Everything posted by Elerond
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The current refugee wave in Europe
Most meaningful difference is that Saudi Arabia keeps their barbaric acts inside of their own country where ISIS constantly tries to/does conquer new areas which population they force to follow their laws or enslave/kill. Also they aren't willing to peacefully go exist with other nations but actively seek to get people do terrorist attacks in them and their citizens to join ranks of ISIS. Which are things that cause problems (like trade disrupts, refugees, rising opposition for their leaders, etc.) to other nations, which means that other nations can't just ignore them and do public theater of condemn their laws and actions in public speeches but actually doing nothing to stop them.
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The current refugee wave in Europe
That isn't sound strategy it is better to be ally some of those that you don't like and enemy for some and make them fight each other. As it is much cheaper. And if your ally starts to become too strong and starts to behave so that negatives out weight positives then just change support from them to their enemies. Roman's already prove that dived and conquer is excellent strategy to control areas that you don't care.
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Starting with other characters still brings my rogue out of stealth
When combat start enemy awareness seems to jump up which often means that if your rogue (or any other character you want to keep in stealth) is close to enemies and don't have high sneak (compared to enemy level), enemies will spot them nearly instantaneously after combat begins.
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Paradox Interactive Acquires White Wolf Publishing
As there are at least three games that Obsidian is currently working on and every single one of them has different lead designer, so I would say that company size of Obsidian has at least three such people in their employment. EDIT: I would also say that people fear too much balancing especially when it comes to games that use existing system instead of one that is designed by Obsidian (Sawyer and co.). Because with existing systems time is not usually spent in balancing/designing system but designing game around that system.
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Something that really bothers me about POE
That is system that Obsidian decided early on that they don't want to have in PoE, so I think that you may be out of luck.
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Paradox Interactive Acquires White Wolf Publishing
Bloodlines' beginning is quite buggy without patches, which can hinder quite much how enjoyable one's experience to play the game is. I think that you meant VtM: Bloodlines, but to be on the safe side. VtM itself is system that needs good game master and hopefully character players that are into storytelling systems and whose humor and style you loe as otherwise gaming sessions can become bit boring as its mechanics aren't that exciting.
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The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread
http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/27/inenglish/1445948093_804967.html
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Democrat Presidential Debate
EU's cloud service providers probably sent their regards, as this probably means that new safe harbor deal becomes even harder.
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Update 2.03 Beta is Live on Steam
Good thing I beat the Adra Dragon before this patch then, because I have no idea what kind of strategy I'd use with all those immunities. Chanter summon cheese will probably still work, if one looks easy tactic to win that fight, although it is quite time consuming.
- Wasteland 2
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The Funny Things Thread
Darth Vader supporter Chewbacca arrested in Ukraine
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White March Part 2 Companion appears to be a female Aumaua
I think Deadfire Archipelago should have both types of Aumaua as those southern areas are where Aumaua originally come before they fought series of wars in north to conquer territories there. So even though other races mainly categorize Aumaua in island folk that lives in south and coastal folk that lives in north, I would think that there quite much interaction between those two groups as they both are seafarers and seem to prefer Aumaua only/majority communities. But of course this is just guess that is mostly based on Kana's stories and bit of lore sources, as otherwise current lore sources don't really give us much to go on (as most of specific lore parts are about Dyrwood and areas surrounding it).
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White March Part 2 Companion appears to be a female Aumaua
She's a Coastal Aumaua (blue skin), so she should be from Rauatai too. She could be anywhere, as you can find members of every race in every territory. Like for example she could be from the Aedyran Empire, which has large Coastal Aumaua population (10% of total population) or she could be from Deadfire Archipelago which is another territory with Aumaua majority (in my understanding). I would even go so far that it would be bit cop out if their other Aumaua character would also be from Rauatai as it is quite far away and has quite little interaction with Dyrwood or areas surrounding it (at least that is impression that I have got).
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The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread
In Japan comic from popular cartoonist has been pulled because of online rage and political correctness. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201510250026
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PoE sells 500K units
Not to bright pun aimed ad personam. There are clear standards to decide objectively if the game was successful. Taking budget in to consideration 500.000 units sold is not a success for PoE. How do you know that? I don't have much stake in the *argument.* Of course, I *want* PoE to have done well in terms of sales and sustainability, but the argument of whether it has or not isn't particularly important to me. I figure if it has, we'll know by what Obsidian *does.* However, from the point of view of folks saying 500k is a success or a failure in light of budgeting, how do people know? We can't tell if Poe was a success, but we can compare it to the competition. And we know that Wasteland 2 managed similar numbers despite lower KS budget, smaller names and worse reception. And longer time to sell the game and lower price, with additional press coverage by console release and DC release. And even then Wasteland 2 steamspy's estimated numbers for it are 50k lower than PoE's. Meaning that it is quite safe to say that PoE has sold more copies in shorter period of time and with higher price than Wasteland 2, but do that mean that PoE or Wasteland 2 is a success or failure? Answer depend wholly on how individual defines failure or success.
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Democrat Presidential Debate
At this point, I'm probably voting for someone outside of the parties myself. Unfortunately most folks will just blindly for red or blue, regardless of who wins the primary. It would be astonishing if people decided to flee the two party system in droves. But the fact that people basically vote for two parties is only due to the electoral systems used, where the "winner takes it all" (and in the case of a presidential election, you can only have one winner, but you could for example have transferrable votes...). There is no point in voting for a third, smaller party, because you're only taking away votes from the one of the two big sides you're closest to. That is, if you feel it doesn't matter which of the big sides win you could of course vote for a third party. Sadly, this will likely not result in you getting any representation at all for your opinions. You should really not call it two-party system, but "simple plurality FPTP" which is the actual system making people vote for two parties only. Compared to our superior scando-system, where everyone is invited to take part in the concensus, the anglos in UK and US have zero tolerance for giving people who do not win in a winner takes it all-environment any political power. You just need to convince them that being a loser is ok. But at least US has system in presidential elections where one can be winner even if they don't get majority of popular votes. So all is not lost for non-popular kids
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PoE sells 500K units
It is easy for PoE to be successful project for Obsidian as their minimum goal was to get so much sales that they can fund expansion from their own pockets. Of course I can't say for sure that it has already achieved that point, but I would bet on that option if such was possible. But otherwise everybody is free to determine when the think something is successful or not, as success for one is failure to another that is just life and different perspectives and aspirations that people have. Like for example one thinks they are successful if they finish a marathon and another thinks that they have failed when they win the race but failed to make record time.
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Pillars of balancing
If it's Advanced D&D 2nd Edition: Weapon 1: does 1d4 +6 + 1d4 = 7-10 + 1-4 electrical damage. Provided the target isn't under the effect of some form of protection from electricity, this would give you a number between 8 and 14, or 11 on average. Weapon 2: You can only do more than one attack every round if you are a fighter and if you are at least level 13. According to the "Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia" you have to hit 2 on your Attack roll (after modifiers) to preform more than one attack: And game system in question is IE games' (or more accurately Baldur's Gate's) version of AD&D (which is D&D where anyother version of D&D is D&D IMO) It don't have all the same rules as P&P version. And it is version that we have talked about. It seems to me that you math has failed
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Pillars of balancing
A percentage is always a percentage "of something". What times, in seconds, do these percentages result in. That's what I want to know. Isn't higher base damage always better than lower base damage? How do I calculate my action speed in seconds? I assume you are omitting "...vs the enemy in question"? Because you have things various damage multipliers that take effect vs a different combination of enemy. My point this whole time is that the game's interface doesn't provide an easy way to calculate your damage and speed and decide what weapon is better. Lets take for example D&D you have weapon that does 1D4+6 + 1d4 lightning damage and gives +6 Thac0 and you have weapon that does 2d4+4 and gives +1 attack and your character has at base attack number is 3/2 so which of this weapons does averagely more damage in combat round. In PoE to calculate which of two same weapons is better you don't need to know what is base attack speed (although I have complained that obsidian should give weapon and action speeds in seconds instead of just categorizing them in fast/normal/slow/very slow [which tell how many frames action animation will use, there has been calculation what those frame amounts are, but as Obsidian has made quite lot changes after those were done which means I am not sure if they are correct anymore I will not list them]) With higher base damage I meant to compare two weapons with same DPS (one with higher base damage and one that is faster)
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Pillars of balancing
+27% to action speed increases your character's DPS +27% -20% to recovery time increases your recovery time 20% and as base your action is split 50/50 between attack and recovery, which means that it decreases your DPS 10% +25% to damage increases your DPS 25%. 1.2x attack speed multiplier increases your DPS 10% because of that 50/50 split between attack and recovery time. +3 to movement speed adds +3 to characters movement speed which make them move faster from point a to point b in combat mode, it don't effect action speed anyway. Also higher base damage is better against high DR enemies. High action speed gives you more ability get more on hit effects (like DR reduction, stun, graze to hit, hit to critical), which usually make it more effective choice against enemies with low DR. And only thing that you need to calculate is which weapon gives you higher DPS increase..
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PoE sells 500K units
Wrong, this isnt typical publisher/developer relationship that you have in video game development, where publisher finances the project and owns the rights to the franchise and therefore takes the money. Paradox is more of a distributor in this case and Obsidian is the one calling the shots. That is true, but as distributor they get money first and then they pay for those whose products they distribute, that is just what distributors do, in other words it is distributor's job to sell product for stores that sell it to actual customers and handle money transactions so that producers of products and focus on their job, which is to make the products, distributors take cut from sale price to fund their operation, but it also cost for product maker to hire people do the job that distributor does and distributors can usually offer their services cheaper than what hiring people would cost as they usually serve multiple companies same time, which gives them ability to offer cheaper services for singular companies and additionally they usually can also offer already established connections with sellers, international connections to services needed (like translations, multi language customer services, storage spaces for physical goods, established delivery contracts, etc.). So in short, Paradox is mostly distributor for PoE, but they take cut from sale price, but there is also reasons why Obsidian made deal with them.
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Star Wars Episode 7 Thread
J.J. Abrams and Disney behind don't rise my hopes very high, as they are both parties that focus more in making films marketable than great. But there are die hard Star Wars fans in the production team, that have spoken promising things about the movie so I do have some hope left in me.
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Pillars of balancing
It is also similarly blatantly obvious in PoE that superb weapons are better than exceptional, fine and normal weapons. In PoE's damage bonus from quality enchantment already calculated in description, where in IE games you actually need to do the math by yourself (but as damages are smaller and damage bonuses are integers the math isn't that hard for one hit, but math becomes more complex when weapon gives character additional attacks then its much harder to tell how much damage character can do in one combat round, especially in late game where your character can achieve maximum number of attacks per combat round). And most difficult math in PoE is lash damage because it is calculated as it is. But other wise you usually don't need to do any maths only look if weapon has additional damage multiplier (like from slaying enchantment).
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Star Wars Episode 7 Thread
This is such a bizarre statement to me. It seems like you are looking for political correctness, just so you can point at it and dislike it. Wouldn't you rather just enjoy stuff? There was no blatant political correctness in the trailer, but you've clearly already made up your mind as to what the movie will be. That seems like a shame. Lol, if you dont see the obvious female and minority empowerment in the choice of actors then you must not have been watching the same trailer as I have. Look back at the old Star Wars films and list all the GI Jane type characters you find and all the black actors in anything resembling a main role (DV voice doesn't count) and get back to me. For all intents and purposes the original trilogy is an aryan space fantasy. The women are princesses, the minorities are comic relief characters. The hero is the archetypal aryan character, blue eyed, blond, salt of the earth type. I'm not saying it was racist, I'm just saying what it was. Look, I don't really mind the choice of actors per se. But I hate how obvious it is in ticking marketing and political boxes. It betrays the innocent stupidity that makes SW films watchable and makes them into something else. Its like the recent Mad Max film that has no mad max in it. Lando Calrissian (acted by Billy Dee Williams) is quite important character in Return of the Jedi also in Empire Strikes Back he played quite major role, getting even his space in poster. But representation of women in original trilogy in major character department is fully in hands of Carrie Fisher, and even though Princess Leia was one of the leaders of Rebellion she didn't have much of GI Jane situation, although in Return of the Jedi she was part of strike force that attacked moon of Endor.
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Pillars of balancing
That doesn't make them not standard effects. You can't enchant a weapon with Marking or Stunning and so on, but they're nonetheless predictable, standard effects, and ones presented not as a special, unique effect for a specific item or couple of items, but as a generic property, complete with fixed values for the effect and a number you can use to compare it with other generic properties. Spell-effect-on-trigger enchantments are perhaps the exception there and could make for some more interesting items, if they weren't so sparsely used. I don't understand why you're discounting enchantments other then Fine, Exceptional and Superb. Not all Superb items are equal, but - at least in theory - all 8/12 items should be roughly as good as each other, or at least have sets of enchantments that are equally powerful before considering synergy. It's that level of fine, systematic balance, with all possible effects carefully genericized and weighed against each other - and perhaps most crucially(?), that weighing-up being presented directly to the player rather than having happened under-the-hood while the items were being developed - that spoils the sense of idiosyncrasy and spontaneity about finding new items, That is opinion question, so there is no right answer, but game has two pools of enchantments one that can be enchanted to every weapon and one that consist of enchantments that are already in the weapons, which I call special enchantments. And as I previously said there aren't enough special enchantments in the game to give every unique weapon their own unique enchantment because there is so much different types of weapons (also Obsidian originally planed that every or at least most of the enchantments in game would be such that players themselves could enchant them in the weapons, but they decided against this after community asked that there should be more unique weapons) In common enchantments there are quality enchantments Fine, Exceptional and Superb (there are also Damaging and Accurate enchantments that go from 1 to 2 giving either same damage or accuracy bonus so that 1 is same as fine and 2 is same as exceptional, there is also level 3 versions of these but player can't enchant them) Lash or secondary damage enchantments that give lash damage bonus, which is its own type of damage in PoE. There are 4 types of common lash enchantments Burning Lash, Corrosive Lash, Freezing Lash and Shocking Lash, which all gives you +25% of lash damage in element corresponding with its name. And Slaying enchantments, which give weapon additional accuracy and damage against certain type of enemies. Kith (humans, elves, dwarfs, etc.), Beast, Primordial, Spirit, Vessel, and Wilder. Weapons can be given one enchantment of each of these categories, so one quality, one lash and one slaying Then there are unique/special enchantment pool which have following enchantments Predatory Convert +10% of Hits to Crits Reliable Convert +30% of Grazes to Hits Draining 20% of Damage restored as Endurance Speed +20% Attack Speed Coordinating +4 Accuracy and x1.25 Damage when attacking same target as an ally Vicious x1.2 Damage against Prone, Stunned, Flanked enemies Wounding Wounding: x0.25 Damage over time (5 sec) Stunning Attacks can Stun on Crits Spell Striking Attacks cast Spell on crit (once per encounter) Minor Spellbind grants Spell as active ability (x uses per rest) Major Spellbind grants Spell as active ability (x uses per rest) Guarding +1 Enemies Engaged Rending +3 DR bypass Interfering +5 Deflection Overbearing Crits can inflict Prone Annihilation +0.5 Crit Damage multiplier Valiant x1.2 Damage and +10 Accuracy when below 50% Endurance Crushing Lash x1.25 Crush Damage Disorienting Inflicts -5 All Defenses for 6 sec on Hit Marking +10 Accuracy granted to an ally attacking the same target Of [Attribute] +/-[Amount] +/-[Amount] to [Attribute] [Damage Type]-Proofed +3 DR to [Damage Type] [Class] only can only be equipped by [Class] So why I discount other enchantments when I speak about fine, exceptional and superb (also damaging and accurate) is because they are enchantments that lock each other away, but they don't prevent or remove any other enchantments. All enchantment also have enchantment point cost and items can only have enchantments up to 12 points worth of enchantments to prevent too powerful items (balance feature that was added during beta because of player feedback).