by Lujo on Mon Feb 04, 2013 7:04 pm
Probably worth a read, there's actual points in here (ones not herd before).
Well, I was going to make video guides to all piety spikes - Taurog, Binlor, GG, TT, Drac - but then I thought, "wait a second, once you figure some of this stuff out you can beat anything!". Truly, if explained adequately enough, once you know how to use gods the game becomes a great deal easier (it's not just the preps that've changed the game bias towards the player). I actually taped and rendered hours of Gaan'Telet vids only to scrape them because simply showing how easy it was to go bloodswell spam made the whole thing a big letdown.
If I felt like a really evil, careless person, I would've made easy to understand guides to all the stuff that let's you sort of breeze through the game once you got the basics down. At some point the game starts assuming that you have all the gods unlocked, and if you don't - you're screwed. If you do but don't know how to use them - you're screwed. If you do and know how to use them - you beat stuff really hard. If I made vid guides, it'd be a job, but say someone makes easy to understand vids for god use - it'd become obvious how much power the game assumes you have. To someone who simply isn't informed about gods, the game is probably pretty horrible. And finding that stuff out seems to be difficult.
This is what separates what we call vets from newbies - not necessarily skill, or time, or intelect or anything - simply knowing what gods can and can't do for you. It's why I can say "you don't really need the Tri-Sword", or "Tri-Sword is too good" - non vets won't even know what I'm comparing it to. Someone suggested God finding Quests - awesome idea! I personally wouldn't go near the HARD dungeons with no gods at my disposal, and some of them without very specific gods.
Now, as for concrete stuff - what making me sad here is that Bloggorus is right. There's probably a "vicious cycle" of wrong feedback. Game's too difficult - this justifies degenrate strats - they make everybody's life easier - everyone's so relieved that they just got thorugh the horrible Havendale Bridge or whatever - noone reports that the game is too hard - people advance onto the next tier - don't have the skills - the noob-tubes get them through, or if they don't people get frustrated.
I just don't think we'll ever get enough proper feedback unless something is done about degenerate enablers. I don't mind the learning function of the Tri-Sword - I'm just saying that it, by it's existance in the current state, creates a silent justification for higher overall game difficulty than there would be if it were less powerfull. If anything, the vehemence with which paplaukes is defending the potions actually points in that direction. If the game can really make whoopases irrelevant, and it can, it think it should. The real deal isn't if I, or Blog, or you, are right about the potions - the real deal is why is paplaukes so worried, and why are sensible adjustments (from the perspective of both the devs, and guys who have a good overall knowlegde of the game) seen as such hostile moves towards the less expirienced guys?
As far as I can tell - Trisword lets you play Faithless and Warmonger (if my million warmonger PQI's are saying anything), warmonger means no gods but Taurog, which is the same deal as being someone who hasn't unlocked the gods. So do the whoopases - they give enough power to be able to do faithless and warmonger. But as opposed to gods they don't have a prep balancing penalty, and as opposed to glyphs they can be prepped on every run. What they don't have is real variety or number, so the entire support for playing the game without proper knowledge of gods is boiled into a few things which work well enough on their own, and if you mix gods into it - then you're crossing the streams.
Just my textwall.
I almost got pwned by Shifty Brickwork!