Slariton

Grats on finishing. *cheers*

But when you say "originally correct" you are defining "originally" rather arbitrarily. I am guessing "originally" can't mean, say, Middle English, and I don't think you'd hold up 17th century English as a proper model for us either. At what point in time did English magically reach its "originally correct form"?

Aha, I see you have answered my question already.

Don't believe everything your teachers tell you. It's a romantic notion, and I daresay a wonderful one, to hold up a language at one particular moment and say "This is good. This I love. I want to use this as a standard." I think that's great. But it's still totally arbitrary, and if you expect all men to do the same thing, you're deluding yourself. And if you are going to nitpick language you certainly can't say "originally" to refer to such standards!

Yes, English is being "dumbed down." It is also being built up. All languages are constantly being dumbed down and built up as words cycle in and out of the lexicon and as their meanings change in subtle ways.

English still has a truly enormous vocabulary. I think awe-inspiring works for "truly awesome" although awesome itself still works, given proper context. As for something "so laden with fantasy elements as to make it unbelievable," what about chimerical? Phantasmagorical? There are other words with related meanings to both of those -- numinous, say.

Defining words is difficult, particularly words that don't refer to concrete objects. You can often triangulate on a meaning by asking yourself "would I describe this as __? what about that?" for many things... at first this is easy, but when you get to a very precise level of definition, you may start to be iffy about some answers; and you will eventually start to get different answers from different people, even from native speakers from the same area. And these fuzzy meanings will change over time in very subtle ways, even for a single speaker. For a language which is spoken by millions of people around the world, you can imagine all the changes it goes through. Many of these balance each other out, like myriad ripples on the world's oceans. But beneath the seas, there is always some tectonic activity, and eventually we see continental drift.

What makes you say that? I'm interested, but looking back on the various texts I've read from Chaucer's day to ours, I can't say I've ever gotten that impression. Certainly Shakespeare is rich language, but that has as much to do with the author as the language, and I daresay he succeeds more at creating poetic multiplicity of meaning rather than at being "precise."

Sigh.

I spent the past two years studying linguistics, and this kind of prescriptivist attitude really irks me. Language is a dynamic entity, constantly changing, and you can only pin it down in a certain form so long as you freeze time at a certain moment. The correct form IS the form that is typically used.

The fact is that language is essentially arbitrary, and it isn't any better or any more "correct" to use one word or another, or one syntactic structure or another, to communicate something. The only time you could really make such an argument would be in a certain word or structure is confusing or hard to use to communicate -- but in such a case, its use would never become widespread anyway.

As for "It is I" versus "It's me" -- English is what syntacticians call an analytic language. Speakers of English rely heavily on word position to figure out how a word is being used. "I" and "me" and the rest of our personal pronouns are left over from the influence of other languages where inflection is used rather than word order. While "I" and "me" carry different syntactic information and are not exactly the same words, in the context of "It's __" they are pretty much identical in meaning. Therefore, it's not surprising that they have become somewhat interchangeable in that context.

Syntactically, the role taken on by the pronoun in "it's __" is not exactly the same as the roles taken by subjective (I) or objective (me) pronouns. You can see this looking at other languages. In French, for example, you do not see "C'est je" (It's I) or "C'est me" (It's me) but "C'est moi" where "moi" is the disjunctive pronoun, a modified form of "me" (me).

And I don't agree about this at all. When you say "which is better?" you're basically saying "which is better (than the others)?" And when you say 'which is best?" you're basically saying "which is (the) best (one)?" Both make sense, and there's absolutely no reason you can't use a superlative with a set of two. It communicates just as clearly as the comparative and it doesn't hurt the use of the superlative in any other situation. They are different logical structures, but there is no good reason (or, AFIAK, any historical justification) to restrict the use of one in a situation where they both fit.

You don't have to open the prefs window. It's happened to me at least twice on fresh starts of the application, going straight to loading the quicksave. Playing under Easy gives you a substantial bonus to your dodge score (actually, I think the enemy levels may just all be reduced, so they all have lower to-hit scores), and as a singleton with high dodge, it's extremely noticeable when this bonus goes away.

 

As I said, though, I can't recreate it, so I don't know what caused it.

A4 has significantly more plot than G3, if that's a helpful comparison.

Has anyone else encountered this?

 

Occasionally, the game difficulty resets to normal when I start up a game which was saved under a different difficulty. I don't know what causes this, and I can't consistently recreate it, so it's hard to document, but I'm 100% sure it's happened to me repeatedly.

 

Also, the difficulty options in the Preferences window and in the Edit Party window don't always seem to be in sync. Sometimes changing one will change the other. Sometimes it won't, and it's easy to get them to disagree as to what the difficulty level is. The Edit Party option seems to be mostly irrelevant to the game, except that it usually (but not always!) changes the value in the Preferences window if you change it when starting a new game.

So, my singleton, who didn't buy any First Aid to start out with, just purchased 2 levels from Cecil. A second later I saw the familiar first aid recovery message:

 

"... (1296 health, 260 energy)"

 

Presumably, this was my reward for all the slaying I'd done so far. Someone was asking what the highest first aid reward anyone had gotten was... does this take the cake?

It could. For whatever reason, it doesn't. "Base damage" is always the multiplier range times the weapon level. So the first number is always going to be the same as the weapon level. For your regular slith spear, that's "8 - 24" meaning 1-3 x 8.

 

Edit: Yeah. Thanks Thuryl.

The regular Slith Spear is a level 8 weapon, but it has a multiplier of 3 like regular spears. Thus, each level of Strength, Pole Weapons, and so on that your warrior has will do an extra 1-3 damage. The Fine Slith Spear is a level 6 weapon, but it has a multiplier of 4 like halberds. Thus, each level of Strength, Pole Weapons, etc. will do an extra 1-4 damage.

 

The multiplier difference adds up quickly when you have high amounts of Strength and so on, as most warriors will. So the Fine Slith Spear is usually a stronger weapon. The "Base Damage" displayed is the damage you will get if you have no skill whatsoever with the weapon, and is often somewhat misleading.

 

(The weapon level affects the "base damage" and it also affects chance to-hit slightly. However, unless you are missing a lot with the fine spear you probably don't need to worry about that.)

IIRC, the highest Arcane Lore the game ever requires you to have is 15. (And there are several items which boost the stat.)

In two words:

 

A4: depth.

 

BoA: breadth.

Verdict: As suspected, Magical Efficiency really sucks. I have a whole bunch of data, but it really doesn't seem worth typing in. Here's an overview:

 

5 ME: average 91% of normal spell cost

10 ME: average 81%

20 ME: average 75%

30 ME: average 58%

 

Note though that ME is more consistent with higher casting cost spells. With Minor Heal (cost of 2), I once got a free casting with 5 ME, but 5 ME will usually give no reduction. On the other hand, Arcane Shield (cost of 20) gave me results exclusively between 15-19 with 5 ME. With 30, the results were all between 11 and 17, mostly 13s and 14s.

 

Free points from Pure Spirit or whatever aren't bad, but this is definitely not worth spending skill points on.

Verdict: As suspected, Magical Efficiency really sucks. I have a whole bunch of data, but it really doesn't seem worth typing in. Here's an overview:

 

5 ME: average 91% of normal spell cost

10 ME: average 81%

20 ME: average 75%

30 ME: average 58%

 

Note though that ME is more consistent with higher casting cost spells. With Minor Heal (cost of 2), I once got a free casting with 5 ME, but 5 ME will usually give no reduction. On the other hand, Arcane Shield (cost of 20) gave me results exclusively between 15-19 with 5 ME. With 30, the results were all between 11 and 17, mostly 13s and 14s.

 

Free points from Pure Spirit or whatever aren't bad, but this is definitely not worth spending skill points on.

If you don't mind waiting a bit, you can get 3 points in Mage Spells just from equipment. That means only buying 8 points, which is doable. Heck, I've already bought 6 for Unlock, so maybe I will end up getting Dispel Barrier after all. Certainly it's worth it, if you get 15 knowledge brews out of the deal, and perhaps some extra equipment on top of that.

 

Someone else said they had about 35 brews at the end of their game, which suggests Nature Lore gets you about 20 brews. 40 skill points is only about 12-14 points of Nature Lore, though, so it seems like Nature Lore is a losing proposition for singletons after all. Bummer. Are there any other cool items buried in the dirt, besides the Heartstrike Bow?

 

Update, btw, on my singleton: I just got Enduring Shield -- I forgot you could get that in Formello! Everything has become ridiculously easy now. Even missiles have very low hit chances against me now, turrets for example at about 10%. (Excuse me... not turrets, "fungi.")

If you don't mind waiting a bit, you can get 3 points in Mage Spells just from equipment. That means only buying 8 points, which is doable. Heck, I've already bought 6 for Unlock, so maybe I will end up getting Dispel Barrier after all. Certainly it's worth it, if you get 15 knowledge brews out of the deal, and perhaps some extra equipment on top of that.

 

Someone else said they had about 35 brews at the end of their game, which suggests Nature Lore gets you about 20 brews. 40 skill points is only about 12-14 points of Nature Lore, though, so it seems like Nature Lore is a losing proposition for singletons after all. Bummer. Are there any other cool items buried in the dirt, besides the Heartstrike Bow?

 

Update, btw, on my singleton: I just got Enduring Shield -- I forgot you could get that in Formello! Everything has become ridiculously easy now. Even missiles have very low hit chances against me now, turrets for example at about 10%. (Excuse me... not turrets, "fungi.")

"Basically, each piece of armor eats a percentage of the remaining damage. I love this system and wish I thought it up years ago. It makes balance MUCH easier. It is the main factor that helps me keep the game a challenge at higher levels."

 

Ooh, thanks for the answer. That *is* a great system. Teach me to read the readme! Hmm... so basically, those Poor Leather Helmets are completely useless...

 

One more question: are character-innate resistances (say, from being a Slith, from Luck, from Hardiness, from Endurance, etc) all lumped together and applied as one? And does this mean that an Endurance of 20 will *actually* make you immune to Poison and Acid? (Or, more to the point, that 10 Hardiness and 20 Resistance will give 100% immunity?)

"Basically, each piece of armor eats a percentage of the remaining damage. I love this system and wish I thought it up years ago. It makes balance MUCH easier. It is the main factor that helps me keep the game a challenge at higher levels."

 

Ooh, thanks for the answer. That *is* a great system. Teach me to read the readme! Hmm... so basically, those Poor Leather Helmets are completely useless...

 

One more question: are character-innate resistances (say, from being a Slith, from Luck, from Hardiness, from Endurance, etc) all lumped together and applied as one? And does this mean that an Endurance of 20 will *actually* make you immune to Poison and Acid? (Or, more to the point, that 10 Hardiness and 20 Resistance will give 100% immunity?)

1. You are relying on summons? Hmm. It sounds pretty MP-intensive... are you gonna be running back to town a lot? And what about areas with lots of minor enemies? I dunno, it seems like a hassle to me.

 

2. For me at least the point of running a singleton has nothing to do with any "bare minimum" type challenge. Rather, playing a singleton presents you with a COMPLETELY different game as far as strategy is concerned. With multiple characters the easiest way to play the game is to do so rather loosely, and when one character encounters a problem, another character can compensate by healing, buffing, distracting the enemy, or whatever. In other words, the vast majority of the tactical decisions you make are not very significant so long as you pay attention. With a single PC, you can't compensate, so except when you are up against weak enemies, every move you make is important.

 

To make an analogy, this essentially amounts to the difference between a game like Risk or Civilization, and a game like Chess. Chess is much more focused, requires a much more analytical approach, and your pieces are much less expendable. Both types of games, of course, have room for lots of strategy.

 

Most people, however, will prefer one or the other. It's pretty much a personality thing. I've honestly had a lot more fun with A4 since I started running the singleton... more fun both during difficult spots and easy spots. To relate it back to the singleton question, I think this is partially because strategies used in a game mirror strategies we can use in real life.

1. You are relying on summons? Hmm. It sounds pretty MP-intensive... are you gonna be running back to town a lot? And what about areas with lots of minor enemies? I dunno, it seems like a hassle to me.

 

2. For me at least the point of running a singleton has nothing to do with any "bare minimum" type challenge. Rather, playing a singleton presents you with a COMPLETELY different game as far as strategy is concerned. With multiple characters the easiest way to play the game is to do so rather loosely, and when one character encounters a problem, another character can compensate by healing, buffing, distracting the enemy, or whatever. In other words, the vast majority of the tactical decisions you make are not very significant so long as you pay attention. With a single PC, you can't compensate, so except when you are up against weak enemies, every move you make is important.

 

To make an analogy, this essentially amounts to the difference between a game like Risk or Civilization, and a game like Chess. Chess is much more focused, requires a much more analytical approach, and your pieces are much less expendable. Both types of games, of course, have room for lots of strategy.

 

Most people, however, will prefer one or the other. It's pretty much a personality thing. I've honestly had a lot more fun with A4 since I started running the singleton... more fun both during difficult spots and easy spots. To relate it back to the singleton question, I think this is partially because strategies used in a game mirror strategies we can use in real life.

Yes, but does 100% resistance actually prevent 100% of damage?

Yes, but does 100% resistance actually prevent 100% of damage?

This reminds me of one of the things that really annoys me about the combat engine in all these games. If you end up with 5 or more AP after doing something, you still get to take actions; if you end up with less than 5, you don't. So starting with 8 AP, you can use an item and then shoot a bow, but you CAN'T shoot a bow and then use an item. It makes no sense, and sometimes it's a big tactical nuisance.

You know... that could be another way to do it. Pump armor and all of your resistances as high as possible, instead of pumping dodge. A few points into Endurance, a lot into Hardiness, Luck, and Resistance. Boost with Steel Skin and Prismatic Shield (and Protection), although getting the spell skill points for both of those would suck.

 

I wonder how much damage you can prevent with high enough armor/resists? I've already seen goblins hit me for zero damage, and my armor rating was only around 30 at the time. All those stat boosts plus Charmed Plate, Gazerskin Sandals, and so on... that's a lot of resistance!

You know... that could be another way to do it. Pump armor and all of your resistances as high as possible, instead of pumping dodge. A few points into Endurance, a lot into Hardiness, Luck, and Resistance. Boost with Steel Skin and Prismatic Shield (and Protection), although getting the spell skill points for both of those would suck.

 

I wonder how much damage you can prevent with high enough armor/resists? I've already seen goblins hit me for zero damage, and my armor rating was only around 30 at the time. All those stat boosts plus Charmed Plate, Gazerskin Sandals, and so on... that's a lot of resistance!

My original skill points went, IIRC:

• 3 to Priest Spells (making 5 with the Pure bonus)

• 5 to Mage Spells

• 4 to Luck

• 2 to Dexterity

(3 skill points remaining)

 

After that I pumped Dex up to 8, Luck up to 7, and (once I got to Formello) Mage Spells to 6. (Yes, there are items much later that boost Mage Spells but I'm not insane enough to wait THAT long to get Unlock Doors...) With the exception of Nephil and Nephar Archers, who get a very annoying 30% bonus using bows, this minor investment into dodging skills gave me ratings of no more than 20% against pretty much everything.

 

I'm undecided on what to pump now. I can pump Dex and Luck further, but those returns get halved once I get their boost items -- and the Clover Boots aren't far off. Similarly, if I go for Gymnastics, the Nephil bonus plus item bonuses will eventually halve the value. The first few points will be cheap -- unless you figure in the cost of 4 points of Strength, which makes them very expensive. I could just pump Priest Spells in anticipation of Enduring Shield.

 

I think I may just save up my skill points and put them all into Defense after I get to Silvar, with leftovers going to Magery (hi, Cecil).