[What sub 60 IQ retard made this interaction?]

At least his gravestone will be a warning to all who skip gym class...

[Patch 1.2.0 Updates Thread]

I assume that means this patch doesn't contain any further PotD encounter tweaks, XP-tweaks or mob level tweaks to further correct the mid-game over-levelling bloat?

[Hey OB! here my wish list!]

You've given us the Broom. Please give us the lute. Or the banjo. I'd even settle for the sax.

[Why does every class have to have magic?]

Let's face it: the real magic which every single character has is the fact that they can lug around 17 pieces of plate mail, 13 pieces of ring mail, 27 greatswords, 840 assorted books of lore, an infinite number of mundane quarterstaffs, 23 cats and a cannon.  And survive for a week on a single meal of a piece of uncooked ham gutted from a pig on a beach.

 

This is a role-playing game, with your imagination filling in the gaps. If you want to play a nerdy, brainy character who was never picked for the rugby team and then decided to learn to incinerate his childhood enemies (hopefully by at least their ~50th reunion), make it up in your mind when you pick the wizard class. If you want to play a barbarian who screams "them magics are from the devil" and be thankful that he never skipped leg day at the gym, then make it up in your mind when you click the leap button.

 

(Side note. Running with the analogy of physics = magic, I have to mention that the traditional brainy physicist/wizard trope is so far out the window in the 21st century. I've got a MSc student in theoretical chemistry who is so ripped I swear he could've one-shotted Thaos himself whilst deriving some sweet equations. And sure, chemists are the bullies of the academic schoolyard, but still... if this dude can exist then a manscaped brawny wizard is surely plausible in Eora. Also see Neville Longbottom.).

 

If animations or a skill/class description doesn't fit your view of the fantasy world somebody else created, then either i) ignore it, ii) rationalise it, iii) mod it, or iv) play something else.

 

BTW, I'm replaying Baldur's gate while waiting for more balance patches, and really forgot the degree of 'realism' in that game. Restricted inventories and carrying weights, rogues having to actually stand in shadows to hide from sight, robey-wizards who can get finger-flicked to death if not buffed by spells beforehand, and supremely unmagical fighters who gets to be rerolled or dual-classed as a result of the absolute bore of playing them. OP, I don't know if you have ever played BG or if someone in this thread have already suggested it to you, but truly, go check it out and decide if that is what you really want.

 

EDIT: After reading through the thread (my apologies for not doing it in the first place), and I do see some of OPs point. If we really want to rationalise a high-magic fantasy setting (rather than just using your own imagination for your character), however, then I would like to offer an analogy other than the sciences. I've seen many people of all walks of life giving jaw-dropping musical performances, regardless of their training. I've heard engineers and mechanics, priests and plumbers sing or play an instrument using only in-born talent without any degree of formal training. Hell, in my native country singing is practically a requirement of many jobs, and my countrymen burst out in beautiful song and dance at any gathering of 4 or more people. Can any of these people perform Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, or grab a file of sheet music and play a wedding gig on demand? Nope. An accountant might shred his guitar in a nu-metal band every other weekend, but he will never have the diversity and adaptability of a well-trained jazz muso. Training and talent are two entirely (and tragically sometimes mutually exclusive) different concepts.

 

In the same vein, is it then not unreasonable that fighters, barbarians and rogues have some talent in magic (in a world where soul-energy is literally seeping out the earth), used intuitively alongside their other skills, but will never come close to the diversity, precision and control of a wizard's training. In this world, I don't imagine that the wizard will "feel bad" when he sees the barbarian drawing flaming swords from his eyeholes - rather, he will scoff and imagine himself so much better (since he can summon an ogre which draws lightning greatswords from all of his orifices), as all professionals do when confronting an amateur.

 

I might not know how to build a smartphone, but I do know how to fix a broken infernal wifi router, and I definitely did not 'multiclass to an engineer'.

[Obsidian: please put back the ability to change between POTD/veteran. My game is broken now.]

Things like Nature's Mark (eg) also seem to be totally inconsistent with ability description: should last 42 secs "with int modifier" , but is lasting anything from 18.9 secs to 50.4 secs when applied to the same group of npcs, each mob is getting a different time? 

 

Durations gets changed by Resolve on NPCs, explaining why NPCs might have a duration more or less than duration on skill description. In addition, additional effects can graze and crit, reducing/increasing the durations relative to standard hit.

 

 

I don't understand the difficulty setting for PoTD at all, Eder is getting one shot by a single skeleton pistoleers in the starter area ffs (and mouse over stats do not match this amount of damage ??? ... tweak the game difficulty by all means, but be transparent with your changes... have the mouse over update to show those changes ) 

 

No idea what is up with that... I haven't found any inconsistencies with indicated damage rolls and actual health removed. 

[+1 Pen/AC for enemies in Veteran]

So I played around with this a bit, and I was surprised to see how much of a difference is +1 AC on enemies. I tried two different fights, one in the starter island and one in Neketaka. I only added +1 Pen and +1 AC on enemies, and didn't include any other PotD modifications (i.e. + accuracy, + defense and + HP)

 

From my previous playthrough, as well as the [unmodded] 1.1 beta, I had the feeling that on Veteran your default penetration (whatever weapon/spell/ability) is on par with most enemies' AC, even in most cases increased AC for specific damage types. Weaknesses (e.g. to slash, shock) in the enemy's AC could be exploited, giving a reason to switch weapons to get overpen bonus, and immunities (or absurdly high AC to a specific damage type) needs to be taken into account. However, for most fights, it was not necessary to switch weapons/tactics often enough to win fights. It only felt meaningful for very armoured enemies (such as constructs or Xaurip champions).

 

Using only +1 AC mod on enemies, the balance between player Pen and enemy AC shifted just enough to be meaningful. While underpen isn't as terrible (most cases it was only 1 under, for -25% dmg), it made me switch weapons and abilities more often, or pick targets more carefully. However, it isn't as big an effect as to ensure that each character has a way of stacking pen or absolutely require per encounter AC debuffs. Just enough to be tactically meaningful without requiring specific builds.

 

From the little that I've played in PotD in 1.1, the +2 AC on enemies seem much more drastic, requiring more dedicated resources to deal with most enemies and is opposite of what some players (such as myself) wants in terms of difficulty.

 

+1 Pen on enemies is easier to forget about, but in one fight I had to reload and give my non-tank bruiser some higher AC armour to survive - which felt quite rewarding. While I don't think the +1 Pen is enough of an effect to warrant maxing AC (including with consumables or abilities), like the +1 AC on enemies, I felt it added a little bit more complexity to the combat. In addition, the two difficult encounters on the starter isle (which requires cheesing on Potd) was still doable with default party on Veteran but definitely more dangerous with +1 Pen.

 

Therefore, I strongly recommend the +1 AC and +1 Pen for Veteran, if only to ensure that the Pen/AC system isn't ignored in Veteran.

[+1 Pen/AC for enemies in Veteran]

Thanks Insolentius and Cdiaz, will give it a shot and see how it plays.

Harlath, I agree witb you on perspective of veteran difficulty, but I honestly think that the AC/pen normal values are too low, hence the mechanic in Normal and Veteran only plays a role for very specific encounters and allows for wearing lighter armour on frontliners. Ill see whether modding gives a player something to worry about every so often without reducing most encounters to "stacking pen and ac" as it was during the first backer beta.

Otherwise, it becomes mostly unnecessary to worry about high pen abilities, modals and weapon choices - a core game mechanic which should be prevalent in Veteran. The alternative, of course, would be to buff pen and ac values in normal mode (so that Veteran plays as normal but with difficult encounters) but then that leads to a whole new round of balancing Veteran and PotD.

[+1 Pen/AC for enemies in Veteran]

Since PotD enemies get +2 PEN and +2 AC on top of reworked encounters, I was hoping we could get the same (but at a reduced effect) for Veteran. While the reworked encounters in Veteran are quite a bit better than what they used to be, it feels as if the modals on weapons, pen- or AC-increasing abilities and other pen-AC related mechanics are a bit useless in Veteran. 

 

I would recommend either a game-wide +1Pen & +1 AC buff for enemies in Veteran, or otherwise a selection of +1/+2 AC or +1/+2 PEN for some enemies.

 

I think a good niche for Veteran in the game is as the difficulty level where most mechanics in the game needs to be exploited (including Pen/AC system, but also consumables, empower, etc.) but without absolute min/maxing, meta-gaming, cheesing or unforgiving character building required - all of these latter aspects I feel fit in nicely with the (eventual) difficulty level of PotD.

 

While Veteran has definitely increased in difficulty in the beta relative to release (specifically in the early game - hoping the devs will continue the trend for the later game), and it is definitely necessary to employ better tactics, consumables, resting bonuses and whatnot, the AC/PEN system feels mostly forgettable except for specific high-AC enemies.

[Veteran difficulty?]

Thank you Ezekiel! What you say about veteran is exactly what I want - being encouraged to use consumables and all other previously underused aspects of the game, but without being forced to use cheese, meta-knowledge, or extremely min-maxed hirelings. Reload orgies, strictly following a certain order of quests or returning much later also takes out the immersion for me.

I do share your concerns about later levels, however. A pity we can't change the difficulty later...

NP.

 

I have to mention though - the enemies get a +2 Pen & +2 AC bonus on PoTD, but nothing on veteran. As a result, penetration and armour is much bigger of a worry in PotD than in Veteran, and abilities that provide additional armour (as well as heavy armour itself) makes a massive difference in Veteran, whereas abilities (and esp. modals) that give penetration is not that big of a deal. I will suggest on the beta feedback thread that enemies in Veteran get at least a +1 pen and +1 AC, or one of either +2 pen or +2 AC (as opposed to both in PotD).

[Veteran difficulty?]

Someone reported that with the beta patch you can change scaling and PotD mid game.

 

It seems like you cannot change to PotD from Veteran, but it does seem like you can change level scaling. I started with level scaling set to all, but I can change it to off or critical path only in game. I haven't tested whether this actually has an effect, though. I might do so at a later stage. At the very least, the level indicators for quests and enemies whilst using level scaling has been fixed!

 

As to the difficulty level of PoTD and Veteran. I've played the starter island on both difficulties, pre- and post patch. Both difficulties have been increased, quite tremendously, for the starter island. On PoTD, it is necessary to employ additional measures to finish the island, such as hiring a merc (cipher), or some other (such as specific use of Berath's blessings, buying specific scrolls etc.) After finishing the island on PoTD, I restarted on Veteran as the difficulty of PoTD for the starter island was slightly above with what I feel comfortable - I like it to be difficult enough to warrant a reload and change of tactics upon party wipe, but not enough to respec/hire additional party members and tailor my party for the difficult encounters. The increased Veteran difficulty, for the starter island, hits this sweet spot - difficult enough that careful thinking is necessary and use of consumables are generally required (depending on MC build), but not so crazy as to require meta knowledge and whatnot. In this regard, the Veteran and PoTD difficulties satisfy their respective niches.

 

As to the difficulty beyond the starter island - we'll see. I have strong doubts, as the XP gain on the starter island already felt quite large (and unchanged from the previous build). Therefore I expect a massive XP bloat again during/after Neketaka, and unless (i) level scaling is well-implemented (probably not) or (ii) you do the least amount of side-quests required, I expect the rest of the game will again start becoming much easier.

 

That said, based on their work on the starter island (as a result of feedback from the community) I have hope that they can use these changes as a template for most portions of the rest of the game.

[The General Level Scaling / Difficulty Thread (not POTD)]

It is supposed to work the way you suppose. It worked fine in the beta. Im not far enough into the game to have encountered areas above my level, but maybe, if you want to test, you can sail to the far edges of the world and see if you can find high-level content?

[Can I Change The Spells In Aloth's Grimoire?]

There were numerous debates on this forum leading up to release regarding the drop of Vancian (per rest) spell casting for per encounter casting. I assume such debates were held internally by the designers as well. It is relatively clear that you cannot have both - it is either or. Having a single class with mostly per rest abilities change the entire pacing and balance lf the game. In the end, it was a design decision (of which the pros and cons can be argued endlessly) which is here to stay. IIRC it was done on order to improve on the rest system - so that it isnt necessary to rest too frequently in order to replenish spells. With the new rest/food mechanic, you can last for a long time on a given rare food/inn bonus if you keep your party members from being knocked out. Previously, even the best players would eventually run out of per-rest recources and would be forced to rest only to replenish.

 

In the same vein, giving a single class access (whether through loot or upon lvl) to all their spells AND a per-encounter based system would mean that class becomes a diversity machine monster, and as a result the spells for that class would probably have to be toned down to prevent an auto include in each party. It is the same reason why druids and priests lost access to all of their spells and have to choose as wizards do. In fact, in the new system, wizards are fulfilling their role as the most diverse spell caster by gaining access to other spells through grimoires. Finally, I would argue that having to carefully choose spells is a required prerequisite for having (mostly) balanced multiclassing. If you could easily learn all spells for a class, multiclassing becomes massively OP since you can build (effectively) a fully loaded fighter with full access to all wizard spells. Other systems (like DnD) balanced this by artificial limitations, such as allowable armour or greatly reduced health pools. In PoE2, a wizard/fighter have to carefully select their spells and abilities based on the role they wish to fulfill.

 

Imo, the limited spell availibility to all spell casters carries a number of additional benefits:

I) Increases value of grimoire loot, as stated previously in this thread

II) Promotes potion, drug and scroll usage + associated skill investment + loot and merhant value

III) Promotes planning, and upon complete party knock-out, rewards a different grimoire load out.

IV) Promotes wizard specialization and variability.

[BUG Greater corrosive skill shifter]

I have the same bug with Priest of Berath's Summoned Greatsword. The extra 11% done as corrosive is much larger than reported, in this case doing an extra 521 damage instead of ~5. (Against training dummy).

[Resolve! Huh, What is it good for?]

 

Anyway.  Work has kept me away.  I asked during the Fig Campaign if Attributes would stay the same, and I was told they would.  LOL.  Then when I saw Concentration was removed from resolve... I knew something was going to change or Resolve would be almost pointless.  We just need Matt and Sensuki in here to make this just like the old PoE1 attribute threads from the first beta. 

 

 

As Concentration was removed from Resolve, most of us think it's pointless. Interestingly, although Perception was also deprived of Interrupt, nobody complains. Perception has become almost equally worthless (at least, for a defensive character) to my opinion! +1 Accuracy is just the offensive version of +1 Deflection, after all.

 

Unless Interrupt and Concentration are restored, or Resolve and Perception receive something really valuable, both attributes could be expelled from Deadfire. If somebody complains about the lost symmetry of the defenses, let's just remove Fortitude from Might, too. It isn't a pure physical attribue, anyway.

 

 

 

 

Anyway.  Work has kept me away.  I asked during the Fig Campaign if Attributes would stay the same, and I was told they would.  LOL.  Then when I saw Concentration was removed from resolve... I knew something was going to change or Resolve would be almost pointless.  We just need Matt and Sensuki in here to make this just like the old PoE1 attribute threads from the first beta. 

 

 

As Concentration was removed from Resolve, most of us think it's pointless. Interestingly, although Perception was also deprived of Interrupt, nobody complains. Perception has become almost equally worthless (at least, for a defensive character) to my opinion! +1 Accuracy is just the offensive version of +1 Deflection, after all.

 

Unless Interrupt and Concentration are restored, or Resolve and Perception receive something really valuable, both attributes could be expelled from Deadfire. If somebody complains about the lost symmetry of the defenses, let's just remove Fortitude from Might, too. It isn't a pure physical attribue, anyway.

 

 

 

Yeah, I didn't realize how problematic Perception was now till I crunched the numbers and realized that each point of Per gives you at best about 2% additional damage (by changing misses to crits mathematically) whereas increasing might or dex (or even str/res) gives you a 3% bonus (roughly). 

 

 

 

 

Anyway.  Work has kept me away.  I asked during the Fig Campaign if Attributes would stay the same, and I was told they would.  LOL.  Then when I saw Concentration was removed from resolve... I knew something was going to change or Resolve would be almost pointless.  We just need Matt and Sensuki in here to make this just like the old PoE1 attribute threads from the first beta. 

 

 

As Concentration was removed from Resolve, most of us think it's pointless. Interestingly, although Perception was also deprived of Interrupt, nobody complains. Perception has become almost equally worthless (at least, for a defensive character) to my opinion! +1 Accuracy is just the offensive version of +1 Deflection, after all.

 

Unless Interrupt and Concentration are restored, or Resolve and Perception receive something really valuable, both attributes could be expelled from Deadfire. If somebody complains about the lost symmetry of the defenses, let's just remove Fortitude from Might, too. It isn't a pure physical attribue, anyway.

 

 

Good catch! At least Perception is required for spotting traps... but you only need one char with high Per in your party for that. To be fair though, either perception or dex was often a dump stat for defensive chars in PoE1, right?

 

So if Resolve is going to get spell/healing power, what the hell does Perception gain? Or are we going to go round robin on each attribute as the dump stat? 

 

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the general power of Int, Dex and Might (Str/Res) is toned down that the effects of different attributes were not *that* noticeable, and mainly used for scripted interactions, RP and saving rolls. I know they already were not that NB in PoE1 as compared to other Infinity games, but still...

[Graze back in]

I know this is jut making feedback collection by the devs more difficult... but I liked having "grazing as choice" rather than "grazing as guaranteed". I was initially bothered by the lack of it, but I think that was just bias since I was used to the old system. I've since gotten semi-used to not having it all the time, even though the current beta isn't really balanced for the lack of grazing (similar to the PEN system) which makes it difficult to evaluate.

 

Grazing was a nice addition to the per-rest system of PoE 1, since resources were (supposedly) more limited and therefore each "swing" of an ability mattered. With per-encounter abilities, it is ok to have no effect rather than reduced effect (i.e. missing doesn't to suck). On the other hand, grazing reduced most weapon users to pseudo average DoT dealers. 

 

In the current beta, despite the numbers not being balanced at all (i.e. accuracy values, spell cast times, durations etc.), I liked the option to have grazing as a tactical decision. I.e., either as an item (gloves), talent (fighter) or buff (spell/empower). Wasn't this part of the entire goal of having to be able to empower abilities? In that, if you absolutely needed an ability to hit, you could empower it? This seemed to be a decision which the player could make with regards to CC - empower or buff your guy before casting an NB spell in order to increase your odds of hitting during critical moments of important fights.

 

Can't the ability to graze with weapons be tied to weapon proficiency? So that weapon users gain the ability when they take the proficiency, which generally guarantee the ability to graze for most characters with a weapon. On the other hand, for CC, after balancing it would be nice if grazing is a choice - either through empower or buffing or items. It could even be separated (i.e. - an item could grant grazing to all effects which inflict stun). 

 

I guess the old system worked fine, but the "option" which was given to the player - that of upgrading x% of misses/grazes/hits to grazes/hits/crits just felt so unnoticeable and meh to me.

[Under Penetration Should Remain at 30%]

To be honest, I think your (OP) suggestion would only serve to i) complicate combat reporting even more, ii) increase RNG, and iii) make the average swing more ineffective. Specifically:

 

i) The AP/Armour system was introduced in order to make combat easier to understand and more tactically rewarding. The idea was that, once you see that a character isn't effectively attacking (which is very easy to see in the new system) you practically have to switch out tactics. In your proposed system it will be useless to notify a player that an attack is ineffective, because maybe it was just a bad roll. And maybe the next attack is just a bad roll... so at what time (unless you are extremely involved in the combat and keep an eagle eye on the log) do you switch out tactics? In addition, I would guess that the average player would then ignore this mechanic for most combats and just keep on swinging without changing tactics, similar to the way DR was generally ignored (unless ridiculously high/immune) by most players in PoE 1.

 

ii) Your system includes an entirely extra roll for each attack, which means RNG will play an even bigger roll in the way battles proceed, which generally reduces the need for tactics in a game. It also feels bad. Nothing is worse than the feeling when you buff someone two or three times, but then they miss their AP roll 3 times in a row. While it already happens with accuracy rolls + damage rolls, including a third option for these things to happen is only going to retract from the game.

 

iii) Finally, related to the point above, including an additional roll will make, on average, all swings less effective, since the probabilities are entirely uncorrelated. For instance, the probability of getting a damaging, AP>Armour critical strike will be much less likely, as you have to have 3 high-rolls in a row. In order to balance for this, all ranges (such as crit range) would have to be increased, which means you would crit much more often but it won't result in any significant damage. As an example, in your proposed system:

 

You swing the first time. You hit critically (Acc >> Defl). You roll great on your damage. You roll poorly on your AP (despite +crit bonus), = min dmg

You swing a second time. You hit normally (Acc >= Defl). You roll ok on your AP. You roll crap on your damage, = min dmg

You swing a third time. You roll great on your damage and AP, but it was a miss (although dmg and AP wouldn't have been rolled in this case)

 

You get the idea. Ideally, a designer wants as few rolls as possible without creating a too simple system. Removing one of the rolls, but keeping the effect (e.g. Gated penetration system) is a way to add complexity without the problem of increasing RNG and having to balance around it. In the current version of the beta, with spells accuracy which is reduced, offensive spells are entirely too hit-or-mis (Hah) to consider using for important fights. Imagine having even another RNG range to deal with and balance on top of this.

 

Sorry for pulling your idea apart - it is meant to be constructive feedback.

 

Now, with grazes back in, and the under-pen penalty continuous (although quantized) rather than binary, the new system might work well - we'll know when we get to play around with it.