Samuel_Tow

Mistakes WILL happen, obviously, and learning from your mistakes is crucial, but I still don't agree one should try something fully aware that enough mistakes will be made to fail it. Not without a pretty good reason, to, at the very least.

I think you missed the point. I'm not embarrassed of the things I've written because people who read them will think poorly of me. Heck, one look at my posts ought to prove that And, indeed, most people WON'T read them, if my experience is any indication, so I'm not exactly worried. I'm embarrassed of what I've written because I look at it and I think "Man, this sucks! I can't believe I wrote that and I thought it was good at the time!" It's simply depressing to think I could have failed so badly. Now, I can't say I wish I'd never done it, because it's part of the process, but I would not have done it if I felt it was as terrible as I feel it is now.

I don't consider my past failures as growing pains and learning mistakes. I'm realistic enough to see them for what they are - simple failures. There are no prizes for showing up, and an A for effort is still an F for content. If I don't think I have a decent shot at producing something nice, I'm not going to bother. If I commit to something, I never commit to fail. Even if it's the smallest, dumbest, most insignificant idea in the world, if I commit to it, I'm going to do my best to make it work. If and only if I feel it CAN work.

My mother always told me to finish what I started, and with more stories left unfinished because I bit on more than I could chew, I've learned to listen to her. There is no training. There is only doing. Do or do not. There is no "try."

If it's a self-defeating attitude, then so be it. I've long since accepted that there are plenty of things I'll never be able to do or be, and I'm fine with that. That's why I prefer to stick to my escapist fiction and do all sorts of amazing crazy things in there, instead of worrying about what I can or can't do in real life. It is what it is. I realise this probably makes me the emo of your typical Five Man Band (interesting that this isn't included) and possibly the wangsty hero of your typical JRPG, but there really isn't much I can do about it, or indeed much I WANT to do about it. I've done my trying, and it doesn't work. It just never does.

But you know what? That just gives me a potent standpoint to write from, and some of the better things I've written hinge on precisely that. I'm not boring enough to bring my pessimism into my fictional worlds, but it doesn't man I won't go out of my way to paint a pessimistic, depressing situation that has to be defeated by sheer grit and strength of spirit

I just don't bring my fiction into the real world any more than I want the real world into my fiction.

To be honest, -1x3 actually feels MORE rewarding than +0x2, the old Tenacious. I don't know if this is because I tend to move faster through it or if it's just a subjective impression because I down a dozen enemies per spawn, but I can certainly see what you mean. This is something that I would never have gotten with the old options, but with the new ones, I revel in it. I ended up turning off bosses, too. They're just irritating, they pop up too frequently and they actually show up more often at x3 than they do at x2. But the net result has been that the game is significantly more fluid now, even for my Blasters.

I honestly couldn't tell you if I level faster or slower that way. I do know that I'm able to play for longer stretches of time because I'm much less likely to ragequit if cheap bosses aren't downing me every other spawn, so I do level faster in terms of real time. Whether that's because I can get more play-time per unit of real time in or because rewards are better, I cannot say.

I do know one thing - the game became TWICE AS GOOD literally as soon as I swapped difficulty settings. Seriously. Even today, so long after the difficulty settings changes, I still catch myself thinking "I can't believe this is a real game I'm actually playing! This is so cool!"

But I only spoke to the darkness in our hearts. Are you saying you actually have a voice? I'd be scared to ask

Because that wouldn't be classed as "action?"

By itself, I would agree with you, but again, I made the suggestion within a specific context, that being that this allows me to increase my difficulty, thus making things harder in turn. Now, I know you accused me of wanting more rewards for less difficulty before, and I still deny that allegation. But the point is, I'm not looking for my game to be easier. I'm looking for it to be just as hard, but in a different way.

Currently, if -1x3 becomes too hard for me, I'll go go back to -1x2, but won't that make things even easier? As far as rewards go, reducing my spawns to the level of the mission doesn't grant me greater rewards, as spawn rewards depend on enemy level, so if I'm facing lower-level spawns, I'm getting lower experience and Inf. I believe we've already established that Inventions are not my motivating factor, so drops aren't really what I'm after, either.

What I'm after is big crowds, plain and simple. It's just disheartening when these big crowds spawn higher level and stomp me into goo.

Yeah, there is that, too. I mean, I wouldn't exactly rejoice if we were fully committed into Arachnos, but I'd still understand it if their forces in the overworld were friendly towards us. I mean, we ARE working for them. It'd suck, but it would still make sense. But since they attack us on sight even though we use all of their amenities and try to kill us on the way to saving their bases... No, it doesn't make sense. And I'd rather force it to make sense by dissociating us from Arachnos, if I had the choice.

Replace "music" with "writing" and you'll have a spot-on hypothetic.

And my answer is what you would guess - no, I most decidedly would not put in the effort. Let me explain:

I've been writing for coming on 10 years now, for fun and mostly on-and-off. My oldest works are so embarrassing as to not be worth mentioning, but I've improved since. The trick is that I have not improved through hard work. I've improved through finding ways to have fun while writing, and improve in the process. I have never, EVER, taken to writing something for the sole sake of honing my skills, fully knowing it won't come to a good enough work.

The trick here is that I'm TERRIBLE at empty practice. To give a different example, I've always wanted to be able to draw, but I've never been able to commit to just doing lines and shapes to practice my hand. I mean, I've tried, but I get depressed of my inability to do anything decent and quit before too long. The only times I've been able to stick with any practice sketches has been when they were going well and I've been able to produce something that at least doesn't bug me to look at.

Of course, the only things I've ever been able to draw have been utterly simplistic, basically consisting of the Powerpuff Girls and the Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! monkeys. But even then, I know I'm producing SOMETHING that'll be complete and, if not great, at least not embarrassing. It doesn't mean I'll be a decent artist, since I'll take, like, half an hour for one girl whereas a professional artist could put one together in under 60 seconds, but at least I enjoy doing it nevertheless.

I'm incredibly bad at learning, training and working out of context. I've always sucked at it. The only way I've ever been able to learn is by doing, and not just trying and failing, but doing and succeeding. I'd sooner succeed at something smaller and simpler than fail at something bigger.

Back to writing, I honestly tried writing large, detailed, complex stories. And I failed, because I didn't have the patience or skill to put them together. The only way I've been able to write AT ALL has been in smaller, less graphic episodicals retold in first person or by a narrator and trading complicated descriptions for simpler observer reactions. In a sense, I write my stories like I write my post.

I hate long-term investments and working towards larger, distant goals. I don't specifically MIND it, to be precise, I just can't work if that's my ONLY goal. And if the only goal is an end so distant that I'm just not going to bother... Well, I don't bother.

The thing is, I don't fault the Inventions system for that. Its entire POINT is to provide incredibly long-term, unobtainable goals for people to engage in. It's what people wanted. "Raid gear," or the equivalent thereof. It's not something I've ever cared for, personally, and I was perfectly happy with SOs when SOs were all there was. I'm perfectly happy with Commons as though commons are as high as it gets. I don't get to use sets, but I don't miss them. Difficulty settings have ensured of that. Blasters are the ONLY AT that I actually feel the heat on, and even then only sometimes, but Scrappers? Brutes? Masterminds? Nah. I don't really need them to be any stronger. They're plenty strong enough for what I want out of them.

*edit*
One final thought that just occurred to me, and which is a major contributor for me not wanting to engage into Sets: I can go to the market, look at the insanely high prices for everything, grin and think "Cool! My stuff will sell well!" I've seen the grief-stricken complaints of people who can't buy the recipes they need either because there just aren't any for sale or because they go for hundreds of millions, cries of inflation, market manipulation, quarrels over drops, bidding on expensive items... And none of that affects me. Almost without exception, the Market is a place where I go to dump my excess if it will sell. And what doesn't see I turn around and dump at the vendors anyway.

I don't fret the market, and that really is the way I like it.

But... The game is the enemies, isn't it? I mean, what other source of difficulty is there aside from how hard enemies are to kill? Serious question here. That's all we do - defeat enemies and click glowies, and glowies themselves do not pose a difficulty. Finding them, perhaps, though that's annoyance, but really - when it comes to game difficulty, doesn't it come down to enemy difficulty?

And again, it's not about "the game" being made easier, it's about the game being made more consistent. I have nothing against people fighting even con, +1 or +lots enemies, but I'm asking for an option that I don't have to. This is no different from people in I4 complaining that they don't like fighting bosses or people in I15 asking to fight more enemies, but of lower level. As you'll note, the old difficulty settings mostly increased enemy levels while varying spawn sizes between x1 and x2. It is now not uncommon for people to go up to x8, yet still stick to -1 to ensure the "mob of weak enemies" situation.

It's all about options. Yes, it's possible for me to try and build stronger characters, just as it's possible for me to gather a team for every AV that pops up into my solo missions. But I don't want to, and the game provides options for this exact thing. Well, all but what I'm asking.

I actually completely neglected to think about it, but yes - Arbiters as trainers CoV-side makes no sense. CoH-side, I can kind of see heroes reporting to a trainer to ensure they're using their powers responsibly, but villains? What, do I need a permission slip from Arbiter Fabulous in order to shoot my rifle in short bursts? It's bad enough that we constantly kowtow to Arachnos, and we don't really WANT to use our powers responsibly as villains, so to seek their permission is borderline insulting.

But that's a problem with all of CoV and how pervasive Arachnos is. They break us out, we use their Quartermasters, train at their Arbiteters, alter our difficulty at their Fateweavers and follow our destiny as THEY describe it. Ugh... One only hopes Going Rogue will be less restrictive.

And it just keeps on going...

I'm going to leave you with just a single thought to ponder: This is a game. I don't want my game to be like real life. I try to make real life as close to what I'd want out of a game as I can't, but I really can't in any big way. Does that mean that my game should be limited by what I can do in real life?

This is my escapist fiction. This is the place where I want to have what I can't have in real life. Would you kindly stop trying to explain the in-game reality with real life? Because if you do, then I'm going to bring out the "So if I can't fly in real life, why would I want to in-game?"

What you describe is EXACTLY what I don't like in real life. Why the Funk and Wagnall would I want it in my game?

Not you in particular, which is why I didn't address you when I said it. Am I really this ambiguous in my phrasing? But this IS a common theme with anything I post regarding builds, balance, power choices or anything related. I didn't have a look at your reg date before I hit Quote, so I don't know if you were around back in 2004/2005, but I can tell you that I was called stupid many, many times because I refused to take Stamina. "But it can help you! It's stupid not to take it!" God, if I had a penny for every time I've had that said to me.

As far as this being a common theme with me, call me fed up. I'm just tired of putting up with low-brow bully tactics, to I've taken to calling them when I see them. I'm less and less inclined to just roll with the "But I called your ARGUMENT stupid, not YOU!" back door excuse. If there's an argument to be made, I'm sure people can make it without resorting to kindergarten taunts.

Uuugh! Give me 10 seconds to cool down so I don't get banned for foul language.

You talked me up and down in that thread, explaining how wrong I was to ask for consistency, and you still miss the point? I didn't ask for enemies to be made easier. I asked for enemies to be made CONSISTENT. I asked that, if I choose enemies of a certain level, that I get enemies of that level. Isn't that the point of the difficulty system? To let us set the difficulty to how we like it?

Your snark is appreciated, but you misquoting me is not. In fact, anyone who cares, have a look at the thread in question. Nowhere in there did I say that I was whole, completely, utterly unable to fight enemies +1 to my difficulty setting. I said that:

1) I don't want to, and I feel my difficulty settings should allow me to do that

and

2) Unlike how difficulty was before I16 where large spawns were the level of the mission and small spawns +1, now missions all too often spawn large spawns at +1, creating too great a variety in expected difficulty.

I don't find these impossible. I find them annoying. If I build to fight large spawns +1 to my mission level, then fighting small spawns at mission level is not interesting. If I build to fight small spawns at mission level, fighting large spawns at +1 mission level is irritating.

And again, it's not like I was playing at -1x1 and still complaining about it being too hard. I was and am playing at -1x3. I could, if I were so inclined, drop this to -1x2, but I don't want to, because -1x2 is too easy and not interesting enough without sufficiently large spawns. However, I did not choose +0x3 for a reason - I can't play at that difficulty setting, and I'd rather not be forced into.

So, essentially, what you're saying is that, instead of asking for still more difficulty settings, I should learn to play? How does that argument take into account the need for the new difficulty system? After all, if people had to just learn to play, what was the point of adding the -1 difficulty?

See, this is what really gets on my tits. You dig up an old thread, misquote me from it and then use that as ammo to explain how what I keep saying doesn't make sense. And then you clothesline me when I claim this is insulting to my intelligence? Really? You put me in a position of either conceding that I don't make any sense, or long-windedly explaining exactly how you misquoted me.

I don't take offence. I'm not sitting here frothing at the mouth, I don't feel my honour being hurt. It's just irritating, because you're creating still more busywork for me setting the record straight. And I know I could just say "Screw it! I'm not gonna' bother!" but this week I've decided that I'm going to stand my ground and I'm not going to let people just randomly misquote me and twist my words around.

And it's still not as annoying as dealing with Sets!

The problem with that is that you won't be on a full team all the time, and you'll never cast the buff to 8 people, since you can't target yourself. Oftentimes you'll be on a team with just one or two other people, yet the game will still tax you a heavy toll. And unlike a Mastermind, this doesn't get less apparent as you level up, since high levels don't guarantee full teams.

For the sake of argument, I'd sooner see the duration of the buffs increased. I wouldn't say 20 minutes, but 5 instead of 2 would go a long way.

City of Villains is that-a-way. You'd actually have a much easier way to argue the sense of having trainers there.

And herein lies the problem - you try to apply utility that works for your style of gameplay to all styles of gameplay, assuming everyone does a lot of TFs. I, however, don't. And it's not out of some deep-seated hatred of TFs, I just rarely get invited to any. I don't team almost at all to begin with, and I practically never put teams together to do anything, so I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to put together a TF. And maybe it's Pinnacle and Victory, maybe I'm not in the same channels as all the cool kids, maybe I'm just unlucky, but I almost never get invited to TFs except when I don't have the time to commit to one. Last time I was invited to one, I had to leave in less than half an hour to pick my mother up from an event.

And story arcs just don't give me enough Merits just on their own, especially considering how quickly we level past them and how many non-arc missions hero-side has.

OK, suppose I don't want to argue semantics and just concede that I misspoke. You know what I mean, because I explained it. Could please stick to discussing that? I've already conceded that it's theoretically possible to repeat Set builds, and I've already explained that that's not the point. It's a question of cost, time and effort, and you simply ignore those like they're inconsequential. And they're not.

It is for me. Go ahead and tell me that argument is stupid. It won't change how I feel. For the umpteenth time, this is just how I roll. I DO NOT get into something unless I can get involved with EVERY part of it. It's all or nothing for me. Everything always is. This is how I choose to live my life, this is how I choose to play my games. You can argue that this doesn't make sense till the cows come how. It's not going to change the fact that this is what I enjoy. The only way for me to enjoy it is if I have access to "all." If I don't have access to "all," I'm going to default to "nothing." This is the sole reason I've given away or sold EVERY Hamidon enhancement, Set Recipe or Purple Recipe I've ever had. Every single one of them. Because I knew that if I put one in, then I'd have to go put more in. And if I didn't put more in, I'd be looking at the damn thing spoiling my build like nasty zit all the damn time.

I've dropped more games than I care to mention because they make some random aspect of their gameplay either unobtainable or crappy. MegaMan X4 lacked an ultimate armour for Zero, MegaMan X5 gave X's ultimate armour unlimited Nova strikes and so on and so forth. If I'm playing through a game once over, then sure. I'll pick up whatever drops and make the best of my good fortune. If I'm going to play a game over multiple times, then I want repeatability, which random drops, fickle markets and lots of effort do not provide. Yes, it's theoretically possible to find repeatability, but it's theoretically guaranteed that if I tried to obtain it, I'd ragequit LONG before that was even an option.

First of all, I don't cook for this precise reason. I either eat out or eat other people's cooking. Secondly, I never said it was difficult or impossible. I said it was too difficult for me to enjoy it. Clearly it's not THAT difficult given how many people have obtained even truly amazing builds, or kitted out many characters, but to my judgement of cost vs. value, this is just not worth it. And this is not going to change unless I see multi-aspect commons. Will not change.

You have a point there. I suppose I should rephrase the question as "how likely people who get many characters into the high levels to get into serious Inventions? I'm aware that not everybody has multiple characters in range of the thickest Inventions Sets, and it seems to me that most often those who get into that are the sort of people who stick to a few special characters, rather than branching out into alts.

Myself, I have 7 50s and probably as many others in the 40s, as well as a great many in the 30s. In fact, I believe that as of right now, of the 30 or so characters I have, only a single one is below 20.

Again, this assumes that that "noticeable rewards" in the way of performance gains are in any way, shape or form the intended goal. I realise this can be shocking to many, but this is NOT the goal of the game for some of us, and in this case I know I'm not alone. Yes, I can get greater performance. To what end? So I can raise my difficulty and counter the effect? Why? Why bother with this? Why, specifically, when I can LOWER my difficulty and get the same effect? I happen to not see fighting a red-con demon to be any more respectable than fighting a blue-con demon. Yes, theoretically and numerically it is, but I don't play the game by looking at the Matrix. I play it by looking at my screen where funky people beat up other funky people. What makes a fight respectable is how tough it LOOKS, not necessarily how tough it IS. And it's pretty easy to get decent-looking fights without requiring serious performance.

You say this like I sat down and made a note: "I will not enjoy Inventions. So sayeth the Sam!" I didn't. The process is entirely backwards. I didn't devise the reasons and then set out to ruin my enjoyment because of them. I don't enjoy inventions. That's the originator of the problem. That's the source of all of this. I don't enjoy Inventions and all the justifications are born out of this fact. Even if you people manage to disprove all of my justifications for it, you're not going to convince me to like them. I'm actually going to rewrite someone Torak said a few years ago as best I remember it.

-I don't like pie.
-But it tastes so good!
-I still don't like pie.
-But it's good for you! See, it helps you get a strong body!
-But I don't like pie.
-Look, it's so easy to cook it. Just follow this simple recipe and you'll be done in no time!
-Yeah, but I don't like pie.
-How can you not like pie! This is stupid! Everyone likes pie!
-Maybe, but I don't like pie.
-So, what? Have you ever tried it? I'm sure if you tried it you'd like it!
-Yeah, and I still don't like pie.
-You're completely unreasonable!
-I just don't like pie!

Can you see how that's not going to work?

Because people still feel obligated to drop by and tell me I'm stupid. I have two options: Shrug my shoulders, go "Shucks, you got me there, I've been so dumb since I9!" or I can further explain, AGAIN, that I actually have a reason for this that hinges on personal preference. I know that won't stop people from further trying to deconstruct my position and try to explain how stupid my arguments are, but you know what? I'm used to that. I've been called stupid over not using Stamina more times than I can count, including people turning a thread I made to ask about a specific power's slotting into a long-winded rant about why I'm a stupid doo-doo head and somehow a hypocrite because it's impossible that I could care about numbers and NOT want absolutely maximal performance.

As long as people insist on trying to claim that I don't have the right to make these arguments, I'm going feel obligated to keep making them.

This is a conscious choice. I can ignore purples, that much is easy. But I can't really say I'll be using SOME Sets and not be using OTHER sets based on what other people are doing, using and buying. If I'm going to use a system, then I'm going to use ALL of it, and if I'm not going to use all of it, I won't use it at all. I stick to Common Inventions for one simple reason - with them, I am guaranteed to be able to purchase or otherwise acquire ALL of them at ANY time I so choose to in ANY quantity that I may need. Granted, it sucks to do so all at once, but it's still an activity that, with the proper planning, I can minimise the need to and justify as a necessary cost. I have full, complete, unrestricted access to Commons for the asking.

I have nothing of the sort with Sets. "There are cheaper sets, you know!" people keep telling me. And I know. I sell all of my Inventions recipes, so I'm well aware that there are, in fact, not terribly many expensive ones. But so what? That still cuts off a large part of the whole system based on supply and cost. And if I'm going to give up on some Sets because I'm not cool and awesome (and patient) enough to have them, then I'm perfectly willing to wave my hand and just ignore the whole thing.

With all due respect, you don't know how long it took me to write it. I'm a better typist than you'd think. Besides, typing out these posts is fun. Believe it or not, it is for me. Grinding out Sets and wasting my time at the market IS NOT. And, again, where did I so much as claim that the system is inherently flawed? I don't like it, I have my reasons for it, and as we've already established, those are pretty serious reasons in my mind. You want to call those arguments stupid just because you don't agree with them? Really?

Remember, an argument doesn't have to make sense to you in order for it to follow a logical path. I've described the path of my logic multiple times now. If you can point out where it breaks, then I'd welcome the correction.

I submit to your superior authority.

This is false on its face when it comes to a video game. I don't know about you, but I play a video game to have fun, not to trudge and toil. If an activity is boring, grinding and needlessly time-wasting, that is not repeatable, not in actual practice.

I'll give you that the activity is "repeatable" in the purely technical sense of "can be repeated." In this sense, getting kicked in the crotch is a repeatable activity, but I seriously doubt anyone would treat it as such.

You also completely ignored the context of my entire post to insist that they are technically repeatable. If you REALLY want to, I'll give you that, in the purely technical sense, they are. And that was never my point. It was never my point that you could never get the same set of the same Inventions twice on two different characters. I don't believe I ever inferred that, and if you'll go back and re-read my post, I doubt you'll be able to find where I did.

What I outright stated, however, was that inventions are too great of an investment for even ONE going-over, and that this is not the kind of investment that's worth, or indeed feasible to repeat multiple times. It's POSSIBLE that you're going to kit out all of your characters with all of the best inventions, but I'd bet my third leg that practically no-one does that. Not even heavy inventions-users. In fact, as UberGuy attested earlier, investing in Inventions incites one to alt LESS. In his case it was for his own reasons, but in the general case, it's because it just takes too much time and effort to get a full set of strong... Well, sets. People WILL do it. But they will do it once. Twice, maybe, possibly up to a few times. Will they do it 20 times? 30 times? 50 times? Because I seriously doubt it.

Not only that, but practically everything I've ever heard from even people who basically live on the Market and people who spend their entire living daylight grinding TFs, is that they still won't kit out all of their characters, just the few really important one. Catwhoorg recently listed out the "current price" of his primary build and came up with something like 15 billion. Obviously, a very special build, but unless he comes down here and states that he has done it 30 times, or has the intention to, I will refuse to accept even the possibility of this.

So, really, if you want to beat me over the head with needlessly fine semantics, then I concede. Inventions are repeatable in the very technical sense of the word, in that it is possible, time notwithstanding, to repeat an expensive, powerful build an infinite amount of time. In the same sense that it is possible for a thousand monkeys banging on a thousand typewriters. But this was never a question of absolutes, and if you care about any sense of context or apparent intent (and I don't have the impression that, after multiple restatements of the same thing, mine is anything but apparent), then please consider the circumstances. It is not a question of "am I physiscally able to do this absent time, effort and interest constraints?" It is a question of "is it worth bothering." And, to be honest, you will have a REALLY hard time convincing me that it is, because I've seen clear, overwhelming evidence that it isn't, even from advocates of the whole system.

Please, don't insult my intelligence with claim of "ridiculous arguments," or if you do, then make sure you catch the entire context of the post you're quoting, rather than pulling out one sentence by itself. Do you realise that you're holding me to task on the semantics of a term of phrase I used for nothing more than theatrical intent and not in the slightest to carry the exact mathematical definition of what I wanted to say? If your intent was to catch me misspeak, then congratulations. You've done that. With as much crap as I post, that's bound to happen often. But if your intent was to counter my position, then you missed the point.

*edit*
Just to address your specific metaphor. If one day I woke up and realised that my work is at the top of a mountain that I have to scale via rope ladder and pick axe both ways in the snow and I'm getting paid hot dogs and potato chips, I'll suddenly find out that I very much CAN'T go to work any more, and that I need another job. In fact, if I keep getting more and more classes dumped on me in mine, that's exactly what's going to happen, and I actually DO have to scale half a mile of serious hill both ways every day, to boot. And as of last week, that's both ways in serious snow and ice. I'm not making this up.

And again - I am getting paid for my job. Unless I've been getting ripped off for the past six years, I don't believe I can get paid to play this game.

I really can't say I can see this argument as convincing no matter how I look at it.

Yeah, the width (or rather, lack thereof) of the bow is REALLY irritating, and it looks really bad because the character's posture is such that you're almost always looking at it right down the narrow side, so half the time it doesn't even render.

Can we please get SOME width to the Talsorian Bow? This is really disappointing!

I don't like goofy and I don't like Vernon, but he DOES have one very memorable quote.

I love how the man can turn the problem of shoddy stationary into a "Big nooo!"

*edit*
Got the right quote phrasing.

Well that explains a lot.