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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Arkeus said:
SCS, CDE and IMH gain enough from EPC7 + Bronze Appraisal that they take 1 less AP to master/softcap. So SCS takes 3 turn 3 and 2 turn 4, CDE takes 4 turn 3 and 3 turn 4, and so on. I should have been clearer why those shouldn't be trained turn 3.

As for your plan being better for spiritual, the issue with this is I can't see your plan actually helping us getting to Foundation turn 4, though @Black Noise could check it easily I guess, so both plans would get it turn 5... and the cost for doing such a plan are fairly big: Significantly less Physical cultivation successes, A few AP wasted by training the wrong arts at the wrong time, but mostly being much weaker in turn 3 leading to challenging for standard vent and +1 GSS being iffy, as well as not being ready to answer challenges as easily. Also, I really want to master FVM/FSS.

Basically, from what I can see, this is just making a couple turns with less efficient use of pills in order to get more steafast base cultivation AP when those are currently at their lowest point (no EPC7, -0.1 multiplier, no multi sites, -1YSS). Arguably if it is possible to get Foundation turn 4 it would be worth the lost AP and temporary weakness, but I don't think it will.
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Uhh, if I am reading you right reaching Green 3 at turn 5 needs 600 points from overflow (since it gets 1000 points from turn 3, 400 from turn 4 and 400 from turn 5). I don't think that overflow will work that way; since it incentives to pick arts that have small soft caps and high multiplicative bonuses to forgo physical/spiritual cultivation entirely. Which strikes me as an unintended system exploit.
 
With regards to the SITB (edit: corrected) Plan, Spiritual needs 2362 XP.

Assume EPC on Spiritual in month 3 and 4. More on that later
4 Spiritual AP month 3 is 197x4 dice at 1.1 multiplier.
4 Spiritual AP month 4 is 222x4 dice at 1.1 multiplier. (10 extra from 4 more YSS in Bronze 2, 15 extra from EPC7)

Month 4 would contain 16 AP of music.
2 FVM: (97.7% to complete) for 564 dice at 2.3x
3 HDW: (99.9% to cap) for 741 dice at 2.1x
4 FSS: (100% to cap) for 1128 dice at 2.6x
4 SES: (100% to cap) for 988 dice at 2.05x
3 EANP: (57.4% to cap) for 741 dice at 2.1x

Let's assume everything but EANP caps. Thats 650+750+1200+850=3450 XP of music, with the pill you multiply by 0.25 so 862.5 XP Spiritual from there. 1499.5 left after that.

EANP Spiritual is about 741*2.1*0.55*0.25=214. 1285 left.

Spiritual dice is 1676 total, 1676*0.55*1.1=1014. So 271 left. That 271 needs to be made up either entirely with EPC and Omakes, or it needs overflow to work in some constructive way (who knows)
 
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Black Noise said:
@yrsillar two things:
  1. Some of us are concerned about the thematic fit of SES:
    • It seems to double down on TRF's main issue with the rest of our build of focusing on "immobility"/"taking hits" instead of dodging, as came up in LQ's thoughts after the Ji Rong fight.
    • Can you clarify if it'll have similar issues? (or at least if LQ thinks so)
  2. One way or another we're gonna be getting a lot of overflow on (soft)capped arts, you should make sure it isn't causing balance problems:
    • FSS is expected to overflow by almost 300 xp, others are less crazy but it's still a lot.
    • If you're not throwing it into the void, at least strip the Art multiplier from everything beyond the cap;
      • e.g get 294 overflow on FSS, convert it to 294/2.6 = 113 "raw" xp
      • put raw xp into whatever based on the target's multiplier
      • maybe with an extra x0.5 on top so it'll be (at most) as efficient as going over "overtime" AP training in a turn.
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Why are players suggesting nerfs?
 
Of course, if you look at, say, AM it has techs that are all about spiritual defense and dispels, yet it largely fails to train any of the keywords that would be needed to be good at those things.
 
Arkeus said:
You said "another art that support in another way". I was wondering what kind of support you wanted instead of spiritual defence, as it feels to me that it's exactly what we want to support.
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Group movement or group stealth are the initial things that come to mind. Movement because Ling Qi likes the idea of retreating rather than dying for a parcel of ground or group stealth to allow our allies to benefit from the myriad of ways we have to create stealth enabling terrain. There are also more esoteric things such as giving the group qi drain to help in a battle of attrition.

There are a lot of fun support arts that we can explore that delve into those things.
 
When we first started focusing on stealth and support the reasoning was that when we were alone we would want to run and when we are with friends we want to support them. Group stealth running away seems difficult at least from anyone that we couldn't beat as a group.
 
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I like what I see in a lot of these arts, and I do think SES is workable if we focus on the theme of perseverance rather than stubborness. I mean, it's not like Ling Qi just got out of an epic rap battle where her platform was acceptance of the inevitable loss of home and the value of making a home anew anyways. (In case no one realized, that had me screaming in excitement because it's exactly what I want our domain to be anyways.)

I have to say, for all IMH clings so coosely to our themes, I'm not super interested in slotting it on that grounds. It just feels like it's something self-evident to Ling Qi as a person already (not commenting on the mechanical impact). That home should be warm and safe is something of a given to her considering that's why she gravitated towards it. I recognize it's probably a fools errand to fight slotting it if we grab it, but I feel like exploring more nuanced and personal themes with our domain arts would be more meaningful. For instance, the importance of memories of home picked up from ENM, reinforced with Ling Qi living with distant memories of what was her home for so long. So that others remember and think fondly of their time with her at her home (which was a pretty big appeal to her, using Home as a way to ensure connections with her friends as time goes on, IIRC). Or even the idea that Home is where you can drop your guard and misdirections as derived from MNO.

I guess to point a finer point to it- if you ask pretty much anyone in or out of setting if the idealized home should be warm, comforting and safe? They'd probably say of course (assuming a lack of politics or court intrigue shenanigans being involved). But what does Ling Qi value in her home beyond the obvious? What makes this home feel hers? I don't want to explore the Way of Home Ling Qi happens to walk, I want to explore Ling Qi's way- to see how her experiences coalesce into something utterly unique.
 
Also on the topic of the Seedling art, it's less about immobility than it is about enduring and perseverance, which while they tend to go together, arent really the same thing
 
yrsillar said:
Also on the topic of the Seedling art, it's less about immobility than it is about enduring and perseverance, which while they tend to go together, arent really the same thing
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TRF isn't inherently about immobility either, that didn't mean that it didn't clash with SCS's defense style.

SES might be better there due to being spiritual, but I feel it does kinda reinforce those same basic themes, and runs counter to the insights Ling Qi had last year?

Erebeal said:
Bleh, SES is annoying. It's mechanically useful, but annoying stylistically.

Like, we had all this discussion about the problems with SCS and TRF last year, and Ling Qi actually thought about this in story and how she was less keen on being an immobile tank, and how there was a need to try to resolve this:



One of the big things we thought about in terms of "fixing" TRF would be to focus more on spiritual aspects of Vitality and growth. It's kind of a shame that SES instead really reinforces the "be immobile tank" style of TRF, and thus exacerbates the problem rather than helping us begin to resolve it.

Arguably we screwed ourselves here by voting for "War" and not "Vitality". Vitality would probably have given us stuff more in line with what we want - heck, a vitality based version of SES would be ideal!
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Erebeal said:
TRF isn't inherently about immobility either, that didn't mean that it didn't clash with SCS's defense style.

SES might be better there due to being spiritual, but I feel it does kinda reinforce those same basic themes, and runs counter to the insights Ling Qi had last year?
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Why all of you obsessing on this virtual 'immobility' so much? These Arts doesn't requires us to stay in one place, it doesn't slowing us down or have any other adverse effects. I see TRF less like armor and more like aura of huntsman's from RWBY, they have really good defense, but hardly immobile. Maybe TRF not completely in our style because it assumes that we take hits, but it still good for emergencies when we dealing with obviously overwhelming odds and especially against stronger opponents. And SES is a different story entirely, because it defends us against things that we can't just escape or stealth from, like wide AOE nukes and dispels.
 
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FakePriest said:
I see TRF less like armor and more like aura of huntsman's from RWBY, they have really good defense, but hardly immobile.
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TRF's two highest level techniques are "armor" and "you can't move me".

Like look, if we weren't trying to run darkness "turn into shadow" dodge and were instead running something more physical, then TRF could mesh fine with it.

However, with "be shadow" you don't want "be hard and strong" as damage absorption, you want something more like "everlasting vitality" and regen.

Running both dodge and armor is totally reasonable - you just want to be using the right styles that actually mesh together.

SES isn't nearly as problematic as TRF due to its spiritual nature, and could work ok along with a less "hard" playstyle. However, in the mean time it reinforces the problematic elements of TRF rather than actually working to move away from them, and arguably ignores the insights Ling Qi had when she meditated on these problems.
 
Erebeal said:
TRF's two highest level techniques are "armor" and "you can't move me".

Like look, if we weren't trying to run darkness "turn into shadow" dodge and were instead running something more physical, then TRF could mesh fine with it.

However, with "be shadow" you don't want "be hard and strong" as damage absorption, you want something more like "everlasting vitality" and regen.

Running both dodge and armor is totally reasonable - you just want to be using the right styles that actually mesh together.

SES isn't nearly as problematic as TRF due to its spiritual nature, and could work ok along with a less "hard" playstyle. However, in the mean time it reinforces the problematic elements of TRF rather than actually working to move away from them, and arguably ignores the insights Ling Qi had when she meditated on these problems.
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But SES isn't 'Be Hard and Strong', it's 'Endure and Persevere'. The difference might not seem big, but for me it's enormous.

I do consider SES to have already moved away from the problematic elements of TRF. While it doesn't follow the solution we want for TRF, it's also more spiritual, so the regen has to be more about perseverance than actual vitality.

I do agree that ultimately MNO fits Ling Qi so much better, and that SES improves aspect of Ling Qi she is arguably too good at right now (s.armor rather than s.avoid). However, I don't think SES's own theme is problematic, and I think it just works so damn well in a turn where we master FVM.
 
Being able to form a backup band sounds absolutely delightful. It isn't the perfect summons for us, but I don't think a hard dps summon would ever be as safe from falling behind for a time and never becoming relevant again as the backup band would be.
 
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Arkeus said:
But SES isn't 'Be Hard and Strong', it's 'Endure and Persevere'. The difference might not seem big, but for me it's enormous.

I do consider SES to have already moved away from the problematic elements of TRF. While it doesn't follow the solution we want for TRF, it's also more spiritual, so the regen has to be more about perseverance than actual vitality.

I do agree that ultimately MNO fits Ling Qi so much better, and that SES improves aspect of Ling Qi she is arguably too good at right now (s.armor rather than s.avoid). However, I don't think SES's own theme is problematic, and I think it just works so damn well in a turn where we master FVM.
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It hasn't really though, not in context. I like the point @AbeoLogos made on discord about the timing and context here. We just got off meditations on the issues with the "stand strong" concept of TRF, and the need to try to explore a better path there. However, we haven't done that yet. If the first relevant exploration we do then doubles down on the "stand firm" concept before we've actually tried to resolve the issues in any way, then this is problematic.

If we had already addressed the TRF issues and changed that context then I feel it would work better.

Also, I am rather concerned about the amount of "let's get SES because it's convenient but then replace it with MNO + IMH/DLS because they're what we really want" talk. If MNO is what we actually want (and it should be because it fits us so perfectly), then we should get it. We aren't going to go back for it, that isn't how our art decisions have ever worked. Instead we'll just be making yrsillar suffer by bugging him about whether or not we can get "MNO but from Archive 2".

Edit:
Though, hmm, I guess I would prefer basically MNO but from Archive 2...
 
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Shard said:
Can the rating of an Art be upgraded through Art modification?
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That would imply that there was something wrong with the art to start with and modification fixed the flaw. I doubt it.
Edit:
The only thing that we are missing when it comes to defence is anti area effect. Really would suck for all our entire parade of hundred demons to get blown away in one go.
 
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Anyway, another thing we can start to play around with more now that we've actually got a decent number of arts to look at is Domain concepts.

Some ideas:
  • AM + MNO + ENM
    • Truth is just a matter of perception, and is unstable at that
    • + HDW to build on this as a more socially manipulative character?
  • AM + CDE + SCS + DLS + MNO + ENM
    • Be Jiao :(
  • AM + FSS + FVM + HDW + PLR + TRF
    • The Truth is that all things End, and mean nothing. We must rebel against that and find joy in life and humanity in spite of that.
 
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