I'm finally getting around to writing a post, and what do you know 90% of my multiquote is irrelevant. Bah, fuck it, I'll just do this in the context of voting.
I want to point out that, by and large, I read and then don't vote on most plans, and most of what I'm feeling happy about is relatively on par with how the rest of the thread is feeling by the looks of it. Should probably figure out my life a bit to change my voting stance, but 9/10 times I end up just fully agreeing with top plan so I ignore it, mb.
[x][Path] Chapter 702 stands, Hazō wakes up in the afterlife.
[][Progression] Hazō's overall rate of progression is fine.
[x][Progression] Hazō's rate of progression should increase to match that of the strongest in-setting ninja.
I think we either need to buff ourselves or nerf the challenges that we face, and honestly I think I'm more excited about buffing ourselves. Part of it is that it does feel kinda like we deserve it, part of it does feel like there are cool challenges I want us to face, but we can't face them til we get on plane. I think IV made the point that we've kinda done the "what can an average ninja do to break the setting", and I think we've done that kinda well, so I'm ready to play in the sandbox where we are the big mover and shaker that we have set ourselves up to become, but we don't need to sit aside and wait for that to be the case "once FOOM".
[][Progression] Hazō's rate of progression should increase drastically, allowing him to become one of the strongest characters in the setting relatively quickly.
I should note, I don't really want this to become an instant win button, so I'm not super in favor of this. I never voted in simulationist / difficulty, but my general stance was that I actually kinda like where both the levers are right now, with the exception of the fact that it feels like we've been stuck not necessarily on too tough a difficulty, but rather at too challenging a boss. We can handle the difficulty, but we somehow managed to skip ahead in the game and that's causing problems.
[][PowerUp] Hazō does not need an immediate power-up
[x][PowerUp] Hazō should gain a power-up in short order (e.g. as discussed in the thread, Mangekyō Iron Nerve, Jashin-powers, etc).
I feel relatively neutral towards this, but I think IV has made a really good argument in favor of MIN, so I'm minorly leaning towards that.
[x][Rift] Orochimaru brings the rift back to Leaf.
Definitely in favor of "there are consequences for our choices", and I think this is a reasonable and not insurmountable one!
[x][AfterlifePeople] In the afterlife, Hazō can get hints of Akane's location, but won't find her easily
[x][AfterlifePeople] In the afterlife, Hazō finds a clear "adventure path" to meeting up with Akane
I am generally more in favor of letting us slow down a lot and actually play in the space of afterlife, assuming that would be exciting to people, and part of that is keeping us there without directly going though a quest. That being said, I thought a little bit about what it would look like if we _did_ get hints about Akane's location, and my immediate reaction was "well of course we'd follow that", so maybe I'm not super internally consistent here. Also I just miss Akane.
[x][AfterlifeManyPaths] Hazō goes to the afterlife, then directly to the Human Path
[x][AfterlifeManyPaths] Hazō goes to the afterlife, then through a chain of other Paths / dimensions and back to the Human Path
I feel pretty neutral towards this, for the reasons that Vel pointed out and the reasons the IV pointed out. I don't know that I would pick a chain of paths that is both hard to simulate and super occupied and then would need to be distinct from the other paths, but I also do like lore, sooooo.
[x][AfterlifeExitSpeed] Hazō can learn of a way out of the afterlife, but finding more lore or discovering its location will be an odyssey in itself
[x][AfterlifeExitSpeed] Hazō soon learns of a way out of the afterlife, but it will take a while to get there
Let's stay around a while, the weather is nice. (see above re: slowing the pace, and I definitely agree with IV's point on taking time to explore and exploit but mostly explore.
[][AfterlifeXP] Hazō is somehow partially or fully immune to afterlife XP drain, and is therefore XP-positive immediately
[][AfterlifeXP] Hazō suffers XP drain at first, but can eventually find a way to slow it or stop it, allowing him to continue gaining XP
I... actually don't feel remotely qualified to vote for this, so I'm not gonna. Whichever feels more fun, but ideally in a way that does not feel super "and the rules don't apply to Hazō for Reasons™".
[x][AfterlifeChakra] Hazō quickly finds a way to regenerate chakra in the afterlife
[x][AfterlifeChakra] Hazō can find very rare ways to recover chakra in the afterlife, but it remains a scarce resource
[][AfterlifeChakra] Hazō has no special way to recover chakra in the afterlife, so he has a finite amount of chakra to use.
I think similarly to the above, don't particularly want our boy to be completely special cased, but also chakra is what'll let us do fun shit, so completely removing it feels wrong.
[x][AfterlifeResearch] There should be some research elements in the afterlife arc, but they can be much later or reduced in scope
[x][AfterlifeResearch] There's no need for Hazō to do research while in the afterlife so long as it doesn't affect our XP rate
I kinda feel like research is a big part of who
we are (as a thread) (and as Hazō controllers), but also both wanna avoid causing pain points all around, and recognizing that we just came off of a "research required" arc. I don't want to say there won't be research, but I kinda want to protect from mechanics-incentive to lighthouse.
[x][AfterlifeTime] So far as Hazō knows, afterlife:Human Path time is 1:1
[][AfterlifeTime] Hazō soon gets evidence of heavy time dilation between afterlife and Human Path
This is one that I actually went back and forth about. Honestly, to me, I'm happy just punting this problem down the line a bit. There's a pretty large part of me that wants to get a sense of how much stronger we'll be closer to the end of this arc before deciding how fucked the world we left behind is?
Iron Nerve, Jashin-powers, etc).
I'm curious about the Mangekyou Iron Nerve since it seems like an emotionally-charged death might mirror the Sharingan themes well enough to unlock it but I have no specific expectations about how strong it is. I mostly want to know what's up there, personally.
Relatable
This plan is a ton of fun, and if we survive, I think this would definitely be a strong contender of ways I'd like to see it happen. Particularly...
"You graduate the apprenticeship once you can disarm and remove your killswitch. Until then, I might occasionally murder you and let you find your own way out of the afterlife. Consider it field-training, nephew."
I chuckled.
Explore. Exploit. This is exactly what we need in order to make the afterlife arc fun, and not just a series of "we must ignore all the cool stuff because we can see the critical path and deviating from it is unconscionable".
Hazou needs to be in explore mode, not exploit mode, for most of it
I referenced this a lot above, but 100% agree here.
Okay so hear me out: Technique Hacking.
I am so incredibly very in favor of this yes please.
it's hard to have meaningful agency in a world where the Akatsuki probably destroys Leaf unless we do very specific things with every shred of our time
all of the this.
"You're thirty-six, Itachi," Konan said. "Also, you graduated the Academy at the normal age of twelve and followed a swift but still chronologically-plausible career path before you left Leaf."
I laughed very hard thank you.
I'd like the afterlife arc to take a bit of time. If we're just in and out, then...what was the point?
^^^
suddenly when we're back to the Human Path we have even more people we need to check in on and maintain relationships with
I did shudder when you brought this up. I agree that itinerant people feels more right, but also knowing us we do like to collect our people. Gaara (and Gaara-esque folks, including Zabuza who was tossed around) make for an interesting consideration here.
Something else I realized potentially (I can't find the quote that made me think this, I'm sorry), it's not that these relationships were hard to maintain, its that we were too busy working on the next big apocolypse to spend more time on the "seeing our relationships" sidequests. Maybe, if we can settle into a slightly less breakneck / time-pressure-driven pace, the relationship management will be less of a concern than before? Or it's just hopium, who knows.
