Charismatic is a hiderance for electability?

[Baines]

In theory, a skill like Charismatic should be an aid to winning the election. In practice, I can only see it as a severe hindrance.

Playing as a Bartender, it very much feels like Charismatic makes getting elected harder, rather than easier.

The core problem is that the increased starting friendliness of the residents is not reflected in the floor's starting electability. With nearly every NPC starting as friendly, you cannot increase electability by wooing friends. Without NPCs starting as hostile, you cannot increase electability by eliminating hostiles.

I just checked a starting level with the Bartender. Only four NPCs on the entire level were not already Friendly at the start. The four that were not friendly were guards that were Neutral. While the four guards would turn Hostile upon seeing me in their buildings, the act of turning hostile itself lowers electability, so eliminating them produces no net gain.

Other characters without Charismatic, who weren't nearly universally liked, would have had an easier time winning the floor to their side.

Cologne has a similar game effect to Charismatic, turning all Neutrals into Friendlies. But the electability effect is vastly different. Since Cologne is triggered during regular play, the player gets the full electability benefit of every conversion, which can be anywhere from +20 to +80 when used by a non-Charismatic character. The Charismatic skill, however, is handled during the floor's set-up and gives no reward for its conversions.

A Charismatic character cannot even benefit from using an item like Cologne. Or bribing guards (turning guards and potentially those inside friendly). Or getting the friendly boost from completing the optional yellow Missions. Or any of the other methods that exist for turning residents friendly.

[evillee]

This all the way. It's been annoying me since electability was added.

[Inverz]

The electability mechanic was weirdly implemented in my honest opinion, and this is one good example why.

[Madguy]

This will be getting looked at fer sure.

[Unpatchable Luigi TTV]

Originally posted by Madguy:

This will be getting looked at fer sure.

glad you are! I was wondering why giving my character abilities to get friends was making it harder lol.

[Shabranigdu]

Originally posted by Madguy:

This will be getting looked at fer sure.

While you're at it, and not to flood this with bug topics, I think zombies are bugged in electability too, cuz I get a lot of voters during every zombie disaster with any normal character, and negative votes with one that actually has zombism

[Baines]

Originally posted by Sabranigudu:

Originally posted by Madguy:

This will be getting looked at fer sure.

While you're at it, and not to flood this with bug topics, I think zombies are bugged in electability too, cuz I get a lot of voters during every zombie disaster with any normal character, and negative votes with one that actually has zombism

My primary issue with zombie disasters and elections is that the player's electability increases with every zombie killed, even when the player has zero involvement. You shouldn't become more electable just because a zombie was hit by a mine cart, lynched by a local mob, or killed by random cops. Heck, a zombie being killed by a cop should not only not benefit you, it should arguably increase voters' faith in the mayor.

As for characters with zombism, they should presumably get blamed for zombie disasters and outbreaks, regardless of whether or not they caused them. As for zombie voters (that would presumably support you), I cannot remember, but is voting open to the undead?

[Shabranigdu]

Well all votes go against you when they dont go for you so I guess thinking of consequences of your actions for other voters might be too much. As for the rules, yeah they mention all living and undead canvote as long as they're not in prison

[Baines]

Originally posted by Sabranigudu:

Well all votes go against you when they dont go for you

Thinking about it, that isn't really true. The numbers implies that, without you directly triggering people to either vote for or against you, the majority of residents do not vote at all.

You start at a disadvantage on every floor, but that disadvantage is very small when weighed against the floor population. It also doesn't scale proportional to floor population. The mayor starting with a 5 point lead isn't much of an advantage when there are 40 characters, much less 80+ characters. Which implies that most of the residents do not vote at all until the player intervenes in their life.

(The alternative would be that, without player intervention, while there might be many voters they end up almost evenly splitting for and against the mayor. But that doesn't fit with how your direct intervention changes the numbers. With such a model, your direct intervention on a case by case basis would either have no effect(you "won" someone that was already voting against the mayor or "lost" someone that was already voting for the mayor) or would have double the effect (you won a mayor supporter or turned a mayor opposer against you.)

[Sir Lord Wololo]

Originally posted by Baines:

The core problem is that the increased starting friendliness of the residents is not reflected in the floor's starting electability.

As much as this bloody thing annoys/saddens me, there's a good reason for this: there's a way to make a custom character be considered 'legit' and have all the traits needed to take over an entire floor. So, if starting friendliness/loyalty/etc. affected electability, that'd make the run ridiculously hilarious for that custom character.

Though, I think that we should be allowed to do that for fun. <_>

[Baines]

Originally posted by Sir Lord Wololo:

As much as this bloody thing annoys/saddens me, there's a good reason for this: there's a way to make a custom character be considered 'legit' and have all the traits needed to take over an entire floor. So, if starting friendliness/loyalty/etc. affected electability, that'd make the run ridiculously hilarious for that custom character.

Though, I think that we should be allowed to do that for fun. <_>

Being elected isn't particularly important anyway. It eliminates a simple task, taking the hat from the mayor, that otherwise takes maybe 30 seconds. The +100 XP boost you get from each Floor that you manage to win to your side is a greater reward than that.

[Elitar]

Originally posted by Baines:

Originally posted by Sir Lord Wololo:

As much as this bloody thing annoys/saddens me, there's a good reason for this: there's a way to make a custom character be considered 'legit' and have all the traits needed to take over an entire floor. So, if starting friendliness/loyalty/etc. affected electability, that'd make the run ridiculously hilarious for that custom character.

Though, I think that we should be allowed to do that for fun. <_>

Being elected isn't particularly important anyway. It eliminates a simple task, taking the hat from the mayor, that otherwise takes maybe 30 seconds. The +100 XP boost you get from each Floor that you manage to win to your side is a greater reward than that.

To be honest - the biggest reward is the fact you were able to convince ppl to vote for you - so satisfaction (and achievement on steam). Because lets be honest - most SoR players go full ♥♥♥♥♥♥ = kill everyone, rob everything - full destruction and f**k everyone. If you go for election you can't be like that. I mean i did this achievement with assasin, so I was killing ppl, but only guilty ones and I avoided to anger innocents.

[Baines]

Originally posted by Elitar:

To be honest - the biggest reward is the fact you were able to convince ppl to vote for you - so satisfaction (and achievement on steam). Because lets be honest - most SoR players go full ♥♥♥♥♥♥ = kill everyone, rob everything - full destruction and f**k everyone. If you go for election you can't be like that. I mean i did this achievement with assasin, so I was killing ppl, but only guilty ones and I avoided to anger innocents.

I mean that I don't necessarily see someone being able to create a "legal" custom character that can fix elections to be a balance concern, because winning the election honestly doesn't make the game easier.

[Inverz]

Originally posted by Baines:

Originally posted by Elitar:

To be honest - the biggest reward is the fact you were able to convince ppl to vote for you - so satisfaction (and achievement on steam). Because lets be honest - most SoR players go full ♥♥♥♥♥♥ = kill everyone, rob everything - full destruction and f**k everyone. If you go for election you can't be like that. I mean i did this achievement with assasin, so I was killing ppl, but only guilty ones and I avoided to anger innocents.

I mean that I don't necessarily see someone being able to create a "legal" custom character that can fix elections to be a balance concern, because winning the election honestly doesn't make the game easier.

It's not necessarily about the difficulty, it's about the variety of ways of getting the hat.

[Skaliton]

I agree with OP but would like to point out how easy the game would be if everyone started friendly and gave the +1. Some missions are already super easy (like obtaining an item).

You'd effectively have a handful which require some challenge (eliminate the foes) but otherwise just a casual walk through the stages then you win the game

[No emaN]

If you want to get elected the Hacker is the far superior pacifist than the Doctor for sure. He has plenty of methods of saving money and obtaining it. Back computers to break people out and bribe off items.

Another issue is that the bar tender making drinks is a hinderence starting off early game with out being accessing consumables that grant statuses.