Just lost probably half an hour of progress because the morale system isn't explained.

[Meernok]

Am I crazy? The first time I lost a skill check I noticed my morale meter going down, I tried click on it to see if it was a button but it wasn't really clear if that did anything.

The 2nd time I decided to see what would happen if I didn't click to see if it just uses one of the heals automatically or whatever, then it put me into some dialogue where all my options were basically "give up" and then I got a game over screen.

I reloaded and by the items I'm missing I think I just lost at least 30 minutes of progress. Am I missing something or is this insane? I feel like this was never explained at all. What is the point of not stopping yourself from dying if you have healing items? It says 5 on my morale (I had recently bought some meds that gave me +3) so I thought I was good.

Now I have to slog through a bunch of dialogue I've already heard over again :/

[Sisyphus]

When the morale meter is flashing you need to click on it to use one of your healing items otherwise you die.

[Du-Vu]

It's happened to all of us in one game or another. Save often and in different slots. F5 to quicksave, F9 to quickload.

[MalachiConstant]

Yes, you have to us meds manually. They are never automatic.

You can tell they work because they fill in one of the bars over Health or Moral when used. Each Bar is a point linked to Endurance for Health or Volition for Moral.

Not every failed Skill check will result in a hit against your health or moral. Some do. Sometimes picking a dialog option can do this too. Decide to discuss something that ultimately embarrasses you? That can hurt your moral. Discuss something that makes you panic or very stressed? That can hurt your health.

The number in the cross above moral is the number of "heals" you have. Same for health, which is in orange. Medications that effect these items can be found or bought. They will NOT show in your inventory. The only show in the little crosses. You have to manually use them by clicking the cross. It is never automatic to use these meds.

You can tell you lose a Health Point or a Moral Point because the screen will flash orange or blue/purple, a noise will go off, and the center of the screen tells you so.

You only die when all your Health OR all your Moral is depleted.

YES you can fail checks based on this. Health is Linked to your Endurance Skill and Moral is Linked to Volition. When you lose a heath point, your Endurance skill looses a point. Moral loses a Volition point. These can be "healed" three ways. By using Meds (by clicking the White cross to use one or more), by getting a boost through dialog (sometimes something happens in dialog that boosts your health or moral, effectively healing a bar if one is empty), OR By sleeping, which restores you to full health and moral.

If you start to die, there are a few seconds in which the screen steadily grows more black. All of your Health or all of your Moral will be depleted (that is the cause of death) so you have a few seconds to heal yourself before you die IF you have meds.

[Meernok]

Originally posted by MalachiConstant:

Yes, you have to us meds manually. They are never automatic.

...

You only die when all your Health OR all your Moral is depleted.

...

If you start to die, there are a few seconds in which the screen steadily grows more black. All of your Health or all of your Moral will be depleted (that is the cause of death) so you have a few seconds to heal yourself before you die IF you have meds.

It just feels like bad design that I had to lose so much progress to learn this. I guess I only have 1 morale because I'm a 'Thinker' archetype but the number on morale was higher so I thought that was my 'morale health' so-to-speak - I understand that now but I feel like the game should have explained that BEFORE you start playing. I was probably 2 hours into the game before I got to this situation.

So frustrating I just had to quit the game and walk away. I'll give it another chance later today.

[MalachiConstant]

OH Yes. The game is KINDA self explanatory but there is SO MUCH that is not. Took me a while to figure out Which EXACT skills resulted in moral and health. And you don't really know what skill set you will enjoy most until you see them in action beefed up.

Also the guides for it sometimes leave a LOT to be desired because the Fear of Spoilers is real. I find that quite irritating.

Just wait until you figure out discovering a Thought is All you need to get most of the dialog/story benefits of it. Sure, Internalizing crafts your character and sometimes is needed for a unique dialog option to open. But . . . just finding the thought (rather than fully internalizing) adds a lot of dialog options related to it. So really just finding it alters the character (Note: Don't want to be a fascist? Don't Opt IN if that thought pops up). I can't tell you how long I played before I realized discovering a thought, rather than ACTUALLY Internalizing it, gave you ALL the benefit of the Thought other than the very specific post-research bonus modifiers in almost all cases. EX: You are considered to have Actual Art Degree and get all the Art Degree dialog options and check modifiers just by discovering it. Internalizing it adds JUST the specific bonus modifiers (-1 Hand Eye, Conceptualization healing 1 Moral and giving 10 XP).

Which is good to know. Cause once all the possible Internalized thought slots are taken up (surprisingly easy to do before day three if you really are familiar with everything) all you can do it make room for a new one is Forget a thought. BUT forgetting a thought pulls those modifiers, all the dialog options etc. Forever.

[Simon]

Some things aren’t explained. I decided to restart a game after completing the first day because I wanted to do better: I’d dismissed some thoughts that I could’ve unlocked in the thought cabinet. But it’s not difficult to pick up and enjoy, and trust me I’m really bad at picking up games. The game mechanics are fairly simple for the most part.

Not sure if I agree about the choice to hide the researched thought cabinet effects until after they’ve been researched however.

[Evil Masses]

A fair bit of it is explained if you read through things carefully in the first day, I only lost 2-3 morale on my first day before I realised how it all worked, which I think I gained a bit back so I maybe have lost slightly more, but knowing when to walk away from a problematic situation can also help. I haven't died from losing all of my health or morale so far and I think the biggest morale loss was Cuno.

[Lieste]

I've killed the old fat drunk without a name or identity in the room before even managing to get dressed and out of the door.

Hangovers and getting ties down from a moving fan, and switching on the lights don't mix well...
I was *trying* to do dumb stuff though, so killing him off, though unexpected, was not unwelcome.

I note that there isn't much reaction to going out into the world in just your pants and socks, with the Hideous Tie riding along... Even if you say "I wanna do the fu-k with you".

[Simon]

Haha yeah. I think occasionally your internal monologue will comment, but I haven't noticed any NPCs comment on my near nakedness while attempting to do police work.

[Kilo]

Originally posted by Meernok:

Originally posted by MalachiConstant:

Yes, you have to us meds manually. They are never automatic.

...

You only die when all your Health OR all your Moral is depleted.

...

If you start to die, there are a few seconds in which the screen steadily grows more black. All of your Health or all of your Moral will be depleted (that is the cause of death) so you have a few seconds to heal yourself before you die IF you have meds.

It just feels like bad design that I had to lose so much progress to learn this. I guess I only have 1 morale because I'm a 'Thinker' archetype but the number on morale was higher so I thought that was my 'morale health' so-to-speak - I understand that now but I feel like the game should have explained that BEFORE you start playing. I was probably 2 hours into the game before I got to this situation.

So frustrating I just had to quit the game and walk away. I'll give it another chance later today.

Maybe you're not quite the "thinker" you thought you were, otherwise you may have seen the issue coming

[Du-Vu]

If you talk to Kim in your undies, one of your skills will say that if he's not commenting on it, probably no one will :) so yeah. It's something at least.