Worst Summon ??

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Vynd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kel:
Much like, in other threads, where invicible != unbalanced...

Worst summon != Useless.

- Kel

Yes, I concur! Best of/Worst of lists are a time honored American pastime! There's no reason I can see why people shouldn't voice their opinions about which summons are the worst.

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The symbol = means equal. The symbol != is programmer-speak for not-equal.

My real problem with the conversation is that there is never a "best" or a "worst". In any conversation on any subject. Especially in something that allows this much diference of opinion.

Maybe if it was "worst for combat" or "worst for Ermor" or "worst for cost" then it would be a debate. But a flat "worst" or "best" is going to be wrong (for someone, and right for others)

[ May 18, 2004, 17:41: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Vynd]

Hmm, well now that I look at it again I'm not sure what Kel was trying to say with "invincible != unbalanced." A sarcastic comment, perhaps. But I certainly understood the "worst != useless" to mean "worst does not equal useless." And that's the part I was agreeing with. Just because some folks think that that Corpse Man, or some Soulless, is the worst summon in the game doesn't necessarily mean they are saying it is useless. So why come down on us for registering our opinions?

I totally agree with you Gandalf that there is no such thing as an absolute "Best" or "Worst." Best and Worst are subjective terms. But for this very reason I took the question of "Worst summon?" to be a subjective one, and I think most everyone else did too. Is there something inherently wrong with our registering subjective opinions, on anything? Personally, I think not.

[ May 19, 2004, 00:23: Message edited by: Vynd ]

[HotNifeThruButr]

I'd say something, but then I'd be echoing Potatoman.

BTW, I've never actually used Celestial Servants. I mean, they might be good with an armor buff, but I'll be damned if anything but my Pretender can actually summon them without Emps.

[Kel]

Originally posted by Vynd:
Hmm, well now that I look at it again I'm not sure what Kel was trying to say with "invincible != unbalanced." A sarcastic comment, perhaps.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I shouldn't have used programmer speak, that was my mistake. Doing it for a living, you forget where the line is sometimes I apologize for any confusion.

Originally posted by Vynd:

Gandalf may be right that no summon is useless, but some are definitely better than others.

That's exactly what I meant. I was also trying to tie it to other threads where people went to similar extremes in saying something was balanced because there were possible ways to defeat it.

I actually have the total opposite view of Gandalf in that I think something is pretty much always unbalanced, something is always strongest and something is always weakest. I think that's true of simple games and the more 'deep' the game, the more likely it is to be true. That doesn't mean it's totally broken or even that anything is worth the effort to change. It's just the nature of the beast.

Some things may be more useful in different situations and I don't think any spell is useless but if you were to assign a number to 4 facets of a spell, 1) How often it is useful, 2) How strong it is when it is useful and 3) How strong it is when it isn't really it's prime time and 4) the cost....I think it would be clear that some spells are stronger, *overall*, taking all factors into account, than others.

You could point out how you can develop whole strategies around some spell that everyone thinks is the worst...and you might be able to make that strategy workable...and that's always fun...but it can still be the worst spell. It's just that you have developed a workable strategy that is focused around the worst spell

- Kel

[ May 19, 2004, 02:09: Message edited by: Kel ]

[Zapmeister]

I actually have the total opposite view of Gandalf in that I think something is pretty much always unbalanced, something is always strongest and something is always weakest. I think that's true of simple games and the more 'deep' the game, the more likely it is to be true. That doesn't mean it's totally broken or even that anything is worth the effort to change. It's just the nature of the beast.

Very well put, Kel, and also my view, although I've never found such excellent words to express it.

A background noise of small imbalances is not only not a problem, it's also inevitable and part of the colour of the game. Balance issues are the "spikes" that stand out against this backgound noise, and they are only a problem for people (like me) that care about the diversity of strategies that are available to people that play to win.

If there's a few balance spikes in the game, then it doesn't take long before they get heavily used, reducing diversity. As a game designer from way back, my goal has always been to remove the spikes, leaving a more-or-less homogenous, and therefore diverse, set of strategies available to the people that play to win.

[Gandalf Parker]

Of course there is a best and a worst. But that doesnt mean its an imbalance. In some games that would be true if the balance is done by making everything fairly matched. But if a game uses rock-paper-scissors balancing then a worst or best in each Category doesnt mean it needs changed.

(oh yeah and Ive been balancing game items in mmogs for over a decade.)

[ May 19, 2004, 02:48: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Zapmeister]

But if a game uses rock-paper-scissors balancing then a worst or best in each Category doesnt mean it needs changed.

Sure. But what we (or at least I) have been talking about is the game of rock-paper-scissors-atombomb in which rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock and the atombomb beats everything.

The atombomb is a balance spike that should be removed to make the game more interesting.