JKedan

Isn't it pretty spot on to how Mjolnir looks in marvel comics?

It is a shame and a tragedy that this didn't get more attention.

This is the best post in this thread, if not on these forums as a whole.

Exactly how would having someone else's strategies fed to you via out of game guide help you in either situation?

Seriously. That's one heck of a guide if you can just read it and suddenly solo the BAF, or make an uncommunicative and inexperienced team work well enough to defeat league content.

It's like you're intentionally trying to develop a reputation for giving the worst examples ever. What do either of the above have to do with the idea that out of game guides should not be a requirement? Or that 'read the guide' is not a valid solution for all ills?

Yes. Heaven forbid people enjoy thinking for themselves rather than allowing someone else to solve all the puzzles for them. The insanity.

My argument isn't against the option. If people want someone else to solve all the encounters for them, go for it. In my personal opinion they've pretty much given up on playing the game at that point and are just performing for virtual treats to reinforce behavior, but whatever. That's a valid choice and they're welcome to it.

My argument is specifically against the idea that it should be required to use out of game materials. Or that the answer to any complaint about an encounter is "Just read the guide". Either by the game or by the community.

And I'm not against hard encounters. I like challenge. I'm against artificially hard encounters due to lack of in game information. If I've figured something out, but just can't quite execute what needs to be done, that's fine. I can get better, or try a new tactic, or find someone with more skill to assist. If I can't get something done simply because the game has put in an artificial limitation and not informed me in any way, that's irritating. That's bad encounter design. And having a guide that spells out what the game should have instructed doesn't make a bad design suddenly good.

For the record, I have the same issue with 3rd party addons in other games. When the developers start developing encounters based on everyone having a supposedly optional 3rd party informational addon, that's bad.

Though this has deviated from your OP, for which I apologize.

I disagree, in general, with the premise that that repeated failure should be viewed as a secondary goal almost as viable as success itself, but that's a fundamental problem with the endgame progression raiding treadmill itself, not with your particular post. Failure I can understand and accept as a consequence of challenge and as a learning experience. But when the best path to success is to fail over and over and over until the goal becomes to fail 'just one more time' in order to have the right number of widgets to make success possible, or even just easier, then I'm turned off of the activity.

Wow. Talk about terrible analogies.

When you take a test, presumably you have been learning the subject matter in a class dedicated to that subject matter, using materials that are part of the class, for a period of time leading up to the test. Studying for an exam should refresh and bring that knowledge to the front of your mind in preparation for the test, it shouldn't replace the class. You don't decide to take a physics final having never gone to class or opened the textbook until the night before. It is also not a requirement of any class I've ever taken that in order to be successful at an exam, you have no choice but to use someone else's notes.

Furthermore, exams are designed to test your knowledge and ability to apply the subject matter, not introduce new subjects. The ability to solve the questions comes from both your knowledge of the subject, and your ability to interpret what is being asked.

If you were going to make the terrible analogy that boss encounters are exams, then the game itself is the class. The developers would be the instructors, and the in game help screens would be the textbook. My ability to be successful at an encounter would depend on my ability to play the game and how well I interpret the various ques provided by the boss.

By your logic, having a boss that just stands there and is immune to everything but attacks slotted with a single level 17 accuracy TO, and who can one shot anyone that didn't 6 slot brawl, with absolutely no in game indicators to tell people these two conditions are in effect is a well designed encounter. As long as at some point someone writes an out of game guide about it, it's fine, right?

Edit: Actually, your analogy is even worse than what I outlined. Using your analogy, the best way to take a test is wait until someone else has already taken it and then just use the cheat sheet they made with all the answers on it.

This....doesn't make any sense.

So no one knew what the various mitos did before a guide was made? Then who wrote the guide?

It should be obvious that encounters that don't provide you, in game, with the information you need to beat them are badly designed encounters. Out of game resources are a crutch and are only necessary when the developers haven't done their job effectively or players are too lazy to pay attention to what the encounter is telling them.

Too late, in my case. It's been so long, I've lost interest in the series. I could go back and reread the previous books in order to refresh my memory, but I no longer have any desire to.

If he suddenly needs the League to defeat Captain Boomerang, yes.

I hated Grievous in the cartoon.

So...uh...he's some kind of robot monkey thing? And he's fighting a handful of idiots who look like the Jedi Masters from the films? Yeah, uh, ok.

Anyone can look awesome when he's written to be perfect and his opponents are written to be imbeciles. Talk about a snoozefest.

By contrast, I appreciated what Grievous was in the movie, namely a Cushing/Lee era Dracula homage. He had the voice, the gait, the cloak, the mechanical bat for a face, complete with vampire fangs, and when shot (stabbed) through the heart, he was reduced to ash.

The only homage more obvious to me than Greivous = Dracula is Vader = Frankenstein.

Tower lab in an absurd thunderstorm? Check!
Using horrible science to give new life? Check!
Arms raised and stiff legged gait? Check!

It's just a thing Lucas does.

Exactly so, which puts a new spin on panel 2.

In two years, they'll reveal that she's actually a copy of Doc Samson's brain in a clone Betty body, that was then put through the Rulk process.

Well, the part where she later reverts to Betty kinda made it a little more obvious. Along with them "explaining" why she's alive again, how she became the Red She-Hulk, etc etc.

Never give a supplier enough information to know what you're willing to pay more than current price for.

I use amas. Better kaboom.

For a short time at least, I renounce your lordship and declare myself Grand Moff of this Forum.

Until someone comes along with a snubfighter. Hate those things.

So, if I'm normal and healthy, I'm out of balance, but if I get cancer, then I'm back in balance and everything is ok?

And if I then remove the cancer, I'm back out of balance?

Because that's what we're talking about here. It's not a 'theory', it's the creator's direct statement about the nature of the 'Dark side'. The Force was in balance before the Dark Side, and the Dark Side disrupted that balance. It's removal results in a return to balance. It's really not very hard to understand.

Only if you look at The Force as only being one side. The Force is like nature or the body, in balance as a default. The Dark Side is pollution or an illness, something that should not be there, that causes an imbalance in the default state.

By removing the Dark Side, you restore balance.

I think part of the problem is the terminology: Dark Side. This has led people to assume, naturally, that the Jedi practice the Light Side. I personally believe this assumption to be a mistake.

Can anyone point me to a time in the movies where a character says the phrase "The Light Side of the Force"? I can't remember one (and I may be mistaken). There is 'The Force', and then there is 'The Dark Side'.

Clearly you've never heard of bringing balance to one's humors.

Or how, when one is ill, the energy of one's body is out of balance.

Illness has been described as something in the body being out of balance for centuries.

The problem with Traviss isn't that she expressed an opinion that the Jedi were fallible. Yoda, Windu and Qui-Gon all come right out and state as much at various points in the prequels. Qui-Gon tells Anakin that Jedi can be killed, Yoda lectures Mace and Obi-Wan on pride and arrogance, and Mace wants to go to the Senate to admit that the Jedi are having trouble using the Force. Three frank and blunt admissions that the Jedi are not all wise or all knowing.

The problem with Traviss is that she makes crap up, has her protagonists proclaim it as truth, and then has characters who should know better agree. The characters in her books never speak with their own voice. Every one of them, regardless of affiliation or previous characterization, speaks with Karen Traviss' voice, and spouts her anti-Jedi line.

Just a couple that spring to mind:

Luke Skywalker saying there's no difference between Jedi and Sith.

Jaina going to the Mandalorians and being accused of leading a spoiled, soft princess life with no idea how to fight lightsaber resistant enemies without the Force...when she just came out of a Galaxy spanning war against the Vong that cost her her younger brother and who are...yes, lightsaber resistant and immune to the Force.

Jaina, Rogue Squadron Ace and combat pilot with years of experience, has to be taught how to use a comlink. By a Mandalorian.

Ben Skywalker wishes he were a Mandalorian, because they're so much better than Jedi.

Various and sundry people accusing the Jedi of being kidnappers, when every other source says that if a parent doesn't agree to give up a force sensitive child, the Jedi leave them in peace.

At no point does anyone point out that the entire Mandalorian history is one of raiding other planets, pillaging, ******, killing, taking slaves, and in at least one case, genocide.

And so on and so on.

Jedi being flawed individuals is nothing new. What she wrote? Just stupid.