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Lephys

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Everything posted by Lephys

  1. *gasp*... You mean steal? *faints* I want to get into real estate, and sell someone a house, but padlock all the bathrooms and charge extra for the key.
  2. It was off topic and into semantics for a good page-or-so now, but I'm flattered you deem me worthy of being the sole cause of off-topic semantic-ary.
  3. Well, by that definition, Call of Duty is an RPG. You play the role of Sgt. Whats-his-face, and you simply 'fight terrorists and save the kingd -- err... nation,' so to speak. sighs. I'm not giving RPG's a definition. There were straight out, cannot be disputed, rpgs 30+ years ago that you played on a computer. So, you consider those old games RPGs for no reason at all, because you're not trying to give meaning to the term "RPG" in any way, shape, or fashion? They're just RPGs, just because? You're either attributing the word "RPG" with a meaning (aka "defining" it as being representative of something in the design of those old games), or you're not. You can't both think RPG doesn't really mean anything in particular, but also insist that some particular game design constitutes an RPG. That's a paradox. So, please... explain, if you would be so kind. (Maybe I'm just misunderstanding).
  4. /Thread I'm not following. I directly quoted his exact words, via the forum function. You can check. You put a bunch of words inside quotation marks that were very similar to Trashman's words but weren't the same words, claiming he said that. Oh, wait. You're saying you realize your misquote now, and that his point wasn't what you were thinking it was, thus you have nothing further to argue? Ahhh, I see... "/Thread," indeed. ^_^ Oh, except that there's still plenty of room to discuss not only the same pitfall (just not specifically your mistaken issue with Trashman's stance on magical loot), but other pitfalls already brought up in this thread, as well as any that have yet to be brought up. So... ehhh, CTRL Z? /NotThread?
  5. I wasn't talking about DLC in general. I was referring to the specific design of some DLC, that EA tends to use, like how the only living Prothean (who's DIRECTLY tied into the history and story of Mass Effect, mind you) became a DLC "add-on." It's not like you just don't get to use him in your party and/or go on a personal quest for him. He just plain doesn't exist if you don't pay for him as an "add-on." *shrug*. I just think that's pretty terrible, on principle. Any effort beyond the initial release of the game I have no inherent problem with being price-carrying DLC. Locking stuff in the game at release is just-plain shady (except for like... "Oh, this Collector's Edition helmet" that's designed to be exclusive and is purely cosmetic/for funsies).
  6. I think it's basically action interrupts. Whether it's swinging a sword, casting a spell, moving, etc. It might be more specific than that, but I don't think it's just casting.
  7. This was the closest thing I could find: Bit of a misquote, don't you think? He simply presented Aragorn as an example, and only stressed, exaggeratively (although sometimes it's actually accurate) that characters in fantasy stories don't need to switch equipment "every five minutes" (the exaggerated-yet-sometimes-accurate part, FYI). Even if we were to assume that, rather than just presenting an example to enforce a point about frequency of equipment swapping/upgrading, he's presenting Aragorn as "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT GAMES SHOULD DO!", Aragorn actually has his spiffy Ranger sword for a long time, THEN swaps to Andúril once it's reforged and he becomes king. Thus, the point STILL isn't even about only ever having one weapon/item/piece of equipment, for all of eternity. It remains a commentary on the frequency of equipment upgrades, mainly via found loot/item availability. Really, it's not even so much the number of magical things that exist in the world, as much as is about the availability of progressively more and more powerful things. Here's a great example: You know how sometimes, you find a character who has some iconic weapon? You see that weapon, and it's instantly "OMG, it's THAT guy!" because they're so associated with one another? Well, what good does that do if he just finds a slightly better weapon lying around after every bandit group he snuffs out, and just discards/sells his super iconic "Steve's Legendary Stevey Blade" (let's assume he's the legendary Warrior, Steve)? You can't really have both. You can either give people a reason to stick with a given spiffy item, and it can be iconic, or you have the game give them 17 better items throughout, and, at the end say "Lolz, you're still using that old crappy item, just to make it feel iconic? Well, you're about 20 points behind on your chance to hit, so, have fun with that, u_u...."
  8. Wait... What? Providing an add-on to your pledge now makes them EA? I'm sorry you had to learn in this fashion that video game development takes money. Haha. True that. It's ALMOST right, though. There's just one key factor he missed: Beta access just grants you content earlier than you would've already gotten it, if you pay for the add-on. EA doesn't ever grant you some content, until you pay for it as an add-on. If you don't pay Obsidian extra, you just eat dinner later. If you don't pay EA extra, you only get half a serving of food. 8P (Granted, a food metaphor's a little strong, inadvertently so, because food is necessary for survival, and video game content is just video game content, but the principle is the same.)
  9. *Crosses fingers* Come onnnn, Nicholas Cage! Come onnnn Nicholas Cage! (But not really... 8P)
  10. No, I had help, actually. But I'll get there one day.
  11. See, I gathered that he was describing the relationship between the frequency of magical item presentation/availability and the significance of said items. I must've missed the part where he made it a point to observe some hard threshold. "See, this game only gave you 5 items, but this other one gave you 7. Six even would've been fine, but SEVEN?! The whole point here is that seven is where I draw the line! u_u" I'll go back and look for that bit...
  12. My bad. I thought it was intended to be relevant. I misunderstood. Carry on. u_u
  13. You could've posted an "LoL," or an emoticon or something. Then I could've had some idea. *shrug*
  14. Is he, though? Or is he simply having no intention of using BG2 as an example of anything he's said, while you're obsessed with the notion that BG2 must've been the core of half this thread thus far, or all is somehow lost? *shrug* "'If ya 'aint first, yer last'? Aww hell, Ricky! I was drunk when I said that! You can be second, you can be third... hell, you can even be fourth!" (I'm fairly certain you can have a system between "just a few" and "a **** ton". Just sayin'...)
  15. Well, by that definition, Call of Duty is an RPG. You play the role of Sgt. Whats-his-face, and you simply 'fight terrorists and save the kingd -- err... nation,' so to speak. *shrug*. I'm just saying. Regardless of what you want to call stuff, I think we all know that the point tajerio is making is in direct regard to the actual aspect of "role playing," which forms the first two words in the acronym RPG. Also, you actually don't have to have levels or skill points or progression to have build options. In some games, you simply get to pick from one or two characters at the beginning, and there's SOME functional difference between them, in regard to the adventure ahead. Thus, you're offered two builds. And/or, the "build" aspect is integrated into choices you make along the way. You can't carry/wield all 7 of those weapons you find, so maybe you just grab either the sword or the magic scepter, etc.. Boom. That just handled both of Tajerio's birds (build variance AND story progression choices) with one stone. I don't think the argument's really about semantics, here. We call fast food "fast" food, yet people wait in line at drive-thrus for 20-25 minutes for their food during the busy lunch hour. So, we can accept why we call it "fast food," and yet we can STILL evaluate when it's actually fast and when it isn't. Those old games are obviously accepted as "role-playing" games, and yet there's still a distinctive differnce between PnP-D&D-style role playing and those old games' "take on the role of this character as you make your way through a linear-yet-exciting adventure."
  16. Personally, I'm going to boot up each copy on a separate PC, and play them all at the same time, in unison, making different decisions at the same points in each game instance. It's the future of save-scumming.
  17. Well, I'm mighty glad you feel comfortable concluding that with no information as to its verity, but that doesn't really nullify or counter my points. Besides, just because Obsidian's doing something doesn't mean it isn't still bad design. Maybe the Arcane Veil makes you INVINCIBLE unless it's shattered, and it can ONLY be shattered by a successful hit with a firearm? I would still objectively rate that a bad design, regardless of whether or not it was the planned design for the game we're all waiting for. Disclaimer: It isn't my belief that Arcane Veil makes you invincible and can only be shattered by a firearm. That was purely a hypothetical. (This, just so no one will go off on a tangent evaluating the accuracy of that hypothetical versus what we know in official quotes regarding Arcane Veil, )
  18. Yeah, that's it! Thanks! And yeah, again, it could be that they've simply changed the design, and it's a static 4 spells per level in every grimoire, no matter what. But, a while back, they were talking about variance between different grimoires (now I have to go find THAT quote! haha...). And, also again, they could simply be using different factors as variance between grimoires (besides number of spell slots).
  19. I've noticed that anything forced upon our senses that's that repetitive is a definite thing to avoid. I've been playing Tales of Vesperia, recently, and it's one of those run-into-little-monsters-on-the-map-and-then-battle-starts JRPGs. And, repetitively fighting the same creatures over and over again in a certain area really doesn't bug me that much. But what does? The fact that they call out their attacks, the exact same way, every time they use them. And, worst of all, the fact that it's the exact... same... music... over... and over and over and over and over! AHHHHHHH! *goes crazy* But, really, even if it were three different variants or something, I think it wouldn't really be that big of a deal. There's just sort of a threshold of tolerance, I think. If it's mildly varied, I don't really mind hearing the same thing a bunch of times. As long as there are other things in between, and it's not like every 5 seconds.
  20. The fact that we don't know it purely stacks or how it even works, specifically, says "Why hello there!" Besides... although I'm not certain, I didn't think Arcane Veil was a buff.
  21. No. I'm against people putting armor on top of their armor, with an underlayer of armor. The point was the redundancy. Not "you can't use magic to do anything that something else already does." But rather, "buffs shouldn't simply be nothing more than a bunch of redundant, simplistic effects." You already have armor for armor. And you have weapons for damage. And you have stats for various factors (speed, resistances, defenses, etc.). There's no reason the system YEARNS for some magical extra bit of every single one of these. "You've got 18 INT? Now you've got 20! And that plate armor you have is NOW +3, because magic! Also, your Constitution already makes you highly resistant to poison? Now you're even MORE resistant to poison! You move pretty fast? Now you move even faster! You do 15 damage? Now you do 17 damage!" Why stop at 2? Why not items that do all that, too? "I put some oil on my sword, so it does +2 damage. Also, it magically does +2 more damage. Also, since my STR is magically boosted right now, it does +2 MORE indirect magical damage. Also, my sword now gets an ethereal clone sword, so that everything I hit, I hit twice! Also, I have 4 arms, so I can wield 4 swords! Just temporarily, though, u_u... I mean, we wouldn't want to get ridiculous here or anything." Ridiculous, yes. Where does it get ridiculous? That's what I'm getting at. That's worthy of consideration. I'm simply trying to point that out. The reason for magical buffs isn't "redundancy is good!" But they're also not JUST redundant. But, there needs to be more consideration put into their design than just "let's have a bunch of magical effects that further boost things that other factors already boost! Just because boosting things is nice! 8D!" So, yes, I think stacking 10 effects on people before entering combat is as ridiculous as putting on 9 extra sets of armor before entering combat. However, pulling a shield out instead of that second weapon, to prepare for upcoming combat, isn't ridiculous. Pulling out 3 shields, dual-wielding two and strapping one to your face, to maximize defense? Back to ridiculous again. See? If you could just dual wield weapons AND still get the benefit of dual-wielding two shields, AND wear heavy plate armor AND get the benefits of wearing light, padded armor, then what's the point in the distinctions in the first place? When does it get ridiculous, and what causes it to become ridiculous? That's the important question. It works the same way with magic. There's no reason you should be able to buff character A to have as good of defenses and attack values and resistances and such as character B, just because. There's no need for that level of magical augmentability. I'm not against it altogether, and I'm not against entire types of effects being anywhere close to redundant. Well, on that note (specifically, the one, simple example of armor, with magic armor on top), look at the spell Mage Armor, in D&D. It wasn't just extra armor for all. If you already had a certain AC, then it had no effect. And if you already were close to that AC, it only took you TO that AC, rather than giving you the -4 bonus. It wasn't sheerly redundant. Had it been, it would've been a bit silly. "Okay, everyone wearing full plate +5? Good. Now let's just sprinkle on an extra -4 to everyone's AC. Annnnd done! ^_^ Yessss, you're all IMPOSSIBLE to be hit now, because magical redundancy! 8D!" That's the best example I can give, really. And I still would've preferred something like Mage Armor to be more than just "you're harder to hit for a duration," instead being breakable or something, like the Wizard's Arcane Veil seems to be in PoE. Now it's strategic. I don't want it to just literally function exactly like armor, but be temporary. That's boring. It can provide the same effective protection as armor (to the, say, unarmored Wizard), but with its own quirks because it's magic. Unlike armor, it's powered. It's energy. It's not just metal that's sitting there, lifeless, being beaten on and having physics dictate that you're not hitting it hard enough to break it. Etc. That's just one example, though (for how Mage Armor could work in a more interesting fashion than just "you get a number boost for a duration"). "You're passively better, but it's only temporary" is just a very bland place to draw the line around buff creativity, and designing the system to just allow a bunch of redundant, passive augmentations to beef everyone up before combat is bland, as well. That's just a roundabout way of giving everyone 8 more stat points at character creation, with durational upkeep.
  22. So you do like how BG2 handled loot? Don't **** foot around it and answer straight up. It seems as though Sarex has abandoned "you guys were totally referencing/judging BG2's loot system!" in favor of "you guys totally SHOULD'VE BEEN referencing/judging BG2's loot system this whole time, because I'm declaring it the core of this discussion, and rejecting all other discussion as invalid, u_u!" Seriously, man... either let it go, or, at the very least, ask politely. There's really no need to get so worked up about stuff. If you've been misunderstood, then reasonable explain how and why. If not, then you'll reasonably discover that you, yourself, did the misunderstanding, and all will still be the better for it. This isn't some kind of life or death competition. It's a forum discussion.
  23. Point taken, but I think "awful" is a little strong of a word. I was clearly exploring the aspect of summoning from a mechanical/objective standpoint, and was simply observing ways in which it could be controlled in relation to all other means of playing through the game and overcoming combat encounters that DON'T involve using an army of pawns. To put it simply, I'm trying to look at summoning as an equally viable means of doing battle as any other. I don't want to see a Wizard just get a bunch of little fodder spells that come with no risk, then a bunch of big, powerful spells that always have a chance of simply backfiring and killing my whole party (not even taking into account AoE/targeting... just as a chance that the spell definitely hurts me and my party rather than helps in any way or simply does nothing). So, I don't want to see that used as a "balance" for summoning any more than I'd like to see it used as a balance for any other general method of combat. Summoning is, mechanically/functionally, just a different form of magic. You could hurl a fireball, OR you could summon a fire elemental that then runs around dealing fire damage. Obviously they're not the same thing -- you wouldn't want the fire elemental to be matched exactly to the effects of the fireball spell (gets one attack, creates an explosion, deals fire damage in a radius equal to the fireball spell, etc.). But, the point is, when you're using a fireball, you're directly launching offensive energy at the enemy to directly harm them. When you summon something, you're STILL Trying to take down the enemy, you're just actively converting energy to a different form: an ally (in whatever form). I've never understood why so many people are so cool with summoning just being some risky gamble between great benefits and misfortune. So, maybe we don't use HP/stamina damage from summoned things as a means of balancing it. Again, point taken. I think there's a valid reason for that, and you made it clear; it doesn't make as much sense, because they're completely separate beings. So, I guess that leaves control. If you get to summon a bunch of things, and they're your weapon, then they still need to function as a part of your summoner's active efforts/control over the battlefield, just like a Fighter's sword, or a Wizard's spells, etc. The point here is, I don't want to see summoning be "you just summon a bunch of stuff, then you can't do anything else." I don't want to see a summoner be JUST a summoner and nothing more, unless there's specifically a class called "Summoner," which there isn't in PoE. Which is why I'm defaulting to the assumption that, if you can summon things, you can probably also cast offensive spells, buffs, defensive spells, etc. You wouldn't want a Wizard to be able to cast a Chain-Lightning spell that does low damage but just keeps bouncing around for like a minute on the battlefield until something kills it, AND acts as a target and an HP sponge, all whilst the Wizard's casting other spells the whole time. You'd balance a spell like that, for the same reason that you'd balance a summon. Making them fodder is dumb, to be honest. If their weakness is what balances your ability to summon 4 things, then there's no point in summoning LESS THAN 4, and there's almost no point in even having summoning, as opposed to other spells. There's no reason to treat summons so simplistically. You might as well just be summoning turrets or something. Then, the farther you go, the more pointless the already-weak ones become. OR, you can summon big powerful ones, but with a chance that you'll actually just screw yourself over? That's nonsense. The tougher the fight, the more necessity there is for you to reach for the higher-shelf of your summoning capabilities, but the higher the shelf you pull from, the greater the chance that you're going to make the fight even doubly tougher: A) You get NO aid, instead of useful aid, so your spell is pointless (in terms of providing any benefit for the toughness of the fight) B) You just created yet another hostile creature. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. The more you need a powerful summon (if you've dedicated your build/capabilities to summoning), the more the system discourages you from using it, because crazy crazy chance.
  24. Indeed, shagg187. If you could present your desired title based upon the template "(whatever you want) of the Obsidian Order," I shall convey it to the Most Green One, and in his near-infinite power and grace, your title shall appear.
  25. Could you kindly provide an example of a game that does neither of these, that you still consider an RPG, and why you consider it so?
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