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Magical Girl Quest - The Fire That Burns

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Rukia said:
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Yeah, but you only said that after the current update. Like I just said, I didn't realize we were in any true danger. So why the heck would we have focused on surviving?

As it was, we didn't have any clear objective, so is it any surprise the players assumed wrongly? And before you say anything about assumptions, the players shouldn't have to assume anything in regard to their objective to begin with.

IMO, the fault lies with you for being unclear and the players for not bothering asking you if their assumptions were correct. The free-form plan wasn't the problem.
 
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Zaealix said:
...I do recall hearing Maugen realizing that bit of an issue with getting ambushed, in essence-it's too easy to assume you can't just bail out of the way...
Bah, enough talking about should haves, I'd like to think about what we should do going forward.
Frankly? A few notions come to mind.
1. Our team is basically 90% murder thanks to PtV girl, the third knight drugging herself to death. I'm increasingly feeling like that's REALLY bad for us- the Knights never get to meet now, barring ressurrection powers, and well, given the original CrystalWalker's quest only had ONE MG capable of that?
What this means, is we REALLY need to figure out a way to replace that niche, either by the various girls developing powers to overcome that, or by Una taking that ball entirely. The latter...Seems like the more likely route to occur, courtesy of Cerys being waaay to overprotective to let Una really get much combat experience. We can probably help Cerys with ideas to do this if that's the route we go down.
2. The Team isn't just 90% murder in terms of powerset, it's in mentality. Cerys is suuuuper paranoid& touchy, in a way that's going to be VERY slow to defuse, I think, if at all. The problem is even if someone new like Gaia can eventually worm her way into Cerys' heart, I get the impression it's less 'actually rebuilding Cerys' trust in humanity' and more 'I'm making an exception for this one person.' Not good. Sabrina's enough of a blood-seeker that she's going to be inclined to violence whenever she can swing it- see her trying to knock out the girl that we were to NOT hurt. Daiyu DOES seem to have a good head on her shoulders and can mitigate miss 'don't trust anyone' and 'BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!'...Except she's loyal enough to Cerys that I question how much she'll actually intervene. And Una is the mascot and thus lacks the ability to really sway things either way.
How to handle this...I don't have much in the way of good ideas. I'm thinking Daiyu or Una being the face as a general rule would be a good idea, the other becoming the leader. Cerys might have bad insubordination tendancies due to trust issues (even ignoring the SV effect), and Sabrina I could see being a bit of a problem typically, but it seems the best way to handle the issues of the nasty pairs. Soo basically transfer responsibility for decision making to Daiyu and Una, over the long term.
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What.
What PtV girl?
What drugging herself to death?
There are three Knights I know of, and no others. Ignition, Eternal and Ebony.
 
Darkfire said:
Yeah, but you only said that after the current update. Like I just said, I didn't realize we were in any true danger. So why the heck would we have focused on surviving?

As it was, we didn't have any clear objective, so is it any surprise the players assumed wrongly? And before you say anything about assumptions, the players shouldn't have to assume anything in regard to their objective to begin with.

IMO, the fault lies with you for being unclear and the players for not bothering asking you if their assumptions were correct. The free-form plan was never the problem.
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'I didn't realize we were in any true danger.'
This one sentence is just... It either implies sheer stupidity or overwhelming arrogance.

'we didn't have any clear objective'
1 - Don't die
2 - Survive long enough for Gaia's teleport to get through the 20% (I rolled it every turn)
2.1 - Alternatively, escape the 20m teleport block
3 - If you are feeling frisky, try to kill the teleport blocker

Seems pretty clear to me.
 
Rukia said:
Seems pretty clear to me.
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I think the main problem is another.
Going from a previous statement, I am currently assuming that quite a few people seem to only skim each Update instead of reading it properly. That is likely the reason everyone misses all the subtle hints and pointers hidden in them, despite the fact we can talk about those alone for half hours in the Workshop.

Or the people do notice them, but do not feel the need to comment. Which then leads to those that did miss them never realising there was something there.
 
Rukia said:
'I didn't realize we were in any true danger.'
This one sentence is just... It either implies sheer stupidity or overwhelming arrogance.
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Probably arrogance. :rolleyes: Putting aside the fact the old man was a complete pushover the first time around and Cerys roflstomped the Scourge.
Rukia said:
2 - Survive long enough for Gaia's teleport to get through the 20% (I rolled it every turn
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I assumed she was faking it. I didn't catch on to the fact the street was smaller than 20m. My bad on this one.
Rukia said:
3 - If you are feeling frisky, try to kill the teleport blocker
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I assumed the leading plan was doing it. We had come up with a few ways to kill him when the previous update first came out. Once again, my bad.
 
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Naron said:
I think the main problem is another.
As was stated before, quite a few people seem to only skim each Update instead of reading it properly. That is likely the reason everyone misses all the subtle hints and pointers hidden in them, despite the fact we can talk about those alone for half hours in the Workshop.

Or the people do notice them, but do not feel the need to comment. Which then leads to those that did miss them never realising there was something there.
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This is actually a really important point. Crossed with the notion that many posters I think tend to just sit back and let known plan-makers like Naron lead the way instead of truly analyzing themselves. It makes for a questing environment where QM's can rarely get to truly cut loose with clever puzzles, because it's not actually 1 or 2 men versus the endless horde of questers, it's really that one perseon versus whoever's bearing the flag of being a planmaker.

@Darkfire @Rukia I'd like to refer you both to the atmosphere in-thread around Original - Fantasy - A Re:Incarnation Quest | Page 1057
Maybe the QM failed to communicate, maybe the playerbase derped. It happened, let's roll on, and deal with any fallout as it comes up. Also linking that thread because I smell a similar sort of circumstance starting to brew up here and I'd really like nip that nonsense in the bud. 1 We Stand In Awe level salt factory is enough thank you very much!
 
Zaealix said:
This is actually a really important point. Crossed with the notion that many posters I think tend to just sit back and let known plan-makers like Naron lead the way instead of truly analyzing themselves. It makes for a questing environment where QM's can rarely get to truly cut loose with clever puzzles, because it's not actually 1 or 2 men versus the endless horde of questers, it's really that one perseon versus whoever's bearing the flag of being a planmaker.

@Darkfire @Rukia I'd like to refer you both to the atmosphere in-thread around Original - Fantasy - A Re:Incarnation Quest | Page 1057
Maybe the QM failed to communicate, maybe the playerbase derped. It happened, let's roll on, and deal with any fallout as it comes up. Also linking that thread because I smell a similar sort of circumstance starting to brew up here and I'd really like nip that nonsense in the bud. 1 We Stand In Awe level salt factory is enough thank you very much!
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Not going to lie, while I absolutely love having Naron as my Beta, he really was one of the mainstay voters and planmakers in this quest. No-one else has really stepped forwards to fill his rather large boots, which is why he still moonlights as a voter by giving you guys plan suggestions, also because he can't resist.

On the second matter, I admit that the... quietness and lack of discussion around chapters can be incredibly frustrating at times. I'll write a detailed chapter with tons and tons of subtle hints and messages and little backstories, and the thread just doesn't mention it, in the slightest. I don't know if they saw it and didn't mention it or if they just missed it, but it can be disheartening to spend hours making everything just so and the only posts are votes.

It kind of makes you want to not write the next chapter, but I still get likes on them so...

For bullying, I hope I haven't come across as bullying anyone. I can be a bit harsh with criticism but it seems to be the only way to get the message across, subtle hints just go unnoticed.
 
I wasn't concerned about bullying so much as the thread potentially turning into a massive pressure cooker.
...In the interest of possibly beginning to step into Naron's shoes, would my three-step plan of:
step1: throw sword at Scourge to buy space between him and Fortress
Step2: fly out of there, trusing Daiyu's barriers to soak the Anti-Air attacks.
step3: go home to Gaia once we're out of the town (because NeverThere wouldn't want to try to solo us) have worked?
 
Zaealix said:
I wasn't concerned about bullying so much as the thread potentially turning into a massive pressure cooker.
...In the interest of possibly beginning to step into Naron's shoes, would my three-step plan of:
step1: throw sword at Scourge to buy space between him and Fortress
Step2: fly out of there, trusing Daiyu's barriers to soak the Anti-Air attacks.
step3: go home to Gaia once we're out of the town (because NeverThere wouldn't want to try to solo us) have worked?
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Step 1: They were already kind of separated, and it is likely that he would just take the damage to reunite with his team.
Step 2: Not in the slightest, Cerys would have been blapped so hard that the only thing that would save her from death is her save from death.
Step 3: You just needed to get 20 metres away for even a second and you would have escaped, as you did here.
 
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Okay again, being honest here, I pretty much do only skim. I read deeper when there's social going on in this quest because that's something ai'm actually good at, but I have not had the time to get a handle on Combat, so I tend to skim this quest aggressively.

I feel as though I may need to step up at this point though (inasmuch as I can anyways) and start actively trying to plan and understand, since this feels like it's been a rather stupid clusterfuck.

I do sort of agree with how nebulous the sense of danger was, as well as how poorly communicated the objective was. That does not excuse me or the other players not bothering to seriously try, but it is a problem. It is entirely possible to be too subtle, and one of the dangers of becoming reputed for subtlety or hidden meanings is that you can end up with players becoming confused and reading too deeply when the meanings do not necessarily run so deep.

A problem that did occur in the above mentioned Re:Incarnation quest is in fact that, where some posts had deeply buried messages, and others had blatantly obvious directives. The issue was that the players started to expect deep messages, and started looking for them in the 'blatantly obvious directive' posts, often resulting in making the worst possible decision because they read too deep and assumed the blatantly obvious directive was a ruse to hide a deeper meaning.

So while I know it feels great to be clever, moderate it carefully.

Anyways.

I'll try to do better personally, and actually start involving myself seriously in this quest from here on out. That said...

Rukia said:
Step 2: Not in the slightest, Cerys would have been blapped so hard that the only thing that would save her from death is her save from death.
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How? Didn't Daiyu tank all that firepower in the update anyways? What would flying have changed? Does that gun get a bonus against airborne targets or something?

Moreover, if that much firepower was leveled at us, how are we supposed to get 20m horizontally if we can't hope to get 20m vertically? The building was at our back and last I checked Gaia couldn't get us out from inside it? (Might be misremembering posts from before on that one.). If that's so, we would need to cross the street and go through another building, opening us up to fire for quite some time with very little cover.

So yeah... Really not sure how we were supposed to draw the conclusion that escape was possible in those circumstances.

Leaving aside the whole 'the fact that there was an ambush assumes that their effort was primarily concentrated on making our escape insanely difficult' assumption I mean.
 
Rukia said:
(Paradox: +750 Base Damage, +191 Dice = 941 Total Damage
Scourge: +100 Base Resilience, +18 Dice = 118 Total Reduction Unstoppable

Scourge Health: 24,011 - 941 = 23,070)
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Rukia said:
Unending Hunger
-Any spell that contacts you or your magic is negated, then the combined Damage and Magic Modifier is added to health.
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Why didn't this heal the Scourge instead? It was a spell and it contacted him.

I thought his ability would only make him heal from spells that hit him or ones he intercepted. Which is why I haven't sent Sabina into close quarters to kill him. Since her autocasting Sever would only heal him.

Also I have no idea how we should've seen the Shika anti air suddenly trippling.
Sabina would've easily dealt with a single one. Being able to intercept the attack and ranged intercept damage against Sabina being halved.
 
Spectral Waltz said:
Moreover, if that much firepower was leveled at us, how are we supposed to get 20m horizontally if we can't hope to get 20m vertically? The building was at our back and last I checked Gaia couldn't get us out from inside it? (Might be misremembering posts from before on that one.). If that's so, we would need to cross the street and go through another building, opening us up to fire for quite some time with very little cover.
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anti-air is a x6 damage multiplier. I am kind of surprised they could track us fast enough to hit us - we fly at 190 mph (though daiyu is only 140 mph) and only need to go 20 meters or so. That's maybe a quarter of a second.
 
Mellithae said:
anti-air is a x6 damage multiplier. I am kind of surprised they could track us fast enough to hit us - we fly at 190 mph (though daiyu is only 140 mph) and only need to go 20 meters or so. That's maybe a quarter of a second.
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human military is very good at tracking fast things.
our high flight speed will be more useful to actually move at those speeds, and against UL or UD. They are not as used to people moving that fast. Though some of them ofc can.
 
LightLan said:
Why didn't this heal the Scourge instead? It was a spell and it contacted him.

I thought his ability would only make him heal from spells that hit him or ones he intercepted. Which is why I haven't sent Sabina into close quarters to kill him. Since her autocasting Sever would only heal him.

Also I have no idea how we should've seen the Shika anti air suddenly trippling.
Sabina would've easily dealt with a single one. Being able to intercept the attack and ranged intercept damage against Sabina being halved.
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First of all, we ruled that Unstoppable punches through Scourge's Ability. He was unable to intercept it due to how Neverthere switched him in without warning.

The tripling of the Shika was a temporary effect that we first saw in AN EVENING STROLL. We (the Workshop) do realise it was a bad idea not to give a slight hint for it showing up this time, but it was not unprecedented.
 
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Mellithae said:
anti-air is a x6 damage multiplier. I am kind of surprised they could track us fast enough to hit us - we fly at 190 mph (though daiyu is only 140 mph) and only need to go 20 meters or so. That's maybe a quarter of a second.
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Eh, if it's a modern anti air unit then that quarter second is still time enough for it to fire 100+ rounds and it's tracking is almost certainly calibrated to hit things moving that fast or even faster. So I can actually see it now.

Didn't originally realize it had x6 against airborne but then again, was skimming. So sticking to the ground was necessary, we still need to cross the street in order to get away, exposing ourselves to fire and putting everyone at risk.
 
Naron said:
The tripling of the Shika was a temporary effect that we first saw in AN EVENING STROLL. We do realise it was a bad idea not to give a slight hint for it showing up this time, but it was not unprecedented.
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ye, I don't remember everything from 4 months ago. Especially since it didn't happen the last time we ran into a Shika, which was where I went to check how much damage a Shika does, since we did not get a Sheet for it.
 
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I think the trick was that we had Daiyu TANK for us while we hid in cover, versus flight which would have exposed us big-time. I notice Rukia said that Cerys would have been splatted, even if Daiyu was fine. Still, not a great plan.
 
...still feel weird that Ford used my post as a jumping off point there in Re:incarnation, especially since that was the one time I was at all hostile towards Z000

I like to think we've gotten better about a lot of things in the 500 pages since then

Even so, that whole incident was...weird. I remember looking back over the thread carefully when we got that warning, and just seeing a bunch of people trying to interact with a kinda weird person who spoke english as a second language at best

Also I'm pretty sure the spark of the incident was Z000 managing to push Rabbit's buttons one too many times and being asked to leave, which he never did, and simply got progressively more passive-aggressive about

Again, like I said, the incident was weird, and I've seen nothing like either it or the alleged bullying happening in this thread, though admittedly I miss whole sets of pages at a time occasionally
 
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I kind of want to step in here a bit:

Frankly, Rukia wasn't subtle at all in many of the things people claim he had been, so, if you skim, don't skim the work then claim that he was subtle, please.


Spectral Waltz said:
I do sort of agree with how nebulous the sense of danger was, as well as how poorly communicated the objective was.
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First off (and no this isn't just directed at you Spectral, others also commented on this).

Rukia said:
Do you want to live?
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Gaia said this before you all went over in regards to this mission and taking Una. It didn't quite go the way that would have necessitated Una, like it could have, but she clearly stated that dying was on the table.

This isn't nebulous. This is your patron straight up telling you that this mission is dangerous enough to die to.

Don't blame Rukia for being unclear.


As for objectives, that too, was clearly spelled out.
Rukia said:
"I want you to kill these two men." An image appears in your mind, one tall with a bit of a bear, the other shorter and clean shaven, they are in Counter Force and Clocktower Uniforms respectively. "They will be with a girl." No image this time. "Do not kill her, do not harm her at all." She leans forwards. "Not even a scratch." You nod, and she sits back, answering to your thoughts. "They are trying to negotiate peace, or at least a ceasefire. This cannot be allowed." Right as you think it. "The girl is of interest to me, she was the result of the second summoning." Mother presses heavily on the world around you, her body looking intently at the table. "She does not belong."
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1. Kill the two men negotiating ceasefire.
2. Do not harm the girl.

Those two things alone.

As for the battle plan, it frankly was possible to win the battle, destroying the shika, Neverthere, and the fortress at the very least in a turn. After which Gaia would teleport you away.

The main failing from what I've read so far in the thread, is… a miss management of resources.

Skimming updates and missing vital pieces of information, such as the severity of the mission, and the mission objectives. Not reading enemy character sheets. Not asking the QM for clarification on anything.

Not utilizing the twenty precast thermal spears that Cerys had been stated to have in the update well. It cannot even be argued that that fact was missed since the winning plan mentioned them, to throw some at Neverthere if you had a chance.

You know, instead of for instance voting to use them to destroy the shika anti-air instead of relying on Sabina when her method only has a 20% chance of success.

Ignoring a Guarantee for something that you had to roll over 80 to use.

There are other, not-very subtle things that if you look at enemy Character sheets + the update itself, would have been… much more likely to succeed then it did, even with the assumption that you couldn't run away and had to fight your way out.

edit: Darkfire pointed out that my wording on the second objective was wrong, fixed it.
 
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