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Everything posted by Punctuation rains from the heavens
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That's not a text file, that's a truetype font. Fonts are considered system files for some purposes, so safe mode is probably what's stopping you from moving it.
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All actual modifiers attached to items themselves affect your character globally. In the example above, Deadly Blow from the cleaver will affect missile attacks; the hit reduction on the shield will, too. The dual wielding penalty is different. It isn't a modifier on an item, it's just something that applies when you make a dual wielding attack.
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Can Jeff be compared to Tolkein?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to TriRodent's topic in General
I'll set things off with a plump "no." Not out of any disrespect -- they're simply very different. There are two very different approaches to world-building and story-creating here. Tolkien was attached, on many levels, to the internal consistency of his worlds (see in particular his essay about sub-creation), down to gritty details. He had no interest in "creating unique stories/situations" in isolation -- something that Jeff definitely does, and does well, in his games. Correspondingly, Jeff is a lot looser about canon -- Tolkien may have retconned things here and there over the decades, but he never, say, forgot an entire continent existed. Jeff delights in out-of-context cameos and parodies that speak to the present day; Tolkien wanted something that felt ancient, and went out of his way to disclaim any allegories in his books. Their world-building focuses on very different things. I guess Jeff has more in common with Tolkien than a big gaming conglomerate might. But that's not saying much. EDIT: Visual comparison: -
Buzko is correct. You can only wear up to -5% without any levels in Swordmage. Also, it's not the "net" of ANY bonuses to hit. It's the net of all bonuses and penalties to hit on equipment. I don't think anything else counts. From my old analysis: * Swordmage (x4) (needs level 6) Needed if you want to use heavily encumbering armor on your mage. Too bad there isn't really a good reason to do that in the first place. You can wear -5% without this skill, and special hit chance bonuses from equipment counteracts the penalty, so a +5% bow (of which there are many) will allow you to wear a base of -10%. The negative hit chance greaves, gauntlets, boots, and helmets aren't terribly useful for a rear position mage anyway, and there is even one chest armor that provides 34% protection without encumberance (Runed Plate). There are some terrific shields without any hit penalty. -10% is enough for the Mercuric Leather + Quicksilver Bulwark, or the Mercuric Chain + Quicksilver Sandals. So you can even outfit 2 mages in AP+ gear without this. The other encumbering armors are a trade-off anyway since you miss out of the bonuses from the Robe of the Magi. Unless you are a singleton, this trait is unnecessary (and maybe even then).
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Since I'm being quoted without attribution or a link, and there is other relevant information in the original post, here is a link: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/21108-effectiveness-of-gymnastics-and-sniper-for-extra-actions/ The second quote appears to be from Triumph, and I would note that we also speculated, from some testing in A2:CS, that Luck may contribute 1% per point to the damage percentile multiplier (where almost all percentile bonuses are summed). I don't think we ever sorted that out conclusively.
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The whole item list and equipment mechanics are very different from Exile, so it's hard to compare individual items and shop lists. But the "random selection" shops that could have amazing top-tier magic items for sale are definitely not a thing anymore. It's just fixed inventory for all merchants now.
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Relying on 9 x 9 view?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to The Almighty Doer of Stuff's topic in Blades of Exile
ADoS, friendly suggestion. When you are feeling stressed out in general, and get frustrated with someone, might be worth taking it up with them privately. After somebody requests that the thread stay on topic, that's probably not the best time to air a personal grievance either. But since that's where things have gone, it's probably time for this thread to close. -
Relying on 9 x 9 view?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to The Almighty Doer of Stuff's topic in Blades of Exile
And forgetting the legal concerns, this is ethically extremely problematic. We're not talking about a mechanical file format conversion here, we're talking about manually making choices about whether or not and how to edit other people's work. Without their consent. These sorts of suggestions, that are so toxic but come from the mouth of the project, keep other people away from this development project. -
Relying on 9 x 9 view?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to The Almighty Doer of Stuff's topic in Blades of Exile
Yeah, this is still a creative idea that would unfortunately cause a lot of problems in practice. -
Exile 1 Vahnatai Cave Barriers
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to Syaoran2001's topic in The Exile Trilogy
The LP probably mixed them up because that second cave, to the east, also has a Vahnatai reference in it. The rest of the map is presumably there for because the Exile display, and the Magic Map spell, both mean you can see parts of it despite not being able to reach them. -
Avernum 0, The time of darkness
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to Dark Lizerd's topic in General
Hi Mike Lata, Welcome back to the forums! If your previous posts here were many years ago, they may have become disconnected from your account when we switched forum software. If they were really old, they may have been wiped at some point. Meanwhile, a friendly request from the mods: forums don't work well when used as chat rooms; please use the edit button to add to your post, rather than making five in a row. (I've hidden some of the extras.) Thanks! -
Yes, very good point about planning. Geneforge offers divergent strategies with widely differing rates of return. If you pick efficient creations (it's not usually obvious which these are) and make a bunch of them, you steamroll things even on Torment. You get a more consistent challenge running e.g. a solo Agent. Avadon 1 and Avernum 6 are maybe the least susceptible to optimizing characters, in general: you can make things easier but there will still be challenging bits. (Avadon 2 and 3 come close, but are beyond clobbered by the Tinkermages.)
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The way people experience it has a lot to do with how they build their characters and parties. I'd agree with your assessment though -- with a somewhat optimized build, on Torment, easiest to hardest -- Geneforge, First Avernum Trilogy remakes, Second Avernum Trilogy, Avadon. Queen's Wish is somewhere in the middle as well. The early game can actually be challenging on Torment, but once you build up some resources and levels and start taking advantage of key mechanics, it's a lot easier. I'd slot it in with the Second Avernum Trilogy.
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OK, so small details relating to Rentar and the Abyss. I mean, all Spiderweb games have small choices like that in addition to the major choices of faction and goal and so on. Even the First Trilogy had some little details like that -- choosing whether or not to kill each of the Dragons, for example. But the faction-choice games have plenty of those as well. I admit that I am totally confused by the assertion that it's impossible to be a hero in Avadon or in Queen's Wish. Totally not true. "Hero" might be more nuanced than in A1-4, but it's certainlynot any more nuanced than it is in, say, Geneforge, where you're causing one or more factions to get massacred no matter what you do. G3 and G4 in particular deliberately have nothing resembling a real heroic ending.
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This is good advice, though I think by "older game" you really just mean "First Trilogy." The change is less a trend and more a punctuated shift that happened in 1997. Every non-remake SW game released since late 1997 has had explicit mechanics for "who do you want to side with / what kind of hero do you want to be" running through the whole game, with the sole exception of A4 (2005). Granted, the 1995-1997 trilogy has been re-made twice. But A4 is the only "you're just the hero" story Jeff has written in the last 22 years.
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Yeah, but it's not very hard to find different evasion and accuracy numbers on enemies, and it's even easier to create them on yourself (change equips/skills). I mean, go for it, just seems like a lot of trouble. Setting one to zero won't reduce anything to you-only-need-one-test status, since there are very possibly default hit numbers -- not listed in the defs files -- that start out in the middle.
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When's the next game being released?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to madrigan's topic in General
I mean, some version of that exploit exists no matter what map system you use. (And it doesn't really matter, but I do not understand how in the world "what it did to Exile's geography" can possibly be describing a combat/healing exploit....) -
When's the next game being released?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to madrigan's topic in General
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I'm talking about the fact that Blosk and Dharmon were basically five feet away from each other in A4, and so on. -
When's the next game being released?
Punctuation rains from the heavens replied to madrigan's topic in General
Yeah, I agree with Alo -- there's room to "fix" the Rentar-Ihrno plot. It's not completely crazy that she attacked Avernum directly, and at least one of the mechanisms she used was very interesting (the Shades, lifted from Ultima though they may have been). If she (and perhaps Glantris-Bok or another associate) had received actual character development, that would help. If her involvement wasn't presented as an incredibly insulting "mystery" with the most boring and obvious answer, that would help. If there was actual intrigue, because, say, she herself was involved with the Darkside Loyalists, or because the Olgai tribe sent an envoy who could actually speak human and wasn't jarringly huge, that would help. If Starrus had actual characterization, and presented a coherent personality as an opposing force, that would help too. But there are some small-plot elements that would also help redeem things. A lot of minor characters from the First Trilogy appeared in A4, and many of them just sort of... butchered, or completely ignored, their past characterizations. (Yong-Mi, you will be avenged!) Now, the continuous map and what it did to Exile's geography is a bigger problem, but A6 somehow handled that a lot better than A4 did, so perhaps that wouldn't be too terrible to fix, either. -
Which is fine, but none of that in any way supports not only assuming one of multiple plausible theories is true, but presenting it as repeatable fact. Many aspects of the game aren't hard to mod. Combat formulas are not one of those aspects. Testing could be done, but I'm not sure modding would make that any easier or harder.
