Grrl Power #1146 – Pressured selection
I am pretty bad about picking skills in RPGs, but I blame this on games these days as much as myself. In most games, if you want to really maximize your damage output, you have to spend a zillion levels buying up these tiny incremental skills, and then luck out with a good unique drop that complements what you were working toward.
I’m not suggesting that games should let you pick a few skills in your first 5 levels and then you just breeze your way through the game, but it does feel like leveling up is this really incremental experience and you rarely feel any oomph after spending a new skillpoint.
Of course, a lot depends on the back end systems. There’s a huge difference between:
Str: 40 TIMES 1.45% from a series of strength enhancing skills, PLUS 32 points of additional strength from gear
and
Str: 40 PLUS 32 points of additional strength from gear, TIMES 1.45% from a series of strength enhancing skills.
Str: 40 TIMES 1.45% from a series of strength enhancing skills, PLUS 32 points of additional strength from gear
and
Str: 40 PLUS 32 points of additional strength from gear, TIMES 1.45% from a series of strength enhancing skills.
Most systems use the first one, because doing it the other way means that stats can get out of control really fast, and then it becomes more difficult to balance the game between the casual players and the critical skilltree path ‘sploitzers. I get it. It’s just more fun for us minmaxers the other way.
I think it’d be cool to read a LitRPG where the special gift the Isekai Goddess gives the MC is the ability to rearrange the order of operations for stat and skill calculations. MFer would be OP by level 10.
Anyway, Sydney doesn’t have these problems because her mysterious super powers have poor documentation. Also she can’t ALT+TAB over to youtube and find some channel with 30 different optimized builds for the latest patch, so she’s stuck just throwing darts at the board with a blindfold.
The new vote incentive will be up with the Monday comic. I should probably admit that I don’t really get a lot of work done on bonus pics during the week. But yes, it is Sydney centric. (But not airplane bathroom selfies.)
The March Vote Incentive is up! The thumbnail is weird because the picture doesn’t have anyone’s face in it. It’s an odd incentive, admittedly. Trying something new. But hopefully you all still enjoy it.
Variant outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon, as well as the semi-usual bonus incentive related comic.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Extremely relatable. Airport bathrooms feel seem to have an extra strong version of Murphy’s law.
I thought Zephan Z (& team) were making recommendations on what Sydny should buy next in the skill tree.
yes but was she paying enough attention to even remember their recommendations or remember the conversation? or was she imagining what it would be like to be able to ride on a giant fly in an intergalactic space war or something?
Something just pinged off my singular brain-cell, while reading this:
Perhaps, in the near-distant future, Krona can hack the orb-point display, to where Sydney can choose one (or more) of the ‘spaces’ BETWEEN point-nodes. Sort of a multi-dimensional point-grid (beyond 2D). After all, we HAVE gotten a brief look at the grid from Krona’s POV…
While that SOUNDs like a good idea, Krona is still learning her powers, she said so herself, that would be like asking a first year collage student to adjust the control rods at a nuclear plant.
Possible, but
I’ll wait over here…
in the radiation shelter…
with a radiation suit on…
on the other side of the country.
LOL
You stay on the same continent? Brave of you.
maybe krona doesn’t need to “hack” the orb’s point display, but if she just observed it while choices are being made, maybe she could see the relationship between the choices, or what they are. don’t change anything, like adjusting the control rods, but her observing the process, or reading the settings while the “expert” does the adjustments, means she might observe some much needed piece of info that the operator can’t notice
I remember that when she “observed” the orbs in skilltree mode, she was overwhelmed (back when Sydney had her first encounter with Sciona). I don’t think it would be safe for her to be near Sydney when the orbs are in this mode.
I don’t think Krona is THAT good in hacking.
She doesnt need to hack it. She has a natural ability to observe the mechanics of what is happening in the background of the orbs’ code though. Basically it gives Krona a glimpse into the root access of the universe’s code.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-506-square-root-access/
Maybe Krona could just alter the language settings?
Actually the Ascenders had the right idea, hack Sydney. The orbs did nothing until she found and activated them.
And despite Sydney’s early fears of being poked and prodded, no one actually has poked or prodded her. They have all focused on the orbs.
I’m sure the nerve weasels are not TOO horrifically painful.
Nerve Weasels sounds like an awesome band name.
Weasels get on my nerves anyway so… no change?
I’m pretty sure a space woof poked and prodded her
Sydney! Spend both points on the orb that you don’t know what it does. The “fuck you” orb. Why? It might make it easier to figure out what it does, or maybe it is a battery or tether and it’ll strengthen the connection or something.
Ibet that point will turn on the multilingual user interface. The one that has all of the labels.
I think that is what will happen when she fills up the middle with 6 points.
the points are all labeled its just the universal translator cannot find ‘appropriate’ concepts in her brain to use. As a security precaution beings without sufficient education are denied the labels because who in their right mind would use a system without first figuring out what all the systems do? just ask the Heechee.
The story Delve (Royalroad) features a minmaxing skill tree like Dave describes, plus a lot of realism. I fear there is not enough sexy for Dave though.
The webcomic Delve features all that sexy, but no skill trees like Dave loves. It’s a hard choice, people.
Note: The first ~50 chapters of Delve https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25225/delve are *really* good. After that the pacing slows to a crawl and the nature of the story changes a lot, putting it into what is essentially an entirely different genre than the one people came to see. Still, the author is pulling in something like $5k/month on Patreon, so they must be doing something right.
The first (table top) RPG to feature a skill tree was Paranoia 1st Edition, back in 1984, by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber and Eric Goldberg.
“You are in error. 2 + 2 = 5.3817, Please recalibrate your equipment accordingly.”
Haha, I loved that game.
I have that book. :)
I have to say, the last panel is a really nice piece of comic art. Another inch or so extended to the left would have been great.
Sydney, you have a communications device.
It’s right there.
You have one of the best consultants you know for this particular problem sitting *on the plane*.
Stop. Think. Consult.
Bets now, unknown orb is generator; and upgrades on it improve battery, recharge and energy efficiency
Also, maybe add point between pew pew and truesight; could maybe then have clone shoot, or port a shot
True sight and PPO potentially could have options for alternative ammo types instead of a destructive type.
Given she’s afraid she used up the power for the orbs and needs to somehow recharge them then the question would be which orb would most likely have a recharge function or the like. The center SEEMS to give her a more intuitive understanding of the orbs as she fills it in so another point there first to test if it helps might be a good idea. The idea that the unknown orb might function as a support for the other orbs (like the Power Gem is the underlying gem all other gems get their power from for the Infinity Gems) so giving it a point is also reasonable, although there are so many choices it’d be hard to be sure which to select particularly a passive.
Some people suspect the unknown orb to be tied to power and recharge, but what if it’s more like the central operating system and putting points into it would open up more understanding of the orbs overall, like suddenly getting more access to the main computer on a starship?
There is a manga out there that has a Isekai Protagonist that can Rearrange keywords on skills so he turned a skill that cleans out muddy water into one that cleanses darkness using muddy water.
For those that want to check it out its called “Isekai de Skill wo Kaitai shitara Cheat na Yome ga Zoushoku Shimashita: Gainen Kousa no Structure” or “Being Able to Edit Skills in Another World I Gained OP Waifus” in english, its suggestive so be aware.
That’s not one of those where the MC goes around making a harem out of enslaved women is it? I seem to remember several novels with that cheat that had reprehensible MC like that.
been a while since i read it but i dont think its that bad, yes he has slaves but not sex slaves.
Not the same, but the story There Are Only Three Levels has some similar trickery sometimes, such as when the protagonist gained the ability to replace a letter in any of her items, and changed a weapon’s damage from 1d5 (average of 3) to 1e5 (or 13.5914091423). Though usually the shenanigans are less straightforward (or practical, often).
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/there-are-only-three-levels.96211/
Why are anime and manga titles so descriptive!
Game of Thrones Manga:
A guy from the Northern Region helps his Southern king while meeting intrigue while an exiled princess marries a warlord hoping to cross the sea to take back her throne taken by the Northern man whose bastard joined the Night’s Watch.
The sites where Japanese people post their short fiction didn’t allow descriptions, just a title. So people started making very descriptive titles.
I believe the Linking Orbs will either allow the ‘on’ effect of orb not in hand to be ‘active’, if not able to be manipulated (so she can sustain force field and flight with one hand) or allow here to use two orbs at the same time in one hand.
So, the ‘logical’ choice is link fly and forcefield, and then passive to forcefield so hopefully she gets a constant shield for ‘herself’ when that orb is not in hand.
With that defensive foundation, she should be safe against ambushes and people trying to grab her Orbs.
I’d be a little terrified of passive forcefield. Best case scenario she gets huge damage reduction or some sort of automatic threat detection that deploys a small shield when needed. Worst case, she gets a weaker bubble shield which is always on and she can’t get rid of without Max smashing it. Assuming she can. Air, food, and general life becomes a huge problem.
I think they meant that Sydney could be able to use her forcefield with the fly ball in hand without needing the forcefield one in her off hand, not that she’d get a forcefield at all times without even having an orb in hand
That’s what happened to Unus the Untouchable (a Marvel supervillain, friend of The Blob.) His forcefield locked on, and he suffocated. I think they rebooted the timestream and brought him back – then the same thing happened again!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unus_the_Untouchable
There’s already two orbs linked – flight and PPO. What’s the effect that it gives?
no orbs are linked yet, so we don’t know what they do, although everyone expects it allows you to have two orbs active with one hand, which is only logical.
Yes flight and ppo are linked.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-181-power-up/
Heck you can even see it in panel one, two, and three of THIS comic.
okay, someone tell me my memory is bad. I don’t remember her ever picking the spot that links flight and PPO orb, but it seems to be indicating that in the first panel? Seriously, I do NOT remember that ever happening, otherwise the effect should have been called out…
It was already linked. She didnt pick it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-181-power-up/
(Panel 1)
Btw your memory isn’t bad. You don’t remember her picking it because she never picked it. It’s one of the pips that was filled even before she first saw the skill tree.
The “Backend Maths” options from the blurb remind me of some of the unholy combinations the Deathwatch 40k RPG could be used to produce. It’s no surprise that the later games (Only War specifically) made Unnatural stats a straight added bonus rather than multiplying.
Having a Space Marine technically able to run at 300kph (in very short bursts) was just… wrong.
Lol the orbs liked the show too! Thus level up. Single node for shield, as it has been now shown to have a limit, and what ever single node otherwise.
grid map layout https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-181-power-up/ (was there a more recent one?)
944
DaveB: “Also she can’t ALT+TAB over to youtube and find some channel with 30 different optimized builds for the latest patch, so she’s stuck just throwing darts at the board with a blindfold.”
Me: But trying to figure out why the dartboard was wearing a blindfold is still a mystery…
That is SUCH a Pinky line (Pinky and The Brain).
I’m just waiting for her to call out for Dabbler and for Dabbler to misconstrue it for something like Sydney seeking a nude selfie of Frix’s eskimo sisters together.
If she’s to put a point into linking orbs I imagine the best pair would be flight and shield since she used them together so often. Although that would be useless if the link is actually about allowing some minor use of a linked orb when using another.
Regardless, I still vote personally for the centre ring and if Sydney’s correct that its giving her innate knowledge of orb use then it could open up a slew of new abilities and functions she didn’t know about, together with granting better knowledge for future upgrades.
The next best orb to upgrade after that is the shield. She gets far more use out of that than the light hook.
The last panel has a mistake on the “skilltree” – the inner ring top isn’t supposed to be active.
The ONLY reason I noticed is because I was wondering how to select for it.
She can’t select it directly, but it’s showing that the nodes (Brownie, Florb & Mr Buble) have been selected, thus filling in those parts of the inner wedge
the whole thing from one panel to the next looks like its rotating, so not sure what you mean.
The original chart shows there are only two in the center ring. Now there’s three.
She selects the orb then puts it into the slot – but the centerring doesn’t HAVE an orb to select…
At one point, I forget which upgrade, she did in fact put one of the upgrades in the central ring.
Not the central hub directly, but in the ring around the central hub, where you can see spots for the pips, and that fills in the related wedge in the hub
I debated on sharing this, but given the super hero theme, and speaking of powers with inconvenient elements to them with no guide book to explains your own powers to you requiring you to figure it out as you go and hope you don’t mess up.
In my on going attempts to create ever weirder super powers.
I have developed a character with both straight forward yet convoluted power with no real physical reason why it works how it works and requires constant experimentation to find its limits and triggering mechanisms.
Character: ARS-5
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/Character-ARS-5-957930165
the jist, she has “Restricted All-Power” she can have virtually any power with two restrictions, One she can’t have a power that alters her bio-mass *so no stone skin, metal claws, shapeshifting, etc…*, and the second restriction…her powers depending on what space she is standing in.
(in short she walks from one room to another her power changes, but is always the same for that room..provided the room isn’t changed enough that her power for some reason decides its a different room now.)
-link has that in much more detail.
In other words if she were in this situation she’d have one power in the body of the plane, but her power would change to something else *unpredictably* in the airplane bathroom. But back to the previous power once out of the bathroom and back into the main body of the plane.
Did that reddish-brown orb always have cracks in it? Or was it damaged recently?
that is the PPO, it has always had energy crack like squiggles in it.
Regarding attribute point calculations; Fate does those the second way (The Diablo II knockoff, not the one that has a genderbent King Arthur). The basic gameplay loop for me was always: buy a fishing rod, fish until I get a couple dozen trash artifacts to sell, gamble until I get a ring or something that makes my stats way too high for a level 1 character, breeze through the dungeon until it gets too hard for me to continue, repeat steps 2 through 4, never spend any of my actual level-up points, get bored and don’t finish the game, then come back to the game a few years later and create a new character because I don’t remember what I was doing last time I played.
I feel like picking for herself without extra intel is a real missed opportunity: She should have invited Dabbler to join her in the airplane bathroom. ;)
She wasn’t planning on upgrading in the toilet, and she probably wouldn’t invite Dabbles anyway :P
More on Daves musings in the comments.
1) I recall that Defiance of the Fall had title tiers, where the basic ones would grant stat points, the secondary would grant percentages, and the last would grant *effectiveness* where the last actually does apply at the end, but they were bonkers hard to get. It also had it where the class didn’t unlock abilities, it unlocked QUESTS to get new abilities.
2) On the MC finding their way – it seems to vary by subgenre, at least by my readings but we may not favor the same things. I personally don’t like the trope where the MC is the only one with a LitRPG ability, where it’s either a fully developed world with them, or where it’s forcibly introduced (usually accompanies with an apocalypse).
Apocalypse ones seem to favor the ‘nobody has any clue what’s going on’ variant, for obvious reasons, which seems to naturally progress to the Regressor subsubgenre, where the MC gets sent back in time now knowing the proper build that they favor/need and has a laundry list of disasters to prevent only for things to spiral out of control due to the butterfly effect.
I do recall reading a Manga where the MCs power was to rearrange the description, but I can’t recall the name. I do recall that it slipped into ‘effortless power fantasy’ too quickly for me though; I think it did some Kanji BS where he combined two words to create something entirely different from the basics of the spell.
I have found I do like where the system wording really matters, and can be used to hide stuff or get some bonkers upgrades if you take a weird power and sink a shitload of skill points into it. Divine Apostate comes to mind.
Long term, it probably has a lot to do with power set and level growth. I like the way you did it, with a semi-fixed set of general abilities and then you can grow new features or possibly remove limiters, that way you don’t slip into ‘the MC can do EVERYTHING!’ traps. You also have to watch for both stat effect and incremental upgrades, as if going from 1000->1005 STR is a lot smaller of an increment than going from 5->10 STR. Or you start having to have DBZ tier characters in your verse because you let them scale too high and now they can bench press continents.
I am still hoping to see some LitRPG superhero variants where it’s the general state instead of a specific characters ability. But I also get that murderhoboing to get those phat XP drops is generally more frowned upon in most superhero worlds compared to primitive civilizations fantasy.
Coolbond up above me named the manga I was thinking of.
Can you just make a videogame please I wanna play the Halo video game…….but not the other halo…..your Halo…
I doubt he will since it would give away too many spoilers. Dave has said that he knows what every one of the orb nodes does, but he won’t tell us except through the story.
I can’t believe filling in the center isn’t the automatic first call.
Generally speaking, anyone organizing a system like this around a clear central hub is almost always going to place importance on what goes in the middle. FILL IT IN! ARGH!
Not gonna lie, I was ALMOST disappointed that she couldn’t read the the skill tree and markings on the orbs with her new glasses that Cora made for her.
She can’t, the orb stuff doesn’t show up on digital devices or something similar. When Sydney showed Dabbles, Dabbles cyber eye couldn’t see it at all.
Thought.
Sydney could get another Point if she buys and uses a radio control sailboat model.
She could also get a Point by operating a forklift.
Or learning how to use an excavator.
Or using an exterminator’s poison sprayer.
I mean she levels up by interacting with technologies new to her, right?
… Why is Sydney’s finger in a loop-de-loop in the 6th panel?
she’s ribbiting her lips, as the bluh-bluh-bluh implies. Take your finger and tweak your lower lip repeatedly.
hmmmm, would be tempted to select the gen-orb with the flight orb maybe that will allow the gen to make different gasses and the flight orb to keep a breathable atmosphere, and maybe the connector or pew and hook (in the hopes that the on the pew side it will allow for tracking bullets and hook side what is pretty much a laserwire)
I’d want to put a point into the mystery orb, just to get an idea about the category of its abilities. Getting a clue there could possibly be far more important than getting a bump on any of the others. Maybe it’s a recharge orb, or an orb user’s manual, or an orb to attract more orbs, or… But it’s unlikely to be pointless, given that all the others are awesome. Thinking of it that way, right now it represents some kind of huge gap in her power set.
I know someone mentioned but I must agree Sydney is looking cuter and more grownup. Maybe in a page or so she will go for a ‘MakeOver’ new do, makeup & the lot. Maybe a SAILOR MOON OUTFIT for a Halloween party.
Link it with the PPO to get laser tentacles
Focus on shield and light hook. Shields because you can never have too much defense. Light hook because it’s a very versatile orb, upgrades should include increase in max length, greater strength for heavier objects, and multiple tentacles. Depending on how you use light hook, it can be used for offense, defense or support.
Ah spending Skill points in a game is such a crap shoot.
you do the research into what every thing does and set your self up for what you want . then the next update they totally fubar the whole thing by minimizing what your skill set does.
Thought, it would suck if it turned out there was a secondary hidden requirement this whole time. On the game advanced alien toy theory. What if she is leveling some orbs too high for her current over all level? A system like Pokemon where if you level up a Pokemon on your team above a certain level but haven’t gained the appropriate gym badge yet then they become unreliable, don’t always follow commands. So she needs to level up a certain guage first before she can reliably control the orbs if she levels them up above it’s level.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-183-confirm-skill-upgrade-yn/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-510-maybe-its-a-cupcake-beam/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-659-the-greatest-challenge-upgrading/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-660-armored-on-the-inside/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-672-engage-your-advanced-math-skills/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-945-upgradde-with-a-double-dose-of-indecision/
Did I miss any?
How did you do so many links? Whenever I do more than 3 links it doesnt allow the post
4+ links causes a comment to be held for moderation.
It does that for me after 3 links
Bear somehow did 6. I Want to know his secret. I am wiling to learn. Is a sacrifice needed? Go on a quest? Do I need to get my thetan levels audited? Tell me how he did that!
A comment being held for moderation doesn’t necessarily mean it will never be posted. It just means that DaveB has to manually approve it.
I haven’t examined the plugins he’s using, but there’s probably an option in the moderation panel to approve an individual comment, or whitelist an email address. And maybe some comments he never sees, because the spam filter totally blocks them, and others go into a queue for him to look at, and others still sneak through. There is the occasional spam comment on older pages that makes its way through somehow.
Think Syd! You have Kenya and Dabbler with you. Dabbler just “fixed” your glasses will that allow for translations? Kenya is your superior, get advice or ask them to call Max.
It’s a well known fact that if you use a phone while on a plane the plane will instantly crash.
(I am kidding)
The orb stuff doesn’t show up on advanced technology. Dabbles cyber eye couldn’t detect it.
That just mean she couldn’t record it, but she was able to draw it on the whiteboard (she still has her original right eye)
I think they meant the French.
Dabbler doesn’t recognize the language of the orbs, so chances are the translator might not either *if its a database translator* if its an intent translator…then it might not translate writing anyway…probably both translates spoken languages based on a cross-referencing database and intent/context for an approximation, with an existing database for written languages.
So some Nth tech never before seen probably wouldn’t be translated even if the “holographic” (approximation as the only other option is to call them projections or non-psychic hallucinations), weren’t invsible to technology (which is funny still, tech can see the orbs themselves, as can biological senses, however psychic and magic scans only see emptiness.
but the skill tree and assumed glyphs are invisible to tech as well, yet the eyes of non-users can still see them.
given these layers of being hidden you’d think the skill tree would only be visible to the user, so why design it so someone else can also see it.
Putting points to upgrade an unknown power/power-upgrade while flying in a jet at high-speed/altitude while in a cramped bathroom… I wonder how many people Halo can catch if she accidentally blows a hole in the fuselage.
given her options. All of them *using the shield and the flight orbs together*
any other options given she lacks zero range telekinesis to counter things like inertia and she’d just be snapping necks and breaking backs trying to use the whip moving at high speed with the fly orb as her only other option.
Caution with unknowns is generally a good idea, but…
She has to put the points somewhere, and if the first point going into this orb is going to make a kaboom, we might also worry that the Nth point going into any of the others might do that too.
I would agree with you about USING the unknown orb immediately after putting the point in. Better to postpone that until the plane lands, at least.
actually – what would make the most sense is to upgrade the core to max and then workk from there
as far a Krona – she should be working on a hack to redefine sydney as level 1 without losing powers so she can unlock more points all over – easily – the “soft hack”
Occurs to me panel 7 is showing the flight orb and the PPO as linked – the only such active link, in fact. Maybe that means they’re sharing their power reserves, which is why overuse of the PPO led to flight difficulties. Possibly also why such heavy sustained fire was possible at all.
Yeah, incremental growth in games is a big feelbad.
More games should be like Exalted’s power growth lol
Dave, you forgot the extra point in the PPO