Samuel_Tow

I think if we stopped calling Second Life a game (and "game" is inherent in the MMORPG acronym), we'd all be happier with it and have a much easier time understanding each other. I'm not sure WHAT I would call it, besides a business, but it is decidedly not a game any more so than printer paper and a packet of colour markers. And believe me, I've made more than a few games out of those.

That's not a BAD thing, mind you. To each his own, but presenting it as a game tends to have a lot of people go "Huh?"

To be fair, he is written pretty well. Being aggravating in his attempts to find excuses, failing and then accepting his faith as a villain is actually the point. It's designed to make you feel guilty, like you took away a man's last, desperate hope. Of course, it would work better if Scirocco didn't act like a self-righteous bully, turning foul-mouth criminals in what has to be the most offensive vision of what a misunderstood, misguided hero should be. His idea is generally very well, but pulling it off requires us liking the character, and Scirocco isn't terribly likeable.

To hear Ghost Widow talk about him, you'd think he were the only kind heart in a court of ********, but seeing his end of the deal, he's just using her when all else fails and trying to lord over her like some kind of omniscient mentor. I liked Ghost Widow's vision of him better, that of a kind man. He isn't, which makes screwing him over much less heart-breaking that it probably ought to be.

I actually like how the Jedi were handled in the sequels better, on that very note. "I find your lack of faith disturbing" and the general regard most people have for them, specifically that they're just lucky frauds incapable of doing the things some say they can are actually a LOT more kind to the jedi as a concept than what the prequels put them in. In the prequels, the jedi are very much a stand in for your typical holier-than-thou elven council chock full of needlessly-wise-yet-never-effective high priests shrouded in the regal mystery of an ancient empire. Putting them out into the open and making armies of them just detracts from the charm they had in the sequels as mentors, wise men and, yes, super heroes.

That, and the law of conservation of ninjutsu means that they suck progressively more as more and more of them are introduced in larger and larger numbers. This isn't quite as evident in the actual movies, as those stick to just a select few council members, but Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (did we really need two cartoons on THE SAME SUBJECT MATTER?!?) introduce a lot of younger, less experienced jedi and old ones in greater numbers, muddying the waters and destroying the boundary between jedi and "kind of strong ordinary dude," specifically when they start throwing in inhuman monsters.

The morticoccus or whatever that thing that gives them the Force is is just the final nail in the coffin, in my book. The jedi worked best as single, notable, exceptional individuals with mysterious powers which border on philosophy as much as on technobabble.

While I wouldn't mind this as an inherent, it's kind of similar to Supremacy - the henchmen are stronger with the Mastermind around. Someone suggested the reverse thing, though. How would feel about an inherent which, instead of buffing the followers, buffer the Leader when he was around his own followers? I'm not sure what those buffs should be, and indeed if we want one universal buff, or if we want each follower's presence to give a buff unique to the follower, kind of like a Kheldian would feel in a team.

---

On a tangent, and going a bit too far into wishy-washy land, how you you guys feel about a pet AT which had several summons which brought about, say, 5-6 pets, but only one set could be active at a time? For instance, you can have a set of relatively harmless buffers, a set of damage dealers who don't have much direct support and... I don't know. A set of control-heavy pets? Essentially, how would you feel if you have a pet AT which had to pick which of its strengths were active at a given time?

I neglected to mention this, but yes - this only happens on experiencing knockDOWN, never on experiencing knockBACK. When I experience knockback, my character will flip in the air as expected and be pushed back a little, exactly as it should happen. I suspect knockback and knockdown have different animations, and only the knockdown one is bugged.

And it's also true that it isn't easily replicable. This doesn't happen all the time, and I've not been able to spot any logic to when it happens, but I can contest that it might alternate as described.

Well, if the Commando is able to parachute into the sewers...

Let's see... I changed my mind on having armours. I was wrong the first time around. I didn't contest your numbers, I added a few extra, because I assumed the numbers you skipped would be of the Defender/Controller variety (e.i. low hit points) and... What else? Oh, yeah, you'll have to point me to where I stole your ideas, because I don't recall that. If I did, I apologise, but I'm just not sure where I did that.

As for balance, an AT with crappy self-protection is weak in my eyes, no matter what else it does. That, or it's team support, which I DO NOT WANT. Unless you want to give the Leader Blaster level damage output both in terms of amount and AoE (which I know you don't - that'd be silly), you're not going to make a combatant that plays well enough with weak defences. That is, unless you put the henchmen up front soaking up damage and providing Bodyguard, which I trust we both agree we do not want. The point of the Leader is to take the lead and take the damage, not have pets soak up the damage.

If you do, however, build off the Mastermind model with henchmen doing damage and taking aggro (Mastermind henchmen have a higher threat value than the Mastermind, himself), then giving THAT shields is a recipe for disaster. What I am suggesting is henchmen who do not have the offensive capability to deal damage for you, nor have the aggro control capabilities to take aggro off you. THAT design would benefit from shields and/or henchman buffs, but that is NOT a Mastermind design. Then again, I, personally, don't want to see a Mastermind design re-ported over to heroes when pretty soon heroes will be able to make straight-up Masterminds. For this AT to have merit, it has to be different enough to where it's not just a redux of what we already have.

*edit*
On the notion of Tier 3 inspirations, you built an inherent which is too weak when using Tier 1 inspirations, and only really becomes powerful if you use Tier 3 inspirations. I really don't like a system which is only powerful if you use Tier 3 inspirations, because ANYONE gets monumentally more powerful when they use Tier 3 inspirations. Blasters can tank. And while I will freely admit to how much LESS inspirations do for Masterminds (you need 7 of everything to match the power of one on any non-pet AT), having them affect the followers for 20% doesn't solve that problem. You still need five of everything to match one on any non-pet AT. If we go with your idea of pets doing damage, you need five inspirations to buff their damage, whereas a Blaster could buff his damage with just one for the same amount. It's a consequence of having damage distributed. And, at the end of the day, an AT which relies on inspirations is always going to be weaker than ATs which do not. Inspirations are, by virtue of how they drop, unreliable, whereas powerset powers are usually quite reliable.

Yes, that pretty much sums it up. But you don't really have anything terribly different with Masterminds, anyway. They are, essentially, somewhat souped-up Corrupters, only their damage isn't in their primary, but in their pets, no different from a Leader having his defences in his pets, rather than in his secondary. I'm not really sure what other powerset you envision (and I read your original post, believe it or not) when even Masterminds, the AT you're trying to sort of replicate, still play like a slightly more complicated currently-existing AT. About the only thing that makes them harder is the fact that they rely on micromanagement a lot, but with debuffs coming out of your followers, a Leader can be just as dependent, himself. In fact, stick auras on the followers, give them target-specific buffs like Syphon Speed and make their positioning more important, and you get even MORE micromanagement.

If you really view henchman micromanagement as a "pain," then I'm afraid we're never going to see eye-to-eye on a Mastermind-style pet AT. To my eyes, micromanagement is what sets the good Masterminds apart from the bad ones, and it would very much HAVE to be an integral part of playing a Leader if I am to support it.

Think about it - Mastermind henchmen have almost exclusively only attacks, with the occasional control-heavy pet. Ninja are all about damage. Zombies are damage, but the Lich is a controller, Mercenaries are pretty much all about damage, but the Spec Ops have some control, Robotics are all about damage with Protectors being somewhat support and Thugs are pretty much raw damage with Leadership. Damage, damage, damage, with sometimes a side order of something else. So why not have your first three minion-class followers be mostly support, your two lieutenant-class follower being mostly damage and the boss-class follower a lot of both?

Look, I can tell you right now - you cannot and will not get a Mastermind who has both damage from his henchmen AND damage from himself. It won't happen. A currently-existing Mastermind can survive ENTIRELY oh his henchmen the majority of the time, because they provide damage and survivability. You really can't expect to throw even more damage into that and have that work. There's a reason Masterminds have the single WORST set of damage mods in the game by a serious margin. Their henchmen do their damage. If you want more personal damage, you're gonna' have to give up on pet damage, or else we are REALLY going to end up with a tank-mage.

Mind you, Masterminds are tank-mages already. They get damage, protection and support, all within their own powers. That's more than most ATs, which only really get two things all told.

What I'm doing is adding alternatives to the ideas. I'm sorry you don't agree with it, but you don't exactly have a monopoly on what gets discussed in your thread. If you're really going to go as far as to tell me to stop posting and leave (even if not explicitly) then I'll leave. But you should know that making a suggestion does not mandate responders to only ever try to forward the idea as presented. Sometimes we disagree, so we criticise it, and sometimes we agree with the general premise, but present alternatives that we feel have the same general purpose, but achieve it differently. You will NEVER get people to solely and unanimously say "This is a good idea! Here's how we can make it better!" or shut up and not post. And, as a matter of fact, that is exactly what I said. I like your general idea, but I dislike the methodology you are using to achieve it.

What is your problem with that?

You know what? You take this far, far too seriously and read intent into my posts that they never had. Making me out to be some kind of evil bully who trounced all over your thread and stole your thunder will get you nowhere. Here's a though - if you don't like what I suggested, ignore it. I ignored one of your two suggested ATs because I didn't like the basic premise and focused on the AT I actually liked. But if you're going to throw a fit because I suggested a different idea from yours in your own thread, then that's just pointless. You're not the only one who matters in this thread. Other people are here looking for a discussion, and if the thread shifts into a tangential but related idea, then so be it. Or if it doesn't, then my idea wasn't good enough and people will ignore it. I can deal with that. That's just how these threads go.

But please - if you want to have any claim at a constructive discussion, stop trying to mandate my posting and post about ideas. You don't like mine, that's fine. Pull it apart and criticise it if you want to - I enjoy that sort of thing, myself. It gives us a discussion of the pros and cons of it, and it helps me refine it for next time this comes up. Or don't tell me you don't like it and simply ignore me. I'm fine with that. I don't have some deep-held belief that whenever I post, people should give me attention. If they discuss my take on the idea, great. I'll join the discussion. If they don't, oh well. Their dime, their time.

And, really, if you wanted to use only existing powersets, could you point me to where you said that in your original post? I didn't see that stated anywhere. For all I knew, I saw a suggestion for NEW ATs and didn't even suspect you wanted to recycle.

Even so, Luddites appear in a single mission, Goldbrickers make cameo appearances in a few, and the Legacy Chain and Wyvern are sort of there, but never actually have any sort of presence.

And I wouldn't actually be against upping Port Oaks up to 15 (it's 5-10 now. Seriously?) and Cap up to 25, so I don't have to grind FIKKIN SHARKHEAD every bloody time through the same missions.

"Sidekick" is a term specifically unique to established heroes and the young heroes they take on. That IS heroic. But what part of "influence" suggests heroism? Unless you want to claim that villains can't be influential, "influence" as a term is non-specific. In fact, "infamy" is outright stupid, because infamy is solely and only reputation, whereas influence is actual, exercisable pull.

To me, the very notion that villains have to have evil-sounding everything is false, and in fact runs directly contrary to the very point of Going Rogue. The expansion's main focus is the moral ambiguity of being meta-human an how the choices we make affect who and what we are, not the things we call ourselves. In fact, they picked a heroine with powers about as "evil" as it gets to turn hero just to drive home that fact.

Maybe it would be inconsistent, but an inconsistency is still superior to a consistently bad policy.

Actually, that's a lot like what I had in mind when I first started thinking about leaders. Say your character is the Leader of a spec ops rescue team. You carry the firepower, your followers carry the stretchers, defibrilators, medical supplies and so forth. Maybe at some point you could have another one or two with more offensive roles, but I see the Leader as the player character in, say, a first-person shooter. Your job is to survive and shoot down the enemies before they can rip into the EMTs.

I wouldn't really go into thinking up a full set, but I'd like to see a VERY support-heavy pet set with the followers armed (obviously) but not really designed to be major damage dealers.

A couple of nights ago I did an ITF that broke up on the third mission, and we were left fighting Romulus and Requiem with just the four of us, with my Fire/Fire Brute the only actual melee, and as we know, Fire/Fire isn't exactly a tanking combo. However, when I managed to get the attention of both Romulus and Requiem on me and off my team-mates, through their concerted effort, they were able to keep me alive despite my being HOPELESSLY outmatched against the AVs. THAT is what I want for a Leader - someone who leads not by buffs and orders, but by going out and fighting, surviving only because he can rely on his followers to keep him safe. Only this is a single player with henchmen, instead of a full team.

Maybe I misread, but it's a question of the durability of the AT. I don't want a squishy with damage like a Blaster or a Dominator is. I want a fighter like a Stalker is, or thereabout. Also, you mention nothing about hit points, which is important (I assumed Defender level) and there is a whole world of leeway between Tanker and Scrapper damage. Tankers are at 0.8 and Scrappers are at 0.125. Technically, 0.85 would be in that range, but it would still be terribly little. I'm going to say here and now that this AT cannot work, in my opinion, with a damage mod less than 1.0.

You have a point, I guess. Manoeuvres uses an AT's ranged defence mod while Weave uses an AT's melee defence mod. Still, I'm not confident I want to give the leader strong support modifiers either way.

This is false on its face, and demonstrably so. Forgive my harsh tone, but the only way this can work is if you face lots of weak enemies that you can mow through, which Blasters and their beastly AoEs may be able to do, but a not-quite-fighter Leader fighting as a team of one against +1 or +2 enemies (say, similar to the old Invincible difficulty) is often going to see spawns consisting of a single lieutenant or even a single boss, sometimes seeing missions with less than 20 people in them if the spawn RNG decides to be consistent. Relying on inspirations does not foster a more aggressive or faster playstyle, it fosters more efficient inspiration use, because your inspirations aren't running out based on time, they run out based on enemies fought. Inspiration drops are also a complete crapshot, and I REALLY don't want to see them become key to any AT's survival. Blasters already have it bad enough.

Furthermore, at 20% inspiration efficiency on pets, you need to use 5 inspirations to get the equivalent of one, which a Mastermind can just about match by feeding one of each inspiration to each of his henchmen directly. What's more, greens already heal patently little. Healing for only 20% of that isn't really noteworthy. An Insight inspiration is 7.5% to-hit buff. A 1.5% to-hit buff may not even exist for all it matters, and that's what you'll get by applying 20% strength of one. I'm assuming, since this AT will have full-fledged henchmen equivalents, that the Leader will be able to simply feed inspiration to his followers directly. This just makes the system redundant.

Really, I don't want to see a repeat of the Kheldian or Defender inherents, which are "kind of" useful and only really on a team. If anything, I'd like to see an inherent as defining as something like Fury, Scourge or Domination. Minor bonuses here and there just don't do it for me.

Any AT which depends on having Tier 3 inspirations, which only drop off bosses, mind you, and you don't see a lot of those solo on the smaller-team difficulty settings, is badly designed. In fact, if I recall correctly, Castle stated that Tier 3 inspirations will never become common (hence the slashing of the Kora Fruit mission) because having many of them outright breaks the game. And it does. If you want to depend on inspirations, balance this against Tier 1 inspirations, because that's all you're ever going to have if you use them as much and as often as you suggest. Hell, a couple of weeks ago I went though the sewers and fought spawn after spawn of four bosses each, and I STILL didn't get more than a couple of large inspirations at a time. And that was an outlier.

I play my missions at even con, count me as a two-man team, and with those, I see five kinds of spawns - five even con minions, four even con minions and lieutenant, two even con lieutenants and minion, +1 lieutenant, +1 lieutenant and minion. I don't see boss spawns more than once per half a dozen missions, named bosses or those odd missions which decide to spawn a boss + minion combo on EVERY spawn on the map. I don't see bosses, so I don't see large inspirations. The only reason I see medium inspirations is because I hoard them. And even then, I can kick *** on my Scrapper and FORGET I have inspirations at all, for the most part, so having to rely on them would be a WEAKNESS in the leader, not a strength.

From your writeup, the Leader comes off sounding like a Dominator with pets instead of control. And I've tried playing Dominators, and they're nowhere ner the "fighters" I want a Leader to be. At best, they're a squishy with damage, like a Blaster with Control. I want the Leader to be a Scrapper with pets. And, no, I don't want the Leader to bring his followers "to his level," because then you end up with a redux of the Mastermind AT. If you put the followers on the offensive, you have to slash the offence of the leader. And look at what you're doing - you're trying to fit in melee damage, ranged damage, pets AND personal protection in the same AT. That's even worse than Masterminds, and they're already overpowered because of having everything.

I actually changed my mind in regard to personal shields. In fact, I'd like to see the leader have NONE, and draw his protection form his followers. Want a shield that protects you fire and cold damage? Well, you're on a faux team, have one of your followers buff you with it. Want status protection? You're on a faux team, have one of your followers give it to you.

What I argue against, mostly, is the inherent, because I KNOW that AT will need a decent inherent, and I don't see bleeding inspirations as a good one. There is NO CHANCE IN HELL you're going to balance this AT to be both a decent, survivable fight AND a decent pet wielder, and I don't want it to specialise in one at the expense of the other, so you're going to have to compromise a little bit of both. An inherent, then, is needed to step up and bring everything up to scratch under specific conditions, and your vision of Charisma just doesn't do it for me.

*edit*

[quote] Well, if that is the case, then I'm afraid I just can't see it as workable. Mastermind sets are, really, only good for a Mastermind playstyle, because all Mastermind sets are offensive. If give an AT Stalker offence, Stalker-ish defence AND an offensive pet secondary, you're just making a tank-mage. The huge balancing that'd take to keep this in check would just ruin the AT. Remember - Masterminds can often forget they even HAVE a secondary and sleep through missions just on the henchmen alone, and you're suggesting an AT with that plus shields plus extra damage. I mean, I'd like to have that, but I'm sure Castle wouldn't let such a thing through.

The reason I keep suggesting that followers be retooled into support is because you have to give something up somewhere, and to my eyes giving up pet offence is a good place, specifically since you can also excise personal protection that way and work that in as part of a pet's powers.

In fact, I could see at least one power per such powerset that works like the Ninja Mastermind Smoke Flash - give a henchman an order to use a power once, but make it something cool. Like, you could order a henchman to do a weakened version of Fulcrum Shift or put you inside a Personal Forcefield for a while, or directly heal you and suchforth. Look at it this way - the Mastermind orders his henchmen to go out and attack while he stays back and supports them. A Leader would go out and attack, while he orders his followers to stand back and support him. "This is too dangerous! I'll fight the ninja master, you guard the old man!" sort of deal.

Right, him I remember. I LOVE the Operative from Serenity. With that example, I actually have to say you were right and I was wrong in a lot of respects. The operative is a clear and unambiguous BAD GUY in what he does, but once you get past the hostility of his actions, he is actually quite human, and maybe even a little good at heart. He is not a hypocrite like most "saviour" villains, and in fact when he realises he's being used and the world he's trying to create isn't at all what he thought it would be, he does the right thing, because he truly does believe in doing the right thing. Good example of actions vs. consequences vs. the person. Well played!

I have a problem with Scirocco, myself, at least in the "liking him" part. The real tragedy about him is that he firmly believes he is under the curse of some demon making him evil, but the fact, as far as I can deduce, is that he is deluding himself and inventing excuses for why he can't be good, when he himself is just falling more and more towards the path of evil. This is actually very well depicted in his second arc, when he attempts to change the whole world by force, turning his rude, obnoxious partner into STUPID wishy-washy misplaced her. I CANNOT STAND to hear her speak when she's being controlled, and I couldn't wait to beat the guy upside the head. It might have helped that I was playing a particularly cynical, unmoved villain at the time, but generally he is painted as a "woe is me" self-delusional fool who REALLY wants to be good, but just simply isn't. I have more sympathy for Ghost Widow, who did nothing more than DIE to become what she is, whereas Scirocco is where is he by choice, even if he can't admit it to himself.

I actually enjoy these kinds of characters. My own namesake is a lot like this, in many ways, and I make it a point to NOT bring him into stories unless they call for "the big guns" because of how many moral dilemmas he paints me into just by doing anything more than stand around. But generally, I enjoy the Han Solo style characters, who may not always be quite pure of heart, may not always have the best of intentions and, hell, may not even be actually good, but still show some compassion and some honour when things really go bad. There are the slogan-spewing square-jawed super heroes and the cackling-mad, Saturday morning cartoon villains, but neither of those is particularly interesting, because neither of those is actually human, barring some deep psychological problem. Real humans can be very good, very bad and anywhere in-between, but they will always have a personality somewhere behind the façade. That's what makes them interesting.

Hmm... But if the mission is to erase records from Crey computers, wouldn't that make US the bad guys? I mean, the Architect is a joint venture between Crey Industries and Aeon Tech, so obviously it will have Crey computers in it.

Of course, if I dig into my knowledge of the game, I'd guess this is the mission to assist Mark IV in escaping from Crey by erasing all information about him from their computers, so I guess if those computers are in Founders' Falls' Architect Entertainment building, why not start there?

But, yeah, it's a Crey business. It's not quite as bad as going to root out a nest of Arachnoids by going down the lift in the police station, like I heard back during the Safeguard missions Issue (I8?).

I agree in a big way. One of the capital reasons I'm still here is the interaction we have with the development team, and how much it feels like they keep doing things solely and specifically to please ME. Oh, sure, I know I'm a nobody on a message board and they try to please as many people as they can, but the mere fact that I can feel like a lot of the changes are made specifically for me means a LOT in my book.

Positron promised they would give players what they want, within reason, and I have to say they have delivered monumentally well on this promise. I've not played another game where it felt like the development team was as much part of the community, as understanding and as reactive. We say "But we WANNA!!!" and they come here and explain why it can't happen, why it might happen but at a later time, that it's already being worked on, or say nothing and it pops into the game a month or two later.

Frankly, I'm sticking to this game as much for its development team as I am for the actual game. Just goes to show that cool, talented people make a difference.

To the Architect reception, I see. Which would be really impressive if it were a mission to defeat a bunch of space nazi or root out a cabal of corruption, but given that I can't read what the mission objective is, it might as well be "deliver pizza." In fact, a contact does exactly that in one Crey story arc. "Oh, hey, while I'm working on this data, please deliver this CD to my friend on the butt end of nowhere and come back to me."

Because of the act of having had a power and having been used to having it. I abhor losing powers on principle, not because I lost any specific power I can't do without. I could lose something as simple as Taunt and I'd be upset at not having access to it. It's a matter of preference, and there is no explaining preference away. All workarounds can do is make it suck less. Well, I still choose option B - refuse. It doesn't suck at all!

Now where have I heard this before. It sounds so familiar...

Apparently I was told wrong and never bothered to cross-check it. In my defence, a 100x100 avatar will hide the grey box completely, and most people who even HAVE an avatar have that or bigger.

But if it has no purpose, I'd say get rid of it. It's ugly.

It's not just you, but that has as much to do with crappy directing as it does with special effects. Older movies from the 70s and 80s have a style and class all their own, representative of both the trends and preferences of the time, as well as the culture of it. As far as I can tell, the late 70s early 80s is the time when war movies, specifically movies about WW2, are giving way to more fiction and fantasy, but movies in general retain the old military tradition. If you watch Episode 4 with a critical eye, you'll notice the Imperial Storm Troopers being led like a proper army with proper discipline and rank. It's sci-fi, but it has a more realistic approach.

By comparison, the prequels feel like Lord of the Rings IN SPACE! Sci fi as a genre isn't just defined by having space ships and aliens, it's a genre with a specific approach to fiction, and the newer sci-fi movies are actually a lot more like futuristic, space-faring sci-fi stories. I first spotted this in the step from Pitch Black into the Chronicles of Riddick, steeping from what was an Alien-esque survival sci-fi setting into faux fantasy land of ancient empires, prophecies and adventure. The Star Wars prequels suffer from the same thing, in my opinion.

This is, obviously, a question of both taste and interpretation and, more than anything else, feel, but the Star Wars sequels felt a lot more like a cross between Indiana Jones and Kelly's Heroes, whereas the prequels feel a lot more like a mix between Willow and Labyrinth, but with sword-fighting. Everyone is larger-than-life and either utterly sinister or broodingly good, and anyone who has even a bit of a REAL personality is treated like comic relief.

I could never quite follow the logic behind that one. Space alien bugs gave people Force powers? Yeah, if that's what that meant, I am not impressed. The cultist mysticism behind the jedi was one of the key driving forces of the sequels, contrasting faith in technology and superior firepower with faith in the person and superior skill, drawn very well with the parallel between Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. I don't believe that needed an explanation, because it takes away from the mystery of it all. And trust me - I'm a person who likes knowing and understanding everything, and even I recognise that that just makes things dull. Non-vital, non-pivotal explanations aren't needed and, indeed, often aren't even wanted.

The reason I said "one small note" is because it IS a very small, minor note. If you want to read a put-down into it, that's your prerogative, but you might want to be more open to corrections in the future. And unless I missed something and an incorrect word was recognised officially, "irregardless" is no more a word than "rediculous" or "nucular." I've seen them used a lot, and some even consider them literary words, but I've neither seen that officially, nor really agreed with it.

The closest I could find is the word's definition on various online dictionaries. MSN Encarta's dictionary has this to say:

I guess if enough people use a word, it'll start popping up in dictionaries sooner or later, but even they advise against using it.

Again, if you want to imagine me trying to "score points" or insult you, feel free, but this isn't anywhere close to the truth. I saw a misused word, I pointed it out, specifically because it bothers me more than most, like the phrase "could care less."