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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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BungieONI said:
Something this fight also showed off in amusing clarity is how qi efficient Ling Qi's set up is, because she pulled out all of her stuff and was still fine even after a precipitous drop in qi from Black Mirror. There was no internal narration about her being tired or spent, whereas Ji Rong got worn down trying to fight up hill and ran out of gas at the end there.

There was a distinct feeling of her defense being much more energy efficient than his offense I think.
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That's not my read here, he specifically went for a maximum burn strat (including Liling-inspired sacrifice techs) to rush his ultimate asap because he (rightly) suspects that we have better sustain/damage trading when both are amped, unfortunately for him we're actually pretty fast to set up thanks to a mix of action-econ art levels and things going to upkeep.
 
Honestly, rather then explore I'd rather take :
[] Perform Sect Duties (Earns Contribution Points 1-4 per AP, provides a penalized exploration roll)

It should help with Sect rank rather then just waiting for the story to force Ling Qi to do it.
 
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Black Noise said:
That's not my read here, he specifically went for a maximum burn strat (including Liling-inspired sacrifice techs) to rush his ultimate asap because he (rightly) suspects that we have better sustain/damage trading when both are amped, unfortunately for him we're actually pretty fast to set up thanks to a mix of action-econ art levels and things going to upkeep.
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Perhaps. The context of this fight to me is that we were both using our best moves against each other, so this burn-strat with fantastic damage at the end is his normal best set up. And in that context my conclusion seems valid enough.
 
Wait, there are differences between here and RR? Are they listed anywhere?

Also, have we ever heard anything about the rank 1 disciple?
 
PrimalShadow said:
I mean, we split up with Hanyi who fought Relong. You could equally say that she was and "doing [her] own thing".


I guess "there is strength in numbers" isn't FALSE; it just seems really strange that that would be emphasized here.
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Well with Ji Rong it was just him and Relong splitting off to do their own thing because they presumably had no directive other than "punch face and try to win"
By contrast our maneuvering with our spirits was pre planned and coordinated

As for the emphasis, it's always been one of the biggest differences between us
Ji Rong was a loner, he wasn't incapable of making friends but he didn't feel the need to make nice, or go out of his way to form alliances, he was always confident in his own ability to overcome any obstacle before him
Ling Qi by contrast made friends like her life depended on it, formed multiple social groups and actively sought out benefactors

Before the tournament he wasn't too impressed by our behaviour, though not entirely dismissive
But then he lost, and he wanted to know why
It's the whole reason he asked for this duel, beyond merely testing himself, he admitted that he thought he was going to lose this, that we beat him means that we have something he doesn't, I think he wanted a chance to see clearly what the differences were between us

I think he believes he found what he was looking for
 
One one hand, I want exploration because we got that New Moon map and it would suck to leave another dangling plot item not used fully.

On the other hand, we really should start looking into doing war mission regularly. Unless we want to trust that handouts from yrs is going to be enought to complete the task set by Shenhua long term.
 
Ordis said:
Honestly, I'd rather then explore I'd rather take :
[] Perform Sect Duties (Earns Contribution Points 1-4 per AP, provides a penalized exploration roll)

It should help with Sect rank rather then just waiting for the story to force Ling Qi to do it.
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Though tbf, one problem there is that CP are currently basically worthless, while the SP Sect Jobs actually gives us things.
 
Just a bit of info regarding viability of explore here:
Erebeal, Banned for Bad TasteToday at 12:35 AM
at the risk of going somewhat meta here... @Yrsillar you've said you had some plans for our next flute upgrade times to be its own quest arc - is this something that we could actually try to make happen now? Or would you be intending that to be a much later thing?
if you feel answering is alright
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YrsillarToday at 12:43 AM
probably coming up by years end
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Plan-wise, here's the HDW mod option:

[X] Plan: Whispering on the Wind
-[X] Medium Pills (free)
-[X] Resources: 16 GSS, 8 YSS (4 free GSS, 12 from cash, 8 free YSS), Drip on Spiritual Cultivation
-[X] buy Accessory (Senior Craftsman, 60 SP)

-[X] Physical Cultivation (4 AP)
-[X] Spiritual Cultivation (3 AP)
-[X] Songseeker's Ceremony (4 AP)
-[X] Frozen Soul Serenade Efficiency Upgrade (1 AP, Arm)
-[X] Meridian opening (1 AP, Head)
-[X] Beast King's Savage Dirge (1 AP)
-[X] Starless Night's Reflection (1 AP)
-[X] Winter Hearth's Resounding (1 AP)
-[X] Playful Muse's Rapport (1 AP)
-[X] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (1 AP)
-[X] Modify Harmony of the Dancing Wind (1 AP)
-[X] Family (1 AP)

-[X] Sideboard: Combat/Adventure: HDW + MoSS <-> Social: PMR + MSS

-[X] Upkeep: HDW (3) <-> MSS (5), RME (2), LFWT (15), WHR (5)
-[X] non-Upkeep: UGM



I don't mind in principle to have some sort of SP+merit generating AP, since we can finagle them in place of base if we trust the pill gacha to get us some AP back (bit of manageable risk), but sect duties are just really bad for that, and sect jobs have historically been pushed into barely notable background events.

I'd still wait until we have some actual war AP options, hopefully less generic than the current jobs/duties system and closer to last year's job postings with listed difficulty and rewards (and chances at misadventure). It's not like our services aren't necessary, between wind thief and our increasingly powerful spirits we can feasibly be called upon to perform a variety of duties.

For now though, just plan in a way that gets us as capable as possible, as soon as possible.

EDIT: moratorium up, vote X edited in.

EDIT2: skill plan, obviously going for this one because screw sitting at Intelligence D any longer, especially now that we're doing intrigue.

[X] Plan: Fire and Flowers
 
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I see one of the vote options is to modify HDW but I'm not completely sure what modifying an art actually does, can anyone please explain it to me?
 
I do miss the board system that was more specific with what the potential arc and hooks could be. The Map should be used because we have a chance to use it, and we don't have access to the special Art Mod Workshop yet but we'll get there!

I'll be setting off to explore. Maybe we'll get to see that Weilu Corpse again! That'd be swell! :DD
 
Black Noise said:
I don't mind in principle to have some sort of SP+merit generating AP, since we can finagle them in place of base if we trust the pill gacha to get us some AP back (bit of manageable risk), but sect duties are just really bad for that, and sect jobs have historically been pushed into barely notable background events.

I'd still wait until we have some actual war AP options, hopefully less generic than the current jobs/duties system and closer to last year's job postings with listed difficulty and rewards (and chances at misadventure). It's not like our services aren't necessary, between wind thief and our increasingly powerful spirits we can feasibly be called upon to perform a variety of duties.
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The problem is that those are awkward because they then compete with main narrative stuff. Like, I would argue that the work/rank grind should, to a degree, be a background thing LQ is doing just like cultivation.

... though admittedly, it doesn't help that yrs has said that we can get one of our biggest expenses (new flute) for free.

But yeah, we get pills reasonably regularly, we have a bunch of accessories we want, and at some point we should probably do a bit of tutoring for at least some advanced skills. If SP are also helping us get +rank at the same time, then doing it makes sense.
 
Erebeal said:
Though tbf, one problem there is that CP are currently basically worthless, while the SP Sect Jobs actually gives us things.
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I was thinking that increasing sect rank would be more valuable then SP or CP. When we completed the underground mission Ling Qi said she'd get the continued boost to her ranking if she still contributed to the sect efforts. Doing sect duties makes sure she contributes.

Ling Qi knew that, she had discussed it with Cai Renxiang too, it was likely that her gains in coming months would receive a subtle bump as well, assuming she continued to contribute.
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I'd rather Ling Qi actively work to up her ranking then rely on Yrs' generosity.
 
TheMortalRuins said:
I see one of the vote options is to modify HDW but I'm not completely sure what modifying an art actually does, can anyone please explain it to me?
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Replace a certain keyword of the art to another one. For example on HDW's case, we're planning on replacing either Connections or Presence to Communication. We got the Communication idea from Bian Ya's art.

Anyways

[] Plan: Fire and Flowers
-[] Dexterity 3*, Intelligence 4*, Presence 4**, Qi (free rolls) 8** (22/40)
-[] Perceptiveness 3**, Sincere Negotiator 2***, Beast Handling 4***, War 3**, Art 1*** (37/40)"
-[] Gardening: Art 1***, Woodwind 1*** (40/40)

Here's the skill plan prepared in accommodation for either Turn vote plans

Alternatively

[] Plan Rise of the Muses
-[] 4x Dexterity* (8/40), 4x Presence** (16/40), Qi (free rolls) 8**
-[] 3x War** (19/40), 4x Beast Handling*** (23/40), 2x Art*** (25/40), 2x Perceptiveness** (27/40)
-[] 3x Unbroken Will* (33/40), 2x Sincere Negotiator*** (37/40)
-[] Gardening: Art 1*** (38/40), Woodwind 1*** (40/40)

I also made one of my own

Main difference is that Fire and Flowers trains Intelligence and less art, while Rise of the Muses trains Unbroken Will and has more Art over it.
 
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Vanguard_D said:
Hmm, would personally rather wait on getting the art modification workshop unlocked before starting on art moddning adventures.
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I understand this (I too am an efficiency fiend), but my personal feeling is that doing some low-stakes art modding now will give us more information/experience with the system for when we gain access to the art modification workshop and want to tweak more powerful arts in more subtle ways. Having ever done it before should pay off narratively.
 
TheMortalRuins said:
I see one of the vote options is to modify HDW but I'm not completely sure what modifying an art actually does, can anyone please explain it to me?
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These are the ideas around modding HDW:

(I wouldn't try modding ENM because there's no real plan for that other than "insert Dream" -> ????, and it's a valuable art that works well and we don't want to break it)

Erebeal said:
Ok, so there's been some discussion of modding HDW to try to add communication elements in there because Bian Ya is cool and god knows we aren't using its buffs.

Currently, the suggestion was to try to replace something like "Presence" with "Communication". I... do not like this. Replacing stat/skill keywords with theme ones doesn't make sense - they're completely different things. And let's be honest, this proposal is really just a way to try to bypass the awkwardness of the Art Modification system as written given that HDW only has one theme keyword and we don't want to get rid of "Connections".

In my opinion though, what this really highlights is that the system shouldn't be tackled quite that literally. The keyword lists we are given, afterall, are not really exhaustive - they're just a quick list of descriptors that yrs thought of when making the art. This is especially true for the theme keywords.

If we instead think about this fluffwise, from the perspective of how someone in universe might try to mod the art, then what I would suggest is that "Connections" in HDW really has multiple sub-themes of communication, support/"nakama", and awareness of everything. What we are wanting to do here is downgrade the support themes in favour of enhancing the communication ones.

How might this implement itself? Well, one way it could work would be that the buff tech changes to instead of sending strength to our allies, it instead sends awareness and thoughts/feelings to allow that kind of team comm/minimap kind of thing. Narratively ofc this is the kind of thing that would make sense for LQ to think about, and that she could talk to Bian Ya about.

Of course, there is, as discussed before, a thin line between modding and making a successor, which can be challenging to deal with - particularly when we're trying to shift capabilities like this. Just wanting to change a style or something to fit us better (e.g. changing the weapon mastery) is arguably much simpler. Is this level of change reasonable for art modding? I don't know. But this is how I'd try. If we are to be allowed to mod arts in ways that aren't just restricted to skill tweaks, I don't really see how it can work if we're restricted to just the one or two theme keywords instead of the broader art description. The theme words are (for understandable reasons) generally a big holistic description that sums up the idea of the art and that couldn't really be changed without breaking it, and don't get into any of the details which are what you'd be looking at tweaking in a modding exercise.
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Black Noise said:
Let's talk about HDW for a bit.

Keeping in mind we voted for it looking for an art to do social/combat perception, not buffs, and voted it in based on the following fluff/key concept:

The art seems to be fundamentally about connections; seeing and touching upon them.

Seems pretty great right? Well instead we got one actually useful perception tech and by cap a social screen. Other than those we got 2 buff techs that are basically a poor imitation of our innate Domain effect (seriously what use is a Short-duration allies-only support buff that isn't even Perfect).

That said, the themes of the art are definitely reasonable enough for LQ to keep (and indeed its insight has been voted in), and Canto is all kinds of nice:

Upkeep tech that gives us Far-range vision within our music (including our Mist) of anything that isn't trying to hide? yes please. This effect is what we actually want for advanced perception, and by itself is the reason current plan lines keep HDW equipped in our combat/adventure loadout. It helps that the G3 potency isn't a big deal here because we're not really using HDW to oppose enemy techs (RME is what we have for enemies trying to hide).

Still, it's not great for an art in our loadout to contribute so little, especially since we'll be replacing it in social settings with PMR+MSS before long. For this there are 2 options:
  1. drop the art from our build entirely.
    • This is somewhat unsatisfying because unless we get an advanced skill that mimics Canto, we're losing a fair bit of utility.
    • We're only freeing up 2 meridians and not 5, because head meridians are limited by social arts. We can only get ~4 freed up if we're willing to drop RME in social settings as well, something I'd be against because you probably don't want to drop your primary perception art ever, especially one with hard-to-notice extra viewpoint constructs and an ability to deeply analyze something.
  2. Attempt to modify HDW so the currently-useless techs actually contribute meaningful utility to our build.
    • This is where the idea of modding HDW with a communications aspect comes from. This is a mod that's very in-theme for the art's basic fluff and 'connections' core concept, we have both thematic (as outlined by Erebeal) and mechanistic reasoning for why such a mod would be possible(see later), and we even have Bian Ya to poke in music club if we're struggling because her build is all about leveraging wind-themed 'connections' into buffs, social/combat perception, and powerful communications.
    • And in terms of utility, having some basic capacity at communications is pretty damn nice for our build in a scout role, pairing nicely with high range scrying and our high mobility. And it's not something that the G3 potency matters all that much for because again, not really opposing enemy techs with it.
    • Plus Sixiang is still very much a thing, and can both buff HDW-techs for us and possibly learn enough to pick up some communications of their own.

As for how we might go about it, here's a possible mechanistic take on how we can modify HDW buffs into comms:
  • If we think of arts like arcane machines, art modding is digging into the guts of that and tweaking some valves and maybe cannibalizing less useful parts to fit together a "feature".
  • For HDW, the idea would be to take the buffs, drop the power and effect strength as much as possible to amp up the range, and then either cobble some protocol for converting minuscule buffs/feedbacks across links into rudimentary comms, or to lean on the 'connections' keyword to apply it in a more literal sense.
  • While doing that, try to make sure the comms aren't an open-channel broadcast, maybe using the muffle tech as basis (and possibly even cannibalizing that; I'd be pretty ok with sacrificing the last 3 techs to get a functional ~2km secure-ish radio, with better range to high SL's)

So for the pretty damn low cost of 1 AP we get the following:
  1. Experiment with art modification before we're stepping into full-on successor creation.
  2. Sacrifice some useless build flub to gain useful utility we'll be using for like the next 8 months+, and could build upon later if we want.
  3. Get a cool project to poke Bian Ya about, something pretty flattering considering we're basically inspired by her here.
Seems to me like a better option than e.g another explore action (which has like a 20% of being something decent and like a 50%+ chance of just giving us a bit of yss), and a better target for art modding than ENM where the current idea is to modify the Memory keyword hoping to get Dream, except art modding is a lot less reliable[1] than that and if we want to disassemble the core-concept of an art I'd prefer to do it after we have access to workshops.


[1] Art modification by rules-as-written is pretty bad, basically:
• pick a keyword to disassemble
• after disassembly, you're presented with a list of possible keyword replacements based on the art and what LQ knows
• after selecting one of those, get uncertain results based on the selection
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TheMortalRuins said:
I see one of the vote options is to modify HDW but I'm not completely sure what modifying an art actually does, can anyone please explain it to me?
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You take a keyword in an existing art, smash it open and get a choice of replacement options based on mysterious narrative conditions.

Presumably the options do take into account what we're trying to do, how good we are at the relevant aspects involved, e.g music arts, composing, wind, connections, communications). What resources we have to draw on (a literal wind-aspect muse, a senior music cultivator that has wind-based communication as a core focus), and how it all meshes together into a coherent whole in terms of relation to the original art.

All of that is up to yrs though. As for waiting for art modding workshops, unfortunately time waits for nobody, and by the time we have access to those we're probably gonna be well on our way toward starting work on FSS+ with absolutely no room to spare for modding. There's a reason that free AP was cleared here (well, it's also an AP before we have SSC levels up which helps other things).
 
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EternalObserver said:
Replace a certain keyword of the art to another one. For example on HDW's case, we're planning on replacing either Connections or Presence to Communication. We got the Communication idea from Bian Ya's art.

Anyways

[] Plan: Fire and Flowers
-[] Dexterity 3*, Intelligence 4*, Presence 4**, Qi (free rolls) 8** (22/40)
-[] Perceptiveness 3**, Sincere Negotiator 2***, Beast Handling 4***, War 3**, Art 1*** (37/40)"
-[] Gardening: Art 1***, Woodwind 1*** (40/40)

Here's the skill plan prepared in accommodation for either Turn vote plans

Alternatively

[] Plan Rise of the Muses
-[] 4x Dexterity* (8/40), 4x Presence** (16/40), Qi (free rolls) 8**
-[] 3x War** (19/40), 4x Beast Handling*** (23/40), 2x Art*** (25/40), 2x Perceptiveness** (27/40)
-[] 3x Unbroken Will* (33/40), 2x Sincere Negotiator*** (37/40)
-[] Gardening: Art 1*** (38/40), Woodwind 1*** (40/40)

I also made one of my own

Main difference is that Fire and Flowers train Intelligence and less art, while Rise of the Muses trains Unbroken Will and has more Art over it.
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Thanks for the more in-depth explanation. I was confused on why we would want to change our arts but this makes sense.
 
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