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

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[X] Train Wind Thief without your Cai Dress ( +0.2 multiplier, Art Bonus)

The problem with training with the Dress is fundamentally simple: That dress, the thread, used to be a part of Cai's spirit. Do you want to be forever bound to Cai? To have a spirit as part of our cultivation that will always answer and be connected to its origin spirit in our ruler?

I think not. The Cai dress is great, but seriously, math cabal, at some point we need to figure out another armor set, for when we want to go incognito/unnoticed.

Any type of quest like that will out us for a Cai retainer the moment they see our armor, if we are spotted. Mind you, in cultivation, your arts would out you just as much and Ling Qi is memorable, but the point stands. It would be nice to stop only relying on and using Cai dresses for armor.

This is the kind of thing in cultivation that might come back to really fuck us later on. Talismans are great, in the short run, but don't turn them into crutches. Or leashes.
 
[X] Train Wind Thief without your Cai Dress ( +0.2 multiplier, Art Bonus)

Meta, the other option makes sense. In-character, it's Ling Qi being neglectful with her foundation. Heresy!

Ayashi said:
From an objective point of view when deciding which of the Art or the Dress we should aim to permanently buff the most important part is how often we use each and which one are we going to outgrow the soonest.
I think it's pretty obvious that the Dress is going to last us for a good looong time, whereas the Art is probably going to be replaced in the next realm (Cyan iirc?) at the very latest.
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Okay, so I've seen this argument come up before in the thread and I kind of really don't see it?

The successor Art mechanic is a big deal. It makes it so the AP we poured into learning lower level arts don't just become lost to the void as we move on to new, higher potency arts, but become integrated into the full arc of learning the Way of a particular art chain.

And sure, there are some arts that we won't be looking for / making successors to. I'm skeptically eyeing BKSD, for example, as 'beast king' is just really not Ling Qi's aesthetic even if it fits her well mechanically.

But LFWT? We are absolutely not discarding that one, and any hypothetical successor we find / make will incorporate the bonuses we got to it early on!

That's the whole point of learning successor art chains - you're setting your foundation and improving on it. We cannot be a jack of all trades magpie stealing bits and pieces of others' Ways to put into our own for a bit then discard as we find something shinier forever.

My prediction is that by Cyan we will stop looking for new non-hobby / non-lower-realm-to-build-up-successor-chain-of arts entirely. All Green... 6+? 7+? new arts will be successors.

It's called a good foundation.

EDIT: successors or self-made, which would be kind of like making a successor art to ALL our other arts together that won't be a successor to any specific one of them. My point about LFWT being forever stands.

Anderein said:
[X] Train Wind Thief while wearing your Cai Dress (-0.2 multiplier. Dress Reaction)

The other option feels like a trap.

1) If the dress is going to react, then we want that to happen as soon as possible, and we want it to happen in a situation where we know it won't fundamentally threaten her safety. It's like a Heart Demon, except with a fundamental part of her defenses--and Heart Demons only get worse the longer you ignore them.

She's not going to use Wind Thief except when she's training or when she's in danger. I'd much rather roll the dice on danger in the former situation than the latter.

2) Even ignoring that, you should train in a situation representative of what you're training for. Ling Qi isn't going to be going into fights without her armor. Furthermore...

3) If it's difficult to use Wind Thief while wearing the dress (as the cultivation penalty implies), then that seems like it'd be good for developing basic competency. It's not going to be reflected in the numbers, no, but you grow stronger by pushing through resistance. Being actually technically skilled at Wind Thief seems really useful!

4) We don't need the cultivation bonus and we don't care about the cultivation penalty. If Yrsillar balanced this without first consulting Math Cabal spreadsheets (as I'd strongly expect), then he presumably balanced without realizing that "plans will 100% be met either way" figure--which means that with the cultivation bonuses and penalties eliminated, wearing the dress should be better, because it's intended to be better.
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To me, it's wearing the dress that feels like a trap option. Someone earlier in the threat that I forgot to quote said that the cultivation penalty might BE the dress's reaction - it actively hampers learning the art, deliberately, and we learn something new about the dress? Woo?
 
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[X] Train Wind Thief while wearing your Cai Dress (-0.2 multiplier. Dress Reaction)

I think I'm going with this for now. LQ knows IC the dress will awaken at some point and it's not like she's gonna stop wearing it from now on. There needs to be a degree of trust in that relationship similar to the one we have with Sixiang to avoid grief for both sides, and I think it's better to start off on the right foot with that.

From the perspective of the art... Wind thief was given to us by an avatar of the grinning moon and contains the seeds of that girl's path, which is awesome, but LQ is not that girl and she's already learned to temper her desire for unrestrained freedom with her roots and connections. The art even says:
In this art are the seeds of the way she forged, refined for the modern day, to inspire a disciples own flight. In mastering the dual powers of darkness and wind, that they might never be caught unwillingly again.
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So to me the question is if we trust in CRX's vision to accept another chain, another bond. Long term I think the answer is yes, though at the moment LQ doesn't fully buy into it, but I'm willing to bet in the name of mutual trust.

I'm sure we'd be able to work through it either way but personally I prefer to get that kind of drama over with sooner rather than later.
 
You know, people have basically been saying that they don't wanna open up the whole can of worms with the dress and the drama that's gonna involve ATM b/c its a busy turn, packed with other things to focus on. I do get it, its the long awaited Darkness Month. However, I don't really think the drama of introducing this plot point will really come out in this turn. The Dress' reaction is most likely gonna be a hint, a glimpse of what to come.
The Dress is only really awakening much later...people have speculated that it might awaken only when we reach Cyan. I think Yrsillar knows we got a lot of balls in the air right now, w/ the training arts and Ji Rong fight coming up. He's offering to give us a hint of what our dress will be about, of whats to come. I doubt it will really detract from the narrative this turn.
 
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TimEd said:
Maybe the Reaction IS the debuff? Like Dress-chan intentionally or unintentionally messing up the Art cultivation?
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No? The reason for the debuff is quite clearly stated, its harder to learn an art that emulates flight while you already have flight. Its like learning to swim with a jet propulsion system on your back.

Now, its perfectly fine to prioritize art quality over the Dress quality, but I think adding unwarranted fears seem to be missing the point
 
hmmm didnt we want to have an artifact or something commisioned by lin hai soon? wouldnt this be a great tie in for that if it reacts but doesnt wake up, it gives us even more reason to go see them.
 
IC Ling Qi have no reason to believe that cultivating LFWT in her dress will lead to some sort of reaction from her dress. She is considering taking it off because she know that there would be temptation to use it as crutch. Her instincts to use dress for flight would work against her attempts to learn LFWT.

In Meta I believe that promised 'Art bonus' can be integrated later in our Way and permanently empower LQ. Also it's possible that we can get advanced Atlehtics this way, because LQ would be able to push her speed limits instead of dividing her attention between flight and dress.

[X] Train Wind Thief without your Cai Dress ( +0.2 multiplier, Art Bonus)
 
Liliet said:
To me, it's wearing the dress that feels like a trap option.
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Yrsillar does not do trap options. That is not his style. The QM is also aware that we have many plates in the air right now and is noted to value narrative flow over needless drama in his work until now.

Lena27 said:
However, I don't really think the drama of introducing this plot point will really come out in this turn. The Dress' reaction is most likely gonna be a hint, a glimpse of what to come.
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I am with you on that one.

Therefore:

[X] Train Wind Thief while wearing your Cai Dress (-0.2 multiplier. Dress Reaction)
 
Ling Qi wears the dress all the time, she will continue to wear it all the time indefinitely. I see no real reason she would take it off, nor do I see any advantage in doing so.

[X] Train Wind Thief while wearing your Cai Dress (-0.2 multiplier. Dress Reaction)
 
I think an interesting part of the vote is that Ling Qi's intention behind the Cai dress option is to use said dress as a crutch to learn the art. However, this option is the one that gives a negative modifier for the art training.

On the other hand, training the art herself without said crutch is not only training faster, but also gives a bonus to the art.

I think it is worth asking why this is the case.

I think the 'art bonus' can be explained as Ling Qi actually learning how the art works as opposed to getting a good enough result by offloading part of the work to the dress.

But what reason could there be to the cultivation multiplier? One possible idea to explain the cultivation malus for using the dress is that 'using a crutch' goes against the themes of the art of being unrestricted.

What do you think? Do you have a different idea to explain the effects for the choices?
 
strauss said:
Ling Qi wears the dress all the time, she will continue to wear it all the time indefinitely. I see no real reason she would take it off, nor do I see any advantage in doing so.
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You know, maybe this is a quest thing - this is my first one - but this is also an attitude that confuses me greatly. People talk about Ling Qi's future as though its stability were set in stone. "When we're managing our fief" etc.

As if she's not a protagonist!

As if the Empire isn't foreshadowed to be on fire real soon!

As if she can't get suddenly kidnapped by wind nomads or something!

Equipment is equipment. It can be lost, stolen (yes, I know it'd be a tall order with this one), destroyed... If Ling Qi is facing a choice between letting a friend die and having her dress be destroyed beyond repair - however nice it is - which do you think she'll choose?

Well, it'll be a tougher call if the dress is a sentient spirit by then. But that hasn't happened yet either.
 
naths said:
I think an interesting part of the vote is that Ling Qi's intention behind the Cai dress option is to use said dress as a crutch to learn the art. However, this option is the one that gives a negative modifier for the art training.

On the other hand, training the art herself without said crutch is not only training faster, but also gives a bonus to the art.

I think it is worth asking why this is the case.

I think the 'art bonus' can be explained as Ling Qi actually learning how the art works as opposed to getting a good enough result by offloading part of the work to the dress.

But what reason could there be to the cultivation multiplier? One possible idea to explain the cultivation malus for using the dress is that 'using a crutch' goes against the themes of the art of being unrestricted.

What do you think? Do you have a different idea to explain the effects for the choices?
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My impression is that the dress is a crutch for flying, and having it on when learning LFTW would mean that Ling Qi would get the 'results' easier, but not get the mastery of the art itself. I'm... unsure why you'd get a bonus from trying to learn the art properly though. I suspect that part is a surprise.

[X] Train Wind Thief without your Cai Dress ( +0.2 multiplier, Art Bonus)

As mentioned, the multiplier is basically useless, but I think it's important for Ling Qi to master LFTW properly first. Dress awakening if it happens is a bit meta of a goal, while wanting to master an art properly isn't.

I'm also disagreeing with the argument that Ling Qi is so very far from ''that girl' of the grinning moon. She isn't a copy, obviously, but she has a lot in common.
 
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