Gromnir

"In Fallout it was said to make the wearer a walking tank" again, you is using fallout to prove the validity o' itself. use fallout description o' an item or feature to rationalize the lack o' balance is... wacky. is not as wacky as is creating an absurd or irrelevant example and then pointing out the absurdity of the absurdity you created, but is close. be better than that. "(I consider this a flaw.)" am getting that. the why is the problem. a new player who chooses a combat skill should not be rewarded with frustration. a skill that doesn't actual provide use is likely to cause frustration. this should all be obvious, but am uncertain why it is not. fo:nv has a wide range o' weapons, and some is considerable more powerful than others. nevertheless, Gromnir is knowing that choosing any o' the combat skills in fo:nv will provide us with an effective combatant from start of the game to finish, and that is as it should be. discover 10+ hours into a game that energy weapons and ammo for such is extreme rare. how the heck were we to know before playing fallout that energy weapons would only be useful somewhere past halfway of a long game? assume that Gromnir didn't want our character to only be combat efficacious for last 1/2 to 1/3rd o' game (and ten hours in, how would we know when/if energy weapons would become more useful?) is that not a valid choice as a player-- to want a chosen skill to be relative useful? there ain't no inherent beauty in lack of balance. if fallout had had weapon distributions and skill breakdown o' fo:nv, virtual every quest and all aspects o' the setting would survive unaltered in any significant way. however, with fo:nv skills and balancing, fo would have been less frustrating to new players and it would have offered more replayability. we mentioned already, replayability for Gromnir is not 'bout the frustration o' restarting a game 'cause we realize after ten hours of gameplay that a feature is not actual useful. that is just stupid. honest. call restart due to frustration replayability (as some has above in this thread... and is one such example o' the gibberish being shared) is insulting. replayability is wanting to play game again, which kinda presupposes we enjoyed game enough to finish a first time. whether You like fallout imbalance or not, one would s'pose you could at least recognize that the typical player o' a game requiring tens of hours of investment would wish for chosen skills to be offering a discernible pay-off... but that isn't the case. "It's okay not to ever acquire an energy weapon in the game ~skill or no skill." balance wherein skills is equally viable and useful is far more likely to promote replay. there is a pretension 'mongst the canists that suggests that a person who would choose a combat skill and actual expect it to be useful from the start o' the game is lacking "taste" or is "idiotic" (more gibberish). such nonsense should be stamped out as quick and as vigorous as possible. even if you hold to such a notion, why do you assume that Gromnir and others should also find beauty in imbalance? (and before you do reply/quote, read next paragraph... please.) however, we is going in circles... and ultimately gizmo, as others, is losing sight o' the actual issue: respec. a single respec would make your peculiar desire for imbalance more palatable to people who do not share nma or codexian notions. the developers would need be less concerned with balancing to avoid frustration as respec would provide a safety net of sorts. and what would be the drawback o' such a feature? none for you as you would not be thinking it were necessary. some folks might choose to use a single respec opportunity to exploit an imbalance created by the developers. so what? is only a single opportunity... and why would you care if some random guy respec's his character in a sp game? is ironic, but is actual the folks clamoring for beautiful imbalance who should be advocating respec as it would reduce pressure on developers to implement balance. HA! Good Fun!

a no-hitter is an amazing achievement, regardless o' the opponent. that being said, san diego offense is just so darn hapless. 'course, we hasn't genuine followed baseball close since the strike year. is too bad too as the white sox finally won a series in 2005 and we couldn't even manage enough interest to watch. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna avoid reply/quote as it would make response extreme messy. if we miss something you feel is extreme pertinent, remind us o' our oversight and we will address in another post. first, do not do like bester. in your words, "This tack should be beneath you, and anyone else." rocket launchers in shady sands? naughty boy. fo:nv developers actual provide a simple solution and is identifying the flaw in your reasoning. big guns need never have been a skill in fallout. very easily coulda' been merged with something else or altered or any number o' possibilities. you is making the same mistake you made elsewhere in believing that fallout as it were developed were perfect or beyond reproach-- making major changes to improve doesn't even occur to you even when such obvious examples is available... particular as you is posting on an obsidian message board. while you think lumping folks together as codexians or nma is beneath us, such generalizations is as helpful as is labeling a game a crpg or a jrpg. sure, not all japanese crpgs has same qualities, but such generalizations is helpful, no? nma, in particular, is a site devoted to the exaltation o' a single game developed before the turn of the century. as often as not, the nma guys don't like fo 2 or fo 3 or fo:t, so what we got is reverence o' a single game that has been getting dissected and re-examined by many o' the same guys for over a decade. you needs must realize that such an environment will lead to a homogenization o' opinion. codex? is not as different from nma as you might s'pose or wish. is any shock that you and ocelot got same perspective? is no more odd than two different jrpgs having similar qualities. as for gimp characters... we need not really address this as you already made your peculiar point of view clear. "It's okay not to ever acquire an energy weapon in the game ~skill or no skill." this perspective is simply too alien. it complete denies the worth o' any kinda reasonable balance... and that is Not hyperbole as you specific observe that is ok to include a skill that the potential player would never benefit from tagging. any balance argument we might care to develop is gonna fail to impact you if you truly do not see a problem with including a skill, trait, feature, or whatever that in practice provides Zero actual benefit to the player. HA! Good Fun!

san diego is less mercurial. worst hitting team in baseball by a large margin. so let's give some credit to the real heroes o' this no-hitter. am kidding 'course... sorta. HA! Good Fun!

aside: observing that we liked 3 of the 7 da 2 companions is not actual bad. ps:t, our favorite crpg, had two excellent companions (morte and dak'kon) and a couple we liked in spite o' some serious flaws (nordom and annah.) the rest? meh. ravel puzzlewell were the best character in the game, but not a companion. regardless, rare does we have a game for which we likes more than 50% of the party npcs. for us, as long as we have a few good/great companions, the "meh" party members is adequate as long as they is still useful beyond story elements. on the other hand, with some games virtual all the companions is meh or worse. heck, hate for companions is, to our way o' thinking, better than complete forgettable. am talking to you arcanum. HA! Good Fun!

our recollection is that regardless o' how well you treat her, isabella will betray your trust in chapter 2. she takes advantage o' some chaos to abscond with some kinda book, yes? so yeah, becoming more untrustworthy is a kinda growth. sure, you can get her to do a kinda redemption thing, but that nonsense were pretty darn silly too. HA! Good Fun! edit: we will observe that in positive contrast to mass effect 2, the da2 companions had fewer "daddy" issues. that were a kinda positive... am s'posing. nevertheless, save for the pragmatic desire to fill out a party, we could not imagine any rational version of hawke having any da2 companion accompany them save for the dwarf and the knight.

our primary problem with the pirate stripper were not clothing or sexuality. her greatest flaw were an issue common with most da2 comps. the fact that the swashbuckling tart were written so as to be utterly untrustworthy were problematic for us. why would we have anything to do with her other than what were absolute necessary? puss n' boots might be the life o' the party (bachelor party?) but the rationale for continuing a relationship with her after the initial encounter were more than a little thin. to be fair, anders were an even worse option. the possessed renegade mage who were clearly a fan o' che guevara? sign him up as our new bestest buddy. fenris, the revenge-crazed ex-slave with some serious baggage were seeming more stable and reliable than anders? yeah, he was, and that is bad. heck, the realization that the immature bloodmage were more trustworthy than all companions save for the mercenary dwarf and the vulnerable knight were a travesty. am understanding that biowarians wanted drama with the party npcs, but if they is gonna force broken toys 'pon us, they should also give us better reasons for suffering their presence. isabella, the brothel ornament form da:o, is the kinda woman you give wrong phone number and a false name to. is not somebody you trust to watch your back in a fight... 'least not more than once. HA! Good Fun! ps while is genuine unrelated, we will note to bruce that we don't have contempt for strippers so much as sympathy. yeah, the stories 'bout the well-adjusted girl who strips to pay for tuition at Columbia is true, but rare. statistically speaking, the % o' strippers who were sexually abused, abuse drugs/alcohol, suffer from depression, have mpd and/or a host o' other mental health issues, is far greater than national averages. Far greater.

well, hurl is in new mexico, yes? while he is there, he can stop at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. am given to understand that the benedictines has an award winning micro-brew o' there own. HA! Good Fun! "there own"? sheesh. am gonna blame on an auto-correct 'cause am not seeing how that coulda' happened. is also a church in santa fe that is quite pretty... includes a "miraculous" staircase. the miracle stuff is unnecessary given that the chapel is beautiful enough on its own merits. and whoever the mystery carpenter were who created the staircase did a fantastic job. the handrail that were added some number o' years afterwards felt to us like sacrilege... wish we coulda' seen without such an embellishment. HA! Good Fun!

the dwarf guy had good voice acting which made his dialogue seem better. he were the comic relief and he got some good lines, but ultimately we think it were the voice acting that made him work. the elf girl from da2 were actual kinda intriguing. the execution were sketchy, but her naivete were believable. we obvious didn't explore any romance options, and doing so with merill woulda' felt a bit like child abuse. the shield maiden were also fun. yeah, she were the honorable and serious knight, but her social awkwardness were handled in an amusing and entertaining manner. were otherwise well written as the extreme competent but still vulnerable character. the rest? the archer we didn't hate. HA! Good Fun!

am always curious 'bout these sites and internet polls and similar such stuff. what does joining vgv accomplish? what does the vevn actually do? join nra and you is knowing that the gun folks is having a lobby with which they advocate and cajole. your membership fees go towards paying attorneys and organizing campaigns and bribing (making perfectly legal campaign contributions to) politicians. congrats. you signed up and did your good deed for the day. you has contributed to the fight to defend the First Amendment. now you can go back to playing sain't's row or grand theft auto 36 and then can act justifiably surprised when some smallish but organized group o' christian fundamentalists makes headway in increasing minimum age requirement for such games to be 40. (hyperbole) as far as we can tell, all such sites accomplish is deluding folks into believing they did something useful... kinda like a community college degree, but far less time consuming. HA! Good Fun!

I've never played any FF games, what would you recommend for the PC. I like an interesting fantasy RPG setting http://www.ign.com/games/final-fantasy-tactics-advance/gba-480116 is not pc, but is only ff game we could recommend. we would prefer to eat a sandwich filled with aluminum foil shavings than play ff rpgs. we tried to play ff 7. *shudder* HA! Good Fun!

well, hurl is in new mexico, yes? while he is there, he can stop at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. am given to understand that the benedictines has an award winning micro-brew o' there own. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind that nobody actual suggested such before bester chose to knock the stuffing out o' that strawman. is a rather cute habit o' his. HA! Good Fun!

didn't actual see this post... which is ok as it adds nothing. our eyes tend to skip over posts with excessive emoticons. in any event, am not certain what you think you has debunked. surely you hasn't shown that fallout is a balanced game or that josh is a poor authority. we already supplied numerous examples o' bad balance in fallout and bug issues in da:o. we has supplied numerous relevant examples in this thread. you? you do the vol thing where all you say is, "no," is amusing, but that is all you has offered, other than misusing symbolic logic fallacies and using a bg example which you already conceded were extreme. oh, wait, you did give a numeric value to our post. okie dokie. bg example is complete irrelevant btw. ignore fact that your example is suspect given how many folks complained that bg were too hard (the most common complaint developers received for all ie games btw.) observe that you can play and win a random game regardless o' how you built companions is meaningful because? point? heck, given the lack o' complexity and meaningful customization options in bg beyond choosing class, your example is irrelevant for numerous reasons. "Rudeness reveals your lack of self-confidence." *chuckle* am even more rude to vol. so what does that tell you? maybe it simple means that you is 'bout as convincing as the "pretty princess." fallout, btw, is not an authority. fallout is a game. it is a possible example, but is not an authority. am wishing you zealots would figure that out. fallout is a game with horrible balance issues. fallout is a game with a great setting and lots of choices. nevertheless, fallout is, in many ways, a poor designed game that makes it possible for new players to end frustrated as they attempt to navigate the wonderful setting with inexplicably weak characters. fallout is a good example o' the usefulness o' a respec option... which you perhaps again were forgetting were the actual issue at hand. am recalling we were needing to remind you o' that fact a couple posts up the page. ... "I meant in the context of everything being balanced so evenly thick that there is no contrast between the choices you make, that which ever way you go, you get the same lukewarm and servile experience that does not dare to require anything short of thinking related from the player, and due to everything being equal in impact and usage you might as well have nothing to choose from. That's the hyperbole included." somewhere in there is the kernel o' a valid concern, but we honest cannot figure it out. am not being sarcastic. am actual sympathetic. when obsidian developers mentioned that each o' the poe classes will be capable o' filling multiple/any role, we were dubious. what is the point of having a class-based system if each class can be anything? so am thinking we might be understanding your concern... tangential at least. nevertheless, when we actual considers the notion o' balanced abilities and features, we can't genuinely see a flaw in attempting to maximize balance. if we hear that a game has successful balanced ranged and melee weapons, which so rare happens, we would think that is great news. wouldn't you? is not a real example, but what if we learned that seeming secondary skills in wasteland 2 (stuff like alarm disabling and toaster repair) were as useful as the traditional wins of lock-pick and safe-cracking, what would be our complaint? we got none. as we noted above, greater balance makes replayability for us far more likely and if all character generation options were balanced, we clear wouldn't have any respec concerns. *shrug* am simply not seeing the drawbacks o' aiming for balanced use. HA! Good Fun!

you might as well be Cole for all the good asking does. HA! Good Fun!

am recognizing your bit 'bout hyperbole, but that would not change fact that you see balanced character generation wherein making bad choices is marginalized as being a goal worthy o' criticism, yes? nevertheless, we asked as it would seem more important to understand if that is how you meant for your comments to be received, rather than however Gromnir might choose to understand it, yes? or perhaps not. *shrug* as much as we likes to experiment with gimp characters (particularly with games we has played-to-death) a game wherein we gets equal juice per squeeze from character generation options would, to our mind, be offering a far greater range o' replayability. sure, you will still be able to make bad choices in individual encounters, but for all builds to be giving equivalent usefulness (as 'posed to equal power) is seeming to us like kinda the goal, and not something worthy o' ridicule. odd HA! Good Fun!

"There is no God but Cain, and MCA is his prophet." fallout is a religion-- not just a game. heck, there is a Bible for fallout. am suspecting that calling it a bible is a bit o' tounge-in-cheek, but the true believers don't see it that way. http://www.duckandcover.cx/index.php?id=5 so, to answer your question, yes... and no. "and bad decision(s) are impossible to make." that is a criticism? "Although I've always referred to them as Fallout Fanatics because if you call them Cainists, then you're discounting the other dev's who created Fallout (imo)" cain is the sacred cow. folks at nma and codex will criticize chrisA, but cain blunders is either marginalized or rationalized into near non-existence. alternatively, mistakes of cain is frequent re-imagined as beautiful features, as may be seen from this thread. is actual kinda comical. HA! Good Fun!

(Bolded for emphasis.) That actually is a very cool thing. On the other hand, balancing the game in a way that the cost of these skills would be directly proportional to the benefit they offer (whether through a discount to less-useful skills, or making all skills equally useful) sounds like the prudent thing to do. "having some known less efficacious skills does potential add to replayability. after our second or third run (and sometimes a first run in a d&d game) we likes to play a weak character. frequent we specific make a character we know will be difficult but fun to get through a game. the thing is, is not fun if we don't know that energy weapons is prohibitive weak for 2/3 of the game, but fantastic for the last third. we has purposeful played fallout characters with barter and outdoorsman and throwing as our tagged skills. were fun... but were fun 'cause we knew what we were in for when choosing weak skills. on the other hand, if we were a n00b to fallout and we built with weak traits and weak feats and weak skills, we would no doubt be extreme frustrated after a few hours. is asinine to purposeful design game with mysterious Fail features, but even the most carefully balanced game will have some such stuff if only 'cause increased complexity makes inevitable. so why makes the new guy pay by restarting the game? one respec strikes us as an adequate solution. give folks one respec chance to correct bad design or bugs or mistaken understanding of often poorly described mechanics. the opportunities for exploitation with a single respec is minimal compared to hours o' frustration you will save folks who are obvious new to the franchise... your potential future customers. other than some fuzzy notion that respec allows a vague number o' folks to "cheat" in a sp game, we can't see a serious drawback from a single respec opportunity. HA! Good Fun!

what arguments? we mentioned them yet again in our previous post. are you being willful obtuse or is this some kinda game? am uncertain at this point? scroll up or not-- up to you. and yes, bugs should indeed be considered as actual issue being discussed, since you missed it, is the appropriateness o' respec. "It's an extreme case of course" then why make such an argument? is ridiculous and reveals the paucity o' your imagination and intellect. if is extreme, then ain't useful. bg is a bad example. am gonna agree with you. grats and thanks. and go ez on the straw man... again. is nothing in what we said that equates with press X for win. by the way, arguing from authority is quite valid. in fact, it is one o' the more significant arguments one may make in most situations. is not good logic, but when discussing best treatments for cancer or what is dangerous levels o' lead in water tables, experts and authorities is your best argument. serious. have you never made an argument? in some fields such as law, authorities is where you start. learn your copi before dismissing what you do not understand. as for examples... wth? scroll up. wacky stuff. is so tough to deal with codexians who is only familiar with preaching to choir and spouting irrelevant gibberish. HA! Good Fun!

It's pretty close to literal. People who don't have a special connection to the Fade either literally can't see him or forget about him quickly. Not sure exactly how that's going to work with party banter... well, on the positive side, if the undead guy's dialogue is serious horrible, we should get an option to act as if we can't hear him. am understanding that old married couples sometimes displays a similar ability o' selective deafness. dialogue wheel option #3 for spook-poof should always be: *silence* you pretend as if you cannot see or hear Cole. problems solved. HA! Good Fun!

and so you do another strawman to prove? we like replayability very much. and saying we made no arguments is kinda and odd tack to take, but if it has worked for you in the past, we s'pose you can keep tying to head into the wind. arguments for respec is: bugs make some abilities genuine useless til fixed, poor balance by developers renders player build weak or useless, the lead developer of poe has rejected the inane "replay-ability" argument in favor of greater balance, etc. *shrug* IF you somehow equate horrendous balance and poorly constructed rules mechanics with an increase in replayability, then you is expressing a myopic bit o' cainist dogma. play game again as a viable non-combat character is replayability. play game again to be seeing snarky, ruthless, or mercenary options is replayability. play game again as a different class or with a differing combat focus (e.g ranged as 'posed to melee) is replayability. play game again to be seeing differing bifurcations o' quest paths not taken in first play is replayability. if after having completed said game, the player wishes to REplay the game to explore different features or content, they is getting benefits of replayability. on the other hand, if player needs quit and restart game due to frustration 'caused by bugs or terrible balancing, that is Not replayability save in the minds o' the deluded fallout fans who insist that horrendous balance is a feature. you people is nuts. serious. HA! Good Fun!

The reason he looks dead-ish is because he's some kind of Fade entity (probably) weirdly bound to the body of a dead mage. And he won't be romanceable in the slightest, because he basically has the mental outlook of a child and Gaider has explicitly said multiple times that a romance involving him would be foul and repellent. Just to dispel a little bit of the ridicule. given the numerous demands to romance your sibling in da2, am suspecting that the "outlook of a child" would not dissuade a significant % o' the bsn population from requesting that corpse-boy be romanceable. so, while you has managed to possibly dispel some o' the ridicule, we suspect that very shortly we is gonna be getting all new fodder worthy o' even greater contempt and derision... at least if history is telling us anything 'bout predicting bsn reactions regarding romance. HA! Good Fun!

hey, why don't you take a shot at the strawman too? as for ocelot and gizmo, they is repeating each other and we is left repeating self... and so on. "That is an awful way to build a game world." as vol would say, "no." is the only rational way to build a game world. you is creating a system and a world. the implication that the system need make concessions to the world is so idiotic it boggles the mind. how can you possibly be so snobbish and make claims 'bout intelligence and taste when you says such ridiculous stuff. takes so very little imagination and forethought to make Anything possible in a fantastic setting that the developer creates from scratch, and fallout is fantasy far more than science as the science would make asimov, clarke, and even heinlein chuckle at the thought o' calling it sci-fi. there is no license considerations or canon. developers can do anything. and most obvious and important factor one must keep in mind when creating a game world is that it is a GAME world. this truth is so freaking axiomatic we shouldn't need point it out to you. "It's okay not to ever acquire an energy weapon in the game ~skill or no skill." ... you managed to say something even more amusing and sad than anything ocelot shared. curious. am imagining the ha-ha value o' playing a vancian wizard in a low-magic setting. 'course the player don't realize the setting is low magic until he starts exploring the game for the first time. low and behold, he manages to get through the entire game without discovering a single spell for his spellbook. see, now that is the kinda clever game design we need more of these days. *insert eye-roll here* what you and others at nma and codex has some convinced selves is a beautiful feature after a decade and a half o' proselytizing to the converted, is in actuality brobdingnagian blunder. the fact that you can't recognize that fact is amusing and little sad. HA! Good Fun!

in the past couple decades, elmore leonard has become increasing popular. well, movies and tv shows made from his books has become popular. is not really that surprising as elmore leonard did the whedon shtick, but better. is not as if elmore leonard were unique either as others has done better than he did it. go back 400 years and we got shakespeare combining serious content with witty and clever dialogues and liberal doses o' humor. the whedon thing is not new, and is probable the most historic successful approach to entertainments. only newish spin is what leonard added with the overtly sexy characters. ... think 'bout the mostest popular character in george rr martin books. is tyrion. read shakespeare and most of us prefers mercutio and falstaff and even richard 'cause they get the best lines. if malcom reynolds were serious all the time, he would be gary cooper from high noon? ok, bad example. point is that trying to use the "whedon formula" is not a bad idea. our problem with recent bioware writing, if we has a problem, is that the biowarians is consciously avoiding "too." is an exact quote from gaider regarding da:o. he noted that da:o would be "dark, but not too dark." ... wth can that possibly mean, and how can it be good? bio gave bruce romance, but the romances is 'posed to makes people all warm and fuzzy while remaining incidental and tangential. don't want romances to be too. not too serious. not too funny. not too grim. not too candyland/disney. not too... anything. is not that bioware is unsuccessful combining new battlestar galactica (which were a frequent da:o cited inspiration) and george rr martin and whedon. is fact that bioware is trying to appeal to everybody by avoiding too. *shrug* or maybe there is nothing wrong and bioware has successful got their own crpg formula. dunno. we will wait a year before purchasing, but we will purchase eventually. HA! Good Fun!

when tim burton were in jr. high wood shop, the teacher instructed him to make a birdhouse. instead, this is what young tim crafted. HA! Good Fun!