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

[X] Constellation's Accompaniment

for now

[X] Constellation's Accompaniment

I think I liked both of the previous options better than the current ones, but if I had to choose I guess
[X] Constellation's Accompaniment
I think it gives us the best utility, though [] Merry Moon's Eye probably fits better with the rest of the art.

[X] Merry Moon's Eye

I'm voting this but don't mind the other too much. It just mostly seems like a pain in the ass for yrsillar lol. If they have to consider all of LQ's random abilities for every scene, I don't think that making it so that all of her allies have to consider all of her abilities too will make writing conflict any easier. A more narrowly focused Ling Qi is kinder to our QM.

Finally caught up! Binging these 2 quests has been great fun!

I appreciate the way that the usual "just sit and cultivate to overcome the latest obstacle" is narratively never the solution. Oh, LQ does get stronger regularly enough and she gets the usual protagonist talent+respect, but it's never so direct as "sit and crunch power to overcome previously unsurpassable challenge".
This story's strong focus on character relationships + internal development also makes it a lot of fun to read. I normally dislike Xianxia stories (which is why Forge of Destiny stayed in my unread bookmarks for over a year) but this was great fun to read!

However, I am a little worried about the latest big vote on quest direction, and I hope that when we get more involved with diplomacy Ling Qingge and Biyu don't vanish from the story. I like their plotline a lot! If there are voting options to stay in contact with them somehow, I'll be sure to vote fort them.
My other favorite character and plotline has been everything involving Zhengui (I found myself crying when he sacrificed the drive behind his garden dream...) but thankfully he's unlikely to ever be entirely offscreen. LQ isn't the best Mom Big Sister, but she's got an excellent family to work with and she's improving!

[X] Merry Moon's Eye

The extra range makes it really good for recon missions, which we'll probably see quite a few of with the whole war going on.

Mmm, so thinking about it more, the more I like the potential of Constellation's Accompaniment for teamwork.

The basic "oh we could give allies emergency shields or qi regen" is honestly the least useful application of it. It's much more efficient for us to just use our support arts with the group normally.

The real value is in allowing allies to gain buffs that we wouldn't normally be able to give them, or in supporting some clever burst tactics to briefly punch up.

For example:

• Moving small groups fast: give them Zephyr
• Helping allies get over wards and sneak better like when we rescued Xiulan and Fan Yu that one time with Breeze in the Vault
• If we ever have an allied spiritualist: buff their power with Implacable Advance
• Enhance everyone's dodginess in IPF by giving them EDD, making it more support-y
• Load up our yellow minions with Hoarfrosts so we can unleash a big alpha strike with multiple Hoarfrosts and give us the advantage at the start of a battle. They wouldn't be aoe ofc, but even half a dozen single target Hoarfrosts could do a lot to swing things around, whether it be smashing the opposing yellows or focusing down an enemy officer
• Load up minions with bear paws to try to ground a bunch of nomads once we've brought up BKSD?

And these would be nice teamwork options, that would encourage us to actually work with people more.

I really like the potential here.

Nemonowan said:

[X] Constellation's Accompaniment

I just want to see a flying Zhengui...

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Sold.

[X] Constellation's Accompaniment

Zhengui using Wind Thief Yeeting would be AMAZING

I just want to steal and loot the goodies from anyone under their noses we encounter, why we gotta keep helping the baby greens when their's precious loot to steal instead?
We've already been doin team training too at that, so lets be selfish and steal all the shinies we come across like Jiao taught us like a true Phantom Thief of the night!

RebelYell said:

We've already been doin team training too at that, so lets be selfish and steal all the shinies we come across like Jiao taught us like a true Phantom Thief of the night!

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I mean, we might have been doing training but we're still kind of hindered by a limited amount of actual support arts

tricholysis said:

I'm voting this but don't mind the other too much. It just mostly seems like a pain in the ass for yrsillar lol. If they have to consider all of LQ's random abilities for every scene, I don't think that making it so that all of her allies have to consider all of her abilities too will make writing conflict any easier. A more narrowly focused Ling Qi is kinder to our QM.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This is a systems design problem. Threads is currently a heavily exception-based system, where things work in some default way but the characters can alter that through their powers. This works extremely well when powers are very limited, as then the base system is basically everything.

However progression generally involves acquiring more such exceptions and so the base system becomes less and less relevant as the story progresses. This resulted in the simplified system between Forge and Threads so that the problem would still be manageable for yrs but that's mostly a temporary situation.

The solution to this is to either limit the characters' powers' effects so that they closely align to a larger system (alright, I use my Grade-C surprise negator and a Grade-A attack negator to nullify their Grade-A ranged single target damage finisher tech, with those description fully specifying the techs' effects) or to have each character have a sharply limited number of powers that are broadly applicable (we need LQ to have around three Arts total). The downside to the first is that every optimized character will likely be identical in every way that matters. The big downsides to the second are that it forces us voters to decide on what we want LQ to be able to do in an extremely narrow fashion and it potentially makes combat a pretty big deal.

For LQ I want her to be able to apply a variety of field effects to the battle and to be able to empower her allies as proxies for her will. The first grows in complexity for a while as we gain field effects before eventually simplifying once LQ starts applying those effects as though they were parts of a song (making our fights eventually be like our Music duel about the songbird). The creation of proxies will need some work locking down exactly what that means, however we already have a reasonable example of how that would work for higher realms in the Sect Head Yuan He.

[X] Merry Moon's Eye

[X] Merry Moon's Eye

[X] Constellation's Accompaniment

Erebeal said:

Mmm, so thinking about it more, the more I like the potential of Constellation's Accompaniment for teamwork.

The basic "oh we could give allies emergency shields or qi regen" is honestly the least useful application of it. It's much more efficient for us to just use our support arts with the group normally.

The real value is in allowing allies to gain buffs that we wouldn't normally be able to give them, or in supporting some clever burst tactics to briefly punch up.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

We only have 8 wisps, so the amount of people we can empower is limited.

But there is another possible way to use Constellation's Accompaniment: suppose that what we give them is Constellation's Accompaniment itself! Then they could use it to give us or others their own techniques!
We could have a group that can multiply the most appropriate technique for any situation.