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Nixl
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Posts posted by Nixl
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So far, the idea I liked the most was for Resolve to interact with inspirations and afflictions. For example, 11-20 Resolve would either increase the benefit and/or duration of inspirations, whereas 1-9 Resolve would increase the penalty and/or duration of afflictions.
I believe such a change would accomplish three objectives. First, resolve would become useful for both caster and martial classes, because the benefits and penalties would cut across all classes. Second, it would better tie together the inspiration/affliction system with attributes in my opinion. Currently, I do not believe new players have much of an introduction to inspirations and afflictions, and how that mechanic interacts with their choice of attributes. With such a change, the description for Resolve would give advanced warning on afflictions to new players. Third, I think such a change would allow players to experiment with more attribute set-ups. For example, someone could mitigate the consequences of low Strength or Intellect via Resolve.
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That also depends on the average enemies' AR.
I agree to an extent, there are a lot of unknowns. I still do not see the necessity of 30% full penetration strike. It just seems unnecessary, and I have an aversion to such mechanics.
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You know that the overpenetration bonus is an addtive right? So if you are a rogue doing sneak attack with an exceptional weapon, you actually don't get +30% damage, but something like +10% from overpenetration. So with the low base damage of high penetration weapon, it becomes totally meaningless to use them.
If they don't change overpenetraion bonus to a seperate multiplier bonus, imo there is NO reason to use high pen weapons like war hammer and estoc.
I would think better avoidance of the AR penalties by itself is more than enough reason to keep high pen weapons, such as the warhammer or estoc. If I recall correctly, you can have your damage reduced by 25%, 50%, or 75%. At that point, I do not think you need 30% bonus damage, additive or not, to compel people to use warhammers or estocs.
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I will download this once I get home. Thanks for the time/effort MaxQuest!
I can understand long cast times for late-game spells, just not for early tier spells. One example that bothers me in particular is the cast times for Blessing (tier 1 perception buff) and Dire Blessing (tier 3 perception buff, plus hit conversion). Dire Blessing is definitely an upgraded Blessing, yet Blessing has the same cast time as its upgraded version last time I checked (has it changed, or did I not notice a difference?). I would expect spells to have a cast time in relation to what the spells do (i.e., the stronger the spell, the longer the cast time). Instead, every spell appears to have long cast times regardless of the quality of the spell.
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I believe what hurts the Black Jacket is the way armor penetration rating works with weapons, and the result is there is very little reason to switch weapons. A Full Penetration strike (penetration value twice that of the armor rating) yields a 30% damage boost. In additional, attacks with an insufficient penetration rating receives from 25% to 75% damage reduction.
With those two factors in mind, now compare weapons with high penetration versus weapons with low(er) penetration rating. Generally, I found that weapons with higher penetration rating values typically have lower actual damage, whereas low(er) penetration rating weapons typically have higher damage values. For example, an estoc has a pen rating of 10 and a damage rating of 18-26, whereas a greatsword has a penetration rating of 6 and a damage rating of 26-32.
One would expect the difference in damage values would strike a balance, but an estoc really is the safer bet. With an estoc, you have an better chance to reach a full penetration strike with an estoc (30% increased damage), and less of a risk running into a damage penalty for insufficient penetration rating. A full penetration strike practically mitigates the damage difference between estoc and the greatsword. Arguably, you could stack enough armor penetration from other sources to make greatswords a superior choice, but you would need meta-game knowledge of enemy armor values in advance to make that decision.
Other than to equip a weapon with an even higher penetration rating, why switch weapons? Just stack armor penetration for consistent 30% increased damage. Consequently, I truly believe removing that full penetration strike would help even the weapons out. Reduced damage is more than enough reason to switch weapons, why snowball the need for armor penetration rating with a 30% damage buff?
Edit: Also, I do not know if there is a reason to ever not want to dual-wield weapons, but that may be another discussion.
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My last bit of feedback is that I think the armor penetration mechanic disrupts weapon balance, and I believe removal of the 30% damage buff for full penetration would go a long way towards balance.
Generally, I have found that high pen weapons have lower actual damage values, whereas lower pen weapons have higher actual damage. For example, an estoc has a penetration rating of 10, with 18-26 actual damage, while a greatsword has a penetration rating of 6, with 26-32 actual damage. One would think the additional damage on the greatsword would balance out 4 less penetration rating, but keep in mind full penetration (penetration rating more than twice the enemy's armor rating) gives a 30% damage buff. The 30% full penetration buff with the estoc seems to mitigate the benefit of equipping a greatsword,even though the greatsword has a higher actual damage value. Therefore, with an estoc, you appear to have a better chance of reaching the full penetration attack and less risk running into the 25% damage penalties.
I could foresee a situation in which one could stack enough armor penetration from other sources to compensate and thereafter switch to a greatsword for more damage, but is that the intent? At that point, it would become the reverse, and a greatsword would be better than an estoc in most situations. Under this system, it is not about using the right weapon for the right job, but rather stacking pen for 30% damage.
Therefore, I would suggest removal of the 30% full penetration buff, because I think it skews weapon balance, and I believe the damage penalty for low penetration is more than enough. If an enemy receives 25-75% damage reduction because of the choice of weapon or spell, that is more than enough reason to switch weapons and tactics. The current system just snowballs the need for maximum penetration values.
Edit: somehow copied&pasted my post twice. Should be fixed.
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For the sake of brevity, I am just going to write what I dislike or find weak in the beta. For each issue, I tried to also include constructive feedback or a suggestion.
1. Cast times. I like the idea of long cast times, because it reinforces a sense of risk/reward in my opinion, provided the spells are worth the cast. Many spells in the beta, however, are not worth the cast. Furthermore, some low level buffs require the same cast-time as higher level buffs, which makes no sense to me. For example, Priests have a tier 1 accuracy/perception buff, and later have a tier 3 accuracy/perception buff that also converts some hits to crits, both of which have the same cast time. The cast times do not seem to line up with what the spells actually provide.
I would suggest that all early-game spells receive a short cast time. As the caster obtains stronger spells, then have longer cast times. For example, all tier 1 and tier 2 spells have a 2 second cast times, whereas all tier 3 and tier 4 spells have a 3 second cast times, and so on. I believe this change would accomplish three things: (1) give casters a much needed breather in the early game; (2) ease players into longer cast times; and (3) add the consideration of short-cast weak spells and long-cast strong spells, depending on the engagement.
2. Modals. I either ignore the modals or never turn them off (tanking relevant modals).
Honestly, I am not sure what to suggest for modals. Outside of tanking modals, I would perhaps suggest that you turn modals into an active ability. For example, the Estoc modal would give your next melee attack additional penetration, but you have increased recovery time or you have decreased deflection for a short duration.
3. Empowerment charges. I like the idea of empowerment, just not the implementation or the UI. Last time I played the beta, you could use empowerment to strengthen a spell, receive class resources, or receive additional casts. Of those uses, I found the additional casts a no-brainer. An empowered spell can miss or lack sufficient penetration, but additional spells provides you a variety of options. Furthermore, with respect to the UI, if I click on empower, my UI starts to flicker and does not always respond.
My main suggestion is to simply improve the UI and display of empower. I would love if you could pre-select abilities to empower. For example, if I click on empower, you could see an icon to instantly click for additional spells or to cast empowered fireball.
My other suggestion is that I would change empower to just increase the effectiveness of a spell/ability, but also give a slight downside similar to the modal system. For example, an empowered fireball would be stronger in all respects, except that it requires an additional 2 to 3 seconds of cast time. I believe this change would require more planning from the player compared to free spells.
4. Lack of general feats, Single Class Characters. The lack of general feats hurt single class characters that want to expand the archetype. For example, a single-class priest that focuses on summoned weapons is going to have a hard time, and general feats can make up for some of the weaknesses (extra deflection, accuracy, and penetration). Furthermore, single class characters feel incredibly streamlined. To go from the White March to the beta can be jarring, because there is so little to choose for a single class character.
From what I recall, the next patch will have general feats and more spells, and so I have no suggestions.
5. Wounds. I find wounds too easy to circumvent via rest spam. I still believe certain boss or mini-boss characters should have abilities that can inflict wounds. For example, if the Titan mini-boss throws a character, the character receives a wound, even if that character is not knocked out. I believe that would add much needed tension in the combat. Furthermore, it could easily be turned off for story mode and normal difficulty.
Edit: I am going to add a sixth point.
6. Armor Penetration. I do not know if there is any strategy other than stacking armor penetration at the moment, similar to accuracy or deflection. I just do not see a downside. It would be nice if there was a distinction (or more of a distinction) between high penetration weapons/spells and low penetration weapons/spells. For example, an estoc would provide 6 damage and 4 armor penetration, whereas a two-handed sword would provide 9 damage and 1 armor penetration. Therefore, against a heavily armored target, the estoc would prevail, but against a non-armored target the two-handed sword would prevail. There would be a reason to not always seek out the weapon with the most armor penetration.
Edit2: I loaded up the beta, and lower pen weapons do seem to have higher actual damage. For example, Estoc receives 10 pen and 18-26 damage, whereas a long sword receives 6 pen and 26-32 damage.
My suggestion would be to make that difference larger.The 130% full penetration seems to cancel out that distinction. An estoc has a better chance of reaching that 130% hit compared to a greatsword, which cancels out the benefit of a greatsword.The downside of my example is that it would be incredibly gamey (why would some weapons not have both), and there are a multitude of weapon classes to now balance out.
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Under the current system and the old system, you just hit rest and move on.
I think unlimited resting is the underlying cause of a lot of problems, but if they don't provide it, too many will complain. POE1's attempted compromise was a soft cap, but players complained about hiking back to an inn after every fight even though there was no need to do that, since resting supplies were found in abundance. You couldn't even carry all the camp supplies you found, so in practice it was unlimited even if you didn't keep hiking back to inns.
I would rather see a hard rest cap, plus a new-game checkbox to allow rest-spam for the players who want that. It's not the unlimited nature itself which is the problem (you can always just ... not rest), it's the evisceration of other gameplay mechanics and encounter designs that it compels. You can avoid resting, but you can't avoid the destruction of other aspects of the game that result.
I view resting as a symptom of the problem, as opposed to the cause. The cause, in my opinion, is how to handle party management (or lack thereof) and punishment. Currently, punishment is capped, because the most punishment any party member can receive (with some exception) is just one wound at a time. Said punishment can be reset by merely resting, which is borderline infinite. This is true under both the old and new system in my opinion.
Even if you cap the number of rests, I believe you will run into the same issue, although to a lesser extent. Specifically, no matter how dumb or thoughtless the mistake, the punishment for any mistake is just 1 wound per character at a time. As a result, you still can mismanage your party and fall back on resting to reset the situation.
I would prefer a system where the punishment is not capped. For example, if you let your character stand in a fire for the entire fight, then I believe your character should receive multiple wounds and die (if it reaches the wound limit). Similarly, if you let the Titan Watcher throw the same character multiple times, without any thought to interrupts or positioning vulnerable characters, then I think your character should get multiple wounds and die. This type of system adds an extra layer to party management in my mind, and rewards players that pay attention.
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I actually like the wound system, but it does not go nearly far enough in my opinion. Specifically, it is not punishing enough to be of much consequence to the player in its current form. As far as I know, a wound only occurs when a character is knocked out or triggers a trap. With only two sources of wounds the system does not create a lot of pressure for the player to do better, because you only ever get one wound and you can always rest immediately afterwards.
My suggestion would be to allow certain enemy abilities to apply a wound during combat and without the need to first knock out the player. For example, when the Titan Watcher throws a character, that character would receive a wound. I do not think every enemy needs the ability to create a wound, just bosses or mini-bosses. Such a change, in my opinion, would make the wound system an actual consideration in combat, as opposed to a slight inconvenience. Furthermore, I think such a change would reward proper micro (i.e., positioning, disables, interrupts, etc.).
As I tried to emphasize above, this is just my opinion. If Obsidian returned to the health/endurance mechanic, I would not mind it, although I think the health/endurance system also was just a mild inconvenience. Under the current system and the old system, you just hit rest and move on.
Edit: Another suggestion I have considered is for Priests/Druids to have a high level ability that removes a wound in combat (similar to revive), and for Fighters/Paladins to have a high ability that shrugs off a wound (just being manly). This would only make sense if bosses/mini-bosses had the ability to apply wounds outside of a knockout. Furthermore, this suggestion operates off an assumption that encounters would slowly escalate with more and more abilities that creates wounds. In my mind, this would add another layer to party management and create the need to deal with wounds stacking up during a fight, as opposed to hitting the rest button after a fight.
Ultimately, I just want a system that rewards micro and party management during a fight. Currently, there is no micro or party management with just hitting the rest button.
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I think the long casts times are great, because if gives the enemy A.I. time to counter you. For example, the giant Fish men (I will butcher the name), would hit my casters with a ranged paralyze and it made the fight all the more exciting on PotD. The drawback was that when I did land a non-heal spell, the impact was small relative to my rogue or warrior landing a critical hit.
Right now, the magic system does not seem like a trade off, but rather a straight up nerf to magic. What makes it more painful is that the general feats are gone, and so a single class caster has less ways to branch out of pure casting. For example, Priests have an ability to summon a melee weapon, but lack feats that would better allow them to better survive in melee. The old +5 deflection feats may have been small, but it was something.
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Pros:
1. Faster loading speeds;
2. I like the introductory village more than Dyrwood in the PoE1 beta. Specifically, I like how it presents the dilemma of how to handle outsiders, potential trade, and what course would best suit the tribe's needs.
3. The adventure screens are fantastic. I was thrilled when I got the chance to send my rogue to investigate and have the option to summon a drake or cast a lightning bolt.
4. New skills, such as metaphysics and religion, with plenty of skill checks.
5. Sublcasses and spell additions for Priest. I particularly enjoy the idea of summoning divine weapons, and I would love to build a Priest around summoning divine weapons.
6. I like the longer cast times and the limited spell selections for Priests, but there is a downside I will get into below.
Cons:
1. The pace of Combat felt too fast, which makes giving feedback on combat harder. I played on PotD, and I either crushed the encounter or was crushed in what felt like under 30 seconds.
2. Spells felt weak, especially in light of the longer cast times and limited spell selection. I actually prefer longer cast times and a more limited spell selections, but at the same time I expected stronger spells in return. Currently, I do not see that trade off.
Where I am finding this to be a big issue is the value of single class casters. Currently, I think it makes far more sense to have a multiclass character than a single class caster. A multiclass character can pop off several spells and rush into melee or cast a heal when needed. In contrast, with a single class character, you cast several anemic spells and hope you can contribute in melee or ranged combat. Ultimately, I would not mind pure casters being inflexible or limited, provided the strength of the spells made up for it.
Given the above, I realize I am basing my concerns over spells on a limited level and content range. From my experience in PoE1, Priests started off weak in PotD, but became incredibly strong in the late game.
3. I miss the general and cross-class feats introduced in the White March. Those feats provided much needed variety and options, which are now gone. As a result, the class trees look incredibly straight forward and simple.
Suggestions:
1. I would increase the power level of spells for single class casters. Keep the long casting times and limited spells, but make it worthwhile to cast. In my mind, there needs to be more of a reason to be a pure class character, when a multiclass character seemingly has no downsides in terms of power or flexibility. Granted, scaling "power level" in later levels could fix that, but currently multi class characters seem like the obvious character choice.
2. I would give each class a skill tree for abilities, class feats, and general feats. Paladins already have divided skill trees for active abilities and passive abilities, and so the system already exists in part. I believe such a change would be worth the time and cost to include, because the current class system seems incredibly streamlined and limits build variety.
The White March allowed for a variety of cool, fluff, or wacky builds, which the beta currently lacks.
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Damn straight! We need more Dwarves and Dwarve companions.
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I am trying to remember the source, but I could have sworn I read the Priest class kits were the god choices (Priest of Eothas, Priest of Magran, etc).
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The latest Fig update talked mostly about the mechanics of leveling up multiclassed characters, but on the way it also off-handedly dropped this bomb: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=250#updates
The level of a Power Source determines what level abilities can be chosen from that class, the available resources (casts/uses) for related abilities, and the strength (damage, number of projectiles, etc.) of those abilities.
Effectively, that means that abilities and spells (all of them? only some of them?) scale with level now. Not just their chance-to-hit like in PoE1, but their actual effects as well.
This is a significant change in how the Pillars of Eternity system works. It's going to be one heck of a challenge to balance.
While I agree that it is a big change, I am not certain it will be a huge challenge to balance. Depending on how strong or weak a class is, Obsidian can easily adjust the percentage. For example, if Rogue proves too weak, then Obsidian can adjust the increase from 5% increase to backstab per level to 8% per level.
In my mind the important issue is not the percentages assigned, but whether powerlevels will have similar weight across all classes. For example, is powerlevel a 5% damage increase for all classes, or does power level increase backstab damage 5% for rogue, whereas Priest receives a 5% increase to buff duration per level? I would think that is where the balancing trouble would come from. To continue with my latter example, if Priests receive a 5% increase to buff duration, but fights end significantly earlier, then a Priest's powerlevel provides less and less utility over time. At that point, I would expect a greater incentive to multiclass after a certain level.
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I figured that was the case. Hopefully my last save was not too far off.
Thank you.
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Readric's Keep comes early - every class that hadn't the chance to pick any +dmg or/and +ACC talents and has no inherent modifiers like rogue or cipher will perform like that. A chanter would have the exact same problem. A fighter would have more ACC, but also wouldn't do a ton of damage.
So I would say this is pretty normal. I always go trhough the front door in Readric's Keep and try to kill every hostile being because of all the loot (=money). When I have a tanky paladin I use chokepoints. I don't like that strategy too much but at this poinbt in the game the only thing a paladin does good is tanking and supporting, so...
A barb is even worse at this point. Hitting nothing, doing miniscule AoE damage if he hits and falling on his face all the time.
I find a paladin is doing ok melee damage with an enchanted heavy one hander and a small shield plus the generic +dmg-talents like Vuln. Attack and so on.
I even had two of these in the frontline. The encounters' durations go up for sure, but at the same time your buddies don't go KO a lot.
I know it. Chanter and Barb are worse off at that point as the Chanter isn't as sturdy as the Paladin and the Barb cannot hit a damn thing and is dirt napping. I have beaten this game on the highest difficulty and on ToI but those Paladins in the early game have always given me a hard time. I wish my Paladin was that effective in the early game. I would LOVE to see the attribute points on those Paladins of Berath have though. Are they higher level? cause they have ALWAYS been super tough and even a character with high Deflection gets hit A lot by them. They are super tanks (they are Paladins) have a very good ACC (which Paladins usually don't have that early) and have Zealous Focus, FoD and LoH
Do you have a priest in the mix? I found a Priest made the Raedric fight rather easy with repulsion seal (AoE knockdown) and accuracy buffs early on, even on PotD. At that early to mid level, Priest and Barbarian make a good pair, because carnage becomes far more consistent with Priest buffs. What made the fight even easier, was that I got the firebrand glove for my barbarian from Defiance Bay. The result was a lot of AoE fire damage via carnage.
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I agree with the op and I have raised this issue many times.
Every class being able to use ranged weapons (including firearms) makes the ranged specialist classes redundant IMO.
I think he talking from a role playing perspective though. I also agree on this point.
After reading your post, I think I understand the OP's post more. Still, I think Priests and Druids fit roleplaying experience better than Warriors, but it takes several levels.
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Interesting, I did not notice the change before now. Still, I do not remember installing any mods.
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So I've been playing the game for the past week, trying all the classes to see which one suits me more and, somehow, I kind of find the lackluster.
Sure, all of them have different abilities and stuff, but I kind of find annoying that all of them can use any kind of weapon or armor, whatever suits the player. I understand that it allows players to create whatever they want, but from a lore perspective, I don't know, it kinda makes no sense.
For example, if you are a monk you should be locked to a specific set of weapons & armors that could vary depending on which martial school you would choose when you create your character, things like that.
Remember this artwork?
See the lady in heavy armor and a musket? I was so excited about it, I thought, damn this must be like a member of a specific army/kindgom who has been trained like that... The monk, naked & tatoos & s**t, cool so the class is supposed to be played like that! Well guess what, it doesn't matter, you just have to use whatever most op weapon/armor is available and go for it...
I like classes, but I like them even more when they are well defined in their playstyle.
This is btw a minor complain, so far I am loving the game.
How far have you gotten with each class? The reason I ask is that I think certain classes have a ramp-up in power and identity. For example, priests start off kind of weak and limited in my opinion, whereas in mid-game you become a decent disabler (repulsion seal) and buffer. Late game, you get some excellent damage spells, such as Holy Fire, Pillars of Fire, and an electricity aura. The role shifts over time and becomes more defined with levels.
Early-game priest on Path of the Damned mode is like Dani Devito vs. the Predator at times.
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All I have installed is the White March content and patch.
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Good evening,
I was just about to attempt my last bounty mission Sserkal in Perlwood Bluffs, when I noticed that I was unable to access my last level spells on my Priest, Chanter, and Cipher. The spell icons shows that I still have casts available, but the icon is grayed out and I cannot open the panel to select spells. Prior to Sserkal, I killed Ysly, but I was able to use my spells.
I have tried the following on my own: rest; rezone; restart my game; and verify and repair game files via GoG galaxy. I assume this is user-error on my part somehow, but I am not sure what else to do at the moment. Therefore, I have attached the following: (1) screenshots; (2) save game files; (3) output log; and (4) system specs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated so that I can continue my playthrough.
1. Screenshots:
Upper level Priest spells locked out.
Upper level chanter spells locked.
Upper level Cipher spells locked out.
2. Save game files:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/44bx39jvyvutm6o/AAB_8xaq4ZST3SETpU7-V5-0a?dl=0
3. Output Log:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tx2cmcb6jv72iqx/output_log.txt?dl=0
4. System Spec:
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I do not like to make a slippery slope argument, but since Obsidian has already made one change, how is this different?
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Can't say I am surprised.
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Disappointing to say the least. I hope the backer gets a refund.
I feel like a broken record at this point, but this feels like a giant double standard towards violence in the game. I am not sure how jokes of this kind are unacceptable, but lynchings and depictions of torture based on ideology are given a pass. If a joke needs to be censored for society's sake, why is violence different?
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Resolved to fix Resolve!
in Backer Beta Discussion
Posted · Edited by Nixl
You bring up great points, but I still believe it is a better solution than random empower. For the point in bold, that sounds like a good reason to bring debuffers to the group. Similar to the AR/Pen system, enemies already have means to reduce your damage dramatically. Also, I think empower would face the same issue with scaling or lack thereof. Specifically, how do you scale the frequency or strength of empower and depower? Either it occurs often enough to be significant, or it doesn't in my mind.
Ultimately, I just dislike the RNG empower/depower solution.