Feruchemy isn't really end-neutral when you think of it

[kroen]

For example, when you store gold you get sick. But when you stop storing it, the sickness you were in just a second ago vanishes. Poof. And now you can heal whenever you want. If it was really end-neutral, you would remain sick after storing and could only return to the starting point by tapping. I understand that this way most metals would be completely useless for feruchemy so obviously it needs to work the way it does now, but you can't really call it end-neutral, can you?

Edited April 20, 2013 by kroen

[Aiken Frost he/him]

You don't actually "get" sick to store Health. You just get less healthy and have a more vulnerable immune system during that period. If you get a flu, for example, during that time, you'll keep it after you stop storing.

 

At least, that's how I understand it.

[kroen]

Maybe, but sometimes you gain advantages without sacrificing anything. Storing weight and becoming light which could be useful is one example. Another one is eating whatever your want without gaining weight. Another? cooling yourself when it's hot outside. The appropriate ferrings can gain all of these useful traits and more without actually losing anything in return. Actually the opposite is true: After they store they can tap, which is also useful. So you get good+good for some of the metals, not bad+good.

Edited April 20, 2013 by kroen

[Senor Feesh]

Cooling yourself when it's hot, whilst obviously beneficial, doesn't bypass the end-neutral nature of Ferruchemy. End-neutral doesn't refer to the amount of benefit a craft person might be able to gain; it refers to the transfer of power/attributes. So yes, someone can store heat to cool themselves, then tap that same heat when it's warm later, but they can't get back more then they put in.

 

Compare to Allomancy, where a nugget of metal can give you strength you never had, or senses beyond the norm, or the ability to suppress others' emotions. This all comes direct from Preservation, with the metal acting simply as catalyst to give you access to the power. Ferruchemy, by contrast, you have to be the 'battery' that charges the metalmind to begin with.

[kroen]

Cooling yourself when it's hot, whilst obviously beneficial, doesn't bypass the end-neutral nature of Ferruchemy. End-neutral doesn't refer to the amount of benefit a craft person might be able to gain; it refers to the transfer of power/attributes. So yes, someone can store heat to cool themselves, then tap that same heat when it's warm later, but they can't get back more then they put in.

 

Compare to Allomancy, where a nugget of metal can give you strength you never had, or senses beyond the norm, or the ability to suppress others' emotions. This all comes direct from Preservation, with the metal acting simply as catalyst to give you access to the power. Ferruchemy, by contrast, you have to be the 'battery' that charges the metalmind to begin with.

And you couldn't expalin this without rating down my post? Rating down posts that ask questions would make people not want to ask questions. Then again maybe you want people to stop asking and if so, carry on.

 

Edit: Real mature, rating down all my posts. Well two can play that game.

Edited April 20, 2013 by kroen

[Windrunner he/him]

And you couldn't expalin this without rating down my post? Rating down posts that ask questions would make people not want to ask questions. Then again maybe you want people to stop asking and if so, carry on.

 

Edit: Real mature, rating down all my posts. Well two can play that game.

Whoa, that's about enough. We are NOT getting into a flame war here. Kroen, you do not know who downvoted your post, and lashing out at the one only person who bothered to try to explain Feruchemy to you is most certainly not going to help anything at all. Currently, this topic has twelve views. So, you really have no proof at all as to who is responsible. And anyway, complaining about downvotes is not going to win you any sympathy. If someone disapproves or disagrees with what you've posted they are well within their rights to downvote your post. If you really think you're being systematically harassed via the reputation system, contact an admin, don't post an attack in the topic where you feel you've been wronged. Thank you very much.

[Shivertongue he/him]

Edit: Real mature, rating down all my posts. Well two can play that game.

 

No, two cannot play that game. There is no game.

 

Any use of the reputation system as a method of retaliation or harassment is strictly prohibited. Just because someone downvotes you does not mean they are trying to insult you or that they hold any animosity towards you. It just means they disagree. Do not take downvotes personally.

 

Additionally, kroen, Senor Freesh did not downvote you. Do not throw accusations about without any proof behind them, and furthermore, if such a situation arises where you do believe someone specific is using the reputation system to harass you, contact an administrator before doing anything else; it is our job to handle such things. We are not fans of forum vigilantism.

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[kroen]

Hmm seems like I looked to the left instead the right. See the left of my posts says -1 in a red box, and I mistakenly thought all my posts were downvoted when in reality it kept showing that -1 because I had -1 points total. Then I realized the ratings for each post are on the right. Anyway, the downvote that started all of this wasn't in place I think. In my opinion, the whole rating system in these forums is pretty broken and prone to abuse but that's just me. 

Edited April 20, 2013 by kroen

[Senor Feesh]

I'm sorry you feel that way kroen. I don't know why your initial post was downvoted (I don't see anything more than a misunderstanding myself); however the reason for keeping the voting system anonymous is to try and prevent people being dragged into 'rep wars'. As Windrunner and Shivertongue have mentioned, if you feel that someone is victimising or harassing you, a quick PM to one of the site Admins can get this taken care of (they CAN see who's doing the downvoting). So while someone could abuse their anonymity, the mods can soon sort out that kind of abuse.

[Chaos he/him]

The staff has taken care of the issue privately, and so I would like this topic to remain on the topic at hand, not downvotes.

 

I would also like to make a comment about downvotes in general, unrelated to this topic. As always, I encourage members to take the reputation of a post to be sort of the "community average" of opinion on said post. The vast majority of the time, if someone does not "deserve" a downvote, many members will upvote to correct for inappropriate downvoting. So, it really is a community average. And if the community average is less than what you would like, then I encourage anyone who is downvoted to take a deep breath. Maybe go get a drink of water. Then, come back and look hard at your post, and think of it as a learning experience. What can be done to improve? 

 

And, as always, we are on the lookout for people who indiscriminately downvote a member's posts and other abuses. 

[Lady_Yasha she/her]

I neutralized your first two posts simply because I didn't agree with the negative votes on them; you were genuinely curious about the topic at hand. Your other post, however, I haven't, for the same reason Shivertongue and Chaos have explained to you.

 

On topic: I'm surprised no-one has mentioned that Feruchemy - and Scadrial magic in general - is about opposites. Leaving the dichotomy of good or bad out, Feruchemy is really similar to how Allomancy has two metals performing distinctly opposite actions: When you "store" an attribute you compound that aspect in return for the general omission of that aspect from your person (eg. weight, mental alacrity, reflexes, etc.) for the time you're storing it. You can then tap that aspect for a finite gain. Again, this is not like in Wax's case of being able to store weight to become light being advantageous, but rather that storing weight to become light is the opposite of tapping weight to become heavy.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Lyrebon

[Galavantes]

Rep around here is kind of hard to come by. I think my entire Q&A that I posted with Brandon got a total of 5 upvotes lol. Don't take it personally mate. 

Side note: I DO wish there were a way to change your vote, sometimes you can come back from a misunderstanding and realize that you'd rather remove a downvote. I don't know if this forum supports that functionality though.

[Chaos he/him]

Side note: I DO wish there were a way to change your vote, sometimes you can come back from a misunderstanding and realize that you'd rather remove a downvote. I don't know if this forum supports that functionality though.

 

I would love such functionality too  

[happyman he/him]

My answer to this question is that the term End-Neutral is a technical term.  It refers to the details of how Investiture is transferred, not to what you are able to do by moving the investiture.

 

These kinds of misunderstandings happen all the time in the real world.  My specialty is physics, and there are a lot of terms used in physics which are also used in everyday life, but which have much more specific meanings in physics than in colloquial language.  Some examples are: Energy, Force, Power.  This makes it easy for confusion to happen.

In this case, the author is almost certainly referring to the nature of Investiture, not what the effects are of moving it around.  Note that just like sometimes turning off a machine or switching off a light-switch may have the desired effect, removing investiture may also be a very useful power, tactically.  This doesn't change the underlying dynamics the Ars Arcanum author is presumably trying to understand.

[kroen]

My answer to this question is that the term End-Neutral is a technical term.  It refers to the details of how Investiture is transferred, not to what you are able to do by moving the investiture.

 

These kinds of misunderstandings happen all the time in the real world.  My specialty is physics, and there are a lot of terms used in physics which are also used in everyday life, but which have much more specific meanings in physics than in colloquial language.  Some examples are: Energy, Force, Power.  This makes it easy for confusion to happen.

In this case, the author is almost certainly referring to the nature of Investiture, not what the effects are of moving it around.  Note that just like sometimes turning off a machine or switching off a light-switch may have the desired effect, removing investiture may also be a very useful power, tactically.  This doesn't change the underlying dynamics the Ars Arcanum author is presumably trying to understand.

Tnx, finally an answer that makes sense. Liked the analogy on turning off a switch.