- May 5, 2020
- 16
- 11
Nice to come back to this and see all the improvements to the game so quickly. The game is a lot better at displaying info now, especially dig the stuff on the side in combat and the warning that the girls will flee after their grab.
Some thoughts on the item balance:
I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.
Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless. It definitely seems like a late loop item. The only kind of useful function for early loops feels like the part where it makes girls attack sooner so you can pick up their EE generation sooner, but even that requires you to have some extra bonuses to build up the girls quicker than usual. If you get to the point where you're so strong you can skip days, it's not like it takes that long to enter a battle and leave immediately, so wasting all that EE for a bit of saved time is meh. In comparison, Inferno Pepper and Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear, and even the one time use stuff can seem useful to new players.
Inevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.
I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.
The only thing is, considering you cant change your item between loops Inferno Pepper kinda suffers in Campaign. It's definitely useful when learning the game, but by the end of your first successful loop you'll probably understand the game well enough to not need it as a crutch. After that point Inferno Pepper is kinda lackluster compared to most other items.I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.
I think you're misunderstanding Unicorn Lard, the Chosen still generate EE even when skipping the day, all that you miss out on is increasing their traumas. So while it is possible you'll drop below the trauma level necessary for them to generate EE (in which case just don't use it for that day), you don't inherently lose EE generation, and in fact gain an extra EE for using it. It's not readily apparent but it is very useful early on in a loop, specifically up until day 12 (or however many days it takes you to get a 4-2 commander set up). Since as long as you have all your currently available Chosen producing 1 EE you can skip the day to get their EE + and extra EE, and if this is within the first few days before you have all your Chosen can use it to force the next Chosen to join early, allowing you to get more EE generation a little earlier. For example, Day 1 get your first Chosen to +1 EE, skip Day 2 assuming you didn't manage to drag day 1 out long enough to force the second Chosen to join on Day 2 (which you probably aren't doing, especially for a newer player), on Day 3 get the second Chosen generating +1 EE, skip Day 4 to force the third Chosen to come on Day 5 as otherwise they probably wont come until Day 6 or 7. After that just make sure they wont drop below the trauma requirements to generate EE and skip days until you get a 4-2 commander as you are almost definitely not getting any breaks without it.Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless.
Tomorrow's Newspaper is kinda bait, for the most part (at least in my opinion) using the commander upgrades before you'd naturally get them is not all that worthwhile since it makes the commander super expensive at a point in the game where you likely cant afford to field such a high cost commander without putting yourself super behind on upgrades. Sure you could probably save up to field a 4-2 commander early by skipping the early commander upgrades, but at that point you might as well use any other item that lets you rush an early 4-2 commander.Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear
Funnily enough, a lot of people in this thread claim that Inevitability is the best item. Obviously it's not that useful early on as you have so little EE generation that -1 EE majorly cuts into your generation, but later on when -1 EE doesn't matter it's useful for building up bigger surroundsInevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.
I think that should only be a thing if you're allowed to switch items between loop 1 and 2, as after the first loop you should understand the game well enough to use the other items, so it'd be annoying to have to go through an entire run or reset just to use one of the previously locked items.I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.
Personally, I'm rather partial to the "Orgasm in a Can" item. From my perspective, it's much more useful than any of the other 10k items. Pop it on day 1-2 on a chosen with Core Innocence, And you'll probably be able to get two 5+ turn surrounds in before the battle ends. The amount of trauma you deal with that setup is usually enough to start generating 2-5 EE. The others seem more useful in the campaign, helping you break core vulnerabilities in advanced chosen species.Nice to come back to this and see all the improvements to the game so quickly. The game is a lot better at displaying info now, especially dig the stuff on the side in combat and the warning that the girls will flee after their grab.
Some thoughts on the item balance:
I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.
Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless. It definitely seems like a late loop item. The only kind of useful function for early loops feels like the part where it makes girls attack sooner so you can pick up their EE generation sooner, but even that requires you to have some extra bonuses to build up the girls quicker than usual. If you get to the point where you're so strong you can skip days, it's not like it takes that long to enter a battle and leave immediately, so wasting all that EE for a bit of saved time is meh. In comparison, Inferno Pepper and Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear, and even the one time use stuff can seem useful to new players.
Inevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.
I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.
Being able to field a 1 cost commander isn't useless early game. Girls take notably more damage when you increase their traumas at low levels, helps a bit with the early snowball. For someone that thinks a one time use 10k damage is good, it's odd you'd overlook the early game strength of Inferno Pepper. There are useful skills before Networked Consciousness you know, and it's not some trivial thing to get it early anyways. Inferno Pepper kinda does what the 10k damage items do over a longer period of time (Temporarily inferior to the 10k damage items), but continues being a bit useful even after that help with the first breaks. If you're talking about Superior and Beastskin, you're already missing the point I was aiming at, the first loop.I disagree. Inferno pepper is probably the worst early run item alongside Inevitability because fielding a commander before the standardised 5EE is useless. That is why it was buffed too. Meanwhile, using schwerer Gusion or Barrier Jammer lets you soften up potential tough dual Core Confidence/morality Chosen which are a pain the ass to make progress against, especially if you go up against a Superior/Beastkin Chosen. That alone makes those two top tier to me. Personally not a great fan of the other two (For the life of me, I can't figure out the use for Orgasm in the can, and the expo one at least makes it easier to go through the defenses of the other chosen.) but you can use them to get immediate tier 2 core breaks.
Unicorn lard is a matter of execution. You only lose EE Generation if you made bad choices during your first fight. Otherwise you get what you earned +1 when you skip a day. Really, it is probably the easiest one to use. I have no idea where you got the idea from that it is useless. especially because it lets you get so much sooner to the 5EE commander. For fucks sake, Unicorn lard is the only starting Item that can get tier 1 core breaks on day 10 while still having uses for the rest of the run. (I.E. Negotiation chosen forbidding combat or training forsaken, or just waiting for networked consciousness to come online.)
Meanwhile, Inferno Pepper's use doesn't come apparent until the midgame, where all the 1 saved on commander deployments allows you to get to networked consciousness sooner, probably, whereas unicorn lard doesn't get enough skipped days to make use of it's boni past the early game. However that doesn't help you with breaking cores or gaining more EE early game, where almost all the other items shine. And the 1EE for the first loop becomes a drop in the water when you start deploying your 15EE+ Commander. The same is true for Unicorn lard, of course, but it's main use is to get to the 5EE commander sooner. +1 EE when you generate 1, 2 or 3, and generating 3 sooner at all, is much more useful when compared to regain 1EE when you start to generate 5.
Not gonna lie, never looked at the buffed tommorrows newspaper, but I have doubt's about it's usefulness past loop 1. Certainly better than the original, but Forsaken are usually how you go then. Meanwhile, a new player might get tricked by all those options. Though I admit some of these options early game seem incredibly juicy and I might need to try, and that item can do orgies probably the quickest of all starting items simply because it can skip past going up the upgrade tree to get the third capture.
And yeah, inevitability is in a weird spot. Probably for use to get surround turns for orgy attempts, when the -1 stops to matter? Because I believe you need a tier 2 break to get to the 2EE generation events anyway. I mean, if you can use it to get to the 2EE events in a single battle, it is probably the best EE generation item. Still big fan of the one use items.
Really, if you are going to balance, inevitability needs a buff, if at all. Otherwise the balance is fine.
Yeah I can see that, I just meant Inferno Pepper seemed to be the most useful for the first loop.The only thing is, considering you cant change your item between loops Inferno Pepper kinda suffers in Campaign. It's definitely useful when learning the game, but by the end of your first successful loop you'll probably understand the game well enough to not need it as a crutch. After that point Inferno Pepper is kinda lackluster compared to most other items.
As for the 10k damage one time use items, they're good for what they're designed to do, to get a free very early T2, which can make setting some things up easier. For example, throw that on a Chosen with a Core vulnerability to the damage type and you can start a rivalry between her and the Chosen with it as a minor vulnerability without needing to put any effort into it. Also just in general the EE you earn from doing that helps you snowball a bit, as you can get a 4-2 commander much earlier than the usual Day 12, which means you can get other T1-2 breaks much earlier as well.
I think you're misunderstanding Unicorn Lard, the Chosen still generate EE even when skipping the day, all that you miss out on is increasing their traumas. So while it is possible you'll drop below the trauma level necessary for them to generate EE (in which case just don't use it for that day), you don't inherently lose EE generation, and in fact gain an extra EE for using it. It's not readily apparent but it is very useful early on in a loop, specifically up until day 12 (or however many days it takes you to get a 4-2 commander set up). Since as long as you have all your currently available Chosen producing 1 EE you can skip the day to get their EE + and extra EE, and if this is within the first few days before you have all your Chosen can use it to force the next Chosen to join early, allowing you to get more EE generation a little earlier. For example, Day 1 get your first Chosen to +1 EE, skip Day 2 assuming you didn't manage to drag day 1 out long enough to force the second Chosen to join on Day 2 (which you probably aren't doing, especially for a newer player), on Day 3 get the second Chosen generating +1 EE, skip Day 4 to force the third Chosen to come on Day 5 as otherwise they probably wont come until Day 6 or 7. After that just make sure they wont drop below the trauma requirements to generate EE and skip days until you get a 4-2 commander as you are almost definitely not getting any breaks without it.
Tomorrow's Newspaper is kinda bait, for the most part (at least in my opinion) using the commander upgrades before you'd naturally get them is not all that worthwhile since it makes the commander super expensive at a point in the game where you likely cant afford to field such a high cost commander without putting yourself super behind on upgrades. Sure you could probably save up to field a 4-2 commander early by skipping the early commander upgrades, but at that point you might as well use any other item that lets you rush an early 4-2 commander.
Funnily enough, a lot of people in this thread claim that Inevitability is the best item. Obviously it's not that useful early on as you have so little EE generation that -1 EE majorly cuts into your generation, but later on when -1 EE doesn't matter it's useful for building up bigger surrounds
I think that should only be a thing if you're allowed to switch items between loop 1 and 2, as after the first loop you should understand the game well enough to use the other items, so it'd be annoying to have to go through an entire run or reset just to use one of the previously locked items.
Yeah Lard is very much an item that plays into the save scumming/resetting days for best results playstyle which the game softly encourages by letting you reset battles for free. And while yeah missing out on building up traumas is questionable, it's fine early on when you really cant build up enough damage to get out of the +1 EE generation state, so you're better off just skipping days there to rush to the point where you can push into greater levels of EE generation.I did forget that you still generate EE from girls even when skipping a day, my bad. It's been a long ass time since I did that. I still feel like missing building up traumas is questionable most the time, maybe it's just the way I play but I can usually use every battle day pretty effectively (Inferno Pepper helps with that). I leave one girl behind until I'm going to start trying for orgies, so I can still build trauma on a girl even with no or a low level commander. There's a pretty small window where I'm not doing much in battles, so I guess that's why it feels pretty meh to me to skip days. I get that Unicorn Horn is more a playstyle choice then and excels if you're willing to savescum when matches don't produce any new breaks/good results, that makes more sense now.
Yeah I cant really help you that much there, I personally haven't played around with it that much either and was just bringing up what I've seen in this thread. Though I've definitely had niche scenarios more in the middle of loops where I cant reasonably afford a 3+ capture commander leaving me in the awkward situation of having massive surrounds on the first two Chosen while the third is left almost entirely alone as without Inevitability basic trauma attacks are just too slow to build up a large enough surround for the surround to deal enough damage to fuel additional surrounds. Meanwhile with Inevitability a single attack can level immediately jump a trauma to at least level 2 in one hit, letting you get a 4 turn surround with only 2 turns of attacks, or even a 6 turn surround in 3 turns if you attack all but disgust (not really worth wasting a turn hitting disgust when it'll only create 1 opening on the first surround).Guess I'll have to try a full first loop with Inevitability and seem exactly how often it's actually useful. I only used it briefly and didn't feel like it was really all that great compared to the other items.
Yeah, like I said I can see some niche uses like skipping all the early 2 cost commander upgrades so you can field a 4-2 commander early, then just going back to pick those upgrades up later when you have more EE and/or need the upgrades gated by them. Or skipping out on needing to buy the Punisher upgrades unless you need the upgrade or resolve attack they are a prereq for. But really that's all I see the item being useful for, deliberately holding off on buying commander upgrades until you need the upgrade locked by them. Now sure that can be useful for being able to direct your EE towards non-commander upgrades first, but you will still need to buy most commander upgrades anyways since they block off stronger upgrades, and outside of the early days a 1 EE refund isn't that much. The consumables with their early T2 break and rivalry baiting probably provides more EE than commander upgrade refunds (assuming you don't have 3+ items to get more than 1 EE from the refund), and Inferno Pepper will definitely give more EE while a 4-2 commander can carry you very far anyways so you can still skip commander upgrades anyways as long as you are play more carefully (hell there was one day in which I managed to get every Chosen to level 10 in all traumas and 2-3 T3 breaks with just a 4-2 commander).Edit: People seem pretty split on Tomorrow's Newspaper huh. Just noticed dekeche's post after posting. I have a lot more shit to test.
Trying to shake up the "meta" again now are you lol. Though yeah, with Inferno Pepper making 1 cost commanders basically free there is definitely a use for those commanders, it's just that a 2 turn surround isn't going to do much trauma damage, so odds are you aren't even going to get a second surround off it. I suppose if you get the upgrade that lets you disable the ambush you can use it to instantly capture the second Chosen instead right as they enter the battle to activate any Fear levels you have in the first Chosen. But yeah, 2-1 commanders are kinda hard to do anything big with even in the very early days.It's also pretty funny I used to be the one telling people to save for 5EE commanders, and now with Inferno Pepper I'm recommending the 1 cost commander early. It is pretty nice early on, of course it's more just the constant EE refund that really makes it amazing for first loop imo.
Really you'll only need to do the boring grind for the first 12 or so days. Basically just hard focus on maintaining 3 EE per day until you get all the 1 and 2 cost upgrades, then save up to buy a 4 turn surround 2 captures commander, this should be done by around day 12 assuming you can get each chosen to +1 EE on the day of their arrival. With this commander (often shorted to 4-2 commander) you can start doing vulnerability breaks which lets you get a lot more EE.My god the player feedback in this game is just killing me. Even after the tutorial and starting a campaign it takes way too long to get anywhere (grinding up 3 EP for 15 days is not fun). I know this game is about experimentation and figuring stuff out but at least games like Elden Ring had a good indication of why I am dying so often.
To trigger a T1 break while the game just says to reach 10k damage/reach level 2 damage, it's not just that, once you reach that damage threshold you then need to use one of the associated circumstance attacks (Grind, Caress, Pummel, or Humiliate) to trigger the T1 break. This can be a little awkward though as if you've already used the associated attacks in that surround you'll have to wait until the next surround for that attack to become available against and to allow you to do the T1 break. Though alternatively since the T1 break triggers within only like 1-2k damage away from actually hitting 10k, if you can do that remaining damage within that surround you can just skip the T1 break and do the T2 break instead (which also does a T1 break).In this the profiles gave me the answer of doing 10k damage to X stat but even getting to 10k 2-3 times nothing seems to be happening and I gain 3-4 EP. So am I also dealing with mis-information or simply something that I am not seeing? I can't even tell if I am making any sort of meaningful progress.
Being able to field a 1 cost commander isn't useless early game. Girls take notably more damage when you increase their traumas at low levels, helps a bit with the early snowball. For someone that thinks a one time use 10k damage is good, it's odd you'd overlook the early game strength of Inferno Pepper. There are useful skills before Networked Consciousness you know, and it's not some trivial thing to get it early anyways. Inferno Pepper kinda does what the 10k damage items do over a longer period of time (Temporarily inferior to the 10k damage items), but continues being a bit useful even after that help with the first breaks. If you're talking about Superior and Beastskin, you're already missing the point I was aiming at, the first loop.
Unicorn Lard: I forgot the girls still generate EE even when you skip a day, my bad on that. That explains some confusion there. It's been like a year or more since I've played obsessively, lol.
How does it let you generate 3 EE, wouldn't it be 2 EE? Unless I'm missing something I don't see how with no upgrades you'd be able to pull off jumping all the way to 3 EE per day from a single chosen, even with 10+ surround turns.The fact that you can start generating 3 EE from day 1 is a massive boost
Maybe my memory is off since it's been a while, but I remember getting up to 3 EE really quickly because the long-ass surround you get causes the 2nd girl to show up much quicker than normal. Maybe it was day 2 and not day 1 though.How does it let you generate 3 EE, wouldn't it be 2 EE? Unless I'm missing something I don't see how with no upgrades you'd be able to pull off jumping all the way to 3 EE per day from a single chosen, even with 10+ surround turns.
Get every Chosen producing 1 EE per day as soon as possible, ideally the day they arrive and if not then the next day at the absolute latest. If you're struggling with that then don't worry about using surround to attack when there are multiple Chosen present, just use it to delay the end of the day while focusing trauma attacks on the Chosen not generating EE. Circumstance attacks just barely do any damage with the 1-2 turn surrounds you get that early, so it's better just wailing on the Chosen with trauma attacks.Ok this game is hard as ball. I have tried 2 playthrough already and not even managed to get the endgame upgrades. Can someones spare some beginner tips or detailed guides?