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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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Stop: If only you were the standard
  • Staff Post
    • FixerUpper said:
    Salt would be me walking around middle fingers raised going I hate all y'all and this is why.

    No, we've hit cringe comedy levels of hands-over-eyes while reading the update. I'm out. I thought I could get through them unscathed, but I can't. Blessed be yrsillar's update pace, I'll be back after a week or two lest my constant moaning about bad life choices invite vitriol. =3=;;

    @ManusDomine , can I request a seven day threadban? I want to head off any idiodicy on my part.
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    if only you were the standard Your request has been granted.
     
  • Staff Post
    • Groups of people can often act as if a pendulum. We have been told by a bias view, a spirit that is all about unseen action seems very bias to me or Ling qi inner daredevil, so people will act reckless until it bites us on the nose then we will swing back the other way. Going by that I will vote
    [x] Focus on the trail of human qi Su Ling can sense. It seems suspicious that someone would be out here in this old ruin.

    This seems like the fastest way to get out of this situation. Something is agitating these spirits. I will remind everyone that the disappearances are happening with other people nearby. I don't think people would miss a mist rolling in or a horde of lower level spirits.
     
    Arkeus said:
    It's the "try to grab the opportunity ahead" option. It's possibly not the best option, but it's the option I feel fits Ling Qi's current desires and fits trying to solve the issue instead of trying to defend our back.

    It's a very Ling Qi solution, too, as even when Ling Qi is cautious she is lateral about being cautious (see how we hid in the basement and hit people from there in Elder Zhou's test, or the thing about the well), we aren't 'step by step' methodical about it.

    Trying to 'find out what's going on' by following the trail makes sense to me (though I haven't yet voted) because depending on what we find it might appease the spirits, or it might help us save an innocent, or whatever, while killing the spirits, or going to the temple and improving the defenses, are much more 'dealing with what's in front of us right now' and less "trying to see where the root cause of the problem lies". Well, temple might also show the root cause, too.
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    Ignoring the fact that 'defend our backs' is very Ling Qi (though I shouldn't)...

    We don't know how. Even if we track down the troublemaker and stop them, that won't automatically instantly placate the spirits, we would have to know more then we do to placate them, so we'll still probably have to fight them. And the spirits didn't start rising until we approached, so the troublemaker probably has something that stops the spirits from seeing or attacking them, so we'll probably get sandwiched between the spirits and troublemakers, and have to fight both at the same time.
     
    [X] Focus on the trail of human qi Su Ling can sense. It seems suspicious that someone would be out here in this old ruin.

    Ah well, fools rush in and all.
     
    Arkeus said:
    Likewise the various choices were 'do you trust the guardsmans over the villagers and yourselves', 'do you trust the villagers over the guardsman and yourselves', and 'do you trust yourselves over the guardsman and the villagers'. The whole point of taking Su Ling around was to quickly find the root of the problem (though she is the weakest in dealing with it). If we wanted to talk to the guardsmen/villagers, we should have taken someone else with us that didn't have an advantage in doing it by ourself.

    Likewise, this is also completely ignoring the very real (and more and more likely) possibility that someone is corrupt and causing this and using the spirits as scapegoats... and going to talk would have just alerted them.

    So yeah, I am not sure why you want to 'slow down' when there is currently no particular choice to slow down,
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    I really don't think you can just write off the talking options as "do you trust them over yourself" that's like saying you should never read a book, or go to a lecture because it's all inherently inferior to empirical evidence. It's not either or, the talking option could have been a decent supplement to our own investigation. Also the idea of corruption is speculation so let's not take it as the most likely option, we could also have speculated that the site was under observation.

    Shadell said:
    Yes, more information gathering would have been better, and almost always is if not constrained, but my understanding is that most people wanted to do all the options regardless when the narrative and the game elements to the quest pushed us to pick one. There's little real merit to talking with locals before examining the scene over examining the scene before talking with locals. In either case, you're getting information that would contextualize the other choices. In an ideal world, we'd have done all of the above, but that wasn't presented as an answer.
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    Difference is that investigating the area was more likely to immediately lead to follow up so was least likely to allow more than one source of information.

    Arkeus said:
    It's the "try to grab the opportunity ahead" option. It's possibly not the best option, but it's the option I feel fits Ling Qi's current desires and fits trying to solve the issue instead of trying to defend our back.

    It's a very Ling Qi solution, too, as even when Ling Qi is cautious she is lateral about being cautious (see how we hid in the basement and hit people from there in Elder Zhou's test, or the thing about the well), we aren't 'step by step' methodical about it.

    Trying to 'find out what's going on' by following the trail makes sense to me (though I haven't yet voted) because depending on what we find it might appease the spirits, or it might help us save an innocent, or whatever, while killing the spirits, or going to the temple and improving the defenses, are much more 'dealing with what's in front of us right now' and less "trying to see where the root cause of the problem lies". Well, temple might also show the root cause, too.
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    It's the option to rush ahead and hope the end is in sight. It's a gamble. It could work but it might not, I could imagine Ling Qi going for it but it's not really someone I want her to be. Re-reading the chapter I actually feel guilty dragging Su Ling through this, being reckless with your own life is one thing but we pushed for Su Ling to join us and even Ling Qi recognised she was being reckless this update.
     
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    [X] Try to drive off the spirits with force, while the wards last

    Ugh. We really should be running and coming back once we have more info (which I would vote for if it had the slightest chance of winning) or at least try to deal with the big spirit before we leave the wards.
     
    Grigori said:
    I really don't think you can just write the talking options as "do you trust them over yourself" that's like saying you should never read a book, or go to a lecture because it's all inherently inferior to empirical evidence. It's not either or, the talking option could have been a decent supplement to our own investigation. Also the idea of corruption is speculation so let's not take it as the most likely option we could also have speculated that the site was under observation.

    It's the option to rush ahead and hope the end is in sight. It's a gamble. It could work but it might not, I could imagine Ling Qi going for it but it's not really someone I want her to be. Re-reading the chapter I actually feel guilty dragging Su Ling through this, being reckless with your own life is one thing but we pushed for Su Ling to join us and even Ling Qi recognised she was being reckless this update.
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    The talking option could have been a decent supplement to our investigation if we hadn't chosen to take Su Ling, who casually solved the whole thing for us.

    The option to rush ahead is not hoping the end is in sight. Why would it be? The option to kill the spirits or go to the temple are as much 'hoping the end is in sight' as following the human trail. Or were you talking last update?

    If you are talking last update, the option to rush ahead was hoping that we wouldn't lose track of the trail by dealing with what was going on and could instead catch the culprit. So, yes it was hoping that going further ahead was the right way, while holding on was being cautious for our safety but risking not being able to deal with the culprit.

    I actually am glad we are dealing this with Su Ling. If we mess up abjectly she'll feel like she is right to do what he does and be cautious, and if we succeed she'll feel like maybe she can take more risks. Both can be good for her. Given Su Ling seems overly cautious in previous updates, this is either a potentially good way to open her way of seeing things or else a good way to confirming her belief.

    EDIT: investigating the Area was the most likely to actually catch the culprit IF there was a direct follow up. But I suspect all the options would have a direct follow up.
     
    veekie said:
    Missing the whole POINT is that while Su Ling is an expert tracker, she knows exactly as much as Ling Qi about the local environment....which is shit all.
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    How so? Do you really think the guards know more? I mean, it's pretty clear Su Ling actually has shown she was understanding the kind of environment here. She probably knows much more than the guards or villagers, both of whom probably don't spend much time in the more dangerous areas, while she herself has lived in such places before.

    Su Ling succeeded, here. Yeah, she always tend to be wary and is the first to ask for being cautious, but she is excelling at finding the root cause of the problem. That, or we are going on a wild goose chase.
     
    [x] Focus on the trail of human qi Su Ling can sense. It seems suspicious that someone would be out here in this old ruin.
     
    Can we get back on topic regarding the choices we actually have right now instead of bickering over choices we've already gone through? If you're so bothered by the choices we made, make a better argument next time to convince people not to be reckless instead of complaining about recklessness after the fact when it doesn't benefit us.
     
    Arkeus said:
    The talking option could have been a decent supplement to our investigation if we hadn't chosen to take Su Ling, who casually solved the whole thing for us.

    The option to rush ahead is not hoping the end is in sight. Why would it be? The option to kill the spirits or go to the temple are as much 'hoping the end is in sight' as following the human trail. Or were you talking last update?

    If you are talking last update, the option to rush ahead was hoping that we wouldn't lose track of the trail by dealing with what was going on and could instead catch the culprit. So, yes it was hoping that going further ahead was the right way, while holding on was being cautious for our safety but risking not being able to deal with the culprit.

    I actually am glad we are dealing this with Su Ling. If we mess up abjectly she'll feel like she is right to do what he does and be cautious, and if we succeed she'll feel like maybe she can take more risks. Both can be good for her. Given Su Ling seems overly cautious in previous updates, this is either a potentially good way to open her way of seeing things or else a good way to confirming her belief.

    EDIT: investigating the Area was the most likely to actually catch the culprit IF there was a direct follow up. But I suspect all the options would have a direct follow up.
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    Has she solved it all for us? I still have no idea what's going on. What I'm seeing from recent posts is that people hope to figure this all out by following the human trail and that in doing so they won't have to fight the ghosts wearing away at the wards. I also think that's the best shot at figuring out what's going on I just don't want to gamble that it will be figured out before the wards fall. In that sense I'm saying that either investigating the trail or temple is hoping for a quick end because we're working under a time limit as long as the wards are being attacked.
     
    I made the decision to not talk to guards and civilians because having Su Ling with us would be an active detriment to that. It's going to be looked at with suspension and unease, especially since Fox spirits seem exactly the type to disappear other humans. At the moment what I regret most about my vote, is the decision to take Su Ling with us at all. From the update, it looks like we should have taken a harder hitting character and the difficulty of this mission was never locating the missing persons, but actually beating the thing preying on them.
     
    Alright, talking about the options available to us, I feel concerned about leaving the group of zombies at our backs if we do anything but deal with them. For that reason, there are two choices that interest me, kill the zombies while the wards last and investigate the temple which is the only other option that addresses the problem of zombies at our backs. If find it interesting that the Temple option is the option that is presented as an alternative to deal with the zombies rather than kill them. It could be possible that once we are out of sight and out of mind the zombies would forget us, but I feel that this would be unlikely.

    Also, it seems confusing that it is in the area of the mists that the zombies are created, and so I would hesitate to say that dealing with the leader would be the way to deal with the zombie hoard. It could be that he is simply the leader because he is the strongest resurrected zombie, but he isn't the one to resurrect them.

    The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think that killing the leader will not stop the zombie hoard, as it would be my belief that it would be fairly difficult to resurrect yourself with a technique or art after you had already died and this guy is only a level 2 spirit/cultivator dude.

    So while I was leaning towards killing the zombies, if it is the mists that were creating the zombies then trying to kill them would be an effort in futility.

    Also, @yrsillar rereading the update it seems that we used Luminescent Star which should have added 2 unblockable damage to a successful hit. Since we hit for 4 damage over his defense, wouldn't it be a total of 6 damage done, the two extra would have also been unblockable?

    edit: sorry, forgot to add in the extra successes for his higher cultivation
     
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    Alright, so we know that this is a spirit of water, as they triggered when we were in the mists and the Boss spirit was formed from the river itself. In that vein, I'm not sure that the boss spirit is the main spirit or simply a conduit for which the main spirit can control the minions/constructs more fully. After all, the zombies came before the boss spirit, so there does seem to be some independent factor to the zombies and the boss spirit. On the other hand, when we damaged the boss spirit, it seemed to resonate throughout the mob and so the mob might be destroyed should we destroy the boss.

    Hmmm, what to do, what to do.
     
    [X] Focus on the trail of human qi Su Ling can sense. It seems suspicious that someone would be out here in this old ruin.

    Badabing badaboom I guess.
     
    Delcer said:
    I made the decision to not talk to guards and civilians because having Su Ling with us would be an active detriment to that. It's going to be looked at with suspension and unease, especially since Fox spirits seem exactly the type to disappear other humans. At the moment what I regret most about my vote, is the decision to take Su Ling with us at all. From the update, it looks like we should have taken a harder hitting character and the difficulty of this mission was never locating the missing persons, but actually beating the thing preying on them.
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    Nah, just killing everything will be doable by us, but it will be the 'bad' ending. Like, good odds we could have finished the quest with no aid going on our current path. It will just have conequeces for people who aren't us.

    There's more going on here, and like a Bioware side quest, you have to have investigated all the people and asked the right questions and explored the right corners to find out everything.

    A spirit touched fox cultivator could let us look for or gather up what we would have needed to avoid the ghosts all together, whatever the nature of that fetch quest. But we needed to know we were doing that first. We've just tried to speedrun the whole thing, which probably involves the worst of all possible endings where you piss off all sides and leave no one happy, but you still get paid.
     
    Delcer said:
    Err... right. The latest update kinda showed that wasn't the case.
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    How? We're behind a ward it will take several turns to get through, and our attack dice pool is bigger then it's defense dice pool, and we have a lot of Qi. We're certainly capable of killing it. If we go forward without dealing with it we might get ourselves in trouble but we can definitely kill it right now.

    I expect the troublemaker who's causing the problem is weaker. They're avoiding the spirit by understanding the rules it follows, the ban it's controlled by. That's why they haven't killed it themselves.
     
    TheLastOne said:
    How? We're behind a ward it will take several turns to get through, and our attack dice pool is bigger then it's defense dice pool, and we have a lot of Qi. We're certainly capable of killing it. If we go forward without dealing with it we might get ourselves in trouble but we can definitely kill it right now.
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    Eh, alright; I'll swap then. I'm still bitter about bringing Su Ling though.

    [X] Try to drive off the spirits with force, while the wards last
     
    Codex said:
    Can we get back on topic regarding the choices we actually have right now instead of bickering over choices we've already gone through? If you're so bothered by the choices we made, make a better argument next time to convince people not to be reckless instead of complaining about recklessness after the fact when it doesn't benefit us.
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    What better arguments were even available?
    The scenario was laid out clearly, and we made a choice that assumed investigation won't help, that the culprit would be clear and evident from the tracks, despite direct arguments that without info we can't even identify the right culprits.

    The argument was ignored on the basis that Su Ling would cock up the questioning...which would only leave us just as uninformed as we currently are.
     
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