Lephys

@ All replying to my last post: My point was not at all that reviews should contain exactly 0% subjective words and thoughts. I was referring to the approach to the review. I thought that was pretty clear. "GREAT GAME!" doesn't tell you anything, other than that some person believed the game was great, for mysterious reasons. The goal of a review is to present some measure of the game. Obviously, you cannot just say "the game is 7 goodness!". I realize we give them stars/numbers-out-of-10, but the scale typically has context. Anywho, my point was that a review without objectivity is a pointless review. If you think a cell phone that lets you type numbers and place calls sometimes is a 10/10, then fantastic. But that doesn't help someone else who's trying to get the best voice quality and functionality for their dollar. And, using that reference, there's nothing wrong with rating something X/10. But, the scale has to MEAN something. If you play a game with anime-style art, and you just happen to love anime-style art, and you give the game a 10/10, you're not really rating the game. You're rating your preference. You could, instead, objectively tell about the game and what it has in it, and people could still know that, if they love anime-style artwork, they're going to like this game much more than people who don't love that art style, or hate that art style. I don't know how to say that any more plainly. All this "yeah but humans have subjective thoughts and feelings" stuff isn't really countering what I said. The problem with subjectivity is that there is no baseline for comparison. One person's completely-subjective statement means absolutely nothing to another person. You can think Andre the Giant was short. But, if I were to have a scale of short-tall that factors in all recorded humans' heights, he was tall. That tells you actual, factual information about his height. Subjectivity and information-gathering don't really go together. The main purpose of subjectivity is for social interactions and gauging people's preferences, etc. Even then, we want subjective information. "This food is EXCELLENT!" Awesome. Why? "Because I like spicy food, and this food is spicy!" Oh, cool! Objective info. You like spicy food. I can now use that info to better decide what foods to choose for you, should I ever need to pick out a food for you.

The answer is 1. "Pillars of EterNity." If only this thread were trying to guess the number of exits to all the inns, as well. Then, it could simply be titled "The Inns and Outs of PoE." 6_u

Obviously subjectivity and objectivity, as they relate to product (in this case, video game) reviewing. With an "annnywhoooo..." thrown in to suggest my own awareness of my rambling. 8P

Sometimes, I think Sensuki's got more playtime in the beta than the internal QA team does, . Seriously, that's admirable. Frightening, but admirable.

^ That's true, except for the "you have to be connected all the time." I understand some people have issues with that, but that doesn't change the fact that nowhere in Steam's programming does it require you to maintain an internet connection to play a game.

*Jackie Chan meme face* "DLC" quite literally means "Down-Loadable Content." If an expansion pack is downloadable, it's actually DLC. In fact, DLC doesn't even specify whether something costs money or not. To say that DLC is bad is like saying sharp instruments are murderous. "Well, sometimes people use sharp instruments to kill other people, so I just wish all things with sharp edges would cease to exist." No, no you don't. No one hates DLC (except maybe people who lack internet access?). They hate its blatant misuse.

Ehhh... first impressions, sure. Reviews? Not so much. The whole point of a review is to be objective. Which is why "*5 stars* I LOVE IT!" doesn't help anyone. Unless you just wanna be like people who like stuff for unknown reasons. "Well, 5 million people love it. Those could be 5 million people who also like to punt kittens in their spare time and love rubbing steel wool on their eyeballs... I really have no clue. But... Better be like them! Don't want to miss out on a complete question mark!" See, people don't necessarily like things because they're good. So, objectivity is the only thing useful in a review, really. So, if you just say "man, the graphics suck," that's useless subjectivity. If you say "The graphics aren't quite as on-par with several other games that have already released, so they aren't pushing the limits of the PS4 or anything," that's helpful. In fact, you can even follow that up with "On the plus side, that means that this game runs, on average, far better on not-top-of-the-line machines, 8D!". Pros and cons. You can't just make up subjective pros and cons. "Pro: this game has lots of blue in it. Con: I can't play this game in my kitchen because I don't have a TV in my kitchen." Subjectivity has its place, but that place is not to rule over objectivity. There's no point in measuring anything with subjectivity. Even if it's not an exact science, reviews measure the quality of games. I can't subjectively measure the length of my hand. "Meh, I think it's 58 feet long." Well, that's great, but that doesn't help anyone to know the length of my hand. And sure, objectivity in reviews doesn't cover everyone's subjective decision-making process of "should I get this game or not? Will I like it?", but that doesn't mean that going with subjectivity is going to do any better. Maybe I like blue in games, and maybe you don't. Telling you the game's good because it has lots of blue doesn't help you at all. Telling you it has lots of blue in it... that's at least a fact. You can use that information to better determine how you will feel about the game. "Blegh, I HATE blue, so I might not like this game." etc. Annnnnnywho...

As far as the "Priest is necessary" thing, that's not entirely true. Sure, in certain fights, the healz will be very, very useful. While, in others, they'll be almost completely unnecessary. Also depends on how you play, and what your party composition is. And maybe on higher difficulty settings, sure. It's quite possible. Also, as far as having to heal up after every fight, I just played a bit on Easy last night, and I got through 4 or 5 fights in a row without resting at all. Everyone still had plenty of spells/abilities (mostly used per-encounter ones), and more than 75% Health left. That's more than I can say for any D&D-based game. "Did my Wizard with 7 HP get hit at all during this fight? He did? Well, let's all rest, then." Granted, that's on Easy. But, I don't really know what I'm doing (I don't have familiarity with all the abilities and such, so I'm basically a complete nub at playing the game.). If I knew what I was doing, I'd imagine Normal, and maybe even Hard, would still be not too terrible (although, I'd expect that by Hard difficulty, it shouldn't really have its name if it doesn't start making you REALLY master the game to still have plenty of Health after a bunch of consecutive fights.)

No rest, not no sleep. Obviously, the Watcher cannot carry any camping supplies, u_u...

More like a nomance... Am I right?! *waits for high-five*

^ Hahaha! The guns don't operate off of gunpowder. It's a purely kinetic mechanism, like a tiny catapult. The harder you pull the trigger, the more forcefully the bullet is slung from the barrel. They're more commonly referred to as "finger slings." u_u

Oh, come now... don't ruin his cam-do attitude. 6_u Really, though, I suspect that, right now, a helmet-cam of the office would just look like Starship Troopers. Just a small team of people blasting away at bugs before time runs out.

The "I don't want a mass of casual gamers to like this game, because of the dumbed down stuff they like" sentiment is understandable, BUT... it's kind of a glass half-empty/half-full situation with "should we care how this type of person reviews the game?" Sure, tons of people think RPGs are too "hardcore" or difficult, or that reading lots of text is bad, etc. But, if those people (in general, as a group, not every single individual one of them) look up to this Angry Joe and his reviews, then why wouldn't it be a good thing for him to objectively review this game well, and maybe encourage them to stop assuming an RPG needs to be DA:I to be good for them, and that they might actually enjoy a game like PoE? It's not like I think everyone's just going to change their minds overnight. But, a lot of the time, people decide things through sheer stubbornness. Someone played 5 minutes of Baldur's Gate way back when, got frustrated with it, and now they won't even give any IE games the time of day. It's not that they legitimately hate everything about that kind of game. They just have decided it's not worth their time. I know that those people (and people like them) exist, and I'd much rather they exist in a world alongside the encouragement to reconsider their views, than alongside a void of no encouragement to do so. Heaven knows there's enough encouragement to dumb stuff down, and there's enough "Obviously this game sucks because ISOMETRIC! LOLZ!", etc., ideology floating around. Why wouldn't we be happy that there's something to counter that floating around? The real enemy is arbitrary decision-making. Better to simply lack an opinion, than to have one without purpose. Just like with Angry Joe. Why just decide "Pssh, his review is dumb and we shouldn't care about it." Then stop caring about whether or not people care about it... sheesh.

AND we'll get spiffy notepads, right? 8D!

Comparing? Not really. I'm contrasting them. As in "compare and contrast these two things," minus the compare part. Starcraft 2 just happened to be a "new generation X" game compared to the old one. The point being that a spiritual successor is not the same thing as "I'm going to make one of those games again!". XCOM is not a "spiritual successor" to the old XCOM game. Regardless of whether or not it's a sequel, it's another friggin' XCOM game. If they were going to make another infinity engine game, they would've just said "we're making another infinity engine game." But, instead, they said "You know, we really liked those games, and we want to make something like that." What they want to be similar and what they don't is kind of up to them. And yet, people keep pointing out "Hey, this wasn't exactly like that, so it's not a spiritual successor!" Almost like they're expecting a sequel-like level of sameness. "Spiritual successor" basically just means "The game I'm referencing inspired me to make this game I'm making." So, if you think it isn't enough like it, then great. But, there's no measuring stick to use to determine whether or not something's a spiritual successor.

It's not really that weird to just have "Accuracy," and then have modifiers. We're just used to seeing ranged accuracy as a thing treated separately from melee accuracy. Think of it this way: ranged weapons are just another weapon type. You don't see "Polearm accuracy" and "Mace accuracy" listed, yet you can have Weapon Focus talents and get +10 to an attack with a Mace, as opposed to a sword or dagger. You don't see that until you equip the appropriate weapon, but you know you have the Talent. So, a bonus to ranged accuracy is just like having a bonus to bows, wands, crossbows, and firearms, etc. With those weapons, which happen to be ranged, you get a bonus to accuracy.

The Order is glad to have you, ^_^

Do you also request that your baby no longer hurt you, all whilst bobbing your head to a driving beat? 6_u And, lucky you, you get a second joke: *cups hand beside mouth* BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCEVC! You're needed! Serious mode: initiated. Hmmm... ooh! I know! Do the gods actually have their own physical forms, or do they need to use hosts/avatars in order to be corporeal?

Just to clarify this bit, attack type (basically which defense you're targeting) and damage type are completely separate things. That is, a firebolt can be a physical attack, but deal only burn damage. That being said, usually a physical thing striking you (whether it's a sword blade or a boulder) is going to deal either slashing, crushing, or piercing damage. Now, it could STILL deal other damage, too, like fire (if it's a flaming boulder or sword blade), etc. I mean, technically, someone could hit you with a magic sword and deal every type of damage there is: It could hit you for 5 slashing damage, 5 piercing damage, 5 crushing damage, 5 burn damage, 5 shock damage, 5 frost damage, 5 corrode damage, etc.... But, if I didn't hit you with the sword, none of those damage effects can hit you. So, I mean, as lore/simulation would have it, yeah, physical cutty things are gonna do piercing/slashing, and ethereal blasts of ice are going to do frost damage. And a sword swing is usually going to target Deflection, and a Circle of Eruptions AoE spell is usually going to target Reflexes. But, as in the case with the Chilly Fog (don't remember that spell name) that you referenced, you're not really going to dodge the fog, even though it's AoE, so they went with your physical resistance to the cold instead -- aka Fortitude -- as the defense for that attack. Those exceptions are the kinds of things you'll just have to sort of learn, unfortunately. But, the spell descriptions (and the combat log) do tell you that information. So, if you see a spell you've never encountered before being cast, and it hits your guy, and you want to know what exactly happened there, just mouse-over the entry in the combat log, and it will tell you what defense was used, what the rolls and modifiers were, etc.

Yeah. When it's all thrown at you (and not in tutorial form) -- not to mention things have been slightly changed up over the course of the beta -- it seems like a very complex system. But, really, D&D represented all the same things, just in a different way. Spells always "hit" you, but you got a saving throw, which could cause them to do half their effect, or nothing, etc. So, think of it this way: Now, you've got the same names, that represent the same things (You can' DEFLECT Terror or Confusion, so it targets Will, for example), but you always have the exact same mechanical attack roll. So, instead of having to go "whoa, hang on, this is a spell... lemme look up caster levels, and see what your Will is, and do a different roll," you just have an attack roll, and you say "what's the spell attacking? Will? Okay, Accuracy minus Will, then, instead of Accuracy minus Deflection. Now roll a d100 and add it in." Yeah... I mean, it describes what the number does pretty well, but, maybe it should just be called "Armor." I mean, either way, you're going to have a term, and then the specifics of the mechanic that you'll have to learn. Even with "damage threshold," until it's explained, you're like "In what way is it a threshold? What happens when the threshold is breached?" etc. But, it's basically your armor. And, again, it may seem redundant, but in D&D you had AC, which didn't reduce incoming damage at all but only governed whether or not you were hit (just like the 4 defences, only AC would basically be Deflection, and like I said in the previous paragraph, Reflex, Fortitude, and Will are just other defenses now instead of completely separate "saves" on a slightly different mechanic from AC and regular attacks.) Then, you had separate forms of damage resistance, I believe. So, in PoE, armor just serves two functions now. It helps you to not-be hit (or to be hit crappily -- i.e. Graze), AND it helps lessen damage when you DO get hit. So, yeah, Attack Resolution handles the "did he actually HIT me, and how badly?", with just an additional range being sort of the opposite of a critical (Graze), so that you can hit crappily, normally, or exceptionally. Then, if you are hit, you look at how the damage is going to be affected. "Was it a critical? Okay, then it's extra damage. But then, my 'damage threshold' (I think the term they actually stuck with is 'Damage Reduction'? Not sure) is X, so just subtract that, and that's how much damage was dealt." And, again, it's kind of nice that it works this way for spells, too. Except, your armor pretty much isn't ging to block against a lot of types of spell damage, most likely. But, all the terminology and ratings are in-place so that you can easily determine that. DR is kind of like damage-blocking armor ratings of other games, mixed with "resistances" (usually physical, magic, earth, fire, spirit, etc.). So, there are just the total damage types in the game, no matter what the source, and there are DR values for each of them. If a piece of armor, for example, doesn't protect against fire at all, then it'll have DR Fire-0 listed. They seem to be listing the across-the-board DR for items, followed by a list of any specific values that are different. So, if a piece of armor blocks 10 damage from everything except Fire, it'll have "DR 10 (Fire-0)". Or, if it's the same for all damage types but Shock, but is WAY BETTER against Shock, it'll have "DR 10 (Shock-30)" And the flat integer values kind of simplify things, because you can very quickly gauge relative "goodnesses" of armor values. If something has a DR of 40, that means someone has to do 41 damage before they can start to do more than the minimum damage to you (I think the minimum is 20% of however much damage is being dealt in an attack before DR is subtracted... just so you don't go around doing 1 and 0 damage to stuff.). If it's got DR 5, then only 5 damage will be blocked. I mean, sure, a percentage is nice, as "50%" damage being blocked is very easily understood. But, you still don't know how much damage things out there in the world are going to hit you for. What if that dragon hits for 300? You're still taking 150. But, if you block 70 damage, instead of some percent, then you know you'll barely have to worry at all about anything hitting for less than that, but the farther above that something goes, the more you'll have to worry. If your tank has 70 DR, and he starts getting hit for 40, you probably want to keep everyone else away from that foe. Annnnnywho. Sort of. Except, as I said above, damage threshold doesn't work like AC. It's just your basic "this much damage is blocked whenever you're hit" rating. Often called just "armor" in a lot of games. Think of the Defenses as AC, split into 4 types. Saving throws and AC got married and had kids. Well, you kind of have to break it down. You're making one physical attack (you're not swinging your sword, then throwing poison at them... it's one action), but two "attacks" are actually taking place. The sword's trying to hit you, physically, so it's contested by Deflection. If it manages to hit you, then the poison can try to "hit" you. It makes it into your bloodstream or what-have-you, but do you resist it? How well does it get in there? Etc. So, your sword swing pits your Accuracy versus your target's Deflection, then rolls a d100, adds the difference, and determines whether or not you got hit by a sword. Then, the poison effect gets to attack your Fortitude. So, it pits Accuracy versus Fortitude, and performs another d100 roll to see if the poison "misses," grazes (basically only affects you a little -- maybe it was a tiny cut, or your immune system just laughed it off a bit?), hits (you're just-plain poisoned and that's all there is to it), or crits (man, you got REALLY, REALLY poisoned, and/or your immune system was NOT at all prepared for poison!). I know it's not a perfect simulation, but it's kind of an interesting mechanic. The attack resolution system was already there, so, why not have it follow that, instead of just "poison = this one outcome, every single time," right? So, the answer is, the sword targets Deflection, and the Poison (which only gets to "attack" if the sword hits, since the sword is its chariot into your bloodstream) targets Fortitude. It's technically two separate things, they just happen at the same time. As for which damage type Poison is? I'm not really sure, to be honest. It could be Corrode damage, or it could be Raw (basically the "nothing can block this" damage type). Someone else can probably answer that question, as I am not as knowledgeable as many here. Like many things, "Fortitude" can be used to describe mental things OR physical things. People who eat at that restaurant where everyone gets food poisoning all the time, but don't ever suffer any effects themselves, are said to have high fortitude. So, yeah, that IS confusing, as it can easily describe mental resilience as well. But, then again, the old D&D rules used the same word, so... *shrug*. It's just kind of a carry-over. "Hey, a lot of people get what this is referring to, right? Okay, then let's roll with it." Your "Will" save stepped in for mental things. Well, no worries. I mean, I'm sorry that this is taking up so much of your time, and it's frustrating to be so... well, frustrated with the systems in a game you'd otherwise love to love, but that's what we're here for, . Hopefully we can at least clear up some stuff, even if just one detail at a time. I very much encourage you to start with the general ideas of the mechanics, sort of the skeleton, and work your way towards the little specific situations and details from there. What occurs every time there's an attack or offensive effect of any kind is actually rather simple. There's just a ton of "if/then" circumstances that can change the outcome.

Yeah. It's pretty simple. It's possible to be rendered unable to continue fighting without being killed or in the position of bleeding out, etc. And it's possible to be dead or fatally wounded. Just because the system doesn't measure all the factors precisely doesn't mean the two base concepts are nonsensical. Welcome to video games.

Woohoo! Only one more month (approximately)! UNABLE TO COMPLETE OPERATIONAL PROTOCOL: WAIT. Also, I think Prima needs to hire Sensuki. Just sayin', u_u...

"And for going above and beyond in the field... I award you the Silver Sharpie medal." Or maybe it should just be the Cramping Hand pin. There should be a minifaction in the game known as the Coalition of the Cramped Hand.

Hahaha! You could always do an Office Space-esque spoof of everyone trying to get their stuff done, and people walking around bugging people about putting the new cover sheets on their bug reports. Maybe someone engineers a virus to take all the rounded fractions of a percent of damage from the game and store them up on a flash drive to become over-powered.

That's not true! That's imPOSSIBLE!!! T_T