Parable - 86 - HD
Added 2020-03-31 03:22:18 +0000 UTCAngry cardio Susan.
Commentary
I've put all my skill points into hammers, and everything is a nail.
What do you mean there's an anti-hammer enemy? EVERYTHING IS SUPPOSED TO BE A NAIL!
Huh. I'm suddenly reminded of boss fights in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Later versions of the game had non-combat skill options for dealing with the bosses, but the original version had no such thing. You could be a master of being sneaky and chatty with no enhanced offense or defense, and just be completely without options beyond luck, VERY careful and slow strategy, and possibly adjusting the difficulty settings.
As much as Susan has a point about keeping players from relying too much on just one strategy, I suppose there is such a thing as making it seem like a specialized strategy will work, only to later wind up leaving the player without viable options.
Granted, Susan's technically got options for days, so that's not really what's happening here, but it is a counterpoint that just occurred to me while writing this commentary.
Comments
Really? I went stealth archer as well, and while it was a slow process, I stealth-archered up the towers without too much issue (had to take corners very very carefully, and the occasional staggered retreat helped a lot too, but all in all it wasn't that rough?)
Fenrir
2020-04-01 16:52:54 +0000 UTCOn this topic, never forget the power of simply having a conversation with the players. For example, Exalted 2e is infamous for the strategy of "perfect defence spam", where you basically wait out your enemy's essence reserves until they either stop trying or don't have enough motes left to meaningfully defend anymore. This is extremely effective against a huge variety of foes, but is boring AF to actually sit through. The solution is not to force the players to deal with enemies who have higher essence reserves than they do: the solution is to talk to your players about how yes that strategy wins, but it really ruins the fun and excitement of the battle and turns it into a slog waiting for someone to mess up, and can we all agree to not over-rely on perfect defenses so much?
Fenrir
2020-04-01 16:49:22 +0000 UTCI remember that (though I don't think it was actually the final boss, just one he had been stuck at). I'm almost certain it was Fox Trot. (This was way back in 1999, around the same time as the Phantom Menace came out. The only reason I remember it as well as I do is I cut the strip out of the newspaper and stuck it in a scrapbook; unfortunately that scrapbook is not easily accessed right now.)
Chronos Cat
2020-04-01 13:11:17 +0000 UTCMy vague memory is consistent with yours: I believe I read a Fox Trot like that, but I'm not 100% certain.
Some Ed
2020-04-01 04:43:13 +0000 UTCThanky!
Rodford E. Smith
2020-03-31 22:44:06 +0000 UTCIf I can, I like to become a jack of all trades so I can talk characters down OR punch their face in OR Shoot them from across the map before they even know I'm around OR sneak in, steal the clothes off their body & leave.
ZekeStaright
2020-03-31 20:19:39 +0000 UTCShift-Enter allows you to enter a line break on Patreon as you are typing. Alternatively, type your post elsewhere and copy/paste it.
dst1980
2020-03-31 18:00:37 +0000 UTCFuckin Beyond Good and Evil. It was a nifty rpg that allowed clever sneaking options to beat everything. Except the goddamn final boss fight so I never found out how the game ended.
colin r
2020-03-31 17:51:56 +0000 UTCWhat I want to know is how to do paragraphs without it thinking I'm ready to post. :-(
Rodford E. Smith
2020-03-31 13:04:31 +0000 UTCSome of these tales are reminding me of a comic strip (_Fox Trot_, perhaps?) where the youngest was outraged that not only had his older sister used one of his saves, she had won a gave he couldn't. "How did you beat the final boss?!" "I just walked around him." "No, really, how did you beat the final boss?!"
Rodford E. Smith
2020-03-31 13:03:22 +0000 UTCand there's at least one boss who can also use the celestial brush, and will do so if you take too long with your own brushwork.
Chordat
2020-03-31 11:27:04 +0000 UTCI remember playing Oblivion; dumped all my stats into being a sneaky archer. Worked great for much of the game: shoot them before they see you, if they see you just hide, if they find you their pretty much already dead. And then I encountered my first Oblivion tower and suddenly I'm in close quarters with nowhere to hide: "shoot and hide" was impossible, there was no way to survive short of leaving, grinding up some defense and melee skills, and coming back later. I opted for cheat codes instead.
Wizard Stan
2020-03-31 10:16:26 +0000 UTCThe disadvantage of that mentality is that DX:HR actually has achievements to earn by being completely non-lethal for the whole run. Except against those specific bosses. Which was very confusing at first.
coredumperror
2020-03-31 08:10:41 +0000 UTCRandom trivia - those boss fights in DX:HR were actually outsourced to an entirely different development studio.
Anthony Wilson
2020-03-31 08:00:01 +0000 UTCIt still could be what's going on there. It's just that since she worked out an "infinite" source of money and a way to convert that to "infinite" experience, she covered her bases before she ran into this. I totally ran into this sort of situation with Daggerfall. I learned early on that a sorcerer build allowed one to fireball ones feet with nigh impunity repeatedly, basically as fast as you could cast it. And this worked great, up until I started running into Vampire Ancients and Fire Daedra. As far as I know, the Vampire Ancients weren't immune to fire, they were just incredibly fast and prone at casting spells at me while I was depending on being able to absorb my fireball. But of course, the Fire Daedra are completely immune to fire. Of course, since I had said I ran into *this* situation, that actually wasn't that much of a problem, because by the time this shit all happened, I'd upgraded from my fireball spell to a custom fire frost shock spell, doing insane amounts of damage per 5 seconds. I also had days worth of a regeneration spell that was giving me my full health every 5 seconds, ridiculous amounts of boosted stats, and I'd advanced my level far enough my MP bar was kind of insanely huge, and I mostly kept it near empty for exactly the sort of issue with the ancients. So, had I actually gone with my one trick pony, I'd have hit a damned hard wall, but as it was, I merely noticed the vampire ancient pack and noted that the fire daedra were on the list of immune to fire. (Technically, I noticed the vampire ancients quite a ways off, because their monster noise sounded very reminiscent of my post-stroke great uncle in his final few days. Given how overpowered I was from abusing game mechanics and how recently he had passed at the time, that was a far more profound impact on me than anything else with those guys.)
Some Ed
2020-03-31 05:10:28 +0000 UTCThis is why I love tabletop D&D. A good DM will have multiple options for beating enemies or completing objectives. And a good DM will know how to counter players coming up with that ‘one tactic to rule them all’ without breaking immersion.
Thisguy
2020-03-31 05:09:40 +0000 UTCReminds me of "Okami," where most enemies froze when you got out the Celestial Brush, but a couple exceptions kept you on your toes.
Stephen Gilberg
2020-03-31 05:05:25 +0000 UTCYeah, but in my experience, DX:HR was a different animal. And not nearly as fun.
Stephen Gilberg
2020-03-31 05:04:21 +0000 UTCI didn't have much trouble with the DX bosses... I played the original, where I ran around with tranq darts, riot baton, pepper spray... and a shotgun loaded with slugs for when I ran into a bot. This also helped with going rogue in the plane to stop a murder on my 2nd run. And then for the really beefy guy, I led him into a pile of explosions... and in the sea base, epic sword duel! So going into DX, I kept the mindset of "nonlethal where permitted, but be prepared to escalate for bosses." If you severely outclass a foe, you do not have to resort to lethal options. It's one reason to avoid fair fights whenever possible. ;)
Ardent Slacker
2020-03-31 04:23:02 +0000 UTCOh man, I remember the extreme annoyance of the DX:HR bosses when building yourself as a non-lethal stealth master. They SUCKED. I actually had to reload an earlier save to collect some explosives to beat the first one. After that, though, I knew I'd need lethal options for the future bosses, so I started packing an assault rifle. One of those, fully upgraded, is pretty devastating to the two other forced-combat bosses. I'm definitely glad that the updated versions gave you non-combat means of defeating them.
coredumperror
2020-03-31 03:58:14 +0000 UTC
