[X] My Assistant

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Having played a vertically scrolling shooter that has hot-seat coop (like an arcade game) that can detect multiple mice, I plugged two in (this was some time ago). Each "player" is a different color.

Blue was left hand, green was right hand.

I still flew into things because I moved the wrong mouse.

It's really frakking difficult especially in the heat of combat.

Oh, did I mention that the game was running slow because I was doing it on my laptop, not my desktop?

So despite running at 1/10th it's normal speed I was still flying into things. Using only 1 hand (and 1 ship) I can beat the hardest difficulties without dying at that speed (and the ships are One Hit Point Wonders).

Is that the game that makes my head asplode because it fills the screen with colourful stuff that moves around all teh time and you have to avoid being hit while shooting in various directions? Ok, seriously, that's not really a good example. Because even with one mouse it gives you freaking eye cancer. Try a hardish rail shooter like that one Resident Evil.

House of the Dead Overkill doesn't qualify, it's too easy. I played that with my girlfriend, and then by myself with two guns, and as bad as it sounds - my left hand was about as good as my g/f. Now... just don't quote that out of context (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) .

[Yerameyahu]

It's also not *quite* the same task as 'pull the dots to the target(s)', though definitely similar.

[Seerow]

my left hand was about as good as my g/f

I hardly see how -that- is relevant to the topic.

[Draco18s]

Is that the game that makes my head asplode because it fills the screen with colourful stuff that moves around all teh time and you have to avoid being hit while shooting in various directions?

The ships I was using shot in a forward spread pattern. I couldn't handle any other kind. Admittedly, it was a ship I used singly as well (one other I've used allowed you to reorient your shots, but it isn't set up well, as you move in the direction you're trying to reaim for, both inputs being "mouse pointer").

The remaining two ship types were one that could make all of the shots it had on screen explode, but I never found it useful (the AoE isn't that big, plus it destroys ALL your shots on screen, causing a delay in having new shots hit your target) and one that fired charged shots. Hold right-click and release any time. Less useful that "hold right click and get a giant laser beam of death" that the spread ship had. More damage, probably, but more micromanagy.

[Saint Hallow]

The cable tv show, Top Shot had a dual pistol challenge. The competitors were having a super hard time of it. The point of smartgun technology is to make shooting easier or improve your accuracy. I think the thought of making the penalty of shooting akimbo or using 2 pistols on 1 target less, then that makes sense. Trying to use 2 pistols on 2 separate targets... no idea how the GM wants to do that.

[Yerameyahu]

In real life, there may indeed be some 'interaction' effects, but I'd still expect the lasers to help (if only a little, compared to the overall difficulty of the task).

[KarmaInferno]

Yeah, houseruling based of my limited experiment, I would increase the difficulty of dual-pistols (perhaps drastically), but leave the Smartlink/laser bonuses.

And probably add in a "dual wield specialist" Quality to make it a bit easier for those who really want to be great at it.





-k

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah. Possibly adapting the existing Ambidextrous/MA/etc. options, possibly adding new Quality/MA/Adept/'Ware options.

[Miri]

A nonslavish interpretation of the rules to allow a player to build the character he wants to play and have fun? Whod a thunk it.

[Yerameyahu]

Jesus, Miri, how many times are you going to bang that drum? I still don't understand how you couldn't have fun playing the same character without 2 dice. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Critias]

A nonslavish interpretation of the rules to allow a player to build the character he wants to play and have fun? Whod a thunk it.

We all heard you the first time, but the point remains that it's just a house rule (and one that was suggested several pages ago). It's not a "nonslavish interpretation," any more than a drug dealer is an "unlicensed pharmacist." There's nothing wrong with house rules, but let's call a spade a spade. And if some hypothetical player's entire notion of fun is entirely contingent upon whether or not he gets a house rule in his favor to give him 2 extra dice, I think I'd just as soon not play with them. You can make a frighteningly effective two-gun character without giving them smartlink bonuses, already. It's hardly squashing someone's hopes and dreams under the hobnailed boots of canon to enforce the existing rules. Folks can cheerfully choose not to, any given game table is certainly free to house rule things to their hearts' content, but you've got no real justification for your continued melodrama and hyperbole on this point.

[Miri]

Yes. My GM was unwilling to devise some house rules to so that even though I could get my single gun single target pool up to a team average for primary skills of 16, two gunning it at 7/7 wasn't going to be very useful in combat. So I dumped the character.

[KarmaInferno]

Er, you are splitting the dice pool BEFORE adding modifiers, yes?




-k

[Critias]

Yes. My GM was unwilling to devise some house rules to so that even though I could get my single gun single target pool up to a team average for primary skills of 16, two gunning it at 7/7 wasn't going to be very useful in combat. So I dumped the character.

Mind if I ask the die pool breakdown? Smartlink (obviously), but what about specialization? Reflex recorder? Improved Ability? How'd you get your 16, and was the pool being divided properly for the 7/7, is basically my question.

[Yerameyahu]

I still don't understand anyway. You wanted to be as good as everyone else… with twice the guns at once? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You can still *carry* 2 guns and fire them sequentially with the full 'necessary' DP. I'm just confused because I *know* you can build stupid-broken-good akimbo guys. If you wanted to. :/

[Miri]

Skill 5
Specialization 2
Adapt Skill buff 2
Agility 5
Smartgun 2

So single gun single target 16
Two guns split pool no smartgun 7

When he said no I then thought.. well.. what about two different types of guns. So I looked at them and most all the heavy pistols were 5p with only very minor differences. I wanted one to shoot at typical targets and one to shoot those really big heavy things (9mm in one hand, .45 or .50 in the other so to speak). Doing a Light Pistol/Heavy Pistol seemed counterproductive because I couldn't really find any benefit to using a light pistol as my main shooter over a heavy. So then I made Bruce Lee's 10x great grandson named Jim Crow with Martial Arts 6, specialization and adapt skill buff with Magic 6 Edge 7.

[Yerameyahu]

But still, 2 things: 1) Would 9/9 have been playable where 7/7 wasn't? 2) You use your whole DP unless you're firing the guns *at once*, so just… don't do that?

There is a small benefit from using like a Super Warhawk in one hand, and a normal heavy pistol in the other (ammo, rate of fire).

[Critias]

Skill 5
Specialization 2
Adapt Skill buff 2
Agility 5
Smartgun 2

So single gun single target 16
Two guns split pool no smartgun 7

Not quite. You would be well served -- next time your whole character concept hinges on 2 dice, I mean -- to read over how splitting a die pool works, very carefully. Quite a few bonus dice are added after the core die pool (stat + skill) gets divided. Funny story here, but you were actually already sitting on the 9/9 split you wanted so desperately, without the GM needing to house rule anything in your favor. You just didn't know it.

So then I made Bruce Lee's 10x great grandson named Jim Crow with Martial Arts 6, specialization and adapt skill buff with Magic 6 Edge 7.

1) You're off by several generations.

2) That's either one of the best, or one of the worst, character names I've ever seen, depending on how historically and politically aware you and the rest of your gaming group are. I'm thinking one of the worst, especially given how you described the character and that there seemed to be little irony to it.

[Yerameyahu]

I dunno, it sounds like a particularly on-the-chin blaxploitation parody, like Black Dynamite. Could be fun. As much as any Edge 7 character can be fun at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[CanRay]

"Quiet, you'll wake the other Slitches." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Miri]

Oh the entire group was quite familiar with the background of that name, we do live in Southern Louisiana after all. We had lots of fun with my character Jim and his martial arts sensai (advantage points spent for it..) Uncle Tom (they picked that name for him.. I was just going to leave his as the little short old martial arts teacher from Remo Williams: The Adventure begins.

He had two enemy traits.. one was a rival martial arts dojo. They made two appearances. The first time me and the ultra paranoid hacker convinced them that I was an honorable man and sent the large group of them to meet us at a warehouse to fight out our issues after we dropped off the kidnap victim we had just rescued. From said warehouse where I had just gotten done with beating the stuffing out of the gang's second in command.

The second time we ran into them we had just picked up a very hot package at SeaTac and had almost made it out of the airport when 4 of the rival dojo members showed up at the car pickup place where we were. They did the whole 'Hey You! We're here to kick your ass!' thing (in japanese of course so the vast majority of the people in the crowd had no idea what they said). We pulled the whole "look out! they have guns!" and scattered while Lone Star dealt with them. Later on after we got accused of being WMD terrorists we managed to arrange a meet with the head of Lone Star and worked out a deal where he could look good in the news by 'catching' the terrorists and even talked him into using the four guys they had picked up not too long ago.

[Miri]

Not quite. You would be well served -- next time your whole character concept hinges on 2 dice, I mean -- to read over how splitting a die pool works, very carefully. Quite a few bonus dice are added after the core die pool (stat + skill) gets divided. Funny story here, but you were actually already sitting on the 9/9 split you wanted so desperately, without the GM needing to house rule anything in your favor. You just didn't know it.

Twas my first character since like.. second edition? (late 90s college game.. that one fell apart not long after the GM gave us a crate full of grenades..) in our first run of the 4th edition rule set. Jim had many many build mistakes in him as did most everyone else. Even the GM was new to the system.

[Critias]

Twas my first character since like.. second edition? (late 90s college game.. that one fell apart not long after the GM gave us a crate full of grenades..) in our first run of the 4th edition rule set. Jim had many many build mistakes in him as did most everyone else. Even the GM was new to the system.

So despite never having played the character (to see how valid the build was), and despite having discarded the character (due to a rules misunderstanding), and despite having fun with your replacement character...you've still got enough of a chip on your shoulder about this two-gun-smartlink thing to be as negative and generally crabby about it as you have been in this thread (to the extent you repeatedly refer to playing by the game rules, that you didn't get right, as "slavish loyalty")?

I'm really not meaning to outright dogpile you here or anything, man, but it all strikes me as a little weird. Maybe you didn't mean to come off with that kind of attitude in your handful of posts earlier in this thread, but...just...yeah. Weird. I'm glad you ended up having fun with your replacement character, at any rate.

[Miri]

Getting upset about an argument over the intertubes on a forum is.. well just silly. Maybe I've got a bit of a troll in me and just like poking buttons and seeing some of yall get all riled up. I was really hoping JC had gone off about my comment in that Strawberry Shortcake Orc thread cause he seems the most excitable right now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

Edit: Besides.. look at how much discussion, both on topic and off, about the pros and cons of Akimbo style and two guns on one target has gone on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Saint Hallow]

This is on the level of the old D&D 3.0/3.5/3.75 debate about dual wielding DPS vs Power Attack with 2Handed weapons vs Sword & Board style.

Thar's why ranger's got changed, because of the front-loading of their fighting ability & sheer damage output. Dual Wielding in the game was nasty... with constant DPS flowing. Here in SR, dual wielding firearms isn't as bad. The penalties to hit vs the damage potential are mitigated. Plus any bonus you do have to shooting also gets cut.