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Also I am reading through Pith, and while I really like the story, Ana is so dumb about the world that I actually agree with Larry Parrish here. Now to be fair, I'm only about halfway through but I'm up to the point where Ana sees that Tunnel Vision has shell companies, and immediately assumes that since her faulty body was sold by a shell company, it was done by her. That is a hell of a leap. Also she ignored all the terrible poo poo Paragon was doing. Still a great story, but the amount of eye rolling I'm doing at the protagonist is starting to take me out of the story.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:36
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Wittgen posted:I'm really enjoying Beware of Chicken. It's great that it keeps having me think things like, gently caress yeah apiaries! It's surprisingly good for such an unoriginal idea. It helps that the author is actually interesting in writing about the farming and stuff rather than just an excuse for the character to be secretly badass.
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Feb 20, 2021 22:21
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Peachfart posted:Also I am reading through Pith, and while I really like the story, Ana is so dumb about the world that I actually agree with Larry Parrish here. Now to be fair, I'm only about halfway through but I'm up to the point where Ana sees that Tunnel Vision has shell companies, and immediately assumes that since her faulty body was sold by a shell company, it was done by her. That is a hell of a leap. Also she ignored all the terrible poo poo Paragon was doing. It makes perfect sense in the context of the setting for the protagonist to have this idealized view of Paragon, since she's basically spent most of her life fantasizing about it and living in a nation where it's generally believed to be some amazing thing.
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Feb 20, 2021 23:00
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Peachfart posted:Also I am reading through Pith, and while I really like the story, Ana is so dumb about the world that I actually agree with Larry Parrish here. Now to be fair, I'm only about halfway through but I'm up to the point where Ana sees that Tunnel Vision has shell companies, and immediately assumes that since her faulty body was sold by a shell company, it was done by her. That is a hell of a leap. Also she ignored all the terrible poo poo Paragon was doing. I thought the same thing at the time, it turns out she's right, Tunnel Vision was knowingly selling faulty chassis, but it's not completely TV's fault. Anyways, you have to remember that Ana was raised on the propaganda that Paragon was the place heroes came from, that only the best of the best got in. She's been conditioned to accept that they know best, and her willfully closing her eyes to their faults is the equivalent of people today saying "it's just a few bad apples" without really thinking past what that means. Narmi fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Feb 20, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2021 23:29
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I'm pretty sure that other characters also comment on attitude being overly rosy (and the story/setting itself sends the message about the reality of Paragon being different from Ana's perception). A protagonist being irrational isn't a bad thing unless the author is trying to imply that they're correct.
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Feb 21, 2021 02:45
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It's a good story I just think Ana sometimes is a little bit author voiced. I have no real proof of that other than a gut feeling. Also, if you ask me, everything to do with the artificial bodies strikes me as vaguely body horror. Especially how their society treats it. And especially when you learn about the R&D program they came from. If it was just a straight up trans metaphor it wouldn't strike me as creepy but being able to literally steal people's biological bodies is jacked up.
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Feb 21, 2021 02:59
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The latest public chapter in TWI is loving great and reconfirms to me that it's not Chandrar that sucks, it's really JUST Flos.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:30
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Infinity Gaia posted:The latest public chapter in TWI is loving great and reconfirms to me that it's not Chandrar that sucks, it's really JUST Flos. I think that was apparent by 3 Flos focused chapters in. Part of the problem is that in that part of the world, Flos comes up in almost any conversation or story arc in some way. If every chapter was about our favorite undead pharaoh everyone would be calling for more time there.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:06
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He's a good skeleton.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:08
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90s Cringe Rock posted:He's a good skeleton. Excuse me, a Revenant.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:51
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Gladi posted:Excuse me, a Revenant.
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Feb 21, 2021 18:58
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Gladi posted:Excuse me, a Revenant. 
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Feb 21, 2021 21:04
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Kalas posted:I think that was apparent by 3 Flos focused chapters in. Part of the problem is that in that part of the world, Flos comes up in almost any conversation or story arc in some way. i think the problem with chandrar for a long time was that pirateaba hadn't created most of the continent yet, so flos chapters felt kind of...limited. around the time flos went to war and trey started hanging with fetohep everything in that area was suddenly much more fleshed-out and interesting.
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Feb 21, 2021 22:48
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Delve: drat. Didn't expect Rain could get that cold. Only decision that made any sense though.
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Feb 21, 2021 23:16
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Cicero posted:Delve: drat. Didn't expect Rain could get that cold. Only decision that made any sense though. Is something finally happening in Delve? Last I remember he got kicked out of the city for cleaning clothes.
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Feb 21, 2021 23:22
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A decently big thing just happened that's kind of a prelude to Number Go Up. I expect it'll be a big arc though. It's been quite slow for a while.
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Feb 21, 2021 23:48
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i stopped reading delve after i realized that probably 3 in 4 chapters would have about a page of character development and 8 pages of text boxes or other filler content. the actual story is good when he bothers to write it, though.
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Feb 21, 2021 23:51
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Funny, it basically went from that to reversing the ratios for a long time, which is what a lot of people complained about, that it went from The Adventures of MinMaxMan to "The Wandering Inn except with 1/10th the weekly word count". Especially because the non-NomberGoUp stuff was often kind of boring or had Rain behaving kind of dumb/naive. Wish the author could get a better balance.
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Feb 21, 2021 23:55
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I dont even know who the people reading Delve for the numbers are but they suck. Ar'Kendrythist is objectively better since people are just straight up like 'the numbers are an abstraction and only there to let you ballpark stuff, they dont matter at all'. Now that I've read that I want every stupid litrpg to follow the same rules. I've read a lot of these and there's very few where the numbers were at all interesting or helpful and not just page filler. Delve is especially bad in the beginning when Rain is struggling with algebra for some reason. Maybe I'm some kind of brain wizard but I can figure out the ratio just by eyeballing it changing a couple times, I didnt need the author to literally derive his fake RPG for me.
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Feb 22, 2021 00:28
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Delve was great to catch up on but reading it weekly really makes it obvious just how little happens in each chapter.
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Feb 22, 2021 01:54
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The best of the numbers go up gimmicks remains the one in siphon, where they serve as a weird form of analyze with often unforeseen consequences for the mc. The plot for siphon isn’t going to wow you, but the novelty of the siphon mechanic itself, the worldbuilding around it, and the history of the world in general can be interesting.
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Feb 22, 2021 02:20
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Anias posted:The best of the numbers go up gimmicks remains the one in siphon, where they serve as a weird form of analyze with often unforeseen consequences for the mc. The plot for siphon isn’t going to wow you, but the novelty of the siphon mechanic itself, the worldbuilding around it, and the history of the world in general can be interesting. Is that the one where the girl takes tiny bits of peoples attributes and skills when she touches them?
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Feb 22, 2021 03:02
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navyjack posted:Is that the one where the girl takes tiny bits of peoples attributes and skills when she touches them? Yes. It’s more involved but that comes out as the story goes along. Not going to spoil it.
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Feb 22, 2021 03:19
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The best way to do numbers is to have them occurring in the background where the reader can't see them (unless they actively seek them out), like in Forge/Threads of Destiny.
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Feb 22, 2021 06:26
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Ytlaya posted:The best way to do numbers is to have them occurring in the background where the reader can't see them (unless they actively seek them out), like in Forge/Threads of Destiny. this makes for a storier story imo but I don't think it dingles brain dongles the way big honkin numbers slappin people in the face do
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Feb 22, 2021 08:09
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My two favorite numbers-focused stories are This Quest is Bullshit/Broken and Beneath the Dragoneye Moons. I read and really like a lot of other stories that use some kind of system, but these two go into some mathy crunch and building synergies instead of just using it as a list of abilities. (Azarinth Healer is a close third, but while Ilea's built all around synergies for her stuff, number crunching isn't as featured since it only pops up during big evolutions.) Of course, they've also got an interesting story I enjoy reading (aside from some stumbling at the end of Quest's second book that the author is working on), which is important.
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Feb 22, 2021 12:30
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I wish Royal Road had a feature where it could ignore new chapters for the follow list for a given serial until X new chapters have been released. I like Beware of Chicken, but the individual chapters usually feel too short to be satisfying.
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Feb 22, 2021 14:16
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I really, really do not understand how anyone can like Azarinth Healer when it is written so incredibly poorly. It reads like bad fanfiction.
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Feb 22, 2021 15:13
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It definitely starts rough and took me a couple attempts to get into, but it gets a lot better. Which isn't surprising after almost three years of practice.
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Feb 22, 2021 15:24
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Sampatrick posted:I really, really do not understand how anyone can like Azarinth Healer when it is written so incredibly poorly. It reads like bad fanfiction. Numbers go up quite a bit.
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Feb 22, 2021 15:42
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For me that's a part of it, but it hasn't been the main reason I've kept reading for a while now. The setting has been put in place, and now part of Ilea's focus has shifted away from pursuits of personal power to protecting her friends and projects. Also, instead of a Big Bad or definitive objective that's sitting as the end goal, there's a bunch of issues that she has to juggle. While that occasionally leads to a meandering story, it feels appropriate in Azarinth. Ilea isn't a hero, she's a woman that slipped through the dimensions and wound up somewhere else. Somewhere that would still be there without her. It would certainly be different, but she's still just one powerful person among many with their own goals.
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Feb 22, 2021 16:36
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Don't listen to him, it never really gets better. It's literally like 1000 chapters in where he's like alright guys I'm gonna try to actually write a plot.
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Feb 22, 2021 18:31
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TWI Patreon: Not a spoiler, but loving, that line from Toren at the start of his mini chapter and the Necromancer's response to it got an actual laugh out of me.
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Feb 23, 2021 01:01
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Sampatrick posted:I really, really do not understand how anyone can like Azarinth Healer when it is written so incredibly poorly. It reads like bad fanfiction. I just started reading it after seeing it talked about in several places and my immediate reaction was wondering if I picked up the wrong story named Azarinth Healer, because this. However I read stuff on my Kindle instead of my PC so I have a lot more inertia to continue with anything not completely unreadable, and I will admit it did get less "and my awesome PC goes bam!pow! and kills the boss that's fifty, no, a hundred levels higher than she is!" eventually. Larry Parrish posted:Don't listen to him, it never really gets better. It's literally like 1000 chapters in where he's like alright guys I'm gonna try to actually write a plot. I don't know if I'd say it ever gets good, but I would agree it gets less terrible.
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Feb 23, 2021 03:34
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Sampatrick posted:I really, really do not understand how anyone can like Azarinth Healer when it is written so incredibly poorly. It reads like bad fanfiction. I really don't get how anyone can have this opinion about anything discussed here. Web serials are almost universally written poorly and basically exist to tickle a specific niche hard enough to make it worth reading. The few web serials I can think of that wouldn't fit into that category are from published authors who've gone through editing passes enough in the past to make stuff at least decent on their own and are just making web serials as a testing ground or sort of early access thing. nessin fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Feb 23, 2021 |
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Feb 23, 2021 03:55
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if you want medicore writing with a billion chapters and big numbers go up and a decent enough plot whose scope continually expands just read randily ghosthound
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Feb 23, 2021 04:19
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nessin posted:I really don't get how anyone can have this opinion about anything discussed here. Web serials are almost universally written poorly and basically exist to tickle a specific niche hard enough to make it worth reading. The few web serials I can think of that wouldn't fit into that category are from published authors who've gone through editing passes enough in the past to make stuff at least decent on their own and are just making web serials as a testing ground or sort of early access thing. There are many web serials that do a pretty great job of building a world and having technically competent writing. There are just many more that are terrible garbage. There is a middle ground between expecting Hemingway and reading poorly written garbage fanfiction.
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Feb 23, 2021 04:41
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nessin posted:I really don't get how anyone can have this opinion about anything discussed here. Web serials are almost universally written poorly and basically exist to tickle a specific niche hard enough to make it worth reading. The few web serials I can think of that wouldn't fit into that category are from published authors who've gone through editing passes enough in the past to make stuff at least decent on their own and are just making web serials as a testing ground or sort of early access thing. I dont read them if they're badly written enough. Sometimes it's right on the edge and I continue out of morbid fascination but I dont usually remember anything about them a day later so I can barely say I even read them. I also dont read the ones which are good on a technical level but have garbage characterization or are incredibly one note or whatever. Theres a lot of those. Theres still a lot out there if you skip all the garbage. Take care of yourself dude.
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Feb 23, 2021 04:44
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Peachfart posted:There are many web serials that do a pretty great job of building a world and having technically competent writing. There are just many more that are terrible garbage. Larry Parrish posted:I dont read them if they're badly written enough. Sometimes it's right on the edge and I continue out of morbid fascination but I dont usually remember anything about them a day later so I can barely say I even read them. I also dont read the ones which are good on a technical level but have garbage characterization or are incredibly one note or whatever. Theres a lot of those. Theres still a lot out there if you skip all the garbage. Take care of yourself dude. You've both gone way too literal and ignored what I actually replied to. Yes, the vast majority is so poorly written as to be not even worth mentioning. But something like Azarinth Healer, the example as given, is hardly a drastic step below the darling favorites of the thread here like TWI. To say you can't understand how anyone could like reading Azarinth Healer but stand reading TWI, HWFWM (which granted is less appreciated than it was), Delve, PracGuide, and so on is basically just insulting people for their preferences and not a reasonable criticism.
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Feb 23, 2021 04:52
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I mean all of those have a plot, and something going on with the characters. Well, maybe not delve. Azarinth really doesn't. Yes, he tries a little harder in the more recent chapters, but its still just thousands of pages of juggling a boss like in FF13.
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Feb 23, 2021 05:07
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