The centerpiece of this update is the fourth Distortion path, Rampancy. It's the last of the four Distortion paths which are based on selectively avoiding breaking one of the Tier-1 Vulnerabilities and the higher-Tier Vulnerabilities associated with it. In particular, by never forcing one of the Chosen to use 'begging', and by never using Force Orgasm or Sodomize/Torture/Force Laughter on her (e.g. by avoiding PLEA and INJU/TICK damage), you can break her sense of compassion while still leaving her pride intact. After performing Inseminate and Broadcast on her, the final step is to surround her for 15 turns at once while her HATE is higher than her INJU/TICK. The building frustration will finally cause her to snap and use the new Rampage action.
This Distortion is probably easier to trigger than the other Distortions, but it's also more difficult to deal with once it's been triggered, because there will no longer be a surround duration requirement in order for the subject to start using Rampage. And Rampage itself is a very powerful action, causing the subject to immediately break free of the surround and become untargetable for however long she would have remained surrounded. The only benefits are that Rampaging Chosen will deal large amounts of HATE and EXPO to themselves, and that they'll also generate very large amounts of Evil Energy after the battle.
Chosen defeated on the Rampancy path will gain the 'Demon Knight' trait as Forsaken. Rather than serving the Demon Lord out of any sense of fear or loyalty, they simply fight for you because they've become completely addicted to fighting, and because they want to use you in order to make themselves even stronger. Rather than costing Motivation to deploy, they actually restore Motivation when deployed and lose it whenever they're left idle. Furthermore, rather than having a static Evil Energy cost to deploy, they consume however much Evil Energy you have on hand, scaling their own power to however much energy they're fed. They're most efficient when deployed close to their "natural" cost, so Disgrace is still a meaningful corruption stat for them, but they have a lot more flexibility, which can be especially useful early in campaign mode.
In addition to the new corruption path, a small but very noticeable change is the addition of the "guide goals" system. This is meant to provide new players with a set of short-term tasks which will get them on their way to a successful loop. The task notifications can be turned off, and they don't provide any extra gameplay benefit, so experienced players can safely ignore them. The current system goes up to the mid-to-lategame of a single loop, but if this proves successful, then I'll try extending it so that it covers the creation of rivalries, Distortion paths, and Forsaken training across multiple loops.
Finally, this update also includes another vignette commissioned by Kalloi. This one is connected to the Negotiation Distortion, and it's a little bit unique in that it can only trigger on days when you've made a truce with the Chosen. Its only other requirements are to have made a few truces in the past and for the subject to have already started using Fantasize, so it should still be pretty easy to trigger.
Having the four basic Distortion paths completed is an important development milestone. I'd like to eventually implement a HATE/PLEA Distortion and an INJU/EXPO Distortion, but in the short term, I think it's time to push further into campaign mode and start implementing the other species and the boss fights. The first step toward that will be to improve the user-friendliness of the Forsaken training and management systems. Forsaken are core to much of the game's sexual content and progression, but I know that a lot of players find them too troublesome to bother with. I already have some improvements in mind, but more suggestions are always welcome.
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- Content: Added a new corruption route. See the end of the guide.txt for more information.
- Content: Added new variants of the T3 Core Innocence and Confidence Break scenes when the would-be victim is on the new corruption route.
- Content: Added a new vignette.
- Content: Added a system of guide goals for new players.
- Balance: Distorted Forsaken will now be much more willing to perform the training actions which give them their unique Defiler actions.
- Balance: Aversion Forsaken now ignore the usual corruption requirements for Punisher Positions.
- Bugfix: Added a missing button to the options menu.
- Bugfix: Resolved a crash that could happen when the Chosen use Fantasize.
- Bugfix: Stopped the generation of bugged Forsaken that could crash the game at the end of the day. (Saves which already have these Forsaken will need to delete them.)
- Bugfix: Added some missing text for high-Hostility Forsaken talking about their personal philosophies.
- Bugfix: Chosen and Forsaken will no longer be generated with impossible family relationships.
- Other: Rewrote some of the documentation and added more information, notably adding more information about Forsaken training consent factors.
- Other: Once the Chosen start using the moves unlocked by Tier-3 breaks, there will be an end-battle recap of how much progress they've made toward their Tier-4 breaks.
- Bugfix: Using an unupgraded Commander to capture one of the Chosen when it'd make her immediately Rampage will no longer result in a bugged capture state.
- Bugfix: Chosen with higher-tier Innocence and Confidence Breaks will no longer Rampage.
- Bugfix: Resolved a bugged capture state related to selecting a target with an unupgraded Commander and then backing out from the menu.
