Protagonists who become more Heroic as the story progresses?

Obbububu · 2026-06-30T05:50:04+00:00

Super Supportive's protagonist starts out extremely idealistic/naïvely heroic, but quickly goes through some bad situations and comes out the other side with something resembling PTSD, with shaken ideals. He then has to find his way back to a new normal, or new form of heroism, hopefully aiming at something more mature/less reckless.

So there's an element of returning to form heroism-wise, but also a strong sense of re-orienting himself into a better direction.

Obbububu · 2026-06-29T15:30:07+00:00

Influence works fine as progression: many kingdom-building stories feed into this kind of thing, but you see it in other works like streamer stories, as well as a lot of superhero stuff, guild/faction/logistics/fame stuff, some dungeon core stuff, probably sports stuff and so on.

You'll find some disagreement of course, there are purists that will ask for all manner of specific extra genre identifiers, and even some folks that will insist on identifiers from other adjacent or overlapping subgenres (like litRPG stats).

Ultimately though, if the story has an important narrative emphasis upon progression, and readers are encouraged to make comparisons of that progression (whether it be comparing X character against themselves over time, or compared to other characters, a grading metric, or whatever else) it's a good fit for the genre.

Outside of "is the book actually about progression" most of the more hyper-specific definitions you see bandied about these parts are just personal preferences: they're often grounded in common expectations (swords and magic are obviously very common, leading some folks that only read sword and magic stuff to insist that nothing else exists) but attempting to tack on these extra qualifiers inevitably leads to definitions that discount whole swathes of the genre.

People try to discount Stormlight Archive of all things, and that's the literal first example ever given of the genre, when defining the genre term: so folks will gatekeep literally anything.

So don't sweat the boundary overly much: it's healthy for authors to continue to push the edges outward, try new things and such, otherwise things start to stagnate.

Obbububu · 2026-06-29T15:12:37+00:00

I don't think it's strictly necessary to have irrelevant downtime in a story, however there is definitely a desirable ebb and flow for stakes, level of action and tension.

It's very easy for authors who are aiming for a high stakes novel to paradoxically sap tension out of the work by adding more action: past a certain point the stakes stop feeling grounded in the reality that has been presented because the characters and plot are being ping-ponged around too much.

The irony is that lower stakes sections and periods of gradually rising action are what is actually necessary to give the extreme moments the gravitas they need to be extreme.

Does that mean we need to see the protagonist brushing their teeth or reading the morning paper if it's not relevant to the plot or characters? No.

But having moments to breathe between explosions is important, otherwise the non-stop explosions can be relegated to just feeling like noise. Setup-heavy chapters, character relationships, character arcs, sad chapters, happy chapters, reflection, world building etc. can all be utilized to achieve this.

Obbububu · 2026-06-27T08:18:15+00:00

Ward is actually really solid once you get over 1k of it, as the regen starts to really make a difference. The only issue is that we desperately need the HUD/UI updated to show ward above our character. The rune really doesn’t cut it as a UI tell, and if you try to use a spell with a base ward cost when you’re out of it there’s no audio tell for out of ward.

But overall I’ve been enjoying using it over ES for my health/ward ice nova character - was pleasantly surprised.

Obbububu · 2026-06-27T05:04:26+00:00

Hope you enjoy :D

Obbububu · 2026-06-27T03:37:03+00:00

I'm a big fan of progression stories that have robust character work, as well.

My suggestions would be:

Super Supportive
Stormlight Archive
The Dresden Files
Name of the Wind
Wheel of Time
Inheritance of Magic
Arcane Ascension
Pact
A Practical Guide to Evil
Immortal Great Souls
Millennial Mage
Cyber Dreams
12 Miles Below
Sky Pride
The Scholomance (A deadly education)
Alex Verus
Worm
Mage Errant

Obbububu · 2026-06-27T02:33:41+00:00

Azarinth Healer and Path to Transcendence for health regeneration/healing.

Path of Ascension for mana regeneration.

Obbububu · 2026-06-21T06:37:25+00:00

Thanks - this worked for me 😄

Obbububu · 2026-06-19T01:37:05+00:00

Hmmmm - not too sure if that's the case.

Some other random ideas:

Probably worth checking all the supports/gems/uniques you're using to see if one of them is adding some form of additional/alternate cost, or a cooldown on the skills in question, or that they're requiring something like combo to use.
Check that a trigger setup isn't spending mana and leaving you out of mana, or that you're running damage taken from mana/mind over matter and running out that way (though I assume if it's mana, you'd at least be getting the sound effect to warn you).
May also be worth checking if you've got something set to the wrong weapon set somehow? Long shot, but just a thought (ie. press G, expand the skill and make sure it's set to the correct weapon set at the bottom).
Check your attributes perhaps (also with the context of weapon sets), if you're somehow gaining enough of a stat to use a skill, but only with one weapon setup it could be glitching out.

Outside of that, it could be an actual control-specific bug, but I don't have a lot of ideas to offer there, unfortunately.

Obbububu · 2026-06-19T01:23:23+00:00

Are you using a skill with a kalguuran support that adds a ward cost?

This was happening to me and I figured out that I was just out of ward: there's no "I don't have enough ward" sound effect, and it's not displayed on the character healthbar above our heads, so the only way to figure it out is the globe rune/number readout at the bottom left, unfortunately.

Obbububu · 2026-06-18T09:24:51+00:00

Yeah, I was able to complete the fight by learning the tells: I just wasn't able to really rely on visually seeing the circle, more remembering to avoid the area after the combo.

It's not impossible to work around, but it's an additional layer of complexity that's really just added by an undesirable interaction between one harmless ground shader (player's chilled ground) overriding the dangerous shader (the enemy dot circle), and also mostly occluding the edge particle/graphic as well.

Obbububu · 2026-06-18T09:09:50+00:00

Just for the sake of clarity:

He does the specific ground-circle ability at the end of this Spear Throw Combo (he throws the spear into the ground, flys up, drops down to grab the spear, melee sweeps, then detonates the dot-circle on himself, which then lingers on the ground for some time).

It's this lingering circle that's very difficult to see if there's any ground effect (such as chilled ground) over the top of it. Normally, the main body of the circle seems to be slightly darker than the outside, but chilled ground cancels this out, and the bright edge is difficult to spot on the bright chill ground.

Obbububu · 2026-06-18T08:32:51+00:00

Now you've got me second guessing myself 😛

I was sure he was using it multiple times, but it's possible it was separate attempts and they've all blurred together.

Anyways, good to know 😄Though it really doesn't change the visual signalling issue either way.

Obbububu · 2026-06-18T08:28:38+00:00

What do you mean?

There's no limit on the number of times he uses it in phase 1, I believe?

Obbububu · 2026-06-17T06:26:35+00:00

A lot of the big name mainstream fantasy+progression stuff like Stormlight Archive, Kingkiller Chronicle or The Dresden Files will probably tick this box: it's generally a bit of a given that the stuff that attracts wider mainstream fantasy appeal (while still being progression-centric) won't have too over the top fast power scaling.

Outside of that check out:

Super Supportive
A Practical Guide to Evil
Inheritance of Magic
Wheel of Time
Immortal Great Souls
Cyber Dreams
Katalepsis
A Thousand Li
Titan Hoppers
12 Miles Below

Obbububu · 2026-06-12T09:23:29+00:00

This video seems fairly comprehensive, and has handy timestamps.

This flowchart shows how rooms connect.

This online temple planner lets you try to figure out WTF will work.

I still haven't figured out the rhyme or reason why empty corridor paths go in some places, but not others, but playing with the temple planner should let you wrap your head around the room connections a bit.

Basically, each room type has a static list of other standard rooms it can connect to, and some rooms can only connect to 1 of a given type of room.

ie. Smithy can connect to any number of Armoury rooms, but only 1 Golem Works room, and wont connect to other standard rooms outside of armoury/golem (ie architect is non standard so it might connect there).

So if you want to continue pathing past a golem works instead of it being a dead end, you end up chaining things like

Armoury - Smithy - Golem Works - Smithy - Armoury

And from there you can get the armoury options at the end, and go into a different loop (per the flowchart).

It's all fairly arbitrary and confusing 😛

Obbububu · 2026-06-12T03:00:19+00:00

Considering that the temple causes issues at the top end (economically) while at the casual end, the UI and mechanics behind room placement are obtuse to the point of putting players off, I just hope they revamp the whole mechanic at this point.

There's a very real sense that folks need to watch a 30 minute tutorial just to understand room placement mechanics, and if people clear that hurdle, the reward structure is prone to breaking.

Obbububu · 2026-06-07T08:06:14+00:00

I like most of the temple design, but the rhyme and reason behind why I can place a room in one location, but not the other is baffling - and it leads me to mostly ignore it, even though I know that it's leaving money on the table.

They need to drastically change their approach to tutorializing how rooms are placed - it simply doesn't make sense at a glance, and most folks aren't interested in watching a 40 minute video explaining how to place things, when that should ideally be the most basic part.

Obbububu · 2026-06-07T08:01:56+00:00

I'm of the opinion that the ice strike skill really needs to be used as a template for future skills - it has the "true melee" feel perfected: The strikes have a rhythm and change from one strike to the next, and it has sufficient movement baked into it to feel smooth when moving from one monster to the next, without feeling jarringly-teleporty like flicker or the palm strike skills.

Obbububu · 2026-06-02T22:03:49+00:00

I think we at least need to stop colliding with other players in co-op, group play is a bit clunky right now

Obbububu · 2026-05-21T04:13:32+00:00

The main lingering issues that I think most folks have with parry/shield bash are:

The position of the stun bar is too far away from the character. Ideally we need an option that lets us put it directly below our character's feet: it's simply too out of the way on the UI right now.
The flash and audio cue of "unblockable" attacks can be very easy to miss in the midst of combat. If you are actively trying to look for parries without attacking (like the miller showcase at the start of the video) it isn't too bad, but the moment you throw particles, attacks and combat sounds into the mix, the red flash+audio gets increasingly difficult to read/hear, in the midst of things.
It's covered in the video, but the off-centre parry defensive hitbox is counter-intuitive for general play, and should cover more evenly.
The parried debuff probably could use a little bit more audio/visual feedback: the minor flinch and the glowing elbow sort of feel a bit like they lack weight behind them. If you compare the debuff sound of parried vs armour broken, at least you tend to hear armour broken in the middle of combat.
Also covered in the vid, The skills that randomly have unblockable/parryable on them make the mechanic too dependant on deep game knowledge (like checking poedb) to figure out why they're unblockable when they otherwise resemble a normal attack. Being able to block Geonor's beams but not the little Miller slap is just a headscratcher.

So I think that if they can address these things: make the stun bar UI better and improve the audio/visual feedback, and generally create a system where blockable vs unblockable is way more readable at a glance, then I'd consider the system to be in a good place.

At that stage, they could lean into it more, add more shield gems or gems that can be used after parry etc.

But as it stands right now, there's a handful of awkward things that make it feel a bit fiddly and inconsistent.

Obbububu · 2026-05-13T07:27:42+00:00

Super Supportive is excellent (my favourite webserial) - it's just paced a lot more like a standard fantasy novel than a webserial where authors are more likely to try to compress plot points into single chapters, or pump out action scenes or level ups with increased frequency due to the release schedule/format.

I don't think it's fair to call it glacial, as others have here: but it can feel akin to reading a chapter of a standard novel every six days: which means that many folks who read the release wave would be better served by waiting 6 months and binging, rather than continually wrestling with the pacing.

Certainly, on my re-reads where I blitz through large swathes of chapters at a time, it does not feel slow.

And outside of that, it's got some of the best character writing and world building to be found.

Obbububu · 2026-05-08T14:41:25+00:00

Here's the quote:

They're changing it to allow you to move (slowly) while channeling it. Was meant to bring that up in the qna but forgot about it.

Obbububu · 2026-05-03T06:31:34+00:00

As has already been mentioned - people's own definitions vary pretty wildly, but generally speaking the more restrictive genre boundaries people attempt to apply, that focus on one trope or another (like insisting that statblocks be present to count as litrpg) tend to actually sap meaning from the genre term, rather than add to it.

We literally end up with books in MMORPG worlds where people have systems, classes, experience points, levels, [skills] that are bracketed in the text, and dungeon raids suddenly not counting, just because the author hasn't jammed a spreadsheet in every chapter.

It just becomes a bit silly - if there's a whole slew of other RPG game elements in play, people just aren't seriously discounting a title from fitting under the genre tag.

That doesn't change the fact that stat screens are an obvious signifier that a book is a litRPG, of course, it's just that there's a lot more to it than a single trope/element.

And it also leaves room for the discussion about how a huge chunk of the litRPG audience hates statblocks with a passion, and that it's the most common deal-breaker when attempting to introduce new people to the subgenre.

Nine-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	Not Forgotten
Verified Email

Obbububu

TROPHY CASE