tdphys

I really like the solid trimmings of your UI, and the magnified portraits. While the background on the left bar is beautiful, the sparse distribution of the small icons is a little grating and seems haphazard in placement. The space to clickable area seems wasteful, it would probably be better to either enlarge them, or stick them all on the top of the bottom left with the other similar icons. Alternatively, It would be nice to perhaps leave these icons down where the inventory ui is and have an expanded inv and equip UI on the left bar instead.

Yeah, I think that the 3 letter state space is probably fairly small ... How does the 2nd letter in the word get picked? I'm assuming since there's not two previous states (characters) the engine defaults to a first order chain then? Or, I guess you could start with random two letters... So when do we get a markov-chain based AI?

I ran 3500 names and got a few repeats (Elf showed up alot ?) Does the generator actually mix names together? or is it a random selection?

As POE online proceeds to wind-down to release, I thought I'd offer my felicitations to the devs and others... Kudos for: Kickstarting the return of a genre, and being the salvation of a repressed niche community of crpger's. Managing, persevering and updating that kickstarter in the face of the online presence of a such a repressed community of grognards, their myriads of incompatible requests and the resulting schadenfreude of the internet. Making the first game that I'll buy at release since Hero's Quest I (Quest for glory I) And here's to a glorious rebirth in the expansion.

Did they open combat with a spell in the dungeon?

So long Quadratic Rogue, we barely knew thee... I really like the additive balancing and graze interval reduction. Really looking forward to this game... Looks like I know where my birthday moneys going in April.

Yeah, that's a cool Idea, I could go with that. Ok, you want Might to negate DT. Why not have might give penetration then instead? Same outcome, but keeps the damage calculation from being overly complicated for no reason. I'm not seeing how having modifiers before DT makes crits any worse or better for low armored folks. I like the higher penetration idea.

You are absolutely right. There is only one problem. You can't miss in this game. As a result the benefit of Deflection is causing the enemy to graze more, but many enemies still do okay damage on graze and there are many talents and abilities that turn grazes into hits. Damage is relative. The goal of DEF is not to be missed , but to not be Critted. misses, grazes , hits, they're all relatively the same thing, "Not Crits". That being said, Josh's combat didn't seem to exhibit the same kind of astronomical hits seen in the Beta videos... I wonder how they're trying to balance things with maintaining their damage mod structure.

I see it as causing a choice when making stats: 1. Might would cause damage to overcome DT, so it would be a good choice for a frontliner against heavily armored opponents, or those with high DEF for which you'll be primarily not critting, but still get reasonable damage against. 2. With a well balanced DT, and crit mods after reduction , crits without might wouldn't be overpowered. If you wanted to do serious damage against heavily armored perps, you'd have to max both might and per, which would make some other stat unbalanced and introduce a vulnerability somewhere. IE, the glass cannon. 3. With a bit of piercing on light weapons, you could be able to still do decent damage by maxing per and critting the pierce. Maybe a little less then the damage by high might + heavy weapons. So I see 3 avenues of damage, moderate to high damage: 1 depends on might 2 depends on per 3 depends on might and per and is the *glass cannon* requiring buffing 2 stats. All of this is dependent on balancing DT, weapons, might and crit, but it could be done. DT becomes the crit counter. Might becomes the DT counter. crit becomes the bane of low armored individuals. Thus all of these model aspects have trade offs and require you to make hard choices strategically and tactically. Hard choices to me is the key to making combat rich and rewarding.

Yeah, and I still have no idea why. I think you may perhaps be someone who worships at the altar of simulationism, which as I've said many times before needs to be killed with fire (simulationism that, you're fine ). And you run into the same calculation problems if you have pre and post DT modifiers. I see absolutely no beenfit from doing it that way at all. I do like simulationism, it's true, but what I like more is complexity that is meaningful and not redundant. 1. when per and might both were the same modifier, this seemed redundant. 2. with all these modifiers being multiplicative, damage amplification seem to make DT redundant. So I'd probably be a big fan of your [damage-dt]*(additive mods) because it makes armor less redundant. I just can't help myself from saying, hey, there's a cool spot to add a mod (after damage) that's unique, and then look for a place to make it thematic (might seems best). So, maybe it's the reverse. I'm a big fan of interesting models ( I want to expand the tactical/strategic depth of the game ) , the fun part is making it thematic. The challenge is to make it more complex (then say DnD), but accessible and still able to be balanced.

I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think any damage modifiers should be multiplied together. If you have a 50% damage modifier and and 25% damage modifier with multiplication you have an effective damage bonus of 87.5% not 75% as you'd expect. Plus by putting some modifiers before DT and some after you've effectively made 2 different types of damage modifiers. All this does is make damage calculation more complicated and inpenterable to your average player. I'd be fine with either of the following: [Damage*(mod1+mod2+mod3+mod4)] - DT = Total Damage (Damage - DT)*(mod1+mod2+mod3+mod4) = Total Damage What about [Damage*(mod1+mod2) - DT]*(mod1+mod2) Okay, I'm hiding a multiply in there... I'll admit, your calculations are easier to describe. I just like pre and post DT modifiers

So the defense stats are all on the bottom left side, I'm assuming the shield is deflection, and the rest are saves? Is the to hit calculation for spells accuracy vs saves value as opposed to deflection? This guys deflection is pretty high for 0 per, 0 res... twice his accuracy. Actually, now that I think about it... they're probably showing defense as 50 + mod and accuracy as only the mod, so his accuracy is moderately better then deflection. (base 50+, I think)

You know, as much as we proclaim about accuracy being the modifier to get damage... You've got to realize that by symmetry , DEF is the way to avoid it. Res and Per should be more valued by people... just saying. I'm glad accuracy doesn't show up on the stats board, since Might and Crit are the same modifier. Now at least there's less redundancy. I'm very curious to see if they modified base accuracy ranges for classes and what the overall range of acc and def they foresee in the game.

All of speed, agility , number of attacks, depletion of stamina or weakness to types of damage figure into the calculations the same way. What I'm trying to do is reduce the chance of getting critical hits as the sole primary path to damage amplification, and a way to make armor values relevant in the face of geometric damage progression ( every modifier multiplied together makes a lot of damage). Math now: damage*mod1*mod2*mod3*mod4 - dt = loads of damage and irrelevant armor Proposed math: (damage*mod1*mod2 - dt)*mod3*mod4 = less loads of damage and relevant armor. It makes thematical sense that mod1 and mod2 are things like stats and weapon type, while mod3 and mod4 are situational things like backstab and crit. For people who like light weapons, you give a higher pierce rate through dt and a greater backstab bonus. This is also thematic. Right now I'm worried that the optimal way to fight Pillars is to run around as a naked rogue doing massive critical damage with a sharpened toothpick.

No. critically modified damage would always be greater then regular hit damage. It's just the armor DT would get applied before the crit bonus. It would make weapon type and stats and DT more meaningful as counters to each other. Crit would still be important, especially against unarmored and for light weapons that could have armor piercing (higher min damage). If you looked at the amount of damage blocked compared to the same damage roll and crit modifier against an unarmored target, the amount of damage blocked rises with the crit value (hey, like DR) . But it never decreases the total damage amount done by a crit as compared to a regular hit.

I really like how the to hit mechanics work in POE. I also think that percent chance is easily understood by most people. It's a better abstraction then the D20 with everything combined with dexterity , strength , armor etc all rolled into one die roll, though for pnp that makes sense. So there you go... Percentile to hit. Integer base damage values (stats and weapon bonuses) and damage reduction additive mulitpliers for crits,backstabs and buffs on net damage.

I'd agree with you there... and I'd be fine with including the quality of weapon as a multiplicative multiplier. In other words, multiply the physical reality of the damage, the things that don't change per hit... or per encounter (stats, weapon bonus). And leave circumstantial stuff as additive (crits and buffs, engagement bonus). My preference for design, would be to calculate all the initial damage , might bonus, weapons bonus, min damage and rolls and armor reduction as integer values, like might gives +1 bonus damage for every level past 10 ( I'd add a +1 dt bonus for every 2 const or so ). This would allow a person to get a quick hang of what base damage would be just from looking at stats, weapons and armor values. Then I'd have additive-multiplicative modifiers on the net damage for things like crits, class powers, buffs etc . (as opposed to multiplicative-multiplicative modifiers ) I think that such a system would be much easier to balance, and easier to comprehend for the player.

because thematically I see stats as a more fundamental aspect of damage calculation. All of the other stuff is situational. I guess the question is... what's base damage? I'd say it's stat + weapon.

Really, the difference between additive and multiplicative modifiers, is that getting more small multiplicative modifiers is better then one large one. 1.2*1.2*1.2 > 1.6 or 1+ .3 + .3 And , it's easier to eyeball, or mentally sum additive bonuses 1 + .3 + .2 + .15 = 1.65 Then multiply them 1.3 * 1.2 * 1.15 = 1.7939999.... ? To get a damage estimate from your bonuses. Balancing multiplicative modifiers is gonna have to make them smaller and more confusing, and imho less cool.... kind of like percentile stats vs int ones.... or figuring out DR and DT... etc... With one caveat, I think base damage mode should be multiplicative weapon damage * mightmodifier = base damage Everything else should be additive ( I think this is what Josh said on tumblr)

Revolt!!!!

The problem is that the way they calculate things, two handed weapons will always do more damage per hit, light or heavy armor notwithstanding. I realize that if you have higher attack speed and accuracy ratings for more crits due to light weapons, you'd probably do more damage over time with light weapons... maybe that's what they wanted, but damage per hit will always be a heavy weapon specialty. Actually, it's probably more thematic to have it that way. I'll stop beating my drum... Things will be fine if they get rid of the super multiplication mods.

What are the maximum Accuracy ranges in BB? What are the deflection range values of the enemies? I hate (love ) to pound the drum, but DR would mean more if it got subtracted off damage before Crit mods were applied. I think a shield should give extra DR and deflection and not pose any accuracy penalties under a pip or two in a relevant skill. The DR could be negated by flails. With DR subtracted off before Crit mods, you could give light weapons Accuracy and Crit mod advantages over heavy weapons that wouldn't be seen until you got to lighter armor where the lighter damage overcame the DR. This would , imho, give the realization of Josh's weapon vision. The way mods are calculated right now, any buff to crit or might just makes the weapon more effective and DR less so, doesn't matter which type of weapon, it's like an impossible arms race to balance things against DR. If you buff light weapons, they just become as effective as heavy, DR doesn't affect the balance at all.

I just finished a magic heavy lawful good party , swashbuckler halfling, minsc (2handed sword), mazzy (flail of ages), Nalia, Aerie , Imoen. There was a lot of breaching done. Also reloads when a stray death spell whacked my character. I actually lost minsc to a petrify spell in the beholders lair. That was okay because I picked up Sarevok in ToB. Waiting for invis to come off of mages so I can target them is the worst part of mage battles (I never figured out how to dispel the high level ones). Save or die spells is the second, I bailed on the lich in the sewers. It just seems lame to me to drop summons in front and let the AI blow itself out. I don't know how anyone finds that immersive. I'm starting again, chaotic neutral mage that I'm going to dual-class into a wizard slayer (I know, wrong way), just to dimension door next to those mages and wreak havoc. I'm going to try to do most of the game with just Viconia and Edwin when I dual. BG2 is awesome because of its depth and complexity. I don't know how I'd play it without the 10 years or so of forum and RPG write-ups. I tried once about 8 years ago and just threw my hands up at Irenicus' dungeon. Now I'm playing while I wait for POE. I think that alot of the passion for Baldur's gate comes from building up the arcane knowledge required to excel, exploit and enjoy the game. It's like using the vim text editor, or linux for that matter. It's cool cause so few people now how to use it, and the knowledge of it empowers you in certain ways. There's alot of stuff that could be done better than in BG2. I'm assuming POE will be better in some ways then BG2 and less then others. I don't doubt it will be worth playing. The hope is that it spawns a series of games that rebuilds the genre and puts time into innovating in AI and fantasy world simulation / role-playing, that would be phenomenal. I want BG2 merged with IWD and dwarf fortress. I want amazing procedural quests, reactive tactical AI, real faction responses, global wars affected by your choices and a myriad of endings.

Yep, they need to sum the some of the mult mods before *= them. Needs an extra local variable. And since they're going to do that.... Why not subtract DT before applying Crit Mods (and sneak attack? ! , it'd just be a cut and paste Actually, if they do sum modifiers instead of doing a cumulative product, it'd probably be easier to balance things. I'm just trying to get some differentiation between Might and Per as stats.

Come on, that's an extra 1% ish bonus to Crit Chance that you're trying to quash...