Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 54] [CSDev]

[Kalloi]

Ok, been busy these last weeks, but finally I can give some feedback.

Here are my takes (this is for the campaign mode, and there is no particular order of priority)

1.- let me say: this is a great way to do campaign mode as you already have a placeholder for the fundamental things, just need to add more things and balance.

2.- Need some second chance after losing, otherwise is too reliant on rerolling (save-scumming) and/or playing perfectly. Sometimes you underestimate the city modifier or are one of those unexpected teams, whatever is the reason, sometimes you just get bad combinations when you can't deal with it. I would recommend something like a defensive battle (although I don't know how would it work), or a multiple lives system (I like more the other idea but this can be a placeholder).

3.- I think that checkpoints of the achievements should give you different upgrades as you progress with them because eventually, they are going to be obsolete, mainly with Punisher achievements that if it stays the way it is, well, it will not be very useful. superior chosen is good as it is, the temp maybe but honestly i'd say is ok as it is, and the sacrifice forsaken one is also ok.

4.- Superior chosen and forsaken are awesome and really strong. I don't have anything more to say about them, except to make them accessible in options and customization.

5.- maybe add 5 additional days AFTER beating a city. to train forsaken mostly, but if you add more things to do at the end of a city it would add more use to these days.

I don't think I have other points...

Great Update

I definitely agree with most of the points, especially about the superior chosen/forsaken and some additional turns after beating city, it could be tied to an achievement like beating a city and scale from there. And something like an lives system would also be good even if it came with some sort of penalty or also resulted from an achievement like corrupting all 3 chosen in a city or something worth an additional life.

To add on some more specific thoughts, personally I would like it if some specific vignettes could tie to some achievements to motivate us to corrupt chosen in a certain way. the rewards could be something having an specific upgrade unlocked in the beginning of the new city. I don't think it should be an OP upgrade like networked consciousness but maybe something like causal projection or a early suppressor unlock. Honestly Idk if that would be possible or even game breaking but having some specific vignettes give a reward would be nice, especially if it was one that would take some effort to unlock normally.

 

[Kalloi]

Some more thoughts from the recent update although its mostly tied to the forsaken. I think some of the fighting styles for the forsaken need a bit of a buff, specifically the low percentage ones like "careless" and "decisive" etc. The 5% to 15% ones
They really don't have too much utility even in the situations the game recommends them for as it can be accomplished with either another forsaken or even with a commander body, However I also understand I just may not know how to use these kind of forsaken.

Personally though, I try to train forsaken out of them immediately especially in the campaign mode as the loops become more difficult.

I'm currently on loop 6 of my first campaign run, its really dope and the scale in difficulty really had me using forsaken for battles, something I didn't really do too much before! Really looking forward to the other things like special battles and surviving chosen making new groups to fight you and their former allies and more chosen species types as the game is updated. Once the game gets a proper final boss I hope this version of the campaign will still be supported as some sort of endless mode or something.

I wish I had more time this month for playing but since csdev said the focus of this month's update is image support/ the portrait system I've been designing and drawing characters on my own to make an image pack to coincide for the release and that's sort of been most of my free time haha
Overall I really really love this update and excited to see how much further I can go in my run. I'm curious how far everyone else has gotten in their runs so please share if you don't mind!

 

[Kalloi]

Okay, so it seems like all the reviews agree that there is a steep learning curve, but this is ridiculous.
The only time I seem to succeed at all is if I go against what the tips file tells me to do and go after their minor weaknesses first instead of trying to break their core values.
I noticed that some people have said that they can snowball into having over 30+ turns of the three heroines surrounded around day 10, but my apparently stupid ass can't even get more than 3 turns on one if I'm lucky.

Am I just not understanding the game still?
I've done three playthroughs and each one seems to end the same with me just trying my damndest to get as many meager EP as I can, usually only getting maybe three per fight unless I get lucky.
I've tried going after their core weaknesses the entire game, going after their minor weaknesses the entire game, focusing only on the most vulnerable Chosen the entire game, but it seems like doing any or all of those things fail the same way every time.

Like, it's supposedly a steep learning curve, but it really just feels more like a door that I don't have a key to since I can't even come close to winning.
Also, it says you can continue after the campaign is complete with the same characters to try again, but each time it just starts me over with three new chosen.

I highly recommend doing a cheat mode playthrough with everything unlocked, it really helped me get a feel for the game mechanics and how to plan turns out. If you done so already, could you tell me what your current team you're going up against? Sometimes its just a tough team and you might need to just do a different run, especially if you're still getting used to the game.

I certainly agree there is a steep learning curve but the payoff is really worth it once you get a handle on the game, at least opinion.

If I can't help maybe BerglorMan94 or someone else can help you I feel like a lot more people on this thread are getting used to the game and are good at giving insight for people trying the game out. I hope things go well and you have a really great run soon

 

[Dargondo]

I highly recommend doing a cheat mode playthrough with everything unlocked, it really helped me get a feel for the game mechanics and how to plan turns out. If you done so already, could you tell me what your current team you're going up against? Sometimes its just a tough team and you might need to just do a different run, especially if you're still getting used to the game.

I certainly agree there is a steep learning curve but the payoff is really worth it once you get a handle on the game, at least opinion.

If I can't help maybe BerglorMan94 or someone else can help you I feel like a lot more people on this thread are getting used to the game and are good at giving insight for people trying the game out. I hope things go well and you have a really great run soon

Okay, so I just started another new run and just had the third Chosen revealed to me.
This is their current makeup and it's like, the fifth or so time I've played through the game (random Chosen each time since I can't get the same ones to repeat) and the results always wind up the same, so I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I've played through the tutorial match repeatedly, read through the tips file and the guide file repeatedly, and so far my best run was when I ignored all of that and just winged it.

 

[Kalloi]

Okay, so I just started another new run and just had the third Chosen revealed to me.
This is their current makeup and it's like, the fifth or so time I've played through the game (random Chosen each time since I can't get the same ones to repeat) and the results always wind up the same, so I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I've played through the tutorial match repeatedly, read through the tips file and the guide file repeatedly, and so far my best run was when I ignored all of that and just winged it.
View attachment 1470564

hmmm I see, it seems like only whisper has some vulnerabilities broken so you'll get some free EE from breaking their tier 1 vulnerabilities.

Looking at the spread I'm going to guess that Faith has a minor vulnerability in Disgrace? So that means her EXPO will rise really quickly and that's really good for stacking damage once you begin surrounding chosen. Whisper also has her tier 2 confidence already broken and guessing that her minor is that as well her INJU will go up really quickly. For the first few days you should try to farm EE until you get weakness sense and enhanced polymerism along with focus so you can make a commander. Afterwards I recommend picking upgrades that give your commander longer turns so you have enough time to get something going, especially with Whisper.

The rest depends on what you're trying to do for this run. If you just want a bunch of EE I would start with Whisper and take advantage of her broken confidence. Get to the point where you can create a commander that last 2-3 turns and focus on raising her INJU first and then PLEA and then HATE, if she can reach level 1 PLEA in one turn without multipliers then I would honestly start with that first since that means her trauma damage would be really high after that first surround. If she has some really high angst you may be able to surround her again immediately without using another chosen as surrond fodder. And if you don't the angst you will get from her will be helpful for battles afterwards.

Another option is target Reaper with that same strategy but instead start with HATE, then PLEA, and INJU
Morality is probably her minor vulnerability so raising hate would be really easy and HATE is a good circumstance damage to raise in general.

The main thing for getting a lot of surround turns with a chosen is to raise their PLEA early in the battle while making sure you can raise either HATE or INJU properly as well depending on the chosen you are focusing on.
From there its important to raise EXPO, especially to get to the extra circumstance damage.

A good idea is to focus on one specific chosen and one specific thing you want to do to them. Like a good goal for gaining a lot of EE early on would be to isolate whisper and make her relationship worse with the other two chosen.

Focus on getting her angst up and also just experiment and reload a couple saves to see what you can with her. from there your goal would be to either come up with a strategy to break her dignity so she will hate Faith or break Reaper's confidence to hate Whisper. IMO breaking faith's dignity would be easier than trying to break reaper's confidence.

And overall it's good to aim for Networked consciences is invaluable for a run and the quicker you unlock it the easier it will become

This is just my intial thoughts from looking at your screenshot, if you'd like to ask a specific kind of question or advice on what to do next I'll do my best to assist.

I hope something I recommended helps!

 

[Kalloi]

I'm a bit sleepy so apologies if my reply has some errors or oddities as well haha

 

[BerglorMan94]

hmmm I see, it seems like only whisper has some vulnerabilities broken so you'll get some free EE from breaking their tier 1 vulnerabilities.

Looking at the spread I'm going to guess that Faith has a minor vulnerability in Disgrace? So that means her EXPO will rise really quickly and that's really good for stacking damage once you begin surrounding chosen. Whisper also has her tier 2 confidence already broken and guessing that her minor is that as well her INJU will go up really quickly. For the first few days you should try to farm EE until you get weakness sense and enhanced polymerism along with focus so you can make a commander. Afterwards I recommend picking upgrades that give your commander longer turns so you have enough time to get something going, especially with Whisper.

The rest depends on what you're trying to do for this run. If you just want a bunch of EE I would start with Whisper and take advantage of her broken confidence. Get to the point where you can create a commander that last 2-3 turns and focus on raising her INJU first and then PLEA and then HATE, if she can reach level 1 PLEA in one turn without multipliers then I would honestly start with that first since that means her trauma damage would be really high after that first surround. If she has some really high angst you may be able to surround her again immediately without using another chosen as surrond fodder. And if you don't the angst you will get from her will be helpful for battles afterwards.

Another option is target Reaper with that same strategy but instead start with HATE, then PLEA, and INJU
Morality is probably her minor vulnerability so raising hate would be really easy and HATE is a good circumstance damage to raise in general.

The main thing for getting a lot of surround turns with a chosen is to raise their PLEA early in the battle while making sure you can raise either HATE or INJU properly as well depending on the chosen you are focusing on.
From there its important to raise EXPO, especially to get to the extra circumstance damage.

A good idea is to focus on one specific chosen and one specific thing you want to do to them. Like a good goal for gaining a lot of EE early on would be to isolate whisper and make her relationship worse with the other two chosen.

Focus on getting her angst up and also just experiment and reload a couple saves to see what you can with her. from there your goal would be to either come up with a strategy to break her dignity so she will hate Faith or break Reaper's confidence to hate Whisper. IMO breaking faith's dignity would be easier than trying to break reaper's confidence.

And overall it's good to aim for Networked consciences is invaluable for a run and the quicker you unlock it the easier it will become

This is just my intial thoughts from looking at your screenshot, if you'd like to ask a specific kind of question or advice on what to do next I'll do my best to assist.

I hope something I recommended helps!

Honestly, if you're on loop 6 (Congratulations, thats nuts!) you're more qualified to help than I am XD.
I believe you meant breaking Whisper's dignity instead of Faith, but other than that mix up this seems like a solid plan. Networked Consciences is hands down one of if not the best upgrade, and tends to be top priority for most of my runs. Either way, as mid-tier as I am, I'm always happy to offer anyone help, Dargondo. I'm sure between me and rizldiz3l, we can get you into the swing of things!

(I have no clue how to link y'all like riz did to me. I'm a newbie to actually posting here.)

 

[tpk]

Okay, so it seems like all the reviews agree that there is a steep learning curve, but this is ridiculous.
The only time I seem to succeed at all is if I go against what the tips file tells me to do and go after their minor weaknesses first instead of trying to break their core values.
I noticed that some people have said that they can snowball into having over 30+ turns of the three heroines surrounded around day 10, but my apparently stupid ass can't even get more than 3 turns on one if I'm lucky.

Am I just not understanding the game still?
I've done three playthroughs and each one seems to end the same with me just trying my damndest to get as many meager EP as I can, usually only getting maybe three per fight unless I get lucky.
I've tried going after their core weaknesses the entire game, going after their minor weaknesses the entire game, focusing only on the most vulnerable Chosen the entire game, but it seems like doing any or all of those things fail the same way every time.

Like, it's supposedly a steep learning curve, but it really just feels more like a door that I don't have a key to since I can't even come close to winning.
Also, it says you can continue after the campaign is complete with the same characters to try again, but each time it just starts me over with three new chosen.

There is no way to get up to 30+ turns in 10 days unless you go cheat mode lol

Okay, so I just started another new run and just had the third Chosen revealed to me.
This is their current makeup and it's like, the fifth or so time I've played through the game (random Chosen each time since I can't get the same ones to repeat) and the results always wind up the same, so I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I've played through the tutorial match repeatedly, read through the tips file and the guide file repeatedly, and so far my best run was when I ignored all of that and just winged it.
View attachment 1470564

ok, here are a few tips to begin with:

- scum-saving is your friend while learning

- try to save up for a good commander when you are trying to break something. that could be 6 or 7 turns and 3 captures.

- 'winning' technically is just making the chosen kill each other in the final battle (day 50), which is mostly just surrounding after they are done. once you win this way consistently, you have to think about how to make it better.

- as rizldiz3l said, cheat mode is a good way to learn about combos.

- you may want to have a save on day 1 (or so, it has to be early) against a team to test new ways to do things

- *in case you are playing campaign mode* play a single run (the left option).

- there is a custom option, where you can, well, customize a team. this is faster than just starting a run (doing the random customization is faster than doing the first days). also, you not only can check vulnerabilities, but you can choose if they have a tier 3 broken before you start. after you create the team, you will have a save of them on day 1.

 

[Dargondo]

hmmm I see, it seems like only whisper has some vulnerabilities broken so you'll get some free EE from breaking their tier 1 vulnerabilities.

Looking at the spread I'm going to guess that Faith has a minor vulnerability in Disgrace? So that means her EXPO will rise really quickly and that's really good for stacking damage once you begin surrounding chosen. Whisper also has her tier 2 confidence already broken and guessing that her minor is that as well her INJU will go up really quickly. For the first few days you should try to farm EE until you get weakness sense and enhanced polymerism along with focus so you can make a commander. Afterwards I recommend picking upgrades that give your commander longer turns so you have enough time to get something going, especially with Whisper.

The rest depends on what you're trying to do for this run. If you just want a bunch of EE I would start with Whisper and take advantage of her broken confidence. Get to the point where you can create a commander that last 2-3 turns and focus on raising her INJU first and then PLEA and then HATE, if she can reach level 1 PLEA in one turn without multipliers then I would honestly start with that first since that means her trauma damage would be really high after that first surround. If she has some really high angst you may be able to surround her again immediately without using another chosen as surrond fodder. And if you don't the angst you will get from her will be helpful for battles afterwards.

Another option is target Reaper with that same strategy but instead start with HATE, then PLEA, and INJU
Morality is probably her minor vulnerability so raising hate would be really easy and HATE is a good circumstance damage to raise in general.

The main thing for getting a lot of surround turns with a chosen is to raise their PLEA early in the battle while making sure you can raise either HATE or INJU properly as well depending on the chosen you are focusing on.
From there its important to raise EXPO, especially to get to the extra circumstance damage.

A good idea is to focus on one specific chosen and one specific thing you want to do to them. Like a good goal for gaining a lot of EE early on would be to isolate whisper and make her relationship worse with the other two chosen.

Focus on getting her angst up and also just experiment and reload a couple saves to see what you can with her. from there your goal would be to either come up with a strategy to break her dignity so she will hate Faith or break Reaper's confidence to hate Whisper. IMO breaking faith's dignity would be easier than trying to break reaper's confidence.

And overall it's good to aim for Networked consciences is invaluable for a run and the quicker you unlock it the easier it will become

This is just my intial thoughts from looking at your screenshot, if you'd like to ask a specific kind of question or advice on what to do next I'll do my best to assist.

I hope something I recommended helps!

So I'm on Day 26 of this run right now, trying to follow these instructions, but the only way that I have managed to get more than 3 turns with any of the chosen is by making a commander who winds up using a bunch of my evil points and then I don't break anything on anyone and I wind up making a net zero on EP (or less) and at this rate, I'll be at the final defeat in no time in basically the exact same situation as before where I have made no progress on anyone and have basically no EP to my name nor any of the fun upgrades that actually make the game feel playable.

I included my saves file so you can check it out (it's the save titled "maybe?") because I feel like I'm just running in circles with this game and it's really getting annoying.

 

[BerglorMan94]

So I'm on Day 26 of this run right now, trying to follow these instructions, but the only way that I have managed to get more than 3 turns with any of the chosen is by making a commander who winds up using a bunch of my evil points and then I don't break anything on anyone and I wind up making a net zero on EP (or less) and at this rate, I'll be at the final defeat in no time in basically the exact same situation as before where I have made no progress on anyone and have basically no EP to my name nor any of the fun upgrades that actually make the game feel playable.

I included my saves file so you can check it out (it's the save titled "maybe?") because I feel like I'm just running in circles with this game and it's really getting annoying.

Alrighty! Today's one of my day's off, so I'm gonna see what I can do for you. As a preface, being able to fully complete a run will take time and practice, as well as an understanding of the games mechanics (which there are quite a lot of, some of which are under the hood). I helped my new buddy Wibblywarble capture a full team of Chosen, so I'm confident I can help you as well. That said, it's a bit of a slow process. I understand if you just want to drop it. We only have so much time and not everyone wants to spend it learning Corrupted Saviors. However! If you're still feeling up to the challenge, lets dive in, my friend!

To start with, I checked your "maybe?" save, and that's gonna be a wash, my man. By day 26, we want to have at least a couple of the Chosen's core vulnerabilities at Tier 2 breaks. Your Chosen's Angst is also pretty low for how far in you are. You increase Angst by stacking Trauma through your main attacks: Threaten, Slime, Attack, and Taunt respectively. Trauma also builds up when you're surrounding a chosen and using Grind, Caress, Pummel, and/or Humiliate. Angst gives you a bonus to your damage btw. For the first 10 or so day's, you'll want to just build Trauma and pick up a few upgrades. (I'll go into detail on what upgrades are best to grab early later on).

So, we're gonna be starting at your earliest save, "yes". You've already grabbed Psychic Reading, which is good. That's always my first upgrade. We want to focus on building Trauma so we can build up Angst, and since we're starting off with Reaper, who's got a Core vulnerability in confidence, we'll be focusing on using Attack on them to build as much Trauma and Angst as possible. In case you haven't figured out what those --- marks mean next to the Chosen's vulnerabilities, that's how weak they are to those actions. Using Reaper as an example, her Confidence is: PAIN ----| INJU so she's very weak to Attack, and highly resistant to Pummel, which is why we'll be exclusively using Attack on her until further notice.

Day 3: We pick up either Wide Deployment or Fast Breeders. Both have a similar effect, increasing the amount of time we have to work with. We'll be picking up the other on the next day. Back to spamming Attack! But wait, Whisper shows up! Now that she's here, we check her vulnerabilities. She's got SHAM -----| EXPO, so we're gonna focus on raising her Trauma through Taunt for the rest of the encounter to hopefully generate an extra EE. (Chosen start generating EE when they have more than 100 Angst)

Day 4: I'm picking up Fast Breeders, and Focus. Focus will be used later when we're ready to go for Breaks. We're going to focus on Whisper today to build up some Angst. I started with Whisper, Taunting her until Reaper showed up, and then switched to Attacking her so she doesnt recover too much Trauma/Angst. We wanna keep that bonus damage.

Day 5: I'm picking up Enhanced Polymorphism here so we can stack even more juicy Trauma on our Team. Gonna follow the same pattern as the day before so we can keep building Angst.

Day 6: I'm picking up Eager Breeders to give us a little more time to stack EVEN MOAR TRAUMA! I follow the same plan as the past 2 days, just slowly building up that juicy juicy Trauma/Angst combo for that very important bonus damage. Our 3rd Chosen should be showing up tomorrow by my guesses.

Day 7: I pick up Coordinated Deployment here so we have even more time to build up Trauma. By my guesses our 3rd Chosen should be here today, and thats who we're gonna focus on to build up Trauma and Angst so they'll start generating EE for us. I start with Whisper, Taunting her until Reaper shows, switching to Attacking her, and sadly number 3 never shows. Tomorrow for sure.

Day 8: I pick up Perception to prepare for our big day, which by my count should be day 13. I start as I have the past 4 days, Taunting Whisper until... There they are. Faith has arrived. After a quick examination, I see she's weakest to Threaten, and my gameplan is clear. I Threaten Faith for the rest of the day, and she's already generating us some nice EE. 3 EE per day is exactly what we want, and for the next few days, Faith is gonna be Threatened, and we're gonna ignore the other 2 because they're already sufficiently Traumatized to generate EE every day until we're ready for the big day.

Day 9: I pick up Patience and proceed to Threaten Faith all day.

Day 10: I pick up Persistence and repeat yesterdays Threatening.

Day 11: I grab Weakness Sense and Cunning. Oh hey, Faith. Threaten time.

Day 12: I grab NO UPGRADES here to save EE for tomorrow. I double check everyone's Angst levels in the Info tab, and see that Faith is still at +12 bonus damage, and the other 2 are at +13, so I'm repeating the gameplan from the last few days.

Day 13: It's time. (To be continued)

 

[BerglorMan94]

So! First things first, I create a new save. Today may take several tries to get the result I'm looking for, and the way I see it, time travel is but another one of the Demon Lords powers (this is my justification for "save scumming" lol).

It took me a few tries, but I got me a Tier 2 Dignity break on Whisper! As prep, we make ourselves a Commander that lasts 4 rounds and has 2 captures, then we start by targeting Whisper first.

Here's the play by play: We start by using Grind because in my experience, opening up with the weaker option between Grind and Pummel is better for stacking damage because Chosen gain damage resistance when you raise one of their circumstance levels.
Next turn we use Pummel, and raise both her HATE and INJU to Level 1. This gives us some good damage multipliers on Circumstance damage, as well as a little boost for Trauma damage due to HATE.
Next turn I use Humiliate so we can try to get her EXPO to level 1, and have a damage multiplier on our next chosen. I only get 58 damage on her EXPO but we have one more turn and our damage is good enough to get the first level of EXPO next turn.
On our final surround turn, we choose Caress, and get both EXPO and PLEA up to level 1.

Reaper shows up now, and so we use our Commander to capture her.
First turn, we start with Pummel. Then Grind. Then Humiliate. We don't go for Caress here, because we need to Surround Whisper. If we don't do it while Reaper is Surrounded, then we'll not only lose out on precious surround turns, but we won't even be able to capture Whisper because the bonus from her 2 levels in FEAR won't apply, which also negates the extra round from SHAM, dragging her down to 2/3 instead of 5/3. FEAR round bonuses, only apply when another Chosen is surrounded, and SHAM round bonuses only apply if the Chosen can already be surrounded (Ex: Whisper is at 4/3 but she has 1 level in SHAM making it 5/3).

TIP: Keep an eye on the Extermination percentage. You can't capture a Chosen if the Extermination is at 100%. The exception to this, is if a Chosen is already captured when Extermination reaches 100%. Ex: Extermination is at 93% and you Surround a Chosen. Extermination gets to 100% while the Chosen is Surrounded, then the Chosen is released at 11/5 for another Surround.

After Surrounding Whisper, we choose Pummel, Humiliate, Caress, then Grind. This order is because we want the extra damage from the level 2 INJU, we want to get as much damage on EXPO as possible during this surround, we want to level up PLEA so our next Surround lasts as long as possible, and HATE is last because I'm confident we can get it to level 2 with our last 2 surround turns for extra damage later on.

On our last surround turn on Whisper, we Surround Reaper one more time for a few reasons. 1. So we can level up her EXPO to get more damage multipliers on Whisper, 2. We're surrounding her now, because we don't have the upgrade that would postpone the end of the encounter when extermination is at 100% so if we don't have a Chosen surrounded, the day ends.
3. We need another Chosen to be surrounded for maximum turns with our next Whisper Surround.

I start by Humiliating Reaper, then I make a small mistake here by choosing to go for Pummel when in all honesty, it won't matter because of how little damage it does. So instead of Pummeling her on the second turn of Surround, Surround Whisper again instead.

With Whisper surrounded once more choose Humiliate, Pummel, Grind, Caress. At this point, we finally turn our attention to Faith. The following 3 turns I Threaten Faith, then Attack her twice, getting her to 2/1. With the extra turn from choosing not to Pummel Reaper, you might be able to squeeze in a Slime, but I'm unsure if that's going to get her to 3/1.

Now we Surround Faith to stop her from using a tactic to reduce our damage on Whisper, choosing to Humiliate Faith (I may be wrong here) because it increases the damage we do to surrounded Chosen. With this done, I decided to use Caress on Faith because... IDK. It's at this point she escapes, and Whisper has 1 turn left on her surround... and she's just crested 10k EXPO damage, opening up the ability to use the Broadcast Defiler action, and we use that to get our first Tier 2 Core Break~!

It's at this point that our encounter ends, and we reap the benefits of our actions, getting a rare occurrence of having two little vignettes explaining how we've driven a rift between Whisper an Faith, and gaining a sizable chunk of EE in the process.

Feel free to ask me any questions! =D
I'll be keeping an eye out for the rest of the day.

 

[BerglorMan94]

This game has one of the steepest learning curves I know of, and it honestly keeps getting steeper with the more updates that get released. The game had a big balance change a few months back that shook up how to approach encounters, and how damage works. It was a healthy change for the game at large, but only for people who already knew how the mechanics worked. Unfortunately, I feel like the update made it harder for newer players to get a good grasp on the game itself, and as I've monitored the growth of the game, it seems like it's getting harder and harder for new players to get involved. I still love this game, and it is 100% my favorite find of the year (I discovered CS around February/March). Hopefully we can find a way to alleviate the difficulty of the learning curve in this game over time. Until then, I'll be here to help any wayward souls who need a guiding hand!

 

[Kalloi]

Sorry I was trying to reply during my lunch breaks but mobile was being garbo so I waited until I got home haha.
I tried out your save Dargondo and managed to break most of the team with Whisper going into a her t3 disgrace state next battle. Reaper is in solid friendship with both Whisper and Faith, meanwhile Faith and Whisper are rivals.

Its only day 33 so it should be enough time for you to experiment and prepare for the final battle but since you're still learning I would honestly follow along BerglorMan94's play by play of the days to learn and understand some of the fundamentals. Their method not only is a good general way of the early game of a run (days 1-15) but also the explanations and reasoning are well explained so excellent job Berglorman! You said I was more qualified but I think you're far better at giving proper directions and also explaining them properly The only two things I will add for Dargondo is that another good strategy of using one of the other chosen as "surround fodder" which basically means surronding one chosen and not actually spending the turn choosing a circumstance damage, instead using that 1 turn to surround the chosen you actually would like to work on. Its really effective once you can inflict 100 trauma damage to a chosen in one turn, and even more so once you get networked consciouscness!

And the second thing is to commend you for making multiple save steps, its a good habit when it comes to this game and especially when you're about to use alot of EE on a gamble. There are times when I reload a save 5-6 times trying different things out and I wouldn't be half as decent as I am if I didn't. So keep up that spirit of winging it at times and It will pay off with all the experimentation

I took screenshots at the end of each day to make a guide on how I did things but I really need to finish drawing for the portrait set for this game's next update so I might do so Friday if you're interested in specifics of what I did

To summarize though:

Day 26: I broke most of Whisper's tier 1 vulnerabilities with the focus getting tier 1 EXPO broken, this caused Whisper's relationship with Faith to worsen, giving me another chunk of EE by the end of the day I have 20 EE which I used to buy Networked Consciousness



Day 27: I chose this day as a buffer day since I spent on my EE on Networked Consciousness and had none to make a commander

Day 28: My target for this time was Reaper, choosing to start with her first I did the other strategy I mentioned earlier for Reaper switching out the INJU as the first move for HATE instead. Ultimately I couldn't get her to the sodomize tier 2 break and realizing it wouldn't be possible I went for force orgasm instead so she would more likely to commit more sinful downtime and guarantee me more EE, I think it was either this day or the day after she started giving +5? Also since Reaper had her t1 confidence broken she became friends with Whisper, which means they will appear sooner for each other and was to be expected since whisper had her t2 confidence already broken in the beginning of the run. But I actually prefer this scenario since once you break Reaper's confidence past Whisper's and the buffer event, the fallout gives even more EE since they go from friends to enemies and sustains me

Afterwards I chose to round out my upgrades with picking up Nursery Hives for some more Extermination Time and Genius and Persistence to pick not only for not only even more turns but also a second capture. . .

Day 29: I focused on Reaper once again, using the second capture on Whisper since she shows up earlier now and instantly chose humiliate since NC is active now. By the end I was able to get her sodomized and now she even more buddy-buddy with Whisper!

. . . For now. . .

Anyways time for the next target which was Faith since my aim was to get the save to End-game potential for winning with full corruption. So the best way to do that is to go for an All-break, breaking all 3 chosen's vulnerabilities and getting all to bitter enemies status.

Day 30: Since I didn't have enough EE as I would like, this was another buffer day I did take a screenshot of the end of the day to show the progression of Angst at this point



Day 31:
That bitch Faith was sitting all pure when the other chosen were having a bad time so it was her turn in the Dargondo's revengence saga and I was not going to be lenient. I targeted her first with max commander which was 5 turns and two captures iirc and then I focused on pummel then activated caress, then grind, and finally humiliate to make some saucy revenge. Since Faith and Whisper were now the real housewives and all dramatic and shit, Reaper showed up second and I used my second capture on her and with networked consciousness active I was instantly able to use humiliate on her, making so that even though it was Faith's last turn in her surround, she would still have the EXPO multiplier apply to her for that turn. Once she was free, Whisper showed up as well iirc but it may have been the turn after? Anyways I resurronded Faith since Reaper was still caught and the Fear was active for her again. From there it was me juggling the two and doing what I call "hotboxing" where basically you make sure two chosen who are being surrounded at once are being humiliated on top of the other circumstance damage so their multipliers will keep raising as a result of the other.

Long story short, they were properly sautéed and ready to serve

Day 32
With the stars aligned and ready I thought of the best way to get one of the chosen to t3 since my objective was for an All-break and the quicker I get them to their first t3 break the easier it is to get things cooking.
So my objective for this day was to get an orgy surround, usually 2-4 turns of that will get most chosen to their first t3 states and probably more depending on how you go about it. I only savescummed once or twice but I got an orgy towards the end of the encounter although it was only one turn, the damage was quite the chef's kiss

and poor babby Whisper was the only one before the extermantion was over so she was still able to be surrounded.

She was broadcasted for about 11 turns if memory shows and while the chosen were doing their best to recover.

And I had nothing to do so I was just vibing as the kids say.

By the end of the day she had reached over 100 million shame and so she's ready to be strippy! Which means once she does, she's going to have another altercation with faith, giving some free EE

Anyways I did my best and I was quite fun getting vengeance for you. I'll put the save here so if you'd like to continue you should be able to get back into the midst of things. Especially after following along Berglorman's guide.

To echo his words once again, the difficulty curve for this game has gotten higher after the balance/tempt update but I really agree it was for the better and I love the game as well. Its the perfect blend of everything I look for in a game, to the point I'm acutallly drawing stuff for it which I never really done before tbh haha

I hope you continue to learn and begin to come up with your own combos!
tpk's advice is also really helpful I will say as well, especially concerning the endgame. I think one of the beauties of the game is as you get better you can aim for specifics and basically make it as difficult or as easy as you desire and I think that's a sign this game was really well thought of and refined.

Overall I understand If you feel like its too much for you but once you learn more and get more comfortable with the game you will have an easier time and more so a fun time

If you use the save I hope you enjoy your comeback!

 

[Dargondo]

This game has one of the steepest learning curves I know of, and it honestly keeps getting steeper with the more updates that get released. The game had a big balance change a few months back that shook up how to approach encounters, and how damage works. It was a healthy change for the game at large, but only for people who already knew how the mechanics worked. Unfortunately, I feel like the update made it harder for newer players to get a good grasp on the game itself, and as I've monitored the growth of the game, it seems like it's getting harder and harder for new players to get involved. I still love this game, and it is 100% my favorite find of the year (I discovered CS around February/March). Hopefully we can find a way to alleviate the difficulty of the learning curve in this game over time. Until then, I'll be here to help any wayward souls who need a guiding hand!

This actually helped tremendously.
I used the method on a separate set of chosen when reading this and it worked out pretty much the same with two of them getting a huge rift and me walking out of the battle with 30 evil energy in my pocket for getting breaks across the board, which does indeed feel satisfying.

The thing that seems to be key here is that early on you want to just completely ignore circumstance damage since they use up time that you can use towards building up angst, which is essential for actually getting off any impressive combos.

Here's the composition that I went against and I targeted Mirage following almost the same tactic, only changing up what stats I was targeting based on the slight differences.
Before the fight, she had no corruption breaks, and now she's the most broken.


The thing I think that would help with this games learning curve is if the tutorial could be turned into a complete run that goes from day one to day 50, guiding and explaining everything along the way to a victory, similar to what you just did for me, as well as a hint/tip button that can give helpful reminders based on the current situation.

Thank you though, because now I feel like I actually have a decent understanding of how this game plays and how to move forward.
I'm assuming that moving forward I basically just rinse and repeat with the other two?
Or do I need to focus on getting better upgrades now and then go after the other two a little bit down the road?

 

[Dargondo]

Sorry I was trying to reply during my lunch breaks but mobile was being garbo so I waited until I got home haha.
I tried out your save Dargondo and managed to break most of the team with Whisper going into a her t3 disgrace state next battle. Reaper is in solid friendship with both Whisper and Faith, meanwhile Faith and Whisper are rivals.

Its only day 33 so it should be enough time for you to experiment and prepare for the final battle but since you're still learning I would honestly follow along BerglorMan94's play by play of the days to learn and understand some of the fundamentals. Their method not only is a good general way of the early game of a run (days 1-15) but also the explanations and reasoning are well explained so excellent job Berglorman! You said I was more qualified but I think you're far better at giving proper directions and also explaining them properly The only two things I will add for Dargondo is that another good strategy of using one of the other chosen as "surround fodder" which basically means surronding one chosen and not actually spending the turn choosing a circumstance damage, instead using that 1 turn to surround the chosen you actually would like to work on. Its really effective once you can inflict 100 trauma damage to a chosen in one turn, and even more so once you get networked consciouscness!

And the second thing is to commend you for making multiple save steps, its a good habit when it comes to this game and especially when you're about to use alot of EE on a gamble. There are times when I reload a save 5-6 times trying different things out and I wouldn't be half as decent as I am if I didn't. So keep up that spirit of winging it at times and It will pay off with all the experimentation

I took screenshots at the end of each day to make a guide on how I did things but I really need to finish drawing for the portrait set for this game's next update so I might do so Friday if you're interested in specifics of what I did

To summarize though:

Day 26: I broke most of Whisper's tier 1 vulnerabilities with the focus getting tier 1 EXPO broken, this caused Whisper's relationship with Faith to worsen, giving me another chunk of EE by the end of the day I have 20 EE which I used to buy Networked Consciousness

View attachment 1471892 View attachment 1471891

Day 27: I chose this day as a buffer day since I spent on my EE on Networked Consciousness and had none to make a commander

Day 28: My target for this time was Reaper, choosing to start with her first I did the other strategy I mentioned earlier for Reaper switching out the INJU as the first move for HATE instead. Ultimately I couldn't get her to the sodomize tier 2 break and realizing it wouldn't be possible I went for force orgasm instead so she would more likely to commit more sinful downtime and guarantee me more EE, I think it was either this day or the day after she started giving +5? Also since Reaper had her t1 confidence broken she became friends with Whisper, which means they will appear sooner for each other and was to be expected since whisper had her t2 confidence already broken in the beginning of the run. But I actually prefer this scenario since once you break Reaper's confidence past Whisper's and the buffer event, the fallout gives even more EE since they go from friends to enemies and sustains me View attachment 1471894 View attachment 1471895

Afterwards I chose to round out my upgrades with picking up Nursery Hives for some more Extermination Time and Genius and Persistence to pick not only for not only even more turns but also a second capture. . . View attachment 1471903

Day 29: I focused on Reaper once again, using the second capture on Whisper since she shows up earlier now and instantly chose humiliate since NC is active now. By the end I was able to get her sodomized and now she even more buddy-buddy with Whisper!

. . . For now. . .

Anyways time for the next target which was Faith since my aim was to get the save to End-game potential for winning with full corruption. So the best way to do that is to go for an All-break, breaking all 3 chosen's vulnerabilities and getting all to bitter enemies status.

Day 30: Since I didn't have enough EE as I would like, this was another buffer day I did take a screenshot of the end of the day to show the progression of Angst at this point

View attachment 1471930

Day 31:
That bitch Faith was sitting all pure when the other chosen were having a bad time so it was her turn in the Dargondo's revengence saga and I was not going to be lenient. I targeted her first with max commander which was 5 turns and two captures iirc and then I focused on pummel then activated caress, then grind, and finally humiliate to make some saucy revenge. Since Faith and Whisper were now the real housewives and all dramatic and shit, Reaper showed up second and I used my second capture on her and with networked consciousness active I was instantly able to use humiliate on her, making so that even though it was Faith's last turn in her surround, she would still have the EXPO multiplier apply to her for that turn. Once she was free, Whisper showed up as well iirc but it may have been the turn after? Anyways I resurronded Faith since Reaper was still caught and the Fear was active for her again. From there it was me juggling the two and doing what I call "hotboxing" where basically you make sure two chosen who are being surrounded at once are being humiliated on top of the other circumstance damage so their multipliers will keep raising as a result of the other.

Long story short, they were properly sautéed and ready to serve

Day 32
With the stars aligned and ready I thought of the best way to get one of the chosen to t3 since my objective was for an All-break and the quicker I get them to their first t3 break the easier it is to get things cooking.
So my objective for this day was to get an orgy surround, usually 2-4 turns of that will get most chosen to their first t3 states and probably more depending on how you go about it. I only savescummed once or twice but I got an orgy towards the end of the encounter although it was only one turn, the damage was quite the chef's kiss

and poor babby Whisper was the only one before the extermantion was over so she was still able to be surrounded.

She was broadcasted for about 11 turns if memory shows and while the chosen were doing their best to recover.

And I had nothing to do so I was just vibing as the kids say.

By the end of the day she had reached over 100 million shame and so she's ready to be strippy! Which means once she does, she's going to have another altercation with faith, giving some free EE

Anyways I did my best and I was quite fun getting vengeance for you. I'll put the save here so if you'd like to continue you should be able to get back into the midst of things. Especially after following along Berglorman's guide.

To echo his words once again, the difficulty curve for this game has gotten higher after the balance/tempt update but I really agree it was for the better and I love the game as well. Its the perfect blend of everything I look for in a game, to the point I'm acutallly drawing stuff for it which I never really done before tbh haha

I hope you continue to learn and begin to come up with your own combos!
tpk's advice is also really helpful I will say as well, especially concerning the endgame. I think one of the beauties of the game is as you get better you can aim for specifics and basically make it as difficult or as easy as you desire and I think that's a sign this game was really well thought of and refined.

Overall I understand If you feel like its too much for you but once you learn more and get more comfortable with the game you will have an easier time and more so a fun time

If you use the save I hope you enjoy your comeback!

I will say that I repeatedly rage quit this game in the past few days due to getting tired of trying to figure it out, but that rage also kept me from dropping it entirely since I'm also stubborn and refuse to let any game beat me.
Thanks to the help I've received from the community here (also, nicest and most helpful community I've ever been in) I finally feel like I understand at least the beginning of the game and will definitely be playing more because the concept is great, even if the execution is more complicated than nuclear physics.

I'll also plug myself here and say that if this game is planning on moving forward with images or even just more writing, I am a professional writer/editor by day and an amateur artist by night, so if that becomes a thing development is interested in, I would definitely enjoy participating.

 

[Kalloi]

This actually helped tremendously.
I used the method on a separate set of chosen when reading this and it worked out pretty much the same with two of them getting a huge rift and me walking out of the battle with 30 evil energy in my pocket for getting breaks across the board, which does indeed feel satisfying.

The thing that seems to be key here is that early on you want to just completely ignore circumstance damage since they use up time that you can use towards building up angst, which is essential for actually getting off any impressive combos.

Here's the composition that I went against and I targeted Mirage following almost the same tactic, only changing up what stats I was targeting based on the slight differences.
Before the fight, she had no corruption breaks, and now she's the most broken.
View attachment 1471947

The thing I think that would help with this games learning curve is if the tutorial could be turned into a complete run that goes from day one to day 50, guiding and explaining everything along the way to a victory, similar to what you just did for me, as well as a hint/tip button that can give helpful reminders based on the current situation.

Thank you though, because now I feel like I actually have a decent understanding of how this game plays and how to move forward.
I'm assuming that moving forward I basically just rinse and repeat with the other two?
Or do I need to focus on getting better upgrades now and then go after the other two a little bit down the road?

This is really dope to hear man! I'm glad Berglorman's advice was so helpful and you were able to achieve similar results with entirely different chosen. And your observation for the early game is basically spot-on as well!
One additional thing is that its still good to surround them in this phase, even if its only one or two turns since those turns adds to the counter of the next chosen showing up and the quicker you have all three and their giving +1 EE the earlier you can start to pull off some things earlier than usual.

I agree the tutorial is really kind of insufficient and needs to be reworked, day 1 to day 50 is honestly a really good idea, there is a commentary system in place so people can add notes instead and a play by play for things but it's disable for cheat playthroughs and ones with forsaken allowed, I honestly wouldn't mind doing a day 1 to 50 tutorial if people were interested in me doing something like that. CSdev themselves said it was lacking so maybe they will do something like that in the future as well.
A tip function also is really good idea!

I hope the rest of your run goes well!

And my personal opinion going forward with your run is to move forward with upgrades while testing the waters with the other two. Berglorman I think can give more specific pointers, test things out and make plenty of back up saves and experiment, you never know what might work and reloading a save and trying something completely different either by changing who you target, toggling ambush, or changing the commander type. Experimentation is essential

Either way I'm glad you're getting the hang of it!

 

[Kalloi]

I will say that I repeatedly rage quit this game in the past few days due to getting tired of trying to figure it out, but that rage also kept me from dropping it entirely since I'm also stubborn and refuse to let any game beat me.
Thanks to the help I've received from the community here (also, nicest and most helpful community I've ever been in) I finally feel like I understand at least the beginning of the game and will definitely be playing more because the concept is great, even if the execution is more complicated than nuclear physics.

I'll also plug myself here and say that if this game is planning on moving forward with images or even just more writing, I am a professional writer/editor by day and an amateur artist by night, so if that becomes a thing development is interested in, I would definitely enjoy participating.

Hahaha to be honest same man, when I first played I followed the tutorial and the forum advice but still could get nothing done by day 50 and full lost, I was so annoyed by the team I was up against that I imported them to start from day 1 in cheat mode and just wrecked them with an overpowered commander for 50 days. From that cheat run I was able to understand things and chose to do normal run again afterwards the game really clicked for me as well, keep that stubbornness and fuck them chosen up!

The community I agree is really dope here for this game and I'm happy to see people try to help others get over the curve the dev themselves comes around even at times so I really enjoy the mood. If you want to contribute with your own writings and drawings I think people would absolutely down for that! The dev accepts vignette prompts over on their subscribestar and they said in the post I made on there that they actually hope people would to make custom assets for the game. That's why I've been doing the same so I say the more the merrier Idk if writing directly for the dev will happen but if it does I wouldn't mind helping also.

 

[BerglorMan94]

This actually helped tremendously.
I used the method on a separate set of chosen when reading this and it worked out pretty much the same with two of them getting a huge rift and me walking out of the battle with 30 evil energy in my pocket for getting breaks across the board, which does indeed feel satisfying.

The thing that seems to be key here is that early on you want to just completely ignore circumstance damage since they use up time that you can use towards building up angst, which is essential for actually getting off any impressive combos.

Here's the composition that I went against and I targeted Mirage following almost the same tactic, only changing up what stats I was targeting based on the slight differences.
Before the fight, she had no corruption breaks, and now she's the most broken.
View attachment 1471947

The thing I think that would help with this games learning curve is if the tutorial could be turned into a complete run that goes from day one to day 50, guiding and explaining everything along the way to a victory, similar to what you just did for me, as well as a hint/tip button that can give helpful reminders based on the current situation.

Thank you though, because now I feel like I actually have a decent understanding of how this game plays and how to move forward.
I'm assuming that moving forward I basically just rinse and repeat with the other two?
Or do I need to focus on getting better upgrades now and then go after the other two a little bit down the road?

You basically rinse and repeat for Tier 2 breaks, without much of any change. The game changes a little after you've gotten Tier 3 breaks on your Chosen, because they get advanced tactics that can make encounters much more difficult. Each tactic is associated with whichever vulnerability you break.

Morality gives the Chosen Slaughter, which reduces the amount of rounds other Chosen are surrounded by the level of their HATE.

Innocence gives the Chosen Fantasize, which reduces the amount of damage taken to a Trauma or Circumstance by 2x the Chosens PLEA level (Ex: PLEA lvl 4 = 1/16) each time its used. Yes, it stacks when used on the same Trauma/Circumstance.

Confidence gives the Chosen Detonate, which frees them from a Commander capture early. I don't actually know much about this one because I try to avoid it for a couple of reasons: 1. I like high tier Commander scenes. 2. It makes the Chosen suicidal which isn't for me.

Dignity gives the Chosen Striptease, which reduces damage dealt to surrounded/captured Chosen by 2x EXPO level.

They all have work arounds, and the Chosen have to use these tactics so you can get a complete break on any of their vulnerabilities, which is how you end up making Chosen into Forsaken, which is a wheelhouse I'm only just now dabbling in. Forsaken will be getting more updates soon too, so I'm trying to get used to them at the moment.

If you want to offer your services for the game a better place to offer them would either be at the Blogspot or the Subscribestar. You can find links to both of them on the first page here. Maybe CSDev would be willing to take vignettes or more in battle scenes/dialog that they could put into the game.

I'm glad you've found success my friend! I'll be here if you need anymore help, and I recommend at least checking out the Subscribestar. CSDev updates it weekly and it's free to see. You can also tip them if you'd like. =D

 

[tpk]

This game has one of the steepest learning curves I know of, and it honestly keeps getting steeper with the more updates that get released. The game had a big balance change a few months back that shook up how to approach encounters, and how damage works. It was a healthy change for the game at large, but only for people who already knew how the mechanics worked. Unfortunately, I feel like the update made it harder for newer players to get a good grasp on the game itself, and as I've monitored the growth of the game, it seems like it's getting harder and harder for new players to get involved. I still love this game, and it is 100% my favorite find of the year (I discovered CS around February/March). Hopefully we can find a way to alleviate the difficulty of the learning curve in this game over time. Until then, I'll be here to help any wayward souls who need a guiding hand!

agree

 

[loshad]

This game has one of the steepest learning curves I know of, and it honestly keeps getting steeper with the more updates that get released.

My impression is that there's no learning "curve" - it's a learning step function, or a wall. Before you get over the wall, the game is difficult because the game doesn't tell you anything. Once you get over the wall, the game is trivial because it is deterministic.

Many aspects of this game are excellent - the writing, the customizable content (for those of us for whom the phrase "multiple organ failure" is not associated with sexiness), the variety of character interactions, etc.

But some of the fundamental systems are just not well designed - and the learning wall is just one symptom.