Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Leyic]

Except for Sotha Sil's Clockwork City being consistently called "The World-Mechanism" in Online.

Lore introduced in TESO is new enough that I haven't had time to go through all of it yet. Might you link sources for my elucidation?

The entire concept of Amaranth. Besides, how is it fourth-wall breaking to... introduce something new to the lore?

Where is Amaranth associated with the dreamsleeve?

Quoting myself from earlier: "Notice that it's never explained in detail how Vivec made the Provisional House, yet Vivec loves to talk about the things he's done." Vivec does a lot of things in the Sermons that are never explained in detail and left open for metaphorical interpretation (for another example, see Muatra and all the associated innuendo). There's been plenty of time to clarify these incidents, yet they never have been, in-character or out-. Independently, they're a bunch of obscured oddities that might be dismissed as mere poetry. Collectively, they show Vivec manipulating creation in ways that, as far as I know the lore, would require that he have access to the underlying framework of creation; Vivec's CHIM. He recognizes creation's underlying reality (the dream) for what it is, and liberates himself from it sufficiently to be able to change it in ways that affect him inside but not outside creation. Similarly to how stage actors can break the fourth wall to recognize that they're within a play and can manipulate the play, yet continue to act as part of the play. Vivec most certainly broke the fourth wall of the Aurbis, but whether or not he found our world on the other side is uncertain.

Introducing new lore does not generally break the fourth wall; this is a particular instance where it does.

[WillowLuman]

Isn't it possible that whatever catastrophe we're seeing the aftermath of in C0DA is what made Nirn clockwork?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Personally, it always annoys me when people take game quirks and make them integral parts of canon, coming up with convoluted explanations for them. It can be funny sometimes, but gameplay and story segregation isn't a bad thing, and trying to negate it like that implies that we have to take the world at face value as presented in the games. People feeding each other conversation pie instead of actually convincing each other, passing solid weapons right through each other because their skills are too low, etc... I don't want those to become part of objective reality in the setting, because that's just stupid.

Then they should make a better game.

[WillowLuman]

Personally, it always annoys me when people take game quirks and make them integral parts of canon, coming up with convoluted explanations for them. It can be funny sometimes, but gameplay and story segregation isn't a bad thing, and trying to negate it like that implies that we have to take the world at face value as presented in the games. People feeding each other conversation pie instead of actually convincing each other, passing solid weapons right through each other because their skills are too low, etc... I don't want those to become part of objective reality in the setting, because that's just stupid.

Then they should make a better game.

They tend to improve on things over time, but thinking up weird metaphysical explanations for the glitches and gameplay quirks of the previous game just shoves them back in our faces.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well sure, each game should be abused for its own failures.

[alexandertnt]

Personally, it always annoys me when people take game quirks and make them integral parts of canon, coming up with convoluted explanations for them. It can be funny sometimes, but gameplay and story segregation isn't a bad thing, and trying to negate it like that implies that we have to take the world at face value as presented in the games. People feeding each other conversation pie instead of actually convincing each other, passing solid weapons right through each other because their skills are too low, etc... I don't want those to become part of objective reality in the setting, because that's just stupid.

Then they should make a better game.

Then some people get worked up over the game turning into an action game by removing dice roll misses

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Yep! I think games that look realistic need to be skill-based (a hit is a hit) or entirely roll-based (you click your target and command your character to attack, and your character will hit or miss depending). Mixing the two is dissatisfying.

You can still have an RPG skill progression. Your skills modify your maneuvers by adding combos, changing attack speed and damage, special effects like chopping limbs instead of just hitting them for damage, speed at switching equipment, run and jump speed, climbing ability, etc.

[LordBucket]

I never understood why anyone was unhappy about the skill-based to-hit system in Morrowind. It's the same system that had been ubiquitous in the genre since forever, and Daggerfall worked exactly the same way.

If you go back to 90s top-view rpgs, like ultima 3, dragon warrior, etc. so far as I remember all of them had the possibilty of missing an attack based on stats. Eventually top view became first person view, but with only the ability to turn in 90 degree increments. Games like eye of the beholder, phantasy star, etc. Again, all of those games had miss mechanics. When first person at 90 degrees changed to first person freeform movement, even still miss mechanics remained. Ultima Underworld, Daggerfall, etc.

And then Morrowind was released and suddenly people started complaining about as if it was something new.

My best guess is that the first person shooter crowd started playing rpgs for some reason.

[Glowcat]

Because having a miss streak due to the RNG is frustrating and if a game can do it skill-based they should. I say this having started and still preferring RPGs or Strategy games. Chance to hit adds nothing to a game that wouldn't be done better with anything Leo suggested for RPG progression.

[LordBucket]

I hesitate to call holding your mouse on top of stationary target taking up a third of your screen "skill based." Why was Morrowind the first game in a long history of similar games with the exact same system that people suddenly complained about that same system being used? I don't remember anyone ever complaining about misses in Ultima Underworld, Daggerfall, etc.

The games of that era that used a "if you target the position on the screen  an opponent is at you always hit" mechanic were generally all shooters, not rpgs. Descent, doom, etc. Again, I think there was some sort of migration of FPS players to rpgs for some reason. People who hadn't played games of the sort that Morrowind was patterned after, and that were therefore surprised by the difference.

I'm not expressing preference for one system or another, but the outcry over Morrowind doing the same thing that had always been done before has always seemed strange to me.

[WillowLuman]

To be honest, I didn't mind it too much at the time, but in retrospect it's pretty annoying.

[Mech#4]

It was annoying in Morrowind for me because the stat-based miss/hit doesn't look as right in a 3D environment. In Ultima Underworld of similar you could imagine that the combat was more active than what was being shown to you, especially in the grid based RPGs like Lands of Lore. It's harder to imagine beyond what you're seeing in a 3D environment.

I think the skill range in Morrowind was too wide for the miss/hit ratio system as well. It's like... in DnD you miss if you roll under the armour class of your opponent which is mostly a number between 1-20 (or something like that) while in Morrowind it's based off your weapon skill as a percentage + agility/fatigue with a range of 1-100.

Spoiler: Hit Rate from TES Wiki for those interested. (click to show/hide)

Hit Rate

(Weapon Skill + (Agility / 5) + (Luck / 10)) * (0.75 + 0.5 * Current Fatigue / Maximum Fatigue) + Fortify Attack Magnitude - Blind Magnitude. PEMDAS applied.

In essence, your Hit Rate is equal to your Weapon Skill, increased by 1% for every 5 points of Agility or 10 points of Luck you have. This is then multiplied by somewhere between .75 to 1.25, depending on how much Fatigue you have left. Having full Fatigue will increase your accuracy by 25%, and being depleted of fatigue will decrease your accuracy by 25%. Finally, your hit chance is increased by a flat amount from Fortify Attack effects (such as from the Warrior Birthsign), and because of a glitch, Blindness effects.

[Putnam]

Except for Sotha Sil's Clockwork City being consistently called "The World-Mechanism" in Online.

Lore introduced in TESO is new enough that I haven't had time to go through all of it yet. Might you link sources for my elucidation?

Every ALMSIVI temple priest says it, same way as they all reveal how racist Dunmer still are to Argonians.

Except for Sotha Sil's Clockwork City being consistently called "The World-Mechanism" in Online.

Lore introduced in TESO is new enough that I haven't had time to go through all of it yet. Might you link sources for my elucidation?

The entire concept of Amaranth. Besides, how is it fourth-wall breaking to... introduce something new to the lore?

Where is Amaranth associated with the dreamsleeve?

With the Provisional House, which was Vivec's failed attempt at Amaranth.

Also note that Talos achieved CHIM.

Also note that Vivec never really used CHIM AFAIK for any truly far-reaching purposes; the version of himself presented in the Lessons was created by the Dragon Break at the activation of Numidium (the Battle of Red Mountain), not CHIM.

[Leyic]

I never understood why anyone was unhappy about the skill-based to-hit system in Morrowind. It's the same system that had been ubiquitous in the genre since forever, and Daggerfall worked exactly the same way.

Uncanny valley. Easier to suspend disbelief when your targets are pixelated sprites.

Every ALMSIVI temple priest says it, same way as they all reveal how racist Dunmer still are to Argonians.

I've been playing Covenant, so no wonder I've never heard it. Not that those priests would be impartial when it comes to their gods.

With the Provisional House, which was Vivec's failed attempt at Amaranth.

Also note that Talos achieved CHIM.

Also note that Vivec never really used CHIM AFAIK for any truly far-reaching purposes; the version of himself presented in the Lessons was created by the Dragon Break at the activation of Numidium (the Battle of Red Mountain), not CHIM.

So again, where else do we find someone creating something within the dreamsleeve? Up to that point, the dreamsleeve had been just a communications network, broadly speaking. Then Vivec comes along and does something completely different with it without changing it, using functionality that was supposedly ever-present yet unknown to those of the Aurbis. We don't have any other examples of that happening, so we only have Vivec's word on what happened, and he skipped over the details.

If the version of Vivec presented in the Sermons was an alternate form that had not achieved CHIM, then how else do we explain the origin of vampires, Baar Dau, etc.?

[Putnam]

First, what guarantee is there that the Provisional House is a literal building?

Second, where do we find another Dragonborn using Zii Los Dii Du? Where do we find another person not descended from Alessia or Septim wearing the Amulet of Kings with no repercussion? Where do we see another mortal giving birth to a Time Tiger-Dragon/Amaranth/King of Akavir? Another mortal who grows to be more powerful, more necessary, more important than any god?

There's a lot of things of metaphysical nature with no peer. The first is by someone with likely only cursory knowledge of CHIM, the second by someone who knows of CHIM and its feats but doesn't know CHIM itself and the third... literally married to Vivec.

The Dreamsleeve was also explicitly for recycling souls and was implicitly the collective consciousness of mortality and a sort of space-that-is-not-a-space where nothing can be experienced.