Dunko Plushes are OP

[Patch]

A dunko plushie sells for 53 (iirc) right now in the current game. This always felt pretty fair and balanced given the RNG and time taken to get one, as each one takes around 2-3 ingame hours and around 20-30 bucks on average. Even my worst streak of luck still got me a plush in just under 50 bucks. Without taking into account tickets, this results in an average profit of like 10~ bucks per ingame hour; better than newspaper routes, worse than babysitting, uses barely any energy and health-... But is RNG dependent, and requires a substantial amount of time and spending money to do. Feels balanced, man!

...Then I realized that Barry could put out a bounty on it. This doubles its sell price, rocketing the profit margin to over 200% of initial investment. Each plush sells for over 100, and even if you only get two in a day, that still makes /bank/ and requires almost zero energy or health in contrast with proper jobs. Couple this with the fact that the items wanted change whenever you do a simple save and load by hitting new game in the esc menu, and I think this is suddenly THE meta for the current patch.

This is broken.

[devotid]

Thanks for the feedback! It really helps.

as for changing the "hot" item at Barrys Pawn shop, I thought about getting the server time from Steam client and then using that to calculate what items are "hot" that day. That way it would be the same for everyone and if you restart it will still be the same until the next day.

I have not tried a prototype yet.... but that was something I was going to be looking into for Part 2 of the Survivor Beta.

Kevin

[Patch]

Originally posted by devotid:

Thanks for the feedback! It really helps.

as for changing the "hot" item at Barrys Pawn shop, I thought about getting the server time from Steam client and then using that to calculate what items are "hot" that day. That way it would be the same for everyone and if you restart it will still be the same until the next day.

I have not tried a prototype yet.... but that was something I was going to be looking into for Part 2 of the Survivor Beta.

Kevin

Oh, nice to hear from you! Totally love this game. <3

That said, I think it'd probably be simpler to just have the RNG seed you're using save to the file at day start. Otherwise we'd still have the same issue that each time you load, you'd potentially have a different item on bounty. Saving to the file itself would make it such that each time you load that day, it's the same items that are 'hot' for the day.

This wouldn't fix that Dunko plushes are guaranteed income, but it'd remove the ability to cheese the multiplier out since you can't reload to a previous day, and are effectively stuck with whatever you rolled for that day. (Without just hacking the game files and such anyway.)

It would however at least give us two options! We either sell the plush as soon as we get it for guaranteed cash as usual, or save them up and sell later for more. It'd still be guaranteed profit, but it'd be balanced with the other myriad of ways to earn cash in the current and future game then!

[Rayune]

Dunko plushes?

Patch pls.

I can get a Popcorn Pete for about 10 bucks, and it sells for 150. It's 300 when it is "hot." That's the real way to game the system.

[devotid]

Agreed. I am making the dunko plush and the Popcorn pete plush worth a little less at Barrys.

Next patch.

Kevin

[Patch]

Originally posted by devotid:

Agreed. I am making the dunko plush and the Popcorn pete plush worth a little less at Barrys.

Next patch.

Kevin

I'm next? Next for what? Oh god.

Real talk though this is probably for the best, thanks for taking this all into account and making the market so varied for money making.

I'd be interested to know how on earth the other fella in this thread is getting a Popcorn Pete plushie with only 10 bucks. Must have to play a near perfect game!

[Rayune]

I have actually written a guide on the subject!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2130981901

With some practice, you can play a game that sounds like this: "Card drop! Card drop! ... Card drop! ... Card drop! Card drop! Card drop!"

And actually, I wasn't requesting it to be patched out. I was addressing Patch. Patch pls.

Yeah, I recognize the need for balance.... but I'm gonna miss my easy money. Especially once I am trying to win enough tickets to decorate my room with one of every prize. Oof.

At that point in time, I think we will need a hotkey to fix a prize into place once it is put somewhere within our house. Otherwise I am gonna spend half an hour arranging everything just for me to mess it up once I put one wrong thing in the mix that collides with everything else.

[Patch]

Originally posted by Rayune:

I have actually written a guide on the subject!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2130981901

With some practice, you can play a game that sounds like this: "Card drop! Card drop! ... Card drop! ... Card drop! Card drop! Card drop!"

And actually, I wasn't requesting it to be patched out. I was addressing Patch. Patch pls.

Yeah, I recognize the need for balance.... but I'm gonna miss my easy money. Especially once I am trying to win enough tickets to decorate my room with one of every prize. Oof.

At that point in time, I think we will need a hotkey to fix a prize into place once it is put somewhere within our house. Otherwise I am gonna spend half an hour arranging everything just for me to mess it up once I put one wrong thing in the mix that collides with everything else.

Well dang, that's cool, but-... That still feels balanced; that's an awful lot of skill and figuring stuff out you have in that guide, time spent, and on top of that, RNG. It seems like it'd be no different than simply learning a carny game really well; bowling, shooting and darts spring to mind as being skill based games too.

I don't think either of these need much of a nerf, if any, especially if the bounty board is getting a fix... But I can understand wanting one anyway. Profit margins are huge. >.>

[KushBerryJake]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133879944

I mean, when you do master it, it does kind of feel like cheating.... I was just messing around when I taught myself how to farm card drops. I could go into more detail than he does in the guide, but I didn't want to hijack his guide....

[Patch]

Originally posted by FaKePoSeR:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133879944

I mean, when you do master it, it does kind of feel like cheating.... I was just messing around when I taught myself how to farm card drops. I could go into more detail than he does in the guide, but I didn't want to hijack his guide....

Being fair, many speedrun tricks and strategies among other games feel like cheating as well. Whether they are or not seems to fall more into philosophy than objective fact.

That said, I definitely see your point, that's very cheesable. .-.

[Rayune]

Originally posted by FaKePoSeR:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133879944

I mean, when you do master it, it does kind of feel like cheating.... I was just messing around when I taught myself how to farm card drops. I could go into more detail than he does in the guide, but I didn't want to hijack his guide....

No, hijack away! I welcome the opportunity to fine-tune the process.

[MoonlitDNC]

Possible thought - rather than completely tank the bounty price on the Dunko plush (though adjusting Pete's a little seems great), why not severely lower their ~chances of appearing on the bounty board?

From a game economy perspective, if the bounty board did not change every time the save reloads and the Dunko/Pete plush bounties were a SUPER rare happenstance, it would suddenly be a bit harder to justify stockpiling more than one or two at the same time as opposed to just cashing them in as per usual. The surprise and excitement of cashing them in when that rare bounty does finally appear would remain though. Another idea might be to limit the maximum amount of individual plushes that Barry will accept per day.

If the bounty board is eventually determined by IRL time as reported by the Steam API, then the top paying item/easiest item to acquire on the board is going to incentivise players to spend an ~entire~ IRL day grinding out multiple in-game days at one specific location/machine. I don't think that's a bad thing exactly, but I'd not mind to see it ~additionally~ combo'd with a feature where each arcade/gaming location has a "hot machine" that's pumping out a slight bonus in tickets - to incentivise maybe trying a machine that doesn't normally get attention.

If there's no "hot machine" feature, my worry about the bounty board being tied to IRL days instead of in-game days is that I worry I'd eventually hit that Animal Crossing issue where I've done as much as I can for one IRL day and now I have to wait for tomorrow IRL to find something new to do.

[devotid]

Originally posted by MoonlitDNC:

Possible thought - rather than completely tank the bounty price on the Dunko plush (though adjusting Pete's a little seems great), why not severely lower their ~chances of appearing on the bounty board?

From a game economy perspective, if the bounty board did not change every time the save reloads and the Dunko/Pete plush bounties were a SUPER rare happenstance, it would suddenly be a bit harder to justify stockpiling more than one or two at the same time as opposed to just cashing them in as per usual. The surprise and excitement of cashing them in when that rare bounty does finally appear would remain though. Another idea might be to limit the maximum amount of individual plushes that Barry will accept per day.

If the bounty board is eventually determined by IRL time as reported by the Steam API, then the top paying item/easiest item to acquire on the board is going to incentivise players to spend an ~entire~ IRL day grinding out multiple in-game days at one specific location/machine. I don't think that's a bad thing exactly, but I'd not mind to see it ~additionally~ combo'd with a feature where each arcade/gaming location has a "hot machine" that's pumping out a slight bonus in tickets - to incentivise maybe trying a machine that doesn't normally get attention.

If there's no "hot machine" feature, my worry about the bounty board being tied to IRL days instead of in-game days is that I worry I'd eventually hit that Animal Crossing issue where I've done as much as I can for one IRL day and now I have to wait for tomorrow IRL to find something new to do.

I do like the idea of a "Hot" machine that gives a multiplier to maybe tempt folks to play machines they normally do not.

I havent decided on the Market timing yet. Ill prob focus more on that soon as I start to design the banking/XP system.

Noted about the animal crossing thing though. Im trying to take that into account.

Kevin