Your gripes with CoC II

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Furiae

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Jan 7, 2021
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Tease damage is generally just lower than normal damage, so even though the creatures have way more Health than Resolve, I generally stick to using my Powers that deal extra normal damage, since just using Tease is the equivalent of just using Attack. The Behemoth is too invincible, I had to Lust Tag him with Quint and then Tease him, since it was obvious I had only a couple of seconds to beat him down before I'd lose, but otherwise I'm happier doing Thunder Strike and Steely Strike and White Fire and Giant Reach and Execute, rather than Lust Tag and Tease and Tease and Tease and Tease.


I color coded what I think of this :) it looks like you got it... but you seem to be fighting it?

There's not just lust tag. Have you tried Allure/Cultist's Allure or Song of Splendor? And depending on your gear/presence you can absolutely do higher resolve damage than what you're probably doing now. There's also some weapons that do resolve damage (keep cuddlefucking Azzy).

Against multiple foes I use Cleave (which I bought for the Champion, although he does an amount of damage at level 5 which compares roughly to what Brint dealt at level 1), along with other such abilities like Firewalk and Entropic Winds; once all the AOE attacks are used up, I concentrate on one target at a time to eliminate them, thereby gaining more relative actions, and usually I can win that way, although it's often tedious. But the boss enemies all seem really overpowered.

I didn't hear anything about Threat in there; do you pay attention to it? How's your stats? What kind of gear?

My favorite build is a mage/charmer mix that goes heavy on will and presence. He summons, teases with the multi target skills, and makes things explode. Usually Bolstering Dance or Great Heal is his at-will.

Honestly in most RPGs I also prefer to just hit things too, but that's because I didn't want to deal with MP or reagents. With the way skills work in this game, there's literally no reason to do that.
 

Herod_Hammerstar

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Dec 24, 2020
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Really? So if I hate RTS, every RTS game should also offer a FPS-variant just for my taste?

Impractical, perhaps, but certainly desirable in an ideal world. I love the setting of Legend of Zelda, but I'll never play any of the newer LoZ games because they keep being on new game platforms, like the "move your whole body" Wii and the more recent multi-screen, multi-component portables; having grown up on the SNES and GBC, I just can't wrap my brain around these newer systems well enough to be able to enjoy these games (neverminding that I also can't afford them). I love Mortal Kombat, but I'm not into gory fatalities, and I can't handle the controls; I very much wish it had an easier, more story-focused version that wasn't about button-mashing and dominating the competition. I love the gameplay of Diablo 2, but it takes goddamn forever to level up and I really wish there were a quicker version, where I could build up my characters faster (there is playing on players=8, but that doesn't work for me due to some mysterious technical reason). As perhaps the biggest example, I love the Magic the Gathering universe, but I've sworn never to waste another dime buying the intentionally disposable cards (and, if I had the power to do so, I'd prohibit them from being manufactured anymore, just because I think it's an ecologically unforgivable degree of consumption). There are all sorts of games which contain a germ of something I like, but because each game has a setting which is a uniquely owned IP, I lament the fact that I can't have that setting without being shackled to rules that I may disapprove of.

No, that's called PLAYING VIDEOGAMES. I dare anyone to beat any half-decent videogame the first time through.

Not sure what your definition of "half-decent" is, but I'm pretty sure almost all of my classic favorites were pretty easy for me to get through. Super Metroid? Sure I died a few times, but I don't think I was ever stuck. Final Fantasies 4, 5, and 6? They flow very naturally and I had only a few problems. Killer Instinct? I only tried it a handful of times, since it's too new and expensive for me to own, and I never had any real sense of control, but I could win around half the time just by frantically button-mashing. The only games I can think of which I've had huge amounts of trouble with were Warcraft III, where the AI is so incredibly overpowered that I need an ally AI to fight the enemy AI for me so that I can just build my colony in peace without being razed every three days, and the various Myst games, which all require enough lateral thinking that there's generally one puzzle per game that I simply can't solve, and have to look up the answer to (in the original Myst it was the floating box in the lighthouse, I never would have guessed that in a million years, because it's the only use of realistic physics in the whole game). Maybe I've just been lucky, and mostly only played games that have a very intuitive and well-calibrated difficulty curve; perhaps that's left me spoiled.

Anyone that says they brought the correct weapon loadout and teammate group and knew ahead of time all the sweet spots of every enemy in every single fight the first time in Mass Effect or Halo or whatever is a fucking liar.

And perhaps it's a paradigm shift in more modern gaming, as opposed to stuff from my era (though that might also be due to the games having been intended somewhat for children, so they just come with a lower difficulty by default; the more modern "AAA game" mentality is far too recent for me to be familiar with it, just because everything's so damn high-priced, and the hardware is intentionally built to obsolete itself for the sake of new sales.

Bosses being overpowered?

Ooh, Angelina before she got all weird! What movie is this?

I color coded what I think of this :)

I like the idea of color coding, but I'm afraid I couldn't quite make out what the intended meaning of these codes was.

There's not just lust tag. Have you tried Allure/Cultist's Allure or Song of Splendor?

Song of Splendor only exists on a Charmer, and while my L5 is one of those, I traded Song of Splendor away because it didn't seem useful enough. Not sure who has Allure, but if it's Quintillus then I mentioned I only recruited him once, because of the 500GP price tag and his relative uselessness in combination with the rest of the party. I don't know this Bimbo Azzy that's been mentioned, maybe if I ever find her, I'll combo her with Quint, but otherwise he's not too useful to me.

And depending on your gear/presence you can absolutely do higher resolve damage than what you're probably doing now. There's also some weapons that do resolve damage (keep cuddlefucking Azzy).

I will, but so far I've only found the Girthy Rod, which was quite useless (and not even possible to use unless you're corrupted, which I try really hard to avoid being).

I didn't hear anything about Threat in there; do you pay attention to it?

I think the only Threat-related power I've ever seen was Bolstering Stance, which attracts Threat to the Champion and thus potentially leads to a Game Over. If there was a way to up Threat on one of the others, I'd pay attention to that for sure, but if that power exists anywhere, it was on Atugia, who I haven't otherwise found a useful enough companion to put her in either of my main parties. (My very low-level Thief is the only one who recruited her, specifically so I could avoid Cait and Brint for the sake of variety.)

How's your stats?

Every character gets the same stats; I try to distribute them logically for the character type I'm playing. My Warrior main was 0 presence until recently, so that may have had something to do with my failures, but only if the game is kinda designed "wrong" IMO, as I would say that a Warrior shouldn't require Presence. His Strength is upped pretty close to Maximum, and yet his damage is still largely pathetic; he only hits well on crits, which is perhaps the result of me upping Cunning a bunch. Since you can only up each stat once per level, there's not much I can do beyond that.

What kind of gear?

Given that nobody I've found sells anything better than Ogrish's low-level armor, that's pretty much what I'm stuck with. I keep finding unique weapons, and the weapon stats are complex and hard to parse, but I think I've been equipping the best thing I have in every case. My Warrior currently has the Spiral Blade, and my Charmer did the archery quest and has Beast Killer. The idea of using a basic Spear or Halberd has never occurred to me, because the Bladed Staff seems to be better, and you get it right at the beginning of the game (unless you lose to Tollus, which my third and fourth characters did, but I haven't played them much since).

Also, I can't alter Equipment on the sidekicks, which really bothers me. I wish I had the ability to kit them out completely just as I do myself, and I also wish they could use items. But that belongs in the other thread I guess.
 

Furiae

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Jan 7, 2021
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Everything you called useless......is not. I get that the stats are DIFFERENT than you might be used to, but there's a codex in-game explaining it. When I realized presence increases your sexiness AND leadership, which boosts your party/summons, I didn't complain about the design; I tried a setup that focuses more on that. That's when I realized how OP charmers can be, unless you're fighting unfuckable things. I managed this even though my main motivation for playing is fetish-centered. If I can do it literally one-handed, you can too if you just stop arguing with the game.

(also I presume wherever you're from has traffic lights?)
 
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Herod_Hammerstar

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Dec 24, 2020
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Everything you called useless......is not. I get that the stats are DIFFERENT than you might be used to, but there's a codex in-game explaining it. When I realized presence increases your sexiness AND leadership, which boosts your party/summons, I didn't complain about the design; I tried a setup that focuses more on that. That's when I realized how OP charmers can be, unless you're fighting unfuckable things. I managed this even though my main motivation for playing is fetish-centered. If I can do it literally one-handed, you can too if you just stop arguing with the game.

So you're saying that Strength-based Warriors are not viable within the game and I shouldn't even try playing one?

(also I presume wherever you're from has traffic lights?)

Traffic lights are not pink, so that didn't even occur to me. So you agree with the green and disagree with the red? I'll try reading again.
 

SomeNobody

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Dec 18, 2020
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People explain how things work and you're ever making drawn-out excuses to say how the game is still at fault and it has nothing to do with your lack of ability. Despite everyone else not having any of these troubles with the gameplay.

So you're saying that Strength-based Warriors are not viable within the game and I shouldn't even try playing one?
I play a strength-based Human Warrior equipped with sword and board, their points on levelup go into Strength, Agility and then either Cunning or Toughness.
They are very much viable and have not had any trouble getting through the game.
 

Tide Hunter

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May 4, 2019
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Impractical, perhaps, but certainly desirable in an ideal world. I love the setting of Legend of Zelda, but I'll never play any of the newer LoZ games because they keep being on new game platforms, like the "move your whole body" Wii and the more recent multi-screen, multi-component portables; having grown up on the SNES and GBC, I just can't wrap my brain around these newer systems well enough to be able to enjoy these games (neverminding that I also can't afford them). I love Mortal Kombat, but I'm not into gory fatalities, and I can't handle the controls; I very much wish it had an easier, more story-focused version that wasn't about button-mashing and dominating the competition. I love the gameplay of Diablo 2, but it takes goddamn forever to level up and I really wish there were a quicker version, where I could build up my characters faster (there is playing on players=8, but that doesn't work for me due to some mysterious technical reason). As perhaps the biggest example, I love the Magic the Gathering universe, but I've sworn never to waste another dime buying the intentionally disposable cards (and, if I had the power to do so, I'd prohibit them from being manufactured anymore, just because I think it's an ecologically unforgivable degree of consumption). There are all sorts of games which contain a germ of something I like, but because each game has a setting which is a uniquely owned IP, I lament the fact that I can't have that setting without being shackled to rules that I may disapprove of.
Largely the argument against things like this is artistic intent. Sure, you may want a setting without being tied to certain gameplay elements, but do the people who make the games want to make the game with the specific design you want? If no, then it would not be an ideal for them to be made to make games to cater to you. Games can have niche audiences, games can have wide audiences. Often it's praised for a game to have a more niche demographic, because though they don't make themselves open to a majority, those people in those niches are often underserved. Coming in and asking that those IPs be changed to fit your own taste, if your own taste is already served by many games that are good in their own right, is not, in my opinion, good. Especially when you claim that games which don't are "a failure in the game design" and "it doesn't belong on the market".
Song of Splendor only exists on a Charmer, and while my L5 is one of those, I traded Song of Splendor away because it didn't seem useful enough. Not sure who has Allure, but if it's Quintillus then I mentioned I only recruited him once, because of the 500GP price tag and his relative uselessness in combination with the rest of the party. I don't know this Bimbo Azzy that's been mentioned, maybe if I ever find her, I'll combo her with Quint, but otherwise he's not too useful to me.
As you know because you've talked about it, you can learn powers from other classes despite not being that class. Also, 1: it's not GP, it's electrum. 2: 500 electrum is stupidly easy to get, I have a character that hasn't even gotten to level 2 and they went from 6 electrum to 416, without me trying to farm, while only fighting the low level enemies in the Old Forest.
I will, but so far I've only found the Girthy Rod, which was quite useless (and not even possible to use unless you're corrupted, which I try really hard to avoid being).
So, you know how Nelia's shop is directly to the right of the entrance to Harvest Valley? She sells the Dueling Hat (3 sexiness), Elegant Dress (20 sexiness), and several undergarments (both the upper and lower slot, which boost either sexiness or temptation by 3). If you complete the Shades of the Past quest by beating Gunvaldsen via the parley gives the Cloak of Winter (3 sexiness). The Cultist Charm provides 10 sexiness, and both of the neckwear that Viviane sells gives 3 sexiness and 4 temptation. If you find the Witch's Set in the Old Forest and are willing to put it on and get tf'd, the chest piece is 15 sexiness, while the boots are 5 sexiness and the gloves are 3 (but you can equip the boots and gloves without getting tf'd. As long as you don't put on the chest piece.). There are many more pieces of equipment in this game which boost sexiness.
I think the only Threat-related power I've ever seen was Bolstering Stance, which attracts Threat to the Champion and thus potentially leads to a Game Over. If there was a way to up Threat on one of the others, I'd pay attention to that for sure, but if that power exists anywhere, it was on Atugia, who I haven't otherwise found a useful enough companion to put her in either of my main parties. (My very low-level Thief is the only one who recruited her, specifically so I could avoid Cait and Brint for the sake of variety.)
You literally say that you have a thief character. Thieves start with an at-will that instantly removes half of your threat and gives a status effect that makes your next attack/ability not generate threat, in addition to having an encounter power that also removes half your threat and applies the status effect (but for two turns), along with blinding enemies. Also the level 2 Warrior power "Dominance" directly says it generates high threat in its description.

And even aside from that, threat management doesn't purely exist in the form of powers directly impacting threat. Any source of healing and damage generates threat, both for health and resolve. Against large groups aoe attacks generate very high threat considering that the threat scales based on the damage/healing, which is also why Atugia deals split damage with all of her attacks and abilities. Being mindful of how your damage impacts your threat is useful. This, by the way, is stated in the Combat Basics section in the journal.
Every character gets the same stats; I try to distribute them logically for the character type I'm playing. My Warrior main was 0 presence until recently, so that may have had something to do with my failures, but only if the game is kinda designed "wrong" IMO, as I would say that a Warrior shouldn't require Presence. His Strength is upped pretty close to Maximum, and yet his damage is still largely pathetic; he only hits well on crits, which is perhaps the result of me upping Cunning a bunch. Since you can only up each stat once per level, there's not much I can do beyond that.
You should already know this having played the game, but you increase 3 stats per level by 3, and every other stat increases by 1. And I'm 99% certain that I made a post a while ago where I explained, directed at you specifically, what every one of these stats do. Presence isn't required for a warrior but it's very much useful if you're a tanky warrior archetype considering the buff it gives to your allies.
Given that nobody I've found sells anything better than Ogrish's low-level armor, that's pretty much what I'm stuck with. I keep finding unique weapons, and the weapon stats are complex and hard to parse, but I think I've been equipping the best thing I have in every case. My Warrior currently has the Spiral Blade, and my Charmer did the archery quest and has Beast Killer. The idea of using a basic Spear or Halberd has never occurred to me, because the Bladed Staff seems to be better, and you get it right at the beginning of the game (unless you lose to Tollus, which my third and fourth characters did, but I haven't played them much since).
To quote the combat basics section, "Damage Reduction functions as a percentage. If you have 20 armor, then all physical damage you take is reduced by 20%. All damage reductions are capped at 75%."
That "low-level armor" that Ogrish sells has immediately reaches the highest level of physical damage reduction you can have in the game (before your enemy's armor piercing stats). And besides, the devs have directly said that this isn't a game like TiTS where you're constantly swapping equipment in and out because new equipment has better stats. Some equipment is better than others overall, but they're generally intended as sidegrades to each other. The Beast Killer is, as per its name, intended for killing Beast type enemies, as Beast types are weak to blight damage. If you literally just dual-wield the basic daggers you can and will have a higher damage output whenever both attacks hit.

In my view, weapon stats are not that hard to understand. Damage is obvious, accuracy increases your chance to hit, dodge increases your chance to not be hit, crit increases your chance to land a crit, armor penetration lowers the enemy's armor by that much when making an attack, spellpower boosts the power of your spells, and spell penetration is like armor penetration but for the anti-magic damage reduction. Those are the overwhelming majority of what you'll see in terms of stats, and the only ones which I could suspect to have any difficulty in understanding is the penetration effects, but you could have just looked through the Attributes and Stats section of the Journal to have it explained.

Basic spears vs the blade staff: Same damage count, blade staff boosts spell abilities which is only useful for casters and semi-casters, and where the spear has evasion and a higher accuracy, the staff bypasses some damage reduction and has a higher chance to crit(except not really, because accuracy also increases the chance to crit by proxy, so the 5 less accuracy compared to 5 more crit is a bad tradeoff as that's the same chance to crit but a lower chance to actually hit). Here's the thing though: The blade staff is 2-handed. The spear is 1-handed. While it isn't a light weapon so you can't dual-wield it, you can equip offhand equipment, like every single type of shield present in the game and many off-hand catalysts. As for a halberd... there is no halberd. So I'll assume you mean either the poleaxe or the pike. First, the pike: 15 more damage, equal accuracy, rather than a crit bonus and armor penetration it's 10 evasion. Largely the armor penetration will not outdo the plain extra damage provided by the base stats(especially due to how damage dealt works), and evasion is always useful. Second, the poleaxe: 15 more damage, 10 more penetration, same crit bonus, higher evasion, worse accuracy. The poleaxe is much stronger than the blade staff for a melee fighter, even if the accuracy is lower. It's a tradeoff of hit chance for power on hit, and is much more useful for a fighter than the blade staff. You should only use the blade staff if your character uses magic (which admittedly 3 of the 5 classes do), as the blade staff is a direct upgrade to the Quarterstaff.
So you're saying that Strength-based Warriors are not viable within the game and I shouldn't even try playing one?
Strength-based Warriors are certainly viable, my main character is a strength-based warrior (2-handed weapons) and she was able to get through the entire Winter City and Palace of Ice pretty fine. She's since become a slight hybrid, but that's only because of the White Mage's level 4 at-will being a nice damage buff. She'd still be completely viable without it.
 

Paradox01

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Feb 8, 2020
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Ooh, Angelina before she got all weird! What movie is this?
You know, someone recently asked me if I thought you were a troll or just dense and I said "The latter, but with definite leanings towards the former." After having read this latest response from you, I think you just pegged out the "Troll" meter.
 

Furiae

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Jan 7, 2021
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Yeah, one way or another, dude is hopeless.

So uh.... gripes? Is that the thread I'm in now? I'm sad I can't rally the druids to go kick out the kitsune. Kohaku can stay and sell me tan eggs and shit, but that tree's gotta go. For nature, or something.
 
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Herod_Hammerstar

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Dec 24, 2020
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You know, someone recently asked me if I thought you were a troll or just dense and I said "The latter, but with definite leanings towards the former." After having read this latest response from you, I think you just pegged out the "Troll" meter.

Dafuq? I literally just asked you for more information because I didn't understand your meme, how the holy fuck would that prove me to be a troll? Regardless, I'm not one. I just wanted to know what movie that scene came from; how you could instantly leap to the conclusion that me saying "what movie is this" was anything other than an honest question is utterly beyond me, and I literally mean that, I can't even begin to guess what you're thinking here.

It's definitely both, i have no doubt at all that he's both incredibly small minded and also enjoying arguing with everyone.

I don't enjoy arguing. I enjoy discussing, even friendly debate, but arguments are inherently based on the assumption that one party is wrong and must be defeated, and that's the exact opposite of what I ever want. As one of the Vlad Taltos novels puts it, "The defender always starts the war; the attacker wants only to conquer, and if the defender was content to simply let him, there would be no war." An argument is the civilized, intellectual equivalent of a war, and I don't want a war, I only want to conquer. I want to explain what I believe and why, and have everybody tell me either "Wow, you're right, thanks for explaining" or "Here's some interesting information you might not have known, I hope it will change your viewpoint". When people instead say mean, bitchy, sarcastic things, it's not me choosing to have an argument, it's them refusing to give me what I want, for no particular reason beyond their own sense of pique (which, objectively, they obviously have every right to feel, but subjectively, I wish they wouldn't).

You literally say that you have a thief character. Thieves start with an at-will that instantly removes half of your threat and gives a status effect that makes your next attack/ability not generate threat, in addition to having an encounter power that also removes half your threat and applies the status effect (but for two turns), along with blinding enemies.

My thief is one of the least played characters I have - I think even the White Mage has passed her, at least in days if not in actual accomplishment. My thought with a Thief was that I should try to have no companions at all, because I was figuring I could sneak past enemies and not fight them. Turns out that doesn't work, so I have been adjusting that, but the more I play the game, the less I want to play any of my characters who aren't already high level and haven't finished most of the quests.

Also the level 2 Warrior power "Dominance" directly says it generates high threat in its description.

That might have been the first extra power I gained; it was definitely the first one I stopped using because it was PURE SUICIDE. I told you, unless the Champ has insanely high armor and healing and whatnot, he needs to NOT have threat.

And besides, the devs have directly said that this isn't a game like TiTS where you're constantly swapping equipment in and out because new equipment has better stats. Some equipment is better than others overall, but they're generally intended as sidegrades to each other.

Hm. Well I suppose that's a valid game design philosophy, maybe even not one that I disagree with, but it's definitely counterintuitive. I'd never have assumed it to be true if you hadn't said it.

If you literally just dual-wield the basic daggers you can and will have a higher damage output whenever both attacks hit.

Interesting. I've never tried to dual wield, in part because I was annoyed by the fact that some weapons can only equip in the offhand which is just weird, but mostly because I assumed that either a two-handed weapon or a single weapon plus a shield was always going to be the way to go. I suppose I'll have to try this sometime, but none of my existing characters will do it; they all have 2H unique weapons gotten from storyline bosses, which I figured had to be more powerful than a normal weapon you could just buy, since that's what I expect from usual video game logic.

In my view, weapon stats are not that hard to understand.

Your view is clearly not my view. I'm used to weapons that have one stat (damage), possibly two (damage and accuracy). Not counting things like price, obviously.

Damage is obvious, accuracy increases your chance to hit, dodge increases your chance to not be hit, crit increases your chance to land a crit, armor penetration lowers the enemy's armor by that much when making an attack

Already that's extremely complicated. I'm not saying that's bad, I prefer 3E D&D over 5E because I like greater granularity, but it does increase the mental effort required to comprehend what you're looking at. Armor penetration is just a limited form of extra damage; you could eliminate that entire stat and just raise the damage value. Critical hits are random and not really necessary. And weapons increasing your dodge chance is a little odd, since you assume a weapon is pure offense and that all your defense will come from armor (again, "you" in this case meaning someone who's used to the kinds of games I grew up playing, such as the Final Fantasy series; that does feature a few exceptions, but they're rare, and their special trait isn't part of a statblock - if the Dodge bonus was usually blank because most weapons don't help defend you, then my design philosophy says that there should be no "dodge bonus" field in the stats, so the reader isn't confused by seeing a bunch of extra stats that are all set at zero...I can understand why some people would rather have consistency and list all the stats even if they don't apply, but that's not how I generally think).

spellpower boosts the power of your spells, and spell penetration is like armor penetration but for the anti-magic damage reduction.

This stuff goes beyond the weapon even being a weapon. Which, again, is maybe valid and maybe even good design, but it's counterintuitive and overcomplected, and generally not what I'm used to.

Basic spears vs the blade staff: Same damage count, blade staff boosts spell abilities which is only useful for casters and semi-casters, and where the spear has evasion and a higher accuracy

I pretty much just looked at the damage, though I recently got the hang of adding multiple damage types up to get a total. When I compared the Blade Staff to whatever I had at the time (probably just the default Short Sword, and later the Beast Killer, and the Mushroom Staff, and so forth - only recently did I finally get the Spiral Blade which was obviously better), I just looked at the damage total and went "okay, this will deal more damage". Which, strangely, it didn't seem to. I'm beginning to get a handle on why, but it's a very complex system that makes itself hard to evaluate. I do like a complex design, but when you're talking computer games, a lot of the complexity can be "under the hood" where it doesn't confuse the player and complicate the process of deciding "what's the best thing I should do here". There's a time for digging into the fiddly details to gain more complete information, but when you're attacking twenty times per hour of gameplay, you don't want to have to sit there thinking for three full minutes, comparing and contrasting the varying damage amounts of one attack mode versus another. (Which isn't actually how combat works in this game, but it would be if you selected a weapon at the same time you also select an attack power; this is why I almost never switch weapons, specifically because it can't be done during combat, at least not without wasting your action, and I don't want to do it outside of combat.)

the staff bypasses some damage reduction and has a higher chance to crit(except not really, because accuracy also increases the chance to crit by proxy, so the 5 less accuracy compared to 5 more crit is a bad tradeoff as that's the same chance to crit but a lower chance to actually hit). Here's the thing though: The blade staff is 2-handed. The spear is 1-handed. While it isn't a light weapon so you can't dual-wield it, you can equip offhand equipment, like every single type of shield present in the game and many off-hand catalysts.

eyes glaze over

There's a reason I don't work in the IT industry, dude. All this complexity just went way over my head. TL fucking DR.

As for a halberd... there is no halberd. So I'll assume you mean either the poleaxe or the pike.

Right; halberd, poleaxe, bec de corbin, lucerne hammer, glaive-guisarme, guisarme-glaive, whatever the fuck it is. The joke about polearms in D&D is a classic for good reason. They basically do more or less the same thing; I actually have a Diablo character who I named Halglaive, in honor of the fact that I looked at the stats in whichever edition I was playing at the time, and saw that there was literally no difference between a glaive and a halberd, so I just decided to make them one combined weapon in my game from that moment forth. Really, it was just the designers goofing and wasting a line on the table, probably just an editing error between versions or whatever, but I made a joke out of it to amuse myself.

as the blade staff is a direct upgrade to the Quarterstaff.

That one I did manage to figure out by myself, but thanks for pointing it out, in case I hadn't. (Not being sarcastic, I mean it, thank you.)
 

Herod_Hammerstar

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Dec 24, 2020
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Yeah, one way or another, dude is hopeless.

Well that's an unnecessarily hurtful way of putting it. I thought you at least were still somewhat inclined to be nice to me, but I guess this entire board really has just decided they hate my guts for some reason. I legitimately don't understand why a community would be so hostile to someone who shows up and says that things are cool but he wishes they were even better.
 

Tide Hunter

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May 4, 2019
891
1,195
I don't enjoy arguing. I enjoy discussing, even friendly debate, but arguments are inherently based on the assumption that one party is wrong and must be defeated, and that's the exact opposite of what I ever want. As one of the Vlad Taltos novels puts it, "The defender always starts the war; the attacker wants only to conquer, and if the defender was content to simply let him, there would be no war." An argument is the civilized, intellectual equivalent of a war, and I don't want a war, I only want to conquer. I want to explain what I believe and why, and have everybody tell me either "Wow, you're right, thanks for explaining" or "Here's some interesting information you might not have known, I hope it will change your viewpoint". When people instead say mean, bitchy, sarcastic things, it's not me choosing to have an argument, it's them refusing to give me what I want, for no particular reason beyond their own sense of pique (which, objectively, they obviously have every right to feel, but subjectively, I wish they wouldn't).
Probably shouldn't compare this to a war and say "I want to conquer". It automatically puts you in the position of an aggressor.
That might have been the first extra power I gained; it was definitely the first one I stopped using because it was PURE SUICIDE. I told you, unless the Champ has insanely high armor and healing and whatnot, he needs to NOT have threat.
Yeah, honestly I don't ever use that ability, it's just another example of an ability that impacts threat. The rest of what I said, about threat management extending beyond those specific abilities, still stands.
Hm. Well I suppose that's a valid game design philosophy, maybe even not one that I disagree with, but it's definitely counterintuitive. I'd never have assumed it to be true if you hadn't said it.
Right. Most people expected that later equipment would automatically be better, but whenever that does happen, it's usually a very small step and specifically if you view it from a certain angle. The complexity in the weapon stats is sort of to facilitate this: Since later weapons are not supposed to be upgrades but rather sidegrades, then more stats than just damage and accuracy are needed unless you want there to be only 3 weapons.
Interesting. I've never tried to dual wield, in part because I was annoyed by the fact that some weapons can only equip in the offhand which is just weird, but mostly because I assumed that either a two-handed weapon or a single weapon plus a shield was always going to be the way to go. I suppose I'll have to try this sometime, but none of my existing characters will do it; they all have 2H unique weapons gotten from storyline bosses, which I figured had to be more powerful than a normal weapon you could just buy, since that's what I expect from usual video game logic.
No actually damaging weapon can only equip in the offhand. Every offhand-only item is either a catalyst (such as the lynx totem) or a shield. That said, weapons that can be dual-wielded are weapons with the "light" property. Both weapons must have that property, and when a weapon goes into the oddhand it receives several penalties (less of every stat it has, especially accuracy). To put it simply, dual-wielding damaging weapons will have a higher damage output than two-handed weapons if both attacks made with a pair of weapons hits, but since the second hit has a lower chance to actually succeed, there are situations where it deals the damage of just a one-handed weapon. Also, after all of that, it's of note that daggers are ranged attacks when making a normal attack, but they can be used for both ranged and melee powers, making them uniquely versatile compared to most weapons.
Your view is clearly not my view. I'm used to weapons that have one stat (damage), possibly two (damage and accuracy). Not counting things like price, obviously.
Yeah. Admittedly I've played this game for years, and TiTS before it, so I'm used to the weapons having several different stats. I'm speaking from a position of experience with this system, and thusly, better understanding.
Already that's extremely complicated. I'm not saying that's bad, I prefer 3E D&D over 5E because I like greater granularity, but it does increase the mental effort required to comprehend what you're looking at. Armor penetration is just a limited form of extra damage; you could eliminate that entire stat and just raise the damage value. Critical hits are random and not really necessary. And weapons increasing your dodge chance is a little odd, since you assume a weapon is pure offense and that all your defense will come from armor (again, "you" in this case meaning someone who's used to the kinds of games I grew up playing, such as the Final Fantasy series; that does feature a few exceptions, but they're rare, and their special trait isn't part of a statblock - if the Dodge bonus was usually blank because most weapons don't help defend you, then my design philosophy says that there should be no "dodge bonus" field in the stats, so the reader isn't confused by seeing a bunch of extra stats that are all set at zero...I can understand why some people would rather have consistency and list all the stats even if they don't apply, but that's not how I generally think).
I sort of compartmentalize each of the individual stats, looking at specifically what they do before looking at how they interact and combine overall. Also, the evasion stat, when tied to weapons, is usually tied to weapons of length and clunkiness: All of the melees with a boost to evasion are polearms, so, the evasion comes from the fact that a person with that weapon could inflict damage while keeping their distance, thusly making it harder to get hit. Every thrown and non-magic ranged weapon except for the Bessy Mauler has a buff to evasion because, similarly, you keep your distance from the target and can thus more reliably keep away from their attacks. The three weapons that decrease evasion are the Galon's Griefmaker, the Captain's Greatsword, and the Bessy Mauler are all large, heavy weapons, with Bessy being one of the only 2 weapons in the game which has a base damage of 55 (with the description stating that it could be debatably referred to as siege weapon). These evasion stats would make sense in a 3D medium if you had these weapons: keeping your distance means you get hit less, being slow and cumbersome means you can't dodge as reliably. The stat is just a way of conveying that in a text format.

Oh, also, whenever a weapon has a 0 in one of the main stats I mentioned, it does not show up when looking at the weapon unless it's being compared to a currently equipped weapon that does not have a 0 in that stat.
This stuff goes beyond the weapon even being a weapon. Which, again, is maybe valid and maybe even good design, but it's counterintuitive and overcomplected, and generally not what I'm used to.
The two spell stats are largely just on catalysts. Primarily staves (like the bladed staff) and off-hand catalysts (like the aforementioned Lynx Totem).
I pretty much just looked at the damage, though I recently got the hang of adding multiple damage types up to get a total. When I compared the Blade Staff to whatever I had at the time (probably just the default Short Sword, and later the Beast Killer, and the Mushroom Staff, and so forth - only recently did I finally get the Spiral Blade which was obviously better), I just looked at the damage total and went "okay, this will deal more damage". Which, strangely, it didn't seem to. I'm beginning to get a handle on why, but it's a very complex system that makes itself hard to evaluate. I do like a complex design, but when you're talking computer games, a lot of the complexity can be "under the hood" where it doesn't confuse the player and complicate the process of deciding "what's the best thing I should do here". There's a time for digging into the fiddly details to gain more complete information, but when you're attacking twenty times per hour of gameplay, you don't want to have to sit there thinking for three full minutes, comparing and contrasting the varying damage amounts of one attack mode versus another. (Which isn't actually how combat works in this game, but it would be if you selected a weapon at the same time you also select an attack power; this is why I almost never switch weapons, specifically because it can't be done during combat, at least not without wasting your action, and I don't want to do it outside of combat.)
You can swap weapons in the middle of combat without wasting your action. That's how I tested Beast Killer vs. dual daggers. I went into combat, made a weapon attack, saw the damage totals, and on the next turn I swapped to the other weapon and made a weapon attack against either the same opponent or an identical opponent. For my character, the Beast Killer did 47 damage and the dual daggers, on landing both hits, did 33 and 25, a total of 58. You can make an attack or use a power on the same turn as swapping out your weapon.
eyes glaze over

There's a reason I don't work in the IT industry, dude. All this complexity just went way over my head. TL fucking DR.
Basically: The staff hits less often, and only slightly harder, while making it so that you can't equip a shield or off-hand catalyst.
Well that's an unnecessarily hurtful way of putting it. I thought you at least were still somewhat inclined to be nice to me, but I guess this entire board really has just decided they hate my guts for some reason. I legitimately don't understand why a community would be so hostile to someone who shows up and says that things are cool but he wishes they were even better.
It's mostly because there were several instances where you refused to engage with a game the way it was intended to be engaged with. Your introduction in this community was to say that the game was designed poorly because the companions were needed for combat and because the enemies in the areas you aren't supposed to go to first are harder for a level 1 character than the ones in the intended areas. I believe you legitimately believe that your views would make the game better, but you've had quite a bit of trouble understanding and working with the game's systems and since you continue to stick with your positions, it discredits you in the eyes of most of the others who do understand the systems and who have played for a while.
 

Herod_Hammerstar

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Dec 24, 2020
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Probably shouldn't compare this to a war and say "I want to conquer". It automatically puts you in the position of an aggressor.

Well, I would argue that I am an aggressor against the world, and not against other people, who IMO should also be aggressors against the world. The world sucks; we all deserve better.

No actually damaging weapon can only equip in the offhand.

I'm like 90% certain this is wrong. I bought a weapon that sounded like it might be better than the one I had equipped; I think it was a Francisca, and when I went to equip it in place of my existing one, it automatically went only in the offhand, and I couldn't get it to equip in place of the main. If I had a shield in the offhand, I couldn't equip the Francisca or whatever it was at all.

All of the melees with a boost to evasion are polearms

Makes sense.

You can swap weapons in the middle of combat without wasting your action.

I see. Well, the aforementioned analysis paralysis will be a problem, but I guess I'll have to try this at some point. Sadly the character most likely to want to do this is probably my Warrior, who I'm already too invested in to screw around with. Probably the Thief would be a good place to try it.

Basically: The staff hits less often, and only slightly harder, while making it so that you can't equip a shield or off-hand catalyst.

Hrm. I wish this had been more obvious; as is, noted for future reference.

It's mostly because there were several instances where you refused to engage with a game the way it was intended to be engaged with. Your introduction in this community was to say that the game was designed poorly because the companions were needed for combat and because the enemies in the areas you aren't supposed to go to first are harder for a level 1 character than the ones in the intended areas. I believe you legitimately believe that your views would make the game better, but you've had quite a bit of trouble understanding and working with the game's systems and since you continue to stick with your positions, it discredits you in the eyes of most of the others who do understand the systems and who have played for a while.

A designer is responsible not only for the actuality of his product, but also for his optics. If I got this confused coming in, then how do you expect to attract a customer who's even less knowledgeable than me? If this is all just a passion project, then no big, but if you're hoping to make any money, you need to consider a wider demographic. There just aren't enough rich connoisseurs around that you can be financially successful with the afficionado approach; you need to pander to the LCD at least a little (probably not very much when we're talking about a furry yiff game, that's pretty niche int he first place, but still).
 

Tide Hunter

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May 4, 2019
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I'm like 90% certain this is wrong. I bought a weapon that sounded like it might be better than the one I had equipped; I think it was a Francisca, and when I went to equip it in place of my existing one, it automatically went only in the offhand, and I couldn't get it to equip in place of the main. If I had a shield in the offhand, I couldn't equip the Francisca or whatever it was at all.
Francisca is a light weapon. If you have a light weapon in your main hand, attempting to equip a light weapon will always put it in your off-hand. If you have a light weapon in your main hand, and you want to put a different light weapon in your main hand, you need to unequip the weapon first.
A designer is responsible not only for the actuality of his product, but also for his optics. If I got this confused coming in, then how do you expect to attract a customer who's even less knowledgeable than me? If this is all just a passion project, then no big, but if you're hoping to make any money, you need to consider a wider demographic. There just aren't enough rich connoisseurs around that you can be financially successful with the afficionado approach; you need to pander to the LCD at least a little (probably not very much when we're talking about a furry yiff game, that's pretty niche int he first place, but still).
Savin Patreon.png
 
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valk42

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Mar 4, 2016
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It's Cold Here, Midwestern US
Look dude, I am aware that you are new and appear to be arguing in good faith, but we are used to shitheads coming in demanding the entire game be restructured because they don't like depending on other characters or aren't into the fetish content the game is angled for. Most forumites are inherently salty jerks, myself included, but the response you got from Savin was polite and succinct. Please enjoy story mode and bump yourself back up as you get used to the mechanics, or don't, no-one is going to be a huge dick about making you play on hard or something. The d-girl content is here to stay, please enjoy the large array of vanilla femmes presented alongside them. Have a nice day, and sorry for the suboptimal experience, we just hear the same thing every week and are grumpy over it.
 

Herod_Hammerstar

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Dec 24, 2020
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Look dude, I am aware that you are new and appear to be arguing in good faith

I am glad that you are aware of that; others apparently are not.

but we are used to shitheads coming in demanding the entire game be restructured because they don't like depending on other characters or aren't into the fetish content the game is angled for.

The unnecessarily judgmental "shithead" label notwithstanding...so what? If someone makes an unreasonable demand, you can just say the demand is unreasonable, and ignore them if they repeat it. If they post twenty times in an hour, ban them for spam; otherwise, no action is required.

sorry for the suboptimal experience, we just hear the same thing every week and are grumpy over it.

Apology gratefully accepted.
 

The Observer

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Aug 27, 2015
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Yeah, one way or another, dude is hopeless.

So uh.... gripes? Is that the thread I'm in now? I'm sad I can't rally the druids to go kick out the kitsune. Kohaku can stay and sell me tan eggs and shit, but that tree's gotta go. For nature, or something.

You know what they say, it's not like possession is nine tenths of the law or anything.

Certainly a nation, protected on both sides from a cataclysmic war by an ocean and its late entry into the game, would never abuse the ruined economic, social and political state of most everyone else to do a quick smash-grab on everything, loot their treasures, resources and knowledge and cement its position as a global hegemon before anyone else can recover. No siree.

The Fusata are probably pissing and moaning in their boots given the rise of their old-time rival, a situation I'll get to if we ever do another game and I get to illustrate not-China. In my head, they have a great wall built to stop the constant raids from those damn steppe centaurs, and it's alive with the collected fragments of the spirits of hundreds of thousands of monkeys who were worked to death building it and whose bones are buried in its foundations.

But yes, it's not a pretty situation. When you peel away the sexy exterior, Savarra's not a happy place -- the reason why there are catfolk all over the world? Jassira is the center of the world's equivalent of the Barbary slave trade. And then there's Arona and the Kervus...

Part of why I like writing for this game so much is the fact that we've managed to endear people to obviously unsavoury characters and factions like Kasyrra, Arona, Evergreen, the foxes, the Kervus, harpy wingleader, etc, etc, etc. It's interesting watching them fall over themselves trying to excuse their actions, like what we had with Kas a little while back.
 
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Wsan

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Jan 8, 2016
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Part of why I like writing for this game so much is the fact that we've managed to endear people to obviously unsavoury characters and factions like Kasyrra, Arona, Evergreen, the foxes, the Kervus, harpy wingleader, etc, etc, etc. It's interesting watching them fall over themselves trying to excuse their actions, like what we had with Kas a little while back.

Khor'minoan slavery intensifies
 

Tenalc13

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Mar 16, 2020
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The Fusata are probably pissing and moaning in their boots given the rise of their old-time rival, a situation I'll get to if we ever do another game and I get to illustrate not-China. In my head, they have a great wall built to stop the constant raids from those damn steppe centaurs, and it's alive with the collected fragments of the spirits of hundreds of thousands of monkeys who were worked to death building it and whose bones are buried in its foundations.
CNgvUmTVEAAi9HV
 
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Furiae

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Jan 7, 2021
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Certainly a nation, protected on both sides from a cataclysmic war by an ocean and its late entry into the game, would never abuse the ruined economic, social and political state of most everyone else to do a quick smash-grab on everything, loot their treasures, resources and knowledge and cement its position as a global hegemon before anyone else can recover. No siree.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't get (at least to some extent) why they do what they do, or complaining that they do it in the story. Like I think I've said, I live in Japan (not so far from the Chinatown they seriously named "Nanking Town" :ghost:), I'm not unfamiliar with the concepts. It would take some REALLY shitty writing to make me complain about any world building issues in the game, and honestly I doubt I'll ever see that in COC2.

It's just that from my champions' points of view (most of whom don't spend much time with Kiyoko, because much like her, they need dick to exist on this plane :p) the situation would be quite simple:

  • I sympathize with the druids after talking to Hethia
  • The druids' gods (which I presume my wyld elf champs at least sympathize with to some extent, "they gave me my horse butthole, I owe them a solid") are dying
  • The reason is a foreign tree the Kitsune set up
  • The Kitsune are a large part of why I can't go 2 steps in the frostwood without shouting "that's MY purse! I don't know you!" anyway
  • Fixing this might help out my poor lil elf regent buddy, too
  • ...we should go beat up that tree:colbert:
Even if doing so ended in a Yoko Taro kind of "oh no" kind of way*, that conversation between Hethia/Ryn/Champ feels like it's leading to a "oh brb, gonna go beat up all the kitsune and save the wyld" quest prompt of some kind. My champions would be super down for that with the information available to them.

(* = This is my favorite way for quests to end)
 

The Observer

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Aug 27, 2015
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't get (at least to some extent) why they do what they do, or complaining that they do it in the story. Like I think I've said, I live in Japan (not so far from the Chinatown they seriously named "Nanking Town" :ghost:), I'm not unfamiliar with the concepts. It would take some REALLY shitty writing to make me complain about any world building issues in the game, and honestly I doubt I'll ever see that in COC2.

It's just that from my champions' points of view (most of whom don't spend much time with Kiyoko, because much like her, they need dick to exist on this plane :p) the situation would be quite simple:

  • I sympathize with the druids after talking to Hethia
  • The druids' gods (which I presume my wyld elf champs at least sympathize with to some extent, "they gave me my horse butthole, I owe them a solid") are dying
  • The reason is a foreign tree the Kitsune set up
  • The Kitsune are a large part of why I can't go 2 steps in the frostwood without shouting "that's MY purse! I don't know you!" anyway
  • Fixing this might help out my poor lil elf regent buddy, too
  • ...we should go beat up that tree:colbert:
Even if doing so ended in a Yoko Taro kind of "oh no" kind of way*, that conversation between Hethia/Ryn/Champ feels like it's leading to a "oh brb, gonna go beat up all the kitsune and save the wyld" quest prompt of some kind. My champions would be super down for that with the information available to them.

(* = This is my favorite way for quests to end)

Oh, it's perfectly understandable, don't worry about it. This is the exact kind of emotion I'd like to invoke.

Question, though. Have you done most of the elf content post-Winter City, as well as Rift content?
 
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Furiae

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Jan 7, 2021
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Ok cool, I know some people get...heated about the Kitsune so I wanted to make that clear :D

Question, though. Have you done most of the elf content post-Winter City, as well as Rift content?

I believe so! I can't recall the spoiler policy so I'm just gonna tag my thoughts to be safe:

So I've gotten as far as GweyrQuest/BasementGrandmas once so far. I do want to do another first runthrough of the Rift with different party members (the amount of character-specific dialogue was pretty rad), but AFAIK I've done everything available there ATM. Honestly it bumped Hethia (and Gweyr) really high up on my favorite NPCs lists. I was very glad that Ryn at least promised to not force the druids to convert, if I can't lead a warg raid on the kitsune. ;)

I get why the queen converted at the time (and I do appreciate killing that wraith Kas let into the palace), but between the crypts and rift so far, I'm not a big fan of Lumia and her followers. If my main champ who made it through (a wyld elf white mage who, regardless of his corruption level is very much a "fixer" type) had his say, he'd probably be insisting to Ryn to try and pull the elves out of the rift as soon as the whole demon cultist thing is sorted out (or possibly sooner than that if it got him some Jotun dick).

Honestly there's only 2 things in the world that my main champ still desires: druid justice and Quin's butthole, and he will fight tirelessly until these goals are met. :p
 

Savin

Master Analmander
Staff member
Aug 26, 2015
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I thought more about Demon's Souls. What we know about souls and their use, and what NPCs tell us about it. More like the souls art from Demons.

See this is why the next game is called "Demon's Holes"

Also y'all just wait for Futa Ghengis Khan in it. :D
 

Savin

Master Analmander
Staff member
Aug 26, 2015
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feels like it's leading to a "oh brb, gonna go beat up all the kitsune and save the wyld" quest prompt of some kind.

I don't know how feasible it is at the moment but there's certainly merit in an anti-kitsune quest at some point in future. Or at least some ending variant where the foxes get chased off by the Champ & Friends -- even if in so doing the Marches of Tomorrow make a dangerous enemy.
 

Shadowwell

Member
Sep 9, 2019
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If i had any real gripe with CoC2, it would be that the way that shields can apparently block any and all crits isnt too immersive. I am aware that the way they are handled is considered balanced from a mechanical standpoint, however.

It's just that the way any shield can block any crit feels off to me, i guess is the best way to put it. I could understand blocking a melee/arrow/etc based crit, or even a fireball or similar magical strikes, but a shield blocking a tease crit, especially if that is pheromone damage, doesnt really make much sense.
 
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