Update Alpha 8: Skills & Curses

Major:

• Skill Scrolls, Chests, and Skill Management
  • The dungeon can now spawn chests containing Skill Scrolls.
    • Chests can spawn inside their own rooms, or when defeating a monster
    • Some chests can have traps inside as well!
  • (Almost) every Skill in the game can be spawned as a Scroll
  • Using a new menu in camp, you can make use of Scrolls in various ways
    • Imprint: Consume the Scroll, but grants the Skill to an ally while letting them bypass any Desire requirements the Skill may have!
    • Memorize: Consume the Scroll, but permanently Memorize the Skill inside for yourself. This allows you to Teach the Skill to any ally that has a Skill Point and meets all of its requirements!
    • Blank: Changes the Skill Scroll into a Blank Scroll.
      • Blank Scrolls can be Imprinted onto Allies to grant them Skill Points, or can be used as a substitute to Skill Points when Teaching a Skill!
• Corruption Waves
  • Further into the dungeon, Eschahn's influence will begin to grow more insistent
  • As a result, later floors will introduce a new hazard, Corruption Waves
    • Getting hit with a Corruption Wave will increase the rank of a random Curse that the knight has, increasing its effect for the rest of the floor!
    • If the knight has no Curses, they will instead be hit with a steadily increasing amount of Temporary Corruption.
• Shrines
  • Later floors will also begin spawning Shrines
  • Each ally can use a Shrine once per floor, giving them three exclusive options:
    • Offer Devotion: Gain Permanent Corruption, but in exchange the speed of Corruption Waves is also lowered permanently.
    • Accept Blessing: Gain a Curse (which can be identified beforehand if it is researched), and lower the cost of Dispelling the Curse at the end of the floor to 0.
    • Denounce: Denounce Eschahn, removing any Curses that have been Rejected by the ally.
• Embracing/Rejecting
  • Embracing and Rejecting now serves an actual purpose
    • Embracing a Curse will permanently lock its effect. This means that it can still absorb the same number of Corruption Waves, but its effect will never get more severe from doing so.
    • Rejecting a Curse allows it to be removed at a Shrine by Denouncing Eschahn, however when the Curse is first rejected, it will attach itself to a Skill, taking a rank of that Skill away when the Curse is removed!

Minor:

• The Witch can now reveal unknown curses (for a price, of course)
  
• Base Working stats are now shown correctly on the full stat page. Previously, it was not displaying bonus/penalties to base stats.
  • For example, previously if a character had 12 Strength and 12 Dexterity, their base Physique would always display as 24 regardless of any bonuses/penalties to Strength/Dexterity.
• There is now a button to repeat the previous conversation topic when talking to an ally in your tent.
• Fixed a memory leak issue with respect to spell effects (scry effects, specifically)
• Fixed a bug in the War Scout Beast's encounter dialogue script.
• Fixed a bug in the Binding Rope Constrict dialogue script.
• Fixed a bug where the Cover of Nature Skill was not actually requiring you to have Thorns.
• Fixed a bug where sorting traps by accuracy in the research notes menu was broken.
• Fixed a bug where Group Focus would apply to your next scry's cooldown if scry was not already on cooldown when the effect took place.
• Fixed a bug where combat counters in the room info dropdown would be inaccurate for monsters/traps that attacked non-standard stats.
• Fixed a bug where you were unable to prepare spells during the first time slot of evening in camp.
• Added a skip button to the dialogue manager (skipping was always possible via keyboard shortcut but whatever)
• Fixed a bug where the keyboard shortcuts to set orders for all allies applied to allies inside rooms obscured by darkness.
• Fixed some bugs with viewing events that include music from the research notes menu

Balance:

Ally Base Stats:   

• The cap for when stat point cost increases to upgrade a given stat is now dependent on an ally's stat preferences. A character's favored stat will need 2 stat points to upgrade when going from 16 to 17+, second favored stat from 15 to 16+, third from 14 to 15+, fourth from 13 to 14+.
  • This is intended to make the characters feel somewhat more distinct, as you'll be much less able to get them all up the same "all 15" stat line compared to before (if you're even going for end of floor dispels that much still. 
  • If you're curious, as these aren't listed anywhere, favored stat lists are:
    • Raine: Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, Focus
    • Lucette: Focus, Vitality, Strength, Dexterity
    • Elli: Dexterity, Focus, Vitality, Strength                

Ally Camp AI:

• Allies asked for sex by other allies now check if they would have been willing to pick sex as an activity on their own before agreeing.
  • This is internal to how activities are decided, but basically it is INTENDED to make it easier to manipulate 1 on 1 sex between knights to happen without the third knight always joining in to make it a threesome. It may be adjusted as time goes on (especially once threesome scenes are actually written).

Status Effects

• Sweet Dreams Trigger:
  • Fixed a bug that was causing it to not be removed after its effect was triggered and sleep was lost.
  • This effect is now better differentiated from the Sweet Dreams Curse. It is also revealed when it takes effect.
  • Mimics the first rank effect of the Curse of 4 Lust per turn while asleep, down from 8 Lust and 1 Temporary Corruption.
  • The associated trap can now cause this effect to happen instantly if it hits and the victim has 14 or less Willpower                           

Skills:   

• A lot of stuff just due to the skill system changes
  • Mostly changes to requirements/desire requirements, which weren't visible before this anyway
• Nerfed Purity:
  • This skill is just too good, man...
  • Heals [2/3/4] Temporary Corruption on gaining Well Rested, down from [2/4/6]
  • Now has a Desire requirement of Ideals Drive of Moderate or higher (Base stats Elli does not have access to it)
  • Is no longer offered as a New Game+ option                           

Curses:   

• There are far too many changes to list here. Just throw away any specific knowledge you have of what curses used to do (numbers mostly, most still do the same thing IN GENERAL).

Spells:

• Buffed Astir:
  • Now also grants 1 turn of Clarity when an ally is awoken from sleep, even if woken up unnaturally. 
• Buffed Wired:       
  • No longer prevents manually choosing to sleep       
  • Now only increases scry cooldown by 3 actions per day without sleep, down from 4.
• Buffed Withdraw:       
  • No longer requires Charge stacks to take effect. 
  • No longer requires that the player know the Charged spell to be sold by the Witch       
• Buffed Impassion:
  • Now increases current desires for Pleasure and Community by 6, up from 4.

New Game+:

• Increased the KP cost of keeping Favorability and Control
• Added Charged and Impassion as options