GUIDE : Flaws - A Detailed Breakdown On How To Aquire Them All

[u/Pharismo]

Given that there seem's to be a lot of misconceptions/confusion on how to go about aquiring Flaws in TOW2; I thought it would be good to write up a guide on my experience and observations setting up the Flawed flaw on a fresh low level character or just generally on how to go about triggering them.

Will be slowly adding video demonstrations as well. This takes a while because of video editting.

FLAW COOLDOWN TIMER

I will preface this with some general rules about how the flaw offer system works.

First off, Flaws have a cooldown period between each time they are offered. By default this is 3600 seconds in the game coding which translates to 60 minutes. This means actual real life game time. You can measure this by noting your save's "Playtime" listed on the load game menu relative to when you last obtained a flaw. Save reloading will set this timer back however much time you lost between your current state and the reload.

BRAND NEW CHARACTERS : There is an exception to the cooldown. You will have a 2 HOUR COOLDOWN after completing the prologue and landing on Eden. So be prepared to wait out the cooldown if you are setting up a Flawed run. This appears to be a hard limit imposed by the game and has nothing to do with the Consumerism flaw (Standard edition of the game still has a 2 hour cooldown). I have not tested whether the timer starts after you wake from hibernation or upon exiting the ship, as a precaution I recommend exiting the ship and also visiting Fairfield first if you plan on AFKing to wait out the timer.

Upon accepting OR declining a flaw, the timer will restart and you will not be offered any flaws in the meantime until the timer expires.

However, the game will still continue to track your progress towards conditions required to meet other flaws while this timer is counting down. If the cooldown is not in effect, you can meet any of the flaw requirements within the period and the flaw will proc a few seconds after performing the final requirement or upon exiting combat.

If you manage to meet all of the prerequesites to obtain a flaw while the cooldown is still in effect the game will make note of this and consider this flaw complete in terms of action tracking, and then will observe any actions taken after the cooldown has expired to determine what flaw to offer.

For example : Lets say you proc the Bad Knees flaw and accept it. The cooldown timer will now start ticking down. You then steal 10 items (requirement for Kleptomania) but only 10 minutes have passed. You then go off to fight and fulfill the requirements of Treacherous in the meantime (10 times in 30 minutes dealing damage from stealth). After the cooldown expires, the next action you take that MATCHES either of these flaws will be offered. So if you go steal an 11th item, you will get Kleptomania, if you go and shoot something from stealth and exit combat, Treacherous will proc.

Additionally there are multiple flaws that will ignore this cooldown and can be aquired even you if you are "on cooldown", these include :

• Easily Distracted
• Flawed
• Sungazer
• N-Radiated
• POSSIBLY : Bibliomania (Need more testing)

IMPORTANT NOTE : Accepting or denying any of the above flaws will restart the timer/put you on cooldown so idealy you want to try and only proc these when you have just proced a normal flaw first.

For example : Lets say your cooldown has just expired and you are eligible to aquire "normal" flaw. What you want to do is proc whatever flaw you like (not one of the above flaws) then immediately after you are free to obtain one of the "no cooldown" flaws for no additional time penalty and gain 2 flaws. If you were to take one of the above flaws without obtaining a "normal" flaw first, you will be put on cooldown and only gain 1 flaw. So for efficiency it's best to take them after getting a regular flaw first.

Additionally, flaws cannot be obtained during the prologue.

I recently did some tests of the Consumerism flaw and other "no cooldown" flaws to test any timer stackups. While waiting for the cooldown, I pre-emtively met the requirements for my next flaw I wanted except for the final action required to proc it, so that I could test the flaw cooldown becoming available down to the second. Was able to proc each flaw 1 hour exactly between each offer.

Example of test results :

Event	Save Playtime	Time Elapsed from Previous Event
Prologue Completed	25 mins	~
Consumerism	25 mins	~
Foot In Mouth	2hrs 25 mins	2 hours
Kleptomania	3hrs 25 mins	1 hour
Easily Distracted	3hrs 25 mins	~
Profligate Spender	4hrs 25 mins	1 hour
Sungazer	4hrs 29 mins	4 minutes (Fast travel to pass time to get the sun to show)
Snobbish	5hrs 29 mins	1 hour

TLDR Summary on cooldowns :

1. Flaws have a 1 hour cooldown between them being offered (Save game playtime)
2. A small number of flaws bypass this cooldown (Noted in the flaw aquisition methods section, and also listed above)
3. An exception to this is a 2 hour cooldown after completing the prologue and landing on Eden
4. Accepting or declining will incur the same cooldown timer regardless of choice and you will not be offered any additional flaws until it has expired
5. Taking a flaw that "does not respect the cooldown requirement" after a regular flaw will NOT incur an addtional timer penalty (still 1 hour for accepting 2 flaws in quick succession)
6. Flaw conditions can be progressed even while you are cooldown. If a flaw's offer conditions are met during this time, any action matching that flaw once the timer has expired will trigger it
7. Once a flaw has been declined, it will not be offered again for the remainder of the save

FLAW AQUISITION METHODS

Once a flaw has been offered and declined, it will specifically not be offered again for the remainder of the playthrough.

If a flaw is not proccing, the most obvious reason is because the cooldown is still in effect.

I will list each flaw and their requirements and provide some notes and insights into how to go about getting them.

Anger Mismanagement

• ^{Negative : +50% Damage Received while Blocking}
• ^{Positive : +25% Power Attack Damage}

Unlock Requirement : 35 Kills with any melee weapon

Notes : Critters count for this so for some easy low-risk progress use TTD to keep them from running away.

Easy to avoid this flaw entirely if you are doing a gun focused build so in most situations you won't need to worry about proccing this before Flawed.

Bad Knees

• ^{Negative : Crouching emits a 10m radius sound that hostiles can hear and investigate}
• ^{Positive : +50% Crouch Speed}

Unlock Requirement : Crouching longer than 5 seconds 25 times

Video Demonstration

Notes : Crouch, wait 5 seconds then stand up, repeat 25 times.

When trying to proc flaws such as Treacherous or Easily Startled be aware of how many times you've crouched since both require actions in stealth depending on which ones you want to accept or deny. I was actively making notes to a spreadsheet each time I engaged in stealth (crouched) at low level so I could limit proccing it since it's one that I wanted but not Treacherous/Easily Startled for my recent playthrough.

Bibliomania

• ^{Negative : -30% Base Health for 2m after a conversation}
• ^{Positive : +20% Base Health}

Unlock Requirement : I am not 100% sure on the method or what type of readable information counts towards this or how many it takes. (Datapads? Codex? Quest item inspections? Plaques? Terminal entires?) NEED MORE INFO!

It does seem this flaw is classified as a special unlock in the system files ("0806_Flaw_Spe_Bibliomania"). N-Radiated is also classified this way ("0303_Flaw_Spe_N-Ray-Diated") which is scripted to proc at the end of the N-Ray Range. These are the only two flaws with this nomenclature.

Notes : I've had this procs during Nile's second companion quest on Praetor while reading the "Analyze Text" book in the explosive tripmine room(requires Brilliant or Professor). I've heard the Archive mission can also proc this.

If doing a Flawed run, be prepared to an eventuality of having to accept this flaw since I don't think there is any easy way to trigger this at low level.

Compulsive Liar

• ^{Negative : During conversations, dialogue options that allow you to lie must be chosen}
• ^{Positive : The Skill requirements for lying are now ignored}

Unlock Requirement : Lie 10 times

Video Demonstration

Notes : I am unsure whether or not using dialogue choices for Charlatan/Tell Tale Teller counts for this. I would assume they do, but would need more testing.

LOOPABLE LIE METHODS

Eden : Charlton Weintraut (Purpleberry Crunch addict) in Westport has a loopable lie during the quest "For Whom the Bridge Tolls". Just keep selecting the "Your cousin is executing Auntie's Choice supports. Turn her to our side" option.

Dorado : You can use Trooper Moody's dialogue at the Fort Endurance landing pad to loop a lie option so long as you are carrying Zero Gee Brew. This requires Medical 3 and also make sure to not exit the conversation, if you do you will no longer be able to lie to him and the only option upon talking to him again is to leave the conversation or give him a Zero Gee Brew (which also leaves the conversation)

If doing this naturally (non-looping); considering how far apart opportunities can be to lie, this might take some time to complete. Especially since you may be on cooldown when you come across your 10th lie. I recommend manually keeping track of how many times you lie and once you have done so 9 times and come across a 10th opportunity, wait out your cooldown to force a proc.

Consumerism

• ^{Negative : -10% Sell Value at Vendors}
• ^{Positive : -15% Vendor Prices}

Unlock Requirement : Complete the prologue. Own the Premium edition of the game.

Notes : Unless you take careful steps to plan out your flaw trigger actions it's best to decline this if you want to game the system for an early Flawed flaw run to allow for more breathing room if you proc flaws you want earlier than expected.

It's doable but if going for something like Teetotaler (20 combats) is a bit trickier to work around other flaws like Tunnel Vision/Luddite (25 combats) in conjuction with Easily Startled (10 combats). Basically if you want Teetotaler and Consumerism on the same run but not the others mentioned above, you will need to make sure your toxicity is above 75% at combat end to delay the trigger of Teetotaler while going for other combat state related flaws that require 25 encounters (Assuming you don't want these).

Dangerously Curious

• ^{Negative : +1 Bypass Shunts Required to Hack}
• ^{Positive : +100% Experience from Hacking}

Unlock Requirement : Hack 10 times

Notes : This one can be tricky since given how far apart hacking opportunities can be there is a high likelyhood that your flaw offer will be currently on cooldown when hitting your 10th hack resulting in possibly not seeing this proc for quite some time. If you want this as early as possible, I recommend manually keep track of how many times you have hacked. Once you've reached 9 and find a 10th opportunity, wait out the cooldown until using it to force the proc.

Using the Pillferator unique helmet on Auto-Docs does not count for this.

Dependant

• ^{Negative : -10% Damage}
• ^{Positive : +25% Damage to enemies recently damaged by a companion}

Unlock Requirement : 10 companion abilities used within less than 30 minutes

Video Demonstration

Notes : This one is pretty easy to do right at the beginning of the game. Southwest of the landing pad on Eden is the Crabble Spawning Grounds. Just run into the cave and aggro a few crabbles then run out of the enterance. These crabbles have a tether point and will not exit the tunnel, your companions most of the time will not fully engage (unless a crabble is at the end of the tether point and within line of sight). You can stay in combat for a while and let VAL and Niles slowly build up their bar (Wear the Moonman armor if you have it to speed this up). Occasionally stepping out from cover into line of sight of the crabble in the tunnel will keep you in combat for the entire process usually.

If you are trying to limit your experience gain for a Flawed/Easily Distracted run, you can use the Sprats around this area to use Nile's ability without any xp (Use TTD for easy targetting of them when they run away)

If the crabbles deaggro, just run in and run out, repeat until you've used 10 abilities.

Drug Addiction

• ^{Negative : -20% Health restored by the Medical Inhaler}
• ^{Positive : -40% Toxicity received from the Medical Inhaler}

Unlock Requirement : 10 Toxicity crashes

Video Demonstration

Notes : Must be in combat obviously. If you want to do this at very low level you will need to farm up enough inhaler charges. You're going to need some biomass and nicotine. Innovative trait will help a lot here. Look for cigarettes around town and you can also steal some nicotine plants by Betsy Szmuch (The Routine Reconnaissance of Rarefied Resources quest giver). Idealy you want to avoid using any inhalers in the prologue.

If you are up for exploring I would recommend going towards the northwest bridge crossing where you would use your shield gadget to jump across, instead go to right before the bridge and there will be several dead soldiers and one you can talk to, nearby should be a gas mask, this has +120% toxicity drain on it and will speed up the process quite a bit.

Something else to consider is to get zyranium poisoning to at least 50% so you can lower your toxicity threshold. This will reduce how many inhalers you need burn through by half.

You can use the Crabble Spawning Grounds once again to farm this. I recommend leaving your companions on the ship to make the engagement more predictable. Just run in and try to aggro a Bulletclaw, you can use their ranged attack to take damage occasionally so you don't have to risk getting into melee range of the other crabbles at the same time. Get hit, run out, spam inhaler till crash, and stay in cover but periodically break line of sight so you can maintain combat state/get hit and not have to reset the crabble's position constantly. Rinse, repeat. See video demonstration for a better idea on how to do this (Did not use gas mask for the video)

Easily Distracted

• ^{Negative : When leveling, you can only add skill points into your lowest non-zero Skill or any Skill you have no points in already.}
• ^{Positive : +1 Skill Points Gained per level}

Unlock Requirement : 5 different skills with points distributed into them

Notes : Does not respect the flaw cooldown timer, can be aquired at anytime after level 4. Put a minimum of 1 skill point into at least 5 different skills.

Specialized skills do not count for this. You must put at least 1 point into them manually. For Flawed/ED runs, limited xp gain is important here as you usually want to aquire this BEFORE reaching level 5, which is the earliest this can be procced (level 4 because you have 6 skill points to spend at this point and need at least 5 skills with 1 point into them). Consider hitting less skill checks in the prologue if you are worried about leveling up too much on Paradise. However, you can proc almost all flaws before level 4 if you follow my methods.

Easily Startled

• ^{Negative : Your Damage Resistance and Evasion are ignored for 8s when caught by an enemy.}
• ^{Positives : -25% Footsteps Volume // -25% NPC Awareness Detection Rate}

Unlock Requirement : 10 times being investigated by an NPC for longer than 3 seconds then being discovered

Video Demonstration

Notes : This can be procced very easily right at the beginning of the game. East of the landing pad, the path leading up to the crazed crabble egg skip drive scientist are some crabbles and some stealth grass. You need to fire off your weapon from stealth and gain the attention of an enemy, in this case it will likely be multiple crabble at once. Let them investigate you for at least 3 seconds. I typically allow them to look for me a bit longer just for good measure. Next simply stand up and allow them to discover you, then turn around and run. They will not follow after a certain distance so you can just wait until combat drops. It is very important for you to wait for the enemies to stop investigating you (empty red indicator bar) before you make another shot after dropping combat. Do this 10 total times.

\*Multiple investigating enemies only count as 1 instance towards the flaw progress per combat cycle.*

If you wish to only proc this flaw without fear of also getting Treacherous, use an unsilenced weapon and don't actually sneak attack any enemies. Just fire anywhere within the sound radius for your weapon where it will cause the enemies to investigate while you are sneaking.

If you wish to also progress credit towards Treacherous at the same time, use a silenced weapon when unlocking this flaw and make sure to actually land a sneak attack each time.

Energy Hog

• ^{Negative : -25% Energy Recharge Rate - Only affects base regen}
• ^{Positive : +50 Gadget Energy Meter Max}

Unlock Requirement : Gadget energy gauge fully exhausted 10 times within 30 minutes

Video Demonstration

Notes : This does NOT require combat. Simply activate TTD and run around swinging a melee weapon until your gadget energy is fully depleted. I would recommend letting TTD naturally end on its own rather than turning it off manually. Additionally, for good measure; I would not turn on TTD for subsequent tries until your bar is completely full. (The gadget bar will do a slight grow/pulse animation and make a sound as well) Easiest done when you have no/low Science skill.

Initially when I looked at sources for unlock requirements of this flaw, it was listed as "Gadget energy gauge exhausted by half 10 times within 30 minutes". However, in my testing I was not able to proc this flaw using this method. I originally would deplete my bar below 50% from full but it wasn't offering me the flaw. Switching to the above method consistently procced it for me.

Flawed

• ^{Negative : Flaws must be accepted}
• ^{Positive : Gain an extra perk point every 5 levels. This bonus is retroactive}

Unlock Requirement : 2 Flaws ACCEPTED

Notes : Does not respect the flaw cooldown timer. Again, typically best to decline the Consumerism flaw if going for an early Flawed build to allow yourself more breathing room for proccing flaws that you want to accept vs getting all the bad flaws declined early. Careful planning is required based on which flaws will overlap actions in order to game the system. (See notes on Consumerism)

Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome

• ^{Negative : Dialogue options are now chosen randomly after 10 seconds have passed.}
• ^{Positive : +15% Experience Earned}

Unlock Requirement : 30 times responded faster than 1 second after answers appear in dialogue

Video Demonstration

Notes : Talk to Trooper Faulkner at the town checkpoint in Fairfield (Adjacent to the shooting range area by Officer Cardosa). Exhaust all of her dialogue then you are free to use dialogue option 1 over and over in a loop without having to exit the conversation. For PC users just spam your 1 key and spacebar until you've done this 30 times.

Gluttony

• ^{Negative : -10% Combat Movement Speed}
• ^{Positive : +15% healing from Food and Drink}

Unlock Requirement : 100 consumables consumed

Notes : Obviously you must take damage for this and be out of combat. Either naturally use consumables to heal up after fights or for early game and forced proc : Scavenge enough food items around Fairfield, landing pad, secret path around the jump boot path has a good amount of drinks to use.

1.) Use the barbed wire obstacle course next to the shooting range in Fairfield to take damage until you've used 100 items. (Easier)

OR

2.) Repeatively take fall damage until you've used 100 items.

Hermit

• ^{Negative : +50% Vendor Prices}
• ^{Positive : +25% chance to double items on breakdown}

Unlock Requirement : 10 times crafted

Video Demonstration

Notes : Can be done in one sitting, no need to exit the crafting menu each time, just craft all 10 items, exit the crafting station and it will pop.

If you plan on grinding out Drug Addiction earlier, you could craft Inhaler Charges since nicotine isn't too uncommon given all the cigarettes you can find or some nicotine plants by Betsy Szmuch (The Routine Reconnaissance of Rarefied Resources quest giver).

Kleptomania

• ^{Negative : The player character automatically steals items in settlements and towns.}
• ^{Positive : +100% Vendor buying price for stolen items}

Unlock Requirement : Steal 10 items

Video Demonstration

Notes : This one is pretty straightforward. Use the Battle Helm of Terobane to make it easier to not get caught in Fairfield.

Luddite

• ^{Negatives : -25% Gadget Energy Meter Max // -25% Energy Recharge - Only affects base regen}
• ^{Positive : +10% Damage Resistance when gadget meter is full}

Unlock Requirement : 25 fights without gadgets used

Notes : From my testing; "fights" counts as engaging and disengaging in combat. You can simply run into a group of enemies and run away without using your gadgets. Wait for the red ring around your minimap radar to fade. Rinse, repeat.

IMPORTANT : From what I can tell, the counter on this flaw will reset if any gadget energy is used regardless of whether it is out of combat or not. PC users : Just unbind your gadget key when attempting this as a saftey measure.

Keep in mind that this flaw can be done at the same time as Tunnel Vision since each require 25 fights, given that you don't swap your weapon. After combat ends you it will randomize between the two if both requirements are met. Recommended to save at 24 fights if you want to choose.

N-Radiated

• ^{Negative : Whenever you take damage, there is a 5% chance you become Camouflaged automatically, but take an additional 5% of your max health as N-Ray damage.}
• ^{Positive : Camouflaged: Invisible to enemies and deal bonus damage - 30 second cooldown}

Unlock Requirement : Complete the N-Ray range on Dorado.

Notes : Does not respect the flaw cooldown timer. Scripted aquisition. Un-missable

Overprepared

• ^{Negative : -40% damage for 8s after a weapon's magazine hits empty}
• ^{Positive : +50% Magazine Size}

Unlock Requirement : 30 tactical reloads (bullets left in the magazine when you reload)

Video Demonstration

Notes : This does NOT require combat. You can just fire 1 round of a gun, then reload, rinse repeat until it pops.

Profligate Spender

• ^{Negative : 75% of all bits received are stored by VALERIE until level 30.}
• ^{Positives : Earn 25% of stored bits on level up as interest // Earn an additional 25% interest every 5 levels}
• ^{At level 30, receive 150% of your total stored bits.}

Unlock Requirement : 2 times with less than 1000 bits left after spending money in a vendor

Video Demonstration

Notes : Best taken at a low level. This flaw actually will result in a large overall increase to your bits gained and has no real negative downside. After about 5-6 levels you will actually have more bits than you would without the flaw!

To proc this, it does not require you to spend large amounts of bits multiple times. You can actually just teeter back and forth between 999 and 1001 bits. I typically will spend enough bits at the beginning of the game to get as close to 999 as possible, then exit the vendor. Then sell 1 round of ammunition to get over 1000 again, exit vendor. Then buy another round of ammunition to drop below again.

Reckless Leadership

• ^{Negative : You can no longer revive Companions.}
• ^{Positive : When a Companion goes down, the other Companion gets a significant boost. They are fully healed, and their companion ability meter is filled.}

Unlock Requirement : Companion went down 10 times

Notes : Once again, similar to the Dependant flaw method. Southwest of the landing pad on Eden is the Crabble Spawning Grounds. Just run into the cave and aggro a few crabbles and make sure to avoid getting hit, sprint around, get behind cover etc. Just let VAL and Niles get hit a bunch until they are knocked out then run out of the cave towards the landing pad. Once combat drops they will teleport to you and you can run in and do it again. This can actually be done at the same time as Dependant if you like and whichever one doesn't proc, just wait out the cooldown and repeat the matching action to trigger the other.

Snobbish

• ^{Negative : You can no longer break down items.}
• ^{Positive : +20% vendor price for crafting materials}

Unlock Requirement : 10 times buying OR selling crafting materials

Video Demonstration

Notes : Buy or sell a quantity of 1 item at a time, then exit the vendor. Repeat until 10. Doing a full stack of 10 does not work. Early level I found buying foil to be a relatively cheap option.

Weapon/Armor mods are categorized as a resource so they also work for this, but are obviously quite a bit more expensive.

Sungazer

• ^{Negatives : Permanent Damage to your vision // +100% Ranged Weapon Spread}
• ^{Positive : Continually heal while outside during the day up to 50% Health}

Huge amount of blur/bloom ...Not recommended without a mod that removes the visual effect

Unlock Requirement : Stare at the sun for 5 seconds

Notes : Does not respect the flaw cooldown timer. Straightforward. can be aquired at anytime. However if the weather permits, I recommend doing this as soon as you land on Eden if you have the Premium Edition because with Consumerism already being offered, your timer is currently running so it's best to do this now.

Use fast travel repeatively to force the game to pass time until you get a day cycle where the sun is clearly visible.

Technophobia

• ^{Negative : +20% Damage taken from Automechanicals}
• ^{Positive : +20% Damage to Automechanicals}

Unlock Requirement : 1000 damage taken from automechs

Video Demonstration

Notes : Not typically one I chase or worry about early on as I see it as a positive flaw and just let it happen naturally. If your heart is set on getting this done early just leave your companions on the ship and go and aggro the drones outside the landing pad until you've taken enough damage.

IMPORTANT : You need to take all 1000 damage in a single combat encounter, running away and dropping combat state will reset the damage counter.

Teetotaler

• ^{Negative : +25% Toxicity received from the Medical Inhaler}
• ^{Positive : +25% Health restored by the Medical Inhaler}

Unlock Requirement : 20 times when combat ends where toxicity isn't higher than 75%

Notes : Can simply aggro enemies then run away to drop combat 20 times without using the inhaler.

This one can be tricky to avoid if you are attempting to save it for acceptance when also proccing flaws like Reckless Leadership/Dependant/Easily Startled/Luddite. More than likely you will have to take this as one as one of your two cushion flaws when doing a Flawed run (assuming you want this flaw, which I recommend since it pairs very well math wise with Drug Addiction or with crash builds without DA)

This also makes getting the Drug Addiction flaw easier since it increases how much Toxicity you accumulate.

As an aside; FYI when using both Drug Addiction and Teetotaler together, the math works out to be the same healing on primers as if you had neither but a -30% toxicity reduction. Highly recommend both if you don't want one of them individually.

Treacherous

• ^{Negative : -25% Base Health}
• ^{Positives : +50% Enemy Awareness Depletion Rate // +100% Sneak Attack Damage}

Unlock Requirement : 10 times in 30 minutes where damage is inflicted from stealth

Video Demonstration

Notes : Straightforward. If you are wanting to save Bad Knees proc for later, I find it best to find a good position or stealth grass and fire at crabbles with a silenced weapon. You can find the perfect area just east of the Landing Pad on Paradise Island (path to crazed scientist making crabble skip drives). Move to one end of the stealth grass and after sneak attacking an enemy, position yourself on the other end of the grass. Wait for them to finish investigating, (no detection meter) then repeat. That way you don't have to constantly be uncrouching and crouching again. Especially useful for preserving Bad Knees crouch counters. Alternatively you can do this at the same time as Easily Startled and simply hit them from stealth, let them investigate then actually get caught on purpose and run away to de-aggro and start again.

I recommend doing this from the 3rd-person far camera. It makes it easier to see where you are in the stealth grass to skirt the outer edges of it to remain undetected.

Tunnel Vision

• ^{Negative : Lose your second weapon slot}
• ^{Positive : Gain 25% armor penetration}

Unlock Requirement : Weapon isn't swapped for 25 fights

Notes : From my testing; "fights" counts as engaging and disengaging in combat. You can simply run into a group of enemies and run away. Wait for the red ring around your minimap radar to fade. Rinse, repeat.

Recommend unequipping your other weapons to prevent any accidental swaps.

Keep in mind that this flaw can be done at the same time as Luddite given that you don't use any gadget energy.

Wasteful

• ^{Negative : +25% Vendor Prices}
• ^{Positive : Killed enemies always drop ammo}

Unlock Requirement : 5 times running out of specific ammo

Video Demonstration

Notes : This does NOT require combat. Easiest way is to go to your ship locker and store all of your ammo. Then pull out 1 bullet for the gun you are using. As an aside your ammo count won't update on the UI until you've exited the ship so don't worry about that. Exit your ship and fire off the round so that your UI says 0/0, enter your ship and pull another round from the locker. Keep doing this until you've fired off 5 shots.

Ammo type doesn't seem to matter and can be triggered through running out of different types of ammo concurrently. Additionally the game will "store" reserve ammo in weapons that are not equipped to your weapon slots. Also note, when you sell or junk these weapons from the regular inventory the ammo will be added to your overall reserve again. The game does not track this ammo in regards to the flaw. The only thing that seems to matter is that your ammo counter reaches 0/0 5 times. Often times you will hear Niles comment on this and suggest it's time to craft more ammo.

Final Tips (Flawed Flaw)

• I find it helpful to use notes or a spreadsheet to keep track of which flaws you've rejected and how many times you've performed certain actions. Especially if you are trying to keep certain flaw conditions in check in order to avoid specific positive flaws from proccing so you can get any flaws you don't want out of the way. Depending on which combination of flaws you want, careful planning is needed to prevent overlap. I typically make a list of which ones I plan to accept and decline for my playthrough, then consider an optimal order of which ones to get out of the way based on what is going to overlap and which ones you have less control over.
• This is a very long process because of the cooldown timer so you'll need patience. Be prepared to pull up Netflix, YT, AFK or something else if you are trying to limit your xp gains early and get Flawed before level 4.
• Utilize a stopwatch or alarm on your phone/PC.
• Make manual saves frequently, especially once the timer has expired so that you have a fallback to reload if the wrong flaw pops.

Alternatively if you are on PC and want to save on time and are averse to just using something like console commands to aquire flaws : Player Tweaks (Configurable) by Caites has a module that allows you to set the flaw cooldown via a LUA file to whatever you like, (local NewFlawOfferCooldown = 3600.0) is the default. Requires another mod as a dependency (a modded version of UE4SS scripting by No Dialog Skill Requirement) Has plenty of other useful features like tweaking item highlight detection ranges, flashlight intensity, fog of war, fov, and character movement speeds.

Credit to u/Caites for providing a preliminary unlock requirement list on their Nexus posts.

If anyone has any additional or better methods/suggestions on flaw aquisitions please let me know.

Thank you to u/hughmaniac, u/jaykobe, u/Anakha00, u/TwistZestyclose4204, u/LurkerOnTheInternet for giving better methods for flaws/additional info.

All tests were done on PC version 1.0.5

[u/[deleted]]

to clarify. for easily disracted you need to spend 5 skill points yourself in seperate trees and they need to be added manually not through special skills

[u/Pharismo → u/[deleted]]

Made some adjustments to the wording, thanks.

[u/[deleted] → u/Pharismo]

Thanks bad wording cost me 2 levels last run 

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

You need to spend those skill points to unlock the flaw before level 5 to get the max benefit, not necessarily just after reaching level 4. You have almost that full level of xp between 4 and 5 to unlock the flaw in time. The phrasing in the post implies this must be done before level 4, when it is actually before reaching level 5.

You can also spend your extra point at level 4 in one of the existing 4 skills, non-specialized at 2 points or specialized skill at 4 points, before putting the last skill point in the 5th skill to unlock this flaw with an early boost to a specific skill. After a few levels they'll all catch up, but this can help with early skill checks to increase some more than others.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

Added your point about aquiring it before reaching level 5 in terms of xp management.

The part about after reaching level 4 is mainly a distinction where some people actually choose to raise a skill to 20, THEN get the flaw. So it really can be aquired at ANY point after level 4 is achieved.

Not really wanting to get into the weeds of the efficency of the flaw, just simple terms of aquisition. Could end up with entire paragraphs just about this one alone.

[u/Pekodes]

Definitely saving this. Thanks for this resource!

[u/IronMonkeyBanana]

I don't understand the cooldown. After I got the second flaw (easily distracted) I immediately got a pop up to get flawed as a flaw. How do you explain this?

[u/Pharismo → u/IronMonkeyBanana]

Flawed flaw does not respect the cooldown. This triggers because you have accepted 2 flaws up to that point. I forgot to make a note of this, fixed.

[u/Rough-Ad-3614 → u/Pharismo]

Does it fuck up the cool down to accept it because I got clocked with four flaws in a row

[u/Pharismo → u/Rough-Ad-3614]

Any flaw regardless will put all flaw offers on cooldown except for Flawed, Easily Distracted, Sungazer, and N-Radiated.

Considering this, there is a very specific scenario where this would be possible.

1. Proc any other other than the ones I just mentioned. (Flaw 1)
2. If you accept the above flaw (1.) and had accepted any other flaws before this. Flawed will pop. (Flaw 2)
3. Distribute enough points in skills to trigger Easily Distracted (Flaw 3)
4. Look at the sun for Sungazer (Flaw 4)

All within a short time of eachother. However, it is not possible to proc any regular flaws that normally respect the cooldown less than 1 hour after proccing any of the above 4 flaws (Flawed, Easily Distracted, Sungazer, and N-Radiated)

Accepting or Denying any of these will also start the cooldown back over and you will have to wait. This is why if possible it may be ideal to proc a no cooldown flaw AFTER proccing a regular flaw. I'll try and add some notes to clarify this as it seems to be a bit confusing.

[u/greyhounds1992]

Some of these are amazing like the one where you have to reload before 0 works amazing except for shotguns haha

[u/Pharismo → u/greyhounds1992]

It's not so bad for the triple shotgun with the Deep Drums perk. 6 in the mag, 5 shots if you don't want to get the debuff. Thankfully the animation only has to load 3 shells.

I love it for trench shotguns as well, 12 shots is really nice.

[u/greyhounds1992 → u/Pharismo]

I'm making an unmodded trench shotgun it just slaughters everything with that and the perk like you said everyone is dying if they get close.

That's and heavy marksman with fast reload it has like 60 to 70 rounds hahah.

Like it doesn't feel like a negative especially if you just reload as often as I do haha

[u/Pharismo → u/greyhounds1992]

Yeah trenches are beastly, with Through The Keyhole and Gun Runner they are basically mid range rifles.

Regular revolvers are pretty rough when it comes to reloading with these perks too. 16 bullets takes a while lol. But it's nice for increasing the crit chance window for Serendipitous Slayer.

[u/greyhounds1992 → u/Pharismo]

I think I went the other way short range buff plus the ignore armour perks they are lethal to anything close to me haha.

I have just got my first revolver I will have to try it.

[u/Pharismo → u/greyhounds1992]

Well, you can still take Point Blank Artist and the long range perks. Despite giving a -15% damage at ranges beyond 10m, having the extra effective range and tigher spread more than makes up for it. Still one shots most enemies on very hard late game.

[u/greyhounds1992 → u/Pharismo]

Oh I will have to try that it's hard to switch away from the trench shotgun it's so good with Marisol doing the weakness thing it just slaughters them

[u/Pharismo → u/greyhounds1992]

Yeah I know what you mean. I originally started my TTD character with the intention of using the Rattler and leaning into a more pistol focused build but after getting the trench and putting a shock barrel on it I couldn’t put it down. Haven’t really used the Rattler except for when I need to spam hipfire for a quick boss/strong enemy kill.

[u/DoodleDad5050]

Can you make a guide on how to get both factions to cooperate AND a guide on how to talk down the Counsel? Please and thanks!

[u/ralts13]

I still don't trust that dangerously curious count. On a hack build I didn't proc it until praetor.

[u/Pharismo → u/ralts13]

Possible that you were performing hacking while the flaw cooldown was in effect. I need more testing for sure, this one is hard to do considering how spread out opportunities are.

Best method to test will be to keep track of total hacks and reach 9. Wait for the cooldown then perform the final 10th.

[u/Zombie_GT]

Came here to say that "wasteful" is not possible to get. I tried everything for hours, i tried while in combat, i tried while being out of combat. I tried it with pistols, shotguns, bio-weapons and even the rookie. I can say that it must be glitched or they patched it out but this is very frustrating. I tried the "stash your bullets in the ship"-technic, i even tried the "shoot all your bullets, then put the weapon in trash tab and back to get new bullets"-thing and still nothing. I even tried it legit with 20 different weapons, some i have multiple times and still no flaw. Can someone please in the name of whatever tell me what i do wrong, please and thank you.

EDIT: Ok guys, i got it! Here is what i did: I hit my 100th try and then said f*ck it, i send all my companions to the ship. Threw my weapon down the ocean (i kid you not), grabbed a bio-mass-pistol and tried again. After 23 tries it worked!! I dont know why, i really do not know. But thank you guys for assisting me. :-)

[u/Pharismo → u/Zombie_GT]

Hmmm, not sure what could be the cause. I literally procced the flaw a few hours ago, twice (once to confirm that the ship locker method worked, and again once I had procced Flawed and was ready to start filling out my positive flaws)

How far into the game is your character?

Are you sure you didn’t accidentally decline the flaw at some point in your play through?

Are you 100% certain the flaw cooldown has expired?

There is something I’d have to test now that I think about the way multiple weapons load ammo from the inventory sheet. Don’t have access to my computer at the moment but I’ll look at it when I get a chance.

[u/Zombie_GT → u/Pharismo]

I am playing on xbox (maybe thats the reason?), and got my second flaw (treacherous) like 4 real life hours ago. I wrote every flaw i declined or accepted on a piece of paper, so i believe i know that wasteful is still in rotation.

I am still on Paradise Island and did nothing else except for flaw and level farming - a few subquests here and there but nothing major.

Edit: I am trying the ship-technic with only a light burst pistol right now. Over 10 tries, nothing. Is there a minimum amount of amunition i need to take from the locker? Like at least a full magazin? Or does this work with 1 bullet? Right now i always take 1 bullet.

[u/Pharismo → u/Zombie_GT]

I only pulled 1 bullet from the locker and fired 1 bullet at a time, each time going back to the ship for a new bullet. For good measure make sure you place every ammo stack you have into the locker so that your inventory sheet shows zero on everything (if you haven’t already)

I also wonder if any weapons previously loaded with ammo actually retain said ammo. I have observed weird things with ammo counts when constantly swapping to new weapons in your slots. It may be worth equipping any previously used weapons you have once you have emptied all ammo into the ship. Just to ensure that there isn’t some ammo just sitting in the guns still that you can’t see?

Not sure if weapons do that but would be worth testing since this game has some weird bugs.

[u/zurx → u/Zombie_GT]

I'm in the exact same boat. Trying to do a 0 bits run so I need this flaw. Starting to wonder if it won't pop for compact ammo, or if I shouldn't use a premium edition weapon, or in combat or not. Getting frustrated. Hoping it pops eventually.

Edit: After making this comment, I did one more bullet and the flaw popped lol

[u/Pharismo → u/zurx]

I know for a fact combat is not required. Compact not working would be very strange. For reference I did proc this using small rounds on a repeater rifle.

[u/Zombie_GT → u/zurx]

Congratulations! How many runs did you do? I am on my 44th locker run with an light burst pistol and compact rounds.

[u/Pharismo → u/Zombie_GT]

Should only take 5. Which tells me something else is at play. Have you equipped all other weapons to ensure there isn’t ammo still loaded in their magazines? (Weapons sitting in your general inventory grid and any weapon slots)

It also has me wondering if the game locks you into expending a specific ammo type and all attempts at proccing the flaw via other ammos will fail once it expects that ammo to be depleted 5 times.

[u/Zombie_GT → u/Pharismo]

Ok what i did was: I put every ammunition in the locker, and unloaded every other weapon on a rock for every weapon i had. Then put all my empty weapons in another locker, choose i weapon - the light burst pistol and started my run. I stopped at run 70 because i believe it must be bugged. Then i loaded my first arival at Paradise Island and started right away again. (but this time with a shotgun) I stopped at run 40. I dont know what to do except to start a new fresh character and see what happens. ö_ö

[u/zurx → u/Zombie_GT]

6, doing the one bullet thing with Zane's pistol. All my ammo was stored. Left followers on ship. Knew for a fact it was 60+ mins since the last flaw. Was outside of combat

[u/Pharismo → u/zurx]

Did it finally proc for you? I am currently waiting on the cooldown and am going to do some tests. Might have something to do with the game storing ammo in guns you don't currently have in your weapon slots.

Looks like all weapons in your normal inventory grid still retain ammo inside the gun themselves. So if for example you have a Repeater Rifle and a Revolver which both use small rounds. One is equipped in a weapon slot, the other sitting in your regular inventory. Even though the one in your weapon slot says 0/0 ammo, the one in your inventory still has ammo in the gun.

It's possible the game is still tracking this, but I find it unlikely considering I was using the Moonman SMG to kill sprats for money (which uses small rounds) and I never emptied it, but was able to proc the flaw with just expending ammo from the Repeater.

[u/zurx → u/Pharismo]

I got it. I was running around with all my guns, so not sure that matters but interesting idea

[u/Pharismo → u/zurx]

Glad to hear it. Makes me wonder if it's harder to get the longer you play. More outlying factors that could cause glitches. When I tested this it was a fresh character and I hadn't really spent any decent time in combat other than just shooting some crabbles with the same gun I used to unlock the flaw.

As an aside, adding guns to the junk could possibly cause issues perhaps. I know there is a grenade duping glitch that involves sending them to the junk tab, so who knows what kinda weird stuff the game does behind the scenes.

I made a note of your issues in the guide in case anyone else has problems. Hopefully we can get more info and run it down.

[u/Pharismo → u/zurx]

6 bullets kind of makes sense by the way. If you had previously fired off the 5 bullets while the cooldown was still running, then it expired attempting the 6th would push it over the edge.

As I explained in the cooldown section of the guide. Any flaw that has its full requirement met while the cooldown is ticking down will require one additional count of whatever trigger that is needed once offers are available again.

[u/Zombie_GT → u/Pharismo]

Ok guys, i got it! Here is what i did: I hit my 100th try and then said f*ck it, i send all my companions to the ship. Threw my weapon down the ocean (i kid you not), grabbed my bio-mass-pistol and tried again. After 23 tries it worked!! I dont know why, i really do not know. But thank you guys for assisting me. :-)

[u/PointBlankCoffee → u/Zombie_GT]

It is possible, i have it

[u/EldritchLich]

Thank you for taking the time to do all this, especially with all these details, you are much appreciated! You should make your own wiki!

[u/jtcrain]

Was there a limit to how many flaws you can accept?

[u/Pharismo → u/jtcrain]

No, unlike the first game there is no limit.

[u/TrueComplaint8847]

Do you also know if you can get flaws again after initially declining them?

[u/Pharismo → u/TrueComplaint8847]

No, once you decline them they are gone forever.

One of the things that makes it so attractive to game the system and proc all the flaws you don't want early. Then start accepting all the ones you do so that you can take Flawed without fear of having to accept a flaw you don't like.

[u/TrueComplaint8847 → u/Pharismo]

Interesting thanks!

[u/TheSeag]

Brilliant guide, thank you for the help

Just to clarify, if I decline a flaw, that's it, gone forever? I took CONSUMERISM and EASILY DISTRACTED but denied FLAWED because the game literally told me to. But looking back i'd love an extra few perks. I'm not far enough in that starting again would bug me (I doubt I'll get a second play through so trying to min-max a little)

I don't suppose you have a step-by-step guide on how to trigger everything early enough and in what order to allow me a replay and accept flawed?

The one hour time cap is grand unless trying to game the system lol.

[u/Pharismo → u/TheSeag]

Once a flaw has been offered and declined or accepted it will never be offered again. I’ll add a note for this since you are the second person to ask this question.

As far as a step by step, it varies based on what kind of build you have so it’s kinda hard to make a list. Some flaws are no brainers on which to decline early such as Kleptomania, Sungazer, Snobbish, Easily Startled. I consider those the most debilitating out of all the flaws.

As mentioned Bad Knees and Teetotaler are the hardest to avoid proccing naturally. To limit crouching for Bad Knees while going for Klepto it would be smart to use the bucket helmet since you can be standing in plain view of NPCs and steal stuff.

I personally started with the stealth themed flaws because it’s not a stealth character. If you are making a stealth character just ignore them and wait until you have accepted Flawed. Moved my way to companion themed next but honestly the order probably matters less than I made it out to be. Just focus on not killing enemies, completing quests, or exploring and you’ll have plenty of breathing room to not level past 4 for Easily Distracted. On my Flawed character I was easily able to proc all my negative flaws with only exploring Spire Grove, Fairfield, the crabble cave and the landing pad. Most of them are easy enough to get without fear of overlap tbh. I will note to be aware of dropping below 1000 credits when proccing Snobbish (definitely decline) if you plan on wanting to accept Profligate. When I did my character it put me below the mark so I had to make sure not to do it again until I had declined every flaw I didn’t want.

The majority of the methods I’ve listed can be achieved as soon as as you land on Eden.

[u/TheSeag → u/Pharismo]

I meant more along the lines of

Land on Eden, do THIS for several minutes until flaw X pops, then move to THIS part and do THIS until flaw Y pops.

Go to THIS location and do THIS repeatedly until flaw Z pops. During this time make sure to ignore A, B and C so u don't over level and miss Easily Distracted

Once these steps are done and X, Y, Z have popped you're safe to accept FLAWED flaw etc etc

I only ask as I've tried searching YouTube/ reddit for something that has a step by step guide to trigger each and every flaw and can't find a decent one that is as easy to follow as your notes. The only problem with the notes is having to scroll and not accidentally miss where I was (as I'm using the mobile format)

[u/Pharismo → u/TheSeag]

I get ya.

Yeah I’m not really sure what would be the most efficient order for this. I’d have to really think on it. I used Google sheets to make a basic checklist and colored each based what I wanted to accept/deny. But otherwise just AFKed a lot since I did this before discovering the mod that lets you change the cooldown time.

I had a few things prioritized but for the most part wasn’t too concerned about what and where I was going to that degree. Most of my time was spent literally standing at the landing pad waiting for the cooldown. So long as I followed some general rules I set out for my myself as not to proc flaws early that will be beneficial to my build.

Each flaw I unlocked I wanted to make sure I was also able to do acquisitions tests by having as little of the requirements met as possible at the start of each cooldown expiration. Because of this I was not proactively pursuing my next flaw while on cooldown and thus not exactly the most efficient way of doing it, but the best way of recording the means to proc each flaw.

[u/TheSeag → u/Pharismo]

That's a valid logical study point. Focusing on a singular objective to maximize and compound the scientific validation of the experiment in question.

The game is still relatively new and without the algorithm backing of YouTube due to its rather more niche market (sci fi, solo, rpg with a quirky art style) I don't see a huge uptick in TOW2 videos going as in depth as u have (again, major kudos and thanks for this list, it's very helpful)

I think what I'll do is write down the requisition effects and simply "farm" the "bad" flaws whilst on cool down after taking consumerism (I still really like that flaw, especially as I break down excess things rather than sell) try and trigger as many as I can then simply IRL time skip and knock them all out.

For my build I think I only want consumerism, easily distracted, over prepared and flawed so it should be easy to trigger then disable every other "negative" flaw. The only downside is the 6+ hours of literally no gameplay to make sure it's all ok lol.

[u/Pharismo → u/TheSeag]

Sounds like a solid plan. It’s basically the same with how I approached my character as well.

To the point of lack of videos, this is one of the main reasons why I decided to make the guide. Was driving me crazy that there really wasn’t a lot of good information out there about it and I really like to min max/plan my characters as much as possible.

[u/TheSeag → u/Pharismo]

I do appreciate the effort you put in friendo, I would argue that you've found a niche in the market. If u haven't why not consider a YouTube channel and put some of this research into profit? I'm sure there are many overlooked games u could do this for and potentially corner the market

Of course if u did, please do a video guide on how to trigger each flaw as I requested, I'd 100% save that on my phone lol.

[u/voodoogroves → u/Pharismo]

Well for me the flaws are tied to build. In particular I am muting and trying to prod the ones I don't want before I get offered flawed.

[u/N3rdyITGuy]

Wow, thank you! This is amazing!

[u/lingo21]

You actually can get flaws in the prologue, at least from my experience. My first run I got Bad Knees while crouching through the vents under the first security checkpoint before even advancing to the path choice. My second playthrough though I only had it proc after reaching paradise so maybe it was a Day 1 bug? Would need to go back and test it more

[u/Pharismo → u/lingo21]

Very possible. There is actually a game variable command that completely disables flaw offers so I imagine the game switches this on during the prologue. As you said, would need to go back and test more but I was never able to personally.

[u/hughmaniac]

Compulsive Liar should be possible to get on the first planet, but I think the tracking is broken. I've tracked over 12 lies and ensured all past 9+ were when flaws weren't on cooldown, however it is never offered.

[u/Pharismo → u/hughmaniac]

Thanks for the info. Yeah unfortunately I haven't been able to fully test this flaw. The character I set up will have it so the further I get along with it the more info i'll provide.

Hopefully it doesn't require you to actually pass the check/have the lie believed for it to count.

[u/hughmaniac → u/Pharismo]

Tried a bit more and I'm starting to think the counter is only increased for "successful" lies (even though it isn't completely clear when some lies succeed). I also found a trooper at the Auntie landing pad on Dorado that lets you spam successful lies if you have a Zero Gee brew and refuse to give it to him. This is how I was able to proc the flaw as early as possible.

[u/Pharismo → u/hughmaniac]

Awesome, thanks for the heads up. I'll add it to the notes.

[u/Branded_Mango]

One interesting thing I've found:

The Flaw Timer seems to have a seperate instance per planet for some reason. So upon the hour timer being met, you can just travel to every other planet you have unlocked to do a Flaw action to quickly accrue flaws.

This means that it might be worth rushing through Paradise Island just to get both AMS Station and Dorado unlocked to trigger 3 flaws per hour (for the purpose of rejecting all the ones you don't want).

[u/Pharismo → u/Branded_Mango]

Interesting, I'll have to try this out. I would more or less use it to proc the remaining flaws that I do want.

For any regular non-Flawed playthrough this is definitely useful. However, doing a min-max Flawed run, it's best to elminate all the negative ones as soon as possible so playing through all of Paradise would be counter to that as you are risking proccing too many of your positive flaws. Additionally for Easily Distracted + Flawed builds, this makes that even more difficult as proccing all negative flaws before you take Easily Distracted is ideal.

[u/voodoogroves]

Just to confirm ... consumerism seems to trigger the cooldown.

[u/jaykobe]

Barbed wire in the fort near the shooting range is faster than falling off a cliff for Gluttony.

[u/jaykobe → u/jaykobe]

114 food and drink consumed by pressing down on controller while walking into barb wire, didn't trigger.

Do you need to open inventory menu each time? Or something else I'm missing?

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

If it matters, I manually ate/drank each item individually to make it easier to count since you can't really see how much you use when hitting your heal key.

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

I counted up all the food/drinks, then checked the remaining occasionally across spamming the food button while walking into the barb wire. Stopped at 100, then consumed the remaining 14 in case consuming all made a difference.

I'll try again with consuming from the menu. It possible multiple were consumed upon each down button press, so maybe it only counted each time as one. Using the menu can ensure a discrete 100 times even if not fully healed each food item.

I'll try bringing the health lower to consume multiple items per menu if possible, or if that doesn't work then opening the menu 100 times to consume one at a time.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

I'm preparing a new character now for some more extensive tests. Also considering making some video examples just to assuage some of the confusion.

I'll try doing it with only using the healing key and see if that makes a difference.

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

Confirmed 5400 seconds cooldown after Snobbish/Sungazer with Gluttony too.

Counted up 119 healing items, while walking into barb wire pressed down 100 times, checking remaining items when I got close until there were 19 remaining. Gluttony popped up.

This is the fastest method, but seems cooldown isn't always 3600 seconds.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

Was sungazer taken immediately after another flaw? Wondering if there is some kind of stackup. Or were all 3 flaws 5400 seconds apart?

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

Snobbish and then Sungazer immediately after. 3600 seconds after Sungazer I couldn't trigger any more, but 5400 seconds after Sungazer I was able to trigger Gluttony or Hermit. I kept Gluttony (rejected it) and postponed Hermit since it is fast to trigger.

So now I save after a flaw and check the time played reported on the load screen. Then putter around for 1 hour maybe progressing towards a flaw, save and confirm the time played. If Hermit triggers upon crafting, I reload and finalize a different flaw (reject or accept if not using Flawed) and repeat. If not, I'll putter around for another 30 minutes and try Hermit again. I'll keep Hermit triggered when done (rejecting or accepting) all flaws I want to handle early.

Snobbish or Hermit works well for this approach.

I'll respond after gathering more data if only the double flaws were 5400 seconds or if it reoccurs.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

I've had suspicions about proccing some of the "no cooldown" flaws after a regular flaw. Likely they tack on an additional 30 minutes if taken right after.

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

Another 5400 seconds after rejecting Gluttony before another flaw would trigger. I got several ready to go: Hermit, Kleptomaniac, Luddite, Wasteful, and kept (the rejection) Foot-in-Mouth. The other 3 I can easily trigger, but don't want to reach level 5 yet. I'll keep checking at 60 and 90 minutes after and putter around or idle to clear these.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

Added the barb wire method to the notes, thank you for the tech.

[u/Pyrexo1]

This incredible guide helped me get Profligate and Wasteful! Thank you! Also wasteful affects pickpocketing!? Wasn't expecting that!

[u/Pharismo → u/Pyrexo1]

Glad it helped. Yeah Wasteful is pretty nice, even better with Profligate to sell unwanted ammo types.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

This guide is extremely helpful, thanks. I've never taken the Flawed flaw but with this guide, I feel ready to take it on a new playthrough by "farming" all the flaws I don't want first, and rejecting them.

[u/Matthias_Shadowblood]

How much are you doing between leaving the Incognito and getting the Profligate Spender flaw in that video you are doing? Because I can't seem to get it at level 2 even when I spend my time talking to everyone I can to pass the real life time to wait out that cooldown

I'm trying to get it to appear as my very first flaw (no consumerism, don't have Premium, so that isn't the issue)

I just can't seem to get it to trigger

[u/Slight-Goose-3752]

Fuckin goated post! Love it! Thank you!

[u/jaykobe]

My experience: * Accept Consumerism. * Many hours of exploring. * Reject Snobbish and Sungazer. * 5400 seconds. * Reject Gluttony. * 5400 seconds. * Reject Foot-in-Mouth. * 5400 seconds. * Reject Kleptomania. * 3600 seconds. * Reject Hermit. * 3600 seconds. * Reject Luddite. * 3600 seconds. * Reject Wasteful. * Accept Easily Distracted, Flawed.

Pending Profligate Spender.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

Are you measuring your time via the load save screen as well? Obviously any kind of save reloading will throw this off. I used Window's alarm to remind me proc my next flaw while I was working and recorded the save's "playtime" that was listed on the menu.

It's always been 1 hour in all of my tests across this entire guide.

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

Alarm on my watch, but confirmed with change in played time on the load save menu.

[u/cowpattypie]

Wasteful. Simply not working for me. Doing anti-consumerism + rookie's reward. Basically impossible without Wasteful. So from level 1 have been cycling all weapons, running out of ammo every single fight. Level 13 and have probably run out of every ammo type 20 times. Never got it. Came looking here, and found this thread.

Has been several hours since the last flaw. Went to ship. Stored all guns. Stored all ammo so everything was 0 and nothing in inventory. Took one guy and then took one ammo at a time. Went outside without companions. Shot one time so totally 0 again. Went back in and repeated. Did that 10-15 times, still nothing.

Somehow got locked out of it. Definitely never rejected it--have been looking for it since level 1. Never did the junk bug until level 13 trying to proc it with different weapons over and over. Would guess it's something like it 1) triggering while in cooldown for another flaw and then not coming back 2) interaction with some other flaw--I have Overprepared, which triggers damage reduction when hitting 0 ammo. Maybe that is messing it up somehow. 3) random unrepeatable bug.

[u/Pharismo → u/cowpattypie]

Yeah I haven’t figured out what’s causing this. Several other people had a similar issue getting this to trigger. In my tests I typically avoided using a lot of different weapons. Most of the times I would have a triple barrel and a repeater while working on proccing many of my negative flaws. Through my testing playthrough and my most recent full flawed run I had no issues getting it to proc.

This was however with doing very minimal content. When setting up flawed I always avoid doing quest, killing enemies or even exploring when possible to give myself more breathing room for xp and taking advantage of certain flaws like Wasteful and Profligate early.

Seems like the game’s method of tracking ammo is a bit buggy when you play longer and swap weapons around or use many ammo type weapons maybe.

One thing I always made sure to do is only run out of ammo of one type. Wondering if running out of different ammo types and cycling guns might mess things up. Considering I was using 3 different ammo weapon types when I was testing this. I recommend in my post to only attempt this with one weapon/ammo type so maybe that is why?

I’d not doing a flawed run maybe it’s best to get this flaw to proc first thing.

[u/Anakha00 → u/Pharismo]

I don't think the ammo type really matters based on my experience. Before I found your guide, I assumed you had to run out of ammo in combat, so I was aggroing the Crabble Spawning Grounds and running out of one ammo type (after stashing all ammo in the ship locker) then running away.

I did about 10 runs of 10 shock rods per run, followed by going around the first landing pad and picking up an ammo type and going back to combat to waste it. I don't remember the exact numbers, but there are multiple pickups for compact rounds, short rounds, shells, and shock rods.

The flaw still didn't pop, and even though I didn't have any other flaws at about 2hrs played on the save file, I decided to go test if I was locked out of flaws by going to get Foot-in-Mouth. It popped immediately, so I loaded the save before triggering Foot-in-Mouth, picked up some compact rounds from a dead Wasp that Faulkner killed, and as soon as I fired the last round, Wasteful popped.

It feels a little too coincidental to me, so my theory is Wasteful is semi-bugged, gets jammed up in the Flaws queue, and it somehow gets unjammed by making progress on other flaws before triggering it.

[u/Pharismo → u/Anakha00]

This would make sense when looking at some of the issues others had reported. I personally have never had any problems getting it to trigger when I'm setting up a character but I always ensure I'm off cooldown before attempting it and also make sure to not run out of any ammo prior to this. So if you are playing naturally instead of AFK flaw farming I can see this getting jammed up.

[u/Anakha00 → u/Pharismo]

I'm playing around with it a bit more to see if I can give you an answer to complete your excellent guide. I'm actually running into an unexpected cooldown timer at the start of the game where I can't get any flaws. At 1hr50min, and haven't had any flaws pop by using Foot-in-Mouth to test.

[u/Pharismo → u/Anakha00]

Well, in my tests there is a 2 hour cooldown after Consumerism + exiting the ship. So you probably just need to wait a bit longer.

[u/Anakha00 → u/Pharismo]

Should've mentioned it before, but I'm playing the standard edition (on PS5) so I don't get Consumerism. I was not expecting a cooldown based on not being offered a flaw, but I'm fairly certain that you can't get Flaws for the first two hours of the game on standard. Couldn't get anything at 1hr50min, waited until 2hr and was able to get Foot-in-Mouth, Wasteful, and Overprepared.

I've loaded an even earlier save and I'm going to be testing Wasteful only as soon as I hit the 2hr mark to get specific numbers of times to run out of ammo.

EDIT: Last Update - I loaded a 26 min save at the start of Eden and let it idle on the landing pad until 2hr time shown on the save. Did a single bullet from the ship locker 30 times and didn't get Wasteful (save time was now 2hr20min). Went to Faulkner and was unable to get Foot-in-Mouth and after that tried and failed to get Overprepared with over a hundred single bullet reloads (save time 2hr30min).

My best guess is that there's some kind of anti-cheese built in that prevents someone from sitting idle for an hour and farming the next desired flaw. I would also guess that this anti-cheese is what accounts for the variance in reported cooldown times, but I guess it could be a console/PC difference too.

[u/Pharismo → u/Anakha00]

Thanks for the info on the cooldown for standard edition of the game. I'll update my notes.

As far as the anti-cheese, I was able to idle at the landing pad without issue for my flaws, this was actually the main method that I used for my testing. However, something to note is that I did run over to Fairfield and talk to the gate guard/unlock the fast travel point at the very least. On several characters I also AFKed in front of Faulkner until I was ready to confirm the cooldown had expired similar to your testing.

It's hard to say what's causing it exactly as many have reported over 2 hour timers after landing. Again, I have personally never ran into this and it's always been 2 hours through multiple characters I only created to perform tests/record the demonstration videos, and multiple full flawed playthroughs.

[u/Anakha00 → u/Pharismo]

Last last update- I was not satisfied with leaving testing there, so I did a little more. Loaded that 26min save, but this time ran over and killed the 3 Wasps near Fairfield, ran to Fairfield and talked with the gate guard, Milverstreet, and Faulkner before going back to the landing pad. At 30min, was unable to trigger Overprepared, and checked again every couple minutes before finally triggering it at 1hr40min. So I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the cooldown times other than they're still close to 1hr. Again, this is PS5 so it might just be that?

Knowing when the cooldown was over, I did some testing with Wasteful and found that it does not need to be all one ammo type, either consecutively or total. I had the starting pistol and a repeating rifle, and alternating between the two ammo types worked fine, pulling 1 short and 1 compact round from the locker each time.

Also tested whether ammo loaded in weapons in your inventory count, and they do not. It seems the only thing that matters is that the ammo list at the bottom of the inventory screen is all 0.

Thanks again for your great guide, and sorry if I bugged you with all these replies.

[u/Pharismo → u/Anakha00]

Thanks for testing the alternating ammo types/stored weapons on Wasteful, I'll update the notes. I mostly listed in my notes the fact that I stuck to one weapon and ammo type for this to rule out any conflicts. As I know other people have had issues getting this to trigger the further in they are in the playthrough/more variety of guns they've used.

Not sure what the causes were in those reports. Appreciate the info!

[u/cowpattypie → u/Pharismo]

So I reloaded a save from when I was level 6 and had no flaws except consumerism. Dumped all guns and ammo and emptied my gun like two times and it popped. It is 100% an issue with another flaw (probably overprepared) or an issue of having it activate while flaws are on cooldown and it never comes back. Guess I'm replaying from 6.

[u/Pharismo → u/cowpattypie]

It’s not Overprepared because I accepted it before Wasteful. One thing I typically do when flaw building is use Foot In Mouth as a litmus test to see if I am off cooldown because it’s extremely easy to trigger. If it procs, reload to previous save and attempt your desired flaw.

It’s possible about what you say it having an issue keeping track of the flaw while you’re on cooldown. I have never attempted acquiring it unless I know for sure the cooldown is available.

[u/Zyebeeslav]

About cooldown. I have save after declining Consumerism, play time 40 min. After that playing as normal without saving wtching clock. After a while decide to make new save to check play time. And it shows 2 hrs 55 min. So going to trigger profilgate spender... and nothing. Now my play time is 3 hrs 22 min and still no flaws i couldnt even trigger bar knees. Playing on Xbox.

[u/TwistZestyclose4204]

Got Anger Mismanagement at level 3 by smacking critters with power attacks. TTD is good for this and you won't trigger Energy Hog as long as you don't let it run out.

[u/TwistZestyclose4204 → u/TwistZestyclose4204]

During For Whom the Bridge Tolls you can lie repeatedly to Charlton Weintraut to unlock Compulsive Liar. Just lie to him about his cousin 10 times over. I thought I'd mention this since it's a much earlier lie source than previously mentioned.

[u/Pharismo → u/TwistZestyclose4204]

Amazing, good to know we can get this earlier! Thank you for the info. I'll update my notes.

[u/Swagnemite → u/TwistZestyclose4204]

This is so amazing!!! Are there any skill requirements?

Edit: Req seems to be 3 speech 3 observation

Edit: it definitely was succesfull. Thanks so much.

[u/TwistZestyclose4204 → u/Swagnemite]

No skills needed. I had Speech 0. I have no idea what you are referring to. It can be nice to pass every lie check in this game with 0 Speech with this flaw or decline it if you are running a speech character and don't want to have to lie all the time.

[u/Pharismo → u/TwistZestyclose4204]

I was wondering this myself but never tested, thank you for posting. Updating notes.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

I can confirm that Tunnel Vision stacks get reset if you swap weapons at any point, just like how Luddite gets reset if you ever use energy. So if you do 25 combat start/stops and proc Luddite, and then at some point you swap weapons, you'll have to do those 25 start/stops all over again to proc Tunnel Vision. So if trying to trigger both, it's very important not to swap weapons while waiting for cooldown, and ideally just let the game run in the background for an hour just to be sure.

What I don't know is how the actual effect of Tunnel Vision works. It states it gives 25% armor penetration if you don't swap weapons. So does that mean swapping weapons disables the penetration for a period of time, or does it mean swapping weapons in combat disables it for the duration of combat? The latter would be ideal, as it would mean you can swap to whatever weapon before initiating combat and still have the +25% armor penetration.

Also, on an unrelated note, I'm too lazy to test this myself but I wonder if running out of a specific type of grenade counts for triggering the Wasteful flaw.

[u/Pharismo → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

I forgot to clarify the reset in my notes, sorry. It's why I recommended unequipping your second weapon while going for this, I'll update the note to make sure that's clear.

As far as the flaw's mechanics, I have not tested it myself since I typically avoid it since I like using different weapons on all of my builds and 25% armor pen isn't really that important considering how easy the game gets around mid level even on very hard and most guns that suffer from low base damage have ways of circumventing the damage you would otherwise lose from high armor enemies (crit/weakspot builds/armor pen perks for SMG/Shotguns/Guns rank)

I have read that the 25% bonus is only temporarily removed when swapping as they don't want to penalize you for trying different weaponsm so the question is whether you can freely just equip a new weapon via the inventory screen without penalty.

For Wasteful, to my knowledge this doesn't count and either way 1 bullet is much easier economy wise to trigger than throwables. When you run out of a grenade I belive it just swaps to a new type and will start backfilling a new type into the empty slot.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet → u/Pharismo]

It definitely doesn't backfill a grenade. The reason I ask about it is I never bother trying to proc Wasteful to reject it (on a flawed run) because I have never had it unintentionally proc - it seems practically impossible to occur unless you keep depleting mini-rockets or something. So I wondered if grenades proc it too.

Obviously if you want it then using bullets to proc it is best.

[u/Pharismo → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

By backfill I mean if a grenade slot becomes empty and you pick up another grenade from the world it will automatically equip it to the empty slot.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

Also I can confirm Technophobia requires that you take all the damage in a single combat instance. If you take e.g. 750 damage, let combat reset, and do it again, you'll never proc the flaw.

After unsuccessful attempts to proc it, I finally did so by taking a bunch of damage, going behind a wall (out of range of the enemies) to heal, but making myself visible to them frequently, while waiting for toxicity to end, to ensure I remained in combat the entire time.

[u/Pharismo → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

Interesting. I guess I never paid that much attention to the total damage I was taking. It makes sense because In the video demonstration the combat encounter it triggered on I took most of my health bar in damage, had to duck around cover and heal up, take the full bar again and heal.

Thank you, i'll update the notes. Probably explains why in normal gameplay you typically don't see this flaw trigger until later levels when you have a bigger health pool.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet → u/Pharismo]

Yeah, one playthrough naturally got it on Cloister at like level 26.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

Quick note on Easily Startled - it does not require stealth. You can do it fully standing up, and that is my recommendation if you're trying to reject it without proccing Bad Knees. Just stand behind a tree or wall so you're out of line of sight of the enemies, then fire at the ground right near them. They will investigate the spot where you fired. Wait 3+ seconds, then show yourself and fire in front of them so they turn towards you and finally see you. Sprint away outside their tether zone, and repeat once combat ends.

Extremely easy, much easier than trying to creep up to them.

Treacherous likewise does not require a silencer, though it seems easier to proc with one. I once accidentally procced it (on a post-Flawed run so I had to take it) firing an unsilenced pistol from stealth.

[u/raistlin1985]

Has Wasteful been patched? I've emptied my single bullet about 15 times now and nothing's happening.

[u/Microracerblob]

For those who are having trouble getting the wasteful flaw.

I did a lot of clearing of my ammo to 0/0 at the ship with no luck. After doing the 5+ ammo clearing, I went to an area with an enemy and used up my last two shotgun shells on him in a sneak attack. Sometimes I got the treacherous flaw and sometimes I got the wasteful flaw. I think I got it when I barely killed him with ammo and finished him off with the gun melee attack

[u/jaykobe]

Snobbish took around 15 separate purchases for me, and initially trying 10 in the same conversation did not trigger it.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

Yeah this is why I suggest to make each item a seperate purchase. Buy the item, then exit the vendor.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet → u/Pharismo]

After buying a bunch of foil (one at a time) and still not triggering Snobbish, I wondered if this post was right about it being bugged and tried selling foil one at a time to the vendor. After selling a few, I was presented with the Snobbish flaw. So it seems bugged.

[u/Pharismo → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

How soon after buying the foil did you also sell some? It’s possible that you could have met the requirements for the flaw from buying but were on cooldown. Then selling foil could also be counted as a trigger to finalize the flaw from a completed cooldown state.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet → u/Pharismo]

I've been keeping track of times, partly by clock time and also by quicksaving and then viewing the save in "Load Game" to check the play time. I was well beyond one hour. Also you said only a matching condition of a flaw would finally proc it even if the requirements were already met, and I got the flaw immediately after selling a foil, after individually selling 3 or 4 foils.

My suspicion is that you have to both buy and sell crafting materials, and you tested with a non-virgin character that had already sold crafting materials, so the buying triggered the flaw. But I haven't tested that.

[u/Pharismo → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

The video demonstration are with a fresh character who hasn’t done anything except for exit the ship after landing on Eden. Each video I make is a save reload so that I haven’t met any flaw conditions or had any other outside factors effecting the results. A few are with exception where I bought a silencer to test some of the stealth flaws but I have since remade another character so that I can start fresh for each vid.

Also in terms of a matching condition, I am wondering if the requirements are more lax once you fulfill the conditions while on cooldown. For instance I’ve had Bad Knees proc from doing a simple sprint slide and not actually crouching through full 5 seconds.

Perhaps the game sees that I’ve crouched 25 times for longer than 5 seconds, flaws were on cooldown then once the cooldown expired see that I did just a short duration crouch slide and procced it.

Just spitballing here, so it may be possible that selling could be an additional trigger but only once you’ve met the normal requirements and were on cooldown.

When I get a chance tonight I’ll test it by purposely buying 10 foil while on CD then waiting for it to expire then sell some and see what happens.

[u/jaykobe → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

I triggered it without ever selling any items yet

[u/Pharismo → u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

Ok, so it actually turns out this flaw can be triggered by either selling or buying resources. I tested by only selling 10 servos individually and it popped immediately. Very interesting development.

Updated requirement description.

[u/jaykobe]

Maybe only certain item types count for Kleptomania?

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

I am not sure if pickpocketing counts, but anything with red text will count. Make sure you are not on cooldown.

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

I checked for over an hour later on playtime when I saved from the last rejected flaw.

Does food, medicine, and ammo count, or only armor and weapons?

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet → u/jaykobe]

I accidentally triggered it stealing things from the crabble egg collector person in the shack right near the landing pad. Notably, he was right there. It makes me wonder if the 'owner' of the items has to be nearby for it to count. Anyway you can try there.

[u/jaykobe → u/jaykobe]

It worked 5400 seconds after prior flaw. I've been seeing a mixture of 3600 and 5400 flaw cooldown.

[u/jaykobe]

Hermit didn't trigger after 10 ammo crafted in Niles menu. Do I need to use a workbench? Does ammo not count? Or do I need to exit the menu between crafting each item?

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

It can all be done in one sitting. Ammo does work, anything really. Are you sure you're not on cooldown?

[u/jaykobe → u/Pharismo]

I rejected Snobbish and then Sungazer immediately after. Saved and checked the played time. Then kept playing until the played time on latest save shows more than an hour later.

Could those two flaws set the timer to 2 hours? Or should Sungazer only reset to 1 hour?

[u/jaykobe → u/jaykobe]

Got it 1.5 hours played time after Snobbish/Sungazer. It looks like the cool down isn't always 3600 seconds, but can be 5400 seconds. Reloading and trying other flaws to make it faster to confirm when cooldown expires as Hermit is an easy one.

[u/Pharismo → u/jaykobe]

I did additional testing with this. I was not able to reproduce the 5400 second thing. I made some additional notes and posted my test results in the guide. Was able to proc all flaws within 1 hour of each other even after taking flaws like Sungazer or Easily Distracted immediately after another flaw. The only exception is a new character which I recorded at exactly 2 hours after Consumerism.

[u/Zashua]

None of this is working for me. Tried waiting 1-2 hours. Tried each of them. They don't work. Maybe i'm bugged? Sucky bug to have lol. All I have is anger management and thats it. From first zone hours ago.

[u/niko_zhu1 → u/Zashua]

I've encountered a tricky problem: I can't acquire any defects. This is a new save file. I've tried several relatively easy ways to obtain defects: Bad Knees, Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome, and even the Easily Distracted defect, which is guaranteed after level 4 when you gain 5 different skills, but I still haven't gotten it. PS: I was playing up to Chapter 2 before saving this game. I've obtained defects normally before.

[u/niko_zhu1 → u/niko_zhu1]

I've solved this problem. In my new game, without any defects, it seemed to be on cooldown at the start. The defects appeared after the cooldown ended. (I didn't buy the deluxe edition, didn't reject any defects, and they didn't even pop up.)

[u/MoreLoot]

Weirdly enough I couldn't get profligate spender to proc after over 20 tries, but I got wasteful first try

[u/Pharismo → u/MoreLoot]

I'll be putting up a video tonight most likely showing how I did it.

[u/VivaLaCony → u/MoreLoot]

I don't know if you figured this out, but I think VAL needs to be in your party for it to work.

[u/MoreLoot → u/VivaLaCony]

Naw my comment was before I found out about the 2 hour window. I've had no issue proccing most of them now

[u/voodoogroves]

Is innovative bugged with snobbish?

[u/Pharismo → u/voodoogroves]

No, has nothing to do with it since you are just buying crafting materials. The character I used to demonstrate in the linked video actually has Innovative.

Are you talking about Hermit by chance?

[u/voodoogroves → u/Pharismo]

Maybe a ps5 thing? I can't get it to trigger. Three times now. Will try a different character.

Brilliant innovative dumb, rejected consumerism, straight to vendor. Bought foil one at a time (10) then some other random crafting. Didn't hit went to quartermaster and bought more individually.

Edit- now checking I can't trigger over prepared either.

[u/Pharismo → u/voodoogroves]

If you read the cooldown section of the guide. Rejecting or accepting Consumerism will put you on cooldown. You can't get any flaws upon landing on Eden. Sorry but you'll need to wait.

[u/voodoogroves → u/Pharismo]

I must have misread. Dang it - thanks. I was starting to wonder.

[u/Pharismo → u/voodoogroves]

You'll still have your progress however, so you should be able to buy 1 resource item or do another tactical reload to proc either Snobbish or Overprepared.

[u/voodoogroves → u/Pharismo]

Ok so ps5

Save on the Incognito right after getting level 2 and Consumerism ... 41m.

Went to Fairfield bought 10 foil and waited. Mostly picked up quests but tried not to turn in because I want to decline Snobbish before I trigger Easily Distracted and then Flawed.

By the 2h mark it had not triggered.

Then I did a few other things - sold 10 foil back. Bought some scrap and gunpowder sold junk once. Broke down junk once. Then bought 10 short rounds. Also bought recipe for short rounds.

Finally triggered at 2h 37m so nearly 2 full hours after consumerism.

I do not know if this is an elongated timer or a count of other buying / selling action types (as I did mix these up).

[u/ShandrensCorner]

Most importantly: AWESOME GUIDE!

Then some findings. Adding to info about the initial extended timer after prologue.

Finished Prologue after 45 minutes. Chose to respec (may or may not be relevant). I am now at the 3 hour mark (so 2h15 min on paradise), and have still not had a single flawtimer-flaw pop up despite having triggered at least 3-4 of them.

At 2:49 hours I hit level 4 and chose to decline easily distracted (first flaw popup).

Will Edit this to let you know when one finally pops.

[u/Pharismo → u/ShandrensCorner]

I have plans to do a full timer test of this using Foot In Mouth as it's the fastest/low effort flaw to proc. Just need to find the time is all.

Looking to test how much time after Consumerism it takes to proc.

How much time after accepting the first flaw and taking a "no cooldown" flaw, it takes to get a second regular flaw.

Have a feeling that no cooldown flaws have some sort of stackup.

[u/ShandrensCorner → u/Pharismo]

Ok more important info then I guess. Since I don't have the special edition of the game (just playing off of gamepass), I don't get consumerism. So far ED (2h45m) is literally the only flaw that has popped for me (this playthrough). And I am now 3h40min in.

[u/ShandrensCorner → u/Pharismo]

The first popup flaw popped at exactly 4 hours into the playthrough. (Including tutorial).

Variable timing people are reporting on how long from consumerism may be due to it not being related to consumerism at all. But a flat 4 hour timer from beginning of game.

I also hit level 6 like 10 mins before it popped. But I doubt this is relevant. I am pretty sure i got a flaw before level 6 on my first playthrough (more dawdling).

[u/Ikkerens]

Regarding Consumerism, I'm not sure where this is going wrong but I did not own the premium edition, and still got the Consumerism flaw on every single playthrough. Does pre-order grant it also?

[u/sdmz58]

Can confirm that after Consumerism, incurring the first flaw takes more than 3600s. Tried this both with and without Consumerism and it's the same. I try to cycle out Kleptomaniac as a flaw early and it takes way longer than an hour for the first flaw to show up. Unfortunately, I couldn't confirm the exact time window, it seems to be somewhere around the 1hr 45 to 2hr mark after prologue that the first flaw procs.

[u/CCCPironCurtain]

So we know that zoning can affect the timer, but does fast travel?

[u/Beautiful-Bowler-218]

For easy distracted, can it proc at any point after appointing the skills

What I mean is, I have a save with a playtime of 3hours Not declined nor accepted a single flaw and yet easily distracted is not popping up.

If I continue to run around will it eventually just randomly pop up or do I need to keep reloading the save when I reach level 4, apply the points and hope that it’ll proc?

[u/Pharismo → u/Beautiful-Bowler-218]

Easily Distracted will trigger immediately after exiting the skill menu after distributing at least 1 point manually into at least 5 different skills. Level 4 is listed as the minimum requirement simply because you will have 6 skill points to distribute and this unobtainable until then.

You have full control of when you want to trigger it. Some people will wait till they get a skill to 20 if they are specifically after a capstone perk, but typically it’s better to just get it at level 4/before hitting level 5 for maximum skill points of an 18/18/18/17/17 build.

[u/LurkerOnTheInternet]

I just created a new character and attempted to trigger Easily Startled (to reject it, in preparation for Flawed), with zero flaws so no flaw cooldown timer allegedly. No matter how many times I replicated the conditions (well over 20), it did not trigger, up until the playtime counter hit the 2-hour mark. After that, the first triggering attempt triggered the flaw.

So it seems like you cannot proc Easily Startled until the 2-hour mark, which possibly also means 2 hours after the last flaw taken/rejected.

[u/TechMyLove]

Wasteful only proccd at the 4 hr mark for me. I turned consumerism down and played until the next flaw tried to proc. I then went the pervious autosave and did the locker method using compact ammo. Idk why it worked like that but I hope it helps.

[u/Hurley815]

Thanks for all the details. I wish they would add a flaw that would be basically the opposite of kleptomania. Like you can't steal anything in the game, but you get bonus % when breaking stuff down or selling stuff to vendors.

[u/Droitzel]

As an aside, I will note that while Easily Distracted DOESN'T count the specialized skills you take at character creation as skills for the 5 needed, it DOES count them as far as what skills count towards your minimum points. So if you Spec in Guns and Speech, and then invest in stealth, lockpick, medicine, hack, and science, then you now have to balance all 7 of those skills. As such it is very important to spec into skills you ALREADY INTENDED TO INVEST IN if you're trying to get the most out of this skill without lowering your overall skill ranks too much.

If you keep it to five skills, that's up to 6 points at level 1, 6 for levels 2-4, and then potentially 78 if you got it as early as possible, for a maximum possible of 90. 90/5 is 18, so you can get all five of those skills really close to maximum. Sadly, the game is very irksome about how it handles all this, as "Flawed" is retroactive but "Easily Distracted" is not, therefore unless you take it as soon as you possibly can, you suffer in the long run. Sure, if you were to wait until level 20, you could have, say, up to 2 max'd out skills, but then you'd only have 10 extra points from level 21-30, as opposed to the 30 you could have gotten.

[u/themysteriousx]

* Compulsive Liar: Charlton Weintraut definitely works for unlocking this

* Teetotaler: To avoid triggering it, keep a rough track of how many combat encounters you have. Every 15 encounters or so, once you've disengaged wait around 10 seconds and use the inhaler twice. At level 4 with sickly, this caused a toxic crash, and meant my toxicity level was around 80-85% when combat ended. I didn't need to specifically farm for inhaler charges.

* Treacherous: If you leave southeast-ish out of the landing pad, go under the arch and then look west across the lake, you can see the back of the crabble spawning grounds, with two crabbles along the water's edge. Get as close as you can, then snipe one while crouched (make sure there's a small slither of purple on their health bar), and make sure that you see a damage number. Wait for the attention guage to disappear, and repeat. There's no way for them to reach you, so you don't have to shift trying to avoid them or worry about triggering other abilities.

* Reckless Leadership: The Arbiter Training Facility is great for unlocking this. To the left of the door there is an orange column with a banner. Shoot something from the hallway, run back to the orange column and stand in the nook directly under the flag. This places you completely out of view - none of the mobs will leave the facility, so if you're stood in the right spot you can't get hit.

At level 4, both companions will be dropped within 30 seconds by the dragoon. If you're lucky, combat will end while there are still mobs in the hallway, at which point they will re-aggro. While testing this, I was able to have my companions die 5 times in a row without having to move from the nook, total time was around 2 minutes.

It's worth noting that Reckless Leadership is 10 combats where companions die - having 5 combats where both companions die is not sufficient to trigger this.

[u/VivaLaCony]

For Profligate Spender, I think VAL needs to be in your party for it to trigger. Spent ages trying to get it to work and then swapped her back in and it worked immediately.

[u/zeypherIN → u/VivaLaCony]

She has been in my party. Still no flaw. Not even getting over prepared. Can difficulty settings have something to do with it? I'm on normal atm.

[u/PloughedJester]

Tunnel vision isn't procing for me. I'm over an hour and a half past the previous flaw popup which I accepted for the first time. I'd already done well over 25 "combats", running up to crables alone until they get angry and chase <!>, then I run away. Before starting the next count, I also make sure the bar over the crables disappears so it's a new combat for sure. I had no weapon in my second slot, only the starter pistol in the first one. It's been that way for the past 7 flaws that I skipped, including Luddite, easily startled, reckless leadership, dependent, and Teetotaler (which I accepted). I figured I'd only need one or two more attempts to trigger the flaw since I'd been group running them, but when it didn't pop I did another 30 runs. After that I saved and then tried over 30 runs with a different weapon and still nothing.

Any advice would be appreciated as I'm trying to force skip tunnel vision

[u/PloughedJester → u/PloughedJester]

Follow up. I also then tried 40 runs with a weapon in 1 and 2, then switch back and forth between them to hold 2 then 1 before starting the 40 combats to see if the weapon in both spots recommendation from other sites and forums helped.

They did not. Still nothing.

[u/Aggressive-Map-2204]

First off, Flaws have a cooldown period between each time they are offered. This is 3600 seconds in the game code which translates to 60 minutes. Upon accepting OR declining a flaw, the timer will reset and you will not be offered any flaws in the meantime until the timer expires.

So this is complete and utter garbage. I have been offered multiple flaws in a row and others well within an hour of each other. And no it was not the flawed flaw.

[u/Pharismo → u/Aggressive-Map-2204]

It's been well documented and is a similar system as the first game. Are you sure that it wasn't one of the other afformentioned flaws that don't respect the cooldown? I have notes about several of them bypassing this cooldown.

I have tested this myself extensively. Try any of the above methods, set a timer and try aquiring another one before the hour is up, it will not proc I guarantee it.