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Dr. Fetus posted:It wasn't a cutscene boss. Absolute Virtue had a random chance of spawning after killing another specific boss. (Nowadays it's guaranteed to spawn, but not when it was first released.) Absolute Virtue didn't have a grand entrance indicating that it was meant to be unkillable. Furthermore, it has defeat speech text and a title granted for killing it in the game from day one. Malachite_Dragon posted:E: Was this C-Team of devs who hosed up AV and then the first iteration of FF14 fired from Final Fantasy games or from Square-Enix entirely when they got sacked? I hope the latter. Project lead Tanaka left later on for "health reasons", which a lot of people at the time assumed was a euphemism.
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Jul 4, 2017 04:41
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krisslanza posted:You know, I think EverQuest did this? They had an unkillable boss, for plot reasons. But at least that was kind enough to let you be aware of that. AV is just a horrible, horrid mess. It's like they saw One Sin from .hack, and thought "let's copy it!"  I don't really "get" MMOs, but everything about Absolute Virtue is amazing. It's like the devs figured out how to weaponize spite.
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Jul 4, 2017 04:57
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Bruceski posted:They approached the MMO problem of "we spend years on new content, and then people kill it 24 hours after launch and whine about wanting more stuff" (a problem to which I don't think there's ANY good solution) and "solved" it in the worst possible way. It's worth mentioning that Absolute Virtue was technically in the game since the release of Chains of Promathia, but it actually took like 6 months for people to reach Absolute Virtue. To make him spawn you had to kill your way up a list of Notorious Monsters (overworld bosses) who were at launch brutally hard, and as previously stated AV itself only had a 50% chance to spawn initially. The obnoxious part was that the final link on the other Notorious Monster chain was Pandemonium Warden (he of the "players literally being hospitalized the fight took so long") was actually mortal and could be killed conventionally. MarquiseMindfang posted:People tried coordinating 18 Scholars to cast Modus Veritas at the same time to kill it in one hit. MV doubled the tick damage of a Scholar's DoT spell, but halved the duration. The strategy relied upon trying to time it with server ticks such that even the halved-many-times duration would tick once and only once and deal its entire HP in one shot. I think I knew people started using Alexander to beat Absolute Virtue, but again Alexander was released as a thing you could summon some Five Years after AV dropped and in the same era where the level cap was being raised above 75. Basically SE worked to make Absolute Virtue basically unkillable for as long as they drat well could.
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Jul 4, 2017 06:57
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krisslanza posted:You know, I think EverQuest did this? They had an unkillable boss, for plot reasons. If I'm thinking of the same story, then yes, that was a thing. And players killed it. Then the devs shut off the servers to figure out what happened. It also didn't drop loot.
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Jul 4, 2017 07:11
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I don't have anything in particular to contribute to discussion about Absolute Virtue in particular, but if you're interested in insane MMO stories I'd like to recommend the Wildstar thread over in MMO HMO. Wildstar was a MMO made by ~former World of Warcraft~ devs that was created with the intention of making an MMO for people who were idiots that were nostalgic for the old days of hardcore raiding. It's since turned into a more general thread for complaints about MMOs or discussion about really bad ones, but it's worth a skim through it or any of the previous incarnations. Wildstar Highlights:
Of course, this is ignoring things like the economy being absolutely screwed from day one because of a bug where people could sell things to ingame vendors for tons of money, which could then be turned into gametime (since it was a monthly subscription back then). Basically, the MMO genre has by and large committed suicide (link only tangentially related but I love that article). But that's the last I'll post about it since this is insanely derailed at this point. Wrist Watch fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jul 4, 2017 |
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Jul 4, 2017 10:10
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Wrist Watch posted:https://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/comments/2ts9rz/40m_world_first_avatus_enigma/co1zwrs/. quote:That attitude alone is why your game deserves to fail (and is). Not to mention all the other problems 
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Jul 4, 2017 10:31
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Oh wait, I forgot one of the best parts of that. DrTugjobs there is actually a goon. The subreddit was looking for more moderators sometime after that, and he applied for the position despite stating that he doesn't even play the game. He got the position regardless so they could have an "impartial" mod there, and is still a mod to this day. Ok, now I'm done derailing Wrist Watch fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Jul 4, 2017 |
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Jul 4, 2017 10:38
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SSNeoman posted:If I'm thinking of the same story, then yes, that was a thing. And players killed it. Then the devs shut off the servers to figure out what happened. It also didn't drop loot. If you're talking about the big rear end dragon you got the order of events wrong. What happened is that when the boss was down to like 23% the servers unexpectedly went down. The devs to this day swear up, down, and around that they did not deliberately shut down the servers to keep the boss from being killed, they claim it was just a SUPREMELY unfortunate accident. For what it's worth when the servers came back up people actually did go and promptly (well "promptly", it was an hours long affair) killed the boss. The strategy for that was was actually kind of simple: The boss instantly kills the crap out of whatever he touches so just have dozens and dozens of healers constantly spamming resurrection spells. As for Wildstar... Who boy... When Wildstar launched it was announced that it would take 6 months to complete their first raid tier. This turned out not to be a "we think it will be that long to reach and complete" but a "We are going to make sure it takes that long by hook or by crook". People who actually made it through attunement hell and go into the raids reported that some bosses were literally impossible, as in it was not actually mathematically possible to do enough damage in the time allotted to kill the bosses. The devs explicitly nerfed one item because it let people boost their DPS to kill a boss that was not supposed to be killable yet. Yes, the developers were completely candid that the boss that was killed was killed too early, that the hardcore raiders had to sit on their hands and check back week after week to see if Carbine had deigned to make their boss mortal. Raid groups also reported that bosses would change week from week, often drastically. They would go in and raid bosses could be completely different with absolutely no warning. The real reason Timetraveller's gif response to the world's first clear is so maddening is that Timetraveller was the dude in charge of the raid design. He was the guy who made them LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE in the first place, and when people perservered through his bullshit and waited until the raid was finally actually possible his response wasn't "good job" or "thanks for hanging in there", it was "git gud loser". And Wildstar has a very special fanbase. The Wildstar Subreddit for the longest time had a mod named Franbunny who absolutely REFUSED to have Wildstar go Free To Play, and so when the news broke it was doing that Franbunny put a clampdown on it. She deleted every post about it, including posts by the DEVELOPERS. Developers on Wildstar who actually showed their legitimate credentials were kicked off the Wildstar Subreddit because they were going to mention the payment model shift Franbunny absolutely REFUSED to accept that Wildstar would F2P. That's why DrTugjobs got in as Reddit mod, a person who said "I don't play this game and I don't even like it" was a remarkable step up from the previous reddit mod. And now I think I'm also done with talking about other bad games. Omnicrom fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jul 4, 2017 |
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Jul 4, 2017 17:52
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Commander Keene posted:Maybe not, but you probably have to fight six Wonder Guard Spiritombs or something equally bullshit to get the watering can. Finally, an in-game use for Simple Beam / Entrainment! I love Simple Beam, it's amazingly good at loving up strategies that revolve around Pokemon abilities, which most of these "hard" fangames seem to over-use. It's a pity Simple Beam isn't a TM move and that the fastest Simple Beam user is Linoone (followed by Genesect and Xatu), with only Genesect learning the move naturally. You have to breed it onto Linoone and Xatu. Entrainment's easier since Plusle and Minun learn in naturally and match Xatu's 95 speed, Dedenne is faster than Linoone (but potentially has a good ability you wouldn't want to pass on in Cheek Pouch), but Lopunny's the fastest and can pass around Klutz provided you don't want to use Mega Lopunny. I'm also a fan of Entrainment Araquanid. It's a surprisingly chufty tank and being able to pass Water Bubble to steel types or physical attackers that can't afford to eat burns in doubles is pretty nice. I'd love to see some super-boss's strat completely ruined this way, it'd make my day. Contrary + Overheat/Superpower/Etc? Enjoy your doubled stat drop, dropping your held item, or empowering a friend if it has the "Plus" ability! PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jul 4, 2017 |
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Jul 4, 2017 20:17
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PoptartsNinja posted:Finally, an in-game use for Simple Beam / Entrainment! Knowing the devs of Reborn, they'd probably remove that ability from the game or change it, or make their super bosses immune to it or something.
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Jul 4, 2017 20:22
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That's the beauty of it, they never do. Simple Beam / Entrainment are "trash" moves because their gimmick is extremely limited. They're so far below anyone's radar that, in Pokemon Showdown, when you obliterate someone's "amazing" doubles Wonder Guard / Justified / Contrary strategy with a single application of Simple Beam they tend to concede in shock. They're so rarely used I'm pretty sure there're plenty of people who have no idea what they even do.
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Jul 4, 2017 20:30
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My favorite Entrainment strategy is using it with Truant Durant. It just wrecks battle facilities, or at least it did in gen 5 & I think 6. Throw out entrainment on a pokemon, switch and set up (alternating between your move of choice and protect) because the AI doesn't realize it's better to switch out, then off it goes.
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Jul 4, 2017 21:18
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krisslanza posted:Knowing the devs of Reborn, they'd probably remove that ability from the game or change it, or make their super bosses immune to it or something.
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Jul 4, 2017 22:40
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Commander Keene posted:No, they'd just remove all Pokemon who have the ability to get either of those moves from any area or event prior to their "glorious" puzzle boss. Honestly, I'm amazed you even get an actual starter choice between every gen 1-6 starter. Under their current design philosophy, your starter choice should be Sunkern/Litleo/Goldeen.
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Jul 5, 2017 00:11
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the Orb of Zot posted:Honestly, I'm amazed you even get an actual starter choice between every gen 1-6 starter. * I've never played S/M, nor have I ever played (or considered playing) any Pokemon game competitively; I just know a few things through osmosis.
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Jul 5, 2017 00:29
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Commander Keene posted:Is Litleo honestly bad enough to get lumped in with those two? Doesn't Sunkern have the lowest BST in all of the games? Litleo is thoroughly below par that evolves too late to be worth putting up with and Pyroar is pretty mediocre. edit: As far as two stage fire-types go Pyroar is the third best but that's not a good indicator since most of them are either heavily leaning on one stat (Darmanititan, Magcargo, Flareon) or not designed to be heavy attackers (Ninetales). Pyroar is slightly physically sturdier and faster than Houndoom but he has garbage physical attack and his special attack is lower than Houndoom along with having a substandard movepool. So its main claim to fame is being better than Rapidash which is not exactly a big deal Testekill fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jul 5, 2017 |
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Jul 5, 2017 00:37
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Rainuwastaken posted:I'm honestly surprised they gave you a Happiny there. Isn't Blissey really good? It is a goddamn steel wall that disguised itself as a pokemon.
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Jul 5, 2017 07:50
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In a game where stats over 100 are considered good, and over 120 are considered great, Blissey has an HP stat of 255 and a Sp. Def. stat of 135. Given it also naturally learns recovery moves, it utterly laughs at any attempt to use any special attack on it. Of course, the flip side to this is that her Def. stat is 10, and it has got Normal typing. Don't let Fighting moves come anywhere near it. Its Atk is also horrendous, which means it's only real way of damaging stuff is normally Toxic and/or Seismic Toss. Amusingly Chansey can be even worse since it can use Eviolite, which provides a 50% boost to Def. & Sp. Def if the holder isn't a fully evolved Pokemon. Given Chansey has an HP stat of a whole 5 less than Blissey(250), and with Eviolite it hits Sp. Def of 157, you might see the absurdity. Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Jul 5, 2017 |
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Jul 5, 2017 08:07
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Same reason why people argued Dusclops with Eviolite was legitimately tankier than it's final evolution?
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Jul 5, 2017 08:35
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Skarmory+Blissey were the absolute worst part of GSC competitive way back in the day. Those two together with Curselax. 
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Jul 5, 2017 08:37
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Regalingualius posted:Same reason why people argued Dusclops with Eviolite was legitimately tankier than it's final evolution? Dr. Fetus posted:There's also Knock Off, which absolutely cripples both of them since it'll knock off the Eviolite with no way to get it back. Though it can be easy to see coming in some cases. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Jul 5, 2017 |
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Jul 5, 2017 09:31
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There's also Knock Off, which absolutely cripples both of them since it'll knock off the Eviolite with no way to get it back. Though it can be easy to see coming in some cases.
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Jul 5, 2017 09:34
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the Orb of Zot posted:Honestly, I'm amazed you even get an actual starter choice between every gen 1-6 starter. A better Water starter would be Luvdisc Perhaps Slugma for Fire?
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Jul 5, 2017 11:46
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Vinylshadow posted:Nah, Golden can learn Horn Drill Heatmor, Quilfish, and "We couldn't find any grass in the city so here's a Trubbish!" Heatmor is so bad it can't even beat an even-level 4x fire weak Durant, its theoretical prey. Edit: Meant Heatmor PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Jul 5, 2017 |
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Jul 5, 2017 15:04
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PoptartsNinja posted:Heatmor, Quilfish, and "We couldn't find any grass in the city so here's a Trubbish!" Trubbish may evolve into literal garbage, but said evolution is still better than the other two. I'd say Spinarak; Ariados is completely useless outside of Sticky Web. Alternatively, replace Heatmor with Larvesta; this game also loves having stuff that *eventually* becomes good but is garbage until evolution and takes ages to reach evolution. Larvesta is the second biggest example of that in the series, since it doesn't evolve until level 59 (first place being Cosmog, which cannot even attack until the second evolution at level 52, but that's a Gen 7 thing and not present in Reborn to begin with) Then every single boss fight can use Stealth Rock. Or terrain that causes all bug types to immediately faint upon switching in. the Orb of Zot fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jul 5, 2017 |
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Jul 5, 2017 16:23
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the Orb of Zot posted:Trubbish may evolve into literal garbage, but said evolution is still better than the other two. That's the joke.
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Jul 5, 2017 17:07
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Even as a joke, Trubbish is probably a better grass starter than Chikorita. Poor, poor Chikorita...
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Jul 5, 2017 17:31
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Its also probably better than non-Contrary Serperior. Serperior has a lot of dubious honors like 'lowest combined offensive stats' including the second lowest Atk/Sp. Atk of any starter. Or its incredibly awful movepool.
Zore fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jul 5, 2017 |
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Jul 5, 2017 18:22
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Rainuwastaken posted:Even as a joke, Trubbish is probably a better grass starter than Chikorita. Chikorita Master Race
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Jul 5, 2017 20:41
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Vinylshadow posted:Meganium that out-sped Lance's Garchomp How the gently caress.
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Jul 5, 2017 21:39
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Schubalts posted:How the gently caress. I just know that it's not something to be mocked or underestimated
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Jul 5, 2017 22:23
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All of the grass starters are bad. Even the good ones.
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Jul 6, 2017 00:26
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Super Jay Mann posted:All of the grass starters are bad. Even the good ones. Bulbasaur was drat good. Trivialized the first two gyms and still pretty handy for the third. One of the best grass types of its generation, barring a TM'd up exeggutor.
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Jul 6, 2017 01:01
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Bulbasaur in Gen 1 was 'easy mode'. Real Players took Charmander 
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Jul 6, 2017 01:12
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Malachite_Dragon posted:Bulbasaur in Gen 1 was 'easy mode'. Real Players took Charmander I had a butterfree on my first elite four team back then. On the other hand I also had a starmie with thunder wave, recover, psychic, and thunderbolt. So... jury's still out on my real player credentials.
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Jul 6, 2017 01:17
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Malachite_Dragon posted:Bulbasaur in Gen 1 was 'easy mode'. Real Players took Charmander Between Geodude & Onix's piss-poor Special stats and their lack of Ground/Rock moves at that level, beating Brock with Charmander really wasn't that much harder than with Squirtle/Bulbasaur.
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Jul 6, 2017 01:20
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Red Metal posted:Between Geodude & Onix's piss-poor Special stats and their lack of Ground/Rock moves at that level, beating Brock with Charmander really wasn't that much harder than with Squirtle/Bulbasaur. Brock, no. Misty, on the other hand  and that goddamn stupid CHEATING BASTARD STARMIE
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Jul 6, 2017 01:32
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Yeah, their resistance to Fire basically meant you went from one-shotting them with Bulbasaur and Squirtle to two- or three-shotting them with Charmander. It was kind of mind-blowing when I realized that a type-disadvantage Fire move could deal more damage than a type-advantage Fighting move. I used Butterfree leveled up to have Sleep Powder and Confusion against Brock, though. Anything a Psychic move couldn't one-shot was put to sleep.
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Jul 6, 2017 01:34
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Super Jay Mann posted:All of the grass starters are bad. Even the good ones. how can you not love an anklyosaur with a tree on its back
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Jul 6, 2017 02:12
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Was gonna say, Torterra is a great dino bro.
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Jul 6, 2017 02:35
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