Matt516

Sorry what? 100% correct and I did mention that not only I had no clue if this would ever be doable, I mentioned this was extreme, just to make a point. However removing DT from the equation of DPS when DT is a core part of it, doesn't do the system justice I think and if you include it, then, % based damage bonus will favor heavy hitter simply because they have a much easier time breaking DT overall. Could be wrong but this logic seems..logical to me (go figure!) Also, when talking DPS, utility and CC factors can't really be included in the equation. From your spreadsheet, it's clear that fast weapons cannot compete in DPS against heavy weapons under any condition whatsoever, at best equaling DPS, at worst as DT rises, falling behind tremendously. edit: Corrected to prevent useless wall of text because: reasons Well it entirely depends on the values. If fast weapons also had three times the base damage of slow weapons, they'd blow them out of the water. Obviously that's not true - but just pointing out that balance, ultimately, is all about tuning the numbers. Now, say we do assume a fast weapon and a slow weapon with the same base dps. Yeah, the fast weapon will fall behind in damage because of DT - but remember that this is without taking into account DT piercing (on some fast weapons). Also remember, again, the interrupts. While you're right that your own interrupts don't contribute to dps (but are still tactically useful), your ability to avoid being interrupted does contribute to dps. I haven't included interrupts in the spreadsheet yet because I'm not sure exactly how they're calculated, but the beneficial effect on dps from having a fast weapon is real. In any case - all I'm saying is that the system (especially the boni) isn't set up in such a way to overwhelmingly favor slow, strong weapons like you made it out to be. And even if slow, strong weapons have a bit more dps than their faster counterparts - I'm actually ok with that. It makes sense to me that if a warrior wants to inflict the most punishment possible, they'd use a giant-ass sword or axe. The reason smaller weapons could still be balanced (in spite of maybe doing a bit less damage) is they let you use a shield, they let you interrupt more, etc. That's an interesting tactical choice. If all weapons of similar quality did the same dps, regardless of type, weapon choice would be largely cosmetic. So while I still disagree with you about the magnitude of the dps advantage large weapons have, I don't actually have any problem at all with large weapons having a dps advantage of some kind. As long as there are interesting reasons to use other styles (more defensive, more interrupts, etc), I'm totally ok with that.

Pretty much. Then manage inventory while everyone is walking.

Well, there are many cases IRL people getting mauled by bears because they don't realize that they're getting close to its cubs, even when they're holding a shotgun. But that's beside the point, I don't want or expect PE to be hyper realistic, but since health-stamina system is "realistic-ish" (you can recover stamina, but you can't mend broken ribs without resting, etc), I think it's wise if PE could take notes from wildlife encounters in real life. That said, the fact that you CAN mend broken ribs by sleeping for 8 hours but not with your holy healing magic is a bit strange... EDIT: Dangit, forum bug double post. Mod, feel free to delete the duplicate.

Well, there are many cases IRL people getting mauled by bears because they don't realize that they're getting close to its cubs, even when they're holding a shotgun. But that's beside the point, I don't want or expect PE to be hyper realistic, but since health-stamina system is "realistic-ish" (you can recover stamina, but you can't mend broken ribs without resting, etc), I think it's wise if PE could take notes from wildlife encounters in real life. That said, the fact that you CAN mend broken ribs by sleeping for 8 hours but not with your holy healing magic is a bit strange...

Mutonizer, while I appreciate your reference to my post, I have to completely disagree with your conclusion re: the percentage based bonuses making two handed weapons more powerful. That is simply not true. Given 2 weapons with equal dps - say a sword that hits 2 times per second for 40 and a greatsword that hits 1 time per second for 80, any percentage based damage bonus will increase dps equally. Say 10% - now the sword hits 2 times per second for 44 and the greatsword hits 1 time per second for 88. Same dps. This is in stark contrast to a flat damage bonus system which overwhelmingly favors faster hitting weapons because they get the damage bonus on every hit. The percentage system is there so that neither weapon style benefits more from extra damage - your assertion that the percentage based damage boni favor big heavy weapons is simply incorrect. That said, big heavy weapons do have an advantage in raw dps since they do more damage per hit and therefore have less absorbed from DT. But (as you said) when damage numbers are very large, this may not have a noticeable effect. We don't really know the numbers yet so we can't speak intelligently about if that is balanced or not. But yeah - large weapons do have that on small weapons. Even so, small weapons have an advantage over large weapons - they hit faster, and are thus less likely to be interrupted and more likely to cause interrupts. Since we don't know the specifics of the math on interrupts, it's hard to tell if that will balance out the slightly higher damage of large weapons. In any case, just wanted to point that out. Large weapons do NOT benefit more from % based damage boni. If you don't believe me, download my spreadsheet and run some numbers for yourself. A large weapon and a small weapon with the same dps before boni will have the same dps after boni as well. They only differ in the dps reduction from armor, which may or may not be offset by the increased interrupt resistance and causation of small weapons.

So how is it working for everyone? Any new balance insights to share?

Haha I'll keep that in mind!

That's an odd comment from someone who insists on communicating in an imaginary dialect. In any case I....kinda agree with you. Implementing a system where combat is rendered a pointless exercise likely won't cause the game to tank. Instead, it'll probably cause the game to suffer the PS:T syndrome.... everything is awesome except the combat. Which would be really ironic wouldn't it since this one is supposed to be the successor to BG and IWD, whereas Numenera is supposed to be the successor to PS:T. That said.... let's remember PS:T for a moment. It had combat XP. The combat was also godawful. Hmm... It's like I've said time and time again - the problem isn't combat XP specifically, it's incentive structure. You have to provide a reason for players to do combat, whether it be RP based, loot based, XP based, or just because it's so much fun. They're not going to do combat XP. It's not going to happen. That should be blindingly obvious when you look at how this has always polled (both I've seen have combat XP as the minority opinion) and how much Q/A and balance work they have left to do before release. It's not going to happen. Period. Suggesting other ways to incentivize combat for the player? Helpful. Bitching about combat XP for the umpteenth time? Not helpful. Not at all.

You're welcome!

It must have changed a lot in the year or so since I've stopped playing if this kind of post is the norm. O_o

Yup. Needs options that reflect all sizable opinions, like "Combat XP or bust" "Combat XP or something to replace it", "Objective XP is fine by me", "Quest XP only", etc. Don't waste the community's time with this silly poll.

Hello all! A while back, I created a spreadsheet that calculated the effective DPS multiplier from Accuracy. My intent was to allow a way for people to compare MIG and DEX from a damage-doing perspective. We're in the Backer Beta to provide feedback, and our feedback is only as useful as our information. Knowledge is power. Etc.... My spreadsheet was pretty well received. Sparked some good discussion about how the different attributes affect combat dps, and led to some new insights on my part from some errors pointed out by others. So I've taken your feedback into consideration and revamped the spreadsheet, adding new capability. There's now a master calculation sheet where you can vary any and all of these 17 variables: Graze Damage Crit Damage MIG % Damage Bonus/Point MIG % Damage @ 0 DEX Accuracy/point Might Dexterity Base Accuracy (from class) % Damage Bonus (abilities etc) Bonus Accuracy (abilities etc) Weapon Base MIN Damage Weapon Base MAX Damage Attack Speed (frames) Recovery Time (frames) Target Deflection Target DT DT Effectiveness To calculate the resulting dps. Up to 20 different combinations are supported (and you can probably figure out how to add more if you want). My hope is that through the power of crowdsourcing, members of this community will discover new insights about the balance and tuning of PoE's combat and combat stats. Make informative graphs. See how a 25% increase in crit damage and an increase of the DEX Accuracy bonus to 1.5/level will solve all the balance problems!! (I just made that up, but you get the point). The more we know about the actual balance, the more valuable feedback we can give about balance changes. People are arguing elsewhere about really major mechanics that, while important to discuss, probably aren't going to change much. What will change, and what we have the chance to affect and improve, are the tuning changes. So please - use this spreadsheet! Find interesting relationships among the variables! Share your insights with the community. So without further ado, here is the spreadsheet. Enjoy New Excel: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29325716/Pillars%20of%20Eternity%20DPS%20calc%20V2.xlsx Old Excel: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29325716/Pillars%20of%20Eternity%20DPS%20calc%20V2.xls Unfortunately I think there are some compatibility issues with Google Sheets - if anyone figures out how to make it work, let us know. On to the second part of the post. This will be short, but I wanted to be sure and talk about it really quick. MIG vs DEX. There has been some debate as to if MIG or DEX actually increases your damage more. And as Azrael Ultima pointed out, the marginal benefit of one more point in MIG or DEX is directly dependent on the current value of the other variable. So here's a comparison chart. On the Y axis is the marginal % damage increase (% of BASE damage, mind you - so all %s are based on the same scale) and on the X axis is the current value of Accuracy minus Deflection. As you can see, the math is pretty clear. If Accuracy minus Deflection is greater than 5, MIG is always going to increase your dps more. If Accuracy minus Deflection is less than 5, DEX will usually increase your dps more. Only exception is when Accuracy minus Deflection are between -5 and -20, where the dominating stat depends on your current value of MIG. So it would seem that if you want an optimal build, you don't want to completely dump either - but neither is completely un-viable or always better than the other one either. In particular, note that this basically means more accurate characters will do better against enemies with very high deflection, while more mighty characters will do better against enemies with very low deflection. Kind of makes sense. So (at least at first glance) it looks like these are pretty well balanced, from a dps standpoint at least (there are of course more factors to consider when comparing different stats than just dps). So... that's what I've got for today. Take the spreadsheet - use it to answer "what if?" questions about game balance and tuning. Present insights with the community. Help PoE be the best game it can be. PS - Here's the equations used. Might be slightly simplified from what is used in the spreadsheet (the DT usage I didn't even try because it's literally an entire sheet of the spreadsheet by itself), but the general idea is there.

Unfortunately, there is almost no difference between 1H no shield and 1H with shield dps. At least in a lot of cases. The recovery time penalty and the accuracy boost almost exactly cancel each other out. So if they want 1H no shield to do more damage (in exchange for not having a shield to defend), they need to increase the accuracy bonus.

I'm a quote myself in an attempt to (vainly?) steer this conversation back towards something resembling a reasonable discussion. Combat XP is a preference. It isn't objectively better or worse than no combat XP. The only thing that makes its absence objectively worse (at the moment) is that the quest XP implementation isn't properly tuned yet. What we should be discussing is not whether or not combat XP would be a viable solution to the current reward structure woes (it obviously would, it's tried and true) but what alternate solutions can be implemented. OE has made the decision not to implement purely combat-based XP. That decision is made. As with attributes and rolling to hit, OE is trying something new here. Let's stop bitching and focus on helping them make it succeed.

Mmm... that's going too far for "balance" in my opinion. It still has to be believable. All they have to do to make helmets balanced is give a slight accuracy penalty when wearing them to compensate for the benefit. Giving hoods and hats boni as well seems like the wrong way to solve that.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090731021518/en.futurama/images/thumb/a/ad/GoodNewsEveryone.jpg/500px-GoodNewsEveryone.jpg Good news everyone! Version 2 of the spreadsheet is ready to roll. I'll be putting the link up tomorrow in a new post (I am way too tired to write the post tonight). Why am I tired, you ask? Because I programmed a calculation that takes every single possible damage roll, every single possible attack resolution, calculates how much DT reduces your damage for each, then weighs it by probabilities of occurrence to get the true mathematical effect of DT on your damage (accounting for misses, grazes, any attack resolution where the DT blocks your damage entirely and some DT is therefore wasted). That's kind of a bitch to do in Excel. Also calculated the tradeoffs between MIG and DEX in terms of dps multiplier (correctly this time, thanks Azrael). The jist of it is that DEX is more valuable if you're fighting enemies with higher Deflection than your Accuracy, and MIG is more valuable if you're fighting enemies with lower Deflection than your accuracy. But what I'm most excited about is "the tuner" - it's a page that allows you to test up to 20 different combinations of every stat I could think of (not to mention base game values like crit damage, etc) to get the final dps. So you can make your own graphs, share new insights about balance with the community, etc. Looking forward to sharing it with you tomorrow!

Agreed, not sure why they removed defense from stats and put it on something like this...tis very silly. Leave interrupts for talent/skills used in combat rather than per hit...this isn't dark souls and we see nothing like a poise system in place. Also makes no sense that armor isn't taken into account for determining interrupts but weapons have interrupt values? Well that's not strictly true - RES is our Poise. But of course in the current build armor doesn't contribute to "Poise" (which is probably part of the problem). I'd be happy with interrupt resistance being tied to armor instead, tbh.

Are helmets really completely useless? I had hoped that's the benefit was just not shown in the description yet or something.. Why even have one if it doesn't do anything? That doesn't make sense. O_o

Yup. UI elements need to be customizable as to location (the only acceptable option for a PC game made in the year 2014 IMO - I mean really... it's like customizable FoV or rebindable keys...) or at the very least reworked to more ergonomically appropriate locations.

The problem though is that if there's no in game reward (loot, story, xp) for fighting them, then the fight is essentially disincentivized. Which is silly for such a combat focused game. I've said it before and I'll say it again - while I prefer combat XP personally, it's not vital... But you have to have something to replace it as a mechanical motivation for doing combat. Otherwise it's literally a waste of ingame resources (health, potions, etc) that is always better to bypass if possible.

Yes yes yes yes yes. This or something allowing for a non-Ranger archery specialized character.

Is this the BG incantations? I thought I remembered Necromancy sounding something like "Agua-enma-tadma-te" or something like that. At least Cure Light Wounds (a necromancy spell) did.

I think the above can be simplified by treating interrupt as a random variable and assuming for the DPS calculation that it hits in the exact middle of any attack. It's exactly how you would handle rotational latency for a disk access calculation, if you know what I mean - half of attack time is the average if you are equally likely to get interrupted any time during the attack. The result would be, for a given set of stats, a curve of DPS values that varies over interrupt probability (which itself would depend on the number of enemies, their attack speeds and their perception scores but the magic of the random variable glosses over all of that, hopefully leaving behind a clear signal about the Resolve stat). I'm reasonably sure I know what you mean, but if you wouldn't mind PM-ing me with more information it certainly wouldn't hurt.

I played BG2 the first couple of times the 'normal' way. Then I played a couple times with hand-crafted gimmick parties. Try it with a full party of kensai/mages. You'll roflstomp over everything. It's fun because ridiculous. Also the story and companions in it isn't really all that great; it's OK by porn standards I suppose but not so good I'd want to play it a second time for the story. The variety in combat encounters, tactics, and party composition OTOH does make for massive replayability. I.e. on subsequent playthroughs I did pretty much click through the story to get to the fighting. In any case Obsidian's trademark is their writing, which you can already see in the BB -- I swear there was more interesting writing there than in all of BW's games since BG2 put together. @Monte Carlo IMO it's too early to tell if the combat is too fast; the main problem is the lack of feedback and critical bugs that turn it into soup. If it is fast I think the main problem is with movement speed, not with attack or casting speed. I'd rather have them clean up the pathfinding, AI, and character freeze bugs first and, if possible, add some better feedback, then see if it still feels too fast. Yeah.. Baldur's Gate's story was never very good. I mean, it wasn't bad. But the draw was the exploration, the loot, the combat, and the characters. Not the story. Planescape:Torment was the IE game with the story...