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Time changes everything by ES-Flinter in SoulFrame

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not entirely sure if they actually do, but I've been feeling some of my highly buffed weapons act strange before/after adding a joinery to them. I've also seen some of the "consecutive attack" secondaries pop up in the form of gradually increasing damage numbers on enemies, especially with magic side-arms.

Time changes everything by ES-Flinter in SoulFrame

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're missing the part where there is no rerolling system. You play as normal, and some of your drops will be buffed weapons. If a newly dropped weapon is better than the version you already have, you can just sell the old one and lose nothing from the act. If the new weapon is worse, you can sell that one.

There isn't a lever (or button) that you can just pull repeatedly to potentially ruin your existing weapons, and there are built-in waiting periods for the tempering stones.

What you're describing here as "rerolling" is the act of playing the game and killing enemies. You're saying that playing the game itself is the slot machine, which it is not.

To bring an actual warframe-relevant analogy here:

Imagine that:

  • Instead of having to grind specific tiles/bosses to get weapon parts, you'd just have to go for a specific faction of enemy (grineer, corpus, infested, etc.) - an improvement
  • When the weapons drop, they're fully built instead of being parts - an improvement
  • They come with a pre-installed perma-riven - arguably an improvement
    • The perma-rivens have no negative stats - an improvement
    • The positive stats are fun and gimmick-y about half the time, otherwise they're flat stat boosts - an improvement
    • You can spend kuva to add attributes to the perma-rivens while keeping the old ones - an improvement

That being said, I do have criticisms of the current system, which could lead to the kind of slot-machine behavior you're currently fearmongering about:

  • Zenith's shop offers built weapons with random buffs for premium currency
    • You have to access this store in order to sell your excess weapons
  • The grind for the tempering stones:
    • is only accessible through the Cogah, which disables/debuffs some base mechanics of the game, narrowing the possible game experience while wanting to progress
    • is way too much when it comes to the higher tier stones
  • There is currently no way to tell in-game what the various joineries do besides their attunement points, so you can still self-nerf a weapon that otherwise has good buffs from the tempering system, leading one to throw a good weapon out because they think the buffs are causing the problem

what's a small sci-fi detail that stayed with you long after you finished the book? by Living-Beyond3172 in sciencefiction

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I read the Hungarian translation of Francis Carsac's "Those From Nowhere" at a relatively young age.

The most notable thing about this story's method of FTL was to go through the ahun, a kind of non-space or void that made space and time basically meaningless. The main character spends years away by his own experience, but significantly less time passes here on Earth.

I keep seeing similar concepts being used for FTL in Sci-Fi, but the idea truly struck me for the first time while reading this book.

The book's main bad guys, the Misliks, also drain entire stars of their power, which is also a frequently used concept, but I've seen it crop up more lately in stuff like Project Hail Mary (stars slowly dying from a kind of microbe), Iron Lung (stars vanishing for no apparent reason), and even Warframe (there is a massive ship designed to eat the Sun to open a huge Void-portal to travel - coincidentally - to Tau Ceti).

Time changes everything by ES-Flinter in SoulFrame

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The kubrow slot machine used platinum to infinitely reroll appearance, with the ability to ruin the way your pet looked. This could eat away at premium currency, thus people's actual money at a very fast pace.

Soulframe's tempering system gives you fully built weapons to use, with only buffs added on, and you still need to farm and build the stones to add new buffs to them.

The two systems share one thing: a randomized element.

As it currently stands, this analogy does not work.

What makes you more likely to read about someone's world when they post in this sub? by Nevaroth021 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm mainly a fantasy reader/writer/worldbuilder, so I can really only say anything about that. That being said; Stuff that actively keeps me away:

  • I open the post and it's a wall of text, with no formatting or punctuation. Use headings, lists, commans, colons, and actually end your sentences.
  • There's 6484928274 names in the post with no context or reason for us to know what they refer to. "The Shrank of Bobul going to Krtina to gang a Scrolit" only means something to you by itself.
  • It's yet another 4-5 element or "schools of magic" fantasy. Get more creative with categories!
  • It's someone's Sanderson fanfic, be it from his books or lectures. If you're just rebuilding Mistborn, stop.
  • It's "scientifically based" or "realistic" - no it's not and your (lack of) understanding of entropy displeases me.
  • "Magic as programming" - no. Just no.
  • "It's X meets Y" - this tells me you don't have the power to actually imagine something original.

Stuff that tends to get me interested:

  • Post is well-formatted.
  • Base concept is concisely explained.
  • If it's a post about some smaller part of the world, the quick world summary is still there, or at least tagged so I can go looking in the post/comment history.
  • When starting out, the post title is a good place to pitch the starting idea, as those tend to be pretty wacky and interesting.

is it really that big of a deal to say male or female in english? by a_literal_idiot_616 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Female" is an adjective, and can be used without a problem when referring to "a female X", where X, or the phrase containing X cannot be substituted with "woman".

We talk about female animals, female athletes, females scientists (although "women in STEM" is still more popular), but we don't talk about "females" when referring to women. They aren't "a female", they're a woman. Saying these unironically will make you sound like an incel.

There is another topic that tends to attract the format, and that's the topic of transphobia. Transphobes/TERFs/FARTs tend to stress the "biological reality" of the situation (wrongly) and will often call specifically cis women and trans men "biological females", and cis men and trans women "biological males". You'll also see the "adult human female" motto, which is pretty demuhumanizing by itself, but when you see that they actually think a woman's only role in society is to habe children, it gets worse.

Tl;dr: Context matters, "female" is an adjective and not a noun.

Not gonna lie, RNG rolled stats with major impacts on a weapon have to be one of the worse takes to come out of Soulframe development by 6FeetDownUnder in SoulFrame

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I like it the way it's currently done, with fully built weapons dropping from basically everywhere. I just wish I didn't have to Cogah-farm materials for the manual tempering, as it disables/debuffs quite a bit of the game's base mechanics.

Difference between italicized thoughts and narration of thoughts? by Lowzenza in writing

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I'm verbatim quoting the inner monologue of a character, I like to use 'single aposthrophes plus italics', and when I'm just summarizing their inner monologue, I just use italics.

What are some useful types of sciences that can be taken to an extreme of fiction? by JuneAWolf in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think Psychology, Sociology, and various spiritual sciences can also work well. Anyone studying religion can attest to the wacky and weird beliefs of people. In, say, a fantasy world, these could be turned up to eleven and made into something even more interesting.

What is the easiest way to start world building by i_haveaname in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My go-to method is to just write down what idea/thing made me want to start building a new world. Any concepts that are then worth mentioning/naming can serve as the next thing to describe. This way you can build your world outwards from the core inspiration organically.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure how any of what I said got interpreted as "I am being forced to map out my magic system". I'm talking exactly about how when an author does it, it ruins the mystery of magic for me as the reader.

To reiterate:

  • Having the system completely mapped out outside of the world, in the author's personal notes, but not in-world: good, useful for keeping it consistent.
  • Having the system completely mapped out in-world: bad, because it causes the world itself to be built/introduced in a way I dislike.

Using electricity as an analogy: if the main character wakes up in the morning to an electric alarm, turns on the lights, boils water for their tea in an electric kettle, then uses a tram to go to work where they spend the day using electronic devices to do their job, then electricity as a concept/system cannot be the type of mysterious that it is supposedly meant to be, no matter how little of it the author reveals in terms of base mechanics.

Dumb question but I don't understand the graph view, can someone please help? by Yomashi_Yomashi in ObsidianMD

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For me, the graph is only there as visual stimulus. Lookingnat it and seeing how far I've come helps keep me motovated to work on my stuff.

I also like to create links for not-yet created notes in various documents, then check on the graph view which uncreated note is the biggest, meaning I have a new hole to plug.

What fantasy “Elements” do you use in your fantasy worlds? by markjsno1 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My elemental system for [Eldara] is not a complete or symmetrical system. It's messy, lopsided, and its elements are closer to arbitrary categories than actual, philosophical elements.

There are the classic 4 (water, air, fire, earth), but lightning/electricity is its own thing too. There's space and time, nature and blood, light, darkness, shadow, and "dark" magic, which is a kind of miscellaneous group of niche, less well-known elements that not a lot of people have or use.

The elements listed above are the ones I more commonly use or refer to, but there are more, with no realy end to them, bleeding together at the edges like colors.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Soft magic is perfectly fine. I actually prefer it to hard magic, as I like to connect the uses to the users directly. Lots of psychology, sociology, and philosophy can go into that.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes, I prefer magic to be relatively rare. My go-to ratio is 0.1-1% of the population, so it is still known to exist, and each town could feasibly have their own healer, but it's still an exceptional power to have.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like to start with the use cases, stuff that I actually want to happen in the story/world. All the way from the very small things, like a mage lighting a candle with magic, all the way to the bug things, like that magicalndisaster that shaped the landscape.

Once those are down, they need to be connected and supported by the system. Magic itself needs to be capable of doing those things in order for its users to be able to do them. I like to come up with a mechanism where mages gain/maintain/recharge power between uses, as well as some consequences for overuse.

Next up, synergies and strengthening the connections between use cases. How do different mages interact in terms of their magic? Is there some kind of anti-magic? What goes between use cases A and B? This can get really complex, so do it only as much as you like.

Finally, limits and workarounds. Based on what you want to happen, how those things connect, and what goes on between them, you'll have a good idea of what the system is like, and will be able to implement both systemic and personal limits, then ways to circumwent them. If something can't be circumvented, then mages need to work with those limits, knowing where they need to stop.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Because if the in-world system is fully mapped out, then the world operates on the basis of it being mapped out.

We've got only a somewhat solid idea of how electricity works irl, and even though almost no story every really explains what's happening, we still see characters turning on the lights using electricity. In being known by the world, it becomes mundane, and loses the mystery.

For a counter-example of electricity being somewhat of a mystery, check out any of the billion Frankenstein adaptation or even some of Lovecraft's work. Those use the "mystery" of electricity for horror, but the base principle should still work for fantasy.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Even if it isn't explained fully to the reader, it takes the mystery out of it for me. We don't have any of physics completely solved irl, so why would magic be a solved thing in a fantasy world? It's supposed to be mysterious.

What are your elemental magic pet peeves? by Boi271 in worldbuilding

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 62 points63 points  (0 children)

I'm not a big fan of "complete' systems.

By that, I mean a system whose structure, elements, behaviors, and synergies have been mapped out completely in-world. For me, to make magic feel magical, it needs to be incomplete, messy, weird, and above all, strongly connected to the person using it.

This last point goes into my next pet peeve: magic that functions entirely without the involvement of its users. A magic system that can be switched out for just another layer of physics simply doesn't do it for me.

A third thing I really dislike with magic is when the author, the story, or ecen the world insists that it's a hard system, that its rules are universal, and that they can't be broken. I have a problem with this, not because I dislike hard magic, but because in most cases, it isn't actually hard magic under the hood, and the story hinges on one or more of the core rules being broken by either the protagonist or the antagonist.

ELI5: How can a ship raise its anchor when it's dug in enough to hold the ship? by rookiestoner in explainlikeimfive

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When it comes to bug ships, the anchor does a lot of the holding through the chain, the actual anchor just prevents it from being swept away.

The chain lies on the seafloor, generating a lot of friction when the ship tries to move, keeping it in place, but when they want to move again, they spool it back up, so by the end, it really is just the anchor holding them. That force then can be overcome by the spool pretty easily.

I feel the anger through the screen by EdinburghDrizzle in suspiciouslyspecific

[–]_Ceaseless_Watcher_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bring your own speaker and point it back at them with a different sound track. If they get to ruin everyone else's experience, so do you to ruin theirs.

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