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[Radio Controlled]

Oh, damn it all, now SC's crossed out the action. I was saying nothing so as to not jinx it, but it seems to have not worked out anyway.

That was the quintessential ER hazardous course of action he was about to do, I think. Wanton space magicking, suicidal overconfidence, willful ignorance, barbaric brutality, perilous vagueness, reckless endangerment of teammates and massive property damage, this one had it all. If piecewise had taken the bait, it could have been beautiful, I'm sure.

Might have needed to replace most of the ARM's command staff afterward, of course, but to me that makes it even more worth it.

An interesting stance, that last line. Care to elaborate?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Oh, damn it all, now SC's crossed out the action. I was saying nothing so as to not jinx it, but it seems to have not worked out anyway.

That was the quintessential ER hazardous course of action he was about to do, I think. Wanton space magicking, suicidal overconfidence, willful ignorance, barbaric brutality, perilous vagueness, reckless endangerment of teammates and massive property damage, this one had it all. If piecewise had taken the bait, it could have been beautiful, I'm sure.

Might have needed to replace most of the ARM's command staff afterward, of course, but to me that makes it even more worth it.

An interesting stance, that last line. Care to elaborate?

We've got something of a power imbalance right now. The really experienced people have giant robots and giant guns and humongous reality-warping powers, so the rank and file need special care to be useful and not dead. Getting some of the cream of the crop trimmed off could potentially improve overall mission experience, at least that's my take on the viewpoint.

[Parisbre56]

Oh, damn it all, now SC's crossed out the action. I was saying nothing so as to not jinx it, but it seems to have not worked out anyway.

That was the quintessential ER hazardous course of action he was about to do, I think. Wanton space magicking, suicidal overconfidence, willful ignorance, barbaric brutality, perilous vagueness, reckless endangerment of teammates and massive property damage, this one had it all. If piecewise had taken the bait, it could have been beautiful, I'm sure.

Might have needed to replace most of the ARM's command staff afterward, of course, but to me that makes it even more worth it.

An interesting stance, that last line. Care to elaborate?

We've got something of a power imbalance right now. The really experienced people have giant robots and giant guns and humongous reality-warping powers, so the rank and file need special care to be useful and not dead. Getting some of the cream of the crop trimmed off could potentially improve overall mission experience, at least that's my take on the viewpoint.

An option to permanently "retire" an old character (say they went off to fight in the frontlines or conduct covert missions or something (maybe with the possibility of having them appear in the news or in a major battle)) when they reach 10 missions and start with a new one along with some extra stats and equipment (sort of like a new game+) might help with that. There would still be a small gap but it would be less noticeable and give old players incentive to play newbie characters without the need to kill their current characters.

But I think the way piecewise has it now (one complicated mission that requires lots of planning and leaving as few things to luck as possible, one hard mission which mainly revolves around combat and one less hard mission that mainly revolves around exploration and unexpected dangers) works well, since each can choose the mission they think they would be comfortable with. That, plus piecewise hitting people with something harder when he thinks they are getting overpowered and they give him a chance.

[piecewise]

So the last one was just "Lets mix in every possible new age concept into one completely incoherent belief system. Time traveling Hebrews, oy vey."

This one is Islamic, black supremacist, ancient alien, hollow earth ranting narrated by a computer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUEN1ZuDSMg

The truly hilarious thing about this one is how clearly the writer was influenced by modern society. The super intelligent alien is said to have graduated all the colleges and universities.

All of them. In like 4000 BCE.

[Parisbre56]

Does 0 out of 0 still count as all of them?

EDIT: Oh dear, that song. "But not because of my size."

[Harry Baldman]

An interesting stance, that last line. Care to elaborate?

Schadenfreude as applied to an organization, a general love for upheaval and no real investment in ARM's goals explains the 'worth it' part. Needing to replace most of ARM's command staff would be something that would presumably arise if Miyamoto was standing right next to Jim as things went down. A long shot, obviously, but nevertheless possible, especially if it works exactly like China-9, where the nascent sun was difficult to outrun, or maybe if it just instantly heats up the entire surrounding area by a hundred kelvins or so.

We've got something of a power imbalance right now. The really experienced people have giant robots and giant guns and humongous reality-warping powers, so the rank and file need special care to be useful and not dead. Getting some of the cream of the crop trimmed off could potentially improve overall mission experience, at least that's my take on the viewpoint.

And also this explains the 'worth it', part, I suppose, but not so much in terms of caring for the rank and file, rather more of a perverse sense of satisfaction when experienced, well-equipped people on the further end of the power scale meet painful deaths. Might not be the kindest sentiment, but deep down I just can't help it.

I sort of relish a sense of collective powerlessness as well, hence why I resent the presence of the AM on the ship (not so much the Doctor, since he's more what I envision a considerably powerful and strange being would be like, and probably also because his demigodliness hardly ever manifests) and even the mere possibility of people with demigod powers. I find them rather boring as a general rule - for instance, Urban Executors are fun adversaries, while Amp Specialists are, on the contrary, insufferably terrible and annoying. It probably has to do with similar factors as a strong dislike of, for instance, the high level experience of D&D, if you get what I'm trying to say.

[Toaster]

Interestingly put, since PW has hinted that the Doctor is actually harder to kill than the AM.  (In terms of survivability; pretty sure the AM is the clear offense winner.)

But yes, the only time the Doctor has ever shown any power is when he was attacked.  (Hostile player and training with Renen.)  He's more eldritch that way.

[PyroDesu]

Interestingly put, since PW has hinted that the Doctor is actually harder to kill than the AM.  (In terms of survivability; pretty sure the AM is the clear offense winner.)

But yes, the only time the Doctor has ever shown any power is when he was attacked.  (Hostile player and training with Renen.)  He's more eldritch that way.

He also threatened to with Ivan - that got the AM to interfere.

Also, Harry - based off that, I guess you'd consider Milno a more fun enemy than Miyamoto or Jim?

[Toaster]

He threatened, but didn't actually.  Probably because he would have had to unleash his eldritchness upon all the newbies in there getting their asses kicked, and that'd just add insanity to injury.

[Harry Baldman]

Also, Harry - based off that, I guess you'd consider Milno a more fun enemy than Miyamoto or Jim?

Yes, but that's not really what I'm getting at. All three of them have their identifiable, exploitable weaknesses, and all three of them you could pretty safely take down with a microwave amp if you were so inclined, and Jim and Milno can be eliminated with conventional weaponry without all that much trouble, I think.

What I have a problem with is the Amp Specialist's ilk, since fighting one of those just turns into an anime-style space magic battle (which feels thematically wrong, but that's not important at the moment). The Amp Specialist doesn't seem to run out of will points, has bullshit amp-sight (rendering that whole smugly stated "ah, but they need to know you're there first" stratagem completely useless) as well as full ability to protect himself from virtually everything hitting him and attacking at the same time, and is also a one man army, and this combination I find highly distasteful because it seems like an extremely transparently designed and absurdly beefed up boss enemy rather than something I could envision as being called a 'specialist' in a military context. The AM's largely the same thing, because her whole amp demigod thing feels kind of bullshit in a similar fashion, a thing that feels transparently like game design rather than like a natural part of the setting. The Doctor's better at this, even if it's largely because of recent developments revealing or at least hinting at some of the backstory that explains his curious state.

Of course, both the AM and the Amp Specialists may have entirely reasonable explanations behind them that tie into the universe, but that's just my impression of them from the little information we have obtained.

And my problem balance-wise is mostly that high-power characters attract this sort of adversary and this sort of general content more than low-power characters. It's still mostly just schadenfreude, though.

[NAV]

I'm with HB. I cackle with glee whenever a high level character is killed off. Except for May. That was very sad.

[Toaster]

I have to agree about May.  She's the only character whose death I considered a tragedy.  Every other character ranged to disappointment to apathy to outright hilarity.  Even Thrak's death (my first character) didn't upset me as much.

Of course, I was also sad to see Stacy go, although I think we all knew it was coming sooner or later.  His was a tragicomedy, at least.

Timmy was just hilarious and obviously coming.

[Radio Controlled]

My oh my, what bloodlust for the poor defenseless supermen.

Look, I can certainly see how some people could be annoyed with the power imbalance. I've been trying not to let that happen too much, mostly by backing down from opportunities and letting other people play (eg not joining rescue mission, giving swordsmith those sods to command during Hep defense, etc). But how do we really fix this on a fundamental level? Forced retirement of characters? Because I like playing this one. Create special missions for vets? Then we run into the problem of the game favoring those who started playing earlier. So yeah, I can see why it'd be a problem (nobody likes standing at the sidelines while the demigods do everything) but I don't know a good solution. Hell, for me personally an option would be to really take a step back from active missions and fully focus on the bigger picture war effort (I enjoy that, don't judge me). But for others, that probably wouldn't be an option.

Might not be the kindest sentiment, but deep down I just can't help it.

Heh, wanting to see those 'at the top' take a dive is a very human thing to feel. Perhaps not the nicest indeed, but then again nobody said this we were in this thing to be nice!

Oh, and personally I see Amp specialists as a challenge rather than an annoyance, but I get where you're coming from. Can't be fun to face that and not having anything on you that can touch it.

I have to agree about May.  She's the only character whose death I considered a tragedy.  Every other character ranged to disappointment to apathy to outright hilarity.  Even Thrak's death (my first character) didn't upset me as much.

Of course, I was also sad to see Stacy go, although I think we all knew it was coming sooner or later.  His was a tragicomedy, at least.

Timmy was just hilarious and obviously coming.

Leon's was golden. Such drama, much hubris.

[Lenglon]

I come back from internet failure land to see Jim nearly murder me as well as everyone else on the diplo mission.
Jim of all people...
*sigh*

[Toaster]

Honestly though, how many supermen do we have?

Miya's clearly the most powerful, but there are two factors.  One, it cost him a good chunk of his humanity.  Two, he's the top-ranked PC in the ARM, so he has kinda earned it.

Down from that we have Jim as probable #2.  With a synthbody, two amps, and his perfect decomp with high bonus, he can handle space magic better than anyone else, as well as being fearsome in a fistfight.  But SerCon isn't overly active, he's still limited by mindpoints, and isn't invincible besides; getting shot a few times would severely hamper his mobility, if not his offense.

Below that we have the other synthbodies, whom I am going to vaguely lump together.  There's uh... Feyri, Faith, Simus, Pancaek, and Auron.  Faith's got HALLELUJAH mode, Pancaek's good with amps, Feyri and Auron are walking armories, and Simus is stuck on Heph.  They're strong, but M14 shows they're clearly not invincible... and really dangerous when turned the wrong way.

Lukas and Flint are our giant robot overlords, but the former is inactive and the latter actively tries to avoid killing people.  He's well armed, but we've seen battlesuit weaknesses.

Xan's a special case and hard to quantify.  He's potentially extremely powerful but we haven't seen that power truly brought to bear yet.

Below that, we have the many-mission veterans with good gear and many spent skills.  Milno, Lars, and several others fall in this category.  All have their strengths, but none are supermen.


Really, I'd say the issue is a bit overblown.  The Heph Assault team shows what can be done when the strongest get together, but they're pretty much all never on a mission together now.


(If I missed anyone or you disagree with my assessment of your character's power, then I'm sorry.  I'm going by memory plus a quick glance over the wiki.)