PERFECT! I was going to try to make a mod myself but this turned out to be everything I would have done anyway. You are awesome.

7 palabras ESENCIA

@lirmont Eh, didn't actually have anything specific in mind for Ascension at the time, it's kinda boring to me from a gameplay perspective. "Do everything you were doing before, but better". But while I'm thinking of it, sure, bearing in mind that these will have to be mutually exclusive with either Frenzy or Balance:
Ascension (Frenzy-replacement)
Stage thresholds: as with Frenzy
Stat changes:
Stage 1 : -2 ATK, -2 DFN
Stage 2 : +1 ATK, +1 DFN
Stage 3 : +2 ATK, +2 DFN
Stage 4 : +3 ATK, +3 DFN, +1 Regeneration
Stage 5 : +4 ATK, +4 DFN, +2 Regeneration, +1 Mana Boost, +1 Lust Boost
Stage 6 : +6 ATK, +6 DFN, +4 Regeneration, +1 Mana Boost, +1 Lust Boost
Stage 7 : +8 ATK, +8 DFN, +6 Regeneration, +2 Mana Boost, +2 Lust Boost

@skivverus: It looks like your 4th comment (presumably with settings for Ascension) got auto-moderated. Please repost it somewhere, and I'll get these added in as presets. Thanks.

DIY settings for Balance (intended to be stackable w/ Frenzy)

Balance :
Add X Stages (using "Persistent Essence Buff Settings"): 7
Stage 1 : 1
Stage 2 : 5
Stage 3 : 5
Stage 4 : 5
Stage 5 : 15
Stage 6 : 5
Stage 7 : 5
These are mostly 5-level increments, with a safe zone (stage 4) between 15 and 29. No extra behavior post-40, but you can tack on stages 8 and 9 yourself if you like.

Stat changes:
Stage 1 : -2 ATK, -1 DFN
Stage 2 : +1 ATK, +1 DFN (total: -1 ATK, no DFN penalty)
Stage 3 : +1 ATK, +1 DFN (total: no ATK penalty, +1 DFN)
Stage 4 : +2 ATK, +1 DFN, +1 Regeneration (total: +2 ATK, +2 DFN, +1 Regeneration)
Stage 5 : -1 ATK, -1 DFN (total: +1 ATK, +1 DFN, +1 Regeneration)
Stage 6 : -1 ATK, -1 DFN, +1 PAIN (total: +1 Regeneration if you can keep your shields up, no ATK/DFN bonuses)
Stage 7 : -2 ATK, -1 DFN (total: -2 ATK, -1 DFN)

DIY settings for Frenzy
This assumes the default essence cap (40, +10 w/ specific artifact). Adjust to taste.

Frenzy :
Add X Stages (using "Start of Combat Essence Buff Settings"): 7
Stage 1 : 1
Stage 2 : 10
Stage 3 : 10
Stage 4 : 10
Stage 5 : 10
Stage 6 : 1
Stage 7 : 9
These are 10-level increments for 0-40 essence, with a bonus at the cap (stage 5) and extra if you picked up the artifact (stages 6 and 7) .

Stat changes:
Stage 1 : -2 ATK, +2 DFN, +3 Metalize
Stage 2 : -1 ATK, +1 DFN, +1 Metalize
Stage 3 : No bonuses or penalties
Stage 4 : +2 ATK, -2 DFN, +1 Regeneration
Stage 5 : +4 ATK, +1 Berserk, -4 DFN, +2 Regeneration, +1 Mana Boost
Stage 6 : +6 ATK, +2 Berserk, -6 DFN, +4 Regeneration, +1 Mana Boost
Stage 7 : +8 ATK, +3 Berserk, -8 DFN (or +1 Obey), +6 Regeneration, +1 Mana Boost

So, any room for adding a couple additional presets? (Goal here isn't just pure powergaming)

" Frenzy ": increasing attack boosts and defense penalties for high essence. Possibly also with some regeneration at high essence levels so it's not completely impossible to recover after one takes a swing at you.
" Balance ": general stat rewards (Attack, Defense, maybe some regeneration or metalize) for staying at ~20 essence, penalties around 0 and 40 (even worse at 41+).
" Ascension ": Standard power-fantasy "all the good stats at high (40+) essence levels". Granted, this might be the "default uncapped" option already, I haven't checked.

zbc

@dragonfire98765 bruh you might as well become lirmont's test dummy

ah, ok i will change that...

@dragonfire98765: permanent buffs are set up to be additive, meaning stage 50 is the sum of stages 1 through 50. If you put in large numbers for each stage, it would indeed be huge, and that's intended.

By comparison, start of battle buffs are not additive. Whatever the stage is what you get and all that you get.

so, i am honestly not trying to be a bother. I want to test the mod and I finally did a run with the permanent effects…

once I hit the 50 – 59 stage I noticed my boost mana at 4, even though in the stage 6, (50 to 59), it’s only supposed to be at 1.
so I liked at my stats and noticed something with the permanent effect, it wasn’t just the mana stack that was going up but everything else I buffed.

At the start of each fight all the essence buffs stacks would go up by the combined amount of every previous stage including the current one.
By the end of the “hard mode” run I had 256 regeneration 24000+ shields and could hit for 2500+ damage.
Are the buffs supposed to go up at each encounter?

i'll test 1.0.4 once i have the free time

sounds all good, i hope my research on what each option does helps, i'm always willing to test good and interesting mods. i know most people think a mod should work perfectly out of the gate and it can be annoying when people just put "it doesn't work". it's why i like to test things and get detail on what happens.

@dragonfire98765: Alright, the latest version (1.0.4) should fix the problem with the uncapped preset. Data entry turned out to be fine. How I made that preset was the problem (since the method I used to repeat stages passed the stage by reference instead of cloning it).

As an aside, this groundwork for referencing buffs/debuffs is also going to be used at some point in the Deck mod I'm writing. In that mod (though maybe not the first version), you'll be able to make your own spells/cards, so you'll be able to specify that the debuffs apply to an enemy target (though the opposite issue will exist with stuff like Binded/Constrained on non-player targets).

i just went back as i forgot to test something in the permanent essence buff, the uncanned 1000+ settings still have the issue where any field change from stage 2 onward changes the same field for all stages onward.

example : i put 10 in thorns on stage 11 and stage 2 10-19 now has 10 in thorns.

ok, tests are done, i updated my discussion thread on this mod with both the persistent and at start of fight buffs, most of the are the same with a few outliers that act differently.

ok, i'll go test persistent and report back

@dragonfire98765: The not applying issues for persistent essence stages should be fixed in 1.0.3 as well. There were two separate bugs. One was a off-by-one bug where I wasn't pulling out all stages that applied. One was a wrong condition that caused negative values to be ignored (instead of just zero values, which is needed to keep the settings file shorter than it would be if they were stored).

As to everything else that behaves weird, some of the buffs are probably written expecting to be on enemy turns only. In cases like that that get identified, I'll have to read through the game's code to find out if that can be changed to include a behavior that makes sense for player turns. If it can be changed, it will go into Game Options Mod as an optional fix.

ok, had a look at the legend and i like what it does, i placed a report in the discussions as to what i found when testing each of the effects.

i'm not sure why Dignity per turn negates all the damage you receive instead of granting you the intended buff.

example:- i have no shields, take a 7HP hit but the game says, "blocked" HP does not move.

i'll have a look and test it then.

regards to persistent essence buffs

I've gone though each buff on table 1 and 2 (0 to 19 essence) and none of the buffs seem to activate, my current flat damage with magic missile is 7, so i used that as a baseline to see if the buffs where being implemented but no icon, with different number values i can say there not as it stays at 7.

i don't know why the permanent buffs aren't implementing, maybe the buffs requires an activator to trigger like at the start of a battle but i know the start of the battle buffs work.

i will continue to test after any changes as this is still a great mod and i have been enjoying this change to the game settings.

@dragonfire98765: Latest version (1.0.3) adds the legend component. Not unexpectedly, not all of the items had descriptions to go with names, considering that these buffs/debuffs are used by spells, artifacts, enemy actions, events, and mechanics. I pointed the ones that didn't to similar descriptions for completion, but that's me doing that (not the game). And, as always, despite what the text says, it doesn't mean that what the game will do will always match up to it.

Overload - losing HP reduces your own power by amount of damage taken
Regeneration - permanent regenerate (x) HP this turn
Obay - permanently negates your shields
Dignity - you cannot receive damage more thank this, this turn (seems to be removed when you end your turn, pointless).
Dignity per turn - stops you from taking damage (breaks the game?)
Ectoplasm - each time you take damage , one debuff is removed. permanent effect.
Internal Injury - grants effect unstoppable attacks go thought shields...
Inanimate being - target is immune to all debuffs
boost Mana - at the start of each turn gain X mana
Boost Lust - at the start of each turn gain X lust
Piercing - next damage ignores shields, decreases by 1 every time it goes over shields

Berserk - each time damage is taken, increase moral by current stack
Toughness - ? (disappears the moment my turn begins)
Sanctification - damaging enemy HP adds wounded scar to the spell pile
Exhaust - reduces mana recovery (can cause an underflow)
Stigma - ? (disappears the moment my turn begins)
Pain - take (x) damage at the end of each turn
Climax 1 - damages you
Climax 2 - damages you after 1 turn
Climax 3 - damages you after a few turns, factor of 10 ((x)*10)
Frail - you gain 25% less shields per spell till stack ends
Burn - take (x) damage at the beginning of each turn
Dejavu - any non-extinct spell will be returned to the spell pile for (x) number of turns
Immortal - next extinct spell you play will not be destroyed up to (x) number of times
Preperation - keep unused spells in your hand during this turn (reduces by 1 per turn)
Double Play - next mana based spell is used twice, lowered by 1 each use
continued...

(x) the number

Bleed - you take damage at the start of each turn
Weeken - you deal 25% less damage until stack ends
Focus - you take 50% more damage till the stack ends
Atk - increases the attack of spells by (x)
Dfn - increases the number of shields gained by spells by (x)
Inflation - ?
invincible - all damage taken is reduced to 1
Binded - permanently forces bind on player for the first turn (do not use, does not work properly)
Purify - negates (x) number of negatives effects, is reduced by 1 for each negate till 0
Thorns - deals (x) damage when attacked
Metalize - at the start of each turn gain (x) shield
Scurvy - every turn enemy gains (X) bleed added to them
Incision - every attack you do causes (x) bleed stacks
Morale - all damage is increased by the (x) until end of turn
Agile - all shields gains are increased by (x) until end of turn
Onemind - can't be tempted (use?)
continued...

after some testing I noticed “persistent essence buffs” do not work in a new game setting, I used the "gain 10 essence" to jump to stage 2 and it still would not trigger, I then tried again setting the ATK to 10 and then it worked, reset back to 1 and it didn't add 1 power like it was supposed to.

Also I trued the 0-9 stage and got the same effect. So all the testing below was done at the “start of battle” buffs

also, I ran tests of all the effects using start of battle buffs. effects in follow up post.

fair enouth, happy bug hunting

@dragonfire98765: Sounds like a bug. I'll look into it. I used programming to make the presets, so I didn't check the data entry portion of what I wrote when I initially released it.

a legend would be good

with regards to the the 1000+ uncapped option.

let's say i want to set option 2, (10-19) to 1 str 1 def
then i set option 3 (20-29) to 2 str 2 def

i flick back to option 2 (10-19) to find it is now 2 str 2 def even though i edited the fields in option 3

i went to option 11 100-109 and saw it is also set to 2 str 2 def

i then set it to 10 str and 10 def in option 11 and also put 1 in thorns

i go back to option 2 (10-19) and it is now automatically set to 10 str, 10 def and 1 thorns

when i set it up as a costom starting from 5 options i don't get this issue.

@dragonfire98765: Yes, those blurbs come from the localization strings stored in the game. What currently shows up is the name used by the programming language. I'd be systematically putting them into a legend you could look at while you're in the mod's settings. I don't know how to do tooltips in that space as of this writing.

With respect to the uncapped preset, yes, that's intentional. If you look at the mod's 3rd screenshot (essence = 126), the intent is to make your character a little stronger every 10-ish essence.

i was meaning more the blerb of effects. some i recognise from card effects while others i somewhat remember,

example

dignity - i think the final boss has this and i think it's a damage cap but i don't want to mess with it to find out. it would need me to do a full run to find it's effect.

something i just noticed, when choosing the 1000+ uncapped option from stage 2 onward further stages are all the same.

@dragonfire98765: The presets are set up around this information: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/workshop/discussions/18446744073709551615/3127163422383859918/?appid=823910&ctp=2#c3055114706804204797

I'll try to add a legend component that pulls out the name and description localization string from the game for a future version.

great looking mod, but i have no idea what half the effects are off name alone and hovering over them gives me no info...

Thanks for the effort!

very good mode

Great to use for when youre looking for the last few achievements or just want to complete the gallery for....reasons

谢谢，终于有个mod能让我打困难难度了

nice mod !

Thanks for this!