For your consideration-

Accepted, as per our PM discussions. Replace Ashley's CS in the Character Tab with her, and you're good to go!

I'm not approving it until you fix the bio.

I made Karin ("Nykannis"' real name smh my head) years before you did and with practically the same concept (only mine's better), therefore this is plagiarism and I'll be reporting you to the FBI, CIA, and Interpol.

Furthermore, your Social Credits is deducted by -9001 Points. Stand-by for your execution date. Glory to the Supreme Leader.

Super looking forward to working with Doctor Nykannis

Later than normal, but it's still Sunday my time.

The operation is over and downtime has started. You can start working on collabs with your fellow espers. There's going to be an other operation at some point, so you might as well take Apollo on a bad date or hug Ashley before it's too late. I'll be open to doing collabs, but unlike last time, I'm not going to actively seek everyone out. I think last time I was in all but two posts done over down time. Also, no hunts this time. I've got some systems to revamp and others to add. We'll see if this becomes a regular thing or if they come back later.

Some of the updates I'll be working on and am hyappy to announce are the following.

-Second (and hopefully final) Healing note revamp.

I do feel heal was a lot more useful on this operation, but I noticed it's still kind of confusing, and the whole "healing over time" thing is kind of confusing. That's how I work: I make cumbersome systems that do the job at a barely satisfactory level, and then I implement one that is simpler and does the job later after the "prototype" does its job. Anyway, the goal is to give healers the choice to cast powerful and unreasonably expensive healing magic, or to spend several turns casting a less expensive spell while falling behind in the action economy. Just don't get hit guys!

-Construct is going to be less wonkey

Crazy how newby espers can reshape the battlefield with a single note. I mean it's expensive and obtuse, but we can do better.

-Portal will be cheaper.

It's just too expensive for a note that needs forethought to use and has to be cast over two turns.

-Notes will have a "measure" attached to them to determine how fast they are.

Mostly for GM convenience, but will likely be useful in clutch moments when two espers cast a melody at the same time.

-Modification note revamps.

I don't know what I'm going to find, but the modification notes were made with a different system in mind. Now that I've seen how RP combat is moving, they need to be updated.

-New system: Combat Items

Everyone responded pretty well to the "expansions" in the last survey. Though the one that got the most interest was the item one. Espers will have a number of credits they can use to purchase mundane items before every operation. Depending on how things go, it might be upgradable via glamor to allow for more credits as well as special "backup items" that would let you call upon powerful effects once per operation.

Speaking of survey, sometime tommorow I'll have the new one out. Unlike the last one, anything you write in should be 100% anonymous. I'm not too worried about getting duplicate submissions given how small our group is. The survey is also going to influence how long downtime is, so be sure to take it if you care about stuff like that.

Genre upgrade.

Hm, Broken, think it’s necessary to clarify it as “Arcane Defense increased”? Or do you think it could be set off with any sorta increase?

Probably not. Buffs are rare outside of humans with dark blessings, which aren't common foes. Like pry, it has the potential to be very useful, but requires a somewhat niche situation to really work. It has my approval.

In general it'd also work to absolutely cuck the damage negation effects of Reflect. But yeah, it's whatever. Good to gooooo.

@BrokenPromise@ERode

Upgrade Submission For Wukong:



Just imagine the very expensive combo with both Full Enhance and then Damage X plus Mana Burn or Push or something. XD

Well, if that even works. Please let me know if it does or doesn't.

That’s fine with me.

@Crusader Lord Yea that works.

SMASH IT IN THERE!

So as most of you know, we had a survey recently. Last time I didn't post the results because there were onlly four or five votes, and everyone more or less agreed on everything. But this time, things were a little bit spicier.

So here's the results of the survey, as well as some commentary. I'm not going to put them up in any kind of order, save for putting the written ones on the end.



The first question pertains to how organized the DoCS is, which most of you seem to feel like it's in usable condition.

Unfortunately, we had an error with the survey, and I was not able to record the true number of people who did not feel the encountera were fair. But it was swiftly fixed, so I think I'm just missing one vote. But I was able to record comments on why they felt unfair. One player did not like the frequency in which espers have been using notes to escape combat, while another cautioned against having enemy reinforcements "come out of the walls."



The bulk of you are unawqare of how long you'd like downtime to last, whhile there are a few votes for 2-3 weeks respectively. If there isn't a big push to continue right away, I may have this downtime last 3 weeks just to get some extra edits into the DoCS. Subject to change if if everyone's itching to go by the end of this next week.

It also seems like the bounties are not of interest to most, while at least two others are FURIOUS!



You're an easygoing lot, ain'tcha?

I see no reason to make a change to the DoCS if no one is asking for it.

And yes, you all are in agreement that Damage X is working as intended.



I'm glad the new Melody Cost Calculator is working swimmingly for almost everyone. Remember that if you have any problems, a GM will likely be able to assist you. Though by the looks of it, most of the players can offer assistance as well.



Oof, seems everyone's pretty divided on what the perfect length for an operation is. Though perhapse it was the content rather than the length that made some vote the way they did...

At least you read everything, or make an effort to. I do occasionally have story beats happen in scenarios not everyone gets to experience.



Everyone wants something, but it seems like there's a lot of interest in less combat orientated stuff. That's what downtime is for, so I hope you guys are making an effort to seek each other out for collabs. Or are you interested in having the GMs do something of a social-style operation?

For anyone who's curious, the votes hiding behind the text box are non-paranormal life and a single write-in vote for Stacy.



*Giggles*

So yea, the write-ins.

The only serious one was for the melody system, which most of you seemed more or less fine with. One player did say they thought the system often seemed too limiting, and pointed out that logic-gate melodies are fun but not really worth the note slot. This is something I agree with, and I may find a way to let everyone take some or even all of the logic notes with them in addition to the rest of their load outs.

Most of the write-ins for best boy/girl and gear-grinder were serious, with no clear winners. But there were a few funny ones I feel like sharing.

If Finn somehow gets the most votes as best boy, should I be concerned???

Not funny on its own, but Finn did get a vote for best boy!

Mary is best girl/boy.

I mean, he's not wrong...

And for the gear grinders:

Fable is the clock guy yes. But actual answer idk.

This also just makes sense.

i am going to strangle that ghost man.

I feel like this was from the person who doesn't like people who come out of walls.

And then there were the closing thoughts from those who submitted them.

Plethora.

Alotta!

I rule, bitch!

So did king Henry, and tuberculosis kicked his ass.

Stacy better play chess with Marrie before the end of the year, or I'm dropping.

I've got a few months to make it happen.

Thanks for hosting the second mission! Lots of juicy stuff to take away afterwards.

You're juicy stuff to take away.

Or.

Something like that.

All the Arknights images used, yet none of the characters so far use an Arknights faceclaim. Smh, GM.

Su weeps.

Also Arknights is filled with furies, get out of here, yiffer.

---

So in closing, Downtime will be a week or two longer. Didn't have much time to work on the DoCS this week, so we'll see what happens going into the next one. Until then, stay safe, and watch out for late-coming April fool's jokes.

@BrokenPromise This is why it took so longggggg

Kinda wish there was a way to properly determine the sorts of impact it can shield from, but damage related to falls or being thrown are rare enough I don't think it'll be a problem.

Oh, and nice hands. I'm working on something too, but it'll be a week or so before anyone can see it.

Looks good. Slap it in your CS, speed.

Mmmmmmmmman, last week was not a good week for working on esper related stuff. Still, I got a few notes updated.

I've decided I'm going to post any and all patch notes In their own place to keep them organized. If you want to know what was done, you can find the patch notes Here

Now I just gotta balance the rest of the stuff I wanna patch with writing for the RP. gunna be a fun week.

I'd say more about the patch I implemented, but it's all stuff I talked about previously. The modification notes are coming up next, followed by the shop. May hold off on implementing note speed for another time, we'll see what I can get done.

The patch work on the modification notes is donezo. If you wanna know exactly what was done, please look here. It's mostly just some small cost adjustments and clarifications, though I do recommend looking at any notes that you use with your esper. the DoCS reflects these changes, so you can look at whatever is more convenient for you.

In addition to the note updates, Condition and Logic Gate Notes will be available for all espers over the next operation. So you have them even if they are not listed on your genre. This will either be cool or end hilariously.

Next downtime I likely won't have too many notes I wanna implement, so I should be able to add some of those new features we discussed in the past. Last thing I wanna do for notes is give them some keywords and maybe implement note speeds for those times when melodies are flying left and right, and timing matters. But everything is good for the moment.

Operations should commence tomorrow, so good luck with that.

I have a few collabs to add to, but I really wanna get this announcement out before too much time passes.

First the obvious, as you know, the current operation phase is over. You can start writing downtime posts that take place between now and the next operation. I'll have more to say about that shortly.

To my knowlage, no one but Sofron made use of special notes being "free" this operation. I can kind of understand why, but I'm going to keep them free for the time being as something that comes up that infrequently probably shouldn't cost a precious note slot.

Since the opperation has ended, you level up! Everyone can upgrade a bronze glamor to a silver one! The process is exactly the same as last time. Gold glamors will not be available to players until the completion of the next operation. We decided that an operation like this wasn't quite enough to justify getting a gold glamor. But yea, same ritual as before. Make your new glamors, submit them for approval, and VE-OH-LAH, you get more stronk. In relation to that...

Regarding the DoCS, I really wanna get to the updates I wanted to finish last downtime cycle into the rp. Note speeds, keywords, and the backup system. In fact, some of you may wish to hold off on updating glamors for the moment if you'd be interested in taking advantage of mundane gear/ powerful once per operation specials. I know Klava wishes she brought a gun.

And a note on downtime...

So I don't think it's a secret that a lot of the collabs posted during downtime involve the GMs. I don't mind writing them, and most of the time, they are justified. If you want one of your characters to converse with an NPC, I'm never going to turn that down. Especially if I'm the one who prompted it in the first place! But when I look at the posts that happen over downtime, an overwhelming proportion of them involve myself or Erode. And while I'm sure he enjoys writing with you just as much as I do, that means I can't work on the DoCS to fine tune notes, add more systems, or all that other stuff. With an important operation on the horizon, I would really like to have more time to work on that stuff, but I don't want to leave you guys twiddling your thumbs with nothing to do.

Something I like about rule sets is that they ground things. I've been in an RP that wasn't quite like this one, but it was sort of the same deal and it didn't have any rules to govern how its magic worked. You could keep casting spells until the GM said you were out of mana, everything was done by GM call and when GMs weren't involved, well, the sky was the limit. Combat was an incoherent mess, and battles were determined by judgements that were often inconsistent and seemed to serve the GMs bias more than anything else. Though one thing that RP did have was that the Players were free to do whatever they wanted. They could make laboratories, forge alliances, build their own factions, what they could do was policed as well as the combat was.

That stuff was pretty cool.

I feel that when people encounter a rule system, even if it just governs combat and little else, the temptation is to feel like your options are limited by it. Even when I started using maps to show the landscape of more complex battle areas, I feel like this has limited people's creativity a bit. Does their character have line of sight? etc. I mostly use these tools to make sure combat is coherant and not a chaotic mess. If your character doesn't see something, they might hear it or could simply move and become aware of what's going on.

But back to downtime, the world is really your oyster. You can collaborate with people outside your faction to get things set up. Maybe Finn wants to track down Justin, So he looks to Ashley for help, who brings along Marrie, as she's done research into his Chinese silk worm operation. You could do a collab deciding to form an alliance, and at a later date I could write what the group's findings are in a follow up post. You could also write solo posts trying to pursue other skills. Maybe Agent Leroux decides she wants to try her hand at being a magical researcher, or further her knowledge on blood magic beyond what Binky has told her. Stuff like this requires minimal imput from me, and lets you write posts.

Again, yea, there are going to be times I do need to write a post with you, especially for the crazier stuff. But I don't you to feel like your characters can't attempt to do things without GM supervision. @The World pretty much had Marrie attempt to hunt down Justin with minimal imput from me. They just kinda did it, leaving me posts to respond to, and it wasn't until Marrie got High Priest's attention that we jumped into a collab to sort out the back and forth with the mysterious entity.

And...

Yea, that's all for now, I gotta get to work!

Two hops this time.