I see though I am still a bit confused over how downtime actions are decided.
I was checking out the comment system and there seem to be something wrong with it. It stops writing on day 2 of the loop. I also tried importing the day 1 comments and it got stuck here:
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Doesn't look like people use the comment system though.
Other than that i got a crash here after starting a ~28 turn orgy.I couldn't continue or close the game.
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Also a minor thing but the color of Edge's text should be green here.
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The comment system was originally coded back in Release 4, and I haven't been paying much attention to it since campaign mode was implemented, because a lot of minor factors (like family member generation) initially weren't seeded, and making the comment system also save Forsaken training would've required a lot of new code. But I suppose if people are interested in using it to share replays, it wouldn't be too hard to make it work properly again.
My current issue is that I don't really get what I should be aiming for. For instance, the tutorial system in place currently gives you good goals in regular gameplay(and then as the player, you expand on that). But for Forsaken, it's system piling up over each other (training, deployment cost, position, expertise...), with split documentation (and almost nothing in game, unless I missed it) which makes it hard to determine a proper goal and plan for it.
Thanks for the feedback. The eventual expansion to the guide goal system probably should focus on Forsaken mechanics.
Got a bit curious after reading Nobody032's post about chosen being weaker than commanders, and figured I'd share what I find out. - By decompiling the java source code.... again. To establish a baseline, I'll re-share the 3 types of commanders damage progression. Basically, commanders deal damage to trauma and circumstance in a step-down fashion, similar to surround actions. All damage is additive.
Suppressor:
Trauma - 100,75,50,25
Circumstance - 200
Defiler:
Trauma - 200,100,50,25
Circumstance - 300,150
Punisher: (Net damage * punisher effectiveness)
Trauma - 1000,300,100,30
Circumstance - 3000
Now, for Forsaken, damage gets a bit more complicated.
First, we need the forsaken's power constant (PC)- this is the chosen's listed reputation strength (200-2*disgrace) * any additional modifiers to base damage
- Species/Boss modifiers (does not include shattered soul debuff, that gets applied after all other bonuses to actual damage)
- Knowings Target Intimately +50%
- Knowings Target Personally Or obsessed with target +25%
- Defiling - (300-disgrace*2)/100, or (100 + PC) /100
Once we have that value, we can calculate the base trauma and circumstance damage.
Trauma - PC * punisher trauma applied equally to all Trauma's.
Circumstance - PC * 5 * style modifier - damage is applied equally, but only to style specific circumstances. Additionally, several modifiers can further increase this damage, with some effects also applying to Trauma damage.
- Defiler bonus damage -
- Normal - *2 additional damage to specific circumstance.
- Tempt - Change style, and apply temp effect if possible. (side note, if tempting, style becomes a unique 1000% PLEA/EXPO style - but trauma damage is set to 0)
- Traumatize - Base trauma damage becomes PC * 10 for DISG and PAIN, before other modifiers. Circumstance damage becomes 0.
- EXP multiplier
- Distortion bonuses
- Punisher circumstance bonuses
- Dissociative Identity (Shattered Soul) - 20% damage reduction after all other modifiers, to Trauma and Circumstance. (assuming it's effect is active)
So, what does all that mean? Well, let's take a basic 58% disgrace forsaken - That'll cost 18 EE to deploy, and has a reputation strength of 84. So we can expect them to deal 84 base trauma. As for circumstance, they can deal a base damage of 4200, 420, 63, or 12~13 to 1,2,3, or 4 circumstance types.
How does that square up against a 5/3 defiler commander? (Same EE cost, average truama of 93.75, average circumstance of 225 to 2). The defiler wins out in terms of trauma damage (average 93.75 damage). It deals a bit higher average damage, though the forsaken will deal more damage to the demons weaker attributes. In terms of circumstantial damage though? The forsaken wins, by a pretty high margin, if they are targeting 1-2 circumstances. The single target chosen can even beat out a defiler type demon, with under 400% efficiency.
Lets go a bit higher - What about a disgrace of 54%, or 28EE cost? That's comparable to the above demon, with an added suppressor. With a reputation strength of 92, that's going to be a base trauma of 92, and 4600, 460, 69, 14~13. Vs the demons average of 156.25 trauma damage, and ~216 avg. circumstance damage? Again, Trauma goes to the demon, but circumstance? Yes, a forsaken targeting 2 vulnerabilities will deal more average damage, but overall a demon targeting 3 will hit for harder than a comparable chose, for 3. That is, of course, assuming we aren't fielding a 5/5 or 6/5 commander to deal with T3 vulnerability breaks.
So, let's do that. A 5/5 defiler/suppressor commander is 58 EE. We don't have a 58 EE chosen, closest is a 41% disgrace for 59EE. At that level (118 rep), they'll be dealing 118 base trauma, and 5900/590/89~88/18~17 circumstance damage, based on style. Well, those numbers didn't improve - Much better when targeting 2 traits, worse when targeting 3-4. I'm noticing a pattern here....
In conclusion, a baseline chosen will deal less trauma damage than a demon of a similar cost, while dealing much more circumstance damage. Provided, of course, they are targeting only 1-2 circumstances. Otherwise, the demon commander scales better for targeting 3-4 circumstances. Which suggests that in order to use a 3 target chosen successfully, they'll need to have multiple damage modifiers stacked on to match a comparable cost demon.
Very nice analysis! The only thing I'd add is that some of those damage multipliers become increasingly easy to get on your Forsaken as you go further into campaign mode. Demon commanders should always have their uses, but making your Forsaken better is the main tool you're given in order to keep up with the difficulty modifiers of later loops.
Yes, the Fosaken will use them. At some point I'll get around to commissioning some vignettes that call for them for Chosen.
I'd like to properly integrate them into the base game as well at some point. Nine expressions was probably a bit too few to cover all the different faces characters should make. It's just that it'll require going through the code for the whole game and manually deciding whether each instance of a lewd or joyful face should be replaced by a smug or used one.
I remember that at some point CSdev said he would change the fact distorting a core vulnerability of a chosen always gave progress toward rivalry unless the chosen with the minor vulnerability already had the same distortion, but I didn't see it in any of the changelogs, is it still planned?
I wouldn't say it's a firm plan, but it's something I'm open to. My current thought is that when two Distortions share an unbreakable Vulnerability, having a Core/Minor matchup on that Vulnerability could result in a positive scene between those two Distortions. But under that system, matchups with no common Vulnerabilities (Temptation/Aversion and Rampancy/Negotiation) would still be always-negative, so that might not be a flexible enough solution.
I beat the classic "Single Play" mode to get back into the game but my first go at the final battle left me with only two of the three Chosen. I went back and tried it again, but this time I lost and only nabbed one of the chosen - coincidentally the one I'd missed the prior time. I had all three chosen in the forsaken menu, but I wanted to try to figure out the final battle. I finally captured all three, but I ended up with duplicates of all the girls in the forsaken menu.
Can I safely prune the duplicates, or will that piss off the characters due to them all having unbreakable bonds with each other?
You should be able to safely delete them. (And if not, then it's a bug.) Deleted single play Forsaken aren't saved in the same way as deleted campaign Forsaken are, so the remaining Forsaken won't "remember" them.
Is this a bug, or expected behavior? Aversion distortion, triggered during an orgy before evacuation was complete. So, by the rules, both chosen should be surroundable after they recover. But... that's not the case.
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Included a save for easy testing - C1-Ongoing. Finally got annoyed enough about this to report it.
That is indeed a bug. They're getting put into the special "surroundable only this turn" state which flying Chosen normally get put into when an ally flees the battle, but that puts them into the flying state after it expires. It definitely doesn't make sense to "punish" the player like that for triggering Aversion. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
That's... not really what I was talking about. For normal surrounds, chosen will fly if they were captured after evacuation has finished. For aversion-orgy surrounds however, they fly if extermination is complete after they recover from the surround, with no regard to the normal rules. I'd almost say that they treat the "open for surround" turn as if they were surrounded, but that isn't the case either - in my example, evacuation was still ongoing. So I'm not sure what's going on there. It seems like a bug, but maybe the chosen break the established rules if one of their numbers flee the battle.
Side note - Why do catatonic chosen still contribute to the extermination meter? I wanted to see what happened if you had 3 aversion distortions in the same battle. And it's basically nothing. Maybe there could be a bonus amount of EE generated, if you mind-break all there chosen at the same time? Maybe proportional to the extermination left?
There actually is a special bonus for making all three of them go catatonic, but I suppose the game doesn't really call your attention to it beyond the post-battle text talking about how they basically just stay laying on the street after the battle is done. When all three Chosen pass out like that, their Aversion progress is
immediately set to max, meaning that future orgies only have to be 1 turn long in order to trigger it in the future. I thought about having it give you the option to just turn them into Forsaken right then and there, but I was afraid of the bugginess it might cause. Still might be worth going back and adding that, though.
Maybe one could be about abducting one of the chosen's loved one (either a non-powered family member or just a friend) then using them to Blackmail the chosen?
Like, you'd need to use the Retreat action from the Causal Projection upgrade and if the energy you'd get from that is above a certain threshold you can abduct their loved then have the Chosen do something sinful in exchange for relasing the loved one. You'd probably corrupt said loved one a bit each time, explaining why they get easier to capture each time (assuming there is a "it gets easier each time" mechanic like most other distortions have)
I would think this would make more sense as the morality/innocence distortion as this would fit well with the loss of hope theme of the confidence break line, and a broken dignity makes for some easy demands to give to the chosen
It's been nice to see the ideas for the other Distortions posted here, and I think this one is particularly clever. It fits very well with the way the existing Distortions work, and the framework has recently been put in place for civilian loved ones to appear in-game. The only odd point is that it explicitly requires the Causal Projection upgrade to be bought, but practically speaking, you won't generally be achieving Distortion against the Chosen until you're past the 5 EE upgrade tier anyway.
Alternatively, I might just make the Retreat button available even before you can get EE from it. After all, there are already edge cases where you'd prefer to end the battle early.
Thanks
I'm imagining either you'd have to bring the total (current) surround turns high enough then you'd obtain an action to one-shot them (similar to what Temptation does). Or you could gain an action that you can use to deals damage to a chosen that scales of their current surround turn amount/the total surround (possible divided by five like the Retreat action does)
The issue with the first idea is the case where you have two different chosen undergoing the blackmail distortion, if the action beats one chosen then it'd be hard to get the second one (since the first wouldn't count for the total anymore). The alternatives are to make the one-shot action works for all valid chosen, which can pose some balance issues, or to have the beaten chosen somehow still count for this action, which will be weird on the UI side of thing
Thanks
This would be a
There is a bit of it in the vignettes, there's one on the innocence break path where someone shows a recording of them servicing the thralls and threaten to release it to the public
For what it's worth, defeated (and even killed) Chosen are still counted for the purpose of EXPO bonuses, so it wouldn't be unprecedented to have their surround turns saved (and it could even save the turns for other defeated-while-surrounded Chosen, i.e. Temptation and Aversion).
Been thinking about what the next two distortions could be like - and definitelly get why it's difficult.
The current distortions are sort-of based on "what does a chosen do, without X tactic". Without violence, the chosen fall to temptation. Without service, the chosen cannot understand the violations inflicted on them. Without Hiding, the chosen seek another way out. Without Begging, the chosen display their power without restraint.
But for a Morality/Innocence, or Confidence/Dignity distortion, that doesn't work. Due to the overlapping T1 traits, either of those pairs can trigger all 4 of the current T1 breaks..... So, mechanically, these distortions can't follow the current formula. The distortions would either need to be accessed by not allowing two of the specified T1 breaks (Without violence and service, or begging and hiding), or.... something else. I've got two ideas about how to do that.
First, what about introduce "wild card" T1 tactics - A pair of tactics, where they'd either replace violence/service, or begging/hiding. (maybe four tactics in total, two for each distortion?) The distortions would be about activating of these alternative tactics. Though, this approach might be a bit complicated to implement, and I'm not sure how well it'd play with existing system if it could be used by other distortions.
Second, what if there was a way to "shatter" T1 vulnerabilities? To allow a chosen to break, but then render that tactic completely ineffective? morality/innocence - a chosen whose body and confidence has been broken, whose reputation is in shambles, and now can no longer fight back? Dignity/Confidence - a chosen whose discarded their morality, one who knows the pleasure of the demons, and now cannot avert their eyes from what is being done to them? I wonder if this concept would work for the next distortions.
Adding more T1 Vulnerability mechanics is something I've considered, but I'm not currently leaning in that direction. The reason that each Distortions forbids a T1 break is so that they force you to play "carefully." There are other ways to present that sort of challenge which don't explicitly involve T1 breaks. For example, I've considered having one of the Distortions require you to achieve some goal while keeping the subject below a certain ANGST sum (although that sounds like it could be really annoying, so it's not currently my plan).
Potentially dumb question, but is it possible to use Forsaken and import a team of Chosen in the same play through? If so, how?
If I'm understanding you correctly, it should be possible by default. The Forsaken management menu should show up as soon as you buy the Focus upgrade.
I know how to play the game but I am asking if I can actually skip playing from loop 3 above just to get to the boss since I've already played the game tons of times and most of the time save games from previous updates don't work on the new ones so I have to start over again and now I have to get to Loop 10 to get into the new content. If there is no other way aside from grinding again then I guess I'll just wait for more updates when there is more content between the bosses aside from what I already have grinded a year ago.
I didn't reply to this last time because I wasn't sure how to fix this problem, but I've been putting some thought into it, and I do have an idea now. The current roadmap for the campaign structure looks like this.
Loop 1 - First loop
Loop 2 - Nothing special
Loop 3 - First Superior Chosen
Loop 4 -
Nothing special
Loop 5 - First Animalistic/Undead
Loop 6 - First (Whatever you didn't face in Loop 5, optionally)
Loop 7 - First battle against Reign (recurring boss which hasn't been implemented yet)
Loop 8 -
Nothing special
Loop 9 -
Nothing special
Loop 10 - First boss
Loop 11 - First (Species unlocked by beating the boss you picked)
Loop 12 - Introduction of Objective system
Loop 13 -
Nothing special
Loop 14 - Second battle against Reign
Loop 15 - Second boss
Loop 16 - Another species unlock
Loop 17 -
Nothing special
Loop 18 -
Nothing special
Loop 19 -
Nothing special
Loop 20 - Third boss
Loop 21 - Third fight against Reign, and maybe a new species depending on boss pick order
Loop 22 -
Nothing special
Loop 23 -
Nothing special
Loop 24 - Story route branching point
Loop 25 - Fourth boss
Loop 26 - Another potential species unlock
Loop 27 -
Nothing special
Loop 28 - Fourth fight against Reign
Loop 29 -
Nothing special
Loop 30 - Fifth boss
Loop 31 - Another possible species unlock
Loop 32 -
Nothing special
Loop 33 -
Nothing special
Loop 34 -
Nothing special
Loop 35 - Final Final Battle
So, the leadup to Loop 10 will get a
bit more interesting once Reign is implemented, but there are still a lot of loops with nothing special, which will probably be boring for a lot of players who like to start a fresh campaign in each release. Those loops are there in order to give players a chance to shop for Forsaken to fill out their teams, but I can see how players who are happy with their current team would just want to skip them.
I'm currently thinking about adding a series of "warp pipes" (definitely not what they'll be called in the final release) which allow you to skip loops and gain a little bonus in exchange for the Forsaken and achievement progress you're missing by doing so. These warp pipes can be unlocked by doing something special in a loop that's normally followed by nothing special. For example, the Loop 1 warp pipe would be unlocked by purchasing Imago Quickening on Day 30 or before, and it would lead you directly to Loop 3. Then, the Loop 3 warp pipe might have some condition related to the Superior Chosen, and it would lead you directly to Loop 5.
