CRYSTALGATE'S PROFILE

post=calunio
MMmmm... all these findings may be just a sign of misused statistic analyses after all.

Misused statistic analyses is indeed the culprit. http://www.ruudwetzels.com/articles/Wagenmakersetal_subm.pdf

Bem's experiment has two errors that I'm able to understand. There's a third listed, but I could not understand what it actually meant.

The first error Bem made was to make multiple attempts and only report those who yielded significant result. Let's for simplicity's sake say that the probability of something to happen is 5% if left entirely to chance. Let's assume you do five experiments, each with that probability. Now, the chance that at least one of the experiments will yield that 5% result is 1-0,95^5 which is about 23%. If one of your experiment does happen to produce that 5% result, you should report a 23% result, not a 5% result. Bem did an error similar to reporting a 5% result in my example.

The second error was to not weight his evidence for precognition against the evidence <i>against</i> precognition. We have no evidence that proves beyond any doubt that precognition doesn't exist and I do not think it's even possible to have such evidence. We do however have evidence suggesting that precognition is very unlikely. One example given is casinos being profitable. It's not hard to imagine how people with precognitive abilities could ruin a casino. Casinos being profitable therefore speaks against people with precognitive abilities existing. Obviously, if you find evidence for precognition, it has to be stronger than the evidence against precognition before you can draw any conclusion.

Now for something fun. Bem followed the rules that guide academic publishing. There may at this point be a lot of published findings by psychologists that came to be due to flawed statistic analyses.

post=Craze
To me, it doesn't matter if a forest acts like a "real" forest. It needs to act like a videogame forest, since emulating a real forest is practically impossible.

Fallen-Griever's advice can be emulated though and I think in that particular case emulating reality is an improvement. To me forests look better if you have patches of plants instead of scattering them everywhere as it gives variety to the different places in the forest. Also, if the forest has multiple paths you will also create landmarks that way.

It's not an important improvement though, but for those who considers making maps prettier worth some extra time, putting plants in patches may be a good idea.

post=Link_2112
Unless you have very limited resources in which case taking less damage is crucial to actually surviving a whole dungeon. The problem there is that most games give you an excess of items and you can always just stock up and buy 99 potions. I used to play FF games and save my Mega Elixir and high powered attack items but then I'd never even need to use them. There was an RMN game that gave you very little potions and no healing spell through the first dungeon, that was hard and very rewarding to try and minimize your damage taken. I actually almost didn't make it and when I got to the end it felt like an accomplishment.

Most games I've played that do give you very limited resources also makes healing the most efficient way to spend MP, thereby preventing that potential strategy. Done correctly though, your idea should work, it's just that few seem inclined towards implementing resource management correctly.

post=ariedonus
From what I have seen in the community (the portion that makes RPGs anyway), we are trying to make our games challenging and interesting, not hard. In the past, a lot of RM* games are nothing more than spamming attack and using your strongest spells. Pretty boring.

That sounds like a great goal.

Take Mario games as an example. Most of them aren't hard. However, even if they are easy, there's still a point in being skilled. You can beat the stage faster and even if you don't speedrun, being more skilled still means you're less likely to miss-time the jump and having to redo it. It also means you're less likely to get hit by an enemy and lose that fancy power up. In short, even if the game is easy, there are still advantages in becoming better.

However, in RPGs there's often no reward for handling the fights better. Giving the characters the right equipment selection and other out of battle adjustment usually gives you advantages, but being clever during the battles is pointless. Many skills are such that even if you use them when they work perfectly (sleep vs 100% vulnerable enemy, defense up vs enemies with physical attacks only) it's still faster to stick with offensive moves and heal up when needed.

Now for a theory of mine. Assume you have battles which are easy and does have the problem mentioned above. Under those conditions, increasing the difficulty will mainly add frustration. What's likely to happen is that certain skills are either mandatory or useless. Maybe enemies are now hitting so hard that you have to use that defense up move. However, any time that defense up move isn't necessary, it's pointless to use it. You will still not find yourself in situations where that move maybe isn't necessary to survive, but it's still convenient to have the extra defense.

post=Radnen
I'm not saying anyone has, I was just merely reverberating your observation: " make even more sense for disgruntled fans to post negative reviews and posts" which I do see (at other places, not necessarily here or this thread or the review linked in the OP which I never really addressed). The point I'm trying to make is that, call it what you want, if a company makes a poor decision, what can be said really? Complaining won't help any. And I do see complaints here, and they gotta stop. Mitsuhide seems to understand quite well.

In the very post you responded to I did give you a reason for posting negative feedback, namely discouraging a similar decision from being made again. I can also give you more reasons, sometimes it's just as fun, if not more fun, to discuss bad games as it is to discuss good games. A third reason is to simple vent your opinion which is also often the motive for posting praise. There is no reason as to why the complaints has to stop.

Also, even if we'd accept that the complaints gotta stop, then realistically, so does any praise as well. Under no circumstances is it acceptable that a product may only receive positive feedback. I also have a hard time to imagine any scenario where positive feedback can help, but negative cannot.