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Matt516

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Everything posted by Matt516

  1. Matt516
    You can create a full party in BG2. Just start in multiplayer mode. I only play BG2 nowadays with a custom-built party. Sadly, I doubt I'll be playing PoE thirteen years after release. Well that's a bit unfair. The game isn't out yet.
  2. Matt516
    I'm stealing this.
  3. Matt516
    What do you mean by "aggro mechanics", specifially? The ability to just make enemy combatants attack someone they would not otherwise attack? Because I'd be ok with that not being included in the game... but if there's no "aggro" at all (in the sense of enemy combatants attacking the most threatening PC), and the enemies just attack the nearest enemy... that would also be stupid. But I have a feeling "aggro mechanics" means something very specific that I'm not understanding in this case.
  4. Matt516
    My $0.02: Penny 1: Time-based XP - extremely, extremely silly idea. Props for thinking out of the box, but seriously, no. That would be just.... the worst. Penny 2: Combat-based XP - there's a case for and against. Much of it is based on personal preference. So people (on both sides) should stop pretending that there is a right and wrong answer. Ultimately, even when both sides are being completely logical, some people will want combat XP and some will not. Neither is an objectively better way of doing things. So chill.
  5. Matt516
    At the moment I believe it is cancelled and you have to order it again.
  6. Matt516
    Did anyone play the old Realms of Arkania games? BG incantations were great, but my favorite are still the (also Latin, but more epic) incantations from Realms of Arkania. "FULMEN!" (throws lightning bolt) or "PLUMBUMBARUM!" (turns enemy's arms to lead). Incredibly menacing VO for an incredibly old game.
  7. Matt516
    Holy... crap.... that is horrifying. O_o
  8. Matt516
    Increasing the interrupt length at all would be silly. The point isn't to stun, there are stun effects for that. The point is to interrupt. To elaborate - interrupt exists to allow you to, well, interrupt actions that are in progress. It isn't for stunlocking, and you wouldn't want it to be. Once you've stopped an action in progress, you've accomplished the point of the interrupt. It's more like a stutter than a stun, screwing up the enemy's flow and forcing them to start their action over. But if there was any significant duration attached, the dynamic would be changed completely. It would be incredibly OP.
  9. Matt516
    People are making good points - though I'm noticing most people saying "I've seen it work pretty well for me." My complaint isn't so much that interrupt does nothing - I know it does work, and can be quite helpful. The problem is that evaluating exactly how much it helps you relative to MIG and Accuracy is really difficult to do. :/
  10. Matt516
    Right now when you right click or mouse over a weapon, the damage range shown is with the bonus from MIG taken into account. This makes it difficult to compare weapons that different characters are using, because if these characters have different MIG values, the same weapon equipped by both will show different damage ranges. How it needs to be shown, instead of (for example) "Sword: 16-22 slashing damage", is something more along the lines of "Sword: 15-20 (+1-2) slashing damage". Then show the net damage elsewhere on the inventory screen as suggested in http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67677-sensukis-suggestions-009-inventory-and-item-tooltips/?hl=%2Bdamage+%2Bdisplay. As it is, we really can't even know what the base damage of a weapon is without doing the math every time. Silly. It's a small thing, but important to making an intuitive inventory and UI system (which really needs work at the moment). If this is already listed somewhere as an intended feature, I apologize. Just shoot me a link and I'll be happy.
  11. Matt516
    Sweet. PM me and I can add them to the spreadsheet. The calculation of attack speed from animation speed/recovery times should be fairly straightforward. How does one get from the recovery values given in the armor description (increases with lower recovery time) to recovery time? Do you know the formula, or have you just timed it?
  12. Matt516
    Good to see counterarguments... I still think interrupt has a long way to go before it's a genuinely beneficial mechanic to the combat, but y'all certainly have some good points.
  13. Matt516
    That's exactly what I'm working on. Should have it up by Wednesday night at the latest (I'll make a new post). It'll include the ability to vary everything I listed in my post higher up on this page.
  14. Matt516
    The increase to base damage is linear. The increase to your final damage, however, is not. You're forgetting that you will generally already have some Might when considering whether to add more. Not sure what you mean by "min-maxing will always remain king". MinMaxing is an approach to building your character, not a certain technique. The increase to final damage actually is linear if the only thing you're varying is MIG. The only thing that changes the marginal value of one more point in MIG is changing the Accuracy multiplier or the Base Damage. See these again:
  15. Matt516
    It's a bad mechanic because it's hard to understand how valuable it is overall in combat to increase the two interrupt stats. It's not really difficult to understand how it happens on any given attack (though we still don't actually know the specifics) - but it is difficult to understand the long-term/average effect of it. Which means that it's difficult to make intelligent decisions about it and to weigh tradeoffs from a strategic standpoint. Which is also bad gameplay (making uninformed decisions).
  16. Matt516
    I thought that at first as well, and it certainly seems that it would be that way. But because your damage loss from DT on any given hit is additive (subtractive I guess), not multiplicative, it comes out of the dps calculation as a separate subtracted quantity. This means that average weapon damage is actually completely fine to use, as long as the weapon has an equal probability of all damage rolls in the damage range. The dps you lose from DT is (mostly*) only dependent on your attack speed, not the damage you were going to do. Here's the equations: *Ok, so this isn't strictly true in all cases. If any given strike has its damage reduced to 0 by DT, then some of the DT may actually be wasted on that hit. The presence of Grazes and Misses (Hits and Crits as well on really high DT enemies) can therefore cause the impact of DT on dps to be overestimated a bit. So I'll admit that the attached equations are only correct if Grazes still pass some damage through DT, and that they don't really account for the presence of Misses. Unfortunately this can't really be fixed algebraically because there's no tidy algebraic way to express the logic "If x < 0, x = 0, If x > 0, x = x". I'd welcome suggestions for fixing it though (aside from just implementing logic, which is certainly doable in Excel and might just have to happen now that you've pointed it out ). TL;DR - Weapon damage range isn't a problem at all. You can just use the average. Grazes and Misses (any attack resolution in which not all of the DT is used) can be a problem in certain situations, causing an overestimation of the dps loss due to DT.
  17. Matt516
    Ok... here's the thing.... I really, really do not like the interrupt mechanic as currently implemented. Not as something that can happen from any attack. Interrupting spells in the process of casting - fine. Interrupting attacks, but using a spell or ability - fine. But this whole "any attack can interrupt any action" mechanic? Nuh-uh. Nope. Bad mechanic. And here's why, from a game design standpoint. Interrupt, as currently implemented adds RNG to battle, but in a really unpredictable way that is hard to anticipate. Good, rewarding mechanics are all about giving the player various tools to make intelligent decisions with. Making an intelligent decision about interrupt is extremely, extremely difficult. As I've gone into more detail about here: (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67761-dps-vs-accuracy-deflection-heres-the-maths-enjoy/?p=1493755), actually figuring out how interrupt affects your effectiveness in combat is highly nontrivial. Interrupt (and by extension the current version of RES/PER) is extremely difficult for a player to place a value on, which means that any build choices regarding interrupt aren't because the player knows what they're trading off, but more based on a qualitative "feel" for which they like better. And don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking qualitative feels. Despite what my math-focused posts may lead you to believe, I am not a powergamer or a min/maxer. I like doing the math and knowing what my choices are, but I rarely derive any enjoyment from simply choosing the most optimal thing. I like to RP in CRPGs, and my choices about stats and abilities and weapons and armor are often affected by that. So don't misinterpret me here - I'm a fan of qualitative choices. And many players are. But that's no excuse for bad design. Even if a player wants to make a choice based on what they qualitatively prefer or find more fun, that doesn't mean they shouldn't also have the tools to know what the implications of their decisions are. So to summarize - I think interrupt (as currently implemented with anything able to interrupt anything) is a bad mechanic. I think the game would be better without it. What do you think? And to round off my argument with the final nail in my web of logic and reasoning... Boo interrupt. PS - Remember that it's still early enough to potentially make large changes to the mechanics. And while I don't think interrupt ruins the game or anything, I think it would be undeniably better without it (at least without the current implementation.) If people agree with me, maybe OE will see it and think about improving it. If not, then OE doesn't need to change anything because the majority of their testers don't care.
  18. Matt516
    I'd actually really, really like this. Not having the mechanical values hidden, but changing from numerical attributes to descriptive ones. Take MIG as an example. Your proposed change would basically reduce it to 5 gradations. Since everyone seems to think MIG needs some buffs to boni, let's just assume we increase the range from 0-60%. Then you have "Minor/Lesser/Standard/Greater/Major" Might (name it whatever you want) that give boni of 0/15/30/45/60% to damage and healing. This would eliminate unnecessary gradation, allow for somewhat more natural and "role-playing-esque" stats, and not really have any downsides that I can think of. It would also distinguish PoE from the vast majority of other RPGs out there (without screwing the mechanics up at all), which would be cool.
  19. Matt516
    Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant the impact of a character's Resolve on the damage curve of that character. Your attacks can get interrupted which would impact your DPS because you need to start the attack/reload/spell or whatever over again. Resolve makes it happen less often. Hmm, very good point. That does take care of the motivation/justification aspect. Unfortunately, implementing that would still require having a reasonable way to model a few things we don't really know much about at the moment: Detailed math behind interrupts and concentration (see #2 of my last post) More information on exactly how recovery time interacts with interrupts Additionally, the enemy interrupt frequency would depend on their attack speed and interrupt chance, which are both variables that could potentially affect the final answer a lot and also vary quite a bit between enemies, leaving no clear general effect of RES on dps. Somewhat similar to how the effect of DEX depends greatly on enemy DEF, but (I predict) worse. Also, because rounds are asynchronous (as far as I know), the phase difference between two characters' individual rounds would matter quite a bit. If the individual attack patterns of the two characters are lined up such that the enemy always hits right before you hit, you're going to get interrupted a lot more than if it's the other way around. Additionally, the difference between the overall attack speeds would cause the attack patterns to go in and out of phase, which would make things even wonkier. And worst of all... the effect of an interrupt on your dps depends on at what point in your attack animation you are interrupted. The later in your attack animation, the worse your dps gets. But there aren't any stats or attributes that affect this - it's only dependent on the relative attack speeds of the combatants and how far in or out of phase their attack patterns are. So you would see huge variations in the dps impact from something you can't control at all. Basically, taking Interrupt into account would be more akin to writing a combat simulation than simple algebra. Not something that's undoable, but somewhat nontrivial to do it right (as far as I can tell). I'm not certain it could be boiled down to a simple multiplier of overall dps like MIG and DEX can - though I could be wrong. It'd certainly be very nice if it could. So the answer is still... maybe in the future? This'll be a much more feasible thing to do when combat is cleaned up so we know more about the intricacies of the system. Sorry - I only have a limited amount of time haha... PS - I'm not a huge fan of interrupt as a mechanic, to be honest. Not as something that can happen from any attack. Interrupting just spells - fine. Interrupting attacks, but with a spell or ability - fine. But this whole "anything can interrupt anything" mechanic I am not at all fond of. It adds RNG, but in a really unpredictable way that is hard to anticipate. Making an intelligent decision about whether to put points in RES or something else is thus really difficult. Boo interrupt.
  20. Matt516
    It might be beyond the scope of what you want to model here, but how about interrupts/resolve? While I might be interested in adding that capability at some point, 2 things keep me from doing it right now: 1) My primary motivation for the spreadsheet is to provide a tool that allows people to easily iterate through multiple tweaks in order to see how various tuning tweaks affect the damage curves - in particular, tweaks to MIG, DEX, and Crit Damage (which I think will be the key 3 parameters to tweak in order to get the balance figured out). It's really easy to compare the effects of different damage-affecting stats and attributes because the utility curve for damage is very simple: bigger is better. Determining whether or not two dps builds are to equally viable and balanced (for example, a MIG build with slow weapons, and a DEX build with fast weapons) is really really easy - do they do the same damage? Interrupts, while certainly an important part of combat, aren't as easy to model because while dps is just a number, where higher is better, the impact of interrupts is pretty much impossible to compare directly to damage. Interrupts are more of a tactical tool than a direct power boost, so while I could see myself adding some interrupt calculations in a separate sheet just for fun, I don't think it would be at all useful for the primary purpose of the spreadsheet. It should also be mentioned (and I'll be sure to mention it when I post the spreadsheet) that even MIG and DEX are tactical attributes in some ways as well. MIG gives Fort and Healing, and DEX gives Reflex and Spell Duration (when you crit with spells). Neither of those things are directly comparable to each other either - which is wonderful, by the way. I wouldn't want a system in which two different attributes only affect effective damage - there'd be no point in having two different attributes. So even though the dps aspect of both those attributes is a very important part, even then it doesn't tell the whole story. Which is why I'm trying to be very conscientious about the narrow focus of my current efforts - to let people rapidly tweak and tune different damage-related parameters to better understand the system and suggest improvements. 2) I don't know how the math on interrupts works. Not sure if the Concentration bonus is subtracted from the interrupt chance, or multiplied by it, etc. Also not sure what reasonable values of interrupt chance even are - I haven't played a lot of the Beta because I don't enjoy the combat right now and would rather focus on theorycrafting and giving general feedback until the major bugs and combat issues are fixed. Are interrupt values even given in weapon and spell descriptions? I've never seen them, but that doesn't mean they're not there. #2 is also the same reason I haven't implemented recovery time and weapon attack animation speed, btw - the math isn't entirely clear as to how recovery time is calculated (lighter armors have a higher number, so I'm not sure how to translate to actual numbers) and I've never seen an attack animation speed value in a weapon description. Much easier just to put "attacks/second" in and then update if we get more information.
  21. Matt516
    Still working on the next revision of the spreadsheet. Currently able to calculate true DPS based on the following factors: Crit Damage MIG % Damage Bonus/Point MIG % Damage @ 0 DEX Accuracy/point Might Dexterity Base Accuracy (from class) Bonus Accuracy (abilities etc) Weapon Base Damage (avg) Attacks/Second Target Deflection Target DT DT Effectiveness Any requests for other parameters to include in the calculation? I honestly can't think of anything else that affects dps (that is general).. maybe add in weapon damage from enchantments, etc? I haven't included it currently because between weapons and spells you can have all kinds of extra damage types added into the mix that then have to have their own DT effectiveness factored in, which isn't at all complicated to calculate but it really clutters the table. Plus I wanted to keep this as more of a general thing for aiding in the tuning of MIG/DEX/Crit variables. Thoughts?
  22. Matt516
    Before we start tuning a lot of values, we need to get the basic bugs fixed. The next update to the BB should clear out the most frustrating aspects of simply selecting, moving, and executing commands reliably. Then we can look at overall combat speed tuning, among other things. Sounds like a plan!
  23. Matt516
    I think we're dealing with a psychological effect here at least partly. It just feels "wrong" that dumped stats still give bonuses, even if they're small. I have a feeling that if you set the zero point to 10 and applied the adjustments as negatives below and positives above, a lot of people would be happier even if it ended up in the same place. (I do think the abilities ought to have more impact in absolute terms as well; I don't really feel I'm missing much from my dump stats or gaining much by pumping them. I would like it to sting if I dumped something to 3 so I'd have to adjust my tactics accordingly.) I agree - however it's important to remember that due to how the math works, you couldn't actually preserve the same percentage range AND absolute range simply by changing the zero point. In fact, the higher the zero point is (going up to 10 from the current 0 for example), the smaller the percentages needed to yield the same absolute range. Which means that if they raise the zero point but keep the same absolute range, people will potentially complain even more about stats not having an impact (even though the actual impact would be the same).
  24. Matt516
    Not at all. Here's a made up one attribute system for fighters. You get a knob that trades offense with defense. You can have a dynamic range that makes it essentially do nothing. If the default is good then there are no bad builds, true. You can also give it a dynamic range where all the way to the left means hits almost everything but gets hit by almost everything (rogue++) or all the way to right means hits almost nothing but gets hit by almost nothing (tank++). Both of those extremes and everything in between can be good builds especially in a party based system. It requires that you play the more extreme characters according to their abilities. Interestingly, the Dark Eye game Blackguards does something similar to this. All the way to offense ended up being almost unilaterally the favored choice though, partly due to the small party size that pretty much required everyone to be capable of doing damage.
  25. Matt516
    Sometimes it's as if they can't fathom the possibility that an unfinished product could possibly not yet be finished. I think the marketing "geniuses" responsible for using "betas" as a method of generating more publicity are at least partially to blame for that. Too many people got the idea that Betas are really just free demos now. This. The distortion of the word "Beta" is the result of a lot of the disgruntlement, I think.
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