aluminiumtrioxid

So in effect, you're pre-buffing your own party. That's what it boils down to. I don't really see a paralell between "using strategic deception that comes with an increased difficulty and item usage in order to lure an enemy into a false sense of security" (a thing fictional heroes tend to use pretty often, by the way) and "spending 5 minutes before a fight to pass buffs around at no real cost, since I intended to put up those buffs from the beginning" (a thing I've never, ever seen any type of fantasy hero doing [granted, I may be reading the wrong kinds of fiction]). Ok, let's assume he always keeps those lieutenants around him, and when he notices you breaking in, he'll call the other lieutenants to him, too. ...This has changed exactly what? So now you're base lining the difficulty at players who will exploit the system because you've implemented a system that can be easily exploited. Here's a solution, don't implement a system that can be easily exploited and you won't have to base line the difficulty at the exploiters. a/ I'm not really sure "implementing a tactic that both resonates with the kinds of stories that inspired the game and has an associated opportunity cost" constitutes as "exploiting the system" (especially since I don't really think you can exploit something in the cheat-y sense if that something actually comes with hardcoded downsides). b/ If I'm designing a game around specific tactics (say, mages having special defenses that can only be penetrated with guns, or spellcasters being able to put up protection spells that have to be dispelled before they can be harmed), hell yes I will assume that people will use those tactics. This isn't bad design. Bad design would be making those tactics the only way you can win a fight. (Which, just to be on topic, is kinda what BG2 did with mages and protection spells...) If a tower is occupied by a cabal of rogues, and your party both intends to wipe those rogues out (a goal that is presumably at odds with the rogues' own goal of, say, "continuing to survive") and has a reputation for struggling with mage fights, yet the rogues don't use the undoubtedly fairly significant resources at their disposal to hire a few mage mercenaries to bolster their ranks, my respect for those rogues would plummet. (Y'know, in those five minutes intermittently between roflstomping them.)

Hah, forum limits the maximum number of quotes you can have in a post. How sad. No, you've missed the point of what I said. You want scaling based on what you do during the game. That's easily exploitable leading up to a boss fight and changing the encounter to make it easier. And using low level spells for the simple fact to gimp the boss fight is exploiting the A.I. and the system. They're not mutually exclusive. No, I have perfectly understood what you said. The power level of the enemies would not change based on what you do, only their level of preparedness - I don't really think that is a form of scaling in the strict sense. You couldn't gimp the boss fight by casting low-level spells, you could win a few rounds' worth of time while he puts up the buffs he neglected to based on what he saw - at the cost of an increased difficulty (and therefore possibly material resource-use) in the lead-up encounters. Sounds like a fair trade to me. Why would it be binary with a boss have only a few minions and lieutenants being a) with him or b) going out there and working towards his goals? How about a third option, c) he has minions and lieutenants doing both? That's a much, much better question, I think. Well, maybe because those lieutenants that are hanging around with him are still a very bad investment unless bloodthirsty adventuring parties regularly break into his compound? (In which case he has probably bigger concerns than scrying your progress...) But what you've done is changed the encounter from the boss putting up protections to having no protections at all. Yes, he can put them up during the fight, but you've changed the encounter to make it easier for you. That's gaming the system. ...Assuming, of course, that the boss having more attack spells at his disposal because he didn't use the spell slots for buffing did make the encounter easier for you. Also, if you balance the system with the assumption that this is something players will regularly do, and the baseline difficulty is the "non-buffed", it would hardly cause problems. Wouldn't be more "gaming the system" than "using True Sight to get rid of his Mislead clone instead of hacking away its health" is gaming the system.

I'm scolding you for being generally disrespectful, condescending, and more interested in winning some kind of hypothetical Internet Price of Being Right than actual conversation. Whether one includes the words ****, **** or **** in their posts has no bearing on this. ...Meanwhile in the initial post... I don't really see a changing of subject anywhere. Perhaps you should put a few points in your Comprehending Written Text skill? Assuming utterly idiotic enemy AI, tactics which rely heavily on hard counters and combat situations that are not varied enough to force you to consider using the grand total of two tactics you can work with in three weeks, yes. Is any of the above the fault of having adaptive AI? Depends on the timeframe. Also, pre-buffing only works if your buffs don't wear out until the actual fight starts, so a "receive a report that some guards are missing on the north walls, put up ALL TEH BUFFS" would probably be suboptimal. I'm not really seeing the difference between having certain tactical options being strictly restricted to enemy creatures and... having certain tactical options being strictly restricted to enemy creatures, no. Also, assuming that no pre-buffing works by disabling the use of spells and abilities outside of combat, I think the "have the rogue walk up to enemy group, initiate fight by backstabbing, turn invisible, have the rest of the party buff itself to full capacity a few corridors away while it lasts" routine could handily allow you to do the same. That is probably for the best, and I also wish you best of luck in your undoubtedly fruitful and fulfilling future endeavors of "spending way too much time criticizing hypothetical RPG systems".

Which is pretty much the same thing you just did? ...You were saying something about... hypocrisy, was that it? Nope, you still don't get it, at all. A system which is built around the assumption that the AI would adapt to attacks and defenses based on what it previously observed would heavily incentivize specialization, therefore making the decision to use suboptimal tactics and equipment one that has an associated opportunity cost. But even if it doesn't, you can still compensate by designing your lead-up encounters to have a difficulty where not playing to your strengths would not be a trivial decision to take. Man, this is like the third time I'm repeating myself. One would think that a person who supposedly dwarfs me intellectually would have no problems with grasping these concepts. So you can spy or scry on someone, but this somehow magically compels you to only acknowledge the tactics they're using, not the general fact that they are there, slaughtering your underlings. Seems legit. Again, for someone who is my intellectual superior, you do seem to have a difficulty grasping concepts like "opponents don't need to play by the same rules as you". Do you also throw a hissy fit when a dragon breathes fire at you, because that's totally not something your character can do? And this is ignoring the mechanically sound reason I already gave you why it would be legit, by the way.

Yes, this is a pretty accurate description of what you did, if by "pointing out the flaws and explained why they are very exploitable" you actually mean "I have nitpicked a bit and consequently refused to engage with any of the counterarguments (presumably while basking in a strong, yet sadly unjustified sense of intellectual superiority)".

Why yes of course. On the other hand if you answer an observation like "you tend to nitpick on the details, but don't engage with my core argument" with being a condescending little ****, maybe you should not be surprised if people call you out both on being a condescending little **** and treating a fairly values-neutral statement as the same as being a condescending little ****. So you admit answering with mockery instead of, y'know, arguments to actual arguments. We're making progress! Maybe you will, one day, even achieve a modicum of self-awareness! ****, I've jinxed it! For the third time: yes, against specific attacks like the ones you used and generic buffs as a general answer to making your presence known. Since they're an answer to making your presence known, your opponent wouldn't put them up if you don't make your presence known - therefore it is heavily tied to spying and scrying. Man, how much easier this would be if you've actually read what I wrote! Man, how much easier this would be if you've actually read what I wrote! ...Déja vu, anyone? (Not to mention the fact that the "no debuffing" rule is a systemic feature designed to prevent degenerate gameplay, not an absolute truth rooted in the logic of the game world - therefore, if your enemies know that you are coming, they should be able to put up buffs whether you are allowed to, or not. Y'know, verisimilitude?)

You mean the part where he points out that you generally tend to argue in bad faith? Gee, I wonder what might have caused him to have this impression of you. (Hint: about every post you've made in the last year or so?) Also, he is making an observation (which basically boils down to "you tend to nitpick against specific details while ignoring the big picture"), not spewing patronizing bull ("The urge to inject pseudo-intellectual philosophy in everything is too strong for you to resist..." "...you often get quite confused..." "...say things that you're ashamed of later, after you reread them..." etc.). You mean like the one with the wraiths who haunt your nightmares or whatever? Or where you bring up the example with pre-buffing exclusively against certain damage types where I was (repeatedly) talking about a mix of defenses against specific attacks and generic damage/attack/defense/whatever enhancers? Or completely ignoring the fact that I was always talking about a mix of pre-buffing and bringing in reinforcements, not just switching weapons and armor and whatnot? Or repeatedly bringing up examples of how this could not work in PoE, when literally the first statement I made on the matter was that it's outside the scope of PoE and you would need to build your system from the ground up to properly accomodate it? You mean the defective system you have constructed in your head seemingly independently of what I was talking about. Yeah, I don't really see a reason to include that in any decent RPG, either.

Surprising as it may sound, I have better things to do with my time than scour every single topic to see who was kind of being an arsehole and when. Also, my "knitting-circle friends" seem to do the whole "insult the other party repeatedly", "use strawman arguments heavily" and "generally argue in bad faith" routine somewhat less often than you. You were still being unnecessary rude, which is a totally fine thing to do if your goal is to infuriate the other parties to the point that they (also) spend more time on personal attacks than actual arguments, but if you want to, say, actually discuss things rationally, it's not that useful. Also, it creates an unpleasant atmosphere and makes you look kinda bad. Nobody asked you to argue in favor of it, they asked you to stop for a moment and use a fraction of the time and energy you spend on bitching about its perceived flaws to think about why it could be awesome instead.

Could we please try arguing the points, not the people who made them for a change? The first thing I have said when I proposed this system was "it's probably outside the scope of PoE". You would kinda need to balance your whole system around it. It would also make the game more fun and varied, I believe.

What makes you think they'll be allowed to pre-buff when we know it's not possible? And what if they do pre-buff, say, against slashing and freeze damage... and then you use crushing weapons and crackling bolts? Bringing extra manpower is irrelevant here. Wasn't the point of this system to "adapt" based on espionage and not to bring MOAR? They can bring more regardless of spies. If it's *moar* they want, then they'll just bring everyone and their grandmother so they'll most likely be able to counter something. "No prebuffing" means it's not possible to use buffing spells outside of battle. But if your opponent knows that you're there, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the battle has actually started, even if the player is not aware of it. This is kind of the point of ambushes and recon. Also, if they see you using attacks that mostly do slashing and freezing damage, it is prefectly reasonable of them to assume that you will use these damage types prominently. On the other hand, it is also reasonable of them to assume that being resistant to your damage will not win the fight in itself, and put up more generic offensive buffs, too. Again, the point of this system is to introduce verisimilitude and opponents who react to you in a reasonably tactical manner. Concentrating your forces is a pretty tactical thing to do when you know what the opposing party intends and know where they are headed. It can also be done without spies and whatnot, but paying an army to always be on the lookout for enemy adventurers who might be breaking into your base is not a very economic thing to do when you can pay those same forces to actually work towards furthering your goals.

But what's the point of this "layer of strategy" if the direct product is crippled encounters? Assuming, again, that an opponent who comes pre-buffed and brings extra manpower to the battle can be considered "crippled" just because he's (say) wearing suboptimal armor and has perhaps wasted a few spell slots on spells that have no relevance to the battle (along with more general buffs that do).

Well, if I ever GM a different game (which seems more than likely, there was talk about trying Numenera in the summer), you are welcome to join

...And you have arrived at this conclusion exactly how? Because letting them escape to make a detailed report on how you fight, armor and weapons used and so on... and then doing the exact opposite when you encounter this spy group is more beneficial. Assuming, of course, that a/ your effectiveness doesn't drop when you're not using the things your characters are supposed to be good at (equipment you're specialized in, powerful spells, etc.) or b/ that the encounters leading up to the final boss are easily solvable while holding back. Also, I have forgotten to respond to this. No, it's not (necessarily) supposed to make encounters more challenging, it's supposed to introduce verisimilitude and another layer of strategy to the game.

...And you have arrived at this conclusion exactly how?

Says you. While I think that doing sidequests to literally adjust the composition of an encounter (say, paying off the mercenary bodyguards of the big bad to switch sides, stealing the grimoire of the wizard, blowing up the gunpowder supply of the soldiers to eliminate their firearms) is very much desirable.

They might have been scared away by its length! Or are following the principle of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything". Which, knowing the majority of posters here, seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Anyways, if you are reading this, feel free to comment.

Well, I think that if you're facing enemies who go through the trouble of using spies and scrying (and probably will try to murder you in your sleep, because that's what any sane person would do), it's really not that much of a stretch for them to carry multiple sets of weapons. But that should be a relatively small subset of opponents. Anyway, even with that, you gain an unspecified amount of time while they switch weapons, and as you've said, they can't change armor, so that's also an edge. (A not-exactly-overwhelming one, though, since weapon skills aren't free, and if you specialize heavily in a favorite weapon of yours, your performance will suffer in the lead-up encounters if you use a different one.) Also, their spellcasters will have fewer spells because they've used up some of their slots to pre-buff (which is theoretically impossible for the player, but I'd be quite surprised if you couldn't initiate a fight with a rogue who can turn invisible while the rest of the party is camping a few corners away, happily buffing themselves). Depending on how generic the buffs are in the game, this could either mean they've completely wasted an important resource (in the case of buffs against very specific damage types/status effects which you won't use), or roflstomp you regardless of how you have changed your equipment (in case of general attack/defense/damage/etc boosters). That is because we know precious little about what said attacks could be and how they could possibly be countered.

...If we assume that opponents can switch weapons, why can't we also assume that they carry their original weapons with them, too? In the IE games, any reasonably fighty class had 4 weapon sets to switch between, why would the opponents be exempt? Yes, there are a lots of ways to make an adaptive system ****ty. There are also a lot of ways to make a non-adaptive system ****ty. Yet your first assumption upon looking at a game with a standard encounter system is not "this game will surely have ****ty encounters". Why?

If you are a level 10 Mage in a dungeon designed for a level 10 party and manage to survive using only level 1-3 spells, congratulations. But if you manage to pull it off, that's the fault of the encounter design, not the AI. "Why would a boss have all of his minions and lieutenants always near him when they could be out there, working towards his goals?" is a much, much better question, I think. Also, the fact that he doesn't use his spell slots to put up protection spells doesn't mean he won't use those spell slots to turn your party into a fine pink mist. Or to put up those defenses during the fight.

So, not knowing before would make it strategy? Or if you'd do the same thing against a human opponent? Seriously, complaining about exploiting a systemic feature that exists to be exploited is like saying that using Dispel Magic and True Sight were exploiting the obviously unintended flaws of protective magics.

Now this is the assumption where you are mistaken. It's more like "you fight the same powerful boss, only this time he doesn't have all his important minions and lieutenants with him and didn't put up buffs that provide protection against your favorite attacks".

Well, if you exploit stupid AI, that's exploiting the AI, if you exploit fairly intelligent AI, that's strategy Seriously, for a moment, stop seeing it as a system. If you are an NPC, would you not want to gather info about that adventuring party wrecking your **** all around, and act upon the info you gathered when confronting them?

Well, if you can manage to beat encounters that were designed with an adventuring party which uses their abilities to their fullest extent in mind while holding back, I think you deserve to be rewarded, don't you think?

Arnold K wrote up magic shields!

Yes, I think appropriate chokepoints or even ambushes would be better than shuffling forces or pre-buffing to counter your "favorite attacks" (pre-buffing is currently not possible in PoE). For the player, of course