Announcement & Discussion

[TheGOAT]

Also! I’ve been needing to design and re-calibrate my damage calc sheet lately, and it’s kind of a mess, so instead I’ve decided to create a brand new one. It will be on Google Sheets and anyone will be able to hop on and use it. I’ll try to make it as user-friendly as possible, starting with having a row/column exclusive to each FL character. When I have it ready, I’ll post a link in the discord chat and a link here as well. (y)

Howdy! I’ve finished the calc sheet. Every character gets two rows for now, and naturally, all users get editing access. I can add more rows in the future if necessary.

I’ve added both a stamina calculator and a damage calculator. I don’t think a corruption calculator is necessary, especially this early, but… mmm, maybe one day.

BLEC Player Calc Sheet

docs.google.com

 

[Nikita Dracovish]

Dumb question, but is it too late to join?

 

[IFBench]

Not as far as I know!

 

[Namohysip]

It is not too late to join! I will be cutting off joining in a handful of rounds from now, but not yet.

 

[Negrek]

Your character doesn't need to be from a fic! A character you'd like to explore more but who doesn't appear in a story is perfectly fine.

 

[Namohysip]

Correct.

In other news, I have an announcement!

Alright, everyone! As per what happened in this post, https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/poppin-arms-cafeteria.553/post-18662

Diyem's influence appears to be waning, and with it, his translation for everyone to understand one another.

From here on, periodically, Team Spectrum may be stricken with sudden waves of illiteracy and lose their ability to communicate with Cibus. This will, outside of plot scenes, happen at your discretion, and will generally be infrequent for the time being, perhaps no more than once a day until further notice. It only lasts for a handful of seconds.

Untranslated languages will be depicted in wingdings. Note, however, that you can elect to simply say in narration if someone is speaking gibberish, or any other notation you like, especially if they are communicating with someone who can understand them.

I highly recommend you edit your signup post with what languages your character is fluent in. Unless there are lore differences in your world, assume that English is Unovan, Japanese is Kantonian (or whatever equivalent, I don't trainerfic much) and pokespeech can come in base or elevated forms depending on upbringing.

Your Familiars speak exclusively the Cibus language, but telepathy does not have a language barrier.

Have fun! Get well soon Diyem, wherever you are <3

 

[Nikita Dracovish]

Got it! And another silly question - are we only allowed to sign up as one character?

 

[IFBench]

Yes.

 

[Dragonfree]

You sign up as one character, but they can obtain a 'familiar', who will take the form of a sort of black gooey version of another character derived from their psyche and/or memories. (For instance, my character's familiar took the form of his Scyther Pokémorph daughter/niece/creation, while unrepentantAuthor's character has a familiar based on her clan's patron legendary Zeraora powered by her less repressed self.)

 

[Namohysip]

Hi all, here are some last-minute round announcements in terms of roleplay going-ons that I would like to make an interest check on!

The final plot scene unlocked a few last-minute scenes that can be explored by anybody (even you, vets. At this point the story has diverged quite a lot, and I've had to restrict you guys way less often.)

-Maple trying to reconcile the fact that her familiar became a false Joule
-Talking to Shield (or Karat!) about what they know about the Blacklight crisis that they aren't talking about
-Silver and his team
-Darkwhite's plans against Giovanni

Additionally, a 2v2 Tournament is brewing in Destiny Colosseum! This one was proposed by Goat and facilitated by me, and will more or less be pioneering PvP and Colosseum matches going forward. Unlike PvE, where it's mostly the balance team having the highest say, I am willing to give more sway to players as this is more a construct of your desires than the campaign's needs. And while Blacklight's mechanics were balanced around boss fights, PvP is uncharted territory and may need new or altered rules--some of which have already been implemented.

Here are the current rules for the Divine Tournament Preliminaries:

Battles will be 2 v 2.
Player Characters will have 20 points to spend on items for their preliminary matches (this does NOT affect your actual point total for boss battles)
Player Characters can have alternative movesets and perks, but NOT stats.
Player Characters will have 2x their usual HP.

Further adjustments will be made based on community feedback as well as general balance changes for PvP specifically based on how these preliminaries go!

 

[Negrek]

I'd be interested in any of those scenes, although the ones with Shield or Silver would be the ones I'd give highest priority. Probably not going to be able to squeeze another plot scene in this round, though, so I'll see what's still available at the top of the next!

 

[Namohysip]

Thankfully Shield and Silver can probably wait until next round, but Maple's one is pretty heavy on timing since it just happened, and Darkwhite, well, there's no telling what's going on with her, so getting her early might also be a good thing. Feel free to ping me for anyone interested right now.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Very interested in Luz talking to Maple and/or Millijoule.

Fairly interested in the other three, but we'll have to see how it goes.

 

[TheGOAT]

Interested in a Shield interrogation scene! Possibly Karat as well!

 

[IFBench]

Interested in talking to Darkwhite!

 

[Namohysip]

The Darkwhite scene is currently happening at the Destiny Crossroads with Tricky, so if you want to show up there, you'll need Saltriv to wander in that direction!

The Maple scene is ongoing in the northern pines, as you're aware.

As for Shield, that hasn't happened yet, though I believe Astrid and Starr planned to have a Colosseum fight?

 

[Namohysip]

Also, making a small balance adjustment: Ally Switch has been properly changed to work with how the lore actually operates, and now switches aggro, effectively, for one turn. Its stamina usage has also been lowered to accommodate for this. It can be used up to three times in one action (though it's expensive if you go all the way.) Anybody where Ally Switch on your moveset, you can switch it for free if so, but otherwise I think this is a pretty good move to begin with, so long as you can predict aggro.

 

[Namohysip]

Alright all, time for the Round 7 retrospective. Same drill as before. A few things:

Support Players and actions on their behalf - Policy

A concern was brought up about Support players and whether or not they want their Supports used at the will of the Front Line players, or whether they want to actively participate in deliberations for when to use a Support or not. Looking into it, I was thinking that a solution would be if players modified their signup sheets--including Front Line players--to say how many Supports they would be willing to use in a fight or, conditionally, how many they would use depending on how many points they have. If that sounds good, I'd suggest modifying those posts now so your fellow players can refer to them in the future.

--

Turn complexity and ease of use

That last turn was amazing, but also a nightmare to calculate out. I'm confident in the general direction of the numbers, but not in the precise values. That also seems to go for the players, who, in their plan, seemed to have a few errors in how they thought the attacks would go down. That needs to be simplified somehow, and some coordination with the power gamers would be nice to see if we can make that process smoother. Off the top of my head, I think it would be easier to have an itemized list of the actions everyone takes (which is already done for people who just have all their actions at once with no interweaving), as well as an ordered list of actions for complex turns that explicitly outlines when everything is done.

If there is any way to simplify or otherwise make it easier to read after that (A DM-friendly order of attacks) that would also be loooovely. Let me know if you have other ideas on how to make this smoother and easier both for me and you.

--

A nerf to healing items... kinda.

Elixirs and Max Elixirs have been nerfed... kind of. Technically, even if you had these effects previously, I don't think they would have affected any of your previous battles. However, Elixirs now cap out at healing 100 stamina at most, and Max Elixirs, 200. Sitrus Berries heal for up to 500 HP, and Oran Berries, up to 250. Revivers are unaffected by this change.

--

What you've been waiting for...

Mid-tier perks have arrived! Take a look at the shop. Each one costs 15 points, and you can get up to four of them. Support players, getting all four mid-tier perks will add another 5 to your Support Burst, for a total of +15!

Just like before, you can also suggest new mid tier perks as well, so if you see something that isn't there, suggest them and see if it gets approved!

Additionally, if you see a perk that you want, but it requires a tier-1 perk that you don't have, you can purchase the tier-2 perk and swap out a tier-1 perk for the total price of just the tier-2 perk.

 

[TheGOAT]

Howdy Blacklighters!

The battle did just end, but I wanna get a head start on setting up the PvP tournament in Destiny Colosseum. A few users expressed interest on discord, but chat is fast-paced there and the message got buried quickly. So! As I work on this for the next few days/however long, knowing the quantity of participants will be super helpful for formatting and all that logistical stuff.

Anyone with a Blacklight character can participate, whether you’re usually in Front Lines, Support, or Ethereal (assuming you’ve already got an active character in the RP). Namo will be running the battles and doing them one at a time, so my only request for participants is to know and be ready for when it’s your turn!

This will be a 2v2 tournament, assuming enough people play. I’m optimistic we won’t have to downsize to 1v1, but I won’t rule it out until I know how many are participating. It will follow standard PvP rules, which read as follows:

Here are the current rules for the Divine Tournament Preliminaries:

Battles will be 2 v 2.
Player Characters will have 20 points to spend on items for their preliminary matches (this does NOT affect your actual point total for boss battles)
Player Characters can have alternative movesets and perks, but NOT stats.
Player Characters will have 2x their usual HP.

Further adjustments will be made based on community feedback as well as general balance changes for PvP specifically based on how these preliminaries go!

A few important things to note are that actions will be submitted to Namo privately, and simultaneously with the opponent. The turn order for each turn will be based on whoever has the highest stamina total at the start of the turn. Also, while you will be able to fully customize your loadout as per the rules above, you cannot change anything about it once the tournament begins, and you must submit it before knowing what the bracket looks like.

React with a if you want me to jot you down as a participant. I recommend finding a partner to sign up with, since you’ll be able to choose your teams. Alternatively, you can be assigned a teammate.

 

[Namohysip]

The turn order for each turn will be based on whoever has the highest stamina total at the start of the turn.

Clarification: It's even more granularized than this, and is based on each individual unit's stamina. Treat their current stamina like Speed from the canon games. A team member can intentionally go after a slower member, but do note that it means letting other members or even opponents who are faster than them, but slower than you, go first.