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existentialspiral · 7 years

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Homestuck Classpect Musings Response

Alright, here’s a stand-alone version of response to my Homestuck Classpect Musings piece. I’ve also got a regular response version tacked onto the original, but I found it to be rather wordy, so here’s a... well, rather shorter version, although you can find the original post with the response here.

SO! It’s been a few days, and I’ve seen people responding to my little Homestuck classpect rant, and I’m feeling it to be a pretty good time to respond myself. A few of the things that have been pointed out to me through the reblog, comment, and ask functions, but all of them (except for one) may really be broken down into a few categorical statements:

A: player limitations would stop a person from becoming so broken,

B: it would be essentially impossible for someone to minmax so heavily without knowledge of SBURB/SGRUB’s internal game mechanics,

C: the levels of power described here are rather vastly above that of canon in places, and…

D: the exact nature of Skaia’s game, actually trying to charge through as a proper powergamer would likely get you killed.

Now, before I say anything else, allow me to state this: all of you are absolutely right. Each of these complaints (or comments) is completely valid, and quite likely true. However, these points may also be countered, admittedly for reasons that I didn’t put into my original post.

Firstly, to address subjects A and C: the situation described in the original post is, obviously, with any given player being, not merely at God Tier, but a fully realized hero. After all, it’s not merely Pages that have to go through hardship and challenge to gain power, their journey just so happens to be the longest. Really, just look at evidence in comic, where the entire post-Scratch team managed to hit God Tier, but had no idea what they were doing with their powers; in spite of having reached the ‘highest level’ of power, they still hadn’t hit the level cap. Meanwhile, no character in comic is actually shown as using their powers to fullest capacity (besides Lord English). Just look at John, Heir of Breath, who is (assuming the aspect does indeed parse like this) protected by both direction (the winds of fate, possibly?) and, literally, wind itself. John is shown to be able to become intangible, to simply dissolve into his aspect freely, and occasionally instinctively. Despite this, despite his ability being well displayed, John is repeatedly hit in combat, rather than simply allowing every strike to pass through him as should be possible. Whether this is because of the limits of the human mind, the limits of the human body, or even something as abstract as a mana meter, the fact remains that, despite practical invulnerability being well-within his reach, it isn’t used. Put simply, the situations I described in the original post aren’t meant to describe the average ability of a God Tier of that classpect, but rather the absolute pinnacle of it.

Next, addressing point A directly, is the matter of psychological influences upon players. Now, I’m going to use the Seer of Time here, because it’s the most well examined one, with it being pointed out that, due to seeing EVERYTHING, a Seer of Time would likely go insane, either from having to watch their friends die in doomed timelines, or due to simply having seen too much to handle. To this, I admit, the second problem is actually a significant possibility; while people so often rely on the meme of the Blind Seer, mostly because of its ironic nature, history and mythology also contains a wealth of madmen with the power of prescience, either driven insane by what they have seen, or able to see because they are mad. It would, thus, be rather appropriate for a Seer to go insane, to be made blind to their own thoughts and reason. As for the difficulties of seeing one’s friends suffer in doomed timelines, well, this one has an, admittedly weak, answer. See, it’s been shown that a player’s classpect tends to reflect the player’s history and personality, either due to Skaia knowing what classpect would be appropriate for the player ahead of time, or due to the Alpha requiring that the players be raised in such a way as to be able to fulfil their roles, no matter how poorly they act at it. Just to use a short set of examples here: Aradia grew up surrounded by ruins, exploring long forgotten tombs, and literally able to control the spirits of the dead. If Aradia wasn’t ready for her place as Maid of Time, having to watch her friends die before going back to prevent it from happening, ensuring her own death, then I have no idea how she could be made more prepared. Meanwhile, Roxy spent her formative years as an outcast, an outsider, the only human in a colony of Carapacians, who spent her time supporting herself and those around her by stealing strange and questionably-real gourds for food. Lastly, Caliborn was groomed from birth to take his place as Lord of Time, not only recognizing both how valuable inevitability is, but also learning just how much life and death are worth, having such an understanding of Time and its connection with death that, of all characters shown, he alone was able to ascend to God Tier without outside intervention. As such, it would be likely that a Seer of Time would be placed into circumstances where he'd have to understand death, being exposed to it from a young age, and thus become jaded enough to it that they could handle their powers, albeit while still likely trying to keep everyone alive.

Point B is different, because it is absolutely correct; nobody would be able to know enough about the game to plan things out properly in advance, unless they had someone with insider knowledge helping them out. While this is not unprecedented (see Doc Scratch and Grandpa Harley), it’s also mostly irrelevant, as the post was mostly just me giving a minmaxed list rather than encouraging one.

Finally, point D. Point D is… interesting, because it both is and isn’t valid. See, the it’s probably pretty true that, if a player tried to simply powerlevel to God Tier and abuse the game mechanics like that, they probably would die pretty quickly and miserably, or at least wind up dooming their session by neglecting frog breeding in favor of imp slaying. Point B is also not really applicable, though, because we actually got to see what happens if a player does try and succeed at forcing the game’s hand: Vriska. All the trolls in general neglected their actual quests and such in favor of simply rampaging across the Incipisphere, with only Tavros and Kanaya really being shown to have bothered even trying to follow their quests, and it generally left them all worse off, with them generally failing to live up to their role as heroes and, for the most part, dying. Vriska, meanwhile, was the ultimate powergamer, having entirely disregarded anything resembling story in favor of slaughtering monsters and collecting wealth, AKA the exact definition of a powergamer. However, there’s something worth remembering here: Vriska is a Thief of Light; it’s her job to steal fortune and luck, and her planet was simply littered with chests of gleaming lucre, just ripe for the taking, which means that Vriska’s entire quest probably WAS to run around killing and looting, the two things she’s really best at. So yes, it’s quite possible to win SBURB/SGRUB by powergaming, and even by speed running it, but it only really works if the game WANTS you to do so.

In conclusion: no, trying in advance to actually break Skaia’s game would likely kill you. However, if it didn’t kill you, if you actually played by the rules just barely well enough that the omniscient banhammer of doom didn’t smack your timeline, if you actually were able to minmax your class and aspect, and you actually managed to grind hard enough to reach your full theoretical potential, then there’d be no real situation a dedicated party of powergamers would actually face.

Thanks for reading my little Homestuck think-piece. It’s actually surprising how many notes this has gotten, and it is rather fun to speculate on God Tier mechanics and such. As such, starting on Sunday the 15th, I’m going to just start doing some analysis pieces, so feel free to check them out. It was pointed out to me in my asks that, despite mentioning it in my “Perfect Team” list, I didn’t actually break down the Knight of Space, so I’m going to start with that one. After that? Well, if you can think up any interesting classpect combinations, feel free to request them and I’ll just pick whichever one looks most interesting at the moment. Thanks for reading.

#homestuck #class #aspect #classpect #seer #time #seer of time #heir of breath #analysis #vriska serket #john egbert #aradia megido #roxy lalonde #caliborn #response

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