Matt516

Of course you can't do that. IQ isn't a representation of your math skills. You will, however, become better at math. The brain can(and should) be trained, same as the rest of your body. Actually, IQ does go up with practice and training because it's based on a test and actually isn't a great representation of "pure" mental ability, not that we're even sure that that means. Not that I'm trying to make any kind of point with this. Just ramblin.

I'm a guess... damageBase = ( ( Lower end of weapon damage range + rand(1) * (Higher end - Lower end) ) * Might multiplier * Attack resolution multiplier ) damageReduced = ( damageBase - DT ) * (1 - DR) if damageReduced < 0.1 * damageBase damageFinal = 0.1 * damageBase else damageFinal = damageReduced end

Actually no it really doesn't. It is blatantly low res and looks pixelated. That said this is easy to do with custom portraits. You just start with a very large image, make the "large pic" a full body shot, then make the "small pic" just a focus on the head and shoulders. Here is a concept image I just tossed together to show what I mean. Original image I used in the top right, and the portrait and status screens are pasted in as well. That's a seriously awesome portrait. Did you pull it from some collection? Source?

Missing it, thelee - he's not saying PCs have been nerfed compared to NPCs, he's saying that Accuracy has been nerfed compared to Deflection. Hence more grazes... This is a silly argument.

I used a program to reverse engineer the Assembly-CSharp.dll to get the source code. I can see pretty much everything. So basically http://science.trigunamedia.com/geosound/neo-sees-the-matrix.jpg?

Except they haven't adjusted for the move in neutral point. We know that for a fact with player classes, and we don't know anything for certain about the other creatures. Given that, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that they haven't moved it for the other creatures as well. Even if they have - fights against humanoid class-based enemies are quite common, and like I said, we know those values haven't been adjusted. He's not making wild assumptions here. You are making assumptions for the sake of proving he's arrogant, or wrong, or whatever. It's weird. Sensuki's original statement was correct, because it sought to explain why there might be more grazes in the current build. Player characters use classes, we know the default values for classes haven't been adjusted, therefore we know that the Accuracy values for classes are lower. Period. When I pointed that out, you moved the target to only non-humanoid enemies for some reason (even though the Accuracy of non-humanoid enemies isn't really even relevant to Sensuki's original statement). Your posts read more as attack-motivated than truth-motivated. Sensuki could well be wrong about non-humanoid enemies. Most likely, he's wrong about some and right about others (as they very well may have rebalanced all sorts of creatures in different ways). We really don't know as far as non-humanoid enemies goes. But in the regime we do know about - that of humanoids who follow the class system, we know that the base values for Accuracy weren't adjusted. Classed characters have lower Accuracy with the same attribute scores than they did before, which would lead to more Grazes unless enemy Deflection values were specifically adjusted down to compensate. Which (again), they might have been for non-humanoids, but we know they weren't for classed characters. EDIT: Yeah, I used ad hominem technically incorrectly. Find/replace with "name-calling" instead if you like.

Also an idiot. Hey now. Just because someone starts the ad hominem train rolling doesn't mean you need to throw coal in the furnace. Answer fallacies with logic and let their rude manner speak for itself. Loss aversion is very much a thing btw, and it is very much at work in the attribute system rebalance. He was incorrect about that being why there aren't dump stats anymore (there aren't because the attributes are better balanced), but the loss-aversion aspect of that rebalance is very much an important part of the design from a "player feels" standpoint.

Also note that they specifically said this is placeholder art - just an FYI before people go complaining about how ugly/bad/unfinished it looks (which it does, but they already know that). Sounds like they finished the system up mechanically, threw some quick art on there, and pushed it out to us. Expect that to look much better within a few patches or so.

Do you actually have documented proof that the deflection base values haven't been adjusted? They may not have been for players, but looking at enemy stats themselves indicates that enemy deflection scores are lower (though these are all noisy data points - 278 had the deflection bug and 301's combat is much faster regardless - I rip through enemies like a knife through butter in 301 vs 278). Well, the fact that they haven't been adjusted for player classes (and presumably for NPCs based off of player classes since they use the same system) is my first bit of evidence. Beyond that, I don't know - I haven't gone through and compared every single creature's scores before and after. That said, it sounds like you're not quite sure either haha. Given that they didn't bother to adjust the player class default scores (which would've been very easy to do), I find it unlikely that they went through and adjusted all the other NPC scores (monsters, etc).

That's not quite true. The increased damage from Accuracy comes from the increased chances of better attack resolutions and the decreased chances of worse ones. When Accuracy is greater than Defense, that is indeed an increased chance of crit - but the increase in DPS isn't only dependent on what the "good" attack resolution is that is being maximized, but also the "bad" attack resolution that is being minimized. There are distinct 5 regimes of "Accuracy - Defense" - and the effectiveness of one additional point in Accuracy is different based on which regime you are in. In the "-5 < ACC-DEF < 5" regime, each point of Accuracy increases the chance of a crit by 1% and decreases the chance of a miss by 1%. This is the most powerful regime of ACC-DEF for Accuracy, because you're maximizing the best attack resolution and minimizing the worst one. Raw 1.5% DPS increase (before factoring in Might, Speed, and other multipliers to DPS) "-50 < ACC-DEF < -5" regime: 1 point in Accuracy increases the chance of a hit by 1% and decreases the chance of a miss by 1%. Raw 1% DPS increase. "5 < ACC-DEF < 50" regime: 1 point in Accuracy increases the chance of a crit by 1% and decreases the chance of a graze by 1%. Raw 1% DPS increase. "-95 < ACC-DEF < -50" regime: 1 point in Accuracy increases the chance of a graze by 1% and decreases the chance of a miss by 1%. Raw 0.5% DPS increase. "50 < ACC-DEF < 95" regime: 1 point in Accuracy increases the chance of a graze by 1% and decreases the chance of a hit by 1%. Raw 0.5% DPS increase. So as you can see - the benefits of Accuracy are a little more complicated than just "increased crit chance". It very much depends on which regime of the Accuracy - Defense axis you're in. Do note that these "Raw % DPS" increases can't be directly compared to, say, the 2% increase from Might because they actually depend on each other. Low Might means your % DPS increases from Accuracy are worth less, and low ACC-DEF means your % DPS increases from Might are worth less. This means that there is actually a crossover point where either Accuracy or Might is better for increasing DPS. In the last build, below ACC-DEF = -20, Accuracy was generally better, and above ACC-DEF = 5, Might was generally better. The region in between wasn't one or the other. I haven't redone the graphs for the new Might multipliers (centered at 10), but I expect they'll be very similar. EDIT: Granted, the last 2 regimes I showed may or may not see much use in game as those are pretty big differences. Even so, thought I'd include them. Also, I can still see your point about crits maybe being better if they weren't super common, and if Accuracy only increased hit chance. I'm... undecided. I think that argument has merit, but I'm not sure how well that'd work in this system. One thing is for sure - that change would nerf Accuracy quite a bit when compared to Might. YMMV if that's a good idea or not. Could probably be counterbalanced somehow, maybe by moving the attribute boni to +3% and +2 respectively, which gives a little more weight to the Accuracy attribute (currently Perception).

He's right, thelee. What they did for Accuracy is move the neutral point for attribute boni up, but not adjust the base values accordingly. So everyone now has less overall accuracy than before since you get +0 at attribute 10 instead of +10 (like before). Conversely with Deflection, they added it to an attribute (where it wasn't on one before) but didn't adjust the base values at all. Which is fine, because at 10 Int (the "average" value), you have your "base" Deflection, with a possibility of going 10 above that or 8 below it with changes in Int. The problem is that because of these two facts, characters generally have lower Accuracy than before (because of the aforementioned shift in the neutral point without corresponding shift in the base value) but roughly similar Deflection as before. This leads to more grazes than in the previous build. So... Yeah. He's right. I'll let him answer the ad hominem attack himself - but I can vouch for his math. EDIT: Psychology is part of it, but the main reason far fewer people see "dump stats" in the new system is that the attributes are better balanced. In the previous system, some attributes just weren't as good as others. The new system is much better from a purely mechanical balance standpoint.

Try pumping Int and Con, that will give you better deflection and Health. Yeah - although that would've been true in D&D, this attribute system is a bit different. It's not wrong persay, just different - unless you define wrong as anything that's not the same as it was in D&D, which is a view that I can understand but certainly don't agree with. In this attribute system, Con and Int are what make you more survivable. Personally I would've argued for Deflection on Resolve instead, but the current system is what they decided to go with for this iteration.

Just wanted to point out that though in game testing is certainly valuable, there no substitute for the raw math when it comes to determining attribute balance (at least when talking about simple things like who does more DPS). The reasons I say this are three: Many of the variations in DPS due to attributes are very small. Additionally, testing in-game has the unfortunate side effect of falling prey to the very small sample size issue. Any difference in DPS is likely to be overshadowed by the inherent randomness of the damage rolls working itself out in the fairly isolated case of a single battle. Lastly, it's very difficult to control for everything when doing in game testing (or at least many people don't seem to be doing so). Race, class, abilities, modals, armor, enemy deflection, enemy DT, weapons - will all affect DPS in addition to attributes. So if desiring to compare (for example) the impact of Might vs Perception on DPS, in game testing is really only valuable if all the other factors mentioned are accounted for, either by holding them constant or varying them intentionally (as with Deflection). In any case - not wanting to knock in game testing. It's extremely important for determining the "feel" of things, and after all - this is a game. If it isn't fun it isn't much good. And I understand that many (most?) people don't really care to go deep in depth with the maths. That's fine. Just wanted to point out that as valuable as in game testing is for pretty much everything, it's not the absolute best tool for weighing balance. Just too many variables and too much variation (not to mention confirmation bias). It's like when people in XCOM think the RNG is cheating them when it really isn't - humans are inherently bad at thinking about statistical things in a subjective way. Anyway - cheers all. In game testing is great, so don't anyone take this post as me condemning it. Just.. please don't make balance statements based on anecdotal evidence alone. It's just inherently less accurate than going straight to how the game calculates everything. PS - All that said, it's always possible things could be bugged. Ie what the math on the game mechanics says might not match up with reality due to a bug. Luckily though, the combat log can sort these out as its fairly easy to spot errors in damage calculation there.

Thanks, the wiki article made good sense. The dependency of crits probability on accuracy is nonlinear, since above a certain threshold, there is zero crit chance while below it there's a linear dependency. This seems to me to make accuracy a very critical part of DPS by enabling crits, but from what you've said, PER doesn't do that much to affect it compared to class features, and therefore isn't necessarily the buff stat it was hypothesized to be in the beginning of the thread. I actually think that INT as a critical hit modifier (def) is narrative, as the genius/knowledge it takes to exploit a persons anatomy/situation or avoid being exploited. So if Int is still the nerf stat I think it could be buffed by moving crit ranges rather then, or including the AOE mods. Well, it's fully linear within the regime in which crits are possible. 1 point of Accuracy is always +1% crit chance if crits are possible. And accuracy is indeed a very critical part of DPS - but its not more important than Might. 1 point of Accuracy gives, at most +1.5% effective DPS (+1% of 150% damage and -1% of 0% damage in the -5 to 5 range of Accuracy - Defense). 1 point of Might always gives +2% effective DPS. Now, the true value of a point in either one of these is actually dependent on the value of the other (you can't compare the flat percentages) - but in general, Might gives a lot more effective DPS if your Accuracy is higher than their Defense and Accuracy gives a bit more DPS if your Accuracy is lower than their Defense. Might and Accuracy are pretty well balanced as far as DPS goes (assuming there isn't an overwhelming trend of enemies with more or less Defense than Accuracy values, that is).

Isn't looking ugly kind of the point?

Which is IMO when it'd be very good - if used as a substitute for pause. The game shouldn't require slomo any more than it should require pause though - that is to say, sometimes. If that makes any sense.

The dependency of crits on Accuracy is not nonlinear. The effect of Accuracy on total DPS is quite modest. Here's how the mechanics work: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attack_Resolution

That's my main beef with it. The fact that I can employ the exact same tactics and have a wildly different result was always a bit annoying, and I'm glad to see it go. Not that there's a problem with RNG in combat, far from it - but it was badly balanced in 2e rules. And this is just what I am talking about. You are proposing changes to PoE while not liking basic stuff of IE games (and D&D), randomness.I don't know if you played WL2, but lots of randomness is what makes that game good. It also made Xcom the hit it was (and old Xcom is still one of the best games I know because of randomness). XCOM is completely different because if one battle goes south because of RNG you aren't screwed over for the whole game. It creates hardship to overcome. By contrast, in a party-based RPG, losing one battle because of RNG ends your game. I've stated multiple times that I don't mind RNG in battle systems and that I think it can make a game better. But I think the addition of Graze balances the battle RNG better for a party-based RPG when compared to the IE games. You're welcome to disagree, but continuing to claim that I'm not a real fan of the IE games because I hold that opinion is insulting and ridiculous.

That's my main beef with it. The fact that I can employ the exact same tactics and have a wildly different result was always a bit annoying, and I'm glad to see it go. Not that there's a problem with RNG in combat, far from it - but it was badly balanced in 2e rules.

While I agree, this isn't a bug. Won't do any good in this forum - should he posted on the other one.

I'm sure they're still balancing it - they said that what we got was basically the very first implementation.

Wait, so... the base Accuracy is the same, but now you can only go to +10 (at 20) from that instead of +20 (at 20). That's what you're saying? Yeah, that needs to be fixed. Either all base Accuracies need to go up by 10 (would have the same mathematical balance as before, my preferred solution for now) or the bonus per point needs to go up (could also work, but would require some serious rebalancing).

ACC-DEF = 31 should be 36% base + 4.5% (10% of 45%) = 40.5% chance to crit. Which is quite something indeed.

Might is for damage. Strength didn't make a good tank in D&D as well except minimum strength needed for some armour. STR = Thaco and damage. Puh-leez. And how does thaco and damage help you tank?Strength is dps stat. Con and Dex are tank stats. Well, in the current system, Con and Int. But yeah, pretty much.

Can you elaborate? I'm not really sure what you're saying here...