Tracer Bullet

So let it be written. So let us write some more.

Hey everyone. I just picked up this game, and I think it's awesome. However, in terms of class balance I'm really just used to soloing it as a Shaper and fighting with wave upon wave of expendable man- (vlish-) power. Now that, not only is there no adequate substitute class, but it doesn't look like I'll ever be able to have more than three of the four classes with me at one time, I want to ask who you recommend I leave out.

I've been tweaking pages there for a while. It is rather deficient. Effort by the forum members to bring it up to speed would be really cool.

DotA?

Originally Posted By: MMXPERT That's what he was saying in the first place. What he said was this. Originally Posted By: Andras1444 The rebels are the ones who really remind me of communism. They hate the ones who have to work very hard to get their influence (the Shapers) and instead of trying to become better, richer, all they do is try to become equal by killing everyone who is better than them. And that's not how communism works.

That's not how communism works.

Interesting final point. I believe a society like that is called a technocracy. The rebellion, on the other hand, from what I've seen of them, seems to be a military dictatorship. This is a bit odd, considering that the rebels are supposed to be advocating egalitarianism. I still go Awakened every chance I get, though.

Originally Posted By: no such thing as light artillery This is the sort of thing that can and probably should be discussed on the xkcd forums. Because with its readership here, we could easily just talk about every xkcd comic. Don't see what's wrong with that...

I dunno...hi-tech is so hard to balance. It's one of the reasons why sci-fi Geneforge went out the window. If you want to see this in action, you can read The Eternity Artifact. It's patently obvious throughout the book just how much Modesitt had to stretch himself to make space combat seem like a fair proposition. Despite precedent, I'd still love to see a successful sci-fi RPG. If you have any more ideas on this topic, please share them (I hope I can speak for the community in this ).

Seconded. Very strongly seconded. Read every word of everything. If this is a habit you need to train yourself out of, play "Spellbreaker" or "Planetfall" or "Blue Lacuna" - the last is legally available for no charge. Have fun!

Of course, I'm stopping this before I end up on every FBI watchlist ever.

Okay, so you have a combat-oriented Guardian with a Kyshakk whom you tend to put in front because of its health? And you shoot for the artillery before the front line? Great. What I don't see you mentioning, however, is maneuvers. Properly taking advantage of a wall or a door or even a dumb pillar can often mean the difference between life and death, as the blocked line of sight forces your enemies either to choose a different target or waste valuable action points trying to set up a clean shot. In Grosch, I recommend occupying one of the buildings and using the door as a chokepoint. My favorite fight there involved me splitting my forces and luring an entire enemy patrol into the building with my ranged creations. While the rogues were practically falling over each other to squeeze through the door, I walked up from behind with a pair of clawbugs and calmly disemboweled their support units. Of course, this isn't what I tried the first time, and I admit that the first time I lost. I guess my final word is that if you lose a fight and then try it again the same way the second time, you're playing the game wrong. Innovation will always carry the day. Anyway, good job on making progress.

My response: Obvious troll is obvious.

What you need...is tactics. Combat in Geneforge favors the cunning, which is why I rarely play Guardian: Guardian has too few options as it takes Action Points to swap weapons. Shaper is the best class, because having anywhere from one to seven expendable units is a huge strategic edge. Once you can get into the right strategic groove, you can pretty much take anything the game can throw at you, even on Torment...but yeah, you have to have enough patience to save-load until you know how the fight works. If you could say exactly where you're stuck, I'm sure there's a dozen people who could tell you exactly how it's meant to be done.

So...should they film a Quidditch tournament movie starring Russel Crowe?

Originally Posted By: Pedipalps of our fathers Alorael, who found Harry's quidditch stardom and the game itself equally irritating. The game wouldn't be so irritating if you took out the Seeker, but then how would you make Harry stand out? From an entirely negative view of Quidditch, I guess that's a two-birds-one-stone situation, but myself I kind of like the concept of Bludgers. Just cut everything else out and make it into a game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket.

redesign: Snitch is worth twenty points, plus an additional ten every seven minutes.

...oh. Oughta work. Thanks!

Originally Posted By: Master1 ...but you'll also be fighting it at that time. ...so don't turn all the world's rats into War Tralls. But could you do the reverse and turn all the Unbound into ornks? Because that would be so cool.

New name.

Loderunner: the Legend Returns had a perfect tutorial. No instructions, no manual, just two "sandbox" levels right at the beginning of the game. Just my two cents.

The rotghroth loading screen says "base material - humanoid" and "mixed nature sources" which proves little.

The Wingbolt loading screen from G4 says "Base material: Artila + Nature source: Bat" - thus proving the existence of bats in Terrestia.

Soon, no one will get the "Infamous Stump Joke" at all.

In Geneforge, at least, I can speak for boss fights. If you walk in and start hammering on them, yes, they're hard. But it is my experience that if you're the sort of player who likes doing that, then the difficulties that sea has outlined shouldn't bother you. However, I have difficulty naming a boss fight in the Geneforge series that did not have a major loophole. Therein lies the real fun of the fight, knowing that you come in with him already crippled though he doesn't know it. For Trajkov, in G1, you could Click to reveal.. convince him to send his creations away. For G2, assuming you end up against the Takers, there's Click to reveal.. a neat little trick involving an exploding Geneforge. And not all tricks need be mechanics/diplomacy based, either. In Geneforge 3, there is a monster (I forget his name) who can summon every other hostile in the area to his aid - a useless tactic if you've already sourced out every roaming beast on the map before confronting him. Sometimes you can get to camps to start fighting each other and then get out of the crossfire. There's always another way. Now, about the second point. I, unlike some of you, do support the "He's a poor indie designer, cut him some a lot of a ton of slack." Play Warcraft III. Major studio, major graphics, major engine, major potential. Bad mission design. Every scenario was the same old thing. Sure, maybe sometimes you were resisting the attack maybe sometimes you had to hunt someone down, maybe sometimes you had to escort a charge across the map, but no matter what you were doing, it felt like the same thing. Then, once you're full of that, come back to Spiderweb and appreciate the inverse. Unlike Blizzard, Jeff makes no claims to variety in his boss fights, but where you're not looking for it, you can find it. Take, as examples, the wonderfully designed and executed Dhonal's Keep fight. It was generic, to be sure, but it was the little tweaks that gave it life, like the imprisoned drakon and the secret passage. Blizzard is proud enough of itself that it doesn't feel the need to add such individuality to its fights.