So every single line of every event is saved in the save file? Since it's capable of scanning the text, could it be shortened? Like:
Tanaka scene 1 page 3
or
Ts1p3
or even T1p3
to save even more space. Though the dev will probably have to keep a separate file recording what the letters translate to.
Stick something like that in invisible text at the very top of the page. Instead of having the game scan the entire page, have it scan that one line and compare it to the save file. For new variants of scenes due to the looping,
Tanaka scene 1 page 3 variant 2 characters 45-80
T1p3 v2 45-80
Then it highlights characters 45 to 80. If this is possible, it should make the text skipping and saves smoother?
My current plan is to just move the event logs to a completely separate file (or maybe even multiple separate files), so that the game doesn't need to refer to all the text ever showed to the player on a regular basis.
New record for R1h, 673 a pop for 77k invested MOL. After some reworking, I got a big boost out of switching to Ostentatious Clothes as soon as was feasible. I'm not sure if the 100 for truthseeker was in R1g, it was only 10 in R1f.
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Congrats! To give players a point of reference for what MoL gains will be like in Release 2, my current run of the gameplay-feature-complete dev version is hitting 600 MoL per loop with 4k MoL invested. Stronger options are coming!
Can the changelog for R1h be shared?
Or at least is the savegame bloat issue been resolved?
Kinda pointless to try playing much on this as I'm already feeling the effects on loop 20 make the game unplayable and wanted to know if next month I will have better luck or I need to wait more.
Bugs:
Skipping a day with One Day auto function has wierd interactions with actions that are going to complete a goal, the skip kinda rolls back.
Feedback/suggestions:
If the savegame bloat is not fixed for R1h, instructions on how to trim the fat would be nice, if it is possible without breaking the saves.
The early game is harsh, and I feel it discourages deviation from a singular strategy that works (regardless if that is in fact the best strategy).
Charisma stands out as incredibly hard to level up, which makes the bonus for getting Tanaka the first time hollow at best.
Academics are unlocked far too late into a loop to feel it is worth the investment with the limited time there is, and I never have been able to level it up, let alone turn it useful.
In addition the loop upgrades hit a diminishing return way too fast for the current implementation to feel useful, after level 10 they don't feel worth the return on investment anymore. (note that I used the word feel intentionally, more mathematically minded people might not feel this is an issue)
My suggestion would be to make the loop upgrades be useful at level 0, so each loop starts you in a better place and make Charisma and Academics useful without overfarming MoL for other upgrades first, may require significant rebalancing but I feel it would be worth it to make the game feel more rewarding.
The only upgrade I felt was significant enough to change my early game was the early unlock of DuMont, I would like to see more early unlock upgrades to shake up the initial strategy (be it early meetings or outright Routines unlocks).
A way to close the loop early (besides loading and losing progress) would be appriciated when I'm at day 50 and realize I got no chance to do anything useful in that run.
The Next button for skipping a day with One Day settings requires Begin to be pressed before, would be nice if this click was not required, this also affects the Routine/Achivement/Calendar/Stats buttons.
Save/Load menu is unintuitive at best, a dedicated and separate Save and Load button would be nice, especially when making custom saves.
A way to outright skip instead of just auto-forward the scenes would make MoL farming loops feel less like a chore and inprove repleiability (or I assume it would, it is far too slugish for me now on loop 20 to play).
A way to independently activate auto-forward stoppers would be nice in case I want both condition to stop it.
Having slept on it some more feedback/suggestions came to mind:
The loop end screen could use a overhaul, at the very least an explicit scrolling bar would be useful, but it being more organized (tabs maybe?) would be nice as more upgrades are added.
Additionally I feel the screen would be better served by vertical scrolling instead of horizontal scrolling, and the boxes could use less spacing between them to save a bit of space.
Personally I would make the explanation screen smaller too, other than the Wake Up description only a third is used.
Health and Stamina bar have no real reason to be on screen at this point.
A total for the current loop MoL gained would be nice to have already calculated near the amount you have carried over.
Jackal first meeting lacks a counter for actually impressing her and skipping a one or more phases of training, with overprogress seemingly going into the clue finding instead.
In addition while on the Yumeno side there are variations if you began training with Jackal, there are no variations if you began or completed Yumeno's mall ninja training. I imagine trying to use Monkey Steals Peaches, successfully or otherwise, on Jackal would have funny results.
Some end of loop upgrades to the Routines themselves would be another nice way to shake up the strategy.
Thanks for the feedback. A lot of this comes down to this being just the first chapter of the story. Eventually, Academics and Charisma will both firmly be in the category of "early game upgrade," and you'll be able to get them to 10 or 20 or higher without having to try too hard. Similarly, the MoL power scaling is limited by the fact that only the early game upgrades are implemented. Once there are more upgrades to unlock, you'll be able to put your MoL into those instead of pushing against the diminishing returns of the current upgrades, and so each loop worth of MoL will you a lot more strength.
I'll take another look at the interface issues. The intent is that if you want to be skipping multiple days at a time, you should be using the continuous auto instead of the one-day-at-a-time auto, but it seems like players find it unwieldy, so we'll see if there's a better way to do it without asking players to button mash.
More variants on the Jackal meeting are planned, though you're right that a variant for when you already have some Wetwork from Yumeno is the sort of thing that should have already been done. As far as passing her test goes, that's going to come sometime after Release 2 once there's a system in place for constructing the scene when completing multiple goals at once. The short version is that if you meet her at the nightclub, then having enough excess goal progress will let you flow into the "finding the abductors' location" scene, while meeting her at the country club will let you flow into the "passing her test" scene, because that's how the goal overflow is already set up. (Similarly, by meeting her at the country club, players with a very high Focus bonus will even be able to immediately find out about the Tower in the same scene.)
Is there any point to the Cause trouble action in metropolis? Is that the end of the current story and I should just use triumphant and daydream?
Yes, that's currently where the content ends.
I think I've encountered a bug where your routine from a previous loop somehow affects the next loop. I've got a day 2 save here, but I already have 2 meaning of life because my daydream on day 1 appears to have been buffed by my triumphant stance from day 150.
Thanks for uploading your save. I took a look, and that is indeed what happened. I think this might be connected to the auto mode bug mentioned above, so I've made a tweak to the next version which should hopefully prevent it from happening in the future.
I reached the mansion conversation with DuMont before the kidnapping. A few pages ago, there was a sentence about the other servants not minding that we don't have issues. Then this page, which seems to be highlighted wrong? Think this line has no change.
View attachment 4881092
This is actually working as intended. If you get that scene after classes start, DuMont also asks you whether you're attending them regularly (and the protagonist swiftly changes the subject).
QoL issue: is it possible to see the original health cost of an action, even if it has been reduced to 0 by Wetwork? Would be useful for planning Wetworks thresholds to keep self-destructive active on future loops. I didn't even know there was a metropolis action with a health cost because I always grind up Wetworks for the extra MoL before flying out.
I also hope future perks add either the ability to mess with routine requirements or tank your own health/limit Wetworks effectiveness.
Ha, way ahead of you here. Seeing the full Health cost is already implemented in the version which is going public this month. As for having a little more control over your own Health, you'll be able to get a routine which is very useful for that purpose early in Release 2.
Until you can do the Hashimoto storyline the early game doesn't really change, unfortunately Hashimoto story is not kind to low MoL loops.
Personally I monofocus getting Focus to level 2 before doing anything else, or at least getting Home Cooking (takes about 10-15 days iirc). Dumping stamina on DuMont is also an option on top of that when you unlock that for the first day.
As of yet I have not been able to make use of Charisma (or Academics), but my savegame is now too bloated to play (loop 26), waiting for the next release with the issue fixed.
Self-Destructive interacts with Health, not Stamina, as far as I know. Generally speaking effects that raise the Stamina cost also raise the effects you get out of the action, and inversely effects that decrease Stamina cost decrease the effect.
In the case of Self-Destructive I think it applies a flat 100 Stamina effect on top of what you normally get if the conditions are met.
Yes, it should, though I didn't test it.
Personally I have been able to unlock most MoL upgrades (save for Hasimoto's and Tanaka's) by loop 6-8ish, from there it was all about figuring out how to get to her and getting enough MoL to actually manage it.
I have been able to rescue Tanaka by loop 16, but just barely. The timing is tight with the MoL distribution I had (most things at around 10), I had to use several loops to finagle things into making it work.
I think there are people that managed to get to her in under 10 tough.
The version going public this month will also have a functional "Hall of Fame" feature for seeing how quickly other players were able to beat the game (and it'll also let you export their exact action sequence to see how they did so).
For the curious: the current best score posted by a player is Loop 7, Day 97. If you can upload a save where you manage it faster than that, then you can be in the next version's Hall of Fame!
Well alright, weird thing happened. After closing the game, I come back and run it like usual (double-click the app) but nothing happens, not even an error message popping up. I started looking stuff up, tried to run it in the cmd prompt with
"java -jar "Cultivation Spiral.jar" " and I get this:
Any ideas?
This looks like the crash currently affecting players who use the weekly routine setting. A fix is on the way.
You know what'd be an amazing QoL feature? A default action setting, only selectable on day 1, that sets your upgrades and your default actions for the loop to those of the loop where you generated your most ever MoL. Ideally wouldn't be too taxing to implement since it seems like a ton of profile-level data is already being tracked - just record the loop actions and loop MoL. If the new MoL is greater, save the actions somewhere, discarding the old set. Would be really nice for when you invest some MoL, try out a strategy with your improved stats, and find that you're coming up short of where you were before, probably because your Vulnerable and Self-Destructive windows have changed. My personal best is 30 MoL higher than my current setup, and I'm not sure how to get back to that level without reloading that save, meticulously noting down every action, and trying to manually replicate on my current save.
This is a really good idea. I'll add it to my to-do list.
BEHOLD!
I have saved Tanaka on D32 in R1h! Loop 795, ~505k MOL invested.
Great credit to c4145317, as I used a lot of his strategy with some edits for efficiency and lower MOL. I'm second place, and he's the grand champion. Most of my higher MOL efficiency comes from finishing Hashimoto's questline produces 100 MOL instead of I think it was 10.
I attached the screencap and save for posterity. Excited for the next version, word is the developer is going to make saving Tanaka on D32 trigger the achievement and Triumphant stance as a placeholder until the real reward comes in later versions.
View attachment 4912698
Congrats! The Tanaka-rescuer club begins to grow.
