A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Rihaku
The Internet
An interesting path... the options with the highest and lowest Gisena relations, respectively!
Well, Nightmare does have the ability to see more things coming / prep more efficiently for those things and ramp up slowly over time with Might when there aren't opportunistic enemies to slay. It's not that great in a direct fight without prep but it's not any worse than you currently are. Even without Fell-Handed Stroke you still have the power of Ruin infusing every strike, etc.
Fell-Handed Stroke is really cool... you don't even have to use it on enemies, it can also be used to destroy obstacles!
Oh, what do you like about him?
Indeed! Though a deeper relationship with Gisena, or the opposite, is a part of that context as well!
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
DIdn't you say at some point that Imperia route was basically the quest on Easy Mode?
(But we went for the hardest challenges anyway, negating all the safety benefits of playing on Easy.. Optional Bosses at any rate aren't scaling their difficulty down just because the difficulty is different!)
[X] Nightmare Praetor
[X] Auspicious Vanguard
[X] Auspicious Vanguard
DarkSideBard
Flying, without moving on
[X] Auspicious Vanguard
[X] Force Unto
It's not so much that I love either of these options, given that I am a fan of Gisena and I don't want to learn too much on raw might. But Null Resistance and generally better survivability is really good; a progression-type who ties or loses without dying is a progression-type that can go grind in the tall grass for a few hours before flattening the Gym Leader, this time. And some high degree of raw physical power does convert into consistent wins if you can make good enough decisions.
Praetor might be preferable over raw might in theory, but the ruthlessness of double Thieves is a long term mental pollution, and we all know how bad of an idea it is to be piling those on this early, especially as a Tyrant. And sacrificing the possibility of gradual, total healing and some progression speed for a big immediate jump kinda strikes me as a marshmallow test. Maybe if we were staring some immensely threatening opponent in the face and had immediate need for the bargain, that kind of tier jump would be worth the risk, but as-is? Eh.
[X] Force Unto
It's not so much that I love either of these options, given that I am a fan of Gisena and I don't want to learn too much on raw might. But Null Resistance and generally better survivability is really good; a progression-type who ties or loses without dying is a progression-type that can go grind in the tall grass for a few hours before flattening the Gym Leader, this time. And some high degree of raw physical power does convert into consistent wins if you can make good enough decisions.
Praetor might be preferable over raw might in theory, but the ruthlessness of double Thieves is a long term mental pollution, and we all know how bad of an idea it is to be piling those on this early, especially as a Tyrant. And sacrificing the possibility of gradual, total healing and some progression speed for a big immediate jump kinda strikes me as a marshmallow test. Maybe if we were staring some immensely threatening opponent in the face and had immediate need for the bargain, that kind of tier jump would be worth the risk, but as-is? Eh.
- Location
- The savanna.
Nah, if we're gonna successfully establish a tradition of horsetrading in these things it's important to follow through on commitments, you've got my vote until the Heart of the Matter options are no longer being offered.
[X] Conjured Blade
DarkSideBard
Flying, without moving on
"Oh, you like Arthur? What's your favorite song? Name three of his albums."
- Location
- USA
I see it as a difference in how we have to execute long term. Force Unto has the long term goal on capitalizing on Hunger to force growth often relying on momentum. Praetor downplays the Hero's combat strength.
Ultimately I guess I don't like Nightmare Praetor because I don't see the point in picking stuff to help us rule this early. Until we have the level of Power that makes it so that we can bully people Tyrant is going to make ruling hard.
Also not a huge fan of specializing Hunger this early, as I feel like more options will come if we don't. Something like a Pride based Hunger that hungers for Glory could have a lot of synergy with Tyrant and Accretion. Though I may be destroying the possibility by speaking of it.
I could also be wrong and Hunger could be limitless so long as we want to keep taking the minor drawbacks. It's too bad the extra points made double Hunger impossible this time around, I'm left wondering if that is by design or happenstance.
- Location
- Pindorama
I just find him extremely sympathetic, being someone struggling to give the power he was given meaning. Like, he was trying to legitimately build a context about his role in the world and follow a higher ideal, even through his clumsy chain analogies and incomplete ideas about honor; that just made him more endearing to me. It's like Teal said, he really does try his best.
That fact also made the Strategist a great foil in his encouragement of self-advancement at the costs of others, the abscence of the ideal. It made the interplay between them really interesting.
DkArthas
CAPITAL IS TO BLAME
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- They
Our hero is currently a hollow husk of his former self, missing a lot of memories, what do you think is going to happen when we take thick as thieves twice right now? I would be more willing to take it if our hero had an stable mental foundation with an strong personality but taking TAT now means that a lot of his personality might be adversely effected by the former tyrant. This is literally the worst time to take it in my opinion.
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Rihaku
The Internet
Well, you did kind of 'win' in that it probably wouldn't be practical for any other faction to oppose Governance with Imperia, the Nettlespine, and the Sleeper (with the power of the Monarch) acting as its enforcers. Teal being crippled was a heavy blow but the Monarch's power was just incredibly vast compared to the other students.
So yeah. I guess that manga about Imperia did come true after all! And Arthur got to be at the top of the food chain.
Man is the chain, after all.
Interesting! Gisena seems very popular, moreso than I expected.
Hmph! Now to constantly offer other votes without ever closing this one...
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Allowing Approval voting has literally brought Auspicious Vanguard from the brink of defeat to the leading option. Interesting.
Yeah I would have preferred Double Hunger as well, pity the middle option has no Hunger options. I think it's just the nature of Accretion, directing legend upgrade at Hunger(Which is a ring) isn't easy. It does occur to me that with Rihaku mentioning that at high tiers we can duplicate an EFB ring effect, and well, Hunger is.. ..right there...
- Location
- USA
It's less that I want it, and more that I want to know if it would be possible.
I liked Arthur initially, but his character just always felt like a complete waste of potential thematically. He has an incredible academic aptitude but is lazy and a procrastinator out of guilt. He has tremendous martial talent but refused to explore the more bestial side of his personality to adhere to his code of honor. He was way too reactive and passive for my tastes and fixated on Imperia (something probably exaggerated by the fact that the voterbase would vote for Imperia options on the basis of both 'waifuism' and 'practicality' given her competence, admittedly something I might have been guilty of as well). Like, there was a decent opportunity to swear fealty to Foxglove and gain powers on the eve of the battle against Coldbriar and we still chose not to take advantage of our Conjoiner powers (which says something about Arthur's loyalty to Imperia, a plus to be sure, but completely doesn't utilize the Right Hand of God).
More importantly though, Arthur wasn't consistent in terms of powerset and personality, something that probably resulted from the split in the voterbase. I would have been fine with the whole honor and Chain stuff but Arthur doesn't even use the Honorblade, his ultimate weapon was the First Sword and the Strategist's Blade. So, he always felt like a half-complete character in terms of personality-to-power synergy, having a strong moral code but with powers and talents leaning in another direction. Over the arc of Terrascape, I became more interested in exploring the Strategist's powers or delving into the nature of the Beast inside Arthur Drake but we never played towards that angle and the general tone of always holding himself back and self-sacrifice didn't really appeal to me.
Overall, I still quite liked him but I would have been more interested in him becoming a more active character. His finest moment in the quest was certainly in Pendragon, probably one of the best fights in Rihaku's quests, but one of the standout scenes to me was in By Other Means early on, when Arthur just cut loose with that nat 100 and delivered an amazing performance. I would have loved to see more of that success kind of roll out into him becoming a more confident individual, but we Swore Fealty to Imperia and escalated the game to a different power-level so Arthur fell into a different quest-dynamic. A slight shame, though the quest is still certainly one of my favorites due to the interesting magic systems, powers and build options alongside the more notable characters.
The Chain stuff got to be a bit much though imo.
More importantly though, Arthur wasn't consistent in terms of powerset and personality, something that probably resulted from the split in the voterbase. I would have been fine with the whole honor and Chain stuff but Arthur doesn't even use the Honorblade, his ultimate weapon was the First Sword and the Strategist's Blade. So, he always felt like a half-complete character in terms of personality-to-power synergy, having a strong moral code but with powers and talents leaning in another direction. Over the arc of Terrascape, I became more interested in exploring the Strategist's powers or delving into the nature of the Beast inside Arthur Drake but we never played towards that angle and the general tone of always holding himself back and self-sacrifice didn't really appeal to me.
Overall, I still quite liked him but I would have been more interested in him becoming a more active character. His finest moment in the quest was certainly in Pendragon, probably one of the best fights in Rihaku's quests, but one of the standout scenes to me was in By Other Means early on, when Arthur just cut loose with that nat 100 and delivered an amazing performance. I would have loved to see more of that success kind of roll out into him becoming a more confident individual, but we Swore Fealty to Imperia and escalated the game to a different power-level so Arthur fell into a different quest-dynamic. A slight shame, though the quest is still certainly one of my favorites due to the interesting magic systems, powers and build options alongside the more notable characters.
The Chain stuff got to be a bit much though imo.
Rihaku
The Internet
The power to keep outsiders out is one of the Terrascape's many miraculous functions!
By design.
What is a man to do when given power involuntarily at prohibitive moral cost? It's an interesting question!
The answer, of course, is to [ ] Refuse Like An Absolute Moron.
Come now, the Forebear was not nearly so puny and constricted a thing as that middling Tyrant! Good and evil, oppression and heirarchy, these are tools to frame how we see the world! But the world is as it ever was, perspective merely the angle from which we examine it. Why not entertain a grander perspective and take a truly long view? Even time itself must yield to Progression, so it's only permanent if one says so.
I am a bit unhappy with Nightmare - one of big points of Gisena was that she can do social stuff so we don't have to, so taking those options is somewhat .. inelegant. There is a value in having multiple people with similar skill as you can get different perspectives and you can delegate, but it still chafes.
Still:
Competence is valuable, yes. Mental contamination is dangerous still.
One thing to note that Midnight is the best option in shortest term(which is to say literally the next update) as we will be talking a lot, so there is that. Besides, increased competence will mean that we are better at finding time to nap, so at least that worry can be taken out of consideration.
Still:
Competence is very hard to pass on. It's an absolute multiplier; what matters is not if your sword can't shatter rocks or stars, but mind that wields it. Preparation and planning matters a lot: for example, where other options might run in general direction of enemy, more efficient one might command current armies and reinforce them in a manner that is most conductive to bringing both our growth and overall victory while saving most lives.
Competence is valuable, yes. Mental contamination is dangerous still.
One thing to note that Midnight is the best option in shortest term(which is to say literally the next update) as we will be talking a lot, so there is that. Besides, increased competence will mean that we are better at finding time to nap, so at least that worry can be taken out of consideration.
[X] Force Unto
[X] Auspicious Vanguard
We were advised not to become what we despise. It pains me to pass up the stacked competence of Nightmare Praetor, but Hiro should continue as he began: a snowball of murder, rebounding from battle to battle, until he emerges on the far side with an enormous bounty of power. As a second pick, Auspicious Vanguard's competence boost to survival is attractive, being able to extricate ourselves from dangerous situations has guaranteed relevance. Plus, we can upgrade Null Resistance and tank friendly fire if it'd be tactically advantageous. At some point someone's going to try sealing our true power away, the Apocryphal Curse guarantees it, and we'll be having none of their bullshit.
[X] Auspicious Vanguard
We were advised not to become what we despise. It pains me to pass up the stacked competence of Nightmare Praetor, but Hiro should continue as he began: a snowball of murder, rebounding from battle to battle, until he emerges on the far side with an enormous bounty of power. As a second pick, Auspicious Vanguard's competence boost to survival is attractive, being able to extricate ourselves from dangerous situations has guaranteed relevance. Plus, we can upgrade Null Resistance and tank friendly fire if it'd be tactically advantageous. At some point someone's going to try sealing our true power away, the Apocryphal Curse guarantees it, and we'll be having none of their bullshit.
[X] Unshattered
[X] Nightmare Praetor
A pity that there's no Echo + Thick as Thieves + Feast choice.
[X] Nightmare Praetor
A pity that there's no Echo + Thick as Thieves + Feast choice.
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- Location
- Pindorama
I would say the detrimental effects of mental pollution are overstated, but we don't even know what they are, so it's hard to argue. I don't think they would be problem exactly because the hero is so early in his characterization; being influenced by the Tyrant now would be far less jarring. It also would give him more time to settle and readjust should those memories rattle him rather than harm him should he take it at a desperate moment.
It doesn't help just ruling, all mental and social endeavors are enhanced; since we are actually just about to introduce ourselves next update, it is far more immediately relevant than more combat ability.
Good to know that Coldbriar would have inevitably died like a dog.
I made a saltypost about this very fact in the quest, but you could argue that this dichotomy between what his power incentivises and implies versus what he himself tries to be is one of the most compelling parts about him.
MaouShoujoElla
Organics Automata
- Location
- Dark Bramble
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Nightmare Praetor
[X] Force Unto
[X] Force Unto
Rihaku
The Internet
Yeah, this is pretty much what I thought approval voting would do. The option that few really like but everyone can compromise on tends to win. But what a bland and dreary quest that would make if every vote was such! And something like ranked choice voting is just a logistical nightmare...
Would be interesting to see how the quest would have proceeded with Hand of Justice. I imagine Strategist fans would have been even more frustrated with Arthur now torn between three forces (Justice, Strategist, Governance)! Or perhaps the focus on a relatively simple and straightforward power would have demanded focus of the voterbase as well.
When one walks the path of Justice, as with Vengeance, one must discard all unnecessary entanglements. To do otherwise invites the bitter reprisal of the world.
A real shame, That Which Returns had a great blurb too!
Yup! Though the mental contamination is concerning. Luckily you got Gisena and not, say, a young Porcelain!
Balance bros, this is our time... !
[X] Force Unto
[X] Nightmare Praetor
The only option that I'm really against is Unshattered which limits the long term potential overall. I wanted Trustworthy narratively for Gisena. Force Unto is my preferred option for having high synergy, and it suits the nature of the quest where we go into battle after battle. Nightmare Praetor is for the competency boost.
[X] Nightmare Praetor
The only option that I'm really against is Unshattered which limits the long term potential overall. I wanted Trustworthy narratively for Gisena. Force Unto is my preferred option for having high synergy, and it suits the nature of the quest where we go into battle after battle. Nightmare Praetor is for the competency boost.
- Location
- Pindorama
You know, some people like a peaceful quest environment. Not us considering we are still here, but still.