Grimrock 2 impossible for some?

[Azel]

When my arguments fail I resort to ad hominem attacks

You believe that placing the gamer in a "fantasy world simulation" somehow removes them from an RPG experience. The full extent of your intellect is summed and dismissed that easily. The fact that you can't even recognize your own grievances even moments after typing them is fascinating.

Your arguments are shaped like oatmeal.

[Anurias]

You read it literally. There was no draw, it's both a quote reference from the clip, and to the spite of the quoted post; and the behavior that the Black Knight exhibits. Did you believe that "Awlriight" was accidental misspelling?

Actually I'm making fun of you because you tried to use a quote from a movie and it came off pretty much the exact opposite of what you were aiming for. I completely understand that you were trying to make it out to be that Azel was being the black knight that lost but refused to accept it, only with how you used it you ended up coming off like the black knight instead.

I disagree with Azel on plenty of things on this forum, but in this case what I see is him saying that your 'arguments' (and I use the term loosely) are simply personal opinions with no factual basis. Which is completely true. However, any argument over this particular subject boils down to opinions and whether a game is a good game or a bad game is a personal opinion based on what you like. Whether a game is a good representation of a genre or not is based on the collective opinions of the masses. In other words, if your game wins a peer award, that means that more people that are into that genre like the game than people that don't. You may not personally enjoy the game, but it does appeal to the majority of players the game was targeted for. All games have a target audience, and they are made to cater to that audience. If you want to argue that a game is bad, go right ahead and argue that, but at least don't go stating it like it's a universal fact. The only fact presented here is the fact that your opinion of the game is that it's bad. While the counter facts have been the fact that more people that enjoy the genre have a positive opinion of the game than those that have a negative opinion.

[minmay]

You believe this in spite of 'gamergate'? Seriously?

oh my god

[Azel]

Actually I'm making fun of you because you tried to use a quote from a movie and it came off pretty much the exact opposite of what you were aiming for. I completely understand that you were trying to make it out to be that Azel was being the black knight that lost but refused to accept it, only with how you used it you ended up coming off like the black knight instead.

hah that whole Black Knight thing started funny but then got strange. I actually thought he was admitting to being the Black Knight, and I was like, "oh Isaac finally came to the forum sober." But then he left Monty Python and just went Full Monty.

Whether a game is a good representation of a genre or not is based on the collective opinions of the masses. In other words, if your game wins a peer award, that means that more people that are into that genre like the game than people that don't.

Exactly! Although it seems that a week or so of mentioning "awards" in this discussion, Isaac finally came up with the strategy of dismissing any game Awards that Bethesda receives based on the notion that these awards are based on a "profit incentive". It's a fairly terrible straw man.

Anywho...

If Grimrock received an award I would be supportive. I would continue to play LoG if it stayed in its current state, or if it went more dungeon crawler, and yes even if it went full "fantasy world simulation" RPG. I think NPC's would do more harm than good, but then again, that all depends on how it is implemented. The developers of Grimrock have done a great job blending genre's and re-invigorating the dungeon crawl experience with a modern twist. I have no doubt that they could do more than the basic NPC regurgitation found in most titles.

I'd rather see NPC's in Grimrock function similar to the Baldurs Gate/Ice Wind Dale series. Buy, sell, interact, and even fight NPC's. Which, by the way, can also be done in Elder Scroll titles.

[Isaac]

When my arguments fail I resort to ad hominem attacks

...

And you even false quote.

You read it literally. There was no draw, it's both a quote reference from the clip, and to the spite of the quoted post; and the behavior that the Black Knight exhibits. Did you believe that "Awlriight" was accidental misspelling?

Actually I'm making fun of you because you tried to use a quote from a movie and it came off pretty much the exact opposite of what you were aiming for. I completely understand that you were trying to make it out to be that Azel was being the black knight that lost but refused to accept it, only with how you used it you ended up coming off like the black knight instead.

Says who?

SpoilerShow

I disagree with Azel on plenty of things on this forum, but in this case what I see is him saying that your 'arguments' (and I use the term loosely) are simply personal opinions with no factual basis.

And you accept it along with the caustic demeanor and insults do you? You read and cheer him along, is that it ~insults and all?

(I am assuming so, seeing that you've included a mild one of your own.)

Which is completely true. However, any argument over this particular subject boils down to opinions and whether a game is a good game or a bad game is a personal opinion based on what you like. Whether a game is a good representation of a genre or not is based on the collective opinions of the masses.

This is never true of anything; mass consent doesn't establish a fact.

You may not personally enjoy the game, but it does appeal to the majority of players the game was targeted for.

This was never about personal enjoyment ~you are being almost as bad a he is with assumptions. What leads you to say, "You may not personally enjoy the game"?

Tell me this... If I had instead stated that Bethesda makes mediocre shooters (which is equally true btw ~and Tod Howard would smugly agree)... would you take that as non-enjoyment? With the exception of FO3, I take their games for what they are; I don't resent TES for being a poor RPG, anymore than I might resent Splintercell for being sloooww paced, and lacking epic fire-fights. The games are designed to do what they do.

All games have a target audience, and they are made to cater to that audience. If you want to argue that a game is bad, go right ahead and argue that, but at least don't go stating it like it's a universal fact. The only fact presented here is the fact that your opinion of the game is that it's bad. While the counter facts have been the fact that more people that enjoy the genre have a positive opinion of the game than those that have a negative opinion.

Again... I'm not arguing that any of these games are bad ~not even FO3... Observing that TES is a poor RPG doesn't make it a bad game ~it points out that it's a poor RPG.

I have to ask [to know who I'm typing to]: If 150,000 people all attested that Skyrim was the best RPG ever made ~would that make it so? If 300,000 people attested that the previous group was wrong, would that, make that suddenly true?

How about if the poll wasn't about RPG's but was about the shape of the Earth? [round or flat]
If the masses think it's flat... does that make it flat? This last is rhetorical; not seriously asked, nor needing a genuine answer. What the argument distills to is not the masses' opinion of RPG, but their definition of RPG.

So I'll ask you. Do you think that the masses' definition of RPG [at its core] means: An engine that [best effort] simulates what one would see if they were personally there (in the fictional game world)?, ie. 'stream of consciousness play' like Bethesda tend to make; or that that part was irrelevant to being an RPG, where it could exist in the game or not; [and does exist in plenty of first person games that are not RPGs]. If that is their opinion, does that make it true?

Do you think that a mass opinion indicating that a purely text based RPG couldn't be an RPG ~or a really good one? And would this make that true ~in your opinion, because they said so?

I don't believe that mass opinion dictates anything but popularity; and a popular 'RPG' might not even be one.
Is Doom RPG, an RPG?
(And listen to that guy's reasons in the video, do you agree with them ~that that makes it an RPG? )

[Azel]

Says who?

Says someone other than yourself. You prefer to proclaim your own victories while arguing that peer opinions don't matter; all the while trying to convince your peers that your opinion matters

Earlier you falsely accused me of the following action:

Your tactic above seems to rely on accusing to force some unnecessary defense for accusations you've invented, rather than observed [or even invented from ~whatever~ you observed;

... and since your accusation had no facts to support it (much like everything you have said about RPG's and Bethesda in this thread), you decided to act out that very action yourself:

How about if the poll wasn't abut RPG's but was about the shape of the Earth? [round or flat]
If the masses think it's flat... does that make it flat?

Not one single person has ever implied that it is a "matter of fact" that any Bethesda title is the absolute best game. Not one single person is arguing in favor of treating mass opinion as fact. Thus, all you did in this latest reply is, "rely on accusing to force some unnecessary defense for accusations you've invented, rather than observed." You lose, again.

The primary argument here is that Bethesda titles have received noteworthy awards by their peers, which contradicts the idea that they are "poor RPG's" or "not RPG's at all." Which, by the way, you can't even get straight yourself. In some posts you claim that Elder Scroll games are not RPG's at all, and then later you argue that they are just poor RPG's. Confusion fueled by the anxiety driven need to have your peers agree with you.

And as for your "earth is flat vs round" analogy ... much like your Mc Donald's comparison, it falls flat on its face. The actual real world consensus is that the Earth is Round. People believe this despite never having observed it first hand. So, just like people are correct to align with the consensus that yielded, "the earth is round," people are correct to align with the consensus that Bethesda games are great RPG's. It doesn't make it a fact, just a strong consensus.

In your case, you actually have to pretend that people would vote on the Earth being flat in order to make a point. You're like, "hey everyone, lets pretend for one quick second that lots of people would vote that the Earth is really flat, see how am I right all of a sudden?" ... Which means you are only right in a completely fabricated reality.

What I love most about your self-defeating analogy, is that in this debate, you are the "Earth is flat" guy. Everyone else is arguing that the Earth is round.

[Anurias]

Says who?

Says my opinion which is why I bothered to chime in at all. I thought that was pretty obvious.

And you accept it along with the caustic demeanor and insults do you? You read and cheer him along, is that it ~insults and all?

(I am assuming so, seeing that you've included a mild one of your own.)

What I agree with is that you aren't really providing anything other than your opinion that you are trying to represent as fact when it clearly isn't and trying to claim a victory where there is none to claim.

I disagree with Azel on plenty of things on this forum, but in this case what I see is him saying that your 'arguments' (and I use the term loosely) are simply personal opinions with no factual basis. Which is completely true.

The "Which is completely true." goes with " your 'arguments' are simply personal opinions with no factual basis." So I don't know what you are saying is "never true of anything." As for the mass consent doesn't establish a fact, I never claimed it did. What I claimed was a fact was that there was a 'mass consent of an opinion' which is a verifiable fact by checking statistics.

This was never about personal enjoyment ~you are being almost as bad a he is with assumptions. What leads you to say, "You may not personally enjoy the game"?

The word 'may' indicates that I'm not sure if you enjoy the game or not. It is being used because you don't outright come out and say that you don't enjoy the game, but your comments up till this point have been indicative that you don't like the game. It is entirely possible that there has been a misinterpretation of your level of enjoyment of the game, but in all honesty that really comes down to how you have represented yourself here.

Tell me this... If I had instead stated that Bethesda makes mediocre shooters (which is equally true btw ~and Tod Howard would smugly agree)... would you take that as non-enjoyment?

Claiming that Bethesda makes mediocre shooters is an opinion regardless of who says it. There is no verifiable information in that statement, only what the person saying it thinks in regards to the subject matter. Doesn't really matter who agrees or disagrees with that, it's still the opinion of the person stating it. As to whether it translates to non-enjoyment on the part of the person making the statement. Could be... could not be. That depends on the person making the statement. I've played plenty of games that I thought were mediocre but still enjoyed, I've also played games in genres that I didn't like at all and hated playing regardless of if they were a good or bad (opinions) game in the genre. It's more about 'how' it's said than 'what' is said.

I'm not arguing that any of these games are bad ~not even FO3... Observing that TES is a poor RPG doesn't make it a bad game ~it points out that it's a poor RPG.

It's a poor RPG 'in your opinion.' However, the fact that it was won awards that come from votes by people that play games of the genre it would seem that the mass opinion is in contradiction to your opinion. Does that mean it should change your opinion? Not necessarily, but it does show statistics of opinions that point to more people disagreeing with your opinion than there are agreeing with it. That (the statistics, not the opinions) is a verifiable fact.

I have to ask [to know who I'm typing to]: If 150,000 people all attested that Skyrim was the best RPG ever made ~would that make it so? If 300,000 people attested that the previous group was wrong, would that, make that suddenly true?

To this I have several questions but in the end those questions really don't matter because again this scenario is based on opinions. The 150,000 people that claim it's the best are of the opinion that it is, and the 300,000 people that claim otherwise are of that opinion. The only thing here that is a fact are that this one group of people thinks the game is the best, and this other group thinks the game isn't the best. Which group you'd be in depends entirely on what you think. Neither side is true or false because both sides are opinions.

How about if the poll wasn't about RPG's but was about the shape of the Earth? [round or flat]
If the masses think it's flat... does that make it flat? This last is rhetorical; not seriously asked, nor needing a genuine answer. What the argument distills to is not the masses' opinion of RPG, but their definition of RPG.

I'm going to answer this anyway because of how ridiculous it is to as this scenario even rhetorically. You are changing the question from one about opinions to one about facts. Fact, the Earth is round. This has been proved and is undeniable, anyone saying it's flat needs to go get an education since it's completely verifiable. Whether someone thinks something is good or bad is opinion, not verifiable information since everyone can have a different opinion and all right and all are wrong simultaneously. Bringing this up in your arguments does absolutely nothing to support your case.

Now if you want to go into the argument distilling into the masses' definition of RPG I'll just say this. All definitions are defined by the masses. As evidenced by changes throughout history of definitions of anything changing over time. They change by the masses changing the way they communicate. In all honesty, the earliest form of RPG I know of (not to be confused with the earliest form of RPG ever, because I don't know what that is) is Dungeons & Dragons, which is now referred to as a 'Paper & Pen RPG'. The Elder Scrolls games mirror more of what is in D&D than many modern RPG video games. In most modern RPG video games that I've played you get pre-generated characters that have their own history and destiny and all you're really doing is playing a game that plays out like a book. In D&D you generated your own character with race, stats, skills, history and started the game at a set point in your character's life with the freedom to do anything you chose. The DM had a campaign for you to follow, but if you chose to ignore the campaign that was between you and DM what happened. TES does the same thing, they start you off at a point in the game with no set history for your character. You get to make that up yourself. They give you a campaign and call it the main quest line, and you can choose to accept it or turn away from it. It's quite literally a D&D game that you play by yourself and Bethesda is your DM.

Does TES match up with something like say Final Fantasy? Nope. They are both RPGs, but they are different forms of them from different eras of the definition of RPG; a definition that changed over time by the masses using RPG as a term for a game that is better described as a video game novel.

So I'll ask you. Do you think that the masses' definition of RPG [at its core] means: An engine that [best effort] simulates what one would see if they were personally there (in the fictional game world)?, ie. 'stream of consciousness play' like Bethesda tend to make; or that that part was irrelevant to being an RPG, where it could exist in the game or not; [and does exist in plenty of first person games that are not RPGs]. If that is their opinion, does that make it true?

Do you think that a mass opinion indicating that a purely text based RPG couldn't be an RPG ~or a really good one? And would this make that true ~in your opinion, because they said so?

At present I believe that the mass definition of RPG is any game where you assume a role that is not your own. IE You're a sword wielding barbarian on the plains facing off against a horde of orcs hungry for your manflesh, or the role of a specific named character in a story that has a definitive plot and direction with a set ending that can not be changed like that of a book. RPG is a very broad category these days which is why you often find other terms also associated with it like MMORPG for example. Still an RPG, but of a particular subset of RPG.

I don't believe that mass opinion dictates anything but popularity; and a popular 'RPG' might not even be one.
Is Doom RPG, an RPG?
(And listen to that guy's reasons in the video, do you agree with them ~that that makes it an RPG? )

As for whether Doom RPG is an RPG or not... looks a lot like games like Might & Magic which are considered RPGs. So yes, I'd agree that it's a conversion of a First Person Shooter to a Role-Playing Game.

[Dr.Disaster]

Hence ~all of the character options in TES are implemented as minor bonuses...

Same holds true for Grimrock. Some of the character classes aren't even worth playing due to bad implementations, like the Knight and Wizard classes. Bonuses like Energy gains are almost a joke in Grimrock; and at least half the skill tree is irrelevant.

Skill in those games does not mean competence or enablement, it means 'easier'.

Just like using Invisibility and Force Field in Grimrock, and even the Rage Spell for making things as easy as possible. It's entirely possible to do a single character run with all "hard" options yet still beat the game with ease - using simple tactics like kiting and hiding. Taking this approach, the game loses what little RPG aspect it has and becomes more about individual player theme park tactics.

Azel these two answers alone tell that you are not able to keep the most basic things of a RPG apart.

Yes beating LoG2 with a single character on "Hard Ironman" is doable but if you want to try this with all the OP things(*) put into the game you could also go with an entire party. Not that much of a challenge, right? Now strip all those "bonuses" away, restart fresh and all of the sudden the walk in the park feeling is gone.

(*) Heavy Weapons, Heavy Armor, Spells, Alchemists, Alchemy

[Azel]

Dr. Disaster, You are 0 for 2 in this thread.

Earlier minmay said this:

Lost? CRTs are better than ever now that you can get them for free. I have like 6 of them in a closet.

You took him literally and made a serious response, to which he had to reply with, "i was joking." The same thing just happened to you again; you took me literally.

Isaac is trying to come up with arguments against Bethesda RPG's; I wasn't really criticizing Grimrock for single player "hard mode" tactics, I was simply illustrating to Isaac that his logic is highly flawed. I did it using satire, and you responded as though I was being literal.

Since you need it spelled out, here it is: he is nitpicking features in TeS games in order to argue that they aren't good RPG's, I did the same tactic with Grimrock - not to prove that Grimrock loses RPG elements, but to show that TeS games retain theirs.

Good lord man, grow some smarts. I bet your next response is that I was really being literal vs satirical, and that you somehow just caught me! You know you want to!

[minmay]

(*) Heavy Weapons, Heavy Armor

This is offtopic, but I'd be interested in hearing your rationale for calling these overpowered. Light weapons have higher DPS than heavy weapons across the entirety of the main campaign (except for the very first few minutes before you find the dagger), and I find armor skill pretty much useless in both theory and practice, on solo characters and full parties alike.