Anyone else getting really curious about advanced Qi natures (like lightning here)?
Its "internal alchemy" to get started in it.
Ghosts of the Ancestors. (A Cultivation Riot Quest).
- Thread starter uri
- Start date
- Original
Its "internal alchemy" to get started in it.
You actually can already merge Qi, internal alchemy is about the empowering and destructive cycles.
- Location
- Israel
oh this is going to be fun.
Will you tell us other fusion types or we will have to discover some?
Sirrocco
Pedantic
So what I'm thinking is that the really key thing on the Qi thing is the benefits multipliers. Like, progress multipliers are great and all, and using the wrong qi as far as that is concerned can result in a slowdown or partially wasted action, but benefit multipliers are a much bigger deal and are forever. SO maybe the rule should be "no physical cultivation on any qi type with less than x2 benefits multiplier"? I mean, if x3 is on the table, maybe we *should* hold out for that. It's more up-front cost, but also more long-term benefit. Of course, that's just asking for @uri to bust out with a x4 multiplier qi at some point that's even more obnoxious to acquire and basically drop ourselves into marshmallow test paralysis hell.
@uri - that kind of thing is definitely feelsbad. Could we have some way to run it that does not do that thing?
@uri - that kind of thing is definitely feelsbad. Could we have some way to run it that does not do that thing?
I'm not sure I follow, run what?
- Location
- California
You know, we should probably be doing everything we can to discover all water and yin combinations. It's what Li has the best Roots for, so it behooves us to lean into it.
Although, I want Lighting Qi for his nerves. Give our boy reflexes to make Gamer's jealous.
Well, a few off the top of my head.
Water + yin= ice.
Water +fire= steam.
Water+ earth= mud. + fire= clay.
Water+ earth+ fire = blood.
Yin+ fire= spirit.
Yin+ metal= reflection.
- Location
- California
Well that's straightforward, is all the mixtures 1:1, or would they be uneven. Say we need 2 Yin for 1 Metal to produce 1 Reflection Qi?
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1:1, its just easier that way.
Huh, Yin + Fire... Might go for that? Yin because we ghosts need it, and fire because the sect is primarily a fire sect?
Sirrocco
Pedantic
So... character development systems with the following combination of attributes wind up... bad.
A - There are permanent methods to boost your stats, but they are either limited in number, or with an ever-increasing price, where the increase in price is significant and matters. Effectively, one way or the other, you have limited "upgrade slots", by either soft cap or hard cap. This game has the "increasing cost" version of this in a number of categories.
B - There are ways to extract additional long-term benefit from each slot that require more up-front effort, but better long-term payoff. This game has this, in using different varieties of qi.
C - Once you've spent an upgrade slot, it's locked in permanently. If you spent it in a less efficient way, then you have permanently locked yourself out of the benefits that someone who did it a more efficient way would have gained.
D - The highest tier of "more up front cost for more long-term benefit" either doesn't exist (you could always push further) are is expensive enough that it is not practical to put off using the slots entirely long enough to start with it.
/*******************/
If you have A, B, and D, but not C, then the players can put in the effort to get the upgrades at a lower tier, and then replace them later. This is fine. It winds up being a bit of an interesting optimization dance of which levels to use and when to convert and whatnot, but as long as the additional overhead from tiering up your upgrades is manageable, it's not a problem. Actually, "interesting optimization dance" can be kind fo fun, for certain sections of the playerbase.
If you have A, B, and C, but not D, then the players can put off actually using the subsystem at all until they've gotten powerful enough in other ways. In this case, that would mean never physically cultivating at all until we'd gotten The Best Qi to do physical cultivation with... and then doing the same with meridians, and doing the same with breakthroughs, and... you get the idea. Having to put one or more of the subsystems on ice for a potentially extended period of time isn't necessarily great, but it's still manageable.
If you have A, B, C, and D, then you are basically telling your player base that there is a Good and Right answer, and they aren't allowed to use it, and must instead do this other thing that is obviously worse, and that their character will be inescapably weaker forever as a result. Right now, this game is almost purely an econ game. "Numbers go up" is the point. For a game like this, forcing the player base to make choices that they know are bad, and thereby diminish themselves forever feels really bad. Even if you're just pretending, and you later retcon it to not-C, it still feels Real Bad.
So please, please do not do this thing.
Does that make it make more sense?
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Rambling:
Would this not be beyond the scope of most IC characters anyways? Like, you would need large amounts of nepotism, fortune, or simple guidance to even have these 'cheats' at our level or earlier? The sect can manage the risk of, say, lightning Qi usage so it's pretty high up there but not too much. Would better expressions, which likely exist, not have too unreasonable a barrier of entry?
I understand it's part and parcel of cultivation to have new powers that are retroactively superior to past 'perfect' assumptions? Only, as ghosts who were a Big Deal, we know what lies beyond.
We should also try Water+Yin. Its whats reasonably available for us.
The goal isn't the biggest numbers for a certain level though, its to avenge and than re-establish the clan and survive any attempts to finish the job in the mean time.
Fire Qi lets one physically cultivate FASTER but not better quality. But Yang Qi which is twice as good is also twice as expensive and does not cultivate faster so Physically cultivating with Yang Qi reaches a certain power level at half the speed.
Unless you magically don't care about cost (or can cheat to get a certain qi).
Fire Qi lets one physically cultivate FASTER but not better quality. But Yang Qi which is twice as good is also twice as expensive and does not cultivate faster so Physically cultivating with Yang Qi reaches a certain power level at half the speed.
Unless you magically don't care about cost (or can cheat to get a certain qi).
- Location
- Israel
There is the trap of benefits vs advancement.
Barring some super secret realm, the best way for power is just to cultivate.
Punching up is good and all but if the same amount of effort taht would let us punch up one realm would have let us advance 2 in missing oppertunity then its an issue.
Perfection beimg the enemy of good and all that jazz.
Barring some super secret realm, the best way for power is just to cultivate.
Punching up is good and all but if the same amount of effort taht would let us punch up one realm would have let us advance 2 in missing oppertunity then its an issue.
Perfection beimg the enemy of good and all that jazz.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
There's in-game concerns and out-of-game concerns. This is an out-of-game concern. It feels bad. Maybe it doesn't feel bad to you, but it feels bad to me, and I suspect that it would feel bad to a number of other players who are particularly interested in this particular variety of game... where there's a heavy focus on Numbers Going Up, and also everyone who pitches in gets to help in a small but meaningful way. Having a choice that you know will result in you being permanently diminished, and having to choose it anyway because you can't currently afford the material resources? When you will be able to afford them later, but it'll be too late then? That's bad.
Quoting from the Qi Natures document:
"Using fire Qi to refine one's body yields double the progress and double the benefits."
"Utilizing mostly Yang Qi for projects which impose the physicality aspect grant double the benefits."
So yang qi is actually worse for physical cultivation than Fire Qi. The benefit of Yang is that it can be applied to thigns (liek breakthroughs) that improve physical gains but aren't pure physical cultivation.
Huh, I don't remember that. Not sure what the point in Yang is than, to make other elements more complicated I guess?
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Well, using Yang on breakthroughs is certainly a thing.
...at least, assuming that I'm remembering that part of the system at all well.
I already said I would add an option to "fix" things, it won't be trivial to do but it would be an option so I think this sidesteps most of your concerns.
Using it for Qi condensation would give you another +1 to pretty much all of Guang Li attributes.
That said, not every type of Qi is going to be useful. I don't actually expect you to use Yang for anything other than merging for example.
- Location
- Israel
Out of curiosity what would happen if we fuse yin and yang?
Sirrocco
Pedantic
This is fair. It does handle the concern pretty well.
I guess I was under the impression that you'd said that you would look into it, rather than saying that you'd do it, and this particular bugaboo makes me really twitchy.
I apologize for getting all twitchy at you about it.
- Location
- some computer lab
man, we really need more meridians fast given all the really good qi types seem very expensive. I guess I'll gather pure qi next turn so that we have more to burn on failed attempts?
I was just about to post this preview of a new action unlocked by the advanced Qi research completing. I think it would change the value of pure Qi for you guys.
Unlock the middle Dantian- during the awakening ceremony, one of the many things the sects warned about when speaking of the dangers of cultivation, is the attempt to open a second danitan, according to the sect only death awaits to those foolish enough to make the attempt. Guang Li ancestors beg to differ and with their knowledge of advanced Qi techniques restored they have produced a method that would open the middle dantian relatively safely. Cost: 10 pure Qi or 1 yin and Yang Qi. DC 46 (base 50 minus 2 for every QC stage). Gain: a second dantian, unlock the ability to produce Shen. [Dangerous].
Prepare for the opening of the middle dantian [0/25] 2 pure Qi per time taken. +1 to all rolls for opening the middle dantian. Repeatable.
Prepare for the opening of the middle dantian [0/25] 2 pure Qi per time taken. +1 to all rolls for opening the middle dantian. Repeatable.