Defiance of the Fall

I really like this story. Here are some bullet points of the things I like about it.

•  Survival- The MC is lost in the woods during a system apocalypse. Always like when a character needs to survive and acclimate to dangerous surroundings, both when it's happening and in the future when the MC gets compared to other people. That seems a long way off, though.
• Realistic Knowledge- Related to above, this story actually has an MC who doesn't know how to immediately game the system. There are a lot of functions of the system that he doesn't know, and even more that he doesn't know he doesn't know, simply because he missed the tutorial. Rarely, you'll see him do something and say, "what an idiot that's clearly not the optimal choice", but all his choices are rational given the amount of information he has. He's super ignorant of what's going on, but using context clues to help himself rather than an deep knowledge of "What to Do when the System Arrives for Dummies".
• System- Its a cool system, fairly background, and kind of sentient. He doesn't immediately get skills and upgrades, it's honestly him surviving as a (albiet super strong) human.
• Struggle- The power creep is good, he struggles for a while, figures out ways to overcome those struggles, and then new stuff pops up to struggle against. Not in the "he'll never see or get hurt by level one mobs" way some xianxia stories do, more like they're there but no longer as much of a threat due to training.
• Plot- Seems like there's some depth to the plot, he's got semi-manditory quests to complete and that may take awhile, day to day survival offset with hints of all the other pieces of the multiverse.
• Realistic Knowledge- The MC is doing fairly well for himself considering, but is by no means a Mary Sue. He's bled for every step forward he's taken. He doesn't immediately know bush craft or how to make armor or anything, it's refreshing to see someone struggle this long. He actually may be at a disadvantage compared to other humans, but is finding a different path to strength, helped in part cuz everyone else is stuck in the tutorial whilst he suffers. He uses his limited resources pretty well, spear stake traps and such.
• Human Emotions- The character actually seems to have to deal with the fact he's stuck alone in the woods forced to fight for his life, rather than just being a mannequin devoid of human emotions. I stress, it really sucks for him almost constantly for the first 30 chapters, but that makes it better IMO cuz there's actually stress when he gets in fights. He actually behaves and feels and thinks in a way that a guy stranded alone might.
• Consistency- All the system stuff is real consistent. The way skills and classes and items work all make sense in this universe.
• Enemies- The monsters are pretty cool

Those are some of the things I like about the story, so far I only have a couple minor negative things to mention

• Lucky- his initial luck in the system, literally a rigged dice roll he shouldn't have won, but that's over and done with by chapter 2 and the plots gotta happen somehow. There really wouldn't be another way to make the same general character and story in a more believable, less lucky manner.
• Town Building I just generally don't like settlement/town management stories, it's nowhere close to getting to that point yet but it seems like a mechanic that's gonna pop up eventually. That's just something I personally don't want to see happen in any story, and it's barely present so far in this one, I just like to whine.

*Edit: new complaints added here as the story continues*

• Overly Expositional its a kind of take the good with the bad situation, and as much as I like reading about a guy figuring out a System, we gotta read through his every thought process for what the system is an does. Sometimes there are multiple paragraphs in row of him just thinking through what he knows, doesn't know or assumes about the new world's physics.
• Overly Introspective - similar to above and also a kind of "too much of a good thing", but the MC will also think through about 4-5 actions he wont do before every action he does do. It just kind of drags the story down at times, I don't really care why he decides not to buy 4 different things if he ends up getting something else, ya know? To me this writing feels like a defense mechanism to shield the writer from RRL comments.
• Weirdly Competent MCs getting real good at murdering demons with an axe/throwing knives for a guy with a pretty hands off system, real quick.

All in all a very well done survival litrpg, with some wuxia elements blended in.

One of the stories that has nearly nothing special but cannot hold yourself to not to read. A classic world survival story with mediocre at everything. But hey I really like mediocre stories far more than stories that have its ups and downs. Definetily worth to read if you have nothing important to do.

The story really hasn't progressed far enough to rate the characters but from what I've seen it seems like they're gonna be somewhat better than in the average rrl story.

Other than that, the story is a pretty basic New World/Ghosthound style deal. Everyone gets a system and is teleported to a tutorial while the earth gets fucked up by monster hordes and stuff. Everyone except for the protagonist of course, he doesn't get a tutorial (lol).

Other than that I am fairly impressed by how the story is relatively gritty (and sometimes defies logic, like how the guy used the same hatchet for over a month swinging it with superhuman strength against monsters that are definitely tougher than your average tree, considering they can break them apart by running into them...) the protagonist is powerful, but at least so far he is not overpowered (he has the promise of becoming overpowered later tho if he plays his cards right). He has to survive by the skin of his teeth, he'd die on a daily basis if he didn't have the system giving him a 'sleep and your fatal injuries will be healed' trope. The author basically hands the protagonist everything he needs on a silver platter like in most stories like these, what he has not done however is give him anything more than what he needs, he's given him exactly the bare minimum and nothing more and I like that. It's pretty decently written too so you can feel the protagonists struggle as he suffers for not getting to do the tutorial like everyone else.

Unlike him however, we do get a tutorial, we get all the basic RPG stats eplained to us as if everybody doesn't already know it and the story is chock full of wordy explanations about the most mundane things. This was my gripe with the story, the pacing feels like it's snailing along because sometimes entire chapters are devoted to just seemingly meaningless exposition. Hell the last chapter I read (37) was one such chapter (edit: and 38 was the same. And 39.). Literally nothing happens in the entire chapter.

This kind of stuff is a huge pet peeve of mine, when authors do too much exposition, spend too much time on explaining or detailing things that don't really warrant that much text.

Good writing is a balancing act between colorful wording and effective pacing, this author leans a bit too heavily on the former for my tastes. The only reason the story even progressed anywhere for the past 30 chapters is because the author at some point went 'fuck it' and did a month's time skip. (Thankfully, or we would have had chapter upon chapter of the protagonist doing the exact same thing)

Like others have said I share the opinion that this story has potential, it's too early to tell if it's worse or better than the works it seems inspired by, but I'm worried it will never be finished with this focus on overly detailed explanations.

I would advise the author to show more, and tell less. Not everything needs to be explained in full detail, let the readers imagination work out most of the things and focus on what's important to the main plot progression instead. If you look at some great artists (like say wlop for an excellent example) if you look closely at their artwork you will find that sometimes up to  80% or so of their pictures may end up being just blobs, anything that isn't the main focus/character of the picture is only vaguely defined. And it works, your brain will fill in these details when you look at the picture as a whole, but zoom in on it and all you'll see are blobs.

With the decreasing attention spans of humanity as a whole in our current society, it's vital for writers to adopt a similar strategy in their writing to keep the attention of readers.

This novel suffers heavily from a lack of planning.

It definitely feels like TheFirstDefier started out with an interesting premise and just kept writing from there. 

Things constantly keep escalating and because of that the characters, their characterization, and the world building start to fall by the wayside.

All of this along with the xianxia trappings of cultivation and conflict reminds me of the author I Eat Tomatoes.

For example: things like the coins having grades could've easily been introduced at the start of the story, instead they're only mentioned when Zac becomes insanely rich so that money can still be a driving factor for conflict.

There've been hints at a larger story surrounding Zac and his sister and their place in the universe, but 300 chapters in its still too early to say.

Each new arc introduces many characters that are, in the moment, interesting but rarely matter going forward. The result of this is a very large cast with relatively little characterization.

In one of the recent chapters Zac joked about Emily being a mascot for Port Atwood. Funny, but I had actually forgotten that character was even a part of the story to begin with. I had to go back and reread to jog my memory because she's been such a non-factor.

The power structure, a mix of cultivation and system rpg, is another aspect of the story that feels a little slipshod. The RPG system starts out understandable but becomes bloated over time with the addition of percentage bonuses and bonuses that apply to the effective value of the stat. Zac being mortal and not a cultivator is only really relevant for the first arc of the story. Now he's cycling energy, forming cores, and exploring the Dao with the best of them. Speaking of, it's probably my own bias but opening nodes in the body being more difficult than grasping fundamental truths of the universe just doesn't feel right.

All that said I still think it's a good novel.

The amount that TheFirstDefier puts out is really commendable. It also gives context as to why some of these issues popped up. 
Overall I think that once this is finished and we know where we're going a good editing pass would easily smooth out these issues and make this go from good to great.

TLDR; Do you like IET? Then this'll do ya just fine.

I really love the story, world building, system, MC and supporting cast. That being said, I really hope that the author works on how to write female characters since, they all seem one dimensional. They are either either overtly or covertly trying to court the MC or are very fond of him. Even when he tries to write characters with different motivations like Kenzie or Verana, they seem very similar to the other female characters. I really hope this does not go the way of Chinese cultivation novels where females are there just for eye candy and even their descriptions are similar, all of whom having jade like skin. That's another thing I want to address, all the female characters introduced till now are beauties. Are there no average looking girls who survive the apocalypse. Although the author might not have picked who the MC is going to be paired up with, please decide whether you are going for a harem or not, because indecision on the pairing is giving harem vibes and harems usually kill character development of female characters. Sevens is the only harem story I have read where women are not one dimensional.

Great start, great world builduing, character development is flat and needs work, and interactions are weak. MC has  inconsistent follow through on his thoughts and ideas.

Important characters are underdeveloped.

the story is however one that you keep reading despite this, as the overall is quite good, and worth the read, If the author works on his character interactions and growth, it will become a great read.

as it is now, it is above average on RR and is most definitely worth reading.

EDIT: A kind reader has pointed out that some of my nitpicks and issues I had with the story have been fixed. When I wrote this review, the story was around chapter 35. With over 100 chapters now the story is different then when I reviewed in the beginning. I'll give the story another read in the future and I'll update my review to accurately reflect how I feel about the story then.

The story had a good start despite it being somewhat of a cliche. Apocolptic-litrpg where the MC is off on his own trying to survive in this new dark and gritty world. The author blended a few elements of eastern fantasy books with western litrpg and it came out pretty well. I did enjoy the story a lot, which is why I'm more disappointed as I got my hopes up. The story started to take a dive in quality when the MC made poor judgements and out of character decisions and the author started to handwave details too big to ignore. The problems I had with the story are pretty spoilery, so I wouldn't recommend clicking it if you're a new reader.

 There's a bunch of minor issues that just keep piling up and it's hard not to be nitpicky about it when they're so glaring. It's not allowed me to fully enjoy the story and after writing this review has soured my taste for this story even more. I rated this story as a 3.5/5 stars, but as I wrote this review and looked more indepth in the issues I had with it, lowered it to 3/5. I imagine many users on this site can overlook these problems and rate it 4-5 stars easily. I would recommend this story to readers very familiar with royal road, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who mainly reads published books.

The story is good. I mean, you have to like the genre. It definetly makes you want to read more.

Overall, one of the best on RRL.

The two main problems are:

a) no proofreader or a really bad one. Repetitions, synthax mistakes. A good proofreader can make a real difference.

b) sometimes the author gets into repetitive long descriptions that have no impact on the story.

The 3.5 stars on character score is because sometimes the MC is dumb. 

There may be some stories with better story or characters, but if you love to reade xiaxia, gamelit and post apocalyptic stories and want all of that in one, you found it. Sure there are more that try to combine that. This one does it right. The genres are balanced and the pacing is fine. The characters are not flat and the story is fine so far. Sure like every xiaxia the story can only degrade after chapter 900... but we are not at that point yet :D.

I like it and really recommend it for genre fans. I really enjoy reading this.

I gave it 4 stars for the nice balance of elements in writing, plus a half star because I like it so much.

The post apocalyptic litrpg has been over done on Royal Road in my opinion. There are a few that stand out but this one has got to be my personal favorite.

The main character isn’t god almighty and has to fight to survive. Nothing new there. But the way people and landmass is tossed about by the system is, for me at least. 

Spoilers below:

Being the only human on a giant island full of demonic monsters and mutating plants and animals is quite cool. Him being deemed worthless by the system along with the achievements (called titles here) has coupled together a story that fits the title. He is literally defying the fate that the system gave him.

I like this story a lot because the Mc isn’t a weak person and he has adapted to the situation how I imagine a desperate rational being to do. Especially his reflections on his girlfriend. I’ve seen too many stories where the MC’s goal in life is to get back to his girl. After an apocalyptic event like that can you really expect a girlfriend of two whole months to stick with you? No, you can’t. I also rather like lone wolf type characters.

Over all I’d rate the story a solid 4. But with how rankings work here I’m giving him a 5 because I want the story to do better. It deserves some spotlight and hopefully this will motivate the author to keep going until a satisfactory ending.