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[Greenbane]

I don't see why it's even necessary to tinker with the juice system at all right now. From my point of view, it's not like juice gains aren't reasonably slow as it is (and one of the major exploits for getting juice quickly is being dealt with). As for the Elite Liberal rank, it's fine as 1000/1000 given it allows high-end conservatives to remain threatening to comparable liberals.

So I vote for no change at all. My issue is with the grinding as well.

[Innominate]

Rate of juice gain is largely an issue of annoyance, and potentially danger of massive rap sheets if too slow. I don't think it really matters within reasonable limits.

The lower the ratio of juice gain to crime/heat incurred the higher the potential of persuasive Conservatives to disrupt your life. Losing 100 juice means a lot if it's 100 acts of treason to regain it. As long as there are relatively low 'scare'/heat crimes you can commit for juice however it doesn't really matter, except for annoyance reasons. I can mechanically go and rob the downtown apartments a hundred times for 1 juice apiece if necessary; it's only really a matter of sheer boredom (and, in that very extreme case, time - for most purposes even 20 site raids is inconsequential, let alone the 15 it currently takes to juice to full if you have good stealth skill - the cosmetic labs give massive juice).

From a balance point of view, anything in the reasonable range of juice rates is largely inconsequential. It only matters when you have extremely fast or slow rates. Only juice caps would really matter much. Not being able to simply steal or vandalise your way to Elite Liberal would make things much, much harder for my play-style. Having only the really ballsy actions (murder of elite Conservatives, treason, some other special site actions) available to juice to full would be an interesting change in my opinion.

[Greenbane]

But halving juice gains is quite the change. Increased (doubled, in fact) grind is indeed "only" an issue of boredom/annoyance, but I'd say that's a major problem when a game has to be, above everything else, fun!

So the question is why? What's the purpose of this change? How does the game benefit from it? How does it make the game more interesting?

[Think0028]

I'm also against reducing the juice gain rate. I don't particularly think juice needs to be rejuggled right now.

[Gimmick Account]

But halving juice gains is quite the change. Increased (doubled, in fact) grind is indeed "only" an issue of boredom/annoyance, but I'd say that's a major problem when a game has to be, above everything else, fun!

So the question is why? What's the purpose of this change? How does the game benefit from it? How does it make the game more interesting?

It's mostly because as things are now, combat-oriented operatives pass the first bunch of levels in about 10 seconds. As a compromise, maybe we could reduce the combat-related juice gains by half and keep everything else as it is? Or implement a modified version of the old 20-juice-per-mission-cap, applicable only to acts of violence. I guess we could also just go with the changes for one version - Jonathan has in the past shown a great willingsness to experiment, for example with declared/undeclared actions (which were removed entirely after only a brief period of use).

[Think0028]

Man, I remember declared/undeclared actions. That was a fun+bizarre ride. As for juice, I wouldn't be opposed to experimenting with reducing combat-based juice gains. I'm mainly opposed to reducing juice gains overall because my non-violent runs have enough trouble gathering juice as is.

[Greenbane]

Hmm, I see. But keep in mind going on killing sprees also brings home a ton more heat, which becomes increasingly harder to manage as it mounts up (even with the recent, welcome tweaks). If you were to impose a combat-related juice cap per mission, you'd encourage the fighting liberals to be even more murderous, exacerbating heat generation. Unless you worked (exploited, if you will) the system precisely enough so that you stopped the bloodbath as soon as you realized you hit the cap.

Just food for thought.