My problem is the opposite: system handing out recognizable mission but the reward is proportional to player's level
This rarely happens, but it does happen. That's beyond cheating. It's also narratively cheap.
One problem that can happen with Systems is when they are too complete and do everything for the MC.
Like if you had a Great Alchemist System, that not only provided the skills and tools needed for alchemy, but it also provided materials, and recipes, and consumed the pills produced for everything else they need to live.
Then if they entered an Alchemy Tournament, they would overcome all the challenges using the System, and the prizes would be less valuable than the System Rewards.
The entire thing would just be showing off.
It disconnects the MC from any motivation to interact with the world.
Many of the best cheats are ones that only do one thing.
It is up to the MC to figure out how to apply their Super Toilet Cleaning Power to defeating their enemies.
On the other hand, having a growing, upgrading power might also be needed to keep up when everything else they have grows more powerful.
So what if you took a Gamer System, and broke it into components?
The Stat System shows the users stats and allows them to improve without limits, though it does become more difficult at higher numbers.
Reaching certain milestones allows them to upgrade the system by adding more stats or breaking existing stats into more granular specific stats that can be improved separately.
There are no free stat points to assign, all improvement must be through sufficiently difficult exercises for the stat in question.
The system also protects them from the normal consequences of over-exercising.
The Skill System allows the user to rapidly acquire skills at a basic level and steadily improve them to mastery over time by using them.
Reaching milestones allows the system to add more skill slots, combine skills, or acquire more complex skills.
There are no free skills, they must all be gained from sufficient teaching, or references, or experimentation.
Having a skill doesn't guarantee the ability to use the skill if the user is otherwise lacking in the needed power or other requirements, it is just a measure of technique.
The Quest System allows the user to designate any task as a Quest and will track their progress.
By completing quests, the system will upgrade to providing hints, breaking it down into smaller steps, or tracking more quests.
The user is responsible for actually completing each task, and there are no guarantees for "level appropriate" quests.
The only reward for quests is upgrading the quest system, and whatever the quest itself accomplished.
The Map System provides a minimap of the user's surroundings.
By exploring more of the world, the map can upgrade to show a larger area, more detail, resources the user can find, and even track enemies and allies.
The Inventory System provides an inventory space that can be used to store things.
By collecting more things, it can be upgraded to have a larger space, stack items, collect or deploy things in different ways, and features like time-suspension.
Xianxia works well for a fragmented system like this because the characters will have outside access to the other things they need to make it work.
A Skill System user would be able to upgrade their body through cultivation to actually use the skills for instance.
Since the systems are separated like this, it could even be extremely common in the setting, with most if not all cultivators having one or another system!
Stat Cultivators are widely considered the best system, allowing them to not only improve stats like strength and dexterity, but also potentially things like qi quantity and qi control and willpower.
In addition to that, Stat Cultivators are resistant to many of the factors that cause qi deviation or weak foundations since they can always train up whatever they need to fix it.
The only thing preventing a Stat Cultivator from improving endlessly is the need for exercises in the correct range and the need to fulfill the other requirements to advance their realm.
Stat Cultivators have a reputation as powerful combatants with endless stamina, able to overpower or outmaneuver anything, but they also have a (mostly undeserved) reputation as unskilled meat-heads with only a few techniques since they spend all their time grinding stats.
Skill Cultivators are known as polymaths, able to gain skill and master anything they set their minds to, they often become great craftsmen mastering not only the primary discipline but also the secondary and tertiary disciplines that support it.
So an alchemist might not only be a master of alchemy, buy also a master herbalist and doctor and cauldron craftsman.
Notably cultivation techniques also fall under the category of "skills."
Unfortunately they also have a reputation for being unstable and having weak foundations.
Their exceptional "comprehension" abilities allows them to gain skills and cultivation that don't suit them or isn't supported by their foundation and advance too quickly leaving them prone to qi deviation and conflicing skillsets.
Where other people wouldn't even be able to gain or improve a technique that doesn't suit them, Skill Cultivators are skilled enough to shoot themselves in the foot.
Quest Cultivators are the protagonists of the cultivation world.
They can achieve heaven-defying feats, upgrading spiritual roots, fixing impossible problems, finding lost techniques, and other spectacular accomplishments.
All of this assuming they can actually figure out how to do it.
Learning that the medicine you need is in the hands of a cultivator several realms above you is still a challenge.
On the other hand, there's no reason they can't get help from their sect...
Questers also have a reputation for being flighty, running off on whatever quest they have without warning, and cauing huge problems since the quest doesn't always tell them the consequences after they achieve it.
The story of a Quester that drove off an enemy sect by instigating a fight with 3 other sects is well known.
As such, any sect is sure to cultivate a few Questers to guide them in difficult missions, but they are held at arms length in many ways.
Map Cultivators are something of a dark horse in the cultivation world, especially at higher realms where sensory abilities are common.
On the other hand, maps are surprisingly difficult to acquire for most people with the land being large enough and filled with hostile monsters making detailed surveys challenging.
And that isn't even getting into things like Closed Realms and navigating through Chaos.
Map Cultivators also have excellent synergy with Formations and Divination techniques since they can orient and arrange them with more detail.
Map Cultivators have a reputation as leaders, able to coordinate groups on a mission and many Sect Leaders are Map Cultivators.
If there is a "lower class" among cultivators, it's the Inventory Cultivators.
After all, what's the use of a power that can be replicated with a storage bag?
Higher tiers know better.
Of all the systems, only the Inventory System directly interacts with the world.
While a Skill Cultivator might be able to cast some impossibly complex spell, it is still a spell and acts like any other spell.
A powerful Inventory Cultivator can cheat, deploying a ton of rock directly above their enemy, or "gathering" a spell in flight.
This means that an experienced cultivator is ready for anything... except for a sufficiently creative Inventory Cultivator.
In addition to the common perception, any of these can be subverted.
What if there was a Stat Cultivator that gained the Comprehension stat and managed to upgrade it?
Or an Inventory Cultivator that can fill his inventory with gear that makes him more powerful and can be applied from the inventory?
From a meta perspective, there's a problem in Xianxia with things getting more generic as the story goes on.
You have some Underdog MC who gains a profound sword skill and alchemy skill and overcomes the Sword Genius Young Master.
Then he goes to the next area and meets a Sword-and-Alchemy Genius Young Master and overcomes him with Sword and Alchemy and Painting!
Since none of the antagonists can have a clearly exploitable weakness, they all just seem to build up, adding more and more of the same skills to provide the exact level of challenge to the MC that also has no weaknesses.
There are a few that go for "everyone has a unique skill" to differentiate things, but that forces the author to come up with endless unique skills and makes the character design more burdensome.
With this, there are ready-made archetypes that can be applied to the antagonists.
The Stat Antagonist is the unstoppable monster that the MC can't ever be sure he can overpower.
The Skill Antagonist is the one that overcomes every trick and might even have a specifically designed skill to fuck the MC over.
The Quester Antagonist is the obnoxious loot goblin that pops up in the inner chamber of the inheritance site and grabs the prize at the last second.
The Map Antagonist is the one they never see, guiding the army of cultivators they can't shake off and ambushing them at the worst position.
The Inventory Antagonist is the one with endless life-saving treasures and talismans.
This setup has a collection of distinct "classes" that can be applied en mass, but also has enough variability for subverting expectations.
So you can have that "oh shit" moment when you think you know what's coming and it turns out to be something completely different.
Since the systems are separated like this, it could even be extremely common in the setting, with most if not all cultivators having one or another system!
Even if it's not systems I've heard several times before in xianxia settings that it's all about who can cheat the hardest.
Born with special physiques
Born to a rich/powerful clan
Being supremely talented in something
Stumbling onto powerful inheritances
Having heaven-favoured luck
Grandpa in a ring
etc.
Everybody who's anybody usually has some sort of inherent advantage, and those that get ahead the furthest are those that are able to abuse their own cheats for all they're worth. Having semi-common system fragments around wouldn't even necessarily be that out of place among everything. Could be an equivalent to a special physique, or it could be fragmented legacies from powerful cultivators that make systems for whatever reason.
For any kind of progession fantasy, you cannot avoid having at least one of either A) some sort of cheat be it system, grandpa or what have you, B) absurd luck or C) absurd talent. Because absent a cheat, someone needs to be either super talented or super lucky to surpass whatever big number of people the author has settled on*. And the longer the story goes, the more powerful the character becomes, the more lucky or talented they are, just because of where they are in the story**.
*The problem hits western/litRPGs too, just at a much, much smaller scale, since the scale of the world generally isn't as absurd.
**In fact, it kind of even applies if you do have a cheat. Either the cheat needs to turn out to be increasingly cheaty, or it falls to the wayside and the protag needs a new cheat, or it turns out they have great luck/talent anyway.
Yeah, I don't mind *A* cheat, even if I've generally got a distaste for systems specifically, though I do dislike it when you start the protag off with effectively two cheats. One cheat I'll accept as basically the "why we're following around THIS asshole instead of the million other assholes in the world" cost of doing business.
Even if it's not systems I've heard several times before in xianxia settings that it's all about who can cheat the hardest.
Born with special physiques
Born to a rich/powerful clan
Being supremely talented in something
Stumbling onto powerful inheritances
Having heaven-favoured luck
Grandpa in a ring
etc.
Everybody who's anybody usually has some sort of inherent advantage, and those that get ahead the furthest are those that are able to abuse their own cheats for all they're worth. Having semi-common system fragments around wouldn't even necessarily be that out of place among everything. Could be an equivalent to a special physique, or it could be fragmented legacies from powerful cultivators that make systems for whatever reason.
Funny because this is the topic I want to bring in the next chapter of my work. Everyone was talking about Cultivation and what made the gap between people, and MC ultimately believe that it was entirely up to luck.
Born rich or talented is luck, stumbling on a special technique or item or meeting a suitable master is luck. However, to increase the odds, there is really no better way that to strive hard and find it instead of sitting there wailing in misery. That's why she decided to become exchange student to another school after a sound defeat and feeling of helplessness.
There's also the inverse of this.
If you do have luck, with the powerful family background, and tutors, and bloodline, how pathetic would it be to lose to some rando who was a cripple last week?
Are you really that pathetic/lazy/weak?
Or is your family/tutors/bloodline that crappy?
It explains why some of the Young Masters are borderline delusional, refusing to realize they are outmatched even after it's demonstrated.
There's also the inverse of this.
If you do have luck, with the powerful family background, and tutors, and bloodline, how pathetic would it be to lose to some rando who was a cripple last week?
Are you really that pathetic/lazy/weak?
Or is your family/tutors/bloodline that crappy?
It explains why some of the Young Masters are borderline delusional, refusing to realize they are outmatched even after it's demonstrated.
That happens, but it also piss me off when the Young Master visibly work hard and analyzed his shortcoming while MC leisurely (and yes, I mean LEISURELY) collecting heavens gift left and right. And MC predictably win when they fight again.
A story is bad when I HAVE to root for the villain because at this point the situation had flipped. Struggle, you son of a bitch! Struggle!
Personally I would do something like have a system apocalypse setting transitions to a xianxia setting when it's revealed that the "system" was basically the equivalent of cultivation training wheels for the population of a world that has to deal with the chaos of a sudden influx of qi/mana/essence/whatever they end up calling it.
There are... several of those? For what it's worth? Can't recall titles offhand (mostly because I'm bigger on the blue boxes than I am the punch magic, so stories that transition away from the former tend to get dropped ), but there's more than just one or two litrpgs over on royalroad at a minimum that transitions from system to system guided cultivation to pure cultivation as the story goes on. There's definitely plenty of space to travel that path if you feel like it, heh.
In the story I Shall Seal The Heavens, most of the story is set on the Mountain And Seas Realm.
Which is apparently just a few mountains and seas floating in the void with a fireball circling around it.
Towards the end of the story, a bunch of people from other realms decide to gang up and attack it.
The MC and the natives fight them off, but the Mountain and Seas realm is destroyed in the fight.
So the MC decides to fix it.
With random garbage he has in storage.
Then he applies some Laws to each mountain and fucks off.
I'm not sure what skillset or experience I would want in the person creating a world, but he certainly didn't have it.
He was basically an amateur slapping things together and forcing it to work with overwhelming power.
What if that's common in Xianxia?
What if the reason a world is a cube on the back of tortoises and elephants is because some rando godling had a petting zoo?
What if the reason all those worlds are decaying and on the brink of apocalypse is because of shoddy workmanship?
What if the reason the Will of Heaven hates cultivators is because they keep on tearing up the fabric of reality holding the world together and snorting it up their nose?
The general impression of Xianxia worlds, when compared to the Real World is that they are some kind of "Higher Order" world, with more spiritual energy and closer to the Dao or whatever.
What if it's the other way around?
The Real World is stable, which is why nobody can gather spiritual energy, it's all bound up in the world.
Now imagine some high powered cultivator gets blasted through the realms and lands on earth.
He needs energy, so he uses his power to rip out a big ol' chunk of reality and snorts it.
Earth starts becoming more Desolate.
Spiritual Energy starts flowing everywhere trying to keep it together.
Congratulations, we're now on a Cultivator World!
It's a Good Thing!
Really!
So the cultivator creates a System to ease the transition, then runs off hoping nobody realizes he caused the entire situation.
Whoops.
His realm of cultivation at that point was Daosource, as in his Dao was the origin of all other daos possible. Even if we don't feel it, in novel the MC had meditated on his dao and essence for quite some time to reach that level, and he is a character that was able to refine a fake pill to a real pill when he was like 2 major realms below that state. So, I'd say that any xianxia character that gets to a high enough level where their understanding of the dao is transferable can create worlds. And unless you want a sparkling perfect paragon immortal ""World"", that should do.
Yeah, imagine if the general environment and whatnot had significant issues because it just wasn't put together very well and had persistent structural issues and long term guaranteed failure and crap *turns head, looks directly into the camera*
... that'd make it one of the most true to reality aspects xianxia has
Lmao Swallowed Stars really fell into fucking itself due to ginormous plot hole + the insistence of following Xianxia formula, I could never take it seriously after this point even though it was so good before.
It was supposed to be post-apocalyptic modern setting where humans developed cultivation via technology and science, but then there's the technique manuals. The MC obtained one manual that contain 100 chapter... then said "Only 18 chapters have been understood". That makes no fucking sense. How could a manual with 100 chapters had been written when anyone had only reach 18 parts, like, literally ever?
Again, cultivation system in this story is very, very, very new. At least, for humans. So such a manual existing is nonsensical.
Aliens exists, and they left a lot of technologies behind. But the technique manual has never been said to be Alien origin. It was human made technique.
He DOES get alien manual later on
That does sound pretty dumb. I enjoy stories where cultivation is a new development because it means that power levels all start off around the same place, but it does create constraints that that author appears to have chosen to simply ignore rather than deal with organically.
That does sound pretty dumb. I enjoy stories where cultivation is a new development because it means that power levels all start off around the same place, but it does create constraints that that author appears to have chosen to simply ignore rather than deal with organically.
The thing is if IeT avoided the "muh special manual" system this would not be an issue. Like the rest of the world is mostly fine, and the escalation from terrestrial to space level threat also makes sense.
I can forgive out of place alien manual, but that one mistake stuck out like sore thumb precisely because the world is largely polished.
"Chapter 99: if you've made it this far, you're doomed. You will explode as the energies react to themselves and turn into tribbles. They will burst out of you like a gory piñata. There is no solution."
Honestly, my favorite thing from Swallowed Star was when the MC had to sell some rare drops on the black market, his chosen disguise was literally Groucho Marx.
But yeah, after it went off into space, Swallowed Star was just regular ass xianxia with a light coat of sci-fi paint.
A World Worth Protecting had a similar premise in "Weird ass disaster happened, now Spirit Beasts area problem and people figure out cultivation" where the weird ass disaster was a giant sword flying into the sun and getting stuck.
But that was just xianxia with maybe the occasional bit to remind you it was supposed to be set in the year of our lord 3000 something.
Honestly, my favorite thing from Swallowed Star was when the MC had to sell some rare drops on the black market, his chosen disguise was literally Groucho Marx.
But yeah, after it went off into space, Swallowed Star was just regular ass xianxia with a light coat of sci-fi paint.
A World Worth Protecting had a similar premise in "Weird ass disaster happened, now Spirit Beasts area problem and people figure out cultivation" where the weird ass disaster was a giant sword flying into the sun and getting stuck.
But that was just xianxia with maybe the occasional bit to remind you it was supposed to be set in the year of our lord 3000 something.
I would also recommend [Legend of Star Generals] as another Xianxia with scifi-paint. The most interesting part is it is mecha-themed, and mecha tropes actually heavily featured instead of just substitute for magic enchanted armor.
Another recommendation I'd give is [The first sequence/The first squad], which is a lot more like korean manhwa "system plot" than xianxia, but also heavily draws from Attack on Titans, especially on refugee politics. The whole disasters started with viral mutations.
Swallowed Stars is unironically fresh because the unashamed Nationalism and HFY. In a genre where emperor, nation states, race and species are nothing more than stepping stones for ultimate power and godhood, identity politics feels more real and humane.
Those are very much modern people train of thoughts and mindset. Even other xianxia set in semi-real or pseudo-historical setting doesn't have these elements. You'd only see such thing in works set in Chinese warring States, Qin dynasty, or three kingdoms era.
Also, Xianxia always have the thick late stage capitalism brainrot built into the plot. Again, this makes more sense in Swallowed Stars because, duh.
I also like the fact that despite the rampant corruption and abuse of power, law and order does in fact works there. You just need to make sure to have strong legal basis and evidence.
It might be tad bit idealistic, but I'll take what I can.
Speaking of Swallowed Star, It's got a sequel, written by the author set in the world he ascended to at the end of the novel. It's supposed to cover the time frame from end of Swallowed Star to wherever the author wants. It's pretty evident the author has forgotten a lot and is just going through the usual xianxia motions of ascension, rinse and repeat.
Speaking of Swallowed Star, It's got a sequel, written by the author set in the world he ascended to at the end of the novel. It's supposed to cover the time frame from end of Swallowed Star to wherever the author wants. It's pretty evident the author has forgotten a lot and is just going through the usual xianxia motions of ascension, rinse and repeat.
), but there's more than just one or two litrpgs over on royalroad at a minimum that transitions from system to system guided cultivation to pure cultivation as the story goes on. There's definitely plenty of space to travel that path if you feel like it, heh.
