Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 52b] [CSDev]

[dekeche]

Been taking a look at the new release - noticed two issues right of the bat. 1st, the new distortion path is not listed in the forsaken guide, so the default bonuses a forsaken has for being that distortion is not listed. 2nd, the new distortion is not listed in the (forsaken->cheat->distortion) section of the cheat menu, so you can't generate a custom forsaken with that distortion.

It looks like this might also be a tricky distortion to manage, since it's relatively easy to trigger on multiple chosen if you haven't fully broken the other vulnerabilities yet. Which can make targeting the specific chosen you want an issue. Did a cheating test game, and had one chosen surrounded, and two chosen that could trigger the distortion. Might be worth adding a caveat that the chosen that you've already selected for the distortion is prioritized. - which is not the case currently, had to surround both of the other chosen to trigger on the one I actually wanted.

There may also be an issue with single-play and Megalomania forsaken - since they effectively "lose" their second in command status while in the main menu, you can't get their unique defiler back (if you train them out of it) unless you start a single play scenario. Not really an issue in campaign, but a bit odd.

Also, for people who are wondering:
Defiler Specialty: Maneuver (none)
Can increase the duration of the current Capture by 2, but only while the target has a Surrounded ally, and this may be repeated multiple times during the Capture

Traits while second-in-command:
Trait: Ambitious Underling
+50% HATE and PLEA damage and special Defiler, but only while occupying Second-in-Command position

Trait: Second-in-Command
No deployment cost for final battle, training plan cannot increase corruption, cannot train without consent

Trait after being replaced (or while in main menu):
Trait: Usurped Authority
Loses Distortion benefits, deals half damage in battle

 

[dekeche]

Just theory crafting here;

Is there any actual reason for the Megalomania distortion to be a one-off distortion? It doesn't seem like there's any particular reason why having one on the team would explicitly prevent other chosen from being distorted in the same way (or even multiple chosen distorting after the same battle). If the main reason is because promising one chosen the second-in-command position during the final battle, then turning around and offering the same position to another is.... thematically an issue, there's another way to solve it; restrict Recruit to once per battle, then have it also deal resolve damage to all Megalomania distortion chosen.

With that change, you could have multiple Megalomaniacs on the same team, while also not causing issues with the final battle. You'd still only have one instant win button, but doing multiple Megalomaniac distortions aren't rendered completely meaningless. It might also make sense to apply some restrictions on when Recruit can be used. Maybe require that the other chosen be surrounded, or have already surrendered? It doesn't really make sense that they'd just abandon the fight turn 1 because you offered them a position on your side.

 

[Dono1973]

I have a question about distortion plans. Should I pick the same one for all chosen on the team or different ones for each team member?

 

[dekeche]

I have a question about distortion plans. Should I pick the same one for all chosen on the team or different ones for each team member?

Depends on what you are going for. Distortions are a trade-off. They make the final battle easier, but they are harder to setup. So it's not necessarily advantageous to distort every chosen. Outside of that consideration, if you want to go for multiple distortions it's easier to go for either the same distortion, or a distortion sharing a vulnerability. It's harder to do both rampancy/negotiation or aversion/temptation distortions at the same time. If you are distorting all three, I'd suggest not using those combinations.

Doing all 3 with the same distortion is possible, and you can get unique after-battle text for doing so. As for if you should go down that route? I think Negotiation is the only one that has synergy with distorting multiple chosen, as you can negotiate with multiple chosen for the same day, increasing appeal's effect for all of them at the same time.

 

[SuperSkippy]

CSdev Bug report: Megalomaniac Forsaken cannot be set to training plan None once they are assigned a training plan. You can view this in the first save in the attached file saves.sav--go to Torment the Third and try to clear her training plan.
I suspect that the game is treating all selections on the first page as increasing Corruption, which disables them all for Megalomaniacs.
Also, does strengthening the Megalomaniac distortion do anything? It's noted in game but if it does anything that's opaque on my end.

Updated 5/4 with another believed bug: I believe that Splendor's Glorious Fatal Curse is bugged and not triggering correctly. Even when HATE was her only circumstance over 1000 and both her allies were surrounded for 8 turns, she only did standard moves like Distract, Blast, Rally, etc. Use the attached BuggedSplendor save, load slot one, and send out Hatepsha (1000% HATE) to check for yourself.

Update 5/4 with probably unintended interaction: Animalistic Chosen will still use Frenzy even after a Devil has knocked the Forsaken out of the fight. As Chosen generally are strategic with their use of Tier 3 breaks, this seemed out-of-character enough to notice.

Update 5/4 with new bug report: Splendor's Bargain will in certain unknown circumstances cause the game to hang. It is possible that this only happens when there are no Chosen in a Loop (as is the case in Alternative Routes), but it does not always occur in this circumstance. I have a save file that reproduces the error--load save 1 in BuggedBargain, find Splendor on Page 3, and choose Bargain to reliably freeze the game.

General feedback: I like the new Megalomaniac Forsaken/Chosen a lot. Currently on Loop 10. The tradeoff of having to get their Corruption stats up manually is a good one. You are probably aware that the combination of "must consent to training" and "can't autoimprove Corruption" means that some stats will be impossible to raise for some Forsaken, but this is fine--built in, even, I would say, since if you don't like your Second, you can always get another one.

One thematic thing that I noticed was that a Forsaken with I think the Shy personality was still being kind of indifferent/reserved with her Favorite text, even though she was Megalomaniacal and currently my Second. When you do another flavor pass, these would be good places to add specific Distortion-based interactions.

I'm going to start Loop 11 when I come back to the game, which may or may not be this weekend, and I'll try to give feedback on loops 11-15's difficulty with Splendor defeated in loop 10 next time. The first 10 loops are pretty rote by this point so I have no additional balancing feedback. It was rather easy to beat Splendor using Megalomania (distorted around day 8 or so) but then her fight was never really intended to be the challenging part of her.

 

[SuperSkippy]

Just theory crafting here;

Is there any actual reason for the Megalomania distortion to be a one-off distortion? It doesn't seem like there's any particular reason why having one on the team would explicitly prevent other chosen from being distorted in the same way (or even multiple chosen distorting after the same battle). If the main reason is because promising one chosen the second-in-command position during the final battle, then turning around and offering the same position to another is.... thematically an issue, there's another way to solve it; restrict Recruit to once per battle, then have it also deal resolve damage to all Megalomania distortion chosen.

With that change, you could have multiple Megalomaniacs on the same team, while also not causing issues with the final battle. You'd still only have one instant win button, but doing multiple Megalomaniac distortions aren't rendered completely meaningless. It might also make sense to apply some restrictions on when Recruit can be used. Maybe require that the other chosen be surrounded, or have already surrendered? It doesn't really make sense that they'd just abandon the fight turn 1 because you offered them a position on your side.

1) The achievement for Megalomania only counts those that are installed as your Second-in-Command, so doing this would not tick up that achievement.

2) It's more than offering them the job of your right-hand-lady--the second time and later that you perform the Recruit action, your current Second-in-Command fights them for it and loses badly, to the point that they're permanently reduced in power. So--they can't do that multiple times.

3) I kind of think it does make sense? They want to be the ruler of the world, and they view being your Second as the best way to accomplish that. Clearly, they think they're stronger and better-suited than whatever other Chosen made that deal before, and after all, they did win the fight.

Personally I like the idea of having a once-per-team or a type of whole-team Distortion. I suggested two different versions of this which I called Solipsism and Codependency a few months ago, and I don't know if this idea came from that or not but I'm very happy with what's in game. CSdev has stated that the final distortion will work in a similar way.

 

[joemomma7]

Is there a reason to not drag your old .sav file into a new updated installation? It seems to read and load your saves just fine, I suppose I just don't understand the import save function, especially since it sends you back to day 1 of the first loop instead of letting you do anything else.

 

[Kalloi]

Is there a reason to not drag your old .sav file into a new updated installation? It seems to read and load your saves just fine, I suppose I just don't understand the import save function, especially since it sends you back to day 1 of the first loop instead of letting you do anything else.

The import option is a feature that takes the chosen from the current loop and makes a brand new save on day 1 against them. Its useful if you want to try some different strategies or if you feel you could do better now that you know what works well against them. So feel free to drag your old save file to the new update. Be sure to backup in case save gets bricked during the process tho

 

[zyty1221]

So I'm trying to push the all the t1 minor breaks on my chosen before I move on to others (not sure if this is the right strat, should I push all the t1 breaks of a single character first?) and I'm currently struggling to do it. For some reason I was able to do 2 breaks on one character at like day 15 but since then I just haven't been able to do it on any others.

I'm following general strats like using specific circumstances to build up the modifiers and getting expo up on as many chosen as possible. Its just not happening.
So I managed to get this one quite close to her dignity break but I may be misunderstanding something about the conditions.
I was ready to do a humiliate on her (it wasn't in green so I was resigned to lose) but then it seemed to do +10k damage to Shame and I was under the impression that was what was required?
No break occurred.

Am I misunderstanding the requirements?

Thanks

 

[Nemo de Nemo]

So I'm trying to push the all the t1 minor breaks on my chosen before I move on to others (not sure if this is the right strat, should I push all the t1 breaks of a single character first?) and I'm currently struggling to do it. For some reason I was able to do 2 breaks on one character at like day 15 but since then I just haven't been able to do it on any others.

I'm following general strats like using specific circumstances to build up the modifiers and getting expo up on as many chosen as possible. Its just not happening.
So I managed to get this one quite close to her dignity break but I may be misunderstanding something about the conditions. View attachment 3603801
I was ready to do a humiliate on her (it wasn't in green so I was resigned to lose) but then it seemed to do +10k damage to Shame and I was under the impression that was what was required?
No break occurred.
View attachment 3603806
Am I misunderstanding the requirements?
View attachment 3603810
Thanks

I think that those particular breaks are triggered by the chosen using a stronger action. T2 actions, I'll call them, are actions that compromise a facet of the chosen's personality when they use it. Think a merciful chosen choosing to kill the innocent thralls as an example of this. This then allows the demon lord to make use of the vulnerability to break the chosen down even further via T3 and T4.
TL;DR: The T2 breaks are broken by a chosen using a specific action at around 10k of the associated damage. You may need to give them time to use it by surrounding another chosen.

 

[SuperSkippy]

So I'm trying to push the all the t1 minor breaks on my chosen before I move on to others (not sure if this is the right strat, should I push all the t1 breaks of a single character first?) and I'm currently struggling to do it. For some reason I was able to do 2 breaks on one character at like day 15 but since then I just haven't been able to do it on any others.

I'm following general strats like using specific circumstances to build up the modifiers and getting expo up on as many chosen as possible. Its just not happening.
So I managed to get this one quite close to her dignity break but I may be misunderstanding something about the conditions. View attachment 3603801
I was ready to do a humiliate on her (it wasn't in green so I was resigned to lose) but then it seemed to do +10k damage to Shame and I was under the impression that was what was required?
No break occurred.
View attachment 3603806
Am I misunderstanding the requirements?
View attachment 3603810
Thanks

The requirement for Tier 2 breaks is getting "near" 10k of the Circumstance, which would be EXPO, not SHAM, which is a Trauma.

You're doing a great job getting a handle on things by trying to build up Circumstances. For now, just get whatever breaks you can figure out. A lot of people don't get that far.

Try to break every t1 on the one that has Minor CON (the Vulnerability associated with PAIN/INJU) first, and try hitting that Chosen's INJU first followed by HATE.

Also, send out a Commander with at least 2 Duration and 1 Extra Capture.

If you need more help getting t1 breaks, I wrote a guide here.

 

[zyty1221]

The requirement for Tier 2 breaks is getting "near" 10k of the Circumstance, which would be EXPO, not SHAM, which is a Trauma.

You're doing a great job getting a handle on things by trying to build up Circumstances. For now, just get whatever breaks you can figure out. A lot of people don't get that far.

Try to break every t1 on the one that has Minor CON (the Vulnerability associated with PAIN/INJU) first, and try hitting that Chosen's INJU first followed by HATE.

Also, send out a Commander with at least 2 Duration and 1 Extra Capture.

If you need more help getting t1 breaks, I wrote a guide here.

Thanks for the tips!
Though I think a restart is in order the game is already past like day 32, I may have spent too many turns hitting myself against the wall.

 

[zyty1221]

The requirement for Tier 2 breaks is getting "near" 10k of the Circumstance, which would be EXPO, not SHAM, which is a Trauma.

You're doing a great job getting a handle on things by trying to build up Circumstances. For now, just get whatever breaks you can figure out. A lot of people don't get that far.

Try to break every t1 on the one that has Minor CON (the Vulnerability associated with PAIN/INJU) first, and try hitting that Chosen's INJU first followed by HATE.

Also, send out a Commander with at least 2 Duration and 1 Extra Capture.

If you need more help getting t1 breaks, I wrote a guide here.

Ah skippy this is kind of what caused my confusion in the first place. So when I've had a minor break before, it didn't seem like I actually did 10k damage to my circumstance, causing me to be confused by what actually gave me the opportunity.
I've managed to get a minor con break (on day 10, pretty proud of that actually) but again, im not really sure what caused it lol? I'm no where close to 10k injury.

 

[Nobody032]

Ah skippy this is kind of what caused my confusion in the first place. So when I've had a minor break before, it didn't seem like I actually did 10k damage to my circumstance, causing me to be confused by what actually gave me the opportunity.
I've managed to get a minor con break (on day 10, pretty proud of that actually) but again, im not really sure what caused it lol? I'm no where close to 10k injury. View attachment 3604491

Those breaks are triggered when the chosen think they are gonna reach 10k circumstance damage during a surround. Here Smile thinks she will get 10k Injury damage in this surround so she uses Begging which decreases damage dealt by Caress and pummel in order to try and not reach 10k in injury.

Also to maximize damage it's usually better to get Inju-> Hate before Plea/Expo.

 

[SuperSkippy]

Ah skippy this is kind of what caused my confusion in the first place. So when I've had a minor break before, it didn't seem like I actually did 10k damage to my circumstance, causing me to be confused by what actually gave me the opportunity.
I've managed to get a minor con break (on day 10, pretty proud of that actually) but again, im not really sure what caused it lol? I'm no where close to 10k injury. View attachment 3604491

Congratulations! Day 10 is actually pretty good for that, depending on your starting Item. (if you're playing Campaign, that is. If you're doing Single Play with no starting Item, day 10 is pretty close to optimal.)

As Nobody032 said above, Tier 1 breaks are caused not by them actually reaching 10k damage, but by the Chosen noticing that they would reach 10k damage in a Circumstance from one of the Surround actions. They do a naïve calculation that the damage you would do this time will be multiplied by your number of Surround turns and if that number crosses 10k, they use a defensive tactic to reduce it.

Now, for tier 2 breaks, you have to actually reach 10k Circumstance damage while they have Surround turns remaining. Doing so will unlock a new Combat Action on the surrounded Chosen--your first Defiler.