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Iucounu

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Posts posted by Iucounu

  1. Why should souls in PoE obey preconceptions from our world? Unlike in our world souls definitely exist in Eora, they're not some nebulous concept invented to explain things we don't understand or provide solace for those who fear death.

    Undoubtedly, one can pull a lot out of one's ass when when it comes to fantasy worlds, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. What does it mean souls exists? Of course things that are supposed to be contents of the soul, personality and such, exist either way. You could say a soul is then something where all these things, conciousness, personality are supposedly rooted, an anchor that you can observe and perhaps manipulate. However, in what way they are rooted, could be up to debate, there would probably be a lot of stuff up to interpretation. "Scientists" in that world would perhaps even hesitate to call this anchor the soul, because they might be uncertan if it really makes up the whole nature of the being. Things were shrouded in mystery. I don't get this feeling when this term soul is used peotically and scientifically apparently interchangeably, and souls are generally treated like coffee machines, where effects in the game are explained by some sort of "push that button for that to happen, push the other button and that happens.

     

     

     

     

    How should I know what such an explanation would look like, I imagine we're many decades or even centuries from understanding it (if we ever do at all). As for the "mere capability to perceive", I think the capability to perceive is fascinating and poorly understood, not "mere". Sure we know fairly well how our eyes detect photons of light and generate and electrical signal which travels down the optical nerve to the brain causing certain areas of the brain to activate. We know far less about the specific details of what's going on inside the brain, that's already a fascinating question, but even if we understood that we wouldn't know what "perceiving" actually is

    Well you say it yourself, you wouldn't. What you're describing is how signals are processed in the brain, what algorithms are employed, and that's also the only thing that you can measure.

     

     

     

    As for consciousness being subjective, only since we don't yet have a solid definition of what it is: there's no reason to assume we never will given our track record for turning subjective things into concrete scientifically testable things.

    No, it's not about definitions, it's simply the fact that everything that can be experienced is experienced as a subject, which is more fundamental to our existence than any physical principle you might come up with. Just because there are things different subjects can appearently observe and test, like phenomena in physics, doesn't mean that's true for everything. You can observe and measure any sort of manifestation, it still wouldn't tell you nothing if the aforementioned stone actually "perceives" or not.

     

     

     

    And science might have limits, but so far I've seen no better method for understanding the world we live in. If the soul is genuinely not measurable in any meaningful sense then its existence is a moot point since it, by definition, has no effect on the world we live in. If that's the case then who cares whether it exists or not, and more importantly to the topic at hand, who cares how it's treated in a fictional fantasy universe?

    It might very well also have no measureable effect on the world if other human beings actually have real thoughts like you, or if they are just void biological machines. Even though it can't be determined, I'd wager you would still be concerned about that. Similiar for the soul, which is probably in it's most basic meaning and function something that ensures that people continue to exist even after there material form has vanished. So it's existence is also linked to the existence of an afterlife, which is something most people would care about too, even if it's out of the domain of science.

  2. As for something as broad and abstract as the soul sure, but we don't even know that souls exist and I'm inclined to believe they probably don't. Not really sure how that's relevant, Eora isn't in our universe and in Eora the soul definitely exists and are susceptible to study through science (animancy).

    Which is exactly what I think is dumb, since in our world the concept of the soul is already such a broad abstraction, containing all this immaterial things and concepts, and in the PoE it's just used as this generic "thing", which doesn't do that fact justice, and comes across as bland.

     

    And sure, we're far from being able to explain every phenomenon in physics but the entire point of physics, or science in general, is to try to do exactly that. Just because I don't understand how, say, consciousness arises doesn't mean it doesn't arise as a result of physical processes (I tend to believe it probably does) and could eventually be explained in terms of fundamental principals of physics.

    And how is such an explaination supposed to look like? When you see conciousness as the mere capability to perceive, there isn't even a structure with which you can express it mathematically, and since conciousness is a subjective thing, the scientific method doesn't apply either. You can't test if a stone has conciousness, or if an area of vacuum has conciousness. Science has limits.

  3. We're far from able to explain every phenomen in physics, so your statement is a bit of an exxageration to say the least. Moreover the nature of those fundamental principals you're talking about, say basic movement laws of bodys, don't really apply on such a broad and abstract term as soul. It's supposed to convey all kind of things like emotions, memories, conciousness, personality, will, where it isn't even clear how they are entangled together.  Just stuffing all that in some funny thing "soul" and using that as a tiresome placeholder is at best simplistic and not very appealing to me. But I guess tastes differ.

  4. Except even our technology doesn't always use electricity, and in the wide space of physics (which would be a much more fitting comparision for metaphysics) there are many more phenomena that make up our still very mysterious physical world. In Metaphysics there a  different qualia like emotions, conciousness, will etc.  Taking a blackbox named soul that is supposed to encompasses all of that somehow and  use it as a placeholder for all kind of events is just not very intersting and rather monotone, and if you don't want to come up with something better you're probably better off not going into details at all. Ever heard about negtive capability?

    D&D is a  very rich world and in all kinds of aspects, and while I agree with you that some parts weren't very good, because you can always pick bad stuff out of this rich setting, there are enough other things that I found interesting enough. Better than always the same juvenile power rangers souls.

  5. While the story as a whole is serveable, I too think that the soul thing wasn't pulled off well. The metaphysics in particular were incredibly dull and uninteresting, basically everything magical was explained by some form of  "because of the soul", "through the power of their souls" "soul does x" "souls are the reason for xy". It would have done wonders for the game if they had treated the concept of souls as something more abstract and less tangible, instead of shoving it in your face at every opportunity.

     

     

     

    I have super high expectations for pillars 2. Super super super high. I will be incredibly let down if it is not better the bg2.

    lol

    • Like 1
  6.  

    If you consider spending hours of doing the hit and run thing as the best way to play, ok.. but I think only few people had the time and patience for that, especially in HOF mode..

     

    Stop bringing what people want or not want to do, is irrelevant. We are talking about is optimal play on the definition already discussed, for that what people ¨want, have fun with etc¨ is 100% irrelevant.

    If you consider it optimal play to spend half an hour to kite a bunch of glibberings, because one of them could critically hit you for 4 damage if you engage them in melee, even if that doesn't matter in the end anyway.. well I think you're blowing that point out of proportions and it's just a petty argument. Although I admit it's my own fault to have participated in it, because I haven't understood your point right.

    I guess I can only refer to Infinitron here. The IE games were never some roguelike hardcore survival game, and even if it would be one few people would waste their time using 10 times more tedious tactics only to have like 5% higher chance of survival.

    In the end I think it's not necessary for a game (at least IE-like game) to make degenerate tactics like kiting outright impossible, but it's enough to make it unrewarding enough (by for example, making it very tedious) that people won't use it.

     

    Sure, if in IWD2 kiting was possible or not is irrelevant to the discussion, I agree. I was just explaining why I think in IWD2 extreme pausing is optimal, and just describing a common iwd2 scenario. It doesn´t have to neccesarily apply in PoE. Though it´s hard to believe still that other complex tactics where changing directions every certain fraction of second isn´t optimal. If people could pause in starcraft2 like in IWD2, I can assure you players would be pausing that often or more.

    Changing directions every fraction of a second? I guess if you'd do that, your character would likely just keep standing on the same spot - hardly optimal.

     

     

    Sure, except as i said there are several things to react to on a second, even if the correct reaction is to not do anything at all.

    That's not my experience. If you try everything to make sure that your characters don't loose a single unnessecary hitpoint and the health distribution of all your characters is optimal and so on, then perhaps... although I still doubt it. 

    It's my understanding that in P:E you'll be able to check your opponent's stats and status by the way, so that should already eliminate most of the reasons I was reading from you about the need to make adjustments because of unknown information. 

  7.  

    Unless you are immortal, lifetime is finite.

     

    So you are telling me ok, i have 20 years to finish the game, ok whatever, it´s still optimal to pause the exact same number of time, stop bringing that argument.

     

     so you don't need to resort to tactics like kiting or swapping,

     

    Yes, you need to do that, to play your best.

    If you need to kite enemies in standard mode, you're just playing the game wrong/bad.

     

    Yes I need to do that, because that´s the best play, regardless.

     

     In a usual fight you don't need to make adjustments that often, and certainly not over the whole fight.

     

    Yes, most humans need to do that if they want to maximize their chance of success.

     

    If you consider spending hours of doing the hit and run thing as the best way to play, ok.. but I think only few people had the time and patience for that, especially in HOF mode..

    From my experience, the best way to play specifically the IWD games was more like this: fully buff up, then kill as many opponents as you can before your buffs run out, repeat till your spells run out, then rest. No kiting or any other degenerate gameplay strategies needed.

     

    I'm not even sure however how the whole thing is related to the discussion. You can just as well kite in a turnbased game to all eternity, if you character is fast enough, just as there could be rtwp games where kiting isn't possible at all, even for people who'd really spend hours on it if possible, because it's the "best" way to play..

     

     

     

    Yes, most humans need to do that if they want to maximize their chance of success.

    That depends more on the pacing of the game. There is no benefit to make adjustments when there's nothing to react to. 

  8. Same probability of success = same results, so yes.

     

    In the case you described, assuming you use 6 characters, I think it makes a difference if the archer hit, if the archer does indeed hit, then it may be better to slow down and put other character in front to take the damage instead, or depending on the amount of damage, it may be ideal to heal the fighter. OR i may notice that all their archers are targeting the same fighter, so it´s better to put it back, or shield him or heal him. Until that point also i may notice that one of his archers took more serious damage , thus is better to redirect my ranged attacks to the now may day soon archer.

    I think a lot of these situations in tactical combats, and i think in this case is no different, the only way to know or the properly analyze if i must make any kind of change of gear is to pause every time any damage happens , or any spell is cast or even early on when even any attack happens.

    I played Ice wind dale 2 in hof and really the best way was to spread thing the damage through all your characters and also the focus, and it required multiple pauses to change and rechange the position of your summons, and specially to run away from melee characters, for example the best way to neutralize melee characters , since yours run faster than them was to every-time a melee character start walking in the direction of character A, you move character away, , but you need to put Character B enough in the path but not quite to allow character to throw the spell or the attack,as to not lose attack or spell actions, as soon as the enemy approach character you make character B walk away until it isn´t pursued anymore so he can use his spell or attack actions.

    Tactics like this require extremely frequent pausing too.

     

    In order for you to limit your opponent on who they attack and rotate characters movement attack and who are in target of their archers, require very frequent pausing.

    I think Icewind dale 2 (the game i have more experinece with of the RTwP) even on HOF is an extremly ¨easy game¨ since the decisiosn one should make are pretty basic and repetitive HOWEVER, executiing them is infuriatingly annoying, slow and repetitive. Add to that that the combats are extremly slow since is optimal to pause extremly frequently, it all makes for a very boring experience, compared to any turn based game.

    HOF mode is basically the most hardcore mode in all the IE games (in a bad, tedious way.. hp and damage bloat), so it's a rather extreme example and not really representative. Besides, it's possible to build an effective tank even in HOF mode, so you don't need to resort to tactics like kiting or swapping, although admittedly, that's rather complicated.

    If you need to kite enemies in standard mode, you're just playing the game wrong/bad.

     

    I certainly didn't need to pause every half second when playing IE games, only in very hard battles at critical stages when I had to execute many steps where timing was important (which wasn't repetitive at all), and even then I didn't think of that as tedious (not any more tedious than it would be to play the battle turn-based). In a usual fight you don't need to make adjustments that often, and certainly not over the whole fight.

  9.  

    I thought having deflection and accuracy on the same attribute was too OP.

     

    Well, as Fearabbit pointed out, Deflection is really not all that distinct from the other 3 Defenses (which are already governed by various other attributes at a rate of +1.5 per point at the moment). It is probably still the most targeted, but that's accounted for by the fact that it's easier to increase via shields and such. 

    oO that seems more like a counter-argument to me, because it's possible to get much more out of your defense stat points by using a shield. 

    I haven't payed much attention on that, how was the distribution of different attack-types in the beta anyway?

  10.  

    Problem I generally see with adding deflection into the mix: Deflection is generally more valuable for fighters than health/endurance because of their already high base deflection.

    Not necessarily, that's only against Deflection-based attacks. If you neglect your CON as a Fighter you'll get d1cked hard by Reflex, Fortitude (and possibly Will) attacks. You could pump both for this effect:

     

    tiger-tank.jpg

     

    I think there could be a way to make the Barbarian work with a high Deflection build, you'd also need to compensate with some other items though, which is fine. Like, use two Hatchets or something. It also depends on the enemy accuracy, it would be great against lower accuracy enemies but not quite as good as higher accuracy enemies that target Deflection.

    Guess it indeed depends on the encounters, if there'll be enough encounters with reasonable amount of attacks that targets other defenses, or if there perhaps are some particularly challenging opponents with very high accuracy (like endbosses tend to be) that might also be an incentive for players to pump constitution of Fighters instead of the deflection stat, even if the usual trashmobs have low accuracy. Pumping both to get the ultimate tank is of course always valid I agree. Don't know about the deflective Barbarian, but as long as the deflection stat isn't a complete dumbstat that's good enough I guess, even if Con>Res for them in the end.

     

    In any case, if deflection is really gonna be incorporated into the attributes my first character will sure as hell have maxed defense (maxed most common defense in this case), dumbed constitution and all the rest in attack. My cheap powergaming instincts haven't failed me often with this build as of yet. 

     

     

     

    Problem I generally see with adding deflection into the mix: Deflection is generally more valueable for fighters than health/endurance because of their already high base deflection. For Barbarians on the other hand, pumping health/endurance seems to be always the better choice because of their low base deflection and high health multiplier, plus using a shield is not their style. Of course they'd have less concentration in the proposed system, but that was already declared as a not so important stat.

     

    Deflection is important to everyone who doesn't want to be hit often at full damage via weapons. Like Sensuki said, Deflection doesn't help against Reflex (AoE), Fortitude(Poisons/disease) and Will (mental) attacks. A defensive character needs to invest into both the Deflection stat and Constitution to be effective.

    Depends on the ratio. What we know is attacks that target deflection will be the most common, and for most encounters you might get better survivability by dumping Constitution and maxing Res than by just setting average values for both. 

  11. Problem I generally see with adding deflection into the mix: Deflection is generally more valueable for fighters than health/endurance because of their already high base deflection. For Barbarians on the other hand, pumping health/endurance seems to be always the better choice because of their low base deflection and high health multiplier, plus using a shield is not their style. Of course they'd have less concentration in the proposed system, but that was already declared as a not so important stat.

    • Like 1
  12. If there was really a clear code, that images a certain behaviour to a certain afterlife, then there'd be little room for interpretation. If for example it was scientific fact that lying would bring you to hell and eternal torture, you'd have to be pretty insane to make lying your way of life.

    Not that such a world would be very exciting as a setting.. and much less as a place to actually live in.

    • Like 1
  13.  Mods can't add the new multiplayer matchmaking, zoom function, scaleable UI, quickloot option, and all other nifty options (such as proper support for Windows 7/8 and multicore processors), since they don't have actually access to the source code. IIRC, some features of the original game, such as barbarian abilities and backstab multiplayer, are hard-coded and aren't moddable, and as such, Beamdog actually externalized several features so that mods would work better.

     

    Then I'd say they didn't make much out of their privileges. An utility feature like the quickloot option hardly justifies the price.

  14.  

    If it's going to be the same qualitywise as the BG EEs, no thanks. I found the new characters just annoying, and the overall execution appeared just lazy and minimalistic. I remember how I couldn't even change the game's resolution from the dumbed down menu like I could in the original. Considering the price, the bit of added content was just a joke.

    Perhaps if Beamdog had delivered something better and bigger (something a bunch of mods doesn't already do 10x better and for free), I'd respect them even though I still consider the concept of 'enhanced' editions of old classics fishy and a cheap money grab..

    I just hope they aren't getting to make a BG3

    Except Beamdog already said there won't be any new NPCs, and the new stoy additions include some deleted quests from the original game.

    I'm not interested in whatever additional content they come up with if it's of the same quality as in the BG EEs.

     

     

     

    And your comment about the resolutions is bogus, considering that it scales to whatever your desktop resolution is, and it actually supports widescreen resolutions without needing to starting a new game.

    The only way to modify the resolution was to edit an ini-file, there was no menu for it. And I'm not sure how far that was even supported.

  15. If it's going to be the same qualitywise as the BG EEs, no thanks. I found the new characters just annoying, and the overall execution appeared just lazy and minimalistic. I remember how I couldn't even change the game's resolution from the dumbed down menu like I could in the original. Considering the price, the bit of added content was just a joke.

    Perhaps if Beamdog had delivered something better and bigger (something a bunch of mods doesn't already do 10x better and for free), I'd respect them even though I still consider the concept of 'enhanced' editions of old classics fishy and a cheap money grab..

    I just hope they aren't getting to make a BG3

  16. Your daily powers will become encounter powers because you'll be rest spamming after each fight. And taking the view that people will rest spam and then increasing the difficulty for these rest spammers, this is the sort of thing that encourages rest spamming even more. And with daily powers becoming encounter powers for each fight then maybe this is what Josh has in mind and will adjust the encounters to this. This means that if someone wants to roleplay and not rest spam, they are at a disadvantage if they've already used a daily or a few on a previous fight.

    You could always scale the encounters for rest-spammers, couldn't you?

     

    .. oh god, I'm infected

  17.  Player skill and randomness are in direct opposition to another in game design. Chess has only one random part, who opens the game, and even that little piece of randomness has a huge impact on the game, everyone knows that who's familiar with chess. And that's why chess players play multiple matches with sides switched every match, to minimize that randomness and maximize skill.

    I think it's more a matter of preventing save scumming again when it comes to single-player games. For a disciplined player it can involve player skill to take the randomness into account in one's actions, create a backup plan if one action fails, and play generally more cautious and minimize risks. 

  18.  

    Tbh, the more I think about it the less I mind the "tanks soaking up all the damage and causing resting" issue. It makes sense - if you (in "real" life) had one person doing all of the close-range fighting and taking hits, of course they'd be the driving force behind you having to rest. The issue with healing stamina being disincentivized still needs to be fixed - but the fact of one character taking most of the hits and then causing a rest isn't really something I mind at all.

     

    It's gonna be when you're out of camping supplies, all merchants are out of camping supplies and you're not 2 hours into the game :)

    Well, it sucks when you suck

  19. ^well, agree to disagree with both posts above, although I don't have a particular liking for the current system, I still think it's a better system for PoE than a classical healing hp version. Also, it's something fresh and new.. and that's definately a plus for me after playing dozens of games with the same system, even if it turns out that I hate it, at least I've experienced something new.

  20. I don't know dude. I see where you are getting at. But do hear me out.

     

    A physical fracture ought to hurt and make you weaker making your efficiency go down. In PoE it does not until your Hp drops to zero. Which would imply that stamina somehow counteracts the damage to the skull and the stamina healing spell also does that; which should reasonably mean that it is actually doing "healing". This is also not painkiller stuff, as that would only be temporary relief . Stamina healing gives you permanent relief (i.e. as long as HP>0) independent of time between two fights. So it is really healing you in medical terms.

     

    Now that would mean that either the lore is wrong OR that Stamina is just a mechanic without support from lore. I tend to think that it is the latter. Does that sound too bad?

    The only cRPG I played so far where you're literally get worse at fighting (attacking power, defense and stuff) when your hp drops but are still above 0 was Betrayal at Krondor, and even though it was more realistic, I don't consider it a must-have.

    You're still getting potentially weaker in that way that you can take less damage than when your hp is higher. A 10 hp fighter with otherwise same stats is weaker than a 100 hp fighter. That's enough simulation for me in that case. So no, I don't see stamina "healing" as real healing. 

  21.  

    You get knocked out either if your hp = 0 or your stamina = 0, so depending on what is lower, that will be the deciding number how much punishment you can take in a fight

    Did you just change your argument? never mind. Of course. If either drops to zero you do get knocked out. Back to my original point: HP is PoE just a second passive health bar that needs to go. May be replace with something like an injury system if the developers are so intent on forcing no healing magic for god alone knows why. 

    My argument was that you're getting weaker after a fight even if your hp (stamina) doesn't drop to 0, unlike in DA. But admittedly, "fighting efficiently" can perhaps be understood differently in this context by different people.

     

     

     Any one with half a brain knows that stamina also measures physical attrition. If the spells can cure that there is no reasonable argument why they can't cure injuries unless of course the developer is trying to prevent "degenerate" gameplay with tacked on reason. 

    It doesn't really cure the physical attrition itself, but rather your ability to fight back despite the physical attrition. I see it like that: If you get three heavy knocks on the head in a couple of seconds, you get unconcious. If you get 3 heavy knocks on your head within a couple of hours, you perhaps won't drop unconcious, but your skull will still get the same fracture from it. The stamina/health system in PoE is more or less an abstraction of that. 

  22.  

    A "fragile" wizard who has incredible power can totally exist. That's why HP is tied to CON.

     

    And for the last time everybody... this is a completely different fantasy world from Forgotten Realms (and all derivatives). This world operates on completely different rules. Might does not mean physical strength. Great physical strength is indeed one result of high Might - but they are not one and the same.

    How does it not mean physical strength when it is what dictates all damage type strengths? I understand ya you won't have a lot of HP if you don't pick Con that's not what I'm talking about if this was sort of aimed at me. I'm not trying to argue I'm trying to come to a revelation. 

     

    If they were one and the same, than that would mean that, say giants, would generally have a more powerful soul than humans, because they're more heavy hitters. That would be rather weird.

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