Conviction Chronicles blog post #38 - Aishia + Shanks + Victor Reworks

 I'm getting this out of the way so I don't forget about it in the future. Didn't take very long since it's mostly editing functions that already exist.

Aishia Rework

I was struggling to find a way to make her abilities less defensive/passive for player freedom and to make her more unique to play. I ended up going with a "borrowed time" concept that fits the lore.

  • Aishia, if uninjured, when at 0 energy can gather more energy from herself. This check happens every time Aishia goes to 0 energy until she gets injured.
  • This borrowed energy is removed from the next day.
  • There is a 1 in 10 chance she starts to bleed which has 2 days of recovery.
There is no limit to this. So Aishia can theoretically take more energy than she has the next day, starting a day with 0 energy can be a death sentence in of itself.

I consider this to be much more of a softer version of Jade. Jade has more weaknesses and strengths to make her abilities permanent while Aishia's effects have a much shorter time frame. Makes Jade a long term character to boost herself for a grand attack while Aishia is trying to protect herself in the short term. This also allows Aishia to be extremely aggressive in battle if she isn't injured, which fits her original abilities added ontop of it. 

Shanks Rework
This is pretty simple. He will always be able to blackmail someone no matter what and they cannot resist. Shanks cannot be blackmailed as well.

This fuels him more to being an manipulative/direct threat and gives more to his mafia boss status. Not much more to say other than that outside mentioing the Blackmail reworks.

Blackmail Rework
Blackmailing now uses Shanks's abilities and will take susceptibility in mind. If someone is more susceptible they have less resistance while being less means more resistant. The blackmailer gains charisma is it goes through, but they lose it if the blackmail is denied. 

Makes it more manipulable by the characters and the player instead of feeling dependent on luck at times.

Victor Rework

Victor needed something else and I decided to go with something more malleable. The idea is Victor has a sculping station to alter his body in subtle ways. This will always injure him when used, at least for 1-3 days. The benefits include:
  • Boosting charisma dramatically.
  • Resetting Hunger levels.
  • Reseting Drug Intake levels.
  • Reseting Pee levels.
  • Lowering susceptibility dramatically.
  • Raising self viewpoints to max. 
  • Further days of injury.
  • Randomizing character personality. (player side, this will give 3 points of energy instead.)
  • Gaining 3 points of energy.
  • Getting a combat buff.
  • Removing ash from the body with nothing left behind.
These are randomized and some are worse than others. It's always worth doing and fits his themes of body manipulation. He will almost always be injured because of this with small injuries which makes him worse for combat without playing around it. Victor also has to not have any injuries before using this.
If a selection is extremely close or maxed out, then it will give 3 points of energy instead. So if the player removes ash without having ash, they get energy instead. Same resets and etc. This makes it where there is almost always a benefit to use this mechanic as at worst you get more injured, but most of the time you get 3 points of energy. Selecting the options here would be too powerful and kind of redundant. I also think it's a little more fun not knowing what is being altered.

This does make him close to Aishia with her abilities but with a twist.
  • Aishia is very consistent and has an cost down the road.
  • Victor's cost is all upfront but isn't as consistent. The cost down the road is only if it fails, even then it can be dealt with easily due to the original ability of purging drug intake levels quickly.
This is ontop of his default way of purging painkillers from his system, so abusing them makes it easier to purge injuries out of himself and to claim the bonuses. He isn't a true burst character like Aishia/Jade as he is more of an all rounder with his bonuses, but it is possible to set things up perfectly for a stronger chance for a burst. 

Anything else?

I think that's it for reworks. I'll add something for Alexis during the trial development in god knows when, due to how hidden her true feelings are. I guess I'm going back to the Motive system for now. I do know I will have to make certain in room dialogue with the assistant at least for certain motives to work. Some of the motives will take a while since they are more story/cutscene based compared to gameplay based.

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