Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 54] [CSDev]

[jrkirby]

A western developer's take on era games? Focused on tentacles? How did I miss this until now?

 

[Novadrone]

It feels like the game has various complexity layers for the player to understand based on how far ahead they're planning and playing. The problem is that it's hard for new players to understand even the first layer, the combat, and the tutorial/UI isn't quite good enough at getting new players on the right track.

First, there's the basic combat layer, which is all about breaking vulnerabilities. You gotta learn what actions work the best together for breaking vulnerabilities based on your current Chosen and what the combat consequences are for breaking those vulnerabilities. That's not easy to figure out from a casual glance, and requires understanding the underlying mechanics of the game. On top of that, this is the crux of the gameplay and it's most complicated element, but the tutorial doesn't seem to be doing a great job helping players understand it very well at all. I think a big part of that is, like you said, that the tutorial doesn't start on day one, it doesn't cover multiple days of gameplay and EE choices, and it gives players a champion without first showing them what it takes to unlock and use a viable one -- or what even constitutes a viable one.

Next, there's the day-by-day layer, which is all about EE and trauma. You have to plan for getting as much EE and trauma as possible, as quickly as possible, and you can only get EE by handling your combat correctly. FruitSmoothie's guide helps explore the issue of day-by-day planning in a way that simply isn't done by the currently included tutorial or guides. There's an element of viability in certain upgrades over others, regardless of your Chosen, and it's honestly pretty easy to miss those high-value choices because their impacts are obscured by the game's own obtuse mechanics. On top of that, I don't remember ever reading about the events on days 15, 30, and 45, or how important the EE injections from those events could end up being for any given playthrough. So, on yet another layer of complexity, players sort of get shafted.

Lastly, there's the loop-by-loop layer, something you only find in campaign mode, and something I haven't even personally started on yet. If I understand correctly, it all revolves around using specifically trained Forsaken to bypass the limitations imposed by standard champions in order to speed up the process enough to beat the reduction in days... which is a whole 'nother level of planning that I haven't even gotten into, and requires understanding what you want your Forsaken to do before you even start corrupting a Chosen into one... Oof.

All in all, it's just a very complicated game, and the tutorials/guides provided just don't actually... umm, guide. They're more like really thorough mechanical explanations, something you might find in a software's help index, rather than practical introductions to the game.

I keep having this hangup as well. I download the new release every couple months, but get stuck early on.

My solution would be to have a faux campaign, which walks you through a few days step by step with an advisor or mentor. At the end, your character makes a mistake, the mentor is killed, you swear vengeance and escape, then starts the real campaign on day 1.

 

[Celebrius]

I will probably wait one more month to play again, because I know that once I do start playing again this game will take up all my free time for 2 weeks straight lol.

 

[sptkc]

Are you playing on Ver 31 or Ver 31b? 31b is supposed to have fixed that very problem. If you're playing on 31b I recommend uploading your save so CSDev can take a look at it.

Ah, don't know that it's a bug and the developer has fixed it. Tried using R31B and it worked fine, Thank You!

Is there a download available for 31b? If so, where? I only see 31 on this thread.

You can get it from the developer blog:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[anonwk3]

Is there a guide or wiki for this game? Because the quickstart guides in the game's folders is not particularly useful at explaining an ideal start given the randomness of the game

 

[FruitSmoothie]

I keep having this hangup as well. I download the new release every couple months, but get stuck early on.

My solution would be to have a faux campaign, which walks you through a few days step by step with an advisor or mentor. At the end, your character makes a mistake, the mentor is killed, you swear vengeance and escape, then starts the real campaign on day 1.

Basically why I wrote my guide as a kind of tutorial walkthrough through early/mid game. It's pretty much necessary for this game. Just trying to give tips doesn't help too much imo. There's too much shit to explain. You can either spend half an hour reading a guide or days/weeks suffering not knowing why the fuck shit does what it does, lol. There's too much stuff that doesn't really make sense about the game without having certain shit explained to you. This game is designed in a way where you need to know how the game works before you even play it. It's made for somebody that has dev level knowledge of most of the systems basically.

 

[theirl]

o shit the game changed a lot OMG! MORE LOT OF HOURS TO DISCOVER HOW SHIT WORK FUCk YEAH!!!

 

[KordNTR]

So, I kept trying to think: "why do I dislike this game when I love the concept and also like the gameplay of very similar games?". But after watching a video by Adam Millard (The Architect of Games), I think I know why. For me, it is because the problems that are presented are in a sense "solvable". There is a perfect way to play and deviation from that is just painful. Luckily, it is a fixable problem. Here is the

You must be registered to see the links

for those interested.

 

[theirl]

o shit the game changed a lot OMG! MORE LOT OF HOURS TO DISCOVER HOW SHIT WORK FUCk YEAH!!!

so no one misinterpret me i love this game with a passion but i have a problem that i only accept perfect runs where i get all 3 girls in the past this was hellish hope its better now

 

[Kalloi]

so no one misinterpret me i love this game with a passion but i have a problem that i only accept perfect runs where i get all 3 girls in the past this was hellish hope its better now

I’m typically very similiar, the only time I don’t accept 3 is when I realize I need to rollback a lot of days or I’m curious about the loop after haha

 

[theirl]

I’m typically very similiar, the only time I don’t accept 3 is when I realize I need to rollback a lot of days or I’m curious about the loop after haha

now with this new interations theirl the demon lord of greed will have to tarnish his reputation and let some magical girls escape TT my suffering what do i do in name of science

 

[CSdev]

I know how they work, thanks. I meant up until that point, the game is about controlling the girls story/gameplay wise, but the T4 break is often just letting them do what they want. It kind of breaks the immersion/focus of the game is what I'm saying. You usually spend your time trying to lock the girls down and torment them up till that point, that make sense. Sitting around and waiting for them to use their moves against you doesn't feel like the gameplay up to that point or like a logical way for the MC to act. It starts to feel like you're metagaming instead of actually playing the game naturally, if you understand what I mean. You need to intentionally let some girls free and allow them to spam their moves at you, instead of the usual "Torment the girls" goal of the earlier breaks. If you didn't know how it worked, that isn't something you'd ever consider doing because it doesn't make any sense outside of "that's just how the game is made".

I'm trying to think of an example of that in popular games but I can't think of any off the top of my head. Wolf's Dungeon had similar problems with that though if you're familiar with that game. Where sometimes you had to intentionally go and lose to some random mob to advance the story. It's kind of like that. It goes against common sense and what you've done up to that point. Without a guide or dumb luck, you'd never advance. It might not be as extreme here, but it's the same feeling.

The moves the girls unlock at T3 are fine, I just don't think the T4 break should revolve around them using those moves. The girls up till that point are already often violent, so it's not like that's really needed for the final step of the corruption. Rather it seems like they're lacking loyalty to the MC at that point. I think the T4 break should focus more on that angle.

I understand why you don't find it satisfying, and I'm trying to work on improving it. But at the same time, it's important to note that the T4 progress serves an important design goal, and if they're going to be replaced by something, then it needs to be something which serves that same goal. Right now, once you start making 30+ EE per day, it becomes almost trivial to keep the girls locked down for a very long time. The need to increase their T4 progress makes it so that you have to give them some turns and deal with what they're throwing at you. At that point, the puzzle becomes "How do I get their percentages high enough to T4 Break them in as few days as possible?" By spiking their circumstance damage up high and then putting them in the situation where they use the moves, you can get them to 1000% in 5 or 6 days. Late in campaign mode, the threshold goes down to 400% and you can manage it in 2 or 3 days. This is pretty much in line with how long it takes to set up the T1, T2, and T3 breaks.

Thematically speaking, the whole game is supposed to be about putting the Chosen in situations where they choose to sin on their own. Tormenting the girls is just a way to provide incentive. So, even if the current implementation isn't fun, I feel like it should be possible to salvage the basic concept.

Release 31 is out, and Kalloi's pack has apparently been updated

You must be registered to see the links

Thanks for letting everyone know! And in case anyone is just looking at my posts, note that the 31b bugfix is also now available on the blog.

Yea. Most of the time I play lol. After a while you start to pick up how the games inner workings function. only bad part is as more updates are released, the harder it gets. Campaign mode is supposedly gets harder as you continue. I was always hoping for a mode that lets you slowly get stronger as you play without having cheats, that was no matter how terrible I am at this game, eventually I will be a stronk demon lord.

If this is the kind of experience you're looking for, I think you might actually find it satisfying to start a campaign on easy mode, but leave the cheats off. Even without cheats, easy mode makes it so that the loops don't get progressively more difficult, so you can just get stronger and stronger by earning achievements and training your Forsaken. Superior Chosen will eventually start showing up, but you can avoid them for awhile, and converting them to your side will make you even stronger in the long run.

Not at this moment but If I don't know if it's a bug or not but ALL my forsaken from like Build 25 no longer have their portraits even though they have their names still the same as the portrait folder. What's really weird is that the custom versions for campaigns with the same names still have the portraits so WTF up with that lol

Thanks for the bug report. I'm looking into it.

When it comes to tips for beginners I'm wondering if it would be better to split it into two: a guide to how the game actually works and a separate guide to what kind of strategy you might want to pursue and why.

(I'm just quoting this post, but consider it a reply to the other tutorial-related feedback as well.) My current thought is to have a set of short-term goals tracked by the game which are meant to give the player some general advice that's applicable to any team. It wouldn't be able to guide the player to set up rivalries or pick Distortion paths, but I think that those goals are better for experienced players anyway. They'd work sort of like mini-achievements, and after fulfilling one, the next would immediately be displayed. So it could go something like this.

1. Bring [the first Chosen] to at least 200 [Core Vulnerability trauma] by the end of the battle.
2. Buy 10 EE worth of upgrades in the shop.
3. Deploy a Commander worth at least 5 EE.
4. Bring [Minor Dignity Chosen] to at least 1000 EXPO.
5. Bring [Chosen weakest to INJU aside from the Minor Dignity Chosen] to 10k INJU
6. Use the same Defiler on any two Chosen at the same time

It wouldn't give an in-loop reward, and there'd be a setting to turn it off so it doesn't pester experienced players. The important thing is that by following it, new players would see what a successful loop should look like. I guess some goals could also unlock lore files or something, just so that there's some sort of reward.

I'm pleasantly surprised by how consistent CSDev has been with updating this game over the past 2 years. Whatever his working schedule for this game looks like, it's clear that he's got the habits, knowledge, and drive for development that most indie developers just seem to be lacking.

I'll need to start playing this again. I put it down for a couple weeks because my personal life got busy, but there's a lot of content I still haven't seen just by virtue of how difficult the game can be. Honestly, I was pretty happy just save scumming through to my first Distortion...

Thank you for the encouragement! And certainly don't feel bad about savescumming. The game is balanced around the player knowing which action the Chosen will pick in any given situation, but I haven't been able to find a good way to present that information to the player, so the only way of reliably getting it is to run the battle a few times. Eventually I'd like to put a "retry battle" button in the combat menu just to make it clear that it's a dev-approved way to play.

When are we going to be able to run chosen teams of the same archetype personalities, have older or even have milf type chosen? I wanna run a bunch of chosen with self centered, pissed off chosen who think their top shit lol

As BerglorMan94 says, duplicate personalities wouldn't work with the relationship system. However, I'm eventually planning on adding boss fight loops in campaign mode which won't use the usual relationship system (because they consist of the boss and her two already-devoted attendants). If that involves implementing a switch that easily unhooks the relationship system from the rest of the game, then it'll be pretty easy to add an option that allows the player to disregard the usual personality limitations when designing a custom team in exchange for disabling relationship events.

So, I kept trying to think: "why do I dislike this game when I love the concept and also like the gameplay of very similar games?". But after watching a video by Adam Millard (The Architect of Games), I think I know why. For me, it is because the problems that are presented are in a sense "solvable". There is a perfect way to play and deviation from that is just painful. Luckily, it is a fixable problem. Here is the

You must be registered to see the links

for those interested.

That was an interesting watch, thanks for linking it. If you're talking about single play mode, then I agree that it's basically solvable. Campaign mode is meant to be my answer to that problem. I think that the question of how to corrupt and train your Forsaken for maximum effectiveness against whatever future teams you might fight is still very open-ended, and that it leaves plenty of room for player creativity while still providing challenges which test the strength of the team you've made. It's not done yet, but I'd still recommend trying campaign mode if you haven't already done so.

now with this new interations theirl the demon lord of greed will have to tarnish his reputation and let some magical girls escape TT my suffering what do i do in name of science

Letting the heroines escape in order to become stronger when they finally fall is a tried-and-true evil overlord tactic. Plus, if you get them heavily onto a Distortion path first, they can basically sabotage their new allies for you when they show up again. Suddenly jumping to +15 EE per day for reaching a lowered PLEA threshold for Tempt could be quite powerful.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

I understand why you don't find it satisfying, and I'm trying to work on improving it. But at the same time, it's important to note that the T4 progress serves an important design goal, and if they're going to be replaced by something, then it needs to be something which serves that same goal. Right now, once you start making 30+ EE per day, it becomes almost trivial to keep the girls locked down for a very long time. The need to increase their T4 progress makes it so that you have to give them some turns and deal with what they're throwing at you. At that point, the puzzle becomes "How do I get their percentages high enough to T4 Break them in as few days as possible?" By spiking their circumstance damage up high and then putting them in the situation where they use the moves, you can get them to 1000% in 5 or 6 days. Late in campaign mode, the threshold goes down to 400% and you can manage it in 2 or 3 days. This is pretty much in line with how long it takes to set up the T1, T2, and T3 breaks.

Thematically speaking, the whole game is supposed to be about putting the Chosen in situations where they choose to sin on their own. Tormenting the girls is just a way to provide incentive. So, even if the current implementation isn't fun, I feel like it should be possible to salvage the basic concept.

I think there are a lot of other ways to handle that. You could balance things differently so it isn't so trivial to lock girls down late game. That or staying in line with the girls allowing the girls to sin on their own, you could make it so the MC offers to fuck them in return for leaving or stopping his attack temporarily. That feels more in line with things than the current system imo. I imagine at that point the girls could rationalize how willingly fucking the bad guy instead of allowing him to continue hurting people would still be the "right" thing to do. Knowing they're going to get raped anyways at that point... Lol. That would leave less time of just standing around and getting hit and could be tied into new combat strategies just the same. That's also them easing into fucking the bad guy willingly and easing into consensual sex with him. Just another option, it could always be an alternative?

I'm not sure a game mechanic revolving around you kind of intentionally having to play "bad" for multiple weeks is ever going to feel okay. I hope you're successful in improving the feel of that area of the game, whatever you decide to do with it. I'd like to enjoy the T4 break stuff as much as the earlier gameplay.

That was an interesting watch, thanks for linking it. If you're talking about single play mode, then I agree that it's basically solvable. Campaign mode is meant to be my answer to that problem. I think that the question of how to corrupt and train your Forsaken for maximum effectiveness against whatever future teams you might fight is still very open-ended, and that it leaves plenty of room for player creativity while still providing challenges which test the strength of the team you've made. It's not done yet, but I'd still recommend trying campaign mode if you haven't already done so.

I hope these alternate options make its way into the first run. I've gotta say as somebody who likes to restart from scratch frequently, I don't think there are many ways to play the original run. I feel like I pretty much do the same thing every game, part of the reason why I took a break from the game. I tried a bunch of different strategies and really only one worked consistently. Always buying out the same upgrades at the same points. I think the initial run needs some love/attention.

 

[BerglorMan94]

I think there are a lot of other ways to handle that. You could balance things differently so it isn't so trivial to lock girls down late game. That or staying in line with the girls allowing the girls to sin on their own, you could make it so the MC offers to fuck them in return for leaving or stopping his attack temporarily. That feels more in line with things than the current system imo. I imagine at that point the girls could rationalize how willingly fucking the bad guy instead of allowing him to continue hurting people would still be the "right" thing to do. Knowing they're going to get raped anyways at that point... Lol. That would leave less time of just standing around and getting hit and could be tied into new combat strategies just the same. That's also them easing into fucking the bad guy willingly and easing into consensual sex with him. Just another option, it could always be an alternative?

I'm not sure a game mechanic revolving around you kind of intentionally having to play "bad" for multiple weeks is ever going to feel okay. I hope you're successful in improving the feel of that area of the game, whatever you decide to do with it. I'd like to enjoy the T4 break stuff as much as the earlier gameplay.



I hope these alternate options make its way into the first run. I've gotta say as somebody who likes to restart from scratch frequently, I don't think there are many ways to play the original run. I feel like I pretty much do the same thing every game, part of the reason why I took a break from the game. I tried a bunch of different strategies and really only one worked consistently. Always buying out the same upgrades at the same points. I think the initial run needs some love/attention.

You're example of willingly fucking the Demon Lord is already in game. It's called the Negotiation Distortion, and it functions much like you've suggested.

 

[BerglorMan94]

I think the biggest problem people have between the Tier 3 into Tier 4 breaks is the lack of control over them, or at least a perceived lack of control. Having a more concrete way of influencing the Chosens actions seems like a decent conclusion to me. All of the frustration I've personally had at this stage is when I'm just waiting for the Chosen to actually do the actions I need them to do, though it's not particularly difficult to sculpt their actions if you don't go hog wild with the Tier 3 breaks. I don't actually think much needs to change for this section of the game, other than having a way to more directly influence the Chosens actions during combat, and perhaps a progress recap at the end of the day. Like if one of the Chosen gains 120% towards Impregnation, the info screen at the end could say "120% > 300% Impregnation progress" (300% being the total %). I think being able to see exactly how much progress you've made in a day could at least improve the feel of accomplishment from each day. As for having more ways to Influence Chosen actions during combat... Maybe 4 new upgrades that give you an ability to trigger the Chosen into activating their new abilities like Slaughter on command once a day per chosen, and they're more likely to use the corresponding ability afterwards? That way you can build them up using surrounds and circumstance damage, then get a guaranteed trigger of whatever you're trying to go for, and increase potential progress at the same time. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Arcaneshadow]

Yea I could imagine adding a set of "manipulation" actions as a way of providing difficulty (your giving up the turn to adjust the AI behavior instead of surround/capture ect) while making them flavorful for different chosen. As an example
1. Goad
2. Bribe
3. Threaten
4. Dominate/Hypnosis ect

Depending on what you want to do with the given chosen would dictate how you control them to influence their progress on a T4 break

 

[FruitSmoothie]

You're example of willingly fucking the Demon Lord is already in game. It's called the Negotiation Distortion, and it functions much like you've suggested.

Thanks, I haven't bothered playing with those. I was writing my guide when those were still being worked on, they seemed kind of unfinished/unbalanced at the time. Sounds like the distortion should maybe be the main gameplay option/focus then. Well that's just one option anyways, there are a bunch of ways to handle the T4 break.

Like if one of the Chosen gains 120% towards Impregnation, the info screen at the end could say "120% > 300% Impregnation progress" (300% being the total %). I think being able to see exactly how much progress you've made in a day could at least improve the feel of accomplishment from each day. As for having more ways to Influence Chosen actions during combat... Maybe 4 new upgrades that give you an ability to trigger the Chosen into activating their new abilities like Slaughter on command once a day per chosen, and they're more likely to use the corresponding ability afterwards? That way you can build them up using surrounds and circumstance damage, then get a guaranteed trigger of whatever you're trying to go for, and increase potential progress at the same time. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah those are some good "patchwork" additions that would help with the lack of control and the slog a bit. I'm still not really on board with tying the T4 break into their special attacks, but that kind of stuff would be better than nothing anyways. Guess we'll see what the dev plans to do. I'm not sure I'm ready to come back to the game just yet to test more shit, but I'll prob be checking in on changes. Most the latest updates have seemed to focus on newgame+ and I'm mostly interested in the first run and how it's balanced for now.

 

[sptkc]

Found another bug, don't know if this has been reported or not. This happen when after I train the chosen from round 2 or after I choose them for combat. I played on easy mode with cheat enabled if that makes any difference.

 

[Kalloi]

Found another bug, don't know if this has been reported or not. This happen when after I train the chosen from round 2 or after I choose them for combat. I played on easy mode with cheat enabled if that makes any difference.

I don’t think this has been reported but that definitely looks like a bug on my end, If you can upload the save also, that could be very good also for CSDev to look at it directly

 

[GodOfAll]

Hey everyone, I've started this game and grasp pretty much anything except one thing: how do I remove the "circumstances 1/4" modifier? I would get 144x but the 1/4 modifier fucks that up. Any idea how to remove that one? I don't quite understand what triggers that one.