Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 56] [CSDev]
CSdev
R48 bug report: Forsaken are showing up as/being processed as helpless/restrained in some instances when no INJU training has been applied. Screenshot:
The only previously applied training is Grand Concert, which should not be leaving her helpless here.
Save is attached: load slot 1 "train". Then train Orgasmia: Grand Concert followed by Tentacle Show.
Also, a quality of life/logic thing--if you Retreat after one Averted Chosen is caught in an Orgy, the text mentions her giving chase. Obviously, that shouldn't be happening--she's trying to flee in a panic. I suppose you don't have to adjust the EE given in that case as Aversion is balanced around giving exactly 0 EE, but at least the flavor needs to be adjusted.
Longer answer:
These four stats are called Traumas. At the end of a battle, the Chosen perform some action (called a Downtime Action) with two effects:
1) The Downtime Action gives you Evil Energy. More "sinful" actions generate more EE.
2) The Downtime Action lowers some combination of Trauma and Angst. More "sinful" actions resolve more Trauma and Angst.
The Trauma that remains after the Downtime Action stays on the Chosen, and is added to any Trauma already on the chosen. Also, every day, the Trauma that remains on the Chosen generates Angst.
Angst adds an amount to all of your attacks that cause damage against that Chosen.
R48 bug report: Forsaken are showing up as/being processed as helpless/restrained in some instances when no INJU training has been applied. Screenshot:
The only previously applied training is Grand Concert, which should not be leaving her helpless here.
Save is attached: load slot 1 "train". Then train Orgasmia: Grand Concert followed by Tentacle Show.
Also, a quality of life/logic thing--if you Retreat after one Averted Chosen is caught in an Orgy, the text mentions her giving chase. Obviously, that shouldn't be happening--she's trying to flee in a panic. I suppose you don't have to adjust the EE given in that case as Aversion is balanced around giving exactly 0 EE, but at least the flavor needs to be adjusted.
Short answer: they get added to a pool, Angst adds to your damage vs. the Chosen.
Longer answer:
These four stats are called Traumas. At the end of a battle, the Chosen perform some action (called a Downtime Action) with two effects:
1) The Downtime Action gives you Evil Energy. More "sinful" actions generate more EE.
2) The Downtime Action lowers some combination of Trauma and Angst. More "sinful" actions resolve more Trauma and Angst.
The Trauma that remains after the Downtime Action stays on the Chosen, and is added to any Trauma already on the chosen. Also, every day, the Trauma that remains on the Chosen generates Angst.
Angst adds an amount to all of your attacks that cause damage against that Chosen.
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Fear, Disgust, Pain and Shame are what are added at the end of battle as Unresolved Trauma and ANGST.
Hate, Pleasure, Injury and Exposure are Circumstances and they only effect the current battle in the form of damage modifiers.
ANGST is a small buff to you, not a buff to the Chosen. It makes all damage you do to a Chosen deal a fixed amount of bonus damage.
- Mar 20, 2019
- 460
- 525
Sticky Posts. I loved using Chekovs Ghost portraits but they dont seem to be working anymore.
CSdev
Missing string:
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Morality Break
Scurry doesn't enjoy violence, but her desperation over being unable to stop the Thralls has reached the breaking point, and the fact that she's bottled it up inside for so long only makes its release that much more spectacular. Even though she knows that she's about to cross an irreversible line, right now she just doesn't care.
+20 Evil Energy
Scurry's Action: Wild Hunt
/*here
, killing them in much greater numbers now that she's drawing on so much Demonic energy.
*/
FEAR [----''''''] ( 432 = 432) nervous eyes
DISG [-'''''''''] ( 138 = 138) lips curled in distaste
PAIN [-'''''''''] ( 192 = 192) wincing in pain
SHAM [--''''''''] ( 259 = 259) face downturned
HATE [=~~~~~~~~~] ( 1893 + 8107 = 10.0k) overpowering hatred for the world
PLEA [ ] ( 0 = 0)
INJU [ ] ( 0 = 0)
EXPO [ ] ( 0 = 0)
HATE up! Scurry's attacks grow stronger and stronger in a desperate effort to to end the battle before things get any worse. She has begun to grow numb to the violence, and she can't muster the willpower to think of anything better to do.
- Sep 7, 2020
- 18
- 13
Is... there a way to get a different UI?
This command-prompt look is painful to my eyes for some reason.
This command-prompt look is painful to my eyes for some reason.
I know this one! Here's the post where the other planned species are mentioned:
Post where CSdev mentions other species
And, a direct quote under the spoiler here in case anyone doesn't want to know:
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content.
Log in or register now.
This is the first post where I fight Devil Chosen in the Campaign.
I've got a fresh start, a new batch of Forsaken and items. I've got Splendor being a real drag on everything:
This means that my roster is a little bit lean, my items are a little bit better, and my achievements are a bit behind (though whenever possible I've been beating the Chosen I don't keep twice--first Distorting them, then breaking that Distortion with a Defiler, which gets the achievements for all 4 T4 breaks and for the Distortion). I'll introduce Forsaken as necessary.
So, can this team beat the first Devil Chosen?
My choices in Loop 11:
I'm explicitly not trying to use the new Loop 11 alternate finish, but I think I earn it anyway:
From the help file, the Devil Chosen gets -2 ANGST modifier for every 1 ANGST modifier on other Chosen. So that means each of the other chosen would need +30 from ANGST, which is I believe 2^29=536M. Guess I'll be earning that through Propaganda, which does 1G Angst to all of them. I might take the alternate finish--I wouldn't really want to have to earn this in a loop with 35 days.
Anyway, starting the fight in the next post. Going to take some basic tactics as a given, but if you want more detailed explanations of why I do things, let me know.
I've got a fresh start, a new batch of Forsaken and items. I've got Splendor being a real drag on everything:
I've got the following set of items, which I feel are fairly synergistic and nice:
I've warped through a lot of the preceding loops, skipping loops 2, 4, 6, and 8 (didn't skip 9, though I could have--Silver Collar was too good to pass up, and in a loop where I fought 2 Animalistic Chosen)
This means that my roster is a little bit lean, my items are a little bit better, and my achievements are a bit behind (though whenever possible I've been beating the Chosen I don't keep twice--first Distorting them, then breaking that Distortion with a Defiler, which gets the achievements for all 4 T4 breaks and for the Distortion). I'll introduce Forsaken as necessary.
So, can this team beat the first Devil Chosen?
My choices in Loop 11:
I don't have a real choice, I've got to try out the Devil. Dimensional Kaleidoscope is pretty neat, but Propaganda is actually pretty useful.
I'm explicitly not trying to use the new Loop 11 alternate finish, but I think I earn it anyway:
Hey, it's math time. What does this equal?
From the help file, the Devil Chosen gets -2 ANGST modifier for every 1 ANGST modifier on other Chosen. So that means each of the other chosen would need +30 from ANGST, which is I believe 2^29=536M. Guess I'll be earning that through Propaganda, which does 1G Angst to all of them. I might take the alternate finish--I wouldn't really want to have to earn this in a loop with 35 days.
Anyway, starting the fight in the next post. Going to take some basic tactics as a given, but if you want more detailed explanations of why I do things, let me know.
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From peeking through Psychic Reading, the fight starts off against the Superior Chosen, Chaos.
I buy Focus (refunded by Newspaper) and send out a 2-capture 2-turn Demon Commander with a free Hypnosis Punisher with my starting 3EE. I doubt it'll be enough to earn the customary +2EE from Chaos's core INN, but it doesn't hurt to try, and it'll at least rack up some turns and make other Chosen appear quicker.
Combat 1
Oh hey it was more than enough:
Normally by this point I've got my Undead Demon Knight which would be perfect. Alas, fate has not been kind and there has not been a good candidate so far.
Combat 2
Well, shit.
I can't seem to avoid this turn in the fight, or get an improvement on it:
I do manage to get Level 2 EXPO on Purgatory.
I get the 6EE back, +1EE x 2 for each of the Chosen's Downtimes, and the +2EE for Level 2 EXPO. Purgatory, by the way, is the Demon Knight I want:
Anyway, with 10EE, I get Psychic Reading (no more flying blind!), Wide Deployment, Fast Breeders, and Coordinated Deployment, along with some free 2EE and 3EE techs I don't bother enumerating from the Newspaper. This brings me to 5EE.
So as I plan for the next combat, realizing that I definitely do have to do a Rampancy on Purgatory and might also do Rampancy on Chaos, the core that's out there waiting to be broken is Purgatory's DIG. It's time for the world's most confusing summoning, meet our friend:
Combat 3
Oh, here's the Devil:
(Chaos courtesy of Kalloi's Portrait Pack)
Anyway, reading more:
So, what happens when the damage modifier is -68, but you deal 8x Trauma damage because that seemed like a good idea?
I do manage to get Purgatory's T1 and T2 breaks on DIG, as well as the allowed T1 INN break. I also do a bit of Trauma to our friend Order:
From the species.txt file, here are the possible distortions for Devil Chosen:
I don't really care what kind of Forsaken she'll make. If I decide to do some kind of Break against her the only one available is Rampancy which is--kind of annoying? We'll see.
I buy Focus (refunded by Newspaper) and send out a 2-capture 2-turn Demon Commander with a free Hypnosis Punisher with my starting 3EE. I doubt it'll be enough to earn the customary +2EE from Chaos's core INN, but it doesn't hurt to try, and it'll at least rack up some turns and make other Chosen appear quicker.
Combat 1
Oh hey it was more than enough:
For the record, I have 13 Forsaken, that are all losing 10% of their Motivation each turn. I think I've only got one Sacrifice lined up, so, uh, this sucks:
No other Forsaken show up Day 1. The Inferno Pepper restores the 3EE I spent, I got 2EE from reaching Level 2 PLEA, and I got 1EE from Chaos, so now I'm at 6EE, which is exactly what the Pepper gives me. But, there's not really a way to spend 6EE on a Demon Commander. Oh, if I only had a Forsaken that cost exactly yeah you know where this is going.
I send her out in the hope that Forsaken #2 will have a core CON vulnerability. There's a 50% chance, right? Hopefully the Devil doesn't also have the core of CON?
Normally by this point I've got my Undead Demon Knight which would be perfect. Alas, fate has not been kind and there has not been a good candidate so far.
Combat 2
Well, shit.
Well, shit. That's clearly a CON unbroken minor, even though I'm not able to look at her stats. At least Liquorice will be tearing right through her.
I can't seem to avoid this turn in the fight, or get an improvement on it:
If I surround Chaos, the fight ends on the turn they're both free and I lose a lot of extra turns since Purgatory isn't escaping yet. But waiting to surround her means I'm still losing some turns because I don't get the second surround on her. I need to prioritize getting an advanced species that's focused on CON damage.
I do manage to get Level 2 EXPO on Purgatory.
I get the 6EE back, +1EE x 2 for each of the Chosen's Downtimes, and the +2EE for Level 2 EXPO. Purgatory, by the way, is the Demon Knight I want:
So we'll definitely be doing some level of Rampaging.
Anyway, with 10EE, I get Psychic Reading (no more flying blind!), Wide Deployment, Fast Breeders, and Coordinated Deployment, along with some free 2EE and 3EE techs I don't bother enumerating from the Newspaper. This brings me to 5EE.
So as I plan for the next combat, realizing that I definitely do have to do a Rampancy on Purgatory and might also do Rampancy on Chaos, the core that's out there waiting to be broken is Purgatory's DIG. It's time for the world's most confusing summoning, meet our friend:
At a cost of 4, she was created early in the run, one of my fist Undead. She's tuned to deal lots of EXPO, lots of Trauma, and can switch it up with Tempt to also deal lots of PLEA. I am fairly sure I can use her to at least get a T2 break on Purgatory's DIG.
Combat 3
Oh, here's the Devil:
Huh, wonder if they get along:
(Chaos courtesy of Kalloi's Portrait Pack)
Anyway, reading more:
Note that the vulnerabilities are all just blank, except for PLEA which comes to us pre-broken.
So, what happens when the damage modifier is -68, but you deal 8x Trauma damage because that seemed like a good idea?
Well, that's a bit unpleasant. What about when she uses Tempt?
That's a bit better.
I do manage to get Purgatory's T1 and T2 breaks on DIG, as well as the allowed T1 INN break. I also do a bit of Trauma to our friend Order:
What kind of Forsaken does she make?
I've already got the following: a victim +INJU, victim +EXPO, victim +Motivation. So, while those bonuses are very nice, I'm looking for a Forsaken I can use for damage.
From the species.txt file, here are the possible distortions for Devil Chosen:
Since she comes partially broken, my choices are Temptation or Negotiation. And I'm... going to sleep on it.
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Intermission: The Plan
Now that we have all 3 Chosen, what are we doing with them?
Chaos
Purgatory
Anyway, I want her to be broken in a way that gives her +max Motivation (because she loses so much each day) and +Trauma damage (because she'll build that multiplier to x50 or so counting both)
Order
This morning, let's write out the pros and cons of each:
Ease of Accomplishment:
Negotiation--Very easy, Propaganda gives me 1G ANGST to everyone to get this started.
Temptation--I'd say Moderate. She'll have the Devil Modifier preventing her from gaining PLEA as fast, but we have EXPOdia which is basically built for that Distortion.
Advantage: Negotiation
Utility of Distortion
Negotiation--
Temptation--
Advantage: Negotiation
While we're comparing and mulling things over, what do the Devil T3 moves look like?
No matter which Distortion, they both will do the Hypnosis-related move:
Negotiation:
Well, obviously, I'm Negotiating.
Time to put my "strategy document" (MSPaint Cut and Paste) together for this loop.
Order's got a Core CON hanging out there. I'm sending Liquorice out to get her. Let's get that 1G Angst! Buying Eager Breeders, Weakness Sense and sending Liquorice to go after Purgatory then Order.
I messed up at some point after this, so I load back to day 4. I broke Pugatory's rampage instead of Chaos's so oops. that sucked. Anyway...
Battle 4
The fight goes basically as expected. Capturing Purgatory first allowed me to Expose her when I later captured Order, which gave me enough CON damage on Order to activate the INJU Defiler from Liquorice. Which means--I've met the minimum requirements for Propaganda, and these bitches is hurtin'.
I've got 37EE and they're all at 990M+ trauma. But because they're doing level 3 downtimes, they're basically zeroing out a Circumstance worth of Trauma every time. I don't really have enough EE to keep on the pressure during this time, so I'm just going to get some T1/T2 breaks while my upgrades catch up a bit with my damage. Got MOR breaks allowed on both Purgatory and Order. So, since I need some MOR breaks, meet Poke!
Battle 5
I get some breaks on Purgatory, but not really on Order. When I surround Order after she's at 10K HATE, doing Grind on her shows a warning that she's going to break DIG instead, which would of course take her out of the Negotiation path.
Anyway, we're here now:
[CODE}
Overall corruption progress:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][ ][-][-][-]
CON (sig) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (sig) [X][-][-][-]
CON (min) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [X][ ][-][-][-]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [X][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [-][-][-][-]
Which information do you want to view?
[/CODE]
With 29EE it's time to buy Network. 9EE left means I can send out Poke again, or go back to trying Liquorice. I try Poke again, and this time I'm going to try to make a point of getting some Trauma developed on Chaos and Purgatory (starting with Purgatory).
Battle 6
Well, I was able to get the Rampage on Purgatory. This time I need to remember, that's not the one I need to clear. I noticed both this time and last time that I was getting Rampages that weren't resulting in the +30EE downtime. Honestly, it's probably good that they don't because that would clear my Trauma/ANGST,but if this is a bug, CSdev , you can see it for yourself by loading Slot 1 in the saves.sav file atttached and performing a sequence of actions that gets you a Rampancy Break this is not a bug, it's a feature of the Devil Chosen preventing them from just smashing the city down.
What's 122 EE get us? Passion Release, Soul Resonance, and Reality Sealing, along with all pre-requisites for these brings us back down to 34EE. At this point, the only purchases I have left really are the whatever I take from Antipathy, Empathy, and one of the basic attack+ options so I can put everything into attacking the Chosen. I messed up the calculation on the needed ANGST for the warp/loop skip/alternate route or whatever the preferred term is. I thought I needed 2^29, but it's actually 2^30 or somewhere between 1.07G and 1.08G. So, that's not far from where we are, with 990M being everyone's current ANGST.
There's enough going on to need a checklist:
1) Deal enough ANGST/Trauma to Chaos and Purgatory that they bump me over the -120 Devil modifier and earn the alternate exit to this loop.
2) Rampancy on Chaos still isn't a bad way to earn a bit of extra EE, that might be a useful buffer if raising Order's Trauma is difficult after all this.
3) Big Orgy once I've cleared the warp requirement
4) Negotiate Order whenever I can to do a soft break of her core MOR.
I decide that the best way to accomplish 1) and possibly 2) as well is a moderately sized Commander hitting 3 circumstances. I put HATE/PLEA in the Defiler slot because the focus is on Chaos and Purgatory, and remember that it may not be safe to Capture Order. I add an INJU Suppressor as somewhat counterintuitively the multipliers on Chaos and Purgatory make it quicker to build EXPO (min/core) if I do some CON (sig/min) first.
Battle 7
I end up accomplishing 2) but not 1). Purgatory gets up to 1.82G Angst, but not Chaos, who is still stuck at 1.00G. Anyway a quick Rampancy helps, and again, they don't do the associated Rampage downtime, which I'm now realizing isn't a bug, it's a feature of the Devil chosen! So, everything is working correctly.
I realize that if I basically repeat the same actions as last time, I should get Purgatory up above (2^31 = 2.15G or so) ANGST, which will give her a +31 bonus. That'll earn the alternative exit, so lather, rinse, repeat!
Battle 8
I manage to earn the extra ANGST I need on Purgatory. I have to change up my order slightly, because if she does a Curse like she wants when she's free, it makes it so she can only Rampage which doesn't give me any Trauma.
Another option that I just recognized I had would have been buying up through Impregnation and sending a Forsaken out on an Assist Raid action. That's actually a pretty cheap option considering the Forsaken I have in reserve who can cause an Orgy costs well over 100EE.
So, I pick one of my Forsaken that just got replaced in the Loop 10 boss fight, and send her out for +6G trauma.
No Battle 8
And that means I've earned the modifier! Now all I need to do is negotiate Order and I'm done. I waste an extra day training because, haha, the radio show is today and it's funny to see them act innocent when we're so much beyond that now.
No Battle 9
Since it's been a couple of days:
I'd like to earn all T4 breaks against Chaos. So, I need to free her and only her from Rampancy in order to do that. The Negotiation cleared out all of Order's ANGST/Trauma, but with Silver Collar and the like I'm fairly sure I can get her back up there in a single fight.
So, what kind of Demon do I need to do this? I've got a tough road to navigate here, because I'd like a single Demon to be able to do the following:
1) Ensure I get a T2 INN or CON break on Chaos, bringing her out of Rampage so she can get back to doing stuff.
2) Get a large Orgy on everyone to start breaking T3s on Purgatory and Order.
I think this will allow it, but the number of turns might have to be fine-tuned:
EDIT: Going back to the same body, but 3 turns.
Battle 12
Yeah, this one took a lot of fine-tuning, but I did eventually manage to break Chaos out of Rampancy and additionally keep Purgatory from Rampaging for a 10-turn Orgy.
Want to see how having -130 base damage affects Order in the orgy?
Here's where things stand at day 13:
I only have 39 EE left, but I'm about to start racking up more breaks on everyone so the energy will be coming. I've got plenty of time left to Negotiate Order up to where she deals a decent amount of damage as well as fully break Chaos and Purgatory. The trickiest thing is that I've got to figure out how to use my Forsaken while Splendor is chewing up their Morale.
I'll check in again when Order starts doing those T3 moves.
Audience Participation
Hey everyone, I'm mostly doing these as part of a request for feedback on whether Devil Chosen are attuned correctly. Overall, I think they are--they'll definitely get more difficult when they start being combined with shorter loops and higher DM. I don't think that the ease in which I have basically won this loop should be used to judge whether Devils are too hard or too easy.
I don't know who reads and who doesn't, but I'm pretty sure CSdev does and a few others. Anyway, these Chosen will need new names. I'll copy their current Chosen descriptions below.
So, as you can see, I've got 3 Forsaken coming in at the end of the loop--I don't think there will be any problem with getting all of them.
Chaos is worthless, to be used up by my other Forsaken. Her main value is the breaks that she can give the few Forsaken I have that build up stats/multipliers.
Purgatory is incredibly useful--she'll be my Energy Raider/Demon Knight. She'll grow both her HATE and her Trauma multipliers to insane numbers during the game. I'll probably stop her overall trauma multiplier at around 50.
Order is going to be interesting--she's my first Devil Forsaken. As a reminder, I'll have her costing more than 10 but less than 15. She'll have a +PLEA damage modifier. I was originally going to put a -Obedience or a +Stamina Regen on her but that's actually a bit counter-productive since because of the Devil's Contract (Negotiated) bonus I actually want her Stamina to go down. I really like the idea of her being just the ultimate in Trauma damage, dealing HATE and PLEA and then switching up to Traumatize (although of course Purgatory will be stronger than her in dealing Trauma once her multipliers get going) so I don't actually have any Harvester bonus that makes her better.
Descriptions:
Now that we have all 3 Chosen, what are we doing with them?
Chaos
As I said, she's worthless. I'm not going to use her in any way whatsoever after this fight except as a Grand Concert-show before I Sacrifice her. Current plan is to try Rampaging her, then earning all Breaks against her. If I'm going to Rampage her, which has very little benefit since I don't plan to need another Rampant Forsaken after Purgatory, I need to do it first, because it soft breaks one of her Cores and no Minor Vulns.Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ] -|-----
INN (core) [X][ ][~][~][~] ----|
CON (sig) [~][~][~][~] -|--
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ] -|-----
Beautiful Avenger Chaos: real name, Ushioda Umeko. A recent addition to the Chosen, with extremely high psychic potential. Although she lacks the skill to make full use of her power, she's still reached the point where it's difficult to hold her down or even touch her against her will. Her motivations are anything but heroic, though, and her focus on winning the battle can cause her to neglect overall strategy and public relations.
Her performance is more than satisfactory, but she has trouble obtaining government support due to her deeply-skewed sense of right and wrong. Most of her 'fans' are just people who lust after her, and she obliges them with lucrative gravure photoshoots and whatever other public appearances her handlers consider appropriate. She uses it as an opportunity to blow off some steam. Teasing and manipulating all those people is great fun.
Given her wild public image, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Chaos disregards the rules of society in her personal life as well. She is trapped in mutually-abusive relationships with those around her, having sex with all of them on a regular basis, often with several of them at once. She really likes the warm emotions she feels when they all want to be with her. It's better than being lonely.
Chaos accepted her role as one of the Chosen in hopes of becoming strong enough to take control of her own life. She tends to trust what those around her say, so she believes that the Chosen are the natural predators of the Demons, their victory inevitable. Even though she still pours her heart and soul into every fight, it's only a matter of time until she learns that her optimism was unfounded.
But fighting the Demons has already left its impact on her. Chaos had expected that they'd just be fighting her fair and square, but they seem to prefer molesting her over actually attacking. She's mostly just angered, though some other strange feelings make their way through, her passion for battle becoming twisted into a very different sort of emotion.
Superior Chosen:
1/3 circumstance damage in Core Vulnerabilities
2/3 all damage in Significant Vulnerabilities
1/3 trauma damage in Minor Vulnerabilities
Stronger Slaughter, Fantasize, Detonate, and Striptease
Double Resolve in Final Battle
Double Achievement Weight
Purgatory
Purgatory is going to be my singular Undead Demon Knight, which will really propel my early game forward. You see, with Inferno Pepper I get a refund up to +n (currently 6) for sending any Commander, and she'll also as an Energy Raider give me back 90% of what I spend on her. So, by my reckoning, I'll get EE back twice. If I start a loop with 3 EE, I'll get 2 back from her Energy Raider and 3 back from Inferno Pepper for Day 2. Assuming I get one +2EE break against the first Chosen, that means 3 EE turns into 10 for day 2, and I can get even more back (9 + n) on Day 2.
Anyway, I want her to be broken in a way that gives her +max Motivation (because she loses so much each day) and +Trauma damage (because she'll build that multiplier to x50 or so counting both)
Order
Last night, I was trying to decide whether to do a Negotiation or Temptation Distortion on her.Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [ ][ ][~][~][~]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [ ][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [~][~][~][~]
Wise Djinn Order: real name, Rokuda Wattan. Though incarnated as a human, she has the memories and soul of a Devil, an entity which exists to punish all sinners. As a djinn, she offers her knowledge and power to any mortals who know how to ask, even though she knows that most of them will use it only to consign themselves to damnation.
She has a dedicated fanbase among those who appreciate her strong sense of right and wrong. She is absolutely tireless in using her popularity to promote the war effort to the public, but feels a cynical contempt for the way that many of her fans hold her up as an object of sexual desire. Despite how much she enjoys being the center of attention, she doesn't consider it acceptable to dignify that sort of obsession.
As expected of a Chosen with such a wholesome reputation, Order lives a fairly traditional personal life. She is very outgoing and is considered irreplaceable by her many friends, always trying to do what's best for everyone. However, she's more of a cynic than a romantic, and in any case she's too strong-willed to let herself be forced into a relationship before she's absolutely ready for it.
Order became one of the Chosen to protect what she actually cares about. Always smarter and more capable of taking care of herself than her peers, she is absolutely fearless and convinced that she'll be the one to save the day. She doesn't take her fights as seriously as she should despite the fact that she ought to have learned better by now.
But the Demons are perfectly willing to teach her other lessons in the meantime. Order is normally very focused on her goal, but she feels no shame whatsoever about using their lewd attentions to satisfy her own sexual needs. She doesn't truly hate them, and that leaves an opening in her heart that she doesn't care about correcting.
Devil Chosen:
Base damage taken is decreased by double Allies' ANGST bonuses (but never to less than own ANGST bonus)
Allies cannot pick downtime actions which generate more Evil Energy than own downtime action
If two Devils are present, third ally must pick downtime action which generates less than theirs
Alternative Tier-3 Break moves
Quadruple Resolve in Final Battle
Quadruple Achievement Weight
Vulnerabilities
Morality: FEAR | HATE <= Core Vulnerability: Reach Lv 2 HATE
Innocence: DISG |- PLEA <= Minor Vulnerability: Reach 100M Unresolved DISG
Confidence: PAIN | INJU <= Core Vulnerability: Reach Lv 2 INJU
Dignity: SHAM | EXPO <= Significant Vulnerability: Use Grind and Humiliate until 10k dmg
Morality/Dignity Distortion: Do not break Morality or Dignity (violence is okay)
Use Sodomize
Unresolved Trauma: 32.7k FEAR, 119k DISG, 22.1k PAIN, 24.8k SHAM. 198k ANGST (+17 base damage)
(-72 base damage from ally ANGST)
This morning, let's write out the pros and cons of each:
Ease of Accomplishment:
Negotiation--Very easy, Propaganda gives me 1G ANGST to everyone to get this started.
Temptation--I'd say Moderate. She'll have the Devil Modifier preventing her from gaining PLEA as fast, but we have EXPOdia which is basically built for that Distortion.
Advantage: Negotiation
Utility of Distortion
Negotiation--
If I Distort through Negotiation, when she does get that bonus damage, which will I think be quite rare, she'll do it to all circumstances. This means I have flexibility to damage whatever stats I want. The Defiler for Negotiation, Traumatize, deals extra damage to all Trauma stats while dealing no damage to Circumstances. Since I don't need more weak Forsaken, I'd aim for her to be about a 10-15 cost to fill in the space between where we have all T2 breaks and we need to start earning Distortions and T3 breaks. With that and a high base multiplier she could be my first 2-circumstance focused Chosen. The bonus Defiler makes the choice of those Circumstances kind of obvious: HATE and PLEA. I'd want her to have the +Motivation Defiler attached to her and the +Trauma damage multiplier from my other Forsaken.
Temptation--
In this form, she'd deal a LOT of extra damage sometimes to PLEA and EXPO, but she'd have to be deployed most of the time. The fact that she loses Obedience every day means I'd have to train her to re-up it at least sometimes, which on those days everyone would take Motivation damage. Given that, it's hard to figure out what kind of cost we'd need--if she's costed for the beginning of a loop, she wouldn't be useful in the middle, and if she's costed for the middle of the loop, I can't afford her in the beginning. I guess with such a large modifier, I'd weight her towards the beginning and hope that it's still enough to be useful. I'd set her up with +PLEA and +EXPO damage from two Forsaken I've created for that purpose. Still hard to see how she doesn't mess with my Punishers at the end of the loop.
Advantage: Negotiation
While we're comparing and mulling things over, what do the Devil T3 moves look like?
No matter which Distortion, they both will do the Hypnosis-related move:
The other T3 move will be different.
Negotiation:
Temptation:
I think the Detonate is slightly easier to deal with the Disgrace. My combat-focused Forsaken tend to have fairly low Obedience, but they're very exactly tuned on where I want their EE cost/Strength to be, and they're all at a phase where a small drop in Disgrace leads to a large power drop. Advantage: Negotiation
Well, obviously, I'm Negotiating.
Time to put my "strategy document" (MSPaint Cut and Paste) together for this loop.
Order's got a Core CON hanging out there. I'm sending Liquorice out to get her. Let's get that 1G Angst! Buying Eager Breeders, Weakness Sense and sending Liquorice to go after Purgatory then Order.
I messed up at some point after this, so I load back to day 4. I broke Pugatory's rampage instead of Chaos's so oops. that sucked. Anyway...
Battle 4
The fight goes basically as expected. Capturing Purgatory first allowed me to Expose her when I later captured Order, which gave me enough CON damage on Order to activate the INJU Defiler from Liquorice. Which means--I've met the minimum requirements for Propaganda, and these bitches is hurtin'.
Code:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][ ][-][-][-]
CON (sig) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [ ][x][ ][ ]
INN (sig) [X][-][-][-]
CON (min) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [ ][ ][-][-][-]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [X][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [-][-][-][-]Poke is one of the first, if not the first, Undead that I trained as a damage dealer. She deals 1000% HATE, costs 4EE, and can actually trap them in an Orgy if circumstances allow it, but I don't think they will this time since I'm trying to get Order to stay under 100M in all Traumas. I pick up Dominance, Causal Projection, the last 2EE and 3EE techs, and Nursery Hives. All of that leaves me with 9EE, which hopefully I can put into a Networked Consciousness purchase tomorrow.
[This pic comes from the Chrima folder, she was not displaying a picture since Memory doesn't have a folder]
Poke (formerly known as Returned Saint Memory)
Real name: Fujimori Rin
Stamina: 100.0%
Motivation: 44.4%
Expertise
HATE: 322k (x1.408 dmg) (x1.425 dmg from Bitters's impregnation)
PLEA: 43.5k (x1.114 dmg)
INJU: 51.6k (x1.139 dmg)
EXPO: 10.9k (x0.773 dmg)
Combat Style: Mean (1000% HATE)
Avoids direct combat, instead taunting and manipulating the target's emotional state. Can set up for a powerful surround afterward.
Training Plan: None
Remains idle when at full Stamina
Defiler Specialty: Orgy (all)
Can throw a target into an existing Defiler+ action to create a weaker Orgy (stronger with lower Disgrace), so long as the target has at least 10k HATE or INJU
Trait: Undead Forsaken
One-third motivation gain, 1/4 Evil Energy cost, Distortion trait changed
Trait: Dissociative Identity (Shattered Soul)
While consenting, training can only increase Disgrace. +50% HATE and INJU damage
Can use 'Shape Memories' in Customize menu
First Impregnation: Bitters (+42.5% HATE damage)
First Drain: Ritual (-29% starting Obedience)
Hostility: 51% (Pretending to be hateful toward humanity)
Deviancy: 33% (Pretending to fetishize aberrant actions)
Obedience: 42% (Pretending to be eager to obey)
Disgrace: 60% (Object of base lust)
Battle 5
I get some breaks on Purgatory, but not really on Order. When I surround Order after she's at 10K HATE, doing Grind on her shows a warning that she's going to break DIG instead, which would of course take her out of the Negotiation path.
Anyway, we're here now:
[CODE}
Overall corruption progress:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][ ][-][-][-]
CON (sig) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (sig) [X][-][-][-]
CON (min) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [X][ ][-][-][-]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [X][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [-][-][-][-]
Which information do you want to view?
[/CODE]
With 29EE it's time to buy Network. 9EE left means I can send out Poke again, or go back to trying Liquorice. I try Poke again, and this time I'm going to try to make a point of getting some Trauma developed on Chaos and Purgatory (starting with Purgatory).
Battle 6
Well, I was able to get the Rampage on Purgatory. This time I need to remember, that's not the one I need to clear. I noticed both this time and last time that I was getting Rampages that weren't resulting in the +30EE downtime. Honestly, it's probably good that they don't because that would clear my Trauma/ANGST,
Code:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][X][-][-][-]
CON (sig) [-][-][-][-]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (sig) [X][~][~][~]
CON (min) [~][~][~][~]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [X][X][~][~][~]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [X][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [~][~][~][~]There's enough going on to need a checklist:
1) Deal enough ANGST/Trauma to Chaos and Purgatory that they bump me over the -120 Devil modifier and earn the alternate exit to this loop.
2) Rampancy on Chaos still isn't a bad way to earn a bit of extra EE, that might be a useful buffer if raising Order's Trauma is difficult after all this.
3) Big Orgy once I've cleared the warp requirement
4) Negotiate Order whenever I can to do a soft break of her core MOR.
I decide that the best way to accomplish 1) and possibly 2) as well is a moderately sized Commander hitting 3 circumstances. I put HATE/PLEA in the Defiler slot because the focus is on Chaos and Purgatory, and remember that it may not be safe to Capture Order. I add an INJU Suppressor as somewhat counterintuitively the multipliers on Chaos and Purgatory make it quicker to build EXPO (min/core) if I do some CON (sig/min) first.
Battle 7
I end up accomplishing 2) but not 1). Purgatory gets up to 1.82G Angst, but not Chaos, who is still stuck at 1.00G. Anyway a quick Rampancy helps, and again, they don't do the associated Rampage downtime, which I'm now realizing isn't a bug, it's a feature of the Devil chosen! So, everything is working correctly.
Code:
Overall corruption progress:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][X][~][~][~]
CON (sig) [~][~][~][~]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [X][X][/][ ]
INN (sig) [X][~][~][~]
CON (min) [~][~][~][~]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [X][X][-][-][-]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [X][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [-][-][-][-]Battle 8
I manage to earn the extra ANGST I need on Purgatory. I have to change up my order slightly, because if she does a Curse like she wants when she's free, it makes it so she can only Rampage which doesn't give me any Trauma.
Another option that I just recognized I had would have been buying up through Impregnation and sending a Forsaken out on an Assist Raid action. That's actually a pretty cheap option considering the Forsaken I have in reserve who can cause an Orgy costs well over 100EE.
Code:
no change, not botheringNo Battle 8
And that means I've earned the modifier! Now all I need to do is negotiate Order and I'm done. I waste an extra day training because, haha, the radio show is today and it's funny to see them act innocent when we're so much beyond that now.
No Battle 9
Since it's been a couple of days:
Code:
Overall corruption progress:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][X][~][~][~]
CON (sig) [~][~][~][~]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [X][X][/][ ]
INN (sig) [X][~][~][~]
CON (min) [~][~][~][~]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [X][X][~][~][~]
INN (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
CON (core) [X][ ][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [~][~][~][~]So, what kind of Demon do I need to do this? I've got a tough road to navigate here, because I'd like a single Demon to be able to do the following:
1) Ensure I get a T2 INN or CON break on Chaos, bringing her out of Rampage so she can get back to doing stuff.
2) Get a large Orgy on everyone to start breaking T3s on Purgatory and Order.
I think this will allow it, but the number of turns might have to be fine-tuned:
The major possible issue is that 4 turns might be too many for Order--we don't want the demon to activate the HATE defiler. But I don't have a really good sense for how the -130 Devil modifier is going to slow this body down.
EDIT: Going back to the same body, but 3 turns.
Battle 12
Yeah, this one took a lot of fine-tuning, but I did eventually manage to break Chaos out of Rampancy and additionally keep Purgatory from Rampaging for a 10-turn Orgy.
Want to see how having -130 base damage affects Order in the orgy?
So anyway this loop is now basically won and it's just a matter of playing it out.
Here's where things stand at day 13:
Code:
Chaos +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
INN (core) [X][X][ ][/][ ]
CON (sig) [X][X][ ][ ]
DIG (min) [X][X][ ][ ]
Purgatory +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (sig) [X][X][X][ ] 200%
INN (sig) [X][~][~][~]
CON (min) [~][~][~][~]
DIG (core) [X][X][X][/][ ]
Order +2 T1 T2 T3 T4
MOR (core) [X][X][~][~][~]
INN (min) [X][X][/][ ]
CON (core) [X][X][X][ ][ ]
DIG (sig) [~][~][~][~]I'll check in again when Order starts doing those T3 moves.
Audience Participation
Hey everyone, I'm mostly doing these as part of a request for feedback on whether Devil Chosen are attuned correctly. Overall, I think they are--they'll definitely get more difficult when they start being combined with shorter loops and higher DM. I don't think that the ease in which I have basically won this loop should be used to judge whether Devils are too hard or too easy.
I don't know who reads and who doesn't, but I'm pretty sure CSdev does and a few others. Anyway, these Chosen will need new names. I'll copy their current Chosen descriptions below.
So, as you can see, I've got 3 Forsaken coming in at the end of the loop--I don't think there will be any problem with getting all of them.
Chaos is worthless, to be used up by my other Forsaken. Her main value is the breaks that she can give the few Forsaken I have that build up stats/multipliers.
Purgatory is incredibly useful--she'll be my Energy Raider/Demon Knight. She'll grow both her HATE and her Trauma multipliers to insane numbers during the game. I'll probably stop her overall trauma multiplier at around 50.
Order is going to be interesting--she's my first Devil Forsaken. As a reminder, I'll have her costing more than 10 but less than 15. She'll have a +PLEA damage modifier. I was originally going to put a -Obedience or a +Stamina Regen on her but that's actually a bit counter-productive since because of the Devil's Contract (Negotiated) bonus I actually want her Stamina to go down. I really like the idea of her being just the ultimate in Trauma damage, dealing HATE and PLEA and then switching up to Traumatize (although of course Purgatory will be stronger than her in dealing Trauma once her multipliers get going) so I don't actually have any Harvester bonus that makes her better.
Descriptions:
Anyway, if you're reading, you can help by naming these ladies. I'm on the path to making them all hate each other.
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First Devil T3 break in Battle 14:
Next Devil T3 break in Battle 15:
...
In Battle 20 I had one of my promising Forsaken have all of her Exp sucked out of her main damage type. Poor Haterape:
Something I realize after that is that I can send one of my Averted Undead after her, and then just mindwipe them, if I can think of something else useful for them to do. But that's OK, we'll get this figured out.
Anyway, on Day 22, we're looking at this with 13 days left to go:
And on Day 31, just after the military base vignette, I've got everyone as fully broken as I'm going to.
1) set up Purgatory with a longass Rampage/Surround, and
2) beat the shit out of Chaos (my choice was Taunt+), and
3) just ask Order to join our side,
which can happen in any order.
I decide on the following Demon as one that won't interfere with Purgatory's Rampancy. It'll never have to capture Order so the warning message is fine.
R7:
R14 I convert Chaos using Taunt+
And also Purgatory finishes up rampaging, finishing up all this loop.
The Devil Achievement bonus is pretty big:
And on Loop 13, these are the choices:
Anyway, taking a break for now!
Now it takes a while to accumulate high levels of Expertise, past a certain point. But as long as I'm using single types against her, it won't affect anything. The last bit of Exp is the hardest to get and has the least overall effect. I can afford this.
Next Devil T3 break in Battle 15:
My Forsaken don't have a problem with Stamina--none of the useful ones take a long time to regenerate when they're resting. And, I've got at least one that I can Grand Concert with a few more times if need be.
...
In Battle 20 I had one of my promising Forsaken have all of her Exp sucked out of her main damage type. Poor Haterape:
it's going to take a while to rebuild her. I was still working on getting her multipliers right. I'm sure it'll be fine, eventually. I can still work on her impressive HATE multiplier combination while she re-learns what an insult is.
Something I realize after that is that I can send one of my Averted Undead after her, and then just mindwipe them, if I can think of something else useful for them to do. But that's OK, we'll get this figured out.
Anyway, on Day 22, we're looking at this with 13 days left to go:
And so we're really almost there. The big thing we need to do, since it takes 400% Resolve to convert Order, is finish up converting and then stack that Appeal up up up.
And on Day 31, just after the military base vignette, I've got everyone as fully broken as I'm going to.
Order takes 143% damage from Appeal, so it takes 1 hit to kill her after getting Antipathy. I have over 900EE, so it's no problem to buy everything. I need to:
1) set up Purgatory with a longass Rampage/Surround, and
2) beat the shit out of Chaos (my choice was Taunt+), and
3) just ask Order to join our side,
which can happen in any order.
I decide on the following Demon as one that won't interfere with Purgatory's Rampancy. It'll never have to capture Order so the warning message is fine.
There's really essentially nothing to this fight, once it's planned out. I start with Purgatory, capturing her again once free to make the difference between HATE and INJU more noticable.
R7:
R11, Purgatory uses Fatal Curse for some reason. And that lets me go ahead and cause her Rampage.
R14 I convert Chaos using Taunt+
And also Purgatory finishes up rampaging, finishing up all this loop.
The Devil Achievement bonus is pretty big:
Anyway, get those names in for the Forsaken, if you're feeling creative. I'm just going to warp to at least Loop 13, possibly as far as 14 depending on what items are offered.
And on Loop 13, these are the choices:
I think either Kawaguchi or the Chosen Examination Grounds have completely fine items. Inevitability is definitely more fun, but I think that the city would be a slog with Splendor constantly dragging me down.
Anyway, taking a break for now!
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- Oct 14, 2020
- 164
- 546
I do want to make the game at least a bit more accessible, and I see how useful the features you're requesting would be for that. But it would take a big code rewrite to make some of that stuff possible. There'll definitely come a day where I make a big push toward improving the interface and such, so I'll note these suggestions down for whenever that day comes.
As others have said, the forsaken reference .txt file contains most of that info, but it's probably not as comprehensive as it should be. I think I should add a section for how the initial corruption stats are determined: a starting value from 0-33 for each one (Minor Vulnerabilities have higher starting values than Core Vulnerabilities), with a +10 bonus per tier of the highest-tier Break they suffered associated with that stat.
Right, they aren't born Forsaken, but they aren't born Chosen either. They're just regular humans. The idea is that the Demon Lord uses Demonic foresight to figure out where they need to be sent in order to receive the upbringing that will cause them to awaken to Chosen powers. In theory, the Demon Lord could do this for any human, but it's preferable to face Chosen who have the "weakness" of being related to one of your Forsaken.
It's an interesting idea, but I'm wary of tying too many gameplay features to it, because it's something that might not be possible to do depending on your toggles.
I suppose this makes sense. It wouldn't require a separate toggle, because if you have male->female shift and preserve virginity both toggled on for the same Chosen, then of course the desired final result must be a virgin female Chosen.
I wasn't able to reproduce this bug. The game should always be looking at your most recent save in order to determine whether guide goals should be toggled on by default or not.
That's right, each boss has their own Vulnerability spread which doesn't necessarily keep to the normal rules, and their attendants can also be given rule-breaking Vulnerabilities in order to avoid doubling up.
The body traits do affect flavor text, but this happens regardless of whether the damage modifications are toggled on.
Thanks for catching this. I saw your post just in time to slip a fix into R48b.
Yeah, the gameplay will remain the same, but I should adjust that flavor.
Thanks for catching this as well. Looks like it's affecting Devil Chosen too. I'll have it fixed for the next release.
Q: Do you know what happens to a Devil Chosen when she's blasted with a 10-turn Orgy?
A: The same thing that happens to everything else!
Funny to see this, since it could have gone very differently with how Devil Chosen were originally designed. Originally, their own ANGST bonus didn't actually serve as a floor for their base damage. If the ally ANGST modifier outweighed the Devil Chosen's base susceptibility plus her own ANGST bonus, then the Devil Chosen would simply take 1 base damage. This meant that, because the Orgy would also spike the damage on the Devil's allies, the Devil would quickly become basically immune to damage and not even the Orgy multipliers would be enough to get her up to T3-Break levels.
Overall, I think that the adjustment was probably for the better. Setting up a large Orgy should be a victory condition, even against a species that's meant to incentivize focusing on her over her allies. The remaining high-tier species will all have other ways of making the Orgy step more tricky in its own right.
That's the impression I'm getting as well. After all, you blew through Loop 11 pretty handily in your previous playthrough too, and the addition of Devils isn't supposed to make the game harder - it's just supposed to replace the "big number" modifiers with something more interesting (but roughly equal in difficulty).
One other thing I am curious about, though: what did you think about the restrictions placed by Order on her allies' downtime actions? It probably wasn't as impactful as it could have been, since the bonus ANGST from Propaganda would have caused her to want to do more sinful downtime actions anyway, but I did see that it was causing you some trouble by removing the "silver lining" of rampaging Chosen generating more daily EE.
Devil Chosen are meant to be sort of a hybrid of the prior advanced species, with their ANGST-based damage reduction making them tough like Animalistic Chosen, while their ally downtime restriction hits your EE like Undead Chosen. This is why their loop difficulty value is just equal to the sum of two of the next-lower species. Was that how it felt during your playthrough?
Right, I completely understand that. In this alpha you get to pick what your priorities are. Just let me know if you want some help with conveyance and objective-focused learning when you're getting around to that point. I don't say much about what I do for a living here, but breaking down complex concepts to a piece or two at a time is kind of what I do in my day job.
My loop 11 was Superior, Undead, Devil. If we think of a "normal" chosen as having difficulty 1, Superior 2, Animalistic and Undead 3, and Devil as Undead + Animalistic = 3 + 3 = 6, that's a sum of 11 for this loop. I'd compare this loop more directly and say it was about as difficult as a loop with Undead, Undead, Animalistic which would make for 9. So by that metric the Devil could use a bit of strengthening, but I don't think Animalistic and Undead are equal difficulty at any rate.
Personally I'd rate the combinations I know and have fought multiple times as:
- normal 1 per (no compounding difficulty, they're just always easy)
- Superior 2 per (no compounding difficulty, their only benefit is being harder to hurt)
- Single Undead 2.5
- Single Animalistic 3
- Double Undead 6 (the two have a compounding factor that can be difficult if you have trouble with early breaks)
- Triple Undead 7.5~8 (the third doesn't add very much)
- Double Animalistic 9 (the need to sync up their cycles provides a significant extra layer of challenge)
- Splendor and pals 9
- Triple Animalistic 12 (the third doesn't add nearly as much as the second)
- Victory and pals 14~15
By this subjective scale, the loop I finished was difficulty 9.5, and yeah that seems about right. So it was slightly more difficult than the Splendor boss fight, while being notably less difficult than any fight with 2x Animalistic.
I definitely noticed the downtime restrictions even in this battle, even considering the extra Angst from the Propaganda. My particular set of items generated quite a bit of EE on its own, especially in the early part of the loop, so I wasn't really missing much from the fact that it took a while to get the Devil up to 5EE. I got up to 6 back from my Commander/Forsaken each day, much of my 2EE-3EE tech purchases had an adjusted cost of 0, so those plus the 6EE that the Chosen generated were plenty enough to allow me to progress until the Chosen open up from Networked Consciousness.
The tough part right now for me is actually Splendor. My previous routing has been to go through Victory at 10, so that when I get Splendor, I can turn off the fucking Motivation drain. The inability do that this time is killing the Motivation of all my Forsaken and honestly, it's also killing my own motivation for getting further in this campaign. Everything's got to be done and checked twice with an interface that makes that very click-heavy. It's alpha, I'm not complaining, but I do want to explain what this level of play requires right now because of Splendor specifically.
I see, for example, that my Forsaken's motivation is going down, and by how much, in the daily Forsaken report. But what I don't see there, is how much motivation they have left, or if they're still deployable. If I want to see who is still deployable, I have to go all the way into the Forsaken-> Deploy menu and scroll through my currently 3 pages of Forsaken to see who shows up with a clickable button. And that's not the worst part. If I want to get some idea of who might be deployable tomorrow, I have to either click on each Forsaken, of which there are 13 (12 if you don't count Splendor), or, the slightly quicker way I found, is to go into Position->Favorites and then I can view their Stamina and Motivation, and deployment cost one page at a time. But that's got to be cross-referenced with the information above about how much Motivation they're losing each day, which, by the way, doesn't show Splendor's effect. And since my Forsaken have different Max Motivations, which is only viewable in the detailed view of that Forsaken, I have to remember or reference that information as well, and... you kind of get the point, I'm sure.
All of that is necessary to answer a question like "can I deploy EXPOdia today and tomorrow?", which is a question that I find myself asking more and more as the loops get a bit tighter and tougher each time. And...I kind of don't want to do that? That feels, without giving too much personal stuff away, like it's the sort of thing people have paid me to do in the past, and not how I spend my leisure time. I tried Sacrificing her, I like that you pulled that one over on me.
I'm not saying this to make you try to change your development priorities. In alpha versions of games, this kind of of difficulty in interrogating the game to answer the questions that come up during gameplay is completely expected and normal. It's exactly the thing that formal playtesting of games reveals. Splendor's gimmick is mechanically interesting, and if the interface were designed around showing you all that information in the same place it'd be easier to play the game at a higher level. So, since this is my first time dealing with Splendor in this way, that's some feedback for you to consider.
Because I don't like only pointing out problems without solutions, here is something you might implement on a trial basis--you can pay Splendor EE to go away for the current loop. Cost should be high but not prohibitively so: let's say 30EE. For 30EE, she'll be empowered to go pick apart some other Demon Lord's society from the inside, instead of yours, for the duration of the current loop. It makes some sense thematically as:
- She's already known to do that as a "lone wolf" Chosen
- She picked your city because she found you interesting
- Accepting a conditional gift from a Demon Lord is another sin to add to her litany
- It plays into her story of making deals that always turn out worse for her than expected
- It plays into her story of straddling the line between Chosen and Forsaken, sometimes doing the bidding of one side, and sometimes doing what the other side wants of her
- This amount of EE is difficult to attain early in a loop, but easy to attain later, making it somewhat of a reasonable tradeoff for power and progress against the current Chosen. I can see situations where I'd prefer to get this first and situations where I'd prefer to get Networked Consciousness first and they're roughly the same investment.
- 30EE is 3x her daily deployment cost, meaning it should be enough to seriously power her up to go work some mischief
- It's an expandable mechanic. She can offer other deals with you as you are breaking down her resistances over the next (based on what I know) 20 loops or more. You've shown a willingness to include randomness in other parts of the game, so she might offer these deals randomly or on a set schedule:
- Splendor gives you some of her accumulated EE from past destroyed Demon Lords and heals some/all Trauma/ANGST on the current Chosen team.
Splendor offers you an Item in exchange for (itemInfluence * 7) EEnah there shouldn't be any way to buy extra items with a loop currency like EE- Splendor agrees to fight actually on your side for 7 days, turning all of her negative modifiers into their positive other halves, but wants to throw a massive orgy that will drain all stamina from all Forsaken and disable the use of Grand Concert for 7 days (I really like this one, since there's no way in-game currently to see how good she would be with all positive traits)
- Splendor offers you n days of respite from her in exchange for the permanent freeing of another Forsaken (n can be dependent on the Forsaken's stats in some way, but it's really hard to get a sense of what a "good" vs "worthless" Forsaken is other than to say Forsaken with very high Obedience and/or Deviancy are probably bad and ones with high Expertise are probably good)
- Splendor has fallen in love! She and another Forsaken run off together, until Splendor gets bored. While they're gone, you don't suffer Splendor's negative (or positive) effects and you can't deploy or train either Forsaken. But, when the Forsaken comes back, she has some extra Expertise (divided in proportion to her current Exp)
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Portrait: Arknight Dorothy, AI generated
to combat low volume of Animalistic Chosen
Speaking of which, I notice that we are quite lacking in Undead portraits
to combat low volume of Animalistic Chosen
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Speaking of which, I notice that we are quite lacking in Undead portraits
As a player, I feel sort of overwhelmed managing multiple forsaken at a time. It's pretty challenging keeping tabs on motivation, remembering who's doing what and who's good at what, which passive trainings are going on and which I have to stop/swap soon, etc. It feels like I'm supposed to be building a toolkit, but I have no way to organize my tools.
As an example, if I want:
A set of 1-3 cheap and efficient busters to rack up early angst+low hanging fruit breaks and Concert occasionally
A set of 2-3 midrange specialists to burn through stubborn T2/distortions and start setting up orgies
A set of 2-6 high cost punishers to customize the next generation of forsaken, maybe doubling as higher-cost midrange specialists?
And then on top of this I have benchwarmers I can't sacrifice without upsetting someone too.
That's already a lot of units that I need to maintain, to say nothing of optimizing/specializing and picking the tool for the job, and a few chaff to just ignore I guess.
On top of that, it feels like until rather late in the game, the AOE stamina regen/motivation regen is incentivizing me to collect more backups for each role, unless I'm supposed to be willing to let tantrums through, which is in theory an incentive to restrict to a small set.
Some things that could be neat and reduce mental load could be:
When training corruption, let me give the trainer a threshold at which to stop. Maybe train for X sessions then stop, maybe train until X stat is reached?
Alternative sacrifices. Maybe a way to retire/recycle used Forsaken at the end of their useful life, to just get them out of the unit select screen, perhaps for minor passive bonuses like the achievements give instead of instant motivation? Send them to cause trouble at new cities for an EE or two at the start of a loop, cheerleading around the base for minor passive motivation, have them breed extra thralls for a bit of bonus extermination count, send them to stalk chosens nearby to unlock upgrades like peeking Psychic Reading stats before going to cities, marginally useful stuff like that that you can just toss useless forsaken in without micromanaging. Maybe have stats (expertise/corruption/species) affect output a bit?
Maybe add some filters to forsaken deployment selection? Something like "Can Apply Punisher", "Has enough stamina/motivation/EE", "Has X damage type", "Has distorter", "Favorited", to make it easier to pick the right forsaken before a daily fight.
Still not a super experienced player, but I'm really digging the gameplay in each loop.
As an example, if I want:
A set of 1-3 cheap and efficient busters to rack up early angst+low hanging fruit breaks and Concert occasionally
A set of 2-3 midrange specialists to burn through stubborn T2/distortions and start setting up orgies
A set of 2-6 high cost punishers to customize the next generation of forsaken, maybe doubling as higher-cost midrange specialists?
And then on top of this I have benchwarmers I can't sacrifice without upsetting someone too.
That's already a lot of units that I need to maintain, to say nothing of optimizing/specializing and picking the tool for the job, and a few chaff to just ignore I guess.
On top of that, it feels like until rather late in the game, the AOE stamina regen/motivation regen is incentivizing me to collect more backups for each role, unless I'm supposed to be willing to let tantrums through, which is in theory an incentive to restrict to a small set.
Some things that could be neat and reduce mental load could be:
When training corruption, let me give the trainer a threshold at which to stop. Maybe train for X sessions then stop, maybe train until X stat is reached?
Alternative sacrifices. Maybe a way to retire/recycle used Forsaken at the end of their useful life, to just get them out of the unit select screen, perhaps for minor passive bonuses like the achievements give instead of instant motivation? Send them to cause trouble at new cities for an EE or two at the start of a loop, cheerleading around the base for minor passive motivation, have them breed extra thralls for a bit of bonus extermination count, send them to stalk chosens nearby to unlock upgrades like peeking Psychic Reading stats before going to cities, marginally useful stuff like that that you can just toss useless forsaken in without micromanaging. Maybe have stats (expertise/corruption/species) affect output a bit?
Maybe add some filters to forsaken deployment selection? Something like "Can Apply Punisher", "Has enough stamina/motivation/EE", "Has X damage type", "Has distorter", "Favorited", to make it easier to pick the right forsaken before a daily fight.
Still not a super experienced player, but I'm really digging the gameplay in each loop.