Others Corruption of Champions II [v0.8.1] [Savin/Salamander Studios]

[procrastinator101]

The vulperines. But now that I'm reading this codex I'm not certain if they've always been this way the way the manticores have been. I'm going to be honest. For this race alone my eyes kind of glaze over. I'd normally include the Kitsune too in the original statement. And I'm sure they've probably always been this way too. But, my mind can't handle thinking too much about Tobs.

Spoiler: Gravity Squeeze

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Anyways
The point isn't that "Kas is breeding an army."
It was and remains

And the answer, unless Savin writes chaotic demon factions into existence, is no.
Corrupt Centaur village is as good of an indicator as any that you can have a village sized location and the people there won't spread their taint anywhere else

Bleh.
This involuntarily has had me thinking more about the exciting world of CoC2 in the last couple of days than I have in years.


The mushroom dungeon writes a new reason into existence. Ignore all the previous foreshadowing, it was actually corrupt wyld trees that were killing the old wyld gods.
The end.

It's all a shitshow. My 6 year old niece could make a better setting than Savarra while playing with her toys in an afternoon.

 

[Jbuster]

(I guess what I mean is that the setting itself has potential, the writers are the problem, not the material.)

This many times, there are plenty of good ideas but also, you can practically feel the spite/love from some factions/characters in some really dumb ways

Spoiler: Regarding some points in no particular order

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The vulperines. But now that I'm reading this codex I'm not certain if they've always been this way the way the manticores have been. I'm going to be honest. For this race alone my eyes kind of glaze over. I'd normally include the Kitsune too in the original statement. And I'm sure they've probably always been this way too. But, my mind can't handle thinking too much about Tobs.

The mushroom dungeon writes a new reason into existence. Ignore all the previous foreshadowing, it was actually corrupt wyld trees that were killing the old wyld gods.
The end.

Stuff gets shelved all the time to make space for more lame stuff that gets shelved too

Vulperines were a cool addition that you don't get to explore (something about taothians having a blood feud against kitsunes) because they are tied to Kinu, so forget about the secret boss that wants to kill your children because wanting to kill that particular guy is distracting you from getting fucked in the butt

Your precious allied races can never be evil no matter what, they can't even have issues between them or with others. Stuff is accepted at first glance unless the writer decides you need to explore in deep why choices don't matter, the contrast between saving child ender Gweyr and visiting rape land castle is far too big to ignore

 

[Felkesste]

Yeeeaaah, thinking about it, Mallach having ANY solution to the loss of a soul makes any criticism of the precise method he uses moot, he's doing something that makes the loss of a soul no big deal and raises questions like how the hell Mareth got to the state it was in if they had gods too, some of whom opposed the demons more proactively unlike Savarra's aloof gods. Probably some bullshit about how not all gods are created equal, Mareth's gods 'were all pussies compared to these hardened badass twink catboy gods we've got over in MY world', ever rising powerscaling nonsense, Marae's 'merely a planet buster level goddess', and Mallach 'can destroy a galaxy in their base form, and shatter time and space in their final form!' Because of course it's the god with the prostitution priestesshood that has some special technique to easily fist a soul back up someone's ruined horsecock-hole and not 'boring ol' Marae'.

And the solution to hand your soul over to a god for safekeeping makes practical sense from their aloof divine perspective, they don't really care about your humanity or the level of comfort and security you have in life at the end of the day. They're looking at the big picture, not your feelings. Can't argue with that, I guess, even if I still think it'd be ridiculous to agree to that and leave your entire being in the hands of someone so completely indifferent to your autonomy and happiness.

Spoiler

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I miss CoC1, and I can't even tell if that's because that game is as good as I remember it being, or if I'm just reaching toxic levels of dissatisfaction for CoC2. At the very least, I remember making actual choices, and influencing things in the directions I -wanted- to in CoC1, rather than having the game tell me what I wanted or showing me all these oh-so-special-and-unique OCs with more agency than I'll ever have.

 

[YouShallNotLol]

The mushroom dungeon writes a new reason into existence. Ignore all the previous foreshadowing, it was actually corrupt wyld trees that were killing the old wyld gods.
The end.

Oh wow, such a shitty retcon.
It's getting harder and harder to muster enough fucks to check out new-ish content additions, but I'm kinda glad that I don't miss out on much if mushroom dungeon is any indicator of what kind of stuff they come up with nowadays.

 

[icecreamman99]

what's the mushroom dungeon?

 

[Quintilus]

what's the mushroom dungeon?

The one Kashyra is having in her pants

After clearing the elf city some of the main plot important characters ask you to raid old abandoned elven temple, that turned into the mushroom cellar that feeds on elves. Don't ask....

 

[Jbuster]

what's the mushroom dungeon?

After taking over Winter City there's a quest to recover a wyld tree temple

Spoiler: And it goes like this

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[icecreamman99]

ahhh, ty you 2

 

[ChubbyFatBoy]

I miss CoC1, and I can't even tell if that's because that game is as good as I remember it being, or if I'm just reaching toxic levels of dissatisfaction for CoC2. At the very least, I remember making actual choices, and influencing things in the directions I -wanted- to in CoC1, rather than having the game tell me what I wanted or showing me all these oh-so-special-and-unique OCs with more agency than I'll ever have.

Hmm... between those two reasons I vote.....

CoC1 is still decent. CoC2 can grind the ol gears from disappointment.

Don't know how grand your memories of CoC1 is. But I went back and tried it out some months ago. After starting with and playing CoC2. It still held up. GRANTED!!! While I did play a bit of vanilla. I ultimately continued on with one of the modded versions. But even taking away the mods. The 1st one had a simplicity that in the words of Todd Howard! It Just Works. How you travel was (imo) better. The combat was better. I think the writing in CoC2 will (because it sure as hell does for me) wear on you. The characters..... eh. CoC2 has a big cast and it's fair share of good to decent non fodder so. Oh! And you are without a doubt, the Main Character.

CoC1 is what it is and it's decent. With CoC2, you see what it could be but won't.

 

[TalRash4]

I want to admit that for the last few pages it was high quality discussion, very pleasurable to read.

 

[Felkesste]

CoC1 is still decent. CoC2 can grind the ol gears from disappointment.
Don't know how grand your memories of CoC1 is. But I went back and tried it out some months ago. After starting with and playing CoC2. It still held up.

I might go back to play it again, it's been a long time so a lot of that content's probably fresh to me all over again, and I'd like to take a look at some of the modded versions floating around if I can find 'em. Heard some of them add entirely new zones and characters. It also just sounds fun right about now, get a lot of the better parts of CoC2's lore, with more freedom and day to day adventures. (Adventures that don't all revolve around Kass and her latest wacky misadventures off-screen.)

Spoiler

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Might also have something to do with the setting feeling a lot more low-stakes. Mareth is already at the end of it's rope by the time you arrive, there's not much left to lose so there's no pressure to try and save the day any time soon. No need to analyze the pro's and con's of an encounter so thoroughly, you can just explore and act on impulse. Livin' the life.

 

[MarvintheBee]

Might also have something to do with the setting feeling a lot more low-stakes. Mareth is already at the end of it's rope by the time you arrive, there's not much left to lose so there's no pressure to try and save the day any time soon. No need to analyze the pro's and con's of an encounter so thoroughly, you can just explore and act on impulse. Livin' the life.

Idk, Mareth stakes feel way higher.
Lethitice may be lazing around but only because she has basically already won.
If you, the Champion fail it's over. No one left to stop her.

Compare that to Coc2.
So many super powerful OC's, who potentially could stop Kasyrra that I won't even bother listing them.
If you fail in this game, nothing would really change.
Tollus/Kas takes over, next week one off the gods appears, Thanos snapping both off them out of existence. The end.

Cool.

 

[procrastinator101]

Idk, Mareth stakes feel way higher.
Lethitice may be lazing around but only because she has basically already won.
If you, the Champion fail it's over. No one left to stop her.

Compare that to Coc2.
So many super powerful OC's, who potentially could stop Kasyrra that I won't even bother listing them.
If you fail in this game, nothing would really change.
Tollus/Kas takes over, next week one off the gods appears, Thanos snapping both off them out of existence. The end.

Cool.

That's something that you always need to keep in mind when writing a setting. If a god/NPC can come around and solve every problem, why even have an adventure to begin with?

And that's something that they just don't fucking get. That's why games like these are supposed to be power fantasies to the player character, because if you're going to solve a problem, you should damn well have a good reason to do so.

It's why any serious setting has rules about this sort of thing. A god directly interfering with anything should always lead to a worse outcome in the end.

 

[icecreamman99]

That's something that you always need to keep in mind when writing a setting. If a god/NPC can come around and solve every problem, why even have an adventure to begin with?

And that's something that they just don't fucking get. That's why games like these are supposed to be power fantasies to the player character, because if you're going to solve a problem, you should damn well have a good reason to do so.

It's why any serious setting has rules about this sort of thing. A god directly interfering with anything should always lead to a worse outcome in the end.

Yeah, i said this to them and they got quite and didn't want to talk about when they was mentioning that some npcs like the gods, the church priest, vampire lady and others are really strong. I even followed it with fact that this supposed too be a demon invasion and they are just sitting around doing jack shit without a actually good reason.
They had a full "my special OC" moment when making those npcs
Savin said roughly: "my characters I made is so cool and strong they did a bunch of stuff before the PC was around"
Me saying roughly: "then why aren't they doing anything during the demon invasion?"
Savin said roughly: "they have their reasons and some can't tell"
Me saying roughly: "what's reason is more important than a actual demon invasion and why wouldn't they be able to explain it during one"
Savin said roughly: says nothing
Me saying roughly: I bring up that this no different than those bad dnd and other trpgs campaigns/settings where super powerful people are just sitting their ass doing nothing
someone else asks: "does that happen often in dnd and trpgs?"
Me and Savin: "yes"

 

[ChubbyFatBoy]

Idk, Mareth stakes feel way higher.
Lethitice may be lazing around but only because she has basically already won.
If you, the Champion fail it's over. No one left to stop her.

Compare that to Coc2.
So many super powerful OC's, who potentially could stop Kasyrra that I won't even bother listing them.
If you fail in this game, nothing would really change.
Tollus/Kas takes over, next week one off the gods appears, Thanos snapping both off them out of existence. The end.

Cool.

Narratively? Sure. But in actual feeling? I gotta disagree. 1st one was a lot more laid back. You were coming in late to the party. After everyone already ate all the chips, left nothing but warm crap beer, and passed out in their own puke. Like the whole adventure is pretty chill. You have the end goal to stop Lethice. But everything before that is just kinda there. CoC2 is where things are actively happening and unfolding. Which you respond to in a big connected story.

But yea, they were so hellbent on removing the idea of us having a power fantasy. That they pretty much made us irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. We used to be the main character. But now we're in a world full of main characters. That I'm sure many writers would be happy to replace us with if ever need be. But that info comes a bit later. And even then, things are still presented with a bit of urgency. Only thing I can think of having any type of feeling of hurry in CoC1. Is helping Marae with the corruption lake dumping .

 

[K1ng_C00mer]

snip

Introducing deities into a setting is a lot like introducing time travel. It's something you need to add a lot of hard rules or explanations for lest the entire power structure of the setting falls on it's face. In CoC, most the deities were already either fallen to corruption, killed, wholly indifferent to the state of things, or in Mareth's case, barely clinging onto sanity. This pretty well explains why they haven't done anything to the demons before the Champ showed up. They just didn't care or were quickly taken out.

I feel like CoC II's been written into a corner, the fact the game's development has shifted many times with things like Etheryn not being a "trap" anymore, Berwyn, and various other character being scrapped. And it feels like there's a lot of stuff just there left hanging without it ever being addressed (Characters like Sigrune, for example).

So when we get to the seven, there's a whole lot of different reasons given as to why they just didn't gank Kas the moment she stepped through the portal, or hell, even explode Tollus's balls once they learned he was planning on fucking with dimension portals. From, they're curious to see Kas' soul research (Which makes no sense, they could just do it themselves. Just command their faithful to participate in some experiments.), to they were busy (Lumia literally has her fat ass plopped on her throne, the fuck do you mean, busy? She teleported into the Winter City when Kas opened her portal, but when Tollus opened his, where was she!?)

I really think there's potential here with the seven and how they could affect things, but honestly, the revelation that they're wraiths sort of hurts them. Like... On one hand, it's an interesting concept that they're these eldritch monsters that grew a concious and became self-aware. But man... It's also lame that they're not the OGs. Instead it's like "Ohhh, well, maybe the real seven exists wooooo spooky-ooky!" It cheapens things like Lumia being the goddess of fertility that can't get pregnant, Kitsune society's 12 den mothers being descended from OG Keros's concubines.

And before we all crack the ol' reliable "PoWeR FaNtASy!" joke, I really don't think that's the case here. I think Savin and co really didn't realize the implications of what they're writing. They probably were like, "Whoa, wouldn't it be so deep if the gods weren't the real gods!?" "Whoa... Dude..."

Not realizing that by doing this route, players would want to explore it further. And not just cocktease comments where Keros and M*llach go, "Oh, so you know the secret, hmm? What are you going to do about it? No one's going to believe you anyways ohohohohoho~" This really sort of overshadows the main plot in terms of importance.

 

[icecreamman99]

Spoiler: shrink

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Savin said themselves that they got the idea for the gods from "Pillars of Eternity 1-2".
I have said before to them and i think WSAN that the main story is kind too close to PoE2 story with with main demon Kas[something] being just stand in as evil herm version of "Ethos" but the player having even less of a reason to be chasing them instead of powering up to be able to win the fight with Kas or actually fucking catch Tollus this time.

So many weak reasons for Tollus to even still be around.

 

[Daddums]

That's something that you always need to keep in mind when writing a setting. If a god/NPC can come around and solve every problem, why even have an adventure to begin with?

Because you need one more thing to tell you that your MC is trash and not in any way shape or form necessary to save the world. The problem with that is that they also need a reason for you to play the game, so you only see this effectively in Bad Ends. The entire thing is that...

And before we all crack the ol' reliable "PoWeR FaNtASy!" joke

... is not a joke. Savin is so very incredibly desperate to tell you in every single moment that your MC is not important. He just can't handle cleaning up that particular mess he creates so you always get convoluted reasons, retcons and etc. I don't know why they fear the MC being a power fantasy, I really don't, maybe they just hate the Hero's Journey or something... it's hard to say. All I know is that Savin keeps making messes he has to clean up, fears the idea that any factions actually have real conflict - probably to avoid drama in the Discord - and just in general I don't think this game was ever meant to be Corruption of Champions. It's just Brand Recognition™ to save whatever idea he had wanted to make.

 

[Sacred_Lamb]

That's something that you always need to keep in mind when writing a setting. If a god/NPC can come around and solve every problem, why even have an adventure to begin with?

And that's something that they just don't fucking get. That's why games like these are supposed to be power fantasies to the player character, because if you're going to solve a problem, you should damn well have a good reason to do so.

It's why any serious setting has rules about this sort of thing. A god directly interfering with anything should always lead to a worse outcome in the end.

Exactly, there can't be other parties involved because it devalues the entire quest and story. If there are, they better have a great in-game/in-story reason to do so. You'll hear some ppl say "the Gods shouldn't solve all the problems for mortals," to that I say nonsense especially when the same gods actively interact with, fuck and breed with them, swap info, and experiment on them. The argument is moot, because they don't even obey that law, its just writer's convenience because they don't want to acknowledge that they fucked up.

Spoiler: Rant about Gods

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[Sacred_Lamb]

Then the power fantasy joke just erks me something fierce. Fact is the you don't have to create a power fantasy to have a competent MC that is important to the story.

Luke Skywalker is s great example, he's not a macho manly character but he's no bitch either, he fails and needs to be saved sometimes, but he always reasserts himself into importance through - cunning, skill, or actions. Luke is the ONE but wins in the story by showing compassion and rejecting the darkside.
In Tyranny, one Obsidian's unsung rpg goats, you play as a glorified bronze age Judge Dred that issues delegates on behalf of a Tyrannical state during a war time siege. You are given a lot situations make you feel important but you're never the biggest fish in the pond, as their are generals overseeing this just like you and you answer to someone, where ur actions are judged.
In both examples that things don't have to get into power fantasy territory inorder to make the Mc feel powerless. You don't need to defang or masculate the character inorder to showcase the fact that they are lower on the totem pole of importance. Savco honestly feel like a bunch of cuckish sycophants pandering to other cuckish sycophants.