Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 70b] [CSDev]

[05841035411]

This is tad counter-intuitive.... Like..in simple RPG terms the weakness you actually present...has no meaning since you have to to use a different skill anyway...which the Chosen might be immune to, or it "feels" she might be immune to since the UI tells you so.

In Simple RPG terms like fighting a "Fire Elemental with a Core". First thing you think of is to have Ice magic against it, then you can smash it's core. This follows an easy logical step. Disable enemy - > use attack that it's weak against.

In here it seems you have to force Pummel into the logic path which really feels counter-intuitive. Like...the Chosen is strong against physical damage but really weak against Expo! So...you hit her ...to increase the multiplier on Expo? ...Huh? It just does not follow.

Maybe thinking of it in different terms might help it feel a bit more natural to you - let's say you were fighting a giant robot instead. You're told that it's head is it's weak point and it has strong legs, but it's still ten stories tall; it'd be a waste of time to break its legs completely, but at least cracking a knee will help you knock it off balance to take advantage of its head.

It's the same with the Chosen - their weak points are legitimately weak and will progress much faster once you can hit them, but... For some, that means knocking their shield out of the way first, while for others, that means they have a paper-thin shield but stronger core.

Does that help it seem more intuitive to you?

 

[number361]

Maybe thinking of it in different terms might help it feel a bit more natural to you - let's say you were fighting a giant robot instead. You're told that it's head is it's weak point and it has strong legs, but it's still ten stories tall; it'd be a waste of time to break its legs completely, but at least cracking a knee will help you knock it off balance to take advantage of its head.

It's the same with the Chosen - their weak points are legitimately weak and will progress much faster once you can hit them, but... For some, that means knocking their shield out of the way first, while for others, that means they have a paper-thin shield but stronger core.

Does that help it seem more intuitive to you?

Yeah, this explains it better. Problem is - for me - that this thinking is not presented in the gameflow nor the ui. Hmn, I'll give it now another go.

 

[Seamonkey]

This is tad counter-intuitive.... Like..in simple RPG terms the weakness you actually present...has no meaning since you have to to use a different skill anyway...which the Chosen might be immune to, or it "feels" she might be immune to since the UI tells you so.

In Simple RPG terms like fighting a "Fire Elemental with a Core". First thing you think of is to have Ice magic against it, then you can smash it's core. This follows an easy logical step. Disable enemy - > use attack that it's weak against.

In here it seems you have to force Pummel into the logic path which really feels counter-intuitive. Like...the Chosen is strong against physical damage but really weak against Expo! So...you hit her ...to increase the multiplier on Expo? ...Huh? It just does not follow.

Also the UI \ text does not help this in any way.

Anyway, interesting concept, but terrible UI that offers little to no actual information and just confuses the player.

UI clarity problems that I found odd:

1. Talent description are cool for flavour, but here they are used to convey actual skill information. There should be a simple short text which details what the skill is going to ad, like "Gives Lust attack to Commander".
2. Core\Significant\Minor elements. At first time I thought that I have to always aim at the Core...because that's her main weakness...turns out not. Again, counter-intuitive and does not follow a logical path. (display weakness - > target weakness , here you display their weakness "core"..but you don't target it..)
3. No indicator which is Trauma or Circumstances damage, if you read the Tips this becomes obvious...but once again this should be obvious to the player at first glance. If you need to read a wall of text to figure this out that's already a lost case from a gameplay perspective.
4. No indicator on which attack will have any multiplications effects (like Pummel). Again...you have to read the walloftext to get a hint for this...which should not be the case. Improve tooltip?
5. No overall talent tree view of the purchased talents
6. No overall report on the Chosens changed stats, you have to remember them. Example: after Surround you break a point, like PLEA...but this is not displayed anywhere after that.. Make a summary after each round with each Chosen on their current status?

I wish you the best of luck on developing this game, I'll watch it's progress and give it another go.

Yeah, I will confess that figuring out how to balance the chosen's individual weaknesses against what those effects have on the rest of the fight can be quite confusing at times. I can't speak how to make things obvious to those playing but I find keeping the following things in mind helpful:
1) Core vulnerabilities means its a core aspect of the chosen's personality not what they are most weak to. While the value of trauma damage increases very quickly in the core vulnerability, the gain of the associated circumstance is much slower given that increasing the circumstance is crucial to breaking vulnerabilities this is important to keep in mind.
2) While it isn't necessarily clear at first why you would target other Circumstances than the one you are trying to raise it can be very important to do so. On the chosen you are not primarily targeting raising exposure can be very helpful, the highest level of exposure amongst the chosen adds a multiplier to the rests gains in all stats which can help snowball. As you noted in your comment pummel can give a similar modifier but does it to the circumstances damage to the same chosen so raising injury of the chosen you are targeting even if you are not going for that circumstance can still be very helpful.

EDIT* Oops didn't notice 05841035411 had already already replied with advice since I had started typing, will just leave this up in case it proves helpful to someone else.

 

[ara1111]

You mean you don't get a laugh whenever you see Moral Girl yell "Stop screaming, you're making me feel terrible!" whenever she's killing a bunch of civilians? Huh.

Not after the 500th time seeing that.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of it now. After not using a commander for 18 days and just getting passive buffs, I managed to break a vulnerability for the first time. It's crazy how things snowball in this game, but I appreciate that there's (practically?) no RNG involved. I do have some questions:

- The guide says you should break core vulnerabilities before minor ones to drive the Chosen apart, but I've seen the opposite. E.g. Badass green-text girl has a dignity break and agrees to nude photoshoots with goth red-text girl, who is already her rival and has EXPO as a minor vulnerability. It seems to be based on their personalities rather than whether the vulnerability is core, significant or minor. Possibly their already-broken vulnerabilities too. Am I right?

- Is it generally better to focus on 1 girl at a time for vulnerability breaks and just keep the others on the backburner? Any reason to start on another one? I don't mean in individual battles, but overall.

- I noticed something sometimes keeps Chosen from flying away after they get released with extermination progress complete. What is it?

- When that happens, should I grab her immediately? Do they only fly off after they escape a commander/surround, or is it checked every turn?

- Does friendship/rivalry affect combat actions? Like, will a Chosen not try to create a distraction for a rival?

 

[ara1111]

They don't run until extermination, evac are both done and none are currently being grabbed. There's also an ability that delays escape by a turn or two but you can't seem to reread skills you already bought so I'm unsure on the details.

Grabbing them out of the air is mostly kind of meh as is since it only downs 1 of 3 chicks, who will simply instantly fly again on the turn she gets up, doesn't really matter much. If someone else is still down then grab her just so the other chick may break from it.

 

[05841035411]

- The guide says you should break core vulnerabilities before minor ones to drive the Chosen apart, but I've seen the opposite. E.g. Badass green-text girl has a dignity break and agrees to nude photoshoots with goth red-text girl, who is already her rival and has EXPO as a minor vulnerability. It seems to be based on their personalities rather than whether the vulnerability is core, significant or minor. Possibly their already-broken vulnerabilities too. Am I right?

It may be that red-text girl came with Dignity pre-broken; that can happen with minor vulnerabilities.

Otherwise, breaking Cores before Minors does indeed drive them towards rivalry, while breaking Minors before Cores pushes them towards friendship.

- Is it generally better to focus on 1 girl at a time for vulnerability breaks and just keep the others on the backburner? Any reason to start on another one? I don't mean in individual battles, but overall.

It's better to spread them out, in my opinion. The third-level breaks involve building up a large amount of trauma, and the fourth-level breaks require them to use certain moves a lot - it's for the best if you can work on them all at once. Plus, once you have three captures for your Commander, it's not really a problem to tackle all three in a battle.

Also, it makes things a bit easier - dealing with three characters who take relatively higher damage is easier to manage than one character who takes massive damage and two who take normal damage, at least in my opinion.

- I noticed something sometimes keeps Chosen from flying away after they get released with extermination progress complete. What is it?

So long as you Surround them before the extermination is complete, they'll stay on the ground, even if the extermination is complete when they're let go. Though the fight will still end unless someone else is surrounded, or you have Vengeful Reconsitution.

- When that happens, should I grab her immediately? Do they only fly off after they escape a commander/surround, or is it checked every turn?

They'll only fly off after an escape, or if everyone is free; you can Surround her at your leisure until then.

- Does friendship/rivalry affect combat actions? Like, will a Chosen not try to create a distraction for a rival?

It does; friends show up earlier to help each other, while rivals will dawdle. As for how it affects their actions in-combat, I believe it does, but I'm not clear enough on the logic behind their actions to say for certain - I don't think it makes a dramatic difference either way, though.

Oh, though it does also affect the damage modifiers for group actions - x1.2 for highest friendship, x2 for bitter enemies.

 

[Omicronzeta]

I am disappointed now I finaly managed to get the chosen to hate each other, then broke their core weakness, only for the much hated rival to still come and rescue them. I was so hoping there was a bonus scene if the chosen was friendless.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Got a few more:

- Can I avoid violent rape if I break other vulnerabilities first, make Morality and Confidence break scenes more consensual? I mean the first time around, including defloration.

- Do friendships/rivalries only occur from breaks, or are they affected by the activities between battles? Should I try and make Chosen do different activities?

- Are the Suppressor commanders better for avoiding unwanted breaks than using the manual commander?

- What are these Defiler commanders, are they straight-up better than Suppressors?

- Should I be using the ambush option to try and strip someone for the ally expo multiplier, or what's the typical optimal opening?

 

[05841035411]

Got a few more:

- Can I avoid violent rape if I break other vulnerabilities first, make Morality and Confidence break scenes more consensual? I mean the first time around, including defloration.

No, but if you raise her Pleasure high enough, she immediately enjoys it (for Morality) or gets an exhibitionist thrill from it (for Confidence). It's still not consensual, but it might help?

- Do friendships/rivalries only occur from breaks, or are they affected by the activities between battles? Should I try and make Chosen do different activities?

Breaks are the only thing that affect friendships and rivalries. Feel free to enjoy their leisure time as you wish.

(Properly speaking, I think they get more trauma relief from doing things with friends, but... You're already well outpacing them on trauma generation by that point, so it doesn't really matter.)

- Are the Suppressor commanders better for avoiding unwanted breaks than using the manual commander?

If you want to go the entire game without inflicting a first-tier break, then yes, but otherwise you have enough control that using the basic commander should never lead to an undesired break.

- What are these Defiler commanders, are they straight-up better than Suppressors?

It's my understanding that it functionally lets you skip straight to Inseminate, Force Orgasm, Sodomize, or Broadcast, but I haven't actually used them myself; it never really seemed worth them extra EE, especially since they didn't do my desired damage combination.

On paper, they should be stronger though, especially if you combine them with a Suppressor with the upgrade. But by the time you stop fretting about the price tag for that combination, you're also finishing off the last of the trauma-related breaks, at least in my experience.

- Should I be using the ambush option to try and strip someone for the ally expo multiplier, or what's the typical optimal opening?

My preference is generally to open the fight by going after Exposure Girl, and use a second Capture for my real target; since I typically Pummel and Grind to set her up for more Exposure later on in the fight, I generally need the extra rounds that going after her from the start affords.

I don't generally bother with ambushes since Circumstance is heavily penalized by levels of Trauma, which Commanders avoid the initial need for with their guaranteed duration, and I focus my initial actions on those who will need more time to get a third round of Surrounds on.

I hope that helps!

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Thanks a lot for the answers, I'll use them.

If you want to go the entire game without inflicting a first-tier break, then yes, but otherwise you have enough control that using the basic commander should never lead to an undesired break.

Well, the idea is to just delay first-tier minor and significant breaks in order to deter friendships. The problem with that is that different circumstance actions can affect multiple circumstances, not just the one they're supposed to, and are further affected by actions like violence or hiding.

 

[05841035411]

Well, the idea is to just delay first-tier minor and significant breaks in order to deter friendships. The problem with that is that different circumstance actions can affect multiple circumstances, not just the one they're supposed to, and are further affected by actions like violence or hiding.

Just to be clear, Suppressors will accomplish this without any problems, so feel free to do it that way.

That said, for the first level of breaks, I usually choose the order of Chosen to target based on whether I want friendships or rivalries this game, so that I don't have to worry about accidents; in the very early game, it's easier to focus on two Chosen anyway. Or if that's too inconvenient, then I just let the first level go, since there's enough time later in the game to get to the highest level of friendship or rivalry regardless.

For the next level of breaks, I hold off on using the special attacks on whichever Chosen would cause issues until I get the other Chosen to enough trauma for the third-level break.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Yeah, I just realized that first-tier minor and significant breaks happen between 5K-10K and is based on an Chosen action, while tier-2 requires 10K and a thrall action. Might be better to just let it go and take the hit for the sake of tactical flexibility, though it irks me that there might be different scenes/interactions based on completely unbroken vulnerabilities matched with heavily-broken ones later in the game. I take it that tier-2 breaks don't happen unless you use the associated action, no matter how high Trauma gets (edit: eventually the requirement changed to 1G unresolved trauma. I don't know if that broke the vulnerability or just moved the goalpost).

One important question I have: I know Chosen build relationships based on the order you break vulnerabilites, but do tiers factor into it? Like, if you break a significant (or minor) vulnerability at tier 2 that someone else has as a minor vulnerability at tier 1, will there be a positive interaction or not?

 

[guest1]

The pregnancy-content lobbyist faction is watching this with keen interest.

 

[05841035411]

Yeah, I just realized that first-tier minor and significant breaks happen between 5K-10K and is based on an Chosen action, while tier-2 requires 10K and a thrall action. Might be better to just let it go and take the hit for the sake of tactical flexibility, though it irks me that there might be different scenes/interactions based on completely unbroken vulnerabilities matched with heavily-broken ones later in the game. I take it that tier-2 breaks don't happen unless you use the associated action, no matter how high Trauma gets (edit: eventually the requirement changed to 1G unresolved trauma. I don't know if that broke the vulnerability or just moved the goalpost).

One important question I have: I know Chosen build relationships based on the order you break vulnerabilites, but do tiers factor into it? Like, if you break a significant (or minor) vulnerability at tier 2 that someone else has as a minor vulnerability at tier 1, will there be a positive interaction or not?

I wasn't certain if it was important to you or not to explore this on your own, so I spoilered it just in case...

Spoiler: This isn't really a major spoiler, but here's what happens if there's a significant corruption gap when you break a Core Vulnerability.

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As regards the second-level breaks, they won't happen on their own, but... Weirdly, the third-level break can still happen anyway at the moment. I'm not certain if that's a bug or not.

That said, the amount of Trauma required means it won't generally happen by accident unless you use Orgy for a prolonged period of time, so you'll probably have already gotten the breaks in order already - it's only really an issue if you're trying to avoid the break entirely.

Ah, and as for why the requirement changed, their third-level breaks get an order of magnitude more expensive with each third-level break inflicted on a Chosen.

Significant Vulnerabilities do not have any interaction with the relationship system. You can break or ignore them as you please without concern for how it will affect the team. And there will only ever be one Minor Vulnerability of the same type; if you meant of different types, then they're unrelated to relationships, though I believe there can be some minor flavor text differences for certain scenes.

 

[guest1]

*Love the game

Game values could all be made x5 faster and nothing would be lost except grind. Vulnerabilities are x5 stronger, debuffs and grab last x5 longer, enemy damage does x5 more, x5 more corruption

No need to simplify, just condense everything

 

[CSdev]

This is tad counter-intuitive.... Like..in simple RPG terms the weakness you actually present...has no meaning since you have to to use a different skill anyway...which the Chosen might be immune to, or it "feels" she might be immune to since the UI tells you so.

In Simple RPG terms like fighting a "Fire Elemental with a Core". First thing you think of is to have Ice magic against it, then you can smash it's core. This follows an easy logical step. Disable enemy - > use attack that it's weak against.

In here it seems you have to force Pummel into the logic path which really feels counter-intuitive. Like...the Chosen is strong against physical damage but really weak against Expo! So...you hit her ...to increase the multiplier on Expo? ...Huh? It just does not follow.

Also the UI \ text does not help this in any way.

Anyway, interesting concept, but terrible UI that offers little to no actual information and just confuses the player.

UI clarity problems that I found odd:

1. Talent description are cool for flavour, but here they are used to convey actual skill information. There should be a simple short text which details what the skill is going to ad, like "Gives Lust attack to Commander".
2. Core\Significant\Minor elements. At first time I thought that I have to always aim at the Core...because that's her main weakness...turns out not. Again, counter-intuitive and does not follow a logical path. (display weakness - > target weakness , here you display their weakness "core"..but you don't target it..)
3. No indicator which is Trauma or Circumstances damage, if you read the Tips this becomes obvious...but once again this should be obvious to the player at first glance. If you need to read a wall of text to figure this out that's already a lost case from a gameplay perspective.
4. No indicator on which attack will have any multiplications effects (like Pummel). Again...you have to read the walloftext to get a hint for this...which should not be the case. Improve tooltip?
5. No overall talent tree view of the purchased talents
6. No overall report on the Chosens changed stats, you have to remember them. Example: after Surround you break a point, like PLEA...but this is not displayed anywhere after that.. Make a summary after each round with each Chosen on their current status?

I wish you the best of luck on developing this game, I'll watch it's progress and give it another go.

Thanks for the feedback. I figure I should respond directly to the elemental matchup comparison, because it's related to one of the core design goals of the game. I strongly dislike it when games use elemental systems that just amount to certain attacks getting a damage multiplier against certain enemies. This is because it reduces the depth of the gameplay - picking the attack with the best elemental matchup tends to outweigh all other factors, and in the absence of an elemental matchup, the attack's element has no other significance. I much prefer systems which challenge the player to figure out which effects are strongest in which situations (e.g. enemies made of fire have really high evasion, ice attacks numb the target and reduce evasion).

That said, I'll try to improve the UI issues you bring up. The summarized talent descriptions should already be in, though - hover over the button to buy it and it'll display a tooltip which concisely says what it does in gameplay terms.

- The guide says you should break core vulnerabilities before minor ones to drive the Chosen apart, but I've seen the opposite. E.g. Badass green-text girl has a dignity break and agrees to nude photoshoots with goth red-text girl, who is already her rival and has EXPO as a minor vulnerability. It seems to be based on their personalities rather than whether the vulnerability is core, significant or minor. Possibly their already-broken vulnerabilities too. Am I right?

This seems to be a case of the minor vulnerability starting out broken. Showing more clearly which vulnerabilities are already broken (without overwhelming the player with tons of information on the profile screen) is another place where I'm trying to figure out how to improve the UI.

It does; friends show up earlier to help each other, while rivals will dawdle. As for how it affects their actions in-combat, I believe it does, but I'm not clear enough on the logic behind their actions to say for certain - I don't think it makes a dramatic difference either way, though.

Oh, though it does also affect the damage modifiers for group actions - x1.2 for highest friendship, x2 for bitter enemies.

Aside from determining when they show up, the relationships don't affect how they choose which in-battle action to take (both because they're choosing their actions based on expected effectiveness, and because their true reasons for using the sinful actions are all ultimately selfish).

I am disappointed now I finaly managed to get the chosen to hate each other, then broke their core weakness, only for the much hated rival to still come and rescue them. I was so hoping there was a bonus scene if the chosen was friendless.

They'll still help each other out in routine battle because even if they hate each other, they still want to win. Scenarios where they abandon each other should come up in the endings once the final battle is implemented, though.

As regards the second-level breaks, they won't happen on their own, but... Weirdly, the third-level break can still happen anyway at the moment. I'm not certain if that's a bug or not.

To clarify, it isn't a bug. Some third-tier breaks might seem like they should always break the lower vulnerabilities, but some definitely don't, and for the sake of consistency I just made it so that the only possible chain reaction breakages are the third-tier cores (where they're broken in the associated post-battle scene) and all of the fourth tier breaks (which are explicitly "total").

 

[05841035411]

Aside from determining when they show up, the relationships don't affect how they choose which in-battle action to take (both because they're choosing their actions based on expected effectiveness, and because their true reasons for using the sinful actions are all ultimately selfish).

Oh, really? It felt like they were more likely to use Distract if they were friends, but I guess that was just projection on my part.

To clarify, it isn't a bug. Some third-tier breaks might seem like they should always break the lower vulnerabilities, but some definitely don't, and for the sake of consistency I just made it so that the only possible chain reaction breakages are the third-tier cores (where they're broken in the associated post-battle scene) and all of the fourth tier breaks (which are explicitly "total").

I'm not sure I like that... I really appreciated the control that was granted by requiring the second level to break before the third, since it ensured that you could never fall too far down the corruption chain except by explicit choice.

There aren't a huge number of ways to accidentally rack up massive values of trauma while trying to avoid a type, but it's still the kind of thing that would sit in the back of my mind if I'm doing a playthrough where I'm deliberately trying to leave some categories unbroken.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

This seems to be a case of the minor vulnerability starting out broken. Showing more clearly which vulnerabilities are already broken (without overwhelming the player with tons of information on the profile screen) is another place where I'm trying to figure out how to improve the UI.

Yeah, this was before I understood pre-broken vulnerabilities or how the tiers work. And yeah, it might have been averted by showing what tier the vulnerability is at.

I've encountered what I think is a bug - a Dignity vulnerability that still says "use Grind and Humiliate" when it's already been broken with a Broadcast action.

One thing that I've seen that I don't know if it's intended is that t1 minor and significant breaks tend to happen on their own when the Chosen is taking damage, even when I'm going out of my way to avoid them and don't use both of the associated actions at the same time and haven't even taken any circumstance damage in that vulnerability, as in the attached screenshot.

Also, a question: I could have sworn that, starting out, I read somewhere that Chosen with ranged weapons hang back and thus will get reinforcements sooner if they're the first to be targeted. Is that accurate, is it a dropped idea or did I just imagine it? Because you can set a Chosen's weapon in Customization, and it's supposed to be cosmetic with no effect on the gameplay.

Also, are Chosen downtime actions based on their Angst/Trauma or on their broken vulnerabilities, or both? What do I need to increase to get more extreme actions with more EE?

And a suggestion: While I really appreciate being able to customize a team, the questionnaire drives me up the wall as I'd rather manually set vulnerabilities. I always end up with a vulnerability that I would like to exchange between party members (that wouldn't break the rules of vulnerability distribution), but trying to do that through the questionnaire is usually futile. Also, the option to refer to a Chosen by their last name doesn't work, button is unresponsive. And the "Quit" button doesn't work.

 

[05841035411]

Also, a question: I could have sworn that, starting out, I read somewhere that Chosen with ranged weapons hang back and thus will get reinforcements sooner if they're the first to be targeted. Is that accurate, is it a dropped idea or did I just imagine it? Because you can set a Chosen's weapon in Customization, and it's supposed to be cosmetic with no effect on the gameplay.

I recall seeing the same thing; I don't know how it interacts with the customization system, but there are definitely some pretty substantial differences between how quickly certain Chosen receive reinforcements. For some, they show up in around four rounds, while others, literally the fight can be about to end before they turn up. I was under the impression as well that this was because of weapon types... Though maybe the weapons are just a reflection of personality? Like how you can usually tell from a Chosen's clothing whether they consider Dignity terribly important.

Also, are Chosen downtime actions based on their Angst/Trauma or on their broken vulnerabilities, or both? What do I need to increase to get more extreme actions with more EE?

My understanding is "both". They won't consider extreme actions before a relevant Vulnerability is broken, and they'll only go through with it if their trauma is high enough to justify it.

And a suggestion: While I really appreciate being able to customize a team, the questionnaire drives me up the wall as I'd rather manually set vulnerabilities. I always end up with a vulnerability that I would like to exchange between party members (that wouldn't break the rules of vulnerability distribution), but trying to do that through the questionnaire is usually futile. Also, the option to refer to a Chosen by their last name doesn't work, button is unresponsive. And the "Quit" button doesn't work.

Adding on to this, I'd also appreciate the option to tweak certain personality variables manually after setup - like if I want the "smart one" to be associated with a specific flaw, I'd prefer an option to move a few things around without having to go through the entire questionnaire. This would probably end up changing other things about the team as well, of course, but it would be a lot easier to judge the tradeoff at that moment, especially since it would be more visible.

Especially since I generally prefer playing with a random team, rather than one built from scratch - it's just that sometimes I'd really like to change one specific thing about them.