There are too many posts to reply to them all, but I want to thank all of the players who are posting guides and advice for how to play the game. They're helpful not only to new players, but also to my own understanding of how people are playing the game and what issues they're running into. It's a very valuable form of feedback.
Thank you for the encouragement!
The difficulty settings only apply when starting a new game. If you're loading a save, then it'll revert to the difficulty settings of that save.
This is a favorite strategy of mine as well, I'm glad to see other people discovering it.
The fact that you can't use Distortions on one of the Chosen whose Vulnerabilities have been broken by factors other than the player's actions is one of the kinks in the system that I want to fix. I'm still not completely sure how, but I've seen some good suggestions, so I plan on solving it somehow before the next Distortion is added.
There is one major gameplay feature coming which should make normal mode significantly easier in general, and that should also make challenge runs like "Tempt everyone" more feasible.
Superior Chosen should become more suscpetible to damage as they're corrupted, but the difference is less noticeable because of the flat x1/3 factor they apply to the damage types they resist. A regular Chosen with Core Confidence might go from taking 9 base INJU damage at first to taking 58 base INJU damage after a T2 break. With the Superior modifier, she'd go from taking 3 base INJU damage to taking 19 - not even enough to put one notch on the susceptibility chart. I've Tempted Superior Chosen who resist PLEA before, but it requires endgame levels of EE investment. On the bright side, the +50% damage that Tempted Forsaken get and the +50% damage that Superior Forsaken get do stack multiplicatively.
An Undo button is a common request (along with a Restart Battle button). It's harder than it sounds due to the number of variables that can change during battle and the way that they're coded. I'd like to do it, but it's not coming anytime soon.
Unfortunately, there's no way for me to tell which line of code is causing the game to crash there. If you send me the save, I'll take a look and try to fix it.
Options settings are tied to saved games. As long as you have any save files, it'll copy the options from the most recently used save file.
Thank you for the detailed feedback! I'll answer these individually. More features and balance adjustments are certainly coming.
If campaign mode included an "ironman" feature to restrict savescumming, then I'd definitely want to give the player some sort of leeway for losing the final battle. But as things are, adding such a feature would just give the player incentive to savescum and save their "lives" as long as possible, then burn them on the last loops once things get unreasonably difficult. And with the game in its current unstable state, I can't restrict savescumming without punishing players who run into bugs. Something like this is part of my eventual vision of a finished game, though.
Right now, the punisher achievements feel somewhat underwhelming, but once some other major features are added, the player will be able to reach loops that last only 20 days. At that point, being able to cause a T4 break with only 250% punisher effectiveness will be incredibly important, since you have so few days to grind them up. I'm definitely willing to add and adjust the modifiers as we test them out, but I think it's too early to call this one.
I've put a low priority on putting them in customization, because all they really do is make numbers bigger, and there are already cheats which functionally do the same thing. I'll definitely have them in once the truly special elites like angels and devils are implemented, though.
It's deliberate that the player has to earn every day they want to spend training Forsaken. Getting T4 breaks and buying Imago Quickening before the deadline is difficult, and the extra time is the reward. However, also note that it's intended for the player to spend days training the Forsaken during each loop as well. Part of the strategy is figuring out when you can leave the Chosen to percolate and generate EE for you while you train the Forsaken from the previous loop.
Thank you for saying so!
In Campaign Mode, it gives you a new group of Chosen at the end of each loop. In Single Play, you should be able to continue forever or start again from Day 1.
I have some vague plans similar to this, sort of like a lite-version of the alternative corruption paths. Not firm enough to say more, though.
The effectiveness of the different fighting styles is strongly related to the Disgrace of the Forsaken in question. Fighting styles which damage more circumstance types have a lower base damage, while those which damage only 1 or 2 circumstance types have a higher base damage. Similarly, Forsaken with low Disgrace have a high base damage, while those with high Disgrace have low base damage. These factors multiply each other. So, for Forsaken with low Disgrace, even the 15% combat styles deal enough damage to be worthwhile, and the 100% combat styles might not be as good since they only target 2 circumstance types. But for Forsaken with high Disgrace, the 15% combat styles take several turns to reach even Lv 1 damage, so they might be better off using the 100% combat styles. Tempted Forsaken and Superior Forsaken are stronger than their Disgrace would normally indicate, of course.
Reaching loop 6 is quite impressive, by the way, so congrats! And I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what kind of content the playerbase can make.
The trouble with making a full 50 day tutorial is that the finer points of the run could be very different between two different Chosen groups, and it might be tricky to make sure the player understands which lessons are applicable across all runs. The idea of a hint/tip button is interesting, though. It'd be very nice if the game could run some basic checks on the state of the game and say things like "This Commander probably isn't powerful enough to break any of the current unbroken Vulnerabilities."
The way the game is coded, it'd be difficult for me to take writing submissions. Implementing them would be practically as much work as writing them myself. But the coming update will allow for easy integration of player-made portrait packs, so you can definitely feel free to contribute in that way if you like. I'd like to add links to player-made portrait packs on the blog (provided that I can confirm that they don't infringe on anyone's copyright).
I agree with you insofar as the Single Play mode boiling down to one big learning step. It comes down to whether you understand the lesson of "Don't buy a Commander until you have the upgrades to make it strong enough to pay for itself." Players who don't understand that will have close to a 0% victory rate. Players who do understand that will have close to a 100% victory rate. Beating hard mode requires learning more or less the same lesson, although the sweet spot of "late enough in the game that you have the right upgrades to start snowballing, but early enough in the game that you'll have time to reach T4 breaks afterward" is narrower.
However, I believe that there's a lot more potential meat in Campaign Mode. Particularly once Superior Chosen start showing up, you can't just use a powerful Commander to break everything at once, and the player has to think about the order in which to meet each goal. The players who are able to penetrate further into campaign mode have definitely understood something on top of what's necessary to win a single loop.
