[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Is it? As you put it so eloquently "I'm unconvinced." I'm also unconvinced of the zealous crusade to change the game in sweeping fashion by people lacking enough experiance to have a good judge of the question.

I have made a case Jasper and two sentence responses telling me you find it unconvincing and want more arguments are . . ."unconvincing." So you are "unconvinced" *shrugs* so I'm "unconvinced." And? Doesn't read like a discussion to me?

I did point out why I was unconvinced -- that I would need to see some specific example. Without pinning down a specfic context there's simply too much subjectivity for much debate.

I have seen your race designs, and don't see the problem you mention. Sure, you couldn't max out the bless effects quite as much if order and misfortune were balanced, but then other races couldn't take advantage of them either. I do not see how the general concept your're aiming for would be impossible.

What I do see is that any design that uses Turmoil or Luck simply sucks. IMHO this greatly reduces variety -- much more so than the degree to which one can max out bless effects.

If you don't read the race designs I put up so don't know why they only just have enough points to work then thats your issue. I had the impression that my Posts on race design were getting little attention. Sorta funny as I was reading how one couldn't get decent race designs out of bless effects when I first came to this forum and when I post some decent bless race designs the complainers don't seem to notice or be interested in discussing the question - though some are keen on changes which would wipe out my school of race design. To this you are "unmoved and unconvinced." Cheers mate.

The lack of a response is an answer of sorts. You made some good points, and left doubt in my mind. I'm still not sure bless effects are worth it, but I'm no longer so sure they can't be strong. I'm left with no opinion, and so nothing to post on the issue.

It doesn't help that I don't really care to play the kind of explosive start scenarios where strong blessings would be most usefull. I prefer an already established start, which dampens the effects of capitol only troops.

Fortunately for me I'm happy with the general thrust of Illwinters approach and the over enthusiatic attempts to rebalence fundamental game features are unlikely to be taken on. That being the case I think its time to get back to posting on interesting race designs and realistic options to fix minor problems. If I'm lucky people will look up from the balence debate long enough to make comment. I never did hear wether people thought the data I put together on patrolling was right - why? People were busy with the great balence debate and as they had already written off patrolling as useless why respond to someone trying to make something of it?

I missed whatever you had to say about patrolling, and don't really see much to discuss about it to be honest. Constantly patrolling seems like a mistake to me, but if you're desperate quick cash may help. If there's anything more to it, I just don't see it.

Sorry Jasper for being grumpy but after working hard to clear up the misunderstanding with Zen your "unconvincing" pose is a bit on the nose.

I wrote my response before seeing what Zen had posted...

I left this group the first time I joined it because it struck me I was wasting my time. I just got drawn into largely pointless game balence debates and I get little feedback on my race design Posts - though I appreciate what I do get. When I have asked questions people don't even answer. Sure its no big deal but nobody looked up from the game balence debate to tell me the details I asked about Tien Chi - to busy doing important things.

I find debate about game balance interesting in it's own right, so I guess our mileage varies. I don't really care much whether my ideas get implemented, but find that debating game balance brings me to a finer understanding of how the game works and improves my play. For example, I'm entirely willing to be convinced that Order/Turmoil isn't a far better buy than any other combination of scales; most of the point for me posting such opinions is to offer a chance for others to poke holes in them.

I'm not sure what questions you had about Tien Chi that weren't answered, otherwise I'd try to help you out... As far as I can tell standard Tien Chi is only worth playing if Magic Duel is Banned, and there's really not much more to it. The turmoil requiring variants are even worse, as they can't take advantage of Order/Misfortune.