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Stun

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Everything posted by Stun

  1. Stun
    I certainly plan on continuing the argument. Lets see. 1) You have, no less than 15 times in the last 3 weeks, declared the debate pointless, and its debaters idiots for arguing the pointless. Check. 2) You have stated, no less than 15 times in the last 3 weeks, that it is impossible for Obsidian to change their current XP system for PoE. Check. 3) By Definition, An XP system falls within the category of anything and everything. Check Yep. All parameters met. Admit you're wrong, now.
  2. Stun
    Nuh-uh. Your willful, denial-based attempts to salvage your fragile forum Ego will get you nowhere this time Gromnir. I showed you Precisely what you asked me to show you, and what you've claimed you never said. Admit you're wrong, now.
  3. Stun
    I can do that. Wait, Are you crazy? Are you *actually* trying to pretend that you haven't actively and fanatically been crusading to shut us all up on the issue for several months now? Ok, Gromnir, I will show us all some of your many silly attempts to argue that X is set in stone, thus 'beating the dead horse' is pointless, and we're idiots for doing it. ^this is a very very small portion of the whole. Only covers a miniscule sample of your posts on the topic from just the last 3 weeks. In fact, your central argument on the XP issue (since at least 2012) has BEEN to remind everyone that the debate is Pointless. That it's a silly waste especially due to time. Take your history revision elsewhere.
  4. Stun
    What is the three wise monkeys routine? Ie. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Although you can hardly call this situation a 3 wise monkeys routine, since there's been more speaking on the subject than just about any other PoE-relative topic ever. But I'm not quite sure what's behind Gromnir's PMS this morning. Sometimes we 'functional dyslexic cretins' can successfully change developer minds. Why, just yesterday we got Josh to budge on his long held "No Invisibility" rule. Check it out: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68384-josh-says-poes-fighters-and-rogues-arent-boring/?p=1507166
  5. Stun
    Why are we Kill-XP folks always forced to defend the notion of XP rewards for every action when it isn't what we're advocating at all? There's a HUGE difference between assigning XP values to combat encounters vs. assigning XP values to 'taking a step' or 'swinging a sword', or 'disarming a trap'. The latter rewards specific builds and punishes others (won't be getting sword-swinging XP if you're a mage!) and is not designed for a party-based game anyway, while the former doesn't do either. It merely rewards resolution - granting the player complete freedom to decide how he wishes to achieve that resolution. We are asking for Kill XP. Let me repeat that: We're asking for Kill XP. As for the 'arbitrary' argument. Nope. No sale. There's nothing that hand placed arbitrary XP distribution brings to the table that Quest and kill xp doesn't. Except for maybe randomness. Quests can be dynamic enough to reward all sorts of Playstyles, and Kill XP, being directly tied to combat, does the same thing by nature (every single class is designed to excel in combat, thus every single build can use its strengths and get through a combat encounter and receive XP)
  6. Stun
    Sweet.
  7. Stun
    No. Working Systems, by definition, must operate with a modicum of consistency. Otherwise they're amateurishly flawed and you can't even call them systems. And When it comes to experience distribution the problem is magnified. Lack of consistency does nothing but cause confusion and makes players feel like the game is a buggy mess. (ie. "hey, I got no XP for completing this quest!" Or "how come the last hidden passage I found granted me 200XP but, this one granted me none?")
  8. Stun
    So....Arbitrary XP rewards from beginning to end? Ugh... No.
  9. Stun
    I explicitly disagree. I didn't find my 'muscle wizard' very 'awesome' to play at all. They felt solid and viable enough up front, but there's something about their spells. They don't...'fit' the build style, aside from maybe the mirror image line of buffs. I miss haste, and stoneskin, and invisibility and fireshield, and other Gish staples of the build.
  10. Stun
    HI guys. I'm Mr. Minority opinion. And I'd just like to say: "NO. I don't want my Rogues and fighters to have a bajillion super-special attacks. I want them to remain "pure". (there's enough party micro-management going on already). Also, I found playing a rogue quite fun. As it stands, I actually had more fun with my Rogue-run in this beta than I did with my mage playthrough. If they must tweak them, I'd like it if they just made the rogue sneak attack do more damage than it already does. I was under the impression that Rogues are one of the "heavy hitters". But I'm really not seeing it (in the beta at least). My rogue seemed to do as much damage on average as my Barbarian and fighter did.
  11. Stun
    The crafting skill. And I still like you. I respect your passive-aggressive barbs. But my love of the IE games is not unconditional. I will only defend what the IE games do *well*. For example, You'll never see me praising BG1's companions. Or BG2's romances. Or PS:T's combat. Or Icewind Dale 2's loot itemization. Or Icewind Dale 1's linearity. Wait, is he designing this game for himself? Of course our opinions are what matter... not his.
  12. Stun
    No, Junta, I don't think we can reduce this discussion to code design. We are discussing philosophies and goals. And those can and DO change on a whim. I don't see these things as mistakes. But, depending on PoE's reception/sales when the full game is released, Josh might end up learning some lessons. Lessons on the risks of trying to reinvent the wheel, or fixing what ain't broke, or making good players suffer from mechanics designed to police the bad players.
  13. Stun
    He isn't coming back later. Why do you guys misunderstand almost everything? a) He's already come back later. b) and I said Rules, not 'the rule sets'. The stated function of just about EVERY mechanic in PoE has been in response to what he saw as "failings of the IE games" Shall we go down the list? 1) Prebuffing in the IE games caused metagaming tactics, therefore -----> No more prebuffing. Result: Tactics are now 100% reactive, instead of being a function of both planning and reacting, like they were before. 2) Chance leads to save scumming in the IE games, therefore ------> no more chance. No more save or die spells, no more save or pretrification. No more dire charm. No more confusion/chaos. No more domination. No more random effect items like the deck of many things, or the wand of wonder. etc. 3) Invisibility items/spells in the IE games rendered some rogue skills 'redundant', and could be abused, therefore -------> No more Invisibility. aka. No more tyranny of choice! 4) Mages were overpowered in the IE games, therefore --------> Magic must be nerfed, and rendered 2-dimensional (there's only damage spells and buff spells for mages.) 5) Resting freedom in the IE games leads to rest spamming, therefore --------> No more rest spamming. But how do we eliminate rest spamming? Wait, I know! We must create a system where health equals health and stamina equals health, and stamina regenerates, and you can't rest in a dungeon unless you have camping supplies, and camping supplies are limited, and some abilities and spells are per encounter so you don't need to rest that often anyway....(phew! That should teach those degenerates to play the game MY way from now on!!!) 6) Min-maxing/ dump-statting was rampant in the IE games, therefore ---------> No more of that sh*t! Min-maxing is now practically pointless, as the stats themselves are merely bonuses. Small list. Not the least bit complete, but I'm pretty sure there's enough here to demonstrate the friggin point. And if not, we can always discuss the reasons why Kill XP was removed.
  14. Stun
    No, it's called a straw man. We were discussing Degenerate game play. Freedom within the rules is assumed, because that's what Degenerate gameplay IS. My argument has Always been that once a developer sets the rules, his job is finished. He should NOT be coming back later to change those rules for no reason but to check-mate players who dared to 'misbehave' within the game. Again, I cite rest spamming and save scumming. But no. I'm not going to concede even that much. We were discussing degenerate behavior, which assumes freedom within the rules. All of my comments have been in the context of that.
  15. Stun
    Really? we're going to split hairs? We weren't discussing operating outside the rules. (in fact, degenerate game play is when someone works within the rules to do something that the devs didn't intend for him to do) And when I said Player freedom, I was NOT talking about the player's freedom to hit 'CTRL Y' or whatever to kill everything on the screen or other console cheats. (although even a cheat like THAT would have helped a game like Dragon Age 2 become less crappy). I was talking about game play freedom. And by contrast, Josh's decision to take that freedom away for no reason but to force the player into his narrow definition of fun. Lets stick to rest spamming and save scumming. Stop it already. Degenerate Gameplay and Cheating are not interchangeable terms. So stop interchanging them. We can't have a meaningful debate until we understand this fact.
  16. Stun
    I don't think I specified an opinion on that either way. And Ironically, I don't believe Josh has either. Probably because Console cheats aren't degenerate behavior. They're *cheats* Bullsh*t. What about this: ^ This is an opinion. One I've already disagreed with on this very thread. I found insta-kill spells and items immensely fun in BG2, Icewind dale 1 and Icewind dale 2. And this: ^This is another opinion. Oddly, on this issue, it completely depends on the game. I would say that Dungeon Siege 1 (for exampled) becomes at least 10x more fun to play once you've consoled in a few items the game thinks you're not supposed to have. Skyrim is another game that benefits greatly from both cheats and mods.
  17. Stun
    Oh pardon me, you're certainly entitled to your subjective preferences.
  18. Stun
    Probably not. I'm sure a good portion of his stance comes from a few sore moments he suffered as a DM, when he'd spend hours designing a critical encounter only to see his players breeze through it with a couple lucky dice rolls or 1 quick, well placed spell. I've been there too. It hurts. But it doesn't matter. For whatever reason, if you corner him and get him into a discussion about Degenerate gameplay, he will not explain his stance to you beyond the anecdotal.
  19. Stun
    Fun should be the main criteria. But if you're going to render the debate stillborn by simply invoking the "we all have our subjective opinions", then let me toss another criteria out there for you that isn't subjective at all: Freedom. If you find yourself, as a developer, focusing on ways to LIMIT a player's behavior....your priorities are wrong. But I'll tell you what shouldn't be a criteria: Opinions formed by watching a few Let's Plays on you tube. Have you actually ever talked to Josh about the Degenerate Gameplay issue? I have. His arguments are so ridiculously anecdotal that they verge on dishonesty. On his Mindspring a while back someone asked him a question about Death spells. 3 minutes later we got a rant from him about Degenerative behavior/Save Scumming. He cited a bunch of Lets Plays on You Tube, and how players were killing Chaopek the Guardian (A Black dragon in IWD2) in 1 round by casting Finger of Death, and just reloading the game over and over until the dragon failed its save. In other words, his argument literally boils down to: "Death Spells can cause save scumming, and save scumming is degenerate behavior...check You Tube if you don't believe me." So it's all out. No more chance, no more save or Die. no more permanent petrification. No more long lasting charm spells. No more of those *GREAT* elements of chance that made combat so unpredictably cool in BG2.
  20. Stun
    No because it's too low a level an ability. Had it been a power that Ciphers get at, say, 12th level, then I'd advocate that they keep it in...even if it maintains its Over-poweredness relative to enemy encounters at that level. Because at that point in the game you've already been challenged. You've already been put through the ringer, so a lone OP ability that strokes the ego should not be 'stamped out at all costs'. The player has earned the right to a little cheese. (also see BG2: Timestop; and IWD2: Wail of the Banshee) But "Cheesy OP spells" are hardly the scope of Sawyer's gigantic Degenerative Gameplay blanket, are they. There are things he considers Degenerate gameplay that aren't even close to being game breaking. Take "rest spamming" for instance. Contrary to what Josh has instilled into our heads, junta, the so-called '15-minute-workday' does NOT remove challenge or fun from a game, since anyone who feels the need to rest after every battle is Obviously either 1) already being challenged, otherwise he wouldn't feel the need to rest after every encounter, or: 2) he's really having fun using his limited Per-day abilities, otherwise he wouldn't be resting after every encounter to get them back. So yes, Sawyer's decade long attempt to stamp out rest spamming has been *Pointless* at best, and anti-fun at worst. Then there's Luck...which is tied to 'save scumming' - another 'degenerate behavior" that josh has fought a crusade against for a decade. In Josh's mind, time honored fantasy-RPG elements like Death spells, Wands of Wonder, Decks of Many things etc., serve no purpose but to cause players to reload their games if they receive an un-optimal random outcome. But He's WRONG, here. Flat out wrong, each and every one of those was fun. No.... more than fun. They kept decent gamers on their toes, and they added tons of flavor to any game they were in. But, you'll never again see them if Josh has any say in the matter, because in his eternal quest to control how players play their own f*cking single player games, he has decreed that Save scumming is O.U.T. of the question.... So, no more Luck, no more chance. Just....spreadsheet gameplay... for Math nerds who get off comparing decimal point differences in DPS.
  21. Stun
    Yep. That's why it won't work in a system where it's "group-check-or-nothing". In BG, if you wanted to handle the traps while the rest of your party was fighting Seravok & Co., you kept your thief out of combat so that they could do a dedicated search.
  22. Stun
    They didn't. They imposed a time penalty. There's a difference. The way the IE games did it was via a 'pulse' check. when you had search on, the game checked for traps every 6 seconds. Thus there was a chance you'd miss finding a trap unless you were cautious and stopped every once in a while to let the game do its checks. I suppose making it passive instead of assigning a button to it would be alright, so long as the mode automatically stops when you perform another action Like swing your sword at an enemy, or drink a potion, or cast a spell. Because, again, that's how the IE games did it - you couldn't search and fight at the same time. The button turns off automatially when you engage in another action.
  23. Stun
    No, aside from maybe bleeding, stamina does not function that way in PoE. It is not a measurement of exhaustion. Having low stamina does not prevent your barbarian from activating his barbarian sprint. or anyone from activating their super-athletic abilities, for example. The signs you're looking for would come in the form of the affliction states (hobbled, prone etc.) and those *should* cause enemies to take notice and adjust their AI's. But simply being able to detect when a character's stamina bar is low? Uh-uh. That's ESP-based AI. it's silly.
  24. Stun
    No. It's riddled with way too much Hyperbole. The truth is somewhere in between this article, and the small legion of people who claim that PoE is a total crap attempt to recreate the IE feel. Like....somewhere right in the middle.
  25. Stun
    (Durlag's tower was the greatest single gaming experience ever)
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