Slawbug

Lord Rahul's wife is Lady Anjali.  Yes, she is a Shaper.

It is really not hard to google these things.  Fifteen seconds.

I mean, that is how diseases in the real world work.  The thing that makes a pathogen cause disease has something to do with host cells, and is therefore species-dependent.

"Recently"?  MattP hasn't posted in more than 16 years...

For the eighteenth time, the endings have not changed.

alhoon, I love you, but it is really frustrating to consistently have you respond to things with "what you recall" when you could just look it up and discover that you are wrong.

Have you kept these artilas with you all game long, so they've been gaining XP and levels?  Or have you been re-making them when they die?  This is a huge distinction in OG2, so it's an important question.

Also, War Blessing and Protection are great but Speed is far more important.

That's fair.  I do think taking down the Shapers is important.  But I don't think it trumps all other considerations.

In the Trajkov G1 ending, the Shapers are taken down, and creations are given equality right out of the gate.  That's basically a better outcome for everybody.

Trajkov could do that because he wasn't bent on vengeance -- he just wanted to win.  Okay, lots of other reasons too.  But there are better options than the drakon plans.

Shanti would have killed them all.  She'd have been sad about it.  She'd also have prevented all the devastation and war that followed.

> Pinner's stance is open to ridicule, to be honest

And yet, in the Awakened ending, that stance works out for the best.

The G1 and G2 endings both offered multiple ways out of the utter devastation of what we might as well call the drakon wars.  Even the rosiest and most idealistic way to wrap up G5 seems like a worse outcome to me.

Ah... if it's original G2, then creation level truly trumps everything else in the game.  Literally everything.  If you've been re-making your artilas all through the game, anything you can do to boost your Magic Shaping skill, just re-make them and that should help a lot.  (If they've been gaining levels with you, ignore that, it won't help at this point.)

Are you supporting your creations with spells?  Buffing spells make a huge difference, and mental magic can be effective too, even as a Shaper.

...except listen to how he talks about the Awakened.  He ridicules them, he ridicules their openness and kindness.

Was Zakary (that is how his name is spelled) probably always a shaper who was relatively decent to creations?  Sure.  So, by all indications, is Shanti.  I don't think he's a failed Awakened, I think he's a failed Shanti.  He's not cruel, but he also doesn't care about how creations are treated by the Shaper world in general.  He accepted the free serviles earlier in his life not because he agreed with them but because he is unprincipled, and it was useful to his power and prestige-seeking to accept them.  He's just an unprincipled and self-centered Shaper.

On 4/20/2024 at 2:36 PM, E-Rose said:

Hit chance should be influenced by points added to melee/missile/combat/mind shaping... not on char level.

It's an interesting game design dilemma.  On the one hand, what you say makes sense, and it feels "dumbed down" for hit rate to just automatically rise, and be out of the player's control.

On the other hand, in old SW games with stat or skill based hit rates, that just resulted in incredibly inflexible and predictable stat/skill point usage.  It was really punishing if you wanted to diversify at all, and it didn't actually result in deeper or more varied or more interesting build options.

You know... I kinda like this idea.  It's not like it would really be overpowered for Guardians to be able to use either type of attack.

On 4/19/2024 at 5:14 AM, Elerai said:

Anyways, its not about difficulty. I want diversity in build paths. Max BM + SC + INT, with 5 MM and 4 BLM is really the only option Agents get. They can't focus on creations, aside from maybe a Gazer or two; Daze + ST damage isn't great on them as BM is very AOE + DOT focused, and they definitely don't want anything to do with Melee/Missile. Sure, Dominating stuff all around is a cool playstyle, but I wouldn't call it hard or diverse.

 

Hell, I'd even want some diversity in shaping. With how accuracy works, not focusing a single shaping tree is suboptimal. If creation accuracy was adjusted a bit to not be as dependant on shaping levels, multi-shaping can again be a legit option. Admittedly, in G5 shaping skills were a bit weak since creation level bonus from skills were massively outclassed by base creation levels, but maybe we can get a better compromise?

Love all of this.

There is one thing, one very stupid thing, which makes Agents and Guardians likely better than Sorceresses and Shock Troopers in G5: in G5 and only G5, the 3 original classes have invisible armor and resistance bonuses that are pretty huge, ranging from 30% to 60% for damage types, and at 70% for mental.

The necessary investment in Mechanics and Leadership is pretty tiny.

> having more creation at zero upgrade has a better outcome than spending essence on upgrades of fewer creations

I mean, "upgrades" vary wildly in how good they are.  For the most part I agree with this sentiment, but there are some key upgrades for many creations that are absolutely worth it.

Learned Versa uses them, notably to turn Healing Spores into Restoration Spores, which is pretty great.

I don't believe the bushes ever replenish.

I can only repeat: Infestation didn't add that.  It was present in the original.

The endings have not changed other than a few minor text changes.

45 minutes ago, earanhart said:

It would have until Infestation added the Unaligned path which by not having an official name in-world kind of means that for this game at least "factionless" is supportive of the Shaper Council.

Although in metaconversations we specifically call that the Unaligned path already, and I doubt any new player would be confused by the term, excepting possibly the singular interaction there and that will be rare.

 

I like "factionless"

Infestation didn't add that.  It was present in the original.  A few more people comment on it, but it was already described by a couple of them, and it already had a different ending.

I thought QW3 wasn't happening?

"factionless shaper" removes all potential for confusion, doesn't it?  "disloyal" is really subjective.

It would be interesting if news about Sharon finds its way into the G3 remake somehow.

Most of the practicums I'm familiar with are part of graduate programs -- it happens in undergrad but it's a lot less common.

I suspect this conversation may be the result of differences between countries where undergrad is professionally focused on one subject, versus countries where a lot of undergrad is general or elective, and most professional programs are in grad school.

I don't care if it's "neutral shaper" or "ex-shaper" or "disloyal shaper" or whatever but you guys each object to a different one.  We need something that can be used to communicate effectively in this world.

But yes, we should use terminology that is based on what something actually is (stated as flatly as possible) rather than what one or more parties subjectively want to classify it as.  The Shaper Council would call Sharon disloyal, maybe, but that's their definition of loyalty, and not even a universal cultural judgment among Shapers, let alone anyone else.  And whether or not they were okay with the term "neutral," the Shaper Council would not object to drawing a distinction between an actual rebel shaper fighting against them, and an old shaper who basically retires to the countryside as a hermit.  I agree that "ex-shaper" is confusing for various reasons.

"Factionless Shaper" is maybe more precise than "neutral Shaper."  If it's a factual and direct label, then for our purposes, it doesn't really matter what anybody in-world thinks about it.

It doesn't matter if the Takers or the Shapers agree with the terminology.  We need that terminology to have this discussion.  Just because the Takers and/or the Shapers don't recognize a distinction doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

In G2 you're definitely a graduate.  You're just still dealing with a practicum before you can get full licensure 😛  The G1 and G3 PCs are at earlier points in their training.

That's not just Tuldaric; every sect head trainer operates that way.  Tyallea, Tuldaric, Burham, Salgurdar.  They just need you to be modified.

1 hour ago, oceanes said:

You know, this discussion underscores the fact that the Takers in GF1 and 2 are not so much an ideological movement, really, but an "ethnic" nationalist movement that adopted an ideology to animate their people, the nationality in question being serviles, later expanded to thinking creations as the drayks/drakons became more prominent, with the commons being bolted on as a kind of auxiliary because the movement's philosophy applies to them as well, and the Takers are smart enough to want the manpower. The same applies to the awakened to a lesser degree. The Rebellion as started by Ghaldring continues this, with the ideology becoming more and more prominent in people's thinking as more commons join, so that by GF4 we see little of the Takers' commitment in GF2 to keep Shaping purely in creation hands. There are just too many humans in the movement for that.

Except that the ideology really did come first, just not the ideology you're talking about.  "Take our free" - in the context of the Obeyer-style thinking everyone was doing at the time - was absolutely an ideological movement.  That's the whole Taker identity.