Do you mean for the pious stat? If so, it can be a mix of the two. You can do both in the first temple scene.
If memory serves if you choose to give the bully your money so they leave the kid alone it boosts the stat to get the light affinity.
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I think there were other options to do that, but the bully one is the easiest/biggest boost.
Which I hate, because all it does is teach the bully that bullying is effective and profitable. Hope he doesn’t grow up to join the guard or anything, because now? He’ll be a problem for “weaker” people his entire life. Some good you’ve done there.
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This is a point that irked me as well. From skimming through the code, it seems like any MC that doesn’t lack the foresight to see that paying a bully might be bad, gotta have the guts to fight Vernali to be able to to unlock the light affinity.
The option with Randall is less about the “right” way to handle a bully and more about the virtuous stat. Light affinities give their life force to another in order to heal them. That means they have to be willing to give up something of worth to another for nothing in return. That is why the option is about giving your allowance up. The virtuous part is the willingness to sacrifice something to help someone else.
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I know, it just bothers me how counter productive it is. The smaller good is doing the greater harm here, and is pretty amoral besides. I know it fits with the whole concept of the light and dark affinities not really being good or bad/evil, but it feels like it’s conflating goodness (“sweet soul”) with being short sighted. What happens to Randall now that you’re gone? What if the bully had decided it’s not enough for him and decided to take Randall’s money in addition to being given yours? It’s a solution that doesn’t actually resolve the issue. It codes as false or a rather shallow virtue, if anything.
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Sometimes good deeds are shortsighted. Sometimes a person can do a deed that is selfless, but ultimately unhelpful long term. There are a lot of good people who approach a bad situation in a way that is befitting of their virtues, but not enough to make it better. It’s the act that is virtuous, not necessarily the outcome. Sometimes people intend bad things that end up helping. I wouldn’t say that because the outcome was good, the person is virtuous.
Take the dark affinity for the same situation. Threatening Randall’s bully in order to aid Randall. It’s not a great act, but it ends up helping. I would have a hard time saying it was the “right” thing to do even though it had a positive long term outcome.
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Hmm…
I think I get that it is a decision a MC with a light affinity might make at that point and that it would advance the virtuous stat. I’m just a bit sad that, if a MC does find it unwise and makes a different choice there, they’re almost locked out of the light affinity already.
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I understand! The light and dark affinities are supposed to be the rarest of them. You can still get the light affinity by (1) sympathizing with Wilbert at the temple +5, (2) choosing to understand Venali if you end up at the Dean’s for trying to stop them +5, (3) saying you ‘wouldn’t dare steal’ while at the market +5, (4) apologizing to Venali at the town square if you fought +5. It’s not meant to be as easily attained as the others.
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Yeah, these were the options I did find when I read through the code. (Btw., I also noted down some bugs and typos while doing that, if you want to know about those ^^)
Without the +10 choice, one needs three out of these four +5 options to unlock the affinity. And (2) and (4) are gated behind fighting Venali, a choice that seems to be strongly discouraged, both by getting your way blocked and receiving an explicit order to stand down. Since the light and dark affinities are supposed to be rare, barring them behind such a discouraged choice makes sense. But what is required of the MC to overcome that disincentive is boldness to the point of recklessness (appropriately acknowledged by raising the emotion stat multiple times). And such disobedience and excessive confidence in one’s brawling skills is not really something I’d associate with a healer (especially not if it is a mage). So although I understand the intention of making the light affinity hard to attain, using either shortsightedness or recklessness as the conditions to unlock it feels a little … odd?
(But I also admit that within the limited number of scenes that we have before the affinity gets decided, there aren’t many other opportunities where one could place a +5 to the virtuous stat. There are only, like, one or two(?) places that I could think of where it might fit.)
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(Yes, please! I love bug and typo reports lol)
The light affinity isn’t meant to indicate anything other than a willingness to sacrifice for others. It’s not intended to reflect purity or anything like that. Light affinities can do the wrong thing just as dark affinities can do selfless things. You can be an actions over words type and still have the light affinity.
A reason for stopping Venali could be purely to protect classmates, could be because the MC thinks what Venali is doing is wrong, could be any reason you wish. It doesn’t negate the MC’s ability to give their life force (essentially their health) away to someone else in need. Not many would be willing to do that. Just like how dark affinities aren’t locked into evil play styles. It’s their ease/lack of issue with using someone else’s life force to fuel their magic that makes them capable of wielding the dark affinity.
I know that there aren’t many places for the +5, but it is meant to be rare and I’ve made it possible to gain it in two different ways.
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This brings up something else that bothers me a little. Why are none of the interactions with the parents’ choices or actions affinity raising? It seems like a perfect opportunity. Are they being used for something else? You can choose happiness, charm, sacrifice, rage, guilt, indifference, etc as your response type…are those all false choices? Are they adjusting our traits?
It would make people feel obligated to have specific relationships with the parents in order to get the affinity they want. The Randall situation has no bearing on the story at all and the choices have caused some dissatisfaction. The parents relationship changes so much with the dialogue and MC’s development throughout the game. I don’t want stats to influence that.
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Ah, so the parents will be coming back into the story? Maybe I should have MC write them on a playthrough.
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I am not surprised. The option to write made me think they were to return in some fashion. The return itself wouldn’t been obvious on how.
The light aspect. There are good lights that do think ahead. Then there are several examples that don’t use their brain.
Having the boost to pay or having boosts in other ways works for type of lighters.
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I always do that anyway even if the letters might never reach them. I hope they do get involved in the story some point since I still have some questions for them
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is there guide to be each affinity? I want to be more than just fire girlie across several universes.
Get the destiny potion
Play around with the stats a bit, experiment with different personalities or as @Dolphinwarlord said, purchase (farm as activity, don’t give your allowance to Randall and go to the market in your free time) or steal (randomized outcome with high deception or festival activity) a destiny potion.
Stats: honest (water), deception (air), control (force), emotion (fire), virtuous (light) and wicked (dark).
Personality: charming (fire), diplomatic (water), reserved (air) and broody (force).
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My mc have always stuck to the right path but I have never seen a option for light, or if i did, the option for it was greyed out
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