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No, the sad thing is that almost all of his posts have been perfectly comprehensible to anyone who wants to comprehend them, but several people have been playing the "how can I misconstrue this post to make it sound like nonsense" game..

Did not say his posts were hard to understand. Said he refuses to make any effort to understand our posts even though they are just as comprehensible.

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No one here, you included, thinks Paladin said that jargon is ungrammatical. But it's oh-so-amusing to pretend he was using the jargon term Standard English when he typed standard english..

Again...not saying his posts is ungrammatical....said what we are speaking is standard English. And you seem to have missed the obvious fact that I pointed out a difference between the term standard English (lower case) and the classification of Standard English (upper case). I did so because Paladin has a proven track record of inappropriately defining his terminology in an attempt to give his opinions added validity and at times outright misrepresenting his earlier comments in an effort to imply it was always intended to be different than was discussed.

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Can we all agree that what's called 0 range in the Hero System is the same as Touch in D&D and Melee in City of Heroes? Because I think it's been said enough times already..

No we cannot. The 0 range and touch in those role playing games is VERY different than melee in CoH. That is why using proper terms...or jargon...is important sometimes... especially in cases like this where one term can mean different things based on the context in which they are used. This should be obvious to you if you read earlier posts.

In the end we made an effort and he did not. You are free to try and navigate the minefield of ego, selfishness, misrepresentation, unrealistic expectations and misplace ire that is a discussion with him but I have hit my limit.

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Actually the difference only exists from the programers perspective Not the players. To players it is the same and when talking to players you should assume they mean the same thing because there is no reason for them to think otherwise and trying to force your behind the scenes knowledge on them is unreasonable; or worse expecting that they already have it, and acting like there's something wrong when they don't is just rude..

When you ask specific questions about the mechanics of the game...and yes just how it will look on the screen is about mechanics... then you are asking about programming and we attempted to explain the reasons why we use the terms we do as clearly as possible for you.

We are not mad that you don't know something, we are not confused by your posts, we don't expect you to understand everything and we are not trying to belittle you. Obvious exception might be Voldine.
What we are trying to do is provide you with as much information as we can so that our answers make sense to you. But you simply refuse to acknowledge anything that does not originate inside you head as valid.

A perfect example of this is the entire issue with the term 'mez'. You ask for powers that are clearly a 'mez' yet refuse to accept this fact due to it not being how you would define it. I...and others...explain why we use the term 'mez' and still you refuse to accept it. I...and others...then go and give you a proper description of the term as it pertains to this discussion and you STILL refuse to acknowledge that the term is even valid because you define it differently. At no point in that entire exchange did you consider anything we said beyond your own petty indignation at having to read something written in a way that you do not like to read it. It did not matter to you that we made an effort to include your lack of understanding in our responses because you were damn sure not going to accept anyone presenting the idea of 'mez' ... or any other idea... unless it was on your terms.

Your selfish demands that we not only translate your phrasing and use only your meanings are hardly the only issues that occur in any discussion with you.
Just in this thread alone you have:
Presented one position and argued in relation to that position. Then you presented a new position and declared it to be your original position.
Flipflopped on declarative opinions more than once.
Blamed others for your failings.
Resorted to name calling.
Proved yourself a hypocrite.
Demanded something you were unwilling to return.
and Misrepresented yourself.

You didn't even respond when your questions were answered (multiple times from multiple people). Instead you instantly shifted your commentary to this current ridiculous argument over terminology. I can only presume you took the wounded soldier position to try and hide your embarrassment that your lazy refusal to learn something new caused your own confusion and misunderstandings.

To go back to your quote above...
We didn't force anything on you, we answered your questions as best as we possibly could. We did not expect you to have any specific knowledge and did not act like something was wrong when you didn't have that knowledge. The way you know these things are true is because we spent time translating anything you may have not known or understood. I would still be trying help you understand things if it was not for your attitude.
Usually people are grateful when others take time help them with something and at the very least they say 'thank you'. It take a special kind of selfishness to attack those helping them like you did.

We made an effort... you did not. I will now leave you with a quote of yours from yet another time you were tossing blame...

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

If you try harder so will I.

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I did accept the mez thing once I understood I. I simply felt that it was still a good example of someone tossing out terms that I couldn't reasonably be expected to understand.

This is the first time you expressed any understanding of the term. From way back in post 39, when it became apparent you did not understand the term and Tannim explain 'mez' to now you have continued to only express your interpretation of the term. It is hardly unreasonable to use terms that apply to computer games in a conversation about .....computer games.

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The argument above could've been avoided by never bringing the word into the discusion.

This is not an uncommon term in games and, as I said, we are in a game forum. The use of these terms is to be expected. It was pretty apparent from my first use of the word (post 19) I did not mean it the way you did. At that point you should have asked questions. Even if it wasn't until post 52 that you understood that we were using different definitions you still did not ask question you instead decided the best way to respond was blame us for using the logical terms in this context (and explaining them as well mind you).
But yes ...you are technically correct...the argument could have been avoided if we had not used those terms but it is equally correct that it could have been avoided if you understood that this is a game forum and there may be terms that fall outside your knowledge. You don't ask about song composition without expecting music jargon, you don't ask about calculus and expect the response to not include the terms functions and derivatives and you don't ask about game design and assume all response will be in layman's terms without first explaining that is what you expect.

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and the most widely used term in games in Hold not mez. Hold refers to both physical and non physical effects and dates back to the dawn of role playing and the spells hold person and hold monster from Dungeons & Dragons.
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D&D had a great many terms for effects that are similar to 'mez' effects in computer games. Hold, Snare, Stun, Charm, Slam ect ect ect. including mesmerize. The blanket shorthand term 'mez' became common after video games started using all of these effects in combat. The term 'mez' came to be because various video game designers (many of which did not speak English as a first language if at all) all had their own terminology for each of the effects. People who discussed video games needed a broad term to describe these types of effects in multiple video games so they created the slang term of 'mez'. Its usage grew until it became an almost universally accepted term in discussions on the subject ... in both video games and table top RPGs. Some war games even use this terminology.

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Mez on the other hand is something I've never heard, before this discussion, but it sounds like it's short for mesmerize, and therefore suggests a mental and Not physical effect. Even in a game like this the difference between the 2 might be what abilities would allow you to resist or help you to recover from the effect. So without knowing your terms it just looked very wrong.

Yet here you are in post 105 still trying to lay blame on us for using the term instead of accepting any responsibility in meeting us halfway.

I am not blaming you or upset at you for not knowing something. I am upset that you still...even after all that has been said... cannot accept any fault in the progression of events. I strongly suggest you go back and carefully re-read everything from your first post in the thread to now and make an honest effort to see things from our side. My hope is you will see your part in this current impasse.
Until then I have ranted and vented enough.

I honestly never thought you would respond in this way and had expected more conflict so my previous post was made with that in mind. That was my mistake...completely.

Allow me to give a reasoned response to your last post so that we can begin put it completely to rest.

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I'm not going to try to pretend I'm blameless and I apologized above for my mistakes.

Neither one of us blameless. And I appreciate the apology and offer one of my own.

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And you're right I'm not a grammar nazi.
In fact my own grasp of english in it's written form is pretty weak.
Without google pointing out my biggest mistakes, you'd probably have a hard time understanding anything I say.
Yes google keeps telling me to capitalize english but for reasons of my own, that don't matter to this discussion, I ignore it.
All I really want is for us to try to make ourselves clear.
I know I'm not very good at that myself and often I find myself in trouble because I'm defending what I meant to say rather than what I actually said.

You had mentioned a while ago in another thread that you had a form of dyslexia. I never forgot that. I have a nephew with dyslexia and I have often helped him with his homework so I understand that this disorder (for lack of a better term) is one in which reading both to oneself and aloud, spelling and writing or typing becomes difficult. Knowing this I attempted to form my responses in a way that was easier to follow (at least until I began ranting). My posts directed towards you usually take a much longer time to compose due to the amount of 'correcting' myself I do in order to ensure this.
Because dyslexia is not a factor of intelligence or knowledge I did not feel it was necessary at first to limit my terminology to more broad definitions. When I realized you were having difficulty in understanding the terminology I began to explain it more clearly.
I hope you understand that I don't expect you to spell every word correctly, use proper punctuation or make sure every sentence follows perfect structure. If errors occur and I cannot understand what you meant I will ask for clarification with out belittling you. I myself don't always spell correctly, use proper punctuation or follow proper sentence structure. Few on the internet do. Heck...some of Tannims mistyped posts require me to read them multiple times before I understand what he is saying. In my experience most people no longer place undue pressure on others to follow proper grammar anymore as long as what they say can be understood. There are obvious exception to everything but for the most part I believe this to be true.
At this point I would like to also apologize for the cheap shot I made a few posts back about 'Standard English'. I had let my frustration get the best of me and I took a jab at you. I have regretted that comment but was unwilling to admit it was in poor taste. I am sorry for that.

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Above I also admitted that part of the problem was that I had realized something that I said wasn't true and I forgot to mention it.
(Specifically I said that this problem only effected low level toons)
Also my memory is not what it should be but like most of us I still rely on it more than I should.
I really was surprised to see that I was the one who brought up levels, because as you know I hate levels and it seemed out of character for me. plus I had already realized that what I said about them wasn't true.
I wasn't trying to revise history and trick anyone. I was simply wrong..

This is a tough one as this has happened in other threads. But in order to move past this I will let the matter drop completely.

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I don't hesitate to correct others and I don't mind being corrected by others, but when you correct me please do it with the assumption that I've made a mistake not that I'm being dishonest.

In a limited form of defence, when I made those assumptions it was directly after I felt I had been attacked. It is only natural to respond in kind and assume the worst. Lets make a deal... I will try and keep negative assumptions under wraps and you try and keep hostility to a minimum. Agreed?

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And I'll try to take more time to reread my own posts before I save them hoping to correct them and make sure they're polite..

Polite posts are usually better to read but it is not required. As long as we can keep the anger and frustration in check that should be enough to keep things civil.

Unless you have anything further to add why don't we let this matter drop and try and find out where we are in our original discussion.

I will begin with asking if you understand what has been said on the matter of grapples or do you need it explained better? If you do understand it, do you have anything further to add or has it been settled to your satisfaction?
Do you have another aspect you would like to discuss relating to the concept of runners in a video game?

I'm going to make this quick as I am a bit tired of posting for right now.

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OK my understanding is that Grappling is pretty much out of the question because of the need to make models interact in contact with each other with far too many contingencies to consider. The biggest and most insurmountable obstacle that I heard was the problem of multiple attackers trying grapple a single target.
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There is a lot more to the obstacles than just multiple attackers but yup.... you understand it well enough. Not that you need my affirmation.

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Although I would submit that a simple one armed grab that immobilizes both attacker and target while leaving the other hand free is generic and simple enough to work. Inhumanly large targets can simply be made immune to this attack..

I don't think that this is out of the question or off the table. But it still has many issues associated with it. Probably the one issue you would care about the most is animations for other attacks or actions. The type of this immobilize would require many other animations to have a variant that incorporates the animation you describe here. It is a fairly large endeavor when you consider just how many other animations this would require variants for. Its unlikely but more possible than grapples.

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Also a wrestling power set could be made if it focused on slams and throws instead of holds.
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Are you asking if this could be done or confirming you read Tannim say this was a possibility?

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and I still don't see why trips couldn't be done. There were trip attacks in COH.

Trips are planned to be included and will likely include an animation that will simulate leg to leg contact (a foot sweep for example) but they will follow similar combat mechanics as they did in CoH..... if you need this clarified please ask.

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Finally I could be wrong about this and I'm feeling kind of lazy so just tell if I am. But I don't really remember anyone answering my suggestion that runners be slowed down, by having them not use the normal running animation but instead keep looking behind them, turning to shoot, and possibly even tripping or running into things because they're not looking where they're going.
They can even round corners and wait in ambush effectively trapping themselves.

Not many have responded to this other than me in my first post. I am in general agreement that various and interesting mechanics regarding runners would be welcome. I do still contend that runners only be used to increase challenge in an encounter and not to simply make them run for the sake of realism.

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I'm also curious about making the reward for a boss or for the one suspect you're actually after big enough that you wouldn't feel the need to chase down everyone in a crowd.

This is a tough one to discuss quickly so I will just ask the following in regards to this for now.
How do you determine if a reward was 'big enough' that it would change people feelings?
How would you address encounters that do not have bosses or 'the one suspect you are actually after' such as the encounters before a final confrontation, street sweeping or defeat all missions?
Did you consider other reasons players might give chase such as a players psychology?

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I suspect that if the reward for the boss is 10 times that for each minion we'd not be too concerned about the runners.
Lieutenants could be like 5 times the minions.
Of course the ratio might have to shrink considerably at higher levels unless the cannon fodder xp stays pretty low.
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That's not determining if the reward is big enough. That's just saying 'oh this should work'. The point I was tying to make was that every reward is balanced against the challenge faced. So trying to simply make Bosses or Lieuts worth more reward in an effort to change player behavior creates a new metric against which all other challenges need to be measured. If everything is not balanced against one another in terms of reward the end result is those targets become the only targets worth facing and everything else is a frustrating waste of time. Does this make sense?

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During missions runners can be ignored unless its a defeat all mission, they're running to alert someone, or they're the one you're after.
When street sweeping in COH there were lieutenants and even a few bosses to be seen.
Defeat all missions should only feature the kind of mobs that don't run.
Then if someone is supposed to run it's part of the story not random.
OH and DO NOT give big rewards for clearing maps.

This goes back to my idea of balance in terms of rewards. If one group of foes is worth more than the others just because they have the 'one you're after' and no other reason... it lessens the experience (which includes reward) of every other encounter.

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That reward is the number one reason for people chasing down every single bad guy, and getting frustrated (even angry) when they can't find someone. It's often a serious time waster..

I do not agree that 'reward is the number one reason' people chase foes down. I go into that in a bit.
I do wholeheartedly agree that chasing every foe can be frustrating and a waste of time. That is why I think when a foe runs it should be done in a way that increases the challenge of an encounter as I have said a few times before. If a foe runs it should be to get re-enforcements, take hostages, stage ambushes, get buffs or something else that make the encounter more difficult. These runners should give greater rewards but only if they do increase the difficulty of the encounter by doing things like successfully bringing re-enforcements or getting buffed. If a foe runs and is meant to not be targeted then there is no point for them to have been there in the first place from a mechanics point of view.

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If someone just likes chasing everyone there's no reason to stop them but the game should never make them feel like they have to or make them feel penalized for not doing it, especially if there isn't any way for us to stop runners..

When you offer greater rewards for one target in an effort to encourage a certain behavior then the end result is any behavior that is different is automatically penalized.
But someone 'liking' to chase was not what I meant about 'psychology'. Completing a task is very much an ingrained part of the human experience. Keep in mind I said completing and not doing a task well or efficiently. It gives us a good feeling to complete a task we enjoy but that enjoyment can be turned around if there are elements we don't enjoy. I personally find doing dishes enjoyable but absolutely hate doing that one fork I missed after I drain the sink yet I still do it because the job isn't complete.
There are many ways to define what 'completing' is at the combat level in a game like CoT is promising to be. It can be just hitting the target you are after or it can be destroying every last foe in sight and everything in between. None of those definitions is wrong but each are right based on who is doing them. For example I personally consider cleaning up all foes as completing the combat while you seem to be happy with just the target foes. My way and your way are both right but when you say that I should be encouraged to play your way you are effectively saying my way is wrong. Note I said encouraged not forced which is an important distinction.
In the end I think this type of reward encouragement suits you and a portion of the player base very well but for the everyone else's sake we should probably not try an encourage them to play in a way that makes them enjoy the game any less.

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If you took the time to do that that's just a shame man.

It's not diligence (especially if the game doesn't require or reward it) it's just OCD..

No need to insult his (and my) point of view. Its just as valid as yours. Especially when Fire has treated you with respect.

Paladin, can you use quotes or at the very least an indicator of what you are responding to because it is not always easy to understand what each of your comments are in relation to. or example:

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Next the way to reward going after "The Guy your after" is with the mission reward..

What is this in relation to because it does not seem to correspond with anything I have said.

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Next I don't know anything about how xp rewards are determined but I do believe run or not run should be based on the type of character we're dealing with and the type of story you're telling not necessarily how challenging you want it to be..

And I think run or not run should first consider game play then immersion. It does no good to throw runners (or anything) into the game if it ruins the enjoyment of the game. This game is not intended to be realistic. I think we are at an impasse.

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More xp for runners will only encourage people to chase them. .

I didn't say more xp for runners...I said more reward (which is not just xp) for runners that succeed in increasing the difficulty. And this is not an argument against your idea....its an argument for mine.

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Why are runners there if they're not to increase difficulty of the task?

They're window dressing, to increase immersion.

That's how I see most runners.

This 'window dressing' effect can be done much better with foes that cannot be target at all. What I mean some groups would have non-targetable foes whose only purpose is to run away. This would provide you with the visual representation of how scary your character is without making me upset and chasing the amount of runners you seem to want.

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But of course if you do chase them down you get whatever reward he's normally worth..

This thought goes completely against your idea rewarding people for not chasing foes. Can you explain this better?

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Well, considering we will have a system for gaining binuss rewards called Challenges and Achievements, one of the common Challenges is going to be clearing the map. So for thise who enjoy that activity will gain bonus rewards. .

I have been wanting to ask every time you bring this up.....are these 'Challenges and Achievements' something that would be chosen at the beginning of the task (or mission) or is it going to be a general bonus that just occurs through game play?

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Something like going for help would probabLy fall into the more advanced play dynamics coming after the general "run away just because" dynamic.

I really dislike the notion of 'run away just because'. It doesn't add anything to the game play for me....but I am glad to hear that you are planning to include other challenges to the mechanic as well.....I am happy to accept that as a compromise (I know my opinion doesn't mean much....shut up....let me delude myself into thinking I have a say in the outcome here.)

Temporary withdraw...?

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They may be both.

That's good.
Personally I find a drop down list of 'Challenges' when you start a mission to be a bit annoying when on teams as it is usually decided upon by the Team leader. But I am not against this mechanic specifically, just not my favorite is all. I prefer it being calculated behind the scenes and if you manage to succeed in the challenge then you get the reward....I'm probably in the minority with that opinion.

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I only used 'just because' in lew of listing specifics due to time constraints I was under at the time of my reply.

I was pretty sure what ya meant by this already and my response was in relation to this meaning... but its nice that you clarified what you meant to be sure.
I just think that the running mechanic is better served by creating challenging game play. If we took your example of 'strength in numbers, cowardly when alone' ....to make the concept more interesting (to me at least) that groups normal mob sizes could be increased so the challenge is to survive the initial onslaught and once the group thins they start running. Its just a quick idea and would of course need fine tuning so these groups are not exploited ....Still the idea gives both the impression of cowardly foes while still making the combat unique from other combat beyond 'beat a few and they scatter'.