Gromnir

... ... am trying to think o' a way to make a point w/o polarizing more than we already has. ... am gonna fail, but try anyways. first, a criminal trial is State v. citizen. we purposeful don't let victims or survivors decide whether or not a defendant will be prosecuted. however, like it or not, fair or not, there is some value to society in pursuing prosecutions that is doomed from the start. is arguable that justice is not needing to be just, and sometimes what is fair according to the law is not what society sees as fair. if you got a segment o' society that feels disenfranchised, and they see police officers "escaping justice," the folks in power gotta make a hard choice regarding pursuit of a criminal trial with near-zero chance o' success. Amadou Diallo is a name worth searching. after the doomed trial, there were some criticism that there had been a rush to indict. nevertheless, is arguable that going to trial defused some o' the anger o' people in the community. at what point does a government conclude that the price the defendants must needs pay in enduring an otherwise pointless trial that will inevitably end in a not-guilty verdict is less than the cost to society in terms o' increased racial tensions and possibly even riots? is easy for Gromnir to say that the law should not knuckle under to whims o' the public, but we have the benefit o' being a private citizen and not an elected official. ... ... ok, there is also a practical reason for the survivors to be pushing hard for a criminal trial. survivors is often goaded by their lawyers to be public in their demands for a trial. am recalling an interview with the fiance o' amadou diallo wherein she stated that the State's failure to get a conviction o' the four officers involved in the shooting o' her fiance were not surprising given that for a not-guilty verdict, one need only show that the cops had some fear o' a possible threat to be using their weapons. the interviewer then asked about the $3 million settlement that the diallo family had been awarded as part o' the settlement o' the wrongful death case they brought against the city o' NY. fiance didn't wanna talk about the money. see, the thing is, a criminal trial is extreme useful for those who subsequent pursue a civil case. is almost no defendant who walks away from a criminal case looking good. much o' the civil lawyer's future work is done for him by the criminal prosecutor, so for those looking forward to a civil wrongful death action, a criminal trial is a boon that cannot be overlooked. the survivors don't deserve a criminal trial... they never deserve a criminal trial. criminal trials is not held for the benefit o' the survivors. there is all kinda victims rights groups and even some laws pertaining to victims rights, but we will never see a victim or survivor getting a right to a criminal trial. nevertheless, for those survivors looking forward to a civil case, they may be convinced by their lawyers that they deserve a criminal trial. get sympathetic survivors in front o' the camera as often as possible demanding their right to a criminal trial and eventually the state/government is gonna needs make some hard choices. HA! Good Fun! ps ferguson were the non-stop topic at Gromnir's family thanksgiving. a few years ago we had a cousin who were shot by fed cops. our family saw much parallel 'tween mike brown and our deceased kin. Gromnir is recovering from an injury, so we played some da:i on a relative's pc for a bit, and then took pain pills and pretended we needed to rest due to discomfort... which also got us out of thanksgiving cooking duties for the first time in over a decade. is no way we wanted to again discuss how our cousin, who were killed after a car jacking, were a victim o' white cop prejudice.

Every other RPG I played since probably had twice as much loot (that is replaced near instantly), particularly after crafting, alchemy and similar busywork became a thing that had to be included in every game. without context, such comments is less than helpful. bg1 were an ad&d game that took you to level 7ish. the loot for such levels o' a d&d game were monty haul. am not gonna go through all such items, but 7 tomes and manuals in addition to multiple rings o' wizardry, the balduran items and multiple +2 weapons with either elemental damage or an additional power (e.g. free action) is only sparse in a campaign run by the absolute worst kinda monty haul dm. seven tomes and manuals? now, because bg level'd slower than many other crpgs you has played, perhaps it felt to you as if the loot were sparse, but given the relative power o' your enemies, and the rules system bg were utilizing, bg were rather extreme monty haul rather than sparse. HA! Good Fun!

Thank you for explaining the joke. EDIT: Also wtf how is it some dutch can't understand German worth a damned? Your language is literally the result of German and english having sex! literally? is literally the result of german and english having sex? regardless, happy thanksgiving to all Americans. is understandable that thanksgiving were a contentious holiday for our extended family, but our immediate family always celebrated. HA! Good Fun!

Even if people still had doubt about the Wilson verdict, the fact that his testimony includes these wonderful nuggets: - referring to Brown as a demon, - saying Brown was as strong as Hulk Hogan Should be enough for any sane (or non-vindicitive) person to stop and go "um, hey, wait a minute". fixed. there were noticeable and amusing hyperbole in the account o' wilson, so there weren't need to embellish or do as did wilson did. is actual kinda funny that your criticism o' wilson fails for the same reasons you see his testimony as flawed. the thing that concerns us is that an unarmed man were shot after he ran away from a police vehicle. a defendant trying to convince us that he were afraid that the deceased were about to try and kill or seriously injure the defendant or some bystander is not making us go, "um, hey, wait a minute," precisely 'cause that is what all such defendants do if they know the law. however, the things that makes us go "um, hey, wait a minute" regarding the ferguson shooting is numerous. wilson and other witnesses claim that brown turned and charged wilson after he got some considerable distance from the police suv. additionally, for an event that started and ended very quick in the middle of the afternoon in a residential neighborhood, there were dozens o' witness who all claim to have seen pretty much the entire event. furthermore, while we is much aware that eye-witness testimony is compelling, even if it is unreliable, the amount o' variation in the eye-witness testimony were extreme... and wacky. one witness were a couple blocks away at the time o' the incident, but still claims to have seen everything. one witness claims that wilson attempted to use a taser on brown but missed. etc. is lots o' head scratching issues, but the biggest questions we got will never be answered. wilson testimony, and numerous witnesses, suggests that after brown ran and were a considerable distance away from wilson, brown stopped, turned around, and advanced on the officer. brown had not been shot in the back, so am having difficulty making sense o' brown's actions as described by wilson. but again, there is not only physical evidence that supports wilson's claim, but there is eye witness testimony that similarly supports such a claim. if all we had were wilson's story and dorian johnson's testimony, and if there were no physical evidence, we would laugh in disbelief at wilson's claims. that ain't the situation, is it? again, for government to get a conviction, they need to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. wilson testimony by itself is hardly compelling to us 'cause wilson don't wanna go to prison. however, there were presumably disinterested witnesses whose narrative were in-line with wilson's, and the physical evidence (particularly the blood trail) seems to support wilson's story... a story which continues to baffles us. we don't necessarily believe wilson, but we also would hate to try and prosecute him. in an ordinary situation it is unlikely this would ever get grand jury treatment, 'cause the prosecutor would abandon it as unwinnable. try and get a conviction o' a cop who shot a strong-arm robbery suspect when numerous eye witnesses other than the cop support the cop narrative? we have difficulty believing wilson and the prosecutor didn't use the grand jury as is typical, but those is not actual important factors to us when we consider the end result. the case against wilson were poor. the grand jury were a crash-test dummy standing in for the prosecutor precisely 'cause the case were poor. HA! Good Fun!

well, is understandable that news folks would talk to the parents of brown. is not really the job o' cnn or other news agencies to make sure that they is giving equal opportunities to everybody... they is simply reporting "news." a "no comment" from government officials is boring, so where is a 24/7 news source gonna turn to to fill in all that empty air time? can only have your "experts" bait each other for so long before that gets dull... and is too early for the dangerous christmas toys o' 2014 stories. on the other hand, some o' the "journalists" at cnn and other news outlets has been editorializing more than folks did in the past, but is still not all that strange to us. cnn is selling a product and they is competing with a multitude of reputable and sketchy organizations for advertising dollars. cnn is not a state run organization, or the mouthpiece of _______________, but they IS a business entity, and they need you to keep watching. for some odd reason, the blogger attitude, while reviled by folks at cnn and elsewhere, has somehow become the norm. there is a few cnn reporters and anchors that is kinda transparent 'bout injecting their own opinions into the news they report, but if such becomes too much to stomach, one need only turn the channel. am more a fan o' wsj and npr/pbs for our news, but is not as if those sources is free o' journalist bias neither. regardless, we don't expect cnn or other news agencies to explain to us that the parents o' mike brown might not be the most objective source regarding their son's character or 'bout the recent events in ferguson. HA! Good Fun!

I literally just went through this. Got wiped like a nerdy kid with glasses playing kickball. Or dodgeball, I can never remember. ah, good times. we were home-schooled for the most part. our grandfather inspected the local rez school and refused to allow us to be educated in such a place. there were a short-lived experiment that involved having us attend the local public school, but that didn't work out so well as it were too distant for regular attendance, particularly during the winter when the rez roads were covered in +8' snow drifts. even so, we loved dodgeball. we were as athletically gifted as we were spiteful. whatever abuses we suffered from the townies at recess were delivered back unto them three-fold during PE, particularly on dodgeball days. good times. high school were even better as football allowed us to actual hit people... we got to hit people frequent and forceful, and we were encouraged to do so by coaches. took us a bit longer to embrace the team concept, but as long as we still got to hit folks, we were happy. good times. HA! Good Fun!

am suspecting there is quite a few prejudiced cops. the thing is, the courts, and particularly the criminal courts, is a terrible tool for fixing social woes. our criminal justice system is designed so that defendants is difficult to prosecute if there is any reasonable explanation that might tend to suggest innocence. am admitting that the darren wilson confrontation with michael brown still strikes us as almost surreal, but there were eyewitness, black eye witnesses, who supported wilson's story. those witnesses clearly had enough credibility to convince the grand jury o' their veracity. also, the physical evidence, on its face, Arguably supports darren wilson's story. no doubt bob mccullough realized early that he had a serious uphill battle to be getting a conviction o' darren wilson. so, he played the role of pontius pilate and attempted to wash his hands o' the situation by letting the grand jury decide the matter? is not exactly shocking to us. English jurist, William Blackstone, suggested that it would be, "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Benjamin Franklin no doubt thought Blackstone numbers were wrong. Franklin suggested (two years before Blackstone's commentaries were published) “that it is better one hundred guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” our system o' criminal justice is designed to let many guilty folks walk free. would it have been better for mccullough to have secured a "ham sandwich indictment" that he could not successfully prosecute? in retrospect, perhaps. am knowing that some tv pundits has suggested that the Federal Courts has always been the place where social injustices need be corrected. heck, we were taught in school (many times and at many levels) that brown v. board of education were a triumph o' social justice that improved educational opportunities for minorities in the US. we were taught wrong. brown v. board actual set back race relations in the US, particularly in the south. segregation actual Increased after brown and more than a few moderate politicians became hard-line segregationists because o' the popular resistance to the ruling. brown polarized the ordinary citizens o' this country. not surprising, brown also polarized politicians. for chrissakes, george wallace had NAACP endorsement during his first bid for the alabama governorship. it took TEN YEARS for Congress (Americans) to catch up to brown, and a great deal o' suffering occurred, unnecessarily, during those ten years. racism is a problem in this country. unfortunately (fortunately?) the problems o' continued racism in the USA will not be fixed by the courts. it has never been the job o' the courts to fix social problems. the courts ain't equipped to fix social problems. expecting the courts, particularly the criminal courts, to be fixing the race-related problems in this country is a lesson we were mistakenly taught in school.... which is kinda odd given that the same teachers that explained the separation o' powers doctrine to us also were convincing us that courts were capable o' ending segregation and unfair labor practices and a host o' other social ills. HA! Good Fun!

we, Americans, can't have useful dialogue about race. is a political and extreme polarizing issue. "racist" language instantly ends any useful dialogue, and even before that point is reached, those who espouse certain ideas is gonna be categorized as racist even if we don't hear people actually label somebody racist. each end o' the spectrum sees the other end as unable to see beyond race. our political leaders need even be more conscious o' race than the typical citizen. for the most part, a politicians #1 job is to get re-elected. how many politicians is gonna risk angering their respective constituencies by voicing unpopular or racist notions? not many. racism is a far different thing today than when Gromnir were young. is actual pretty freaking amazing just how much attitudes has changed in recent decades. 'course that don't mean that racism is non-existent. in fact, in some ways (not in most or even many ways) the situation is worse today because only the idiot racists is overt. 21st century American racism is more insidious than it has been in the past, and racism is often a legacy o' wrongs done decades or centuries ago. is tough to fix problems that seeming don't exist today. example: as old as Gromnir is, before we were born, America made it tough for black americans to own their own house. the impact of home ownership on current and future generations has been shown to be extreme. so, even if getting a home loan in 2014 is a color blind process, generations o' black americans were having their economic future, and the future o' their children and grandchildren, hamstrung. so, fix the problem. is there a problem that even needs be fixed if playing field is now level? sadly, the worst thing about the situation in ferguson is that it hinders any chance for meaningful dialogue. ferguson is proof to the average white american that black americans just don't get it. ferguson is proof to the average black american that white americans just don't get it. it ain't reasonable or rational, but both sides is gonna point to ferguson as proof o' what is wrong with America. is not funny.

one thing 'bout old games, particularly old games we played multiple times, is that our recollection is a gestalt. when we first think o' bg2 dragon fights, we recall some wacky chromatic orb or finger of death scenarios. yeah, a bg2 dragon battle could last less than 10 seconds, but were that typical, and were it indicative o' our first, second or even third dragon battle experience? we purposeful didn't get pre-release spoilerage regarding bg2, so we had nothing save d&d pnp experience and bg 1 to guide our bg 2 dragon battle expectations. first bg1 dragon battle is likely something we don't recall as well as we believe we do, but am certain it didn't go off as well as we had hoped. am knowing that we had considerable fire resistance and fear protections, and we summoned a small horde o' canon fodder before starting the battle; thought we were prepared. unfortunate, the dragon spell casting and wing buffets caught us a bit off guard, though is probable that "a bit" is an understatement. took a handful o' attempts to work out a winning strategy. 'course once we had a Win strategy, dragons were easy, but that is kinda typical, no? da:o dragon battles were different than bg2. am recollecting that we died a few times when we first encountered sacred ashes dragon before we discovered a strategy that would work for us. conversely, the endgame battle with the ballista actual felt a bit gimmicky to us... though nowhere near as gimmicky as the final battle with malak in kotor which still holds the top spot as our least favorite bioware endgame battle. da2 were more like the ballista stuff in da:o. the initial difficulty o' da2 dragons struck us as gimmicky, but not necessarily bad. it took us a few times to understand the pattern the dragon were using with summons and retreat to range before we could be dismissive o' da2 dragons. we didn't have much mmo experience at the time, but with benefit o' hindsight, da2 dragon were more akin to what is typical with a mmo boss battle than the bg2 or even da:o dragon battles. comparison to mmo is not a criticism but simply an observation. *shrug* regardless, we believe that bio has, in the past, done an admirable job making dragons challenging and unique within the context o' the specific game in which they is encountered. memory is a funny thing though, and am suspecting it is easy to 'member dragons with the benefit o' multiple successful battles rather than simple the ugly first or second attempts at dragon slaying. if we is able to roll-stomp a dragon on our first try in da:i, we will be very disappointed. am also preferring dragons that have varied abilities and clever ai to make them challenging, as opposed to crap like malak, but that is a personal preference. HA! Good Fun!

I got perma banned from BSN, but before that i delete everything as far as i can, there's 3500 posts or so, i don't remember, so i cannot prove it to you. As for why it is important to have Grey Warden as the central theme, it is because that is what we have been established in the first place. You may argue using TES, but TES is different thing, it is an open world where the story never being the important thing. Players love TES not bcause of it's story, and TES stories suck. Most players love TES because of the world it give, and that is. Most players don't even care to pursue the main plot in TES games, just want to be in that world, romaing around, messing around until bored to death. It is different with DA, the game is a story, a story about you as any role you choose, then it progress as the story progress, the central theme is being a Grey Warden and how your perception on "what it is mean to be a Grey Warden", that is the issue, you are a new recruit, your master dead, you only assume your role as a Grey Warden. So for the next story they should maintain that, giving another perspective of being a Grey Warden, and so on for the next story. That way Dragon Age will be remembered, because it have central theme, and not just bunch of stories of different characters. So now, what Dragon Age is all about? As you can see, Dragon Age Origin trailer is so awesome compared with DA2 and DA:I, as yourself why... you didn't genuine answer meshugger questions. sure, we got that you can't give proof regarding what you claim gaider said, but as to necessity o' grey wardens or why religion= bad is an unacceptable theme, you said nothing. we started with grey wardens, so we need grey wardens? *snort* that is not much o' a reason... or any real reason. and "the central theme is being a Grey Warden" is not only hogwash, but is unsupported hogwash. am thinking you is confusing plot and theme. HA! Good Fun!

perspective. we got perspective. is one o' the few advantages o' age. you could insert the name o' any bioware game released following the nwn games and end up with the same complaints you is sharing. your repeating of complaints o' others does absolute nothing to convince us that this time the rage monkeys is correct. the mob has cried wolf too many times for us to take serious, which is why we has suggested here and elsewhere that people relying on faceless metacritic reviewers, many who were giving da:i 10/10 or 0/10 before they could possibly have played a meaningful portion o' the game, and/or game journalists (HA!) is no more convincing to us than is continued drowsy or qistina posts. as to where we got the info that da:i were designed for pc, we got that from bioware. the thing is, every freaking time bio released gameplay footage for da:i, it were console footage. the absence o' pre-release pc media is precisely why Gromnir has, for months and months, and more than a few times in these da:i threads, expressed concern over the absence o' pc gameplay footage. even so, posting links to random folks complaining about pc controls o' da:i is, again, meaningless to us. we has noted a couple times o' late that we clear do not see eye-to-eye with the bsn crowd, and the codexians is equal laughable. sadly, obsidian is hardly a refuge from the cacophony we must endure at bsn or codex. we ask specific folks their impressions precisely 'cause drowsy-style linking and impressions based on metarciritic feedback is meaningless... is meaningless to Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

Blaspheme! anywho, am gonna sound like a broken record here for a sec, but our only genuine concern is tac cam stuff. most other complaints we has seen is bug related (which we will not need worry 'bout in six months when we eventual purchase) or trivialities that the complainers has largely ignored in other games. our recollection is that shady sands is playing the game with a gamepad on his pc, which is passing odd as bio did insist that the game were initial developed for the pc. many/most peoples seem to feel the game is better suited for console controls, which does give us pause but not a real reluctance as far as eventual purchase. however, we were wondering if you were annoyed by the camera. in da:o, we pretty much played the game with camera pulled back as far as possible. even with the limited amount we has played the poe beta, we reflexively keeps trying to pull back the camera. am not wanting to play the game looking over our avatar's shoulder. so, any thoughts on if cam is as bad as many claim, or if is simple a matter o' awkwardness that initially comes with anything different or new? thanks in advance. HA! Good Fun!

99% of vol posts inspire the following reaction: the bsn boards and codexians is trying to play catch-up to the standard set by vol... though qistina is is giving vol a run for his money. the thing is, something less than 1% of vol posts is having a point. is mildly disconcerting to us when vol is reasonable and on-point. is not quite fiery hail or oceans turning to blood, but vol rationality feels a bit like a sign of the end of days. regardless, while it is seeming unlikely at the moment, am hopeful that bio addresses some tac cam issues within the next six months. HA! Good Fun!

These are the issues BioWare community cares about because people who cared about anything else are no longer there (got banned or simply gave up long ago). So when you label the codexers "luddites" please remember that the BSN crowd is a nice snapshot of your "progressive" alternative. ... *zoom* we went right over your head, didn't we? it were precisely our point that while the codexians is comically retrogressive, the biowarian fanbase is hardly an appealing alternative to us. screw it. with this kinda post you is proving our freaking point-- we is clear outta touch with the polarized gaming fanbase that is seeming all suffering from ADD. HA! Good Fun!

game fans is increasingly odd to Gromnir. the whole "gaming journalism" nonsense that has been captivating gamers recently strikes us as bizarre on multiple levels. suggest that, perhaps, a character build is inefficient and it sends some into a frothing rage? okie dokie. got a guy complains 'bout bioware hypocrisy in same post he admits that the bioware gay stuff is not actual an issue o' consequence? we check bioware boards suggestions and feedback section for da:i to see if folks is complaining about tactical camera myopia, but the two longest threads on the first 10 pages is, we kid you not, complaints 'bout a lack o' a manly gay romance (57 pages), and rage over absence o' qunari hair (145 pages). no other suggestion/feedback thread from first 10 pages is even 20 pages in length. ... actual, after a quick review, there is one thread that also exceeds 20 pages: http://forum.bioware.com/topic/516176-skyhold-casual-apparel/ are you kidding? Gromnir is outta touch. we ain't a reactionary game luddite such as we see grousing at codex, but we clear don't have much in common with the bioware fanbase. HA! Good Fun!

I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. Bioware is coming across as tolerant of the LGBT community in their writing? *gasp* They have consistently pushed a socially progressive agenda, it's not new. If it bothers you, there are plenty of games out there that avoid social issues. drowsy and bioware is both silly. drowsy is silly for making a big deal over nothing. bioware is silly 'cause they is trying to fix a seeming inconsistency between sten comments from da:o regarding female roles in qunari society, and subsequent dragon age content that makes apparent that females is able to fight. enough people complain over the years about sten comments that bioware felt need to explain? either shoulda' stuck with original qunari perspective we got via sten, or shoulda' simple ignored the inconsistency they created rather than giving a silly in-game explanation-- let geeky fans come up with a resolution beyond the scope o' the game. regardless, is silly... drowsy and bioware. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna suggest that looking for some kinda truth about game quality from gaming sites has always been a waste of effort. similarly, we find it difficult to gauge the qualities of movies or restaurants or cars or computer based on the weight of reviews. advice: find a reviewer whose tastes match yours. example: we did not always agree with desslock reasonings, but we found that his reviews at pc gamer were a good predictor o' Gromnir enjoyment o' a game. nowadays, since we never buys a game on day one 'less it is a kickstarter, we wait +6 months and then get feedback from individual gamers with whom we is simpatico. HA! Good Fun!

the gay pirate? bio romances is terrible, but the biowarians ain't aiming to be insulting. the toee gay pirate were, at best, sophomoric. am suspecting that a troika developer lacking in maturity were angry 'bout having the toee brothel cut, so the gay pirate were added as a childish bit o' revenge 'gainst the publisher. is not as if we were particular offended by troika's efforts, but the gay pirate were not a well-written romance and it weren't funny neither. as an aside, juhani were in kotor, yes? is our recollection that kotor were released a bit before toee. HA! Good Fun!

no. don't care though. heck, dragon age has fighting qunari women in their games, so am not certain what the actually point is, but the only thing we find disturbing about gaider comments is that bioware/ea felt the need to censor such comments that were neither profane nor vulgar. instead o' being able to discuss openly, censoring is the more reasonable expedient. all too often, censoring is a greater condemnation o' the class or group being "protected" by the censorship than it is a criticism o' the speaker o' the offending language. HA! Good Fun!

am agreeing about the value of intelligence. all our Gromnir-built rangers gots at least 4 intelligence. sure, by the end o' the game, having rose (or even vulture's cry), a 10 intelligence ranger and three rangers with int of 4 is resulting in eventual skill overkill, but we never got enough skills points for the first twenty-to-twenty-five levels. is kinda the opposite o' charisma. in any event, intelligence o' four may be unnecessary for optimal builds, but we got more freedom with more skills... early skills. speaking o' which, for our next run, am considering dumping rose once we hit damonta. as we observed, by level 30 we typical run outta skills on which to be spending points anyway. also, brawling becomes most effective at mid-levels. there is an ideally placed possible rose replacement at damonta. unfortunately, we has read Old posts that suggest that the companion in question is tending to go rogue whenever he is in the presence o' robots, which would serious diminish his efficacy. am gonna need to test him a bit before we commit to building a new group with notion o' his inclusion as a regular. ... cant might be shocked, appalled or amused by the fact that our next group is composed o' john neumann, marianne cope, frances xaver cabrini and damien de veuster. the heretics and heathens in ca don't stand a chance. HA! Good Fun!

pareidolia is unfamiliar to us. we learned concept as apophenia. regardless, qistina posts is frequent reminding us o' how much we hated that horrible jim carey film ... ok, am knowing that don't narrow things down much. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481369/ HA! Good Fun!

For good or ill, Bioware has always been a company that listens to what its fans say about their games, and adjusts their future releases accordingly. This leads to plenty of improvements ("gee, it would've been nice if the NPCs in BG1 had more going for them than a stat sheet and a half-dozen 3-second audio clips!"), but also to lots of cheesy fan-service ("My favorite dumb joke from ME1 MUST be reprised in ME3!!!"). well, am gonna wait at least six months to a year to play the latest da:i, but we will note that bioware is relative reactive to fan feedback. am suspecting that the main reason why so many obsidian boardies and codexians loathe bioware is precisely because bioware listens to the Average Gamer. folks who post frequent at this place is not the average crpg purchaser. regular posters at obsidian is a bit more hardcore than the Average Gamer. codexians is even more removed from average-- is gaming luddites. am not sure what the Average Gamer is, but the biowarians seem to think they know. some kinda frankenstein monstrosity combining bruce, vol and the ubiquitous short-term posters who show up here and ask for obsidian's next game to be more like skyrim or who is puzzled by the lack of special fighting animations in PoE? HA! Good Fun!

agreed, which were our point earlier. attempting to create a relative over-level'd ranger by strategic choosing xp generator skills and forcing them on a combat weak ranger with high charisma and high intelligence is hardly practical. although we have only completed the game twice, we have taken a handful o' groups complete through arizona, each with differing skills allocations and choosing alternate routes for prison, titan, highpool/ag, etc. regardless o' team and party builds, our rangers have roughly the same xp spreads regardless. is a .5 to 1.5 level spread by the time we hit level 25-26. go through effort to achieve an ~3 level disparity by the time we finish the game strikes us as silly, but others may (and clearly do) disagree, even if they have difficulties expressing themselves rationally. actually, our biggest xp vacuum ranger thus far were a brawler with computer and animal whisperer skills. such a character with a 1 in charisma could level faster than any other ranger build we might conceive of at this time, though again, benefits is coming mostly in second half of the game. by the time animal whisperer were useful in combat situations to calm/turn most enemies, it were not as much use to us as we hoped, but reprogramming robots were requiring lower skill levels and were producing very large xp gains. with the exception of a couple robot types, most any robot or turret could be reprogrammed. unfortunately, a reprogrammed robot (or calmed/turned animal for that matter) were removed from the combat xp pool-- only the computer hacker received xp for the successful reprogrammed robot. kinda a double-edged sword as the gains for our brawler were a necessary loss for the remaining rangers in our troop. *chuckle* in one o' those examples o' degenerative wasteland 2 gameplay, there were a california map that resulted in a near guaranteed level-up for our hacker. were five neutral robots that you could reprogram for 900 total xp... or more if you got better than a charisma o' one. we started combat after reprograming and were able to reprogram at two more robots in addition to the combat xp we garnered for the destroyed robots. silly. were not as silly as us purposefully shooting a squaddie so that our healer could get a level-up opportunity before an upcoming fight, but were degenerative nevertheless. we reloaded and played straight as the 900 free xp were too... cheap. aside-- as we mentioned earlier, the robot and animal followers are a headache to us for the multiple reasons we already noted. is amazing to us that so little improvement has been made by developers since our efforts to keep dogmeat alive back in the late 90s. that being said, we actually preferred being shot in the back by vax than having jamie rush headlong into every potential enemy meat-grinder we came across. with typical only 1 melee ranger per group, vax were doing admirable damage against heavily armoured foes w/o causing much friendly fire damage. if not for the aforementioned aggro quirks, we woulda' kept it around a bit longer than we did... although the 50 health made that difficult as well. jamie, on the other hand, contributed little to our combat efforts save for frustration. felt like it were 1997 all over again. gotta wonder what yutz would keep jamie around for the reason o' making mechanical repair useful in the second half of the game... 'course we guess that question already gots an answer. HA! Good Fun! ps the computer hacker need not be a brawler or even a melee type to make use o' the serious xp boost from reprogramming, but robots (and critters) hit hard and you gotta get up-close and personal to hack/calm them. we has taken some significant damage while getting close enough to use animal whisperer and computer skills in combat situations, and am thinking a high strength ranger is helpful, if not essential, to pull off such nonsense. big strength and brawling is having obvious synergy in wasteland 2. pps also, given the quirky way in which xp is awarded, we were careful not to make too much use of reprogramming robots in combat, 'cause while doing so made tactical sense, strategically we were depriving our squad o' considerable xp. wacky.

okie dokie. pointing out that there is other skills available to respond to Gromnir referencing that many skills is disproportionate xp generators is having a point? you observe, after we criticize you 'bout your observation that mechanics "can be used quite a bit to correct a lot of critical failures," (though you continue to hedge that by mentioning the number o' "potential" crit fails you saw during your game) only then do you agree that mechanics ain't a great xp generator. you is getting sequence o' events and your responses jumbled or confused. you made what amounts to a non-responsive observation. *shrug* am believing you lost track o' the thread. go back and see what were being discussed, 'cause your current comments got almost zero relevance. as to your feelings regarding the difficulty o' wasteland 2 combat, we have no way to respond to feelings. is no way we is gonna try and claim that combat is more or less difficult than you believe, or that the way you play is less enjoyable. we will, once again, point out that a single character with boosted charisma and intelligence is only going to be getting noticeable level disparity halfway through the game, and that a level disparity o' even 4 levels relative late in the game is only going to result in, 20 skill points, which, by late in the game is hardly impressive. give the high yield skills to 1 charisma or low charisma rangers and that level disparity drops to 2. by level 30, we is running outta skills into which we can be finding a reason to give points anyway, so am not seeing value. oh, and robot repair is something we did for a considerable amount of time as we liked the appearance of vax, but if the goal is xp gain, the effort is asinine. a couple random world map encounters likely yield far more xp than does mech repair robot heals 'cross 10 levels o' gameplay. am not even going to get into the aggro bugs for animal and robot followers on certain maps such as titan canyon, or the dogmeat problem such followers frequent present, but yeah, if you wanna find some way to make mech repair less useless, go for it. is more toaster repairs than mech repair opportunities in ca, and there is only so may broken wells you can fix in az. HA! Good Fun! ps and we agree with cant that the entire system wasteland 2 uses for ad hoc xp gains is poor.

*sigh* "That still leaves you with safecracking, outdoorsman, surgeon, field medic, mechanical repair (can be used quite a bit to correct a lot of critical failures), and brute force, alarm disarm to provide non-combat xp to your other characters." we responded by pointing out how crappy it were for xp and that you needed to count on fails from other skills to get value. as we noted the infrequent opportunities for repair of crit failures compounded by the fact that one needs effective greater skill in mechanics ( a largely useless skill) to make use o' the capacity to repair broken locks, seriously hinders the usefulness o' mechanics. *shrug* 'course somebody were missing the point it seems... 'cause we were clear responding to your initial point that mechanics "can be used quite a bit to correct a lot of critical failures," 'cause, it can't be used more than infrequent unless somebody games the system. http://game-maps.com/W2/Wasteland-2-Arizona-Canyon-of-Titan.asp is an example o' a large map. best case scenario you is hopeful for 1-2 crit fails on such a map, and there is a goodly chance that your crit fails will be on difficult locks, which would require commensurate greater skill in mechanics. doesn't look like much o' a payoff, eh? the only way we see it as being useful as a xp generating skill (which were the point o' all o' this in the first place as you can see by scrolling up a bit) is by tanking your lock/safe skills to generate more crit fails. so yeah, you gotta take from one skill to make the other useful. HA! Good Fun!