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Posts posted by Shizuka2

  1. +% damage, like burning lash, turning wheel, etc. isn't getting properly evaluated vs. DR.


    This slips by testing because in the specific case of +25%, it IS getting properly evaluated. The problem is that, for other +% damage boosts, they're also getting evaluated against 25% of the DR, rather than the relevant %. This makes +5-10% boosts negligible, including often reducing down to zero damage added, while overvaluing any +% boosts over 50%. In testing, +50% boosts are actually doing another 60-70% damage, depending on DR.


    Steps to reproduce: take a monk, get lightning strikes, turning wheel, and torment's reach, and start punching. You've got an easy test for 10%, n*5%, and 50%.


    Or hit something with a torch, for an easy +10% test. You'll often notice no burning damage done at all.

    • Like 1

  2. Some abilities say 'full attack': that means you do an attack with the weapon, with the damage done by the weapon, as part of that ability.


    As for the rest... right now, the level 1 abilities do enough damage to be useful throughout the game... plus, at level 9, level 1 abilities start becoming per-encounter, rather than per-rest, which keeps them valuable into the endgame.

  3. Save that KOTOR 2 is not about 'stop the evil Darth villain, blow up his superweapon and save the galaxy', and crowbarring the standard Star Wars plot into it won't really help it any.


    Nihilus is a non-entity. The entire story is about the Exile's rediscovery of himself through Kreia and her manipulations, not about Nihilus, regardless of how awesome you imagined him to be.


    Absolutely right. It made for a nice change, too, having a little more thought involved than usual.

  4. Did you miss the part where Nihilus tries to eat the exile - which would be the point where any other Jedi went the way of the reformed council at Dantooine? The thing to remember is that Nihilus is not the great danger - not even Traya is. Whatever it is, it is out there, waiting, where Revan went. The true Sith is what the Exile needed to return to Malachor V before facing, and that is how they did in fact tell it.


    No, Malachor V was a better place to end it, and Traya a stronger climax than Nihilus.



    Anyway, if you're looking for early climactic moments, I rather thought the LS council/Kreia speech was... memorable.

  5. It's easier than you think. If you're inside their guard, they'll back up to get to their preferred range - even if it means going off the map. Throw up a push or disable power, press the ones who aren't affected, and repeat until they're all off the mat. In some ways, it's much more humiliating for them if you take them all down by the rules they set without ever laying a hand on them.

  6. Dude, Revan fought at M5, the ravage was at M5. Malak even said his own master didnt trust him, it wasnt Malak's ship. And the storyline reason was revenge, as i had said before revenge isnt very well accepted by mandalorians. 


    Yes he wasnt on the ship  but the ship is his. And Mandalorians dont fight old eniimies they lost to, its not honerable to mandalorians. Canderous's beliefs have changed so much. Is is it iggnorance or was it what i had mentioned above? It is a plothole hands down unless the above happened.


    I would consider this a small hole in the story anyhow. Hoever if Revan did scre him over that wouldvbe been nice to know. the storyline in general was a bumpy road.


    Bao-Dur establishes that Revan was delayed outsystem by Mandalorian scouts while the Exile's fleet fought the Mandalorians at Malachor V. HK-47 corroborates with his account of how Revan probably delayed deliberately in order to 'clean house' before officially going Sith.


    The Mandalorians did it a) to defeat a present foe, Nihilus and b) as PR. A lot of people, including some Mandalorians, think that the clans were broken beyond repair at Malachor V. Mandalore needs something newsworthy to show the galaxy that they're back - destroying the Ravager (a sufficiently heavy capital ship that Carth's fleet "can't match their firepower") fits the bill.


    No plothole here.

  7. Well, if the forums go, they go. Some last words, just in case:


    Much as I'd like to see KOTOR II done the way it could have been done, and delighted as I would be to see a mod by someone restoring even the small things that could be so restored, there will be other games, and even other games which could be of the finest. Some of them made by you at Obsidian, I hope.


    Startups don't always pan out: Troika had some wonderful ideas, and talent that I respect, but they never quite managed to execute on any of their projects. More even than seeing KOTOR II done right, I hope to see you at OE avoid Troika's pattern long enough to hit your stride, cut loose, and show what you can really do - not just what you can do on a tight timeline. Best of luck as you move on to the next project - you made a good game this time around, and might have made a great one. I look forward to seeing you surpass yourselves next time, and the time after that.


    Above all else, thanks - it was fun.

  8. Speaking about point (1) I found it really annoying when I gave some money to bet on a race on Nar Shaddaa and the Twilek running the races said he had problems with his account. When you used Force Persuade to get your money back it gave you dark points  <_< . I mean come on! It's rightfully your money!  :)


    You, ah, hadn't given him your money yet, so he wasn't giving it back, y'see. That's worth dark side points alright.

  9. One more vote in favor of complexity.


    It was a good plot - a very good one. A welcome breath of buddhism in an all too often manichaean universe.


    They could have fleshed things out more, and almost certainly intended to (see the cut ending thread), but it was good as is. The only additional thing I think would have really helped would have been a solid prologue, in the manual or in the game, letting you know the broad outlines of your own backstory beforehand - certainly I have had much, much more fun playing through it when I think about acting either as an undead weeping wound in the force, or alternatively as a bodhisvatta who, having transcended the cycle of life, remains to help others.


    I liked the complexity of the plot - KOTOR was a good game - a better one than KOTOR II, as it turns out (though it need not have been that way - blame Lucasarts if it makes you feel better; I know it makes me feel better), but compare Malak to Kreia. Malak... was a club. An angry club, as HK-47 put it, and with about as much personality. He made a good villain, someone you were happy to crush, but no more.


    Kreia? Kreia was a character to remember. Sure, you always knew that she had her own agenda - but you also knew that she, who cared for nothing else in the universe, cared deeply about the exile. She could be harsh when disappointed - the burden of her hopes and dreams for the death of the force is not a small one to bear - but if you were paying attention, she was a great deal of fun to talk to. You could never trust what she said, but you could always trust that there would something interesting in the discussion, and you could trust that she would turn any situation both to her advantage and to what she considered to be yours. Leaving Telos and realizing that Atris hadn't noticed Kreia's existence? Much more chilling than watching Malak or his petulant apprentice Bandon break things and beat their chests, even when those things are whole planets. She is better than Malak as it stands - give her back the cut endings and the contest isn't even worth handicapping.


    Then, too, I liked the way that KOTOR II prompted you to reanalyze KOTOR. Why did Revan do what Revan did? Why should the man on the street care about philosophical differences among these celebrity mystics - aside from the very real risk of dying from stray blaster-fire during the more hotly disputed debates. Which is the better victory - the annihilation of one's enemy or their conversion?


    Destroying the Star Forge made excellent theater, but it was wonderful that this game took such impetus from the destruction of fuel depot in a precarious political situation. Truly satisfying. Actually, satisfying as it was to storm the Sky Ramp or assault the tomb, I should have liked the option to war in the shadows a little more myself, to settle Telos by arranging a boardroom coup at Czerka or the like.


    The worst that can be said of the complexity is that it came at the cost of execution. This is undeniably true, but I do not to believe it to have been a necessary state of affairs. At some point, the decision was made to make twelve more months worth of game. At another point, the decision was made to sell it with perhaps three of those months still remaining. This complexity need not have come at the price of bugginess and and a butchered ending for all your companions save Kreia (whose ending was butchered too, but even butchered inspires respect).

  10. Good grief, yes.


    Ask Kreia about Mandalore's fate at the end of the game, or hey, just get enough influence with Mandalore and you'll hear the whole story. This isn't something you need to speculate about, the way you need to speculate about whether Nihilus is some sort of force-shadow of the exile, who never existed before Malachor V - there is a clear in-game answer.

  11. Not everyone hated Kreia (well, fine, all the NPCs thought she was rather disturbing if they managed to notice her existence) - I quite liked her. She made all the other characters look like crude puppets, and manipulated them as if they were. She was remarkably idealistic and devoted to the Exile, and an incredibly memorable character. I would not call her frigid, though she did care for her dignity, and even more for the Exile's respect. More, she was old - and felt it. TSL isn't Harold and Maude, and I for one am glad of it.


    Manipulative old witch? Perhaps. But so much more besides...


    Defeated in open combat - by Sion? No. Kreia hardly ever loses but to set up a later victory: her defeat by Nihilus and Sion together and her defeat at the hands of the Exile are the only two cases I can think of where it's even arguable that her apparent defeat was not a plan. Frankly, in the first of those, I rather suspect that she arranged the beating by Sion to forestall further action by Nihilus, whom she might not have been able to oppose directly. In the second, I think she intended her death at the Exile's hands to complete the Exile's training, since she valued the possibility of life outside the Force above all else.


    Visas? I found no hint of her surrendering herself sexually. Looking at each other through the Force Sight is supposed to be very intimate, yes, but not sexual. I don't recall Force Sight acting like x-ray glasses, certainly. That sort of intimacy - that sort of trust - was all the more moving, coming as it did from one literally scarred all over from the abusive hungers of her ex-master.


    The Handmaiden?


    Well, both she and the Disciple seemed a bit bland to me - the cut endings would have helped, but some of that would seem to be inevitable when you split development time in half like that - though both Mira and Hanharr came out well. That should be the criticism of her; not this sexism mess.

  12. The droid planet and the HK factory aren't the same thing - one of the HK-47 soundclips left in has HK announcing that he has discovered that the factory is on Telos.


    The droid planet is likely where B4-D4 was supposed to go after his little adventure, instead of Nar Shadaa.


    If so, I wrote truer than I knew earlier - R.I.P. an elaborate storyline involving the conman protocol droid and his psychotic astromech sidekick.


    Here's hoping that, at the very least, the good reception of TSL has given Obsidian enough leverage that they can move toward using a 'when its done' release schedule. While they do good work quick, they can do world-class work given time.

  13. In all this talk about the cut endings (which were spectacular) and the cut HK factory, we have neglected one of the more interesting cuts made - B4-D4. If you take him out through the station while you have him, you can do several interesting things, including persuade the protocol droid down at the docks to start collecting a fee from every traveler - payable to a numbered account accessible only to B4-D4. I recall there being a nice interaction with the droid maintenance tech too... [edit: you can blackmail Opo - he's been repeatedly memory-wiping B4-D4, probably to cover up his padded bills, and he charges for the memory-wipes too!]


    And after, if you let him go, he's in the travel lounge [with the newly homocidal T1-N1], headed to Nar Shadaa. Originally, I expect the plan was for Goto to acquire some competition, or a henchman, or both.


    R.I.P. an elaborate plotline involving the adventures of B4-D4.


    [i would have loved seeing them again, or just hearing about them Zherron: "The strangest thing just happened - a protocol droid came through and bilked the Dantooine scavengers in a rigged game of pazaak! I tell you, if you can't trust droids, who can you trust? PC: HK-47, don't answer that...]

  14. The first time finishing TSL I wondered what hit me.


    The second time, I wondered what kind of scheduling crunch hit you.


    As it is, it's a good game.


    It looks like it sold well enough to pay the bills and keep the shareholders happy, and I can't complain about having bought it - I had my money's worth of fun from it, and more - so if that's all she wrote, so be it. It doesn't look like it'll be worth it from the company's perspective to spend more to make TSL the game it could have been instead of focusing on NWN2, and I can understand that.


    Still, I have to ask - will any of you developers be pulling a David Gaider?


    BG2:ToB was a good game when it came out, and could have been better. Gaider was Senior Designer on it, and then spent a lot of his personal time in the year or two following its release making some mods which significantly enhanced both the story and gameplay of ToB.


    I wish I could say that Gaider's job now pays three times as much in consequence, or that women now throw themselves at his feet in awe of his work on the Ascension et al. mods, but I really don't know. He's still working for Bioware as a designer on Dragon Age, so I can at least say that the effort didn't kill his career.


    I don't expect an answer, both because it's going above and beyond the call of duty, and because even if one of you were resurrecting all (or some) of that cut ending content, you wouldn't want to raise expectations early.


    This game came very close to being like PS:T - a rare and timeless classic in a field of ephemerae. It might still be, given work. I cannot demand what would have to be a labor of love.


    But I'd like to give any of you developers who haven't yet thought of it the idea.

  15. I was REALLY REALLY fustrated with the Jedi Masters story line.


    First off, Vrook hardly acted like a Jedi Master. His arguements in the Holo report from Atris's and then the holo recording of him and Vandar showed him to be lead by his emotions rather then intellegence. So WHY would he be on the council to begin with? Makes no sence.


    2) Weird named guy on Nar Shadar TELLS you that YOU were right in the choice you made and the council was wrong and hes left the council because of it! So suddenly he rejoins a newly formed council and tries to cut you off from the force even tho you helps Nar Shadar, Saved Onderon, Saved Dantoine (as all 3 masters togather they MUST know of your actions).  It makes no sence!


    3) Kavar, he appoligizes and sucks up and then tries to cut you off from the force?????????




    (PS: Other thing that REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY bothered me in game is, here you are the LAST of the Jedi? But in 2 seperate games I got a cut screen (present time) of Bastilla speaking to Carth (as a jedi, not as a Sith). Ok I can see how Vroom, Name with to many letters, and Kavar can not be called Jedi (as explained above) but Bastilla was HUGE in the battle in the first game. How does she suddenly appear and never been noticed by Sion or Nimbus??????? Makes no sence.


    Why do the council members decide to exile you all over again, if you play LS?


    The Exile is downright terrifying to Force users who look closely - except those who become fascinated. The PC is a force-user, but is no longer part of the force. Either you see this as Kreia and Visas do, and think of this as freedom, or you see a grinning skull when you look at the Exile. If you were the Jedi council, and someone showed up who could destroy the Force, possibly all life, certainly all life as they know it, would you let a little thing like a few exhibitions of heroism here and there stop you from trying to kill him?


    As for your postscript, Bastila may not be in the game - it depends on what your Revan was - was never a full Jedi, or may have just hidden herself well in the heart of the Republic Fleet.

  16. Stoffe, thanks for the correction. I have not played KOTOR I in a long time, and must have confused the Systech official with a Czerka one.


    Doright, I will look forward to seeing the Handmaiden confrontation. My first playthrough was with a LS female, so I missed that entirely. The Disciple had a lot of good interaction with Kreia, but I could not escape the feeling that there was meant to be more, perhaps including some connection to the Republic intel agency he's working for.

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