exogen

Well sure, in order to function in our lives we don't need to know what the fundimental reality is. However, wouldn't we be in a much better position practically if we knew this? I personally think so. In any event, what is wrong with the idea of genuine knowledge in addtion to practicality. Nah, its not stupid. Think about the argument between me, you and Noob. All of us were confused mainly int he VD thread, I think it is fair to say, because we had not yet clarified our definitions which were directly pertinent to the discussion. So when you are opperating on falacious or unclear assumptions, shit can go very wrong very fast, and unless we look at that, no one will see. Can you elaborate on this? How does this weigh in on the issue?

Ok Rach, I see what you mean. I was on the level with what you were saying, minus the bad player part of it. I think what your saying is partially correct but partially mistaken. Its not so much the issue of impatience as it is an unwilingness to recognise the other tactic as part of the whole of the game. however, this has been MUCH MUCH less of a problem for me at this point, so much to the point now where it isn't even where I am as a player. Now my issues I am working on are more about not getting upset when the game isn't going my way, which is far far more general. I think your assesment of me was based on old information. I have evolved recently by alot. Now to adress TM. Yeah my bad for my part of this. Its just we have been having so much fun!! Let me try to bring it back to VD, if I can lol One thing I think is cool about VD is that they changed the graphics engine and now I can see better on the game!!

Well just to clarify further, I know the heat system is skillfull insofaras you need to make in game decisions so you don't overheat. Experts wont overheat, noobs will, hence the obvious demonstration of skill. I was refering to the skill set of manuvers and all that shit, which is where I forcus my attention, because that is the shit that I find the most fun.

Right, it would seem the buck has to stop some where, but where? And what is it? Is it that we just haven't got that far, or is the problem mistaken to begin with? See, I fall on the side of those that think the question is in error and that is why we can't ever get an answer, even in theory. Ever notice how no one can actully give even a hypothetical answer that can be reduced and broken down in the ways I outlined above, or in other ways? That should tell you something that it isn't merely our ignorance of the fundimental constituents of matter, but something fundimentally wrong with how we are approaching this question.

PD, I'm not saying they aren't skills bro, perhaps I was unclear. I can see how when I compared the heat system to "skills" it might have seemed like I was making the heat system unskilled by comparison. This was not my intention. I just don't like that mechanics for the reasons I gave, mainly I don't think you should lose life unless you get hit by projectiles. Rach, perhaps your analysis has not gone deep enough bro. Have you played me at street fighter? I am well aware that you need to sometimes let people come to you. I run the clock in SF when the need arises. I see things wholisticly, but that does not mean that just because I recognise the need to see the whole that I don't enjoy some of the parts more than others. Those two notions are not in contradiction with one another. I know the portrait you wish you paint, but your wrong on this one. And if you played me in SF you would realise very quick by how I would read you, that your assumptions were mistaken. Edit: I just thought, now people are going to say that I'm telling people they are wrong again and how I know it all (not you rach). So let me add a disclaimer. I don't think Rach's characterization of me as a player is accurate. If anyone disagrees here please, lets see the evidence.

I never was really into Foo Fighters that much so I only know their more recent stuff. But I like that shit.

Rach. I like CQC. I am actually rather good at all the other areas as well. Exorcet, for instance, once played me and I was using a tank (thus he could testify to this - I doubt he has forgotten). To his surprise, and I quote him on saying that "your better than Chauve in a tank" (chauve was one of the best tank players on AC4 ps3). Now Exorcet was surprised because I never play tanks. I'm a student of the game, you see, so I master all build types and learn all appropriate ranges accordingly. And yes, to be good at CQC you need to know the over ranges so you know how to get in and what to do when you aren't in your ideal range. To reiterate myclarification in light of the heat system: so when I said "skills" I was talking about the kind of skills I like, but I think that even skills associated with other ranges aren't dependent on the heat system in order to classify them as being skillful.

There actually have been some people that thought everything was fire or gas, so that isn't that far off from some ancient people's opinion. Pythagoras thought everything was made of numbers or couldn't be understood appart from math, and you have some people that think that exact same thing today. But like take the gas example, it really doesn't matter. What exactly IS gas? So you describe, maybe the behavior of some phenomenon that we call gas. Then you start breaking down that experience into this description of, maybe, little particles that have a certain shape and spin in a certain way, and bla bla bla. But shape, spin, color (maybe color or the properties that you think cause it) mass, etc, don't tell you what exactly IT IS that HAS all those qualities. See what I mean? As silly as it sounds, when you mention all those qualities, you are saying something about the phenomenon, but you aren't saying what is the irreducible "stuff" or reality that underlies all those qualities. It's a serious problem.

Pd, see I understand how having parts that are junk can help in introducing the player to new levels of play when they aquire the good parts. But that doesn't justify the gross imbalances they end up with either. You could still impliment what I said above, but just add junk parts into the mix, that, as you said, no one unless they are to stuborn or too dumb would use. As for the heat. What I hated about heat is, why am I losing life (even in games where the overheating was rare) when I'm not getting hit by a bullet? Anything that takes away from the skills of outmanuvering people, is somehting I hate. That's one big reason why I hate ACV, cause it is against those players who have skills and want to outplay people and flank the hell out of them. Heat only worked against that as well, although in some games it was tolerable, where as other it got really really lame.

Yeah, that is probably why they did it. But why can't OB be controled by EN? They tried to control OB in AC4 also with the PA system and I thought that was flawed as well. I think AC doesn't have to be so complicated as they try to make it. What AC needs is for them to streamline things. We don't need like six generators for every weight class. Just make like two or three really good ones that have a perfect balance against each other and build parts around those and other internal parts. We don't need like thirty FCS's just like three or four. The internal parts should be few in number with the number of frame parts increasing per area, and weapons even more so. It should open up like a flower.

I don't ever want to see heat back again. And I never liked heat, even going back to where in started in AC2. I always thought it was a dumb idea, restricted or not.

Favorit Foo Fighters songs to me are: These days Times like these

Ok, so this is another philosophy thread by me, but hear it out before you dismiss it. This question is to me one of the most interesting in all of philosophy. The question I want to discuss is, "what is the isness", we might say, of things or reality? What is the underlying "stuff" of reality (if you believe there is such a thing)? Some people might ask the question like "what is everything made out of?" People throughout time have had all sorts of answers for this. Some people might ask by saying "what is the reality behind the appearance" or what is the underlying continuity underlying all phenomenon? No matter how you ask the question, or where you start, you usually get down to the question of "what is" in a fundamental way of asking that. For anyone who might be still a bit lost here would be an example. The modern scientific picture is that everything we see and touch and experience is actually a representation of a world which consists entirely of little particles called atoms, which are themselves made of smaller particles. Something that these are made of strings, others think they are concentrations of space, and all sorts of other ideas. Let's take a simple one as an example. Suppose someone says "matter is just energy." Well, ok, but then what IS energy? There we don't get an answer. maybe someone might say it’s the ability to do work or something like that, but I have never seen a satisfactory answer from anyone in regards to this question. Even those that say the fundamental reality is a string (as in string theory) I can't ever get a simple definition of what the strings are even made of? After all, what IS It that makes them all as the same substance? What is that substance? We never get an answer for this. I find it funny that the most fundamental question ontological question about reality can't be answered. I have a challenge: Can anyone give a definition of what is the underlying nature of reality that itself cannot be reduced, or doesn't fall back on further ontological considerations, or leave the question open? Don't be shy either, I don't want to try to knock anyone's theory down. If anything I just want to ask questions to see if the definitions hold up. I also will be more than willing to give what I think the answer to this riddle is.

That's why I used the term "essence" though and defined it analogously with the concept of a square. If you remove any of the essential fetures, the shit starts to break down or abnormalities occure. Some of the imabalnces in AC4 can illustrate the point. LW's were able not only to carry way to much but way to much on their arms. The arm weight stat got removed, which was something present from day one. Bringing back the arm weight stat would put an end to the aburd dual wielding of these powerhouse weapons on AC's that shouldn't have that many of them. Also, it prevents underweighting. These things were put in for a reason. Another, firing the cannon based weapons while moving. AC4 fucked that up too. The result was it made bipeds dominant when they shouldn't have been and tanks only strong because of backpedaling, which was another imabalance - itself a deviation from the general principles of AC.

Right, the team oriented thing is seprate. I don't see why one has to go and drastically change the mechanics just to achieve that? The team balance issue stems from mainly armor and weapon properties, which don't have jack shit to do with boost mechanics in principle. They could have kept a solid mechanic and other things like the degrees to which you can aim up and down and all that shit. Instead they just went all out noob friendly. Of course people started discovering how dumb it is, who at first on noob level loved it, only to find out later that it has all sorts of wierd problems.., cough cough.

PD, I am still rocking at surffing with the alien shit. I got the whole album. Killing that shit! Anyways, Ok, so I think this side of the argument is pretty clear now. Let's call it the argument for stable or continuous fundimentals or some shit like that. The opposite side, in this case represented by Noob and Pen, seems to be that it would be lame to rehash the same mechanics again and again. I want to understand deeper why we should be changing these fundimentals? Or to say it another way why having solid a concistent fundimentals that are built on through time, why that model is a bad idea, especially when changing the fundimentals can lead to such disasterous outcomes? Pen said, they will hit the mark eventually. But I didn't realise shit was broken? And if it ain't broken then why fix it? If it works for other franchises, why not AC? so help me out here, I want to understand deeper.

ha ha, I guess I must be getting better. I'm learning to not say a word with a paragraph :0

Just imagine if SF had like, mortal kombat mechanics in its next game? Every SF fan would be up in arms over that shit, me included. Now what if an AC game goes and plays like Virtual On or Front Misson evolved? Suddenly, that would be ok? It isn't "rehashing" the same mechanics, it's about have a stable essence for which diferent kinds of games can be built on that platform. If you change the fundimentals than wtf kind of continuity do you really have?

They can try new formulas, sure, but you need to keep an ESSENCE of what makes it armored core. Like they aren't just building robots at random. Once you start having certain basic setups, the other mechanics go with it. think of it like this. You can't have a square unless you have all four equal lines. Similarly, if you start messing with the basics of AC mechanics, weird imbalances start to emerge. All these problems with the boost system and all that result from these issues. FROM has like half a square.

Yeah I agree with PD. And reusing mechanics isn't a bad thing. Look at the street fighter series or Mortal Kombat. By having the same solid engine it allows you to build new gimicks on top of that engine each game to add variety. But if the whole fundimentals of the game keep changing all you do is piss people off. sure some people will always like the changes, but next game when you do another 180 on them, they too will be pissed off. FROM seems to think that building robots is all there is to armored core. They don't understand it was also the solid gameplay that made it so fun. This gameplay was achieved by having a solid system of essentials.

But see the argument that I am making is that there are certain essentials to AC, and if they are not present, imbalances result. That doesn't mean you can't build diferences on top of those essentials, but the bedrock must be there. You can make air strong or weak, but you gotta balance it. ACV has all sorts of problems and it shows in how few people play it. Its the worst AC game yet. You could go on AC4 years after it released and still find people to play. You think ACV is going to last that long? Btw, in ACV you can turn around instantly if you are on the ground with one QB and the mechanics will force you to break the flank if you just boost correctly on reaction. There is nothing the person trying to flank you can do about it either. In games prior to AC4 you could in principle flank someone endlessly, but that is because you could move better with normal boost and OB.

haha ha basically yeah, shit is lame. Here is my theory; AC1 was designed but that origional dude Natoshi zin or whatever his name was at FROM at the time. That dude understood the reason for all these AC essentials and why they made a balanced starting block to work off of. Things like what we were just talking about and build types being able to use cannon based weapons diferently. All sorts of things. These dudes at FROM now have forgotten all the basics and endlessly mess shit up.

Yeah, in AC4 you CANNOT look 90 degrees down. Like I said, only with missiles can you lock right down. I know this because I used to pit bull idiots that would try and permaflight all the time. I would just go forward and get under them. If they tried to get to high, I would just go under them and they couldn't shoot me. I know this shit for a fact. Rach, I think you are just confused from not playing in a while bro. But this ACV is str8 wak dudes, it takes away all that boss realness.

Exactly, and in AC4, although they didn't have lock boxes, the aiming system would not let you lock on straight down with guns. With missles you could, but not guns. So all the things you could do to people who were trying to use elevation on you like get under them and shoot up when they could not shoot down worked wonders. In AC4 if you were really good you could actually dodge all the missiles even with targets that were right above you or you couldn't see perfectly if you understood how missiles tracked. The ability to not aim 90 degrees straight down is balancing property. ACV changes all that. Now you can look straight down and blast them, which makes it more noobish than ever. Also, as I said before, for some dumb reason they allow you to lock on to people who are right above you but behind you, which again is noobish. Why don't they just put an end to flanking altogather and make auto-turn-auto-aim so no one can ever flank anyone again? And with the weapon accuracy it will be a damage fest the noobs with relish.

I think you have it reversed rach. Its being abled to futher up, than down, is what you could always do. You lock box wouldn't go all the way down. This had not changed, even in AC4, with the exception of missle locks. Missle locks were the only thing that you could aim down all the way with. And notice how AC4 had dudes abusing elevation with missles, me included. But ACV doesn't make any distinction whatsoever. You can aim up, aim down, hell you can hit shit in back of you. I have literally gotten above and behind dudes in aCV and had them tag me just by looking up. wtf is that? Now yeah I know there is plenty of cover, and believe me I was whoring it. But when you come out and get a good flank on someone you have to go back behind cover, not because maybe the other dudes teamate starts hitting you, but because these fuckers will get a lock automatically and you cAN'T keep the flank because the mechanics don't allow for it. That shit is dumb.