CluelessLemon

Newbie
Jul 27, 2017
20
5
In that case, i think the guide message is supposed to clear at the start of the next combat turn. Did you have multiple turns with the defiler+ out, or was it perhaps only on the last turn of the fight that you managed it?
There were a few turns left on both Chosen and it never triggered. This happened both times. However after loading my save to continue it worked. Not sure what was different though.
 
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CSdev

Member
Game Developer
Oct 14, 2020
161
537
Right, I completely understand that. In this alpha you get to pick what your priorities are. Just let me know if you want some help with conveyance and objective-focused learning when you're getting around to that point. I don't say much about what I do for a living here, but breaking down complex concepts to a piece or two at a time is kind of what I do in my day job.


My loop 11 was Superior, Undead, Devil. If we think of a "normal" chosen as having difficulty 1, Superior 2, Animalistic and Undead 3, and Devil as Undead + Animalistic = 3 + 3 = 6, that's a sum of 11 for this loop. I'd compare this loop more directly and say it was about as difficult as a loop with Undead, Undead, Animalistic which would make for 9. So by that metric the Devil could use a bit of strengthening, but I don't think Animalistic and Undead are equal difficulty at any rate.

Personally I'd rate the combinations I know and have fought multiple times as:
  • normal 1 per (no compounding difficulty, they're just always easy)
  • Superior 2 per (no compounding difficulty, their only benefit is being harder to hurt)
  • Single Undead 2.5
  • Single Animalistic 3
  • Double Undead 6 (the two have a compounding factor that can be difficult if you have trouble with early breaks)
  • Triple Undead 7.5~8 (the third doesn't add very much)
  • Double Animalistic 9 (the need to sync up their cycles provides a significant extra layer of challenge)
  • Splendor and pals 9
  • Triple Animalistic 12 (the third doesn't add nearly as much as the second)
  • Victory and pals 14~15
Where do I put the Devil Chosen on this list? My general feeling after fighting a grand total of one is that it was slightly less difficult than an animalistic/undead pair, which would lead me to rate it a 5. But the one I fought had cores on CON and MOR, and those two cores together on a Chosen usually make the Chosen a bit tougher to beat than any other combination because of the difficulty in getting Circumstance multipliers up. So it's possible that on average the Devil Chosen are a bit easier than the one I was up against. I could never see them as being as easy as (Animalistic + normal =) 4 and (Animalistic + Superior = ) 5 seems like a really good estimation of how difficult they are.

By this subjective scale, the loop I finished was difficulty 9.5, and yeah that seems about right. So it was slightly more difficult than the Splendor boss fight, while being notably less difficult than any fight with 2x Animalistic.

I definitely noticed the downtime restrictions even in this battle, even considering the extra Angst from the Propaganda. My particular set of items generated quite a bit of EE on its own, especially in the early part of the loop, so I wasn't really missing much from the fact that it took a while to get the Devil up to 5EE. I got up to 6 back from my Commander/Forsaken each day, much of my 2EE-3EE tech purchases had an adjusted cost of 0, so those plus the 6EE that the Chosen generated were plenty enough to allow me to progress until the Chosen open up from Networked Consciousness.
This is useful feedback! Even if a 44-cost Devil is slightly less difficult than the 22-cost Animalistic+Undead she can replace, she also frees up another slot for another advanced species to show up (compared to separate Animalistic and Undead Chosen taking up two Chosen slots), so this sounds about right. I'm also curious to hear how doubled Devils measure up against other species pairs (although I understand that there's no guarantee that you're going to run into that this release).
The tough part right now for me is actually Splendor. My previous routing has been to go through Victory at 10, so that when I get Splendor, I can turn off the fucking Motivation drain. The inability do that this time is killing the Motivation of all my Forsaken and honestly, it's also killing my own motivation for getting further in this campaign. Everything's got to be done and checked twice with an interface that makes that very click-heavy. It's alpha, I'm not complaining, but I do want to explain what this level of play requires right now because of Splendor specifically.

I see, for example, that my Forsaken's motivation is going down, and by how much, in the daily Forsaken report. But what I don't see there, is how much motivation they have left, or if they're still deployable. If I want to see who is still deployable, I have to go all the way into the Forsaken-> Deploy menu and scroll through my currently 3 pages of Forsaken to see who shows up with a clickable button. And that's not the worst part. If I want to get some idea of who might be deployable tomorrow, I have to either click on each Forsaken, of which there are 13 (12 if you don't count Splendor), or, the slightly quicker way I found, is to go into Position->Favorites and then I can view their Stamina and Motivation, and deployment cost one page at a time. But that's got to be cross-referenced with the information above about how much Motivation they're losing each day, which, by the way, doesn't show Splendor's effect. And since my Forsaken have different Max Motivations, which is only viewable in the detailed view of that Forsaken, I have to remember or reference that information as well, and... you kind of get the point, I'm sure.

All of that is necessary to answer a question like "can I deploy EXPOdia today and tomorrow?", which is a question that I find myself asking more and more as the loops get a bit tighter and tougher each time. And...I kind of don't want to do that? That feels, without giving too much personal stuff away, like it's the sort of thing people have paid me to do in the past, and not how I spend my leisure time. I tried Sacrificing her, I like that you pulled that one over on me.

I'm not saying this to make you try to change your development priorities. In alpha versions of games, this kind of of difficulty in interrogating the game to answer the questions that come up during gameplay is completely expected and normal. It's exactly the thing that formal playtesting of games reveals. Splendor's gimmick is mechanically interesting, and if the interface were designed around showing you all that information in the same place it'd be easier to play the game at a higher level. So, since this is my first time dealing with Splendor in this way, that's some feedback for you to consider.
I think this is actually a good time to start addressing issues like this. The focus is moving toward lategame content, which means that there's a decent chunk of gameplay time before the player sees it. There's also an increasing amount of gameplay based around how you manage your roster of Forsaken, so it's important to give the player the tools to do that.

Currently, I'm adding a very simple summary of Forsaken status to the base Forsaken menu. The Stamina and Motivation displays are color-coded so that you can tell at a glance whether they're above or below the important thresholds. Gray for undeployable, green for receiving a special bonus (like Devil's Contract or Playful Energy), orange for tantruming, red for undeployable and tantruming. Adding some indication of next turn's change would be nice, but some of it depends on what you do this turn, so I'm not sure how to concisely do that. Further suggestions as I work on this are welcome.

summary.PNG

Incidentally, Splendor's effect on Motivation should be displayed during the Forsaken downtime display (or at least, it is on my end). But it's wrapped along with any other Motivation changes and displayed as a single number, so that might be why you missed it. I'm not sure if it would be better to do it another way.
Because I don't like only pointing out problems without solutions, here is something you might implement on a trial basis--you can pay Splendor EE to go away for the current loop. Cost should be high but not prohibitively so: let's say 30EE. For 30EE, she'll be empowered to go pick apart some other Demon Lord's society from the inside, instead of yours, for the duration of the current loop. It makes some sense thematically as:
  • She's already known to do that as a "lone wolf" Chosen
  • She picked your city because she found you interesting
  • Accepting a conditional gift from a Demon Lord is another sin to add to her litany
  • It plays into her story of making deals that always turn out worse for her than expected
  • It plays into her story of straddling the line between Chosen and Forsaken, sometimes doing the bidding of one side, and sometimes doing what the other side wants of her
It makes sense mechanically as:
  • This amount of EE is difficult to attain early in a loop, but easy to attain later, making it somewhat of a reasonable tradeoff for power and progress against the current Chosen. I can see situations where I'd prefer to get this first and situations where I'd prefer to get Networked Consciousness first and they're roughly the same investment.
  • 30EE is 3x her daily deployment cost, meaning it should be enough to seriously power her up to go work some mischief
  • It's an expandable mechanic. She can offer other deals with you as you are breaking down her resistances over the next (based on what I know) 20 loops or more. You've shown a willingness to include randomness in other parts of the game, so she might offer these deals randomly or on a set schedule:
    • Splendor gives you some of her accumulated EE from past destroyed Demon Lords and heals some/all Trauma/ANGST on the current Chosen team.
    • Splendor offers you an Item in exchange for (itemInfluence * 7) EE nah there shouldn't be any way to buy extra items with a loop currency like EE
    • Splendor agrees to fight actually on your side for 7 days, turning all of her negative modifiers into their positive other halves, but wants to throw a massive orgy that will drain all stamina from all Forsaken and disable the use of Grand Concert for 7 days (I really like this one, since there's no way in-game currently to see how good she would be with all positive traits)
    • Splendor offers you n days of respite from her in exchange for the permanent freeing of another Forsaken (n can be dependent on the Forsaken's stats in some way, but it's really hard to get a sense of what a "good" vs "worthless" Forsaken is other than to say Forsaken with very high Obedience and/or Deviancy are probably bad and ones with high Expertise are probably good)
    • Splendor has fallen in love! She and another Forsaken run off together, until Splendor gets bored. While they're gone, you don't suffer Splendor's negative (or positive) effects and you can't deploy or train either Forsaken. But, when the Forsaken comes back, she has some extra Expertise (divided in proportion to her current Exp)
If you make her have more interactions with players that aren't all negative, players will resent her less and view her as another part of the game rather than a lead weight they have to carry around for a while (currently forever). Just some thoughts.
bribery.jpg
I really like this suggestion! It's nice when the thematic thing lines up with gameplay needs.

The entire idea behind Splendor was that her boss fight loop is much easier than Victory's, but the "actual" boss fight takes place over the following loops while you struggle to deal with having her work against you from the inside. The problem is that it doesn't feel much like a boss fight, because there's so little counterplay. (Obviously, the interface problems don't help, but I think that even with a perfect interface, the system wouldn't be doing what it needs to.)

Being able to use her flexible nature against her would remedy that (not to mention that it would be a wonderful counterpart to how Victory's inflexibility is used against her). It's going to be really tricky to balance, of course, but I think you're on the right track here. I'm firmly adding this to my development plans, to be finished before moving on to the next round of boss fights.
As a player, I feel sort of overwhelmed managing multiple forsaken at a time. It's pretty challenging keeping tabs on motivation, remembering who's doing what and who's good at what, which passive trainings are going on and which I have to stop/swap soon, etc. It feels like I'm supposed to be building a toolkit, but I have no way to organize my tools.

As an example, if I want:
A set of 1-3 cheap and efficient busters to rack up early angst+low hanging fruit breaks and Concert occasionally
A set of 2-3 midrange specialists to burn through stubborn T2/distortions and start setting up orgies
A set of 2-6 high cost punishers to customize the next generation of forsaken, maybe doubling as higher-cost midrange specialists?


And then on top of this I have benchwarmers I can't sacrifice without upsetting someone too.

That's already a lot of units that I need to maintain, to say nothing of optimizing/specializing and picking the tool for the job, and a few chaff to just ignore I guess.

On top of that, it feels like until rather late in the game, the AOE stamina regen/motivation regen is incentivizing me to collect more backups for each role, unless I'm supposed to be willing to let tantrums through, which is in theory an incentive to restrict to a small set.

Some things that could be neat and reduce mental load could be:

When training corruption, let me give the trainer a threshold at which to stop. Maybe train for X sessions then stop, maybe train until X stat is reached?

Alternative sacrifices. Maybe a way to retire/recycle used Forsaken at the end of their useful life, to just get them out of the unit select screen, perhaps for minor passive bonuses like the achievements give instead of instant motivation? Send them to cause trouble at new cities for an EE or two at the start of a loop, cheerleading around the base for minor passive motivation, have them breed extra thralls for a bit of bonus extermination count, send them to stalk chosens nearby to unlock upgrades like peeking Psychic Reading stats before going to cities, marginally useful stuff like that that you can just toss useless forsaken in without micromanaging. Maybe have stats (expertise/corruption/species) affect output a bit?

Maybe add some filters to forsaken deployment selection? Something like "Can Apply Punisher", "Has enough stamina/motivation/EE", "Has X damage type", "Has distorter", "Favorited", to make it easier to pick the right forsaken before a daily fight.

Still not a super experienced player, but I'm really digging the gameplay in each loop.
Thank you for the feedback! I agree that being able to turn off corruption training upon reaching a threshold would be a very simple quality of life improvement. And as another poster noted, an alternative to sacrifices is planned for the very near future.

Filters for deployment selection could be nice. As you've noticed, there are incentives to keep your roster small (and the addition of sacrifice alternatives will provide another positive incentive to do that), but I don't want interface difficulties to be one of the factors driving people to get rid of their Forsaken. I'm just not sure how to implement the filters in a way that actually reduces the number of clicks required to find who you're looking for in most situations.
This would be a good QOL feature



These are planned with Angels I think

Another thing that needed to be updated last time I played was it was convoluted to view Forsaken punisher affects (you had to go into the assign screen to see it).
Adding the Forsaken Punisher effect list to more screens would be easy enough on my end, so it's just a matter of putting it on a screen that's not already full. Where else would you like to see it?
Hi, I´ve been wondering something for the portraits: Would it be possible to set several pictures for the same emotion so that the game picks one of them either every time it displays that emotion, or it picks one to use every fight/"scene". I feel like that could make it a lot less repetitive, considering you´ll be seeing the same pictures a lot more if there´s no variance.
Or is that a thing already and I´ve just not found it yet?
This isn't the first time that this suggestion has come up. As has been said here, I'm not sure how much use this feature would receive, since my own portrait packs and other people's portrait packs are generally already pretty short on faces. But I'll add it to my to-do list.
Is there any way to make specific forsaken get along better? I've had them meet each other several times, and they only seem to hate each other a little more now.
Currently, the only way to do this is to change their corruption. Forsaken dislike other Forsaken who have lower Obedience or higher Deviancy. But this system is pretty arbitrary, a relic of when I wasn't quite sure how I wanted the Forsaken system to work, so it's likely to be changed at some point in the future. For the record, meetings don't actually change Forsaken's opinion of each other.
 
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dialysisbot

New Member
Sep 24, 2021
2
0
Adding the Forsaken Punisher effect list to more screens would be easy enough on my end, so it's just a matter of putting it on a screen that's not already full. Where else would you like to see it?
Maybe just a tag on the Deploy screen that says something like "Active Breeder/Active Hyptonizer" in colored text?

EDIT: Nevermind, misunderstood. This is about figuring out which forsaken has which punishers, isn't it.

I'm just not sure how to implement the filters in a way that actually reduces the number of clicks required to find who you're looking for in most situations.
It might be more clicks, but it's also less reading.
 
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Kackuyen

Newbie
Nov 12, 2018
55
44
Regarding the Demon Lord body:
One of the thing I like in this game is the interaction between chacracters with relationship
And and find that with the "Child of demon" thematic, it is really fun to see how it goes
However, the fact that the Demon Lord "mother" and "father" cannot interact at all with their offspring other than approach and receive generic dialogue is quite unfortunate

Proposal:
Because the "Sacrifice" button does not have a use other than get rid of your demon knights and a maxium of 5 EE at the start of a loop. I thinking of some can be fun:
By sacking 2 forsaken in a loop, you generate a Forsaken version of the Demon Lord that has the expertise stat of all sacrificed Forsaken up to now. The EE cost to deploy this forsaken is Equal to (100- Breaks Achived on all 3 Chosen) )/2. They have access to all Defilers/Distortion/Punisher option during combat.
Personaly,putting two Forsaken into the grinder is a steep cost and not worth exploiting when you can have a better, permanent Forsaken, but I think it nice to incentivise the use of inventory control rather than have my Forsaken stacks up because there is no point to get rid of them. Also, I can re-enact the Vader "I have a daughter?!" thing.
 
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Kackuyen

Newbie
Nov 12, 2018
55
44
Custom chosen feed back:
It seem that if you inport a Roster, and then change the species of a chosen, most of the customise part will be reset. I don't think it suppose to be like so. May be the issue lies in the Ros files was made from older versions
 

SuperSkippy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
229
120
This is useful feedback! Even if a 44-cost Devil is slightly less difficult than the 22-cost Animalistic+Undead she can replace, she also frees up another slot for another advanced species to show up (compared to separate Animalistic and Undead Chosen taking up two Chosen slots), so this sounds about right. I'm also curious to hear how doubled Devils measure up against other species pairs (although I understand that there's no guarantee that you're going to run into that this release).

I think this is actually a good time to start addressing issues like this. The focus is moving toward lategame content, which means that there's a decent chunk of gameplay time before the player sees it. There's also an increasing amount of gameplay based around how you manage your roster of Forsaken, so it's important to give the player the tools to do that.

Currently, I'm adding a very simple summary of Forsaken status to the base Forsaken menu. The Stamina and Motivation displays are color-coded so that you can tell at a glance whether they're above or below the important thresholds. Gray for undeployable, green for receiving a special bonus (like Devil's Contract or Playful Energy), orange for tantruming, red for undeployable and tantruming. Adding some indication of next turn's change would be nice, but some of it depends on what you do this turn, so I'm not sure how to concisely do that. Further suggestions as I work on this are welcome.

View attachment 3150512

Incidentally, Splendor's effect on Motivation should be displayed during the Forsaken downtime display (or at least, it is on my end). But it's wrapped along with any other Motivation changes and displayed as a single number, so that might be why you missed it. I'm not sure if it would be better to do it another way.
You're correct, it's showing as combined with others. Maybe include a line about it along with the other Forsaken, seems like she's doing more than this:
During her daily routine, Splendor is confronted by a Thrall with a recording of her being humiliated, but Splendor doesn't let it get to her. (+60.0% Stamina)
My thinking is that we should have an informational overview accessible from one click "Forsaken Info" in the Forsaken menu, with the following info, maybe arranged this way:

Code:
                Stamina              Motivation          Deploy (EE,Sta,Mot)  Damage Type  Downtime Activity
Impurity        60.0/100.0 (+31.6)   25.8/100.0 (-6.7)   15,20,37.1           PLEA         Training PLEA/EXPO (63.9K/21.1K)
Whisper         100.0/100.0 (+0)     3.7/100.0 (+39.1)   196,20,12            PLEA/EXPO    Trainer (TANTRUM)
Shield          100.0/100.0 (+0)     65.7/100.0 (-7.8)   218,20,47.6          EXPO         Training Disgrace (22%)
Chaos           76.0/100 (-20.0)     76.3/100.0 (-38.2)  4,20,31.5            CON          N/A (Deploying)

I'd color the following ways:: Color the Forsaken's name with orange if tantruming. Color the Forsaken's name with gray if undeployable and not tantruming. If they're undeployable, color the stat that makes them undeployable in red, and include EE in that scheme. Color the word TANTRUM under downtime activity orange. The goal is making a screen that people can answer a lot of questions at once without cross-referencing information and allow them to collect information about who they can deploy, what it costs, and what damage they get.

I think most players will understand or learn, for example, that if you change the Chosen's activity by deploying them or training them, then that will change their downtime and Motivation/Stamina changes may apply to others.. Including that info in this table is another hint in this direction that also gives players useful info.

There might be room for one or two more columns, but I'm not sure what they should be. Regardless this would be a powerful tool for players to read the current gamestate and how it applies to their Forsaken.

View attachment 3150517
I really like this suggestion! It's nice when the thematic thing lines up with gameplay needs.

The entire idea behind Splendor was that her boss fight loop is much easier than Victory's, but the "actual" boss fight takes place over the following loops while you struggle to deal with having her work against you from the inside. The problem is that it doesn't feel much like a boss fight, because there's so little counterplay. (Obviously, the interface problems don't help, but I think that even with a perfect interface, the system wouldn't be doing what it needs to.)

Being able to use her flexible nature against her would remedy that (not to mention that it would be a wonderful counterpart to how Victory's inflexibility is used against her). It's going to be really tricky to balance, of course, but I think you're on the right track here. I'm firmly adding this to my development plans, to be finished before moving on to the next round of boss fights.

Glad this was useful for you.
 
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Celerarity

Member
Apr 23, 2018
202
218
Adding the Forsaken Punisher effect list to more screens would be easy enough on my end, so it's just a matter of putting it on a screen that's not already full. Where else would you like to see it?
At a minimum, being able to navigate to it from a Forsaken's page (or subpage) instead of having to back out to the assign menu would be a big improvement. The menu showing every Forsaken's affects is good when you are trying to pick who to put in a slot, but when you're training a forsaken and need to remember what this specific one does that's a real pain.

It could be under Stats, or Herself, or anywhere really.
 

Scepticism

Newbie
May 5, 2020
15
11
Most packs currently don't even have enough images for each character's varying forms, much less multiple ones for random expressions, so it's unlikely that winds up being a priority feature. There's a lot of Chosen and good art isn't easy to come by.
Who knows, Santa may just bring you a present this year?
Guess you'll just have to wait until christmas to find out...
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
 
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Plaster8397

New Member
Aug 24, 2023
1
0
After the latest update R48, I can't enable cheats from the options menu. It's not there. I checked the release notes and I only see references that the difficulty modifier was changed. How do we enable cheats in the latest version?
 

SuperSkippy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
229
120
After the latest update R48, I can't enable cheats from the options menu. It's not there. I checked the release notes and I only see references that the difficulty modifier was changed. How do we enable cheats in the latest version?
Go to the options menu and press (I think) Shift+C. I think that the option shows up automatically after you complete a playthrough, but that's the way to manually turn it on.
 

McHuman

Member
Nov 8, 2019
347
202
After the latest update R48, I can't enable cheats from the options menu. It's not there. I checked the release notes and I only see references that the difficulty modifier was changed. How do we enable cheats in the latest version?
Sometimes the cheats toggle doesn't appear for some reason, "C" is the hotkey for enabling it though and works even if the cheats option isn't appearing, so just hit C on your keyboard if you want to turn it on.
 
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CluelessLemon

Newbie
Jul 27, 2017
20
5
So I have a question about training forsaken. I have read through both the documents but am still unsure on something. To increase corruption you need to train at an intensity higher than the current corruption stat, but does the mitigating factors play a role in this. For example if I would train a forsaken with something they would normally refuse but due to the buff they now consent does that no longer affect corruption gain?

Also do you need to do another training session after exceeding the value for the corruption to take place. I ask this as I just had a situation where the value didn't increase despite being well above the current level in a stat, however if I did another training session it would have increased the stat.
 

SuperSkippy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
229
120
So I have a question about training forsaken. I have read through both the documents but am still unsure on something. To increase corruption you need to train at an intensity higher than the current corruption stat, but does the mitigating factors play a role in this. For example if I would train a forsaken with something they would normally refuse but due to the buff they now consent does that no longer affect corruption gain?

Also do you need to do another training session after exceeding the value for the corruption to take place. I ask this as I just had a situation where the value didn't increase despite being well above the current level in a stat, however if I did another training session it would have increased the stat.
Whether or not a Forsaken would refuse a training is based on a different stat than when they would gain corruption. The Obedience modifier determines whether or not they consent to training. There's a table relating the Obedience stat to its modifier in the forsaken reference.txt file. This can be a bonus, or, if Obedience is below 25, a penalty. There are other modifiers on training that are listed in the section just below the one that mentions Obedience that include having loved ones among your Forsaken, breaking vulnerabilities for the first time, and the intensity of the training.

However, whether a Forsaken will gain corruption from a training is based on a much simpler calculation. If the total training intensity is greater than their current related stat, plus 1/2 of their Deviancy, they'll gain corruption in the related stat. If they aren't consenting, they'll also gain Obedience equal to the amount of other stats they gain.

These two things, consent and stat change, don't affect each other. For example, here's Purgatory:

Hostility: 60% (Pessimistic about humanity)
Deviancy: 27% (Elaborate sexual fantasies)
Obedience: 33% (Obeys when convenient)
Disgrace: 51% (Seen as purely evil)

I have her stats basically where I want them, but we'll use her to demonstrate. If I wanted to raise her Disgrace, so that her natural cost would be less, I'd need to raise her Disgrace intensity above 51 + (33/2) = 67.5. A Grand Concert would do that, but she won't consent to Grand Concert. Her modifiers are:
+13 (obedience)
-49 (intensity exceeds current corruption)
+30 (rampant)
-6 Total

So, I'd need to raise her Obedience by about 6 points, or her Disgrace by about 6 points, if I wanted to start her off with Grand Concert.

The other way to get her above 67.5% intensity in one session would be Broadcast (70% Hostility & Disgrace). But this is even harder to do, because her Hostility is also below 70%.

Therefore, it'll take combinations of actions to get her there. The simplest action should be Attach Toys followed by Broadcast.
Attach Toys has the lowest Obedience intensity of all Obedience trainings.
Consent factors:
+13 (obedience)
+12 (accustomed to similar circumstances)
+25 Total

And now, she can no longer resist Broadcast, since she has an Obedience training applied. When I try to Broadcast now, I see this:
+13 (obedience)
-29 (intensity exceeds current corruption)
-16 Total

"You can make me go into battle, but you can't make me go along with something this big. I'll give everyone my own message, and you won't like what I have to say..."

Corruption Increase: +2% Obedience, +2% Disgrace

As you see, she goes up in Disgrace because her Disgrace intensity (70%) is now above the threshold calculated above (67.5%) The +2 Obedience happens because she is not consenting to the training, so all of her other stat changes also apply to Obedience.

An action that would cause larger changes would be Public Confinement followed by Broadcast--this would change them both by 3% instead of 2%. The reason this is different is because Public Confinement also adds to Disgrace intensity. The total intensity in a training stat is (Highest intensity + number of other trainings in that stat * 5), so it makes her Disgrace intensity 75% instead of just 70%.

Of course, all of this presumes that you have a reason to want to raise a Corruption stat. On my useful Forsaken the only one I really want to raise is Disgrace when a Forsaken costs too much. On useless Forsaken I'm trying to raise Obedience so they'll consent to the top tier trainings that allow me to drain EE from them (Drain Soul, very rarely), or deal ANGST damage to the Chosen (somewhat uncommon), or restore the motivation/stamina of other Forsaken (Grand Concert). Higher Corruption is usually not better. What do you want to raise, and why?
 
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CluelessLemon

Newbie
Jul 27, 2017
20
5
Whether or not a Forsaken would refuse a training is based on a different stat than when they would gain corruption. The Obedience modifier determines whether or not they consent to training. There's a table relating the Obedience stat to its modifier in the forsaken reference.txt file. This can be a bonus, or, if Obedience is below 25, a penalty. There are other modifiers on training that are listed in the section just below the one that mentions Obedience that include having loved ones among your Forsaken, breaking vulnerabilities for the first time, and the intensity of the training.

However, whether a Forsaken will gain corruption from a training is based on a much simpler calculation. If the total training intensity is greater than their current related stat, plus 1/2 of their Deviancy, they'll gain corruption in the related stat. If they aren't consenting, they'll also gain Obedience equal to the amount of other stats they gain.

These two things, consent and stat change, don't affect each other. For example, here's Purgatory:

Hostility: 60% (Pessimistic about humanity)
Deviancy: 27% (Elaborate sexual fantasies)
Obedience: 33% (Obeys when convenient)
Disgrace: 51% (Seen as purely evil)

I have her stats basically where I want them, but we'll use her to demonstrate. If I wanted to raise her Disgrace, so that her natural cost would be less, I'd need to raise her Disgrace intensity above 51 + (33/2) = 67.5. A Grand Concert would do that, but she won't consent to Grand Concert. Her modifiers are:
+13 (obedience)
-49 (intensity exceeds current corruption)
+30 (rampant)
-6 Total

So, I'd need to raise her Obedience by about 6 points, or her Disgrace by about 6 points, if I wanted to start her off with Grand Concert.

The other way to get her above 67.5% intensity in one session would be Broadcast (70% Hostility & Disgrace). But this is even harder to do, because her Hostility is also below 70%.

Therefore, it'll take combinations of actions to get her there. The simplest action should be Attach Toys followed by Broadcast.
Attach Toys has the lowest Obedience intensity of all Obedience trainings.
Consent factors:
+13 (obedience)
+12 (accustomed to similar circumstances)
+25 Total

And now, she can no longer resist Broadcast, since she has an Obedience training applied. When I try to Broadcast now, I see this:
+13 (obedience)
-29 (intensity exceeds current corruption)
-16 Total

"You can make me go into battle, but you can't make me go along with something this big. I'll give everyone my own message, and you won't like what I have to say..."

Corruption Increase: +2% Obedience, +2% Disgrace

As you see, she goes up in Disgrace because her Disgrace intensity (70%) is now above the threshold calculated above (67.5%) The +2 Obedience happens because she is not consenting to the training, so all of her other stat changes also apply to Obedience.

An action that would cause larger changes would be Public Confinement followed by Broadcast--this would change them both by 3% instead of 2%. The reason this is different is because Public Confinement also adds to Disgrace intensity. The total intensity in a training stat is (Highest intensity + number of other trainings in that stat * 5), so it makes her Disgrace intensity 75% instead of just 70%.

Of course, all of this presumes that you have a reason to want to raise a Corruption stat. On my useful Forsaken the only one I really want to raise is Disgrace when a Forsaken costs too much. On useless Forsaken I'm trying to raise Obedience so they'll consent to the top tier trainings that allow me to drain EE from them (Drain Soul, very rarely), or deal ANGST damage to the Chosen (somewhat uncommon), or restore the motivation/stamina of other Forsaken (Grand Concert). Higher Corruption is usually not better. What do you want to raise, and why?
Thank you for the in depth explanation, I had no idea that deviancy had any role in the calculation as I couldn't see it mentioned in the documents. Unless I missed it and I'm an idiot, which is a very real possibility.

I think my plan yesterday was to boost obedience on those who it was below 50% on as I read that was the requirment they all needed to have before being trained in a punisher; which is probably a bad idea, but eh. First time doing this so I'm bound to make mistakes.

Random question but to confirm, can you train the any of the punishers so long as you did obedience training earlier that session. I assume you still need the base 50% in the requried stats though.
 

wibblywarble

Member
Aug 3, 2018
112
19
It feels really hard to get hypnotism % compared to drain and striptease. I'm not really sure how to efficiently raise hypnosis % a good amount.
 

Celerarity

Member
Apr 23, 2018
202
218
It feels really hard to get hypnotism % compared to drain and striptease. I'm not really sure how to efficiently raise hypnosis % a good amount.
Hypnosis is probably one of the easiest to raise. It goes up when the Chosen use Fantasize, which they'll use pretty often if they have any PLEA and are left alone for a turn. Unlike Drain and Slaughter which need active captures to screw with, Fantasize can basically be left alone to cook. You'll get more levels in a punisher if the chosen has a high circumstance when they use its associated break, if I remember right.
 

McHuman

Member
Nov 8, 2019
347
202
Random question but to confirm, can you train the any of the punishers so long as you did obedience training earlier that session. I assume you still need the base 50% in the requried stats though.
If by train the punishers you mean the last tier of training that gives a trait to the Forsaken for doing (Assist Raid, Instill Fixation, Drain Soul, and Grand Concert), then no, those can only be done if they're the first training used in a training session.
 

SuperSkippy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
229
120
Thank you for the in depth explanation, I had no idea that deviancy had any role in the calculation as I couldn't see it mentioned in the documents. Unless I missed it and I'm an idiot, which is a very real possibility.

I think my plan yesterday was to boost obedience on those who it was below 50% on as I read that was the requirment they all needed to have before being trained in a punisher; which is probably a bad idea, but eh. First time doing this so I'm bound to make mistakes.

Random question but to confirm, can you train the any of the punishers so long as you did obedience training earlier that session. I assume you still need the base 50% in the requried stats though.
All of the T4 training, which trains punisher effectiveness/specialty, must be the first training action, so you can't do an Obedience training first. Unless you're training the CON punisher, of course, since Drain Soul is an Obedience training they won't be able to resist that one, ever.


It feels really hard to get hypnotism % compared to drain and striptease. I'm not really sure how to efficiently raise hypnosis % a good amount.
Yeah, standard chosen only go up a few % per PLEA level for Hypnosis. So what you do depends a lot on how much EE you have to throw at the problem.

The EE efficient solution is 6 turns, 3 captures, basic commander, costing 14EE. Capture each one as they come in. Try to find an initial Chosen that doesn't have any allies coming in on Turn 7 so you can Capture each one as they come in. Set up the three for an Orgy, but don't take it. Use whatever Defiler moves you want on the Chosen, until you know the next one to break free will put Extermination over the top. When your Extermination is about to fill up next time a Chosen breaks free, Inseminate whatever Chosen has the least turns remaining and Force+ the other two. When the first Chosen breaks out, let her be free to use moves until the other two are one turn away from breaking out, then Surround her and let the other two do moves. Each time, when there's one turn remaining on a Surrounded Chosen, Surround the next one in line and Force her. Don't even try this if you don't have Networked Consciousness.

If you've got more EE to throw at the problem, use 5 captures and Flight on this basic commander, costing 54 EE, which means you're spending down your EE slightly if you're getting 45EE/day. You play this one just as above with your first three captures, but then once they're all flying, you can Capture two of them in sequence to make sure that each of them uses Fantasize on each stat (4x per Chosen). This plays out like the last one, but better. Use this if you're getting 45EE per turn at least and have Passion Release and Soul Resonance. Both of these methods use a basic Commander to avoid the Chosen using Self Destruct.

If you've got even more EE to throw at the problem because you're getting 150EE/day, use one with PLEA Punisher, INJU/EXPO Defiler, HATE Suppressor. 4-5 turns and 5 captures, for 106-108EE. You want to be able to Surround each of them after your Commander gets through with them. As before you'll Force+ the last two to break free and Inseminate the one that will put your Extermination% over the top when she breaks out. You can only create this Commander with Completion, an endgame upgrade.
 

TheFakeOne23

Newbie
Feb 9, 2020
40
10
For Forsaken: When assigning them positions, how does "-variable%" work compared to a fixed number such as "-400%". Does the mean the variable is random? Or is it supposed to have a fixed variable?
So far I´ve only seen it happening on a Undead Forsaken generated by the new Kaleidoscope (In fact all 4 of her punisher bonuses have it). It´s also my first Undead Forsaken, so if it´s normal I wouldn´t know.
 
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mathiau

Member
Aug 4, 2020
327
229
For Forsaken: When assigning them positions, how does "-variable%" work compared to a fixed number such as "-400%". Does the mean the variable is random? Or is it supposed to have a fixed variable?
So far I´ve only seen it happening on a Undead Forsaken generated by the new Kaleidoscope (In fact all 4 of her punisher bonuses have it).
variable% is a mechanic specific to Forsaken beaten with the Rampancy distortion. Their mechanic is that instead of having a fixed cost and power they use all of your energy to be deployed and will have a power* calculated both by the energy spent and their deviancy (where normally both the energy cost and power are determined by their deviancy). I don't know the formula iirc it's supposed to be more energy efficient to use an amount of energy clause to the one a forsaken of their deviancy would normally have, but it can scale of infinitely if you go beyond that (you can find how cost normally work in the "forsaken reference" file in the game)

*power means both damage dealt and the efficiency of punisher effects
 
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