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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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Forte said:
I really didn't like this interpretation. I felt the option was more to have faith in him and his own hard work. Bring penalized for not hand holding another cultivator while having friends who would be irate if we attempted to do the same for them is just asinine.
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The Prince was a White level cultivator out for blood, no way Shen Hu still in Green could survive going up against him.
 
Huo Yuhao said:
Except it's not? Ling Qi knows just as well as us that she needs to focus on cultivation in order to achieve the goals set out for her. FVM's domain insight fully supports the status quo as well. In the post where I changed my vote, my reasoning was focused entirely on IC justification and narrative consequences, not the value of AP.
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Huo Yuhao said:
It's a tough decision either way for me. I just want to make sure people understand that there's a good chance we'll need Green 6 to reach Rank 530, which isn't guaranteed to happen even if we don't choose to sacrifice the AP. Choosing to spend more time with our family makes it even harder.
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Huo Yuhao said:
There's a high chance we won't have time for Archive 1 arts anymore regardless of which option we choose.
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Huo Yuhao said:
Do we actually know this? That seems like a very huge gap. Bao Qingling, as a production track disciple, is ranked 540 while at Green 5. Ruan Shen, as a combat track disciple, is ranked 627 while at Green 5. I'm not saying it's guaranteed or even likely, but it seems like there's a significant chance we'll need Green 6 to reach rank 530 on the combat track, unless I'm missing something.
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Huo Yuhao said:
There are no hard numbers. Some of us think we might need Green 6 to reach our rank goal of 530 or higher, which isn't guaranteed to happen.
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Huo Yuhao said:
For our overall power, it's almost definitely worse than spending the AP ourselves. It would be very weird if the family option made us stronger than the AP option, at least in the short term.

You also have to remember that we don't know for sure how much extra time we'll be spending training our spirits if we pick the family option. It could be a lot of training or none at all.

I got the impression that the family option is more about social interaction, which would be useful for leveling up our spirit SLs, which could provide combat bonuses through our domain. I'm not sure if this will have a big impact though, since we might still be able to increase the SL levels of Hanyi and Sixiang to 4 by the tournament even without the family option.

Also, just for clarification, yrsillar specified later that Meizhen isn't included in the vote. I'm pretty sure the vote applies to literal family + spirits only, not anyone else.
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Huo Yuhao said:
Except we don't get to choose how our extra time with our family is being spent. We could, and likely will, get some of these benefits. We'll also be spending time with our family on other social interactions instead of just training our spirits. It's hard to decide whether it's worth it, even if you care primarily about characters and narrative.

Your AP breakdown is based on assumptions. We don't know for sure how the family option will work out while we can estimate the value of AP based on our past AP allocation.
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You have consistently argued based on AP, explicitly so.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with that. The vote is literally about spending AP. I also took AP into account when I voted.




Pathos said:
While true, there is an issue of granularity and visibility of the benefits.

When selecting normal SL we are aware of what they involve in broad terms whereas the "Household and Family" option has an opacity to it that makes it something for of a (potential) 20+ AP mystery box, as again it's unknown even in general terms what we are looking forward to seeing or gaining from this. Yes, other SL have given quite a bit but I prefer to muddle with the "known" investments that we have rather than pour one AP per month until either the tournament or the end of our time in the Sect.

Regarding those stating we should be able to back out for crunch time, I saw the salt content of "We Stand in Awe" and the constant back and forth regarding any major decision and the dredging up of the arguments every time the options came up. If we were aware of an automatic "back-off" during the months immediately prior to the tournament then yes that'd be entirely acceptable for us to make an "emergency cram session" for arts that we are on the threshold for and this vote to be a bit more palatable.

There are costs and benefits to this vote, and I'm sure we'll get something out of choosing "Household and Family" I would rather focus more directly on the known/foreseeable quantities of our build and our Spirit Beasts rather than place them all in the same pile as Biyu and Qinnge.
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I'm not sure why you're quoting me?

I'm not telling you or anyone what to vote for. As far as I can tell we know almost nothing about what we actually have to achieve to succeed at the Cai quest. Until that changes all our decisions other than working to change that are at best misguided.

All I was saying is that characterizing the vote as 22 AP for one non combat SL is inaccurate.
 
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qwolfs said:
You have consistently argued based on AP, explicitly so.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with that. The vote is literally about spending AP. I also took AP into account when I voted.





I'm not sure why you're quoting me?

I'm not telling you or anyone what to vote for. As far as I can tell we know almost nothing about what we actually have to achieve to succeed at the Cai quest. Until that changes all our decision other than working to change that are at best misguided.

All I was saying is that characterizing the vote as 22 AP for one non combat SL is inaccurate.
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I have previous posts where I didn't argue based on AP, namely when I changed my vote from family to status quo. I do think that the family option is slightly more satisfying from a character perspective, but there's reasonable IC justification for Ling Qi to select either option. The AP arguments tilted me in favor of the status quo. This is similar to why I preferred the Cai option, although I couldn't vote at the time (but let's not talk about this).
Adhoc vote count started by Huo Yuhao on Apr 3, 2019 at 6:52 PM, finished with 545 posts and 195 votes.
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qwolfs said:
All I was saying is that characterizing the vote as 22 AP for one non combat SL is inaccurate.
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I was quoting you as your comment was that the AP argument was that it was a good decision due to the AP being spent on what might be effectively 5 SL, which I admitted was true but there was an issue of opacity and a lack of granularity to the decision as to who we spend our AP on. The opacity issue is that we have no idea about what these AP will involve or reward, we are pre-deciding between having one AP a month automatically deducted for the foreseeable future and used for something that involves "Household and Family" or getting to pick and choose what to do with the AP as we go along.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Huo Yuhao on Apr 3, 2019 at 6:52 PM, finished with 545 posts and 195 votes.
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tenchifew said:
We still could have at least stick by our friends.
Not asking for our partner to be spared was a mistake.
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The only mistake we made was believing in the promise of cute fangs. We dared to hope and our luck did not provide.

Zaealix said:
...On a sidebar note, does anyone else Ling Qi knows have more than like, one or two spirits?
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Thor's Twin said:
Hanyi hasn't made her official debut in the inner sect yet, to my knowledge and Sixiang is an internal spirit which means that people who are particularly looking might not see her.

The Elder's certainly know, our friends might know, but our other inner sect students may or may not know depending on how much they care to investigate the up and coming class.
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Ling Qi is way more on the Weilu side of spirit interactions compared to most sect members. Whilst others were binding spirits they read about in books LQ was off celebrating her birthday with the Sect Spirit gossip circle.

This tendency will only be amplified if family vote wins and the staff have to get used to spirits hanging around the house like it's nothing out of the ordinary.

[X] In the future, devote more time to your household and your family. (-1AP in future turns)

More family scenes please, and if we start lagging behind we'll just do something insane and reckless. Such is the Ling Qi way.
 
Pathos said:
I was quoting you as your comment was that the AP argument was that it was a good decision due to the AP being spent on what might be effectively 5 SL, which I admitted was true but there was an issue of opacity and a lack of granularity to the decision as to who we spend our AP on. The opacity issue is that we have no idea about what these AP will involve or reward, we are pre-deciding between having one AP a month automatically deducted for the foreseeable future and used for something that involves "Household and Family" or getting to pick and choose what to do with the AP as we go along.
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No, I said that the AP to SL ratio was fairly good. I wasn't actually commenting on the suitability of the option as a whole, which is why I was confused when you felt your point was connected to mine.
 
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We have confirmation from yrsillar on discord that getting to the 520s will be hard, although it's ambiguous.

Arkeus Today at 12:26 PM
@Yrsillar so, there is a bit of contention in "how hard is our goal supposed to be". From Ling Qi's PoV, how likely is it for Sun Liling/Meizhen to manage to get to 520~ in two years?
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Yrsillar Today at 12:32 PM
It's gonna be a pretty hard slog yes.
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[X] In the future, devote more time to your household and your family. (-1AP in future turns)
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Arkeus on Apr 3, 2019 at 7:09 PM, finished with 551 posts and 197 votes.
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Okay, fuck. This is a really difficult decision for me, and since I would've done so anyway, I think I list my reasoning and hopefully figure out my answer along the way.

Reasons to Vote Family Time:
  • Qi's been basically killing it so far in terms of progression, she's definitely a very scary combatant to peer cultivators.
  • Strengthened relationships with Qingge and Biyu, the family that we treasure so dearly.
  • Probable boost to Qingge's cultivation, with the increase to personal advice and troubleshooting.
  • Improved social integration between Spirits and Household.
  • Get familiar with our new staff and what is involved in running the household.
  • Hanyi will probably both reach Bond 4 faster and emotionally heal a bit faster. It'll be positive socialization for her.
  • Spirit team themselves may bond with each other faster and get better teamwork.
  • This will almost certainly be beneficial to Qi's mental health.
  • Very real possibilities that this will have good impacts on our domain, since our focus on the home resonates with actually being at home more than a few hours every month.
  • Less competition for our minors.
  • I'm not certain, but I have to imagine that there will be course correction available if Qi actually does fall behind on the critical path.
  • I get more wonderful family scenes.
  • This is a narratively and mechanically powerful and meaningful thematic capstone to the recent arcs.
Reasons to Vote Status Quo:
  • Shenhua's Mandate has serious consequences for failure, and it is a fairly demanding pace to maintain. With the current uncertainty of what exactly we are on pace to achieve by our deadlines, reducing our current workload towards achieving that goal could be a very unwise gamble.
  • While cutting back on base cultivation will hopefully not happen (I may become more active in math chat to argue for 4/4 base cult every single month), the various housekeeping AP we do to either archive binge or train AP1 arts or do Sect stuff will probably be skimped on.
  • It isn't like Qingge (or Biyu) is feeling neglected and ignored by Qi, she knows we are working very hard for their future and accepts it fully.
  • Hanyi won't break down because we didn't choose to take these "breaks".
  • With the special case of the Forest King, Qi hasn't been cracking under the pressure.
Well, as much as it hurts the conservative, game-theory minded, failure-avoidant, optimizing part of my mind, this feels right to me. Won't be too upset either way.

[X] In the future, devote more time to your household and your family. (-1AP in future turns)
 
[X] While you will be present as much as you can, your household cannot be top priority yet. (Status quo)
 
George said:
We're likely going to end up spending actions on strength regardless due to the Cai route. The opportunity cost I'm concerned about is fewer chances to explore the world and have interesting events. Those, from my view, are a far more compelling source of character growth than playing with kids and going on picnics. I can do family stuff in real life, but I certainly can't go undergo the trial of a millenia dead spirit.
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This is actually the most convincing argument I've seen on the subject so far. Most people on the extra AP side are arguing based on the loss of strength, and people on the family side (me) are arguing about the loss of characterization. Well, surprise surprise, as someone more concerned with characterization the loss of strength argument isn't going to do much for me, and vice versa, me arguing for characterization isn't going to budge people who are more worried about the coming challenges.

You're one of the first to tackle the extra AP side of the discussion from a characterization angle that doesn't come off as a thinly veiled excuse. Bravo.

I'll stick with the family vote, but you did make me genuinely think about changing it.
 
George said:
We're likely going to end up spending actions on strength regardless due to the Cai route. The opportunity cost I'm concerned about is fewer chances to explore the world and have interesting events. Those, from my view, are a far more compelling source of character growth than playing with kids and going on picnics. I can do family stuff in real life, but I certainly can't go undergo the trial of a millenia dead spirit.
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That would be nice, but historically, people will nix exploration because "We can't risk it, we need to work on strength for Cai, and exploration is just throwing away AP! Take your reduced exploration rolls from off-screen Sect Jobs and be satisfied with it." We only ever do exploration when it's attached to something else, or forced on us, and those things would get AP spent on them regardless of how much we have. Cultivation is a risk, the Xianxia pattern has always been that those who grow sheltered in greenhouses are weaker than the ones who go out and venture. Let's take risks; it's a quest, not a job, let's quest.
 
I changed my mind again. The primary reason for voting for the status quo option is to give us a greater chance of reaching our tournament and ranking goals. With respect to ranking, it seems very unlikely that we'll need Green 6 to reach 530. Even Liao Zhu was only Green 7 (although he might be higher now). It's likelier that there are bottlenecks along the road that will prevent us or the ducal scions from advancing in Green easily.

I don't think this decision will effect our progress in overall strength all that much either. There are usually actions we can leave out without having much of an effect in each action plan, such as the exploration action we almost left out last time. It's often questionable if these actions are more beneficial to us than the benefits we get from spending time with our family. We just need to make sure we favor our cultivation and core arts more than other actions in our plans.

Outside of our strength progression, I don't see a compelling reason to vote for the status quo. Ling Qi could have IC justifications for either vote, but I prefer the story the family vote tells more.

[X] In the future, devote more time to your household and your family. (-1AP in future turns)
 
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ParticipantAward said:
That would be nice, but historically, people will nix exploration because "We can't risk it, we need to work on strength for Cai, and exploration is just throwing away AP! Take your reduced exploration rolls from off-screen Sect Jobs and be satisfied with it." We only ever do exploration when it's attached to something else, or forced on us, and those things would get AP spent on them regardless of how much we have. Cultivation is a risk, the Xianxia pattern has always been that those who grow sheltered in greenhouses are weaker than the ones who go out and venture. Let's take risks; it's a quest, not a job, let's quest.
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That argument only gets harder when there's less total to go around, though.
 
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