Answermancer

Sorry to sidetrack things, but does the level scaling option lower enemy levels too? I turned it off in my beta runs because I generally don't like it, but I thought it just raised enemy levels to make it more challenging, not less?

Fractional values, say +1.5 Accuracy, do matter. Imagine an encounter where your Accuracy equals your opponent's Deflection. A roll of 50 means you just grazed. Had you +1.5 Accuracy, it would be a hit similar to the effect of +1 or +2. In another fight, your opponent's Deflection is one higher, and you again grazed with a roll of 50. Had you +1.5 Accuracy, you would still graze (51 is the lower limit of Hits) similarly to +1, but different to +2. In the long run, +1.5 is equivalent with +1 in half of the fights, and with +2 in the other half. Having attributes integer modifiers is only for beauty, not for game mechanics. Edit: The above explanation is incomplete, it only shows why +1.5 is not equivalent to +2. To prove the other part, that it can differ also from +1, one assumes that enemies can have integer+half Deflection. Like -1 lower base, and +1.5 due to Resolve. In an encounter where your opponent's Deflection is higher by 0.5 than your Accuracy, you graze with a roll of 50. You would still graze with +1 Accuracy, but hit with +1.5 or with +2. Yeah I suppose if enemies could have fractional Deflection from Resolve that would work. I know values don't have to be integers, but it does tend to feel cleaner and probably less scary to new players. Generally if a system requires 0.5 values I'd just double the numbers involved, but I know number inflation has a lot of issues of its own (and in this case it wouldn't really work for Dex since Recovery has a lower bound it can go to... zero), and I also know that a lot of people absolutely hate having large numbers in CRPGs.

Seems odd to me that people are getting caught up on the dual wielding bonus specifically. Personally I think either one would be fine... but I'm not sure I like the set up in general, what's wrong with shooting the pistol in melee exactly? I think I'd prefer it to alternate between them in melee, only shoot at range, dual-wield bonus in both cases (or switch the bonus to single-weapon at range but that just gets confusing...).

I really hope they find a solution that doesn't involve fractional values of Accuracy or whatever. I think the goal of making each point of an attribute matter is a good one, and if one/two of them suddenly have bonuses that only really go up every 2 points, that will be a big step back. I don't actually think they would do it though, I'm pretty sure making each point matter was a stated goal of the system back in the day.

Hmm, I didn't realize Perception was in such a bad place. The concentration/interrupt changes are looking worse and worse to me. One thing though, you said that +2 Acc on Perception was a ~4% increase, isn't Strength going to go up from 3% as part of the split anyway? Maybe then +2 Acc would be okay, although I imagine Dex would have to go up slightly too? I dunno, seems like this change is gonna really require some rebalancing if they stick with it.

Yeah, I'm a little worried about this too. A food hoarding and crafting system ends up so fiddly, especially if the same materials are used for other stuff like upgrading equipment. And it's so easy to get into a pattern of "saving" limited consumable resources "until you need it," which ends up meaning you never use it because you never feel like it's the right time. I do like the concept more than the purely consumable "pre-buff" model of food in Pillars 1 though, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Yup, exactly right. I think the point about the Pen system is very important, previously a graze with a light weapon would do basically no damage, with the new system, as long as you penetrate you'll still do half damage, which should feel okay. All that said, personally I think the real problem in the current version of the BB is with abilities. I wouldn't mind conditional or removed grazes for auto-attacks, but I strongly feel that abilities need either grazes or built-in miss mitigation (like spells in D&D tend to have, with half damage or lowered effects, etc.). This is especially true of spells, due to cast time, but IMO any ability that uses up your resources is problematic when it fails multiple times in a row. I mentioned this in another thread but on my first BB character I took the upgraded rogue Blind ability, and was very excited to see it in action. I used it in every fight in the beta and never once had it actually proc the effect (it might have done the damage once or twice, but never the actual Blind/bonus effect). That just feels terrible when you've invested 2 talents and then 2-3 power points for each use.

Again, robe is a strawman anyway, until the Pen system gets updated leather doesn't do much either unless you're fighting lower level enemies. And yes, all those things are true, and I think rogue is okay thanks to its mobility options and status effects (well, once graze is back, one of my "favorite" things in the BB was when my first character took the upgraded Blind and literally never succeeded in applying it over the entire coarse of beating the beta). Less so other classes.

Meh. I wear leather or scale, I don't believe in going around naked, but in the current binary PEN system it doesn't do anything really. The new version with tiered reduction should help though. Anyway, rogue's not too bad because like I said, rogue's answer is mobility, but I'm not sure how other classes deal with it. And yes, of course enemies should do the smart thing, but that's why a marking system like 4/5e is nice because it makes it a decision, is it more efficient to attack the guy in the dress and suffer a penalty, or to try to burst down the tanky guy.

Yeah. :/ I know the issues (and distaste) people have with aggro mechanics, but I'm not sure how squishy melee is supposed to work right now. Enemies tend to turn on the squishy character right away. Although I suppose it works okay on equal level enemies, since the whole point of the squishy melee is to burst the enemy down, but if you're fighting something that takes a while it becomes kind of difficult to keep them alive. Rogue at least has Escape to reposition on another enemy or something when it happens, so that helps a lot, but I'm not sure how other melee is supposed to deal with it. I don't remember, do Fighters or Paladins or someone have a passive that makes it so engaged enemies lose accuracy or damage or something if they attack someone other than the person engaging them? I think that would be a decent way to make engagement more useful, that's how "marking" worked in 4E, you could ignore the "tank" but you'd take a penalty to your attacks. Of course, the AI would have to be smart enough to deal with it, ideally by choosing to either focus the "tank" OR choosing to break engagement and chase the squishy.

^this Game design is extremely iterative (I know from experience), and really, good design in general is extremely iterative. Design is different than art, too, even if a game can end up being art in the end. Up til now the only feedback they've had on what's currently in the new game has been internal, the whole benefit of a Real Beta like this is getting lots of outside feedback and trying a bunch of different stuff with a quick feedback cycle. This is exactly what they should be doing IMO, even if a month from now they decide "we changed out minds, grazes suck, now everyone just has an 80% miss chance, **** you" that would still be the Beta working as intended. Changing your mind based on feedback and data is a good thing (obviously up to a point, at some point you have to ship), and I think a lot of people treat "sticking to your guns" as a virtue when IMO it's anything but (in the presence of feedback and data, I'm not talking about arbitrarily changing your mind all the time).

Which is fine, I mean that's basically what Iron Man mode is anyway, but you're in such a minuscule minority that I don't think designing the game around you is much of an argument. But like I said earlier, death is simple to understand, it makes Iron Man (and your playstyle) work, and the vast majority of people would reload with any heavy penalty anyway, so we may as well stick with death.

Yes, this is my perspective. No disrespect to the devs, but I think giving these passives to Fighters was a lazy mistake, and now we're all just arguing about the consequences from different directions ("You're taking passives from Fighters!", "You're taking passives from everyone, and giving them to Fighters!", etc.)

I don't really feel strongly about death either way. You certainly need some sort of heavy penalty for "dying," but I do think that permadeath is a rather pointless one unless you are playing ironman or roleplaying, in which case it could be a toggle. That said, if you got rid of it, what would the heavy penalty be? In theory it would be nice if it made you use up valuable resources, but chances are people would just reload anyway, so what's the difference? Might as well leave it as death at that point for simplicity's sake.

Yes, I like this sort of idea. It's a little tricky since the two systems are totally separated, and it could be weird to use a "combat" resource like a proficiency point for a "non-combat" bonus like a skill. But I do think it would be cool if there was some way to get a few bonus skill points, and I'm not seeing any other great options. Maybe even just another "skill focus" selection at character creation that gives +2 to a preferred skill or something? But that would require new UI and be kind of redundant with Backgrounds. On the other hand it would give you a way to boost a skill without having to give up your preferred roleplaying background.

Yeah, I really think they should at least design some new passives for Fighters.

So in the stream today, Josh mentioned that they are nerfing injuries, I think the gist was: 4 injuries still = death Most injuries will no longer reduce max health, with a few exceptions where that's the major effect, rather than stat loss The ones that do lower max health will lower it by 15% instead of 25% What does everyone think?

Yeah I really don't like this obsession with getting rid of slow mode. I totally understand Josh's point of view and appreciate that they want the "default" mode to be slower and more manageable... but I still want slow mode, ideally with a slider so I can set it to a value of my choice. Totally agreed. As someone who's worked on a game with animators before, I am very confident that their animators hate how the game looked in slow mode. But I'm sorry, I think "normal speed" attacks with 6 seconds of recovery look and feel a thousand times worse than reasonable "real time" recovery in slow motion.

I dunno what you mean, the harder you pull the trigger the faster the bullet right? Josh already said he's not splitting damage further and I'm with him, personally. I am cautiously optimistic about the Resolve split, but if every type of weapon has a different main stat I feel like that will just limit builds in a really frustrating way. On the flip side, I would like to see a slightly stricter limitation on dumping. I know people lobbied to make it go down to 3 in the last Backer Beta but man... I really hate seeing those 3/3/18/18/18 builds (or whatever). Still, it's not like I care too much how other people play, so it's mostly a personal gripe.

Very excited about this change, I wish I could have participated in the live stream chat since it looks like they were answering questions. Damn you work! I personally really like the idea mentioned here and elsewhere about downgrading afflictions, although I'm also wondering about what happens to level 1 afflictions. I think lowered duration would be fine though, they're generally really not that powerful. I'd far prefer that to no affliction at all, but then I'm all about the sneak attacks so...

I don't know if it's different this time around or if I'm misremembering, but I thought in Pillars only taking things out of a container was a noticed crime, not lockpicking. So if there was a (non-hostile) guard, I could go lockpick with Durance, then have my rogue sneak in and steal stuff. Still, I see your point.

Well, initially unique to Fighters in this game. But yes, I think I understand what you're saying. Would it be correct to say that you think they should have the highest melee efficacy in a passive playstyle? As opposed to a rogue that requires positioning, or a monk that requires wounds, etc.? I think that might be fine, sure, although honestly I think it's a little boring as far as class fantasy goes. Either way I am in favor of them getting something new to make up for this loss. I'm truly sorry if I'm still not understanding what you're saying, by the way.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I really don't want skill points tied to class. I think your perspective that "rogues need more" is a bit short sighted, there's no reason that rogues need to be the ones who can sneak, lockpick, and pickpocket. I think it just pigeonholes classes. Hell in by first Pillars run, my main (rogue) did have Stealth but my lockpicker was Durance. It worked well for me. I am also not really a fan of flat bonuses to specific skills from attributes, again, I think it pigeonholes the character too much. With your proposed spread: "Oh well now my Fighter must be my Alchemist and have high Survival, after all he has high Con and it would be a waste..." Lastly, I'm pretty sure that having each attribute point matter is a goal of the system. It was in Pillars wasn't it? Flat thresholds like a skill point for every 3 attribute points go against this, and feel bad IMO (and also limit your attribute spread because you'll be incentivized to go with a 10 + 3x value). I think adding "general" skill points to one attribute so that you could build your rogue to be a skill specialist would be cool. And we are discussing how to make Resolve work currently. But I don't know how to make this work without breaking the "every point matter" philosophy and how to deal with retroactive points when your stats increase from gear (although I suppose you could just ignore that aspect and only count your base stats... but then you're incentivized to put more points into that stat on creation with all character and then make it up with gear later... yeah I dunno).

I do think that more skill points could be interesting, but it's a difficult balancing act. Like others have pointed out, if you give too much then they'll have to increase existing checks so that it's not trivial to meet every requirement. I think doubling the amount of points and increasing requirements by 50% could feel okay, personally (or 2 points every other level but I think that's more confusing). But it's more of a feeling based on my Beta experience, not based on actual math or analysis. I'm not a fan of giving more points by class. The last thing I want is a return to "rogues are for skills, not combat!" and similar crap. Since we are currently in the middle of discussing issues with the attribute system, adding skill points to Resolve or some other attribute and rebalancing them could be interesting, but I don't see how to make it work in the current "every point matters" system. Obviously it would be silly if 18 resolve gave you +8 skill points per level.

I agree, personally. I think the elemental talents are the exact same sort of important differentiator, for casters primarily. "I'm the guy whose fireballs are mighty (phrasing)" vs. "I'm the guy who throws Zeus-level lightning bolts" has the same sort of impact on the feel of the character.