You have to quote it from the update or from Zampano's post after the update, then just delete the quote marks and the options you don't want to vote for.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
DarkSideBard
Flying, without moving on
In addition to direct quoting, as people have said above, you can turn on full bbcode for a moment and just copy + paste the color code with the text.
Edit: To be clear, this only works if you've already quoted it into your post, but it lets you copy + paste it between places in your post without losing the colors.
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NANI???!
[X] Myth and Legend
[X] Lessened
Taking Myth and Legend just allows us to follow our original plan lol.
We wanted to rest and get some easy power ups in The Realm, so that's what I'm going with.
ALSO, once again, Myth and Legend literally negates whatever negative consequence we choose, or will at least mightily mitigate it.
I would much rather go into the realm at full charge and reap either maximum gains or maximum comfy.
Not having serious amounts of time lost to us, being horrible crippled in terms of arete and picks, losing access to the Praxis, or whatever else.....sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
I also want to have our Companions closer to us in level.
I'm still really sad we missed out on Round Table and I hope it gets offered again based on this power track.
[X] Lessened
Taking Myth and Legend just allows us to follow our original plan lol.
We wanted to rest and get some easy power ups in The Realm, so that's what I'm going with.
ALSO, once again, Myth and Legend literally negates whatever negative consequence we choose, or will at least mightily mitigate it.
I would much rather go into the realm at full charge and reap either maximum gains or maximum comfy.
Not having serious amounts of time lost to us, being horrible crippled in terms of arete and picks, losing access to the Praxis, or whatever else.....sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
I also want to have our Companions closer to us in level.
I'm still really sad we missed out on Round Table and I hope it gets offered again based on this power track.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
AST 0 World Record Speedrun any%
Wordcount: ~1840 words
Wordcount: ~1840 words
"Hello, guys, this is Birdsie. Today, we're gonna attempt an AST 0 world record, any percent. Let's go."
Birdsie clicked on Play. The title screen flashed with the brilliant jagged colors of the Praxis, there was a noise similar to a low-pitched growl, and then a transition into the opening. The narrator started going off about memes and reaching the age of thirty as a virgin. Birdsie quicksaved, pressed Alt+F4, then reloaded the game in quick order, doing it so fast it was barely noticeable. The pre-rendered intro was skipped, with Seram now entering the shop for his cake in a cutscene.
"Alright, we're out of the intro sequence. Seram is picking up his cake now, and since this sequence isn't skippable, I'll explain some of my key strategies for this run. First of all, to end AST 0, the fastest way is to actually disregard the Geas in the Manifest Realm and focus on achieving the Path to Maidenhood Ending. To do that, we're going to petition the elves, and to do that, we're going to need to get The Stranger and High Concentration perks early on, because the Antediluvian Jungle is impassable otherwise. There's an exploit for hitboxes that lets you get in there, but it's actually slower on average since you need to max out Amplitude."
Seram was roughly done with being snickered at by a handful of teenagers for dedicating an entire birthday cake to himself. He sat down in his chair and took out his lighter, and Birdsie pressed the F button once to light the cake.
"The best way to get Stranger and High Concentration isn't actually by becoming a Cursebearer. I'm going to do what's called the Transaction Skip. You'll see what I'm talking about."
There was a moment of internal monologue from Seram.
"Okay, so the Accursed is going to show up as soon as this cutscene with Seram blowing out the candle ends." It happened just as Birdsie said, with time stopping. Birdsie pressed CTRL, spacebar twice, then managed to wiggle Seram out of the tight spot between the chair and table and started to hop sideways and then backward in a pattern that increased his velocity massively until he crashed into the back wall. "When that happens, you'll want to perform a reverse accelerated backhop away from him and start collecting the items off the shelves."
He began to pick up random assorted items into his inventory, including a pen case, random metal trays, and crushed tin cans, before hopping back across to the main hall where the Accursed was still dementedly monologuing about not being the Devil or any being associated with him.
"Once you have all of them, it's going to take a little effort but you can effectively make a stairwell into the ceiling and clip through." Birdsie efficiently pressed Shift+Z to drop all items in his inventory at once, then started to tower them on top of the shop counter. Once he was done, in less than five seconds, Seram hopped on top, then hopped again, and the loading screen engaged. "The loading zone is going to activate and you can save like, three minutes spent on character creation and teleport instantly to the initial orc fight."
The moment it loaded, Birdsie turned away from the combat and started to pick up backward velocity. "And now a quick accelerated backhop. I know this seems weird, since I said we need The Stranger, but we're actually going to ignore the Helbersham questline for now. They can shove the Implicate Duty down their throats." Seram was now pushing off with his feet in wide, back-directed leaps that carried him across hundreds of meters with each jump, crossing kilometers in what seemed like seconds.
Birdsie continued his explanatory narration, "We're going to actually move for meeting with Telleriad at the early intercept stage. This lets us meet Morgiana, Jeanne, and Ashlyn way, waaay earlier on, which we can use to power-level Seram's social stats and complete some side-quests for fast EXP gain. It'll be easy to get High Concentration then, and High Concentration can help us with some other stuff, mainly getting the Stranger. After that, it'll be a short trek through the Orcwaste to the Antediluvian Jungle so we can wake them knife-ears from the Fellsleep."
---
Seram backflipped onto the middle of a strategy table inside of a tent, interrupting a crucial meeting between a trio of Sorceresses. Seram initiated a conversation with Jeanne and Birdsie spammed ENTER in order to flash through the conversation, as he explained, "Getting through the Sorceress meeting is normally somewhat luck dependant thanks to the common choice of getting the Wretched debuff. However, because we again skipped picking it up we don't have to deal with it. And because the check for it actually is seeded at the end of character creation, it just defaults to whatever was last highlighted. This results in it being set to a difficulty Seram should be able to overcome without having the debuff, allowing us to skip most of the social checks entirely."
Jeanne looked down thoughtfully at Seram's explanation that he was a sorcerer from another world, then stuttered with something about testing his powers, but Birdsie skipped that prompt in the same way he skipped the conversation. A quest appeared in the upper right corner, but Birdsie did not select it, instead swiftly clicking the cursor on the dialogue option that said: 'Help me learn how to talk to people.'
"Now, what I'm about to do is a pretty funny exploit I saw on Reddit like a month ago," Birdsie clarified. "It's called the Selective Cursebearing exploit, and it's pretty simple. Jeanne is willing to help Seram level his SOC, but only once per day. We can get around that in a pretty funny way, just watch." Birdsie made a full save using the game menu, then quit and loaded the auto-save from when the Accursed was offering his deal to Seram. He initiated dialogue with the Accursed and marked the Affliction of Slumber, and the Accursed said something about the disastrous effects of slovenly behavior. "We just need Slumber, let's take that. Thaaank you, Ulyssian. I'll take Amplitude while I'm at it."
Birdsie quicksaved, then quickloaded several times, while spamming mouse on Amplitude countless times. After twenty repeats, he stopped, picked up a tin can, and threw it at the Accursed to draw aggro while making a full save. Once the Accursed annihilated Seram with an eyebrow twitch, Birdsie saved again, then reloaded the save from his conversation with Jeanne while pressing ALT+F4.
"Nice, okay. We just have to reload the game now." Birdsie did so, and when the game reloaded at the save with Jeanne, the conversation prompt instantly leveled Seram's social skill while the Cursebearer himself simultaneously fell over due to the Affliction of Slumber. "Right. So we'll do this for two in-game months, repeat the exploit but swap Slumber for something that doesn't matter like Indenture, then come back and start doing quests. It's all going to take us roughly fifteen minutes..."
---
"-This Orkhor is, rather stupidly, going to follow you right back into the punji sticks. Use Amplitude to toss him down and-"
---
Birdsie sat back in his chair and coughed once, taking a sip of water in the romance cutscene break.
Seram and Jeanne shared a passionate kiss in the moonlight, crescents of silvery favor shining down upon their smiling faces. Jeanne released a light titter, as if finally happy after a life of repression.
"And like that, the Jeanne de Tymarie romance path is complete," Birdsie commented, cutscene releasing to allow him to perform an accelerated backhop towards Morgiana who appeared to have a quest for him. He initiated a conversation, then strategically maneuvered through the dialogue options with nothing but sheer, programmed muscle memory. "This gets us that fifty-percent Grace bonus to tutorship-related abilities which is key for dealing with Sylvie later. It also lets us get Panoply which can accelerate the secret boss fight neatly without sacrificing Amplitude gains and-"
---
"Now, the Gisena fight is always a major issue, but this is easily solved. You see, when Rihaku designed this game, he made the very dumb assumption we're going to be fighting the Witch-hunter orcs as the quest intended," Birdsie stated with an uproarious laugh. Seram launched himself backwards using a steep rock as a ramp, then corkscrewed through the air and landed while breaking his fall on an angled roof over the barbican. Seram continued to bunny-hop across the battlements, where the archers were firing upon the scripted orcish hordes. "What we're going to do instead is run off from Jeanne and Aselyn and begin stockpiling this dynamite..."
---
There was a loud explosion as Gisena screamed in pain and shock, her entire health-bar dropping to zero in one fell swoop.
"Nullify that, you bitch. Go back to Hunger already." Seram leaped down from the tree and picked up the loot.
---
Tucking and rolling Seram landed on the smooth concrete floor of the Joyeusian monarch's dungeon, vaulted over the table, and rapidly mashed the keyboard for a few seconds while pointing at the sheath of the Maidenblade. "Now we have the artifact triggered we just need to leave before goes off," Birdsie casually commented while Seram's back smashed the door to pieces as he began hopping through the twisty maze of corridors.
---
"Fuck you! We trusted you! All of us did!" Morgiana yelled in affront.
"Which was the point," replied Amaranthus with a leer, before thrusting his wand forward.
Seram quickly unsheathed the Explicate Maidensword, drank sixty Strength Potions at once via hotkey abuse, then slashed Amaranthus diagonally with Amplifaction on, instantly pasting the Elven Lord into gibs and flying chunks that streamed blood.
"That was an epic betrayal, I always loved that scene," Birdsie commented as he collected the loot from the elf lord's body. "Anyway, the Witch-Hunters ambush us in literally five seconds. You can theoretically save the Sorceresses, but they're more like dead weight at this point so I won't bother."
Seram backflipped thrice, leaped into the air, hung onto the wall, then backflipped from it and hit the ceiling at an angle that somehow sent him careening through the air at the shocking momentum of a falling comet. The scream of Jeanne cut off just as the game loaded the next location.
---
"Aaand like that, the main boss is dead," Birdsie said over the corpse of the orc and the Maiden's entombed form. "All we need to do left is report to the Marquis - here he comes - and bam." Birdsie pressed E, and the achievement for completing the game on Impossible appeared in the lower corner. "There we go."
He spammed ENTER to get through the conversation, and the closing credits started to play in seconds. His final time was 0:52:55, beating the previous world record by over eight minutes.
"So, that's it. Next week I'll be speedrunning AST I. If you liked the video, please comment and subscribe, and I'll see you guys again later."
Birdsie clicked on Play. The title screen flashed with the brilliant jagged colors of the Praxis, there was a noise similar to a low-pitched growl, and then a transition into the opening. The narrator started going off about memes and reaching the age of thirty as a virgin. Birdsie quicksaved, pressed Alt+F4, then reloaded the game in quick order, doing it so fast it was barely noticeable. The pre-rendered intro was skipped, with Seram now entering the shop for his cake in a cutscene.
"Alright, we're out of the intro sequence. Seram is picking up his cake now, and since this sequence isn't skippable, I'll explain some of my key strategies for this run. First of all, to end AST 0, the fastest way is to actually disregard the Geas in the Manifest Realm and focus on achieving the Path to Maidenhood Ending. To do that, we're going to petition the elves, and to do that, we're going to need to get The Stranger and High Concentration perks early on, because the Antediluvian Jungle is impassable otherwise. There's an exploit for hitboxes that lets you get in there, but it's actually slower on average since you need to max out Amplitude."
Seram was roughly done with being snickered at by a handful of teenagers for dedicating an entire birthday cake to himself. He sat down in his chair and took out his lighter, and Birdsie pressed the F button once to light the cake.
"The best way to get Stranger and High Concentration isn't actually by becoming a Cursebearer. I'm going to do what's called the Transaction Skip. You'll see what I'm talking about."
There was a moment of internal monologue from Seram.
"Okay, so the Accursed is going to show up as soon as this cutscene with Seram blowing out the candle ends." It happened just as Birdsie said, with time stopping. Birdsie pressed CTRL, spacebar twice, then managed to wiggle Seram out of the tight spot between the chair and table and started to hop sideways and then backward in a pattern that increased his velocity massively until he crashed into the back wall. "When that happens, you'll want to perform a reverse accelerated backhop away from him and start collecting the items off the shelves."
He began to pick up random assorted items into his inventory, including a pen case, random metal trays, and crushed tin cans, before hopping back across to the main hall where the Accursed was still dementedly monologuing about not being the Devil or any being associated with him.
"Once you have all of them, it's going to take a little effort but you can effectively make a stairwell into the ceiling and clip through." Birdsie efficiently pressed Shift+Z to drop all items in his inventory at once, then started to tower them on top of the shop counter. Once he was done, in less than five seconds, Seram hopped on top, then hopped again, and the loading screen engaged. "The loading zone is going to activate and you can save like, three minutes spent on character creation and teleport instantly to the initial orc fight."
The moment it loaded, Birdsie turned away from the combat and started to pick up backward velocity. "And now a quick accelerated backhop. I know this seems weird, since I said we need The Stranger, but we're actually going to ignore the Helbersham questline for now. They can shove the Implicate Duty down their throats." Seram was now pushing off with his feet in wide, back-directed leaps that carried him across hundreds of meters with each jump, crossing kilometers in what seemed like seconds.
Birdsie continued his explanatory narration, "We're going to actually move for meeting with Telleriad at the early intercept stage. This lets us meet Morgiana, Jeanne, and Ashlyn way, waaay earlier on, which we can use to power-level Seram's social stats and complete some side-quests for fast EXP gain. It'll be easy to get High Concentration then, and High Concentration can help us with some other stuff, mainly getting the Stranger. After that, it'll be a short trek through the Orcwaste to the Antediluvian Jungle so we can wake them knife-ears from the Fellsleep."
---
Seram backflipped onto the middle of a strategy table inside of a tent, interrupting a crucial meeting between a trio of Sorceresses. Seram initiated a conversation with Jeanne and Birdsie spammed ENTER in order to flash through the conversation, as he explained, "Getting through the Sorceress meeting is normally somewhat luck dependant thanks to the common choice of getting the Wretched debuff. However, because we again skipped picking it up we don't have to deal with it. And because the check for it actually is seeded at the end of character creation, it just defaults to whatever was last highlighted. This results in it being set to a difficulty Seram should be able to overcome without having the debuff, allowing us to skip most of the social checks entirely."
Jeanne looked down thoughtfully at Seram's explanation that he was a sorcerer from another world, then stuttered with something about testing his powers, but Birdsie skipped that prompt in the same way he skipped the conversation. A quest appeared in the upper right corner, but Birdsie did not select it, instead swiftly clicking the cursor on the dialogue option that said: 'Help me learn how to talk to people.'
"Now, what I'm about to do is a pretty funny exploit I saw on Reddit like a month ago," Birdsie clarified. "It's called the Selective Cursebearing exploit, and it's pretty simple. Jeanne is willing to help Seram level his SOC, but only once per day. We can get around that in a pretty funny way, just watch." Birdsie made a full save using the game menu, then quit and loaded the auto-save from when the Accursed was offering his deal to Seram. He initiated dialogue with the Accursed and marked the Affliction of Slumber, and the Accursed said something about the disastrous effects of slovenly behavior. "We just need Slumber, let's take that. Thaaank you, Ulyssian. I'll take Amplitude while I'm at it."
Birdsie quicksaved, then quickloaded several times, while spamming mouse on Amplitude countless times. After twenty repeats, he stopped, picked up a tin can, and threw it at the Accursed to draw aggro while making a full save. Once the Accursed annihilated Seram with an eyebrow twitch, Birdsie saved again, then reloaded the save from his conversation with Jeanne while pressing ALT+F4.
"Nice, okay. We just have to reload the game now." Birdsie did so, and when the game reloaded at the save with Jeanne, the conversation prompt instantly leveled Seram's social skill while the Cursebearer himself simultaneously fell over due to the Affliction of Slumber. "Right. So we'll do this for two in-game months, repeat the exploit but swap Slumber for something that doesn't matter like Indenture, then come back and start doing quests. It's all going to take us roughly fifteen minutes..."
---
"-This Orkhor is, rather stupidly, going to follow you right back into the punji sticks. Use Amplitude to toss him down and-"
---
Birdsie sat back in his chair and coughed once, taking a sip of water in the romance cutscene break.
Seram and Jeanne shared a passionate kiss in the moonlight, crescents of silvery favor shining down upon their smiling faces. Jeanne released a light titter, as if finally happy after a life of repression.
"And like that, the Jeanne de Tymarie romance path is complete," Birdsie commented, cutscene releasing to allow him to perform an accelerated backhop towards Morgiana who appeared to have a quest for him. He initiated a conversation, then strategically maneuvered through the dialogue options with nothing but sheer, programmed muscle memory. "This gets us that fifty-percent Grace bonus to tutorship-related abilities which is key for dealing with Sylvie later. It also lets us get Panoply which can accelerate the secret boss fight neatly without sacrificing Amplitude gains and-"
---
"Now, the Gisena fight is always a major issue, but this is easily solved. You see, when Rihaku designed this game, he made the very dumb assumption we're going to be fighting the Witch-hunter orcs as the quest intended," Birdsie stated with an uproarious laugh. Seram launched himself backwards using a steep rock as a ramp, then corkscrewed through the air and landed while breaking his fall on an angled roof over the barbican. Seram continued to bunny-hop across the battlements, where the archers were firing upon the scripted orcish hordes. "What we're going to do instead is run off from Jeanne and Aselyn and begin stockpiling this dynamite..."
---
There was a loud explosion as Gisena screamed in pain and shock, her entire health-bar dropping to zero in one fell swoop.
"Nullify that, you bitch. Go back to Hunger already." Seram leaped down from the tree and picked up the loot.
---
Tucking and rolling Seram landed on the smooth concrete floor of the Joyeusian monarch's dungeon, vaulted over the table, and rapidly mashed the keyboard for a few seconds while pointing at the sheath of the Maidenblade. "Now we have the artifact triggered we just need to leave before goes off," Birdsie casually commented while Seram's back smashed the door to pieces as he began hopping through the twisty maze of corridors.
---
"Fuck you! We trusted you! All of us did!" Morgiana yelled in affront.
"Which was the point," replied Amaranthus with a leer, before thrusting his wand forward.
Seram quickly unsheathed the Explicate Maidensword, drank sixty Strength Potions at once via hotkey abuse, then slashed Amaranthus diagonally with Amplifaction on, instantly pasting the Elven Lord into gibs and flying chunks that streamed blood.
"That was an epic betrayal, I always loved that scene," Birdsie commented as he collected the loot from the elf lord's body. "Anyway, the Witch-Hunters ambush us in literally five seconds. You can theoretically save the Sorceresses, but they're more like dead weight at this point so I won't bother."
Seram backflipped thrice, leaped into the air, hung onto the wall, then backflipped from it and hit the ceiling at an angle that somehow sent him careening through the air at the shocking momentum of a falling comet. The scream of Jeanne cut off just as the game loaded the next location.
---
"Aaand like that, the main boss is dead," Birdsie said over the corpse of the orc and the Maiden's entombed form. "All we need to do left is report to the Marquis - here he comes - and bam." Birdsie pressed E, and the achievement for completing the game on Impossible appeared in the lower corner. "There we go."
He spammed ENTER to get through the conversation, and the closing credits started to play in seconds. His final time was 0:52:55, beating the previous world record by over eight minutes.
"So, that's it. Next week I'll be speedrunning AST I. If you liked the video, please comment and subscribe, and I'll see you guys again later."
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ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
[X] Armory of Night
[X] Over-Refined
Boosting Armory of Night since I want our Midnight Armament to be an option if things start being eliminated.
[X] Over-Refined
Boosting Armory of Night since I want our Midnight Armament to be an option if things start being eliminated.
Is this the work of an enemy Curse? I suppose the prevalence of rewind powers among Remittance choices constitutes a pattern: the Curse of Deja Vu, perhaps?
Or a ploy by Seram to boost his Rank through superior programming? Glad to see he's clever enough to incorporate exploitable design faults to make his game more memorable. I wonder what the equivalent Advancement for swordplay would be.
Hey QM, what's the fastest way to make the Accursed laugh at you?
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Deathly Star Scales on Rank. If Armament totality provides any level of rank Hybridization for cursebearers, we will have more, and more powerful deathly stars, than we'd have outside the Apocryphal armament. We still wouldn't be a slouch necessarily with grievous Exertion if we get stat hybridization to go with rank hybridization but fighting the next apocrypha proc as a mech party with Letrezia this soon is going to be rough with Grievous Exertion. We'd be leaning a lot more on our Armament's capabilities but it might be managable.
Especially if it's like... a high level astral denizen or something instead of Aobaru's Terminator. At least Versch could probably eat it if we win to satiate its decimators for a time.
Especially if it's like... a high level astral denizen or something instead of Aobaru's Terminator. At least Versch could probably eat it if we win to satiate its decimators for a time.
[X] Myth and Legend
[X] Lessened
[HP] Slytherin.
[X] Lessened
It's the set bonus that generates an Armament.
Overefined and Grievous Exertion are different complications.
The Forebear had his Forms.
Why get Haeliel Points when you can get Accursed Favour?
6th and 7nth signs are separate advancements, so they're worth less than a single 5 pick 50 arete advancement.
Gryffindor and Hufflepuff's perks definitely seem to be worth more than previous opportunities to spend Hallows on however we will only have 20 Hallows left over to spend on further opportunities so I'll vote
[HP] Slytherin.
Letrezia won't be decimated while she's in totality so that could be used to protect her from the Decimation before we get A Hunger Sated for Verschlengorge.
The Realm of Myth being existentially diminished seems quite dire to me. Imagine how many people died in the Realm of Myth because of lifespan reduction caused by the existential diminishment that the hole in the Walls of Myth caused. Saying that the lives of billions being at stake is not a time of dire need simply isn't true.
Opalascence would be best since we would then be able to purchase Iridescence which synergises extremely well with Armour of M
This was extremely satisfying.
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
It's two advancements that have an Arete cost exceeding 52 in total discounted to 52, with a set bonus. After the set bonus, you get a heroic upgrade to an advancement, providing it a massive power boost(Exact words are: " A Heroic Upgrade will grant the Advancement a unique, highly powerful, and otherwise difficult-to-replicate enhancement. ").
Everything else except a Hero's Reward gets the Heroic Upgrade too to be fair, but they don't add up in actual Arete value to a level exceeding 52 like Armory of Night does. The current information we have on Hero's Reward is that ("Exact effects vary, but are usually incredibly powerful.")
A Hero's Reward is 5 picks, 50 Arete, and the Heroic Upgrade for Rihakuverse Chosen One Benefits. With a small risk of unexpected setting change and Geas Task reset.
I think they're close enough to see each other on the mountain. Within 1-2 rungs of each other on the metaphorical ladder. Plus, we actually get to see the heroic upgrade blurbs which we don't get to see if we take A Hero's reward. Who knows what kind of funkadelic stuff we're missing there too if we spend everything on A Hero's Reward.
Heroic Crimson Flare?
Heroic Outer Shadow?
Heroic All-Defeating Stance?
Heroic Edeldross?
Heroic Opalescent Tower?
Heroic Pillars of Creation?
Heroic Second Stage?
Heroic Tears of Winter?
Heroic some other advancement I haven't thought of?
Heroic OAF I or II?
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Cut Through, Tears of Winter, Tower of Opalescence and Pillars of Creation are the best ones to upgrade, I guess. First three because they are source our magic and Pillars because Pillars.
If I had to rank them, it would be something like Cut Through > Pillars > Tears > Tower.
Honorable mention goes to Crimson Flare. Upgrading our Ring would be quite nice.
If I had to rank them, it would be something like Cut Through > Pillars > Tears > Tower.
Honorable mention goes to Crimson Flare. Upgrading our Ring would be quite nice.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Heroic Upgrade+Edeldross = Elixirdross? Or would it be something else? Who knows?
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Maybe instead of just putting Edeldross in the same ballpark of Findross it surpasses it? Considering that it unlocks Fairbright which probably originates from Haeliel...
Trinity for me, ever since I remembered that.
"Treasures numbering three,
Ought hero's panoply be.
Crown, Saber and Orb,
Shield, Symbol and Sword,
Blade, Mantle and Ring;
Aloft to murder a king."
And then remembered that the rhyme talked about "hero's panoply."
I'm sorta wondering if in "A Hero's Reward", the Heroic Upgrade might go to the Panoply as a whole as a result, to make that rhyme complete. Perhaps they'll meld the Seraph's Favor and Tears of Winter to the other 2 Panoplies. Perhaps they'll just provide the benefits of "automatically win contests of primacy involving their Artifacts" to the first 3. Maybe it'll just be a Core Panoply upgrade. Or perhaps it'll be something else entirely, in A Hero's Reward.
Regardless, I think Trinity might be one of the best choices -- because (other than A Hero's Reward) it was one of the most involved and expensive Advancements to get.
It's at least like the difference between an EFB, at 25 Arete, and two 14-Arete Advancement. Except way bigger, because this isn't an EFB, but a double-costing EFB. And the difference between 25 Arete and 14 Arete is more significant than, say, the difference between 2 Arete and 1 Arete, right? Arete power compounds as it goes up and is concentrated; 50 Arete in a single Advancement is absurd and unheard of. Furthermore, the Empyreal Signs are probably a 2-pick and a 3-pick Advancement. Hero's Reward is a 5-pick. It's the most significant -- whether in Power, Potential, or hybrid of Power and Potential -- upgrade on the list.
"Treasures numbering three,
Ought hero's panoply be.
Crown, Saber and Orb,
Shield, Symbol and Sword,
Blade, Mantle and Ring;
Aloft to murder a king."
And then remembered that the rhyme talked about "hero's panoply."
I'm sorta wondering if in "A Hero's Reward", the Heroic Upgrade might go to the Panoply as a whole as a result, to make that rhyme complete. Perhaps they'll meld the Seraph's Favor and Tears of Winter to the other 2 Panoplies. Perhaps they'll just provide the benefits of "automatically win contests of primacy involving their Artifacts" to the first 3. Maybe it'll just be a Core Panoply upgrade. Or perhaps it'll be something else entirely, in A Hero's Reward.
Regardless, I think Trinity might be one of the best choices -- because (other than A Hero's Reward) it was one of the most involved and expensive Advancements to get.
I'm not voting for Hero's Reward, but personally I kind of doubt that.
It's at least like the difference between an EFB, at 25 Arete, and two 14-Arete Advancement. Except way bigger, because this isn't an EFB, but a double-costing EFB. And the difference between 25 Arete and 14 Arete is more significant than, say, the difference between 2 Arete and 1 Arete, right? Arete power compounds as it goes up and is concentrated; 50 Arete in a single Advancement is absurd and unheard of. Furthermore, the Empyreal Signs are probably a 2-pick and a 3-pick Advancement. Hero's Reward is a 5-pick. It's the most significant -- whether in Power, Potential, or hybrid of Power and Potential -- upgrade on the list.
- Location
- 1
I've been inspired.
EFB (short-lived) World Record Speedrun any%, Glitchless
*This is true because it's been less then a day and a day is less then a week.
**this is ooc generated to be convenient for the logic of the speedrun because I can't access the actual blurblist
EFB (short-lived) World Record Speedrun any%, Glitchless
"Hey guys it's me, JOE, here for a speedrun! I know I'm new to this whole 'doing things quickly' gig but I think it's time I give it a try! which, since I've not been doing things quickly yet, means it was time to give it a try some weeks ago! *chuckles* Anyway, today I'm going to try and speedrun Even Further Beyond! Oh, I know what you're thinking. It's been less then a week since Birdsie's famous AST 0 Speedrun*, so I'm capitalizing on the hype, or something? Well, have no fear, it's nothing of the sort! It's true, I was inspired by his speedrun, but this isn't going to be some feeble attempt which fails and only existed to farm views, this is going to be a genuine speedrun and probably break records!... *cough cough*and ignite controversy*cough cough* uh... anyway! Not to knock on glitch-based speedrunners, but that's not my cup of tea for things I'm doing myself, so this run's Glitchless! I've no doubt by record'll be overtaken, I just don't have the muscle memory! no, this is going to be pure tactics, and once they're out someone else'll no doubt overtake me! so, without further ado, I'll start the game, and the time!"
So saying, JOE clicked start, and waited patiently through the opening narration. By which is meant he mashed the skip button, but that's more patience then other people do; he didn't even turn on an auto-clicker equivalent! After about a second, he reached the rules list... and accidentally pressed no on the 'did you get all that' notification, prompting a short noise of dissatisfaction and a more careful mash-through. As JOE went through character creation, selecting Diagram Magic and The Scythe, he explained "So in order for this to work, we need to be able to keep scaling for a good while, which means we need The Scythe, and the Diagram Magic is a good utility option. Then, we're going to tell the Accursed 'heck yeah'. What you have to remember here, is that we're not actually citizens of this world, we've just been plucked out of earth or somewhere, the only reason we're interested in all this is the power and life. Also, though we don't have enough Orbs to keep all these, the check for them doesn't happen until after Downsides, since it has to be balanced there. So, we pick Combat-Class Cursebearer to have enough immediate power to steal a spare Orb lying around and balance the books after we pick up Incarnate, In Full Bloom, and Age Of Glory."
So saying, JOE clicked through to downsides, picked up the stated Downsides, and then tabbed back to Cursebearer to open the build selection there.
"Alright, let's see, options, options... See, I can't skip thinking about this part because the Accursed AI picks your curses and remittances depending on what it thinks you can handle, and that depends on what I've done so far. not sure how it works, some kind of deep learning? I think it's special to EFB since Seram and the Former Hero are preformed characters and this guy's generic, so-Aha!"
as he spoke, JOE finished his selection - Brand of the Wretched, Brand of the Chaste, and A Mirror Brightly. a popup showed saying he would need to select an additional Curse, which he closed to pick his Mirror Dao as Dao of the Merchant**, which manifests a suite of reality effects involving exchanging things for other things of similar exchange, but very different Practical, value, and making deals. Then, he selected the Geas of Indenture, and pressed the shift key to resist the pull for a few seconds so he could finish character creation.
"Now, I was Going to sneak an Orb, but since Merchant dropped I can use it to trade my leftover RV for a Celestial Orb, the RV system is mostly deprecated but I still have one to spare since you aren't supposed to take 2 Major Curses, and Remitance Value is worth a more then a heavenly orb- it's worth Accursed Favour, after all. So I just..."
JOE clicked through to the end of Character Creation and then released Shift right before the Divinities could reincarnate him. as the loading screen came up, he recapped
"The Geas of Indenture is beyond the divinities, so they can't keep us in this world, and we've got the Scythe to grow despite Combat-Cursebearer, see, so we can handle Geas alright. We've got over sixteen years, which should be long enough to figure out a method of Geas Mitigation which buys us at least five minutes on the main world to kill the Divinities and set up a dark lord like the Accursed asked. But since we've reached a part of the gameworld tagged as 'Beyond Divinities', we can just trigger the epilogue now by clicking 'save and quit'... We did still need Scythe since the epilogue network extrapolates the gamestate and gives a game over if we'd obviously die, but I've won now."
so JOE did what he said, triggered the epilogue, skipped it, and reloaded
"Alright, that should be a record-setting speedrun! anyone up to stick around for the rest of my playthrough? No? I'm assuming no even though this is prerecorded and I wouldn't hear if you said anything. Yeah, that's fair. "
so saying, he then closed the game for real.
"Well, maybe I'll boot it back up some other time, but for now, that's all, see you!"
So saying, JOE clicked start, and waited patiently through the opening narration. By which is meant he mashed the skip button, but that's more patience then other people do; he didn't even turn on an auto-clicker equivalent! After about a second, he reached the rules list... and accidentally pressed no on the 'did you get all that' notification, prompting a short noise of dissatisfaction and a more careful mash-through. As JOE went through character creation, selecting Diagram Magic and The Scythe, he explained "So in order for this to work, we need to be able to keep scaling for a good while, which means we need The Scythe, and the Diagram Magic is a good utility option. Then, we're going to tell the Accursed 'heck yeah'. What you have to remember here, is that we're not actually citizens of this world, we've just been plucked out of earth or somewhere, the only reason we're interested in all this is the power and life. Also, though we don't have enough Orbs to keep all these, the check for them doesn't happen until after Downsides, since it has to be balanced there. So, we pick Combat-Class Cursebearer to have enough immediate power to steal a spare Orb lying around and balance the books after we pick up Incarnate, In Full Bloom, and Age Of Glory."
So saying, JOE clicked through to downsides, picked up the stated Downsides, and then tabbed back to Cursebearer to open the build selection there.
"Alright, let's see, options, options... See, I can't skip thinking about this part because the Accursed AI picks your curses and remittances depending on what it thinks you can handle, and that depends on what I've done so far. not sure how it works, some kind of deep learning? I think it's special to EFB since Seram and the Former Hero are preformed characters and this guy's generic, so-Aha!"
as he spoke, JOE finished his selection - Brand of the Wretched, Brand of the Chaste, and A Mirror Brightly. a popup showed saying he would need to select an additional Curse, which he closed to pick his Mirror Dao as Dao of the Merchant**, which manifests a suite of reality effects involving exchanging things for other things of similar exchange, but very different Practical, value, and making deals. Then, he selected the Geas of Indenture, and pressed the shift key to resist the pull for a few seconds so he could finish character creation.
"Now, I was Going to sneak an Orb, but since Merchant dropped I can use it to trade my leftover RV for a Celestial Orb, the RV system is mostly deprecated but I still have one to spare since you aren't supposed to take 2 Major Curses, and Remitance Value is worth a more then a heavenly orb- it's worth Accursed Favour, after all. So I just..."
JOE clicked through to the end of Character Creation and then released Shift right before the Divinities could reincarnate him. as the loading screen came up, he recapped
"The Geas of Indenture is beyond the divinities, so they can't keep us in this world, and we've got the Scythe to grow despite Combat-Cursebearer, see, so we can handle Geas alright. We've got over sixteen years, which should be long enough to figure out a method of Geas Mitigation which buys us at least five minutes on the main world to kill the Divinities and set up a dark lord like the Accursed asked. But since we've reached a part of the gameworld tagged as 'Beyond Divinities', we can just trigger the epilogue now by clicking 'save and quit'... We did still need Scythe since the epilogue network extrapolates the gamestate and gives a game over if we'd obviously die, but I've won now."
so JOE did what he said, triggered the epilogue, skipped it, and reloaded
"Alright, that should be a record-setting speedrun! anyone up to stick around for the rest of my playthrough? No? I'm assuming no even though this is prerecorded and I wouldn't hear if you said anything. Yeah, that's fair. "
so saying, he then closed the game for real.
"Well, maybe I'll boot it back up some other time, but for now, that's all, see you!"
**this is ooc generated to be convenient for the logic of the speedrun because I can't access the actual blurblist
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
The Difference between a 25 Arete advancement and 2 14 Arete advancements is dependent on the advancements and what they do for our current and future goals. If some interaction between two 14 arete advancements leads to great strides in fulfilling our goals compared to a 25 Arete advancement, than the two 14 arete advancements are better than a 25 arete advancement.
For all we know, it's (Without the Discount to the sign arete cost)
6th Sign (2 Picks, 20 Arete)
7th Sign(3 Picks, 40 Arete)
Evening Sky Signs set bonus(??? Picks value, ??? Arete Value)
Heroic Advancement(??? Picks value, ??? Arete Value)
Strange9
hdellaverson@gmail.com
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
Sure! I don't think I ever said they were, though?
My point was that though Armory and Hero's reward each consume different resources (Armory uses more Arete, is discounted, and has the 7 Sign synergy bonus; Hero's uses up the Heroic Advancemen) and benefit from different 'value multipliers' (Armory is for a companion; Hero's is concentrated Arete), the scale seems roughly balanced to me. If one is disappointed by Armory, it doesn't seem reasonable to say that Hero's will be good just because it consumes so much value.
(Furthermore, if @runeblue360 will forgive me for continuing the debate outside of the post chain, arguing about where each option places that power [e.g. in repairing Versch] seems odd given that we have literally no idea what Hero's will entail, and Rihaku said it would be entirely fair if it did nothing besides meeting our sponsor again).
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Armory is for a Companion or Us depending on our preferences and has different benefits depending on which route we take.
Strange9
hdellaverson@gmail.com
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
Good point! I should clarify that I was talking about the 'maximum power' version (I assume?) where Letrizia could fight 4 peer-class armaments with Versch.
Fisher King gives 50% rank so having that apply to Saber is nice, even if our already existing rank boosts mean that the rank boost isn't all that large. That it builds towards the second trinity while still saving Arete for the Realm of evening is quite appealing.
A good pick, but without knowing what accursed favor or the second trinity do there's not much to talk about here.
Refinement of Purpose is so good that I'd be upset if we didn't take it eventually. There's a very powerful build here where our willpower compounds on itself and is then applied as Might and Agi. Add in something like Stranglethorn, as well as another ability that lets Will apply to other stats, and the result is quite impressive.
I'd worried that any damage from sword-cracking would be semi-permanent, but the fact that this can be fixed with a Foresleep points to the Forebear employing this technique extensively.
Rihaku mentioned this was unlocked by shattering our blade. The advancement is named Refinement of Purpose, so perhaps the power leaking from the blade is unwanted, since once it is gone that results in a blade more refined for the purposes to which Hunger will put it.
Sword in the stone is great as well.
-It would set Hunger's rank against the Arcanist, preventing its wakening.
-I'm not certain but I suspect Hour of Reckoning would be enough to beat back multiple Armaments, since it would mean +2 military Rank and +.2 ISH.
-Self Resurrection is high on my list of things we need.
-The boost to our kingdoms and rulership is cool.
Having said all that, this is very much a defensive power. Its use in the initial conquest of the Human Sphere is limited to self resurrection and defending existing gains. As tempting as it is, I think that we should save this advancement until we're strong enough to beat Armaments while going on the offensive. I want us to be certain we can conquer the human sphere before we start worrying about defending it.
Additionally, this advancement would keep us in the voyaging realm for some time and I'm ready for a change of pace in the quest. I want to go to the human sphere, I want to read chapters about the human sphere, I want to see a Rihaku sci-fi universe, I think that the quest needs a real change-up, so this is a non-starter.
I'll start by expressing my concern that fighting 4 armaments at once is already being mentioned as something to consider. I'm still focused on getting Hunger to the point where he can beat one Armament without death risk!
And then there's the mention of peer-level Armaments, which brings up more questions. Are there Armaments based on lesser curses, like the Curse of Leprosy? Are Armaments based on Crowning curses more powerful?
It seems Armaments have a Nature which determines their Shroud (see Hunger's Forebear nature blocking any Shroud) and a Curse that determines their ultimate. Does this mean Foremost built Armaments like Versch have different Shroud's than human built Armaments like Procyon? The Ultimate being based on the curse also makes me wonder what an Apocryphal-based ultimate would look like. Somewhat concerning!
And then there's that mention of the logistical uses of Armaments, also known as Impliments, which has yet to be explored. But the Realm of Evening will give Hunger time, and it may be that the realm of evening is naturally easier to modify via an Armament. The Builders likely used Armaments/Implements to build this realm, and the option is called the Pillars of Creation, so if anywhere in the Voyaging realm would be designed to be easily accessed by Armaments it would be in the understructure where those Armaments spent most of their time employed creating this place.
I'm also still hoping to fuel our spell-casting by making Versch pay for any rank costs and then just repairing him.
As cool as this is, I prefer age and treachery to heroism. Meeting Haeliel was interesting, and good given's Hunger's previous grudge against heroism, but I'm not willing to spend yet ANOTHER 50 arete AND 5 picks for it. This is especially true given Hunger won his fight via age and treachery, it's not narratively fitting for Haeliel to make a second visit given that he is imperfectly aligned to her ideals.
Being unable to assist Aobaru is news to me, though perhaps unsurprising. I guess we have something like "The hero entering the final sanctum alone" to look forward to. But on the plus side, both Hunger and Gisena can sit on the sidelines and cheer him on together!
"Considerable in-setting effects, unlocks a multitude of options" is what draws me most to this option.
Spending arete on companions is a hard sell for me, given that Hunger's progression means he'll likely leave them behind at some point, but unlocking secret Foremost/Builder lore is really high on my list of things I want to see. I want this. I want every mystery uncovered, the secrets of the builders (and the other two races) revealed. Power is cool, but setting lore is cooler, and I will keep writing omakes and theory posts until we get some answers.
The actual powers granted here are neat.
-I'd imagine this fixes our currency issue and would allow for the repair of any wall damage.
-Preventing any real drawback is nice.
-If given a choice between accelerating sign devolopment and just buying signs outright, I prefer accelerating. I want signs past the 7th (this magic system is compared to the royal praxis, they probably exist) and constantly buying acceleration is better for that.
-Hopefully she can pick a new Nifiel champion in a decade or so because we're probably going to trivialize those boosts after a timeskip or two.
We'll probably end up taking her to the Human sphere even though for narrative reasons I'd somewhat prefer if we didn't. Still, monarchs did go visiting foreign countries at times so it's hardly unheard of. We'll have to see what our disney princess thinks of the rest of the world.
Taking Saber before Fisher king with its rank boost is frustrating but such is life.
Not much say about Vanrier's Thrust, it's basically a varient Thorn.
1051 words
- Location
- Louisiana
Jesus Myth saw quite the upswing. I'm surprised people aren't more excited for A Hero's Reward. Think of all the stars that had to align for this option to come up at all. We had to 1.) utilize a defensive wish to apply a favor from THE ACCURSED HIMSELF. Then 2.) we had to spend 50 arete to get the slightest bit of attention from a high cursebearer of tremendous power. Then 3.) we had to spend the majority of that attention on simply asking for her favor, the act of which empowered us tremendously. Then 4.) we had to, immediately after, perform a stupidly dangerous but also amazingly heroic feat, the challenge of which provided us with the biggest power boost we've seen thus far in the quest.
The reward that specifically applies to this chain of events allows us to become, as stated, the champion of a high cursebearer. One of the most stupidly powerful characters in the entire setting. This isn't just getting her attention, this is getting a serious amount of interest and investment from her. This has long term effects on our relationship with her, y'all wanna talk about a good epilogue ending? Doesn't get much better than having a high cursebearer invested in your survival.
The reward that specifically applies to this chain of events allows us to become, as stated, the champion of a high cursebearer. One of the most stupidly powerful characters in the entire setting. This isn't just getting her attention, this is getting a serious amount of interest and investment from her. This has long term effects on our relationship with her, y'all wanna talk about a good epilogue ending? Doesn't get much better than having a high cursebearer invested in your survival.
- Location
- 1
Counterpoint: We Could've gotten 6th Sign and 7th Sign by Aggressive Research using essence->mythic platinum conversion, which means that throwing mythic platinum into the Evening Sky at a rate limited by our ability to locate Platinum normally and infuse it we could make those signs. the Pillars Of Creation says:
"Divine opulence and every conceivable luxury await the fortunate interlopers, restoring wholeness of mind, body, and spirit.
The realm of Evening responds to the desires of the wearer and can be shaped to induce a variety of effects at nigh-deific scale - worthy enemies, fields of unique reagents, anagathic peaches, arms and armor of myth."
So Pillars has access to Mythicness, and it has as much luxury and opulence as we could possibly want, as a function of its nature based on our desires and not as a thing we need to put in effort to access in the first place. I don't see any plausible way for Pillars to Not be able to grant the Signs, unless the Cloaks ability to absorb platinum for Signs falls under 'training' for Hungers Debuff (and even then I'd think Sixth would be in reach.).
In conclusion, the functional costs for the signs could just as plausibly be:
6th Sign (Minimal cost with Realm Of Evening)
7th Sign (Minimal albeit larger cost with Realm Of Evening, potentially notable.)
Evening Sky Signs set bonus (reduces freedom of choice for 6th and 7th sign.)