"Curved" relationship / mood effects

[mumblemumble]

Ok so perhaps I'm not saying it correctly, but this was an idea I had for particularly disfigured effect, but others. What if we made a curved effect for how much something has an influence?

A few examples...

Eating bad food would have a higher hit on a GOOD mood, than an already bad mood, the higher your mood is, the worse it effects you, the LOWER it is, the less it effects you. Logic being if you are already in a bad mood, "little" things wouldn't bother you as much as when you are in a great mood, and a little thing ruins your high.

Or for disfigured, having the relationship toll exponentially worse, depending on if the people are already in good terms. I imagine good friends, even lovers (lovers handle attraction separately, keep this in mind) Would really not give 2 shits about a disfigurement (again, besides attraction because it is its own mechanic), So I figure best friends would hardly register someone being disfigured, it having, instead of a 15% hit, having a 2%, or maybe 5%, but less than the standard.

However someone whom hates someone, or even dislikes them, might take a heavier impact from the disfigurement, alienating them more, taking a 20% toll on relationships because they didn't have a bond to begin with, so superficial effects are more noticed.

I don't begin to imagine how to balance that mechanic out, BUT, I figure it could make things much more dynamic if the same effect, in different scenarios was completely different for people, or just more / less tolerable.

I also realize I'm perhaps butchering how to explain it, having exponential varied effects on stuff, but if it could be achieved, it would make them much more complex, which isn't a bad thing imo.

[Admiral Obvious]

I get what you're trying to do here, but wouldn't it at some point make it impossible for a pawn to have a 100% positive mood, or a 0% bad mood?

In summary, "everything is fantastic, but Bob over here puked on the floor, that ruined my day"

While Bob here, dying from the plague "everything here is shit, oh food, *vomits* well, that figures".

In effect, bad mood creating effects do less "damage" to those in bad moods, and vice versa for good. And bad mood creators would harm those in good moods, and vice versa more than usual.

It's a good idea, but it would be hard to pull off.

[mumblemumble]

Oh trust me, i know it would have its issues, but I think it should be for SELECTIVE things. Also, I never said it would completely make something moot, or something OP. having poor food will still have an effect, but people won't kill someone over having paste for breakfast.

Also, I was thinking for SELECTIVE situations, things like death, pain, a few others would still be concrete numbers in my mind, but certain things would be flexible depending on how stuff is surrounding it.

So while your concern is valid, if it was carefully implemented, could be great. I also think it could be fun if some were structured to maybe have a dual function...like alcohol either boosting good (or at least not about to break) moods, while drinking right on the edge would lead to a drunken mental break, Which might actually be a good thing anyway since less manipulation means less chance to cause damage.

The exact numbers, and getting everything right would be hard, but rewarding.

[billycop32]

So let me see if I understand what you are saying. You are trying to get a diminishing return for both bad mood effects and good mood effects as they reach their appropriate maxes(0,100)? sounds like a good idea

[Wex]

If you got 1 million dollars, you won't rejoice so much at winning an extra hundred.
If you are starving, and someone handed you 100 bucks, he probably made your month.

I understand this.
I don't see an easy way to implement it.

[mumblemumble]

Theres a few ways this could be done.... just a basic algebraic calculation.

with A being default penalty, B being the enhancing factor (Mood, social, food, whatever) and C being the effecting rate for how much the enhancing factor multiplies the default penalty.

So if you wanted say, crappy food being less effective on low mood people, you could make A, being say, -1 for crappy food, with B, someones mood, (range 0-100, just for ease) multiplied by .1 , plus another -2 on-top of that result as a means to offset the result a bit.

So If you had a pawn with say, 50 mood, and they ate raw food. 50, times .1 is 5, so 5 times -1 is -5, and then -2 on-top is -7, so slightly worse than now.

Same pawn, at 10 mood (I imagine barely above breaking) Would be 10 x .1 for -1, plus -2 is -3, so the lower pawn still takes a hit, even at low mood, but much less, less of a hit than now.

granted I'm not up to snuff with algebra, but I know that is possible and pretty easy to do really, and light on coding / effort. It just needs to be written in. And more advanced calculations could be done to make it more intricate.

its literally only potentially a few dozen lines of code, if that I imagine (dont quote me) but would be really nice to help balance out the hap-hazardous balance of mental breaks / social fights from dumb things...just an idea.

Sorry if my math isn't right, I'm kinda tired, but I do think this small change would do wonders for balance, in many aspects.