Disco Elysium

So just to note: Besides my first playthrough(which was my maxing out either psyche or mind and having endurance of 1 and instantly dying to light bulb), I've done these playthroughs: average joe cop(3 3 3 3 with volative as signature skill), thinker preset, super motor cop(2 2 2 6), hardcore junkie cop(hardcore mode, 1 4 6 1) and sensitive preset, with my newest playthrough that I've started being the physical preset.

I just find it absurd I haven't had single playthrough yet where I didn't discover something new. Some of hidden passive checks go absurdly high(15 is highest I've seen myself, I'm kinda wondering if there is any impossible difficulty passives with dc of 20) and you wouldn't even know they exist unless you decide to put lot of points into skill that might get use even though its not necessary to beat game or do investigation perfectly to put any skill past 8 or 9.

It almost makes me want to check what is highest dc for passives for each skill but that would probably spoil the fun.(but for reference, passives are 6 + your skill. So to pass passive check of 11 you need 5 points in skill)

So while procrastinating due to depressive stuff happening in my life currently(as you do) found the reddit for table on passive skill check breakdowns. Not gonna repost it in case doing that tempts people to ruin the fun(they can find it on their own if they want to), I myself didn't check link to dumpfile of the script itself, since I wanted to just learn the breakdown. It was amusing to learn that there is exactly one dc 20 passive check and its for perception :D That said there ARE 3 other passive checks where you get failure message for not reaching the 20.

But yeah, every skill has passive skill check that goes up to 14, vast majority of them also have passives that go up to 15-16, 17-20 are the really rare obscure checks.

Sooo yeah, there is incentive for trying to see how absurdly high you can go in single skill. Without any thoughts or items only way to get 20 in single skill is to have 6 in attribute and skill as signature skill and then buy level up for them 7 times(unless I forgot something and its 19 at max without any other bonuses)

Also something amusing: There is exactly one trivial "anti" passive check(aka game checks if you have lower than 6. Which means you have to have skill to be -1 to get message for failing it) and its for Espirit De Corp of all skills :D There are no "anti" checks for dc 7(so 1 in skill) but there are bunch for 8(so if you never put any points in your lowest attribute skills). Anti checks in general are rare, I guess for most part they are just for epic fails or "this is literally impossible for you to do" with bunch of "oh if you were only little bit better" in the mix

(I'm honestly confused if its even possible to get that -1 in corps though since penalties for it are rare. If I wasn't at limit of my procrastination, I'd probably check if there are other skills that are just as incredibly hard to fail trivial checks with)

Well either way, it is amusing that with effort you can fail checks that are auto successes normally :p

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 18th 2020 at 2:30:05 PM

Depending on your choice of gear and Thoughts, it's really easy to get your Logic and Authority stats deeply negative. Some others as well.

So, I discovered a few things on my second playthrough (and probably my last for a while).

• There's no good outcome for the Klassje situation. You get yelled at for not arresting her, but if you arrest her or rat her out to the Moralintern guy, she dies. All maxing my stats accomplishes is to tell me how thoroughly I've been played. Also, I love how Volition argues with ALL of the others on this point.
• You cannot apprehend Rose. She dies or gets away.
• There is no way out of the Tribunal without getting shot. Even if you have all of the T-500 armor that it's possible to find by that point, you get shot in the leg, which is of course the piece of the armor you can't acquire.
• The Insulindian Phasmid reveals itself whether you make the Perception check or not. I'm not sure if you can get out of there without Kim taking its photo... maybe if you screwed up earlier and Cuno is your partner?
• I tried playing as a Good Cop again. I'm wondering how badly I would have to play to get Precinct 41 to throw me out. I'm not sure I want to find out.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 19th 2020 at 1:24:58 PM

You can indeed fail to get the photo, that's what happened to me the first time, but that's not a matter of having cuno as the partner (although that might be a way for it to go wrong too), it's a matter of refusing the pheromone spray from the cryptozoologists earlier on

Has anyone actually tried playing the game as an alcohol/drug addict, fascist cop who totally screws up the investigation?

Up to a point, though not both of those things together. I played a communist/ultraliberal/apocalypse/superstar cop with low Int, very high Motorics, and signature Electrochemistry. I took a lot of drugs, talked to my tie, and generally took all the wackiest options. I got both the bad cop *and* good cop conversations with Kim. My Visual Calculus and Logic through most of the game were 0 and -2 and there were actually quite a few passive checks with my own brain lamenting how stupid I was, Homer Simpson-style — but I also basically free-associated my way into finding out various things my high-Intellect, high-Psyche cop never saw, with Klaasje in particular. Composure and Electrochemistry actually help you out a lot here, and my Volition and Drama were pretty good. Despite my best efforts to screw everything up, this was actually probably the playthrough where I got the most right — I had my gun, I had the spirit bomb, and I had the best understanding of a lot of the side-characters since many of them have fucked-up brain chemistry, one way or another.

My third playthrough was a fascist, racist boring cop, maxed-out Physique, signature Authority, and high Esprit de Corps. Brutalized and insulted everybody but also knew how to play the law to his advantage, busted open doors and containers — but the physical skills do still allow you to read people in certain ways, especially Half-Light and surprisingly Endurance. Having high Shivers also came up a number of times. Kim hated me and this was the playthrough where he got shot, Klaasje died in prison, but I had a much better understanding of Cuno — who was still a better person than this guy was, on this playthrough. Not unlike Kim, he plays your foil, and offsets your extremes.

Kim does need to be with you to get the photo, since he has the camera, but you also need to at least humour Morell enough to take a spritz of his synthetic pheromones — when I didn't have any, I still saw the phasmid, but it instantly skimmed away once I reached out to it.

Edited by Unsung on Jul 19th 2020 at 1:08:31 AM

Well I guess we're past spoilers now. What I'm particularly interested in is whether these things affect the final conversation with the officers from Precinct 41? Is it possible to get an ending where they refuse to take you back and/or you get fired?

Edit: Also, I saw a theory on Reddit that the reason you lost your memory isn't just that you were blackout drunk near the Pale, but that after you crashed your car, you staggered into the church and jammed your head into the hole in reality (the Pale manifestation). Does that sound plausible? It's certainly implied that the Pale is the ultimate reason for your memory loss, but not then how you got back to your room and completed the carnival of destruction, nor how you knew about the hole in the first place. But the tracks from the crash site do lead towards the church...

I'm also slightly unimpressed by theories that you're dead and in Limbo or some such and all of this is manifestations of the gremlins in your brain... I cordially detest that sort of thing because it removes any significance from the story.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 19th 2020 at 2:40:41 PM

I dunno if there exists bad ending, but I'd guess if it does, it means you have to screw things up incredibly bad without soft locking yourself so pretty much doing it on purpose.

Like, you can certainly(especially if you follow physique skill advices) certainly do things like making the government official witness angry :p I also wondered what happens if you tell government official guy about Klaasje so good to know

But yeah, for hypothetical worst version of ending, I'd think you'd need to 1) work for Evart and take all bribes 2) don't find your badge or gun 3) screw up tribunal 4) screw up photo 5) make arresting suspect as incoherent as possible(Kim is competent though so this one would be kinda hard, I'd guess you could just skip straight to arresting them without getting their motive :P) 6) make Kim super duper disappointed in you 7) drink alcohol

Either way though, this isn't exactly game you replay for the ending. I mean sure it was cool to find out that suspect assasinated previous Union head with right skill checks, but you basically can complete case perfectly with 8+ in skills. So once you know what skills you need to get passive skill checks to find out about each aspect of case in final interrogation, you can pretty easy use equipment and thoughts to aim for ones you want. So main reason for you to replay game is to see different combos of skills(game feels REALLY different depending on combination of them) and trying to get those ridiculously high skills for funny stuff :p

(I found bug where spiked union worker brew is both permanent buff and stacks with itself. so accidentally got +3 physique boost :p Didn't test if it would have stacked further since wanted to give it to Idiot Doom Spiral for funsies)

Anyhoo, regarding Klaasje, I in a way think giving her station slip or not arresting her is better option because you get that way the shiver check to learn about The Return which is also foreshadowed in ending(like having 9 in perception when talking to what Kim is gonna do)

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 19th 2020 at 10:57:55 PM

Yeah, I figure if everyone on a thread has finished the game multiple times it makes sense to go spoilers-off at that point, just for ease of reading.

I don't know if you actually can get fired. It's pretty hard to put things in an unsolvable state, for the most part. I'm going to reload and try a few things.

I don't know if you even need to have gotten all the way into the church to have hit a pocket of pale. The implication seems to be that just being near them over a prolonged period of time is enough, and also that they're scattered all over Revachol. So the hole that's implied to be at the heart of the Doomed Commercial Area, of which the Whirling is a part, could've been enough to start the process, particularly if you'd been exposed elsewhere, as the game also implies — plus all your drinking and lingering on memories of the past (if the pale really is rarefied past), that might mean you were already vulnerable, and Judit comes right out and says this isn't the first time you've blanked out during a case.

On the other hand, someone broke that stained glass window that looks like Dolores Dei, and given Harry's particular hang-ups, it might very well have been you. Though in that case it's odd that the crab man doesn't remember you (or maybe he does?).

Or maybe you hit yet another 2mm hole when you did that sweet jump over the canal. It's hard to say. For all we know, the air above Martinaise is simply riddled with tiny invisible holes.

I think the limbo/purgatory theory, like the The Killer in Me theories, are fairly thoroughly debunked by the game itself (wish the crash hadn't eaten my second-to-last post...). They're the obvious theories in a Mind Screw murder mystery like this one — much like saying your wish out loud, discussing the possibility in-universe makes them less likely to come true. So I think they're probably just your addled, guilt-laden brain trying to come up with explanations for why you feel so bad. Because sometimes, when you're so far down, it feels better to think there's some reason you deserve it. For a little while.

Edited by Unsung on Jul 19th 2020 at 2:14:54 AM

So on sidenote,(I'm not sure Harry's memory loss is pale related. I mean it could be, but it could really be just psychological or brain damage) there are lot of things you miss if you avoid failing red checks at any cost <_<

Like if you fail suggestion check to Klaasje at beginning of the game, besides she asking what kind of cop you are and you answering with copotypes, she straight up says that she didn't kill victim and that its gonna suck for you when you interrogate her because she thinks you are in that big of hangover that you forget about that completely.

Which you basically do forget about for most of the game and you don't warn Kim about that unless you later fail another composure check when talking with Titus

But yeah, that is amazing since I think its completely relied on either 1) most players not wanting to take red check with low chances right at beginning of the game 2) at that point of game lot of people might not have gotten into mind set of doing weird thing 3) there is something gross about drunk in hangover hitting somenoe as first thing when they step out of room so people might avoid that too.

(and funny thing is that succeeding at that suggestion check is completely useless )

But yeah, I find it amazing that writers made it completely possible to discover that Klaasje is important by fluke way before you would normally

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 19th 2020 at 12:09:18 PM

The writers knew what they were doing. Nearly every red check gives you an alternate path if you fail it, sometimes with an even better (or funnier) outcome — the one where you decide your name is Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau opens a path where you can actually make that be your name. There are only a few ways (besides running out of health or morale) to completely fail to a game over.

You also can't "fail" the game by missing passive checks, and passing them can even have negative effects, such as when your Volition, Electrochemistry, Suggestion, Empathy, and Drama skills all start arguing with each other. That said, failing white checks is largely meaningless except that you can miss out on content, so there's a weird dichotomy.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 19th 2020 at 5:13:37 AM

Me, I think waking up half-naked and hungover in a trashed hotel room kind of *primes* you to do weird things, and yeah, I got the line where Klaasje says she didn't do it, but she was so obviously the Femme Fatale of the piece that I knew she had to be a suspect. Plus there are other ways she can end the conversation by telling you that, even if you don't try that Suggestion check — the dialogue when Reaction Speed tells you to question her can also potentially have her tell you it's gonna suck when you have to question her *again*.

And of course she's important, because otherwise why would she be the first other human you talked to, right? The Law of Conservation of Detail, plus her sort of being the Deionarra character (one of them, anyway) of the game's homage to Torment.

Edited by Unsung on Jul 21st 2020 at 9:52:16 AM

Hmm. I almost managed to get fired, but Cuno saved me. He even managed to convince Judit that he really saw the phasmid. I've got another save I'm working on, though, going to try and alienate Kim and then run out the clock without really doing anything else. We'll see.

@Fighteer: Thing with white checks though is that if you always reload them, you miss some things. Like besides some of them having multiple funny dialog options, you can often unlock white checks just by playing game regularly or with thoughts. Since whenever you gain new bonus for particular white check, it gets unlocked again

(and besides volumetric shit compression, white checks sometimes affect dialog. Like failing to recognize sunglasses man possibly being from 41st and then asking if he is fire fighter causes Jean to comment on you thinking he was fire fighter )

Hmm maybe getting fire involves not recruiting Kuno by alienating him and Kim getting shot so nobody speaks for you? That or Kim really disliking you(which you can really only do by being terrible person and terrible investigator)

But yeah, I personally find funniest red checks being the billionaire light bending guy ones: If you unlock option to on purpose give him bad business idea, then by failing that check you actually get result for successfully proposing him a good idea

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 21st 2020 at 10:25:25 PM

It occurs to me, and I don't know why I didn't think of this before (or maybe I just forgot to mention it) that the total retrograde amnesia storyline gives a perfect excuse to exposit all the world building to the player without coming across as corny. The game even lampshades it with the dialog options that go along the lines of, "Of course I already know this, but refresh my memory..."

I suppose any work that has amnesia as a key element can get away with this, but still... it's a great justification for extensive use of As You Know.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 21st 2020 at 7:13:42 AM

Alright! I can now confirm that you *can* screw up so badly that Jean won't take you back. I didn't find my gun, badge, car, or name, was racist and corrupt so Kim *really* didn't trust me, never even talked to Cuno (he'll still offer to partner with you instead of Kim, but you can refuse, which I did), never took the body down, started a drug lab, got Kim shot, went to the island without any phasmid pheromones, didn't get a confession, and went through the final briefing drunk and high with no partner. Still technically had a suspect, though. But yeah, it doesn't hugely change the conversation, but Jean says he *won't* take this hot shit back, gives you a station call and says they'll interview you once you're sober, and that *maybe* they'll let you back on the force... in ten months, if you've managed not to fall back off the wagon. But "not like this. This is over." So maybe not as a detective.

Going to see if I can bring Kim along, and what changes with Cuno having never spoken to him. I also still had to track down Ruby (and thus convince the Hardie Boys to give her up) to get the tribunal to trigger even on Day 8, so either you need to wait even longer or that's debunked.

Still basing this on the previous playthrough... Kim *still* stood up for me and convinced Jean I was a great detective who never stops chasing leads. And they believed him about the phasmid even without photo evidence, because hell, he's Kim Kitsuragi. He wouldn't make up something like that.

Shame, I *was* hoping this would get Kim to chew me out and throw me to the wolves. Wonder if there's a way to get to the island without breaking the Hardie Boys.

Not honestly too surprised by that due to how many variations on dialog game has, they actually can't cover literally every scenario even if they wanted to. I mean, game doesn't really seem to assume most of time that you don't actually take Kim with you to everywhere, and most major thing of Kim not trusting you is that it raises the authority check difficulty to warn him, presumably if you succeed he feels companionship with you for just surviving the event even if he otherwise thinks you are a mess.(though let's face it, Kim is probably too loyal to throw you to wolves unless you literally were the murderer or something :P) If you play game normally like most rpg players do and do as many quests as you want, its really hard to make bad impression on Kim unless you trying to in purpose

Like sounds like biggest thing for them not taking you back is going to island alone and having nothing to show for it.

Edited by SpookyMask on Aug 4th 2020 at 7:03:11 PM

Oh, sure. I kind of had a feeling. I've just heard a few people saying that they supposedly got fired, and I just wanted to see for myself if it was possible. And the flipside, how much dialogue actually *does* change, is impressive enough that I'm still finding stuff I hadn't seen.

I mean yeah, I did just mention few post ago that I've completed game fives times and discovered something new every playthrough But it has to run the limit at one point

You know, I was playing 2 times (on normal and Hardcore) being boring-Sorry cop all the time, 'cause I could't bring myself to change that much. Now that I consider to replay this again THE question came to my mind:

- How do you bear all those unstable roles? For example, as drug addictive fascist mothaf***er who insults everything and has no soul (even to Kim!). Did you have a "conscience" attacks about doing smth like that?

Oh, I can't bring myself to do it. However, there are plenty of people who can because they can dissociate the moral and technical aspects of the game. It's just a different point of view. Choosing the fascist dialog options doesn't make you a fascist.

I did an evil run of KOTOR once just to see what happened. I did not, in fact, like it. Playing through it that way did not turn me into a Sith.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 10th 2020 at 10:38:58 AM

It's just like writing or acting. Getting into a character's head, understanding why they do, doesn't necessarily make you want to go out and do it. Just the opposite, mostly. But it can interesting, and that can be fun.

Assuming it's well-written enough, which isn't all that common. The Dark Side/Renegade path is usually pretty dull, because it's just you acting like a psychopath and various NPCs acting shocked while you rack up more loot.

What Disco really does well is manipulating the player's conscience, though, through the writing of its passive checks, the knowledge your skills give you. And so then to really get the most out of playing an "evil" character, it becomes about choosing to play a willfully ignorant character who doesn't see how their actions affect others — tanking certain stats, because passive failures are actually very good at insulating you from the feelings of those around you. A low-Psyche character can actually blow through certain dialogue options that other characters' own skills would fight them on. The same goes for being low-Intellect — a lack of self-awareness can actually be a boon to the truly selfish.

The Final Cut. Free upgrade if you already own the game. Full voice acting, more quests, some stuff we definitely didn't see in the original release. I'm... a little anxious honestly. This is not what I was expecting. At the same time... I feel like we're in good hands. I want to believe that.

Still hoping for word on that expansion, but I guess I was expecting that to take a while before they announced this.