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R.I.P. neildarkstar. Haven will miss you dearly.
| Adella's Way; A survivalist trial for masochists...chuckles | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 14 2017, 09:20 AM (6,913 Views) | |
| Areial | Oct 2 2017, 11:39 AM Post #681 |
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Et'Ada
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Should be, is for me on Adept. |
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| Rick | Oct 2 2017, 12:31 PM Post #682 |
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Jarl
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Actually no....if it gets to the point of thinking....”this is it, the end of the run”.....then you are in over your head in the first place. The secret of surviving Dead is Dead is to measure your capability against your foes.......rushing in to certain doom may be thrilling, but is a stupid way to end a 700 hour play through eh! Understanding the balance is part of the player skill. So by me dropping her weapon output to one third.....the balace of probablilities shifted against us. Therefore without the Stormies she would be dead....that is a very poor way to manage your DiD build. Bottom line is, it showed the weapon reduction was too severe. We need a better solution. Edited by Rick, Oct 2 2017, 12:34 PM.
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| Areial | Oct 2 2017, 01:35 PM Post #683 |
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Et'Ada
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I think this is were our meanings of the same phrases.. depart company. For me a "butt-clenching" encounter is one in which I and the foes have an equal chance of dying.. my skill is equal to their's ...and even in number's, done right.. I have a good chance of making it through. Heart dropping is when I know the foe has a better than even chance of winning.. one wrong move and morte... So to me, a group of Deathlords should always be butt-clenching.. but hopefully not heart dropping! |
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| Rick | Oct 2 2017, 04:02 PM Post #684 |
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Jarl
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Yeah...its semantics Trace....your butt clenching is my ‘good fight’ ;) Thing is....when surviving is the name of the game, if you’re thinking “we probably won’t make this” then that was a bad judgment call and you need to be backing out immediately.....live to fight another day and all that. You know it’s not the same for re-loaders who can afford the occaisional under estimation of the risks. In the end, no matter how much dodging and clever running around you do it still comes down to one thing....can you remove the danger by killing it, or escaping from it, before your health runs out? And you need to make that assessment while there is still time to make a break for it. We are looking for ways to toughen up the late game....to keep the challenge.....but as I pointed out to Sah and Afterdark, suicidal is not what's wanted. You see Skyrim is actually not well balanced at any difficulty and it gets worse as you stray from Adept. If you must survive against Deathlords then Highwaymen etc will be too easy...there is no easy solution outside of mods. Sah saw my vid and said it is clear that Adella is overpowered ...and she is.....right until she meets a couple of Warmongers...then we are backing off. You see...even with armour cap gear and 100 armour skill, you still take damage. A Warmonger can take over 20% per hit...two Warmongers can kill you inside ten seconds....something to think about. Edit...Sah, bless her....just got killed by an Ancient Vampire at level 54...which kinda drives my point home (Sorry for using your unfortunate demise to illustate my point honey...love ya) My aim is to do all 9 questlines....so whatever confronts us must be delt with. Going in to face the worst bosses underpowered is not what I want for the Contessa’s epitaph. I am thinking now, maybe a more flexible approach, so a reduction to weapon stats that can be removed under the most extreme situations....but I haven’t worked out the mechanics yet. :) Edited by Rick, Oct 2 2017, 04:34 PM.
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| neildarkstar | Oct 2 2017, 04:51 PM Post #685 |
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Overlord
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While it's true that Skyrim isn't well-balanced, isn't that actually the point of the game? As odds turn to favor the high-power bad guys, isn't the game supposed to become more deadly rather than less as the Player Character level climbs? I think what you're facing is a catch-22. You know it all comes down to odds, right? When the odds are against you, that's when your game becomes challenging. when the odds are in your favor, that's when your character is OP. if you balance those two things out, then your odds of surviving the most dangerous encounter are no better than 50/50, and it doesn't sound like that's what you want either. Still, in the end, I'd think that encountering a gaggle (I don't know what a gaggle actually is numbers wise) of Deathlords in a stand-up fight is almost certainly going to be fatal. That's what would make it "butt-clenching" eh? :) |
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| Areial | Oct 2 2017, 07:48 PM Post #686 |
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Et'Ada
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Rick, let me ask you a question... how many characters have I had in the past year? Other than competition and outright 'test' characters.. 23.. each of them died.. some more than once, other's only once...depending on the death.. stuck on flat ground and can't move= fried by dragon.. yes I reloaded. Killed by that extra archery perk.. dead... a little mental ceremony and they went to their chosen after-life... never to be reloaded again. I choose a different route to toughness in my game.. yes at Adept, but then most of the mod's that add that toughness are made around Adept.. not a higher difficulty. Adept is less off balance than going either way.. it's only as you lvl up the craft's that you get OP on Adept...and that is crafts.. you barely need one vanilla.. one IS needed with the mod's I have. |
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| glargg | Oct 2 2017, 11:18 PM Post #687 |
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Jarl
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Rick, as I see it, it's probably going to be hard to adjust being OP'd after you've already got there. For future reference, I think the way to adjust it on the way up is to not take all the ranks of your perks. For example, the first perk of Enchanting (Enchanter) has 5 ranks that only serve to make your enchantments stronger. The fifth rank requires an Enchanting level of 80, so it obviously isn't needed for a low-level character. And by not taking it, your higher-level character will be just a bit weaker in every enchantment. The same holds true for most of the combat skills. I'm not going to try to say which perks (if any) you'd want to limit, but I think that would be one possible approach to limiting the high-level OP'd-ness. |
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| Rick | Oct 3 2017, 06:10 AM Post #688 |
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Jarl
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Hmmm. Yes, I am inclined to agree with glargg. It is easy to see once already fully enabled, that a reduction in perks would have still made a viable if slightly tougher play. Hard to see that on the way up though...when one is grabbing any slight advantage to stay alive. Trace , yes I see the logic in modding around the slightly better balanced Adept.....at least for those mods which can be dialled up...such as the vaunted Deadly Dragons. However, we are not modding to add difficulty and so Legendary (plus self nerfing) is the only option. There are reasons we don’t mod for difficulty in the way of Deadly Dragons and such like, to do with comparibility benchmarking, which is another subject (I do have a couple of extra critter mods...Woolley Rhinos and Sylvan Spirits, but nothing game changing in difficulty terms at later levels). However, by what you are saying your route to a tougher game produces a lot of player deaths... and a need to either reload or carry on with successive new DiD chars with no particular concern over longevity, I hope you can see that approach is not workable for me...or the Trial. Neil, well yes, that ‘weighing up the odds’ is what I mentioned earlier and doing it well is part of one’s survival skills as a player. You try not to bite off more than you can chew eh! But as you say, and I already mentioned, those odds shift depending upon exactly what situation you are facing. The problem is, I know that as OP as Adella appears, she is only just sufficient to take on the worst enemies with a survival probability that I would consider a justified risk....meaning a reasonable chance of success, if you fight well. But this means that fighting regular npcs is too easy. Both Sah and Afterdark, plus I think anyone seeing my videos of Adella scything through bandits and soldiers, are saying....its too easy. But “I” know they would be changing their tune when it is time to face the badass bosses. What I have said before is....its no good having meaningfull and thrilling combat against bandits....if that means the first Warmonger or high vamp you meet is a guarranteed death, not when on DiD terms. I would rather have the scary, but survivable ‘butt clenching’ encounters with the rare super bosses and put up with chewing through endless easy kills of lesser foes. However, convincing others that it is a sound reasoning is part of the difficulty here. Ha! Maybe I should only make videos of the Contessa battling enemies that we have to fight smart and keep disengaging from....then the true ‘difficulty’ would be apparant....ah! Except my comrades in arms are experiencing the large numbers of easy kills first hand....can’t hide that ;) A “gaggle” of Deathlords....well three to five typically....when presented in a group which must be faught all at once. How deadly they are depends mostly upon how long you take to end them. They can all take chunks of your health to be sure.....taking too long will expose you to more hits and so your probability of survival drops quite fast. Killing them in seconds with an OP weapon is your best chance. Which is why dropping the weapons to 200 damage would have been butt clenching. Our armour would not protect us for the length of time required to kill them at approx 20 hits per Deathlord.....cos I mean...they ain’t standing still eh! That’s another novella of a post...but you can see why I am agonising over a suitable solution. What everyone seems to want is a game that is kinda uniformly tough.....no easy bandits, but no impossible bosses....well I don’t think it’s achievable outside of rebalancing mods...and there aren’t many of those...nor PS4 friendly versions! Edited by Rick, Oct 3 2017, 08:23 AM.
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| neildarkstar | Oct 3 2017, 08:23 AM Post #689 |
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Overlord
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Seems to me that you are creating an unsolvable problem. There is a paradox involved, eh? The true joy of DiD is the simple fact that one's character might die... without that fact, it's just "reloader" play, right? At the same time, you want to make certain that your character is so OP that they can't be killed. That works well against low level opponents, bandits and the like, but then it it's obvious to everyone watching that your character can't be killed in that combat. So then you say, but look at these high-level foes, and how dangerous they are, but even then you make certain that the likelihood of defeat is very small... and that means it still looks like your character is OP... because she is. Three to five Deathlords are just not meant to be beaten in a group without a large chance of failure unless the character is OP. It's kind of the nature of the universe, eh? It's kind of like Mercer when you go to that tomb with him. he picks the Nordic lock, says "Rather simple, really..." and you want to bitch slap him because you know HE didn't do anything, a script opened the freakin' door. Then in the room with the "gaggle" of Deathlords (if you're high enough level) You don't have to do anything. Sit back and watch, and he'll kill them all for you, and then say "Not worth my time, actually..." and then you really want to bitch-slap him, right? So why do you want to bitch slap him? Because he's OP... and in the end, he didn't really do anything remarkable at all, eh? He had being essential on his side. So tell me... How do you make Mercer vulnerable? the answer is... You don't. He is what he is. The same is true for our characters whether they be OP or too damned weak, they are what they are so there's no point in getting in a dither about it. If Adella is Op, then it's your loss and has nothing to do with the opinions of the rest of us... unless you want to convince us that she's not OP, and then it's kind of a different matter. When we see her stroll through a gaggle of gaggles (I love that word. It's kind of like "Gargantuan") of enemies that would give us cause for concern, it's hard for us to believe that she's not OP. So, after all of that it boils down to a simple question. "Who are you trying to convince that Adella is not OP? Me? Areial? Sah? ...or yourself, eh? ;) BTW, I did not understand "Except my comrades in arms are experiencing the large numbers of easy kills first hand....can’t hide that". Nope, not at all. What comrades? Are you streaming your games? |
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| Serethil | Oct 3 2017, 09:05 AM Post #690 |
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Et'Ada
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He's talking about AD at least, and maybe Sah - others who are playing Adella's Trial. |
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| Rick | Oct 3 2017, 09:38 AM Post #691 |
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Jarl
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Neil, I have para numbered your debate points for ease of reference. 1.....She isn’t killable by regular melee bandits....at this high a level. I never said I wanted her so OP that she could not be killed...ever. She certainly can be...Marauder mages! So the ‘might die’ issue is still very much on the table. 2....It is incorrect to say I have made the liklihood of defeat very small. Five deathlords in a group would tear through her armour capped gear very quickly, unless one plays very tactically and mobile....which she does huh. 3, 4, 5......Of course mercer pretty much has a automatic success built in.....but if you are assuming Adella just waits arms reversed for him to mop up the danger...well nothing could be further from the truth. He is also slow and inefficient....often dropping to his knee at high levels, leaving the player to get mobbed! 6....Well this is precisely the thing I went to lengths to explain...she IS OP for regular combat, but were it not so she would definitely be killed by a boss.....but remember.....she ONLY OP by the amount allowed by the vanilla game mechanics.....AND she is top tier.....meaning there is NO MORE attack or defence capability available ok........there is no option to come back later when stronger...cos she can’t get any stronger! A boss or Warmonger hoard must be faced at her current capability...she’s maxed (Well not counting the issue of reduced weapon output to 200 points of course). 7....interesting point. Not me of course, I’m happy that being able to have a good chance to get past top questline bosses is achievable. But you, Trace and other forum spectators...yes. We come to forums to share and to hear opinions...it makes a difference what you think....I wouldn’t be sharing Adella here if I didn’t care about that. That counts for all of us I think. Sah and Afterdark and other participants...well of course their opinion of the Trial difficulty matters if they are doing it eh! However, the psychology behind why I ask the question or describe my conundrum is really neither here to there. 8. Yes, the Trial participants are doing what we are doing......fighting to survive under the same conditions.....a good enough definition of comrades in arms I think. Don’t know where you got streaming from! Edited by Rick, Oct 3 2017, 09:50 AM.
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| After Dark | Oct 3 2017, 09:48 AM Post #692 |
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Noble
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The conclusion that we have to make the game harder round level 40, came from my experience through the Collage of Winterhold questline, more specific Labyrinthian, not from watching your videos. At 600+ damage, my warhammer was killing deathlords like they were regular draugrs. Spoiler: click to toggle At the end of the video i included my level 50 stats update: Time spent so far: ~ 95 hours Level: 50 Quest lines or destinies completed: 4 (Companions, Dragonslayer, Dawnguard and Collage of Winterhold). Skills: Spoiler: click to toggle Weapon: Dragonbone Greatsword - 221 damage, Soul Trap. Armor: custom made orcish armor set - 603 armor rating with The Lord Stone |
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| Areial | Oct 3 2017, 09:52 AM Post #693 |
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Et'Ada
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Rick Said = Trace , yes I see the logic in modding around the slightly better balanced Adept.....at least for those mods which can be dialled up...such as the vaunted Deadly Dragons. However, we are not modding to add difficulty and so Legendary (plus self nerfing) is the only option. There are reasons we don’t mod for difficulty in the way of Deadly Dragons and such like, to do with comparibility benchmarking, which is another subject (I do have a couple of extra critter mods...Woolley Rhinos and Sylvan Spirits, but nothing game changing in difficulty terms at later levels). However, by what you are saying your route to a tougher game produces a lot of player deaths... and a need to either reload or carry on with successive new DiD chars with no particular concern over longevity, I hope you can see that approach is not workable for me...or the Trial. I DO see what you are getting at... Here's the thing.. .my play style is "in your face"... only during competition's does that change and not by much. So IF I were to take a competition seriously, I would by force change the way I play, so that I have fewer deaths'.. problem with me is, I only play the competition's for fun.. not to try and win ( except one occasion ) The exactitude that you use to get the same result's time after time after time, would cause me to quit playing altogether. It wouldn't work for you because of the way the Trial is set up.. along with Your play style... You have already said that Adella likes to branch out. Your care of Adella.. is the main reason that using some of it would not work.. and that is understandable. |
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| Rick | Oct 3 2017, 10:02 AM Post #694 |
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Jarl
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AD, You armour is very close to Adella’s.....so you and I experience the same degree of attack and defence (your Great sword does about 12% more than our weapon....close enough to be comparable) So....what do you think? DLs one on one...no issue right? But in a group? The real test is Falmer Warmongers....and top vamps... My bottom line has to be... If Adella gets killed in Dawnguard.....because I set her weapons too piss weak.....just so no one would think she had it too easy against bandits. Chucking away over 700 hours! She would hate me....I couldn’t cope with that, she’s part of me.....I could end up unhinged..... I need to have a think about things Edited by Rick, Oct 3 2017, 10:22 AM.
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| After Dark | Oct 3 2017, 10:28 AM Post #695 |
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Noble
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I like this balance, it's like the good old day when you kept saying that i have to upgrade my equipment... I also like glargg's idea to limit the weapon perks to 1/5 (Armsman, Barbarian, Overdraw). This would drop the weapon output by ~ 80%, so my greatsword would be somewhere at 320 instead of that insane 600+ output. I have the right tool to do that mid game (Perk Reset mod), but i don't know about others... About those warmongers, i've met them during the Dawnguard questline, but they were no match for me at all. I'm going to test more with my current setup. My next target is "Lost to the Ages" and i'm sure i'll meet quite a few of them. Edited by After Dark, Oct 3 2017, 10:30 AM.
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| neildarkstar | Oct 3 2017, 10:39 AM Post #696 |
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Overlord
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Of all those points, it's only #7 that really provides insight, IMO. The thing is that it doesn't matter if we think she is OP... See, you say "I’m happy that being able to have a good chance to get past top questline bosses is achievable." but where does "a good chance" end and virtual certainty begin? If she has an 80% chance, is that a good enough chance, or should it be 90%? 95%? It's that percentage of failure chance that determines whether she's OP for a given situation or not, especially if the situation is supposed to hazardous in the extreme. Honestly, I don't think this is really worth debating, because we are never going to agree on basic parameters. That being that (IMO) there are situations in the game where a character should NEVER have a better than 50/50 chance of survival in a straight-up fight without special tactics (as opposed to OP gear). Guaranteed survival is for NPCs marked as essential, which was my point with Mercer... not any reference to what Adella does or does not do in that situation. Heaven (in my estimation) is emerging victorious after facing odds with (as Gimli put it) "Certainty of death, small chance of success - what are we waiting for?" Ever'body wan' go heaven, don't nobody wan' dead. It's only an issue where the player has so many hours invested in a character and faces that loss. You know, in the old days of D&D, we all played "Dead is Dead" pretty much. Some characters were actually far more involved than anything we as "video gamers" invest. Months or years invested in a character, building castles, political presence, homes, followers that were as "permanent" as our characters... yet we all knew that the lives of our characters actually depended as much on the whim of the Dungeon Master as on any skills we posessed. I had a character who never died... at least not officially. He ran into a room that had no exit. The DM gave me a choice. Roll up a new character, or play that old one as being locked in a room with almost no content doing absolutely nothing for the foreseeable future, until dead by thirst or starvation... I had years invested in that character, eh? :D Anyway, in those days there was always a chance of death. I had angered the DM by killing off his super mage-Villain with one poisoned dart... and during a little episode that was intended only to impress us all (the entire party) with how tough this villain was. You see, I hit him with a natural 20, which NEVER misses, and he rolled a natural 1 to save vs Death... which never succeeds. Even the mightiest of the mighty had a 1 in 20 chance to fall, eh? :) That's a lesson I never forgot. |
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| Rick | Oct 3 2017, 10:54 AM Post #697 |
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Jarl
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Neil, If I were the type who never accepted char death, I might agree with you. But you know me better than that.....I have lost hundreds of hours....in fact thousands....since I have been attempting this trial even under far easier constraints for six years and approx 14k hours eh! This is the closest I have come to success. I don’t want to lose it....but I am prepared to.... Edited by Rick, Oct 3 2017, 11:16 AM.
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| neildarkstar | Oct 3 2017, 11:07 AM Post #698 |
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Overlord
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I never meant to say that you wouldn't or couldn't accept character death... i was just saying that the more hours that are invested in a character, the more intense that possibility becomes. Avoiding that possibility as much as possible is completely understandable... Hell, I remember when people committed suicide over losing a D&D character... |
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| Rick | Oct 3 2017, 11:18 AM Post #699 |
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Jarl
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Rats..ha! Ya ninja’d me edit.... So added it below...hope I got just the new bit ;) We can’t debate because your idea of a good DiD run differs from mine. You aim for higher thrills, but readily accept the likely consequences of that....it doesn’t phase you when a char dies....and if they last too long you kill them anyway. I have always aimed to keep mine alive for the long haul (often failed) I love her...I do, as I Ioved her forebare Ulda. It is different for me. But in anycase my friend not every discussion must become a debate....I know you love it, but there is not a need to persaude a change of opinion here or argue a case. Sometimes talking things through just aids clarity and decision making hmmm. I am always grateful for peer opinion. Edited by Rick, Oct 3 2017, 11:24 AM.
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| Areial | Oct 3 2017, 11:31 AM Post #700 |
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Et'Ada
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Rick... umm Adella doesn't die... you lose hours, time, progress... Which yes would royally suck... but Adella is not dead.. She is a persona.. a person.. not a "player character". You cultivated her over the year's.. as you did Ulda. I think that is one of the main area's where we all have issues. You put in "reloader" like it's a dirty word ( unless I am the only one who 'feels" that) Then you just put in "Throw's away".. I don't throw my characters away.. they are dead.. Your way of thinking about DiD has changed over the years and I am not saying it's wrong, just different... because of Ulda and Adella. I can not speak for everyone of course.. but unless I am in a competition.. once a DiD character dies.. they are dead... for Competition characters, if they have been re-started for the competition, at the end, they are technically dead, because they died. But I think Neil is correct about the probabilities.. even though I can sympathize with you about loosing that much invested time. |
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