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I had a power outage when I was working on the game and my files got corrupted. Same thing happened to me few years ago and since then I was making backups pretty much every week. I lost a few days of work, but I caught up to where I was no problem.

Health limit system should be now complete.

Every week, you can heal the amount equal to your (maxHP +(wellness / 4)). Every 20% of this value will add bandage on your body untill you reach the maximum number of 5. Skipping a week in any way will reset this counter and remove your bandages, allowing you to heal again.

One of the complains I get semi-frequently is the amount of things you "need" to do if you want to play optimaly. You have to talk to all NPCs, kill all enemies on the map, clear all dungeons, craft all items you can and so on. This means one week can take you multiple hours to get through if you really want to do everything.

My plan is to limit the amount of things you can do at the start of the game and increase it as the game goes on. 

Hangout option will be removed, because I'm not really happy with it as it is and I will replace it with a better system later. Social points will stay in the game though. You will be getting them from the start of the game. Talking to NPC will take away one point from you and raise your mood and relationship. If you run out of points, you will get nothing. Only one point can be used for one NPC every week.

This means that you will have to talk only to a few NPCs to get the mood and relationship bonuses and you won't have to chase all of them every week. The amount of social points you get will increase with your age and traits. I will also bring back the chat option, so you can choose who you raise the relationship with so you don't have to find the specific NPC first before talking to anybody else.

Next, I will limit the amount of combat XP you can get per week. This number will increase with your age, overall combat level and other variables.

I will also limit the number of dungeons you can clear every week. Again, this number will increase as you play.


All of these changes should have multiple effects. New players will be less overwhelmed, since they will be limited in the amount of things they can do. Overall progression will be slowed down, which will allow me to gauge average player levels at certain dates more easily. Lastly, this will also make the growth of your character more apparent, since it adds more things that improve over time and allow you to do more things. Older players will be able to bypass some of these limitations to a degree by joining the cult early or usisng ichor.

i'm very interested in how this system will work, because i also think the "optimal" way to play was to do everything every week, which wasn't interesting. also curious as how the lack of hangouts will affect the way the game plays, i felt like i used hang-out very often. 

good work as always.

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Main reason I added hangouts was to add more personality to NPCs.  You were supposed to take them out on "dates" and learn more about them and so on. The mood and relationship boost was just a bonus. 

It became obsolete the moment I added propper cutscene system, since it does pretty much everything I wanted to do with the hangouts.

As for the machanical part, I have two ways planned to make getting relationship easier.

First one is gifts. Quite a simple mechanic. You will be able to give one item to one NPC per week and and you will get a relationship bonus depending if they like that item (or it gets lowered if they hate it).

The second way to get relationship will be much more complex. I intend to overhaul the way working and weekly activities work. Instead of doing one thing for the entire week, you will be able to schedule every day of the week. 

The core of the game will stay the same. You will still spend seven days doing some kind of activity and then get one day where you walk around freely like you do now. You will just be able to manage those seven days better.

You will be able to work, train and rest like you can now, but I will add way more options. Things like mining, cutting trees, hanging out with NPCs, begging, working for your faction and so on. You will asign one of these activities for each work day. You can rest the entire week, work for five days, rest for one and hang out with certain NPC for the last day, or work for all seven days, each day for different NPC.

You will schedule your work week from your hideout so you won't have to hunt down the specific NPC you want to work for, but there are still benefits for talking to every NPC from time to time.

On top of that, this will allow me to make certain jobs and activities locked from the start. For example, the blacksmith won't let you work for him unless you have certain strength level, Olaf won't let you work for him unless you already have friend and so on.

There is more, but this is a big enough wall of text already. This overhaul will take some time and I'm not sure if I should do this or the faction system first, since they would both benefit from each other.