The majority of mechanics that deal with drives, in practice, treat them like they're fractions. For example, if you want a character to stop assaulting others and instead make them seek consensual sex, it'll be more efficient to raise their love than lowering their domination, because the options that raise drives are more efficient than those that lower them, so you should instead just seduce them to bed.
I see. As far as ambition goes, what exactly lowers ambition outside of combat itself? If Claw's pretty much friendly with everyone, does ambition go down with time?
Still, this won't be that useful if your goal is passing that check with Claw. Since her relationship with Valtan is also a very important factor, it's just more productive to take them both to conversation at the same time, raise their good moods, and have them have sex (easier if you invite Valtan while Claw is following you), since both the conversation and the scene will raise their relationship. You might come across with difficulties to achieve this early, since any of them (and most especially Claw) could sometimes get into hostile behavior that ruins everyone's mood in the conversation. Despite it all, I still recommend not to obsess over passing that check, you don't need it to get a good ending in the adventure.
I think the two things that sent me off about that check was how much time I specifically devoted to those two being on good terms, and still winding up failing. The entire run I just said "Eh these two will make good allies to keep me from being targetted" yet still somehow wound up failing a check specifically designed around those two. The devotion put there and winding up dry shocked me a bit.
I think the other point was just that checks do feel... Too often/tight? Getting hit with "Failure" for things you don't really felt like you had the tools to prepare for at all too often can feel like you aren't playing the game correctly-- which throws off someone's momentum when they feel like they're getting the hang of the game. This doesn't apply to the said Claw check-- moreso a global thing I've noticed. I think Ash's hug scene with the shapeshifter village was oddly warm considering I rarely did much with her in my run, which felt
very generous compared to the other failures I got hammered with despite trying to meet the demands. Despite the character being a person like the rest, it seems like their actions do way more weight than the rest of the team when it comes to social checks.
But yeah thanks for responding on the ambition part-- I'm still a bit lost on how it exactly gets reduced outside of combat, myself.
While I mostly don't share your experiences with the game & how it unfolds I do definitely think you aren't trying to be a douche but you seem clearly enthralled by the game as well. So while I hope the Dev doesn't fundamentally change things in the direction you suggest I do hope that, in the future, maybe things will be a bit clearer & also maybe that, by either difficulty or some other setting, player's who would like more controllable impact on the other candidates, get an option for it, while those who love the randomness can still have that by just playing "standard" game mode, or whatever.
I wouldn't say I necessarily want the player to control things more, moreso I think the player
shouldn't really be such a main pillar when it comes to drives-- since without the player the characters seem to be complete jackasses despite behaving totally different around the player. The amount of influence the MC has over the other candidates is
insane compared to their natural defenses to it.
