Announcement & Discussion

[The Walrein]

Most of the support skills seem pretty self explanatory, but I have a few questions about how the "Shield" line of skills work:

1. Does the shield effect only last until the end of the next enemy turn, or does it last until the 25% of hit points is depleted?

2. Can multiple shield effects stack on the same character? If so, are there any limits to this?

3. Does the player using the shield skill actually lose hit points when the shielded target takes damage, or does it just grant "temporary hit points" independent of the shielding player's hp pool?

 

[Namohysip]

1. The latter; until hit points reach 0, in which case the shield disappears.

2. They can indeed stack! If you have 2 or more players shielding the same unit, they will get a 50% damage reduction, but both will take damage from all hits that would have been targeting the Front Line unit. This multiplier remains at 50% no matter how many more units are protecting this person, and will return to 100% the moment there's only 1 shield Support remaining.

3. The Support player never has HP except in this case, in which their HP and defenses are used to determine the strength of the shield used--as, effectively, they are turning themselves into a shield to protect the Pokemon in question. If they use 60 points to cast Shield again in the same battle, their HP is effectively reset.

 

[The Walrein]

A few more questions:

1. Is it possible for the same support player to shield two or more different units simultaneously, or does using a new instance of shield on a different target cancel the old one?

2. If I understand correctly, damage done to the shield is based off of the shielding player's defense and resistance stats, and not the shielded player. What happens on attacks that do enough damage to get through the shield - is the remaining damage recalculated based off of the shielded player's stats? E.g. Player A with 40 hp and 10 defense uses Shield I on Player B, who has 20 defense. Player B is targeted with a physical attack that would 20 damage vs 10 defense. Does the 10 damage left after the 10 hp shield is used up get reduced to 5 damage afterwards due to B's higher defense? If this is the case and multiple players were shielding the target simultaneously, and the damage went through both their shields, is the remaining damage based off of whichever shield absorbed the highest percent of the attack's power? E.g. if player A's shield absorbed 60% of the attack damage before breaking, and player B's shield absorbed 25% of the attack damage before breaking, the damage that went through would be 40% of the original rather than 15%?

3. Can support players target other support players with skills like Boon, given that there might be a reason to want to boost their defense or resistance stats to make shielding more effective?

4. In the example given, you said that it would cost 60 points to cast Shield a second time in the same battle. I thought that uses of skills after the first time cost 20*[Number of Previous Support Skills Used], meaning the second instance should cost 20 points since only one skill use had occurred before? (40 points if you were including the cost of the initial usage)

 

[Namohysip]

1. No, Shield is one of the few Supports that are lasting, and can't be re-cast until the original one is done / you intentionally nullify the original one.

2. The attack that breaks the shield does 0 damage to the shielded unit, regardless.

3. No.

4. Ahh, sorry! I revised/rebalanced Support skills to cost 30 at base prior to the official launch and forgot to change the info. You can see this in the Battle 0 demo where Diyem's Support moves cost 30 and 60 respectively.

 

[The Walrein]

Thanks for the clarifications! I do feel that the language describing support point costs ("At any point during the Player phase, you can choose to Support the team for 30 points. Note that each subsequent Support will cost 30*n points, where n is the number of times you Supported the team in that fight.") is still a little ambiguous; I'd been interpreting it that the second support would cost the same as the first support, since at the time you cast the second support, you've only used one support skill so far, so 'n' would be 1 in that case. I think it might be more clear if you added something like "including the current use" at the end.

 

[Namohysip]

Got it, I'll revise that.

Also, since it looks like the roleplays haven't been very active, I'll take that to mean everyone's waiting for me to advance to evening. I'll get to that soon!

 

[Namohysip]

The plot has been advanced to evening! Anybody can attend this scene. Be sure to end or wrap up anything you have taking place during Day 1 ~ Afternoon.

Treasure Town ~ Main Square

This wasn’t natural. There were too many unfamiliar faces here, standing in a town vaguely resembling one from her homeworld. Even then, she’d only visited it once. And the differences there were palpable as well. Exploring new places was her thing, but this was something else entirely...

forums.thousandroads.net

 

[Namohysip]

Also! I would like to make yet another announcement / QoL improvement for you guys, if you would like to take it. This is known as the "automatic inventory."

You can see in my official signup here that I have added another entry to it at the bottom. https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/official-signups.378/post-4779

If you are at the Front Lines for a battle, and you have an entry set here, I will automatically fill your inventory with the items in the list starting from the top until you run out of points, or your inventory is filled. This way you won't have to worry about purchasing things before a fight manually. Of course, you can also make additional purchases as you like, but this is for convenience. Note, if you are Support, this is irrelevant to you, and if you happen to be Support during a fight, I won't make any purchases, as they would be useless.

 

[Namohysip]

Due to recent developments, a new channel has been launched early! This is a special channel that is unique from all the others: It is a "group telepathy"-like feature where Diyem, regardless of location (as long as your location is not disrupted) can contact the whole team and talk to them telepathically. Individuals cannot use telepathy with one another, only as a group when speaking to Diyem when communication is active.

Regardless of whether you're in a scene elsewhere or not, you can reply to this thread, or ignore it if it is not at an appropriate time for your scene, or you do not want your current scene disrupted. Consider these "optional quests" of a sort.

The thread is located here: https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/group-communication.409/

 

[Namohysip]

Additionally, this is another reminder that some time late this weekend, I will be making the final advancement of the round to Day 2 ~ Morning. Please wrap up your scenes by the end of the weekend so I can advance.

Then, at around Thursday of next week (about 9 days from now), I will start setting up for the boss walk-up, which may involve my first instance of DM control of some characters to get the walk-up going. That will leave approximately 24 hours to get your final challenge logs and your first turn if you're on the Front Lines.

More information on who will be Front Lines for this first boss fight (I'll be allowing more for this fight only to let everyone curious know what it's like) later. However, all veterans of this game WILL be Support for round 1, for sure.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, three announcements!

1. Don't forget to wrap up your scenes for Day 1 ~ Evening soon! I want to get to Day 2 ~ Morning no later than Sunday my time, which will be in a little over two days and eight hours from this post.

2. I'm going to be (finally) posting the Master Rulebook for everything that has to do with Blacklight! While what's at the beginning of this post is useful as a launchpad, it's a little outdated and has been, so making this master list is useful there. It's currently under construction and I'll post the finished version (or what I have) in a separate, no-reply thread that will be pinned. From there feedback about it can be provided to further refine and disambiguate things.

3. There was some discussion on the discord about my use of "magic" and "resistance" for "special attack" and "special defense." They are completely analogous and, in my opinion, more convenient to type out, and also helps give a slightly different flavor to the campaign since the gameplay is noticeably different from Pokemon to some extent, or at least will be later. That being said, it's also not canon, and most people are used to the canon terms. I consider this to be a trivial issue, so I'm not against putting this to a poll. Vote here! https://www.strawpoll.me/20768536

 

[Namohysip]

The story has advanced to Day 2 ~ Morning. I also took use of my "DM" control for a spin for those who had elected for full to see how it goes and if it's well-received. This is pretty much the extent that I suspect I'd ever get to controlling anybody, even for just one post, to get a more dynamic scene going for everyone involved. So if you were ever wondering what "DM control" would look like, it's this.

The next scheduled plot advancement scene will be starting, at the latest, 24 hours before the round ends. As a reminder, this will be when the team approaches the boss and no roleplaying except for final remarks and such will happen, and generally when chatter transitions from idle character interactions to basic strategizing. Still, there's ample time to get a few scenes done before the walk-up.

 

[Namohysip]

New announcement, and this one is specifically for BLEC points. I forgot this detail myself but it doesn't actually affect anybody's BLECs so long as they're logged properly: To get points for words written, you have to publish the work to TR and then report the word count in logging.

So, to fully clarify what's in the announcement thread (And what will be on the main manual) the following things count for BLECs:

"Reviewed X chapters of Y."
"Published a new chapter / oneshot, which is Z words long."

Basically, any time you publish something and want that logged for BLECs, mention that the words were published.

Logging for points is unaffected.

 

[Namohysip]

The Master Post of all Blacklight rules has been made! Consider this the be-all end-all of how Blacklight operates as it stands. Let me know if I missed anything or if there are more questions or clarifications needed so I can keep that as up-to-date as possible. https://forums.thousandroads.net/in...ternal-rules-and-information-master-list.414/

 

[Namohysip]

I'm really making a combo with these alert posts, aren't I?

Okay, this one's actually important to get replies in if you want, though.

I normally would do this sort of thing right after the boss walkup. However, since the boss is known already, and this is the first round, I'm giving you guys extra time so I can explain any ambiguities or uncertainties and so on:

This is going to be the Front Line arrangements unless someone asks otherwise:

Front Lines:

1. Nip
2. Mellow
3. Cabot
4. Curio
5. Celeste
6. Dave
7. Starr
8. Ashwood
9. Wren
10. Jaro
11. Cuicatl

This list is unique compared to others. All who played in the previous Blacklight on the PMD server MUST be Support Class for the Magikarp Duo battle, no exceptions. This will allow first-time players the chance to test out the Front Line position as soon as possible. That way, they can decide if they want to stick to Support later when the gameplay gets even more complex and dynamic.

Therefore, anybody who listed themselves as Front Lines or rank 3 or higher that is NOT a novice is on this list. The only person that I am unsure about is @Persephone who listed as rank 4, but since that is technically not a solid 5, she is also there. Note: I am perfectly willing to increase the FL limit of 10 for this boss fight only. It's simple, and I want as many people who want to test Front Lines to do it as possible, even if that number goes all the way to 15.

So, if anybody else wants to be Front Lines, speak up now! If anybody is hesitant, speak to me privately or publicly and I can help walk you through the general process/expectations during boss fights.

--

In other news, I would also like to announce a small change that shouldn't affect most players, but is something I need to announce for some quality control purposes. Previously, reviews did not count for BLECs if they were less than 100 words, as that did not meet the minimum requirement for "chapter count * 100 words" for the point minimums. This requirement has now been expanded into tiers. This should not affect most players, but I am sorry for the inconvenience it may cause those that it does. This is to mitigate low-insight reviews that may come from solely doing reviews for the sake of getting points/exp.

Thank you, and let me know privately or publicly if you have any concerns or further questions.

 

[Namohysip]

The boss walkup has begun! Roleplaying is now restricted to that thread until the boss fight is complete: https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/treasure-town-crossroads.416/post-6939

Don't rp too much, though--the Magikarp are right there and on the approach! At most, just a post or two each to psyche up and speak with the others. Talking is NOT a free action!

For anybody that is confused by what Diyem is talking about at the end of the initial post: That is effectively the "flavor text" behind the strategizing everyone will be doing in ooc chat, and then your characters behaving in a seemingly perfectly coordinated way. That's it. (It's quite tiring for Diyem, though.)

 

[Namohysip]

Giving out some friendly reminders for some character housekeeping:

I just went through the official signups and noticed that many of you don't have an "automatic item purchase" list. I don't do this for Supports, but for Front Line players, it might be useful to have one. I do it at the end of a round but before the battle begins. The same goes for stat point priorities. The following individuals are Level 7 but haven't distributed their stats, either in official actions or in their signups: @TheGOAT (Ambyssin but he told me he's holding off) @qva @Chibi Pika @Fusion @Tanuki And @Shadow of Antioch If you get some extra challenges in at the last minute to cap out at Level 7.

 

[The Walrein]

Question about the boss fight: Will there be an OOC thread on the forum we can use for talking about boss strategy and mechanical issues, or is that just going to be done on the discord?

 

[Namohysip]

Technically speaking, THIS is the thread for discussing boss strategy on the forums. If there's enough demand, I could make a strategy thread for here as well? Most of it is happening on discord.

 

[Namohysip]

By the way, I've added an addition to the rules. Common sense stuff but it's something that I only mentioned in passing and realized I forgot to put it in the master list.

The section is just below Meta Rules: "Respect, Behavior, and Punishments."

Incoming (sorry for being so late) is the ability list for abilities that exist so far. Most abilities are similar or identical to what they are in canon, but some of them are a little different. I'll let you all know when the sheet is available.