Thank you to all of you for joining the journey of Getting Hard as we finish Book 2!

I have learned a lot these past few months. There were many things I wanted to improve/fix from Book 1, mostly problems stemming from spamming chapters when the story reached Rising Stars. I did regret that somewhat. Rushing things affected my creativity, especially given that I’m a slow writer juggling three aspects of the story: Herald’s builds, MCO’s story, and the real-life element. I feel I’ve improved in handling those in Book 2 compared to Book 1, and I hope to get better in Book 3.

Some things I want to progress on are more compact fighting scenes (they tend to get a bit too long) and hastening the pace of things. With Book 2 completed, I hope you have a more concrete feel of what sort of story Getting Hard is. REND, the other story I’m writing, took three arcs/volumes to have its “identity” and for readers to recognize it for what it is. Going into Book 3, I aim to establish Getting Hard as its own story separate from other LitRPGs, wishing it’ll have its own niche rather than compete with others.

Stories in Mother Core Online

There wasn’t much in the way of in-game stories in Book 1. It was only about the beginning of Mehubanarath’s plot and the main quest given by Chief Nogras (though the introduction took up a large part of Book 1). I wanted to remedy that in Book 2. We had many different things going on, with Gula’s and Bawu’s entwining stories at the center of it—I wanted Herald to do a quest separate from the main one.

This is a personal taste, but I’m usually weirded out when main characters get too invested in VR quests as if they were real. Ironically, that takes me out of the story. When making questlines within MCO, I keep in mind that they have to be deep and engaging, but Herald should interact with them at a distance without taking them seriously.

Book 3 will pick up where the stories in Book 2 left off, completing many of them. We’ll also revisit some plot points from Book 1. I think we’re mostly good in this department. We will add more Mardukryon lore and tackle the main quests.

Coming up with Gimmicky Builds

Another part of Getting Hard’s identity is the gimmicky builds. It might interest you to know the inspirations for our current builds.

Totem Juggling Build combines Decoy Totems from Path of Exile and Substitute from Pokemon. Decoy Totems taunt enemies, hence Replicant Totems linked with Enraging Call. On the other hand, Substitute costs 25% of the maximum HP of the Pokemon to make a dummy. Excess damage the dummy takes will not get passed to the user (unless it’s a multi-strike), which is how Replicant Totems work. Taking those two ideas together, we got Totem Juggling.

Next, I thought of a way to spam Totems, given their hefty percentage costs. The most logical way is to keep the user’s health low while pumping healing/regen high—this is usually the counter to percentage health DoTs in various games.

As for the Plaguetank, which we had set up way back when Herald ate the Stale Bread, I got the idea from Ragnarok Online. I might’ve talked about this in the Author’s Notes somewhere, but I’ll repeat this here as I’ll be clearing the Notes whenever we’d finish a Book for a smoother reading experience for new readers/rereaders.

In Ragnarok Online, Assassins can make and use poisons. Other jobs can drink that poison too, but they’ll die. It used to be just a fun game mechanic until the rise of trolls using priests to warp players into bugged places like inside walls or out-of-bounds areas. Players then began carrying poisons to unalive themselves if they got trapped. There was also a very underutilized skill in Ragnarok that could spread the negative status one has to others. Combining those two, we have Herald drinking poison and applying them to others.

Of course, after that, I had to think of benefits to Herald for having ailments himself. Many games have that mechanic like there are builds in PoE that self-inflict ailments for various bonuses.

Going into Book 3, we’ll have a general improvement to healing and Ancestral Shroud generation, more improvements to his current build, and the start of a new one. It’s a crazy and funny build that I don’t think you’ll be able to predict, though we have some foreshadowing.

Multiplayer Aspects

The background of Mardukryons was intentionally crafted so there’d be few players on the mountain. It is much easier to deal with a small cast at the start. In Book 1 and Book 2, interactions were mainly confined to the groups of Luds and Kezo.

Going forward into Book 3, there’ll be more players, including new ones, rival parties, and a bigger economy. The end of Book 2 sets the stage for new and old players alike to return to Mardukryon mountain. The Great Hunt will also be a good event to compete with other parties, though I’m still not sure how to write that.

Real World Interactions

In Book 2, we meet Herald’s mother and sister. There were some scenes with Herald and his family, but they didn’t progress much beyond character introductions. We also had progress with Eclairs, but not that much.

I subconsciously held myself back from writing real-life chapters in Book 2. Perhaps this was caused by Book 1 having too many real-world chapters, particularly in the beginning. Or it could be that there were plenty of story developments in MCO that the real world was neglected. Balancing them is a delicate act, and I don’t want to ignore one in favor of the other.

In Book 3, we will have concrete developments between Herald and Eclairs. We will also move the plot with Herald’s family, such as visiting his father’s grave and presenting his Mum with their new house. Lastly, we will have MotherCon, a good place for Herald to meet other players. There was a convention in the original version of the story, but back then, Herald was a lawyer at the VR company.

Sacrificing Realism for Writing

I’ve discussed the reason for some story choices in the comments, but I thought it better to put them here. Firstly, MCO doesn’t have multi-accounts (perhaps explained away by accounts being bound to brain waves). Design-wise, that’s just not going to happen, and any reason I’ll come up for it will be flimsy (it could be to prevent some market manipulations). However, I decided to go with it for story purposes. If we go the realism route, Herald will have several accounts, which is not a good story to read. (And I don’t know how to even write that.)

For a similar reason, changing characters will revert their level to zero, Binding players to one character is more for roguelike type of games rather than RPGs, but it’ll be a mess to manage Herald having several characters. That’ll be interesting and fun from a gameplay perspective, using different characters to explore various places, but it’ll be a nightmare to write and a mess for readers to keep track of.

To have a semblance of a fantasy/adventure story, I had to stick with one account and character.

As someone interested in exploring builds, Herald should also research and test extensively. I’ve mostly played tanks in MMORPGs, and I’ll usually test my tankiness by asking my friends to hit me. Then, I’ll record data, comparing items and the effects of various defense modifiers. On the other hand, someone making a DPS build will test on the town dummy (notice we don’t have that here) or on their tank friend.

However, that’ll take time and will be awkward to read and write. Of course, I can just put a throwaway line that Herald researched this or tested that off-screen, and I did that a couple of times, but I’d rather not rely on it.

Lastly, as a web novel, Herald will have some cheats. Readers have different preferences regarding cheats, but I mostly keep them not too game-breaking. Funnily, in the original, Herald got zero cheats/advantages.

Herald does get lucky now and then, like getting Greater Pyro Shell in Book 1. In Book 2, I decided to be more lenient with him and actually gave him the complete set of Blighted Vinereaver’s Revenge. Those familiar with retribution like mechanics know they’re not good sucky anyway. Thorns in Diablo 3 and Retaliation in Grim Dawn are too slow (and Herald discusses why) and are usually used as the base damage for various skills. We have Blight Cloud for that, and I won’t give Herald more retribution-based skills; otherwise, he might lean into DPS-build territory, and I don’t want that to happen.

Make Getting Hard Better

Feel free to share funny experiences as a tank (or playing RPGs in general) below or in our Discord. It might inspire me when I write more of Herald’s shenanigans. You can also suggest build ideas. Don’t hesitate even if it’s too far out there—those are right up Herald’s alley.

Also, general suggestions on improving Getting Hard as a story are welcome. For example, there was a suggestion for comparing before and after stats. I think that’s a good idea, though it’s hard for me to pull off with tables (mostly because I don’t know how to use tables). Then, there’s another idea to use arrows. Perhaps we can do something like Armor: 150 -> 165 whenever Herald buffs so that the readers will have a better picture of the effects. I’ll retroactively apply that change to Book 2.

A huge thank you to all the Patreon that financially support Getting Hard. And thank you to all readers for hanging out with me; writing with friends is fun. For those who haven’t yet, it’d be great if you could favorite and rate/review this story. Or perhaps you’ve reviewed it before and want to update your thoughts after Book 2. Even comments go a long way in motivating me to write, knowing that there are people out there who like my story.

Onward to Book 3!