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roy speaking for us all, there
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Aug 14, 2023 14:00
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Who among us hasn't cringed at younger us?
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Aug 14, 2023 14:40
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Capfalcon posted:Who among us hasn't cringed at younger us? I mean, hell, go look at your own posts from way back at the beginning of this thread. edit: not specifically aimed at Capfalcon
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Aug 14, 2023 22:43
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Parahexavoctal posted:I mean, hell, go look at your own posts from way back at the beginning of this thread. Truly, cringing at Capfalcon's earlier posts is the unifying human experience!
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Aug 15, 2023 00:42
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Parahexavoctal posted:I mean, hell, go look at your own posts from way back at the beginning of this thread. I was 21 when this thread started. I'm 37.
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Aug 15, 2023 01:35
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MikeJF posted:I was 21 when this thread started. I have moved between four different cities during the time I have followed the comic.
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Aug 15, 2023 03:33
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Parahexavoctal posted:I mean, hell, go look at your own posts from way back at the beginning of this thread. I mean: Capfalcon posted:That day, Nale was amazed to discover that when Tarquin was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you." Eh, not as clever as I thought it was, but still holds up. :V
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Aug 15, 2023 03:47
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the only things tarquin is capable of loving are the game and the bit
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Aug 15, 2023 05:42
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So anyway I reread some of the archives due to links on those old posts, and if the OotS had never figured out about Xykon's Greater Invisibility, and Roy had never tried to fight him, he would have just been defeated and destroyed in the throne room by the ghosts of the Sapphire Guard, and the entire story would have ended a decade ago, wouldn't it have? They really kind of have a reputation for hurting more than they help, I cannot blame Serini at all for wanting nothing to do with them. e: oh wait nvm I forgot Redcloak carries his phylactery Cup Runneth Over fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 07:42
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Cup Runneth Over posted:So anyway I reread some of the archives due to links on those old posts, and I don't see how this would have stopped Miko from Miko-ing things up, same as she did in the story. They could, however, have just given up against Tarquin instead of destroying the gate, securing the location and probably defeating Xykon with the help of the massive army and party of epic level spellcasters, thus ending the story like half a decade ago.
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Aug 15, 2023 09:15
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MikeJF posted:I was 21 when this thread started.
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Aug 15, 2023 09:55
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Toplowtech posted:I read two new tomes of A Song of Ice and Fire during that time, i don't think it's that impressive. By the tine OoTS ends you'll have read... 0 more volumes of ASOIAF.
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Aug 15, 2023 11:35
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Yeah, the Order has actively made the Gate situation worse. Destroying Dorukan's gate was unnecessary at that point, as Xykon was on the run. Miko would not have fallen (at that point, it was probably inevitable in her lifetime) and the Sapphire Guard ghosts would have defeated Xykon and Redcloak if she hadn't encountered the Order and discovered her patron's deception. Destroying the desert gate was also unnecessary, even at the low point the Order was in, since a Tarquin & Co vs Xykon deathmatch would have left the winners easy pickings for the Order (it would also have been pretty cool). Not to mention most of Girrard's defences being gone because Varsuvius has no sense of right and wrong.
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Aug 15, 2023 13:27
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AnoHito posted:I don't see how this would have stopped Miko from Miko-ing things up, same as she did in the story. Timing, probably. Without Roy as a speed bump, Xykon gets to the throne room a few minutes sooner, and is likely already defeated by the time Miko shows up. Cup Runneth Over posted:e: oh wait nvm I forgot Redcloak carries his phylactery In fact, per Soon's plan, Miko probably would have gotten to destroy the phylactery instead of the gate.
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Aug 15, 2023 14:30
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If literally anyone but Redcloak knew you could safely let Xykon near a gate without having to worry about him turning it into some kind of doomsday weapon and going ham they could've ended the story at any time yeah
A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 15:39
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AnoHito posted:I don't see how this would have stopped Miko from Miko-ing things up, same as she did in the story. Xykon would have been destroyed by the Sapphire Guard before Redcloak arrived due to arriving at the throne room much sooner, and may never have damaged the prison tower, thus releasing Miko. In fact, killing Xykon may have caused Redcloak to retreat. It wouldn't have ended the story like I thought because they wouldn't have his phylactery, and most of the Sapphire Guard would still have died, but it would have meant a much better chance that the city was saved and the bad guy foiled.
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Aug 15, 2023 16:46
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Man it's almost like incomplete information begets bad situations.
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Aug 15, 2023 16:58
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This is not even incomplete information as it is not reading ahead in the script, TBH ("if Roy didn't fight Xykon, than..." Okay, how was Roy supposed to know that?).
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Aug 15, 2023 17:11
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The stickverse runs on the rules of narrative convention, so the Order had to fail early on somehow.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:12
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ultrafilter posted:The stickverse runs on the rules of narrative convention, so the Order had to fail early on somehow. Ah, but even so, that doesn't mean you know everything! I mean, narrative may say that they'll defeat Xykon - but doesn't say if he conquer Azure City but loses the gate, or is repealed from the city and goes to another gate. Also, they're heroes - convention shmconvetion, they gotta try - else, they won't be properly heroic.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:17
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Gun Jam posted:This is not even incomplete information as it is not reading ahead in the script, TBH ("if Roy didn't fight Xykon, than..." Okay, how was Roy supposed to know that?). quote:if the OotS had never figured out about Xykon's Greater Invisibility... I don't think they were trying to suggest the OOTS made a mistake by trying to fight. It's just interesting to think if they'd been slightly less clever, Xykon might have lost right there.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:24
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Correct. It's also interesting to think of it in the sense that Redcloak's plan was doomed from the start, and it was only through the efforts of the Order attempting to stop him that he was able to succeed. Essentially they unknowingly interrupted their enemy while he was making a mistake. Cup Runneth Over fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 17:26
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Cup Runneth Over posted:but it would have meant a much better chance that the city was saved (If Xykon doesn't get decloaked, Redcloak sticks to the shell game plan and doesn't commit the huecuva to the assault, so it doesn't interfere with the ninjas killing Hinjo).
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Aug 15, 2023 17:34
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If we're what-ifing that far, we can go a little further. Maybe Xykon gets killed quickly, Redcloak retreats and rezzes him, then they proceed to make a better plan and manage to actually seize the Sapphire City gate, instead of it getting blown up. The ghost-martyrs are much less scary without the element of surprise.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:38
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So is Redcloak's army, that's why they destroyed the beacons by stealth. The real what-if is that if OotS had never attempted to travel to Sapphire City, Miko would never have fallen, Shojo would never have died, the nobles would never have fled the city with their armies in its hour of need, and Redcloak and Xykon would never have stood a chance.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:41
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Really the whole world would have been better off if they'd cleared one dungeon and gotten bored and stopped like every other D&D campaign.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:43
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I feel like trying to put any blame on the Order kind of misses the point. Before the story even stars Liren's Gate is destroyed. From there Xykon moves on to Dourkan's Gate and the Order goes after him on a generic adventure to defeat an evil Lich. If they didn't act at all then Xykon has the first gate and basically succeeds at which point the Gods destroy the world. From there they are actively working to stop him and sometimes don't succeed but the other choice is to sit around and hope he fails. "they made things worse" assumes everything would have gone the same or better without them and that's a lot of butterfly wings. And even if team 'I hope he fails' succeeds then the question becomes "does he fail soon enough that the Gods don't decide that it's time for a new world just to be safe"
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Aug 15, 2023 17:48
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I maintain that destroying Girard’s Gate was an incredibly boneheaded decision even for the knowledge they had at the time. Tarquin may be a manipulative piece of poo poo, but he was above all else a reasonable manipulative piece of poo poo. They should have at least tried to talk things out with him before jumping to weakening the very fabric of reality like a bunch of sore losers.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:58
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Cup Runneth Over posted:Really the whole world would have been better off if they'd cleared one dungeon and gotten bored and stopped like every other D&D campaign.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:58
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Azure City repealing the assault was never on the table; Shojo doomed the city when he decided that the Sapphire Guard devolving into a straight up genocide squad wasn't a matter worth addressing, and set its specific downfall in motion when he adopted a kung fu foundling and told her she was divinely ordained. Events might have transpired differently if the Order had done something else, but Miko was always going to kill Shojo and probably be the one to smash the gate regardless. Maybe some fault lies with Soon as well, but he seemed to be an actually decent sort in his one non-scribble appearance, so I'll assume the Sapphire Guard's decline lies at Shojo's feet.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:59
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Cup Runneth Over posted:The real what-if is that if OotS had never attempted to travel to Sapphire City They never did. Miko dragged them there.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:00
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AnoHito posted:I maintain that destroying Girard’s Gate was an incredibly boneheaded decision even for the knowledge they had at the time. Tarquin may be a manipulative piece of poo poo, but he was above all else a reasonable manipulative piece of poo poo. They should have at least tried to talk things out with him before jumping to weakening the very fabric of reality like a bunch of sore losers. There is nothing about Tarquin that is actually reasonable. He puts on a good face but he's driven by the same narrative desires as Elan and is just as mercurial. Leaving a potential way to end the world in the hands of a dude whose stated goal is to be a final boss is not a good idea. Like the entire point of Tarquin is that he presents himself as a cool composed Logical Evil villain but he isn't. He wants to create rivals and cause problems and do basically everything he can to make himself the centerpiece of the Big Important Story. He is far more 'evil Elan' than Nale was and it's pretty critical to the character that whatever he portrays himself as he's an egotistical shithead first which is why he can't get things like "Wow, my son REALLLLLLY hates this vampire." ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 18:02
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I think they litigated all the Dorukan's Gate what-ifs in the trial. As a singular adventure I would say that Gate was a (mixed) success for the Order. It's just everything after that's been a series of colossal cock-ups where their mere presence has altered outcomes for the worse. Roy realizes this too: Ultimately his answer is that the past is the past and there's no one else capable of stopping Xykon & co. so he has to step up to the plate.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:05
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Point of order, if the OOTS had gotten involved, the world wouldn’t have been ‘better off’. The status quo would’ve been maintained. And as we’ve since seen from the divine perspective that OOTS also had no way of knowing when they got involved, the status quo is a few thousand years of peace followed by an unavoidable universal apocalypse and a repeat of the cycle.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:11
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Also, I thought the rationale for smashing Girard's Gate was kind of weak, but I'm not sure there was a better alternative? Any solution involving Tarquin would have definitely gone to poo poo; either Xykon would just paste him without breaking a sweat, or he would have attempted some gambit to maneuver himself into replacing Xykon as the big bad, which would have backfired tremendously. Even if we ignore his tragic fault of ego and he were made to apply himself to the greater good, he'd then become a liability once Sabine and the Fiends unleash whatever they have in store for him, because they are also more important villains than he. Things might have actually gone differently it someone hadn't genocides the Draketooths, but they were no longer a factor at the time of the decision, and I'm honestly not sure how much they could have done to stop Xykon. E: also yes, the Order's actions will presumably contribute to the breaking of the cycle and the end of the classification of monstrous humanoids as "usually evil," both of which are huge net goods if we're going to judge solely by results Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 18:27
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AnoHito posted:They could, however, have just given up against Tarquin instead of destroying the gate, securing the location and probably defeating Xykon with the help of the massive army and party of epic level spellcasters, thus ending the story like half a decade ago.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:20
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Yeah I don't think Tarquin & co. are epic level. I think Xykon and Redcloak are probably among, if not the, highest level spellcasters in the entire setting (currently alive) (or undead).
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Aug 15, 2023 19:26
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I think the oots forum thread that does all the crazy tracking and figuring out the builds concluded the Vector Legion (Tarquin's group) are probably 16-17.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:41
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MikeJF posted:I think the oots forum thread that does all the crazy tracking and figuring out the builds concluded the Vector Legion (Tarquin's group) are probably 16-18. This one, in particular: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?639009-Class-and-Level-Geekery-XIX-Nobody-Cares-about-that-Stuff-Anymore Malack was probably level 12.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:42
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Yeah the important thing about what-ifs is considering the ways things could be even worse if not for their actions. The Oots-squad messed up but its thanks to their actions, such as Durkon dying and converting a vampire that Thor decided to trust Durkon and the squad with the truth about their reality and giving them one last shot at saving the whole world potentially forever. This doesn't happen if they succeed at Azure City and the world becomes doomed eventually.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:47
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