Just to make sure we're all on the same page, here's the blurb for Pillars:
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Can you provide a source for where you got this information from?
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Patreon blurb for a potential Pillars upgrade.
Zampano
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- Location
- Simping for DSB
It's because the Realm of Evening has a comparative advantage in relaxation relative to the the Realm of Myth. Taking relaxation options outside is not an efficient use of our time. If you actually care about mental stability, the winning play is to grab immediate power now and then focus on relaxation in the Realm where you literally control the fabric of reality.
I know we disagree about the availability of power in the Realm of Evening. Memorably, you predicted 42 picks per month from Pillars, which is roughly 1/3 again the number of picks so far in the quest. By contrast, I am still pretty sure that buying one long term EFB isn't going to completely trivialize the Pick economy the first time it activates. But regardless of pick availability, Pillars is guaranteed to dwarf Sightseeing in its ability to restore Mental Stability. We are going to have 2/3 curse mitigation for the first time in the quest, and we are going to have three weeks with no immediate crisis. That's enough to stabilize Hunger even if we weren't going to prioritize relaxation & recovery. We don't need any additional vacation time right now.
Nah. Strain empowers one Apocryphal activation. I've given a litany of reasons that this particular apocryphal curse activation isn't all that much scarier than any of the others.
- The Empyrean Signs operate at universe-busting levels of power
- They are literally an EFB worth of power available right away
- They are available for this boosted proc and every proc afterwards
- The Pillars of Creation prevent long-term complications from lingering
- The Pillars of Creation give us time to outscale the curse again
Really, if Apocryphal procs while we are in the middle of the Realm of Myth are so scary, then we need to take some form of immediate power. Waiting for Pillars before we get any stronger lets our build stagnate for two weeks and gives the Apocryphal Curse time to catch up from being totally outscaled even if it isn't boosted by Cursebearer's Strain.
(But I suspect that your objection doesn't actually have anything to do with death risk, because nobody has explained to me what in the next two weeks is going to kill us through the protections of Silver of Evening + Gisena + Nilfel's Legions + Rerolls + Defensive Wish. It's just automatic & unthinking risk aversion.)
The apocryphal curse is designed to slip past our protections and shank us when and how we least expect it. I've seen some people flipping it and saying "would you pay 25 arete for +1 mental stability and -30 apocryphal" but that's a deceptive way to think of it. We can deal with the curse at its current mitigation level so we get little from diminishing it further. Boosting it recklessly is liable to be a game over or hit us with very real consequences. We have never seen what the curse can do at that level, but I'm sure it can get much meaner than some giant monster that we can punch.
This is like the dumb earth pillar. Don't stick your hand in the garbage disposal. The sheer hubris is shocking.
This is like the dumb earth pillar. Don't stick your hand in the garbage disposal. The sheer hubris is shocking.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Man, all we have to do is get stronger and Apoc won't be a problem anymore!
Uh huh.. I remember this was a mantra.. and then we got 25 Arete advanacements, guaranteeing our safety! Hang on, didn't we almost die a couple of times already?
Hmm..
Well:
Ber - Went to Temple, almost got killed a couple of times
Rotbeast (80%) - Actually would have died with a wrong vote, had to buy Quickening and then Artful Thorn anyway
Ber 2.0 (70%) - Out-scaled by glorious power of 4x 25 Arete advancements (Opa Tower, Tears, OaF, ADF).
Lord Protector - Also would have died if we absorbed the Tower of Earth, got bailed out by Gisena.
I seem to recall that arguments about how Silver of Evening would save us from ToE/LP and then it just got used to stop one attack of many. Hmm.. Didn't Rihaku say Augustine would have pretty much won if we absorbed the Tower of Earth?
Zampano
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- Location
- Simping for DSB
The recent debate over how to use our second stage of mitigation directly contradicts the idea that we get little from each additional mitigation step. In fact, the exact opposite argument was why we bought direct mitigation: Each additional step of mitigation builds on the previous efforts.
Anyway, I've explained in detail why a proc before pillars can't cause us long term complications, and why a proc after pillars is likely to be out-scaled even with the boost. I've even pointed out that the current alternative plans make no efforts to prepare for an Apocryphal proc between now and the end of the lunar month.
Maybe I'll just start quoting Rihaku because I feel like my own position has already been explained adequately:
(emphasis mine)
- Location
- Pindorama
This argument is just going in circles at this point. We know for a fact that Apocryphal scales imperfectly, and 26 Arete of upgrades will likely be extremely useful in an incredible amount of situations outside of Apocryphal procs. We are being accused of mono-focusing on power, but it's this feckless compromise vote which seems to reduce our lives to fighting Apocryphal. There's way more to the option than that, and it's already something expounded upon extensively. This isn't even the most risky thing we've done so far. I really don't get the sudden fear here.
DkArthas
CAPITAL IS TO BLAME
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- They
I mean we are also going to be facing an Cursebearer tier opponent at some point. We need to get stronger fast and leave him/her in the dust. The leading plan does exactly that while also helping our subjects greatly and figuring out a way to extract mages from Voyaging Realm. It pretty much has everything, including getting more +relationships from an companion.
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Zampano
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- Location
- Simping for DSB
I'm probably just driving people to further entrench their positions. When people put their name next to an argument, their feelings of commitment to the position tend to increase. A failed attempt at persuasion or argumentation can actually drive people away from your desired outcome. I had thought that getting some additional argumentation power and increasing the discussion multiplier would be a good thing, but maybe I'm just digging myself deeper into a hole w/r/t other voters.
Maybe I'll take a walk.
(I'm guilty of this cognitive bias for sure: I was pretty dismayed when Shard said my galaxy brain narrative take about Adorie being a callback to Hunger's past 'has no value.')
This is incorrect. Apo is designed to give us a constant stream of relevant challenges.
Currently, we can expect 110%(75%+35%) proc at average, with range of 95-125%. Note that this is what we'd be tanking if we'd took Tribulation so it's evidently doable. That's before we take in consideration that this could cause multiple weaker procs(like it did in Sovereignty), that we could burn rerolls in case of high-roll(thus reducing the average), that we've already well above Apo in scaling(thus reducing absolute power of proc) and that we do have defensive wish banked(which shouldn't get triggered, but in the case it does, value generated by this vote plus whatever three to five pick fight that triggered it is super high anyway).
There's no real reason not to take Adorie combo. A hit to Mental Stability means less now that we have reliable way of generating that stat back up, and argument that we will run into challenging fight rings hollow when everyone is aware that we'd run into suicidal situation given opportunity. I allow that people can pick Sightseeing because "it's fun", but they are doing so knowing that it's an inefficient choice, as it boils down to "we don't need to play efficiently as we are far enough ahead, so we can have some fun". Which is fair position to hold, mind, but anyone holding it doesn't get to call others out for "hubris". After all, Adorie build will give us a ton of power that would future-proof us against Aobaru's nemesis and any other enemy that we encounters, as we will always be a couple of powerful Advancements ahead.
The 'plan' is somewhat shortsighted, grabbing short-term power while ignoring many of the consequences to Hunger's mental health and safety. And that might have been acceptable if we couldn't just wait a few weeks to improve that power with much better efficiency.
Pillars can be used to relax, but it can also be used for much more than that, and some complications are beyond even its healing powers, like Companion death or damage to our Artifacts or whatever other interesting things Apocrypha can come up with.
As for Apocrypha, outscaling her means that her old plans become outdated faster than we advance, not that she becomes incapable of hurting us due to Hunger exceeding her upper limit - she has none. She's an intelligent actor and can also adjust for our Progression speed, especially if we're doing so in a predictable way.
It's not like she has some limited amount of power/credibility to dole out, as had been my assumption once upon a time before I was corrected, she's completely free to do whatever she wants no matter how much we Mitigate. She cares about making our life 'interesting', which yes, mostly involves playing by the established rules.
But if we make her average proc stronger on our own and give her a few weeks to cook something up, we have no one but ourselves to blame if she takes advantage of the situation to rub our nose in our shit.
Pillars can be used to relax, but it can also be used for much more than that, and some complications are beyond even its healing powers, like Companion death or damage to our Artifacts or whatever other interesting things Apocrypha can come up with.
As for Apocrypha, outscaling her means that her old plans become outdated faster than we advance, not that she becomes incapable of hurting us due to Hunger exceeding her upper limit - she has none. She's an intelligent actor and can also adjust for our Progression speed, especially if we're doing so in a predictable way.
It's not like she has some limited amount of power/credibility to dole out, as had been my assumption once upon a time before I was corrected, she's completely free to do whatever she wants no matter how much we Mitigate. She cares about making our life 'interesting', which yes, mostly involves playing by the established rules.
But if we make her average proc stronger on our own and give her a few weeks to cook something up, we have no one but ourselves to blame if she takes advantage of the situation to rub our nose in our shit.
In which way?
Are people still pretending that Signs are one-use abilities instead of something we will be using for the rest of game?
Please do point out "many" consequences I've ignored so far.
You are free to establish that this is the case, because it very much is not.
Why do I need to point out the consequences when they're spelled out in the update itself? -Mental Stability and ~ +35% to next Apocryphal proc. And that may not seem like much to you, but I don't just see numbers behind those things, but also concrete events that will fuck Hunger up. That he can restore Mental Stability with Pillars doesn't mean there will be no permanent consequences for his psyche.
I thought I explained clearly enough why I think taking it now is shortsighted in the second paragraph. We can make Hunger exhaust himself to learn a few Signs, or we can make him train inside the Pillars, where he can design a better environment for such endeavors and immediately restoring himself from arduous training is so much easier.
But why would you assume that the same applies to baseline Pillars?
The outside world isn't likely to provide enough power to be able to safely protect Aoboru and prevent an Apocryphal onslaught.
Why wouldn't it? There's nothing that suggests that we couldn't make dozens of 2 picks every day within the realm of evening and gain tens of picks daily in the realm of evening. If that pace of improvement seems too fast for you, then I'd like to remind you that we are playing as a progression cursebearer.
The Apocryphal curse scales with us, so that doesn't matter.
The Apocryphal curse will be providing us with peer level opponents so that doesn't matter.
- Location
- Pindorama
I see Pillars is once again in the quantum state of giving the full benefits of other options immediately while at the same time requiring time and effort to set up. There's no actual evidence that Pillars will give 26 Arete worth of Signs training without further investment; aesthetic similarities does not constitute proof. Where does this belief that Strain is essentially a trap option come from? Even Rihaku has stated it's the most efficient option! I don't actually see why suddenly, it's clearly a waste of time compared to just doing it in Pillars.
You have claimed that I've ignored them. So either point our where they are ignored or actually reply to one of many posts I've made on the subject.
And yes, tool that provides us with Mental Stability is, in fact, answer to loosing Mental Stability.
So you are implying that Pillars are capable of providing us with equivalent of 26 Arete worth of value in a month? 300+ Arete every year? Can you specify what, exactly, you expect from Pillars? Do you expect 7 Praxis picks and Hunger Sated in those 21 day? And how much gains you expect us to lose if we need to spend some time chilling?
This is incorrect. Having more utility decreases attack surface, and Apo itself needs to ramp up at her own pace, punishing slow progression and being countered by swift progression.
Strange, I couldn't find any quotes about that, saw one that warned us about Strain's dangers to Hunger's characterization and how it would make for a less productive Pillars jaunt.
But ok, it doesn't take a genius to realize that taking all Adorie options together this update will provide power more efficiently than mixing stuff up with relaxation or just not focusing on power acquisition.
Yet it should also be evident that if Adorie can develop two Signs in two weeks while busy with taking over Nilfel and our other conquests, she can also do that while in the Realm of Evening. Taking both Regency and Consolidate for max Adorie Rank would have been ideal, but we can make up for that with a better environment for research.
- Location
- Pindorama
How do you know that? No one knows shit about how researching Signs works except Rihaku himself. That's what I mean when I say Pillars is in this quantum state of providing 26 Arete of value within its first proc and still needing time and effort to be developed. Especially since we are leaving Adorie for the Human Sphere, and so this amazing research boost needs to occur on the first proc or it won't be taken. There's a major opportunity cost to skipping Research here, given that. I wouldn't count on just seeing its benefits for free at all.
Zampano
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- Location
- Simping for DSB
This is not evident at all. If Research requires access to historical artifacts, experts, or specialized equipment then her time in the Realm of Evening will be unable to replicate her efforts during the next two weeks.
Rihaku is pretty good about preventing us from relitigating votes. If we pass on Signs here (again!) you should not expect to get a second (third) chance at them right away.
If it requires access to historical Artifacts or books... we can just take those things with us into the Realm. Researching Signs isn't some unique opportunity, it's an ability we expect out of Adorie. She might do it with lesser or greater effectiveness in there, but she won't suddenly become incapable of research.
The price for not taking this option now also isn't that difficult to anticipate - if we don't research the Signs now, we won't have them available before our excursion into the Realm of Evening, and there's a high likelihood we will have to deal with the next Apocryphal proc without them.
But to be honest I would rather have Hunger face the next threat with a clear mind and without having given Apocrypha a freebie.
(And without having actively caused the next disaster she throws at us)
The price for not taking this option now also isn't that difficult to anticipate - if we don't research the Signs now, we won't have them available before our excursion into the Realm of Evening, and there's a high likelihood we will have to deal with the next Apocryphal proc without them.
But to be honest I would rather have Hunger face the next threat with a clear mind and without having given Apocrypha a freebie.
(And without having actively caused the next disaster she throws at us)
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It's not as simple as "can Pillars provide x amount of value". Rather, it's comparative - for example, lets say that Pillars can provide us both Signs, but that it can also provide us with a point of Mental Stability* within five days. This would mean that we essentially get additional 16 days of Pillars in exchange for Apo proc which, with expectations people put on Pillars, is still great deal of value. Of course, that ignores additional considerations - every build simply has to get Hunger Sated, which reduces amount of time they can do stuff. Likewise, it's possible that different things need to be unlocked separately with increasing difficulty.
For example, ideally Strain would spend first 7 days working on getting 2 picks(if we manage 3 for RR that would be super cool) for Fisher King, then next 7 days on getting Mental Stability back, and then last 7 days to Sate our Hunger. This would cover all our bases while still giving us increased value of having two Signs. In case that we can't calibrate Pillars fast enough, then we'd drop picks and just focus on Hunger Sated and chilling, as we already got value so we can focus on other stuff instead. Even something like 16 days for Hunger Sated/5 days for chilling should work fine.
On the other hand, if we failed to research Signs within Pillars due to Hunger Sated taking too much time, we'd be kinda shit out of luck. I mean, I guess we can always just get RoB or something from a single Praxis season instead, but that's still spending Arete to compete with something that needed none.
*Unrelated to current discussion, I'm of opinion that going from Hunger-1 Mental Stability to Hunger MS is vastly easier than going from Hunger MS to Hunger MS+1. I dunno how you become more mentally stable(to a relevant degree) and I'm not sure how much we actually need that. In practice our current level seems fine, so as long as we maintain it it should be good.
For example, ideally Strain would spend first 7 days working on getting 2 picks(if we manage 3 for RR that would be super cool) for Fisher King, then next 7 days on getting Mental Stability back, and then last 7 days to Sate our Hunger. This would cover all our bases while still giving us increased value of having two Signs. In case that we can't calibrate Pillars fast enough, then we'd drop picks and just focus on Hunger Sated and chilling, as we already got value so we can focus on other stuff instead. Even something like 16 days for Hunger Sated/5 days for chilling should work fine.
On the other hand, if we failed to research Signs within Pillars due to Hunger Sated taking too much time, we'd be kinda shit out of luck. I mean, I guess we can always just get RoB or something from a single Praxis season instead, but that's still spending Arete to compete with something that needed none.
*Unrelated to current discussion, I'm of opinion that going from Hunger-1 Mental Stability to Hunger MS is vastly easier than going from Hunger MS to Hunger MS+1. I dunno how you become more mentally stable(to a relevant degree) and I'm not sure how much we actually need that. In practice our current level seems fine, so as long as we maintain it it should be good.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Does anybody remember the non extrusion options for when we did true vault of the pharoh in Even Further Beyond and ended up with actual people in it that have retroactive history? Vault of the Pharoh could have been used as a source of monsters that grow with us and had different point distribution options. We had a choice between Jotunheim the Uber monster land filled with outclassed cultivators trying to survive and the Accursed would be pissed if we abandoned them. The other choice was a city world that's currently sustainably fighting monsters coming out of a hole in the world but would have serious problems if our power spiked. They were also all able to use diagram magic in addition to cultivation and had legitimate threats to nameless. They weren't aware of the link between our power and the monsters and were somewhat indulgent in spite of knowing Nameless was a lazy shiftless bum if we didnt cause trouble. That world was Elysium.
An Expose I did on Vault:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Given the talk of how shaping the realm is apparently a skill that needs long term cultivation that's somewhat supported even by the public knowledge pathway to idyll, I suspect we are going to have to choose an initial build when we make our first trip. Picks/Monster Vault or Pleasure Palace
An Expose I did on Vault:
Even Further Beyond [Complete] Original
- Even Further Beyond - An Age of the World draws to a close. Cataclysm and anarchy ravage its...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Given the talk of how shaping the realm is apparently a skill that needs long term cultivation that's somewhat supported even by the public knowledge pathway to idyll, I suspect we are going to have to choose an initial build when we make our first trip. Picks/Monster Vault or Pleasure Palace
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"The apocryphal curse can't hurt us! Look at all our magic defenses!"
Ghost of Hunger's wife returns to tell him that he's become the monster he once fought, and if she were alive she'd sacrifice herself again... To stop him.
Hunger, already with low mental stability, goes insane and murders his friends, then destroys this civilization.
Ghost of Hunger's wife returns to tell him that he's become the monster he once fought, and if she were alive she'd sacrifice herself again... To stop him.
Hunger, already with low mental stability, goes insane and murders his friends, then destroys this civilization.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
If we have to choose between monster vault/sustainable scaling source and pleasure Palace for our Initial Realm of Evening build, then relaxing here is probably extremely prudent.