Snipers

[CorranSec]

No. They are quite different. That's like saying Push and Grip are the same, so we should merge them, because they both hurt people!

The Jedi doesn't conceal himself using Persuasion. He muddles the minds of some targets, and ambushes them.

I've come up with an idea that would make sneaking into a base good (the self-destruct). There are also plenty of other things you could do, like opening a gate, sabotaging a generator (power core), undermining a wall...

 

Separate powers is the best way to do it. They are quite different-one is a support power used for ambushes, the other is a solo power used for infiltration and sabotage.

[OOM-9(2)]

OK, this tread has gone so far of topic I am no longer sure what it is about...

 

 

[swphreak]

*coff* read *coff*

 

Hmmm..... Pesuasion. When i think of that, i think of persuading enemies to ignore you, so yea, it could be good for ambushes.

 

Distract..... uhh... distract an enemy while you sabatoge?

[Admiral Vostok]

Both persuasion and distraction are based on the same thing, known as Jedi Mind Trick to the greater Star Wars community. There was only one way to mind trick in Jedi Knight, there was only one way to Mind Trick in Jedi Outcast, and there really is only one way to mind trick in the movies.

 

I think it should work pretty much the same as it did in Jedi Outcast. You trick someone, they can't see you unless you attack them.

[swphreak]

Yea, just call it Jedi Mind Trick. It just makes it confusing for the distraction/persuasion.

 

In JO, depending on your level, you can either trick a guy to ignore you, trick a guy to ignore you longer, have them fight on your side for "X" seconds, or if you cheated, you can actually take complete control of them for like a minute.

 

Maybe they can do the same as above, but instead of just one unit, make it a lil "area of effect." Maybe they'llintroduce Experience. The more your units battle and survive, the more experience they get and can last longer and do better stuff.

[CorranSec]

SWPhreak: You said yourself Persuasion would be good for ambushes. And Distraction allows you to sneak inside bases to perform sabotage.

 

Vostok: Okay, perhaps they're based on the Jedi Mind Trick, but gameplay>realism so I've diversified it into two equally useful yet quite distinct powers. Both Strike Mechs and Laser Troopers are based on the thing known as Blaster Bolts Generally Kill Stormtroopers to the greater SW community, so should we meld them into one?

There was only one Mind Trick power in JO, but it's a FPS, so ambushes and sabotage have no real place. This is a completely different ball game- and Force powers have by no means been represented in a RTS before, so you have nothing to base your argument that "they're too alike" on, other than willful ignorance of what I keep telling you. They're different. Plain fact. Please explain to me how they overlap and would both be useless, and I'll consider making them even more different.

[swphreak]

gaaaaaa you 2 are tearing me in half by your big and fancy posts!

 

I dunno. They're starting to sound like Jedi mind trick.....

[Admiral Vostok]

Having two forms of mind trick is messy, unrealistic, too complicated, and simply unnecessary when you could just combine elements of both to enable the one power to be used for both ambushes and infiltration. THAT is better gameplay, when you can use the one thing for multiple purposes. Two mind tricks makes no sense in either gameplay or realism, when a little bit of thinking can turn it into one multi-purpose power.

[CorranSec]

A 'bit of thinking'? More like a bit of unbalance and destruction of two quite different powers. As I've said before, should we combine the Laser Trooper and the Strike Mech? Should we meld Force Push and Force Grip into a power that is used by both Jedi Knights and Sith Knights?

Having two forms of mind trick is not messy, especially when each have a clearly defined purpose. Neither is it unrealistic- Obi creates a noise to distract the troopers, but he uses a different power to persuade the stormtrooper to let them pass. It's no more complex than any other force power.

[Admiral Vostok]

Distraction: used to infiltrate.

Persuasion: used to ambush or infiltrate.

 

Your arguments are quite silly:

A laser trooper is very cheap but vulnerable to anti-personnel fire. Troopers can be garrissoned in buildings to provide greater firepower.

A strike mech is somewhat more expensive, and vulnerable to anti-mech fire rather than anti-personnel. They are also a lot faster the troopers, but cannot be garrissoned in buildings.

Each has there own reasons for existing.

I don't see how Force Push and Force Grip are similar at all... except they are the basic powers for Jedi/Sith.

 

If Obi-Wan uses a different power, why have both always been called Mind Trick? Jedi Outcast recognises this - the lower level mind trick works similar to what Obi-Wan does in distracting the troopers, while the higher level one resembles the "these aren't the droids you're looking for". Everyone else in the world believes them to be the same, why not you, Corran?

[CorranSec]

Distraction: Used to get into a base undetected, and sabotage your enemy's operations.

Persuasion: Used to ambush a travelling force, or confuse any other enemy.

Thus, I believe your arguments are quite silly. I meant my arguments to be silly- the trooper and the strike are just as different as Distraction and Persuasion.

Force Push and Force Grip are both used to kill a small number of units, generally troopers. But they're just as different as P and D, or troopers and strikes.

 

JK1 used a power called "Persuasion" which made you invisible. JK2 had a thing called "Mind Trick" which is basically what I want Distraction to be. GB1 had a weird thing that was like neither. So what's this "everyone in the world" thing?

[Admiral Vostok]

Jedi Knight 1 had a "Force-shoot-mysterious-red-fireball" for the Dark Jedi, so it hardly counts as being true to Star Wars. Jedi Outcast had both what you call Persuasion and Distraction under the heading "Mind Trick", they were just different levels of the same power. GB did the best approximation it could using the AoK engine.

 

If anyone else on this board thinks they should be different powers, please speak up. So far anyone who has accidentally stepped in to the conversation and Phreak who intentionally drops by have expressed their desires to see them combined into the same power.

[CorranSec]

JK1 still had an 'approximation' of 'Mind Trick,' so it's included in this debate. JO didn't have Persuasion (did it create an ideal situation for a trooper ambush? Nope!), it actually had some form of invisibility in the earlier levels, and had something like GB1's conversion leftover as the level 3 power. So I wouldn't really call any of them "The Definitive Mind Trick." We should be free to make up our own.

[Admiral Vostok]

I still think we need only one mind trick. To my knowledge there has been no other game where you could perform two different kinds of mind trick at the same time.

[CorranSec]

........ and your point is? To my knowledge, there have been no other medium-scale SW RTS games with unique unit sets, but that doesn't mean we should give up on unique unit sets.

And let me stress this: The concept of 'mind trick' is something that you've gotten from those very games. So why can't you ditch that, and move onto these new and completely separate force powers?

[Admiral Vostok]

It is far better in terms of gameplay and realism to have one Mind Trick.

 

Gameplay: Having one thing with multiple purposes is always better than having two things each with only one purpose.

 

Realism: No where, not in Star Wars movies, EU or elsewhere, has the concept of Mind Trick been split into two. Just like for gameplay, it is a single power with multiple purposes. There is no point to start seperating it according to purpose now.

[CorranSec]

Gameplay: Having one thing with two very different purposes is generally quite overpowered, and having it split into two quite different things is always the best choice.

 

Realism: Obi-Wan causing the guard to parrot his words is quite different to Obi-Wan making other guards imagine they heard a sound. And the whole concept of a singular mind trick/persuasion was created in SW games, so another SW games has a total right to modify it to fit the game.

[Admiral Vostok]

Having one thing with two different uses is not overpowered. It's called flexibility.

 

If anything, Obi-Wan getting the guard to parrot his words is the definitive mind trick. It is called so by Obi-Wan in this instance, by Jabba in ROTJ, by Watto in TPM, and by Padme in AOTC. Obi-Wan making a noise isn't even classified as being a mind trick. He merely could have Force-pushed something over to make the noise.

 

My point is that what you called persuasion is really Mind Trick. What you call distraction is something made up that could possibly explain Obi-Wan on the Death Star, but not necessarily. Also, if someone wants to infiltrate into a base, they can use Mind Trick/Persuasion to do so, rather than have a seperate power that could also do the job.

[CorranSec]

Having one thing with two completely different uses either turns out overpowered or screwed-up, especially when it could quite easily be split into two things. Should an X-Wing have all the base-destroying capacity of a Y-Wing? Or should there be a weird kind of hybrid, which is somehow both Y-Wing slow and X-Wing medium-speed? Or should be just split them into an X-Wing, as a space superiority fighter, and a Y-Wing, as a general-purpose bomber?

The latter is the obvious choice, and applies in just the same way to Distraction and Persuasion.

 

What I call "Persuasion" is used to confuse and muddle an enemy. It fits with realism- Obi's noise confused and muddles the enemies, and he could have killed them if he had wanted- and with gameplay, in which it's good for ambushes.

What I call "Distraction" is used to twist the minds of enemies and disguise your presence. It fits with realism- Obi's mind twisting allowed them to slip the Imperial net- and with gameplay, in which it's good for infiltrating and sabotaging a base.

 

Using Persuasion to infiltrate a base is akin to chopping off a person's arms, taking their wallet, and running away. Because you're a good pickpocket, you could just have stole it, but now you've alarmed him and have basically no chance of escaping detection.

Distraction enables you to merely steal the wallet and escape, while my Persuasion enables you to confuse the person and stab him through the heart. Quite different. Each viable, in gameplay terms if not Vostok's realism.

 

So basically, with all the realism concerns aside, I think it'd be fun, balanced and exciting to be able to infiltrate bases to sabotage things as well as ambush travelling convoys. Put that way, is there anything to argue about?

[Admiral Vostok]

Okay, let's use the pick-pocket example:

 

Using distraction you ...er... distract them with a noise and take their wallet without them knowing.

 

Using persuasion you persuade them by saying "You will give me your wallet." They repeat what you just said and give you the wallet. You then say "You don't remember seeing me." They repeat, and you have thus taken their wallet without them knowing.

 

In terms of representations with gameplay they are identical.

 

Now what if, as you say, you chop their arms off.

 

Using distraction, you distract them with a noise, sneak up behind them and slash their arms off. You then take their wallet while they say "Hey! What the hell just happened?"

 

Using persusasion, you persuade them to not take any notice of you chopping their arms off. You then take their wallet while they say "Hey! What the hell just happened?"

 

Again, both are identical.

 

In the game, you can do both, and I can't see how in this case it would be over powered. An assault mech has two purposes - deal a lot of damage and transport your troops. Is it overpowered? No, so your argument is silly. But in relation to this, using your way, you either activate distraction or persuasion and do what you want. In my way, you only need to activate Mind Trick to do what you want. Not terribly overpowered since it basically does and costs exactly the same.

[CorranSec]

The objective of Persuasion is to chop their arms off. The object of Persuasion is battle.

Using the pickpocket example:

A person would not use Persuasion for pickpocketing, because it's designed for chopping people's arms off (or, more accurately, killing them). Persuasion would make the person blind for a moment, cos you want to kill them. Distraction would make you invisible to them, cos you want to take their wallet (aka sneak inside their base).

 

Putting both into one would simply not work. Distraction makes you invisible to a group of people, while Persuasion makes them blind to everyone. Having both effects occur to the same enemy would be overkill, and overkill is always unnecessary and useless. Should the Strike Mech have a Mech Destroyer gun as well?

[Admiral Vostok]

Well if the only purpose of Persuasion is to attack, I am firmly against it.

 

"A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack." - Yoda

[CorranSec]

So, we're resorting to realism arguments. Please, spare me.

If we use this adage as the basis for all Jedi stuff, then you shouldn't be able to send Jedi into battle, and thus you probably wouldn't be able to control them at all. So let's just ditch this particular line of argument.

If you want Jedi to be controllable and fun at all, Gameplay>Realism.....

[Admiral Vostok]

You can have both Corran.

 

Persuasion (which is unrealistic) can be taken away and Distraction will still allow you to do what persuasion does, albeit with greater difficulty (which is realistic). So you lose nothing in terms of gameplay, and you gain greater realism.

[CorranSec]

Um. Okay then, let's try both.

 

Let's take away the Mech Destroyer (which is somehow unrealistic), but leave the Strike Mech, seeing as it can do what the Mech Destroyer does, albeit with greater difficulty.

You lose heaps in terms of gameplay- there's a perfectly feasible unit there, with a good place in the balance of the game, is fun to use AND stems from the movies, yet you want to take it away.

 

Persuasion makes the JM useful for something other than sneaking inside bases. It fits with his stealthy nature, and gives him an offensive/battle power along with his defensive/stealth power.