- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have far fewer complaints (if any at all) if these aren't the stats it'll have forever, yeah. I'm just not fully convinced that's how it actually works.
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Ok, so: how I'd rework our domain weapon:
Basically, the idea here is to fix up its thematic imagery, avoid awkward tracking mechanics, and provide strong qualitatively meaningful effects that give @yrsillar something solid to write about. The idea behind a brief but powerful debuff is it would basically be the scream disorienting them spiritually and thus making them more vulnerable to our attacks, similar to how it was written that one time it hit Ji Rong. Rather than having some long term thing that sits there being of questionable value, you just have it so that if the sword hits them then something significant actually happens.
Having the sword's damage be linked to how much music we have out creates a fun synergy with our style, is relatively easy to track, and can create solid impact by having the sword go from "negligible damage" to "blowing holes in the field" depending on how we play things.
- Get rid of the buffing component for the reasons @AbeoLogos said, and replace it with a good but brief debuff to spiritual avoid and armor. This fits the whole banshee scream thing it has better.
- Drop the stacking debuff that's a pain to track and weak anyway. Maybe replace with an ability that amplifies its damage based on the amount of music we have on the field?
Basically, the idea here is to fix up its thematic imagery, avoid awkward tracking mechanics, and provide strong qualitatively meaningful effects that give @yrsillar something solid to write about. The idea behind a brief but powerful debuff is it would basically be the scream disorienting them spiritually and thus making them more vulnerable to our attacks, similar to how it was written that one time it hit Ji Rong. Rather than having some long term thing that sits there being of questionable value, you just have it so that if the sword hits them then something significant actually happens.
Having the sword's damage be linked to how much music we have out creates a fun synergy with our style, is relatively easy to track, and can create solid impact by having the sword go from "negligible damage" to "blowing holes in the field" depending on how we play things.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
So I haven't found anything talking about increasing the power level of flying swords in the new system. However I was able to find the formula in the old dice based system and the increasing power of the flying sword as your domain increases in power. So I still believe the intent is that the flying sword to increase in power as our domain grows. Here is the quote from yrs.
Okay, I will fix that issue in a bit, but heres something more important. I am going to be adjusting the formula for flying sword attacksm as it has been pointed out to me by a few people that the dice pools are totally broken. Most of the credit for this goes to @Black Noise
New formula is as follows.
Domain Value *(Stat1+Stat2+SP) +Element Bonus+Passives
Domain Value is as follows
0 dots. 1
1 dot. 2
2 dots. 2.5
3 dots. 3 etc.
Element Bonus is the number of meridians you have matching the weapons element. This value has a maximum of 2xCultivation level, so Ling Qi could have a max of 14 since she is at early green(7). Passives and stats are more obvious. SP I'm not sure of the name yet, suffice to say some folks can get special passives that slot in here. These are rare though and you'll only see them in the higher quality sorts of weapons. They may also be conditional like a normal passive
To further clarify how Flying swords work. Their durability is essentially their health, they can be damaged like anything else, though as noted before they receive half damage from anything except other domain weapons. A domain weapons defense pool is the same as its offense pool, barring other modifiers. Flying weapons can have armor values as well, but typically only defensive ones do.
New formula is as follows.
Domain Value *(Stat1+Stat2+SP) +Element Bonus+Passives
Domain Value is as follows
0 dots. 1
1 dot. 2
2 dots. 2.5
3 dots. 3 etc.
Element Bonus is the number of meridians you have matching the weapons element. This value has a maximum of 2xCultivation level, so Ling Qi could have a max of 14 since she is at early green(7). Passives and stats are more obvious. SP I'm not sure of the name yet, suffice to say some folks can get special passives that slot in here. These are rare though and you'll only see them in the higher quality sorts of weapons. They may also be conditional like a normal passive
To further clarify how Flying swords work. Their durability is essentially their health, they can be damaged like anything else, though as noted before they receive half damage from anything except other domain weapons. A domain weapons defense pool is the same as its offense pool, barring other modifiers. Flying weapons can have armor values as well, but typically only defensive ones do.
Now Erebeal's idea real helps with the swords image and helps clarily it's purpose. However, I feel uncomfortable pilling more work on yrs right now.
I for one am not too enthusiastic about such a sudden change in function. The sword's effects are already established and there are probably performance improvements with the next domain level anyways. So instead of 1 big rework I would much rather see the adjustments coming via the regular upgrades.
Edit: and an easy way to improve it would be a higher base damage. Going from damage D to damage C would make it much more viable
Edit: and an easy way to improve it would be a higher base damage. Going from damage D to damage C would make it much more viable
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It really doesn't though. We got this made from some of the most potent materials we've ever seen and spent a lot of money getting it done by a professional. It doesn't need to be at the height of it's power (which it certainly isn't) but it should still be damn good. If it's been significantly worsened due to the system changes then it needs to be retconned back to being fittingly powerful for it's narrative weight.
Looking at it again:
The basic problem (from someone who still doesn't really get the new system) seems to be it's debuffs, which seem pretty terrible. A 2 point debuff seems almost entirely pointless at our current level*, and it takes a minimum of 3 turns of successful attacks before qi drain even begins, with no real indication of how potent that drain is. Combine this with a low base health (with decent dodge) and assuming the +15 pen and +10 to hit for music arts are passive boosts to Ling Qi, we're probably better off keeping it back away from the fight for the passive boost rather than having it attack if we're fighting someone even close to our level or with a good offensive flying sword. If they aren't boosts to Ling Qi but the sword itself then I have basically no idea what they're there for. Otherwise the low base health and previous showings seem to indicate that it's unlucky enough to get hit it stays down.
For a sword who's description focues on terryfing whistiling and boundless screams of hunger it doesn't really live up to the hype. Raise the health, and power up the debuffs and Qi drain significantly and it becomes a lot better. Frankly you could remove the buff to Ling Qi's music (which isn't exactly exemplified in the description) entirely and slightly lessen the damage in return and it would still work well with it's thematics. Or have it actively Qi drain on hit as well as inflicting its drain over time.
*And will become even more so extremely rapidly, needing either extremely rapid number scaling up or the admittance that we wasted several thousand spirit stones worth of extremely vauluable materials.
It isn't a change in function at all.
Our sword currently has two functions (outside of just "being a domain weapon"):
- Making us hit harder with our music
- Doing AoE (with a style of "getting stronger over time")
By leaning into this it would allow for our flying sword to feel much more impactful, and be integrated into the fight better.
Along the same lines, a more potent build up of its AoE power over time linked to our music would work fine as a gain gotten when we get Domain 2 this month and work logically as a simple upgrade of how it has currently been portrayed.
Since @Erebeal called me out, I suppose I ought to contribute.
*Ahem*
From the very first introduction of the Domain Weapons as a concept that we have any concrete details about, there has always existed a barrier between the Domain Weapons and the function of a cultivator's Arts. Every iteration of the rules has included the same division, that Domain Weapons do not benefit from Art effects unless specified otherwise. The default function of Domain Weapons is fundamentally incompatible with that of Arts, at least Arts at the level of cultivation that we have had access to so far. This is known. This is established.
Therefore, it stands to reason that a Domain Weapon that provides a blanket buff to a category of Art effects, irrespective of those Arts being of a variety that natively interacts with Domain Weapon underlying principles, is exceptional. It defies the established paradigm of Domain Weapon/Art interactions. Exceptional effects should always have trade-offs or cost more. This exceptional trait, in our weapon, is therefore reasonably costing us a disproportionate amount of "build space" within the context of the weapon's overall abilities. This exceptional effect is not actually exceptionally useful for a variety of reasons including transience reliant on weapon durability while in no way furthering its survival in order to leverage itself. It's an ill-fit with the nature of Domain Weapon combat, and would be significantly more suitable on a defensive Domain Weapon. Even in the previous system, I don't think it was "worth" what reasonably should be the "cost" necessary to justify the degree to which it undermined functions of established Domain Weapon dynamics.
However, with our Domain Weapon in particular, that's not where the concern ends. If you look at the thematic and behavioral design of the weapon, it simply doesn't make sense that it would buff our music arts. It zooms around giving off a wailing tuneless shriek which it uses to assault others, while "It pulses frequently, releasing bursts of boundless Hunger". None of its thematics speak to empowering anything; they're all geared towards debuffs or maybe self-boosting, but as established previously there's a wall between weapon and the user's other efforts, so Ling Qi shouldn't benefit. This problem of thematic disjunction is far worse when you consider any music arts we may acquire that are not based in Darkness, or even apathetic Darkness rather than hungry Darkness. The weapon is actively disharmonious, so it doesn't make a lick of thematic sense for it to empower, say, a musical lullaby art that dulls the movements of our opponents. Harry and fatigue them leaving them vulnerable, yes. Magnify our efforts from our own end, no.
Fortunately, I cannot think of a single time that it has ever been clearly established in the narrative that the Singing Mist Blade boosts Ling Qi's music attack, probably exactly because it is so thematically unsuited for the purpose. That's not to say that it hasn't in @yrsillar's reckoning of outcomes, it just hasn't come across through the text.
*Ahem*
From the very first introduction of the Domain Weapons as a concept that we have any concrete details about, there has always existed a barrier between the Domain Weapons and the function of a cultivator's Arts. Every iteration of the rules has included the same division, that Domain Weapons do not benefit from Art effects unless specified otherwise. The default function of Domain Weapons is fundamentally incompatible with that of Arts, at least Arts at the level of cultivation that we have had access to so far. This is known. This is established.
Therefore, it stands to reason that a Domain Weapon that provides a blanket buff to a category of Art effects, irrespective of those Arts being of a variety that natively interacts with Domain Weapon underlying principles, is exceptional. It defies the established paradigm of Domain Weapon/Art interactions. Exceptional effects should always have trade-offs or cost more. This exceptional trait, in our weapon, is therefore reasonably costing us a disproportionate amount of "build space" within the context of the weapon's overall abilities. This exceptional effect is not actually exceptionally useful for a variety of reasons including transience reliant on weapon durability while in no way furthering its survival in order to leverage itself. It's an ill-fit with the nature of Domain Weapon combat, and would be significantly more suitable on a defensive Domain Weapon. Even in the previous system, I don't think it was "worth" what reasonably should be the "cost" necessary to justify the degree to which it undermined functions of established Domain Weapon dynamics.
However, with our Domain Weapon in particular, that's not where the concern ends. If you look at the thematic and behavioral design of the weapon, it simply doesn't make sense that it would buff our music arts. It zooms around giving off a wailing tuneless shriek which it uses to assault others, while "It pulses frequently, releasing bursts of boundless Hunger". None of its thematics speak to empowering anything; they're all geared towards debuffs or maybe self-boosting, but as established previously there's a wall between weapon and the user's other efforts, so Ling Qi shouldn't benefit. This problem of thematic disjunction is far worse when you consider any music arts we may acquire that are not based in Darkness, or even apathetic Darkness rather than hungry Darkness. The weapon is actively disharmonious, so it doesn't make a lick of thematic sense for it to empower, say, a musical lullaby art that dulls the movements of our opponents. Harry and fatigue them leaving them vulnerable, yes. Magnify our efforts from our own end, no.
Fortunately, I cannot think of a single time that it has ever been clearly established in the narrative that the Singing Mist Blade boosts Ling Qi's music attack, probably exactly because it is so thematically unsuited for the purpose. That's not to say that it hasn't in @yrsillar's reckoning of outcomes, it just hasn't come across through the text.
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- Location
- Brazil
Point being, unless it's a drastic upgrade, it just won't cut it. This is made from an incredibly compatible material of fourth realm, by the finest professional CXR could find, to our specifications.
At our level, it absolutely shouldn't lose to essentially anything, as people flat out can't bring about the full power of something made from even better materials.
Yet it was weak before, and is just pathetic now.
Still waiting for our Domain to be useful, btw. Something as ridiculously restrictive as it should give a commensurate ridiculous bonus.
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- Location
- United States of America
I really don't want to get dragged into a domain weapon discussion, but I will note that it has been explicitly established in the narrative that Singing Mist Blade boosts Ling Qi's music attacks. Here is the relevant section.
Our Domain weapon's amplification is not normally visible in the narrative given the fact that it is boosting our attack, and not doing something on its own. But, for better or for worst, the amplification has been mentioned in the narrative.
It's not though. We crushed Chu Song, and lose to Meizhen and Sun like you'd expect. We were fairly evenly matched with Ji Rong, and he appeared to have a fairly good quality weapon presumably sprung for by Sun. While it should logically have been lower quality than ours, that doesn't necessarily make too much of a difference here because there's only so much power you can get at Domain 1 - to say nothing of the part where our weapon is both buff focused and AoE, weakening it in direct domain weapon combat.
Tbh, I'd prefer to just remove the numbers and balance issues from domain effects entirely. Just replace them with narrative descriptions of the character ideals and their effects. I feel the numbers distract from what is actually important here, which is the character development.
- Location
- Brazil
True.
I don't believe SL and Meizhen have the raw cultivation needed to extract that much more power from their spiritual weapons, even if they are of higher quality. At this point, they should be slightly better. Probably around as much better to ours as ours is to Ji Rong's.
It's plainly shown with our dress you have to be of a certain level to use high level itens to their fullest.
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They're more powerful than us, and had higher Domain - as well as domain weapons that are actually specced towards single combat face-murderin.
That's all they really need.
- Location
- Brazil
So, you agree that, naturally, things should essentially level out until we jump in domains and ours reaches its peak, while theirs still has more to give?
- Location
- scrabbling
I mean, trying to squeeze more power out of one part of Ling Qi's build via retcon just seems annoying. To yrsillar and to the world.
FVM gained bits related to how we whined as it leveled and it ended up with some kind of random dead-ends. And Zhengui's binding boost randomly gained an offense boost when we were complaining about how we couldn't hit anything. "Yeah, armor against fire, that seems thematic for a fire-wood turtlesnake. Bonuses to cultivating those elements, of course. ALSO YOU ATTACK BETTER BTW LMAO."
Personally I think ineffective (greedy or aesthetic based? tbh I don't remember WHY people voted for it in the first place...) decisions like going for the Singing Mist Blade should remain as they are. Yrsillar's been too accommodating when Ling Qi leaves a gap in her build tbh.
FVM gained bits related to how we whined as it leveled and it ended up with some kind of random dead-ends. And Zhengui's binding boost randomly gained an offense boost when we were complaining about how we couldn't hit anything. "Yeah, armor against fire, that seems thematic for a fire-wood turtlesnake. Bonuses to cultivating those elements, of course. ALSO YOU ATTACK BETTER BTW LMAO."
Personally I think ineffective (greedy or aesthetic based? tbh I don't remember WHY people voted for it in the first place...) decisions like going for the Singing Mist Blade should remain as they are. Yrsillar's been too accommodating when Ling Qi leaves a gap in her build tbh.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
So there are a couple of things going on with our weapon. I will not deal with the mechanics as there is an argument to be made that it's primary function (to debuff our enemies) has not been faithful updated into the new system. I have already voiced my concern with giving yrs more work already. Updating the mechanics of a weapon should not be done mid fight as that is just stressful to the GM and confusing to the readers.
Now lets talk about why our weapon seems weaker than other weapons. The first point is about the quality of the material used for the weapon. Here is a quote from week 44 part 1
So we are not even supposed to be able to access the full power of our weapon yet. We just are not strong enough. So as our domain increases our flying sword will increase in power as all flying swords do. Then we get another upgrade when we reach certain requirements because we are now strong enough to handle the material better. Therefore if someone has a flying sword made out of level 3 material they may only get one boost in performance per upgrade cycle. However we will likely get two.
Our weapon seems disappointing because we took a route most flying swords don't go. We went with a debuff style flying sword while most other flying swords have a much more concrete mission. Meizhen's sword is a stabby sword. We have not seen it do anything other than stab real good. Sun's sword is also a stabby sword. It likely doesn't stab as well because it also strips defense. Shen Hu's sword blocks damage. It blocks damage really well but we have not seen it do anything else. Ji Rong's sword blocks damage. It doesn't block damage as well as Shun Hu's sword because it has an emergency heal function.
So now what does our sword do with active affects. Our sword drains qi. Our sword boosts our own music. Our sword hinders spiritual avoid of enemies. Our sword has an aoe. These are 4 different effects with 2 of those effects effecting the enemy. Of course our sword is not going to be as good a stabbing people as other peoples swords. Have we seen any other sword being aoe? We can't get a sword that does everything well. We have a lot of cool effects in our sword. The cost that comes with that is that each of those effects are going to be weaker than if there was only one effect.
This sword is at level 1. This is not a sword that is meant to come running out of the gate and start smashing everything. This sword is meant to grow. What I am seeing right now is a lot of people being sad that we picked a growth focused sword and it is not being as flashy as they want it to be. Of course our sword is not as flashy as other swords. It has a lot of effects front loaded and therefore it likely has a lot of it's power back loaded. I honestly have no complaints with our sword. It is performing at the level I expect for a level 1 sword with so many effects unlocked at the start. I am expecting our sword to grow more powerful far quicker and for far longer than other swords wielded by our peers.
So I have a couple of problems with your statements here. I have talked some of them above but I will talk about them again here.
First, why shouldn't it lose to essentially anything at our level. For the following discussion I will use the word power to describe a resources used to get different effects for a flying sword. If we assume that at our level people can only bring out X amount of power from their flying sword regardless of material then everyone is roughly at equal power level when it comes to flying swords. However power can be applied in different ways. I would expect a sword that has no special functions or active effects to beat our sword at this current level. The reason for this is that they decided to apply the power of the flying sword differently than ours. The power has to go somewhere and if it is not going into active effects or special functions then the power has to go into the base stats and functions of the weapon. There is the same power for both swords and you can't just assume that someone is going to make a sword not make use of the power available.
Now both flying swords (ours and the other hypothetical sword) increase in power due to their owners leveling up. Now both people can handle Y amount of power from their flying sword. However the other sword only has X amount of power it can make. So it doesn't matter that the other student is able to handle more power because their flying sword only has X power. Sure that person has more control and is able to use their sword better but there is not a huge increase in ability. Now look at our sword. We can handle Y power and our sword can generate Y power. So now that power has to go somewhere and it will go into improving our sword in a far more meaningful way then the other sword who is still at X power.
Our sword would lose to the other sword when both people are using X amount of power because the power of the flying sword wasn't spent on combat specs it was spent on unlocking different effects. However our swords growth rate will be massively higher than other swords that our peers own because of it's massive quality.
Now on to the next thing I have taken issue with in your post. Is our domain weak? I don't really know. Why don't I know? Because we don't have really any one else to compare to.
Meizhen likely has a lot of different green level arts slotted into her domain already which makes it look really powerful. That is the benefit of being a member of a ducal clan with a clear vision of what domain they want. She likely had a great deal of arts that ended at green 1. We don't have either of those benefits.
What was Sun's domain? Did we see it used?
How about Cai? How strong is her domain?
We have the curse of knowing exactly what our domain does in terms of numbers. That makes it really easy to say "Man those numbers look low so our domain must be weak." But we just don't know that. Remember we have a level 1 domain right now. It is not suppose to be overwhelming. Meizhen is the outlier here. Most people do not have domains as strong as hers at her level.
Now lets look at our domain. When we look at our domain the relationship requirement of being a 4 to get benefits seems super restrictive. However you know what I don't see in that restrictions list? A limit to the number of people we can support with our domain. That seems broken. It really does. But Nesh you cry, we simply don't have the time to maintain that many level 4 relationships so there is a hard limit to the number we can support! "Ahh" I reply, but what about arts. We have seen arts do some crazy things. Is it too out there for there to be an art that temporarily boosts relationship levels? I don't think so.
I image that diplomats might use such an art. In fact perhaps that the type of effect that blood moon bro used on us when we first met. Thus we neatly get around our restriction. (The fact that Cai is thinking about making us more of a diplomat instead of spymaster makes this route to breaking our restrictions way more appealing.) A limit to the number of people a domain can affect is much worse than a limit to the type of people our domain will support.
Instead of looking at the limits of our domain and thinking about how weak that makes us we should be looking at ways we can break those limits and therefore our domain.
Height Chart
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
Nice, all it needs is adding the relevant spirits too.Ok, I'm done with the height chart for important people:
(also @yrsillar this is really 6 pictures if you think about it)
Doesn't Su Ling have an issue with her second tail ?
Also CRX really needs to relax, she'll get wrinkles if she keeps scowling like that...
- Location
- United States of America
Alright, I'm moving the conversation along. There is so much more here in the update to be excited about!
Li Suyin's automatons have gotten pretty advanced should they be able to handle complex orders like that.
I mean, I don't think that anyone has mentioned this yet, but apparently, Li Suyin's constructs have additional layers of programming than just fighting and guarding. Like, doing search and excavation is a pretty intensive from an automation standpoint. They need to be able to perceive their environment and filter not only ally, enemy, non-combatant, but also figure out likely areas for hidden stuff to be, and then not break the thing they are searching for.
Li Suyin's automatons have gotten pretty advanced should they be able to handle complex orders like that.
From this we know that these things still use qi and that we can absorb it, albeit at a much lesser rate than we normally would and it feels dirty and oily. This probably has something to do with interactions between qi and impurities. Not really much is known right now, and the best we have are hypotheses, but this is something that Li Suyin might be investigating and understanding.
It's particularly interesting that these creatures have something akin to speech. Given that they are also tool makers, and not just any tool makers but able to bind qi with formations for useful tools, it seems to indicate a presence of a society or a civilization with some technology base. I mean, these guys are weird, and I have no desire to see what constitutes a city, settlement, or tribe for these folks. They have all sorts of bad mojo about them.
And we got a skill upgrade! And it was awesome! When our backs are against a wall, we are able to pull out even more B.S! It's been some time comming, but it's nice to know that Ling Qi is learning how to dodge everything that comes her way. If she can't dodge it, then she can let it scrape past her other defenses. Also, skills can now take multiple words, which opens up options for naming and thematic ties. It's really nice. I can't wait to see what our stealth breakthrough will be!
- Location
- At the end of the world
Very, very good picture but isn't Su Ling has black hair?Ok, I'm done with the height chart for important people:
(also @yrsillar this is really 6 pictures if you think about it
P.S.: Cai Shenhua looks exactly like Ragyo here.
Nope. Brown. I had to double check with yrsillar that though.
- Location
- At the end of the world
I see. Thanks.
On unrelated note we now have Dodge B and it means even better Phys Avoid. If no one from Greens have Liling-like hitting skills than they are doomed even considering that they are outnumbering us.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
The main argument about our domain weapon, beside Abeo complaining that it's too different from other domain weapons when we have no clue how other high end domain weapons work, is that it was hurt by the system changes (-2 means less now than it did before, etc).
Basically, like @Erebeal said, Domain stuff really shouldn't have numbers, and that should include domain weapons, I think. It just invites said numbers looking too 'strong' or 'weak' depending on the current power creep, and given how intrinsic Domain stuff is to the cultivator, that's not the good place for that I think.
Anyway, the 'our sword is meant to grow' argument seems to be going at it from the wrong side? It's not that it grows, it's that Ling Qi is too weak to use it. It's like how Meizhen's sword is made from 7th grade material (compared to our 4th grade one) and she likely won't be able to use her sword well before 5th+ realm, or Liling's is made from ???.
The "our sword's full power can't be used" argument, if anything, should mean it would be closer in power to Sun Liling's/Meizhen's sword, as it means all our sword's powers are at the very limit early green can use, and their swords would only really show they are stronger in Green 8+, as theirs will still be at the limit of power possible in cyan, while ours would barely be a cyan-level sword.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I will reiterate the very first thing my post said. There is an argument then can be made that our sword's strength was not faithful carried over into the new system. I don't really agree with that argument but it is an argument that I feel has some legs and worth rather than the argument that our sword is too weak and we need it to be better because we spent so much on it.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Yeah, basically.
This is why I agree with Erebeal there shouldn't be numbers for Domain stuff. It's too 'core' for going over the "it's too weak/strong" dance every five minutes.