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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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TheLastOne said:
How would that even work? We would go to the third level and look for arts that we couldn't learn because we don't have the first floor foundations for them, and then go to the first floor to find the foundational arts?

I suspect that's a very roundabout way of annoying our QM a bit, rather then a good way of finding a good art.
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It's saying we want to be able to find exactly what fit our build instead of groping in the dark and hoping it just happens to be perfect.
No, it's saying I don't think we're going to learn four different attack arts, so I want one good one that has the potential for a lot of growth. Anything we learn and master on the first floor we'll almost certainly turn out to have a lot of growth potential, so we want to pick out something that's the limit of what you can find on the first floor since we aren't doing this twice.
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If you are now saying you want one of our four main arts to be a burst damage art, then that means you do want a perfect art for it, not just a "decent" one. In that case, yes, I'd say that going on the first floor and picking up the first thing there is trying to push us into sink cost fallacy and making it much harder to look at other burst damage arts down the line.

TheLastOne said:
Um, we were specifically told that she is that way because the Bais are bred to the point where they start out Yin imbalanced, that her behavior is Yin imbalanced and she doesn't see a problem with it, and that new cultivators take a while to develop imbalance. We weren't told her imbalance is special, or that we can't get just as bad.

So that's the opposite of what you're claiming here. Her behavior isn't situational. Her behavior is because she a Bai and hasn't done anything to counteract her families natural tendencies.
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We weren't told any of that. We were told that Meizhen doesn't see anything bad about being Yin-alined because she is a true Yin born and bred, not that her being Yin had defined her personality more than anything else about her.

I'll agree with @Shadell here, not only were we told repeatedly that 'Yin' meant different things for each different person, but we also have been shown that Meizhen herself had tons of reason for being the way she is. That she doesn't considers being pure Yin to be a bad thing doesn't mean she is wrong, it just means that she considers it doesn't unduly influence her personality in any ways that encroach on her personal balance.
Katreus said:
We need meridians to equip arts, mainly because I do not consider it an option to unequip any of our current arts (including the new one). Also, we just want meridians open in general. We want to finish most of the Archive stuff on Week 18, including picking up our new art and formations studying, so that we don't have to go Week 19, when Ji Rong, who I consider to have low impulse control, is just about to wake up and will probably hit someone for an Archive pass.

I know people think that he's likely to go for Huang Da instead and I think he will - if we don't present ourselves as a target of opportunity. (See: low impulse control) And in any case, we want to start doing hunting quests and explore anyway / see what Su Ling's advice is so Week 19 will be fine for that and incidentally, keep us out of the way. It will also be a good week to open another meridian if we can so that when we go back to the Archive, we can pick up another Art if we want to.
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Ah, so you were speaking about Ji Rong trying to fight us.

Well, I am going to re-iterate that opening more meridians might be something we'll do as we need one more spine if we want to train SCS once we have learned AMA (we can train SCS in week 16 even with AMA training though), but it doesn't help us at all for Ji Rong or hunting?

I am sorry, I am just not seeing at all how opening more meridian help with that in particular.
 
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Katreus said:
Deafen doesn't seem to work too well with an art that requires the other side to hear music.
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Actually, unless I'm seriously misunderstanding, the way FVM works is that our music acts as a guideline for our qi, which then activates whichever specific sub-technique we're using. Basically, it's an art that physically affects the world which then affects every enemy inside the AOE, rather than an art which directly affects the target. In other words, as far as I can tell they don't need to be able to hear us to be affected (and honestly, having such an obvious weakness as plugging your ears would make FVM a lot less useful and awesome).
 
Arkeus said:
It's saying we want to be able to find exactly what fit our build instead of groping in the dark and hoping it just happens to be perfect.

If you are now saying you want one of our four main arts to be a burst damage art, then that means you do want a perfect art for it, not just a "decent" one. In that case, yes, I'd say that going on the first floor and picking up the first thing there is trying to push us into sink cost fallacy and making it much harder to look at other burst damage arts down the line.
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If we were going to keep looking I might believe you here, but we aren't. The perfect is the enemy of the Good, I'm simply looking for the Good, which in this case is the longest lasting art we can pick up in only one action.
 
We should start working on meridians on a fairly regular basis so that we can start to build up the number or arts we have. We don't need to master all of them but we could have a good number of arts that meet specific needs that we don't really focus on.
 
Neshuakadal said:
We should start working on meridians on a fairly regular basis so that we can start to build up the number or arts we have. We don't need to master all of them but we could have a good number of arts that meet specific needs that we don't really focus on.
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Yeah. Since we have the pass, it's not like we won't find arts to slot into them. Because unlike every other kind of cultivation roll, Meridian cultivation can fail, we can't expect to inevitably grind it down over time. We need to start making a regular investment.
 
PrimalShadow said:
How does this Meridian failing thing work? Is it just that not getting enough successes to open the meridians means we make no progress, or is there some sort of backlash, or what?
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If we don't make it in one roll, it doesn't open with no progress, though we were told we might get side benefits (I'm guessing Qi Cultivation, though as we've never failed it's pure guess work), that it can lower the difficulty of the next time you try and open that Meridian, and you can get backlash if you fail certain Meridians. Though I believe the last point was only when you were opening the first one. The first time you open Head it's dangerous, but the follow up times aren't I believe.
 
TheLastOne said:
Yeah. Since we have the pass, it's not like we won't find arts to slot into them. Because unlike every other kind of cultivation roll, Meridian cultivation can fail, we can't expect to inevitably grind it down over time. We need to start making a regular investment.
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TheLastOne said:
If we don't make it in one roll, it doesn't open with no progress, though we were told we might get side benefits (I'm guessing Qi Cultivation, though as we've never failed it's pure guess work), that it can lower the difficulty of the next time you try and open that Meridian, and you can get backlash if you fail certain Meridians. Though I believe the last point was only when you were opening the first one. The first time you open Head it's dangerous, but the follow up times aren't I believe.
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Do you have a citation for that? Because that's really weird and it's not in any of the story or threadmarked mechanics posts.

EDIT: The only thing I can think of is Han Jian mentioning head or heart meridians were dangerous if you weren't careful or were unlucky, nothing about needing to do it in one turn.
 
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PrimalShadow said:
How does this Meridian failing thing work? Is it just that not getting enough successes to open the meridians means we make no progress, or is there some sort of backlash, or what?
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I'm not so sure, we haven't failed a single one and I don't plan on letting that happen anytime soon. There will be significant problems if it is a lung or head meridian though, so we need to be careful with those.

So, if we are thinking of making an investment in getting our repertoire up to speed, we will need to think about what our repertoire should be. The next 4 or 5 weeks are going to be tight with all the stuff that we need to do, so we should probably plan out what we want and the best way to get it. We have 2 arts that I think everyone can agree to be half of our core set. FVM and SCS are simply too good to pass up. The next art we have readily available is ZB and later its derivatives. I don't know about you, but ZB has been doing good work so far and I think we should keep it as a core of our set, along with the next art down the line. So that leaves the 4th art, and I would make the argument that it might be the Argent Mirror Art. We don't know what it does yet, so it may be sidelined to a supporting art, but I'm really liking it and it should be relatively easy to level up.

So far, then, we have
1. SCS; 2. FVM; 3. AMA; 4. ZB -->

This will set us up with a good movement art, a good debuff art, a good perception/resistance art, and then a good support/debuff art. This seems like a good support character build where we have the options available to us and different ways we can pursue the debuffs. The next bit is trickier though and does deserve to have some thought. What are four different categories of arts that we should pick up to support our build? One can be a burst art so that once we have placed our buffs and debuffs we can do so burst damage. I think that another art that would be nice would be a counter art, something that can counter the opponents counter or stop them from casting their own arts. A solid defensive art for soaking damage when we get hit and increasing our health would be another nice choice. That leaves the final art, and depending on how AMA is, I would go for another perception art to help us find things or dodge better.

So with this, we would have
1b. burst damage art; 2b. counter art; 3b. a defensive art; 4b. another perception art.

However, with this build, we would be lacking in a way to actually buff our allies beyond ZB's ability to (depending on how ZB chains up the art ladder) and that would be extremely important for our build. So we could change out the counter arts for an ally buffing art specifically, or change out ZB for an ally buffing art specifically.

However, this is what my general impression of the types of arts we should have available by the time we are late yellow/silver. My opinion is subject to change, and it quite often is, but if we are discussing arts and what types of arts and the meridians we should open it should be a discussion based on long-term planning and figuring out what we need and why we would need it.

Note: The reason for the burst damage art is so that we can end fights faster if we need to, especially once we have gotten all of our buffs and debuffs to stick. I personally would find more enjoyment in having something to do after that than just sitting around and waiting for the fight to end based on our FVM damage. However, I do recognize that this is a hotly contested subject. So these are my personal prefrences.
 
[X] Press her about what is bothering her
-[X] Drop it if she refuses to talk

The write-in is unimpressive to me. For one, I'm just broadly inclined to allow greater freedom for a social encounter between two friends to develop organically. This is similar to battle plans in quests: giving specific directions tends to disintegrate into a terrible mess the instant an unexpected variable comes up. Better to simply discuss various methods in the lead-up to the next update and see those ideas incorporated, as @yrsillar has shown a tendency to do.

Also, I'm just not convinced it's the right approach. I'd rather be forthright and honest with our concern, like we were when we bullied her into seeking medical treatment. Plus it gives a more obvious opportunity for Cui to butt in which is always without fail great, even when it's not.
 
[X] Press her about what is bothering her
-[X] Approach indirectly, describe your own challenge and how you dealt with the monster followed by the reward from it, then ask her about the details of her own.

We are gonna mention the first part with the giant dead spirit with the carrion bugs right?
 
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arts spreadsheet
  • Informational
    • In response to the ever increasing number of arts I decided to create a google spreadsheet that we can all use.
    I have added an incomplete formations sheet to this existing sheet as of Year 43, Week 32 Part 1 threadmark
    Arts and Formations
    Accurate as of Year 43, week 35 Part 2 threadmark
    (if users other than me make an update It may be more accurate than the threadmark noted.)
    Please do not add other tabs unless you plan to keep them maintained and presentable.

    Currently I have it open to edit by all, but if there are problems i will make it view and comment only. With certain users being allowed to edit (requires a gmail).

    @yrsillar would you add this link to one of your informational posts.

    Edit: Yrsillar thanks for adding this to the info menu, and thanks to everyone who is assisting in maintaining this.
     
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  • Informational
    • Soo I'm imagining how the coming conversation between Ling Qi and Bai Meizhen will be like:


    Ling Qi: "... and that spirit beast thing implied that it had somehow killed you. I simply told it to stop spouting rubbish :mad: because you'd crush it easily."

    Bai: :oops: (Such confidence in me!). I-it feels nice.

    Ling Qi: Huh, did you just say something?

    Bai: N-nothing! Please, carry on.


    Or maybe she might feel guilt for not believing in us as well? Any way, I'm quite hyped for the next few updates.
     
    yrsillar said:
    Unlocking Meridians requires a cultivation roll, and takes the place of cultivation for the turn unless a second cultivation action is taken.

    ...

    The first Meridian is relatively easy to open, and only requires five successes, so Ling Qi has succeeded in a very short time once again due to her high talent. The number of successes needed increments upward by one for each meridian opens. So the next one will require 6, then 7 and so forth.

    To SUmmarize the above in a non-narrative fashion. Meridians function as your 'equipment slots' when determining which and how many arts you can have active at once. Earning more meridians allows you to use more advanced arts as well as allowing you to equip more arts in general.
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    We don't roll for xp for Meridians, we roll to simply unlock them. There's no 'progress towards.' It's why the overflow always goes straight to something - we have unlocked multiple Meridians in a single roll by rolling really well.

    yrsillar said:
    You can open Lung/Head Meridians as you are, there are just penalties for failure
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    Yes, the 'open a Meridian' roll can fail, rather then give you experience to the next attempt. We were told earlier on I believe that Heart was also a dangerous one to open, but he stopped mentioning it as such once we opened Heart. So it's by implications that they become safer after you have one open. We haven't been told that directly.

    yrsillar said:
    No those are the two meridians that can cause significant issues if you fuck up with them. The other meridians can cause problems on crit fails too, but theyre minor physical penalties at most.
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    All of them can cause problems on a crit fail, but some can cause problems on any failure.

    yrsillar said:
    Hah, yeah you guys are right. Meridians have to be cleared in one go, though partial successes make the following attempts easier if you do well enough.
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    If you fail, but you get enough successes, it will make the next roll easier.




    I'm not going to track down the rest of the quotes. That's the main body of the rules. You can't depend on the rules on the first page. They're incomplete, and haven't been updated with all of yrsillar's notes.
     
    For a burst art we might want to consider getting a secondary effect on the art. For example a blast of ice that also slows people around it. Or a mountain art that creates a spear of rock that we could hide behind. This would give burst arts more utility and qi efficiency if we can use them for more than one thing. I do not think we want a burst art like firebolt that only does one thing.
     
    Neshuakadal said:
    I do not think we want a burst art like firebolt that only does one thing.
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    I cast Fireball! Now, what do I do?

    Ahh well, Yeah a burst art that has a secondary effect other than damage would be nice.
    A lance of lighting that stuns or blinds our enemies; A blast of ice that freezes the part of the body struck; A knife of wind that brings weakness with it; An earth-shattering attack that makes the ground harder to balance on.

    Stuff like that would be nice. The more that the burst art can do, the better it would be in our build.
     
    The sect is being a bit mean with the positioning of that art.
    "Here's something that'll help you see through illusions and deception! You can acquire it by not being eaten by a mimic that lives in a place that has illusions to prevent people finding it."
    :rolleyes:

    [X] Press her about what is bothering her
    -[X] Drop it if she refuses to talk
     
    Motile Mollusc said:
    The sect is being a bit mean with the positioning of that art.
    "Here's something that'll help you see through illusions and deception! You can acquire it by not being eaten by a mimic that lives in a place that has illusions to prevent people finding it."
    :rolleyes:
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    Don't forget that the trial itself is hidden behind a forest full of illusions. OTOH, I am going to say that given this trial is for Yellow/Silver cultivators, and for at least 2 of them to even take it, Argent Mirror Art almost certainly can be levelled until Late Yellow before we need the next in the chain.
     
    Thor's Twin said:
    I cast Fireball! Now, what do I do?

    Ahh well, Yeah a burst art that has a secondary effect other than damage would be nice.
    A lance of lighting that stuns or blinds our enemies; A blast of ice that freezes the part of the body struck; A knife of wind that brings weakness with it; An earth-shattering attack that makes the ground harder to balance on.

    Stuff like that would be nice. The more that the burst art can do, the better it would be in our build.
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    Lighting is heaven. Specifically, it's the force of Heavenly Tribulations. As such, I expect it to be less electricity and stun debuff and damage, and more unblockable Almighty Damage. Which we'll probably pay for in lower damage and no one being weak to it.
     
    TheLastOne said:
    Lighting is heaven. Specifically, it's the force of Heavenly Tribulations. As such, I expect it to be less electricity and stun debuff and damage, and more unblockable Almighty Damage. Which we'll probably pay for in lower damage and no one being weak to it.
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    Well yes, lightning is typically associated with the heavens, but those element schemes are merely there to portray the most common elements that are studied and such. Just like there is an element of darkness and a spirit of death, there could be an element of lightning, or an element of clouds, or an element of power. The only thing that stops the imagination of what is possible with arts is our own imagination.
     
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