Kinda find it funny how there's no Corruption gain for literally killing the Alraune or the Behemoth, but apparently telling Quintillus to "Fuck Off" is too far.
But yeah, at times the Corruption gain / loss can be somewhat inconsistently applied and tend to not make sense when considering the world building / setting.
I'll just say that I actually like that our characters can and will kill people. That the PC in TiTS distant kill people that would very well kill them is in itself odd to me.
I know what you mean. I understand not wanting to satisfy murder boners, but if killing is on the table against the pc then why not allow killing in self defense? Although to be fair, my lack of success at curbing the demonic centaur and imp populations is embarrassing for me. So I can see why killing isn't allowed to avoid that disconnect.
I would actually like more of fights like the Gwery's flash back where it feels brutal. Some of the fights feel like slap feasts when they could be more harrowing.
Kinda find it funny how there's no Corruption gain for literally killing the Alraune or the Behemoth, but apparently telling Quintillus to "Fuck Off" is too far.
Might have something to do with the fact that they're both corrupted to Hell and back, the first being a plant given sentience and made to spread her lusty intentions, and the Behemoth being the centaurs' best(?) warrior and was turned into a ruthless kill-fuck machine; might be why you don't get Corrupted over them, same with the centaur pack leaders or the imp groups.
Though yeah, I'd love to see (edit)options have* uniform positions.
You can also leave a bunch of slaves at the mercy of a rampaging giant but refusing to degrade yourself and suck off a lizard for disguises is taking it too far.
Might have something to do with the fact that they're both corrupted to Hell and back, the first being a plant given sentience and made to spread her lusty intentions, and the Behemoth being the centaurs' best(?) warrior and was turned into a ruthless kill-fuck machine; might be why you don't get Corrupted over them, same with the centaur pack leaders or the imp groups.
Though yeah, I'd love to see optioomskm uniform positions.
Yet they (the Alraune and the Behemoth) can still be redeemed by allowing them to stay at the Wayfort. I'd think that if the PC thought that they could just keep them there, killing them would be a corrupt thing to do by that logic.
Also, the PC has no proof of how corrupt Quintillus is, as they are presented with the choice from the very first interaction, no backstory provided like with the Alraune. If there was anything to feel somewhat guilty of it would be killing an NPC (whether corrupt or not) after they essentially tell the PC everything that they can, not "rejecting" an NPC that has given them no definitive reason to trust them and was literally a part of the very thing (the cult) that is causing issues in the world around them.
Even in the circumstance that someone was in the cult against their own will (which is not something that is ever implied for Quintillus), that would still not make the PC immediately trusting of them; especially when the NPC states that they would answer the PCs questions - except about Tollus...
I brought the majority of my stance up before in this post.
They literally can't. The Behemoth is still around (but now no longer in a position to do much damage) and the Alraune still continues to abduct people.
One of the conversations with the Alraune literally has her latest victim stagger away before she moves to block your view.
if corrupted individuals do not impose on free will of others (rape is a big no-no for me) I do not have any problems with them and actually usually prefer their sexual culture over the rest of the world
The thing is, corruption comes in multiple sources. Some, like Taldahs, take it willingly, but a lot aren't given a choice.
Queen Nyzerrah accepted the corruption because Kasyrra beat up her and the hive, and as such, had to bow to the victor (it's the same principle as to why she accepts the champ's choice to purify the hive if they defeat her). The majority of the hornets serving underneath her were simply loyal to their queen, and so they had to fall in line and accept the corruption. There's also some pressure to keep the corruption when they otherwise could reject it because of their honey reserves, essentially pressuring them to keep it just to live, rather than because they actually want to (essentially, their corruption is against their will). Jyrranaz is one of the few Vesparans that actually accept Kasyrra, and she's also part of what's corrupting the hive.
The Alraune was born by the corruption, and constantly has her effigies assaulting people, violating their free will purely because she's only known what she was taught by Kasyrra. She herself was not given the free choice to embrace or reject corruption, as she was not aware of any other way to live, and as such also works to spread it.
Farrah, the demon cat who comes to the Wayfort, was not given a choice. She was traveling, as is her job, and Kasyrra came down and pretty much just fucked her soul out right there. She didn't choose corruption, she was forcefully corrupted.
I'll get into the centaur village on the next quote of yours I'm responding to.
Queen Alissa was, undeniably, a terrible person before Kasyrra, but that doesn't mean she chose it. Kasyrra is a very skilled manipulator, and Alissa seems to value strength too, and given the state Alissa is in when we get to the City, I believe that Kasyrra manipulated Alissa into accepting Kasyrra's corruption. It is technically of Alissa's free will, but she was unaware of the full ramifications of what was happening, as she was only shown what Kasyrra wanted her to know until it was already too late for her. For the rest of the Boreal Elves within the palace, they follow the monarch, and many of them were aristocracy as well, but those who get named are spoken of by Ryn, talking about how, before, they were kind, caring, normal elves, but the corruption warped them into cruel, sadistic, often sex-obsessed to the point of openly seeking to rape whoever they want.
The cultists are, themselves, manipulated and brainwashed by those above them. In the Gweyr quest, the cultists who she slaughtered in the flashback were shown to be under the influence of some mind control spell, forcing them to stay with what they'd been tricked into, and the cultists overall are largely just pawns used by Tollus to try to achieve his goals. Decisions made as a result of manipulation are not truly made under the free will of the person who enacts them.
Also, corruption does not tie directly to open sexuality (Cait is, like, the purest example, as a member of a religion all about sex while also being vehemently pure and anti-corruption). A ton of people and cultures are very openly sexual in the world, and very many people seem to be fine with fucking just about anyone and everyone they come across, completely devoid of any corruption. Corruption is not simply wanting to fuck, it is about the destruction of one's empathy and care for the well-being of others.
I want the centaur village to stay "corrupted" and the Ahmri's attempt to persuade her father to fail. Not taking these 2 into account it seems the majority of the village populace is quite happy with their new way of life.
No, the game literally says that most of the centaurs are relieved when Taldahs stops being corrupted and returns to purity. I've even attached a screenshot showing the text where it says this. Taldahs (and also the lady who served as the "Unitaur") were manipulated by Kasyrra appealing to their strongest desires in order to corrupt them. There are some centaurs who like it, but the majority do not and were simply following the orders of their leaders.
Not really? Like, certain things can lower the player's corruption, things tied to caring for others or using religious artifacts to expunge corruption. Those are what are truly viewed as a "pure" option. The killings aren't pure, but they aren't corrupt: They're morally ambiguous. There are reasons why a corrupted champ may want to kill (corruption isn't just unambiguous lust, it's more tied to cruelty and selfishness. These beings attacked the corrupted champ, with intent to bring grievous harm, and since they're so heavily corrupt other people won't chastise a corrupted champ if they want to brutalize), and there are reasons why a pure champ may want to kill (these beings, like the centaurs and the imps, are evil rape monsters who are attacking civilians and the like with the goal of raping them. Imps are literally soulless creatures, utterly devoid of empathy, seeking simply to rape others purely off of instinct, while the centaur leaders are heavily corrupted and leading roaming gangs seeking to rape and pillage. As for the Alraune, I don't personally think it's moral to kill her, but she is the source off the effigies, which bring a bunch of harm to passers-by and travelers, being the main corrupted force in that section of the forest.).
Kinda find it funny how there's no Corruption gain for literally killing the Alraune or the Behemoth, but apparently telling Quintillus to "Fuck Off" is too far.
But yeah, at times the Corruption gain / loss can be somewhat inconsistently applied and tend to not make sense when considering the world building / setting.
That's because of the moral ambiguity for killing the heavily corrupted beings (Alraune and Behemoth), while it's much more ambiguous with Quint. There's logic that could bring both a pure and a corrupted champion to wanting to kill the first two, but with Quint, he's actively seeking to escape corruption and the champ not even just telling him where to go to escape the valley shows that the champ lacks the care to give him a chance to achieve his goal. The Alraune and Behemoth do not have pure goals, I'd say the Alraune is aimless once you beat her and the Behemoth can't think at all, while Quint wants to make things better, and that's why there's no corruption for killing the first two but there is for disrupting the third.
No, not really. The Alraune doesn't get uncorrupted or something like that, rather she simply serves you as her new master, obeying the player's will. In terms of age, she is really super young, and with that is an incredible naivety. She simply doesn't have a well-developed moral compass, and since the player doesn't spend that much time around instructing her, she simply does what she was conditioned to do. As for the Behemoth, well, he can't really be corrupted. From what I remember, he was basically corrupted to the point that he has lost sentience. He can't think, or even speak, he's only capable of fighting and fucking. With him, killing him could be seen as a mercy, since whoever he was before has essentially already been killed, leaving an unthinking abomination in his place.
"That's a whitewood bow," Etheryn notes. "Impressive."
You can tell the quality of its make, you suppose, but is there anything special about it? It's rare, you take it?
"The only other one I've seen belonged to my mother. It was a gift from the druids of the Old Wyld to my great-grandmother, back before the Godswar. Most others have been lost or otherwise gone missing..."
And so I hope to find a fourth one in the future.
Another gripe would be needs more Mayick shenanigans. Wonder if anyone's ever wanted to come up with ideas for lewd fun like the big sleepy snek has.
They literally can't. The Behemoth is still around (but now no longer in a position to do much damage) and the Alraune still continues to abduct people.
One of the conversations with the Alraune literally has her latest victim stagger away before she moves to block your view.
That's because of the moral ambiguity for killing the heavily corrupted beings (Alraune and Behemoth), while it's much more ambiguous with Quint. There's logic that could bring both a pure and a corrupted champion to wanting to kill the first two, but with Quint, he's actively seeking to escape corruption and the champ not even just telling him where to go to escape the valley shows that the champ lacks the care to give him a chance to achieve his goal. The Alraune and Behemoth do not have pure goals, I'd say the Alraune is aimless once you beat her and the Behemoth can't think at all, while Quint wants to make things better, and that's why there's no corruption for killing the first two but there is for disrupting the third.
No, not really. The Alraune doesn't get uncorrupted or something like that, rather she simply serves you as her new master, obeying the player's will. In terms of age, she is really super young, and with that is an incredible naivety. She simply doesn't have a well-developed moral compass, and since the player doesn't spend that much time around instructing her, she simply does what she was conditioned to do. As for the Behemoth, well, he can't really be corrupted. From what I remember, he was basically corrupted to the point that he has lost sentience. He can't think, or even speak, he's only capable of fighting and fucking. With him, killing him could be seen as a mercy, since whoever he was before has essentially already been killed, leaving an unthinking abomination in his place.
To generalize this response a bit I'll be addressing everything in one go.
On the point of the Behemoth, I'll admit it is arguably more justifiable for the "mercy" option, because it's implied that he has limited to no "humanity" remaining. Unlike Taldahs. It is a bit up in the air when it comes to the Alraune though, as that would be left up to speculation.
Regardless, the outcome of the centaur village quest is pretty telling, if your PC decided to do the game ending a certain NPC route, the way it is worded is though that is the worse choice and technically should be corrupting for the PC - as their stance to cause that outcome seems to reflect some unwillingness to actually negotiate or spare those corrupt, and rationalize / justify it. Which literally results in the worse outcome, as reflected by the tooltip and what occurs to the centaur village (which as mentioned prior, I think should result in the PC becoming more corrupt as well).
Whilst that may not exactly be directly comparable to the Alraune / Behemoth scenarios, it does make one think of the morality surrounding those outcomes - especially with the Alraune. She literally begs for her life, and the PC feels bad after killing her. So if one was to make any case for that (albeit empathy being a non-demonic trait) it would be along those lines. The PC feels no such remorse when it comes to exiling Quin though, which is why I'm questioning / take issue with the inconsistency of the corruption increase. I can understand why people don't think it matters that much (on account of it being such limited corruption increase or other such reasoning), but it does set a precedent that certain actions are justifiable and others aren't - and there's no additional context to that specification.
And with regard to the "redeeming", yeah I should of worded it better. I was eluding to the potential of having some way of solving their situation, not that sending them to the Wayfort solves all the issues. Although on the topic of that elf (elves) scene, there is no explicit confirmation of what exactly occurred - just the speculation of the PC, which I suppose considering the Alraune is fair, however it is true that the Winter City is not exactly doing to great on the debauchery / corruption front either - so it could be either voluntarily or not (here was my initial thoughts on the matter, what's mentioned in this thread is my stance on it now however - unless something is explicitly said in-game and not via metagaming I'm not going to go out of my way to definitively take it as truth, especially if there's no further explanation given).
Regardless though, Grainne does state that all of the stuff (corruption etc) that occurred previously has (relatively) stopped, and the hornets no longer attack you after you sort out the Alraune (either way). So it is once again up to your interpretation with regard to that. In all honesty I'd think Farrah and the Alraune are somewhat comparable in that regard, both allude to the fact that they'll do what the PC wishes - so I don't technically have that much reason to distrust the Alraune to that extent (outside of the elf / elves scene), just assume that any NPCs sent there will most likely become more corrupted in the (potential) interim.
Onto the Quin section of the discussion - I don't really have massive issues with Quin himself. As a character there's not a lot of info to go on though, hence why the feeling of the game almost morally judging your decision to tell him to take a hike can be somewhat irksome. In the games setting I'd think being distrusting of an (alleged) ex-member of the source of evil is somewhat warranted, but apparently that skepticism is supposedly not warranted at all.
Even though a companion such as Cait vehemently states her displeasure to him joining, and even tries to hit him initially.
Hence why when we compare it to literally killing someone who is begging for their life (the Alraune) who actually gives you all the backstory of their life and their motivations (the Alraune) and the PC actually feels bad for doing so, I have a hard time believing that telling the suspicious one to take a hike - instead of the one that is somewhat upfront about their stuff (at least in some sense), is worse.
I won't fault any writing per se for how I perceive Quin, but I feel that there are some areas that could be more in depth. Because with the Alraune she literally tells you what you want to know, Quin claims he will tell you everything, but the most important thing (info on Tollus), he gets angry about and doesn't want to say anything. That didn't seem out of fear, but more of deep seated hatred for Tollus, which doesn't seem like justification enough to not tell his literal savior - and the Champion of the area.
All in all, I know that I might be over analyzing this, but when it comes to opinions that's usually how it goes. My motivation for keeping the Alraune and the Behemoth alive would be the hopeful potential that one would be able to possibly purify them one day, either with a mystical Lumian ritual, or at the end of the game a la CoC purify the world ending.
TLDR
Yeah I understand both viewpoints presented, but when it comes to morality of things - I think it also comes down to ones own interpretation of things, and ones own bias. The above is just my interpretation of the events in-game and my thoughts on it. I'm not advocating whether that's 100% correct or not, and apologies if that's how it was implied.
I thought that that was the very essence of the thread, to state your gripes, whether they were tangible or not, no matter the scale. If that is not the case then I'll not really chuck my thoughts in here further, lest I continue to cause overtly long discussions here.
Onto the Quin section of the discussion - I don't really have massive issues with Quin himself. As a character there's not a lot of info to go on though, hence why the feeling of the game almost morally judging your decision to tell him to take a hike can be somewhat irksome. In the games setting I'd think being distrusting of an (alleged) ex-member of the source of evil is somewhat warranted, but apparently that skepticism is supposedly not warranted at all.
Even though a companion such as Cait vehemently states her displeasure to him joining, and even tries to hit him initially.
Hence why when we compare it to literally killing someone who is begging for their life (the Alraune) who actually gives you all the backstory of their life and their motivations (the Alraune) and the PC actually feels bad for doing so, I have a hard time believing that telling the suspicious one to take a hike - instead of the one that is somewhat upfront about their stuff (at least in some sense).
Honestly, while I did give an explanation on how the Alraune killing may be seen as more neutral than the Quint "fuck off" thing, I've also not had a single one of the twenty different characters I've made actually kill her. Realistically, I don't think rejecting Quint immediately should cause an increase in corruption, even though I fully understand the logic of the situations in-game and how they impact how the corruption happens. An interesting note is that, you mention Cait is very strongly against Quint, but also, she's very strongly against the Alraune. When you beat the Alraune, she's like "spare my life, I will worship you and your body" and Cait is like "Oi bitch I'm all the worship that Champ needs, hurry up and die already." I don't agree with Cait in either instance, but it's interesting how the game treats the two scenarios in regards to corruption when Cait has a similar reaction and encourages the player to be unmerciful.
I thought that that was the very essence of the thread, to state your gripes, whether they were tangible or not, no matter the scale. If that is not the case then I'll not really chuck my thoughts in here further, lest I continue to cause overtly long discussions here.
This idea seems to get said quite a bit by people not used to the gripes thread. The thread is to state your gripes, yes, but there are not 1,500 gripes. I've griped a lot in here, some about small thing, some about... well actually I'm not sure if I've griped about anything large, but I've certainly made a big deal of small stuff (like the size cap on fucking Ryn's ass, and how I don't like that having a big dick and also fucking Ryn's ass necessitates corruption gain). The thing is, while this is a place to state gripes, it's also a place to discus them. It isn't just a mutual "oh yeah we hate this" place, though that can happen on certain topics, but it's also a discussion on the validity of those gripes, and a place where things attempt to get resolved. When Herod Hammerstar came here and complained about how the game was too hard if you didn't take any companions with you, specifically saying that the game should change to accomodate this (through things like decreased enemy squad size, fewer extra enemy turns, or increasing the number of player turns, if the player was solo), people pointed out how the gripe fails to understand that this game is designed around having a team. This is a proverbial "marketplace of ideas," as a lot of gripes come with the idea that they should impact the game in some way.
Your own gripe asks for a few changes, like wanting the "kill" buttons to be standardized (I agree with this, it's always nicer to have things be consistent) and potentially hidden (toggles are harder to do than just moving buttons, as far as I know, but it would probably be nice to have a "no murderboner" switch), along with the request that the champ never kill unless directed to by the player (referring specifically to Taldahs in the corrupted route). The issue that was taken with your gripe was specifically with the final point and the reasons given attempting to justify it. You specifically requested that all three of what you said be added into the game, and you listed reasoning behind them, so it would be reasonable to expect a discussion on the validity of your complaints and your reasons for wanting things changed. Your #1 and #2 were fine, but your #3 had many flaws in your reasoning (things like the weird view on what a pure champ is, your view that corruption is just horny juice and also that the civilizations in this world are prudes when one of the major gods heavily approves of sex and another massive civilization feeds off of sex and the concept of "you lost a fight so now you're subbing" seems common, your view that the majority of centaurs want this corruption when the in-game text literally states otherwise, etc.), and that's what led to the debate.
If you want to just chuck in a gripe that won't spark debate, then, well, you could do things like post the first two points. Or heck, post all three: I was actually on-board when I read your original post, and they weren't objectionable in and of themselves, but the stuff after your second tl:dr was what lead to it. The three points were honestly quite good. Also agree with the idea that Quint probably shouldn't be increasing your corruption to reject, but you phrased it as an example of the game's corruption logic being inconsistent, which I disagree with.
This disappoints me and renders my murderboner depressingly flaccid.
Also I think the misconception that "corruption=horny" come from the game's focus on sexy words. It's hard to really dive into the dark side of Mareth brand corruption without involving some decidedly unsexy apocalyptic stuff. It makes it easy to forget that there's more to corruption in these games than just being dangerously oversexed and horny.
your view that corruption is just horny juice and also that the civilizations in this world are prudes when one of the major gods heavily approves of sex and another massive civilization feeds off of sex and the concept of "you lost a fight so now you're subbing" seems common
To be fair, it's a post-apocalyptic frontier. What else is there to do besides hunt, eat, and fuck? Though I do find it odd when you beat the first imp group that you meet, Kasyrra brings up the whole post-combat sex from the first game and talks like that's a foreign concept in Savarra, despite the frequent after fight sex that happens independent of her and her demons.
Also agree with the idea that Quint probably shouldn't be increasing your corruption to reject, but you phrased it as an example of the game's corruption logic being inconsistent, which I disagree with.
I'm also in camp "no corrupt for telling Quin off pls". From the champion's perspective, it could all be a trap or he could be a corrupted time-bomb waiting to happen. Yes we the player know Quin is a companion and won't do anything (Yet. I'm watching you, you Zevran ass rabbit.), but the champion has no way of knowing if he can be trusted or truly wants to make amends. The corruption gain from telling Quin to piss off has a basis, but it largely feels like it relies on metagaming instead of roleplaying. That the gain is from information we the player have when making the choice. Information that the champion does not have. Yes we're sending Quin to his death or re-brainwashing, but the champion can't reasonably know that for sure.
Honestly, while I did give an explanation on how the Alraune killing may be seen as more neutral than the Quint "fuck off" thing, I've also not had a single one of the twenty different characters I've made actually kill her. Realistically, I don't think rejecting Quint immediately should cause an increase in corruption, even though I fully understand the logic of the situations in-game and how they impact how the corruption happens. An interesting note is that, you mention Cait is very strongly against Quint, but also, she's very strongly against the Alraune. When you beat the Alraune, she's like "spare my life, I will worship you and your body" and Cait is like "Oi bitch I'm all the worship that Champ needs, hurry up and die already." I don't agree with Cait in either instance, but it's interesting how the game treats the two scenarios in regards to corruption when Cait has a similar reaction and encourages the player to be unmerciful.
Okay, well I'm not going to re-hash this, I explained my reasoning before, but if the Alraune thing makes sense to you, then cool.
Alright well the premise of how you and others have replied to me personally has made it seems like I'm completely alone in my way of thinking - as has been seen through the replies as well as the gratification of other posts. Not saying that that shouldn't be a thing, but it does leave one feeling as though their presence is not as welcome or accepted, just because their stance is different (especially when even if someone claims they might possibly agree with some of your stance they don't show it in any way, as you've just demonstrated, not prior).
So could you motivate on your full understanding of corruption then, and why not giving Pavo his way is supposedly corrupt? Curious about that.
Also, with regards to Eryka for example, if the PC does bad stuff to her post victory they become more corrupt, yes? But she literally battles with the corruption she received directly from Kasyrra and does bad stuff to the PC post loss, but unlike the imps, centaurs and what have you, the PC doesn't become more corrupt from that.
One could argue that she'd be less corrupt upon arriving at the chapel, but certainly not before, explicitly when it certainly is implied as such in the scenes.
As for Cait, I used her as an example not to justify the actions of the PC, but more to question the corruption aspect. Surely if the PC is more corrupt in specific scenarios due to listening to her reasoning, then surely she as a being in this game should also be more corrupt for having that line of thinking. What's corrupt for the PC is apparently not corrupting for her, even if it is her line of thinking that was used to rationalize the outcome.
Using her as a support for my stance wasn't to say that her line about the Alraune isn't to be factored in, but I find it funny how by listening to her the PC experiences literal guilt over killing the Alraune, but that's supposedly fine for that context - whereas listening to her about not recruiting Quin is a corrupt action solely for the PC.
I know that that doesn't change anything, but that's just one facet of how I think corruption in this game can seem a bit weird - listening to a supposedly pure companions council leads the PC to either somewhat regret their actions to an extent (Alraune) - or outright become more corrupt for doing so (Quin).
This idea seems to get said quite a bit by people not used to the gripes thread. The thread is to state your gripes, yes, but there are not 1,500 gripes. I've griped a lot in here, some about small thing, some about... well actually I'm not sure if I've griped about anything large, but I've certainly made a big deal of small stuff (like the size cap on fucking Ryn's ass, and how I don't like that having a big dick and also fucking Ryn's ass necessitates corruption gain). The thing is, while this is a place to state gripes, it's also a place to discus them. It isn't just a mutual "oh yeah we hate this" place, though that can happen on certain topics, but it's also a discussion on the validity of those gripes, and a place where things attempt to get resolved. When Herod Hammerstar came here and complained about how the game was too hard if you didn't take any companions with you, specifically saying that the game should change to accomodate this (through things like decreased enemy squad size, fewer extra enemy turns, or increasing the number of player turns, if the player was solo), people pointed out how the gripe fails to understand that this game is designed around having a team. This is a proverbial "marketplace of ideas," as a lot of gripes come with the idea that they should impact the game in some way.
The narrative here would be that I'm in anyway advocating whatever I say be motivation for change, which would be conjecture, or at the very least an assumption. I know that it would be fair to assume so, but I take this thread at face value, and I state what gripes I have about the game, whether any change results from that is neither here nor there, because like the "What would you like added" thread - no matter what you say there's nothing stating it should be added or affect the game in any way - just threads that are there for people to say what they want.
On to the Herod example, I don't exactly know why you'd bring that up. It's not the same scenario here, as I'm not advocating for anything, nor stating that any of my personal gripes with the game should result in any change - which he certainly seemed to want for his narrative.
If it's to make me look disingenuous by the way of comparison, then okay then.
And to further expand on the above, if one has to be critiqued for the merit of their gripe, then I guess that's something that makes sense to the majority of the forum. I think threads titled "[What are] Your gripes with CoC II", "What would you like added?", "Your joys with CoC2" would revolve more around the premise of just listing yourpersonal thoughts / stances, not evaluating the worth of others thoughts / stances.
The way it comes across is if nobody agrees with you (which as mentioned before, you claimed to be at least somewhat in agreement with my stance of Quin, yet this was literally the first time you ever expressed any inkling, so prior to this with your other replies, I'd not have known that) about your thoughts / stances then you shouldn't have shared them in the first place (or you should feel somewhat bad for being wrong), as you're wrong and you've wasted everyone's time explaining to you why you're wrong, and also can make the environment seem somewhat condescending or prone to leave one feeling ostracized.
Not advocating for there to be any change on that regard, but it has been something I've felt in similar discussions before, here and elsewhere.
Your own gripe asks for a few changes, like wanting the "kill" buttons to be standardized (I agree with this, it's always nicer to have things be consistent) and potentially hidden (toggles are harder to do than just moving buttons, as far as I know, but it would probably be nice to have a "no murderboner" switch), along with the request that the champ never kill unless directed to by the player (referring specifically to Taldahs in the corrupted route). The issue that was taken with your gripe was specifically with the final point and the reasons given attempting to justify it. You specifically requested that all three of what you said be added into the game, and you listed reasoning behind them, so it would be reasonable to expect a discussion on the validity of your complaints and your reasons for wanting things changed. Your #1 and #2 were fine, but your #3 had many flaws in your reasoning (things like the weird view on what a pure champ is, your view that corruption is just horny juice and also that the civilizations in this world are prudes when one of the major gods heavily approves of sex and another massive civilization feeds off of sex and the concept of "you lost a fight so now you're subbing" seems common, your view that the majority of centaurs want this corruption when the in-game text literally states otherwise, etc.), and that's what led to the debate.
Undecided and the case of mistaken identity part 2.
Linulanielly said:
TL;DR: please, add an ability to remove prompts to kill someone. It is not a welcome train of thoughts for me in a sexual game. I hope I am not alone in this regard.
Concrete suggestions. Would be great if all of them were implemented in the game:
- 1. consistent place for "Kill" button
Alraune, imps, centaur pack, Behemoth, different interactions with Kassyra - they often have the "Kill" (or analogue) button in different places.
Would be great if it was moved aside to accentuate the significance of the action and also away from the cluster of after battle sexy scenes.
Also having it in the same spot removes effect of nudging the player in some direction (1st option may be viewed as a suggested default in some cases)
I would suggest to use the "d" key: all sexy scenes will have plenty of space and not dance around it or approaching dangerously close. And it is not adjacent to "Leave" button either.
- 2. option to hide "kill" button
Just seeing the button is always a massive blow to my libido and arousal. Instead of sexy times I start thinking about why on Earth should I want to kill someone and I do not want the sexy thoughts and murder thoughts to be associated with each other.
Would be great to have checkbox in the menu to hide all kill buttons with warning that it will lock off the player from certain story paths. E.g. no option to kill Alraune.
- 3. always leave to the player the decision of killing someone with their hands.
I don't like that Taldahs is killed in corrupted centaur village path, rather than being imprisoned for example.
Just changing a couple of sentences with addition of options for the player of killing or imprisoning would be great. There is no need for adding interactions with imprisoned Taldahs. Just one sentence of him being in a prison or bound or or under guard or something is enough. If you are O.K. with the idea I can find all the places in text where changes should be made (I think there are only 2 really.)
TL;DR of what is below:
I am just trying to justify a desire for pacifist friendly corrupt centaur village resolution.
Request: Please, do not force hard/impossible choices on the players (e.g. either you end the life of that person to stop them or they will end a life of another).
I am very grateful for the fact the bimbo personality overrides the Pure and the Dark Knight ones. I can romance Kassyra and do all sorts of horny stuff with corrupted individuals without being an asshole towards anyone (how I see the Dark Knight).
And I always viewed the pure champion as a sort of inquisition on a mission to purge those who think and live differently - so I do not like them usually as well.
While I see the bimbo champion as a friendly, happy, kind, sexually unrestrained and highly libidinous person.
I am trying to play with a mindset "live and let live" i.e. if corrupted individuals do not impose on free will of others (rape is a big no-no for me) I do not have any problems with them and actually usually prefer their sexual culture over the rest of the world: it feels to me like it has more freedom and not bound by social norms and what not. They just enjoy each other's bodies without being afraid of hurting someone's feelings and are open and straightforward about it. If they DO however impose on free will of others, I see it my duty as a champion to make sure they will stop doing that.
I like end results of quests for Alraune and queen Nyzerrah: there is a way for peaceful resolution without any murder involved.
So if the majority of the centaurs want to change their way of life into one of constant sex - I would not want to force them to live differently (and my bimbo character prefers their new sex drive anyway or more accurately: I find the fact they want to just have sex all the time without bothering about complex social matters very hot and attractive.).
What I am getting at: I want the centaur village to stay "corrupted" and the Ahmri's attempt to persuade her father to fail. Not taking these 2 into account it seems the majority of the village populace is quite happy with their new way of life. But I do not want to kill Taldahs. There is a saying: "Ask them, tell them, make them", i.e. even if there is something you need to happen at all costs a polite person would ask first, upon receiving a refusal they would tell/command/demand to do it anyway. And only upon another refusal will they actively try to force their will on others. If Taldahs absolutely refuses to stop attacking others then we have to deal with him violently - I am O.K. with that. And we did - we fought him.
But after defeating him I would prefer to imprison him rather than outright killing him - this is some very barbaric way of treating your defeated enemy. And since I defeat him using Teasing attacks there is no way for him to die in battle. I cannot see why a bimbo champion would kill her defeated enemy. But I can see how she would choose an outcome with more sexual activity involved (how she could prefer to support those who are on board with the corrupted centaur village rather than attempting to purify Taldahs or, more accurately, let him re-brainwash the populace after he changes his own mind.)
Would be great if you added the imprisonment choice and changed a few sentences depending on that. Just in the aftermath of the fight and in the description of his room where he is imprisoned (for simplicity). There is no need to add any interactions with him. Though I suppose that would leave the door open if someone would want to write one and submit for your approval.
P.s. I am yet to force myself to read through all of Gweyr's quest (skimmed through it just to see if it is finished and what kind of content is their and what new powers, items and such). But I am hoping if there are more opportunities to end a life of some sapient being the decision will be left to the player. Imprisonment always seems to me as a better option. And I do hope you will not force heavy choices on players in your game: I would rather not choose between several bad options. Give me a Disney happy ending, please! For me this game is about journey rather than destination. But it would suck if that journey was sullied by having to make hard decisions. Please, leave those to the real life (sadly there are plenty of those already) and not to a sex-focused fantasy world, where I would rather feel safe and relaxed and just enjoy myself.
I mostly referred to what a pure champion will do to the downed corrupted enemy. It always seemed to me they would be the one to choose the killing option. Hence the inquisition reference. AFAIK you do not get any corruption for killing centaur leaders and imps and Alraune - hence it is viewed as "pure" option at least in game mechanics.
I did not describe their interactions with their loved ones or even just acquaintances.
Well, that is why my champ is taking matters in their own hands. Even in the corrupt village path the disciples of the cult left the village. And, as far as I understood it, the remaining centaurs under your rule do not go out on raiding parties anymore.
I do not advocate for them being kindhearted (there are mentions of slave trade in the descriptions of the rooms?). I just wanted to point out that not only those who role play as champions who want to spread destruction and suffering and what not would choose the corrupted centaur village path. I am interested in what that place will become for both champion's choices (there are not much content for now ((( ).
But for a bimbo champ even if she is on board with corruption it seems weird to me to kill Taldahs. And I would rather have an option of not doing it.
Kinda find it funny how there's no Corruption gain for literally killing the Alraune or the Behemoth, but apparently telling Quintillus to "Fuck Off" is too far.
But yeah, at times the Corruption gain / loss can be somewhat inconsistently applied and tend to not make sense when considering the world building / setting.
Yet they (the Alraune and the Behemoth) can still be redeemed by allowing them to stay at the Wayfort. I'd think that if the PC thought that they could just keep them there, killing them would be a corrupt thing to do by that logic.
Also, the PC has no proof of how corrupt Quintillus is, as they are presented with the choice from the very first interaction, no backstory provided like with the Alraune. If there was anything to feel somewhat guilty of it would be killing an NPC (whether corrupt or not) after they essentially tell the PC everything that they can, not "rejecting" an NPC that has given them no definitive reason to trust them and was literally a part of the very thing (the cult) that is causing issues in the world around them.
Even in the circumstance that someone was in the cult against their own will (which is not something that is ever implied for Quintillus), that would still not make the PC immediately trusting of them; especially when the NPC states that they would answer the PCs questions - except about Tollus...
I brought the majority of my stance up before in this post.
To generalize this response a bit I'll be addressing everything in one go.
On the point of the Behemoth, I'll admit it is arguably more justifiable for the "mercy" option, because it's implied that he has limited to no "humanity" remaining. Unlike Taldahs. It is a bit up in the air when it comes to the Alraune though, as that would be left up to speculation.
Regardless, the outcome of the centaur village quest is pretty telling, if your PC decided to do the game ending a certain NPC route, the way it is worded is though that is the worse choice and technically should be corrupting for the PC - as their stance to cause that outcome seems to reflect some unwillingness to actually negotiate or spare those corrupt, and rationalize / justify it. Which literally results in the worse outcome, as reflected by the tooltip and what occurs to the centaur village (which as mentioned prior, I think should result in the PC becoming more corrupt as well).
Whilst that may not exactly be directly comparable to the Alraune / Behemoth scenarios, it does make one think of the morality surrounding those outcomes - especially with the Alraune. She literally begs for her life, and the PC feels bad after killing her. So if one was to make any case for that (albeit empathy being a non-demonic trait) it would be along those lines. The PC feels no such remorse when it comes to exiling Quin though, which is why I'm questioning / take issue with the inconsistency of the corruption increase. I can understand why people don't think it matters that much (on account of it being such limited corruption increase or other such reasoning), but it does set a precedent that certain actions are justifiable and others aren't - and there's no additional context to that specification.
And with regard to the "redeeming", yeah I should of worded it better. I was eluding to the potential of having some way of solving their situation, not that sending them to the Wayfort solves all the issues. Although on the topic of that elf (elves) scene, there is no explicit confirmation of what exactly occurred - just the speculation of the PC, which I suppose considering the Alraune is fair, however it is true that the Winter City is not exactly doing to great on the debauchery / corruption front either - so it could be either voluntarily or not (here was my initial thoughts on the matter, what's mentioned in this thread is my stance on it now however - unless something is explicitly said in-game and not via metagaming I'm not going to go out of my way to definitively take it as truth, especially if there's no further explanation given).
Regardless though, Grainne does state that all of the stuff (corruption etc) that occurred previously has (relatively) stopped, and the hornets no longer attack you after you sort out the Alraune (either way). So it is once again up to your interpretation with regard to that. In all honesty I'd think Farrah and the Alraune are somewhat comparable in that regard, both allude to the fact that they'll do what the PC wishes - so I don't technically have that much reason to distrust the Alraune to that extent (outside of the elf / elves scene), just assume that any NPCs sent there will most likely become more corrupted in the (potential) interim.
Onto the Quin section of the discussion - I don't really have massive issues with Quin himself. As a character there's not a lot of info to go on though, hence why the feeling of the game almost morally judging your decision to tell him to take a hike can be somewhat irksome. In the games setting I'd think being distrusting of an (alleged) ex-member of the source of evil is somewhat warranted, but apparently that skepticism is supposedly not warranted at all.
Even though a companion such as Cait vehemently states her displeasure to him joining, and even tries to hit him initially.
Hence why when we compare it to literally killing someone who is begging for their life (the Alraune) who actually gives you all the backstory of their life and their motivations (the Alraune) and the PC actually feels bad for doing so, I have a hard time believing that telling the suspicious one to take a hike - instead of the one that is somewhat upfront about their stuff (at least in some sense), is worse.
I won't fault any writing per se for how I perceive Quin, but I feel that there are some areas that could be more in depth. Because with the Alraune she literally tells you what you want to know, Quin claims he will tell you everything, but the most important thing (info on Tollus), he gets angry about and doesn't want to say anything. That didn't seem out of fear, but more of deep seated hatred for Tollus, which doesn't seem like justification enough to not tell his literal savior - and the Champion of the area.
All in all, I know that I might be over analyzing this, but when it comes to opinions that's usually how it goes. My motivation for keeping the Alraune and the Behemoth alive would be the hopeful potential that one would be able to possibly purify them one day, either with a mystical Lumian ritual, or at the end of the game a la CoC purify the world ending.
TLDR
Yeah I understand both viewpoints presented, but when it comes to morality of things - I think it also comes down to ones own interpretation of things, and ones own bias. The above is just my interpretation of the events in-game and my thoughts on it. I'm not advocating whether that's 100% correct or not, and apologies if that's how it was implied.
I thought that that was the very essence of the thread, to state your gripes, whether they were tangible or not, no matter the scale. If that is not the case then I'll not really chuck my thoughts in here further, lest I continue to cause overtly long discussions here.
So am I right in assuming you mistook my points for someone else's? And if so, does that mean that you agree with all of their stances, but none of mine?
Not trying to be disingenuous here, but it just seems like critiquing others thoughts / stances won't actually yield anything, as unless they explicitly imply that they're advocating for those things to be changed in-game, they're just sharing their thoughts (either wishes, joys or gripes) they have about the game.
Policing those in certain instances leads one to feel like they shouldn't share because it's going to be judged. Personally, if I see a post I disagree with I usually just try to ignore it, if I can help (or at least think I can help in cases where it's a question, or the like) I do tend to try and reply. I don't think that going out of ones way to explain to others why their opinion is wrong is going make them want to actually share anything in the future, because from personal experience that's how I've felt in some cases.
But yeah, no, I didn't really mention anything about the centaurs or Taldahs, excepting that the PC game ending a certain NPC in that quest line should theoretically make them more corrupt due to their internal rationalization of doing so, even though it explicitly states that there is still some shred of humanity about the NPC in question. As is implied by the tooltip and the PCs actions (more selfish and uncaring), that resolution for the centaur village quest line is objectively the worse choice, and actively causes the spread of corruption (as well as bad stuff happening to Ahmri), something a pure PC should assumedly be trying to strive against.
Although I get that I'm clearly alone in that line of thinking.
If you want to just chuck in a gripe that won't spark debate, then, well, you could do things like post the first two points. Or heck, post all three: I was actually on-board when I read your original post, and they weren't objectionable in and of themselves, but the stuff after your second tl:dr was what lead to it. The three points were honestly quite good. Also agree with the idea that Quint probably shouldn't be increasing your corruption to reject, but you phrased it as an example of the game's corruption logic being inconsistent, which I disagree with.
Yeah refer to above, I'm pretty sure you're referring to another persons posts.
Regardless though, I didn't come to this thread to debate, but that's usually how it goes. I don't see the objective harm in sharing your opinion, even if people disagree with it. The only reason I usually reply to things is a) either to attempt to help someone with a query (which sometimes may not actually be that helpful I guess) or b) replying to someone who has replied to me, or at least mentioned something that I had posted about before.
I take things literally in a lot of instances, and threads with the personal identifier "you" or "your" lead me to believe that sharing your opinion is something that cannot be objectively right or wrong, as it is something that is unique to you. Needing to defend you stance when it's just opinions about things can prove to be more effort than it's worth, and honestly rather taxing, as one would likely not have set out with that goal when they first posted.
Yet if one leaves things the way they are, they are often misrepresented in cases where one has cherry-picked aspects of their stance, or they outright get told by a majority they're wrong for having such an opinion - leading them to feel it necessary to clarify.
Personally, I wouldn't do that to others, and I'm not saying that's always definitively the case, but it is something that one can see in some cases, and honestly just makes me want to stick to the bug reports sub-forum moreso than trying to engage elsewhere.
And yes, once again, could you explain to me how the game's corruption logic makes sense in all cases, specifically the ones that I've mentioned above in this post? Because it seems reductive to say that all of it makes sense, but for there to be specific outliers that exist in some form.
TLDR
Yeah I don't think there is a TLDR for this one, sorry, the points were all over the place.
I apologize for the confusion but it seems from that point on you are referring to my initial post which started the discussion. Me and @Undecided both do not have avatars and randomly were given the same background color and @Undecided participated in the discussion more actively while I went to sleep, so I understand where you are coming from . And sorry for the confusion.
But that aside, I actually was starting to feel really bad for derailing the discussion in the thread on the matters of lore and world-building. And even already started to type an apology answer. So it was a relieve to read this statement of yours, thank you:
This idea seems to get said quite a bit by people not used to the gripes thread. The thread is to state your gripes, yes, but there are not 1,500 gripes. I've griped a lot in here, some about small thing, some about... well actually I'm not sure if I've griped about anything large, but I've certainly made a big deal of small stuff (like the size cap on fucking Ryn's ass, and how I don't like that having a big dick and also fucking Ryn's ass necessitates corruption gain). The thing is, while this is a place to state gripes, it's also a place to discus them.
Your own gripe asks for a few changes, like wanting the "kill" buttons to be standardized (I agree with this, it's always nicer to have things be consistent) and potentially hidden (toggles are harder to do than just moving buttons, as far as I know, but it would probably be nice to have a "no murderboner" switch), along with the request that the champ never kill unless directed to by the player (referring specifically to Taldahs in the corrupted route).
people so eagerly jumped on addressing the problems with my flawed interpretation of the in-game world that my initial propositions addressing the "murderboners" issue (as several of you put it) was left mostly untouched. I do hope that just means those people had no objections against the suggestions themselves.
You are absolutely right about me really shooting myself in the foot by needlessly bringing up my skewed view of the world. It only made my suggestions to be viewed as similarly wrong and mistaken. The problem of someone suggesting to do a right thing but explaining their motivation with a flawed reasoning, therefore making you question and doubt if the right thing was actually right to begin with.
Well, the suggestion is to add a checkbox in the menu. That way, those of us who feel disturbed by the issue, would have the ability to opt-out. Unless you are referring to being disappointed by me viewing that matter differently than you (in which case I can relate to the feeling actually), rather than the proposition itself, I don't think you should worry about a possibility of the game content changing even if the devs decide to actually implement the requests.
As for the issue of my skewed and wrong interpretation of the world: I do agree with a lot of things brought to my attention and started to re-evaluate how I see the game as a whole. It now obvious to me, that my bad memory and main focus on amazingly written sex scenes and trying out different builds during my replays of the game, resulted in me incorrectly remembering or falsifying facts present in the game which lead to me arriving to wrong conclusions.
I really need to properly re-experience the game if I do not want to embarrass myself like that again.
I also initially wanted to participate in the discussion on the topic of corruption but reading more, eventually realized I would have just spouted more nonsense (((. My current understanding of what corruption is and how corrupted individuals suppose to behave seems to be very skewed and based primarily on interactions with Kassyra and amazingly written sex scenes with imps and Behemoth by Wsan.
I guess what confuses me the most is that Kassyra seems to be falling in love with the champion (aside from the whole romance business which can be viewed as manipulation on her part, there is also bad end in the "Getting Into the Closet" quest for losing to the final encounter: here, Kassyra not just states she loves champion, the fact that she does actually brought her downfall and yet she is quite happy to spend a near eternity alone in the embrace of the champion. Which makes me to believe her feelings are genuine.).
But now, reading the discussion, I am wandering how a demon without empathy (being fully corrupted) can love? Something should be false in this logical statement...
This isn't a serious gripe as much as an odd coincidence but I just went over to Cait's temple and it introduced the new salamander researcher, the problem being that he shares the exact same name as my character.
Dialogue gets a bit weird when it refers to 'Darius" or 'Darius' without anyone involved seeing anything strange about it.
So we all agree that telling Quin to buzz off is not inherently bad. Remember, the same way he does not trust us even after we rescue him, the game should not expect us to trust him.
The only way I see corruption as justified is to allert players that they did something that they may regret. At 4 percent of them.
I've only done the orc camp, like, two or three times, so I'm not sure. It's probably that the only other option is violence, so negotations are breaking down and you attack him, a slave. Since, of course, he is being kept as a slave there, so he's already living a harsh life, and he knows that whatever happens will lead to him being severely punished (which it does, since he's effectively removed from the game after this encounter). I think he outright says something about that to you. He wants the blowjob because at least then he can have some upside to this situation which almost certainly will make his already bad life even worse, and denying it leads to you beating the shit out of him.
Also, with regards to Eryka for example, if the PC does bad stuff to her post victory they become more corrupt, yes? But she literally battles with the corruption she received directly from Kasyrra and does bad stuff to the PC post loss, but unlike the imps, centaurs and what have you, the PC doesn't become more corrupt from that.
One could argue that she'd be less corrupt upon arriving to the chapel, but certainly not before, explicitly when it certainly is implied as such in the scenes.
With Eryka, it isn't just that Eryka is corrupted. She is a corrupted being, sure, but her corruption is causing her insanity, where she's attacking anything that moves while terrified. She isn't truly corrupted, like the centaur packs, nor is the inherently corrupt, like the imps, she's a normal woman who's had corruption shoved into her and is trying to deal with it. After the battle, the corruption temporarily receeds, allowing for her to think rationally again. The reason as to why corruption is gained from fucking her is not because she is corrupt, but rather, because you could chose to help her by guiding her back to town while she's still sane, but instead you chose to rape her, also seeming to cause the corruption struggle to flare up and overtake her mind once again until the next time you fight her. It's essentially the same reason why Ryn's monstrous anal increases corruption, despite Ryn herself being pure. The Champ is using her for sexual pleasure, without regard for her wellbeing and feelings, in both cases.
On to the Herod example, I don't exactly know why you'd bring that up. It's not the same scenario here, as I'm not advocating for anything, nor stating that any of my personal gripes with the game should result in any change - which he certainly seemed to want for his narrative.
Whoops, yeah. I completely got the two of you mixed up. I can blame how I just saw that the profile images were the same color, but even so I probably should have checked.
I apologize for the confusion but it seems from that point on you are referring to my initial post which started the discussion. Me and @Undecided both do not have avatars and randomly were given the same background color and @Undecided participated in the discussion more actively while I went to sleep, so I understand where you are coming from . And sorry for the confusion.
Well, the suggestion is to add a checkbox in the menu. That way, those of us who feel disturbed by the issue, would have the ability to opt-out. Unless you are referring to being disappointed by me viewing that matter differently than you (in which case I can relate to the feeling actually), rather than the proposition itself, I don't think you should worry about a possibility of the game content changing even if the devs decide to actually implement the requests.
As for the issue of my skewed and wrong interpretation of the world: I do agree with a lot of things brought to my attention and started to re-evaluate how I see the game as a whole. It now obvious to me, that my bad memory and main focus on amazingly written sex scenes and trying out different builds during my replays of the game, resulted in me incorrectly remembering or falsifying facts present in the game which lead to me arriving to wrong conclusions.
I really need to properly re-experience the game if I do not want to embarrass myself like that again.
Nice, yeah. It's alright to be wrong, really, though it's generally better to check. I didn't actually remember if the centaurs liked the corruption or not, so I played through the entire centaur quest again just to see if the majority seemed to like it or dislike it.
I guess what confuses me the most is that Kassyra seems to be falling in love with the champion (aside from the whole romance business which can be viewed as manipulation on her part, there is also bad end in the "Getting Into the Closet" quest for losing to the final encounter: here, Kassyra not just states she loves champion, the fact that she does actually brought her downfall and yet she is quite happy to spend a near eternity alone in the embrace of the champion. Which makes me to believe her feelings are genuine.).
Bad ends are generally considered to not actually be cannon, so the stuff contained within bad ends may actually just not be factual, but outside of that bad end there is a lot of Kasyrra falling in love with the Champ. Like the Halloween event, in which she essentially takes the Champ on a date. I'd say she's probably genuine.
But now, reading the discussion, I am wandering how a demon without empathy (being fully corrupted) can love? Something should be false in this logical statement...
I think that empathy isn't necessarily a requirement for feeling love. Taldahs' corruption was caused by manipulation of his parental love for Ahmri and also his romantic/sexual love for her mother. Demons in CoC1 seem to be capable of forming romantic bonds. It's probably harder for an actual bond to form, as relationships are predicated on mutual feelings, but love can be tied to desire and attraction, and a wish to be with someone. It isn't necessarily feeling exactly what they feel, even though it helps to understand how your partner feels.
I've only done the orc camp, like, two or three times, so I'm not sure. It's probably that the only other option is violence, so negotations are breaking down and you attack him, a slave. Since, of course, he is being kept as a slave there, so he's already living a harsh life, and he knows that whatever happens will lead to him being severely punished (which it does, since he's effectively removed from the game after this encounter). I think he outright says something about that to you. He wants the blowjob because at least then he can have some upside to this situation which almost certainly will make his already bad life even worse, and denying it leads to you beating the shit out of him.
Yeah, but that's the crux of the issue, there's no other scene presented. Are you justifying that a pure PC should have non-consensual (in the terms of no other options presented) intercourse with an NPC for something that is vital for the quest that there is assumedly no other option to obtain (without Cait in the party or being an Orc PC to bypass it completely)?
And the very act of not wanting to give up one's dignity in that case is deserving of implying that the PCs moral outlook has been compromised and they're more corrupt than the alternative - even when considering not knowing exactly how corrupt any of the NPCs actually are in the Kervus camp (which as seen the the previous game, if they're more corrupt than the PC they'd generally increase the PCs corruption anyway post-sex / post-rape).
It sounds like you're justifying the lack of context surrounding the inclusion of an increase in corruption in this case (and the Quin case), without taking into consideration of any of the other worse things the PC can do, such as letting Benny Hill run amok whilst the slaves are still trapped, yet this instance of Pavo's wishes is where the moral high ground is supposedly more prominent.
If it's questionable, like with the Quin case, surely you could understand why there would be some reason to question it - not outright just accept it like it's 100% justifiable and makes sense.
If the PC was presented with options of negotiating with him (aside from being an Orc PC which just bypasses this whole thing in the first place), and not resorting to violence, I'd understand this argument moreso (the PC gaining corruption for beating him up). But as it stands it just seems like it's expected for the PC to forgo their own wishes / preferences / dignity (or at least for the player to look at every scenario from a metagaming perspective), just to try and maintain some fragile concept of morality that has been shown to be at least somewhat inconsistent time and time again (something you yourself admitted previously with the Quin scenario...).
With Eryka, it isn't just that Eryka is corrupted. She is a corrupted being, sure, but her corruption is causing her insanity, where she's attacking anything that moves while terrified. She isn't truly corrupted, like the centaur packs, nor is the inherently corrupt, like the imps, she's a normal woman who's had corruption shoved into her and is trying to deal with it. After the battle, the corruption temporarily receeds, allowing for her to think rationally again. The reason as to why corruption is gained from fucking her is not because she is corrupt, but rather, because you could chose to help her by guiding her back to town while she's still sane, but instead you chose to rape her, also seeming to cause the corruption struggle to flare up and overtake her mind once again until the next time you fight her. It's essentially the same reason why Ryn's monstrous anal increases corruption, despite Ryn herself being pure. The Champ is using her for sexual pleasure, without regard for her wellbeing and feelings, in both cases.
No, she rapes your PC even if you lose from the first encounter with her, not as a result of her being raped by the PC. There is no "flare up" she is the exact same NPC in both scenes, furthering the inconsistency (unless you acknowledge the corruption, which you don't seem to be doing) - she's apparently clear of mind if she loses, but fine to rape anything if they lose to her.
Also, I wasn't questioning why the PC gets corruption for the victory scenes, I was using that as a comparison to say that that's bad right, after the PC wins her corruption "recedes" (as seen by her dialogue), sure, but if the PC loses to her she goes out of her way to do bad corruptible stuff to the PC, which she even mentions in the dialogue.
You're defending that as though that obvious corruption Kasyrra imparted on her is not in any way going to be imparted to the PC (when Eryka rapes the PC from their very first encounter with her, unprovoked), when the Centaurs, Imps and other corrupted NPCs in the game all do as well to the PC when they win - if that's not in any way comparative to you - then rather don't reply to this post though, lest this continue ad infinitum.
Unless you're overtly trying to justify Eryka raping the the PC from the very first encounter by saying that Eryka is clearly not corrupted in the slightest (despite it being mentioned to take over her autonomy in the PC Defeat scene), then I don't know what else you were trying to imply.
Additionally, the Ryn comparison is not exactly helping the case either, because it's showing that you're only looking at it from one point of view, not the other. Sure the scene with Ryn makes sense for corruption to increase there (although I do have a gripe about how it's the only way to increase her capacity...), but that's not the same scene I was referring to at all, let alone the same context for the NPC I was actually referring to.
Eryka Intro 1 said:
Ahead of you you see what appears to be an armored human woman with a head of flaming orange hair, a brightly glowing sword brandished in her right hand as she looks wildly back and forth. She doesn't seem to have spotted you yet, so you could probably fall back safely if you had a mind to.
If a pure PC was attempting to investigate and find out more info, especially in the starting area - one would expect to be capable of trying to investigate / help an NPC, so sure one could fall back, but they likely wouldn't expect the encounter to turn into what it does.
Eryka Intro 2 said:
As you move closer, the woman turns to face you; her eyes are brilliant blue and at the moment, bloodshot, wild and unfocused; she's breathing hard, and there's equal parts lust, fear and confusion written all over her face. Her eyes focus on you as she begins to speak.
"Who are you? More demons? I..." she pauses here, shivering visibly, and you can see that her face is flushed. Something must've happened... not that you have time to think about it. She's brandishing her blade at you now, the fear and confusion on her face replaced by cold fury.
"You monsters tried to take my soul once," she begins, "you may have given me a... male parts, but... I am Eryka, I am a paladin, and I'll never let you take me! YOU CAN'T HAVE MY SOUL!!" she howls, lunging at you.
No other option presented to the PC (if they decide to investigate, with the potential to try and help), as with many corrupt encounters they are literally forced into combat.
Eyrka Totally Not Corrupt Loss Scene said:
Defeated, you slump to the ground as the crazed paladin steps toward you. "De... demon! I beat you!" she says triumphantly, shifting her hips uncomfortably. She pauses, as if realizing something — then her face screws up, an internal battle clearly being waged. "I could... b-but I shouldn't. I shouldn't. I can't. No, no, no, no..." she mumbles, dropping her sword and staring at her shaking hands. She looks up at you — your beaten form, especially — and after a few seconds, resolve sets into her features. What's the verdict..?
She then proceeds to rape the PC as well as thrash them with her belt, yeah, really showing how uncorrupt she'd be in that regard. Even her scenes in the chapel have some undercurrent of the corruption she experienced at the hands of Kasyrra, like Lyla.
But, I know you're only looking at the other scenario, the one where if the PC's rapes her - which I never said was justifiable in any case, I mentioned it and confirmed with you that it's corrupt inducing for the PC to rape her post sex (which you agreed with).
That was only part of my point shown as an example of verifiable corruption increase, but also to illustrate that there is at least some inconsistency (at least if Eryka wasn't corrupted - the duality is more apparent if she is corrupt, meaning that her corrupting the PC upon raping them should make sense) in how she acts upon victory / loss with her duality in personality, and it also doesn't mean that the precedent that her raping the PC whilst literally battling against the corruption that has been explicitly said to have occurred, wouldn't make the PC more corrupt.
Once she gets the the chapel one would assume that she'd become somewhat less corrupt overtime, or at least not have the corruption referenced as up front as the defeat scene is. That'll likely be expanded on in the future, when Franks adds more content for her.
But as it stands, it is definitely not as cut and dry as that only specific scenes are deserving of corruption increase over others, because that leads to people not exactly knowing why that is - which was the entire point I was making over multiple posts, which is something you disagree with, which is fine. However, as to why I'm replying again, I take issue with some of your reasoning, not that I'm saying wrong though (unlike your initial stance seemingly was when replying to my posts...), as well as how you present (or should I say seemingly misrepresent) what my stance is to make it easier to address.
This was based in the assumption that you were Linulanielly, as they were advocating for changes. I got the two of you mixed up.
That doesn't change anything really though, it's was still something you seemingly disingenuously used as a comparison to aid in you dismissing a stance as though it's the exact same premise, which it wasn't. Even if the narrative has changed now, that was definitely how it seemed to be implied previously. And interestingly enough, I've noted that out of every response so far you've elected to continue to cherry-pick certain statements out of my responses (as well as Linulanielly's posts yesterday) instead of responding to them as a whole, like I've done with your relevant responses to me.
But worry not, I've deduced that you'll come up with whatever reasoning you want to justify that, and that's fine, I'm doing the same with my stances - which is why I suggest we not further this. I posted a gripe I had, you responded, I responded to your response, and over and over again we go. This is not pleasant for anyone else to look at, you must realize that. So why is it necessary to continue to critique others upon their stances / opinions in a literal thread relevant for them stating their opinions / stances instead of just ignoring it if you disagree with it? Seems a whole lot more inconvenient for everyone involved to be honest.
Almost as though there has to be a specific verdict that one stance is correct and one is wrong for this thread / forum to exist - when opinions aren't really as cut and dry as right and wrong.
Also, (as mentioned prior) I do take issue with your seemingly consistent attempts to either disingenuously misinterpret / misrepresent my stances / opinions.
As I'll reiterate once again, I didn't think it'd be such an issue for me to post a gripe in the literal titled "Your gripes with CoC II" thread, as though that was justification alone for stances / opinions to be examined and critiqued.
At that point it's more of a "Your gripes with CoC II, but only if it meets a certain criteria and people don't disagree with it, otherwise your stance will be critiqued and the discussion about why you're wrong will drag on and on, and you should feel bad for posting it in the first place" thread.
Whoops, yeah. I completely got the two of you mixed up. I can blame how I just saw that the profile images were the same color, but even so I probably should have checked.
And the very act of not wanting to give up one's dignity in that case is deserving of implying that the PCs moral outlook has been compromised and they're more corrupt than the alternative
But as it stands it just seems like it's expected for the PC to forgo their own wishes / preferences / dignity (or at least for the player to look at every scenario from a metagaming perspective), just to try and maintain some fragile concept of morality
I'm not going to address your other points because I'm, admittedly, too tired to get into this conversation, but I think it's important to point out a bias you seem to be demonstrating here.
This is not the first time I've seen you say that giving Pavo a blowjob means the Champion is "giving up their dignity", and I just want to say, that's kind of fucked up? Like, there's nothing debasing about giving a blowjob, in and of itself. It's just another sex act, and the reason I think it's weird is because it seems to be the fact he asks for oral specifically that's got you upset, at least from what I can gather from your posts.
If it's not too much to ask, can you elaborate on what you mean by how giving Pavo some oral results in the Champ "losing their dignity"? Because as it stands, it just reads as a very shitty and judgmental view to people who enjoy giving oral. (I don't know if that was your intention, hence why I'm asking for some clarification.)
I'm not going to address your other points because I'm, admittedly, too tired to get into this conversation, but I think it's important to point out a bias you seem to be demonstrating here.
This is not the first time I've seen you say that giving Pavo a blowjob means the Champion is "giving up their dignity", and I just want to say, that's kind of fucked up? Like, there's nothing debasing about giving a blowjob, in and of itself. It's just another sex act, and the reason I think it's weird is because it seems to be the fact he asks for oral specifically that's got you upset, at least from what I can gather from your posts.
If it's not too much to ask, can you elaborate on what you mean by how giving Pavo some oral results in the Champ "losing their dignity"? Because as it stands, it just reads as a very shitty and judgmental view to people who enjoy giving oral. (I don't know if that was your intention, hence why I'm asking for some clarification.)
Seems I'm literally everyone's punching bag this month, huh.
Admittedly, I could of phrased it better, but it was in the hypothetical scenario of a pure PC who would not want to go out of their way to perform sexual acts just to move forward on their quest (or just a hypothetical pure chaste PC to begin with, which considering this game is kinda ironic lol).
In that hypothetical scenario if the PC in-game didn't have Cait in their party, wasn't an Orc, or wasn't up for intercourse with the premise being somewhat manipulative (as in Pavo didn't want anything else, and there was no other way to resolve that situation) or that the PC was just chaste in general, I'd presume that (within the context of this hypothetical scenario) they would feel like they were "giving up their dignity" in some sense to perform that - lest they actually get raped or killed by the entire Kervus tribe.
Not saying that the PC wouldn't be up for that, cuz the PC is written to be open to anything, but I'm saying that if we're to continue with the "pure PC" hypothetical narrative, for me personally at least (within the context of this hypothetical scenario), I would consider being in a situation where there's no other solution, and where one doesn't want to give up their own sense of self worth in a sense (assuming the PC would want to be chaste, or was already in a monogamous relationship with one of the companions for instance - Brint / Brienne etc) it would be rather undignifying for them to do so (at least in my opinion within this hypothetical scenario, and relevant to my hypothetical scenario - not saying it is literally the case nor meant to reflect my actual views or anyone else's views outside of this specific hypothetical scenario - with the above context included).
Not that I have any issue if people have different views on it, but for me personally, (within this context / hypothetical scenario) it seems like there is an element of coercion or manipulation on Pavo's part when considering the alternate bad end that the PC may be subjected to if they didn't do so - or didn't want to "corrupt" themselves by attacking him (as there's no other option presented).
I'm not going to address your other points because I'm, admittedly, too tired to get into this conversation, but I think it's important to point out a bias you seem to be demonstrating here.
This is not the first time I've seen you say that giving Pavo a blowjob means the Champion is "giving up their dignity", and I just want to say, that's kind of fucked up? Like, there's nothing debasing about giving a blowjob, in and of itself. It's just another sex act, and the reason I think it's weird is because it seems to be the fact he asks for oral specifically that's got you upset, at least from what I can gather from your posts.
If it's not too much to ask, can you elaborate on what you mean by how giving Pavo some oral results in the Champ "losing their dignity"? Because as it stands, it just reads as a very shitty and judgmental view to people who enjoy giving oral. (I don't know if that was your intention, hence why I'm asking for some clarification.)
I mean, you are doing it for a favour. While to some that is not a big deal, to others it is just not worth it. Basically whoring yourself out. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but some people are not into it.
I am not really going to go into if beating him up is good or bad. I usually just send Cait at him, since I dofeel bad for the guy. Not enough to blow him tho. And Caitwould enjoy it.
Yeah, but that's the crux of the issue, there's no other scene presented. Are you justifying that a pure PC should have non-consensual (in the terms of no other options presented) intercourse with an NPC for something that is vital for the quest that there is assumedly no other option to obtain (without Cait in the party or being an Orc PC to bypass it completely)?
And the very act of not wanting to give up one's dignity in that case is deserving of implying that the PCs moral outlook has been compromised and they're more corrupt than the alternative - even when considering not knowing exactly how corrupt any of the NPCs actually are in the Kervus camp (which as seen the the previous game, if they're more corrupt than the PC they'd generally increase the PCs corruption anyway post-sex / post-rape).
It sounds like you're justifying the lack of context surrounding the inclusion of an increase in corruption in this case (and the Quin case), without taking into consideration of any of the other worse things the PC can do, such as letting Benny Hill run amok whilst the slaves are still trapped, yet this instance of Pavo's wishes is where the moral high ground is supposedly more prominent.
If it's questionable, like with the Quin case, surely you could understand why there would be some reason to question it - not outright just accept it like it's 100% justifiable and makes sense.
If the PC was presented with options of negotiating with him (aside from being an Orc PC which just bypasses this whole thing in the first place), and not resorting to violence, I'd understand this argument moreso (the PC gaining corruption for beating him up). But as it stands it just seems like it's expected for the PC to forgo their own wishes / preferences / dignity (or at least for the player to look at every scenario from a metagaming perspective), just to try and maintain some fragile concept of morality that has been shown to be at least somewhat inconsistent time and time again (something you yourself admitted previously with the Quin scenario...).
You asked me to justify the corruption gain for Pavo, not what my personal thoughts were. My personal look is just the same as with Quint, that I don't think this choice should actually increase corruption, unless there were more options given. But my writing was done specifically to just list justifications for it, because that's what I thought you asked for.
No, she rapes your PC even if you lose from the first encounter with her, not as a result of her being raped by the PC. There is no "flare up" she is the exact same NPC in both scenes, furthering the inconsistency (unless you acknowledge the corruption, which you don't seem to be doing) - she's apparently clear of mind if she loses, but fine to rape anything if they lose to her.
Also, I wasn't questioning why the PC gets corruption for the victory scenes, I was using that as a comparison to say that that's bad right, after the PC wins her corruption "recedes" (as seen by her dialogue), sure, but if the PC loses to her she goes out of her way to do bad corruptible stuff to the PC, which she even mentions in the dialogue.
You're defending that as though that obvious corruption Kasyrra imparted on her is not in any way going to be imparted to the PC (when Eryka rapes the PC from their very first encounter with her, unprovoked), when the Centaurs, Imps and other corrupted NPCs in the game all do as well to the PC when they win - if that's not in any way comparative to you - then rather don't reply to this post though, lest this continue ad infinitum.
Unless you're overtly trying to justify Eryka raping the the PC from the very first encounter by saying that Eryka is clearly not corrupted in the slightest (despite it being mentioned to take over her autonomy in the PC Defeat scene), then I don't know what else you were trying to imply.
So I just realized I didn't actually finish what I was saying on that. I just kind of moved on I guess? My attention is weird. I sometimes get hyper-fixated on something for a few minutes and then I get completely distracted by something else. In the thing your responding to, in the segments responding to you, I wrote the fourth bit first, then the third, then the first, then the second.
The "flare up" statement was honestly just supposed to be about why the pc victory sex is corrupting, since she starts out crazy, gets calm, and then through the pc's actions things get worse again. The primary corrupter in the scene is that the pc is being cruel, with any corruption in Eryka being secondary. As for how corruption isn't imparted in the loss scene, even in a lessened amount, well, I'm not sure. How is it that sex with the Alraune, or bimbo'd hornets, or alraune effigies don't result in corruption gain, despite their corruption? I don't know. What I'd written so far in the Eryka thing was mostly just about how the pc having victory sex would inherently be much more corrupting than the loss sex scene, since the pc themself was engaging in corruptive actions aside from just fucking someone who's corrupted, but in attempting to justify why Eryka's loss sex scenes don't impart any corruption, all I could think of is that she isn't leaking corruption or something like that. Like, it could very well be that corruption on the part of those who inflict it on the pc specifically intend for it. Centaur packs fuck with the intent to break the pc until they can keep them as a docile slave. Imps are kind of just inherently evil and seem to seek specifically to spread corruption. The Alraune, effigies, and hornets don't seek to corrupt others, just to spread their seed/eggs. Farrah is a full on demon, and I think the only sex the pc can have with her is a buttjob, but that doesn't spread corruption because she has no desire to corrupt, but the Painted Demon enemy/ies love to fuck, and they want to get others to fuck. They want to spread corruption because, I guess, they think it'll make others horny like they are, particularly given that they comment on how tainted pcs are "like them" and offer to skip the combat and go straight to sex. So going back to Eryka, she doesn't want to spread corruption. The corruption in her makes her more sexual and domineering, but she doesn't really want to spread corruption.
That doesn't change anything really though, it's was still something you seemingly disingenuously used as a comparison to aid in you dismissing a stance as though it's the exact same premise, which it wasn't. Even if the narrative has changed now, that was definitely how it seemed to be implied previously. And interestingly enough, I've noted that out of every response so far you've elected to continue to cherry-pick certain statements out of my responses (as well as Linulanielly's posts yesterday) instead of responding to them as a whole, like I've done with your relevant responses to me.
But worry not, I've deduced that you'll come up with whatever reasoning you want to justify that, and that's fine, I'm doing the same with my stances - which is why I suggest we not further this. I posted a gripe I had, you responded, I responded to your response, and over and over again we go. This is not pleasant for anyone else to look at, you must realize that. So why is it necessary to continue to critique others upon their stances / opinions in a literal thread relevant for them stating their opinions / stances instead of just ignoring it if you disagree with it? Seems a whole lot more inconvenient for everyone involved to be honest.
Almost as though there has to be a specific verdict that one stance is correct and one is wrong for this thread / forum to exist - when opinions aren't really as cut and dry as right and wrong.
Also, (as mentioned prior) I do take issue with your seemingly consistent attempts to either disingenuously misinterpret / misrepresent my stances / opinions.
As I'll reiterate once again, I didn't think it'd be such an issue for me to post a gripe in the literal titled "Your gripes with CoC II" thread, as though that was justification alone for stances / opinions to be examined and critiqued.
At that point it's more of a "Your gripes with CoC II, but only if it meets a certain criteria and people don't disagree with it, otherwise your stance will be critiqued and the discussion about why you're wrong will drag on and on, and you should feel bad for posting it in the first place" thread.
The point of the Herod comparison wasn't "you're like Herod." In case you didn't notice, the paragraph in the post you're complaining about here ended by saying that the gripes thread is a "marketplace of ideas." Herod was just the first notable example I could think of of a person posting long-form criticism which had several wrong points, which led to a lengthy discussion on the topic.
I don't think that there is just one "right" opinion, but I do think that some opinions may be better than others. I hold the belief that opinions usually start out weak, and they get stronger as they're challenged, cutting out the bad parts and adding on new, better additions. As I said in regards to the Herod thing, this thread has a ton of conversation on many gripes that have been made in the past. There is no issue with posting a gripe in this thread, but the environment of this thread is such that you should prepare for a discussion on things. Even if most of the time, the discussion is nowhere near this lengthy or heated.
On the cherry-picking front, that's kind of just to pinpoint specific things I want to respond to. If I were responding to literally everything you said, these posts would be even larger, and they'd either be bloated with points I don't care about or just not address half of what gets put in the quotes. I'm not trying to be disingenuous, and hell it feels like you're being disingenuous here as you repeatedly make assertions about stances and beliefs and behaviors you think I have. I doubt that's your intent but it sure as hell feels like it. So yeah, we should stop here. Because it feels like you think I'm arguing in bad faith, and your presentation of that makes me feel like you're arguing in bad faith. I don't think you actually are coming at this from a bad faith position, but I do think you're exasperated, and at this point, so am I.
Bad ends are generally considered to not actually be cannon, so the stuff contained within bad ends may actually just not be factual, but outside of that bad end there is a lot of Kasyrra falling in love with the Champ. Like the Halloween event, in which she essentially takes the Champ on a date. I'd say she's probably genuine.
Plus she says she maybe can't tell the difference between love and lust anymore. Poor Kas's emotions are all screwed up. She can't tell when she should be asking someone on a date to the conveniently located bar, and when she should be conquering the world for attention. Though I wonder why she falls for the champion. I may be a sucker for romance, but Kas is confusing me. Maybe she's watched too many Hallmark romance movies.
Pretty much. Though people having difficulty telling the difference between me actually joking and being serious but having that way of talking happens often in real life too. I've often told friends and coworkers that I can say anything and they won't immediately know if I'm joking or not because of it. It was a defense mechanism until it became a part of me. Hooray for weird coping mechanisms.
I think that empathy isn't necessarily a requirement for feeling love. Taldahs' corruption was caused by manipulation of his parental love for Ahmri and also his romantic/sexual love for her mother. Demons in CoC1 seem to be capable of forming romantic bonds. It's probably harder for an actual bond to form, as relationships are predicated on mutual feelings, but love can be tied to desire and attraction, and a wish to be with someone. It isn't necessarily feeling exactly what they feel, even though it helps to understand how your partner feels.
Love can be selfish. Someone may keep their partner happy solely to keep them around due to the enjoyment they bring. Even if potentially selfish and toxic, that afromentioned and nebulous someone still feels love. Love comes in a lot of forms. Too many. It makes those lovely and totally serious high art Hallmark movies confusing. Though I don't remember any demon romance in CoC1, although it has been a while. Maybe the join Lethice ending in some interpretations?
And on Pavo. In my opinion, the problem is that it feels like he is devaluing the champion as a sex object and expects to degrade ourselves for his pleasure. This alone wouldn't be bad if there was the option to pay him in money or help him escape or something like that. Instead it's just no blow the lizard man and be happy or take the corruption. The Pavo thing is something that shouldn't give you corruption because of that. Why should we be "punished" for having preferences or not wanting to do as he pleases. I put punish in quotation marks because the gain isn't much and there are no lasting consequences, but it definitely feels like I'm being judged for not giving the muzzled scaley what he wants. As if we're secondary to Pavo's wants and pleasure. Why yes I do beat Pavo up and don't feel bad. How did you know?
There have been development issues, specifically in regards to authors and Berwyn not having one. So for a time he wasn't really being supported, for example he's not an option with the new Elthara scenes.
Fingers crossed we'll gradually see support for him coming back in now there's a new author on it.
There have been development issues, specifically in regards to authors and Berwyn not having one. So for a time he wasn't really being supported, for example he's not an option with the new Elthara scenes.
Fingers crossed we'll gradually see support for him coming back in now there's a new author on it.
B's busy writing Berwyn quest 2 so he probably doesn't have time. Judging from his thread and just how much he's shown, it's gonna be a pretty good size quest with stuff after. So combine that with having needed time to sort everything regarding big dick Berry and who will get to adopt him, he's probably gonna need more time.
. And sorry for the confusion.
