Let me pick your Brain! - Part 2
Hello everyone, LunaWolve here!
I'm hard at work on the next chapters and require another discerning glance on a passage from my beloved Patrons.
I'm still waiting on more votes for the initial Poll in the last post (Let me pick your Brain! - Part 1) to make a final decision on how I want to handle passage feedback going forward.
Up until then, I will simply post a couple more, to provide further examples (and also to get feedback, lol) of what they might look like going forward, with a big ol' disclaimer in each of them, to warn the people that are ONLY interested in fully complete Chapters, that there's spoilers afoot in the post.
I hope that this solution is acceptable for everyone for now!
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----- Passage Feedback Below --------- That means there are spoilers involved! -----
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----- Passage Feedback Below --------- That means there are spoilers involved! -----
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[During the continued System 101 lecture, Professor Pierce explains the rarity keywords.]
[Start of Passage]
“They are generally grouped into two separate ‘types.’ The first five - those being Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold, and Platinum - are colloquially referred to as ‘base’ rarities, while the last four, barring Unique - Palladium, Crysium, Exium, and Galactium - are referred to as ‘true’ rarities.
“This particular distinction might seem odd at first, but it stems from a very practical origin.
“The base rarities simply indicate how often a certain thing generally occurs inside the System, akin to a random distribution with certain percentage values. The true rarities, however, indicate how often a certain thing can occur inside the System.
“To contextualise this using our current topic: Gold-rarity Abilities only show up in roughly one out of every 10,000 Participants. This is neither a guarantee nor a limit, however. Two Participants that get integrated right next to each other might both receive a Gold-rarity Ability right from the get-go, just as a group of 100,000 newly integrated Participants might not have a single one amongst them.
“This is distinctly different from the true rarities. Let's take the Palladium-rarity Ability, ‘Eyes of the Stellarch,’ as an example,” with those words, the projected data-screen behind Professor Pierce changed, displaying a faithful recreation of a familiar blue box.
[Active (Palladium 8,540/10,000) - Eyes of the Stellarch - Level 1]
Description: Allows the Participant to use focus and stamina to allow their vision to pass unhindered through obstacles of a certain thickness. This effect may be blocked by Materials over a certain Tier.
Cost: 100 Focus + 35 Stamina - Effect Depth: 5m
Effect Limit: Up to Tier 3 Materials - Effect Duration: 10 seconds
Upon seeing the description of the Ability, Thea's eyes widened, and her mouth opened in a mixture of awe and disbelief.
‘This…! It's like having wallhacks! How can this be real?! That Ability seems incredibly broken…! How would you even defend against this? Just sit in a room made out of whatever Tier 4 Materials are and stay there forever...? I wonder if there’s a way to get my hands on this thing…’
[...]
"As you can see, this Ability description looks fairly similar to the ones you should be familiar with by now, with one major distinction: the counter right after the rarity keyword.
"This counter is an indicator of how many versions of this particular Ability have been distributed by the System. The Ability can only exist up to a total of 10,000 times within the System, at any given time. That means if the maximum number has already been given out, it won't appear again until one of the 10,000 Participants either switches out the Ability for something else or dies. As you might imagine, this makes true rarity Abilities highly valuable and sought after, as they offer unique and powerful capabilities with limited availability.”
[End of Passage]
Similarly to last time, I'd like to hear first impressions. I won't be providing further context, as it's simply a test to see how people would react to this particular passage and the information included in it.
Does it feel natural?
Do you see any issues?
Is it repetitive or boring?
Is the information easy to understand?
Do descriptions need to be added or updated?
Those are the kind of things I'd like to know!
Thank you once again for your support, it is extremely and highly appreciated!
Comments (30)
I really like to discover new worlds and there mechanics, so these learning chapters don't feel boring to me. That said, you need practice to really integrate the knowledge and feel the extent of your new capabilities. It would prevent these chapters from being boring to people who don't share my taste. Learning by doing is a method militaries around the world are quite fond of. I'm really curious if the System affect other things than people in the galaxy. Would it transform some fauna and flora ? Maybe more interesting weather and terrain ? It seems the mention of tier 3 materials would hint at other changes than sapients ! That would offer more challenge for the creation of the ultimate warrior. It would skirt the line between sci-fi and fantasy, but you can explain it with science (fiction) !
Very good points! The System does indeed effect certain flora and fauna, but to a lesser degree than sapient beings and only in integrated parts of the galaxy (aka. not Human space)
So, the computer tech of this time period seems, absolutely absurdly advanced compared to current tech. Is there a reason the UHF hasn't just like... completely read the human genome and developed a retro-virus to change the genetics of their recruits to be better?
The technology is insanely advanced in certain areas, while other areas are woefully underdeveloped. There's a certain reason for that, that will play a major part in the story going forward, so I can't reveal too much. That said, there's also a major disincentive towards researching and developing technology towards certain areas. That disincentive being the Emperor himself. He forbade certain branches from being researched, developed or advanced, such as sentient AI, certain genetic modifications etc. So unless a faction wants to incur the wrath of Terra itself, they're better off staying away from those parts.
I'm curious about your thoughts in making the choice to have stats be fully discrete vs baselines. To me it would seem more "realistic" if stats represented the minimum every person with that number of points could do, but not the maximum. Simple example: Someone with 2 strength can always squat 200 kgs, but if you continue to train you might be able to squat 390 kgs while still being a 2 in strength. Only if you manage to train all your baselines above the next threshold you gain a stat point. So if the str baseline for 3 is like 6x300 kg squat, 6x150 kg chest press... then only when you meet all those baselines would you have 3 str. To me this seems like it would give a more tangible reason to train as well as allow for more variation in the skills of each soldier. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Great thoughts! This is already in the System, although not explained/revealed yet. Once Thea invests some of her points, it'll become more apparent. Attribute stats aren't integers, but doubles - to use a couple programming terms. While they all appear as integers on the screen at the moment, due to the fact that the Participants early on have no reason to believe otherwise and the System follows their interpretations as much as possible, this will change once percentage increases come into play. Having a 10% increase on a 3, would be non-existant, so once a Participants invests in a stat, they'll quickly realise that "hey, wait a minute. This should still give me bonuses, no?", which will prompt the System to change it's integer-based display into a double one. As such, there can be a fairly massive difference between a 3.00 and a 3.99, as well as more gradual gains from training, just as you described! That said, a 3.99 will still be exactly at the same point as another 3.99 in terms of capabilities, so that aspect remains the same.
I find the passage clear and natural, but I've been worried about the overall length of this whole section filled with presentations and lectures. There's a bunch of 'revelation' followed by 'Thea reacts to revelation' paragraphs. None are bad but grouped together they can bog down the pace and balloon the word count. This is a difficult thing for serials as novels spend a lot of time editing to tighten these type of sections. I think you've done a good job breaking things up so far; just be aware getting to an action arc should be a priority soon. With 2-3 chapters a week, RR readers will already be weeks before getting to this point. I hope this came across as a gentle worry and not harsh criticism. It's been excellent, Keep up the good work.
Very astute feedback! You'll be happy to hear that Chapter 13 (releasing later today here on Patreon) will be the end of the current lecture, which is directly followed by a practical class, which will include quite some action! Never worry about being harsh with your criticism! Better get it out there any way you can than bottle it up cause you can't find a way to be nice about it. I've been a content creator for years before I started writing, so my skin is pretty thick for these things! ;) As long as you're not being an asshole about it, I won't feel annoyed, I promise!
What benefit can physical training give you? Iirc the professor said that stat values are absolute, what one perspn woth 5 strength can do, any other can do as well. In that case does physical training increase your stength stat value? If so does it increase your base value or the value of "distributed" stats points? If not why is there so much space and time dedicated to physical training on the ship? Do you need to keep training in order to maintain your physical stats?
Great questions! The benefit of physical training is manifold: - Initially, it can increase your 'base' Attribute, depending on the initial level. If you start with a 2 or 3, you might be able to get 1-2 points by rigurous training. If you're already at a 4 or 5, it's unlikely that there will be major gains. These gains would be applied to the 'base', not the 'distributed' stat points. So those gains are extremely huge, if you can manage to set enough time and effort aside to get them. - Furthermore, continued excercise is required to keep your System enhancements active. You will notice that Old Man James, despite it being hinted that he might have been a General-ranked Marines in the UHF, was not overly physically impressive. This is because his System enhancements degraded over time, due to the lack of continued maintenance. - System enhancements can be regained through training as well, so it's not like being knocked out of comission for a while will irreperably damage your foundations forever. Some good ol' physical therapy will do wonders in re-energizing those enhancements.
Does this imply that it was/is possible for a brand new marine to receive not a Silver ability but a Gold one during initialization? I like your using Gold as the example but if you used Silver it would allow for further speculation/insight into the actual rarity of their squad based on the size of the class (although showing that number later on would work as well)
That is correct! The highest rarity starting Ability the UHF has ever seen on a newly integrated Marine was of Gold rarity, rather than Silver.
please make a discord also you got me to read digital marine I was put off of it from the picture it has but God it's so good I'm on chappie 18 of it already I'm gonna cry when I get to what it's at atm since they haven't uploaded in 16 months also good passage reads nice to me
Working on the discord soon!
This passage feels solid. One small comment: I don't know exactly what you have planned, but you should try to get Thea into an exercise soon because if we keep going from class to class without it broken up by some action or drills its going to feel like a serious info dump slog. I love the true rarity system though. Even if it feels a little at odds with the Systems stated mission of creating the Ultimate Warrior I think its a good mechanic.
The next chapter is the last one before some action!
One question that immediately came to mind was regarding the true rarities. Is the limit a limit for humanity or the system as a whole? It reads as being a rarity for the system in total. That would be kind of antithetical to the purpose of the whole isolation though, as humanity could infer a lot of information from the number of humans with this ability: How widely spread is the ability as a whole? What percentage of it all does humanity have in said ability? How fast is the growth in people with this ability compared to the general closing of slots? How focused on certain areas is humanity compared to the general average. ... So I suppose the limit is actually a limit to the distribution of said ability among humanity. If I was able to deduce that much, in a few minutes, humanities scholars should have figured out at least as much and I'd expect the explanation to the explicitly include, whether or not the rarity of the ability is purely in regards to humanity.
It's unclear, as the UHF has no way to actually confirm whether or not it's Humanity-only. There's no real communication between the Factions, that the UHF has access to, so it's not like they can simply figure it out. So the general assumption of the UHF is that it's System-wide, which is why it's written the way that it is. Hope that clears some stuff up!
Not sure if im just misunderstanding but i cant tell if the 5m thickness is cumulative or not. Example you have two walls, wall 1 is 3m thick and wall 2 is 4m thick. Can the user of Eyes of the Stellarch see past wall 2 or only wall 1?
This would be something for the Participant to test themselves, as the System does not give that information itself. The answer here would be "only wall 1, as it's cumulative", once they test it.
The only thing I noticed would be the "how many versions" making it seem like there are potentially different variations of the abilities rather than copies.
Good eye. Not a mistake ;)
Cost: 100 Focus / 35 Stamina - Effect Depth: 5m So, it looks like the cost is 100 Focus per 35 stamina? Which doesn't seem right. Should probably be listed as Cost: 100 Focus + 35 Stamina. or Maybe its 100 Focus or 35 Stamina? That's possible, based on how its listed, but unclear. Also unclear, is the Effect Limit inclusive or exclusive? As in would Tier 3 materials block it, or would it work on up to Tier 3 materials? It doesn't specify and while Thea seems to assume its exclusive, I don't see how she'd know based on the information provided.
Ahhh you're correct! Fixed!
By the description “over a certain tier” and then listing “tier 3”. I was assuming it could see through tier 3 and not over it. Thea assumes you can’t see through tier 3. Maybe she is reading it wrong but that isn’t what I assume the answer really is.
Ahhh very good point! Fixed!
Looks good to me. Its interesting to note that people can switch abilities.
I enjoyed the passage! Very informative and easy to understand. Looking forward to more knowledge about the system and hopefully some more action soon! Maybe a ‘friendly’ spar?
Action is coming very soon! ;)
Forgot a portion of the passage, past Thea's reaction. Just updated it! If anyone was already reading, please refresh!