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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Guys. It's not complicated.

XP is not a perfect simulation of actual training. No one denies that.

Level uncaps are not a perfect simulation of actual training. No one denies that.

Had this rule been in effect since the beginning of the quest then presumably your stats are where they are because you unlocked things along the way. The things on Paper's list for taijutsu are some of what allowed you to raise your taijutsu to its current level.

We -- or at least I, since @Velorien can speak for himself -- don't give a damn about retroactive unlocks and I am not persuadable on the issue. The entire point of this experiment is to see how player incentives and actions change when the level caps stop you from advancing skills while sitting in the comfort of your own safe little meditation chamber. If everything is unlocked up to level 60 then what's the goddamn point of the experiment?
 
I am not quite sure if anything changed at the moment.

Player momentum seemed to be for leveling up sealing, though with an eye toward making Hazo combat fieldable. Right now, any chunin could take him.
 
Dont get me wrong im all for leveling up taijutsu by mulching rock genin. but isn't woefully optmistic that you hope the hivemind will react on any semblance of organized fasion?
 
faflec said:
A heads-up to everyone: Akane's XP has progressed to the point where she can realistically get EM nukes right now: she has enough to get Resolve 40, Stealth 20, and EM 34, which requires only that we start the jutsu in a Zone at -30C. Which is reasonably easy, given that it's February and a lot of places in Iwa are pretty far North in the world...
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Mwahaha. You probably already get mini nukes at -20 °C, actually, since that's enough to condense oxygen. We can already actually freeze CO₂, but that's not nukey, though it's probably quite valuable.
 
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Velorien said:
Retroactively uncapping skills would seem to me to miss the entire point of uncaps as intended to change players' current behaviour.
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eaglejarl said:
We -- or at least I, since @Velorien can speak for himself -- don't give a damn about retroactive unlocks and I am not persuadable on the issue.
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Sure, and not trying to convince you in either direction. Just making note.

eaglejarl said:
Had this rule been in effect since the beginning of the quest then presumably your stats are where they are because you unlocked things along the way. The things on Paper's list for taijutsu are some of what allowed you to raise your taijutsu to its current level.
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Sure, that's why I only pointed out things we did that are 1) relevant to a given stat that 2) we haven't raised since doing the thing. They're all things done after raising the stat to its current level.
eaglejarl said:
If everything is unlocked up to level 60 then what's the goddamn point of the experiment?
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Multi-uncapping doesn't make sense for this reason exactly imo. If you could grind uncaps while chilling at level 20 by taking genin-level missions and using your 20 stat, then jump to 80, that wouldn't make sense.

This is part of what makes handling column jumps across 3+ uncaps feel complicated.
 
Rafin said:
Hmm. Does all this mean that Orochimaru is barely able to skill up many of his skills anymore because nothing in those areas of expertise poses any possible consequences for him and/or that his increasingly extreme experimentation serves the purpose of unlocking the relevant skills at 100+ caps?
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It's a little-known fact but Orochimaru's surgeries are actually all about uncapectomies (he takes away the uncapping of skills from others) and grafts on himself (of the uncappages). This is why the Basement is such a dangerous place, its purpose is to give such challenges to people he puts inside it that the merest sub-victory uncaps a skill.
Or maybe Orochimaru and Hazō are special cases, the both of them, in different ways.
It's one or the other
 
Paperclipped said:
Another point of the list...

@eaglejarl @Velorien How well do the things I listed line up with your sense of what would count as uncapping the stat? Was it too generous? Too strict?
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eaglejarl said:
I would probably quibble with one or two of them if I really thought about it but yes, that's the general sort of thing I would post an unlock for.
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Ditto, although not all of those got rolls in the event. I think uncapping must require a roll to make both the use of the skill and the chance of failure explicit. Notably, if you want us to roll Resolve for Hazō's interactions with Ami...

Also, Empathy is a little tricky, as confirming that you've succeeded on a roll to understand is OOC information.
 
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Velorien said:
Ditto, although not all of those got rolls in the event. I think uncapping must require a roll to make both the use of the skill and the chance of failure explicit. Notably, if you want us to roll Resolve for Hazō's interactions with Ami...

Also, Empathy is a little tricky, as confirming that you've succeeded on a roll to understand is OOC information.
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Requiring active rolls might not always make sense -- for example, many jutsu are rarely rolled. Tunnel Excavation, MEW, SC, Hiding like a Mole... Pretty much none of Hazou's jutsu, in fact. This is probably because they provide a narrative toolkit rather than directly overcoming obstacles through force. Similarly, we rarely get into full-fledged multi-round social combat, as most of our socials are narrative. Should these narrative challenges and uses of tools to solve problems not count?
 
Velorien said:
Retroactively uncapping skills would seem to me to miss the entire point of uncaps as intended to change players' current behaviour.
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I agree with you that nothing should be uncapped retroactively during the duration of this experiment (it would be hard to see how this affects behavior if it doesn't affect behavior, after all), but if the experiment ends and we elect to proceed with the new system did I think it would be very unfair and unsimulationist to ignore our past accomplishments. From a simulation perspective, there's absolutely no reason that Hazō's post-treason staredown with Asuma should not unlock the next cap on Resolve (which we still haven't hit since) purely because it happened before the rule change. From a fairness perspective, this mechanics change just massively nerfed our main strategy (FOOM) by substantially lowering the inherent value of XP itself, especially in large quantities. We've put in a lot of work and accomplished a lot of things over the past several years. Some of which would, by all accounts, have definitely raised our skill caps. Forbidding all of those from being usable undercuts all of what we accomplished while simultaneously making our current build that we've heavily invested in much weaker.

Like I said, for the duration of the experiment we shouldn't allow retroactive uncaps. But afterward? Well there should at least be some discussion about it.
 
_The_Bomb said:
agree with you that nothing should be uncapped retroactively during the duration of this experiment (it would be hard to see how this affects behavior if it doesn't affect behavior, after all), but if the experiment ends and we elect to proceed with the new system did I think it would be very unfair and unsimulationist to ignore our past accomplishments. From a simulation perspective, there's absolutely no reason that Hazō's post-treason staredown with Asuma should not unlock the next cap on Resolve (which we still haven't hit since) purely because it happened before the rule change. From a fairness perspective, this mechanics change just massively nerfed our main strategy (FOOM) by substantially lowering the inherent value of XP itself, especially in large quantities. We've put in a lot of work and accomplished a lot of things over the past several years. Some of which would, by all accounts, have definitely raised our skill caps. Forbidding all of those from being usable undercuts all of what we accomplished while simultaneously making our current build that we've heavily invested in much weaker.
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Sure all of this might be true if this was strictly about changing things to be more realistic. But it also has the goals of having more active plans. There's no reason to just throw out that goal after the experiment has run its course if we decide to keep it in place. Sure it might not be 'fair' but if it gets the desired result so what?
 
Velorien said:
Ditto, although not all of those got rolls in the event. I think uncapping must require a roll to make both the use of the skill and the chance of failure explicit. Notably, if you want us to roll Resolve for Hazō's interactions with Ami...
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My mind goes to some notable Ami chapters (Heaven's Cradle, where Ami jokes about Haozu proposing, and Bring Down the Tower) where a Resolve Check would've made things... Interesting.

I also wonder if Hazou joking about the marriage contract (maybe with the addition of "too hasty by far, we haven't been on nearly enough dates" followed by a "I like to take things slowly" joke) would count towards empathy (jokes aren't honest intent to deceive, but an attempt to connect with someone and make them laugh).

Velorien said:
Also, Empathy is a little tricky, as confirming that you've succeeded on a roll to understand is OOC information.
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Offhandedly, some things I can think of that may uncap Empathy (in order from lowest difficulty to highest) is building Snowflake a room, addressing Atomu about the Dog Jutsu, and the "we know you, Mari" conversation from way back.
 
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RandomOTP said:
Offhandedly, some things I can think of that may uncap Empathy (in order from lowest difficulty to highest) is building Snowflake a room, addressing Atomu about the Dog Jutsu, and the "we know you, Mari" conversation from way back.
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None of those besides perhaps the last one feel like they test Hazou's limits, to me. A better example feels like when Akane confronted Mizuki, an extremely problematic actor from her past, and despite all her anger towards him managed to empathize anyways.

Hazou's confrontation with Ami wherein he tries to convince her not to take revenge against Mari, where failure to understand Ami would've resulted in an Ami/Goketsu conflict, seems like an appropriate option as well. It was less risky but I guess the same could be said of him asking Kei to speak to Ami afterward, when convincing her to oppose her goddess was the objective and required that he understand exactly how Kei operates
 
Shrooms said:
None of those besides perhaps the last one feel like they test Hazou's limits, to me. A better example feels like when Akane confronted Mizuki, an extremely problematic actor from her past, and despite all her anger towards him managed to empathize anyways.

Hazou's confrontation with Ami wherein he tries to convince her not to take revenge against Mari, where failure to understand Ami would've resulted in an Ami/Goketsu conflict, seems like an appropriate option as well. It was less risky but I guess the same could be said of him asking Kei to speak to Ami afterward, when convincing her to oppose her goddess was the objective and required that he understand exactly how Kei operates
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I mean, what classifies as "uncapping" for a stat of 10 will be vastly easier than a stat of 60. And since Hazou's empathy stat doesn't exactly reflect his in-character empathy (a dissonance which @Velorien has previously expressed some concern over, albeit about general social stats), it's hard to model what will uncap Hazou's social stats.

So, depending on which perspective you want to use as your point of reference (internal narrative or quest meta-narrative), an argument could be made in either direction --that Hazou needs more difficult challenges to uncap socials, in light of his on-screen deeds, or less difficult challenges would uncap socials, in light of his stated socials stats.
 
Veedrac said:
Sure, but my point was that the original post (and reality) isn't deriving the usefulness of practical experience off of the threat of failure. The relevant point is that you're using your skill in an applied context in a real way. Real people don't need relationship risks in order to learn to cook (or play music, or do math, or do engineering or programming, etc.), they just need a real world feedback loop. Risks are only necessary for learning if the applied use case you're trying to learn it for is intrinsically risky.
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It's a fair point, although I don't think it needs to be settled right now. When you find yourself writing a plan that actually uses a non-combat stat then we can figure it out. Until then, I will wait upon the hivemind actually choosing to use things that have never / hardly ever been used.

Velorien said:
Also, Empathy is a little tricky, as confirming that you've succeeded on a roll to understand is OOC information.
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I'd be tempted to make a note and uncap it later, after the following chapter came out or at some random time. Something to talk about.

_The_Bomb said:
I think it would be very unfair and unsimulationist to ignore our past accomplishments.
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I regret hearing that you feel that way. I've answered this objection several times now and feel no need to repeat myself. If you've missed the answer, please go back and re-read. Aside from that, I'm done with it.
 
More or less copy-pasting from Discord, I do feel like a cap of 10 would better reflect the nature of the mechanics so far, since they're mostly based around the AB, which depends on multiples of 10. I also feel like uncapping should be relatively easy for the lower levels, any jounin should be able to uncap a new skill once or twice in short order. I also dislike the interaction of the skill pyramid with the capping, since it means column hopping is now more or less impossible. That is a major problem for our builds. I think Akane is in real trouble with FOOM as a result.

Other than that, I'm excited for the rule change. I would be happy to see some form of it continue.
faflec said:
So...to be clear, we do need to make a roll in order for a cap to be lifted?
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See this would be bizarre, because skills like MEW and PEA are (almost) never rolled. So they'd never be uncapped

EDIT: also do stats need to be maxed out to uncap? So if you do something that would uncap Resolve when it's at 29/30 it does nothing? Or would it jump to 29/34?
 
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Paperclipped said:
Requiring active rolls might not always make sense -- for example, many jutsu are rarely rolled. Tunnel Excavation, MEW, SC, Hiding like a Mole... Pretty much none of Hazou's jutsu, in fact. This is probably because they provide a narrative toolkit rather than directly overcoming obstacles through force. Similarly, we rarely get into full-fledged multi-round social combat, as most of our socials are narrative. Should these narrative challenges and uses of tools to solve problems not count?
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I don't have any special solution for ninjutsu, and maybe there is a case for treating them differently from more universal skills. At least, there's room for discussion.

However, let us suppose the plan says "Try to get Naruto to sell us adoption tickets." Hazō goes and tries to get Naruto to sell you adoption tickets. No rolls are made. The QMs decide by fiat that Hazō isn't persuasive enough to pull it off. Would this feel to you like a case of meaningfully using a skill under field conditions? And if it would, why bother uncapping and levelling the skill in the first place?
 
Velorien said:
I don't have any special solution for ninjutsu, and maybe there is a case for treating them differently from more universal skills. At least, there's room for discussion.
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You could have a system where Elemental Ninjutsu were capped at your highest level jutsu of that Element, so all of Hazou's Earth jutsu would be capped at 30 for ES. The same as when they're half-costed. Non-elemental would be its own category. Then you'd have to uncap your highest jutsu to raise the overall cap
 
Velorien said:
I don't have any special solution for ninjutsu, and maybe there is a case for treating them differently from more universal skills. At least, there's room for discussion.

However, let us suppose the plan says "Try to get Naruto to sell us adoption tickets." Hazō goes and tries to get Naruto to sell you adoption tickets. No rolls are made. The QMs decide by fiat that Hazō isn't persuasive enough to pull it off. Would this feel to you like a case of meaningfully using a skill under field conditions? And if it would, why bother uncapping and levelling the skill in the first place?
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The QMs can also decide by fiat whether or not it was a substantial enough endeavor to merit the uncap.

The way I see it, the thing we want is not a roll, but substance and stakes. Rolling the skill might indicate that there's importance and a chance of failure, but the act of rolling the dice is downstream of the actual important "you need to do challenging things if you want to improve".

As to why bother uncapping and leveling: Characterization, perhaps? The anticipation that the skills may be used in the next encounter, even if they weren't rolled in this one? I agree that social skills could stand to be rolled more, if that's what you're implying.
 
Paperclipped said:
The QMs can also decide by fiat whether or not it was a substantial enough endeavor to merit the uncap.

The way I see it, the thing we want is not a roll, but substance and stakes. Rolling the skill might indicate that there's importance and a chance of failure, but the act of rolling the dice is downstream of the actual important "you need to do challenging things if you want to improve".

As to why bother uncapping and leveling: Characterization, perhaps? The anticipation that the skills may be used in the next encounter, even if they weren't rolled in this one? I agree that social skills could stand to be rolled more, if that's what you're implying.
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Perhaps part of the problem is that we only frequently engage in socials with our allies and friends. We need to speak to our enemies/hostile entities like the Oyabun more often
 
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