Post by Vio on Aug 24, 2023 10:40:50 GMT -5
Hey, everyone! It’s me again coming in hot to deliver a bit of news regarding some changes in regards to the Discord server and some big news regarding the results of the recent polls and the upcoming system changes! So, let’s start with the brief changes on the Discord.
We’ve decided to retire the red “Boss Lady” role and, as you’ve probably noticed, a chunk of the staff now have purple names! Those who have purple names are also the site’s main staff body, just as normal, and also manage the Discord. Green remains the Junior (“in training”) staff role. You’ll also notice that Kami-Gaz is now blue! The great goat has decided to take a step back from site staff duties so he can rightfully focus his attention elsewhere, but the busy goat still serves as an advisory voice for the staff and serves to moderate the Discord itself!
Next, the polls! With the results of the four polls now locked in, we can see the general feel that you all have as a member base about what we’ve asked. There’s some mixed feelings over the “Rainbow Mist” as we’ve seen and, hopefully, we have addressed some of those concerns while talking about it in site development. Our ideas on Devil Fruits also seem to be mostly positive, but do hinge a bit on the Rainbow Mist. As for the site feedback, that’s much appreciated! With the eventual shift to a new site/platform, this information is good to work with!
Thanks to everyone who pitched their vote(s)! On the topic of the third poll about the newly proposed Three Tier system, we’ve taken it back to the drawing board a little and revamped the design to hopefully tackle the general want for an easier to understand, progression and scale-focused, highly flexible system. There’s no perfect system that can really tackle everything, but we’ve talked this one through! Our fluffy friend Fox has so kindly written up her own explanation of this and her own take on the Rainbow Mist explanation which we hope clears up any remaining confusion!
Progression System… Explained!
Everything is now an Aspect. Equipment, Traits, Qualities, even Devil Fruits are collections of Aspects. Instead of the three Tiered branching Aspect system we initially suggested, we’re proposing a new way of doing things that will hopefully be easier to understand, more flexible, scalable, and give a better sense of progression!
Now, we’re introducing the concept of Aspect Tiers! There are four Tiers that can be attained, and they apply to each Aspect individually. Let me break down the Tiers for you, and then we’ll get into some examples.
Tiers:
0 - Normal human ability or unable to produce the effect
1 - Notable in the Blues
2 - Notable in Paradise
3 - Notable in the New World
4 - On par with Yonko and some of the most powerful people in the world; an utter monster
5 - Even further beyond (Requires the use of Buffing Aspects to attain)
Purchasing an Aspect automatically gives you Tier 1 and costs 100 XPz. Further upgrades cost 200 XPz for Tier 2, 300 XPz for Tier 3, and 400 XPz for Tier 4. (The total cost of a fully upgraded Aspect being 1000 XPz total.) Tier 5 is not purchasable in and of itself and must be acquired through use of a duplicate or buffing Aspect. An example of this would be if I had a Strength Aspect and also a Zoan with an Aspect that boosted my strength.
Into examples of Aspects now! We’ll look at Sanji’s Diable Jambe! Sanji might need a Tier 1 Fire Generation Aspect to produce flame. More Tiers in that Aspect would involve producing more flame, but that’s not what Sanji does. Instead, Sanji also purchases an Aspect for Intense Flames for increasing the heat of his flames to absurd levels. Since he doesn’t need to produce a lot of flame, he can just upgrade his Intense Flames Aspect instead to higher and higher Tiers.
I hope that’s a little bit easier to understand than before! We’re happy to provide more examples in the #site-development channel of the discord. Now, onto what I’m sure everyone is curious about…
Devil Fruit Changes!
So, Devil Fruits, as we’ve come to realize - are essentially a collection of Aspects in one convenient bundle. As such, we’ve decided that they should be priced as such. If your Devil Fruit offers what amounts to four different Aspects in one, you’ll be paying 400 XPz for the lot of them. But if you Devil Fruit only provides two Aspects, you’ll only need to pay 200 XPz for them. This means we will be doing away with set prices for Devil Fruits.
You may be saying, but wait, what if I don’t have enough XPz to get all the Aspects I want or need into the Fruit? Well, we’ve also decided that you may use your Starting Aspect Vouchers (you get three) to add onto a Devil Fruit’s base kit, essentially allowing for more Aspects. Additionally, you may apply for additions to a Devil Fruit’s base kit later when you have the XPz for it - so long as it fits within the concept itself. If you want to tell a story about your character slowly discovering the capabilities of their Fruit, that is now possible.
Because a Devil Fruit is just a collection of Aspects, you can upgrade each of a Devil Fruit’s Aspects in the same way that you would any other Aspect. Each Aspect in a Devil Fruit will start at Tier 1 and can be upgraded later. I’ll provide examples below of each classification.
Say I want to make a Black Bear Zoan. And maybe I want to throw on a strength Aspect while transformed, so the below would cost me 200 XPz all in all.
Black Bear Zoan Aspects
Black Bear Transformation
Primal Strength
Or I want to make the Chocolate Production Paramecia. This would also cost 200 XPz because of its two Aspects.
Chocolate Production Paramecia Aspects
Chocolate Production
Chocolate Manipulation
Or maybe a Marshmallow Special Paramecia? Which will cost 300 XPz due to its three Aspects. Paramecia in general can wildly differ in price depending on how much they do.
Marshmallow Special Paramecia Aspects
Marshmallow Production
Marshmallow Manipulation
Marshmallow Transformation
What about a Logia? Maybe Crocodile’s Sand Logia. This will cost 500 XPz (Or 400 XPz and one Aspect Voucher)!
Sand Logia Aspects
Sand Production
Sand Manipulation
Sand Transformation
Sand Absorption (being able to use existing sand)
Desiccation (when he sucks the water out of people)
Mythical Zoan aren’t too different either and can range widely in price due to interpretation. We’ll go with one of mine. It costs 400 XPz using these new rules!
Dragon Mythical Zoan Aspects
Dragon Transformation
Flame Production
Intense Flames
Earth Manipulation
How about an Ancient Zoan like the Triceratops? That’ll be 300 XPz due to having three Aspects (Note: I don’t NEED to take three Aspects here if I don’t want to. I could just take the Triceratops Transformation Aspect, making it only cost 100 XPz instead).
Triceratops Ancient Zoan Aspects
Triceratops Transformation
Thick Hide
Prehistoric Anatomy: Helicopter Frill
A Horse SMILE might have only one Aspect or two. This one has two, so it costs 200 XPz.
Horse SMILE Aspects
Horse Chimerism
Equine Speed
We’re again happy to provide more examples or help you figure out how your own Devil Fruits would look in this new system. Just let us know!
Rainbow Mist
Now for, perhaps, the most contentious and or confusing part of all of the suggestions. I feel like talking about the Rainbow Mist gets really muddled, so I’ll be doing my best to make sure it's all clear as crystal - or as close as I can get.
The Rainbow Mist is an in-character phenomenon that, for the purpose of the setting, has been going on for as long as anyone can remember. It can be noticed by characters or go completely unnoticed by them. The way I look at the Rainbow Mist is thus, each character (and usually crews) have their own universe in which they exist. The events that happened from universe to universe may differ wildly from each other or they may be very similar. Examples of this are Gold Roger’s execution or perhaps the Summit War at Marineford.
Pulling back the curtain a bit, I don’t always read every single thread that’s happened at a location in order to catch myself up to what is the current state of the island. I usually just read through an island’s description and base plots around that, which can lead to my resolving a conflict that someone else had already resolved in a previous thread unintentionally. Odds are, the graders will miss it too because their only task is to grade the current thread and not fact check the island’s history. These can lead to unintentional conflicts of continuity, and this problem exists even in our current static world timeline. Conflicts of continuity happen in many different ways aside from this one example here, including threads taking plans at the same time that resolve the same plot point unbeknownst to the different parties, etc.
The Rainbow Mist is the solution to those conflicts of continuity. Two characters may have both done something to an island that drastically altered it in their own universe. What those characters did is canon to them and the characters also present in Universe A, but may not necessarily be canon for someone else in Universe B, especially if that person also did something beforehand to said island that made what the character did in Universe A impossible in Universe B.
Does that mean these characters can’t interact? No! When characters from Universe A and B meet, the events on that island are true for both of them, and may play a part in the story that is taking place now. It could even be a story on that self-same island, split in two by the Rainbow Mist so that both versions of the island are present. The Rainbow Mist allows for multiversal story shenanigans if you’d like to tell those sorts of stories. If you don’t, that’s also fine. You can collaborate in a way that makes sense for both of you while keeping both of your past events canon. You’re sailing across dimensions - across universes - when you interact with another character or crew, whether your character knows it or not.
I know that there was a worry that the Rainbow Mist would cause more segregation, but really, it just solves continuity conflicts in an in-character within the setting way, and also can be used as a fun story tool to craft even wilder types of stories! You can include as much as you want from another character’s universe into your own as well.
What we are doing isn’t taking our static world and letting it diverge and split off into many different multiverses, but instead saying that characters ALWAYS existed in their own universe and players could decide what is canon to them from what others have already done, will do, or are doing. I hope this resolves any confusion - thank you!
And back to me! So, this newly proposed idea definitely covers a lot of bases and hopes to tackle the issues that seemed most prevalent with the original proposition. We’re still discussing more of it, but so far everything seems to stack up quite neatly! Later on we’ll have a fully presented write up of what the new system can and will offer, but Fox has covered the basics and the surprising strengths of the system at hand!
Thanks for enduring our rambling again~!
