Not that anyone cares, but there's an important game going on for the British folk. Andy Murray (UK) is playing a main rival of his, Gasquet, who is France's last hope at winning their own grand slam. Very good game so far and entertaining rivalry.

Quote from: aMetroid on May 30, 2016, 02:56:59 PM

Quote from: Flee on May 29, 2016, 07:31:36 PM

Quote from: aMetroid on May 29, 2016, 07:28:36 PM

Quote from: Flee on May 29, 2016, 10:14:20 AM

It's funny how good some people are at this game. Just invaded a host with 2 phantoms clearly ganking at the Great Belfry. Killed them both. Darkmoon joins. Killed the Darkmoon. Host summons another phantom. And another. I kill one, another red invades as well. We kill the remaining phantom. A blue joins. We kill the blue. The host, who has been taunting the entire fight, books it the second he's no longer in a better situation and runs for the fog gate. Too bad the Xbox One can only record 5 minutes, because those 15 minutes would've made for a great video.

Update: invaded him again with the same red and we won against him, a white and a darkmoon. Good stuff.

Blue? I don't believe you

I actually fight plenty of Darkmoons. For whatever reason though, I almost never get summoned myself. Played through NG+ with the sign equipped and got summoned only once (by the time I had actually spawned in, the host had already died).

I would love to actually get summoned as a Darkmoon would probably be my favorite covenant if I did

The last patch supposedly fixed that.

It supposedly made it easier to get summoned as a Darkmoon, but no one has really noticed a difference (yet).

lol no one cares

Yeah, not a lot of fans on here.

So, it looks like I won't be using any raw weapons any time soon. It seems like they'd only be good for sorcerers who don't invest a lot of strength or dexterity.

Yeah, that's one of their possible uses. However, you're a long way from having discovered all possible weapon infusions. Later on, you'll encounter weapons doing, among others, magic damage (which scales with intelligence) or lightning damage (which scales with faith). When using one of those weapons, they'll get scaling bonuses not with strength or dexterity, but with intelligence or faith instead. Most strong sorcerer builds using melee just get the basic dex/str in order to be able to wield their weapon of choice and then have it scale with their intelligence or faith for good damage.

Tyger already explained it well, but understanding scaling is pretty important for Dark Souls. To simplify it a little, Verb, it kind of works like this.

Generally speaking, the damage output of a purely physical weapon (so nothing infused with lightning or fire, for example) depends on two things. One, its permanent base damage. Two, its scaling damage.

Say your winged spear does 100 base damage. This means that your normal strike will do 100 base damage (it won't actually do that much due to enemy resistance and armor, but you get the idea) to whatever you hit. This doesn't change and will always remain the same.

In addition, your spear might have a B scaling in strength. The scaling scale is E-D-C-B-A-S (S being the best). This means that on top of the 100 base damage, you'll do additional damage based on your strength and the scaling rank (a B in this case). Say you have 20 strength, this B will add another 150 scaling damage to your weapon (for a 200 total). Increase your strength to 40 and that scaling bonus will have increased to 250 damage (for a 350 total).

That's why it's important to kind of think a little ahead. If you want to go full dexterity or strength, it pays off going with a weapon that'll give you the biggest scaling boost in the end.

Now, the scaling of a weapon is affected by what weapon it is (duh), its level (it's not uncommon for a weapon with a B scaling at +1 to turn into an A scaling at +5) and the kind of infusion it has. And that's why you should always read through the menus and compare stats in the menu.

Raw, for example, will give you higher base damage in exchange for lower scaling. Hypothetically speaking, your winged spear would go from a B in strength to a D, but raise its base damage from 100 to 200.

So what does that mean for our example? Your base damage is now 200, twice what it was before. But your scaling damage fell from 100 damage to 50 at strength level 20 and from 250 to 100 at strength level 40, for a total of 250 damage at 20 strength and 300 at 40 strength.

All in all, this would be a decent trade at early levels (because you don't yet have high enough strength to get the biggest possible scaling boost) but ultimately do 50 damage less at 40 strength. For weapons with good scaling, going raw is usually a pretty bad idea late game. But some weapons with already very low or even no scaling to begin with, the base damage increase can ultimately be better than the loss of scaling.

And in case you're wondering, this is only barely scratching the surface. We haven't touched upon all the different infusions, soft humanity bonuses, soft caps, actual scaling bonus differences between the letters, split elemental damage, thrust/slash/blunt, the base increase from leveling up even without scaling and so forth. Deep combat is pretty damn deep, but this should at least help you to understand it better.

Just to respond to some parts of your post:

Yeah, Blighttown is one of the universally hated areas. Not because it's poorly designed but just because it, well, sucks to play through. It's an acquired taste though, and once you've actually beaten it a few times you learn to appreciate it for what it is.

As the Power Within description reads, it's a pyromancy spell which boosts your damage output but drains your health in return. It's basically a slightly stronger poison that increases your damage and can't be cured until the spell runs out.

It's entirely possible to get through the swamp without being poisoned. Remember how all shields and armor has unique defense properties? Check out your stats and properties of your equipment. Some armor will be a lot better at resisting poison than other, so equip the right set before diving in. Also, purple moss clears the poison bar even before it fills up so you can use it to prevent the poison from actually damaging you.

7 Blooming Moss is insanely good. Most players don't have any by the time they reach the area and have to get lucky and get it as a drop or find 1 or 2 of it in the swamp.

The cragspiders flames intentionally look that way. They're not fire but a new element called Chaos you'll learn more about later.

And NPC invasions unfortunately are rather easy in DS1. Doesn't really compare to a human opponent, so it kinda fails there.

Thomas.

Ensuring a consistent and high level of protection of the personal data of natural persons and facilitating the exchange of personal data between competent authorities of Members States is crucial in order to ensure effective judicial cooperation in criminal matters and police cooperation. To that end, the level of protection of the rights and freedoms of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security, should be equivalent in all Member States. Effective protection of personal data throughout the Union requires the strengthening of the rights of data subjects and of the obligations of those who process personal data, as well as equivalent powers for monitoring and ensuring compliance with the rules for the protection of personal data in the Member States.

Best tip to cut off boss tails is to use the most appropriate weapon for that particular job. Gaping's tail sways around quite a bit and hangs into the air at all times. Using a long weapon with vertical swings (Halberd, greatsword, claymore...) would be a lot more effective at getting hits in on it than a thrusting spear. You didn't miss out on much this time, though. The dragon drops a weapon called the Dragon King Greataxe which is so heavy it requires 50 strength to wield. Its special attack is great fun if you can use it, but no big losses here.

Also, you should consider two-handing a bit more often. When you're behind Gaping, there's a short period of time where he can't do anything and you get some hits in. Fighting an enemy like this, there's no downside to two-handing your weapon. There's no reason to block and even if you would block something, the Dragon's attacks are so strong that your flimsy shield won't do much with the endurance level you have now. Might as well go for the extra damage then.

From what I remember, the busted fence to Blighttown is always open. You can get to the merchant before fighting Gaping. Unless I'm very, very wrong, I think you just missed it was already busted open.

Good job though, and welcome to Blighttown. Easily one of the most hated areas in the game, and you've probably already come to experience why.

Quote from: Flee on May 26, 2016, 11:06:40 AM

Quote from: Tyger on May 26, 2016, 10:09:42 AM

Quote from: Flee on May 11, 2016, 11:56:11 AM

Quote from: Big Boss on May 11, 2016, 11:50:22 AM

Quote from: Flee on May 11, 2016, 10:26:55 AM

Hello, my esteemed American friends. As a poor European who is currently being denied access to the US-only Shiny Xerneas and Yveltal event, I was wondering if someone with multiple games / systems has a spare to share. Yveltal is one of my favorite shinies, so that would be pretty great.

Shiny Yveltal looks like bacon

I'm McLoving it.

I can hook U up

That'd be great. Anything you want in return? I doubt I have much or anything you don't already have, as Europe always gets screwed over when it comes to stuff like this.

no  i don't need anything in return, but my internet just went out so I may have to give it to you tomorrow or later tonight whenever it gets fixed

Sweet, thanks. Just let me know whenever. I hate missing out on this event, so it would be great if you have any spares.

Quote from: Flee on May 11, 2016, 11:56:11 AM

Quote from: Big Boss on May 11, 2016, 11:50:22 AM

Quote from: Flee on May 11, 2016, 10:26:55 AM

Hello, my esteemed American friends. As a poor European who is currently being denied access to the US-only Shiny Xerneas and Yveltal event, I was wondering if someone with multiple games / systems has a spare to share. Yveltal is one of my favorite shinies, so that would be pretty great.

Shiny Yveltal looks like bacon

I'm McLoving it.

I can hook U up

That'd be great. Anything you want in return? I doubt I have much or anything you don't already have, as Europe always gets screwed over when it comes to stuff like this.

My audio on Elgato is like a few seconds ahead of my clips

You can always realign it in video editing software.

If you want me to keep these shorter, just let me know.

If the UK leaves the EU couldn't situations like shipping packages be something the UK could make a negotiation with the EU on the leaving table?

Definitely, but it's no guarantee. The UK is not in a strong position to negotiate at all. Contrary to what some might believe, the UK is far from the empire it once was. The EU does not need the UK nearly as much as the UK needs the EU. Would they both manage without one another? Sure. But the UK potentially has a lot more to lose from a Brexit than the EU does.

See:
http://www.politico.eu/article/the-eu-doesnt-need-britain/
http://infacts.org/uk-needs-eu-more-than-it-needs-us/
http://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/opinion/uk-and-europe-for-better-not-for-worse/
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2015/12/30/britain-needs-europe-a-lot-more-than-europe-needs-britain/

This quote from a NY Times piece is pretty good, I think.

"Britain can — and must — make the E.U. more transparent, democratic and dynamic. That can only be achieved from within. The country derives immense benefits from being part of an $18.5 trillion economy. To imagine that a Britain outside the Union can continue to enjoy the benefits of membership is pure illusion, as many industry leaders have made clear."

So could something like that be negotiated? Absolutely. But you have to be realistic about this. What does the UK have to gain? Free trade and access with the world's biggest market of (not including the UK) almost 500 million people spread out over 27 different countries spanning almost an entire continent. What does the EU have to gain from such an agreement? No customs on sending goods to a single country that's only about 10% of its entire population? UK exports to the EU account for 13% of its entire GDP. The opposite? EU exports to the UK account for less than 3% of its GDP. This does not leave the UK in a strong negotiating position at all, as they have a lot more to win from being included and lose from being excluded than the EU does. Add that to the fact that a number of the biggest EU actors such as Germany and France have already said that there would be consequences for the UK leaving, and you're talking about pretty wishful thinking. Maintaining this free trade market comes with a price and responsibilities, and it's far from certain that the EU will allow the UK in on that if they decide they don't want to carry the burden as well.

Change has been an integral part of the EU in the past decade. The UK is one of the three most influential actors in the entire Union. I think that voting to remain in the EU would send a hopeful message for the future and allow negotiations to take place that can change the EU, create more transparency and leave more to the power of the member states. But if the UK leaves, it'll still have to deal with a lot of things the EU decides without having a say in any of it whatsoever. It's kind of what I said earlier.

Say the UK leaves and manages to negotiate trade plans with the EU. The EU is never going to lower its consumer protection standards, human rights guarantees, competition or data protection rules. So what does that mean? It means that if the UK wants to continue using the EU's market and retain open access thereto, they are going to have to adhere to those rules anyways. They're going to have to uphold the same human rights practices or things like the European Arrest Warrant and extradition system will exclude them. They're going to have to keep equally strong data protection standards, or a complaint from any person could lead to the Commission deciding that the UK's regime is not adequate and therefore not capable of receiving personal data as their lack of security and standards could lead to data breaches or privacy violations of EU citizens. They're going to have to keep their products and foodstuffs to the same standards as the rest of the EU, or otherwise they won't be able to be imported in the rest of the EU (remember my example of pesticides and growth hormones, for example).

So yeah, could they negotiate such agreements? It's not a guarantee because they're in the weaker position and other European powers will be reluctant to, but yeah, they probably could. But even if they did, they'd be, at the absolute best, in Norway's position, meaning that they would have to still follow a ton of EU rules without having any say in it at all.

And would anything stop the UK from continuing the uniform practice of handling medical records?

Not at all, they would still be able to maintain that practice and change information freely with the rest of the EU. Problem is that this just reinforces my previous point. In order to gain entry here, the UK has to follow suit. What if a few months down the line, the standard practice is updated? Because of major changes in biometrics, genetic and DNA identifier data, these rules are revised to account for scientific changes. At this point, the UK wouldn't have much of a choice but to adopt the new EU standard or be left out. Only difference here is that unlike before, they no longer have a say in the adoption, regulation or enforcement of this new standard. But the only alternative would be to make new treaties with every single individual EU country for the exchange of medical information, which would take months and cost a ton of money.

Is it fair? Maybe not, but it's the reality of things. The EU has a lot of room for improvement, but it won't get that by countries leaving. The UK is already sending a strong signal through the referendum and Cameron's recent negotiations with major EU institutions. If the UK stays, it would make clear that while there's still faith in the Union, some things have to change. And that could ultimately be very beneficial for everyone. So I genuinely hope that the UK votes to stay.

Yes of course, and I'll try to keep my personal prejudice against what I call "Overreach" out of it. I know my views on something like that is a bit ironic considering I work for the biggest entertainment company in the world and like it but....

And I'll keep mine out of it too. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand many of the complaints against the EU. I just think that many people who are against it don't feel that way because they fully understand what's going on, but because they simply lack knowledge of how the EU works and have this incorrect idea that it's a few suits in Brussels who randomly decide pointless things for Europe that the rest of the continent just has to follow. I'll gladly admit that before my Master's, I didn't have much of a clue of how the EU worked either. But now that I've spent so much time studying it, writing about it, researching its many pieces of legislation and the impact they've had on the member states, I feel that I have a good understanding of the Union and believe that while flawed, it's not the evil behemoth that some make it out to be, but instead is an important institution that has contributed more to economic progress, environmental protection, scientific research, education, free movement, human rights, consumer benefits, international cooperation, data protection, agreements with third parties and so on than most can even imagine. I understand the gripes some people have with it, but I genuinely believe that the UK leaving the Union would be a mistake and have negative consequences for both parties.

In the end, we have very different experiences with the EU. I live in it and concern myself with its matters everyday, being subscribed to a number of news letters and being a legal scholar in a field that is very much shaped by the EU. I have sat down and had face-to-face talks with the European Data Protection Supervisor and the head of Eurojust. I have been in direct contact with members of the European Parliament and Ministers of the Council. I worked on projects from the European Commission. I've had professors who were President at the European Council or who were retired judges at the European Court of Human Rights. Two years ago, I received a personal guided tour from a professor of mine who is currently the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, making him arguably the most influential judicial authority in the entire world.

When I look at the EU, I mainly see the good it causes. I see the men behind it who are considerably more intelligent and well educated than either of us will probably ever be. I read its legislation, its proposals, its successes and a lot of the research behind and about it, and while not blind to its flaws, I see the benefits of what it could achieve.

But things are different for you. You don't know or see this the way I do. When you look at the EU, you think of all the news papers articles you've read on it and probably see its proposals and intitiatives as little more than just more European over reaching or meddling with state affairs. Where I and the EU legislator see ways of increasing and promoting freedom, you see it being taking away. And that's perfectly fine. We just need to not let our background get in the way of proper discussions too much.

Finished my thesis yesterday so I can now temporarily justify spending time on serious discussions again. Sorry for the delay.

Picking up on only one of these arguments: One such argument is the increasing worry about losing a national identity and become "The United States of Europe" with how much overreach the EU has over everything in a country does, would that be considered misguided?

To an extent, yeah. Arguably the single most important principle in the EU is that of conferral, meaning that the EU is only competent to regulate and intervene in areas that it was given explicit competence in by all European countries. In practice, it means that the EU only has a say in those fields all member states agreed upon. In addition, there's a number of instances where certain states (most notably the UK and Denmark) are exempt from certain pieces of EU legislation because it often is possible for states to opt-out of certain agreements even in areas they agreed to give the Union competence in.

Not sure how familiar you are with the different kinds of EU competence (exclusive, shared, supplementing), but member states definitely have a voice. A lot of EU legislation is laid down in Directives setting nothing but minimum standards while letting countries decide on the implementation of things like proportionality and necessity. And above all, article 4 of the TEU lays down that

"The Union shall respect the equality of Member States before the Treaties as well as their national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government. It shall respect their essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security. In particular, national security remains the sole responsibility of each Member State."

Because of this, culture and national identity has been used as an exemption for many Union obligations and can be taken up to the highest EU court (Court of Justice) to be enforced if the Union steps out of line.

And that's kind of what I mean by lack of information. I have been studying EU law for these past 3 years. It's my specialisation along with IT law. So when I see people complain, I wonder how much they actually understand. Are they aware of the state level exemptions? The fundamental articles in the TEU and TFEU? The possibility of independent judicial evaluation by the CJEU? The differences between the Commission, Council and Parliament? The distinction between regulations, directives, framework decisions and communications, or between legislative, implemented and delegated acts? The role member states play in the EU legislative process? The differences between exclusive, shared, supplementing and non-competences and what they entail?  The possibilities of exemptions, safeguards for national/cultural identity, additional protocols? The differences between the EU and the Council of Europe?

The EU is likely the single most intricate institution in the entire world. So when I see yet another complaint of "look what the suits in Brussels randomly decided to force open the entire continent", I can't help but wonder if those people would feel the same if they understood how much negotiating, research, debates, member state input, working party analysis and such goes into something like that, what the limits are of EU competences and how even one member state can take action against it. Or when someone hears something about the European Court of Human Rights and goes "great, even more EU overreach", if they're even aware that this Court has literally nothing to do with the EU.

However, getting reformation in the EU seems about as difficult as running a nation without it so it looks more like a "Choose your poison" kind of deal with the cons being the exact same on both turnouts.

The EU has seen 3 major constitutional reforms since 2000 and a lot of other, smaller and incremental changes to its legal framework. Is it difficult to do? Of course, because you have to get 28 completely different countries to cooperate. But impossible or unfeasible? Not at all. "Picking your poison" has existed for as long as international politics has been around. Benefits come with obligations and responsibilities. It's the reality of state relations.

Different avenues of control in the EU shouldn't be intertwined that way to begin with.

But they aren't to that extent. The point I was making is that when a bunch of people are hosting a party and everybody has to contribute something (one person rents the location, someone else arranges transport, another person does music, a final one covers booze and snacks), one person can't just say "oh damn, all those preparations do sound like it would take a bit of effort. You know what, count me out. I'm not doing this. But you are still going to let me come to the party and join in on all the fun, right?". So what I'm trying to say is that the people thinking that the UK will just be able to say "lol, fuck the EU we're not helping anymore" and then just keep all of the benefits without any responsibilities to go with it might be in for a surprise.

What I mean is that the UK's policy on EU citizens attempting to come into the UK shouldn't be weighed in with EU legislation in general.

The UK is not a part of the passport-free Schengen zone as it is. It is already in control of its own border controls. Immigrants coming into the UK are subject to passport and visa controls. The UK is under absolutely no obligation to allow non-EU nationals into their country. The only people they must allow in are actual EU nationals, which as I've already demonstrated above are actually very beneficial to the British economy and open up a two-way street (hundreds of thousands of Britons are freely living, working and studying in other parts of the EU). The UK has also refused to join in on the refugees / immigrant resettlement schemes, so they're entirely exempt from those. If the UK would leave the EU, it would also leave the Dublin Regulation. This regulation makes it so that the country granting asylum to an immigrant is responsible for it, meaning that if somehow an immigrant does end up in the UK, there's a procedure in place to send them back which would no longer exist without a EU membership. Currently, most UK border controls take place in France at Calais. Without a EU membership, that would shift to Dover on UK soil. If any immigrant were to make it across the canal (which would be considerably easier to do without French cooperation), the UK would either have to fly them back to Syria themselves or somehow plead the EU to take them back. The evidence is pretty clear that staying in the EU would be better for the UK from an immigration point of view.

These are all different issues that while not exclusive to themselves, shouldn't affect each other to a huge degree if the UK were to leave. And I'm sure that leaving negotiations would sort out these problems before the country is formerly out the door.

Which is again assuming that other major EU powers such as Germany and France will be just fine with the UK's decision to get out of its responsibilities but still wanting in on the benefits.

I agree with you that not everything should be tied together (which it already isn't, but that'd be too detailed to get into), but a number of things necessarily are. The EU sought to create a free, internal market, which has been very beneficial economically speaking. But in order to so, you have to harmonize more than one field. You can't have an open and free market without allowing other Europeans to access your country. You can't have an open internal trading platform without the free movement of goods, capital and services. You can't have goods move freely without some degree of open borders, lack of customs and product standards. You can't have free capital transfers without some fiscal / financial unity. You can't have the free spread of services, telecom, websites an so forth without a standard platform of access to infrastructure and minimum standards.

Great, you say you have an open internal market where everyone can trade their goods and services (similar to US cross-state commercial activities). Unfortunately, it's completely useless when you don't actually let people cross the borders.

Or say you want a free market of goods. Great idea, but you can't achieve that without, for example, consumer protection and product standards. Because otherwise, every single country has its own rules on foodstuffs, electronics, cars, emissions and so on, making it so that even though you have a theoretically open market, a country like Italy won't be able to actually export its goods to Germany, France or the UK because they have stricter consumer protection laws and, for example, don't allow growth hormones in their meat or pesticides on produce while Italy does.

Some of these things necessarily are a web, because you just can't achieve these goals by addressing only a small aspect of them.