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The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

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Don't be intimidated by the Love Transfixed. It is an awesome material, yes. But it was given to achieve a single purpose and we can use it however we want to achieve that purpose. If we were to use it for some shoddy charm that would do the job, it would be enough. Stop trying to make the Charm worthy of ALT. We first wasted shitload of time postponing the charm until we had the skills and other materials, we waited so long, that QM has stepped in. Now we want to, again, waste 6 more Actions so the charm is worthy. STOP!
We are not at power level to make a charm so powerful. We *can* make it if we use up a lot of our time/actions but imo it's prohibitive. When we get better at our skills and ascend to next Step then would be the time for such powerful charms. Now? No.
 
[X] Faster is better. We want to infuse immediately.

I love how we have barely improved our techs since we joined caretakers despite that being our main objective given by Siani.
 
[X] The higher the build target, the better. We want to double down.

A live transfixed is a material singular in its potency, at Zhi's level. He won't encounter another like it for probably a very long time, and even if he does, Shuren's standing request (and gratitude) would force us to send it over and not use it ourselves.

Furthermore, Fractal View is a charm that not only will reshape Zhi completely, tear down and build up his body anew, but it's something that will do so multiple times in the future. After all, that's the main characteristic of this particular charm design. Having that in mind, it's no wonder that more attention to detail would be appreciated.

Finally, in narrative itself Zhi noted imperfections. And a charm so narratively important, deserves Zhi's best. Those talking about the Box as the most important charm Zhi made are deluding themselves. It pales in importance and weight before Fractal View.

Ps. @DkArthas Thing is, improving our own techs is indeed our task but it is also a bit of a polite fiction. As Ves stated, there is no explicit hurry, this period serves us a time to build Zhi up.
 
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[x] Faster is better. We want to infuse immediately.

We've waited far too long on this already, and it's dragging out all other plans behind it. Plus it will provide a notable boost versus the Deer.

We already have a 62-target charm, people. Double-downing now is merely overkill that will leave us short a charm come the deer fight, and place a prolonged snag on all our other projects.

We only finished this turn because we made lucky rolls. Who says we'll be as lucky next week?
 
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[x] Faster is better. We want to infuse immediately.

Ideally I'd want to finish it before the deer fight, but I'd definitely want to finish it before the Mo's final.
Double down would mean approx 9 actions to finish the charm. Mo's final is in 2 weeks so that would be 9/12 actions.

I feel like it just takes too much away from other necessary things (wonder searching, Fa's axe, sparring, technique integration, ...) or will just indefinitely stall the finishing of the charm.
 
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[X] Faster is better. We want to infuse immediately.

There's just so, so much on our plate that I can't possibly justify adding so many actions on this.
 
Horium said:
Ps. @DkArthas Thing is, improving our own techs is indeed our task but it is also a bit of a polite fiction. As Ves stated, there is no explicit hurry, this period serves us a time to build Zhi up.
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It's not just about meeting Siani's expectation though:

Vesvius said:
"This Phantom Point," Xiong Eryu continues. "It is not particularly strong. Were it well into the realm of the Farmer, it would have crushed Panyao Fei within moments. But it is barely into its third step- which means that if you prepare well, you may find yourself it's match."
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Vesvius said:
"Your zeal is admirable," she replies. "But do not allow it to get the better of you. Approach this task with caution. Though the Phantom Point is well within your capabilities, greater Artists than you have been felled by lesser foes whom they thought themselves above."
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The only meaningful improvement of Zhi's combat capabilityies we've done till now is get Shatter and Talon up some phases. Not sure if the Box and pills for anam and/or healing counts. That seems more like mandatory preparations to me, but maybe I'm pessimistic?

If we use anam each round we'll be empty after around 10 rounds and that's with two Grade 2 pills. After that we can only hurt it with Talon of Remembrance (thank you Wolf Fang(?) charm, which it will have advantage over due to it's defensive steel techs. If the Deer isn't dead by then we better hope we roll 1,5x times better than it.

As Zhi is now he'd be able to win over the Winter crab in 10 rounds using the box and 20 extra anam, if they both roll averagely.

I don't think a middle ground weekly plan is gonna work well for this fight. If we put in some crafting next week and post-pone fighting the deer one more week to get some more training in, the deer might becoming stronger. So either we'll have to post-pone working on a DD Fractal till the Deer is dead and go all in on cycling Shatter up a phase, maybe train with Chui Dao to see if it can be included in the fight somehow etc. Or we hyper focus on Fractal and make sure it is ready by the last week and perhaps it's not too late to save the victim.
 
There are no meaningful improvements Zhi can make it his combat capabilities in a week though. I did a long post exploring this further back, but basically everyone comes down to A. Our dice pools. Or B. Our stats. Both get boosted in the same way, improving techniques. And we've been consistently doing that for weeks. We do not have the technqiues or wonders to rush anything right now. Puttimg 3 actions of prep in and 6 actions in the same week are indistinguishable, because we exhaust our aman sources. So why not focus on Fractal and make sure we're on track to get it done in 3 weeks by spending 3 actions a week on it?

I'm up for murdering the deer next week, because if we're not gonna finish fractal before the fight there's nothing that provides gains in the same magnitude. So get it out of the way, hope we're right about it's strength, and move on to ticking another task off our list (fractal).
 
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nothingtoseehere said:
There are no meaningful improvements Zhi can make it his combat capabilities in a week though. I did a long post exploring this further back, but basically everyone comes down to A. Our dice pools. Or B. Our stats. Both get boosted in the same way, improving techniques. And we've been consistently doing that for weeks. We do not have the technqiues or wonders to rush anything right now. Puttimg 3 actions of prep in and 6 actions in the same week are indistinguishable, because we exhaust our aman sources. So why not focus on Fractal and make sure we're on track to get it done in 3 weeks by spending 3 actions a week on it?

I'm up for murdering the deer next week, because if we're not gonna finish fractal before the fight there's nothing that provides gains in the same magnitude. So get it out of the way, hope we're right about it's strength, and move on to ticking another task off our list (fractal).
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To be frank, Fractal should not be a consideration for the deer fight even if we could complete it, because it wasn't intended to be a combat booster. We have zero idea what our new form will be and what benefits it will provide at this point. It could even be a detriment, locking out the limb techniques (which are better than our level of HD now). If we wanted to prep more for the deer fight we'd either want to try to get the next rank of StM or we'd want to go heavy into limb training.
 
Been seeing and if the math of what it would treasure to actually double down. If we didn't have the elder's mandatory 3 a week. If argue that all we would need is to dedicate to a week crafting the fractal view. Unfortunately it would treasure at least two weeks and we do have other things to do. Is there a way we can lock in a dedicated week or two for the fractal view?
 
Seadrake8 said:
Been seeing and if the math of what it would treasure to actually double down. If we didn't have the elder's mandatory 3 a week. If argue that all we would need is to dedicate to a week crafting the fractal view. Unfortunately it would treasure at least two weeks and we do have other things to do. Is there a way we can lock in a dedicated week or two for the fractal view?
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Not unless you can get a majority to vote for a weekly plan that does that. Two weeks ago that was the runner up plan vote, whether people would be more willing to vote for a quick crafting week after commiting to doubling down is another question- given this threads record so far of getting easily distracted, I'd not count on it.
 
[X] Faster is better. We want to infuse immediately.

The opportunity cost is huge. Nuking all responsibilities and opportunities outside of the Caretakers for an entire week is just too rich for my blood.
 
nothingtoseehere said:
There are no meaningful improvements Zhi can make it his combat capabilities in a week though. I did a long post exploring this further back, but basically everyone comes down to A. Our dice pools. Or B. Our stats. Both get boosted in the same way, improving techniques. And we've been consistently doing that for weeks. We do not have the technqiues or wonders to rush anything right now. Puttimg 3 actions of prep in and 6 actions in the same week are indistinguishable, because we exhaust our aman sources. So why not focus on Fractal and make sure we're on track to get it done in 3 weeks by spending 3 actions a week on it?

I'm up for murdering the deer next week, because if we're not gonna finish fractal before the fight there's nothing that provides gains in the same magnitude. So get it out of the way, hope we're right about it's strength, and move on to ticking another task off our list (fractal).
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Chui Dao is it's own entity and it could be able to add it's own dice pool to the fight. It's definitely not going to happen if we don't explore that option though.
We could add 2 actions to cycle Shatter the Mirror so that we're sure it gets to phase 4. That'll add 2(?) successes on average to the roll every bit of extra dmg helps.
That's something that can be accomplished in a week.

I don't think 3 actions would get it past the build stage though? So then you'd have a week where you do both building and infusion which is not advisable as you don't really know when you can start infusing. How infuriating would it be if you lacked 1 success for DD due to bad rolls and started infusing? I suppose the nature of this vote will also disallow having an infusion and build fractal in the same week.

Might as well do a 4-5 build fractal week and a 4 infusion week after the Deer is dealt with.
 
Trying to use Chui Dao in combat will probably do *something*, but assuming that'll give us a bunch extra dice is a jumping ahead a bit. I think it'll just be a new physical technique to train.

2 actions into StM does help though. I count that as marginal rather than meaningful, but it's the most useful thing we can do now

We will need 5-6 more build actions and 4 infuse actions instead of 3 if we double down. When to switch always does risk wasted actions, but a 3/3/4 split gives us more room to recalibrate. You can build/infuse in the same week, but you need to say ahead of time how many actions of going on each, rather than Ves auto switching you at breakpoints.
 
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nothingtoseehere said:
Trying to use Chui Dao in combat will probably do *something*, but assuming that'll give us a bunch extra dice is a jumping ahead a bit. I think it'll just be a new physical technique to train.

2 actions into StM does help though. I count that as marginal rather than meaningful, but it's the most useful thing we can do now

We will need 5-6 more build actions and 4 infuse actions instead of 3 if we double down. When to switch always does risk wasted actions, but a 3/3/4 split gives us more room to recalibrate. You can build/infuse in the same week, but you need to say ahead of time how many actions of going on each, rather than Ves auto switching you at breakpoints.
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Might be a bit optimistic with regards to Chui Dao, but it's something we'll want to do regardless and we probably don't have time if work on Fractal next week and have a social.

Does it really matter if we split the remaining Fractal work to 3/3/4 or delay a week and do 5/4 or 5/1/4. What does one week delay mean when it doesn't seem to be the plan to be done before the Deer fight anyway?

IIRC fighting the Deer next week will be at no risk to PF, while week 5 and 6 carries an increasing risk and after week 6 PF is definitely dead. Might as well just train as much as possible, maybe get rid of mental stress, and try to deal with the deer when it's little to no risk for PF.
 
nothingtoseehere said:
Not unless you can get a majority to vote for a weekly plan that does that. Two weeks ago that was the runner up plan vote, whether people would be more willing to vote for a quick crafting week after commiting to doubling down is another question- given this threads record so far of getting easily distracted, I'd not count on it.
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Welp guess we need to speed through it then. Maybe we double down on the next priceless gem we get.

[x] Faster is better. We want to infuse immediately.
 
[X] The higher the build target, the better. We want to double down.

This makes more sense to me narratively. It probably won't be ready in time for the Phantom Point... but that's not the point of the Fractal View. It's made from an incredible treasure, and we should make as much exceptional use of it as we can. Just rushing it feels like a disservice to the materials the charm was made from, and a negative mark against our own pride as a craftsman. We should make our charms beautiful and superfluous. A Love Transfixed is a remarkable material for a charm, and we should pay homage to that quality by making sure our charm is incredible, and not just "good enough". It's a sign to the world and to our family that we can take the materials they give us and go beyond expectations. And it's also a matter of personal pride: if we knew we could have done better on making that charm, and we didn't, we'd regret it in the future.

Besides, I'm fairly confident that if we prepare enough, we shouldn't even need the Fractal View for the Phantom Point, and could instead spend the time we otherwise would have spent on infusing and then using the Fractal View to better prepare for the Phantom Point. Then when that quest mission is settled, we can go to the Fractal View and our other side-projects and finish them as we won't have anything truly time-pressing like the Phantom Point making us rush our projects and put out works that we could have done better on.

So, from the perspective of Kong Zhi's character, personality, and background... it just makes more sense to me that Zhi would probably think he could do better on making the Fractal View even greater that it already is, rather than rush to infuse it when he knows he has the skills to make it even better than this.
 
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