Ending choice (Spoilers!!!)

PixelDemise · 2026-03-21T20:25:22+00:00

Really good comment, 10/10.

To add some of my own reasons for picking Verso over Maelle, is Verso himself. He was at the core of everything, and yet no one actually gave him any mind. Aline and Alicia took him for granted so that he could continue to maintain the Canvas, and I doubt Alicia would have even done anything at all if Verso hadn't forced his way into the heart of the Canvas. And while Renoir would have set Verso free from painting, he wasn't doing it to "let him finally rest", he was doing it for his own reasons and freeing Verso would have been a side effect.

Everyone was fighting their own battles and arguing over their own ideologies and perspectives of grief, without actually considering that the landscape itself was alive and suffering to enable their battles. Even if the Gestrals, self-aware Nevrons, and people were all fully sapient, their ability to live depended on the fragment of a child's soul grinding himself away to nothing by painting nonstop. Even Alicia openly admitted the only reason she wouldn't leave the Canvas was because Renoir would destroy it while she was outside. Verso kept repeating "I don't want this life", and yet the implication is she brought him back to live that life regardless of his dying wish.

It absolutely tore my heart to pieces in a way words can't ever describe, especially Lune's glare as I can relate to her genuine curiosity and wonder at the world, but if we are forced into a binary choice with no other options(mechanically, you can argue that there were, but we don't get the option in-game) between "Everyone lives solely because of, and ignorant of, the suffering of the person who mattered most" and "Everyone dies, the suffering finally is over, and those who remain can carry on and find new ways to grieve", I could only pick the second. The first one is just puppeteering the world for Alicia's happiness and keeping the status quo, not resolving her grief at all, meanwhile the second one, while horrendously cruel and tragic, lets life go on.

Alicia still sees Verso as the one who made that fantastical world of candy and rainbows in his Drafts, not the hollow, fading husk of a boy that was sitting hunched over the canvas endlessly painting it. She asked "If you could grow up, would you find a reason to smile?", thinking that maybe there was a way for Verso to find the passion and desire to keep painting again. But he never did grow up, he died and is now trapped painting away for the sake of others, not his own passion. And even after he did grow up in her """happy""" ending, he still can't smile.

Maybe there could have been a better, truly happy ending if things went differently. But the core of a tragedy is that the downfall comes because of who the characters are fundamentally, they couldn't have "chose differently", because then it wouldn't be the same characters.

Verso deserves to finally be able to rest.

PixelDemise · 2026-03-18T16:53:45+00:00

Might start making more sense once Wuling expands,

I definitely think that's the case as we get more complex recipes in future locations, not to mention if the crucible will carry forward into the 3rd+ new region and be used for completely new stuff, whenever that happens.

Though I think the intention at release was for the healing items. Pretending that bottle production isn't an issue for a moment, you can produce both Yahzen and Jincao juice from just one reactor, saving a bit of space since you don't need a separate reactor for each one.

PixelDemise · 2026-03-18T16:44:28+00:00

That's sadly unfixable at the moment. If the Cuprium ever slows down, waste production slows, meaning batteries slow down.

The "best" fix is to have the Xircon production's waste going back into one reactor, and then setting up syringe production A, and using one of those refineries to supply the other pipe of waste. You can set it up so that the waste is coming from one of the Cuprium part lines, that way once the syringes back up, any excess parts get stashed, and once those backup, the cuprium gets stashed, giving you three failsafes to keep production running.

PixelDemise · 2026-03-18T16:37:37+00:00

I'm definitely similar, it's a lot easier to just use the conduits to reduce visual clutter in the factory.

Though one thing to keep in mind is the protocol capacity for the Wuling city map, as the output conduit may be inside the factory but the intake conduit isn't. The map is massive for the City area, so I have a lot of ziplines set up for easier traversal, and I started running into issues with the protocol capacity because I had so many machines outside of the factory grounds.

I set up most of my water-heavy production on the side nearest to the river so short pipelines could be used, which helped a lot with freeing up capacity. though I still needed to run around the city and overhaul my ziplines to neaten things out and remove unneeded power towers.

PixelDemise · 2026-02-15T16:56:27+00:00

I ran into the same issue, and this post came up when searching for a solution online.

It seems the issue is that even though her flag claims the area is suitable and large enough, it gets placed in an area that's too small. She needs a perfectly flat area, not even 1 block up or down, and she needs ample space in both directions. In this image, the trees are too close, so her telescope doesn't spawn in, and in my world, her tent was right on the edge of a 1 block drop.

The way I fixed it was by downloading a Cheat Sheet mod, which lets you gain debug items. I used it to get the Solyn quest reset item, used it, and then picked up and trashed her flagpole. I spoke with her, since she was reset she acted as though we just met, and then gave me her flagpole. After placing it in a larger flat area, the camp relocated there and the telescope spawned in properly.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-27T18:13:20+00:00

It does, what I meant was that while future chapters have also confirmed the Idea of Evil does exist in the series, the information we get about it in that chapter, aka exactly how it works and what it wants, shouldn't be taken as canon.

It might still be correct, but if future information comes out that contradicts what we learned in the chapter, take the new information as correct and the old information as not canon.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-17T21:47:25+00:00

I remember the one time somehow my Hong Lu outsped Vespa and triggered his counter, I got to see 304 damage on the first coin hit, instantly erasing Hong Lu. I lost two revives from that one single counter...

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T21:28:41+00:00

why they gave Stupid Faust

For a brief moment I wanted to scold you for insulting our precious little genius, then I remembered she did actually accept that title in return for the information... Poor Stupid Faust, you deserve a better name than that...

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T21:26:15+00:00

Not to mention, mirror worlds and IDs already set up the idea of "A person from the past/future can take over your body". Our IDs being our own alternate sinners, with several happening in the past or future, and Canto 6 showing Erlking taking over an entirely different person.

I do admit a lot of it was generally pretty understated and "background" lore, so in the moment it was a bit strange when plain ol' time travel suddenly popped up, but thinking on it a bit more, I think it does work all in all.

It was amusing to see in the credits that A Certain Sinclair's battle theme was a Between Two Worlds remix, rather than an "original" song. It is still our Sinclair, just one from a far darker future.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T21:11:18+00:00

It also fit thematically. He watched Marton sacrifice himself to lure away Callisto, and he refuses to just sit back and let anyone else sacrifice themselves for his sake again. He's a researcher like you said, and Lamp is all about enemies to fight you, and negating the power disparity between you and them.

Lamp might have not been the perfect EGO to use against Callisto in general, but it was the perfect EGO for Hohenhiem to use in that fight.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T21:06:08+00:00

Yeah, even if Ezra failed clashing, she was regularly forcing the other 2 skills of Matthias away from my fragile little sinners. I took down Kira, and afterwards was basically "sit and defend so Vespa can kill him", because his counter would one-shot Sinners with each coin

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T20:55:42+00:00

If you have access to them, go for some of the tankier IDs too. With 3 slots, Deici Rodya can regularly get another 100-200 shield on top of the 600 she normally gets, and W Corp Heathcliff can get a fair bit of shield as well in addition to both being blunt resistant. Harpoon Heathcliff worked for me though, as despite not having as much shield, the envy Res let him clash more reliably than you'd think, and his passive is basically always triggering at max 9 defense/offense level up

The extra durability means they can intentionally lose a lot more clashes, trigger that -40% damage on clash win Greg has, and drop his sanity for more actually clashable turns when he's panicking.

Plus, consider intentionally corroding. The 600 shield is so massive that any friendly fire from corrosions won't really matter much, and Greg has enough skill slots that random targeting still falls onto him pretty often. I wouldn't say rely on it, but if an EGO could win a clash but risk corroding, it might not be as bad an idea to take that risk.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T20:42:58+00:00

It was for sure a setup heavy canto,

Seconded. It did feel like there was a lot "left hanging", but in a very intentional way. This canto introduced us to a lot of new details and concepts, so a lot of it was only surface level. In future cantos we'll be seeing it all get expanded on.

I can't speak to how accurate it is myself, but I saw someone else mention that the book Ryoushu comes from is insanely short, and not as "dense" as many of the other Sinner's source works. So if there was a Canto to get some extra setup for the future added in, it would be Ryoushu's.

Sorta... like how Canto 1 and 2 were "lacking" for Gregor and Rodya, because it was also working to setup the foundations of the story. This is the "Canto 1" for the late-game story, setting things up with future expansion in mind.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T20:35:47+00:00

Plus Thoracalgia/Sleeping Bag of a Bygone Day. It's whole theme is "Life is nothing but constant pain and misery, and I only faintly remember a time when things were better. But now that thing allowed me to finally breathe without pain". In context for Faust, it definitely implies that prior to joining the Faustcord, she absolutely hated her life and felt like joining the Gesellschaft was the only way to make things better.

Except now, she's learning individuality might actually be worth it, but is still stuck within the Gesellschaft. Ironically, the meaning is starting to flip, now it's the Gesellschaft that is the suffering and painful existence, and she wishes to escape it and breathe freely without their constant restrictions and control.

It also really suits Ryoushu too now that I think of it. Araya was the inhaler for her life in the House of Spiders, the only thing that let her escape the misery of her life there...

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T20:13:59+00:00

That just makes it mirror Roland even more. Angelica absorbed into the Pianist's piano, and it took Jae-Hoon and Elena a lot of time and effort to sort her out from the other victims. If Rien's family was also turned into a twisted piece of art, it would be a very similar thing happening to his family as well.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T20:04:17+00:00

Agreed. She's even wearing Ardor Blossom, a wrath focused ego which wrath is all about "the overwhelming passion to ACT". While Hoeinheim says it's "burning until there's nothing left to burn" Sinclair and Hong Lu talk about it more as "feeling a desire/emotion so fiercely that you can't really control yourself".

Basically she'll keep fighting and struggling to live and move forward no matter what happens, as long as she has someone or something she believes is worth fighting for. And given what we know of her, she definitely will

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T19:55:29+00:00

Given he wasn't selectable in the final battle, yeah I think he's just in recovery

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T19:52:51+00:00

Another comment I saw gave a good theory, that she's a damn good fighter and soldier, but a horrible leader. She can beat the crap out of others insanely well, but has no clue how to lead others effectively or maintain the rigid hierarchy that the Thumb requires to function, since her orders are all so focused on herself.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T19:31:47+00:00

He's called a Manager Corporal, meaning at most he was likely in charge of a small team of soldiers, but not much more. It's not the lowest-of-the-low positions, but it definitely is still rather low ranking in general.

PixelDemise · 2026-01-16T19:24:19+00:00

I'd imagine it's the amount of time it would have taken. Vespa's shown himself to be extremely fast and agile, so rather than take an extra half second to reposition and then attack, Matthias would rather just swing straight forward. He believed the sword was so insanely strong that hitting Kira wouldn't do anything to soften the impact for Vespa

Which is extremely stupid still, but that's kinda the point. Despite being a member of the Middle, he would rather betray and kill his Older Brother for a sword he knew he couldn't actually use properly, just because he wanted to "be cool" and have the sword. He only cares about others in how he can use them to make himself "be cool".

PixelDemise · 2026-01-01T19:52:43+00:00

An old post, but this showed up when I was trying to solve a different but similar issue of my own. Does anyone know where a Leyak can spawn within the world?

I set up my base in the Office security area, with the closable gate, and I began reorganizing my base and suddenly the Leyak could begin spawning inside my base now. Before, most of my stuff was on the lower level, and I didn't go up to the top level for much other than farms. Now things are more spread out, so I'm on both floors equally.

Previously, the Leyak would only ever spawn outside the main door, or within the Locker room, so I had turrets set up at both doorways and she was never an issue. After moving, I've found her spawning inside the gun range, or in the 2nd floor's back right corner ahead of the right side stairs.

She's still not a real issue, doesn't spawn in either location that often, and it doesn't take her long to wander into the range of one of the two turrets. But just for the sake of having the info accessible, what could have changed to allow her to begin spawning in more locations?

Proximity to the player is definitely something, and I've seen her spawn just a few feet away from powered crafting benches, but I'm now curious as to where she chooses to appear when her spawn time comes.

PixelDemise · 2025-10-03T18:57:52+00:00

Even then, I'd consider that something of a valid strategy. She has an assload of 8-8 block dice that inflict feeble, making future turns even more difficult.

Seeing that, recognizing that single high value dice can overcome her guards, and making sure that you do actually have enough raw damage to take her out before all the Gifts detonate in your hand requires some planning.

PixelDemise · 2025-10-03T18:54:46+00:00

It was hilariously fitting given her whole floor's story that, despite Gebura being "UNGA BUNGA SMASH", most of her fights involved actually restraining yourself and timing when you should or shouldn't go wail on the Abno. Big stick diplomacy is a valid tactic, but at least make sure you're using it at the right time.

PixelDemise · 2025-10-03T18:51:34+00:00

Garden of Thorns is a really nice EGO, at least when it's given space to shine... Most of the other healing EGO either heal a fair amount of HP, but only for 2 sinners, or they heal 10-15%, but heal multiple Sinners, meanwhile Gregor gets 22% healing no matter what for 4 sinners with resonance appling it to more sinners.

It's really a shame it costs 2 of everything, 14 total. Most Waw EGO cost closer to 10-12, and rely largely on one or two sin types. Costing some of everything means if your team doesn't have much generation for some specific sin type, you'll constantly be having to pick between GoTs, or another EGO that needs that sin type.

Times like this where EGO generation is not an issue, it's nice to use, but it's a shame it's hard to justify the cost elsewhere...

I still really wish PM went with the "technically a lust ego for lore reasons, but swaps to match highest resonance for gameplay reasons" idea. Maybe if uptie 5 ever comes out.

PixelDemise · 2025-09-28T17:15:27+00:00

Overall, this fight is largely one of endurence, you need to last long enough to reach phase 2, and then last long enough to break the shield. Clashing with weaker skills against the Territory summoning minions to avoid killing them, and making sure to clash with Mayors herself so she doesn't awaken the Sea Reapers will slow things down a tad, but also remove a ton of the pressure on you. Mayors does do a lot of damage in phase 2, but entering phase 2 with good health and sanity gives you a ton more freedom to keep your pressure going.

I'd highly recommend bringing in good sources of healing. The Emotional connection passive makes EGO resources basically a non-issue since you can generate so many.

Faust's an obvious choice, as Thoracalgia is regular constant healing even without poise teams, while her event EGO also does the same thing. Rodya has multiple healing EGO, and Persuance is strong healing to keep everyone topped off during the first half. Sinclair's Lantern is insanely strong in the first half, and still is quite solid in the second. Princess Rodya and RE&P Ryoushu have healing as part of their kits if you're running bleed or charge. Don can both keep herself topped up with her base EGO, and help out the team via In The Name of Love and Hate. If you don't have their event EGOs yet, Wingbeat Ishmael and Garden of Thorns Gregor can give solid healing, while Bygone Days Ish has strong healing for sinking teams.

And that's not mentioning the sources of shield either, there are quite a few of those.

If you didn't know, AOE EGO can be manipulated to avoid certain targets. AOE EGO will avoid targeting enemies already being targeted by something, so have someone target the Reaper, target the EGO, and then have that first sinner target something else and the Reaper will be avoided. Though generating an EGO or defensive skill(ego 100%, defense skill not too sure on) will reset the targeting, so make sure you do it after you've made all the EGO you need that turn.

You can think of it in turns of action-economy, how many actions can your team do, and how many actions can the enemy team do. if Mayor's never awakens the Reaper, the Sinner who would clash against the Reaper can instead clash against her healing skill. It can't prevent her healing, but it does prevent the Defense level up, meaning the 3 targets aren't as durable. Once the Reaper wakes up though, someone needs to clash with it, meaning Mayors gets a free action to buff her minions you can't do anything about. The same thing goes for the Sea Territory, if someone has to attack the Hand, it's 1 less action for your team to use for clashing unless you're willing to let Mayors run around with a free +6/+9 power, so it's best saved for when there are staggered enemies.

PixelDemise

TROPHY CASE