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What is up with Extensively Consult with the Sphinx?


Grue

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Is there a secret failure rate or some other factor?  With my current playthru I haven't used the action before and phemed up Dialectic to a score of 22 (via Logic plus with a number of Flawless phemes pushing up CoS to somewhere in the +40% range) on a character with an Intelligence of 21.  Save scumming until I finally got a success (beyond just a point of stress for the trouble) with that ability took 5 reloads to see if it would ever pop.

 

Is there something I'm missing about the ability pushing success rates down or is there a secret global modifier of some sort?  Considering the uber high checks for the adventure to gain access to the Sphinx, the stress cost, and the check, all things being equal if it's a secret failure modifier in play, that seems too damn high for 4 skill steps (3 of them random...and given it's more of a midgame to lategame ability it is also likely a SS or two will be assigned to a skill you already have at max)... or am I missing something?

 

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The is always the Chance of Failure if you gained it in some way that is rolled first! The second roll is Chance of Success and only the 3rd roll is the actual skill roll.

But other player also think that there is some extra chance of failure coming with using the Sphinx.

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One success out of 6 attempts (at a target of 13, which should be an auto success given the above) is still ridiculous even if somehow my rng was realllllllly unlucky (and CoF is closer to 20%).

 

Makes the Sphinx a waste of time as is given the other choices which hardly makes it a reward for a tough adventure or upper level unlock.

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I'm trying to get it to pop the following day after my first 'success' (once again save scumming).  Thus far out of 8 reloads it hasn't passed (now with a 24 dialectic).  I don't think it was this finicky my last playthru (a few dlc ago...16?)

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It's possible that the chance was changed, or just bad luck. Either way Extensively Consult (and to a lesser extent Match Wits, for that matter) absolutely has/have a secret failure chance. It's not something that can be seen in the mod tools, but it's very easy to confirm that it exists ingame.

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I tried popping Extensively Consult over two full days from my last success (7 timeslots) to give enough time between usage (from checking the forums it seems that the Sphinx's CoF ramped up if tried more than once in a day).  Trying it 50 times it was only successful 3 times (where it generated anything more than a stress point).

 

It's basically impossible for the character to fail a Int\Dialectic roll 13 so it can only be the CoF, but I'm wondering if something else isn't modifying that CoF upward....either some 'cooldown factor' (which is frankly stupid imo...since there is already a mechanic that can make an action\ability temporarily unavailable) or another part of the game's mechanics are in play.  For instance I've been doing a lot of class skipping at this stage of the game (and avoiding detention via high Prof relationships and a -12% CoD currently...generally only taking one or two detentions a month), but I'm wondering if the Sphinx's high Detection rate is triggering but since this character has permission (and the other factors), detention isn't assigned and the action is considered a failure.

 

Or if there is something really wrong with the RNG on my end... but 3 successes out of 50 doesn't seem to suggest bad luck is in play, just a really ratcheted up CoF.  

 

Could someone playing the current DLC with similar 'auto' success numbers give it a shot and give a shout out if they have a similar issue?

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At least Match Wits, and I assume Extensively Consult as well indeed have that "once per day" cooldown where if you attempt to use it more than once per day the action is basically guaranteed to fail. If you're curious why the action isn't taken away to enforce the cooldown it's because that mechanic can only enforce cooldowns that last two days or more, since if the action is taken away you can't use it for a day, but you can Match Wits/Extensively Consult once every day (rolls/secret CoF aside).

Interesting point on the detention, actually. Getting caught trespassing and reprimanded can (does?) negate the effect of an action performed on that timeslot, I've had one situation where I've had a spell not go off because of that, but if you have the Certificate of Imperial Favor equipped you should have Visitation Rights. I might be that that only negates the detention, not the failure aspect, but I'm not sure. I don't, for instance, recall any instances where a character with Discoveries: Libraries failed to use the Mantle of Stars/Manetele because the CoD procced despite the Visitation Rights. Than again those locations don't require a roll, so maybe the detention thing only messes up rolls? Might be worth looking into, but I'm not sure how you'd test it without checking the source code. You'd need a location with a high CoD, that has an associated ability which requires a roll (preferably a low one), which you can get Visitation Rights for. I...can't think of any off the top of my head, but let me take a look around the wiki...

EDIT: So the Certificate also grants Visitation Rights to the Room of Decrees, which has an ability with a roll associated with it, but looking through the mod tools I noticed something odd. The Certificate claims to also grant Visitation Rights to the Throne Room, but that location doesn't exist. The ability instead grants Visitation Rights to the Emperor Sphinx' room. Again. This shouldn't cause any issues, but...maybe?

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As mentioned in my last post if there is a Chance of Failure it is always rolled first and i.e. if your CoF out of some reason 90% then you already fail nearly all your rolls just because of the CoF. Because CoF is a hidden value we can't even say if there is something strange with this high number of failure.

Beside keep in mind that a increase in a random skill already start to fail once you have a single Sub Skill at the maximum what is also independent from the roll it self! The more skills you have maxed the higher becomes the chance that it try to increase a skill that is already maxed and you simply get nothing reported about this. (That's why in late game the extensive consult with the Sphinx many times only give you continuous 1 or 2 increases instead of 4 with some complete failed between)

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1 hour ago, Schwarzbart said:

As mentioned in my last post if there is a Chance of Failure it is always rolled first and i.e. if your CoF out of some reason 90% then you already fail nearly all your rolls just because of the CoF. Because CoF is a hidden value we can't even say if there is something strange with this high number of failure.

Beside keep in mind that a increase in a random skill already start to fail once you have a single Sub Skill at the maximum what is also independent from the roll it self! The more skills you have maxed the higher becomes the chance that it try to increase a skill that is already maxed and you simply get nothing reported about this. (That's why in late game the extensive consult with the Sphinx many times only give you continuous 1 or 2 increases instead of 4 with some complete failed between)

 

I have not even been getting the subskill of choice (a skill I presumably haven't maxed), just a 1 stress and no other result nor reprimand (for a area I have permission though).  So given the number of failures I was wondering if anyone had any clue what was ratcheting up the CoF, or if this ability was working the same way for others using the latest DLC.

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Reporting in this game is less than stellar, so I can believe that, say, someone casting Revolution of the Planets on Grue went unnoticed. The issue is that that spell only has a 7% CoF associated with it, and that's one of the biggest source of CoF that I can recall off-hand that'd apply to the Sphinx. Not to mention most students would only cast it once they're in Vendetta mode. Long story less long, I don't think CoF is enough of an explanation.

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6 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Behind the scenes, we've been looking at this too- the Ability itself hasn't changed, so your CoF has grown, or it may be the Class skipping as Metis noted.

Which DLC are you using?

 

Summer's Blush.  I'm not running any mods or the like but as mentioned I have been skipping classes a lot and have a decent chance to avoid detection/reprimand normally (and have the Imperial Favor equipped).

 

I don't have any vendettas\rivalries (I've been using Sing-Song so frequently that I've turned the game into a musical....the lowest relationship I have with this character in the student body is with Phillipe at a 5....lowest relationship with a prof is 4 as a side note).  Without digging through reports I'm not entirely sure how much Glory this character has....I pretty sure I've earned at least 4 points (and usually get 2 'retries' on a failed roll for an adventure) but it may be a bit higher than that. 

The only other thing I can think of is something is screwy with the random number generation on my end or some sort of value got corrupted (but not enough to crash the game) that amped up failure rates.  The only reason I suspect that may be an issue is that I did have my character portrait disappear as well as the portraits of a few other students (I think that were added by dlc...like Antonio, while base student portraits were unaffected) that did not relink after a reboot\reload.  However I did manage to get the images back by starting a new Summer's Blush game and then reloaded the older save file after the new start (weird).

 

I'm considering starting a new game on my main machine to see if the problem replicated (assuming no one else running Summer's Blush doesn't give a shout out before then), but the game is otherwise playable (and headed into endgame).  Just that time management games scratch my OCD itch and the low success rate I was experiencing didn't seem to be working as intended.

 

 

 

 

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I thought for a moment deleting the cache worked when I loaded and popped a success with the first go afterwards.  However, I double checked by reloading the same save and trying again...and no dice.  I managed to get another success on my 11th attempt before giving it a rest.

I'm going to see what happens after I pull a detention (to cooldown that detection modifier) to see if that is affecting Extensively Consult.  And probably experiment by exiting the game, deleting the cache and restarting between saves to see if that makes a difference.

Failing that I guess I could resort to animal sacrifice to appeal to the hidden powers but I only have chickens and rabbits available...<_<

But seriously, if anybody is running a Summer's Blush game could you check out Extensively Consult and give a shout out how it works out for you?

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'Fraid I'm nowhere close to test it myself, but I'll mention that no reasonable combination of CoF, class skipping and CoD should lead to a ~90% chance of an action getting cancelled because of a reprimand. Like, CoD is 15% if the Certificate isn't equipped/actually doesn't work for whatever reason, CoF you'd have to try to unknowingly break single digits, and in my experience it takes concentrated save/loading effort to get class skipping chances to, let stand above, 40% (four weeks of straight skipping, for reference). Extensively Consult does have a secret failure chance, but I can't imagine that it's as high as 25-33% just by itself.

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You deleted both the Cache_V3 (in ProgramData/Academagia) and GCC (Steam/steamapps/common/Academagia The Making of Mages/Mods) ?

Because sometimes it could be that already the files in GCC are corrupted and when just removing the cache its not enough. Sorry this is now just a shot into the blue where else the problem could be.

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Hrm....didn't think of steamapps...will have to try that latter.

 

Edit- Deleting both and retrying resulted in 3 successes with Extensively Consult out of 17 tries (before I ran out of time myself)...still generally a waste of time.  I'll give it another shot after the character cools down the detection rate with a detention.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ah...I vaguely recall those things, now that you mention it. But I think that the affliction or the spell/action/what have you that causes it (actually both in the latter case, I guess?) is exclusive to one singular RE? Like, there's an RE where...I think you can convince a Satyr to teach you how to play music in a way that calls on their spirits or something, and if you do it curses someone with that debuff? Gods it's been forever since I've seen that RE and I'm pretty sure I only ever saw it once.

In any case I don't think it's something that could easily fly under the radar (REs you'd presumably read, and IIRC no NPC student even has the relevant spell so rivals or not you'll never get it "randomly"), but good find all the same. I personally initially was thinking about Von Rupprecht's Bane that might have caused it, but that would assume that the CoD% issue applies.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Would these afflictions show up somewhere on the character sheet (Cursed with a Secret Rhythm etc)?  I think I did have the Satyr RE with this one.

 

I have only put a little bit of time in the game lately (so still haven't popped a detention yet to see if the increased odds of CoD have anything to do with it), but is there a secret CoF with 'Judge the Instructor's Taste'?

 

It's a Insight/Character Study 5 roll so with an insight of about 25 and Character Study at 8 (iirc) that should pretty much be an auto roll.  Except that roll isn't even popping the Study Level reliably (it seems to be less than 20% of the time...I haven't bothered to test that one as much as Extensively Consult because frankly this has gotten a bit frustrating).  If there is a secret CoF with that one I figure that's a lot easier for someone with Summer's Blush to check to see if they get a similar result [nudge nudge] (please?;))

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Afflictions might be listed in your list of possible Actions/Abilities and Emotions, second tab from the left on the left window (or what is the left window by default, at least). If not there, I don't know. Passive abilities are listed there in gray/grey, at least.

I've used Judge the Instructor's Taste quite often, but I've never had it outright fail when I had at least 5 Character Study. It can outright fail if you tell it to raise a study level that you've already maxed out and both of the skill step increases land on skills you've already got maxed out as well, but...

EDIT: Actually, technically I've had JtIT fail at 5 Character Study before because I had Cleanse and Remake active, but that clearly isn't the issue in your situation. It might give a false positive if you try to test this early game with 5 Character Study and forget about C&R's -1, though.

Not that I nearly did exactly that a moment ago, no sir <_<.

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