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A Simple Transaction I

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Well hey, finally caught up. I left Even Further Beyond on unhappy terms, but as Michael Scott said, "I'm ready to be hurt again." Sign my up for the lower version of the shameless signature shilling, please.

[X] Crown
[X] Dress the Fish
 
Skelm said:
Tetration is *way* too fast. From the scale Rihaku gave us, I expect it's closer to 2^(x^2), which gets you a doubling of multiplicative growth rate every fixed number of levels, roughly as Rihaku described.
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My assumption was that Rank had a relatively low logarithmic base, which still has a significantly large growth long-term. Maybe something like 1.5 or whatever. While figuring out some kind of exact equation given some number for Cultivation's logarithmic base is and the assumption that a similar multiplicative power differential leads to the same kind of battle results would be complicated enough for me to not really want to do it right now (maybe if I had a lot of free time and also needed to practice some set of skills that could be used to solve for it), the fact that hyper−logarithmic is used to refer to the Rank scale makes me assume that it is indeed some form of tetration used to calculate power of a certain Rank.
 
Genesys said:
My assumption was that Rank had a relatively low logarithmic base, which still has a significantly large growth long-term. Maybe something like 1.5 or whatever. While figuring out some kind of exact equation given some number for Cultivation's logarithmic base is and the assumption that a similar multiplicative power differential leads to the same kind of battle results would be complicated enough for me to not really want to do it right now (maybe if I had a lot of free time and also needed to practice some set of skills that could be used to solve for it), the fact that hyper−logarithmic is used to refer to the Rank scale makes me assume that it is indeed some form of tetration used to calculate power of a certain Rank.
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The term for inverse-tetration is "super-logarithm", but I doubt it's common enough to really be standard.

EDIT: Nope, see my next post

What we know is that around 2 Rank, an increase of 1 Rank is significant, around 5.5 an increase of 0.5 is equally significant, and around 9 an increase of 0.25 is also equally significant.

That tells us that, if we put power on a scale of Levels where a fixed win rate corresponds to a fixed Level difference at all levels, the derivative of Level with respect to Rank is a linear function. That means the Rank to Level conversion must be quadratic and, if Levels themselves correspond to exponential amounts of actual energy output, we get Energy = e^(a*Rank^2 + b*Rank + c)

Of course, all of this can only be accurate from Rank 1 to Rank 10, what growth looks like after that is unclear.

Also unclear is why anyone would use this weird-ass scale, unless power increments naturally come in fixed units of Rank. If so, we should definitely go for Rank increases wherever possible, because they will compound on themselves and give us ever more returns for a given level of challenge. Rank+0.25 is nothing to sniff at now, but it'll be worth much more once we're in the higher levels, even allowing for our much greater power at that point.
 
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A thought occurs to me, which doesn't seem to have gotten a ton of attention. This society knows about the Curse of Decimation because the Armaments have it; the giant robot we're fishing on has it. Which means... it's eating 10% of Gisena's lifespan right now. As we will be too, when the curse is no longer sated for us. So all projections regarding the depreciation of her lifespan for the foreseeable future should bear in mind that she'll be dying twice as fast.

We should perhaps look into a means of curse mitigation such as allowing us to designate exceptions to the otherwise all-consuming lifethirst. That is, I suspect, one of the easier methods of mitigation initially (I expect the cost to be logarithmic for each exception though, as always seems to be the case). Gisena's delightful company was an investment of a lesser remittance from the Accursed itself; if any one person should be specifically chosen for us not to devour into dessication, she'd be the one.
 
The robot isn't going anywhere while the fish could rot or Gisena might try and cook it. It's scales are literally described as treasure! We exhausted ourselves catching it we should at least see what it is we caught.
 
LordOfMurder said:
The robot isn't going anywhere while the fish could rot or Gisena might try and cook it.
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Would that be a waste, or the concotion of a potent bioweapon? You decide!

Of course, there are usually tradeoffs to valuable options like Free Arete and an increased character focus on Curse Mitigation! You must decide what is most valuable.

BrainInAJar said:
Um, the fact that we have the Apocryphal Curse makes it pretty unlikely we'll run out of fights. We already have a way to make enemies attack us, it's just a pretty troublesome one. Orb is still tactically useful, and it may even be strategically useful should we fight an entrenched polity, but it doesn't patch up any holes in our build or anything; there are ways of removing home ground advantage other than just provoking people into attacking us, anyway. We are definitely not lacking ways to get into fights.
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Now that you have the Evening Sky, the main holes in your build are raw power and varied offense, aside from a lack of proactive utility effects and certain forms of mobility / logistical advantage. The Orb grants noncombat utility (in fishing and fishing-analogous tasks), and also grants a fairly potent form of social offense that combines well with your high Appearance and Charisma (provoking people to attack you even when it would disadvantage them). It's no slouch.

Skelm said:
Also unclear is why anyone would use this weird-ass scale, unless power increments naturally come in fixed units of Rank. If so, we should definitely go for Rank increases wherever possible, because they will compound on themselves and give us ever more returns for a given level of challenge. Rank+0.25 is nothing to sniff at now, but it'll be worth much more once we're in the higher levels, even allowing for our much greater power at that point.
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Oh, I can think of a few reasons...
 
Does the orb provoke anyone we want it to or just people that see themselves as our enemies? If anyone we could use it to bait political rivals into attacking us in public to discredit them or things like that.
 
We won't lack for powerful enemies thanks to Apocrypha, so Rank gain is only a matter of time. The other two are a bit more difficult: Orb fits our build very well and gives us a number of potential tactics to exploit, whereas Sword would both start the work on repairing our Blade and let us fight a bit more effectively even in our current exhausted state.

Hmm, I think I'll pick

[X] Orb

for this one. Against a single dangerous enemy we can bait it towards us so that Gisena can Nullify them in peace, and against a mob it would let the Hero draw them to us so that we can whittle them down as they struggle against Evening Sky.
I think our greatest problem with our current level of tiredness isn't just killing another powerful enemy - both because Apocrypha procced just recently and because we won't separate from Gisena as easily - but rather protecting our companions from a lesser threat. A combination of needing Gisena outside to support us while simultaneously setting us against a sufficient number of enemies for some to slip past us could very well kill her.

The other choice... while it would be nice to give Hunger a bit more characterization in the direction of relieving the Curses, both the blurbs and Gisena's attitude strongly imply that

[X] Dress the Fish

is a very time-sensitive task. What if we miss out on something delicious?!
 
Unelemental said:
Against a single dangerous enemy we can bait it towards us so that Gisena can Nullify them in peace, and against a mob it would let the Hero draw them to us so that we can whittle them down as they struggle against Evening Sky.
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This is a good point with Evening Sky we're basically the party tank so a way to more effectively draw aggro is pretty useful.
 
I don't think it is wise to upset Gisena at this point in time, and we can investigate the robot after exhausted has worn off, because that is totally going to proc Apocryphal,
 
My, so solicitous of Gisena! I'm sure she'd be touched... but ultimately the subject of contention is still a fish. Might she get upset over such a thing? Perhaps, it is potentially of scientific interest and you did exhaust yourself procuring it. But there's no real risk of your actual cooperation being impeded.

Box Lunch said:
Now we shall become the archetypal adventuring party: fighter, mage, and giant robot pilot.
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You really need a healer, though! Accretion's one weakness... at this point you basically have to hope for another pertinent Hunger proc after turning down Feast of Lives, find/hire a healer, or get access to another magic system!
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by ReaderOfFate on May 28, 2020 at 2:43 AM, finished with 112 posts and 45 votes.
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I did a consolidated tally. Incoming.
Adhoc vote count started by Conjured Blade on May 28, 2020 at 2:52 AM, finished with 113 posts and 45 votes.
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Look, I don't think we will have any trouble making people want to attack us, the most pertinent fact is obviously surviving. Orb kind of has zero utility while we are Exhausted, unless want to be even more suicidal. At least Saber helps us in that interim. Y'all saying that Rank ups are easy to get and will how up naturally in our adventure, but we got exactly zero Rank from killing a giant monster, not to mention all the critters and pirate crew we defeated along the way. The Rank up was hidden behind putting our all in the fucking fishing minigame and essentially behind an Arete expenditure if we didn't want penalties. Given this, I don't actually think there are easy Rank ups coming to us naturally and we will have to go out of our way for all of them. We should just take the powerstat we are being offered, now that we have actually put in the effort. It literally makes us better in every way.
 
Skelm said:
What we know is that around 2 Rank, an increase of 1 Rank is significant, around 5.5 an increase of 0.5 is equally significant, and around 9 an increase of 0.25 is also equally significant.

That tells us that, if we put power on a scale of Levels where a fixed win rate corresponds to a fixed Level difference at all levels, the derivative of Level with respect to Rank is a linear function. That means the Rank to Level conversion must be quadratic and, if Levels themselves correspond to exponential amounts of actual energy output, we get Energy = e^(a*Rank^2 + b*Rank + c)

Of course, all of this can only be accurate from Rank 1 to Rank 10, what growth looks like after that is unclear.

Also unclear is why anyone would use this weird-ass scale, unless power increments naturally come in fixed units of Rank. If so, we should definitely go for Rank increases wherever possible, because they will compound on themselves and give us ever more returns for a given level of challenge. Rank+0.25 is nothing to sniff at now, but it'll be worth much more once we're in the higher levels, even allowing for our much greater power at that point.
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Nope, I am wrong.

"around 2 Rank, an increase of 1 Rank is significant, around 5.5 an increase of 0.5 is equally significant, and around 9 an increase of 0.25 is also equally significant." is not a linear increase in growth rate, it's an exponential one. Every 3.5 Rank, the value of 1 Rank doubles, so the curve in linear power looks like e^(e^Rank), ignoring constant factors. Presumably you run into some kind of limit eventually though, since otherwise you could match the Accursed with under 1,000 Rank!
 
Hm... if Saber and Orb agreed to consolidate on one of the two, and Pass Out / Get in the Robot did the same, either would have good chances of overcoming the frontrunners!
 
It's hard for Orb to hold much interest for me when it's a Title, and I assumed that means it has to be equipped and we can only have one at a time. Without those potential limitations it would be more interesting.

I like Saber because it builds to a fixed Blade, which should have some bonuses or options once we get there. Also a part of me worries if we never choose to fix it we might stay as broken as the blade.
 
Skelm said:
Nope, I am wrong.

"around 2 Rank, an increase of 1 Rank is significant, around 5.5 an increase of 0.5 is equally significant, and around 9 an increase of 0.25 is also equally significant." is not a linear increase in growth rate, it's an exponential one. Every 3.5 Rank, the value of 1 Rank doubles, so the curve in linear power looks like e^(e^Rank), ignoring constant factors. Presumably you run into some kind of limit eventually though, since otherwise you could match the Accursed with under 1,000 Rank!
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The higher tiers of his level system represent growth rates across conceptual bounds that can't even be described as hyperexponential (that is to say, the gap in power between level 1 nonillion and level 1 nonillion+1 under Seram's quantification might be vastly greater than the gap between a level 1 character and a level 250 trillion character). It's safe to say that you could never catch up to the Accursed even if you had infinity Rank^^^^^(... infinite carets)infinity exponentiated every Planck instant, both because his "Rank" is still "quantitatively" higher, and because he has access to fields of power that qualitatively trump any level of Rank!

But what Rank cannot achieve, the power of Progression can, given time and effort. First you must survive!

Sickul said:
It's hard for Orb to hold much interest for me when it's a Title, and I assumed that means it has to be equipped and we can only have one at a time. Without those potential limitations it would be more interesting.

I like Saber because it builds to a fixed Blade, which should have some bonuses or options once we get there. Also a part of me worries if we never choose to fix it we might stay as broken as the blade.
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There may be benefits to holding a Title at all, however! And what more illustrious than [Master Baiter]?

BrainInAJar said:
Look, I don't think we will have any trouble making people want to attack us, the most pertinent fact is obviously surviving. Orb kind of has zero utility while we are Exhausted, unless want to be even more suicidal. At least Saber helps us in that interim. Y'all saying that Rank ups are easy to get and will how up naturally in our adventure, but we got exactly zero Rank from killing a giant monster, not to mention all the critters and pirate crew we defeated along the way. The Rank up was hidden behind putting our all in the fucking fishing minigame and essentially behind an Arete expenditure if we didn't want penalties. Given this, I don't actually think there are easy Rank ups coming to us naturally and we will have to go out of our way for all of them. We should just take the powerstat we are being offered, now that we have actually put in the effort. It literally makes us better in every way.
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Killing a giant monster wasn't particularly difficult, however. In fact the fight itself was almost trivial with Gisena's aid! And neither was the pirate truly a match for the hero.
 
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