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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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Floom said:
Perhaps, or perhaps we might leave them behind when we hit inner sect. Additionally, why do we need to talk with them now? If we want something to deal with Sun Liling, we would be better off setting up escape contingencies. Also, why would we take them on jobs when we could just ask one of our friends to help us out? We would splitting the points regardless. If it's just for the sake of getting new friends, then I guess you have a point. I just feel that they are a bit unnecessary. We can talk to them another week, but I would greatly prefer to work on formations and reinforce a a social link we know well then to social link two people we barely know with no known benefit.
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Block text is blocky.

Anyway, I fully expect to leave them behind for the inner sect. That does not diminish their utility, or the worthiness of interacting with them. They are also more immediately useful than skeletal minions.

You ask why not talk to them later?, Why not talk to Suyin later?. The formations will still be there in a week, and are less valuable than two actual cultivators.

And I'm less worried about Sun herself than a group she has subordinated. Or potentially Renshu, if he gets desperate and lucky.

I wasn't talking about sect jobs.

The Suyin SL is not really a motivating factor for me.
 
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Asael said:
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Block text is blocky.

Anyway, I fully expect to leave them behind for the inner sect. That does not diminish their utility, or the worthiness of interacting with them. They are also more immediately useful than skeletal minions.

You ask why not talk to them later?, Why not talk to Suyin later?. The formations will still be there in a week, and are less valuable than two actual cultivators.

And I'm less worried about Sun herself than a group she has subordinated. Or potentially Renshu, if he gets desperate and lucky.

I wasn't talking about sect jobs.

The Suyin SL is not really a motivating factor for me.
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And I guess that's just where we'll have to disagree. Both the bodyguards and the Suyin minor are worth about the same, you just value the bodyguards more. I value the formations and Suyin more.

Can't really see either of us budging on those fronts.
 
[X] Plan Forbidden Forests, Forgotten Paths
-[X] Resources
--[X] Purchased and used: Vigorous Sapling (2rs); 2nd level wood pill (6rs); 1st level earth pill (2rs); 2nd level earth pill (6rs); Channel Cleansing Pill (2rs); Heavy Rains Pill (10rs)
--[X] Used from Inventory: 3 Red Spirit Stones; 1 Yellow Spirit Stone (Total cost 31rs and 1ys)
--[X] Overflow to physical
--[X] EPC Bonus to Fleeting Zypher
-[X] Main Actions
--[X] Train at the vent with Su Ling
---[X] Thousand Ring Fortress
---[X] Work on formations with Li Suyin, working on a project with your friend will be fun
--[X] Take a job
---[X] Passion Fruit Collection
--[X] Train with Meizhen
---[X] Abyssal Exhalation
---[X] Meizhen held something back in your last conversation. Press her on it, it seemed that she had some idea that might allow them to stay together
--[X] Explore and Train with Golden Fields
---[X] Arm Meridian
--[X] Cultivate on your own
---[X] Spine Meridian
-[X] Minor Actions
--[X] Spend a little time with your 'bodyguards. You should at least know what they can do in a fight
--[X] Xiulan's family apparently wants to talk to you, you should probably see to that
--[X] Spend some time with Zeqing, you should try to better understand the snow woman, so that you don't end up offending her
 
Floom said:
Perhaps, but why would this one action/inaction define all of Ling Qi's character? And what benefit does doing it now/doing it later have over Suyin? Keeping in mind that just talking to the bodyguards once isn't really going to change how Ling Qi thinks. If you want it to have a lasting impact on Ling Qi's development, you'd need to keep up with it. Or go further, by exploring the mortal town, getting to know the Enforcers, or looking into how the Cai Regime/Sun Rebellion is affecting all the reds/low talent yellows who aren't even aligned? Maybe talking to the bodyguards once would be major character shift. But then what?
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I think the point he was making is that not picking the social minor is a meaningful decision, with logical consequences, and not just "business on hold" thing.


Ling Qi is already quite isolated, due to her (understandable) hyperfocus on cultivation and growing stronger. Outside of the handful of friends and bortherline obligatory relationtions she doesn't talk or do anything social at all. The whole world is not just half a dozen people...

In the longer therm, Ling Qi is going to be a rather high rank noble, so it's going to be an issue.
Just like a General that doesn't know his soldiers, a socially isolated Count is worse than useless.
 
I see no problem with picking up the formation next week. They'll be useful long term, if nothing else.


Renshu hates our guts something fierce. There is no doubt in my mind he'll fuck with us if he sees a chance.

Likewise, Sun hates losing. She will definitely do something to fuck with either us or Cai before the tournament.


The only thing I am absolutely sure of, is that our last few weeks in the outer sect will not be peaceful. We should be prepared.
 
Ayashi said:
I think the point he was making is that not picking the social minor is a meaningful decision, with logical consequences, and not just "business on hold" thing.


Ling Qi is already quite isolated, due to her (understandable) hyperfocus on cultivation and growing stronger. Outside of the handful of friends and bortherline obligatory relationtions she doesn't talk or do anything social at all. The whole world is not just half a dozen people...

In the longer therm, Ling Qi is going to be a rather high rank noble, so it's going to be an issue.
Just like a General that doesn't know his soldiers, a socially isolated Count is worse than useless.
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I hate to say it, but if characters are defined by what they choose not to do, then Ling Qi isn' t going to become more sociable just with one minor. While Ling Qi does keep up with a close circle of friends, that's it. She has never taken an action to go out her way to interact with the vast majority of her peers. There's a reason why Ling Qi is feared rather than loved, and it's because we never bothered to socially connect her with the Sect at large. And I don't think one minor is going to change that. A chain of minors might change that, but that change has opportunity costs as well. Ling is already socially isolated, and talking to the bodyguards isn't going to fix it. That fact is certainly a problem, but if we're going to try to fix it, then we will need to invest a lot more time into it.

Personally? I think it's fine for Ling Qi to keep to herself, but others may not agree. I'm just pointing out that if you want to change that, you're going to have to reverse months of choosing to befriend people individually, instead of befriending groups.
 
Arkeus said:
We aren't "putting off" AE, we are trying to get AE as high as possible with spending the least actions possible on it.

Ultimately, the higher we go the better our dice are, and training AE post breakthrough might mean getting AE3 in one less action than if we began training it before breakthrough, rendering the training action wasted by contrast.

It's even worse when we consider that in order to train AE we have to push back FSA/TRF/FZ, meaning that we'd be less adept at fending off enemies or achieving ultra+ if we do end up finding another trial site.

And it's the +ultra that would give us a free art from elder training rather than training alone. If we can get our wanted art for spiritual from an elder rather than archive, that would change things quite a bit, for example.
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Ultimately you and I disagree on a principal matter, and that is that our EPC successes will be able to go to AE. We don't know how many successes we will get from the stealth missions, and it may be that we don't get the 30 we need, from stealth/larceny missions, or that our one training mission with FZ will have bad dice and we need to place another EPC mission into it.

Either way, spending an action to level up an art has never been considered a waste before, and we have other targets for EPC mission successes that might save us an action, depending on overflow and the like. Which according to the average overflow from two meridians and Completing FSA in two actions (which long-term can still be done without getting FSA now) we will be able to do spend an EPC stealth mission on physical and save a physical action. We can't do that and save an action on AE.

As for pushing back, FSA/TRF/FZ? I will freely admit that it pushes back FSA into week 36. However, it doesn't push back FZ, which can still be gotten week 35, or TRF, which can be acquired week 36. In that sense, it is trading AE2 and getting it now, rather than FSA5 the next week and AE2 as a possibility for week 36.

Ideally, art gains in the next couple weeks could look like: 34 = AE2; 35 = FZ; 36 = FSA/TRF + whatever else.
 
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I'd vote for the meridians plan, but I don't care about the bodyguards at all.
We've already got more socials than we can keep track of, and I am opposed to adding to that list two pieces of cannon fodder we didn't even ask for.
 
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Floom said:
I hate to say it, but if characters are defined by what they choose not to do, then Ling Qi isn' t going to become more sociable just with one minor. While Ling Qi does keep up with a close circle of friends, that's it. She has never taken an action to go out her way to interact with the vast majority of her peers. There's a reason why Ling Qi is feared rather than loved, and it's because we never bothered to socially connect her with the Sect at large. And I don't think one minor is going to change that. A chain of minors might change that, but that change has opportunity costs as well. Ling is already socially isolated, and talking to the bodyguards isn't going to fix it. That fact is certainly a problem, but if we're going to try to fix it, then we will need to invest a lot more time into it.

Personally? I think it's fine for Ling Qi to keep to herself, but others may not agree. I'm just pointing out that if you want to change that, you're going to have to reverse months of choosing to befriend people individually, instead of befriending groups.
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From what I understood people don't necessarily intend for Qi to become more sociable at all and they definitely weren't intending to make her interact with much larger amounts of people , they just want to set precedent for her actually caring about her direct subordinates instead of totally ignoring them.

e: essentially it's a "what kind of boss are we" thing and not a "how sociable are we" thing
 
Thor's Twin said:
Ultimately you and I disagree on a principal matter, and that is that our EPC successes will be able to go to AE. We don't know how many successes we will get from the stealth missions, and it may be that we don't get the 30 we need, from stealth/larceny missions, or that our one training mission with FZ will have bad dice and we need to place another EPC mission into it.
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We do need 2 missions for FZ if we want to train it only once... but even 40 or so is enough, just means less overflow.
Either way, spending an action to level up an art has never been considered a waste before, and we have other targets for EPC mission successes that might save us an action, depending on overflow and the like. Which according to the average overflow from two meridians and Completing FSA in two actions (which long-term can still be done without getting FSA now) we will be able to do spend an EPC stealth mission on physical and save a physical action. We can't do that and save an action on AE.

As for pushing back, FSA/TRF/FZ? I will freely admit that it pushes back FSA into week 36. However, it doesn't push back FZ, which can still be gotten week 35, or TRF, which can be acquired week 36. In that sense, it is trading AE2 and getting it now, rather than FSA5 the next week and AE2 as a possibility for week 36.

Ideally, art gains in the next couple weeks could look like: 34 = AE2; 35 = FZ; 36 = FSA/TRF + whatever else.
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It does push FSA either week 36 or 37, and it does push back FZ to week 36 too. We need two missions for FZ.

Week 36 AE2 is very very likely, and it doesn't need a full action to do it (as we will gain sect point/do fu xiang for it). It doesn't 'trade' anything, it exchange one full training action for nothing getting AE2 two weeks earlier. We don't get anything there unless you were planning not to take missions after getting FZ.
 
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Ayashi said:
I don't like the Meizhen minor, but apparently everyone want to push her on something she asked us not to... :(
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That seems a misinterpretation. She requested we not ask why she didn't offer a position and Ling Qi asked again anyway. She then went on to talk about it and the two had a pleasant conversation. This is just a followup.

yrsillar said:
"...Why have you never asked me to join you like that?" The words slipped out before she could really think about it.

Meizhen stiffened beside her, a trace of an unhappy expression marring her ethereal features. "Please do not ask me such things, Ling Qi."

Ling Qi looked down, feeling unhappy herself for bringing the atmosphere down. "I don't think I would mind so much if it was you," she said anyway. "I just… I don't really know her. How am I supposed to trust someone who never stops playing to the crowd? Who I know is trying to manipulate me into liking her now?"

Meizhen lowered her head. "I…" her friend trailed off, not looking at her. "I would enjoy showing you the Thousand Lakes, but you would not enjoy being under my family," she continued quietly. "And while I am a member of the main family, I do not have the authority to make such offers on a personal level," Ling Qi caught a flicker of something in her faintly glowing eyes. There was a 'but' there, left unspoken. "Cai Renxiang is a straightforward person, service under her would suit you well… and I think her good as well, for what that is worth."

Ling Qi watched her friend for a moment, and with a moment's hesitation, reached over to rest her hand on top of Meizhen's, looking away uncomfortably as she did so. "I'll give it some thought then," she said quietly. "But, Meizhen, you know I'll stay in contact no matter what, right?"

"...Of course you will," she couldn't see her friends face, but she could feel the warmth of her hand. "Thank you, Qi."
Ling Qi didn;t feel the need to say anything else.
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Humbaba said:
Can someone explain how we went from "we shouldn't push Meizhen on an area she is clearly very uncomfortable with and we probably won't like anyway" to "full steam ahead" on asking about ways to stay with Meizhen?

I'm not seeing how things have changed since we made that decision and there seems to have been basically no discussion about it, with it just getting slotted into every plan.
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I think a lot of people didn't want to push her at the time/didn't think it was urgent.
 
I actually think it's fine to put off the minor for our retainers for about a week, since Ling Qi is slow to trust and such. I think I'd maybe rather work on those escape contingencies, just in case, or research that vault warrior.

That said, I do think it's important that Ling Qi be someone who cares about her minions. Ling Qi is the kind of person who doesn't particularly care about strangers, but... when people are hers, they're hers. Ling Qi doesn't need to be more social, but she should definitely care about those under her authority. I like this to be the start of a general theme of "Ling Qi takes care of what belongs to her."
 
@Kai Merah

Well, she has the same basic element as yan-mom, so I dont see why not :p.

Kind of amazed by the number of people that want to just ignore useful assets though. We're not so well off that we can afford to simply turn our nose up at actual help. We do have enemies, and they are definitely stronger than we are now.
 
I'm not exactly enthused about the Meizhen minor but both leading plans have it. I picked the one I like better.
 
Gan Guangli, Fu Xiang, Ma sisters: Nonchalance for allied minions?
The Zhu siblings (who?), Huang Da's fiancee, Lu something: Tendency to not care for non-peer enemies
Xiulan & Meizhen: Gives a leg up for both political mannerism as well as general face consciousness (face and fashion, heh)

Regarding Archery as a sop for long-ranged, the senior mentioned about needing a very long ranged perception Art if one even wants to make it somewhat good attack vector (can't detect targets before they even enter mid-range), and Fleeting Zephyr is quite close-ranged anyway. I say we leave it as a tertiary tool for specific uses (solo hunts, burst damage, etc.), until we get access to flying weaponry skills.

I am now wondering if we can use Retort's counters as a trigger for Squall... And then the affected target is confused hearing music while not hearing anything else. :D
 
Hopefully, after breakthrough, we'll start getting more multiple people SL minors. Team SueSue, Meizhen+CRX, Meizhen+Xiulan, Ma Bodyguards + anyone else, Zeqing + anyone (Ha! lol, no), ect ...
That, or drop some SL.
Because SL are getting more and more overwelming specially for a place that's supposed to have a focus on self-training. Keeping them on a one-on-one basis is getting a bit ridiculous.
There's also the fact that they each seem to have an even more reduced social circle than Ling Qi now that I think of it.
For exemple: Suyin, besides Su, Ling and "tutor", who does she hang around with ?
Meizhen : Ling Qi + CRX
Xiulan: Ling Qi + ... probably not Golden fields peeps
Zeqing: ...

Might be a reflection of Ling Qi own abyssal interset in the more extended social circles of her friends, but it's still kind of telling imo.
 
Arkeus said:
We do need 2 missions for FZ if we want to train it only once... but even 40 or so is enough, just means less overflow.
It does push FSA either week 36 or 37, and it does push back FZ to week 36 too. We need two missions for FZ.

Week 36 AE2 is very very likely, and it doesn't need a full action to do it (as we will gain sect point/do fu xiang for it). It doesn't 'trade' anything, it exchange one full training action for nothing. We don't get anything there unless you were planning not to take missions after getting FZ.
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Yes, it does take two missions for FZ, and I agreed that FSA would be pushed back to week 36. However, you can't say that it would push it back to week 37, unless you are also claiming that training it now would get us FSA in week 36. Both of us plan on training FSA only two times; you plan on training it week 34 and week 35, I plan on training it week 35 and week 36. For both of us that is two training actions.

My EPC mission success is going to FZ, just like yours, so that means that there is no difference there. Please don't claim a difference when there isn't one. We both plan on training FZ week 35, and getting it then. FZ is not being pushed back.

FSA is not being trained now, and that means it can't be done before week 36. However, it can be done in two actions, just like your plan hypothesizes, which means it would get done week 36.

Overflow into physical means that with a dedicated EPC mission allocated to it we will be able to get peak physical by week 36 without any actions dedicated to it. I mean, I would rather spend an action on AE rather than physical as it gets us that sweet Resolve and Resilience dice.

We could also get FZ with simply the missions, and so planning on dedicating an action to it isn't necessary.

So, the third EPC mission could save an action on AE, FZ, or physical. That's three choices to choose from, but only one is allowed. We both want to train FZ, so remove that from the table. That leaves AE or physical. You want to put it into AE, I want to put it into physical.

I prefer putting it into physical because training physical is boring and unexciting. Furthermore, we can get more resolve and resilience exp from training AE.
 
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So I'm fully in support of Music being our primary focus since I think it's more interesting, we have the specialty for it and Ling Qi prefers that idea. To do so completely ignoring our tutor and having Archey as a more long ranged option seems practical but we also need more dice for FVM. I figure something like this could help.

A perception/spiritual buff. We know most arts have multiple roles so a pure spirit buff would still be doing something else. A wind/water art that allows for the senses and sight to penetrate defences and distances etc could work. Something like this:

Ubiquitous Vapours Art
Attributes: Wind, Water, Yin
Meridians: Head, Spine
Through the pervasive persistance of wind and water the user's qi senses and penetrates the defences of all in their presence. Bolsters spiritual attacks in empowering ability for qi to latch onto targets as well increasing the user's perceptive range.
 
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I really hope Meizhen has managed to tie up our nemesis for this next week, and that we pass whatever background stealth checks, because the dragon seems like an excellent opportunity to screw with us.
 
Thor's Twin said:
Yes, it does take two missions for FZ, and I agreed that FSA would be pushed back to week 36. However, you can't say that it would push it back to week 37, unless you are also claiming that training it now would get us FSA in week 36. Both of us plan on training FSA only two times; you plan on training it week 34 and week 35, I plan on training it week 35 and week 36. For both of us that is two training actions.

My EPC mission success is going to FZ, just like yours, so that means that there is no difference there. Please don't claim a difference when there isn't one. We both plan on training FZ week 35, and getting it then. FZ is not being pushed back.
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Sorry, I meant it for an hypothetical plan that was trying to get AE3 and thus was doing both AE training and AE mission successes. I might have gotten my wires crossed.

and yes, I consider FSA week 35 being a gamble. We have something like 50% chances to get it there, though we can boost that if the TRF tutor is TRF/FSA. I am not sure that's what we want.
We could also get FZ with simply the missions, and so planning on dedicating an action to it isn't necessary.

So, the third EPC mission could save an action on AE, FZ, or physical. That's three choices to choose from, but only one is allowed. We both want to train FZ, so remove that from the table. That leaves AE or physical. You want to put it into AE, I want to put it into physical.

I prefer putting it into physical because training physical is boring and unexciting. Furthermore, we can get more resolve and resilience exp from training AE.
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Physical might not need training at all without putting a mission success there, actually.

Getting FZ with 3 missions is possible but doesn't give a meridian in bonus if it works, and has risk of not working. Doing 2 FZ missions + 1 training means that even if we get bad rolls for missions we still get FZ5 (not the case with 3 missions) and if we don't get bad rolls we can get a meridian overflow.

Oh, and obviously a bad roll for mission means we STILL get AE2.
 
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Grigori said:
So I'm fully in support of Music being our primary focus since I think it's more interesting, we have the specialty for it and Ling Qi prefers that idea. To do so completely ignoring our tutor and having Archey as a more long ranged option seems practical but we also need more dice for FVM. I figure something like this could help.

A perception/spiritual buff. We know most arts have multiple roles so a pure spirit buff would still be doing something else. A wind/water art that allows for the senses and sight to penetrate defences and distances etc could work. Something like this:

Ubiquitous Vapours Art
Attributes: Wind, Water, Yin
Meridians: Head, Spine
Through the pervasive persistance of wind and water the user's qi senses and penetrates the defences of all in their presence. Bolsters spiritual attacks in empowering ability for qi to latch onto targets as well increasing the user's perceptive range.
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I dunno, I'd prefer something like this:

Hidden Glacier Art
Attributes: Wind, Water, Yin
Meridians: Spine, Spine
By channeling both the sheer power of the mighty glaciers which exist to the north of Savage Seas, and the depths that those same glaciers conceal, the user concentrates and enhances their spiritual attacks, whilst concealing their true power.
 
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