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

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How to deal with Omake points is something that has concerned me. I really, really love fan art and fanworks, but I've also seen in quests like WSIA the way that omake points could kinda ruin things and so I've always been kind of cautious in their function. One idea I've had as @Neshuakadal said is to let omake points be spent to boost success chances on projects and actions. I think I would have to limit this for the same reasons though. The other idea is that they can be spent to add an extra success to a project in order to hit multipliers which are out of reach, once we get through the initial easy projects I've set up.

I know the quest became very aimless for a long stretch. That is part of what I'm trying to reverse with this system change and the diplomacy events I want to get a stronger story backbone, enable myself to skip time a bit and otherwise cut down on bloat.
 
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[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)

I have come around to the idea that knowing what people actually want will help us set up more profitable trade agreements with the Land of Always Winter. Having the ears of the lords on the trade route will be important, but right now I think knowing what we should even send on the route is going to be more important.
 
In large part, I think what this highlights is that while the turn system of Forge, and other similar quests, creates a lot of problems in terms of narrative coherency and pacing, it's also a great tool for providing player agency.

In threads, we, the players, pushed for a range of changes away from that in order to give yrs better narrative control and address various frustrations over things like "minors", but in doing so we gave away a lot of our agency... and it turns out that that's not necessarily that desirable.

The challenge we're faced with now is how to try to work through those issues, and get some of that agency back without blowing things up...

It's sort of similar to how dice and harder mechanical systems are a two-edged sword: they create a lot of story problems, but they're fantastic for player engagement and a sense of choices mattering.
 
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yrsillar said:
How to deal with Omake points is something that has concerned me. I really, really love fan art and fanworks, but I've also seen in quests like WSIA the way that omake points could kinda ruin things and so I've always been kind of cautious in their function. One idea I've had as @Neshuakadal said is to let omake points be spent to boost success chances on projects and actions. I think I would have to limit this for the same reasons though. The other idea is that they can be spent to add an extra success to a project in order to hit multipliers which are out of reach, once we get through the initial easy projects I've set up.

I know the quest became very aimless for a long stretch. That is part of what I'm trying to reverse with this system change and the diplomacy events I want to get a stronger story backbone, enable myself to skip time a bit and otherwise cut down on bloat.
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One bonus at a time and keep the bonus linear(i.e. flat numbers, not rerolls) is usually safe enough.
 
[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)

Apocalyptic Loon said:
I can only speak for myself, but I've really enjoyed the chapters since the system change.
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They've been great as always yeah.

In terms of the issues of agency though, it's really too early to say if that's been addressed yet. We've been a bit on rails here just because of having to deal with all those pre-existing arcs we were already committed too.
 
I also have been having a blast with the new system. It might just be new system tingles, but it feels more alive than the last one. More like my choices impact the scenes I am reading.
 
[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)

The southern Emerald Seas can always do with more money and ergo more development, since it is a region more exposed to risks and will therefore tend to be slower to grow, and they do need our help to get their share.

Without some deft preparations, it is more likely that the trade will mostly benefit those who happen to be placed on the road and then the bulk of the wealth will keep flowing north. Which CRX would certainly disapprove of, so we might as well jump on laying the ground to make sure the people who are the local economy around these parts are included.

On a macro level this should shore up our good rep the southernmost areas, which facilitates diplomacy with the south because they are the ones who are geographically placed to either collaborate or get in the way of it.
 
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[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)
 
I do think the system changes are gonna do a lot to help with these issues for sure, we just need to give it some time to see. We've only just finished our first cultivation arc (loved it), and it was one based on our cultivation art so it's harder to see tangible progress.

Anyways, I'm leaning towards the road nobles for now, because a new trade route has nice and obvious benefits for them so they will likely be zealous supporters of ours, and we will definitely need early noble support. After we deal with the road people we can approach the craftsmen later when we have more political backing and a trade route seems actually feasible. Plus if we go the road way we might be able to see that spooky mountain pass that was mentioned with all those ghosts from Ogedai which would be fun.

[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
We want the agricultural products like soft wood, foods, and most importantly the additional political moving/pushing that comes from the Nobility having put skin in the game.

On top of that, once someone starts moving trade goods along from one route to a new route it becomes more and more economical for others to hitch their wagons to that same initial trade option. The hardest part of any new economic bargain is always going to be the first steps and after that economic inertia begins to set in.
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
Mother Nyx said:
Okay so. Everyone that knows me knows how much I love this quest. I am completely caught up, I have never missed an update, I spent really life money to commission art just off the strength of my love and a desire to help this character grow stronger and achieve her dreams. I say all that to say this.

I have no fucking idea what is even going on with this quest anymore. The system makes no sense to me anymore.
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tl;dr some awkward growing pains as Ling Qi entered a new phase of cultivation in what is functionally Cultivator Puberty in terms of how sharp a distinction it can be from the prior system. In my eyes, I see it as a departure from the tried-and-true function-over-philosophy numerical-grind Imperial Cultivation system making sure the Reds and Yellows are as numerous and useful as possible while Middle Green is when a cultivator really must start defining a personal philosophy rather than ascribing themselves to the philosophy (Arts) of others.

the new system not only places closer ties between Narrative Philosophy and Mechanical Strength, but also makes a lot of intuitive sense because it finally ties the narrative to the cultivation in a very tangible and clear way.

There will be three tutorial chapters here. The one with Sixiang is already done, and I think was a very high performance chapter. We got our first dice in who knows how long, got goodies dangled in our face without them detracting from the intended arc, and we cleanly saw effects both in the narrative and the numbers. Do we know all the little nuances of the system yet? No. What we've seen though is the refined version of what we were attempting with the WHR pickup. A way to tie our mechanical arts directly into social and philosophical narrative arcs.

I've liked all of Threads so far, but I feel that any refinement of Threads prior to this system change will have to lean into how awkward Ling Qi has been both in terms of political acuity and how while some Arts came with an adventure/project attached many didn't. Ling Qi has had a low amount of agency largely because of how we've had to scramble to learn the ropes of a variety of systems we've bumped into which may or may not have importance to Ling Qi's Way forward. Sect Politics (especially Duels) ended up not mattering. Luo's hunting parties ended up not mattering. Having to show up to those early parties with Renxiang ended up not mattering.
When our ruler gave us a "I know you're competent but I see you need a direction to pursue. So go that way" project with Wang that's when we started having Agency again. Similarly, we started getting a lot more payoff for Arts as YRS started to experiment with some trippy mini-adventure meditations (which can easily be called a prototyping of the Project idea). We've attempted to gain agency, which is part of why the knife-fighting over Arts was so passionate (when we have no action to work on Heart Demon, or connect with Zhengui, we scrabble for it in places it might not exist).

I think that:
1- when made for Royal Road an emphasis on how out of depth LQ suddenly feels as she goes from "Quiet Talent who just needs not embarrass herself, and also fight well" to "and now you have political expectations and nobody is giving you directions on what you can do in this arena, but you suspect it's as vicious as the Outer Sect was". I think the general feeling of imposter syndrome or feeling like she doesn't really belong or really understand what's going on should work well, and synergizes nicely with the small measure of self assurance and pride Ling Qi eventually starts expressing closer to this current update.
2- reconfigure some of the adjectives around the supporting cast of the time to show them going through a similar "thrust into the deep end" sort of process. This is very much a culture shock for many who went from typical relatively-chill lesson structure to Honor Duels.
Or for our grade specifically we went from scrapping for success between classes to formal parties and no rough-housing outside of Duels. It's a large gear-shift and I'm sure we weren't the only one with adjustment pains (I suspect Su Ling also had a pretty sharp adjustment after gaining the medicine forge and friendly relations with our faction for year 2. Perhaps something to commiserate over sometime)

Anyway. Yes, we've had some agency issues during Threads and part of that can be explained by Ling Qi being out of her depth (and being very cautious in the social arena like it was as dangerous as Outer Sect had been). We've been steadily recovering agency (both the players and Ling Qi) as she regains confidence and the systems have been refined, and I suspect that once this system is fully rolled out we'll have excellent agency once more as the narrative, cultivation, and social spheres are entwined much more cleanly.

Anyway.
[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)
I want those who know what they're talking about (in terms of metals) to be on-side and able to work with us for the later convincing of the road nobles. We can try to talk up the road-nobles so that they'll secure the road sooner, but I feel having a connection to a tangible and immediate gain will help these negotiations more. We can assert the bounty of the South as much as we wish, but that much movement is going to become target for raids. Having the appraisal of Craftsmens' Eyes should help ground the potential gains in some numbers or examples, rather than some dream of mutual profit which will surely entice more raids/banditry in the region regardless of how fruitful the bounty ends up being for the road nobles.
 
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IMO mechanical bonuses for omakes are always a mistake, not just for throwing any semblance of balance out of wack but also for making readers feel like they must produce fanworks, instead of just doing it because they want to.

[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)
 
Astro Ambulance said:
IMO mechanical bonuses for omakes are always a mistake, not just for throwing any semblance of balance out of wack but also for making readers feel like they must produce fanworks, instead of just doing it because they want to.
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Mmm, I think it really depends on the story. Like, a quest about a super talented young cultivator rising like the protag they are can quite comfortably accomodate the MC cultivating fast because of fanworks imo.

The problem here is that our targets are already too easy to achieve :p

Also the current system has kinda fucked with things, because you can't really use omake points to buy art projects since the whole point of the system here was to also get narrative integration with that.

Traits and concept xp might be more doable though just because it's more incremental?

And, like, yes WSIA is the great example everyone has of things going completely out of control... but honestly? Engagement was amazing. As one of the people engaged in the fanworks there, we had a great time. It was one of the things that really pushed me to do a lot more art and hone my skills there. We didn't need to - but we wanted to, and there was just a lot of energy.
 
Mother Nyx said:
Okay so. Everyone that knows me knows how much I love this quest. I am completely caught up, I have never missed an update, I spent really life money to commission art just off the strength of my love and a desire to help this character grow stronger and achieve her dreams. I say all that to say this.

I have no fucking idea what is even going on with this quest anymore. The system makes no sense to me anymore. The last one was needlessly confusing, and I had points left over that Yrs seemingly refused to apply. The reason I stopped commissioning art was because I had no idea how to help and it seemed like I was being stopped from doing so in order to facilitate some weird notion that we were getting too strong too fast.

But now, everything drags on slowly, and for far too long, we are not getting stronger, just more specialized since while we learn new arts we end up pushing them together into one big art anyway.

What are we, the voters even doing anymore? Like the math cabals were a meme but they were fun to watch and engage with. The fan base seems smaller than ever. How are the omake writers being motivated? They used to churn our images like hotcakes and literally like four have been done in the last month. Like, where is this quest even headed?

I love this quest but I feel like this, whatever it is is not the path forward.
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Addressing the system, do you feel like this new system is more or less confusing than the last? B/c I personally feel like its much more comprehensible now. Maybe its just because I'm not a numbers person but this more narrative-based system is much easier for me to understand than a bunch of numbers and decimals or whatever.
Also every cultivator in Forgeworld eventually becomes more specialized and powerful in their focus, whatever that focus may be. After a cultivator grows strong enough, usually somewhere in Green, they learn less new arts and start modifying the ones they've mastered, eventually learning how to make a successor art and then a personal art.
If you want to measure how strong Ling Qi is, think of fight scenes like the Caldera fight. She and Zhengui held her own there for a while against ~10 green and like 200 yellow or something b4 backup showed up. Maybe its because there are too many slice-of-life arcs and mini-arcs for it to feel like growth but Ling Qi is strong. She has been getting stronger this whole time.

Anyway since we declined to gather political power at the intersect tourney, we should at least understand the politics in our own future backyard:
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
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[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)

Trade, travel, and motion just seem more like Ling Qi's thing to me.
 
[X] Speak with the craftsman and hill nobles (Begin Political Quest, Craftsmen's Eye. Other route locked until Part 1 completion.)

My reasoning is that we'll need craftspeople's and the hill nobles' support to help establish our fief. It will be quite a while before significant trade happens and we can get the road/agricultural nobles on board then.
 
[X] Speak with the nobles whose lands lie on the trade road. (Begin Political Quest, old Road/New Road Part 1. Other route locked until Part 1 completion)
 
How about having Omake help other characters than the protagonist, it might be fun? For exemple, giving opportunities to Ling Qi's friends, family, acquaintances, even enemies, etc. Perhaps have the Omake's writer decide who they want their Omake to help and have the mods keep track and when a character gets a set amount of "Omake Points" they get a small bonus. It would help other popular characters keep up with Ling Qi's progress without it feeling cheap and wouldn't make things too easy for Ling Qi.

Might also be a hassle to keep track of though...
 
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