredients. Also still directly tying in with drink profitability and popularity score.
- The second score could be called the fresh milk score, and this can increase based on time or the amount of breast milk served. As this increases the quantity of customers that want breast milk in their drinks increases. This guides the player to give the barista milk coffees to increase production to keep up.
- On top of this the current system can work hand-in-hand with it as the current system that when the barista is nearly full the customers want a larger quantity of breast milk.
- Sneaking breast milk in where milk is asked for increases this score, the customer will know somethings up but won't complain. (This does not hurt the cafe's popularity score).
- How the barista is clothed will affect it as well. Wearing the full apron and pants grants nothing but as she wears less and less clothing showing off what she has will increase the amount of people looking for breast milk.
TLDR: I had to write this twice as my browser reloaded... but I hope it's clear and concise. The happiness rework better ties the barista to her wanting to grow and her attachment to the owner (the player). While the popularity score pushes the cafe it also rewards the player with more money to afford more ingredients or barista upgrades. Lastly, the fresh milk score brings both the barista and the cafe together forcing you to treat the barista to keep up with cafe demand. I hope to hear what others think as this was what I gathered from the other community posts.