Announcement & Discussion

[Namohysip]

A little belated... Welcome to round 10! A LOT has happened during and after this boss fight. To recap: Seven player characters have been killed and are now trapped in the Voidlands with no immediate means to return. The goal of round 10 is, clearly, to see if there is a way to return them, and what costs and achievements may be required to achieve that. There are, additionally, other story events happening in conjunction with this that are open for exploration.

To go along with that, we have a few housekeeping things to go over.

Signups will close at the end of this round! If you know anybody who is hesitant to join or is otherwise waiting on something, you may want to tell them that the window is closing fast.

Nerf. Flinch is getting nerfed, and I'm surprised you guys haven't taken advantage of it until now! But the nerf is pretty simple. It now cuts actions in half, rounding up, rather than rounding down.

Crippling/Cursed Strike and Ultra Stone as an item cannot be done. It only applies to Iron Thorns, Blast Seeds, and their derivatives.

Buff. Great Shot is the same, but also makes fixed-damage projectiles like Blast Seeds Deal 5x damage!

And now, for some fun stuff...

Second Ascent (20 points!) has been unlocked! Similar to First Ascent, you are now able to reset your stats, Support abilities, talents, Leg Days, and, yes, your Blacklight Boost. Note, however, that you will not be able to adjust anything like this again for a very long time. Think very carefully, because I will not be letting you change it until near the very end of the game.

Seeing Joule's final attack toward the sky has irradiated the team... Brilliant moves have been unlocked! This will be your first high-tier Blacklight attack. The parameters are as follows...
All Brilliant move...
Starts with "Brilliant" in its title
Costs 40 stamina, and therefore adds 80 corruption
Be ANY SINGLE CHOICE from...
-200 power
-800 to a debuff
-400 to a non-powerful status effect
-200 to a powerful status effect
-MAX a single stat
-buff two stats by +6
-buff three stats by +4
-Some mixture of the above, or other weird or related effects. These are your most powerful, expensive, and unwieldy techniques. They can be quite powerful. Recoil and negative effects, therefore, may also be similarly hard to use.

And to those who are dead... you do not gain access to Brilliant moves just yet. Instead, you gain access to your high-tier Shadows--Void moves. Aside from beginning with "Void" and adding Shadow corruption, the parameters are the same.

(For Support folks, you can add another +1 to a stat, raising the cap to +3!)

If you guys are unsure about how much you can do with these moves, wait a bit for Owen's to get finalized and you'll have a reference.

But wait, there's more!

Joule's radiation has resonated with the team in a big way... They may start realizing that aspects of their bodies might change when under stress or need.

The Brilliant Stance has been unlocked for all living party members!
A Stance, similar to Guardian Stance, is something that can be taken as a free action at any point during the battle. Note, however, that there are some caveats that come with this unstable new form...
Upon enabling Brilliant Stance, the user will gain 40 Radiant corruption. This cannot be reduced by Spirit perks. For every turn with Brilliant Stance enabled, they will gain another 40 Radiance. However, in exchange, they will gain the following perks:
+1 innate Attack
+1 innate Magic
And if they started the turn at half stamina or less, their stamina consumption is reduced by 25%!
In order to exit Brilliant Stance, you must sacrifice one action to Focus, and you can then optionally end Brilliant Stance.

For the dead...

Prolonged exposure to the Voidlands has corrupted your spirits. You have gained the Void Stance. It works similarly to Brilliant Stance, but adds to Shadow corruption, and instead adds the following benefits:
+1 innate Defense
+1 innate Resistance
And if you start the turn at half HP, all damage you take is reduced by 25%!

For both of these forms, entering this Stance will result in your body changing either subtly or dramatically in appearance. It can be as subtle as a golden or black aura around your body, or as dramatic as an entire form change. Mechanically, it makes no difference.

Perhaps, in a later round, these Stances will change into something you can harness in another way...

B u t w a i t t h e r e ' s m o r e

One last thing.

The attack you managed to get Joule to perform at the very end of the battle, with the efforts of Team Spectrum and several others... The team was inspired! And perhaps, if Joule is feeling better, he will be able to teach you this special, purifying technique, known as Blacklight Z-Burst.

This is a special move that everyone can use, but there are some hefty conditions attached to it. Here is the move description:

Blacklight Z-Burst. Power: Variable. Target: Single. Physical or Special.
Type is determined by if the user's relevant corruptions are above 20 or not. Fails if the user does not have 20 or more corruption in either type. Blacklight Z-Burst can only be used once per battle, and only as the final action of someone's turn. Its power is equal to the corruption that the user has added up. For example, if someone has 90 Shadow and 40 Radiance, it will be power 130. Additionally, prior to attacking, it will give the user +2 Valor and fully heal the user's HP and Stamina. However... it will also, for the rest of the battle, cut the user's max HP and Stamina in half. This is incurable. It will also disable Reviver Seeds, makes the user Staggered, and sets your corruption to 0 and 0. This is a powerful tool, but use it wisely.

--

WHEW! Sorry for all that, but you guys unlocked a lot due to your performance against Joule. Very good work, everyone. And finally... some plot scenes.

Ongoing: Cola in Destiny Tower; Diyem, Joule, and Arceus at the infirmary.
Key scenes later:
(circumstances pending) Visiting the Tree of Life
A scene with Shield some time during a night
Searching for Giovanni

High priority NPCs for plot and personal reasons, in no particular order:
Shield & Karat
Diyem
Maple & Joule
Soda
Truffle & Leg
Arceus
Cola
S'more
Balm & Cepa
Silver

That's all for now. Thanks again, and welcome to the second half of the campaign! Let's get serious.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, this is more or less a copy-paste of what had been announced on the discord.

Signups for Blacklight Eternal, the forum campaign, will be closing at the end of March! The campaign is a little over halfway done, and joining will soon be impossible for plot and gameplay related reasons. If you were on the fence about joining, or didn't know it existed, now is the time to decide.

If you know anybody like that, you can direct them to the following posts to get more info. Here's the first post of this very thread, with the original announcement: https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/announcement-discussion.377/

And the master rules (more up-to-date) here: https://forums.thousandroads.net/in...ternal-rules-and-information-master-list.414/

To those lurking and are uncertain, I would also like to warn that while you're very welcome to join, do know that participating in the roleplay aspect or the gameplay aspect as an active or "Front Line" individual requires a lot of effort and time on your part. If that isn't something you have time for, taking on a Support (very simplistic gameplay) or Ethereal (No gameplay for the most part, just challenges/the word crawl aspect) role might be more your style.

Additionally, we are also looking for volunteers to help with awarding prizes. By volunteering, you also gain points for your own prizes under the same system. If you're interested in volunteering to give reviews, drabbles, or art prizes, contact me!

That's all for now. And to all the spectators watching the campaign, I hope you enjoy the game's second half!

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, quick announcement. This one's short but every bit is critical, especially for you Front Liners.

Please get your Ascents finalized and your Void/Brilliant moves approved within 24 hours. If you don't get your Ascent finalized, what you have given me will be locked in and won't be able to change. If you don't get your Void/Brilliant approved, you may not be eligible for FL this fight, unless you're intentionally foregoing it in favor of your existing four moves.

Signups will close permanently very soon as well. About 11 hours from when I posted this. I need to actually have time to get everyone's things in, among other things.

Additionally, if you want to be FL (and didn't join just this round) let me know so we can get you on. A lot of people, due to irl reasons, are going to be Support this round, which actually leaves us with a shortage of players. Note that if this happens and the fight begins, the boss' stats will be adjusted to compensate for fewer FL units, since technically everyone is still fighting flavor wise.

Current front line units:
Astrid
Bahamut
Brisa
Cynthian
Dave
Nip
Owen
Shiron
Vix

That's 9 total, so there's 1 slot currently open if anybody has second thoughts and wishes to grab it.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey everyone, this is the belated announcements for this round!

A lot of this has already been discussed on discord by quite a bit. This is more or less a completion of a lot of things that we've been looking through after addressing some complexity pains of the game. Even if things look familiar, make sure to read them carefully. A lot of talk has been going around lately and you might have missed a detail!

Addressing difficulty:

The battle against Red was hectic with a powerful opener and closer, as designed. While he was taken down quickly, he did do quite a number to the team, but I do also recognize that his general bulk was less than expected. I will be noting this going forward to bulk bosses up a little more, and perhaps lessen their offensive power to compensate. Make things interesting, perhaps bump up disruptions. Considering the bosses that are to come... that would make a lot of sense.

Addressing complexity:

Turns are becoming more and more involved and complex, and I think the fact that we have 12 to 24 hours to get them done is one of the reasons why this is the case. Moves interweaving with one another; optimizing every little thing that someone does, and when; maximizing debuffs before getting in strikes. Lots and lots and lots of precision planning, and I think it is starting to take its toll on the players. I recommend, informally but semi-formally, lightening up a little! I am going to be introducing two things to the game that will encourage less hardcore strategizing and more feeling-it-out. You guys aren't at 10/10 difficulty, so you can afford that.

So, aside from encouraging the merits of going for flavor instead of just optimization, here are two things the game will now have. 1, random damage variance! Yes, Blacklight used to have no variables at all in terms of randomness, but now, in an effort to halt exact-damage optimization, values will now be randomized. I will not reveal how much, and in fact this value may change depending on the nature of the enemy you're battling, but I will say that it will be similar to what canon Pokemon does ( 100% to 85%) but perhaps greater or lesser, up to 30% in either direction but no higher for particularly unpredictable foes.

And next, alliance limit! This is a simple way of saying, from here on out, your turn's actions must be atomic, or woven with up to and no more than two other allies, similar to alliance attacks from Super. This means that if you want to time your attacks with other characters (for example, Calling an ally as they repeatedly use Blacklight moves to keep them under, without bringing them over the limit but keeping them at the 70+ threshold). Previously, there was no limit to this technique. Due to the chaotic nature of future fights and enemies, this will no longer be the case.

This means that, from here on, if you are logging turns, make sure to specify if you are going before or after anyone in particular and, if you are in an alliance attack, try to have only one person post for all three of you, or otherwise specify in your individual posts who you are aligned with during the attack in your "squad." Perhaps out of battle, your teammates have been coordinating certain combos or moves together? I think this will help streamline and quicken the planning time. You shouldn't be using all 12 hours to plan just because I happen to give that to everyone for the sake of time zones!

Addressing speed:

Now, this is the big one. Lots and lots and lots of talk. And after a lot of deliberating with the balance team and other players, one thing has been finalized:

Speed will no longer determine action count, and will solely exist for reducing stamina costs. All players will now have a base of THREE actions rather than the old amount of 1.(However, having action counts lowered due to paralysis or other status ailments will still bring you below 3, to a minimum of 1 action.)

The main reason for this? Blacklight Boosts, perks, and so on have an extremely heavy skew toward Speed, to the point where diversity in builds were taking a heavy nosedive because of it. Not everyone should need +12 speed to be viable. It should be okay to have less speed and still do a lot thanks to other options they have. Therefore, the necessity of Speed will be reduced by dissociating it with action counts.

Enemies will still follow the old speed rules. Therefore, reducing speed to -4 on the enemy will still reduce their actions by 1. Debuffs are still great! (This also means them raising their Speed to +4 will grant an extra action.)

Up for consideration: increasing how much speed now reduces stamina. There are a few things to note here. First, that currently speed was balanced around 4 actions, and now the default (and, in fact, standard) is 3, with only perks and other things adding to them. There were a lot lot lot of things we had to weigh when even considering this. The balance team itself is torn on which way to go, and for now intend to err on the side of caution and not change anything just yet, and to watch what happens. There are a lot of Colosseum fights possibly scheduled this round which can be used to see the new speed meta in action. If speed now seems too weak, or the speed perks are still massively necessary to properly keep up, then perhaps we will increase Speed's strength. This is open for discussion!

Do note, however, that if speed is strengthened, the old item caps for Elixirs will be brought to normal. Currently, you can have up to 3 Elixirs or 2 max Elixirs. This will be returned to normal, 2 and 1 respectively, just like Sitrus Berries and Oran Berries, if speed's stamina reduction is strengthened.

The end goal of this rebalance is to make Speed perks, boosts, or other innate boosts no longer mandatory. To that end, we are open to feedback on how to do so regarding stamina costs, now that turn count is taken out of the picture.

And with that, thank you for reading this.

As for the story...

Aside from Colosseum battles, I am extremely open and heavily encourage spy sleuthing, mystery solving, and other forms of investigation. I will always have at least one slot open solely for such purposes at all times. At this point, you should treat every round as if it could possibly be your last when it comes to these investigations, as certain opportunities and doors may close at any time, depending on what happens and who does what.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all! I'm making a few quick pre-walkup announcements.

First: Walkup will be tonight, going for about 24 hours as usual! Boss fight is in just over 2 days.

Second: After some thought, I'm relaxing the deadline for perks to be back to the usual time. Just try not to be too meta about it. I do, however, still want your second ascents and speed rebalance changes in before the boss is revealed, thanks. That's a lot of work on my end.

Third: It's time to expound upon zone mechanics, because they will be relevant for this fight and future fights!

So. The first zone battle we had was against the Radiant Machine. In it, there were two zones, inside and outside. It took an action to traverse the zones, and in fact there was no Front or Back rows.

In this one, there are three zones (known so far)

Entrance
Left
Right

And according to Owen and other cursory checks, there are actually more zones deeper inside, connected like a map. It requires one action to move to a zone that is connected to the current one you are in. In other words, to go from the Left zone to the Right zone, it would actually cost TWO actions.

Enemies can do this as well.

Note, however, that enemies will not move until their zone is activated, which is typically when a player first enters the zone, or if some other Event happens.

If an enemy is activated and starts their turn with no player characters in their zone, they gain the Flanking bonus for that turn. This allows them to move to another zone as a free action, and everyone they target in that new zone is treated as if they have the Guardian Stance penalty. You do not want to leave enemies alone if you can help it.

If you have any questions, ask them here or in discord and I'll be sure to answer!

 

[Namohysip]

Good work on yet another impressive run! You guys were able to catch onto a LOT of new changes immediately, and I'm genuinely impressed at how well you were able to pull it all off. I suspect that the next round will be even smoother to make up for it.

I am hoping that you guys can keep up that trend of calculating your side of things for me, because that was incredibly helpful. With that in mind, I think I am going to permanently expand the FL lineup to 15. Under almost all circumstances, I think that will cover everyone who can make it to the fight, since I suspect statistically not everyone will be able to every time. But you'll have to hold up your end of the bargain, too! Thanks again for taking on that responsibility.

I think, going forward, there are a few things that will be very helpful for me and you.

Things that were very good, which I want to keep, include:
The raw log template that I showed you all that depicts the actions taken, the multipliers when relevant (for both status and so on), and the net effects of each turn player-side. For example, corruption, stat boosts, HP healed, stamina lost or gained, special conditions acquired, and final location.

Additionally, at the very end of the doc, or where relevant if the status effect procs right then, the "projected" net effect of all status ailments and debuffs on a boss in total. I can adjust manually if something unexpected or unknown to players happens; otherwise, knowing the net effect also trims down my time and gives me more opportunity to flavor and perform the enemy-side actions.

--

Also, with a minor event that will happen later on in the round, Void and Brilliant moves are now fully unlocked! A lot of you gave them in advance; consider your confirmed moves now officially added! And with it, another +1 to a Support stat, to a cap of +3 total, is available.

I believe there is also a lot that Jackie wanted to go over regarding how we can better streamline turns during combat. Looking forward to seeing what that covers.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Jackie's Round 11 Retrospective​

Hello, all!

With Blacklight's eleventh bossfight concluded, I'd like to take a look back at how it went, how it differed from previous battles, why that might be, and what that means for the future. We had several significant changes to core mechanics and how turns are processed with Boss #11, and they all mattered in their own way. It's a lot of meta for anyone to keep track of and consider! To avoid waffling, I'll get straight into commentary~

Part One: the Metagame​

1. Speed & Actions Decoupling.

Until this battle, the number of actions a unit could take was determined largely by their Speed stages. Speed also determined your stamina discount, as it still does. Since performing more actions is incredibly powerful, and stamina discounts are also very very powerful, this made Speed so indispensable that almost every unit was forced into picking the exact boosts and perks required to achieve maximum Speed. (Namely, a Blacklight Boost consisting of +2 innate and +3 non-innate speed, the Speedy and Hyperactive perks, and the use of Tailwind.)

This was felt by many, including myself, to be an unacceptably centralised meta, and after some fervent discussion, we went into this boss battle with a base 3 actions, unaffected by Speed, and players were permitted to reconfigure away from Speed buffs for free if they so chose. I believe this had the following effects: All units had roughly the same potential to perform actions, which is equitable. There was less time spent agonising over increasing our total actions. There was less stress about possible Speed debuffs destroying the entire strategy. Builds and plans were more diverse and more interesting. People still often took Speed buffs purely for the stamina discount, so it wasn't irrelevant. The absence of Tailwind for a turn was no longer a critical failure state, but merely unfortunate.

All in all, I'd say this change was a huge success. I'm glad we made the switch, and I hope we keep it. As a further note, three actions per unit is still flexible and interesting, while limiting some of the more insane strategies for a turn, and much, much easier to plan out than a turn with four actions per unit! Four actions on everyone felt a bit exhausting to me, and I'm certain to others as well. I reckon this is much healthier for the meta, and for folks' energy levels!

2. Battlefield Zones & Expanded FL Limit

Until this battle, 'location' was a pretty nebulous concept. Any unit could interact with any other at any time and, aside from some narration about the environment, battlefield conditions and constraints weren't really felt. On a nominally unrelated but relevant note, this battle's Frontline limit was raised to 12 players, from 10. Now, I had previously suggested to Namo & other powergamers that the Blacklight engine would do well to have the battlefield split up, with the party divided between subordinate locations. I'd intended to playtest this, in fact. Now, Namo tested this mechanic during Boss #8, placing us in to zones as we fought Giovanni et al. This time, we had a dungeon crawl consisting of no fewer than seven zones.

The effect of these zones was that we ended up dividing the party between separate fights, making choices about which synergies we valued most (rather than simply having all of them on hand at all times), shifting them about as a tactical choice when necessary, and feeling a real sense of being spread thin across a landscape, leading to a stronger narrative in my opinion. Our progression through these zones also involved an unprecedented degree of uncertainty about the consequences of our decisions or what lay ahead. Whether that's a benefit (lack of information is a soft means of balancing player party strength, it's thrilling to venture into the dark) or a frustration (fear!! uncertainty!!) is certainly subjective, but I certainly enjoyed it!

My personal take is that zones are a success with respect to the objectives I had in mind when I conceived of them, but that battlefield zoning of this specific nature would come to fatigue me if it were designed like this every single battle. I doubt that will be the case, however, as the dungeon delving design was specific to the Worldcore, and I'm sure we'll see other inventive zone layouts in the future. Namo's too creative a fellow to use this sort of setup every time!

3. Atomic Turns & Alliances

Many of us have, for some time, been submitting our own actions and trusting a powergamer or Namo himself to order them along with the rest of the team's actions for optimal results. With turns becoming ever-more complex, the expanding FL pressuring Namo to expand the roster, and ubiquitous four-action turns in the Round 10 fight vs Red, this arrangement has become untenable. As such, starting last bossfight, Namo has implemented an 'atomic turns' requirement, for our units to perform their actions in one go, one after another, the way 'turns' suggests in the first place. This reduces the time taken to process turns dramatically. For many of us, this is no big deal.

However, certain optimal strategies in previous fights relied on the option to have units perform some of their actions in the middle of another unit's actions, a strategy known as 'interweaving'. For example, we sometimes had one unit heal another between recoil attacks, to prevent self-KOs. In order to permit us to retain these optimal strategies, Namo is allowing us to interweave actions between no more than three units at a time, to be submitted in the action list as a bloc known as an 'Alliance'. In practice, this almost never prevents us from pulling off most of our best strategies, and prevents only the most complicated and galaxy-brained ideas.

There has been a lot of talk about this creating more complexity or nerfing certain strategies, but this isn't true at all. I've already cleared up the following points in the Discord channel, but I want to be very clear about them here.

1. Pledges and other combos have never needed to be interweaved, and do not require Alliances. Neither do assistive moves of any kind. This has never been the case, and it is still not the case.
   
   
2. Almost the entire team will never need to interweave at all. In fact, Alliances were rare last battle, and there was never a moment where a critical strategy was nerfed by the three-unit limit in cases where interweaving was warranted. Most units submitted and will continue to submit their turns atomically.
   
   
3. Calls can bring units below zero corruption, although this resets to zero at the end of the turn. This means the only times when you might want to interweave calls are when you're trying to maintain STAB without exploding, and other similar management requirements.

The point of this new rule is not to limit our power as a team, but to make the process of deciding on and submitting our turns a little less protracted. To put it simply, this makes the whole process more straightforward for all involved, whilst including a caveat to allow us to retain certain highly effective strategies that would be lost if turns were kept purely atomic. I very much support this change!

4. Damage Fuzzing

One of the problems identified by some players and by Namo in the run-up to Boss 11 was the degree to which spending large amounts of time back-calculating exact defences for enemy units, and therefore exact damage values on player attacks, was slowing down turns and leading to frustration in the team. Obviously, nothing can be done to stop people using available information to try to win. Therefore, Namo came up with a solution that would conceal that information without leaving us blind to our effectiveness against our opponents.

Damage fuzzing is the addition of a small, randomised value to the amount of damage done by an attack. Usually this will be a percentage value of the damage done, to be proportionate, and can be positive or negative. This means that any damage dealt by an attack could be average, a lucky big hit, or an unlucky weaker hit, albeit not by all that much. This makes it much harder to gauge the eact defences of an enemy unit, and nearly impossible to calculate exactly how many hits are required to precisely take out enemies. You can still ballpark your figures, and optimise your distribution of attacks, it just means you have to eyeball it and move on.

There has been some uncertainty in the playerbase about whether damage fuzzing could be a liability, what the degree of fuzzing in use actually is, and so on. While the value could be as high as 30% in extreme cases, in truth it's much lower than that as a matter of course, and while theoretically fuzzin might cause us to fall short, Namo tells us that in practice it has 'saved our asses a bunch of times already', and I don't believe adding an extra attack or two to the list to make sure a foe goes down is too steep a price to pay for the benefits.

I don't know about you all, but I noticed a distinct lack of stress and fuss about exact damage values this fight! We tended to pick what felt more or less optimal, fine-tune it, and get on with the turn. We performed well, and I think people had fun picking gameplans and holding more or less true to them. As I hoped and expected, the reduced certainty about exact values lead to faster, less frustrating decisionmaking. I am delighted with this development.

5. Tier III Perks

How could I forget our shiny new toys?

I fully expected, as did many of us, for 'highperks' to be an agonising decision to make. Instead of being faced with choice paralaysis as feared, I instead found the list of new options for my build to be incredibly satisfying, interesting, and flexible. Sure, there are perks I would like to have and can't fit, but I can see myself swapping out a perk another time or two as the campaign continues, and I'm happy with the perks as they stand.

Many of the new perks really filled out or refined a lot of slightly precarious builds, and diversified others into new niches. We really saw these new powers pull their weight last battle, including some powers that were created with certain units in mind to make best use of them! I don't remember feeling this way the last time a set of perks became available, and I was more than pleasantly surprised at how well the new set went over. I really do think Namo and the elf team did a great job with these.

In particular, the perks that permit more interesting and diverse build options meet with my substantial approval. 'Augmented' is a favourite of mine, for promoting generalist/Jack-of-all-trades builds, which I'm fond of. Further to that, I want to applaud Namo for being willing to accept suggestions for perk ideas and implementing them sensibly. I myself offered the initial concept for Hex Technician, which has seen some serious use! I would also point out Revitalise as being a wonderful player-submitted perk (thanks, Cress) that augments a defensive/supportive build and makes a niche but essential move far more rewarding to use. Now, I don't mean to encourage everyone to pile on with new perk ideas, but clearly there's something to be said for the process!

All in all, a wonderful addition to everyone's builds. Nice one, y'all.

6. Boss Gauntlet Design

Some of our opponents thus far have been single characters, or a limited number of targets with some support units to back them up. Only in Boss 8 (vs Giovanni et al) did we have a relatively target-rich environment, and again in the fight against Red's team. This boss had something like 16 enemy units, two of which were hordes – an unprecented amount. More than double our largest previous fight, in fact! It's a pity none of us had perks like Brawler and Spreader to really take advantage of this!

This was certainly intimidating, at first, but I think that together with splitting the party, it meant more opportunities to get cinematic knockouts and a more interesting battlefield situation that didn't rely on ridiculously pumped-up HP values to keep foes alive, and such. We really did have to stall some opponents while taking out others, which I found an especially interesting tactical concern! I think we adapted well to this scenario, and I think it was good for the roleplay, too, to not have a batallion of pokémon beating on a single target.

I am particularly pleased that we actually had to play defensively for once! The impossibility of hard-offence as a means of preventing counterattack, and the battlefield-wide effects that badly tampered with our ability to deal damage (swapping HP/Stm, swapping offence/defence) meant that we had to have genuinely defensive turns! There was plenty of hexing done as a means of getting threats off our back rather than accelerating a foe's demise. I'm pleased with this personally, and I know there are other players who've been hoping for a more varied team performance under conditions such as these. It makes a lovely change!

Not only that, but the pressure to proceed through the zones under a time limit, the unknown factor of what means would successfully take out the Regi guardians (Ultra Stone attacks, for you forgetful types!), and the requirement to reduce Darkwhite's corruption to save her while under pressure (ha) from legendary bosses all contributed to this puzzle boss feeling fascinating, novel, challenging, and all-around fun.

I'd like to conclude the above by summarising the changes to the meta as all-round positive, and praising all folks involved for the most fun bossfight so far. That would certainly be sincere!

But that's not all...

Thanks for reading so far, y'all. There's actually a Part Two to this coming, about the player-run turn processing we tried out. I'll conclude my thoughts in that post rather than this one. I hope to be done with it soon!

Cheers~

​

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Part Two: Player-side Efforts​

Don't worry. This one's shorter~

1. What are 'Calcs' Anyway?

In this post, I refer to 'information' and to calculations or 'calcs'. What is meant by this is the process of figuring out, based on the actions chosen for a unit by their player, how much stamina they spend, how much corruption they accumulate, how much their HP and stats ought to change, and any other pertinent information. In particular, while it involves no calculation as such on our part, a full acounting-for of stat stages and multipliers is a really important part of calculating the turn accurately, and is one of the more important sets of information referred to here.

For those of us (though I doubt there are many,) still unfamiliar with how stamina costs are calculated, or the significance of stat stages and multipliers, I suggest you click this link to check out the relevant Google Sheets document.

2. Here's the Situation...

So, historically, Namo himself would perform all calculations for such things as player units' stamina expenditure himself. Many of us would also do this, but in practice Namo has spent many, many hours inputting all the necessary information to process each Blacklight boss battle turn. This significant workload is one of the major limiting factors to how many players can participate in a fight. The more players there are, the longer this process takes. As the number of invested Frontline players has increased, the pressure to expand the FL lineup limit as increased accordingly, but the increased complexity of turns has actually caused them to take even longer.

It eventually became clear that the only way this could continue without major strain was for the players to perform those calculations possible with available information themselves and submit that information to Namo. Last boss battle, (Boss #11, vs Worldcore), we tried this out for the first time, using a Google Docs document to collate all our efforts for ease of coordination and consistent submission of turns with all the necessary info. In return, Namo expanded the FL lineup to 12 that battle, and to 15 going forward. This is obviously a huge opportunity for us to participate in more fights without sitting out, but it carries with it a responsibility to pull our weight and submit our turns with appropriate effort.

I encourage everyone who didn't already take a look at the document from last fight to look at the one I've prepared for the coming fight, which can be found via this link.

3. Reaping the Benefits.

Although it could be said that taking on the task of providing Namo with all the information we can for our turns is a lot of extra work, it's a small price to pay if shared across the team, in return for increased participation all round. Not only that, but many of our less invested players became more invested after taking a closer look at how their units operated, they appreciated their units more, made more well-informed choices, and were generally in better spirits than usual! I think that another outcome of all this was that by haviing special attentioned paid to more units by players who knew them best, the entire team worked better as a whole, too!

So, in summary, we have more players, better players, and happier players! Not only that, but Namo has a great deal less busywork on his own shoulders, and this is a well-deserved reprieve indeed. What could be a better success story than that?

4. To the Future!

Honestly, I'm expecting the coming battle to go smoothly. Builds are looking stable, we have @TheGOAT back with us to help coordinate, and the system used last time went well enough even before it was refined. All the same, it's important that everyone does their best to contribute their portion of the efforts, so please do be on the ball as much as you can be. Try to get your turn sorted well ahead of time, check it against what other people are doing, ask any questions you need to, and so on. With everyone chipping in, nobody has to carry a great weight alone! I hope and expect for future bossfights to be even more fantastic experiences than the excellent one we had in the Worldcore, thanks to everyone's contributions in that battle.

Naturally, I'd like to give my particular thanks and kudos to those players who made unprecedented efforts to contribute to this process last time, especially those players who previously hadn't touched the calcs at all! And also to newcomer Tetra, aka @Flyg0n, for participating with such fervour in her debut battle! Manectric Koa truly performed splendidly this fight, and I can't wait to see his Void move in action soon. My special and heartfelt thanks to @Chibi Pika for setting up the collaborative google doc for last fight, and for liaising with me throughout to keep everything running smoothly and the team on track.

With all that said, I'm looking forward to this weekend with great anticipation, and I hope y'all are too!

And, as always, thanks to Namo and his elves for running Blacklight. Cheers to everyone~

 

[Namohysip]

Congratulations once again on a hard-earned victory! A quick housekeeping thing, but in general I'm pleased with the in-advance calculations being done for everyone's turns. I would appreciate if turns themselves were determined an hour before they're due, to give an extra hour to calculate the results of said turn. More emphasis that turns do not have to be perfectly optimal all the time, you have leeway.

Additionally, as mentioned in discord, the "reserve" system will be getting tweaked, but will ultimately be put to use. 10 Players will be the limit for all battles going forward, but every other FL will be in reserve and ready to swap in at any time. Our main concern now is finding a way that even reserve players can have an impact during the fight in a satisfying way that is a compromise. Ultimately--especially with Unleash coming into the picture--it is finally time to return to the number of FLs these fights were meant to be balanced around.

--

Anyway, good work on the fight! I do have something big to announce early, though... While this time the outcome of the fight was not entirely ideal, you were still able to escape the Tree of Life with Team Spectrum intact. And while there is still much to unravel, it seemed that Diyem himself has unveiled quite a different side to himself... He had Unleashed his full power! And not only that, so did Maple...

That technique, Unleashing. It seems that now that Diyem is at full strength, so too are the powers within Team Spectrum.

The final custom effect you can control, Blacklight Unleash, has been unlocked! It has completely replaced Void Stance and Brilliant Stance, which are no longer able to be tapped into.

Unleash is the permanent coalescing of Void and Brilliant Stance. It behaves in the same way, but as a refresher (and this time, it will go into the master rules...)

Unleash
-A powerful technique that can be activated as a free action at any point during your turn, and optionally ended with a Focus action.
-When activated, the user gains 30 Radiance and 30 Shadow. For all turns following, they gain 30 Radiance and Shadow at the end of their turns (not counting the one where it was initially activated.)
-Note, this corruption gain cannot be reduced by Spirit perks. Get ready to Focus or find other ways to reduce this corruption going forward!
-Unleash adds a number of effects to the user depending on what it is configured to do, and it is based on the following point purchase system.

Unleash has a total of 10 "Unleash Points." Spend some time thinking about this, because you will not be able to reconfigure them for a while.
Your character's Unleash can do the following things, so long as it adds up to 10.
+1 to an innate stat (up to +6 as usual) = 1 point each
Change a mundane move to a different mundane move (slot-based) = 1 point each
Gain a Blacklight Ability, active only during Unleash = 4 points
Gain +1 Action, including the turn it was activated = 6 points
Change types = Free
Change appearance = Free

Flavor wise, Unleash is the final and perfect manifestation of harnessing and grasping one's inner darkness and impulses, one way or another. It can change the body and spirit, but now, Team Spectrum is able to handle it, and like Diyem, harness it for battle.

Any appearance changes taken on from Unleash can be optionally maintained indefinitely, but flaring the aura for anything else is, in terms of mechanics and flavor, difficult to sustain without focus.


Note that there is no template for a Blacklight Unleash Ability, but it does begin with "Blacklight" in its name. It is ultimately a passive boon that you can have when Unleash is active, relatively powerful, but not at all at the level of a high tier Void. Shortly, I will be revealing Owen's as a baseline, and I and the balance team will try to be available to field questions about the limits and specifications of this ability. We will also be keeping an eye on Unleash Mundane swaps for balance purposes.

For both Abilities and Moves (and maybe even Types) we will be placing a higher priority on flavor appropriateness. If it is clear to us that an ability or move and so on is only for gameplay, and not to do with the actual flavor of your character, it will be rejected. This is personal, not something to Win The Game.

With that in mind, we look forward to seeing what you come up with! And if you decide to go with pure +Innates or other basic things, more power to you, that can be just as useful!

Thanks for reading, and have fun~

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, just making a few things official that had been discussed a lot on the discord:

If you did any reviews during round 9, point them out to me so I can properly give you up to 5 extra BLEC points for them, since it was a Big Boss fight!

Related, reviews done during this round and logged for this round are worth TRIPLE, up to five chapters' worth for a bonus 10 BLEC points. This is to make up for the fact that the final battle is outside of the BLEC range due to rescheduling. and lengthening of rounds.

I'd also like to reiterate for everyone that for Blacklight Unleash abilities, if you elect to go for one, the abilities can be "strong," but they will not be something that will just increase some existing multiplier, etc. These are meant to be unique abilities or conditions that each character can have, meant to be personal to them, with flavor. If there doesn't seem to be anything mechanical that fits here, you can also elect to have those four extra points go to new moves or innates. Nothing wrong with that.

Also, I'd like to make one final and somewhat important new announcement.

I will need your Unleash by the end of this round, no exceptions, if you are FL. I am going to need your builds solidified entirely by the time Maple begins. This is going to be the point of no return in terms of who can be FL and who cannot for the rest of the campaign. I need this for something that I am planning very soon. If you do not have an Unleash by the end of the round, I will assume you are no longer interested in FL.

I strongly encourage everyone to help each other out to make sure your FLs remain as such! And because there are so many who have already submitted their FLs early, I am willing to give some extra time, up to a week or two into Round 14, to finalize in case people haven't done their Unleashed yet... but that truly is the furthest I can go, and you'll need very extenuating circumstances for me to give an extension. Unless it's something medical or irl-gripping, aim for the normal deadline.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, I'm here to announce one last thing while walking up to this Big Boss Battle--Big being very literal this time.

The final enemy type--the one that Maple in Radiant Void is--is Titan.

These enemies are even larger than traditional raid enemies, to the point where they occupy multiple zones.

Titan enemies have several parts to their body that each have their own health bar, but also share a central health bar with the main body.

Body parts do not have turns, but they add actions to the Titan unit. Depleting a Titan's HP to 0 will nullify their Action contribution. However, body parts are restored. Attacking a body part also reduces (by a heavily reduced amount) HP of the main HP bar. For example, if you attack the "Arm" for 5000 HP, the Titan itself will take 500 damage as well.

The central Titan will take heavily reduced damage if attacked directly, up to 100% damage reduction. However, when it restores body parts, this damage reduction goes down by some amount--greater amounts per body part restored each turn. This is generally your best opportunity to strike the Titan directly.

Finally, Titan units can attack zones that are adjacent to all zones it occupies without penalty... but can also be attacked from those same zones.

For example, if the Titan's arm is in zone 3, which is next to zone 1 and 2, then the Titan's arm attacks can attack anybody in zone 1, 2, or 3... but anyone in zone 1, 2, and 3 can also attack the arm (and main body) back in the same way.

And finally, Titan single-target attacks are zone-wide, and Titan AoE attacks are all adjacent zones.

Let me know if you have any clarifying questions!

 

[Namohysip]

Congratulations, everyone, on a decisive victory! It was a real struggle at first, but it seemed that once that first layer was taken out, the rest fell into place with some clever thinking, both mechanically and with the flavor of what everyone did!

There are a lot of little things that we can talk about going forward from here that I'd like to bring up, but first and foremost, I want to make one very special announcement:

For Round 14 only, your builds will be locked EARLY--on the Wednesday before the walkup. You are going to be making your build blind and without any knowledge of the boss. This includes your items, your moves, your stats, and so on. This will only occur for this fight. I also suggest looking at your full build, which includes Supports, just in case. Veterans, stay quiet; this is the last thing you guys know in advance, and you definitely don't want to spoil it for everyone else!

--

Overall, I think the fight went smoothly aside from the initial anxieties about its difficulty being frontloaded (not that you knew that until after.) I'm open to hearing what people thought about the general flow of turn management here, and also airing again any thoughts on unit limits or ways to tweak the reserve system. Let me know!

Other than that... I think that's everything crucial. Have fun in Round 14!

Oh, one last thing: BLECs will be cut off at the top of August, to coincide with the original projected end date of Blacklight. Afterward, only BLECs from prize volunteering will be counted.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all. Been a while! I'm putting this announcement here because it's important.

As you can see, this incoming boss fight is quite different from all the others. And with it, there are a few different mechanics for the fight, and I hope it is not too confusing. Keep these points in mind when participating in your Eterna battle:

1. The Eterna Storm is strong and is disrupting everyone's movements. Player characters and enemies alike will all have 1 mechanical action per turn. Each action will cost 2x the usual stamina. Note, however, that you can also perform nonmechanical actions, such as moving around, interacting with the environment, or otherwise doing things that can't necessarily be summarized as using a move. You can also Call and Focus. Additionally, You are not in control of your Ultra Shade characters, and your perks are FULLY DISABLED. They are your enemy... or under the influence of them.

2. Do not use Official Actions. Since you are literally the only one there, treat it like a Colosseum fight, and post your actions straight in the thread. This is your fight.

3. There is no turn limit, but there is an irl time limit of the usual time, ending on the weekend after Sunday at the very latest. Some fights will be fast, some won't be.

4. "Eye of the Storm" is an exception to the above rules, and Diyem's fight will still follow the old mechanics, turn limits, turn schedule, and action economy.

5. You will not be able to win these fights by mechanics alone. If all you do is log actions and do nothing else... the battle has no solution. Get creative and do what feels right!

6. For Support players, there is a thread for you to make large self-posts if you want to get in on the action and want to cover your Ultra Shades' arcs like the FL folks.

7. The boss fight starts NOW! Get to it at a time most convenient! Please have mercy and patience, I'm managing 16 of these.

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, making one more announcement for the fight now that it has progressed to a new stage: If you have completed the solo portion of the fight, unlocked your Eterna spirit, and successfully made it out of your Eterna realm without being defeated, you can enter the Support role for the battle against Eien! All who participated in a FL scene also gain 1 free Support action for this fight, which you will declare by making a post in Diyem's thread before the turn is resolved, when your character arrives at the scene!

 

[Namohysip]

Hey all, here with yet another announcement!

After great amounts of time, effort, research, and the power of science, Chip has come up with his greatest and ultimate invention for the team -- the Mega Blacklight Recalibration Laser! This 100% safe and totally painless giant laser beam takes spiritual manipulation abilities from Buffet, Eien, and Leg into one great piece of scientific wonder. For 20 points each, you can adjust some aspect of your build that is otherwise impossible to adjust by normal means. Each thing you ask for will be determined, on a case by case basis, on if we as a team will allow it, or if Chip's 100% painless and pleasant laser cannon will be unable to change your unit to the new build. Do note that just because something is approved for one unit does not mean it may be approved for another; we will take into account the entire unit's synergy with themselves and others and whether or not it would be too strong.

Some examples of this being used include...
-Modifying your Blacklight Boost to give different innates
-Modifying your Unleash to give different moves
-Resetting your bonus stat points
-Distributing existing Leg Days from one stat to another
-Tweaks to existing Blacklight moves

So, give it a spin! Try out Chip's definitely healthy Mega Blacklight Recalibration Laser! Be sure to sign the waiver on your way in.

 

[Negrek]

Putting this here because I keep having to search it up on Discord:

For when you complete your scenes... Your familiars have hatched!

They look more or less exactly like themselves from before, minus their solid core. They can now slip through any crack that is more than a few mm in diameter given enough time. They can change their size and shape at will, but aside from special circumstances, their preferred and default forms are the ones they hatched in.

They are slightly more opaque, but if you shine a light on one side, you still see it fairly clearly on the other. They'll still obscure the TV if they sat in front of you, though, such that they'll look like blurry shapes through their bodies.

They can now taste and touch with tactile feedback, and have a sense of temperature and so on. However, their sense of pain is extremely dulled and possibly nonexistent...

They bleed a black ooze, and they breathe optionally, only necessarily to expel breath attacks. They can taste, and food gives them a boost in energy, but they do not need it. They can be beaten, battered, splattered, crushed, blended, and baked into a cake, but they will not die or feel injury or pain by most conventional means.

They all have access to weak moves respective to their preferred forms, as well as Dragon Breath, Sludge, and a weaker version of Shadow Blast. They still have weak offense but incredible HP, but not quite as pronounced as their egg forms.

They have a weak, almost innate sense for the distressed or negative emotions of others, particularly their hosts. They are also aware, similarly, of high energy sources. Finally, when they are exerting themselves, a galaxy-like swirls of energy will appear where their Core used to be, reminiscent of the core of energy you see in Eternatus.

 

[Namohysip]

Been a while! I'm here to make some final announcements.

First of all, congratulations to everyone who made it this far. It's the final round, and therefore the absolute final boss will be coming shortly. I'll be putting a poll on discord--specifically discord--to track when people would like the battle to take place due to the circumstances of the fight and so on. I'll repeat this information there to be thorough, but...

1. This battle will be longer than usual. With the greater power Diyem now has and the backing we will be getting from Pop, the turn limit will be raised from 10 to 15. It will follow the same pattern, however, with 24 hour breaks on weekdays and 12 hour breaks on weekends. This will therefore be a battle scaled to be the longest one, turn wise, so be sure to keep in mind some strategies for longevity in your back pocket. The dates will be a choice between the normal schedule time of October 29th, or the "extra week" time of November 5th. I'm having these be discord votes so in case the votes are close, I can prioritize the people who perform calculations or will be "front-line present" more substantially.

2. The battle will have 10 slots, the rest in Support or Reserves. However, there will be 15 units fighting at any given time. The other 5 units will be NPCs. Pop has gathered some power to boost even them when leaving Cibus to assist, if they are deemed fit and willing. Who these five people are is up to you. One, however, is Diyem himself. The other four must be approached, either onscreen or offscreen, to assist. You must have built up a strong enough affinity with them for them, or some other unknown reason, for them to agree to take this risk. The following characters are valid candidates. Some are generalized, others need specific characters to ask. If nobody is listed, then they will be allowed no matter who asks. Note that they will be in an unfamiliar realm, powered with the help of Pop, and may be weaker or stronger than you remember. Don't expect Maple to be invincible, in other words. Most choices will be balanced, and you should instead consider their flavor and use to the team on a conceptual level.

Ally candidates:
Diyem (Required)
Eien (Easier w/ Bahamut)
Maple (Bahamut, Owen, Brisa)
Joule (Only if Maple goes)
Truffle (Brisa)
Leg (Cynthian)
Flesh (Dave, Nate)
Soda (Dave)
Potluck (Owen)
Xernatus (Koa)
Zinc (Mellow)
Silver (Nate)
Giovanni (Brisa, Starr)
Lugia (Cabot)
Fugu (Brisa)
Wheat (Owen)
Bean (Owen, Dave)
Sword (Brisa, Dave, Saltriv)
Shield (Only if Sword goes)
Blacklight Mewtwo (Nate)
Pine (Brisa)
Pepper (Brisa)
Bone (Brisa)
Chip (Lexx, Owen)
Zeraora (Luz)
S'more (Owen, Vix)
Balm (Cynthian)
Mewtwo-Deoxys (only if defeated)

Those who are not picked will remain behind and try to assist from Cibus in some other way. You may also choose not to bring anyone, aside from Diyem.

There are a lot of characters. Let me know if I might have forgotten any strong bonds and I'll revise accordingly.

Thank you all for going this far, and here's to a strong finish!

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Y'all we got Soda, Eien, Sword and Xernatus! Good picks! Get hype, motherfuckers.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Well done, everyone.

'Til next time.

 

[Namohysip]

Indeed.

It has been a crazy 500 days. Exactly, in fact, from when this game was first officially announced!

It obviously isn't my last campaign, as great as this was. And while I do plan on taking a break from running anything ambitious like Blacklight on TR for the foreseeable future (we all need a break, really!) this has been a blast. Any feedback you have on anything--the combat, the story, the logistics, the management--I'd be happy to hear and I'll take note of it in the future. I already know the combat system is too complex, lol. I'll be looking to simplifying things next time.

Otherwise, though, thank you everyone for playing, and it has been a wonderful experience. Here's hoping I can see some of you again in the future for another campaign--with me as the DM, or even as a fellow player. Who knows!