Happiness

Happiness is a new system added into HC added in recent updates. It has replaced the old affection system that was used where players would directly gain affection by giving gifts or having various events, with these same actions now yielding various hidden 'happiness' values that are used to determine affection gains at the end of any given day.

Base mechanics

In general, players will benefit from raising character's 'Happiness' in a variety of ways, getting +20 happiness through gifts will not be as effective as getting +10 happiness through gifts and +10 happiness through events. A character's "mood" will reflect the affection they will gain when the player ends the day. Players can lose affection per day but will never fall below their affection level (A character who likes you can never fall to 'dislike' you). When a character is eligible to go to the next happiness level, a heart bubble will appear next to their name in the followers menu, talk to them to raise their affection level. Players who want a simple strategy and don't want to go more in-depth into the furniture mechanics, event management, or optimal gift strategies would be advised to not get too caught up in the specifics as giving girls gifts that they enjoy every day will still result in a viable progression of affection that is in-line with the end-game intentions of the game.

Mood

Each follower will have a mood displayed next to their affection meter, this mood is used to indicate how much affection you will gain or lose on any given days. Any character not in the dungeon will display one of the four moods:

• Very Happy- This means that the player will receive either +3 or +4 affection when they end the day.
• Happy- This means the player will receive either +1 or +2 affection when they end the day
• Unhappy- This means that the player will either receive no change (+0) or lose 1 affection at the end of the day
• Very Unhappy- This means the player will lose either 2, 3, or 4 affection at the end of the day.

Girls in the dungeons instead have moods of Passive, Calm, Defiant, or Hostile but these reflect the same thing as Very Happy, Happy, Unhappy, or Very Unhappy respectfully. The term difference is merely to apply more accurately to the possibility of a hero who is torturing the girls instead of one who is bringing them gifts.

Affection gain

The affection gained or lost at the end of every day is determined by three separate happiness values, each affected by different aspects of the game and behave differently. These values are known as the 'Lifestyle happiness', 'Personal happiness', and 'Attention happiness'. They do however share some commonalities:

1. Any happiness value of +8 or higher will increase affection by 2 every day
2. Any happiness value of +4 or higher (but below +8) will increase affection by 1 every day
3. Any happiness value of -4 or lower (but above -8) will decrease affection by 1 every day
4. Any happiness value of -8 or below will decrease affection by 2 every day

Please keep in mind though, that while there's a potential of earning up to +6 or -6 affection with any given girl, there is an affection per day cap of +4 or -4 per day.

Lifestyle Happiness

This happiness is unlike the others in that it has no maximum or minimum value to it, though it will not yield any impact on affection beyond the normal +8/-8 behaviors just like the other happiness values. This happiness is determined mostly by furniture. Any piece of furniture that a character loves placed in a location that they love (usually where the girl spends most of her day) will give them +2 lifestyle happiness. If you place a piece of furniture that they like either in a location they love or a location they like (their bedroom, the dining room, the master bedroom, and all locations in between) they will receive +1 happiness, note that if you place furniture they love in a location they like you will also receive +1 lifestyle happiness. If you place a piece of furniture that they hate in any location they like or love, they will receive -1 lifestyle happiness. Currently the 0.31 release does not give feedback on who loves/likes/hates any furniture placed, however in the 0.32 release the furniture menu will tell you how characters currently feel about a piece of furniture once it's placed.

Aside from furniture, all characters in the Northmarket Manor are also impacted by a 'house bonus'. At the start of a new game this is a flat -3 to lifestyle happiness, but this can be improved through a few ways:

• Getting the maids, Violet and Lilac, and waiting several days will gradually clean up the house. After several days the house bonus will increase by one, then after several more days it will increase again, resulting in a total of +2 to the house bonus.
• In the Southport Docks district you can hire a carpenter to fix your floors, if you pay them and wait 10 days they will finish. Completing this will further increase the house bonus by +1. It costs 3,000 Sil.
• In the Eastfort Non-human district you can hire a stonemason to fix your pillars, if you pay them and wait 10 days they will finish. Completing this will further increase the house bonus by +1. It costs 2,000 Sil.
• In the Westcastle Outer district you can hire someone to fix the plaster in your house, if you pay them and wait 10 days they will finish. Completing this will further increase the house bonus by +1. It costs 4,000 Sil.

If you do all of this, you will shift the house bonus from being a -3 penalty to being a +2 bonus. Party members will always retain the house bonus that is the highest you have access to (so if you get the Eastfort Condo, which can only have 0, party members will choose to have that 0 bonus whenever Northmarket is negative, and choose to have the Northmarket bonus whenever it's positive).

All girls will be affected by furniture or house bonuses no matter where you finish a quest, do not worry about managing where you start the next day to manage lifestyle happiness.

Personal Happiness

This is impacted by events that transpire as well as random sex scenes. Any character with a random sex scene at the end of the day will receive +2 personal happiness. This happiness cannot ever go above 10 or below -10, changes beyond that will be lost. Over events that can raise personal happiness include:

• Giving Felix back his name (+2 happiness)
• Saving Doll during the manor assault (+2 happiness)
• Bringing the character to Didi's concert (+2 happiness to each party member)
• Bringing Gargan along during 'Sacrifices for Algernon' (+2 happiness)
• During the Banneret Ceremony giving Yeon a Tequila Sunrise, bought from the Westcastle Inn (+2 happiness)

Praise

After the Manor Assault, players will be able to praise two girls of their choosing. Praise bonuses/penalties will remain in place forever, effectively giving the player two 'personal' bonuses that never go away (a full +1 affection per day). Do note that if you praise a girl who the other girls do not feel helped during the invasion everyone (except the one you praised) will take a -1 praise bonus. While tracked separately from 'personal happiness', the total result from personal happiness and praise bonus cannot go above 10 or below -10.

Torture

In order to balance with how girls in the dungeon cannot benefit from lifestyle or personal happiness, torture has been moved from 'attention happiness' into personal. This means that every day you can torture a dungeon girl in addition to giving a gift. The results of torture will not decrease over time, but once the girl is out of the dungeon their personal happiness will be reset.

Attention Happiness

This happiness has three aspects to it, and is a lot more involved than the others. Conversely, at the start of the game it will be a player's only way to get affection per day. This happiness cannot ever go above 10 or below -10, changes beyond that will be lost.

Gifts

On any given day, players can give a girl a gift. If they love it they will receive +4 happiness from it. If they hate it they will lose -2 happiness from it, and they will gain +2 happiness from all other gifts. At the end of every day, after you gain affection this value will go towards zero at a rate of 1 point per day (so if it's a negative value you will gain +1, if it's a positive value you will lose -1).

Ignoring penalty

If you go five days without interacting with a girl will accumulate one 'ignore' point. This will be subtracted from your total attention happiness value, meaning that after 20 days, if you haven't given them any gifts or talked to them you will lose 1 affection per day. Interacting with the character in any way (Note: This includes on-demand sex, giving gifts, or choosing 'nothing' immediately after talking to them) will reset the ignore penalty completely to 0 with 0 days on it. Players who regularly give gifts to their girls will not need to worry about this penalty as they will be unable to ever gain a point in it.