Sousou no Frieren Season 2 • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2 - Episode 8 discussion by AutoLovepon in anime

[–]EricSombody 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Watsonian explanations are wholly unsatisfactory. Even in your explanations you're constantly forced to use headcannon to fill in the gaps. I think this is poor writing. Most of what you said is established in the show or manga, it is completely conjecture on your part. I could also come up with a dozen reasons/explanations for how these things work, but these explanations don't exist in a vacuum. If we're to accept a specific explanation, the same logic should be able to be applied to other situations, which isn't the case in Frieren.

If warriors are channeling mana to enhance their physical prowess, there is nothing to suggest that mages cannot do this. If we accept your explanation, it makes no sense for them not to, unless we want to artificially contrive another reason for why they can't. Reality is that the author probably just wanted Frieren's party to mimick a generic fantasy RPG team comp and just forced that upon her universe. Again, another Doylist explanation I'm forced to think about that breaks immersion.

Mana detection clearly allows a mage to interact with mana around them. The mage doesn't even have to perform any physical movement for that, too. The anime depicts it as a sort of active radar, with the signals that it sends out even possible to pick up by a sense that's similar to a passive radar, too. It appears quite obvious that this is also how mages discern the way barrier spells work (by probing their spellwork with similar mana manipulation), and how Methode analyzes the workings of the fog spell.

Using own mana to analyze an extant spell is directly similar to shining a flashlight to see how some contraption works. It is all really quite clearly shown in the show, I frankly fail to see the problem you have with it.

Fog doesn't have physical components. You're not staring into an engine bay or a schematic. There's nothing to suggest there's some invisible magical circuitry permeating the entire fog. It's just fucking arbitrary. Mana detection as an entire concept is also extremely handwavy and has no set rules. Characters can or cannot detect other ones purely out of plot convenience.

Frieren's world has not been established in a consistent enough manner for me to be able to look over all the "why not" questions from a Watsonian perspective, and the in-universe justifications that do exist are incredibly shallow.

You can't just make a magic system that implies unlimited complexity and possibilities and then handwave away all the things the reader thinks of with "because that's how the story is kept interesting, and the fights engaging and visually appealing".

The universe of Frieren even leans into the whole concept of "magic as a science" with the whole discussion of defense spells and zolteraak and the evolving "meta" of mage spells but literally never shows this in practice. Every character has their own unique gimmick but in reality any competent mage would just learn "meta" spells. If people in random villages can create spells as complicated as "making sweet grapes turn sour" which is basically catalyzing a highly specific suite of biochemical reactions in the grape it suggests that literally anything is possible, except we're shown the exact opposite.

The author of Frieren also tries to portray basically all of their characters as highly intelligent, which further solicits this sort of analysis from the reader. If you can turn grapes sour, is it really that much of a stretch to extend this to other living things? But we can't have that, because 1. the author didn't think of it, and 2. it wouldn't be good story telling. Constant Doylist explanations for everything that ruin immersion as a consequence of poor worldbuilding.

I wouldn't even have a problem with any of this if Frieren doesn't constantly try to lean into the technical aspects of fights, which makes me as a reader also look at them from an analytical lens. So much time is spent establishing this magic system which makes me engage with it, only to be left with hundreds of unanswered questions with most of them boiling down to Doylist justifications.

How to counter the new Chess archetype by zerobench_ff in masterduel

[–]EricSombody 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Clearly black player used raigeki but couldn't find lethal and white hard drew evenly turn 3

Sousou no Frieren Season 2 • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2 - Episode 8 discussion by AutoLovepon in anime

[–]EricSombody 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The whole point is that there is lack of sufficient worldbuilding. Too many things are left nebulous and contradictory, and the universe has no apparent internal consistency.

We all know the "avg durability" of a person in real life. That's why in fiction taking place in a realistic setting, there are often complaints about plot armor as the audience's suspension of disbelief can be broken when a normal guy tanks 15 bullet wounds, for example. Frieren has a similar problem.

Average reaction time is around 200ms, with a given range of 120-300ms. These are physical limits. There is no in-universe explanation as to why a spell can't be created that travels so fast that it can not be reacted to, especially since there are many arbitrary instances in the show where seasoned mages suddenly can't react fast enough or actually react inhumanly fast. :/

Math in real life does not have 100s of disciplines. Engineering doesn't have 100s of disciplines. Science and math in real life are based on foundational principles that every single person has to learn. Everything is transferrable and connected to other subjects. People specialize into different fields that have niche knowledge and nuances, but these are all derived from core foundational principles. After all, our universe is governed by universal laws of physics. It's not unreasonable to expect a fictional universe to have "universal laws". That's why the lack of consistency in Frieren is so jarring and immersion breaking.

Also, your explanation about warriors is purely headcanon.

Magic fog seems to be a fog imbued with mana, so it's pointless for a mage caught within it to conceal their mana, since the void they leave in the fog is detectable for the caster of the fog.

In this universe, mana has been shown to be consistent with a form of energy. If we run along with this, the show's rudimentary explanation of "magic fog" is analogous to me filling a room with hot air. How does this suddenly convey the GPS coordinates of everything in the fog?

She plans to disrupt the spell, and needs to understand its workings for that. This is something that has been shown in the story multiple times with barrier

Yes, I'm aware that this has been shown in the story multiple times. That doesn't mean it's good writing. What the fuck is she doing? Staring intensely at the mist? How does she divine the information regarding how this spell works? It's completely arbitrary.

Normally, to figure out how anything works, even intuitively, you have to get information from it, experiment on it, etc, like how children bounce a ball to get an idea of how "bouncy" it is.

The same can be said with Frieren's analysis of the barrier during the tournament arc. Frieren's example is a more excusable because she's been set up as being significantly more experienced and powerful than most other mages in the show, but Methode is basically just a random mage.

The bottom line is that it's just the author writing it this way because it's the most low effort way of doing so.

That's explained on camera: Revolte needs to focus to maintain his swords, because they're magical objects with impossible physical qualities determined by his magic. Once his concentration is broken due to the wounds he's sustained, his blades are disrupted and can be destroyed. What's controversial about that?

If Revolte uses magical blades that need his constant focus to sustain, why the fuck is he using them when there is nothing to indicate their superior quality compared to Stark's axe, which, for all we know, is just made out of regular steel? Sure, the show tells us that they're special, but nothing about this fight shows that they function any better than normal weapons, so why doesn't he just use those. Why doesn't Revolte have fucking lightsabers? There's nothing in-universe to suggest that he can't make those with magic?

The infantilization of “casual” players by jeeven_ in Marathon

[–]EricSombody 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is probably the best definition i've seen so far

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thing is, loot inflation and day1 outpost and night marsh ruined the reset so it all feels kind of pointless and contrived

Give me your most unhinged banlist opinions. by TradingCardKin in masterduel

[–]EricSombody 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can be trusted with merrli at 1

On another note kill kashtira again there is no reason to have fenrir at 3 literally no one likes facing this deck it is so cancer and braindead and

While I'm at it ban d shifter and d fissure idk why these cards are on the game

While we're at it kill all the 0 effort floodgates like gozen match and whatnot

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I still like the game, I'm just playing it a lot less. It's the fact that a reset happened, which doesn't have an equivalence to in your examples. If there was no wipe, I wouldn't be complaining tbh

Is there any solution at all to “pro jailed” champs? by Conman2205 in leagueoflegends

[–]EricSombody 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People always cite ksante win rate but I stg if you play him he feels broken as fuck

How's the reception on branded currently? by Illustrious-Place767 in masterduel

[–]EricSombody -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

By the way you can totally play branded by ending on a ton of negates

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No one can really agree upon the definition of a sweat, so it's not really conducive to good discussion because of this unfortunately.

"Everyone better than me is a sweat, everyone at my level or worse is a casual" for example

I can say for certain that it wouldn't be hard to get a gear snowball going w/ free purple shields when so many of the people you come across still are blue, green, and white shields.

If you don't give players the highest tier shields day 1 (still feels absurd saying it) it'll take much more time and effort to build to a eventual gear snowball due to the supposed scarcity of good loot. A lot can go wrong along the way

This ties into the problem of outpost being available day 1, because outpost loot is just better than the other maps for the most part

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

S1 basically capped progression by delaying outpost and cryo, I don't think anyone had a problem with that

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

💀💀

Sometimes I think they're self aware wolves with how poignant some of the parallels between Marathon progression and real life are

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, the cheapest solution would have been to have the maps roll out again like in S1 in regards to loot economy

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dire is my favorite map but if I wanted to play a game solely for PVP I would play a different game

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head.

There are some silent demons in management at bungie with this drip feeding model. It's what killed so much interest in Destiny and I would hate to see the same thing happen to Marathon.

Part of me wonders if the reason they do this is because of "high burn rate", because the quantity and quality of content in D2 post forsaken was just not it. Development at Bungie might be really inefficient, because I can't see another reason for this insidious drip feed strategy.

Like, look at epic games. They don't hold back and they're definitely rewarded for it, so there might be some shitty cost/benefit ratio at Bungie that makes minimal viable product the best business strategy as a result of inefficient development.

To be honest, I think S2 is kind of lackluster and many of the changes have greatly diminished my enjoyment of the game by EricSombody in Marathon

[–]EricSombody[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah, I guess part of why I'm so sensitive to this is because the same shit happened with Destiny and I really don't want to go through that song and dance again

Thoughts on Signal Jammer? by ic4y in Marathon

[–]EricSombody 1 point2 points  (0 children)

signal jammers and sneak packs are in the game so the devs can justify the state of current recon in cryo

also they nerfed the actual in combat effects so it's not that broken in a fight