I’ve just processed 2 refunds with Amazon, no problems whatsoever.
Yeah; just to clarify, Steam reserves the right to block refunds if they feel you’re “abusing” the refund system (put in quotes because the definition isn’t made clear). Even then, it doesn’t mean they’ll close your account, just that they’ll stop you from getting refunds in the future. I’m honestly not sure what would constitute abuse and still allow such action to be compliant with the EU legalese which spurred the policy in the first place (as I understand, the 14-day cooling off period is pretty much a blanket policy for distance purchases, so perhaps Steam would prevent you from directly purchasing games as well).
You probably overlooked the source of the conversation as to why Amazon came up. I’ll summarize. Amazon has had its eye on the fashion industry, clothing. Amazon is known for tracking refunds and returns, heavily… actually blacklisting people over it, a very easy Google search to find. Once you enter the clothing sphere, especially for women which is not consistent at all with sizing, then your refunds can easily go into a common thing, even to a 100% if you order additional sizes in order to ensure an outfit for an event so…
Yes, I am sure you can refund a couple of things, but hey… since you probably doubted me enough to even, you know, post something like hey I returned something here you go!
This is not something I’ve heard Steam doing, and it’s pretty darn rare for the department and box stores to do it. I am not sure Steam would even care if you ordered the same item again later since they don’t have any sort of rumor, I know, of blocking someone who initiates a refund.
It’s not that rare, at least not as rare as you may think. As someone who did returns analysis for a chain with sub-stores for a few years, they watch those numbers closely and they do keep lists of people that they blacklist from clothing returns. Too many, and you’re no longer welcome. Once stores got online and networked, those return stats opened some boardroom eyes.
You’re saying that women’s clothing stores that ship the products to customers they never tried on have a hard policy of blacklisting people who don’t like the fit? That seems… unusual. There’s no way to know if something fits until you try it on. And I’ve not heard of too many companies that block that process. Heck there was one, prior to Amazon owning them, Zappos, that expected many to order two sizes and return one.
I guess that depends on what you mean by “hard policy.” They have internal metrics. If you hit a certain threshold, your’re no longer eligible for returns. Some companies have higher tolerances that are a function of their business model. AFAIK, no one (with a networked customer management database) has a 100% unlimited returns, no exceptions, system.
Well I am sure Zappos, prior to Amazon, was absolutely known for allowing people to order multiple sizes and returning all but the one that fit. That was even in their explanation as to why they don’t have sales. Did they have some sort of threshold, sure, but clearly if you advertise something you’re not going punish people for doing it.
Costco is famous for it’s return policies. They take almost anything… years later, but yeah they’ve made news when some wildly weird people abused their return policy.
Amazon is quietly known for just cutting people off, for no obvious reasons. Macy’s isn’t likely to cut someone off because they got a refund for a dress that didn’t fit multiple times a year because they’re in the clothing business.
Steam, as far as I know, hasn’t done that to anyone. They took issue with chargebacks but since the industry moved to normal business and offers refunds, I don’t think that’s much of a case anymore.
Apple/Itunes… it took only once? wth.
At this stage of the game, there isn’t much a reason to fear doing some returns with Steam. Mild returns with Amazon seems okay, but I wouldn’t put my access to cheap rechargeable batteries in a couple of days at risk over access to mediocre clothes or potentially fake designer stuff knowing Amazon has this issue.
So for those who do not know, the DLC, free, Wrath of the Sea that should bring life to, well the sea, did get released this week.
I have not provided any sort of update because it does require a new game/save, don’t worry your hard earned profile and god points are not only saved but reset so you can reapply your points… even to the new god. Since i play mostly MP these days, this means it will take a bit before I can actually get to the sea part and well experience the new stuff.
I plan on providing updates when I do notice new things but for now all you get is a picture of…
yeah that’s seaweed and new recipes to go with!
Also the world just seems a lot bigger. The others said the same thing so I will have to play on SP to see if all the sizes feel that way.
That looks great. Will try to check it out this week.
I have a boat, and I promptly left the other group behind (the other player), to take to the sea and see and engage new stuff. Pretty much everything I am showing will be spoiler blurred to avoid ruining anything for someone who wants to be surprised.
It was, I admit, exciting to find something other than seaweed and fish like:
And this was a bigger dungeon too, one that allowed you to go south, east, west and all that jazz.
I had no idea what kind of difficulty we we’re headed for so… I just picked one. I won’t spoil which I did but I ran into some water demons and… won. Was a little dicey but I have a physical weak group that is tricks and special ability heavy, druid, zerca, witch… so we got em.
Best item in the game… by far.
I mean if we weren’t on Pangea, this would be the part where I am just heading to the goblins right now… Island No. 2 so something like this is way ahead of schedule. Water Demon faction is not happy with me, so we’ll find out if that bites me later.
My experience thus far is when it comes to demon factions, I am almost always going to be negative with them unless I have a demon in the group OR sometimes the nature demon types are okay with my group due to the elf.
Some additional remarks about the Pangea map which, ironically enough we picked to avoid being forced into boats, but due to the DLC I made boats early to try and see what this DLC is about.
- It’s definitely bigger.
I can’t tell if Pangea is just bigger or if the map size is just larger overall even with Islands since we haven’t done the Island recently.
- Islands and boats give you an escape route Pangea does not.
My general rule of thumb used to be hit that second island as early as I could, run to the boat if some mob looks too tough to tackle, cross fingers and toes a bad event didn’t hit too early. Pangea is fatter, so that escape to the boat part takes longer to get to if you are middlwish on the landmass. This means, I am being more cautious because escape not… well maybe not possible. heh.
- Events are not so… obviously planned.
Okay, slightly spoilish here but if you are this far maybe you’ve already noticed this. Certain events tend to show up on what used to be Islands/Biomes. Some of these kicked off earlier than before, but I am not sure if that is Pangea related or not because we might actually be advancing faster due to both of us having enough God Points to start with an advantage. Until this game though, I’d never seen the Volh sequence of quests this early before and not the later boy quest until Island two.
- I look forward to playing the new god. I have the points for it but man oh man it’s hard to play a game without an elf once you have one in your party for the first time but… there is an elf slave you can start with that I am curious about too. Maybe that character is a chance to get elves into God/domains that don’t get them otherwise.
Man, no one makes me want to play Thea so much as @Nesrie! One of these days, I’m really going to dive into this thing.
-Tom
I am sure you will get a chance one day, when the right mood suits you.
I think Muha said they were coming close to the end of the development cycle for Thea 2. I am not sure how much support they have planned, but there is a lot of content there now.
Just within the last hour I kept doing my sea adventures:
I ran into a cursed shipwreck, and we had enough magic to free the spirits trapped there.
I’ve run into undground chambers with spirits trapped there but cannot seem to do much with them once I am done (betting there are options missing that would open up with a different god or group even)
I’ve parleyed with some blue orc pirates, but I couldn’t afford the elf slave they had. It said they had one of my kin but the price was so high… when my companion goes out, she has orcs and a dwarf in her group, super curious what options she gets with them if she would just finish building her ship and stop running from those things that would totally kill her… oh yeah I headed back to land to help her. My group is super squishy but rocks at magic and willpower, her’s is loaded with awesome weapons and strength due to orcs and dwarves, and together we can do pretty darn well.
I might do a solo game to play with the new gods and to remember how to play without an elf rocking everything out the gate.
Hot Fix!
Wrath of the Sea is the latest content update which fills the rather empty seas with new and exciting content! New locations to visit, new events to encounter, new god Mokosh with her own divine quest to pursue and lots more!
HOTFIX 0649:
Added the option to pay with a cosmic seed for special class when chosen human child grows up
Modified pirate attack quests so that you may escape the encounter
Fixed a few cemetery events where the rewards were too high for the challenge level
Removed several unused events from Wrath of Sea DLC module (ones that were copies of events moved elsewhere)
Added the baby troll growing up events on sea
Added a ‘leave’ option to sea loot
Added voiceover which was missing in the Mokosh god quest
Fixed task slots when creating new tasks on water
Group info on HUD will show details instead of portraits by default
Okay. I am now knee deep in sea goodness. Okay, it’s actually, really, really scary out there but I’ve found some really cool stuff.
This is coming from my SP game. Since I don’t have a comfortable chair yet to finish RDR2, this is taking a couple of hours a night when the East Coasters are in bed. I am still finding some cool stuff:
And the rest I will put in spoilers because, well don’t want to accidentally ruin it for someone:
My God:
So I am playing Stribog, basically the water god. This helps you in ways that are obvious and not as obvious. I picked him on purpose because well I want to play in the water, and he allows me to keep my elves. I love elves! Anyway because I am using him it can certainly mean certain events are not standard. The beauty of Thea 2 these days is you see so few of the events of any run through that aside from a little bit on the main quest (still varies based on god and domain and some other factors), it rarely feels repetitive to me and this quest line is definitely new:
Yep. I am hiding the text from those of you who even want spoilers, and that’s a freaking treasure map. And the story so far has given me additional hints/dialogue and hopefully help. It wasn’t just my god though but also 2 special character in my groups which allowed me some pretty nifty new selection options.
Now I usually work hard, take risks very early on to get two characters that can be challenging to get but usually do-able and what I kind of considered vital, a healer and then a Zerca, think smart person and well healer is obvious. I am almost 250 rounds, and I have neither of those. My group is weak as hell physically, but my lady elf took a liking to my craftsman, he’s beautiful AND attractive, clearly not someone an elf can resist, so I have two elves! I had a dwarf but she turned out to be a pretty rocking demon (not sure that demons can have kids… haven’t seen that yet). I have a witch and a Volh. If you don’t know what the Volh are, they are fairly rare and have a neat little story thing with them… My craftsman turned into an inventor… which I have never had before. I need to pick him up at some point, but he’s making stuff in my village… Oh yeah I made one this time. the number of times I’ve had to run back to save it is really annoying, but I stuck it on the coast, so we’re traveling kind of quick to it these days. That group in there is just like my adventuring group, weak physically but pretty darn good at everything else, even the kid. I still, still can’t decide if villages are worth it but I really do think I oh my witch and Volh to bonuses they got in that village as kids.
Speaking of kids… yeah I got on of the new ones, blue orcs… that story line left me wanting, as in I gotta sneaky feeling I was missing an option so I look forward to trying again. It was a well done peak at the culture of these new menaces though, so not wanting in that way.
Lastly, for today anyway, I got some pretty nifty treasure in another dive:
We’ve been building stuff heck fast these days.
I should mention again that I am not and probably never will be a permadeath fan. This game has that option, and while you can get some really unfortunate events by chance, there is so much you can do smartly, by trial and error. It’s designed for you to die and learn.
Save scumming still works. It’s still fun. You advance more slowly, and loading can cost you… as in the options you had before might not be there, events you ran into gone… so it’s not a sure thing just because you saved. And of course if you don’t push to move forward, no saving in the world is going to help you when the world is higher than you are!
I’m enjoying the new version of the game. I’m too much of a newb to appreciate all the nuance, but the game feels more mature and polished.
One question: I still get puzzled by all the numbers associated with skills, especially weapon skills. For example, when I’m trying to decide whether to upgrade a weapons skill or, say, crafting, I have trouble understanding the numbers and symbols that indicate how much the skill will improve. It will include an attack modifier, then some stats in parentheses, then time and another time in parentheses. I can’t tell which is the “before” and “after” version of the skill. I’ve found some guides that tell me how to read weapons skills, but I don’t understand how to read the “upgrade this skill or that skill” screen.
I am not sure if I fully understand the question, but I think you’re asking to tell when you are looking at a skill which is what your character has now and which is what hey have… after you upgrade?
I am going to spoiler this because some of these are… rarer characters a few might want to be surprised in finding later.
I usually save scum when someone levels because, heh, sometimes I stupidly pick two lick skills without realizing it.
This is my character prior to upgrade.
This is what the upgrade skill looks like:
Hover over the big circle to see what you have now.
Then you Hover over the plus sign to see what you will have after leveling.
That orange bar is your easiest indication.
And of course when you are done you can see it in your camp/party screens.
Nesrie, thanks for that detailed reply. Yep, those are the screens I was asking about. The skills I’m referring to were more complicated, with changes to damage and time and lots of parentheses. I didn’t understand what the parentheses meant. In fact, I see one parenthesis in your screenshot; it says 2.2(0.7). What’s that mean?
Alas, I don’t have time to screenshot them now, but I’ll do so tomorrow and post them here.
The debuffs are more complicated, and I haven’t done the math on those successfully although I get the general idea well enough to use them well. The attack skills are a lot simpler. Like this one.
So the cards tell you this is only useful for magic type challenges and battles, purple. It uses Destiny as the the attribute for this skill, and that x1.4 is the damage. So this is kind of the base skill screen, the one that tells you what the skill does.
When you move onto the character itself, you get the full calculation:
This is my lowest level witch in the game.
You can see her Destiny is 12.
So when she uses that skill it’s 12 x 1.4 which = 16.8
16.8 is purple which is another indicate it’s talking about a magic attack.
Now the information on the right is tells you it’s a melee attack closest enemy (red sword). The 4 squares tell you should be able to hit in both rows. That 3.5 is the speed of the attack which you add to the speed of the character to get 6.3
You can see her speed is 2.8. (wits influences your speed and it is an easily overlooked attribute. Up it when you can for many non-supporting characters)
There are more complicated skills and also skills that apply to more than one kind of challenge/attack like my swanky relic here. This is an item, so Ivan has these abilities because he has this thing, not because he’s just cool on his own (which he is)
They still work the same way when it comes to the numbers though.
Ivan here is barely more than a pebble in physical battle but he’s okay at yellow and does pretty good in purple… he’s only pretty good because of the other characters I have. He could very well be the best purple some groups will ever get anyway.
We ere looking at the base item above, let’s look at it when Ivan actually equips it.
Weapon attack is 1.4 x his Destiny +4.2
Destiny is 6 x 1.4 = 8.4 , +4.2 = 12.6, 12
Now the other one, Wisdom
9.0 x 1.4 = 12.6, +4.2 = 16.8, 17
The rounding is sometimes… weird which why they have patch notes like this:
This is minor, but due to decimals and rounding, sometimes enemies showing 0 poison damage will actually do 1 damage.
It’s pretty rare to be in any kind of challenge where… less than one would make difference like that.
Anyway, sacrificial blood is using his life… and his life sucks. So for half his life he can increase someone’s shield in red, yellow and purple challenges by 6 which is barely better than a wooden shield.
In fact this weapon sucks for him, but he’s using it right no because of the regeneration at the end.
My general advice though is don’t get hung up on the numbers, as in the precise calculations. Focus on how good anyone is at a particular attack, like Destiny, and not just that it has a multplier of roughly 1.4. Also that little skull next to it is… special. You hover your mouse over it, and you realize why you might take something weaker for special things like this:
Just raw multiple damage is something you get excited about early on, ans when you go from like a 1.2 to a 2.1 or a 2.0… doesn’t hugely matter… it’s just higher. Yay!
But when you start to encounter special enemies, things that have mass shields or super fast attacks or even attacks that act like shields don’t even exist, the excitement for items and abilities alike are learning how to use something like the above well.
Or you wind up with someone like this:
And at this point, you’re not giving this character debuff skills or fancy little summoning spells or even great pets. This one is on the field with a weapon that hopefully hits in all three challenges or with an ability that works that way too.
That blue symbol there means my character hits both armor and shields at the same time… just eats through anything that thinks a shield will protect them. At this stage in the game though, 6.8 is kind of slow for my group.
That character is a lot faster, also strikes armor and sanity, faith at the same time, but she hits more than two characters… anywhere on the field, can target anyone. And those are abilities, not weapons you’re seeing. Notice though the lack of red on both of these… thus my weakness in physical challenges, or straight up battles. I have to equip them with good items to even stand a chance at battle at this level.
So yes, the numbers matter, but is a multiplier of 2.2 really better than a 1.4, if the 2.2 has to go through the shields and then hit the life whereas 1.4 hits them both and that’s just understanding the damage. Being able to target anyone in the battlefield is important too.
So that was a lot, and it’s late so hopefully I made some sense
My general advice is… play to your strengths, be aware of your weaknesses so you can try and consciously make up for them or avoid those challenges all together, and soon you’ll know when to get excited because you found some awesome treasure or just picked up a great character. Also if it looks crappy to you but the value of the item is high, like way higher than other items you have, you might be overlooking something it’s doing or misunderstanding it.
One of the characters is a character I selected based on spending a bunch of god points and having ended several games so I could spend them. The other, I took a chance on, and he could’ve just as easily come out as one of my worst characters instead of my best. And the third is a story mission I successfully complete AND got lucky enough to advance him to what he is, and I only knew that I got lucky because I was not lucky in the past, but not really unlucky, to get the best results several times before.
Also,
Don’t forget to compare. When I get new equipment I look at comparisons like this for seeral characters when I get something good.
I mean you can see the multiplier with this simple weapon is pretty obvious but who really cares about that, 4 is bigger than three, and the shielding is better. Sadly, some character might be stuck with the weapon the left because the other one is pretty darn heavy. Bones and stone make for some heavy equipment! It’s not my favorite combo at all, and it’s also slower which won’t matter to much if you have buffers!
Speaking of which, protection skills, debuffs, buffers… fast attacks and hard hitting attacks, get a mix. There are few reasons someone would ever need two… debuffs, only select characters even get buffs, and a magic user rarely needs 3 different attacks… because you’re not going to use them all in the same battle so really decide how versatile it is for your group.
Hi @Nesrie,
Thank you for that wonderful explanation! That cleared up most of my questions. I spent a lot of time staring at all my weapons and skills, and I think I understand them better now. The next time I see a confusing “upgrade skill” tooltip, I’ll screenshot it and post it. But for now, I seem good.
Any general advice on how to progress? I’m only on turn 50 of my newest game. I’ve crafted gathering and crafting tools. Now I’m trying to diversify my food supply and craft better armor. After that, I’ll focus on weapons, then jewelry. I don’t plan a village any time soon. I’m playing on islands, a new game under the new version.
On rounding, does the game just lop off everything after the decimal point in all cases? Er, “truncating” them, if I remember my college math?
Thanks again for that terrific post! It was really helpful. I read and re-read it several times.