[OOC] Divinity Vs Dazsos!

[MelonHead]

So your character has an instant cast shield that blocks incoming attacks regardless of their power? Seems a bit overpowered, to be honest. Your characters are supposed to be of similar tier level, so when working with something as subjective and unbound by logic as 'magikz' the prep system is, as I've already said, a way of balancing combat without the need for dice rolls or coin flips. Sure there's a place for strategy and logic, but if you follow what is logical to its logical conclusion, combat at higher tiers is incredibly pointless. What would be logical is using your immense magikz to just displace half your opponent's body, to instantly remove their heart or their brain and render them inoperable. No one does that though because it wouldn't be a RP fite anymoar, but it is the most logical thing to do.

See what I mean here? If you take logic too far this stops being a game, which is what RP is. Imagine if someone walked into a chess match and said 'well, these rules are good and they work and all, but I can create a real compelling argument for why I should be able to move twice in a turn.'

Would that make chess better? Are people who request you follow the rules in chess Templars, or ISIS members? By the way, that is genuinely a horrible analogy.

Also you really shouldn't need the prep advantage. You have an almost unlimited variety of spells to work with, perfect for ambushing. Corban is really forced on the defensive and to react to whatever you do in this fight. People using guns or swords rarely utilize the prep system, and they still eventually score hits. You just have to attack in a fashion that leaves your opponent out of options, physical or magical.

[Divinity]

What I'm reading from Dazsos is that he entered following general T1 Eden.... but now thinks certain rules should be amended for him due to various runes he's now using, and plot devices taken from his sheet. That is certainly not acceptable for me.

To follow one ruleset and then to completely try to disregard it using terrorist groups as your defense for why is really not convincing me.

[Dazsos]

Given the circumstances, I've admitted that Myron's shield has a weakness... however I've put certain cogs in to motion which fortify it's vulnerability. And I'm not willing to indulge on the specifics of its weakness due to trust issues. Can we get back to the matter at hand, Melon? I'm sure your scent glands are going haywire by now.

If the prep system isn't based on 'time,' at all, which has been your argument from the get go... then I don't see how time manipulation would not give a buff to something like cast time? Aggrieve logic all you wish, it's the key and lock, you cannot convince me to abjure.

No I didn't enter under the impression that T1 Eden was the appropriate rule set. It's just widely accepted, and many other forms similar to it exist. I've played the game long enough to understand it, and have followed generalized unspoken rules, which is why I'm not against having it. It's just imperfect, just like all of us.

My analogy was horrible! I admitted to that right away. But it's not far from the truth...

Sorry to somersault away at the most climatic and enjoyable arc of this debate, but this weekend is going to be extremely busy for me. I've got plans all the way up till the 19th, and Mon-Tues I'll likely be completely unavailable. Tomorrow and Sunday I can post at odd hours, hopefully this issue is resolved.

Oh right, most important thing last. Synopsis time. I'm willing to make T1 Eden the default (it slightly was already); you guys can be the ones to figure out how time manipulation glitches the mechanics of your beloved rulebook.

[MelonHead]

My scent glands are mostly fine, though I appreciate your concern.

The prep system isn't really based off time, no, it's based off power. It's why when you're talking about magic you can use the term 'charge' interchangeably with prep. Your character is limited by their tier in regards to how much sheer power they can manifest in a 'turn', speeding up their actions doesn't change this hard-cap, in my opinion. You could certainly cast more spells, but they would be weak. The advantage you do gain from that though is that you simply have more spells, so while they may be defended against fairly easily with counter magic, they could hit an opponent with various effects at once, and perhaps sneak past their defences by attacking from multiple angles. (This is where logic and tactics rules.)

The reason why preps can't simply be linked to time is that it would make a character with one chargeable ranged attack with immense speed the most viable character in RP fighting. They can simply sprint far away from their enemy and charge up an attack in the time it takes an enemy to arrive. (Though to be honest, you can still do this.) Also, there's really no good way to dictate how much time would constitute a cap of power being reached.

The prep system isn't perfect, I'm the first to admit it, but a multi-prep system seems to just exaggerate the already present problems with Preps. I'm not fond of high tier fights for this very reason.

Point being, I think your time spell should allow you to cast quicker, why not, but I don't think this should equate to you gaining multiple prepped attacks. You just get more normal attacks. For example, if you were using a sword and cast this rune, you could launch four or five thrusts in the time it would normally take to launch one. You don't need a magical prep bonus for those five thrusts to be better than your ordinary one. Now times that by about a million, because your character is using funky delayed ranged magic super attacks, and you can see how multi-preps are really unnecessary here.

That's just my take on it, I'm still interested in reading this fight and I'd hate to see it end over what I fundamentally believe would be a mistake, AKA changing to a multi-prep system.

[Starfall]

Skimmed this thread, did I really see someone bring up ISIS?

::EDIT:: Note I haven't been following this debate close enough to have an opinion. I just thought it was funny.

[Divinity]

Yes. You really did >_>

[Starfall]

. . . Carry on.

[MelonHead]

Dazsos went to the reductio ad absurdum school of debate :D

[Starfall]

If you're going to react you might as well overreact.

[Divinity]

Dazsos, following general T1 etiquette, what your shield would have would still not be a prep which means a prepped attack would overpower it, and a quick draw would match it, provided the choice of attack was not poor (ex: magic missile fired at antimagic barrier). I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue about the shields IC. That they're slightly more special than a quickdraw, but less than a full 'prep'?

[Dazsos]

See this is where I don't like the idea that 'specific rules' overpower fundamental reality. That barrier shouldn't just be 'overpowered' because someone held their urine in for an extra couple seconds, so that the delayed effect is a more powerful blast of piss. Human excrete is vastly inferior to my amazing and beautifully invisible spacial barrier, regardless of how prepped they were with their willies, and how truly horrible my analogies and metaphors are.

Ultimately I'm still not convinced how preps aren't relative to time; if there was a 1-prep per turn rule, then it is - hands down - only a byproduct of time and energy. Again the word preparation really explains everything.

We're talking in absolutes in terms of the rules, when that just doesn't work, and I've even been told that those who used T1E weren't as anal about enforcing every single rule across tiers, or in the face of loopholes. Boosting a character's action speed should indeed increase how quickly they're able to charge a powerful attack. Time is time, perhaps a figment of human imagination, but we're convinced it's real, and keep track of it thusly.

Oh hey there, @Starfall. Welcome to the debate! Would you like to pick a side? Perhaps I can offer you some popcorn. Hopefully you like crude humor, because I implement a lot of it in my rants. My apologies for the horrible setback on my post for our fight... I've become so immersed in this battle of spell, wit, and passive aggression, that it's captured all of the brain cells I have left from years of rum guzzling piracy.

[MelonHead]

The issue with your piss analogy, is that I'd only rate pissing a T1 ability, where-as your space shield is T7. A better analogy would be trying to piss one of those annoying shit-stains off the side of the toilet, say that shit had sat there 'prepping' for a turn or two, you might just need to hold in your piss until it gets to super-pressure levels in order to blast it away. Now that, is a shit analogy of the prep system.

Character tier levels are inherently linked to the prep system, because higher tier abilities inherently have a prep advantage over lower level characters in most settings. (This is an adjustable rule, but it tends to make sense, and explains why your piss analogy doesn't hold any weight. That piss attack has to face maybe seven passive preps to overcome that shield, which is never going to happen, so we never have to see a logical fallacy that wide. Not to mention, even if it did break through the shield it would do no damage, because logic does still apply when it comes to damage dealt :D)

The reason why preps can't be relative to time is because in 'game mechanic' terms it would be completely impossible to balance and would break logic hard. The prep system is a gaming mechanic, it is not rooted properly in what is wholly logical, it is simply a balancing mechanic that says 'well, we have two opposing magical forces here that are balanced due to the tier, we can't just let whoever has the fancier description win (nor would that be suitable here, as Corban's sheet doesn't even have any hard references) so what do we do? Well, we could flip a coin, or roll a dice? But that leaves it up to luck. Okay, then we'll make it so a person can pre-plan an attack, they can state the intention to launch an attack in a prior post, and then when it's launched we say 'well, he planned to do that', so it's only fair it overcomes someone acting completely on reflex because all things being equal, the thing with prior thought/energy invested in it should be stronger.

There aren't any absolutes of course, T1 has to be flexible to survive the countless contexts it can be used in. However, you can't lose sight of what it is, it's a system outside of the 'IC' so to speak, a way of gauging if something can overcome something else when those factors are almost entirely abstract. There's some things you just can't know, and the T1 prep system plays the part of a dice or coin flip but gives full agency to the players, rather than dumb luck.

How was my crude humour, by-the-by? Can't fault that shit-piss analogy surely? It made me laugh, which may be more of a testament to the fact that I should be sleeping at 3 am, not typing.

That's not to say you can't use time as the IC capacity by which your character 'preps' but that's a limiting factor you place on yourself, as regardless of what happens 'fluff' wise with your spell, it only gains one prep per turn as part of the balancing mechanic.

The thing that's difficult to articulate here is how you -have- to divorce the prep system from IC, and do whatever you have to in order to explain the effects of preps through IC action. You display your character carrying out an activity akin to preparing an action, or charging an ability, but out of character you've gained a counter basically, a counter you can exchange for a determined outcome against an opponent's own actions, but which you buy at the price of risking being bopped on the head while you're distracted, and usually alerting your enemy to the fact that you're up to something.

[Dazsos]

You're helping me out here more than you know. And I'm a vulgar masochist who thrives on forcing multiple people to side against me on a debate to truly weed out what's wrong in both sides.

So the barrier shouldn't just be blanked out by any prepped attack, because it's a high tier, high grade ability. It's a one-trick pony, but it's very effective, and it was accepted by my opponent before the match started. There's my vice grip, here's my calloused hand.

Psssst... hey, hey Melon... you're still using aspects of time in your explanations. Also, I'd give your crude humor a 6.8/10. If you used the word feces, or the rather elusive ejectamenta, you'd surely earn more points on my sphincter scale.

[MelonHead]

You're helping me out here more than you know. And I'm a vulgar masochist who thrives on forcing multiple people to side against me on a debate to truly weed out what's wrong in both sides.

So the barrier shouldn't just be blanked out by any prepped attack, because it's a high tier, high grade ability. It's a one-trick pony, but it's very effective, and it was accepted by my opponent before the match started. There's my vice grip, here's my calloused hand.

Psssst... hey, hey Melon... you're still using aspects of time in your explanations. Also, I'd give your crude humor a 6.8/10. If you used the word feces, or the rather elusive ejectamenta, you'd surely earn more points on my sphincter scale.

@Dazsos

Yes Dazsos, but as I've explained multiple times, your characters are the same tier now. Corban doesn't really have any detailed abilities, but we can presume that they're vaguely equal in scope to Myron's shield, so for all intents and purposes it's up in the air which would come out on top. Unless the shield is restricted in some fashion outside of T1 Eden, but was still accepted (Such as a cooldown on its use, or some other restriction) it has to follow the same rules, and therefore it can stand up to any unprepped attack (logic permitting) but a prepped attack should pierce it.

I'm not shaking that hand dammit, I'm not done pounding my point in.

I am indeed using aspects of time, but only as I explained as a limiting factor. You can choose to be limited by time or not (I quite often do) and you can use that as a justification of a prep, but regardless of how much time passes in a turn, you still only earn one prep. Because preps are a balancing feature outside of IC logic. There is nothing statistically sound about them, other than numerical superiority being paramount. But as they only apply in instances where it's a matter of what overpowers what, that's more than suitable.

I resent your score of my piss analogy, this is proof I need to declare you insane, 6.8? Bah!

For example, I have a character called Metz who can spell-cast for longer periods of time if he wishes, the effect of which is a larger magical circle. The damage of the circle doesn't change however, because I know that's not how preps work. So I can secure an advantage using time by increasing the range of my circle, but its damage potential doesn't change. Time then becomes a tactical advantage divorced from the purely function advantage of the prep system.

So, bringing this example into this case, your time warp spell gains you a tactical advantage, because you can logically cast more spells in a period of time than you usually could. It doesn't give you an overpowering advantage though, because that would be pretty OP, your character would jump up at least an extra tier level if he could suddenly put double the power into his spells after using an ability with no real cost. In fact, it's basically an auto-win, because you simply overpower an opponent using the balancing mechanic, which they can't really fight or argue with. (Save for interrupts, but at this level interrupting is -hard-)

[Divinity]

So the barrier shouldn't just be blanked out by any prepped attack, because it's a high tier, high grade ability. It's a one-trick pony, but it's very effective, and it was accepted by my opponent before the match started.

@Dazsos

I don't ever recall accepting conditions of an ultimate defense that can sustain any amount of damage from any attack regardless of power. Corban's most ultimate defense is his Kinetic Barrier, and that is generally only good against a single sustained attack before it is taken down, and has limits in terms of the physics concerning it, and abides by prep regulations.

I do not by any means support a defense that can be summoned on the fly that can stand against everything conceivable.

[Divinity]

@MelonHead I rate your piss-analogy a solid 8. I have no idea why it isn't a ten. I just feel something is missing from the concoction.

I have been getting a serious laugh out of all of this.

[MelonHead]

Yeah, Division is a pretty broken spell looking at it. The limitation that you can't interact with the outside world while it's active would be fine, if it also constantly drained energy keeping it up and prevented you preparing any other abilities. But that doesn't seem to be the case, so the only thing I could determine is that it should be able to be pierced by a spell of sufficient strength. I mean, you could say 'well I snuck this ability through so lol I win' but that would be really bad form. Because in its current format, it has no practical limitations what-so-ever and there's nothing in it that suggests you couldn't also prep new abilities while inside, so long as they don't interact with the outside world until you were ready. Even if it did render you completely cut off, considering its lack of cost it would still be wildly overpowered for it to literally stop everything.

Still, there's not much I can say, as Divinity did technically agree to fight the ability. I'd have asked for clarifications on its traits, so it couldn't be abused, but I have trust issues. *Shrug*

Anyway, I'm rambling far more than usual because it's 4 am and contrary to popular belief sleep is actually a necessity. Still, it was an interesting conversation, even if we just went full circle.

[Divinity]

Still, there's not much I can say, as Divinity did technically agree to fight the ability. I'd have asked for clarifications on its traits, so it couldn't be abused, but I have trust issues. *Shrug*

@MelonHead

I did not agree to fight it on the terms he's slapping onto it currently. I assumed we were abiding by standard prep regulations, so I read that ability as being powerful, but not outright being able to be sustained at virtually no cost (he has cast it twice now with virtually no drawback) and against everything regardless of power. In other words, I never read his ability as a cheat sheet to use against the prep system.

Also, I wasn't talking about the division spell when I brought his shields up. I meant the shields he summoned around his character at the end of his post. But this was a very good byproduct conversation to have.

[Dazsos]

The way you word it, Melon, instead of actually playing the fight out like a real duel of magic... I instead must play the rules to my advantage. There are rules that aren't quite spoken, but can be heard anywhere across the algorithm through common sense. Instead, you could have come to these conclusions without Eden Era, and I'd have agreed, through such unspoken rules.

"If you catch your opponent off guard, your attack should have precedence." Of course, this is obvious.
-> A prepped attack should overpower a non-prepped defence. (A direct insert from 'T1 Eden Era for dummies.')

"When two energy blasts collide, the more powerfully charged one should overpower the other."
-> A prepped attack should overpower a non-prepped attack.

These things are common sense, the kind any smart judge should have, T1EA just dumbs it down, which isn't always good or useful.

/Gives Melon a good ol' calloused pat on the back/ Aw c'mon don't be a sourpuss.

Anyways, I think we've gone over enough, actually. The barrier is of a higher tier than ordinary elemental spells, so I doubt this argument will change anything in my last IC post. I could've held on to the idea of not using T1EA, which essentially would force Divinity to leave... but such a victory like that is inglorious. So... I'll accept EA's rules from here on in, @Divinity, under the stipulation that Myron's abilities, almost all of them, can double-classify as both preps and non-preps, and can be combined to form singular preps. Example being summoning multiple layered barriers, it's not too hard, it could count as 1 matured prep, even if it constitutes multiple spells. Vs higher tier spells I'm sure Corban has, layering is a good idea in my eyes. This will help fit runelore in to the meta, whereas it'd create lots of loopholes otherwise. I will obviously put in great detail what combination of runes are most dangerous per post, and it'll be distinguishable what the real 'prep' is. In that last post, it's the idiom of time-space paradox.

Is this concluded? Or shall we continue debating about T1EA, so I can infuriate everyone who loves it with my outsider paradigms.

Oh yes, Melon. Well if you want the extra .2, you can have it, just for helping me reach out for an agreement on this argument based solely off of your crappy analogy. Otherwise, you should consider joining the school board, both of you seem to have the same opinion about my mental state.... hmmm...

[Starfall]

@Dazsos

I'm more of a sass and sarcasm kinda debater. Also no, I'm happy on the sidelines.