out of all the influences in the world you pick me
no wonder justin has the hots for you
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Dec 25, 2017 13:31:45 GMT -5
I guess the takeaway from this thread is that absolutely everything is hunky-dory and that races are completely fine
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Dec 25, 2017 14:01:08 GMT -5
has it been discussed? there's a bunch of shit in this thread that's not even tangentially related to what I was asking in the OP
are you referring to that, or to other discussions?
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
If you want something tangible, here's my thoughts:
In terms of pure character class things, like skills, all the races are the same. You got your universals, your casting, and then your damage modifier skill. There are some obscure things, but they're all shoved into the Quincy class and, quite honestly, they're explained poorly and don't add much (lookin at you, holy artifacts). Of course, we can only use what Kubo dealt us and it's certainly not our fault he wasn't writing Bleach with the anticipation of it being some RPG story drive writing game. So it's really hard to complain.
When it comes to numbers, I think it's pretty obvious, both in character and out. Shinigami are a massive power house with all of the powerful players leading them and more people flooding the gates. Quincy are, maybe, at a somewhat healthy balance. There's a fair chunk of them and while not too many are actually doing anything, they're at least there and populating the race. Hollows are the polar opposite to the Shinigami. Honestly, they're a joke of a race.
I doubt many people would complain or argue with what I've said, but I'm interested if there are other opinions floating about.
I can mostly speak to the Hollows, since I know of a fair few people who have left/avoided making them because of a number of problems.
1) This is mostly an older problem, but the creative freedom with Hollow custom skills was always clamped down upon much stricter than the other races. When I was first around here about a year and a half ago, people would ask for something like a Spirit based skill that was a little more complex than Cero (usually in the form of some sort of flavored Bakudo equivalent) and get shot down by "uhm, they don't have hundreds of years of books to look over." I can understand wanting to avoid egregious breaches of in-universe logic, such as Hollows making space lasers or something, but the hammer always seemed to fall much harder on the Hollows. Which brings me to:
2) Mechanically, why the hell would you play a Hollow? You can just slap Hierro or Regeneration onto any other character, often with very little in character justification for it beyond "uhhh he's tough" and just go on your way. I know I'll get a response to the tune of "well, this is a story driven site, why does it matter?" but the complete lack of any sort of racial identity besides being dirt nomads with incompetent leadership doesn't make the race all that attractive.
3) The proposed plan, where skills like Hierro are being turned into universal customs with a defined purpose, is going to exacerbate this problem. Given how long it is/has taken to implement this system, I'd certainly hope you could differentiate a Hollow's Hierro from a Quincy's Blut or a Shinigami's MacGuffin armor, but I get the feeling that everything is going to be very homogenized and essentially just be a bland framework for being tougher.
4) Less a Hollow problem, though it's specific to Hierro and a little bit of what Bri said above: there are so many vague, underwritten skills that require you to prod and probe around to figure out what they do. What the hell are the limits to the Quincy spellcasting skills? It vaguely mentions that they require preparation, but beyond "it's good for area denial" you get sweet fuck all in terms of information. The same thing applies to Hierro/Blut, how the hell are they different and what the fuck do they do? It makes your skin hard, right, but mechanically there is absolutely no precedent set for what it does or how you can grow in it beyond just becoming more of a theoretically stronger wall. If your first thought when reading something is "yeah, okay, but what does it actually do?" then something needs changing. I've been hit with the meme answer of lol who needs a hierarchy or a defined, loose order to things before so I'm not exactly hopeful that those things will be addressed, but it's something I know has interfered with people's interpretations/willingness to less explored skills.
Information in general on the site is sparse, forcing you to dig and search for information on stuff. Who the fuck is relevant in the mortal world? You wouldn't know from a glance or a short read in a thread, you'd see that there is a Quincy a half of any notoriety but beyond that there's some sort of Order, then this KSN thing that people mention but you have no idea what they are because the one person that made it relevant isn't around. What's happened in Hueco Mundo, Las Noches, anywhere but the Shinigami and their rogues? The barrier to entry when it comes to information is a big problem, one that has lasted the year and a half since I've been here.
Last Edit: Dec 25, 2017 22:23:09 GMT -5 by ambition
If you want something tangible, here's my thoughts:
In terms of pure character class things, like skills, all the races are the same. You got your universals, your casting, and then your damage modifier skill. There are some obscure things, but they're all shoved into the Quincy class and, quite honestly, they're explained poorly and don't add much (lookin at you, holy artifacts). Of course, we can only use what Kubo dealt us and it's certainly not our fault he wasn't writing Bleach with the anticipation of it being some RPG story drive writing game. So it's really hard to complain.
When it comes to numbers, I think it's pretty obvious, both in character and out. Shinigami are a massive power house with all of the powerful players leading them and more people flooding the gates. Quincy are, maybe, at a somewhat healthy balance. There's a fair chunk of them and while not too many are actually doing anything, they're at least there and populating the race. Hollows are the polar opposite to the Shinigami. Honestly, they're a joke of a race.
I doubt many people would complain or argue with what I've said, but I'm interested if there are other opinions floating about.
This, honestly. I haven't been here that long, but it's clear that Arrancar are just so much less unique in a lot of ways mechanic-wise on the site. If I didn't love Arrancar as a race from the Bleach universe and my love of RPing them on older RP sites, I probably would have gone with the crowd and just made a Shinigami.
I can mostly speak to the Hollows, since I know of a fair few people who have left/avoided making them because of a number of problems.
1) This is mostly an older problem, but the creative freedom with Hollow custom skills was always clamped down upon much stricter than the other races. When I was first around here about a year and a half ago, people would ask for something like a Spirit based skill that was a little more complex than Cero (usually in the form of some sort of flavored Bakudo equivalent) and get shot down by "uhm, they don't have hundreds of years of books to look over." I can understand wanting to avoid egregious breaches of in-universe logic, such as Hollows making space lasers or something, but the hammer always seemed to fall much harder on the Hollows. Which brings me to:
2) Mechanically, why the hell would you play a Hollow? You can just slap Hierro or Regeneration onto any other character, often with very little in character justification for it beyond "uhhh he's tough" and just go on your way. I know I'll get a response to the tune of "well, this is a story driven site, why does it matter?" but the complete lack of any sort of racial identity besides being dirt nomads with incompetent leadership doesn't make the race all that attractive.
3) The proposed plan, where skills like Hierro are being turned into universal customs with a defined purpose, is going to exacerbate this problem. Given how long it is/has taken to implement this system, I'd certainly hope you could differentiate a Hollow's Hierro from a Quincy's Blut or a Shinigami's MacGuffin armor, but I get the feeling that everything is going to be very homogenized and essentially just be a bland framework for being tougher.
4) Less a Hollow problem, though it's specific to Hierro and a little bit of what Bri said above: there are so many vague, underwritten skills that require you to prod and probe around to figure out what they do. What the hell are the limits to the Quincy spellcasting skills? It vaguely mentions that they require preparation, but beyond "it's good for area denial" you get sweet fuck all in terms of information. The same thing applies to Hierro/Blut, how the hell are they different and what the fuck do they do? It makes your skin hard, right, but mechanically there is absolutely no precedent set for what it does or how you can grow in it beyond just becoming more of a theoretically stronger wall. If your first thought when reading something is "yeah, okay, but what does it actually do?" then something needs changing. I've been hit with the meme answer of lol who needs a hierarchy or a defined, loose order to things before so I'm not exactly hopeful that those things will be addressed, but it's something I know has interfered with people's interpretations/willingness to less explored skills.
Information in general on the site is sparse, forcing you to dig and search for information on stuff. Who the fuck is relevant in the mortal world? You wouldn't know from a glance or a short read in a thread, you'd see that there is a Quincy a half of any notoriety but beyond that there's some sort of Order, then this KSN thing that people mention but you have no idea what they are because the one person that made it relevant isn't around. What's happened in Hueco Mundo, Las Noches, anywhere but the Shinigami and their rogues? The barrier to entry when it comes to information is a big problem, one that has lasted the year and a half since I've been here.
is this specifically aimed at hollows or also arrancar, your phrasing makes it difficult to decipher
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
Most of the things that I would say were mostly summed up by Ambition. We have often seen so many non Hollow-breed just randomly take their tech for little to no reason. (Much like Shunko) but that's another story.
While we're on Shunko, I've noticed that with Custom is (unofficially) removed on all but Variants and humans. Shunko is now an option for Shinigami. Although I may disagree with the fact that Shunko has become common knowledge but that's irrelevant as we're not following strictly to canon here. However, I do find it jarring that people just randomly pick up Shunko without adding reasons why they took this approach. (but again, that's mostly complaints to the writer and not to the rules in whole.)
Like I said. Most of the things have already been said.
I was going to say stop killing powerful hollows, but we never really had one.
Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Dec 26, 2017 18:04:05 GMT -5
kneejerk response to that is very much what you outlined at the end of your second paragraph: we can only offer people the tools; thought and care in how they wield them is up to the individual
should people be penalized because they don't put the same amount of forethought into their characters as I do mine?
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
I can mostly speak to the Hollows, since I know of a fair few people who have left/avoided making them because of a number of problems.
1) This is mostly an older problem, but the creative freedom with Hollow custom skills was always clamped down upon much stricter than the other races. When I was first around here about a year and a half ago, people would ask for something like a Spirit based skill that was a little more complex than Cero (usually in the form of some sort of flavored Bakudo equivalent) and get shot down by "uhm, they don't have hundreds of years of books to look over." I can understand wanting to avoid egregious breaches of in-universe logic, such as Hollows making space lasers or something, but the hammer always seemed to fall much harder on the Hollows. Which brings me to:
2) Mechanically, why the hell would you play a Hollow? You can just slap Hierro or Regeneration onto any other character, often with very little in character justification for it beyond "uhhh he's tough" and just go on your way. I know I'll get a response to the tune of "well, this is a story driven site, why does it matter?" but the complete lack of any sort of racial identity besides being dirt nomads with incompetent leadership doesn't make the race all that attractive.
3) The proposed plan, where skills like Hierro are being turned into universal customs with a defined purpose, is going to exacerbate this problem. Given how long it is/has taken to implement this system, I'd certainly hope you could differentiate a Hollow's Hierro from a Quincy's Blut or a Shinigami's MacGuffin armor, but I get the feeling that everything is going to be very homogenized and essentially just be a bland framework for being tougher.
4) Less a Hollow problem, though it's specific to Hierro and a little bit of what Bri said above: there are so many vague, underwritten skills that require you to prod and probe around to figure out what they do. What the hell are the limits to the Quincy spellcasting skills? It vaguely mentions that they require preparation, but beyond "it's good for area denial" you get sweet fuck all in terms of information. The same thing applies to Hierro/Blut, how the hell are they different and what the fuck do they do? It makes your skin hard, right, but mechanically there is absolutely no precedent set for what it does or how you can grow in it beyond just becoming more of a theoretically stronger wall. If your first thought when reading something is "yeah, okay, but what does it actually do?" then something needs changing. I've been hit with the meme answer of lol who needs a hierarchy or a defined, loose order to things before so I'm not exactly hopeful that those things will be addressed, but it's something I know has interfered with people's interpretations/willingness to less explored skills.
Information in general on the site is sparse, forcing you to dig and search for information on stuff. Who the fuck is relevant in the mortal world? You wouldn't know from a glance or a short read in a thread, you'd see that there is a Quincy a half of any notoriety but beyond that there's some sort of Order, then this KSN thing that people mention but you have no idea what they are because the one person that made it relevant isn't around. What's happened in Hueco Mundo, Las Noches, anywhere but the Shinigami and their rogues? The barrier to entry when it comes to information is a big problem, one that has lasted the year and a half since I've been here.
is this specifically aimed at hollows or also arrancar, your phrasing makes it difficult to decipher
It's a problem for both base Hollows and Arrancar, I can't think of anything in there that is exclusive to one or the other. Maybe the "Hollow custom skills can't be too complex" seems like it'd be a different problem to tackle based off of whether you're a base Hollow or Arrancar? I could justifiably see customs tied down to being very simple for a base Hollow, just not the Arrancar.
Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Dec 27, 2017 0:39:57 GMT -5
Mostly because I seriously hope people aren’t choosing what race they play based on skill selection alone, or even letting skill selection play that large a part
I can think of many reasons why someone would play an Arrancar
I can think of none for Hollow
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
Mostly because I seriously hope people aren’t choosing what race they play based on skill selection alone, or even letting skill selection play that large a part
I can think of many reasons why someone would play an Arrancar
I can think of none for Hollow
The only thing I can think of for a Hollow is wanting to RP out the evolution of a Hollow through the various Menos stages. But that's all I got really.
Mostly because I seriously hope people aren’t choosing what race they play based on skill selection alone, or even letting skill selection play that large a part
I can think of many reasons why someone would play an Arrancar
I can think of none for Hollow
The only thing I can think of for a Hollow is wanting to RP out the evolution of a Hollow through the various Menos stages. But that's all I got really.
Those were some of the reasons I personally made a hollow over an arrancar. The other reason was because writing one fits my writing style a lot better, at least in my mind. I also like the freedom of not having someone to watch over the character day in and day out (unlike those who are a part of SS or The Order)
Mostly because I seriously hope people aren’t choosing what race they play based on skill selection alone, or even letting skill selection play that large a part
I can think of many reasons why someone would play an Arrancar
I can think of none for Hollow
It's just one of many miseries that come with being a Hollow, the immediate knowledge that your creative liberties are (often vaguely) limited isn't exactly an endorsement for playing the race. Though given that every single Hollow these days is a PhD holding pseudo-Scientist or some sort of warrior poet, maybe the skill creativity limitations will relax in kind. Any sort of information on what is and isn't justifiable for them would be great, but the lack of information is a problem in many places on the site, not just the Hollows.
Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Dec 27, 2017 1:38:31 GMT -5
But at the same time, if homogenization is becoming a large problem, surely these issues go away? I mean, it ends up going one of two ways: either the problem is, as you claim, going to be exacerbated, which indicates that the problem with hollow-breeds has literally nothing at all to do with skill selection (if everything is more same-y across races, people are more prone to picking whatever), or it gets better since a wider selection with more freedom lets people sweat skills less and play the race that appeals the most.
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight
But at the same time, if homogenization is becoming a large problem, surely these issues go away? I mean, it ends up going one of two ways: either the problem is, as you claim, going to be exacerbated, which indicates that the problem with hollow-breeds has literally nothing at all to do with skill selection (if everything is more same-y across races, people are more prone to picking whatever), or it gets better since a wider selection with more freedom lets people sweat skills less and play the race that appeals the most.
The few Hollow skills that should be something that is apart of their unique, racial identity are co-opted and thrown randomly onto non-Hollow characters (often with very little justification) while Hollows themselves are essentially slapped with a vaguely defined "you can't make anything that'd require a burden of knowledge because you don't have the super library to access". I don't think the notion of a defensive/regenerative ability should be exclusive to Hollows, but Hierro and Regeneration feel creatively barren and not at all distinct to people who are practically polar opposites. If the adaptive hide of a beast living in a desert, that has to literally fight for their lives every waking moment, feels identical to flooding your body with cult particles as a weird pseudo-religious mortal race, then there is something going wrong.
Nothing feels "distinct" and it makes everything read like being boring reskins of "this is an attack based off of Spirit/Strength" or "this makes you not die." Not entirely sure where "homogenization will make people just pick whatever" comes from when the Hollows have *nothing* but the tiny shreds of identity they've got now; you don't attract somebody to a race by going "well, you'll pretty much be identical mechanically and have less players, a more boring hub world and practically no identifiable or important names." I can't critique the "new" system in detail yet, as everybody has been kept in the dark about it while the site has been in an activity coma, but if the proposed solution is to just dilute what unique qualities a race should have then it's not going to help with anything.
Shinigami have no inherent mechanical advantage, it's not about making them more powerful (who cares about this since nobody actually fights one another anyway) it's partly about knowing your freedom to write customs or other additions won't be kneecapped because you don't have thousand folded Nipponese libraries. If this isn't clarified enough, I'll reiterate:
The issue isn't that Hollows are mechanically weaker, the issue is that they feel creatively gimped when it comes to making mechanics, their racial identity isn't at all defined when it comes to their skills and they feel like completely barren. Nobody is "sweating skills" when it comes to whether they can make something broken, it's about what will be considered valid because the terms for these things are vague as fuck. I've already discussed other issues with the actual implementation of "factions" on Discord with Shun, which is a larger problem, but I think the skills are the easiest fix that can be done without disturbing too much.
Last Edit: Dec 27, 2017 2:02:33 GMT -5 by ambition
Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Dec 27, 2017 2:38:44 GMT -5
In all honesty it sounds like the problem is that hollow-breeds are boring because... they’re boring. It’s difficult to convincingly RP the defining trait of the race, namely madness in various forms. I’ve seen it attempted on BG, but I’ve never seen it succeed. If the madness is bypassed, then you end up with the warrior-poet or (often pseudo-) intellectual research man
There are no easy solutions to the Arrancar problem, though whatever solution presents itself will almost certainly be from dedicated players rather than a top-down decision
There is no nation of you, there is no nation of me Our only nation lives in lucid dreams Lucid dreams, I’m livin’ in lucid dreams I’m livin’ on shortwave streams tonight