Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk

May-13-2015 23:42

I've started work on the next update for Sleuth, and as promised it's going to be a content update. However, it's going to take a while before any of you see it, at least two months, potentially far longer than that.

Now I would hate to leave you all in the Sleuth wilderness, totally devoid of changes, so every one to two weeks I'll create an update from the suggestions you give here. An example of a small update (from the desk of Bela Talbot III) would be including your most recent fortune telling in the case file so long as you haven't discovered any new suspects since then.

Whilst this is going on I'll also fix up the small bugs lying around the game. For example, there's a certain accessory devouring fox that needs reining in, and possibly relocating. So don't worry about suggesting bug fixes here. Keep it to small things you'd like to see, or small annoyances you'd like changed.

May-18-2015 08:13

There is that "rule out suspect" button you can use when you find that a suspect died on you, so it might not happen automatically, but at least this way, you can do it yourself.

May-19-2015 01:09

Well, if the dead suspect is automatically ruled out and they had a real alibi; later on, while matching PE, if they were already ruled out for being dead, we can't check any PE against them. That just makes it harder.

Detective Notes are already quite good enough.

May-19-2015 01:38

Apparently I was mistaken. :) We can still check PE against someone even if they're ruled out.

May-19-2015 22:32

Whenever a suspect dies, the first thing I do is choose them in the detective notes and click Rule Out. I personally do it all the time. So I thought, since people will do it anyway, and will never be able to accuse a dead suspect, it'd make sense for the game to automatically set it as such, saving the player a couple of clicks.

Although, I am ok with all the suspect names showing up on PE, since not all PE belongs to the murderer.

May-24-2015 10:34

I would like to have something cool to spend my skill points on. In shades they have a necromancy skill where you can talk to dead people, maybe we could use our points to do that.

May-25-2015 00:29

Can we have the link to the following question for suspects appear in the same page as when they answer it...
"Ask whether she has heard or seen anything to make her suspect somebody."

I don't know about others, Normally, I ask a person whether they suspect somebody in batches of 2-3 people. In such scenario, we will need to do one click less.
Right now, after we get the answer to whether they suspect someone, we have to first click 'Back', and then click the above link.

May-25-2015 00:36

I actually wanted to suggest something regarding too many skill points as well, but it may not be easy to implement.

Option 1: Gear Up the skill points requirement.
For every skill already learnt, the next skills take more points to learn.
So, if the detective had 12 points to choose between 12 - Lock Picking and 12 - Advance Charm, and he chooses 12 - Advance Charm, then to learn Lock Picking, he may need to spend 13 points, not 12.
You can gear up after 100k exp or something.

The average skill takes 12-15 points and to get that many, it probably takes an average of 25-30 cases. If you assume each case takes 7-10 days, and realistically sleuths may not have back to back cases, that's almost a year in the age of the sleuth for every skill. With age, his learning power reduces.

For existing sleuths, we may need to run an update statement and they will see a reduction in number of skill points, possibly becoming negative.


Option #2 in next post.

May-25-2015 00:40

Option #2 - The fun way.

This involves more effort in programming mini-games into the site. Each city can have a different mini-game, or all games available in all cities.
Example: The Bar can have a card game, post office can have a scavenger hunt, a word game in the barber, etc. Players can spend skill points on these mini games and that will either make them win easier or increase the rewards (game money).

Reasoning: Either skill points should help you become better detectives, or you use your skill points to get better in money earning games and buy better gear.

May-25-2015 01:38

You've only 9320 experience points yet, and skill points come along very easily until you unlock Almost Impossible cases. There's a long way to go.
At a certain point you may need even around 50000 xp to get one skill points (correct me if I'm wrong, veterans :) ).
You'll find it a lot harder to get even one point when you reach a certain stage; and you'll be counting the number of skill points needed more to buy a certain skill.

May-25-2015 01:41

As for gear, the best gear you can get is rewards by completing Arch Villain Hunts.