Alllright, everyone! Congratulations on your victory, and this time I'm very, very impressed because you had a lot of cards stacked against you! I won't be adjusting the difficulty here because it was much harder than expected, but you still won out, mostly because of how well your opponents decided to play~
Anyway, now is time for the round 4 retrospective. Please read through the bolded points especially, because they pertain to everyone. There's a lot to go over here, so if you have anything specific you want to address, please begin with the number it applies to.
1. The next fight is a Big Boss Battle. All reviews for stories at least partially on TR this round will be worth +1 extra BLECs per chapter, up to 5 total! Please mention this when recording reviews! Additionally, Ethereals, if you're interested in getting in on something YOU guys can do this round (it's probably simple, I promise) feel free to message me on discord : ) Spread the word to other Ethereals you know.
2. This will be the final round where half-off Support vouchers will be effective. Use them or lose them as they're going away after the Big Boss!
3. There have been a LOT of last-minute or post-round-end purchases and so on. Try to avoid that and maybe look out for each other, or, alternatively, fill out your signup post with the auto-purchase information that I can use to do all that trouble for you. It's a little chaotic and hectic for me and the players otherwise!
4. Reminder that Supports can also buy Perk tier slots, even if they're empty, in order to contribute to the Support Burst meter! As of now, 10 people who have their perks bought and then use a Support in one battle will result in a 25% boost in defenses and offenses for that turn, which can be very useful!
5. While I haven't had any specific feedback on this, I think going forward I'm going to frontload plot scenes as much as I can, leaving the back half of rounds for character interactions without a rush to get plot critical scenes done--aside from the walkup.
6. Clarification: Challenges are cut off at the end of the round. During the 4 hours between round-end and turn 1's deadline, I start doing automated point distributions and so on. During this 4 hour window, you can do last-minute purchases, but no challenge logs, and when the first turn begins calculations, absolutely everything is locked. Some time between here I am also automating stat distributions in good faith / best distribution for what I know about your build.
7. For ease of reading, I will also be marking some players as Inactive on the sheet. Inactive players are classified as such if:
They have not entered any challenges at all in the previous fight.
Their highest number of challenge completions is two or more behind the max. (For example, if they are only at 2 completions of tier 1 at the end of round 4, they are Inactive.)
This will be done by placing an underscore _ on the front of their name so they appear on the end of the list alphabetically. This does not bar them from participating, but it does make it easier to see who the caught up players are. They can still catch back up with a few S ranks and return to form!
8. Compressor, if you have that Ultra Stone perk, has been rebalanced just slightly. Buffed slightly.
9. Psych Up is way too strong and centralized the meta. Gonna have to nerf it, sorry! However, anybody who had Psych Up or had a strategy based around it can talk with me or the balance team for get free changes. It's only fair. Psych Up now costs 20 stamina but does not get more expensive, and can copy any one stat boost of your choice from the target.
10. I'm adding, or at least explicitly outlining, another feature for Supports to use. You can queue up Supports in advance for the Front Liners to spend freely in your absence! For example, if you want to use a Shield, but don't know the best time to do it, you can queue it up for later! You guys have informally been doing this, but I'm giving a proper OK for it.
11. Balance update: A full rest of doing nothing for a whole turn will restore 50% of your stamina. This also includes Focusing, which is what your actions default to if you take no action. If you perform other 0-stamina actions, it counts as a half-rest and will restore 25% of your stamina. This includes using items, Calling, and so on.
12. Items have been added to the shop! I was planning on saving these for when the shop was fully upgraded, but Chip's research facility came up with something early! In compensation for the Psych Up nerf, I'm adding stat-up seeds preemptively. Check them out! It's an entirely new item category.
13. S-Rank Supports have been added! Take a look. While I don't think they will be immediately available due to their Level costs, they are something for you to keep in mind while building forward!
14. I have no major plot scenes to add here. You have a lot of leeway as well, with a few weeks in-universe to look around! Explore Destiny Village, uncover secrets, investigate various places, and see if you find anything! Or, in general, roleplay as you like. There's a lot more to see as the world opens up...
15. Turn 5 will no longer take place at its usual time. Essentially, due to reasons beyond this campaign, I'm not able to effectively run calculations at that time slot. It will instead be delayed to when turn 6 usually happens, and the schedule runs normally from there. Turn 10, therefore, will happen as late as 4 AM, Tuesday... But I doubt it will get to that point under most circumstances.
16. As a reminder, send me your scene summaries to be placed in the Story So Far! Otherwise, I plan to only include scenes that were plot related. It was a lot of work and I was not getting many volunteers to summarize whole time slots, so it's much better to leave it to you all, who know the scenes better anyway. Simply put, a few sentences is all that's needed to summarize what happened, if you want to have it included.
And finally...
17. A very important address:
Alright, time to get a little more serious, though. Recently, I have been getting some concerns and stressed complaints about the way Front Lines have been handled. Not by me, but by fellow players. I am officially opening the floor for CIVIL discussion on this matter to hash things out, but essentially, it is an accepted fact that the Front Line is something that is very highly valued by some players, and not others. Essentially, if you are playing Blacklight in part for the game mechanics, and not necessarily ONLY the rp, you are more likely to be Front Line.
Unfortunately, not everyone in Front Line shares that sort of passion. There have been many instances of players not taking their turns seriously, or simply being away for several turns at a time without giving any indication of what they want their turns to be, let alone delegating someone else to handle it while they're away, busy, or asleep. This can make planning turns very difficult for the more active players, who are nervous about controlling your characters without your say, and it is generally not fair to anyone involved.
Seriously consider why you are Front Line as the game's difficulty increases and the battles become more complex. Alternatively, if you are Front Line, consider other players and whether you will be present during the battle or not. If you are going to be unexpectedly absent for a turn, consider delegating another player as someone who can set your character's turn in good faith. Do not get upset if your character's actions are decided for you because you were not present.
You generally should only be heading into the Front Lines if the gameplay aspect of that actually interests you, and you're able to keep up and follow along with the role you chose to take, and that includes being responsible and reasonable with your autobattle delegations, or otherwise entrusting your character to another.
If you won't be present for a boss fight, consider Support, because it does still have a very high impact, especially with the Support queue announcement above! Support is the exact role people can take if they want to participate in a fight, but are not quite able to dedicate all the time and effort required to play the Front well. There is absolutely no shame in choosing Support instead, and in fact a lot of people would appreciate a good Support than someone struggling to keep up with FL.
In any case, that's my piece. Feel free to reply here or in discord with your thoughts on any of the points above.
