A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
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Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
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I can't speak for any other Halo voters (other than the ones who are explicitly voting [] Aabcehmu, I guess), but the reason why I personally prefer getting Manip +s over the Veil is because, the Veil is implicitly a sort of external effect. It's not Hunger learning more about his own behavior, learning how make new choices that help prevent himself from accidentally influencing people in ways he doesn't want, at least as far as I'm aware. It just directly interferes with his Charisma, making it so that, as long as he has the Veil up, he is simply incapable of being as persuasive as he was with it down. It just doesn't feel as good, and I worry that having to blinker himself, rather than having proper control, might contribute to our underlying mental stability issue that will presumably become a problem eventually.
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DkArthas
CAPITAL IS TO BLAME
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I see Skyviel as Hunger caring enough about people that he decides to make changes with the power he has, he was already worried about this thing in the previous update and wanted to do this very thing. Halo Vanguisher on the other hand is simply him deciding that more power/charisma is more important currently and deciding that surely mental fuckery can't do that much harm to other people in the short term.
Edit: If there will be an mental stability issue, I expect it to come from Halo Vanguisher since more innocent people will be harmed in the short term from that.
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But our Charisma is not something that we learned too. Its about sheer power of our Blood and the majesty of the Evening Sky enhanced further by our noble element. And when we will exactly solve the problem of even more Charisma in the Vanquisher build? The thing that I despise about that line of thought is that we can fix it. How about don't make it a problem in the first place?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
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This is part of why I'm worried that it might undermine Hunger's mental stability, actually. Creating more tension between Hunger's innate empathy and the practicality which the situation demands of him, constantly asking himself what level of Veil he requires to best balance his conflicting drives, could hurt him in a way that I just don't like. Him obtaining Manip +s, meanwhile, would necessarily involve him simply becoming more able to alter his behavior moment to moment, developing the intuition of how much obfuscation is necessary in a situation without fretting and stressing about it.
-e
It's not necessarily about it being something that was learned conventional, so much as it is something which Hunger is able and comfortable incorporating into his sense of self. That was miss-phrasing on my part originally, which I apologize for. The Sky Veil is probably not something Hunger is or will be ready to say is part of his own self, part of his mind, rather than something external which he interacts with in order to interfere with the ordinary functioning of his mind (even if it is interference which he intends and has use for). The fact that he is constantly faced with the choice of this sort of external prying of his mind is something I worry would be unhealthy.
As for why, well, that's what I'm trying to explain. Why don't we fix the problem now? Because I don't like this solution. I think that it will hurt Hunger in ways I don't want him to be hurt.
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Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
You may be right, but the consequences if you are wrong are catastrophic. Hunger's charisma is so overwhelming that he might start a new trend. Now there are gimp suits everywhere, and it's all your fault.
DkArthas
CAPITAL IS TO BLAME
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On the other hand, Halo Vanguisher doesn't give him the choice of not hurting people in the short term. There will almost certainly be some innocents getting harmed. That's far more likely to cause mental stability issue since he would have harmed people for the sake of more power etc.
We are not going to be learning how to be superhumanly manipulative. We are going to murder a powerful opponent, harvest its power and create a new advancement that makes us manipulative. And think what kinds of powers actually do give manipulation and what sort of character growth Hunger will take. Wanna be Aizen?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
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Vanquisher Halo is not impossible navigate around even in the short term, it's just that short term solutions like avoiding in-person contact are onerous. Which is a valid point! If Vanquisher Halo wins, Hunger will face a meaningful obstacle. But it's something that we will be able to eventually overcome, and it's something that won't be as severe an issue while we're on our hunt. Meanwhile, Sky Veil is set to be...not a permanent solution, but certainly a long-term one, which in turn means that it's set-up to deal long-term damage.
Like I said, the phrasing of 'learning' was a mistake on my part. It is a matter of whether it is something which Hunger feels comfortable including or excluding from his sense of self, which he has already shown the aptitude for with regards to straight ability +s for the most part. However, I do not think that it is technically accurate to say that Manipulation +s make Hunger 'manipulative', since that implies they would be bending his overall behavior to make him more inclined to use manipulation in general, which IMO sounds more like Heartlessness +s. I think it would be more accurate to say that Manipulation +s allow Hunger to be more manipulative, when he feels the need to be, in the specific ways he chooses to be.
Ugh. It's not a pretty picture.
Disguise makes you more empathetic at the cost of lowering your opinion of people as a whole. Walk in too many shoes and risk internalizing how often they go in circles.
Manipulation makes you more dexterous at the cost of reducing your opinion of society as a concept. Heartstrings aren't meant to be puppet strings, but who can tell in the dark?
We've entered Lie Feng territory. There are no winners here, just people who lose less and people who've learned to live with losing.
Disguise makes you more empathetic at the cost of lowering your opinion of people as a whole. Walk in too many shoes and risk internalizing how often they go in circles.
Manipulation makes you more dexterous at the cost of reducing your opinion of society as a concept. Heartstrings aren't meant to be puppet strings, but who can tell in the dark?
We've entered Lie Feng territory. There are no winners here, just people who lose less and people who've learned to live with losing.
Yeah now answer the question of what kind of powers give the amount of Manipulation capable of rivaling our superhuman Charisma. Sky Veil is one solution that gives the least amount of complications for a reason.
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
When you control your strength you don't actually get weaker, you just use what you have more carefully. Skyveil directly reduces our charisma so we are less charismatic. We're not carefully holding it back, we become incapable of using it at the same level with Skyveil up. It rankles me to see Hunger hobble himself like that when he's supposed to be a Progression Cursebearer.
The other problem with skyveil is that if in the future we ever end up with 4 times as much cha as we have now the only way it'll be of any use is if we set our cha to 0 when talking to people.
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DkArthas
CAPITAL IS TO BLAME
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I find it rather heroic really. That Hunger is willing to temporarily diminish himself for the sake of innocents and his friends.
Edit: By the time the current Skyviel won't be enough for our Charisma, we would already have gained further advancements that improves our control over our charisma even more, that's part of being an Progression type dude.
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But that is what holding back means! It literally is making the stat work as if its lower that what its supposed to be! How many times has this have to be explained to you?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
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- Aurora, CO
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My current thinking is some manner of eye or eye-patch artifact, either something we find on the way to the Opalescent Tower or else something that we ask Gisena to make once we're back. Obviously I don't have anything hard yet, though. And while it's true that Sky Veil has the least 'amount' of complications, that doesn't change the fact that I personally find them less acceptable than the complications involved with Vanquisher Halo.
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
He's diminishing himself so he can feel better about it. If he wants to protect innocents and his friends he should just get as strong as possible and forgo talking to them.
Skyveil isn't holding back, it's an artifical self imposed malus to Charisma in increments of 25%. If it wasn't it wouldn't need to specify that it doesn't reduce +prot from Vigor.
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Skyveil explicitly states that it opens up a branch of stealth based advancements. I can guarantee you that one of those advancements would be an improvement on its ability to temporarily suppress our Charisma.
As for hobbling ourself, the other option is to uncontrollably mindfuck 99.9% of people with a casual conversation, and more relevantly, cutting out Aobaru and Aeira from meaningful social interaction without becoming sycophants. Fair odds this'll eventually catch Letrizia in the backwash, considering that Rihaku said that our Ennobling wouldn't be able to catch up. (Not without much more investment in it than the comparatively lower effort to put into Veil, of course.) That ain't mentally healthy, no matter what Aabcehmu says.
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Holy fuck man, reducing it means restraining our superhuman Charisma to manageable levels for others. What is that but not holding back?
Considering that changing the level of charisma we are using presumably does not take much time or effort, what is the difference between holding back and skyveil. Just because we are only using a percentage of our Charisma does not mean we don't have the whole of it ready to use should we decide to unveil it. It is it like we are shackled to a single setting of the veil for a single scene. It is not hobbling yourself if that charisma is still available when we want it.
As for the other problem, well fairs fair I didn't really think of that. However, this still doesn't actually address when precisely we will be able to bring our manipulation on par with our charisma and who knows if there will be advancements along the line of skyveil that give us more control. While the percentage based decreases could be a problem, it will still work and allow us to solve our problem when we have much greater charisma while manipulation will need to be constantly bought to keep pace.
Enohthree
Hypersane
All of our buffs are additive, which means that we currently have effectively 4 times as much CHA as we do Manipulation.
However because they're additive it means that getting ADS alone with zero other upgrades will cut down that ratio so we have only twice as much CHA as Manipulation.
Manipulation is the stat of lying, deceit and leading others in circles. What kind of artifact adavancements, magics or other form of powers will that take? Being able to hypnotize others or gaslight them doesn't seem benevolent to me. And your eye patch artifact concept is practically the Sky Veil in another form.
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Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
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- Aurora, CO
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I mean, if Sky Veil gave Manipulation +s, I would vote for, probably. Manipulation clearly isn't only the ability to lie, since if that's all it did it would have no value in helping control our Charisma. It seems more likely to me that Charisma is, in essence, that social version of Strength, and that Manipulation is the social version of Agility.
-e
To expound, it's not as though Agility is only useful for dodging. It has many uses, including helping us control Strength.
- Location
- US
You know that we have only two Manipulation pluses, right? (Rod of Ages.) Even just looking at our base Charisma pluses, we have 5.5 times that of Charisma, and since Silver of Evening is specifically a buff to Charisma unlike the All Stats buff of Edeldross, we really have 11 times more Charisma than Manipulation.
Post ADS, we'd have 4 times more Charisma than Manipulation, considering Silver of Evening. The ratio isn't as favorable as you'd think.
(This is of course, without considering Vanquisher Halo's own effect of worsening the ratio, so this is a generous estimation.)
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Rihaku
The Internet
Update in 30.
With matters stable in the newly-minted Elixir Kingdom, they set out for the Opalescent Tower: himself, Gisena, Aeira, Aobaru and Letrizia within Verschlengorge, to much fanfare and weeping of departure in the glamour-decked streets of the capital. To sate the Curse of Decimation they had to venture far, far into the depths of the Voyaging Realm - past meadows and fields of pastoral idyll, past sky-harrowing summits of lands drenched in snow ever-melting, past brine-stiff glaciers of slate blue atop which entire civilizations scrabbled for runic clusters that promised life; past lands surreal and prosaic, ripped from fable or fever-dream, into the true depths of Realm's Heart where the air itself was laden with mythic portent and the sky grew pale and limned with gold.
"It's amazing..." Letrizia voiced. Verschlengorge stared at the thin golden circlet above. "The Outer Halo itself. We must be only a couple thousand light-years from the Realm's center."
She paused. "Um... few who venture this far have ever survived."
Hunger followed her gaze. "This thing is supposed to surround the entire Realm. Why is it most visible from the center?"
Verschlengorge shrugged. "Who knows, it's Foremost stuff. We still haven't figured out how the place even moves. Maybe the answers lie just over the next horizon!"
With matters stable in the newly-minted Elixir Kingdom, they set out for the Opalescent Tower: himself, Gisena, Aeira, Aobaru and Letrizia within Verschlengorge, to much fanfare and weeping of departure in the glamour-decked streets of the capital. To sate the Curse of Decimation they had to venture far, far into the depths of the Voyaging Realm - past meadows and fields of pastoral idyll, past sky-harrowing summits of lands drenched in snow ever-melting, past brine-stiff glaciers of slate blue atop which entire civilizations scrabbled for runic clusters that promised life; past lands surreal and prosaic, ripped from fable or fever-dream, into the true depths of Realm's Heart where the air itself was laden with mythic portent and the sky grew pale and limned with gold.
"It's amazing..." Letrizia voiced. Verschlengorge stared at the thin golden circlet above. "The Outer Halo itself. We must be only a couple thousand light-years from the Realm's center."
She paused. "Um... few who venture this far have ever survived."
Hunger followed her gaze. "This thing is supposed to surround the entire Realm. Why is it most visible from the center?"
Verschlengorge shrugged. "Who knows, it's Foremost stuff. We still haven't figured out how the place even moves. Maybe the answers lie just over the next horizon!"
- Location
- US
Wow, really didn't expect Versch to pipe up.