Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 54] [CSDev]

[haksaw]

Why do so many people advise to save up for good commanders? I think it's a bad habit. I usually get Networked Consciousness around day 13, no way I would achieve that spending 12 days poking with basic attacks. 5EE commander is easier to work with, sure, but 2EE is already capable of breaking T1s in most cases, so you should totally try doing it. And if after couple of hours of reloading you still can't do it, then fine, wait for 3EE one and try again and so on. And when you do get 5EE (which will be way faster with using weaker commanders effectively), you will know what to do to use its full potential, instead of finally breaking T1s with it.

 

[Kalloi]

Why do so many people advise to save up for good commanders? I think it's a bad habit. I usually get Networked Consciousness around day 13, no way I would achieve that spending 12 days poking with basic attacks. 5EE commander is easier to work with, sure, but 2EE is already capable of breaking T1s in most cases, so you should totally try doing it. And if after couple of hours of reloading you still can't do it, then fine, wait for 3EE one and try again and so on. And when you do get 5EE (which will be way faster with using weaker commanders effectively), you will know what to do to use its full potential, instead of finally breaking T1s with it.

It mostly depends on kind of victory you're going for and what kind of forsaken you're planning on turning your chosen into.
I often go for the victories with multiple distortions and specific relationships outcomes so especially for loop 1, I tend to rely on commanders to make sure things go the right way. I haven't done a fresh campaign start after the t1 rework though.
I typically do 5EE generic commander --> Break the chosen in a certain way --> Invest in HATE + INJU commander --> Pull off early-mid game orgy and go from there.

For newcomers though, a 5EE generic is a pretty good starting point to doing decent damage and leaning how to chain circumstance damage properly, especially when if they come across harder team combinations so that's a good reason I along with a couple others recommend that when people come by asking for help

Another factor which I've only dabbled in a little bit for this update so I'm unsure how much strategies have changed is how T1's are broken now compared to before, Chosen used to look every turn they were surrounded and what actions are done to them determine to T1 break or not, but now they look at it in the beginning when you choose action so it. So some commander strategies aren't as necessary as they used to be

 

[haksaw]

For newcomers though, a 5EE generic is a pretty good starting point to doing decent damage and leaning how to chain circumstance damage properly

But that is the point I agrue against. This sounds like using weak commanders is a rookie mistake and a trap you should avoid, but that is not the case in my experience. I replayed first 15 days about 30 times learning how the game works and using commanders from day 7 or so proved to be the best way to do it. So starting point of using commanders should be as soon as you get them, the only thing you should keep in mind is that use of commander must improve your situation. You absolutely should try to use a commander every single day, only opting not to use one if you can't get value out of it that day no matter what you do. But most of the time you can and waiting on 3EE\day for better commanders is just a waste.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

But that is the point I agrue against. This sounds like using weak commanders is a rookie mistake and a trap you should avoid, but that is not the case in my experience. I replayed first 15 days about 30 times learning how the game works and using commanders from day 7 or so proved to be the best way to do it. So starting point of using commanders should be as soon as you get them, the only thing you should keep in mind is that use of commander must improve your situation. You absolutely should try to use a commander every single day, only opting not to use one if you can't get value out of it that day no matter what you do. But most of the time you can and waiting on 3EE\day for better commanders is just a waste.

Nah, hard disagree here unless something has changed pretty drastically in the latest versions. One of your issues might be that you've only played the first 15 days. The first commanders alter the game path so little from not using them that they aren't worth it. You say you don't want to "poke at this girls" but that's what low cost commanders do. The 5EE as Kalloi mentioned is when a higher chain amount really becomes feasible.

You don't need to wait on 3EE income, dunno where you got that idea from. The 5EE commander is the breakpoint you usually want, and if you aren't wasting EE on low level commanders, it actually comes pretty quickly. This game is all about snowball breakpoints. A huge part of this game is knowing when to save and when to spend. Trust me, I went through the exact same phase you're going through now until I continued testing more shit and learned it's better to save for higher cost commanders. I'm also the type that religiously replays the start of games to find out the best way of doing shit, and in this game, it's actually a bit of a fault because you need to reach mid/end game multiple times and try some stuff that isn't really intuitive to find out what works best here.

Saving for proper commander breakpoints and a couple of skills is the difference between a decent and a great run, which will can change end game from a struggle into a breeze. There's not a lot of wiggle room in this game to waste any turns or EE if you want to be able to train and capture all the girls properly anyways. You can potentially still win even with some wasted EE, but you won't have many options with how to end the game to prep for your 2nd run. Kinda starts a shitty chain reaction of suboptimal starts if your first run isn't great, and thus you'll always be struggling to do things the way you want to do them.

Though there seems to be some better tutorials now in game, maybe things have improved for the first run? Just read the latest updated changed the logic of T1 breaks, I'm kinda curious about that. I've been waiting/hoping for some improvements to the first run to check this out again.

 

[haksaw]

One of your issues is that you've only played the first 15 days. You don't realize that you're actually taking the slow route.

I never said that? I did 3 full runs with final battles around day 30 with full breaks on all girls before starting to mess with distortions. My best was day 27 or 28, don't remember.

You don't need to wait on 3EE income, dunno where you got that idea from. The 5EE commander

But what do you do until you get your 5EE commander? I usually just break core T1 to get 8EE from rivalry and up the girl to give me 2EE\turn with 3EE commander, pretty sure I even managed to break core T1 with 2EE commander, but that needs confirmation, 3EE though is more than enough for that and lets you get your 5EE couple of days earlier.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

But what do you do until you get your 5EE commander? I usually just break core T1 to get 8EE from rivalry and up the girl to give me 2EE\turn with 3EE commander, pretty sure I even managed to break core T1 with 2EE commander, but that needs confirmation, 3EE though is more than enough for that and lets you get your 5EE couple of days earlier.

...You save and/or buy skills. It's not an absolute hard rule that you can't get breaks without it, of course there's variation. 5EE is just reliable. You recommend 5EE commanders to newer players because it will pretty much always get early breaks with any girl rng, there's no guesswork or savescumming most the time compared to the earlier options. The 2nd capture and +1 turn is the first time it makes a noticeable difference. They're just too weak until then and you're wasting EE you could be spending better.

Again, this is if nothing has changed about early game in the first run in the last few versions. The dev has seemed to be focusing almost entirely on the 2nd and beyond runs last I checked. I just read you said you've beaten the final battle at day 30, which sounds like something drastic has changed, lol. In which case you might have been reading outdated info and I might be giving outdated info.

 

[haksaw]

...You save and/or buy skills.

That's what I call waiting. By doing I mean doing with the girls, do you break any cores or at least +2 bonuses before getting 5EE commander? Yes, of course you don't need to savescum to get T1 breaks with 5EE commander, but what's the point, isn't the game about number crunching and getting the best possible results every single day? It's not uncommon for me to spend an hour replaying the same day over and over with like 5 different saves of different outcomes before I settle on the best achievable result and move on.

which sounds like something drastic has changed, lol.

Well, I don't know, I've just started playing not long ago. But that also may depend on tactics, since the game is very snowbally and everything can change in an instant. In a recent run I took it slow with dancing around distortion and it seemed like a pretty bad situation closing in on day 20, but then I raked in 350EE on day 19. Not bad

I for example rely on multiple captures with commanders and keeping girls surrounded all the time, not allowing even a single turn out of it so they won't use their skills. I only use upgraded commanders when required for vuln breaks. But I see some actually rely on them, don't even know how that works, not being able to capture 2 girls with commander at once will break my strategy completely.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

Oh hallelujah, the game warns you when certain actions will cause certain breaks now. That solves so many problems, nice improvement. That's a lot less save scumming needed.

 

[Belgaz]

Oh hallelujah, the game warns you when certain actions will cause certain breaks now. That solves so many problems, nice improvement. That's a lot less save scumming needed.

RIGHT!? XD

 

[alri]

I can't start the second loop of my campaign, game dies after the first fight (against Prayer) of the second loop to be exact. Game version is 34c, save is attached. I'm running the game under Xubuntu 20.04, just in case that is relevant.

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[Belgaz]

as much as i like what the current one brought, i wonder what's gonna be in next update tho?

 

[Sonsuka]

Animalistic Chosen will only start showing up in Loop 5, so depending on how quickly you play, you might want to start your next playthrough a few days before the update drops. The next city conditions are only generated the first time you hit the "Next City" button at the end of each loop, so you can stop just before that point in Loop 4.

Run custom character campaign though so got swap characters with animalistic option unfortunately. At least that's what I think makes sense.

 

[Sonsuka]

That's what I call waiting. By doing I mean doing with the girls, do you break any cores or at least +2 bonuses before getting 5EE commander? Yes, of course you don't need to savescum to get T1 breaks with 5EE commander, but what's the point, isn't the game about number crunching and getting the best possible results every single day? It's not uncommon for me to spend an hour replaying the same day over and over with like 5 different saves of different outcomes before I settle on the best achievable result and move on.

Well, I don't know, I've just started playing not long ago. But that also may depend on tactics, since the game is very snowbally and everything can change in an instant. In a recent run I took it slow with dancing around distortion and it seemed like a pretty bad situation closing in on day 20, but then I raked in 350EE on day 19. Not bad

I for example rely on multiple captures with commanders and keeping girls surrounded all the time, not allowing even a single turn out of it so they won't use their skills. I only use upgraded commanders when required for vuln breaks. But I see some actually rely on them, don't even know how that works, not being able to capture 2 girls with commander at once will break my strategy completely.

I'm just happy to know I'm not the only one doing best possible day replaying one day lol.

 

[Sonsuka]

Getting EE early is not a hard thing to do with the 5EE characters or Early game Temptation Forsaken if you got a decent one.
The issue is when you try for multiple distortion on higher loops with multiple Superior<-(mainly these peeps are a pain) to deal with. Plus you also try to make everyone friends so you can get bonus later down the game from training. Later into the campaign runs when its all superior or majority superior playing around the 5EE strat seems to make more sense, as you will struggle with the loop debuff + superior + distortion to get breaks. Maybe I really really messed up my custom chosen for my campaign, but some of the Chosen Circumstance level really really dont go up especially when you go for distortions even with circumstance multipliers.

Personally if I ranked distortion from hardest to easiest when trying to do 2x to 3x varying distortions and breaking them FIRST it would be

1. Temptation (no circumstance multipliers at all except from other Chosen, using temp forsaken on Chosen you are trying to Temp distort early on also ends up weird as you get instances where you got 10k pleasure and 1k EXPO making it extremely hard to get more circumstance as you get the debuff multiplier from the 10k pleasure high level of circumstance. Kinda forcing you to deal with other Forsaken before you can really work on this Chosen's breaks.
   • It is nice that you get to deal dignity damage though meaning that sometimes choosing this chosen first and then dealing with other Forsaken like Negotiation/Aversion as they can't really touch Dignity as much.
2. Rampancy (Easier than temp since circumstance multiplier instead of trauma multi like temptation)
3. Negotiation (easier breaks with all good multipliers + you get break dignity t1 so you get some exposure)
4. Aversion (Easy for reason why Temptation is hard, you get all circumstance multipliers = easy breaks)

I got ask though, does anyone else ever actively do rampancy. Like the EE is nice, but as a forsaken its super annoying to deal with. Just chuck them off for achievements points right after. Note though I havent tried release 34 and its new change to t1 so maybe its a little easier for some distortion, been waiting on 35 release. Though I totally agree using 2 EE cost character is not a terrible idea to get some early +2 EE and even more when its early loops as well.

Personally my loop play is try to break the t1 or ambitious 2 with low EE 2/5 commander if I can (key word on can) or save otherwise till network as well. Definately break t2 by then and then get the profile to actually state the distortion and then either save up for a forsaken that can do the job or a high level commander.

 

[Sonsuka]

Thanks for catching this typo.
This is something I (and a lot of players) have wanted to see in the game for a long time, but I haven't been able to find a good gameplay niche for it, and I'd definitely want it to be gameplay-relevant rather than pure flavor like vignettes. If it's something you can always do, then it stops feeling special. But if it's only randomly available, then it feels unearned when you get it and unfair when you don't. Tentatively, I'm trying to work it into the collectible/relic/artifact system which is itself tentatively planned for campaign mode. So, you'd find an "abductor-type Demon egg" relic at the end of a loop and from then on you'd be able to do a once-per-loop special hostage battle, and so on.

Have you considered making it so that you can "sell/trade" forsaken for these plots or value or for some event/bonus/benefit. As you go down the loops to higher # you get a lot of forsaken and this ends up blotting the screen as you can only get 5x and then you're scrolling 4-5 pages down. Though I do enjoy the list of corrupted Saviors. Ha title drop

 

[CSdev]

Those goals are very misleading. Before reading this thread I never realised they are supposed to be a tutorial teaching you what to do At first I thought they are bonus objectives giving you EE, but that was not the case. Then I thought they were things triggering those post battle scenes, but one day they just disappeared and scenes kept going on. So I was like "Huh, what was that green stuff all about?" And I actually went out of my way to complete them even though I didn't need it and wasted couple of days (the goal wanted me to break T2 of a girl I wasn't working on IIRC, so I already did an orgy before goin for her T2 and moving goals forward).

Add info on what you need to do to hit next EE increasing treshold to info screen, that is still very unclear. That information alone is enough to point in the right direction.

Btw, as long as info goes. Thing I really miss is something like this:

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A way to see vulnerabilities without examining all the time and, most importantly, what color each girl uses for her voice lines. Having blue haired girl talk in green and green haired girl talk in orange is a nightmare =) Don't know if it's possible to layer images, but at least a colored border will be a godsend, my brain can't work around all the mixed signals -_-

As for the new players, I think the best advice is just replaying first 10-15 days over and over instead of trying to do a complete run. That's a good thing to learn the game. Good goal is "break all core T1s before day 15". It's an easy enough thing to achieve if you know how to play, but very hard if you don't, so try until you do.

Some good suggestions here, thanks for the feedback.

Maybe you could have it be tied to one of the remaining Distortion routes? Like, we already have the Retreat action which is flavoured around abducting people in the way that would cause the most despair so maybe you could have a Blackmail distortion which would be triggered by using a Retreat that would normally make you gain a lot of EE but instead abduct one of the Chosen's loved ones?

This is an interesting idea, too. I have had the vague idea that the Morality/Innocence and Confidence/Dignity Distortions might be less direct-combat-related since they don't have an associated surrounded sinful tactic.

Okay, let me know if a relevant save file would help, but I'm pretty sure you've got a good mental picture of what's causing it.

That's right, you provided me with all the necessary information to find the bug!

I think that the actual process of achieving both LVL 1 and LVL 2 breaks needs more direct instruction, somehow. Something like the original tutorial needs to come in at that point, because that process of which numbers to raise first is daunting. "Would you like a step-by-step for how to make Faith give in to her desire to fight back?", on the day players send out a 5 EE commander. That'd basically require writing an AI, though it wouldn't have to be very complex.

This might be trickier than you'd think. In order to be 100% reliable without fully simulating the battle beforehand, it'd need to make sure that the player has an overwhelming advantage - probably even more than the 5 EE commander.

Made a second revision of useful data, text only.

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Almost everything in one place - names in colors they use, defense lvl when escaped, damage lvls, circumstances that are currently being worked on and circ lvls allowing for defiler action are highlited. Only vulnerabilities are missing, but can be squeezed in by shortening names of traumas and circs. Looking at this panel now, not even examining all three girls will give such a nice cross reference, I always overlook something when my screen is flooded with all the details examine displays. So something like this quick reference will be very handy.

This mockup looks really good! And it should be within my coding abilities as well. I think I'll end up doing something very similar to this.

I think adding additional text to the Completion would be a good way to clarify what exactly is going on and why.

Yeah, this is the option I'm leaning toward as well.

I'd at least get a beat on your player base's opinion regarding this with a poll or something. Personally I wouldn't find it annoying in any regard to see a static button on the interface so long as it is separated somehow from the regular buttons to prevent accidental clicks. But the info is currently hidden which is a disservice to you the creator. Soon as I am able I plan to donate to the cause because this game has a lot of creativity in it and you talk to your playerbase like human beings and that gets my respect. To add; the moment I understood the gameplay loop and finished day 50 I immediately looked for "OK so now how do I support this dev asap" and had to dig for it.

Thank you for the encouragement! I suppose I should try to make it so that people who want to support the game don't have to jump through hoops to do so.

Very happy to hear you're looking into ways to incorporate lore and world building. A good point to not want to clutter or cram it into one place but I'd also retort to remember that information is entirely optional and flavor to the player so a thick codex would also be entirely optional to them to flip through if they want (which I want,lol).

The current plan is to tie it to collectibles, but then also give an option on the main menu to browse all the collectibles you've found across all your runs, and browsing the collectibles like that will also display the flavor text. So, you can flip through it without it being intrusive.

I wonder if the creator has played the Sweet Knights series.

I hadn't heard about this one, surprisingly. Looks like it has actual gameplay?

Small immersion/accountability thing:



This would be fine, except that I used a Forsaken to do the Total Innocence Break and not a Commander. This is the after-battle scene after a Total Innocence Break, should be easy to find/fix.

Good catch, I'll make sure the text is a little smarter about reflecting what happened.

Why do so many people advise to save up for good commanders? I think it's a bad habit. I usually get Networked Consciousness around day 13, no way I would achieve that spending 12 days poking with basic attacks. 5EE commander is easier to work with, sure, but 2EE is already capable of breaking T1s in most cases, so you should totally try doing it. And if after couple of hours of reloading you still can't do it, then fine, wait for 3EE one and try again and so on. And when you do get 5EE (which will be way faster with using weaker commanders effectively), you will know what to do to use its full potential, instead of finally breaking T1s with it.

Saving up for a 5 EE commander is a crutch, but I think it's an alright starting point. From the feedback I got before I implemented the guide, I got the impression that a lot of players would (1) spend all their EE on commanders as soon as possible, and (2) keep progressing in the same save file even after unsuccessful battles. Because they didn't know how to make good use of cheap commanders, it would take them until Day 20 or later to stumble upon the right sequence of moves to cause a T1 Break. And because they're used to grindy trainer games, they'd overestimate the effect of the ANGST gained from the unsuccessful battles, leading them to conclude "It took over 10 days worth of 3 EE commanders to grind this girl's status up until I made any progress. This is unreasonable." In order to teach new players how to play the game, I think it makes more sense to guide them toward using excessive resources at accomplish a goal at first, and then they can gradually realize that they can achieve that goal with fewer resources if they play skillfully.

I can't start the second loop of my campaign, game dies after the first fight (against Prayer) of the second loop to be exact. Game version is 34c, save is attached. I'm running the game under Xubuntu 20.04, just in case that is relevant.

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This was a weird bug. Normally, loading the game always puts you onto the shop screen, and there's an error in the logic that causes it to throw you straight into battle, which causes problems when it happens in the middle of a playthrough. I'll fix it in the next version. In the meantime, you can make it work by loading the Day 51 save first, then loading the Day 1 save from there.

as much as i like what the current one brought, i wonder what's gonna be in next update tho?

Next up is animal ear Chosen, which are basically the next tier above Superior. I've posted more info about it on my SubscribeStar (which you can view even if you don't have an account).

Have you considered making it so that you can "sell/trade" forsaken for these plots or value or for some event/bonus/benefit. As you go down the loops to higher # you get a lot of forsaken and this ends up blotting the screen as you can only get 5x and then you're scrolling 4-5 pages down. Though I do enjoy the list of corrupted Saviors. Ha title drop

The achievement bonuses for sacrificing Forsaken are meant to provide incentive to trim your roster down, but I suppose the diminishing returns make that less rewarding after awhile. I have thought about being able to send your Forsaken off on "missions" of some sort, so that might actually work well to make it so that you're actually getting something worthwhile in return rather than just throwing them away.

 

[Belgaz]

and

Some good suggestions here, thanks for the feedback.

This is an interesting idea, too. I have had the vague idea that the Morality/Innocence and Confidence/Dignity Distortions might be less direct-combat-related since they don't have an associated surrounded sinful tactic.

That's right, you provided me with all the necessary information to find the bug!

This might be trickier than you'd think. In order to be 100% reliable without fully simulating the battle beforehand, it'd need to make sure that the player has an overwhelming advantage - probably even more than the 5 EE commander.

This mockup looks really good! And it should be within my coding abilities as well. I think I'll end up doing something very similar to this.

Yeah, this is the option I'm leaning toward as well.

Thank you for the encouragement! I suppose I should try to make it so that people who want to support the game don't have to jump through hoops to do so.

The current plan is to tie it to collectibles, but then also give an option on the main menu to browse all the collectibles you've found across all your runs, and browsing the collectibles like that will also display the flavor text. So, you can flip through it without it being intrusive.

I hadn't heard about this one, surprisingly. Looks like it has actual gameplay?

Good catch, I'll make sure the text is a little smarter about reflecting what happened.

Saving up for a 5 EE commander is a crutch, but I think it's an alright starting point. From the feedback I got before I implemented the guide, I got the impression that a lot of players would (1) spend all their EE on commanders as soon as possible, and (2) keep progressing in the same save file even after unsuccessful battles. Because they didn't know how to make good use of cheap commanders, it would take them until Day 20 or later to stumble upon the right sequence of moves to cause a T1 Break. And because they're used to grindy trainer games, they'd overestimate the effect of the ANGST gained from the unsuccessful battles, leading them to conclude "It took over 10 days worth of 3 EE commanders to grind this girl's status up until I made any progress. This is unreasonable." In order to teach new players how to play the game, I think it makes more sense to guide them toward using excessive resources at accomplish a goal at first, and then they can gradually realize that they can achieve that goal with fewer resources if they play skillfully.

This was a weird bug. Normally, loading the game always puts you onto the shop screen, and there's an error in the logic that causes it to throw you straight into battle, which causes problems when it happens in the middle of a playthrough. I'll fix it in the next version. In the meantime, you can make it work by loading the Day 51 save first, then loading the Day 1 save from there.

Next up is animal ear Chosen, which are basically the next tier above Superior. I've posted more info about it on my SubscribeStar (which you can view even if you don't have an account).

The achievement bonuses for sacrificing Forsaken are meant to provide incentive to trim your roster down, but I suppose the diminishing returns make that less rewarding after awhile. I have thought about being able to send your Forsaken off on "missions" of some sort, so that might actually work well to make it so that you're actually getting something worthwhile in return rather than just throwing them away.

hey dev, just to clarify: wasn't saying that to downplay how important this current update is, update 34 definitely propped this game up where it was sorely needed for people, just very curious what this evolves into from here, i really do hope you enjoy creating it.

 

[MoarDakka123]

and


hey dev, just to clarify: wasn't saying that to downplay how important this current update is, update 34 definitely propped this game up where it was sorely needed for people, just very curious what this evolves into from here, i really do hope you enjoy creating it.

Absolutely, this update was super helpful. I really struggle with juggling a lot of separate bits of information, so the Distortion markers in particular made things A LOT better for me.

 

[Sonsuka]

The achievement bonuses for sacrificing Forsaken are meant to provide incentive to trim your roster down, but I suppose the diminishing returns make that less rewarding after awhile. I have thought about being able to send your Forsaken off on "missions" of some sort, so that might actually work well to make it so that you're actually getting something worthwhile in return rather than just throwing them away.

The mission sound interesting. I definately agree that the diminishing return is less rewarding for achievements. You got burn double digits of Forsaken to even get any EE thats actually worth it. Then you got deal with the training modifier after if they were friends with others and so forth so it was almost never worth it.

 

[MoarDakka123]

There's an EE-gain to ditching Forsaken? Though I've never forsaken a Forsaken in campaign, so I guess it makes sense that I've never noticed.

Well, if there are diminishing returns (I'm assuming it's a static number), maybe a multiplier for total Expertise, or something like that?