Where Are The Cheats?

[LateWhiteRabbit]

That would be awesome...I only ever seem to get Althea or Mallory as the traitor; I got Vonne once and as far as I know I've never gotten Thaïs or Rowan.

Probably just the random number gods, but out of my 6+ games so far, it seems to always be Althea or Thais for me. It's to the point where I just stare at them and squint during the first council meeting scene, like "I know it's one of you treacherous sisters!" Who is it THIS time?

One game Althea confessed being the traitor to me, I forgave her and didn't turn her in, and she betrayed me anyway! No mercy now. I'm getting very good with just four council members!

[Darksilverhawk]

I've had Mallory as the traitor once. Ever. I don't know what it is, the RNG just does not like her betraying me. Vonne and Althea are my usual suspects.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I've not had Mallory as the traitor once. Ever. I don't know what it is, the RNG just does not like her betraying me. Vonne and Althea are my usual suspects.

Yeah, I've never had Mallory as the traitor either. I don't think my Elsa could expel her even if she did turn out to be the traitor. Sigh. Why didn't you grow up in an all-girls school Mallory? Making me think all these impure thoughts while we hug....



You broke my heart, Mallory!

[Benazir]

I'm actually considering adding a third difficulty level which prevents game-overs from running out of karma or rep.

Yes, do something with it, please. Its really annoying.

[hanako]

Mmm - I considered it, but at this point I think the answer is probably no. At least, not as an official difficulty setting.

I don't want to officially encourage people to avoid learning how to play the game. I would much rather hear suggestions for how to help people learn to play better, or suggestions for ways to make an easier difficulty setting that ISN'T just outright "losing doesn't matter".

It is possible to provide cheat codes for karma and reputation. However, at this point in time I am very reluctant to help people cheat because we are still trying to balance difficulty. If there are particular cases you are stuck on, those cases may be too hard or not clued well enough, and letting you cheat your way past them will not solve that problem for others.

So if you're having trouble, please, please post about the problems you're running into and what's going wrong!

---

We did implement the choose-the-traitor option (unlocked after at least one successful playthrough) and it's now available in beta.

[Franka]

I don't want to officially encourage people to avoid learning how to play the game. I would much rather hear suggestions for how to help people learn to play better, or suggestions for ways to make an easier difficulty setting that ISN'T just outright "losing doesn't matter".

Good decision. I would have said something to that effect, but I was having trouble articulating myself.

[Benazir]

Well... I have а big problem with "School Reputation". I can't pass the game, because rep ends too quickly. Game is too hard even on "Loaded Dice". And I guess this game needs Easy level.

[hanako]

See, if you're having a problem with reputation, that implies that you're failing cases. Right?

If you're failing enough cases to run out of reputation, then making the reputation last longer is not going to help the actual problem!

So - why are you failing cases? Are there specific kinds of cases that you're having trouble with? Are your minions always failing at the tasks you set them to? Are you using all of the available actions?

It might help if you could give me a description of what you're trying to do in cases and how it turns out.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

If there are particular cases you are stuck on, those cases may be too hard or not clued well enough, and letting you cheat your way past them will not solve that problem for others.

So if you're having trouble, please, please post about the problems you're running into and what's going wrong!

I guess my biggest concern with difficulty is how much your first couple of weeks in the game can dramatically change how difficult the entire rest of the game becomes.

Depending on which cases you get randomly thrown, you can either get much needed training points, or get stuck with a time sink of a case that gives you 1 or 2 points for an entire week of work. I think cases like Cell Phone Madness, High Rollers, Missing School Supplies, or the drug cases should not be possible in the first couple of weeks. Getting handed one of these cases right off the bat basically handicaps you for the rest of that game. Where as if you get Missing Item, But is it Art?, or Struggling Student, you can easily rack up training points quickly.

You might also have the random case assignment take into consideration cases that the player is already working on. I know in the later stages of the game, after you've expelled the traitor, and one of the council members like the sisters have flaked out on you, getting multiple cases that include a lot of students can quickly snowball into an easy Game Over. Getting Cell Phone Madness and a drug case simultaneously when you only have 3 reliable council members is a nightmare when those cases keep spitting up new students to question like Russian nesting dolls.

Cell Phone Madness is particularly difficult for me, and I have an abysmal solve rate on it. I didn't realize until I read your thoughts on the case on the boards here what I was doing wrong - it wasn't at all clear in the game. I would think I had the outbreak contained, because I would see the photo on the phones, Detain and break the girl in the photo, and convince everyone else through Harrassing to delete it from their phones, or tell me they had already deleted it. Then, SURPRISE, a school scandal erupts. I didn't realize I might need to Detain one of the other girls too. It might be a more realistic way to solve the case, but if we are talking realism, Cell Phone Madness would be an impossible case to contain anyway. The Internet is forever.

I also have had problems occasionally with the Gambling Ring cases - for instance, one case appeared and told me gambling might be occurring in a classroom. I search it, get a Success and find nothing. So I Stake Out the classroom every single day with Rowan (who had absurdly high Observation and Stealth scores) with a Success each time. But nothing happened, no new leads, no other options, and after a week I get a scandal about gambling in the school! I was really confused about what I could have done to solve the case. It just seemed like a cheap shot that was impossible to avoid.

[Myoukochou]

It already limits what you can get in the first week. Perhaps it could limit what you can get in the second, a little more?

It's definitely a challenging game, even frustrating at times, but we're absolutely loving it in our Household!

By the way (without spoiling anything, but Hanako will know what I mean) there are a couple of very rare case types you don't normally get… and one potential Non-Standard Game Over that looks like it might be either a sneaky anti-piracy trap (impossible to obtain normally) or otherwise just very, very evil? (Bravo!) The other one can cause bugged saves if it starts spreading, as there are apparently fields added to student classes by it that the unpickler is not equipped to reload. (I can provide details privately if you like.)

[grommile]

Well... I have а big problem with "School Reputation". I can't pass the game, because rep ends too quickly. Game is too hard even on "Loaded Dice". And I guess this game needs Easy level.

I found the strategy thread stickied at the top of this forum is pretty good, if you feel like spoiling yourself.

Some tips which I think are non-spoily:

• If it would be mathematically possible for the traitor to get an ambiguous result (or failure), then she will always do so even if you're on Loaded Dice and the displayed Win chance is 100%, unless she has another girl working with her in which case the dice will be rolled normally for your difficulty setting.
• Rowan is the girl you are most likely to wish you had two of.
• Every action is useful some of the time, and there is at least one case where the Question action's only benefit is only useful to reveal the questioned girl's stats so you can decide who to use for more intense actions.
• Some cases have a "red herring" variant that can be safely ignored (and can be distinguished by a small number of actions on the first day), though every case also has at least one variant where failure produces a -10 or -5 rep hit.
• Some combinations of cases pretty much put you in a "which one do you feel like failing?" trap, in which case, you should concentrate all your effort on one of those cases.
• One of the cases has a variant where a specific action is required within the first two days or you will automatically fail on the third.
• Some cases that are hard to solve can be resolved in a way that limits their potential damage by issuing a Suspension or Expulsion; -1 Rep for a suspension beats -5 Rep for an embarrassing incident, and -5 Rep (and a D grade on the case) for an expulsion is preferable to -10 Rep and an F grade.
• There's at least one variant of at least one case where you cannot avoid having to Expel one of the girls involved.

[hanako]

I guess my biggest concern with difficulty is how much your first couple of weeks in the game can dramatically change how difficult the entire rest of the game becomes.

Depending on which cases you get randomly thrown, you can either get much needed training points, or get stuck with a time sink of a case that gives you 1 or 2 points for an entire week of work. I think cases like Cell Phone Madness, High Rollers, Missing School Supplies, or the drug cases should not be possible in the first couple of weeks.

Missing School Supplies is specifically one of the possible types of cases for the first week because week one needs to have only one case and enough targets for you to assign every girl to something on day one (which is critical to helping figure out who the traitor is, which is the most important thing to accomplish in the first weeks). There are only a few case types that will work for week one. Lost Item is another - but it's not necessarily an easy source of training points!

Almost every case can be easy or can be hard. Cellphone cases could close on the very first day after a single harass action. Lost Item cases could drag on for weeks with increasing loss of reputation as the thief keeps stealing things.

I don't mind pulling back drugs and gambling to a little later in the year (I was already considering blocking those in the first month), but I don't want to get too limiting with early case types.

Cell Phone Madness is particularly difficult for me, and I have an abysmal solve rate on it. I didn't realize until I read your thoughts on the case on the boards here what I was doing wrong - it wasn't at all clear in the game.

The nude photos? That particular sub-case has been altered, though, so your original strategy should work fine now.

(And that's one of the reasons it helps to talk about particular cases! Because it was eventually clear that the strategy was too different from the other case variants without enough indication of why. Similarly, I'm in the middle of adding another way to get to the resolution of one of the drugs cases because it was pointed out that that specific case was a bottleneck if you couldn't do a particular action.)

I also have had problems occasionally with the Gambling Ring cases - for instance, one case appeared and told me gambling might be occurring in a classroom. I search it, get a Success and find nothing. So I Stake Out the classroom every single day with Rowan (who had absurdly high Observation and Stealth scores) with a Success each time. But nothing happened, no new leads, no other options, and after a week I get a scandal about gambling in the school! I was really confused about what I could have done to solve the case. It just seemed like a cheap shot that was impossible to avoid.

Every single gambling case variant has a clue when you search the room - if you found nothing, it wasn't a success, or you had some extremely obscure logic error bug. Misremembering an ambiguous result as a success is more likely.

[hanako]

It already limits what you can get in the first week. Perhaps it could limit what you can get in the second, a little more?

It's definitely a challenging game, even frustrating at times, but we're absolutely loving it in our Household!

By the way (without spoiling anything, but Hanako will know what I mean) there are a couple of very rare case types you don't normally get… and one potential Non-Standard Game Over that looks like it might be either a sneaky anti-piracy trap (impossible to obtain normally) or otherwise just very, very evil? (Bravo!) The other one can cause bugged saves if it starts spreading, as there are apparently fields added to student classes by it that the unpickler is not equipped to reload. (I can provide details privately if you like.)

Oh hey someone finally found those

(Were you following Spiky's instructions for unlocking the 'special' content, or poking around in the source? I've nudged him to look at the pickling problem.)

[LateWhiteRabbit]

It already limits what you can get in the first week. Perhaps it could limit what you can get in the second, a little more?

Yeah, upon extensive reloading and testing, it seems Missing Supplies or Lost Item are always thrown now in the first week.

Missing School Supplies is specifically one of the possible types of cases for the first week because week one needs to have only one case and enough targets for you to assign every girl to something on day one (which is critical to helping figure out who the traitor is, which is the most important thing to accomplish in the first weeks). There are only a few case types that will work for week one. Lost Item is another - but it's not necessarily an easy source of training points!

Fair enough. I've just found Lost Item usually really easy - first step is Search the last location it was seen to see if you can snag an instant win, while simultaneously Questioning the girl who lost the item to see who your Harrass target should be.

Almost every case can be easy or can be hard. Cellphone cases could close on the very first day after a single harass action. Lost Item cases could drag on for weeks with increasing loss of reputation as the thief keeps stealing things.

I had the Lost Item cases drag on my first few games, until I learned not to fear karma loss and Harass like crazy.

I don't mind pulling back drugs and gambling to a little later in the year (I was already considering blocking those in the first month), but I don't want to get too limiting with early case types.

Maybe add a few more softball-type cases, either for an easier difficulty level, or spread out the case difficulty curve for easier training points in the beginning?

Every single gambling case variant has a clue when you search the room - if you found nothing, it wasn't a success, or you had some extremely obscure logic error bug. Misremembering an ambiguous result as a success is more likely.

I could be misremembering, but I don't think so. I had Rowan do the Search, and she had 70+ Observation. But it's only happened once. I don't know how the logic works on that case - is it possible I missed some student activity that first day in the classroom by not Guarding it or Staking it out? It's been multiple games ago - so I might have also gotten an ambiguous result and thought it wouldn't matter if I kept Staking out the room - after all, the perps were bound to show up SOMETIME, right? Or so probably went my logic.

Oh, and almost forgot, but I really want an option to Harass or Detain the jealous friend in that variant of Trouble in Paradise rather than Harassing the new friend. If I'm being a "mean girl" with an Iron Fist, that would be my preferred way of settling things, like "Stop being stupid! Go make a new friend yourself! Friendships don't last forever! Get over it or I will push YOU down a flight of steps!"

[hanako]

Every single gambling case variant has a clue when you search the room - if you found nothing, it wasn't a success, or you had some extremely obscure logic error bug. Misremembering an ambiguous result as a success is more likely.

I could be misremembering, but I don't think so. I had Rowan do the Search, and she had 70+ Observation. But it's only happened once. I don't know how the logic works on that case - is it possible I missed some student activity that first day in the classroom by not Guarding it or Staking it out? It's been multiple games ago - so I might have also gotten an ambiguous result and thought it wouldn't matter if I kept Staking out the room - after all, the perps were bound to show up SOMETIME, right? Or so probably went my logic.

I'm never sure how much I should give away about the details of how each variant works, since a little mystery often makes people's strategies more entertaining, but...

There is a gambling variant where Stake Out will keep seeing nothing, because the gambling isn't actually happening in that room. They were seen there, once, by whoever reported the rumor to the council in the first place, and they dropped a clue there which can be found by Searching, but since the bookie is actually taking bets on horse races she doesn't need a specific meeting place.

Since Searching the location is a good idea in all gambling cases, this doesn't seem unfair to me.

By 'extremely obscure logic error' I mean 'the game somehow corrupting its data stack so badly that it loaded results from another case type entirely' which... if that's even possible, should probably make it crash?

Oh, and almost forgot, but I really want an option to Harass or Detain the jealous friend in that variant of Trouble in Paradise rather than Harassing the new friend. If I'm being a "mean girl" with an Iron Fist, that would be my preferred way of settling things, like "Stop being stupid! Go make a new friend yourself! Friendships don't last forever! Get over it or I will push YOU down a flight of steps!"

You can, actually! You just need enough evidence to suspect that she's more than just a little bit jealous before you can throw her in detention, which requires taking an action that it's probably never occurred to you to try. Harassing the jealous girl's roommate will let you know whether she's just jealous, or jealous and mean, in which case you can detain her to close the case.