I’ve responded to and agreed with lots of criticism of the happiness system across the various game feeds, but I started a new game last night (beta 5) and happiness doesn’t actually seem too horrible now, as long as you’re profitable.
I know one initial thing that was unexpected was that you immediately lose the happiness boost when the timer wears off. I had expected it to be more like your food/energy meter that you fill up and need to refill before it expires. Instead, your default is 0%, but you can do things that give temporary boosts.
When first testing it, the park/profit boosts weren’t being awarded consistently, but with the current version, they hit every day as long as you are profitable and nap on a park bench for an hour each day. These two boosts alone allow you to maintain the 50% happiness needed for the “peaceful work environment” Employee demand. Add the Casino each weekend and hitting some Persona goals, and it actually seems fairly easy to keep it at 50% or above.
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For me happiness drained if i wasn’t profitable but when i slept in the car it put me in a bad mood that meant I could’t get out of the car.
Thankfully the next day my business was profitable, but I had to leave the car to ensure I’d have en8ugh stock of a specific good , which meant that I’d only have a few days of the good. The business’ profitability was completely dependant on this good so if I ran out of stock of it, it could have been rhe end.
I’d recommend making it so consecutive days of unprofitability would put you in a mood, than just a single day.
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Not being profitable shouldn’t be the reason you were in the sad mood/stuck in your car or apartment. If you sleep in your car, or don’t eat, or don’t leave the car/house for several days, that should be when you get the “can’t eat or leave the car/house because you’re sad” issue.
To avoid getting “sad” and stuck, make sure you go back home each night, eat, and don’t stay in the house/car for very extended periods of time - then you shouldn’t have that issue.
Also, FYI, leaving the sad period also isn’t related to being happy again, it’s a time delay, which you can see in your Persona App. Even if you weren’t profitable the next day, you would have been released from your car when the timer expired.
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The thing is though, most days I sleep in the house, the only reason I decided to sleep in the car (for a single night) was cause I was outfitting a new shop and restocking an existing shop. I find the only other times my character is depressed is when the business doesn’t generate a profit for a single day, even after sleeping in the bed. I also didn’t spend many days in the flat as I also had to clean the shop (since it was early game I didn’t have any cleaners yet. I usually don’t decide to get any cleaners until I open my third shop, and even then I usually leave one to clean for my self when I’m not too busy buying fresh stock or opening another shop)
I was’t sure if it was time delayed or triggered by profit as I usually come out of it on a day that’s profitable the day after I become depressed, so I simply only saw that pattern.
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Interesting - if you’re still active each day, sleeping in your bed and eating daily, then I agree, that’s too harsh to hit the sad/stuck period merely for one day of non-profitability! Especially because, like you said above, that completely kills your ability to go buy more product, etc.
At least the starting apartment is right next to the park, so it’s pretty easy to run over there and sleep an hour on the bench, but it does get a bit tedious to constantly do that. Hopefully other options for increasing happiness are added, so we have more variety to prevent these issues!
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Agreed. It’d be cool if there was a small zoo or something just to decorperatify the map and to provide another way to increase happiness.
(maybe come up with some funny quips in the interface that alter the amount of happiness recieved, with good quips having slightly higher happiness and bad quips having slightly lower happiness gain, like " +40% I saw the monkeys today, it kinda reminded me of [insert employees name here] (3 days)" or “+10% The African Elephant in the zoo reminded that I should crack down on mom shaming in [Store Name]. (4hrs in [store name])” With good quips being more common and lasting longer during the early game than in the late game.
The length of these quips could depend on specific conditions, with positive quips without conditions and negative quips with conditions being short amounts of time and positive quips with conditions or negative quips without conditions requiring a longer amounts of time.
Could also do something like this where a negative event that would normally give negative happiness, is altered by a positive quip; Theft in this case is -20% success in avoiding a theft is +30% resulting in a happiness increase of 10% “[10%]There was a thief in [Store name] so it was a good thing we hired our body guard [staff name] to keep an eye on our goods”)
The zoo could also change their leading themes based on the time of the game, and change the happiness rating based on how often you visited the same attraction. “[+10%] I visited the monkey’s… Again. Hope they bring the lions back next season.”
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This is where the BARS or ENTERTAINMENT VENUES would come into play if they get added to the game in future, with basic relaxation being achieved by going to the pub for time off in the early stages.
Once you get money behind you, then buying a small boat gives you that, then the larger ones as you make millions.
Another tip is simply not to hire anyone who makes the demand for a PEACEFUL ENVIRONMENT in the early stages of the game… hiring them later doesn’t matter so much as profits and visits to the boat keep you happy anyway.