Discussion Has Er Gen's writing style changed in quality for the worse?

1) Immortality is not the issue. The long time spans however, are. The former does not force the later.
2) Multiple worlds do not matter. The problem is the excessive power scaling while keeping the stakes the same.
3) Survival of the fittest would mean something if anything but cultivation had its niche. But it doesn't. If you throw mountains while your enemy is still using a sword to cut boulders you just win, no matter how smart he is. Resource management doesn't matter. Because these treassures are oh so rare and the economy is functionally broken. Which means luck is everything. Or plot armour.
4) Fast growth is only a problem due to retarded power scalings and the absolute status of cultivation. The plebs don't matter if the kings have the power to solo any given amount of them WHILE doing all their jobs better.

 

Quick question: OP and some of the respondents sounds like they've read Pursuit of the Truth/Beseech the Devil. But NU page shows latest release of chapter 120 in 2017. If you did read, where?

 

Basically this. I know quite a few people who have completed all Er Gens completed works (including me), and they LITERALLY ALL agree that Pursuit of the Truth was the best of his works, while AWE is the worst. Ironically, ratings are opposite on NU. This just show that people are to used to reading trash. Lets be honest, 99,9% of time when people ask about novels, questions are "is this a harem? or Is MC oped?". The only reason why AWE appears to be good, is because similar novels are all trash.

So, did the quality of his works decrease? Short answer, yes. How? They became a cliche. I won't bother to explain what was so good about RI or PoT. Those who read will understand without explanation and it won't do any good who haven't. Then there comes ISSTH. While some concepts in it were good, but you can also notice the beginning of the decline. If you have read all first 3 of his novels, then you can notice that some arcs in ISSTH feel way to familiar. The reason is that they are practically the re-written version of some arcs from his own previous novels. For example, 9th hex arc is basically a combination of 3 arcs in RI. Er Gen also began to pull out completely random stunts in important parts of the novel with 0 foreshadowing until those arcs themselves. And then comes AWE... It was literally a cliche. The IQ of characters was reduced to 0, hard work and comprehension was replaced with a standard lucky moron MC, any forms of plot or character growth were replaced by the same joke which was repeated over and over again, and the Er Gen's unique journey+doa comprehension thing was replaced MC finding endgame stuff in the beginner village cliche....

Ps. I see comments here complaining about cultivation as a genre and similar stuff. It makes me wonder what are you doing on NU in the first place....

 

I agree bro, I wasnt too interested in A Will Eternal as comedy was forced and the serious moments wasn't utilized well. and i dropped the recent Er Gen novel thats going on in Webnovel as it seriously lacked the punch compared to Renegade Immortal or I Shall Seal the Heavens there is a dip in quality in his story telling as of recent.

 

There are actually more than 1k chapters translated already. The reason why NU only shows 120 chapters because the rest of chapters are locked by paywall, and NU only shows free chapters.

 

Ah, that's right. I've never been to that translator's site so I don't know of its paywalls. Oh well.

 

1) Striving for immortality means long life spans, duh. This is an archetype in xianxia.
2) Yeah it does, even without power scaling. The scaling only exacerbates it.
3) Why do you start talking about resource management? I was making a point about morality and general behavior here, and how that screw over having a consistent cast of characters.
4) Fast growth causes retarded power scaling, otherwise it's not relatively fast growth.

I don't care about scaling and resource management and whatever, I care about having a consistent cast of characters and what factors impede this in xianxia. Such a cast of characters is a necessity in standard novels. Two examples: LotR has the fellowship, Nightfall has the martial brothers and sisters, imperial family and other renowned characters in the world that time and again return.

I am solely focused on a consistent cast of characters. I already explained why.

As far as I know not everything I mentioned applies to CCG, and the other problems are instantly fixed by having the chat group, a place for a consistent set of characters to interact.

I'm not exactly sure what your point is. This isn't a good counterexample. If anything it proves that you need to fix the deficiencies present to get a better novel. And let's be real, is CCG the norm?

 

Yes it doesn't cover every point you did bring out but a few are solved in CCG by the author simply taking a different aproach and point of view to the problem instead of wallowing in the same usual cliches over and over again at each arc or realm. It's not a question of being the norm or having better writing quality but just going the extra mile and putting some effort to avoid the swamp of templates instead of lazily copypasting stuff, just changing the names.

And for the exemple of LotR, Tolkien mixed power levels quite well in his story by making the hobbit group acting on a different way than the other powerhouses of the fellowship, so it proves that it quite doable to work on multiple angles for power level instead of just fast leveling repeatedly only one character, sweeping all looses end and other characters under the carpet at each power creep jump.

 

CCG is great, I wouldn't compare it to conventional xianxia/xuanhuan or the other chat group novels in any way. The other chat groups are just regular xuanhuan psychopaths rehashed with a modern setting. CCG is as much as a genre parody as Konosuba is.

 

The concepts I mentioned are stock standard xianxia concepts, and the point I wanted to make is that these are inherently limiting. When having three different levels you'll always have to leave characters behind, for example. Purely from a character interaction perspective this is a limitation. Standard xianxia is like taking ten of these flawed concepts, stacking them together, ignoring the limitations and just outputting chapters. It's going to be hell to make a good novel out of that, which is my original point. Fixing or avoiding some of the concepts of course allows for a better novel, like in CCG's case. But at some point you have to ask yourself if it's even xianxia as we know it anymore.

I have trouble understanding the point you're making with LotR. Of course growth that fast is bad, it's one of the big limitations of xianxia. Imagine if Frodo was the most powerful character of the fellowship by half of book two, how boring would that become. The other characters could all go in the rubbish bin. No reliance on others anymore, no interactions necessary.
But LotR doesn't have any of the limitations in the first place, so ...

 

Time to spell it out for idiots. Meh.
LONG LIFESPANS DOES NOT MEAN THE FUCKING NOVEL USES THEM.

FAST LEARNING IS NOT OVERWHELMING IF THE POWERCEILING IS NOT LITERALLY THE FUCKING HEAVENS.

IF POWERSCALING WOULD NOT MAKE CHARACTERS USELESS NEAR INSTANTANIOUSLY THEY COULD JUST FOLLOW.

IF SHIT BESIDES CULTIVATION MATTERED SIDE CHARACTERS COULD BE KEPT AROUND SINCE THEY COULD PROVIDE OTHER THINGS BESIDES FIGHTING POWER. BUT SINCE ECONOMY IS A MEME AND THE SCALING EXPONENTIAL++ THEY ARE WORTHLESS 5 CHAPS AFTER FINDING THEM.

Also LOTR has literal demigods who are just trolling and not using their powers. Gandalf/Saruman could solo the rest of the setting without breaking a sweat, besides Sauron ofc. But he is just another god lul.

 

Time to spell it out for an idiot. Meh.

I'm lamenting that there's no consistent cast of characters to grow and develop and have interactions with each other in xianxia, due to various limiting factors of which the power scaling you seem to love is one. Not the only, one. Another is the main character living so long that secondary characters die off. Another is multiple realms, leaving secondary characters behind.

What you're saying about LotR isn't relevant to the discussion. None of my 4 main gripes with xianxia concerning secondary characters apply to LotR. I used it as an example of a book that's better due to the coherent cast of characters.

 

Exactly. It is the same as in Shonen.
A video called it the escalation problem.
Dragon Ball is a good example. First it was intricate martial arts until one punch could destroy a building then an entire planet.
Krillin became useless. Everyone became capable of flight.
I don't think its the genre limiting.
Xianxia is the Japanese equivalent of fastfood shonen. The audience demands fast-paced shallow writing be too intricate and you won't be popular.
World hopping is probably the best way to maintain a solid story for long as it essentially becomes an anthology similar to how Devil 's Cage is. Sadly, even that is revisiting worlds which I hate, since it said you could not return to.
The whole female sidekick worship an idiot as smart is so annoying

 

Don't get me started on the armies of peanut gallery fodder and idiots in these settings. Im already glad if the MC has a brain. If his enemies are competent as well it gets that much better. But here is the thing: To write an intelligent character you have to be smart yourself, or invest exponential amounts of time and effort (But effort won't carry this on its own. Irrational authors can't write rational characters). If you are that smart you have an engineering degree and earn more cash that way. Understanding the profoundities of the world, my ass. Half of them wouldn't be able to do simple algebra. And the other half would fail the moment they attempted slightly advanced physics.

 

I don't think that you need to be smart.
Simple division of labor would suffice.
Having a fighter, alchemist, blacksmith, pill concorting, doctor Protagonist is so boring. Imagine having to exchange or buy things from a weaker character. The Protagonist is forced to put up with them since they have economic value.
Frenemies if you like. That is why I prefer territory management novels, rape is my bottom line though so dropped Tales of the Reincarnation Lord.
Rise of the Lord is on hiatus, no surprise when the author doesn't get paid.
My Castle, My Castellan, I am waiting till I stock up chapters. I might start a gofundme to speed it up.
Whereas for Western styled story you have Protagonist who can use all types of magic. Water, wind fire lighting etc

It's so annoying. Basically, the Protagonist cannot be countered.
Even Superman has a weakness...

 

Smart has nothing to do with the quantity of your abilities. It is how you (ab-)use them. And: Nothing is overpowered if it has equals.

 

Sure but I am saying it's an obvious trap to make a character a jack master of all trades. You are setting yourself up to fail.
Maybe you can point out a story who does it well. I can't think of any, not even Reverend Insanity

 

Problem being that they are not jack of all trades, but master of all trades. And a good chunk of them is wishfullfillment trash.

 

Xianxia as a genre is not a fault, but also not perfect, just like any other genre.

Immortality - Long life span. So, what? Secondary can be a genius or an old man that lived for a long time. There is no needed to let the protagonist be the only one who can be unique. Or, just use the theme to play with the age-old question of "Is immortality worth it?".
Fast growth - This one I agree, fast growth is hard to make, but it is not impossible to have a consistent cast. Why can't the secondary be as extraordinary as the MC?
Multiple worlds - This one is the same as fast growth. Plus revisiting the old ones, and bonus with the ponder about immortality. ( When all your loved ones died off. )
Survival of the Fittest - Why can't the secondary be good, just not as good as the MC? It's not like everyone would die if they are a little weaker than others.

And finally, authors are free to change the secondary cast, as many times as he wanted. Good stories didn't need an unchanged secondary cast.

 

It is about choice. I don't at all see him as a really good author and most of his work is hit and miss. In my opinion, he is a favorite because of Deathblade who is a phenomenal translator and the high quality translation work done by WXW with regards to his novels.

I personally think Renegade Immortal is his most unreadable work, even if it has some good ideas. I tried reading it five times and never got to actually enjoying it other than the period where he received the inheritance of the 5 star race guy, it is a pretty poor novel to me.

Pursuit of the truth, another novel with the same fate. I was never able to get into it.

I personally enjoyed A Will Eternal and I shall seal the Heavens. Nothing has peaked the alchemy arc in iSSTH for me when it comes to his work. Haven't read his other work which is on webnovel, but it sounds ok to me. I feel he has gotten better over time, Renegade Immortal is his most unpolished and unreadable work