Inner Circle post for 0.4.6 (Patreon)

Hi all!

The stress changes are complete. I'll do some testing and balancing tonight & tomorrow and then unless I run into lots of problems I'll send you out a dev version.

The problem with stress in the current version is that it tends towards gradual change which either means it creeps up to 100 and stays there or just sticks around 0.

In the next version, it'll increase much quicker - potentially going up to 100 in a few weeks. It'll also decrease far quicker - a single rest action will cancel out most of your stress gain from work. Two will drop stress down to 0 in a few weeks.

However, using your actions to rest means you get no other benefit such as relationship-building, skill-training or income. This means that controlling stress with a happy sex life is ideal.

I've also added a new stat: anxiety. Anxiety builds up if your stress is very high. Its main effect is to cancel out skill gains. If you have 3 points of anxiety and were going to increase a skill by 4 then instead you'll gain 1 point of the skill and your anxiety will be removed. This means that ignoring high stress will cripple your skill development, so it gives players a strong incentive to keep stress under control.