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| Thread: Are we being reasonable in our expectations of the developers? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 · NEXT» |
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 13, 2015 09:06 AM |
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Are we being reasonable in our expectations of the developers?
So, I would just like to ask you to try to take a step back from the current situation and think about this question: Are we being reasonable in our expectations of UbiSoft and the development team?
Reason why I ask this is because it seems that no matter what new part of the game is revealed, the forum erupts in criticism that this is "worse than ever", etc. Much of this criticism imo. is (at least partially) justified, but still, sometimes it's worth to do a reality check.
My personal opinion is this:
Criticism I find justified:
- Making this skill system after all the fire they got with Heroes 6 skill system
- Poor quality town screens [except Dungeon and partially Academy], again not listening to much of the feedback from Heroes 6 town screens (wall in front, for instance)
- Not listening to feedback on game and faction design themes (Spiderpolis for instance)
- Pushing lore in front of gameplay in terms of prioty when designing game
- Poorly constructed faction line-up vote system (letting us choose between three line-ups that all had some unwanted creatures and excluded some wanted creatures)
Criticism I don't find justified
- Re-using some models from H6 (BUT: They should not re-use those specific models that got the most criticism - like Lich and Black Dragon, which is exactly what they did)
- Similar units having similar models and animations (Bone Dragon and Black Dragon - they are both dragons, so it's ok they will be similar in animation)
Personally I find the re-use of some H6 models ok as long as there are made cosmetic changes - after all, graphic quality hasn't change much from H6 to H7, so rather than putting all the money into new unit models, I'd rather the money was used on other things - better town screens, more game features, etc. What they *should* have done, however, was making some sort of evaluation on what units to re-use - it simply can't come as a surprise that many fans hated the Lich, Vampire and Black Dragon of H6, for instance.
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What will happen now?
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted August 13, 2015 09:19 AM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 09:43, 13 Aug 2015.
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I don't think it's reasonable to expect anything anymore.
Ubisoft just won't pour enough money into production of a proper game yet they seem more than willing to milk the franchise for all it's worth.
I find this another repeat of the classic mistake of announcing one's game too early with not much to show for it.
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meroe
Supreme Hero
Basically Smurfette
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posted August 13, 2015 09:34 AM |
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I think the majority of people have been totally unreasonable. I can barely bring myself to go on the website now because of all the ridiculous and troll-like whinging - "this is c**p" and "why can't they do *this*" (just because they specifically like something).
I guess it was a somewhat naive and slightly egotistical attempt by Ubi in trying to galvanize the community into one understanding unit who would swoon at every snippet they gave us.
The truth is everyone has their own ideas/favorites etc. There will always be disagreement about how a game could/should be made/played.
Anyone with more than a few brain cells could have predicted how a community of gamers' were going to react when given the illusion that they alone could help to 'improve' the game.
If Ubi had just kept it all under wraps and then released it, all we would be doing is either praising the a** off the developers or moaning about things we can't (and wouldn't have been able) to change anyway.
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Meroe is definetely out, sweet
as she sounds sometimes, she'd
definetely castrate you with a
rusted razror and forcefeed
your genitals to you in a
blink of an eye - Kipshasz
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Kimarous
Supreme Hero
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posted August 13, 2015 09:42 AM |
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Edited by Kimarous at 09:43, 13 Aug 2015.
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I more or less agree with alciblades' position, with only minor quibbles about the townscreen situation (Could be improved? Yes. Mostly terrible? Not so much) and having mixed feelings on the lore situation (I'm all for maintaining consistency, but since you retconned bits of H5 as is, why not retcon some of the less popular elements?)
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Rakshasa92
Supreme Hero
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posted August 13, 2015 10:26 AM |
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I disagree of course.
THIS IS 2015!! [/this is sparta mode off] Not 1999, but still the game looked and played better than today.
if you don't have the money to create a reasonable game, then sell the game to a company that DOES have that what you lack, namely money, imagination, creativity and taste in color.
Re-using the same models in a game is something I really find horrible, especially when those same models were ugly to begin with, such as the Medusa, and actually all the models.
But then again i'm an Ashan and Erwan hater, so I can't be reasoned with, i'm angry they destroyed a good franchize and turn it into this My Little Pony type of crap with Dragon Gods because most people like Dragons so much... (sheep sheep)
Too bad, I still hope this is their last game.
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Dies_Irae
Supreme Hero
with the perfect plan
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posted August 13, 2015 11:07 AM |
bonus applied by alcibiades on 14 Aug 2015. |
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alcibiades said:
So, I would just like to ask you to try to take a step back from the current situation and think about this question: Are we being reasonable in our expectations of UbiSoft and the development team?
They decided to make the development of H7 public, by means of the Shadow Council. People remember H6, remember how different it was from previous games, how previous games were constructed lore-wise, skill-wise etc. People bring this experience to the Shadow Council. Everyone thinks he/she knows best what the game should be like. So yes, people have expectations and are not afraid to voice them.
So if the Development Team wants the fans to be part of it, and if they read the comments as they claim, they should be well aware just where the community's expectations lie. And because H6 was no succes in the eyes of many, they expect a better skill system (etc). And when that article was published about going back to the roots, these expectations were only fuelled more. Are 'we' being reasonable? Well, sometimes the fire burned high and hot down at the SC, but I think that some things are not wrong to ask. Better specializations, for one. And the fact that they revealed the Skillwheel relatively late didn't help much either.
People want a thousand things, and use unreasonable methods to ask for them (insulting people, spamming, hating, namecalling, not respecting the opinions of those who did not see H6 as bad), but there is truth in what they want. It's just the way they sometimes express it that makes them and all of us look like a bunch of spoiled brats.
Also, a lot of the criticism/hate is imo fuelled by a trinity: Erwan, Spiders, Ashan (or H6). "It's Ashan, therefore it's stupid", "Erwan did this, therefore it's stupid", "Spiders, so it's stupid". Only rarely do people also see the good things of H7, but most of the criticism is pre-determined. Criticizing things because of the setting, the creator or anything is hardly justified, because imo it feels like hating for the sake of hating. The negativity, as Meroe points out, is a good reason not to come here anymore.
And that's also the great distinction between the Casual Gamer, like me, and the Professional Gamer. The latter has a great knowledge of the franchise, its lore, its mechanics, and therefore has greater expectations. Also, this knowledge and involvement can lead to disappointment rather quickly, hence all the "this is no Heroes game" posts. The former, however, is a lot easier in that respect. Takes more for granted and is not as demanding, and if the game feels and plays like it did before, he's happy. As I said, that's where I see myself, although I too have voiced some wishes from time to time  .
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted August 13, 2015 11:27 AM |
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Regarding subjects that have received one too many complaints(and appropriate amount of feedback) in the past, the team had it coming. It was obvious some things were disliked our outright hated and they still chose to go with it.
Regarding major decisions like the skill or magic system, it's still on the team. Why? They chose to go transparent with the shadow council so it should have been up to a vote. That was the purpose of the council, was it not?
Regarding the smothering amount of lore and the limitations it pointlessly inflicts upon the gameplay, I cannot blame the team. This one is on the creative direction team and they had better be keeping notes..
The faction votes were terribly designed and this is likely ubi's decision. The subject of the vote should have been our favourite units rather than specific lineups. The team could afterwards sift through the feedback and create a lineup with the x top fan favourites, according to their vision. Forcing people to choose between three lineups, none of which being what they wanted is just annoying. It leaves everyone disappointed whereas they could have pleased most fans.
I do not blame the team for model recycling. I blame them for tacky or cheap copycat recycling.
Okay so you want to reuse the dragon. Change the wings into those featured on Malassa's statue and get rid of those silly firefly glows. Almost everyone hated the butterfly wings and that was no secret. It's a goddamn black dragon, not a dark fairy ffs.
Okay so they want assassins in the lineup. Change the gay @ss anime hair (no offense to gay people) and face at least? They only changed colours, clothing and daggers but the unit is otherwise the exact same one! Also that ludicrous clothing and even worse daggers wtf.
Okay you want the medusa. Change the macaroni hair obviously?! Change the laid back stance of the peaceful coral priestess into a more imposing bent forward stance? With same stance, hair and general weapon, they might as well have used the original. Just as terrible.
Most of ubi's failings look so obvious that it begs the question why they were allowed to happen.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted August 13, 2015 12:06 PM |
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alcibiades said:
- Pushing lore in front of gameplay in terms of priority when designing game
This is the big one. This is what (almost) every problem arises from. Don't do this to heroes. EVER.
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It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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keldaur
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 13, 2015 12:14 PM |
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Edited by keldaur at 12:18, 13 Aug 2015.
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Expectations regarding how creatures should look are not only unrealistic, but blown out of proportions (worst game ever because the X doesn't match the colour palette i would prefer). Yes, they are recycling models, have you seen their deadline ? I prefer them recycling decent models and making a decent game.
Expectations on how they game as a game is going to be released are more realistic. Maybe the next beta will surprise out with a suddenly completely polished game, but i doubt it.
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TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
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posted August 13, 2015 12:30 PM |
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Although I find right about every bit of complaints justified, as they conform to the specific tastes people have certain things are of particular note.
- Pushing lore in front of gameplay in terms of priority when designing game
This is the only game in recent history (no, scratch that, the only franchise/series) to mismanage lore so much. RPG creators have the largest departments for this and somehow the majority of them handle the situation very well. Heroes falls into this unique category where it is neither a RP, nor a full-on strategy game, which is its pitfall. Frankly, I feel the games would not be harassed so much if they were realized as RPs (under a different name/IP ofc), even for its lore, but as a TBS with very very very strict elements to its gameplay, I understand wholeheartedly why it happens.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted August 13, 2015 12:32 PM |
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keldaur said:
Yes, they are recycling models, have you seen their deadline ?
So, mismanagement then.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted August 13, 2015 12:35 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Criticism I don't find justified
- Re-using some models from H6 (BUT: They should not re-use those specific models that got the most criticism - like Lich and Black Dragon, which is exactly what they did)
- Similar units having similar models and animations (Bone Dragon and Black Dragon - they are both dragons, so it's ok they will be similar in animation)
Personally I find the re-use of some H6 models ok as long as there are made cosmetic changes - after all, graphic quality hasn't change much from H6 to H7, so rather than putting all the money into new unit models, I'd rather the money was used on other things - better town screens, more game features, etc. What they *should* have done, however, was making some sort of evaluation on what units to re-use - it simply can't come as a surprise that many fans hated the Lich, Vampire and Black Dragon of H6, for instance.
Well, I don't know to say. Maybe it is fine to have some units reused (except the most un-wanted ones), BUT, don't fans want to have an original game, that stays off H6? Even if some models were fine, it could give them the feeling this is Heroes 6.5 (or Heroes 6.2, whatever you prefer).
Considering how they claimed not having much money, I guess there wasn't much to be protested about that... except lich and vampire, of course. But it is still outrageous that they spent money on those silly animations when there are some parts that really needed to be fixed, rather than being left as it is.
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dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
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posted August 13, 2015 12:41 PM |
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Its ok to reuse some assets from time to time. Its not ok to reuse as much as you can. Not with this price tag.
*EDIT
Also I need to say this... Why did they stop at 6 factions when they could reuse sanctuary and inferno creatures. I can bet that 50% of the creatures would be just recolored.
If they do same lazy stunt with expansion I will pass it no matter how good gameplay is.
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted August 13, 2015 12:55 PM |
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Reusing models is not inherently bad. Heck, H7 Haven is a good example where reskining left us with an excellent line-up, despise recycling so many models.
No, the problem is where is all the money saved on the shameless recycling going to?
- Not on gameplay, since we have the skillpizza, lots of repeated creature abilities and a low number of them too.
- Not on graphics, hell the adv. map looks way worse than H6.
So where is all that money going? H7 feels like a very cheap attempt, but still sold at full price. That stinks
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted August 13, 2015 01:11 PM |
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dark-whisperer said:
Its ok to reuse some assets from time to time. Its not ok to reuse as much as you can. Not with this price tag.
*EDIT
Also I need to say this... Why did they stop at 6 factions when they could reuse sanctuary and inferno creatures. I can bet that 50% of the creatures would be just recolored.
If they do same lazy stunt with expansion I will pass it no matter how good gameplay is.
Could be a matter of "their" balancing.
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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted August 13, 2015 01:45 PM |
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alcibiades said:
Criticism I don't find justified
- Re-using some models from H6 (BUT: They should not re-use those specific models that got the most criticism - like Lich and Black Dragon, which is exactly what they did)
- Similar units having similar models and animations (Bone Dragon and Black Dragon - they are both dragons, so it's ok they will be similar in animation)
honestly I believe this is a completely justified expectation because what Ubisoft are doing is a negative change to the norm, every past Heroes game took the time to establish its own aesthetic from scratch, this is not an added bonus or a cherry on top but a high standard worthy of respect met throughout the series (even in Heroes 6) lol
I view the Heroes games aesthetic a bit like Dr Who, if you can't stand the current Dr Who don't stress out because he is guaranteed to change significantly in future into something else you might like and others might hate, the same is true of Heroes art direction up until Heroes 7 decided otherwise to subject us to Heroes 6 again lol
they can recycle all, or some, old models for the next flagship of Heroes, but please don't be offended that I continue to resist practices of such cheap laziness because it telegraphs an overall attitude to the series, I think if they sincerely cannot accumulate the money to actually create a new Heroes game of high overall quality they really shouldn't even try lol
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The_green_drag
Supreme Hero
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posted August 13, 2015 01:54 PM |
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I'll give a more in depth answer later but a quick note about the reusing models, they didn't even mention the fact that they were straight up reusing half of dungeons models when it was obviously the plan from the start. They had plenty of opportunities to tell us we were getting the last faction just thrown together with the scraps of the game.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted August 13, 2015 02:00 PM |
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Wasn't that pretty much obvious after Necropolis?
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted August 13, 2015 02:28 PM |
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Avirosb said:
Wasn't that pretty much obvious after Necropolis?
Not really; we hoped Necropolis would be the ugly exception.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted August 13, 2015 02:31 PM |
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EnergyZ said:
Well, I don't know to say. Maybe it is fine to have some units reused (except the most un-wanted ones), BUT, don't fans want to have an original game, that stays off H6? Even if some models were fine, it could give them the feeling this is Heroes 6.5 (or Heroes 6.2, whatever you prefer).
Thank you for bringing this up, because that is actually an important point for me: No, I don't want them to be original when it comes to this game. Not that I think H6 is a standard to strive for, but that is sort of besides my point - my point is, that if I want an original game, I'll go and buy some new game, not a prequel. When I buy 7th version of a game where I played every version since #1, I actually want to be able to see the old games in the new game I'm buying.
I've mentioned it before, and it recently came up with xuxo's excellent creature evolution chart: If you compare Heroes 1, 2 and 3, literally 100 % of the creatures made it on from H1 to H2, and again 100 % of the creatures made it on from H2 to H3 (if you count Zealot and Druid as the same creature). Now I know creatures are not all there is in this game, but the point is: What H2 and H3 did was not focus on being original, the focussed on being better: Better graphics, more factions, deeper skill and spell system, etc. They took the previous game and then they added to it, instead of trying to change it.
Where H4 and H6 failed was that they tried to "reboot" or "renew" the series. And my point here isn't that H4 and H6 are necessarily bad games (I think they are, but that's not the point) - I know both games have their fans, and that's good, but these fans came at the expense of some of the old fans. I'd rather have seen H4 and H6 as different games, or spin-offs, or whatever, and then have kept the Heroes series truer to it's original form - which was indeed what was done with H5, which returned to H3, kept most of it and then expanded on that (and ironically, some of the weakest points in H5 were exactly those things that got thrown away from H3, like absence of dual hero classes).
I had desperately hoped H7 would follow this trend: Start with H5, and then work on fixing the flaws this game had. I even naïvely thought that was what happened when we originally got told that they would look back, but instead what I see now is basically a "renewed" H6 which is repeating exactly the same mistake over agian.
verriker said:
alcibiades said:
Criticism I don't find justified
- Re-using some models from H6 (BUT: They should not re-use those specific models that got the most criticism - like Lich and Black Dragon, which is exactly what they did)
- Similar units having similar models and animations (Bone Dragon and Black Dragon - they are both dragons, so it's ok they will be similar in animation)
honestly I believe this is a completely justified expectation because what Ubisoft are doing is a negative change to the norm, every past Heroes game took the time to establish its own aesthetic from scratch, this is not an added bonus or a cherry on top but a high standard worthy of respect met throughout the series (even in Heroes 6) lol
While that is true, and while I would have liked H7 to develop its entire own aesthetics, we also have to look at the greater context: Previous Heroes games (H1-H6) came with longer times between, at least in terms of graphics development. At the time H3 came out, H2 graphics simply was completely outdated. Same with H6 compared to H5.
On the other hand, H7 feels much closer to H6 in this regard, the graphics of the two games are actually fairly similar in technical quality. Furthermore, there is actually reason to believe (as I see it) that H7 was pushed forward due to popular demand and criticism of H6. H3-H5 all had two expansions, yet H6 only got one. This again makes it meaningful to use some elements from H6.
Of course, if you ask me whether I would have liked a different art direction from H6 then yes I would, I didn't like H6 art at all. But with games that close together and under the same development team, I don't see that as very realistic. Does it make me happy? No. But I can understand the reasoning behind it, and I can accept it - unlike many of the decisions taken with regards to game design and gameplay, which to me are inexcusable.
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What will happen now?
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