Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

[Sundancer]

[X] Search and Rescue

Well, this went better than expected. Ling Qi is still alive after all and not even critically injured.
I was pretty worried when the vote decided to strike against the nomad raiders with force, but all good.

We didn't deal much damage except for tagging one of the Greens. That might count as a serious blow.
I don't think there was any way to protect the fields and infrastructure, but fields can be toiled again and houses rebuild. People, much less so. Well, unless you are Shenhua.
So I actually think we did good there.

Getting a bit of a reality check against serious opponents is great, especially since it didn't cost us much. Hopefully we'll remember some lessons from this in the future.

The barbarian musician being Ling Qi's age and Cultivation is once again a solid 'meh'. I know that Yrs doesn't intend it that way, but overall it reads as if Ling Qi's Cultivation speed is fairly average at best, and effects from keeping pace with the Ducals are invisible. I am mainly referring to the 'romance options' presented during various parts of the quest. Each one of them was a around two or three years older than Ling Qi but several steps in Cultivation ahead; to the point that we aren't sure we can match their speed/age. I get that named characters that are introduced as "weaker" risk getting little interest. Or that the potential husbands were meant to be seen as strong enough to have future potential. Or maybe its just some weird imperial tradition that the husband has to be more strong than the waifu. (Guess that would explain why Shenhua is a mostly? lesbian...)

Anyway, I don't really want to open a salt mine here, and we did and still do people who are objectively 'slower' in Cultivation than Ling Qi. It just feels as if there is an infinite supply of people that are as fast or faster, and it's not limited to the the very upper tiers of the nobility either. So, I am at times not sure how to read things, really. It's probably Yrs trying to point out that Ling Qi actually *isnt* the Chosen of the Heavens and a once-in-ten-thousand-years-genius; it just becomes a bit much for me sometimes.

 

[Arkeus]

So, thoughts: it seems that Ling Qi failed in all her objectives here, but that her objectives might have been born from unrealistic expectations.

Her desire (or at least the voters' expressed desire) for attacking the main group was not to occupy the leaders, but it was to make it scatter and get a 'quick win' so that none of them could attack the village effectively, or so that Ling Qi could support the other village soon. The result was that they did manage to attack the village and might have managed to kill a lot of people, and there is absolutely no way Ling Qi's going to be able to rescue other villages for a long while now. Let's be realistic here: the main damage we might have done to them is from HC that leader, and if he didn't die that means their whole raid probably had a couple red dying vs extensive casualities + damage on our side. Now, here is what we know of barb raids:

Guan Zhi briefly looked her way, assessing Ling Qi. "Young men out to prove themselves warriors by looting and killing," she replied calmly. "The typical raid is a quick affair, a half dozen or so low ranking cultivators swooping down to smash homes, destabilize quarries or mines, and steal livestock and metals. It is unusual for them to stand and fight, and a show of force will typically scare them off immediately. However, sometimes this is only a feint to draw glory hungry soldiers into chasing them."

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Now, the big thing is that for the investment they put in the raid, their results were mediocre at best. We could say Ling Qi changed what would have been a disaster into just a 'common raid' loss.

As for whether the other choice would have been better? We can't know. What we can know is that Ling Qi effectively ended up in the 'role' of the controlled supercombatant, while in the defence option she would have instead tried to control the superarmy. I expect that like how she couldn't manage to rout the army the way her unrealistic expectations made her want to, she couldn't have controlled the superarmy the way she would have wanted to. Hard to know, however.

Other thoughts:

The time savings many people wanted for going to other villages didn't materialize. Li g Qi's committed to this village for a good while at this point.

If Ling Qi had PLR up, she's be able to kidnap enemy officers to force reactions and junk. Ending this encounter with dragging off the injured Green would be a lot more satisfying.

This isn't quite serious, but @yrsillar can we get a refund or something on PLR? It's our on-paper most potent art currently known, but you would t know it. We went from being unable to use it, to barely using it, to using it exclusively for Joyous Toast in convoluted ways narratively focused on the performance of other arts, to solely using it for an SCS knock-off. Considering its connection to Sixiang, one third of our Lunar patrons, and our commitment to training an entirely separate skill purely for a single technique of the art(which we didn't use here, and effectively never do) it's... not a great situation by any metric.

I get that the aesthetics of the art make it really difficult to write I to the tone of many scenes, especially considering our other arts, but there's nothing we can do about that. Like, is Ling Qi just crap with it because she's too prudish to remember the party the art is based on. Blocking out the naked spirits? Idgi.

P.S.: the actual reason PLR isn't used properly is damage arts ruined our build

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To be fair, if we had chosen the defence option PLR would have shone. The reason Ling Qi didn't use it was because PLR is a tech that shines in long fight that are control based, and the tactic Ling Qi tried was to be the barb herself and raid hard.

@Black Noise before I forget, good catch on SCS range Vs mists. I think the enemy was doing an AoE pushback tech at that poi t though? The might also be more of a tear shape when we're moving at max speed, rather than a sphere, but that shouldn't be the case because of our Music nonsense.

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LFWT would have made her immune to the knockback

 

[Sundancer]

So, thoughts: it seems that Ling Qi failed in all her objectives here, but that her objectives might have been born from unrealistic expectations.

The result was that they did manage to attack the village and might have managed to kill a lot of people, and there is absolutely no way Ling Qi's going to be able to rescue other villages for a long while now.

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Hmm, that's not really my read of the situation.
Ling Qi failed to solo the barbarian intrusion and defeat everyone ever, but, from my read, she did manage to prevent most of further civilian casualties after her arrival. Which is honestly pretty good. Fields getting burned down is annoying, but they can be resown.

She didn't win quickly, and wasn't able to reinforce the other villages but if all villages faced a similar overwhelming intrusion, she a) wouldn't have been able to save much at the second village and b) this really was a Kobayashi Maru without the test part. In short, an unwinnable situation and we did about as well as could be expected.

What we probably can say is that playing defense might have been safer but it wouldn't have avoided any more damage and not cost the barbarians more either. They would have been unlikely to suicide charge until they are dead, after all.

 

[Arkeus]

Hmm, that's not really my read of the situation.
Ling Qi failed to solo the barbarian intrusion and defeat everyone ever, but, from my read, she did manage to prevent most of further civilian casualties after her arrival. Which is honestly pretty good. Fields getting burned down is annoying, but they can be resown.

She didn't win quickly, and wasn't able to reinforce the other villages but if all villages faced a similar overwhelming intrusion, she a) wouldn't have been able to save much at the second village and b) this really was a Kobayashi Maru without the test part. In short, an unwinnable situation and we did about as well as could be expected.

What we probably can say is that playing defense might have been safer but it wouldn't have avoided any more damage and not cost the barbarians more either. They would have been unlikely to suicide charge until they are dead, after all.

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It was probably Kobayashi Maru, but Ling Qi's goals were to win here, as were the voters'. Yes, those were unrealistic expectations, but that's the point. She wanted to rout them quickly enough that things couldn't go worse, and voters wanted to do it quickly enough to be able to save the other villages. Neither happened.

As for her preventing further casualities after her arrival, I don't think it's really the case as it appears her choice left Shen Hu/Other leader alone, while if she had gone defence she would have had the option to link up to the lonely green as per WoG.

We haven't actually seen the extent of the damage and how many people died however, so you might be right.

 

[veekie]

At what age do the barbarians start cultivatin?
Because, fine, our age, our level, considering that the barbarians lack the ability to funnel insane resources to individuals that the empire has, even if they are our level now, it seems unlikely the bard could keep up.
So if they are meant as a rival character for later, having them keep beeing at our level seems borderline unbelievable unless they are a once in a generation genius talent, and even then it feels unlikely.
The whole point of the sect is that it can hyperfocus cultivators into advancing, barbarians don't have the kind of support structures the sect in specific, or empire in general, has that makes something like that possible.

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What we know is:
-The Reds on gliders are around 12-14-ish, youths out to get blooded under guidance.

-The Yellows have bonded their spirit beasts and basically the 'meat' of their forces. They are expected to be able to lead small groups but have limited responsibilities

-The Greens would probably equate to full adults, going by the other Early Culture references. This means for a tribal culture, the right to speak and vote at council.

Nomads and similar barbarian types achieve a higher concentration of strong cultivators due to high environment attrition, they look like they have a lot of badasses but thats because everyone ELSE tends to die in the course of hunting and stuff

 

[Valmond]

What we know is:
-The Reds on gliders are around 12-14-ish, youths out to get blooded under guidance.

-The Yellows have bonded their spirit beasts and basically the 'meat' of their forces. They are expected to be able to lead small groups but have limited responsibilities

-The Greens would probably equate to full adults, going by the other Early Culture references. This means for a tribal culture, the right to speak and vote at council.

Nomads and similar barbarian types achieve a higher concentration of strong cultivators due to high environment attrition, they look like they have a lot of badasses but thats because everyone ELSE tends to die in the course of hunting and stuff

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I was just trying to figure out how long the bard would have been cultivating to get to a point where they are.
If they are red at 12, then the bard, unless a real late bloomer, would have spent, what, two to three times as long cultivating as we have?
Unlikely to become a long term rival then.

 

[Arkeus]

I was just trying to figure out how long the bard would have been cultivating to get to a point where they are.
If they are red at 12, then the bard, unless a real late bloomer, would have spent, what, two to three times as long cultivating as we have?
Unlikely to become a long term rival then.

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Real cultivation begins at 14. It's like how CRX became red at 6yo, but Ling Qi already is on the same cultivation level. It doesn't mean CRX will be bypassed, just that six to fourteen gives very small gain cultivation wise.

 

[Asael]

Real cultivation begins at 14. It's like how CRX became red at 6yo, but Ling Qi already is on the same cultivation level. It doesn't mean CRX will be bypassed, just that six to 14 gives very small gain cultivation wise.

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Well, even reds can learn mundane skills very quickly, so it's not like starting a little early is useless.

I imagine they start early mostly to reduce vulnerability to disease and cold though. I mean, they live on a mountain.

 

[Echki]

[X] Search and Rescue

 

[veekie]

Well, even reds can learn mundane skills very quickly, so it's not like starting a little early is useless.

I imagine they start early mostly to reduce vulnerability to disease and cold though. I mean, they live on a mountain.

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Yeah, noncultivators can't even approach the cloud line without serious protection.

 

[Black Noise]

The barbarian musician being Ling Qi's age and Cultivation is once again a solid 'meh'. I know that Yrs doesn't intend it that way, but overall it reads as if Ling Qi's Cultivation speed is fairly average at best, and effects from keeping pace with the Ducals are invisible.

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I'll make a few notes on this topic to hopefully bury it for now. Going off of xp numbers and bits of yrs commentary I won't bother digging up.

• The bard is in our age range, not necessarily the same late 15 y/o as LQ.
• Getting to Green, assuming you have decent talent and luck, is a matter of consistent rss and yss, and access to a decent cultivation art. Progressing through early green isn't exactly a huge drain on resources either, especially for a high status up-and-coming talent a barbarian tribe would likely want to cultivate into a powerhouse.
• Assuming reasonable resource availability, basically anyone with decent talent would get to Green 3 just fine at age 15-16. 17 would be just as easy on yss alone.
• Green 4 is the first real bottleneck with the needed advanced insight, then Green 6 with another 2 and a host of other requirements, and of course green 7 and 8 and the breakthrough to Cyan itself can each get someone stuck for years.
• Access to harsh training and elders/clan legacy probably helps with the insight requirements, though getting through those bottlenecks quickly is still a matter of luck and talent.
• In terms of progression rate, going off of yss alone makes things take ~twice as long. It's significant but the gap should only become apparent at the higher stages of green, and yrs' intention at least is that the non-cultivation requirements are the real bottleneck at those.
• Bao Quan and Luo Zhong in particular are definitely on the genius track, only a few months behind our projected progress rate, though it's hard to say how long they'll be stuck at the higher stage bottlenecks in green. Plus, one OOC reason for Quan is at least partially so that him as a marriage candidate won't come off as creepy.

The overall picture painted is that talented and doted-upon greens similar to us in both age and Cultivation level should be relatively frequent until ~green 6, with notable decreases across "difficult" levels like g3>4 and 5>6. We can expect peer cultivators to be a growing number of months older than us, and only true freaks of nature continuing to ~match pace into green 7+.

If we're still meeting a ton of people our age that can match us in cultivation when we're green 6+ (outside contexts where that's expected like tournaments) we can call bullshit then.

For now, progression numbers and relative abundance of young talents makes sense with what we know.

EDIT: barbarians don't cultivate with spirit stones, using beast milk/products at mortal>red and relying on their bonded spirit later on, but similar or slightly slower progress should hold compared to the imperial method (whose main strengths lies in the very long ans well-tested legacy, and the ability to consistently and mostly safely produce White cultivators).

 

[Forte]

It feels like people are either forgetting or willfully ignoring the fact that cultivation in this world is fairly exponential. The fact that LQ pushed back all of the 2nd realm and higher cultivators with only a scratch is a major success. If you also take in how buffs work she removed (at least temporarily) 70-80% of this raids strength with the idea that the rest of the people assigned to defend the area could handle the reds.

If people didn't want to have to rely on other people and wanted to solo why have they been voting for social? LQ can't be everywhere and in a world where you can buff followers going for a decapitating strike (and survive) when you have other people who are defending is 100% the right option.

Edit: I was referring to the previous vote being correct, overextending is a bad idea.

 

[Zithinoth]

[X] Search and Rescue

 

[Katreus]

The barbarian musician being Ling Qi's age and Cultivation is once again a solid 'meh'. I know that Yrs doesn't intend it that way, but overall it reads as if Ling Qi's Cultivation speed is fairly average at best, and effects from keeping pace with the Ducals are invisible. I am mainly referring to the 'romance options' presented during various parts of the quest. Each one of them was a around two or three years older than Ling Qi but several steps in Cultivation ahead; to the point that we aren't sure we can match their speed/age. I get that named characters that are introduced as "weaker" risk getting little interest. Or that the potential husbands were meant to be seen as strong enough to have future potential. Or maybe its just some weird imperial tradition that the husband has to be more strong than the waifu. (Guess that would explain why Shenhua is a mostly? lesbian...)

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If he's our age and cultivation, he's slightly less talented. The whole point of the barb system of cultivation is that it power levels its users to the 'natural' potential power cap of the partner by allowing them to cultivate only one half of the base cultivation that an imperial cultivator would do. The tradeoff of course is that it's hard to push past the power cap of your partner, but no way the bard doesn't have at least a decent partner with a fairly high power cap (so prob 5th -7th realm) although of course, its current power level is equivalent to its partner bard. But if he's our cultivation level at half the work... Good. But not better.

 

[Sundancer]

If he's our age and cultivation, he's slightly less talented.

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My whining here is mostly silly and not perfectly rational, given narrative constraints and everything. I am the first to admit that. So, people hopefully don't take it too serious it was just me saying something random about (non-alcoholic) beer and pretzels. But it wasn't directed solely or even primary against Barb-kun, but more against the overall feel. Everyone somewhat relevant Ling Qi meets is a couple of steps ahead in Cultivation. Sure, you can say "well, to matter you need to be strong/ahead in Cultviation" and that is mostly correct. But it doesn't create good optics for being told that Ling Qi 'levels up' very quickly. We are told one thing, and are more or less seeing another. Even if there are reasons for what we are seeing, it's creating a dissonance. At least for me. Maybe I am just being blonde about it.

 

[larkins]

I know that Yrs doesn't intend it that way, but overall it reads as if Ling Qi's Cultivation speed is fairly average at best, and effects from keeping pace with the Ducals are invisible.
...
It just feels as if there is an infinite supply of people that are as fast or faster, and it's not limited to the the very upper tiers of the nobility either.

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Ling Qi doesn't pay any attention to anyone that is her age and significantly lower in cultivation so we have no idea how many scores of them she's met.

Somone two years older than Ling Qi has had more than double the amount of time to cultivate, yet would be considered in her "age range". They could be half as fast as Ling Qi and still be on her level.

 

[veekie]

My whining here is mostly silly and not perfectly rational, given narrative constraints and everything. I am the first to admit that. So, people hopefully don't take it too serious it was just me saying something random about (non-alcoholic) beer and pretzels. But it wasn't directed solely or even primary against Barb-kun, but more against the overall feel. Everyone somewhat relevant Ling Qi meets is a couple of steps ahead in Cultivation. Sure, you can say "well, to matter you need to be strong/ahead in Cultviation" and that is mostly correct. But it doesn't create good optics for being told that Ling Qi 'levels up' very quickly. We are told one thing, and are more or less seeing another. Even if there are reasons for what we are seeing, it's creating a dissonance. At least for me. Maybe I am just being blonde about it.

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Actually, Ling Qi is specifically special mainly in the combination of talent and murderous work ethic with her luck making up for resources that the established noble clans have.

She's not actually very unusual amongst the elite, the elite build their entire lifestyle and politics around achieving what she had by birth, and by chance, but only a few people cultivate with the sheer fervor she does, what with actually having a life.

 

[Ayashi]

My whining here is mostly silly and not perfectly rational, given narrative constraints and everything. I am the first to admit that. So, people hopefully don't take it too serious it was just me saying something random about (non-alcoholic) beer and pretzels. But it wasn't directed solely or even primary against Barb-kun, but more against the overall feel. Everyone somewhat relevant Ling Qi meets is a couple of steps ahead in Cultivation. Sure, you can say "well, to matter you need to be strong/ahead in Cultviation" and that is mostly correct. But it doesn't create good optics for being told that Ling Qi 'levels up' very quickly. We are told one thing, and are more or less seeing another. Even if there are reasons for what we are seeing, it's creating a dissonance. At least for me. Maybe I am just being blonde about it.

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while i would have agreed a couple chaps back, we recently have seen a couple of lines that indicate that she does "levels up fast".
First, we have Meizhen that actually tells her that simply keeping up with ducal is a feat in of itself (subtext: for a street rat urchin).
And then we have also been shown that Xiulan and Shen Hu both are actually falling further back compared with Ling Qi.

 

[AbeoLogos]

Alright, quick apology for my tense scattershot posting earlier. Was posting from work via my phone, so I couldn't really devote a lot of attention to the thread, or manage the editing for larger, more coherent posts. Also I was kind of annoyed at work things.

[] Search and Rescue
[The barbarians are retreating. Priority needs to go to saving lives and reducing damage in the aftermath. Focuses on rescuing your counterpart, in case his pursuers do not retreat, then aiding the town in recovery. Risks the retreat being a feint, and ending up out of position.]
[] Push the attack
[This is obviously a feint. You have not hurt them that much. Press the attack on the warleaders and musician, finish off the man trapped in your elegy and keep your focus on the barbarians. Will maintain focus on main group, with a secondary objective of driving off the other scouting captains pursuers. Risks allowing even greater collateral damage.]

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Here's what we've got to work with. Way I see it, each option's outcome is more or less binary and dependent on whether the barbarian's retreat is sincere or not.

/	True Retreat	Feint Retreat
Search and Rescue	Town recovery is helped somewhat by Ling Qi's efforts; no medical skill, ability to put out fires without collateral unclear, spotting and transporting injured; scout captain ally is safe	Ling Qi's rescue efforts result in her being out of position to keep enemy command force's movements in check, they likely succeed in self-appointed tasks; scout captain ally is likely saved from further injury
Push the attack	Barbarian leader group is further pressured/injured, village emergency response efforts rely on current personnel, some effort to help allied scout captain	Barbarian leader group is further pressured/injured, village continues to suffer attack from Red raiders, some effort to help allied scout captain but likely too little

Most notable to me is the outcomes in the case the retreat is a feint are... not even close to equal. Reds harassing the village is bad, but the main concentration of their force's heavy hitters being free to make a pass or three before Ling Qi gets her ass over there is much, much worse. Our fellow scout captain suffers if the retreat is a fake, but only if we pick the option that defends against the enemy Greens rolling the village unopposed(by us). Considering the Cloud Nomads' prior performance against Shen Hu was with an as-yet veiled head commander, I think the risk of allowing such an attack is too great to take. Moderate to high chance of the scout captain biting it seems like a reasonable trade-off for avoiding the same of a barb core blob strafe of the village.

Since I can't identify anything in the text which points even circumstantially at a feint being more or less likely, I'll default to weighing the worst case scenarios and picking the lesser evil.
[X] Push the attack

Narratively, I'm much less confident in this vote. The end of the update before this one set up Ling Qi + Shen Hu team friendship power! And then she just kind of flew off and left things to him. It was inevitable with our choices, but disappointing. This update lacked weight to me, because the only stakes we were actually seeing "on screen" was Ling Qi's own health, and she tanked those concerns like a boss. There wasn't much to spark tension, just the pissing contest she had with the enemy commander.

It feels as though a Ling Qi who doesn't sift through the corpses by hand personally is going to let all the lessons she should have been learning simply drift out of mind. Which shouldn't need to be the case, but we just... aren't voting to connect with people, you know? So I worry. Moving forwards, Search and Rescue seems the more promising of the two in terms of characterization, but it doesn't really stack up compared to the prior option prioritizing the village's welfare directly. If it goes well, it's a pretty boring sifting through the ashes and feeling sad, and if it goes wrong then... hoo boy, that is an ugly experience by leaps and bounds beyond either of the previous, or the other one now.

Spoiler: Vote structure critique

I'm not a fan of these vote options, and it took me a bit to realize it's a mirror of something that popped up during the noble hunting party arc. We have an overarching goal, there it was social acclimation and ingratiation, here it was defending the village from harm. We're given two options: Option A and Option B. We pick Option A. We get an update, and the results of Option A were mixed. We're then given two more options: Option A Harder and Option B but Worse.

If you look at the two current votes and the votes from last update, they're basically the same thing. The same thing happened during the hunting party, where we made a choice and then we got given a choice of sticking with it, or taking a stab at the other previous choice, but in significantly worse circumstances for it. In this case, we can go help out the town like we didn't focus on in the first round of choice, but the context has shifted so that it a) does not prevent the damage already done that we allowed to already be done by our previous decision, b) does not perform the task in the context of an exciting or narratively rewarding or heroic or urgent or engaging manner, c) carries the apparently larger and more existential threat of the two options, including and especially to the actual target of the assistance offered.

It's difficult to interpret whether we failed to pick the "right" choice and this is a chance at a "Redo" to hit some vital character development point or not, or whether the other path would have offered similarly recycled priorities to choose between. Search and Rescue is currently being voted for overwhelmingly, in part because of the impression something was done wrong. A substantial part of this is probably the fact the vote options are basically repeats of the last. The issue is the votes do not appear to actually promise the same things as last time, with significantly different risk/reward structures behind them, but that's obfuscated by, again, the repetition.

Following an update that held mixed success with votes that are close to repeats of the prior set will tend to bias the next round of voting very strongly, reflexively, in the "other" direction, even when the fundamentals behind the choices have changed. Even more strongly when the fundamentals behind the choices are impossible to measure. The fact that there's no way to tell whether the barbarians are feinting their retreat or not means this vote is especially problematic- there's no actual substance to base our decision off of, which causes the meta influence of the vote's repeat structure to have an even larger effect.

 

[larkins]

/	True Retreat	Feint Retreat
Search and Rescue	Town recovery is helped somewhat by Ling Qi's efforts; no medical skill, ability to put out fires without collateral unclear, spotting and transporting injured; scout captain ally is safe	Ling Qi's rescue efforts result in her being out of position to keep enemy command force's movements in check, they likely succeed in self-appointed tasks; scout captain ally is likely saved from further injury
Push the attack	Barbarian leader group is further pressured/injured, village emergency response efforts rely on current personnel, some effort to help allied scout captain	Barbarian leader group is further pressured/injured, village continues to suffer attack from Red raiders, some effort to help allied scout captain but likely too little

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It was mentioned earlier but largely ignored: only pursue cavalry if it's a total route. If it's not a total route (and it isn't here) then the cavalry pulls the pursuer(s) out of position and then takes them apart (Edit: or goes around them to hit soft targets in case the entire army pursues).

The correct thing to do is to consolidate your position in case the cavalry returns. Hopefully that's at least part of what Ling Qi means when she thinks "search and rescue", but SnR is still better than pursuit.

 

[Sundancer]

While I agree that some of the voting options in the quest didn't work out or looked very good (not blaming Yrs here, that stuff is *hard*) I am a bit doubtful of your meta-analysis. Charging the nomadic raiders to drive them off is one thing, but following them when they retreat is an entirely other thing and what got a lot of people killed during history.

Maybe it would help a little if after each arc we get a brief outline of how the vote-paths were going to develop and what alternate outcomes would have been. It would have the benefit of the questers getting to understand the QM's intentions, at least in hindsight. But it does have the risk of creating even more salt (as hard as more salt is to imagine...) and told-you-so's.

 

[Huo Yuhao]

[X] Push the attack

I'm not sure I agree that this is the better option here, especially when characterization is taken into account, but I don't see any upside to the bandwagoning going on with this vote. This option also has some justification character-wise based on Ling Qi's recollection of the Forest King arc and the coldness she showed toward the barbarians in the last chapter. That's somewhat mitigated by her bitterness in this chapter. I was thinking Ling Qi's bitterness here would make her more likely to change her course of action, but it's possible her bitterness could cause her to double down on chasing the barbarians as well.

 

[AbeoLogos]

It was mentioned earlier but largely ignored: only pursue cavalry if it's a total route. If it's not a total route (and it isn't here) then the cavalry pulls the pursuer(s) out of position and then takes them apart.

The correct thing to do is to consolidate your position in case the cavalry returns. Hopefully that's at least part of what Ling Qi means when she thinks "search and rescue", but SnR is still better than pursuit.

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That's fine. If they're focusing on Ling Qi, it's fine. We didn't get to have engaging cooperative scenes with allies, it doesn't appear possible with the current vote lineup, so we can at least keep them safe via stumbling into a distant trap we won't be seriously harmed by. I'd like to think we would, but the last update kind of eroded my faith in Ling Qi's vulnerability.

While I agree that some of the voting options in the quest didn't work out or looked very good (not blaming Yrs here, that stuff is *hard*) I am a bit doubtful of your meta-analysis. Charging the nomadic raiders to drive them off is one thing, but following them when they retreat is an entirely other thing and what got a lot of people killed during history.

Maybe it would help a little if after each arc we get a brief outline of how the vote-paths were going to develop and what alternate outcomes would have been. It would have the benefit of the questers getting to understand the QM's intentions, at least in hindsight. But it does have the risk of creating even more salt (as hard as more salt is to imagine...) and told-you-so's.

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Why the concern and/or cowardice now? Ling Qi was barely scratched. Can she actually catch them to put the hurt on? Maybe not. However, in the context of the listed options and their consequences, fruitlessly chasing them for half a day is probably better than not. The risks just don't line up as even close to equal. Failing to pursue them means leaving the village wide open to attack. Pursuing them leaves one ally half-open to attack. We're stuck with a binary choice, like it or not.

 

[larkins]

That's fine. If they're focusing on Ling Qi, it's fine. We didn't get to have engaging cooperative scenes with allies, it doesn't appear possible with the current vote lineup, so we can at least keep them safe via stumbling into a distant trap we won't be seriously harmed by. I'd like to think we would, but the last update kind of eroded my faith in Ling Qi's vulnerability.

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I didn't expect Ling Qi to be overly harmed by the last vote, but here I fully expect that pursuit would have significant adverse consequences. I don't think the vaguely positive results of her initial aggression prove her invulnerable to the dangers of pursuing now.

Spoiler: Vote structure critique

I'm not a fan of these vote options, and it took me a bit to realize it's a mirror of something that popped up during the noble hunting party arc. We have an overarching goal, there it was social acclimation and ingratiation, here it was defending the village from harm. We're given two options: Option A and Option B. We pick Option A. We get an update, and the results of Option A were mixed. We're then given two more options: Option A Harder and Option B but Worse.

If you look at the two current votes and the votes from last update, they're basically the same thing. The same thing happened during the hunting party, where we made a choice and then we got given a choice of sticking with it, or taking a stab at the other previous choice, but in significantly worse circumstances for it. In this case, we can go help out the town like we didn't focus on in the first round of choice, but the context has shifted so that it a) does not prevent the damage already done that we allowed to already be done by our previous decision, b) does not perform the task in the context of an exciting or narratively rewarding or heroic or urgent or engaging manner, c) carries the apparently larger and more existential threat of the two options, including and especially to the actual target of the assistance offered.

It's difficult to interpret whether we failed to pick the "right" choice and this is a chance at a "Redo" to hit some vital character development point or not, or whether the other path would have offered similarly recycled priorities to choose between. Search and Rescue is currently being voted for overwhelmingly, in part because of the impression something was done wrong. A substantial part of this is probably the fact the vote options are basically repeats of the last. The issue is the votes do not appear to actually promise the same things as last time, with significantly different risk/reward structures behind them, but that's obfuscated by, again, the repetition.

Following an update that held mixed success with votes that are close to repeats of the prior set will tend to bias the next round of voting very strongly, reflexively, in the "other" direction, even when the fundamentals behind the choices have changed. Even more strongly when the fundamentals behind the choices are impossible to measure. The fact that there's no way to tell whether the barbarians are feinting their retreat or not means this vote is especially problematic- there's no actual substance to base our decision off of, which causes the meta influence of the vote's repeat structure to have an even larger effect.

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I think it's less "wrong choice" and more about the way yrsillar comes up with vote options. The aftermath left off in a vaguely similar situation which passes through yrsillar's simulation of how Ling Qi thinks and results in vaguely similar choices.

 

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I didn't expect Ling Qi to be overly harmed by the last vote, but here I fully expect that pursuit would have significant adverse consequences. I don't think vaguely positive results of her initial aggression prove her invulnerable to the dangers of pursuing now.


I think it's less "wrong choice" and more about the way yrsillar comes up with vote options. The aftermath left off in a vaguely similar situation which passes through yrsillar's simulation of how Ling Qi thinks and results in vaguely similar choices.

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Again, the choices are "Allied scout captain and Ling Qi are at greater risk" vs "Village is at greater risk and Ling Qi's ability to interfere is explicitly curtailed". The differences between the plans if the flight from battle is legitimate is almost not worth discussing because the one result from it being a feint is so bad. I don't want to attack the barbarians further. I think it's a stupid plan. It's still the best plan we have, of the two we're forced to pick between, from their own descriptions of the possible consequences.

If we had another choice, or if the risks were outlined differently, I would happily change my position. As it is, I can'r reconcile risking the enemy Yellows/Greens getting a clear shot on the village with Ling Qi's previous decision to target them specifically with the explicit intent of opening up distance between them and the village. Not unless I believed the retreat was legitimate. The problem is I don't know if the retreat is legitimate and have no way of knowing. Search and Rescue trusts the barbarians are being genuine, Push the attack trusts that they are not.

Since I can't tell which is true, I have to judge by which consequences I want to mitigate. If the premise of Search and Rescue is correct, then the consequences of not picking it are still pretty mild. No villagers are threatened or harmed(except in the context of not assisted with existing fire/injury) if the retreat is real and we pursue the barbarians. Other way around? Literally the worst scenario.