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JackSplater
Nov 20, 2014

Metal Coat? It's already active?!
Yeah, Nightmare and the campaigns based on it all have a higher difficulty than the base game. Not enough to make it difficult on lower difficulties, but enough that it's easy to notice.

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Szarrukin
Sep 29, 2021
Fortunately, stuff added by Wings of Mengsk is so powerful that it's usually enough to balance insane Nightmare difficulty. I would say that there are only three or four mission that are too hard (in the "there's one correct way to play this mission, try any other and get hosed" way) and one mission that is absolutely loving bonkers but luckily it's skippable.

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


Do the Co-Op Commander Campaign Mods include Prestiges? Because hoo boy there are some commanders that I absolutely do not want to play without one.

RevolverDivider
Nov 12, 2016

Yeah I was a little wary about the Moebius mod due to it being set to Nightmare when I played it but it felt very fair as long as I leveraged the tools the game gave me.

Cradok
Sep 28, 2013

Warmachine posted:

Even when it gets the scale wrong it's hosed up in other ways. 1,000 psykers a day to feed Big E over 10,000 years. 365.25 * 10,000 * 1,000 is only 3.6 billion. Honestly, the blood for the Golden Throne is loving PENNIES.

This one made me laugh the first time I worked it out. Like, even if you transposed that to present day, 1000 people a day between 8000 BCE and now, it's only 3% of the population over that time. More people are dying of Covid still than are sacrificed to the Astronomicon. It's one of my favourite statistics that just don't seem right, along with 1 million/1 billion seconds, and the birthday problem.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Cradok posted:

This one made me laugh the first time I worked it out. Like, even if you transposed that to present day, 1000 people a day between 8000 BCE and now, it's only 3% of the population over that time. More people are dying of Covid still than are sacrificed to the Astronomicon. It's one of my favourite statistics that just don't seem right, along with 1 million/1 billion seconds, and the birthday problem.

Unrelated to anything, but I used a modification of the birthday problem to do a card trick at a bar and get some free drinks once. Turns out knowing a bit of math is impressive and when applied correctly can even entertain people!

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Cradok posted:

This one made me laugh the first time I worked it out. Like, even if you transposed that to present day, 1000 people a day between 8000 BCE and now, it's only 3% of the population over that time. More people are dying of Covid still than are sacrificed to the Astronomicon. It's one of my favourite statistics that just don't seem right, along with 1 million/1 billion seconds, and the birthday problem.

My favorite example is from the Karl Urban Judge Dredd movie when they established the murder rate that lead to the creation of the Judges. Thing is, if you take the listed number of murders and the listed population of MegaCity One, you actually wind up with a lower murder rate per capita than most metropolitan areas in the present day. :v:

I remain unsure whether that was an intentional part of the satire or someone just not doing the math.

Deformed Church
May 12, 2012

5'5", IQ 81


RevolverDivider posted:

Yeah I was a little wary about the Moebius mod due to it being set to Nightmare when I played it but it felt very fair as long as I leveraged the tools the game gave me.

Yeah the thing with co-op commanders is that they're broadly insanely powerful compared to what you have in the campaign or skirmish. Any mod that didn't make the game more difficult would be a cakewalk, and nightmare is a pretty good base for upping the difficulty and keeping it engaging.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Deformed Church posted:

Yeah the thing with co-op commanders is that they're broadly insanely powerful compared to what you have in the campaign or skirmish. Any mod that didn't make the game more difficult would be a cakewalk, and nightmare is a pretty good base for upping the difficulty and keeping it engaging.

Honestly the co-op commanders are way more fun than they look like they should be. I had my doubts when I was first trying co-op, but after a while the variety and 'wow cool powers' the mode provided really won me over.

I should try a campaign mod at some point when I come back around to wanting to play again. (I'm a few games deep into my ADHD hyperfocus cycle right now, so realistically I won't be touching SC2 again for at least a couple months.)

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Cradok posted:

This one made me laugh the first time I worked it out. Like, even if you transposed that to present day, 1000 people a day between 8000 BCE and now, it's only 3% of the population over that time. More people are dying of Covid still than are sacrificed to the Astronomicon. It's one of my favourite statistics that just don't seem right, along with 1 million/1 billion seconds, and the birthday problem.

But it was surely a much larger percentage of the psyker population.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Cythereal posted:

My favorite example is from the Karl Urban Judge Dredd movie when they established the murder rate that lead to the creation of the Judges. Thing is, if you take the listed number of murders and the listed population of MegaCity One, you actually wind up with a lower murder rate per capita than most metropolitan areas in the present day. :v:

I remain unsure whether that was an intentional part of the satire or someone just not doing the math.

Considering that the Karl Urban Dredd movie completely missed... almost everything else about the setting and neglected to give it any of its interesting visual trappings outside of giving Dredd his fancy uniform, I'm going to assume they just did not get it.

Szarrukin
Sep 29, 2021

PurpleXVI posted:

Karl Urban Dredd movie completely missed... almost everything else about the setting

and that's just one of the reasons why it was so good

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

Szarrukin posted:

and that's just one of the reasons why it was so good

they did get the single most important bit of the setting right, in that Dredd himself is the only person in the entire world who doesn't see anything fundamentally broken about the world around him. he is absolutely, barkingly, pants-shittingly insane, but fortunately for him, the world is exactly what his particular brand of madness requires in order to shine.

for his trainee, everything she knew about the world has been changed over the course of a nightmarish day, forging her into whatever she will be afterwards. for the inhabitants of the tower it was a hellish explosion of violence they'll be rebuilding from for months if not years. for Dredd, it was a drug bust. perps were uncooperative.

it only kept the darker jokes around, but they were delivered successfully

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Torrannor posted:

But it was surely a much larger percentage of the psyker population.

Psykers are apparently 1 for every 1 million. Imperium population is reckoned to be 4-8 QUADRILLION. If you use those numbers to estimate births per day, you're still in the realm of "it's a rounding error." Like, pick 1,000 out of the 256 billion psykers born today.

Jedi have this same problem in Star Wars, actually. The first number I find is 0.0081% of the galactic population is force sensitive. The next number I find is 100 quadrillion sentient beings in the galaxy. That's 810 trillionforce sensitives.

People REALLY aren't build for dealing with astronomical and quantum scales.

edit number i don't remember: I think. I'm not built for large numbers either and all the zeroes are blending together.

Warmachine fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Apr 13, 2024

bladededge
Sep 17, 2017

im sorry every one. the throne of heroes ran out of new heroic spirits so the grail had to summon existing ones in swimsuits instead

Patrick Spens posted:

A Deepness in the Sky has a phenomenal use of scale...

After reading this post I looked this book up, liked what I saw, and I have a copy on the way to me now, thank you. I really need to dive into Vernor Vinge more, his only book I've read is the "True Names" short story collection.

PurpleXVI posted:

Considering that the Karl Urban Dredd movie completely missed... almost everything else about the setting and neglected to give it any of its interesting visual trappings outside of giving Dredd his fancy uniform, I'm going to assume they just did not get it.

As someone who has actually read every single issue of 2000 A.D. from #1 to around the year 2004, and gosh darn it I need to rationalize all that time I spent doing that, Imma argue with you here. That movie was brilliant, and it's partially because of the fact they stripped out most of the overtly goofy satire inherent to Dredd's world, leaving only the darkest of the dark humor behind. There's plenty of jokes, but they're all along the lines of "haha, I'm laughing because I feel deeply uncomfortable right now". The people making that movie loved Dredd and got what's great about the comic. Too bad plans for the followup TV series fell through, those producers would have killed the America story arc.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

This entire post about Dredd

Yes, exactly.

RevolverDivider posted:

Yeah I was a little wary about the Moebius mod due to it being set to Nightmare when I played it but it felt very fair as long as I leveraged the tools the game gave me.

People have been mentioning Moebius mod on and off for basically the entirety of this thread. I think this weekend I need to go see what the fuss is about.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

they did get the single most important bit of the setting right, in that Dredd himself is the only person in the entire world who doesn't see anything fundamentally broken about the world around him. he is absolutely, barkingly, pants-shittingly insane, but fortunately for him, the world is exactly what his particular brand of madness requires in order to shine.

See, I disagree with this. Dredd harbors plenty of doubts about his world and his role in it as the stories go on, he even condemns himself to the Long Walk for his role in suppressing pro-democracy protests(and before doing so, argues with the council of judges that they should allow the people to have elections, rather than suppressing their demands). I feel that Dredd recognizes the hosed upness of the world around him better than a lot of people around him, in part because he's lived through a lot of world-defining events, and has lost friends and clone family to them.

He absolutely started out the comics as just the straight dark comedy guy, but he's developed some depth since then.

habeasdorkus
Nov 3, 2013

Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.

Warmachine posted:

Psykers are apparently 1 for every 1 million. Imperium population is reckoned to be 4-8 QUADRILLION. If you use those numbers to estimate births per day, you're still in the realm of "it's a rounding error." Like, pick 1,000 out of the 256 billion psykers born today.

Jedi have this same problem in Star Wars, actually. The first number I find is 0.0081% of the galactic population is force sensitive. The next number I find is 100 quadrillion sentient beings in the galaxy. That's 810 trillionforce sensitives.

People REALLY aren't build for dealing with astronomical and quantum scales.

edit number i don't remember: I think. I'm not built for large numbers either and all the zeroes are blending together.

Yeah, Holy Terra has trillions of people on it. You can keep the Astronomicon and the Golden Throne stocked with just the psykers born in one of the regions of the Palace.

Ultiville
Jan 14, 2005

The law protects no one unless it binds everyone, binds no one unless it protects everyone.

On the one hand the 40k setting is deeply dumb in lots of ways, and I'm sure the fiction at least sometimes claims the thousand psykers a day has some practical or logistical difficulty.

On the other hand I sort of feel like the deliberate daily murder of a thousand people in order to maintain a fascist empire being downplayed because it is a tiny percentage of the population of that empire is pretty well in keeping with the (seemingly extremely occasional) cases where 40k actually manages some decent satire.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Ultiville posted:

On the one hand the 40k setting is deeply dumb in lots of ways, and I'm sure the fiction at least sometimes claims the thousand psykers a day has some practical or logistical difficulty.

On the other hand I sort of feel like the deliberate daily murder of a thousand people in order to maintain a fascist empire being downplayed because it is a tiny percentage of the population of that empire is pretty well in keeping with the (seemingly extremely occasional) cases where 40k actually manages some decent satire.

It's a multi-layer cake of awful. One layer is they chose to do it. The other layer is the fact that the daily human sacrifice wouldn't be noticed if no one said anything.

titty_baby_
Nov 11, 2015

So what's up with Jim again?

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Space 2: Conviction

Video: Conviction


This mission holds the last of Kerrigan's levels, so she'll be at full power after this.

It's actually really annoying, because if we went for the Space missions first those extra 11 levels would have given us access to Kerrigan's ult by Phantoms of the Void. Going Skygeirr -> Space means we only have them for the final three missions.









There's no way to predict where it will jump next.

They've got to resupply sometime.

Exactly. We know the ship will be at the Atlas station for thirty-two minutes tomorrow.

Atlas will send a tanker out to the Moros, but when the fuelling's done, it's gone.



You can see Tosh in the background there. Naturally, this bit gets skipped if we sided with Nova in Wings.



Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's it from Tosh. He will never be seen again.



I'm not kidding. He hosed off in the few seconds the camera was on Kerrigan.











I honestly feel sorry for the poor bastards on that ship.



There's no way they're ready to handle a Leviathan ambush.











Our sensors are tracking you. I'll relay any tactical information I can. Be careful, Kerrigan. My father will have made every precaution to ensure no one reaches Commander Raynor.

He's not prepared for me.



Both Space missions are no-build missions, making it the shortest chain in Heart both mission-wise and gameplay-wise.

There's also a couple of lines that'll play if you just stand here and avoid starting a fight for a bit.

one minute wait posted:

:kingsley: Did anyone else hear that?

:blastu: I ain't hear a thing. Probably just a rat.

:eng101: A rat?

:supaburn: Man, this is a spaceship. Ain't no rats in space!

:blastu: Technically, everything's in space.

:kingsley: I swear, I will burn you alive. Wouldn't even be a crime...

:) You two, put a sock in it.

minute and a half wait posted:

:eng101: Radio says the Queen of Blades is on the ship.

:dumb: Can't be. If she was here, we'd be dead already.

:eng101: That's reassuring.

two and a half minute wait posted:

:eng101: Uh, shouldn't something be happening?

:shepface: drat zerg are toying with us! Come out and fight!





Nydus Worms will occasionally burst through a wall and deliver some reinforcements.







Worms will also show up as background things to better show off just how utterly hosed this ship is.



You know what to do, men.

And of course Mengsk hops on the intercom as soon as Kerrigan shows up.



Prisoners can be found here and there.

Hey, what do you think the odds are of Kerrigan busting them out while she's here?



Oh wait she'll just stroll right past them because the only person worth any effort is her TWUE WUV.





Oh look, Infestors!







Kerrigan is locked into zapping the door open for this next bit.







There's a locked door at each corner, each opens one by one.











Hey, free tanks!







My army now significantly bigger than it was a few minutes ago, I move on.





And there's the first.





Kerrigan's solution?



It's your call.

Even more atrocities.

Her victims?



The prisoners.



Like, at least at Skygeirr everyone there actively worked for the Dominion! Kerrigan is doing this to bystanders while they cower in fear!



And this is Mengsk we're dealing with, so you know there's a good chance some of the prisoners here were arrested for the sole crime of speaking out against him a bit too loudly!



But no, Kerrigan is here for Jim and Jim only. Everyone else can get hosed.







Also the creep from these Virophages is the only reason I swapped to Malignant Creep, since it's the only passive on that tier that has any uptime here.







A cutscene starts as I approach the end of this floor.







The Thor, and only the Thor, starts blasting the coupling.



If it gets destroyed, the mission fails.





No it isn't.



There's a glitch you can do here by destroying the coupling yourself just as the cutscene starts. Timing it right will have the cutscene interupt the mission failure check, and mess with the lighting for the rest of the mission.









Okay I get that the intent here is to have Mengsk go 'look what you made me do :argh:' while he hits the self-destruct button himself.

But let's be real here, Kerrigan would happily kill everyone on this ship with her own two hands if it meant saving Jim.





You have to save Jim! We're running out of time!





There's another glitch you can do here by having Kerrigan use Leaping Strike right as that cutscene starts. Doing so will break the trigger that moves her to this new map, letting her walk in from out of bounds and skip the majority of this segment.





I have five minutes to make it to Jim before the ship explodes.



I really, really feel bad for these guys. First they get attacked by Kerrigan, then Mengsk blows the ship so they're still dead even if they manage the 1 in a billion chance of actually killing her.



There's actually an important preview here for something that will be relevant later.



On top of being able to use Armory upgrades, Mengsk also has access to his own version of mercenary units. They aren't one to one with what we got in Wings (his Siege Tanks don't get that campaign exclusive damage buff, thankfully), but they're still a cut above what you're used to.



Even their description points out that they're the best of the best.







These ones don't even try to fight me. They just try to run.



The prisoners decide to kick off a riot.

In particular, the guy saying this dies immediately after his first sentence, which is really funny to me.



Of course, the prisoners have no weapons and there's a bunch of armed guards next to them. It goes about as well as you'd expect.





drat I wonder what this side path leads to.



Oh look, the second bonus.



Roger that. Thank you, Kerrigan.







One last batch of guards stands between Kerrigan and her TWUE WUV.





An Ultralisk spawns in directly on top of one of their tanks.





This isn't a hard mission, even if you don't steal every bit of armor the Dominion throws at you.









Hold on, Jim, I'm almost there.





We cut to Jim in his cell.



Muffled gunfire can be heard outside.



Some screams are heard.





And the cell door is blown clean off its hinges.





Jim is disoriented from the blast, with the audio being drowned out by ringing.



He thinks he's seeing Kerrigan as she was.







Then his vision clears up.



You know what the funny thing is? I don't think Jim ever learns that Zeratul is the reason why Kerrigan re-zerg'd herself.



And Kerrigan is blatantly rewriting history here! She had zero clue Jim was alive when she went to Zerus, her only goal was making it easier to get revenge on Mengsk!







1) Holy poo poo he actually remembered Fenix!

2) Yet again, she butchered billions. With a B. This was established at the very start of Wings.





Now, the idea here is that Kerrigan is so remorseful over what she's done that she's willingly putting her life in Jim's hands.



There's just one problem.



Jim knows the prophecy.



He knows that if he pulls the trigger, the universe ends.



Really, this just reinforces the fact that Kerrigan, the destined savior of all that is and ever will be, can never be made to answer for her crimes.









So Jim has no choice but to empty the gun into the wall.















Conviction - Complete the "Conviction" mission in the Heart of the Swarm campaign.

Staying Alive - Prevent Kerrigan’s life from dropping below 50% in the “Conviction” mission.

Saturday Night Fever - Reach the Prison Deck with Kerrigan in less than 8 minutes in the “Conviction” mission on Normal difficulty.

Fast Break - Complete the “Conviction” mission in less than 10 minutes on Hard difficulty.

Bad Blood - Kill 15 enemy units with Parasitic Dominated Terran units in the "Conviction" mission on Normal difficulty.

BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Apr 13, 2024

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

If anyone thinks they are in fact done, I've got important news - did you know the word gullible isn't actually listed in the Merriam Webster dictionary? Go ahead and look it up to confirm for yourself!

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.

"Conviction" indeed

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


Kerrigan is either absurdly, ridiculously stupid to have forgotten the prophecy that Zeratul specifically showed up to tell her about, or she's viciously and horrifically manipulative to gaslight Raynor this hard.

In case you were worried about it being the latter, the former gets confirmed immediately.

Drakenel
Dec 2, 2008

The glow is a guide, my friend. Though it falls to you to avert catastrophe, you will never fight alone.
Aw, kind of hoped you'd show what happens when you don't immediately attack at the start of this mission. As usual, the rank and file have the most charm out of the entire cast.

Speaking of said cast, woof. This is clearly one of those 'the writers wanted a dramatic moment, and didn't give a single thought to the implications or logic required to get there.'

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Drakenel posted:

Aw, kind of hoped you'd show what happens when you don't immediately attack at the start of this mission. As usual, the rank and file have the most charm out of the entire cast.

Knew I forgot something. Added that in.

For those who don't want to look back, waiting at the very start of the mission for a few minutes results in:

one minute wait posted:

:kingsley: Did anyone else hear that?

:blastu: I ain't hear a thing. Probably just a rat.

:eng101: A rat?

:supaburn: Man, this is a spaceship. Ain't no rats in space!

:blastu: Technically, everything's in space.

:kingsley: I swear, I will burn you alive. Wouldn't even be a crime...

:) You two, put a sock in it.

minute and a half wait posted:

:eng101: Radio says the Queen of Blades is on the ship.

:dumb: Can't be. If she was here, we'd be dead already.

:eng101: That's reassuring.

two and a half minute wait posted:

:eng101: Uh, shouldn't something be happening?

:shepface: drat zerg are toying with us! Come out and fight!

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

why does Raynor have a gun

DTurtle
Apr 10, 2011


Lt. Danger posted:

why does Raynor have a gun
Came to ask this.

Did Kerrigan hand it to him?

In addition, this whole cutscene once again shows that Blizzard really didn't have anyone responsible for continuity and making sure that everything fits together clearly and correctly. The story is so inconsistent with regards to ... everything.

DTurtle fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Apr 13, 2024

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Easier to tell in the cinematic itself but yes, Kerrigan brought a gun with her entirely to give Jimmy a chance to kill her.

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

where, uh... where was she keeping it?

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Why is it a loss condition if the prison deck is jettisoned anyway? The leviathan is clearly shown being able to tentacle worm into it. Oh no, it's very slowly drifting away!

Gun Jam
Apr 11, 2015
Good think the guards/Mengsk didn't decide to just shoot Raynor in the head the moment the swarm began its assault.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
You know, stuff like the option to infest the prisoners or various bystanders to add more power could be some sort of interesting moral choice in another game, where you're constantly tempted with gameplay advantages to do bad things, but something turns out different if you don't. Like Kerrigan can prove herself to Horner and Valerian, or she can just force them with parasites. She can release the Protoss Lady from the start whom I forget, or use her as a trojan horse to get a leg up against her enemies. And ultimately in the final mission that could change something like, do you get more wormy zergy buddies, or do, say, the Terrans or Protoss show up to give you a hand because you've proven that you're not a single-minded psychopath.

It feels like such a simple slam dunk to make the players' participation and choices matter, you know, in the hands of competent writers and devs.

Aeble
Oct 21, 2010


Warmachine posted:

Unrelated to anything, but I used a modification of the birthday problem to do a card trick at a bar and get some free drinks once. Turns out knowing a bit of math is impressive and when applied correctly can even entertain people!

How did you go about it, if you don't mind me asking?

I tried for a while to see if I could concoct a trick using the Monty Hall problem or Bertrand's Box, but didn't quite work out anything satisfactory.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013

PurpleXVI posted:

You know, stuff like the option to infest the prisoners or various bystanders to add more power could be some sort of interesting moral choice in another game, where you're constantly tempted with gameplay advantages to do bad things, but something turns out different if you don't. Like Kerrigan can prove herself to Horner and Valerian, or she can just force them with parasites. She can release the Protoss Lady from the start whom I forget, or use her as a trojan horse to get a leg up against her enemies. And ultimately in the final mission that could change something like, do you get more wormy zergy buddies, or do, say, the Terrans or Protoss show up to give you a hand because you've proven that you're not a single-minded psychopath.

It feels like such a simple slam dunk to make the players' participation and choices matter, you know, in the hands of competent writers and devs.

I mean, on the one hand yes: on the other hand, you'd have to structure large parts of the third game in a planned trilogy around the outcome of these choices, which is an assload of work.

bladededge
Sep 17, 2017

im sorry every one. the throne of heroes ran out of new heroic spirits so the grail had to summon existing ones in swimsuits instead
Kerrigan using the bodies of dominion prisoners as throwaway meat shields for a couple seconds worth of advantage is actually 100% on point for both her SC1 and SC2 personalities. That's fine. This is fine.

Valerian the prettyboy hero should probably have had an opinion on his ally the glowing alien murderlady doing it though.

bladededge fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Apr 13, 2024

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

NewMars posted:

I mean, on the one hand yes: on the other hand, you'd have to structure large parts of the third game in a planned trilogy around the outcome of these choices, which is an assload of work.

Yeah, and you can see that they already pulled back from the kind of optional mission choices Wings had. Which I think is a good choice there, it really just meant that you don't get to play all of the missions that got made in your way through a campaign.

Honestly, I'm on board with Kerrigan being a single-minded villain hero. Her not caring about the people on this ship any more than Mengsk does suits her. It even suits the cutscene at the end where Raynor is disgusted with her. If they'd settled on this characterisation the whole time the campaign as a whole would have been much better written.

Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Apr 13, 2024

BlazetheInferno
Jun 6, 2015
As an aside, the "Tosh has volunteered to-" scene isn't quite skipped, it's simply replaced with an offer to have one of their Ghost operatives infiltrate instead.

But yeah no, that's Jim's gun, not one Sarah brought. The same one he swore to kill Arcturus with. Jim's surrounded by elite guards in Power Armor and literal TANKS. What's he gonna do with one piddly little pistol? At most he can shoot himself... at which point, Arcturus can choose not to reveal it to Kerrigan until it would cause her the most anguish. Like if she somehow did find where Jim's being held... wait to let her find out when she finds him dead in his cell.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Aeble posted:

How did you go about it, if you don't mind me asking?

I tried for a while to see if I could concoct a trick using the Monty Hall problem or Bertrand's Box, but didn't quite work out anything satisfactory.

It's just gambling with an edge. The Birthday Problem demonstrates how quickly a probability can rise, and the same principle can be applied to other 'coincidences.'

You know how many people are in your 'player group,' and you know there are 26 letters in the alphabet. As such, n = 26 and k = the number of participants. Have everyone write a letter on a card and keep it secret while you do the math on the probability, and make your guess based on the calculation. This of course works best with a k large enough that you have a high probability of getting a pair of letters. Generally if you have more than 7 people playing, you have a greater than 50% chance of having two of the same letter selected.

I want to say when I did this there were 8 people at the bar with me including the bartender and the owner, so I had around a 68% chance of being right, and I was. Two people wrote the letter Q on their cards. This of course assumes uniform distribution just like the original Birthday Problem, and doesn't account for people trying to game the system by picking 'uncommon' letters (much like the Birthday Problem doesn't account for real life birth patterns).

In short, knowing is half the battle, and knowing how probability works is the first step to creating an edge when gambling. Which is ultimately why I don't play the lottery or gamble in casinos :v:

NewMars posted:

I mean, on the one hand yes: on the other hand, you'd have to structure large parts of the third game in a planned trilogy around the outcome of these choices, which is an assload of work.

This is why I'm wont to go on screeds about player choice in games whenever it comes up. Length, Reactivity, Budget. Pick two.

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Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




Poil posted:

Why is it a loss condition if the prison deck is jettisoned anyway? The leviathan is clearly shown being able to tentacle worm into it. Oh no, it's very slowly drifting away!

I'm going to go ahead and guess that it would have also instantly lost any life support functions.

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