Release 21: Distortion

This update has two major features.  The first is a significant change to the game's multiplier balance.  PLEA's trauma multiplier has been increased to x4, INJU's circumstance multiplier has been decreased to x3, EXPO's trauma multiplier has been removed (leaving only the circumstance multiplier), and the trauma penalty to each associated circumstance has been changed to only apply for every level above the lowest current trauma.  In order to keep circumstance levels from growing out of control, a new penalty has been added of x1/2 to all circumstance damage per level of the highest circumstance.

The effect of these changes on the game's difficulty is complicated.  Trauma is now more difficult to get, and PLEA is now important, so the previous dominant strategy of avoiding PLEA and stacking INJU and EXPO is now much weaker.  Because the strongest strategy is no longer as strong, this will probably result in an increase to perceived difficulty for players who had mastered using those multipliers.  However, for players who liked to use PLEA because of their personal preferences, the game will now probably feel easier, because you're no longer punished for investing in PLEA.

The other major change is the addition of an alternative corruption path which involves seducing the Chosen by being kind and gentle to them.  In order to activate this path, the player must avoid breaking all Morality and Confidence Vulnerabilities (except for T1 Confidence, use of 'begging'), must break the T2 Innocence and Dignity Vulnerabilities (Force Orgasm and Broadcast), and then reach 100k PLEA in order to use the new Tempt action.

This is meant to be a bit more challenging than just breaking Chosen the normal way, so you probably shouldn't attempt to use it on all three Chosen at once unless you're using cheats to help.  More alternative corruption paths will come eventually, each of them following the pattern of "Break two Vulnerabilities, leave the other two mostly untouched, and then achieve something difficult."

Finally, this update adds two new vignettes.  The first is a sex scene between the Chosen with Core Confidence and the one with Minor Confidence once they're both significantly corrupted (note that it requires them both to be non-virgins, so you generally won't see it if you're going for distortions).  The second is an early-game scene for the Chosen with Core Morality once she's gotten a decent amount of trauma.  The trauma required is high enough to trigger T1 sinful downtime actions, so if you see this scene, it means that it's definitely time to start aiming for some Vulnerability breaks.

For the next update, I've decided to start working on campaign mode.  There are other features I had wanted to add in order to help make campaign mode more interesting when it arrived, but I realized that those features would be a lot less interesting before campaign mode was implemented.  One or the other has to be done first, and I've decided that it makes more sense to start with campaign mode itself, since this will help tie the Forsaken into a functioning gameplay loop.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added a new corruption route.  See the end of the guide.txt for detailed information.
• Content: Added two new vignettes.
• Balance: Reworked how several damage multipliers function.
• Interface: Chosen who have above 100% Punisher effectiveness will now have that information shown on the corruption overview.
• Bugfix: The tutorial will no longer break when played with hard mode activated.
• Bugfix: Corrected some issues with the predicted exermination progression when surrounded or captured Chosen are close to freeing themselves.