Bucky makes me want to pull my teeth out. The Farmer Fuckhead has a card that hits you for unavoidable damage, which is one of my least favorite ideas in video games. He has not just one of these cards, he has two, it either hits you for two if you have any amount of fitness, or one. There's no counter to it, you already start off with half your "HP" being gone, thank god for save scumming, but I'd really rather not have my victory hinge on good RNG, rather than me just not being good at the game. Not that I've won too many times against him without being like 50 weight at the end. I've only won like two times, both times, I was very low on HP. And to make matters worse, your reward is another fight with someone. No recovery, nope, you're either going to have to get extremely lucky, or you'll just lose, and invalidate your win with Bucky.
Also, another annoying thing, he starts with SIX fitness. Why? Why that much? He has godly cards, he has OP cards that literally make it so that he can simultaneously get energy back as well as drawing another card, he can deal so much damage in one turn, he can use YOUR damage as a way to get more energy on his next turn, and oh yeah, he has TWO unavoidable damage cards that literally cost him next to nothing as far as energy cost goes. I personally despise these cards, there's no counter, you literally just have to eat that damage. His signature card is okay, I'm fine with what it does, because the cost for him is really high and he usually doesn't play any other bothersome card if he uses his signature card.
If the AI is allowed to cheat, and start with buffs that the player does not, why not let the player cheat as well? Tie this into an upgrade system, start with extra fitness, start with extra energy, just give the player SOMETHING to help even the odds out a little bit. I personally hate card games, but I'm willing to tolerate it for the sake of exploring the game's story, artwork, yada yada yada, I just think that you're making things a little too difficult for what is essentially a fetish game, designed to get the player's rocks off. I'm not trying to be mean or anything and I don't want you to take this the wrong way, I'm just frustrated. You already incorporate an upgrade level up system for the gym, why not have an overall level up system?
The difficulty is definitely something that is constantly being fine-tuned, so it's possible some of the fights will get tweaked in the future. Admittedly, a lot of the key opponents tend to have pretty strong unique cards as a way to compensate for the CPU not being good enough to make more interesting plays.
Though, to make it clear: it is a very deliberate choice to have fights - especially notable ones like Bucky - feel like they could go either way. Because the game keeps on going even if you lose, the difficulty is designed in a way where you're not expected to win every fight - the losses can be more narratively interesting, and in some cases even give rewards different from the winning branch.
Based on the remark about "invalidating your win with Bucky", it sounds like part of what's causing your frustration is the expectation that you should be winning every fight, and that losing is bad - which is fair if that's what you're looking for in a game, but it isn't really what this one's trying to do.
I am genuinely interested in playing around with the medium and making a proper game - if all I wanted to do was be horny, there are many other much easier ways to do that that don't involve the amount of workload that game development requires.
I suppose I am just not the kind of person to accept losing as an alternative to progression. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I'd rather try to genuinely win fights than to accept a handout of "winning in a different way". You did not answer my question as far as not incorporating a general level up system. I understand making the NPCS start off with better cards or buffs to make the difficulty interesting, but at the same time, that level of thinking just rubs me the wrong way. It is the same kind of thinking as to what you'd find in a Paradox Interactive game, IE, Stellaris, EU4, CK3, those games add buffs to the AI because the AI is braindead without them.
I personally just heavily dislike giving the AI things that the player cannot use. Which is why I would genuinely like to see a sort of similar system put in place for the player to use, extra energy, extra fitness, little buffs that shouldn't make the game too easy, but like I said, if you are making the AI cheat because the AI is too stupid or too inadequate, you should also let the player cheat as well. I play games to win, not to lose, I just cannot accept the kind of thinking of "Oh, maybe I should lose this engagement", because to me, that's just accepting failure and that I wasn't good enough or, more likely, I wasn't fortunate enough.
I'd also like to go on another tangent, but, currently, how many upgrade events are there to increase the player's maximum weight? I've only encountered Russel's, frankly because his was obvious. Is his the only one, or are there others I have yet to see?
I like the concept of this game, I like the artwork, the story, the characters, it's all good, I just don't want you to stumble into a pitfall of focusing too heavily on ramping up the difficulty, when you and I both know that the majority of players who play this game are interested in the fetish first, not the Cool Epic Awesome Spine-Tingling Gameplay™ first. I have seen that happen before with other weight gain oriented games.
This probably isn't the game for you then. It's not about losing being an alternate way to progression or a handout, but rather the mindset of just rolling with whatever happens, and in turn experiencing a diverse mix of outcomes and events in a given playthrough. It's a pretty deliberate and fundamental part of the design that I stand by. Again, I *am* interested in making an actual game - things like this are just as important to me as the kink themes.
As for player level, progression already happens through acquiring new cards and deckbuilding - in a way it's a more subdued and organic version of a levelling system. One thing I will note about opponents with starting fitness: it's not a special benefit opponents have - often it actually compensates for an advantage on the player's side: a larger Wgt range. That being said, there *are* plans to let the player gain starting fitness of their own.
Aside from Russell, there is one more event that raises max Wgt - funnily enough, it's tied to one of the losing branches.