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A Simple Transaction I

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Byzantine said:
Why not? We have the map so can go out for a day and spend a day coming back 3 times.
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Oh hm. Yeah with Quickest that does make sense. We lose the time advantage it gains and face risk of injuries and complications, but it might be nice to have the choice, particularly if we take a 7 Arete and/or 3 Pick option.
 
Personal tactics: For the Quickest Route, we basically go monster hunting to empty the route of monsters. This will probably extend time taken to 3~4 days, but an aggressive posture where we prioritize elimination of monsters is paradoxically safer due to rapid powerlevelling making subsequent monsters easier. If we get a 2-pick before hitting a Highly Dangerous, for example, it might now be reframed as somewhat dangerous instead. Instead of being interrupted by dangerous monsters, we would interrupt them.

This would also result in Letrizia getting quite a bit more healing, and overall we would have significantly more EXP by the time we hit the temple. Essentially, take the Quickest Route, but go through it slowly and methodically, hunting every last scrap of exp. The style of an RPG gamer grinding exp..
 
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So let's look at the risks associated with the really scenic route:
Rihaku said:
50% chance to be interrupted by an exceptionally dangerous monster
25% chance to be interrupted by an epically dangerous monster
20% chance to be interrupted by multiple dangerous monsters and other hazards
5% chance of death
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An epically dangerous monster is overwhelmingly more powerful than us and likely to kill us, while even an exceptionally dangerous monster could possibly come with major complications or the loss of a companion:
Rihaku said:
Exceptionally dangerous: about as powerful as you, +/- 20%
Epically dangerous: overwhelmingly stronger than you

Exceptionally dangerous monsters aren't very likely to actually kill you, though moderate or major complications are very possible, as is the loss of companions. Epically dangerous monsters are likely to kill you. You may modify these odds with tactics, discussion etc, but the scale is heavy and there's ultimately a cap in what you can do without correct strategy.
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"multiple dangerous monster" is about as dangerous as one epically dangerous monster (AKA likely to kill us):
Rihaku said:
the Really Scenic Route's "multiple dangerous monsters" phase isn't substantially different in risk from its "epically dangerous monster" phase
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So if we take all this information together, we get:
50% chance of being unlikely to die but possibly getting a major complication or losing a companion
45% chance of likely dying
5% chance that rock fall, everybody dies, do not pass go, do not collect 200$ dollars
And people are voting for this? WHY?
 
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[X] The Quickest Route
[X] Conservative

Mm. I'm trying to balance the fact that I think this whole thing was a terrible idea with my desire to not be a no-fun salty dinosaur, so I'll not vote to leave at the first opportunity unless there's significant risk. Relitigating old votes sucks for everyone. Maybe the second opportunity. :S

Definitely gonna vote to burn Arete as quickly as reasonable, there's no way survival is likely without that. Sorry to the save faction in advance.

And yes, going out of our way to grind sounds like an excellent idea, in whatever form we can grab it. Not just my past life as a Hunt voter speaking, also my survival instincts.

I mean, we're probably going to die no matter what at this point. Another tragic casualty of fish madness. But hope springs eternal.
 
Projectile said:
And yes, going out of our way to grind sounds like an excellent idea, in whatever form we can grab it. Not just my past life as a Hunt voter speaking, also my survival instincts.
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I'm thinking of approaching this like I would an RPG if I have a boss dungeon I can't avoid coming up. Training as much as possible along the route while making sure I get there before the time limit expires would be the standard behavior. And I don't see why we shouldn't do it.
 
Thomasfoolery said:
Hmm, 50% easily worth it (Seeing as it also might lead to Findross for Gisena), 45% ehh... 5% Dead. Was Seralize closer to Exceptional or Epic? She seems like the sort of encounter where Hunger only won because he intuited the exact right strat, but maybe I overestimate her overall specs.
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Closer to Exceptional, definitely not epic. But you guys weren't allowed to strategize / discuss for that fight either.

Talace said:
This is pretty compelling, actually. An epically dangerous monster might be sufficiently subjugated by a purchase of Thousand Cuts, or something similar, which leaves 95% of outcomes acceptable for me. Something in my monkey brain tells me that 5% risk is acceptable, but 10% isn't? Maybe I trust a d20 more than a d10-- icosahedrons are just much more respectable than decahedrons, after all.
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Thousand Cuts might be one of the better bets against such a monster if you had some more Strength, but since we're only talking about the post-first monster section of the journey, sure! It's one of the most efficient ways to increase your short-term striking power, after all.

Thomasfoolery said:
I was meaning factoring in exhaustion/injury relative yeah. Though now that I think about it I'm not sure if our advancement does or not? If it does and she and the rest were worth only a 3 pick after we'd been effectively 'level adjusted' downward then that turns me way off Epics. If it's indifferent to our temporary status and we get experience based on how difficult it would've been for full power Hunger then I might be more willing.
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Experience is not totally indifferent, but it doesn't require challenge for you to achieve as Astral Rank does.

ImperatorV said:
Regardless, we definitely don't want to pick Scenic Route, because that only gets us a small amount of power, and it's already been stated that we're going to have to spend Arete like crazy to get through the Temple with everyone alive. I can't see how one would justify taking the lowest-power option when this is our last chance to grind before we do the thing that gets the Apocryphal Curse to go "Lol I don't even have to do anything."
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I think they're planning on buy a low-pick 7-Arete option! It makes complete sense from that perspective, the main issue will be a somewhat limited selection.

Shard said:
Personal tactics: For the Quickest Route, we basically go monster hunting to empty the route of monsters. This will probably extend time taken to 3~4 days, but an aggressive posture where we prioritize elimination of monsters is paradoxically safer due to rapid powerlevelling making subsequent monsters easier. If we get a 2-pick before hitting a Highly Dangerous, for example, it might now be reframed as somewhat dangerous instead. Instead of being interrupted by dangerous monsters, we would interrupt them.

This would also result in Letrizia getting quite a bit more healing, and overall we would have significantly more EXP by the time we hit the temple. Essentially, take the Quickest Route, but go through it slowly and methodically, hunting every last scrapf of exp. The style of an RPG gamer grinding exp..
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Hunting methodically wouldn't yield that much more XP than going through normally, as you acquire more advancements enemies of that level are worth less, and you'd lose the mindset bonus from I Am The Danger!
 
Rihaku said:
Hunting methodically wouldn't yield that much more XP than going through normally, as you acquire more advancements enemies of that level are worth less, and you'd lose the mindset bonus from I Am The Danger!
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How about EXTREME HUNTING? Grab that monster bait and slaughter our way through monsters day in, day out?
 
What I'm wondering about is the Minor and Major potential bonus. Are they like +0.5 Arete and +2 Arete, respectively? Or are they more significant?
 
Grinding mooks is inherently a sign of fear, and not that useful for you anyway - with Hunger and Forebear's Blade + thread participation XP multiplier, you're getting between 15x and 27x the base Experience of each monster you kill, so you very quickly outlevel the point where a monster of a given strength gives notable XP.

He's only been in this world for 5 days, of which one day was spent doing nothing but resting and looking at Verschlengorge, and he's gotten 10+ advancements! That's an incredible rate of growth! Just imagine if you'd put them all into Echo of the Forebear!
 
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So basically the issue is we need progression a bit less steep than the very scenic route, but steeper than the quickest route. As we'll quickly hit the limit of what we can get from Exceptionally dangerous creatures, but the very scenic route has things we are not ready to cope with yet.
 
Rihaku said:
Grinding mooks is inherently a sign of fear, and not that useful for you anyway - with Hunger and Forebear's blade + thread participation XP multiplier, you're getting between 15x and 27x the base Experience of each monster you kill, so you very quickly outlevel the point where a monster of a given strength gives notable XP.

He's only been in this world for 5 days, of which one day was spent doing nothing but resting and looking at Verschlengorge, and he's gotten 10+ advancements! That's an incredible rate of growth! Just imagine if you'd put them all into Echo of the Forebear!
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We would be an epic monster slayer if we had done that! And with a whole ton of Arete free to spend on a 25 Arete option of our choice! RIP Bright Champion, dead in the grave, left for the worms...
 
In other news we have at least 8 Arete, so if we can generate enough we can, theoretically, get to 14 before we actually enter the temple. Two +7's would make things... easier, to say the least.

If I'm estimating the scaling right that would bring Epic down to Highly maybe Exceptionally.
 
Shard said:
We would be an epic monster slayer if we had done that! And with a whole ton of Arete free to spend on a 25 Arete option of our choice! RIP Bright Champion, dead in the grave, left for the worms...
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Yeah, though you would have gotten pwned a couple of times by Gisena and Letrizia would not respect you as much. Probably many more Doom of the Tyrant procs as well, slower navigation of the Voyaging Realm, weaker esoteric defense and offense etc.
 
We do need to take +might options when we get a chance. Or at least +Strength. (I'd rather have both arms rather than sealing ourselves with one. Just for character reasons.)
 
Rihaku said:
Yeah, though you would have gotten pwned a couple of times by Gisena and Letrizia would not respect you as much. Probably many more Doom of the Tyrant procs as well, slower navigation of the Voyaging Realm, weaker esoteric defense and offense etc.
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That would just solidify our +++s for Gisena! Along with incredibly intense powerlevelling that would mean that we have a ton more Undying Echos (or other advancements) to begin with. Specializing has a lot of benefits! Like having 19 Arete and being 5 points away from a 25 Arete option.

Plus like, our companions wouldn't have gotten injuries to begin with.
 
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[X] Conservative
[X] The Really Scenic Route

Basically try to grind up to a level appropriate height for the Temple on the way. Front-loading some of the risk to end up with hopefully overall less total. I'm not sold on it but the others are feeling more and more ephemeral in the safety they offer.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
[X] Conservative
[X] The Really Scenic Route

Basically try to grind up to a level appropriate height for the Temple on the way. Front-loading some of the risk to end up with hopefully overall less total. I'm not sold on it but the other's are feeling more and more ephemeral in the safety they offer.
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That's the spirit!

LordOfMurder said:
We would have the equivalent of Einhander?
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12 +s is certainly more than 5! Though of course Unshattered + Echo spam would have been even better.
 
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