Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 58] [CSDev]

[Wiser Guy]

This is a starter guide to making a team of 3 magical girls of your choice in your campaign.

First, press the "Campaign" button, then "Single Custom".

Feel free to change the name or sex, but DO NOT change the species.
"Superior" humans will not show up in the first MG (magical girl) team you encounter when starting a new campaign.

Next, press "Continue (Direct Input)" where you will be prompted to enter values for the MGs Morality, Innocence, Confidence, and Dignity.
These 4 values also determine their personality at 0-33(a minor value), 34-66(a significant value), and 67-100(a core value).
Doing the math, there are 36 "distinct" personalities that can be chosen.
There are also thresholds for below 25 and above 76, but those merely change the description of the transformation sequence and the default MG characteristics which can be modified next.

When you are setting these values, you should know that one of the game mechanics is each of these values is used to determine the damage taken for a pair of stats.
As an example, the higher a MG's innocence is, the more DISG damage she will take, but the less PLEA damage she will receive.
At 100 innocence, the MG will no longer take any PLEA damage, and 0 will mean no DISG damage.
Unless you want to intentionally avoid a stat, don't use 100 or 0 for a value.

As an example, let's create a morally dubious MG.
Put in 24, 24, 76, and 66 for the values to get this:

Alias: Optimal Assassin Stigma
Incantation: "Creatures of darkness, prepare to be devoured by a darkness greater still!"
Sex: Female
Species: Human
Chest access: around her belts
Crotch access: around her belts
Underwear: yes
Footwear: thigh-high boots
Energy: bright
Weapon: spirits
Morality 24: Minor
Innocence 24: Minor
Confidence 76: Core
Dignity 66: Significant

Note that this MG has the alias "Optimal Assassin Stigma". "Optimal Assassin" is flavor text, but "Stigma" is important, as it is her MG name which determines her profile icon appearance.
Changing a magical girl's name (by pressing the "Cosmetics" button) will change the profile icons used to represent them, go inside the "portraits" folder in the game directory to see what names go to which portraits.
If you choose a name that doesn't have an associated portrait, the profile icon will be blank.
This can be fixed by copy/pasting a folder and then changing the new folder's name to the preferred name of your MG.

Press "Finish" and then "Done" to continue.

The next thing you need to keep in mind is that an MG team can't have multiple members that have the same Core, Significant, or Minor values.
Since Stigma's core value is Confidence, we can't have another MG on the team with a confidence of 67 or higher.

As the next example, let's create a naive good MG.
Press "Single Custom" then "Continue (Direct Input)" and put in these values: 76, 76, 35, 24
You should get this:

Alias: Beautiful Heroine Faith
Incantation: "Love and righteousness in human shape!"
Sex: Female
Species: Human
Chest access: down her bodice
Crotch access: up her skirt
Underwear: no
Footwear: armored boots
Energy: drab
Weapon: boots
Morality 76: Core
Innocence 76: Core
Confidence 35: Significant
Dignity 24: Minor
Valid Custom Partners:
Stigma

Note that "Stigma" is a valid custom partner, so they can be on the same team.
(Also note that by default Faith fights by kicking with her boots and isn't wearing underwear beneath her skirt. Was that intentional, CSdev?)

The last MG cannot have Morality, Innocence, or Confidence as a core value so for the last example: 66, 66, 7, 76

Alias: Hopeful Defender Silence
Incantation: "Combat preparations complete."
Sex: Female
Species: Human
Chest access: down her blouse
Crotch access: up her skirt
Underwear: yes
Footwear: doll shoes
Energy: white
Weapon: bow
Morality 66: Significant
Innocence 66: Significant
Confidence 7: Minor (BROKEN)
Dignity 76: Core
Valid Custom Partners:
Stigma
Faith

"Stigma" and "Faith" are valid custom partners, so all 3 of them can be on the same team.

One last thing, click "Back", then "Options".
Ensure that the "Enemy composition" matches the genders of the 3 MGs you created.
If this needs to be changed, just click "Content Options", then "Change Composition" to make changes to how your team was set up:

(...By the way, this is my Unicode passage separator: ⮜―――――――⮞ )
(Also, you can press 'c' on your keyboard in the options menu to enable cheats if you want.)

Finally, go back to "Campaign" and press "Begin"!
The first MG you encounter should be one of the ones you created, while the other 2 will show up later.

 

[Maiuw2]

Thanks to OP for first posting this. Wanted to request that Portraits-Full and Portraits-Lite be added as optional downloads on this game's thread main page. Note that the 2 downloads might need to be sorted/filtered through first since they contain a lot of other things too.

Note 2 - These are found on the creators blogspot - right side

Any Forum Mod please see above or OP.

 

[XrosMega]

This may be a silly question but I just got my first Forsaken from the Single Play but I have no idea how to deploy it in either the Single Play or the Campaign. Can somebody please tell me what I need to do?

 

[Kalloi]

This may be a silly question but I just got my first Forsaken from the Single Play but I have no idea how to deploy it in either the Single Play or the Campaign. Can somebody please tell me what I need to do?

Congratulations on your win! if you want to use your forsaken you got from single play you can use them on other single play runs on the easy and Normal difficulty settings

as of now you can’t use forsaken from single play in campaign mode but you can transfer forsaken and use the one’s you got in campaign mode for single play when you finish that campaign run, including forsaken you’ve sacrificed

i hope this helps and lmk if you have other questions!

 

[Alploochra]

Must be something about not having the right connections up there or not having the necessary math degree or something, but i've tried this game for dozen of hours (i do like the principle) over half the released versions thus far, and I just CAN'T understand what the game loop is. For me it's crazy hard, and i mean crazy hard as in even with cheating unlocked I just can't make things work. Once or twice, mainly because planets were aligned or something, i went to the third act, without understanding exactly why and only to just be hard blocked with the insane amounts needed with the 1000% thingies. And the tutoriel, tips, or wild "playthroughs" that dwell in the thread don't help a bit (said playthroughs seem only to help if you stumble upon roughly the same chosen repartition anyway). There's something incredibly counter-intuitive in the design, and the fact that the help posts all have to resort to narrating one's campaign instead of, say, actually be guides being actually meaningful in any campaign is a dead giveaway.

I want to have fun with this game, I really do, the concept is great, but it's irritating me bordering on the supernatural.

 

[zertyx23]

Must be something about not having the right connections up there or not having the necessary math degree or something, but i've tried this game for dozen of hours (i do like the principle) over half the released versions thus far, and I just CAN'T understand what the game loop is. For me it's crazy hard, and i mean crazy hard as in even with cheating unlocked I just can't make things work. Once or twice, mainly because planets were aligned or something, i went to the third act, without understanding exactly why and only to just be hard blocked with the insane amounts needed with the 1000% thingies. And the tutoriel, tips, or wild "playthroughs" that dwell in the thread don't help a bit (said playthroughs seem only to help if you stumble upon roughly the same chosen repartition anyway). There's something incredibly counter-intuitive in the design, and the fact that the help posts all have to resort to narrating one's campaign instead of, say, actually be guides being actually meaningful in any campaign is a dead giveaway.

I want to have fun with this game, I really do, the concept is great, but it's irritating me bordering on the supernatural.

Welcome to the situation at least half of people here needed to pass to enjoy the game. I was like that at first but after the guide of 13 day, I could do this technique. While I can't really help you on what to do as I'm quit bad I think. I can tell you continue to try. The guide really helped me understand the game and after the first break(and some save scumming) I can now play quite far and win. Good luck

 

[Kalloi]

Must be something about not having the right connections up there or not having the necessary math degree or something, but i've tried this game for dozen of hours (i do like the principle) over half the released versions thus far, and I just CAN'T understand what the game loop is. For me it's crazy hard, and i mean crazy hard as in even with cheating unlocked I just can't make things work. Once or twice, mainly because planets were aligned or something, i went to the third act, without understanding exactly why and only to just be hard blocked with the insane amounts needed with the 1000% thingies. And the tutoriel, tips, or wild "playthroughs" that dwell in the thread don't help a bit (said playthroughs seem only to help if you stumble upon roughly the same chosen repartition anyway). There's something incredibly counter-intuitive in the design, and the fact that the help posts all have to resort to narrating one's campaign instead of, say, actually be guides being actually meaningful in any campaign is a dead giveaway.

I want to have fun with this game, I really do, the concept is great, but it's irritating me bordering on the supernatural.

I don't normally reply to these kind of posts since I realized these are more "venting frustrations" kind of posts rather than "need help from someone" posts (which I believe are both completely fine discussions imho) But I will reply to this one in hopes that this helps someone somehow.

Overall though, your experiences and sort of "ending up" in the third act and not knowing what to do is a completely valid feeling as well as the accompanying frustration. Most of the tutorials and guides here deal with the initial 20 or so days and not the mid to late game so there's sparse tips on here dealing with raising corruption parameters.

Dealing with corruption parameters vary from team to team but the overall approach is the same.

Morality T4- Aim for high HATE for your target, and aim for long surround turns for their teammates, possibly keeping it to one at a time to maximize your target using slaughter.

Innocence T4- Aim for High Pleasure for your target, and aim for long surround turns for their teammates

Confidence T4- Aim for High INJU for your target, try to capturing your target with a INJU inducing commander in the beginning of the battle and towards the
end once you get their INJU as high as you can.

Dignity T4- Aim for High EXPO on your target, and aim for multiple surroundings for their teammates to keep the target using striptease. rather than long surround turns it's good to keep the surrounding to one at a time similar for raising Morality T4.

Corresponding Punisher Commanders are very useful raising these parameters since their multiplier is still in effect even before they reach 1000% corruption on top of dealing high circumstance damage without any corruption parameters active on a chosen.

And I'm sure other people here have different and potentially better ideas for raising parameters as well!

The most important thing however, like with most things in the game, is you plan out your actions ahead of time and figure out what your endgame goal for the final battle is. Look at the current situations and see what you can exploit, the relationships, how many of their other vulnerabilities are broken, or what actions they typically do.

And if you want additional help you can always post your current situation and team and people here will give their insight on the situation, or the save might help as well.

The loop for the game imo is:

start the run and try to get the chosen to appear quicker, getting them to give +1 EE as soon and consistently as possible--> Form a plan how you want to win once all three chosen are together and you know all their vulnerabilities--> Stockpile EE and only get necessary upgrades that play into what you want to do i.e break a core vulnerability, make pair of a chosen friends/enemies--> Get some vulnerability breaks to get some chunks of EE all while keeping your goal in mind as you round out your upgrades. --> Grind their corruption parameters in preparation for the final battle--> Perform the final battle

And this is all keeping mind you might need to save scum, either as a result of seeing different results/combinations or as a result of making a bad play that fucks your plan over.

I disagree with the idea that the game's design is counter-intuitive, at least in my opinion. It's very intuitive after the initial hurdle (albeit a massive one.) I believe someone on the forum at one point said the game is sort of like an puzzle, and I agree with that, specifically in the sense that every run/team is a puzzle in of itself, requiring different strategies and which upgrades you prioritize


Sometimes the puzzles are similar to one another but sometimes they're completely different. Some teams are similar and some are completely different. So you can't just use the same strategy or bee-line to same upgrade path every time. That's why so many of these guides/playthroughs devolve to narrating our own choices and why we did them, because different teams require different strategies, and wanting different results require different strategies.

The main thing is to look at the thought processes and see what you can use for your own playthroughs like what
zertyx23 said earlier and even in my recent experiences subli's guide and advice for saving surround the chosen towards the end of battle to extend turns to hastens the chosen's first appearance has helped greatly for my early game strategies/planning.

The same thing that makes the game so enjoyable and replayable is the very same reason it's so difficult for beginners to learn, at least how I view it. And that is the varying teams you come across as well as the methods you can take to defeat them. It's hard to take all the mechanics in but once you understand, the only way to lose becomes your own hubris in my experiences

If you can't get an idea of what to do in cheat mode, then the best thing to do is post your team and current situation, the people that do so in my experiences tend to get the help they needed and get a better grasp of the gameplay loop. Everyone picks up on things differently but at least this way, you can get another opinion of what to do and you can reevaluate your own plan and strategy, see how they did it, and eventually figure out why and how you can do it; getting a better understanding for the game and how the mechanics play into each other. From there you see what works and what doesn't against the next team and so on. Even if you don't do what they say verbatim or at all, that second opinion is incredibly useful.

Either way I know this is quite long and sorry if the last part seems to have come out of nowhere but a lot of people have made posts saying something similar and I wanted say my thoughts on that opinion

I genuinely hope the game clicks with you at and you grasp the mechanics in time. I think giving the game a try every update despite it being frustrating for you is proof you have the gumption to keep trying until you get it so I look forward to that moment.

 

[CSdev]

Here's my save I hope it helps

Thank you for uploading this! If this is a save from last month, then I believe I've found the bug and fixed it. But if it's a save from the current version, then it's possible that I'm missing something.

As a suggestion, because the game is difficult to learn and it feels like some combinations can be harder, any chance for a "standard" setup option to start?

It's a good game, been fun, just difficult to get started with it. Also reminds me of XCom where if I don't do well early, I start running into harder problems later so the game always snowballs in one direction.

By "standard" setup, you mean like a default team that would be the same for all players? That might be a good idea.

But is it possible for the +5 chosen to merge with another +15 in the same activity to gain +30? caus i'm pretty sure that it happened to me.

It's only ever possible for duplicates of the same activity to merge, so a +5 should never be merging with a +15.

I feel like there are 2 things in your guide that lenghten your text. I could delve into further details about that but i'd like to know if you'd be okay with me giving you constructive criticism.

I'm definitely okay with constructive criticism, particularly when it comes to how to communicate with the players, since I'm aware that that's probably my weakest skill.

This is a starter guide to making a team of 3 magical girls of your choice in your campaign.

First, press the "Campaign" button, then "Single Custom".

Feel free to change the name or sex, but DO NOT change the species.
"Superior" humans will not show up in the first MG (magical girl) team you encounter when starting a new campaign.

Next, press "Continue (Direct Input)" where you will be prompted to enter values for the MGs Morality, Innocence, Confidence, and Dignity.
These 4 values also determine their personality at 0-33(a minor value), 34-66(a significant value), and 67-100(a core value).
Doing the math, there are 36 "distinct" personalities that can be chosen.
There are also thresholds for below 25 and above 76, but those merely change the description of the transformation sequence and the default MG characteristics which can be modified next.

When you are setting these values, you should know that one of the game mechanics is each of these values is used to determine the damage taken for a pair of stats.
As an example, the higher a MG's innocence is, the more DISG damage she will take, but the less PLEA damage she will receive.
At 100 innocence, the MG will no longer take any PLEA damage, and 0 will mean no DISG damage.
Unless you want to intentionally avoid a stat, don't use 100 or 0 for a value.

As an example, let's create a morally dubious MG.
Put in 24, 24, 76, and 66 for the values to get this:

Alias: Optimal Assassin Stigma
Incantation: "Creatures of darkness, prepare to be devoured by a darkness greater still!"
Sex: Female
Species: Human
Chest access: around her belts
Crotch access: around her belts
Underwear: yes
Footwear: thigh-high boots
Energy: bright
Weapon: spirits
Morality 24: Minor
Innocence 24: Minor
Confidence 76: Core
Dignity 66: Significant

Note that this MG has the alias "Optimal Assassin Stigma". "Optimal Assassin" is flavor text, but "Stigma" is important, as it is her MG name which determines her profile icon appearance.
Changing a magical girl's name (by pressing the "Cosmetics" button) will change the profile icons used to represent them, go inside the "portraits" folder in the game directory to see what names go to which portraits.
If you choose a name that doesn't have an associated portrait, the profile icon will be blank.
This can be fixed by copy/pasting a folder and then changing the new folder's name to the preferred name of your MG.

Press "Finish" and then "Done" to continue.

The next thing you need to keep in mind is that an MG team can't have multiple members that have the same core value.
Since Stigma's core value is Confidence, we can't have another MG on the team with a confidence of 67 or higher.

As the next example, let's create a naive good MG.
Press "Single Custom" then "Continue (Direct Input)" and put in these values: 76, 76, 35, 24
You should get this:

Alias: Beautiful Heroine Faith
Incantation: "Love and righteousness in human shape!"
Sex: Female
Species: Human
Chest access: down her bodice
Crotch access: up her skirt
Underwear: no
Footwear: armored boots
Energy: drab
Weapon: boots
Morality 76: Core
Innocence 76: Core
Confidence 35: Significant
Dignity 24: Minor
Valid Custom Partners:
Stigma

Note that "Stigma" is a valid custom partner, so they can be on the same team.
(Also note that by default Faith fights by kicking with her boots and isn't wearing underwear beneath her skirt. Was that intentional, CSdev?)

The last MG cannot have Morality, Innocence, or Confidence as a core value so for the last example: 66, 66, 7, 76

Alias: Hopeful Defender Silence
Incantation: "Combat preparations complete."
Sex: Female
Species: Human
Chest access: down her blouse
Crotch access: up her skirt
Underwear: yes
Footwear: doll shoes
Energy: white
Weapon: bow
Morality 66: Significant
Innocence 66: Significant
Confidence 7: Minor (BROKEN)
Dignity 76: Core
Valid Custom Partners:
Stigma
Faith

"Stigma" and "Faith" are valid custom partners, so all 3 of them can be on the same team.

One last thing, click "Back", then "Options".
Ensure that the "Enemy composition" matches the genders of the 3 MGs you created.
If this needs to be changed, just click "Content Options", then "Change Composition" to make changes to how your team was set up:
View attachment 1687745
(...By the way, this is my Unicode passage separator: ⮜―――――――⮞ )
(Also, you can press 'c' on your keyboard in the options menu to enable cheats if you want.)

Finally, go back to "Campaign" and press "Begin"!
The first MG you encounter should be one of the ones you created, while the other 2 will show up later.

This is a nice writeup! The only thing I'd add is that in order to be valid partners, the two Chosen must not share any Vulnerabilities, whether they're Core, Significant, or Minor.

Regarding fighting styles and wardrobe choices, all I can say is that I'm doing my part to convert people from the pantsu side to the nopan side.

This may be a silly question but I just got my first Forsaken from the Single Play but I have no idea how to deploy it in either the Single Play or the Campaign. Can somebody please tell me what I need to do?

In addition to what Kalloi said, you should also note that you need the Focus upgrade to deploy any commanders (whether Demon or Forsaken).

 

[Name36346]

I'm here to report a bug, whose bugginess I only realised now - option for generic commander capture vanish if chosen in question already has enough openings to be surrounded. At least I think that this is unintended behaviour - nowhere is said that these two are mutually exclusive.
A save is provided below. Reproducing:
0) Ambush Mirage + preemptive Pummel. 2 captures remain.
1) Grind Mirage.
2) Caress Mirage.
3) Humiliate Mirage.
4) Pass turn.
5) Vanilla appears. Capture Vanilla + preemptive Pummel. 1 capture remain.
6) Mirage escapes. Bug shows its head already - I can only surround her. No big deal since her normal surrounding already outperforms commander's one? Possibly.

6) Surround Mirage + preemptive Humiliate.
7) Grind Vanilla.
8) Jackal appears. Now is an interesting moment. I can use my final cature on Jackal at this moment. But if I instead try to work on other two more...

8) Grind Mirage.
9) Caress Vanilla.
10) Pummel Mirage.
11) Vanilla escapes. But now its only possible to surround Jackal with that single level of fear she got from her blasts, while a commander capture would've net me a 6 surround turns instead of one. Why this isn't possible?

Also a minor typo: missing space in one of sodomize+ variants.

 

[Alploochra]

I don't normally reply to these kind of posts since I realized these are more "venting frustrations" kind of posts rather than "need help from someone" posts (which I believe are both completely fine discussions imho) But I will reply to this one in hopes that this helps someone somehow.

Overall though, your experiences and sort of "ending up" in the third act and not knowing what to do is a completely valid feeling as well as the accompanying frustration. Most of the tutorials and guides here deal with the initial 20 or so days and not the mid to late game so there's sparse tips on here dealing with raising corruption parameters.

Dealing with corruption parameters vary from team to team but the overall approach is the same.

Morality T4- Aim for high HATE for your target, and aim for long surround turns for their teammates, possibly keeping it to one at a time to maximize your target using slaughter.

Innocence T4- Aim for High Pleasure for your target, and aim for long surround turns for their teammates

Confidence T4- Aim for High INJU for your target, try to capturing your target with a INJU inducing commander in the beginning of the battle and towards the
end once you get their INJU as high as you can.

Dignity T4- Aim for High EXPO on your target, and aim for multiple surroundings for their teammates to keep the target using striptease. rather than long surround turns it's good to keep the surrounding to one at a time similar for raising Morality T4.

Corresponding Punisher Commanders are very useful raising these parameters since their multiplier is still in effect even before they reach 1000% corruption on top of dealing high circumstance damage without any corruption parameters active on a chosen.

And I'm sure other people here have different and potentially better ideas for raising parameters as well!

The most important thing however, like with most things in the game, is you plan out your actions ahead of time and figure out what your endgame goal for the final battle is. Look at the current situations and see what you can exploit, the relationships, how many of their other vulnerabilities are broken, or what actions they typically do.

And if you want additional help you can always post your current situation and team and people here will give their insight on the situation, or the save might help as well.

The loop for the game imo is:

start the run and try to get the chosen to appear quicker, getting them to give +1 EE as soon and consistently as possible--> Form a plan how you want to win once all three chosen are together and you know all their vulnerabilities--> Stockpile EE and only get necessary upgrades that play into what you want to do i.e break a core vulnerability, make pair of a chosen friends/enemies--> Get some vulnerability breaks to get some chunks of EE all while keeping your goal in mind as you round out your upgrades. --> Grind their corruption parameters in preparation for the final battle--> Perform the final battle

And this is all keeping mind you might need to save scum, either as a result of seeing different results/combinations or as a result of making a bad play that fucks your plan over.

I disagree with the idea that the game's design is counter-intuitive, at least in my opinion. It's very intuitive after the initial hurdle (albeit a massive one.) I believe someone on the forum at one point said the game is sort of like an puzzle, and I agree with that, specifically in the sense that every run/team is a puzzle in of itself, requiring different strategies and which upgrades you prioritize


Sometimes the puzzles are similar to one another but sometimes they're completely different. Some teams are similar and some are completely different. So you can't just use the same strategy or bee-line to same upgrade path every time. That's why so many of these guides/playthroughs devolve to narrating our own choices and why we did them, because different teams require different strategies, and wanting different results require different strategies.

The main thing is to look at the thought processes and see what you can use for your own playthroughs like what
zertyx23 said earlier and even in my recent experiences subli's guide and advice for saving surround the chosen towards the end of battle to extend turns to hastens the chosen's first appearance has helped greatly for my early game strategies/planning.

The same thing that makes the game so enjoyable and replayable is the very same reason it's so difficult for beginners to learn, at least how I view it. And that is the varying teams you come across as well as the methods you can take to defeat them. It's hard to take all the mechanics in but once you understand, the only way to lose becomes your own hubris in my experiences

If you can't get an idea of what to do in cheat mode, then the best thing to do is post your team and current situation, the people that do so in my experiences tend to get the help they needed and get a better grasp of the gameplay loop. Everyone picks up on things differently but at least this way, you can get another opinion of what to do and you can reevaluate your own plan and strategy, see how they did it, and eventually figure out why and how you can do it; getting a better understanding for the game and how the mechanics play into each other. From there you see what works and what doesn't against the next team and so on. Even if you don't do what they say verbatim or at all, that second opinion is incredibly useful.

Either way I know this is quite long and sorry if the last part seems to have come out of nowhere but a lot of people have made posts saying something similar and I wanted say my thoughts on that opinion

I genuinely hope the game clicks with you at and you grasp the mechanics in time. I think giving the game a try every update despite it being frustrating for you is proof you have the gumption to keep trying until you get it so I look forward to that moment.

Thank you for answering.
Sadly it just makes me feel more impaired concerning the game's own logic.
How is "each team a puzzle" given there's only one opening possible ? (attacking the EXPO girl to do meaningful damages on the other ones) (also both FEAR and SHAM are dependant on other conditions so where is the tactical choice)
How are you supposed to pry open the CORE first when they take no damage whatsoever in them ?
How are you supposed to "win" the interview event with no tools whatsoever ?
What is the use of each suppressor exactly ? I don't see the reason. Even more for combo ones or defiler ones. Especially compared to simply capturing.
What am I aiming for when attacking a certain Chosen without completely hardening her against my own attacks ? Especially if they are vulnerable to the CORE corresponding trauma so you just make them more tanky to your own goal ?
The game has a shit ton of counter systems that asks you to change tactic for each step of the game, but my options are not expanding, given i don't get EE, what can I do about that ? What can I do against morale totally numbing my trauma ?
Am I meant to savescum like crazy to actually play the game as intended ?

Those are the kind of questions that should be answered in a guide. It may be intuitive for some but it's not for me, and a handful of others too according to the thread. And I tried HARD before whining here, something between 30 and 40 hours, so this is starting to feel more like work than fun. There's clearly something fundamental about the game that i'm not understanding.

 

[zertyx23]

Thank you for answering.
Sadly it just makes me feel more impaired concerning the game's own logic.
How is "each team a puzzle" given there's only one opening possible ? (attacking the EXPO girl to do meaningful damages on the other ones) (also both FEAR and SHAM are dependant on other conditions so where is the tactical choice)
How are you supposed to pry open the CORE first when they take no damage whatsoever in them ?
How are you supposed to "win" the interview event with no tools whatsoever ?
What is the use of each suppressor exactly ? I don't see the reason. Even more for combo ones or defiler ones. Especially compared to simply capturing.
What am I aiming for when attacking a certain Chosen without completely hardening her against my own attacks ? Especially if they are vulnerable to the CORE corresponding trauma so you just make them more tanky to your own goal ?
The game has a shit ton of counter systems that asks you to change tactic for each step of the game, but my options are not expanding, given i don't get EE, what can I do about that ? What can I do against morale totally numbing my trauma ?
Am I meant to savescum like crazy to actually play the game as intended ?

Those are the kind of questions that should be answered in a guide. It may be intuitive for some but it's not for me, and a handful of others too according to the thread. And I tried HARD before whining here, something between 30 and 40 hours, so this is starting to feel more like work than fun. There's clearly something fundamental about the game that i'm not understanding.

While attacking the expo girl work, I have found that focusing on it doesn't work for me . I like to focus day 13 by breaking a girl that I found the easiest. ( Inju or hate focus). And I try to snowball from that.

 

[Alploochra]

How do you snowball from that ?

 

[zertyx23]

How do you snowball from that ?

The bonus income allow me to buy more upgrade and by repeating the same thing I can break more until I can break the second girl, then I start breaking easily the others

 

[Kalloi]

Thank you for answering.
Sadly it just makes me feel more impaired concerning the game's own logic.
How is "each team a puzzle" given there's only one opening possible ? (attacking the EXPO girl to do meaningful damages on the other ones) (also both FEAR and SHAM are dependant on other conditions so where is the tactical choice)
How are you supposed to pry open the CORE first when they take no damage whatsoever in them ?
How are you supposed to "win" the interview event with no tools whatsoever ?
What is the use of each suppressor exactly ? I don't see the reason. Even more for combo ones or defiler ones. Especially compared to simply capturing.
What am I aiming for when attacking a certain Chosen without completely hardening her against my own attacks ? Especially if they are vulnerable to the CORE corresponding trauma so you just make them more tanky to your own goal ?
The game has a shit ton of counter systems that asks you to change tactic for each step of the game, but my options are not expanding, given i don't get EE, what can I do about that ? What can I do against morale totally numbing my trauma ?
Am I meant to savescum like crazy to actually play the game as intended ?

Those are the kind of questions that should be answered in a guide. It may be intuitive for some but it's not for me, and a handful of others too according to the thread. And I tried HARD before whining here, something between 30 and 40 hours, so this is starting to feel more like work than fun. There's clearly something fundamental about the game that i'm not understanding.

I'm happy to help! and thank you for responding well to my post, I was worried that I came across a bit too curt but I'm happy you responded.

How is "each team a puzzle" given there's only one opening possible ? (attacking the EXPO girl to do meaningful damages on the other ones) (also both FEAR and SHAM are dependant on other conditions so where is the tactical choice)

Although EXPO is a good entryway to getting some major damage, some situations and some chosen can make other routes easier than others, an random example that comes to mind is a team with this kind of match-up:

Chosen 1:
Core morality-HATE
Significant innocence-PLEA
Sig confidence-INJU
Minor dignity-EXPO

Chosen 2:
Minor morality-HATE
Core innocence-PLEA
Minor confidence-INJU
Sig dignity-EXPO

Chosen 3:
Sig morality-HATE
Minor innocence-PLEA
Core confidence-INJU
Core dignity-EXPO

In this scenario prioritizing Chosen 1 just because she has a minor in dignity is actually less viable than pursuing Chosen 2 since you can exploit chosen 2's weakness to HATE and INJU and get those multipliers up faster and higher, meaning you can potentially get chosen 2's EXPO even higher than if you just targeted Chosen 1. You can focus on chosen 2 and from there you can work on chosen 1.

Another scenario is like this one:

Chosen 1:
Core morality-HATE
Significant innocence-PLEA
Core confidence-INJU
Minor dignity-EXPO

Chosen 2:
Minor morality-HATE
Core innocence-PLEA
Minor confidence-INJU
Sig dignity-EXPO

Chosen 3:
Sig morality-HATE
Minor innocence-PLEA
Sig confidence-INJU
Core dignity-EXPO

This scenario only switched some things but this team will require a different approach, you still focus on chosen 2 but chosen 3 is a better secondary target overall.

And this is one more scenario for you:


Chosen 1:
Sig morality-HATE
Sig innocence-PLEA
Core confidence-INJU
Minor dignity-EXPO

Chosen 2:
Core morality-HATE
Core innocence-PLEA
Minor confidence-INJU
Sig dignity-EXPO

Chosen 3:
Minor morality-HATE
Minor innocence-PLEA
Sig confidence-INJU
Core dignity-EXPO

This scenario has a completely different team combination, the chosen easiest to exploit is Chosen 3 in my opinion, despite the fact she has Dignity as a core I would target her first. and most likely use chosen 1 as secondary target then.

With each of these scenarios my approach needed to change based on the chosen team, if I solely focused on the chosen with minor Dignity I would be at a disadvantage in some of these. And If I wanted to a distortion like Aversion or Temptation I would change my mid-late game strategies.

Like a puzzle I needed to look at the team as a whole and decided how I was going to solve it, and by having different end game goals what I needed to solve changes.

"Am I trying to tempt one of these chosen? If I'm trying to corrupt them and make them enemies what upgrades would help me do what I'm looking to accomplish?"


Your goal since you’re still learning the game should be something like “what are the best way to corrupt these chosen and what upgrades can help what I have in mind?”

Fear and Shame are both situational but that’s where juggling can come in handy, my guide introduces it towards the end and Subii’s guide introduces it earlier that that iirc, every surround does not need you to do an action on them, sometimes it’s good to use one of the chosen as surround fodder to guarantee more time with the chosen that you’re actually targeting

if you can get away with and it won’t impact your goal for that day then go for it, that’s where the experimentation or save scumming shines since the chosen will act the same way no matter how many times you reload. Even 1 action change can change the entire battle. I wouldn't go perfectionist crazy with that shit but do so enough to learn and get the closest result you need. And if it just doesn't look possible, refund that commander and get some more upgrades that would help it work or try something new entirely.

How are you supposed to pry open the CORE first when they take no damage whatsoever in them ?

Like with trying to win, you need to approach breaking cores like a puzzle

Look at things as a whole, see what you can exploit, and see where you can go from there.

Use the minor vulnerabilities on the chosen as entryway to work on cores, look at when the other chosen will arrive to help them, maybe you can make a commander that can capture the chosen for awhile with an additional capture charge and use that time alone to get some good circumstance damage. If it’s too difficult, aim for a significant vulnerability instead. And sometimes it can’t be helped to break a minor if it leads to a core breaking. Sometimes just a level 1 or level 2 EXPO is needed and even then there’s some strategies I’ve used against teams where I didn’t worry about EXPO at all

every vulnerability break makes them more susceptible and weak to that associated vulnerability, sometimes it’s best to build up towards it. And don’t neglect Angst as it’s just as integral to getting good damage.

Going back to that first team I made up:


Chosen 1:
Core morality-HATE
Significant innocence-PLEA
Sig confidence-INJU
Minor dignity-EXPO

Chosen 2:
Minor morality-HATE
Core innocence-PLEA
Minor confidence-INJU
Sig dignity-EXPO

Chosen 3:
Sig morality-HATE
Minor innocence-PLEA
Core confidence-INJU
Core dignity-EXPO

A good early game strategy you can do is a 4 turn commander and one extra capture charge.

begin the battle ambushing chosen 2 and grind—>pummel—>caress—>humiliate. This can lead to some decent trauma allowing you to potentially surround again as well as putting most if not all her circumstance damage at level 1, if her teammates haven’t arrived yet then take that chance to raise the easiest trauma to level 2 if they aren’t already.

Once that other chosen arrives uses that additional capture charge on her and see what you can exploit on her

if chosen 1 shows up I would capture—>surround chosen 2(her fear is now reactivated—>humiliate chosen 1 for level 1 EXPO—->caress chosen 2 in case she didn’t teach level 1 Pleasure or she regenerated during that time—>caress chosen 1 so when she escapes her trauma will be decent enough to surround her again and keep chosen 2’s fear level active as soon as she escapes.

and in case chosen 3 would appear the battle first instead of chosen 1 I would Do the same up until she arrives and then I would go: capture chosen 3 —>
surround chosen 2—>grind chosen 3–> caress 2–> humiliate chosen 3

this theoretical scenario aside, I came up with a strategy based on the team itself, the vulnerabilities I can exploit, when the chosen arrives to help each other, all for the current goal of breaking chosen 2’s core. Which it’ll make it easier exploit her and make way for exploiting the other two and breaking their cores.

How are you supposed to "win" the interview event with no tools whatsoever ?

Early on learning the game it’s okay to not “win” the interview and even more so once you aim for distortion and things with specific chosen. It's still absolutely fine to defeat your team of chosen without winning any of the static events. However; You can accomplish a lot in the early game as long as you are careful about what you spend your EE on and how quickly you get the chosen to arrive.

in my guide I said that the other two chosen have their first appearance based on the number of turns in the run show far, basically meaning- the longer you can make the battles go on, the quicker they will show up. (In campaign mode they also show up quicker based on how earlier the final

and you want them all to show up as soon as possible as pretentious goblin said in their guide, since the earlier they show up and you get their angst up (around 200 or so) you can have them making 3EE per turn.

This gives you the resources to stockpile and save for a good commander and get the upgrades needed to make a decent commander for that point in the game. A 3-4 turn commander with an extra capture charge can do wonders. At this stage using a commander just because you can isn’t advised, unless you know you can break a core or significant vulnerabilities with it or you can get a substantial amount of angst on your target. If you plan things out you should have the kind of commander before the interview day and that can be your chance.

I'll answer the other questions in a moment as I need to get back to drawing and this post is already as long as it is lol.

But yeah I hope some of these answers helped, If you're currently going against a team feel free to post your team and your current situation here and the additional insight I hope will help also

 

[Maiuw2]

we need an easy super duper noob mode
(not cheat mode)

 

[lostnumber]

Yeah love the concept but the fact that after reading all of the novels of explanation on how to play and win I still have no clue how to accomplish that. I get massive HATE up and 16x multipliers for stats and spam them then nothing changes after the fight. Solid waste of 2 hours trying to make what looks like a great concept work. Off to the next game.

 

[TrulyUnthinkable]

So, I don't know if anyone else has run into this problem, but it's starting to frustrate me. Sometimes when I'm training my Forsaken the game will just freeze up and not let me continue. It won't let me back out or continue after it happens. It feels like some sort of event is supposed to be happening, but the game gets confused or something. If anyone could tell me whether this intended or a bug, it would be greatly appreciated. This issue can be triggered consistently, if you use the save file and follow the actions in the image, the last training being Psychic Transmission, the game will freeze. (The save file in question is the campaign playthrough named Meow 5)

 

[Doctor Shark]

Finally bit the bullet and am giving this game a try. I'm attaching my Day 8 (third girl just showed up) stats (let me know if there's something else needed. For upgrades, I have Psychic Reading, Wide Deployment, Fast Breeders, Focus, Eager Breeders, and Enhanced Polymorphism. I have 5 EE unspent.
Would appreciate general pointers on what direction I should be going in. I played through Kalloi's walkthrough and used a blend of things I maybe(?) learned from that along with PretentiousGoblin's guide but I still feel pretty lost.

Edit: I've been playing around and like Veneficae under me I'm just really confused about how to get those minor breaks. I just can't seem to put out enough damage and I know I'm just not understanding how the torment bonuses work or how to get the really big multipliers.

 

[Veneficae]

Just started playing this and read up on some of those early game guides, but what I don't understand is how do you guys get high circumstance damage from only a 4 turn surround commander.

I know its best to focus on a chosen with core vulnerability in both injury and expo but it never seem to work since the surround never gives enough damage to get any of the circumstances to 1k before it ends no matter which combination of surround action used.

Furthermore, I see people being able to pummel twice in one surround but I could never do it which seems to me that being able to use an action twice is what makes the damage go bonkers.

 

[Name36346]

Another typo: now in one of tier 3 confidence break profile descriptions.