Merkranire

Uh oh. Name the specific thing

It’s a problem for you because even if you wanted to, you can’t change due to how you’re so specialised. So not only are you incapable of wanting to change how you play for the sake of others, you’ve backed yourself into a build corner that you could see coming from a mile away. And then what, want to use that as an excuse? Hah!

What would you even listen to, eh? If they haven’t given up on expecting multiplayer to be any sort of multiplayer, what would you need to hear to reconsider your stance?

The design of how it all works being that in a build-crafting game designed around enabling variety, you taking the tools on offer and specialising like you do is an optional thing that you choose to engage in. Knowing what specialising actually means in this game and then cautiously choosing whether or not to engage in it instead of sitting there thinking big numbers and easy gameplay are the end-all-be-all is not being unreasonable, it’s playing to the game’s strength and is what the game encourages and is designed around; if you’re running into problems caused by such specialisation, problems that include being incapable of comfortably changing, then that’s on you. You get understanding, but no pity, and when you jump into a mission and you’re not built for it while acting like you’re only being logical, you’re going to get eyerolls and headshakes from players who know better

Gee, what a real shocker that you lock yourself into a build while not thinking what that really means and what cost power asks. What a surprise that the more forma you sink after a certain point, the narrower your options. What an utter astonishment that when you chase numbers and build to stick to a few options, you’re stuck chasing numbers and using a few options Good thing Steel Path and other high-level content is an every-so-often thing, isn’t it? We got powerful gear like Kuva weapons that innately are more powerful than most standard and thus requires less investment, and our individual capability of play can push builds with less forma higher if we play well.

There is no feigning consideration, there is actual consideration like I said there is. Here’s you: “Oh I’ll just play like I want and people will love it or hate it but haters gonna hate anyways so I’m not changing anything and they need to be as accepting of my potentially huge impact on their gameplay as I am of someone else who barely impacts me”. Here’s me: “I play as I want in Solo and then when I jump into Multiplayer I reconsider what I’m doing and how I’m building, trying to be as least-disruptive as I can by doing things like building for the content so that if someone else is also built likewise we can play together and if someone’s built way beyond then they can do their solo-in-multiplayer thing that they literally build for while I either race to keep up or drop out of the mission and take the extra spawns and other multiplayer scaling mechanics that they no longer need to deal with with me”. Like seriously, when was the last time you wanted to rely on a teammate? The game only sort of forces it on you, but given the option you’re making your preference clear by how you build and where you take it, and that preference is “I can handle everything alone and am entirely self-sufficient”, where right now if there’s any sort of co-op it’s either accidental or the game hasn’t given you the tools to build the co-op away.

Juggling partial ranks is an option, yes, I even acknowledged it earlier as I’ve done it before and sometimes consider doing it today, but it’s not something I would expect the game to encourage nor be designed around; it can open options, but when DE are designing their game and I’m trying to figure out that design for the sake of knowing what I’m built for, my expectations are going to be based around max-rank mods first with partial-ranks and the options they bring being a mere side effect of the ranking system. Plus it’s a lot less of a hassle to just use max-ranks since it becomes a case of “I feel like X effect or Y damage or Z survival for this mission, regardless of leftover capacity and knowing I’m getting the maximum effect”; you’d have an idea of just how nightmarish it can get to try and fill every slot of capacity and how a partial-rank is often just not worth the modslot necessary to min-max that tiny bit more compared to something else fitting in that slot if you used more than the few builds you told me about pages ago, and you’d know how little stressing over minute number adjustments is actually needed just to make a build for the content. This idea of primarily using partial-ranks to build for lower content is frankly kind of odd and seems more trouble than it’s worth; if you want to lay on me some kind of partial-rank build for Arbitrations, I’ll have a look at it Yes I’d probably not have more than two, as part of that “Treating Umbral with caution” thing that blindsided you. The fewer I can get away with the better unless there was some particularly special build, and in that case I’d probably have a second piece of gear without the polarity. You’re not the one to make the call on what mods are worth equipping in a game designed around letting us equip whatever we want for whatever customisation we can get, and I’m pretty sure I already mentioned that somewhat-half-filled with forma is the ideal for build range so… I’m… not sure what that extra 16 to cover mismatched polarities is supposed to be for since that’s not really a problem…? 16 capacity (if not more) is a lot and I can imagine a few mods I’d fill it with instead of using it to absorb too many polarity’s worth of cost, not to mention what I’d do with the saved Forma and time investment

As convoluted as the status quo wants

Explain

Sigh again as you miss points, make wrong statements, jump to wrong conclusion, twist logic (like seriously, juggling partial ranks and partial effects just to try and cheat the polarities system that by design causes mods to cost more capacity if they don’t match? yikes, ), at times agree with me seemingly without realising it(?), and in general continue to show your ignorance when you’ve made it clear you’ve never tried exploring the other side with any sort of interest since you’ve made it clear it’s not something you’re personally interested in even while the game supports it and is designed around it and others take advantage of it (and they’re also doing what you do because there’s nothing particularly special, so… there’s that). I don’t care what you do in solo and the game doesn’t either until you jump onto the forums and start complaining about how for some bizarre reason the game doesn’t seem to work like you expect it to, but when you join multiplayer you’re going to have to reconsider what you’re doing and bringing, at the least using the content itself as a guide since it’s impossible to know what other randoms are going to bring, for the sake of others because you’re running headlong into what the game is designed to do in order to keep its variety of gear and gameplay valid and fresh and its rewards rewarding even while you think otherwise because you’re so insistent that there’s one way to play and you’re going to force it on anyone who gets in your way. You… seriously don’t see a reason to treat Umbral polarity with caution. I’m not saying I never use them, I’m saying I treat them with caution and give consideration as to what I put them on and why I’m putting it on. Surely you can imagine a reason to not apply a hyper-specialised polarity?

Arbitrations are useful for more than their rewards, they’re useful for being a place to play in different ways that content allows and experiencing different scenarios (like one life or boosts to builds that may not normally cut it) than what other content would support, which is what I’m doing until you stumble in built to go endlessly far for endlessly long when sanity dictates that we only need to go a few rounds for like 20 minutes or so. Just because a mission can go endlessly long does not mean it’s no longer worth building for the content, it’s not like endless is some kind of “The mission’s suddenly designed around level cap” rule, the enemies and mechanics are still designed for an expected range of levels Sigh. I see that you can’t specialise unless you’re full-forma’d, yes. And that no-forma would mean you can only fit so much on, so the middle ground of somewhat-half-forma’d is where you get the most variety. I’ve removed Forma after installing one too many in order to broaden my build options, at cost to super specialised builds yes, but the variety of builds and ways to play it opened up for a game that doesn’t need super specialised building for most of it was well worth it. Also Umbral polarities are treated with great caution due to what they are I’m not sure why you’re bringing up half-ranks, they’re a nightmare to work with and design around so I don’t bother. I guess you can juggle them to get partial effects, which I assume would only work better if a piece of gear isn’t full-forma’d, but personally I found that just max-ranking for full effect and then figuring out how to build to keep a mod I’d want and what content would allow me to do so far less of a headache

Haha. It’s just that simple, isn’t it. See you around

🤔 Tempting since you’re gonna skim even this tiny thing anyways But sure, let me just stick to solo like I have been for years and am a little tired of. Oh wait! I can just jump into multiplayer and let someone else do the work while I solo watch Youtube, or play solo with these 3 other NPCs who seem to move like human beings. I could try jumping into multiplayer to play with multiple other people, but then I’m back to soloing Youtube because there’s three other heroes who already have the mission covered who’re treating multiplayer like a necessary evil. Hmm. Now I’m thinking what would happen if multiplayer was invite only. Interesting thought

Still on-topic since it all ties back to why there’s such a problem with squading up with someone else who hogs the gameplay when there doesn’t need to be

Two modes at extreme ends to start, and then the entire game in between when you keep talking about SP like it’s the end all be all and seem to forget (if you ever knew in the first place) that there’s a reason for modes like Arbitrations and Sorties even 10 years down the track. I made assumptions you even knew what was different between SP and something like Sorties or Archons, but I can’t make that assumption now because you’re so out of touch I can’t explain things to you or point out (like I have a few times now and woosh, it went over your head) what makes SP unbalanced without what I’m saying going so far over your head you’re playing a completely different game in your head than what exists in the real world and I’m left aghast at how painfully ignorant you are about simple things you can verify at this very moment that would undermine so much of what you say. “Not to be associated with the nebulous topic of “Endgame”” and “An uncomplicated way to shortcut players to higher level and tougher enemies” are still very much applicable to Steel Path back then as it is today because it is a mode that shortcuts us to high-level enemies without having to wait for a timer or anything and endgame in this particular game is so ill-defined due to the non-linearity that’s still this game’s greatest strength to this day. Steel Path is still doing the thing it was designed to do even though we got a few more options and ways to take things in, the rest of the game is still doing the thing it was designed to do, and this is made possible by the fact that we’re still always starting modless and earning ever more ways to make builds which makes the options outside of SP expanded more-so for every way we’re given to help us take more things into SP, since we can use those same options outside of SP in whatever builds we could want to make starting from the baseline. The singular most powerful build is an extreme example to hit your thick skull over the head with the idea that power comes with a cost, so unbalanced SP that scales infinitely high and Archons and anything that starts going higher than what modless can handle comes with a cost when you start having to make a decision between one mod for power to keep up and another mod to customise your gameplay and gear. Mix into that the idea of a full-Forma piece of kit and you tell me what filling every slot on a piece of gear with polarities does to your build variety by design since polarities becomes a specialisation system after enough of them. What are you on about with options in SP being determined by essence? SP used to have more limited build options because we didn’t have things like Arcanes or Galavanised and it proper squashed builds like it was meant to, and then players started complaining that, for some mysteeeeeerious reason, there wasn’t a whole lot of variety and DE gave us more ways to elevate our weakest gear (resulting in the completely expected result of elevating our strongest even further) into the mode, and those options are just as useable outside of SP for mixing into builds for content like Arbitrations, content that doesn’t sit at SP’s level but needs more than modless to do.