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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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eaglejarl said:
A thing we've done in the past was to have the plan say "test the rocket boots" and that's a link to a separate post where you can list tests you want to do. This opens up an entire can of worms about modular plans that rapidly become overwhelming for the author so it DEFINITELY is not a standard option for all plans. In the future, if you have a situation like this, ask us if you can do that.
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As the author of the plan in question I would absolutely *not* have done this. If someone had asked me I either would have found wordcount or said no. Plans in the quest work the way that they do and have for a long time for very good reasons. The point is that this is a collaborative endeavor, not one where we try to find out exactly how far we can load the QMs before they snap.

Folks, there are valid complaints to make about the quest but this simply isn't one of them. We could have voted in more testing next cycle with more specific ideas. It is 100% reasonable that you can only fit one seal on your foot unless it's a specially designed tiny seal.
 
Given our concern about shredding fields for SCs / Summons, should the team emphasize summons that have significant long-range capabilities, even if they're not quite as competent overall? Or do the mechanics dictate that they would be essentially useless?
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
As the author of the plan in question I would absolutely *not* have done this. If someone had asked me I either would have found wordcount or said no. Plans in the quest work the way that they do and have for a long time for very good reasons. The point is that this is a collaborative endeavor, not one where we try to find out exactly how far we can load the QMs before they snap
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I think there is a time and a place for linked posts (having used many of them myself) and this seems appropriate to me 🤷‍♂️
 
T_of_A said:
There is an obvious solution to this, by the way. Akatsuki would have considered it too, because they know that massive aerial bombardment is a possibility.

What if their fortress was just really huge ? Akatsuki could have a huge fortress full of supplies for rift-delving, and they could be using it as a layer of concealment too. You can't assassinate or easily alpha-strike them if their fortress is ten zones wide and mostly empty, giving attackers good odds of obliterating empty rooms and giving the essies some time to buff up or escape.

Although "their fortress is really huge" is less of a problem for us if we can produce massive amounts of RERs... Hehe
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Or if they're just well-defended, underground, and the fortress is only a sealshittery decoy. If I were paranoid that's what I'd do. Hidden Heaven doesn't work any more when skywalkers are the meta.
 
Lysbeth Succubus said:
Or if they're just well-defended, underground, and the fortress is only a sealshittery decoy. If I were paranoid that's what I'd do. Hidden Heaven doesn't work any more when skywalkers are the meta.
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The trouble is that underground is also very unsafe (see the Collapse). My bed is that they'll have chosen a hybrid solution, a fortress with reinforced foundations and a few underground room + a large aboveground fortified complex.
 
eaglejarl said:
Unbelievable.

Okay, processing, breathing... Done.

A thing we've done in the past was to have the plan say "test the rocket boots" and that's a link to a separate post where you can list tests you want to do. This opens up an entire can of worms about modular plans that rapidly become overwhelming for the author so it DEFINITELY is not a standard option for all plans. In the future, if you have a situation like this, ask us if you can do that.
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This might be a good idea but it doesn't actually address my complaint. We shouldn't have to write every single detail beforehand if it's an obvious thing Hazoupilot would think of. And it could lead to a rabbithole of the same complaint happening for the modular plan. Of Hazoupilot not doing obvious inferences from the modular plan. I suppose if the modular plan was specifically only for obvious inferences Hazoupilot makes from the original plan it might work. But I'd prefer if the QMs just automatically did it (since right now we are only talking obvious inferences. this class of things means the QMs don't need to spend long brainstorming what inferences Hazou makes). And smart people miss obvious things sometimes. So if the QMs missed something, they can add it after the players point it out.
 
roobee said:
This might be a good idea but it doesn't actually address my complaint. We shouldn't have to write every single detail beforehand if it's an obvious thing Hazoupilot would think of. And it could lead to a rabbithole of the same complaint happening for the modular plan. Of Hazoupilot not doing obvious inferences from the modular plan. I suppose if the modular plan was specifically only for obvious inferences Hazoupilot makes from the original plan it might work. But I'd prefer if the QMs just automatically did it (since right now we are only talking obvious inferences. this class of things means the QMs don't need to spend long brainstorming what inferences Hazou makes). And smart people miss obvious things sometimes. So if the QMs missed something, they can add it after the players point it out.
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You may have noticed that we need Hazoupilot because we aren't full-time ninja. Interestingly, the QMs are also not full-time ninja, and may also make mistakes that Hazou-the-character wouldn't.

Look, I was also frustrated by Hazou's stupidity there. I also wish that the QMs had posted "what's up with your research, anyway ? It seems like a stupid idea, did I understand you correctly ?" in the thread while writing the update.
But the QMs really, really hate doing that. So we'll just use hyperlinks in the future. We've been doing that for rune research this arc and it's worked fairly well (there have been one or two miscommunications about rune research too, but overall it's been excellent).
 
T_of_A said:
But the QMs really, really hate doing that.
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Have they stated why? And have they stated they dislike updating the update after it's been written?
edit: or updating the world after it's been written. considering the rocket boot results weren't even in the update itself
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roobee said:
So if the QMs missed something, they can add it after the players point it out.
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Admittedly if the thing has narrative impact and adding it in requires rewriting part of the update. That has a real cost. It's still annoying for Hazou pilot to fail. But it might be an efficient buying of QM spoons vs simulationism. Although the QMs have changed updates in response to player feedback before (edit4: the akatsuki anti-summoning things are an example of a non-update change. an example of an update change would be youthsuit).
However, QMs could at least add things that don't require rewriting the update. Like rocket boot results.
 
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It's kinda astonishing the amount of salt/blame people collectively throw at the QMs each week over something(and there is always something).

It's a weird way to treat the nice people volunteering a lot of irreplacable labour to a project we care about.

At minimum, it might be helpful to notice that the QMs are people too, and that those people are already constantly heaped with salt, and they understandably seem pretty sick of it. Noticing this, I would recommend, for both practical and kindness reasons, finding a communication strategy that isn't based in salt and blame.

Maybe try gently suggesting ways to improve the quest instead?
"Here are some ideas of how we could improve X" outperforms "you suck at X" basically all the time.
Or even just taking a moment to ask "is this post more hostile than it needs to be? How could I make it more kindly?" before posting might be wise.
 
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PSA: Quick check-in: Any objections is we close voting / do the assault chapter for tomorrow?

After going through the plan that you currently have and what we expect to see onsite, we are fine to simply close voting and write the Rift assault for tomorrow. Does anyone feel strongly about keeping things open until Wednesday, as stated in the prior chapter?


EDIT: Rate 'Like' if you want us to close the vote and write the chapter, 'Hugs' if want us to leave voting open and do an interlude tomorrow. (@faflec, I edited this in after you rated Hugs)
 
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I'm Winter-reacting to indicate that I'm voting alongside @Sir Stompy for this. I'm inclined to go ahead but I'm not clued in enough to know if the plan is still cooking or if it's done.

The QMs fear that we may come up with yet more good ideas; we should take advantage of this vulnerability.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
Reverse this. To the extent that the force dome is observable, it would serve as a warning for Akatsuki to buff and go to combat footing.
Instead, let the massive explosion be the go signal, and then drop the dome. They won't be able to escape the dome area in the 0-1 rounds before the dome goes up.

And we really want to time the Iron Earth rune right. If we activate it to early, it makes the earthworks fortress indestructible.
Best timing is just enough delay for the rubble to be slightly settled and trapping the Akatsuki, *then* make it inviolable to pin them in place to be cooked via Red Runoff or other fluid/gas based AoE techniques. This is enough of an edge it's worth putting this timing attempt in the plan
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It takes a full minute to form, so I disagree. But point about the Iron Earth. I'll edit something in.
Left-Hand Mutant said:
This looks like Hazou cowardly pulling two valuable combat assets out of the fight to protect him, despite him already being pretty secure.
I'd instead pitch this as keeping Mari and Kurenai near the Ninja-radar so Hazou can flexibly deploy them outside the dome to protect the Leaf/moon donor group, or protect his position, or take down Jashinists that were caught outside the dome, as needed
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Worth considering but Hazou is basically the lynchpin here if he goes down the RER goes down so it makes perfect sense to guard him.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
This looks like Hazou cowardly pulling two valuable combat assets out of the fight to protect him, despite him already being pretty secure.
I'd instead pitch this as keeping Mari and Kurenai near the Ninja-radar so Hazou can flexibly deploy them outside the dome to protect the Leaf/moon donor group, or protect his position, or take down Jashinists that were caught outside the dome, as needed.
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I'm ambivalent about this. On one hand, we do want to guard Hazo prime, on the other, that's a lot of firepower we're taking, and we can't deploy them into the dome after it goes up. Maybe the Sannin had a point about letting them shoot; at least they can defend themselves.

Left-Hand Mutant said:
Reverse this. To the extent that the force dome is observable, it would serve as a warning for Akatsuki to buff and go to combat footing.
Instead, let the massive explosion be the go signal, and then drop the dome. They won't be able to escape the dome area in the 0-1 rounds before the dome goes up.
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To be clear, do you mean "time activating dome so that it becomes visible after the RERs fire"? Because a Force Dome takes 20 rounds to activate, and it is very easy for a ninja to sprint out of it if they start running at the moment of activation. 5 zones/round, ~30 zones radius.


Left-Hand Mutant said:
And we really want to time the Iron Earth rune right. If we activate it to early, it makes the earthworks fortress indestructible.
Best timing is just enough delay for the rubble to be slightly settled and trapping the Akatsuki, *then* make it inviolable to pin them in place to be cooked via Red Runoff or other fluid/gas based AoE techniques. This is enough of an edge it's worth putting this timing attempt in the plan
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Agreed, the Earth is a non-trivial weakness of the fortress and should only be reinforced just after the RERs hit.
Edit: Although, that's relying on some pretty precise timing, and if we mess it up we give Akatsuki opportunity to flee via HLAM or similar... i'm ambivalent about this too.
 
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Are we concerned about Kurenai being an Itachi plant? That is the primary make-or-break vulnerability I see in the existing plans, especially if we're letting her close to Hazou Prime with only Mari for supervision. If Kurenai's single-target genjutsu is truly better than Mari's...
 
Rihaku said:
Are we concerned about Kurenai being an Itachi plant? That is the primary make-or-break vulnerability I see in the existing plans, especially if we're letting her close to Hazou Prime with only Mari for supervision. If Kurenai's single-target genjutsu is truly better than Mari's...
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If Kurenai was an Itachi plant we're already fucked: Kisame and Konan likely razed Leaf and/or made it back to the rift by now ready to fuck us. Kurenai stabbing us in the back is a bonus for Akatuski, but is by no means necessary for them to win.
 
eaglejarl said:
Unbelievable.

Okay, processing, breathing... Done.
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Ok, this is absolutely not how I intended my post to be understood, though on a reread I can see my obvious mistake. I want to make it clear that I do not personally blame you for anything, and my intent was only to explain the discontent that members of the thread may have had. I have a huge amount of respect the work you and the other GMs put in to keep this quest going, and I deeply apologize for my words. I should have noticed and edited it to be less inflammatory before posting.

With that being said, my intent was to use the rocket boots as an example of a bigger problem to be solved, as an extension of the "how to make the quest better" conversation, not relitigate past issues.
 
Kyreneryk said:
It looks like Noburi could raise Ath to 60, and then to 70 right after, as the immediate next step from the pyramid you show, since he would have four 50s and two 60s. Are you just not including that in your analysis?
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It would certainly be my next recommendation! You just have to stop somewhere, and I was leery to continue going too far beyond Noburi's first AB 8. Getting another sixty felt like a step too far.

Are you interested in the path leading up to it at all? I just revamped the Excel build plan in my signature with a little help from @18scsc.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
"Here are some ideas of how we could improve X" outperforms "you suck at X" basically all the time.
Or even just taking a moment to ask "is this post more hostile than it needs to be? How could I make it more kindly?" before posting might be wise.
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These may help QM spoons. But they introduce extra effort to giving feedback. And may cause players to withhold their feedback until: periods the QMs elicit it, the issues continues and becomes greater, or they have the energy to put extra effort into giving the feedback. As opposed to continuous feedback. I don't know if that's the reason the recent letter multiple players signed was only sent now instead of long ago.
Maybe the QMs prefer this. Fewer feedback but they keep more spoons.

I think it would be good for the QMs to communicate their preferences.
Whether they want the status quo, more/less feedback (to get less/more spoons), or some third option.

Also. I haven't read a lot of the thread so I may be wrong. But my impression is the players generally try what you say. They just fail at it sometimes. Like here
eaglejarl said:
I started reading, saw a whole bunch of stuff about how elemental comes should totes get chakra transfers and we were being unreasonable by saying they couldn't and etc. (I dunno, maybe I didn't read carefully enough and it wasn't as harsh as it looked at a casual glance; whatever, I'm tired and it's been a rough day. I don't have the juice to read charitably, process, and do the whole deal.)
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Eaglejarl did say he didn't have the juice to read charitably. So maybe if he read charitably he'd be fine with the player's phrasing. But the whole point of this subtopic is preserving QM spoons, and so not having the juice to read charitably means it would have cost Eaglejarl extra energy to read because of the player's phrasing. So the players failed, even if perhaps a partial failure compared to if Eaglejarl disliked the posts even after reading charitably. Failed at preserving QM spoons that is, maybe they considered the trade worthy to convey their feedback about elemental clones.
So I dunno if telling the players to do something they are already doing will help. I guess it could be feedback to them to try harder.

edit:
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped @OliWhail
Are you willing to share what feedback spoons tradeoffs you prefer?
 
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