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[Lujo]

Ok, the halfling vid's up.

[q 3]

No scumming?

What do you mean, no scumming? Scumming is the whole point of playing purist.

Also, I have to say, I've learned something about myself from watching your videos, Lujo. I've learned that I literally cringe when watching deliberate suboptimal play. I'm like that guy watching a horror movie who yells "don't open that door!" Except instead I'm yelling "stop wasting tiles!"

[Lujo]

No scumming?

What do you mean, no scumming? Scumming is the whole point of playing purist.

Also, I have to say, I've learned something about myself from watching your videos, Lujo. I've learned that I literally cringe when watching deliberate suboptimal play. I'm like that guy watching a horror movie who yells "don't open that door!" Except instead I'm yelling "stop wasting tiles!"

I sort of felt I had no choice but get mentaly drunk and try to do all that in a dignified fashion, considering the actual points I was trying to make... The vids make ME cringe when I think about the gods and the shops - all that power and gadgets and interactions and content at your disposal, but no, all you really need is the ball and the B2P. Which you walked in with -.-'

Actually, if it had that effect on you, then I guess I was completely right about my assesment - I don't think anyone was supposed to do what that halfling girl in the video did and get away with it scott free...

[q 3]

I actually don't see it (Crystal Ball and BLUDTOPOWA) as being as big a problem as you; you're using this strategy in a hard (not vicious) dungeon and still only manage to get 3/10 medals. If the game were tweaked so that powergaming and optimal play were required just to win, and just to win even in the intermediate difficulty levels, then the game would quickly become impossible for anyone but the zealots.

[Lujo]

You want I should do this in VICIOUS? Because it's exactly the same, and more powerfull on it's own than anything else I can think of (it beats the hell out of Demonic Library for one thing, and DI as well, and come to think of it it beats Naga City and VHoS except it's PISORF instead of BURNDAYRAZ, and it beat Namtar more or less...)

And I'm not talking about powergaming and optimal plays - what you just saw was surrealy sub-optimal, yet either just as powerfull or even more powerfull as any sort of real deal. That's how I knew it'd work - those are first try videos, basicaly, because I practicaly beat the last 1/3 of the game with more or less nothing by that, except with Mysterea or Binlor.

And the "strat" is so braindead it takes actual mental effort to make enough mistakes so it can show it's pure form. Sucessful and determined application of it, and it kills bosses at lvl2-3 so it's worth it, requires you to light-heartedly do stuff that would make a vet cringe.

Heck, if someone were to make a list of "mistakes" and "sub-optimal" stuff I did there, it'd make a fine textwall. 3/4 of the list would be potential interesting content my video could've showcased, and at least a few would be potential crowning moments of awesome. You can literaly outright refuse to pick up glenrick at lvl 1, ignore your natural subdungeon, waste space left and right - and still win rather handily. Badges be damned.

[Darvin]

Well, here's one possible crystal ball solution: every time it's used, the crystal ball degrades slightly and requires more charges to work. The first time it's used, it has its full power. The second time, there's a -3 mana surcharge. The third time there's a -6 surcharge, then a -9 surcharge... and so on and so forth. The more frequently you activate it, the bigger the penalty is. This would prevent overuse without seriously impacting it for cases where you find it late and really only have time to charge it up once or twice.

[The Avatar]

That seems a bit harsh in addition to the gold penalty. Since the gold penalty isn't working anyways, I'd just drop it.

[q 3]

Heck, if someone were to make a list of "mistakes" and "sub-optimal" stuff I did there, it'd make a fine textwall. 3/4 of the list would be potential interesting content my video could've showcased, and at least a few would be potential crowning moments of awesome. You can literaly outright refuse to pick up glenrick at lvl 1, ignore your natural subdungeon, waste space left and right - and still win rather handily. Badges be damned.

I guess my point is that there are lots of strategies that are just as "brain dead" (even though they're far from intuitive to a beginner) that are just as strong. An Orc Rogue can worship Glowing Guardian, convert everything that isn't nailed down and absolve everything that is, and mindlessly slaughter just about any dungeon. A Goblin Assassin can worship Tikki Tooki, never kill anything that isn't a lower level, and just Ding! her way to victory. An Elf Wizard can worship Mystera, pick up all the glyphs and then convert everything else, then use Refreshment and enjoy a 60+ MP pool. A Gnome Warlord can take the Trisword, chug mana potions, and shrug off every attack. I'm sure we could think of another half dozen or so strategies that are just as powerful and that only rely on the combination of two or three game elements.

Once you figure out a combination that works, sure, the game is pretty easy. It would be nice if there were some greater challenges available that really taxed these strategies - I'd really like to see a bottomless Tower that throws floor after floor at you and the goal is just to get as deep as possible - but the fact that there is a particular strategy that is very effective at winning is not necessarily a reason to call for the nerf stick. Especially when it doesn't even do that well in terms of scoring. This game is meant to be beaten, not to be impossible unless you've mastered all its secrets.

[Lujo]

I think you missed my point, maybe it was my fault - this wasn't strategy, this was opposite of strategy. It would still work even if it was nerfed a bit, except I couldn't just walk up to a boss and start fireballing away practicaly as soon as I walked into the place...

1) CB effect is a strong enough effect that it could, say, cost more gold and still be worth it.

2) B2P works for anyone, and the way it works is that it creates blackspace out of nowhere - simply put, with it on board you have extra blackspace available equal to 1/3 of the current total, as long as the only thing you care about is mana. It works like that in any dungeon for any class, bloodmage just means you don't have to scum for it. Dungeons and challenges, MODERATE ones not hardcore-minmaxy ones, where built with a certain ammount of blackspace in mind - if you use B2P you effectively gain an extra mana for every 3 tiles you explore. This makes what I did OPTIMAL and stupid at the same time.

That's the thing, it looks like I'm wasting blackspace, when in fact B2P makes it so that exploring in another way is sub-optimal. If it gave, say, 3 mana for 3 tiles, you'd be getting the crazy powerfull effect of being able to regen fight monsters while substituting the damage you'd be taking from their hits (you use fireballs so you don't take any), with the ability to throw more fireballs at the monsters. But you'd have to at least pay attention to what you're doing a little bit...

What I'm saying is that it currently works as a regen-fighting tool, rather than an spiking tool, because it's just a tad too efficent. Do you really think a nerf would "kill" it? If it was a bit less powerfull than it is right now, do you think we'd all be at a loss?

[Lujo]

Having seen the manner in which Namtar's Lair is "beatable purist" I decided to do one more "I'm annoyed with the following feature" video, a purist Namtar's Lair run. It'll take a while to edit, comment, render and upload. No scumming, but no skill either, just ungodly ammounts of luck and merciless exploitation of a handfull of over-the-top-features.

Video rendering, I hope I didn't arse it up. Also, Darvin might be interested in this one particularly

EDIT: It's uploading, should be up in an hour and a half or so...