A small suggestion: The mid battle breaks can be easily missed if you are at a point were you're just getting trough a few turns. I think making them more prominent would be better. Maybe another kind of continue button that isn't hotkeyd to spacebar.
Edit: Another one
The profile could use a page were the vulnerabilities of the whole team are listed. This is what is used to choose a target and plan the next battle. Right now I'm copy-pasting the data from the individual pages to a text file after each battle/update.
Knocking down one girl then another while the first is down. There's more to it than that but you get so obscenely overpowered compared to the enemies that you end up just doing that and still having rounds so long it just gets boring. Its a game where you hyperscale continuously with no loss state while the girls continuously get more and more fucked with no way to recover so you really can't avoid 'winning' in the end.
You don't even need any fancy-schmancy specialist commanders, you can achieve a lot with just a 2-use 4-turn commander early on. I'll post my early-game strategy (which I start from around Day 11, before that I just spam basic attacks and farm EE for the pre-Supressor upgrades). Once you know what each circumstance does in terms of damage multipliers, you'll be on your way. It's also critical to understand how to extend fights well past extermination completion, by chaining Surrounds.
Ambush someone who's easy to get EXPO on (but you want to start with Pummel and Grind before Humiliate, usually the best order is Pummel -> Grind -> Humiliate -> Caress), then when your primary target shows up, Capture her. After she gets away, surround her before extermination is completed and then you'll have a third round with her after extermination, assuming someone else is surrounded at the time when she is released. 1 Capture and 2 Surrounds is usually plenty of time to use a Defiler action, and you may get to use one on the secondary target too. It's also quite doable to line up a "+" action (e.g. Broadcast+) with 2 Chosen, which combined with 3 or more PLEA levels, leads to massive trauma if sustained.
This strategy is very consistent in the early days, before anyone has Slaughter or Striptease. It works well because stripping 2 Chosen provides a nice damage multiplier to both, which helps you with whatever else you want to do. It's so good, I have a hard time breaking away from it to use specialist commanders.
You don't even need any fancy-schmancy specialist commanders, you can achieve a lot with just a 2-use 4-turn commander early on. I'll post my early-game strategy (which I start from around Day 11, before that I just spam basic attacks and farm EE for the pre-Supressor upgrades). Once you know what each circumstance does in terms of damage multipliers, you'll be on your way. It's also critical to understand how to extend fights well past extermination completion, by chaining Surrounds.
Yes, that's what I found as well. 3 turns may be enough depending how the vulnerabilities line up. I just find it strange that the commander can be unlocked day 2 but doesn't seem useful for so long.
I wonder what some of the times are (or what techs are unlocked) when people start using commanders first and/or first go for the bonus goals (getting sign vuln to 1k or breaking a vulnerability)
Ambush someone who's easy to get EXPO on (but you want to start with Pummel and Grind before Humiliate, usually the best order is Pummel -> Grind -> Humiliate -> Caress), then when your primary target shows up, Capture her. After she gets away, surround her before extermination is completed and then you'll have a third round with her after extermination, assuming someone else is surrounded at the time when she is released. 1 Capture and 2 Surrounds is usually plenty of time to use a Defiler action, and you may get to use one on the secondary target too.
I found it's better to focus the initial target. Whenever I tried it on the second hero to show I ran out of time. Might be because everyone was rivals and the other 2 show up so late so your mileage may vary.
The big advantage of capturing with a commander is that it doesn't trigger the pain opening reset. That's what is usually preventing you from getting the past the 3 defense on the 2nd surround. After 2 surrounds/captures the traumas should easily be high enough for further surrounds if they aren't escaping into the sky.
It's also quite doable to line up a "+" action (e.g. Broadcast+) with 2 Chosen, which combined with 3 or more PLEA levels, leads to massive trauma if sustained.
Careful with the remaining surround timers though. Group actions always take the shortest remaining duration. Losing a bunch of turns might be more detrimental.
Edit:
Speaking of early game. Can anyone tell me the exact conditions for a chosen to up their sin during downtime? The EE increase from 1 to 2 feels significant? I read it's supposed to be vulnerability break + trauma. But is the pre-broken minor vulnerability enough with high enough corresponding trauma? So how much trauma do you need for each vulnerability break tier?
EditEdit:
There guide says ~200 for the initial sin. So educated guess 2k for 2nd level, 20k for 3rd, ...
Time to run a little test.
I think that this kind of corruption pathway fits into the way the game works. By not wanting to "introduce specific mechanics surrounding it," I meant that I don't want to put in an extra system where the player is making decisions regarding how to approach and influence the Chosen's social group in between battles. It's important that everything come back to the game's central mechanic (the battles) and that the more corrupt behavior happens as a result of what's done to the Chosen during battle.
In this example, that'd probably mean something like forcibly injecting the drugs into the target, then forcing her to acknowledge that she enjoys how they feel, then tempting her into abusing them in the middle of battle, or something like that. The post-battle scenes, the downtime scenes, and (later) the vignette scenes could all feature her social circle and show how she's corrupting them in turn, but the player is only acting on the Chosen herself.
Ah, I see what you mean, then. I was thinking of how it would be pretty different from the current forms of corruption (in my head, it was more like the current relationship scenes than anything else), but as you say, that's not really a new mechanic; just a difference in presentation.
Thank you for giving such thought to a pretty hastily assembled idea . And for the new option for smaller text size; the game is a lot more readable for me now, though I haven't had much time to play it.
Yes, it'll be possible, but difficult, and probably only feasible if the other two are heavily corrupted. The Attack+ upgrade allows you to slightly decrease "Resolve" even against non-corrupted targets. The Resolve stat is unique to the final battle, and bringing it to 0% will be what allows you to recruit the Chosen.
Oh, gosh, now I feel like I should try to leave an uncorrupted Chosen until the end at least once to see what it's like when she's forced to just... Give up, at the end.
Oh, gosh, now I feel like I should try to leave an uncorrupted Chosen until the end at least once to see what it's like when she's forced to just... Give up, at the end.
Yes, it would be so sweet to have a Chosen submit after seeing her friends turned into murderous fiends or mindless thrall factories, to be spared a similar fate. Having an uncorrupted but loyal Chosen would be a nice feather in the Demon Lord's cap and a powerful statement.
Well, with the experiment concluded I didn't exactly determine what I set out discover, but I certainly came upon something amazing. But before we go into the juicy details of my "experiment" let's say 2k trauma is most likely not enough to trigger tier 2 sins. Not sure about the 20k range. I'm sure though that lower tier group activities can override/prevent higher tier sins from happening. After a full 3 member group activity I skipped through a battle and the broken-in heroine finally gave in and gave me my juicy 2 EE.
But let's outline set the stage for my experiment our heroines downfall.
It is day 10. No bonus EE collected so far. All the 1-2 cost non-Commander updates are unlocked. Enough EE to get a single 3-turn ambush Commander. 2 EE left over, but nothing we can unlock that will help us further.
These are the Dastardly Damsels I am working against with. Everything randomly generated except for the team's "name". All acquaintances at this point in the game.
Fortune is about to make me her namesake in EE. Not sure if it's possible to get a more vulnerable heroine in this game. The pre-broken Confidence is just an open (back-)door invitation. And the weakness to PLEA is the cherry grapefruit on top the delicious cake lodged deep inside her already gaping ass. Time to cash in!
Ambush on Fortune for 3 turns
Turn 1) INJ sets up every other circumstance
-> Pummel
Turn 2) PLEA is needed to get the traumas high enough for subsequent captures
-> Caress
Turn 3) This one is more tricky: EXPO would give us more options on the others later but HATE will give further bonuses on Fortune now
-> Grind
Turn 4) One turn for a trauma attack until reinforcements arrive. Putting a trauma to 1k for a Lv2 opening will help. But beware: DISG is capped to 1 by the 3 def and any Trauma level increase makes it harder to level the corresponding circumstance. Anyway ...
That the following works is bonkers and absolute overkill. Fortunately that's what this game is all about so here we go:
-> Attack!
Turn 5) Reinforcements arrive but we ignore them for now.
-> Surround (4 turns) on Fortune
Turn 6) We need trauma to make any further surround happen, especially PAIN
-> Pummel
Turn 7) Caress
Turn 8) 2 Turns left we need to prep another heroine. With Morale decreasing trauma and no exposure yet on Fortune hitting on a weakness is imperative.
-> Threaten on Freedom (Slime on Vanilla also works and neither compromises further surrounds on them)
Turn 9) Surround Freedom
Edit: Surrounding Vanilla actually has an impact. On turn 9 the one who isn't surrounded will boost morale thus reducing trauma. Vanilla has the stronger boost (13% vs 7%). This results in a sightly higher trauma. Might be negligible in the grand scheme but Freedom also is even weaker to EXPO making a single turn surround > humiliate last for longer until regenerate kicks it back down.
So (ab-)using Vanilla on turn 8+9 is the better course of action in most cases and absolutely crucial if you want to keep Fortune's minor Innocence intact while getting the final surround off. So many little pieces coming together to create the prefect storm.
Now it is turn 10 on day 10. A poetic time. The extermination is at 192/200 (96%). A freaking miracle just according to my plans. Let's look at Fortune's sorry juicy state:
With her PAIN barely edging () above 10k we are looking at a pre-extermination surround of 9 turns against a measly defense of 5. There's an even longer surround looming ahead. Even with a moderate understanding of the game it's clear we're looking at the possibility of a Defiler action. It's almost no longer about how much we can wring out of her broken body but about what do we not want to break for story/rivalries/friendships etc.
She still has an unbroken minor Innocence Vulnerability. Any use of caress or humiliate at this point will inevitably break it.
Oh hey, both other heroines also still have a surround remaining. We'll need one to bridge Fortune's surrounds, with a turn or two to spare and push a trauma higher (like PAIN above 100k). The other one we can use to get some early exposure in to intensify Fortunes misery. Or save her for when we're done with Fortune. There's enough time to rack up the trauma to get a 4+ turn surround. With the massive Exposure that should be on Fortune by then getting a break in or two should be absolutely possible.
I'll save myself typing out further turns. There's still plenty to puzzle around with the later turns if you don't just want to go all out on Fortune. I've attached the Export and Save files in case anyone wants play around with it.
Yeah, break vulnerabilities and increase Unresolved Trauma / Angst and they'll do different activities. Or just make sure they have more Unresolved Trauma of a type that you want, e.g. Unresolved SHAM will make them do exhibitionism activities. Changing their relationship with one another (by breaking Core/Minor vulnerabilities) will also change the scenes and possibly make them do separate activities. Though in general, it seems Chosen with Core Confidence will often drag others into their activity.
To further clarify what Pailbat said; broken vulnerabilities dictate the severity of what Chosen can do in a given category (are they playing vigilante picking up petty criminals, or are they plotting to attack the military), while unresolved Trauma dictates what they actually do. Unresolved Trauma dictates two things in this context - the nature of their downtime, and how far they go with it. If they have more Disgust trauma than other types, they'll sleep around; if they have more Pain trauma than other types, they'll lash out, that kind of thing. How far they go depends on how much unresolved trauma they have; they can't go past the level set by broken vulnerabilities, but they might not reach it if they don't have much trauma. I'm afraid I don't know the thresholds, though.
As Pailbat said, however, their relationships also dictate their actions - if they're friends, they're probably going to join up with the confident girl, even if it means doing a lower threshold activity. If they're rivals instead, that might succeed in pushing them apart.
Even without relationships, though, if your standard strategy revolves around a particular form of trauma, you're going to see the same type of downtime come up a lot as they're all trying to cope with the same thing.
Even without relationships, though, if your standard strategy revolves around a particular form of trauma, you're going to see the same type of downtime come up a lot as they're all trying to cope with the same thing.
About this part in particular, I wanted to see if I could get my team to focus on exposure/shame, but as I understand, just using taunt/humiliate doesn't really accomplish my objective, given that more levels on shame mean less exposure gains (maybe circumstance damage isn't relevant here ?).
Thing is that using grind and pummel to get the multipliers also makes their pain level go up by a lot, which is what I think makes them take the pain/hate downtime activities. I also broke the exposure vulnerability (dignity?) first too, but the most confident girl was taking the other 2 with her almost always in pain/hate activities as stated.
I'm still learning tho so i'll play a bit with the save. Thanks for the answer!
About this part in particular, I wanted to see if I could get my team to focus on exposure/shame, but as I understand, just using taunt/humiliate doesn't really accomplish my objective, given that more levels on shame mean less exposure gains (maybe circumstance damage isn't relevant here ?).
Thing is that using grind and pummel to get the multipliers also makes their pain level go up by a lot, which is what I think makes them take the pain/hate downtime activities. I also broke the exposure vulnerability (dignity?) first too, but the most confident girl was taking the other 2 with her almost always in pain/hate activities as stated.
I'm still learning tho so i'll play a bit with the save. Thanks for the answer!
I wrote up a couple of paragraphs of advice, but then I realized that I should really ask more about your situation first...
How many of their vulnerabilities are broken, and to what extent? What do their current levels of unresolved trauma look like? What do your current tech unlocks look like? What are the Chosen relationships like currently?
For driving up Shame, Broadcast+ with a hefty dose of Pleasure and Hate are your best bet - but that presumes that you're in a position to arrange that. For dealing with Confident Girl, you can either drive up her Shame (locking you into team activities, but giving you a lot of freedom elsewise), or make her bitter enemies with the rest of the team (meaning you'll risk missing out on the low-level activities, and have to plan things out a bit more carefully).
I have more specific advice that I can offer, but it depends on what things look like currently.
About this part in particular, I wanted to see if I could get my team to focus on exposure/shame, but as I understand, just using taunt/humiliate doesn't really accomplish my objective, given that more levels on shame mean less exposure gains (maybe circumstance damage isn't relevant here ?).
Thing is that using grind and pummel to get the multipliers also makes their pain level go up by a lot, which is what I think makes them take the pain/hate downtime activities.
Yes each trauma level decreases the corresponding circumstance multiplier. E.g.: 100 shame -> EXPO x 1/2 ; 1k shame EXPO -> 1/4 etc. It is listed in the multipliers when selecting the character during battle.
So if you want to raise EXPO it is often better to leave shame at 0 (or how ever low as possible) and use the other traumas to facilitate the surround. You can't keep it at 0 forever though as the surround actions always also do some trauma across the board.
Increasing other circumstances first to get some multipliers can help too of course, especially INJU. But which will help and which just waste time is highly situational. Depending on vulnerabilities, remaining turns and when you reach the next level/multiplier of the circumstance, etc.
I also broke the exposure vulnerability (dignity?) first too, but the most confident girl was taking the other 2 with her almost always in pain/hate activities as stated.
I'm still learning tho so i'll play a bit with the save. Thanks for the answer!
Jup something I discovered recently too. Makes the confident one a juicier target. But her INJU resistance makes her harder to break as well. Usually the one weak against INJU is the easiest target. So many cool interactions between systems in this game. And they all fit so well thematically.
Although I do wonder how exactly the game determines when a group downtime action happens. It is supposed to be deterministic after character creation so it can't be a chance/dice-roll.
A small suggestion: The mid battle breaks can be easily missed if you are at a point were you're just getting trough a few turns. I think making them more prominent would be better. Maybe another kind of continue button that isn't hotkeyd to spacebar.
Edit: Another one
The profile could use a page were the vulnerabilities of the whole team are listed. This is what is used to choose a target and plan the next battle. Right now I'm copy-pasting the data from the individual pages to a text file after each battle/update.
The idea of removing or changing the continue hotkey when a vulnerability gets broken is an interesting one. The only reason I'm hesitant to implement it is that I'm worried that players might find it annoying or confusing. I suppose it doesn't happen very many times per playthrough, though, so it might be alright.
A general team overview profile page is a good idea. I'll try to put one together for the next release.
Yes, that's what I found as well. 3 turns may be enough depending how the vulnerabilities line up. I just find it strange that the commander can be unlocked day 2 but doesn't seem useful for so long.
The two main uses of early commanders are (1) getting the +2 EE bonus for getting a core vulnerability to 1k circumstance damage (2) stacking trauma on a pre-broken vulnerability to cause the target to start doing more sinful actions even before you've broken anything yourself. Whether they're feasible or not varies from team to team.
Edit:
Speaking of early game. Can anyone tell me the exact conditions for a chosen to up their sin during downtime? The EE increase from 1 to 2 feels significant? I read it's supposed to be vulnerability break + trauma. But is the pre-broken minor vulnerability enough with high enough corresponding trauma? So how much trauma do you need for each vulnerability break tier?
EditEdit:
There guide says ~200 for the initial sin. So educated guess 2k for 2nd level, 20k for 3rd, ...
Time to run a little test.
The way it's determined is a bit complicated. Each Chosen looks at every possible downtime activity (based on their broken vulnerabilities) and assigns each possible activity a number of points. The points assigned to each activity are proportional to the types of trauma the activity resolves multiplied by how much unresolved trauma of those types the Chosen has. More sinful actions start with negative points, but unresolved trauma gives them more points, and they also get extra points based on ANGST. Then, before choosing an action, there's a "cooperation step" where each of the Chosen looks at the other Chosen's points for each activity and adds those points (modified by personality, relative trauma, and relationship) to their own. If this would cause two or more of the Chosen to give the same activity more points than any of the activities they'd prefer to do on their own, then they do that activity together. Otherwise, they ignore the cooperation step and just do whatever action had the most points beforehand.
So, it can be hard to predict what they'll end up doing, but you can definitely influence it. Some general guidelines:
Tier-0 downtimes: 200 trauma (they're always available, you just have to give them more points than the non-sinful "take on an extra patrol" downtime)
Tier-1 downtimes: 10k trauma (as mentioned above, spending 1 EE on a cheap commander to get to this point earlier can pay for itself quickly against pre-broken vulnerabilities)
Tier-2 downtimes: 1M trauma (sometimes it's easier to hit this on a pre-broken vulnerability than it is to break a new vulnerability, but not always)
Tier-3 downtimes: 1G trauma (fun fact - I orignally planned on just having it so that these downtimes were unlocked from the start, and the vulnerability break would happen the first time the Chosen took the option)
Tier-4 downtimes: 10T trauma (generally trivial to hit this by the time you're reaching 1000% effectiveness on the punisher commanders, but that might change once some of the difficulty options I have in mind get implemented)
This is my first post on this board after having lurked for ages. I just wanted to let you know that I think this project is incredibly cool. When it comes to games, even games about magical girls and despair (and dickings), complex underlying systems and emergent stories are far more interesting than all the 2d tits in the world. Shine on.
Ran into a small bug. From the text of an orgy started through sodomize:
"Vanilla struggles with all her strength, giving pause to the Thralls spreading her legs in order to film her crotch, shouting threats that devolve into pitiful squeals as one of the Thralls forces himself further and further up her ass. She screams as another Thrall penetrates her pussy, vainly calling him names and trying to push him away. At the sight of Fortune breaking under her own rape, Vanilla challenges the Thralls to come after her ic.himHer()taking some of the pressure off her friend."
Looks like some function that's supposed to fetch text isn't called.
That's how it starts, you know. You break your silence to encourage a dev one time, and suddenly the barrier to posting becomes weak enough that you end up replying to some casual questions, and suddenly you find yourself with hundreds of posts on an account that you never properly named because it was supposed to be a throwaway and wonder in the back of your head which of your dozen passwords you even used when signing up and if you'll be permanently locked out of your account one day if you end up logged out.
...Um, not that I'd know about that, or anything >_> .
