Answermancer
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Posts posted by Answermancer
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I find the entire idea of "no bad builds" confusing. I understand and welcome the need to have diverse OPTIONS of gameplay (e.g. melee, magic, stealth etc.) which should all be viable. But of course there will be "bad" builds just as there are "bad" players who do not bother to approach the game intelligently, on a strategic and tactical level. So these players can make "mistakes" by pumping the wrong attribute or itemising wrongly. Conversely, there wil be hardcore players who will dissect the system and construct "optimal" builds and strategies. Is this "bad", should this be stamped out? That's how the world works, why shouldn't it be the same in CRPGs?
It's like trying to make chess so that there are "no bad moves". Of course there will be bad moves and good moves, like in any game, it's only natural.
So the entire concept feels alien and unnecessary to me.
There's a difference between playing poorly, which a player can mitigate in various ways (trying different things, reloading) and being stuck with a terrible build (which might not even become apparent until several hours into the game) because you didn't know what you were doing at character creation and the system was filled with traps for you to fall in to.
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But then how does one play the fabled muscle wizardMight is not muscles for wizards.
Very simple, really, I explained this in another thread, people are just confused by the names of the stats. Really for a muscle wizard you want Con, that's what really determines how strong your body is.
Here's the solution, super elegant and intuitive I think:
I think they just need to rename Might and Con and people will stop complaining about the whole "muscle wizard" intuitiveness.
Just do this:
Might = "Soul Power"
Con = "Beefiness"
Problem solved. Then nobody can argue that a "muscle wizard" makes no sense since clearly to make a muscle wizard you would pump Beefiness, whereas to make a glass cannon you would pump Soul Power.
Bam!
We can rename others too if they are too confusing, for instance Resolve could be "Don't-Give-A-****ness" (DGAFness for short).
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Maybe but the way you were explaining your model in your OP made me assume that you wanted each step to have a meaningful-feeling reward. If you think they'd be satisfying even if the ratio of "step XP" to "quest completion XP" was low then maybe you're right, I don't know.
I want it to be somewhere in the happy middle. Completing every quest at maximum detail should get you to the level cap a bit early, and should get you significantly better gear by the endgame. Completing most optional quest a little carelessly should get you to the level cap by the endgame. Completing only the crit path carelessly should leave you underleveled for the endgame, but no so much it would be impossibly difficult at Easy. (I wouldn't mind if it was a serious challenge at Normal and genuinely tough at Path of the Damned -- I'm sure the folks looking for a challenge would like that.)
There's a lot of space between the extremes here.
I guess so. Thinking about it that does sound okay if they balanced it carefully, after all it's not too different than skipping quests you don't like in BG2 or something.
The part that makes me personally uneasy about it is that I tend to be the guy who does do every step and explore every nook and cranny, but I could easily see myself missing "steps" of a quest on accident, just because of the way I chose to play the quest or because I missed something (my previous example, in the cult quest instead of investigating the Ogre like the guy said I should I just broke into his backroom, if the Ogre step was worth XP that I missed out on, that would annoy me). That's just a personal thing that would annoy me, so perhaps it's less relevant.
However, like I've been saying, it's also permanent. If I skipped a quest in BG2 because I didn't like the sound of it, I could usually go back later and do it if I changed my mind or decided I really wanted to get stronger (ie. the XP). But going back and redoing the middle of a quest is impossible.
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And besides that's moot since it WOULD mess up the entire idea of being able to predict what level someone is at a point in the game unless you make the XP rewards so small as to be meaningless. Like I said above, if a person can do a quest and get 400 XP or 800 XP that breaks the entire system, how will that person ever make up the deficit in a game where there is no kill XP?
Fallacy of the excluded middle. There's a big range between "insignificant" and "game-breaking." I believe that it is vitally important that P:E's systems allow accumulated XP to move in this range. Otherwise I would feel robbed of agency.
-- The game has a lot of optional content anyway, including most of the Endless Paths. If it can allow that, it can certainly allow variable XP rewards depending on how completionist you were within quests.
Maybe but the way you were explaining your model in your OP made me assume that you wanted each step to have a meaningful-feeling reward. If you think they'd be satisfying even if the ratio of "step XP" to "quest completion XP" was low then maybe you're right, I don't know.
I just think it's dangerous to implement systems that let you permanently miss out on significant amounts of a limited resource. I think the progression should be made interesting by the order you do things in (which will effect when you hit what level and such since different quests will be worth different amounts of XP) rather than permanently cutting off big amounts of something you can never get back. I think they need to at least consider it closely, but maybe you're right and they could make it feel significant without creating a trap.
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Answermancer: Perhaps I misunderstood. I had no idea you meant that your pc/party would get stuck from the issue you brought up.
When you say "the level the game expects", do you truly mean that all progress needs to follow exactly the same pace, following the quest thresholds?
No, sorry, I meant as the game goes on the difference piles up and becomes an issue late in the game. Early on it's not an issue, but it compounds on itself.
In other words, if you "skip through" a lot of quests early on, even on accident, you might end up significantly underleveled at the end of the game and have no way to fix that since those quests are "used up" so to speak. Progress doesn't need a follow a strict progression but the encounter design is going to assume at certain points that you are at least level X, that's inevitable unless you use some sort of level scaling (and level scaling is, generally, the devil).
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Answermancer: Not to shock you or anything, but I approve 100% of games cutting you out over the course of the game, and in all kinds of ways - I'm very free-spirited that way, since I am an avid replayer for starters (if the game is good enough):
-Areas that are hard to reach, and just for a section in the game, or perhaps even with the help of a certain class? Yes, please!
-Quest options only available if you pick certain convo choices? Gimme, gimme, gimme!
-Secrets that are very, very easy to miss. Let them rain down on me!
-Slightly unbalanced classes and skill/talent systems that can be "meta-gamed" into better, unexpected, fun stuff with a bit of practice? Luv it!
-Xp not perfectly the same for every character in every person's playthrough? I'd expect nothing less!
None of those are shocking and I would agree with most of them to some extent. Please don't act like I'm an idiot or trying to dumb the game down or something.
None of those are the same as someone potentially being stuck at half the level the game expects, which is exactly what will happen if you make the small-step rewards significant (and if you make them insignificant then what's the point?).
There's a huge difference between "some content is unavailable due to your stats/class/party, but other content opens up" and "you played differently than we expected, **** you, you are permanently gimped and can't beat the game now."
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Reward those players with extra money or achievements or loot or something, but not XP.
Just wanted to throw that into the conversation. Loot is basicaly XP, at least good loot, because its either a powerfull item or money that can be turned into a powerfull item. Items in RPG's are basicaly stat boosters, means its basicaly equal to a percentage of a level. That also means it is equal to xp.
It is an it isn't. The game has ways of crafting and enchanting items to make them good, but an item will not give you all the extra bonuses that a level does. You can buy items with money and that will increase your power, sure, that's why I said reward players with money or things like that. But levels are limited and more significant and your level 6 Wizard won't ever be able to spend money to get to level 7. That's why XP is special and need to be treated carefully.
Ultimately I still think you should just make the quest worth 800 XP whether you do every step or skip ahead, but doing every step will get it to you early and potentially you might face the challenge at the end of that quest a level higher than someone who skipped them all.
There are probably other solutions for "making up" the XP that you miss out on, and I'd be fine with those too, but I can't believe you guys are seriously advocating for a way for someone to miss out on a significant amount of XP forever due to inexperience or a different playstyle besides "super-completionist".
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Answermancer: PJ's point is most valid. Please improve your system so that it accommodates for rewarding diligence, extreme curiosity and other kinds of challenge seeking.
PJ: Well, how about Delayed Experience Points, then, like in Delayed Blast Fireball?
Those things should not be getting rewarded with a limited resource like XP in a closed system where there is a finite amount of XP you can ever get (and where you can lock yourself out from getting it).
I am pretty confident the designers would agree with me on this one, the potential to gimp yourself forever is just too great. Reward those players with extra money or achievements or loot or something, but not XP.
Again the problem is that there's no way to make up for it later. If I do the noble's daughter quest and rush to the end (even unwittingly, which is easy to do, I did the first time I got it, finding the cultist lair on accident and before going to see the ogre) there is now no way for me to get the extra XP for investigating the case (talking to people etc.).
This is totally different than games where you can make up the deficit with grinding or some other way to "go back" and get that "lost" XP.
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@Answermancer: I disagree. I think players who look under every rock and doggedly pursue every lead deserve a bigger reward than players who just beeline for the main objectives (metagaming or not).
Maybe, but it goes directly against stuff Josh has talked about before: no XP for kills, no XP for lockpicking, or other minor things like that which skew the balance of power.
And besides that's moot since it WOULD mess up the entire idea of being able to predict what level someone is at a point in the game unless you make the XP rewards so small as to be meaningless. Like I said above, if a person can do a quest and get 400 XP or 800 XP that breaks the entire system, how will that person ever make up the deficit in a game where there is no kill XP?
In a game with kill XP someone who rushes through quests could grind to catch up or something, whereas here that person will just forever have half as much XP as someone who checked under every rock. It's a "trap" as well since experienced players will realize they need to check under every rock (even if that bores them) to have proper XP gain while someone new might end up skipping through every quest and gimp themselves without knowing or meaning to. It just seems really broken to me.
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PrimeJunta: I've asked what a low int character in PE represents. Apparently a well educated gentlemen that lacks the little extra on top. I want to play a bloody retarded character, seriously.
I've assumed the attributes actually reflected anything.
Considering there are no "dumb" character lines in the game (like there were in Fallout or Arcanum") your desire to play a "bloody retarded" character will never be fulfilled in this game anyway.
The reason they couldn't do those by the way if because it's actually a huge amount of work, they would basically have to have twice as many lines in the game and they don't have the resources for that. Maybe in PoE 2.
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With the inflated XP in the beta it's impossible to say how the system will feel in the real thing, of course, but with that qualifier...
I would like the game to have more frequent but smaller XP rewards. For example, consider the Aelys quest. Instead of awarding the XP in large chunks when the quest progresses, break it up so that you gain a small amount of XP when ...
... getting the quest
... discovering that Aelys was pregnant
... discovering that something isn't quite right about Harond's story
... discovering the Trygil lead
... discovering that the ogre had nothing to do with Aelys's disappearance
... confronting Trygil
... discovering the Skaen cult connection
... and so on.
You would obviously miss out on some of that XP if you didn't meet the reputation or skill requirements to get the intel, but that's perfectly okay. It would give a smoother sense of progression and strengthen the incentive to poke around discovering stuff about the quest, not just getting big chunks when a part of it actually completes.
I agree with you overall but I would make a modification:
I think every quest should have a set amount of XP that it is worth (say 800XP for the example). Each step you listed can be worth 100XP. If you complete each step, you get 100XP each time and end up with a total of 800XP at the end. If you skip steps (say find the cult and finish it all before you even get the quest, or before doing any other investigating) you don't get the XP along the way but you still get 800 XP at the end.
The reason I think it should work this way is because part of the rationale behind the XP system is that they can better know how much XP players will have at any point. If a quest can be worth 400 XP if you don't explore/investigate or 800 XP if you do, that breaks down. Furthermore, that XP would be irretrievably lost, because it's not like you can redo the quest, and once it's over it's not like you can go and do the investigative aspects then. With no kill XP in the game I think that would be a big problem.
I think that just getting the XP early, in smaller chunks is enough incentive to explore/investigate more along the way (plus for a lot of people it'd be more fun anyway) and so it's not necessary to make it possible to miss out on XP.
Edit: Here's a link http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67523-combat-xp-poll-lets-see-what-we-think-now/?p=1487430 to an example I posted for how I think it should work in another thread. Basically the same thing I said here but including pure exploration steps as part of the quest. In other words, just discovering the cult's lair would be treated as "part of the quest" behind the scenes but the player would just get 100XP as soon as they found it (as a reward for exploration) and it would be included in the final tally of the quest's XP.
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Elaboration
3 = 1 per encouner ability
18 = 6 per encounter abilities
each 3 points +1
3 at 9 Resolve
Thanks for the more concrete example! However it illustrates why I at least don't like it and don't think it fits with the rest of the system.
No other stat currently has threshholds below which it is useless. No other stat currently has no effect if you put 1 or 2 points into it but a significant effect if you put 3.
Furthermore, while the current values need a lot of work I am strongly against introducing stats that do have these sorts of threshholds, I believe it has the following problems:
- It is both unsatisfying and unintuitive that putting 1 point into a stat does nothing
- It will have a weird effect on the rest of the system because suddenly you have a stat that must be pumped/dumped in multiples of 3
- It creates a trap/trash option (as Josh talked about recently in the interview that was linked): putting anything other than a multiple of 3 in the stat.
- It makes the only current benefit of racial stat bonuses useless for that stat (going over the limit, currently a race that gave +1 or +2 to Resolve would effectively do nothing because even if you maxed the stat you would be at 20 which is a useless number under the threshold)
These are just some of the problems I see with any suggestion that includes threshholds for stats, and I'm sure I could come up with more if I kept thinking about it.
Consider also that in PoE your stats are permanent, you do not get periodic increases like in D&D. D&D (at least 3rd edition and up) have a threshholding system where essentially only every 2 points matter (since your bonus from a stat is [stat-10]/2) but there at least you get an extra point or two every 4 levels so that starting with a 13 or 15 in an ability score merely delays that stat being useful since you can raise it to a 14 or 16 after a few levels if you wish.
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This goes in the bucket of suggestions for stat effects that I don't like because they seemingly ignore that every stat currently needs to meaningfully vary from 3-18 (although personally I don't see why they let you go that low and I'd cap the low end at 8 ). Currently every stat has some kind of increase for every point you spend, every point of Might gives a 2% bonus, how will every point of Resolve give a bonus in your suggested system?
Please explain, with an example if you want, how your suggestion will work for someone with 3 Resolve vs. someone with 18 Resolve.
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I'm curious why people want stats to go all the way down to 3. As I stated in another thread I feel like this makes balancing them much harder.
The stated goal is for every build to be valuable, I think it's much harder to balance characters that have 3 Might vs. 18 Might and have both be viable. In fact that's why I think they bonuses per level are so wimpy right now.
If you kept the same bonuses (or slightly stronger ones) but cut the number of points available and changed the range to 10 instead of 15, for instance (8-18) with 8 being the 0 point, or I suppose even 10 and make 8 a penalty, then each point would be stronger and it wouldn't be possible for someone to dump 1-2 stats down to 3 and then max out all the others, which personally I think is pretty stupid. A preliminary suggestion would be a range of 8-18, much more effective per point, and 20-24 points to spend so that you could max one stat and maybe another if you dump everything else.
I get that the argument would be that that person would then have severe weaknesses to account for but I just think that some classes would have a much easier time of that (ranged dumping defensive stats mostly) than others and that seems to go against the spirit of the thing IMO.
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And 5th edition is out, actually, at least the PHB.
Huh, so what is its' thing? Like 4th, but trying to appeal to 3rd fans?
As someone who liked 4th edition a lot, and DMed it many times, no, not at all.
It's basically 3rd edition but much cleaner and more, well, balanced. So far I like it, although I miss 4th.
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And 5th edition is out, actually, at least the PHB.
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I know this is an unpopular opinion, but having done the math, I really think MIG is fine. To use a comparison to D&D (
), each 2 points of STR beyond 12 (or was it 10?) gave you 1 bonus damage. I know damage and health numbers were a bit smaller, but still - it's not like they had a ludicrously massive effect. The effect of MIG is a bit toned down from what the effect of STR was in D&D, but not too much. If the effect of MIG was higher, it would further devalue characters who don't pump it. We already consider MIG the strongest stat by far. Let's leave it alone. As Stun said, it's not about wanting to increase the effect of Might, but to increase the effect of all attributes.
Compare Constitution in DnD (2e & 3e) and PoE: In DnD the difference between 10 Con and 20 is +5 Hp/level, almost doubling HP for fighters (5.5 hp/level average) and nearly trippling it for wizards (2.5 hp/level average). In PoE the difference between a 10 and a 20 in Con is the difference between +20% and or +40% Stamina/Health, at most a fifth of the difference it makes in DnD.
The difference between Con 10 and Con 20 in PoE is the same as the difference between Con 10 and Con 12 in DnD 3e/3.5e.
This seems true for all stats, they've basically limited attributes to values between 8 and 12 and then made that scale pointlessly granular.
I agree with this to some extent. I also frankly think it's a mistake to even let players lower their stats down to 3. The reason is because it creates a huge range that they have to balance around, so I think naturally it become too granular and each point becomes diluted.
Remember, the design intent is that every build is viable (but not equally good). How do you balance a character with 3 Mig vs. a character with 18 Mig and still have them viable if each point is really significant?
I am starting to think they should cut the range to 8-18 or at most 6-18, cut the number of points accordingly so that you can only have 18 in one, two if you dump everything else maybe, and then make each point much more significant. Obviously they'd also have to do whatever fixes they have in mind to bring Res and Per in line.
Assuming they don't implement increasing costs for more points, they could give players 8's in all stats and around 20-24 points to spend and then you might actually have to make some real choices (and buff each stat appropriately so that the range is similar, possibly bigger even than it is now but within a spread of 10 instead of 15 points).
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The attributes aren't really impactful as it is (other than Intellect), I think bumping Dex would be better than Nerfing Might.
You're probably right. I really like high-Dex crit-happy characters too so I'd be all for it on a personal level ;P
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Cool, I wonder why they decided to make Dex give a smaller increase than Might, I'm sure they did this math as well.
Seems like they should nerf Might slightly and things would be better.
Well... DEX affects Reflex save instead of Fort save. Aaaand..... the % increases in dps I've calculated also apply to spell/ability duration increases/decreases on graze/crit, which aren't affected by MIG at all as far as I know.
So for scripted interactions that take DEX, characters who want high reflexes, and characters who rely on critting with duration spells for extra duration, DEX would be better.
It does seem a bit weak, still.
Sounds like they could reduce the Might bonus to 1.5% or lower and that might help a bit with it seeming overpowered.
Weapon speed affects DPS.Shouldn't you be saying the other way around?
You're calculating damage per hit, not DPS.
DPS is DPS, I'm not sure why it would matter? All Accuracy does for damage is increase crit chance and lower glance/miss chance, those chances are the same for a slow or a fast weapon so the way they affect DPS is the same (a faster weapon makes more total attacks but the same distribution of glances/hits/misses/crits as a slow one).
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Yes. This would be my personal stance on the matter.It's certainly arguable that they're not meaningful enough,
But unlike you guys, I'm not convinced that alterations will be made to the ENTIRE attribute system (which IMO is what it's going to need to feel meaningful enough) I forsee them adjusting perception and resolve, because they've already said they wanted to. But that's about it.
Why do you doubt they'll make other changes? Already people seem pretty convinced Might is too strong, based on the math thread someone made I could see them lowering the bonus to 1.5% or 1% even as a first test, that would be trivial.
After that they can try more drastic things if it still doesn't feel good, seems like this is one the things they can mess with the most, it doesn't require new art or assets (the most expensive thing, time-wise) or probably even new code (second most expensive).
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Cool, I wonder why they decided to make Dex give a smaller increase than Might, I'm sure they did this math as well.
Seems like they should nerf Might slightly and things would be better.
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But that's hardly all that distinguishes, say, a mage from a fighter in AD&D, is it. Fighters can't use wands or scrolls or cast spells. Mages can't wear armor or wield swords.Whats your problem? Thats basicaly the difference between classes in AD&D. If you throw fireballs at someone or hit him with a sword its basicaly the same.
Obsidian screwed themselves over by removing equipment requirements.
The game has leather armor, but it is completely useless. There is no reason to use it because every class can just use full plate armor.
I disagree. Attack speed is tied to armor. So, the heavier your armor the slower you are. Are the numbers right? I am sure they aren't, but I wouldn't put heavy armor on a ranged wizard with long cast times with no resolve. If they get attacked they will be in a world of hurt. On the same note I wouldn't have heavy armor on an archer build or a rogue/barb using light-fast weapons.
Yeah, I feel like they just need to tweak the numbers to be much more serious and noticeable. Make plate armor reduce speed to 1/3 or 1/4 even instead of just 1/2 and instead of leather being 0.8 or 0.7 or whatever don't give it nearly as much penalty.
And rebalance other things accordingly but that should really come as a given.
That would also support changing one of the stats to increase action speed (which I support) since then a plate-wearer would really want that stat to offset the penalty while a nimble leather wearer could either invest in other stats or make themselves extremely speedy by pumping it.
They should rebalance weapon speeds as well so that daggers and really light weapons attack 2 or more times as quickly as slow ones (assuming the damage difference is still as big as it is now).
Then a person in plate with a heavy weapon would need to invest in that stat or attack extremely slowly while a character in leather with daggers gets many more attacks in that time, especially if they pump the stat.
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Improved scene:
Awesome work! The characters definately "pop" more off the background but they still lacking heft. Can you perhaps increase the saturation and contrast even more on the models themselves?
The thing is, the reason the characters look so washed out in this scene is because of the lighting. I also noticed they look particularly bad inside that building but it's not nearly as bad in other places.
I think there's just a really overpowering and poorly directed light in that scene that interacts with the models in a goofy way.
I'm just talking about the saturation of the models mind you, I agree that some sort of rim shader or outline on the characters would be a nice way to make them pop (like the drop-shadow looking border in this shot).
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Wait, interview I read stated that armor choice is supposed to be faster attacking vs better defense, is that not in the game yet?
It is, but it's not currently very noticeable (I think they need better feedback of some sort or make it really drastic I guess) so people act like it's useless.
), each 2 points of STR beyond 12 (or was it 10?) gave you 1 bonus damage. I know damage and health numbers were a bit smaller, but still - it's not like they had a ludicrously massive effect. The effect of MIG is a bit toned down from what the effect of STR was in D&D, but not too much. If the effect of MIG was higher, it would further devalue characters who don't pump it. We already consider MIG the strongest stat by far. Let's leave it alone.
More like BG2 please
in Backer Beta Discussion
Posted
Well I wasn't exactly being serious
But on the other hand there's plenty of precedent for this sort of thing. Even in AD&D some of the best martial fighters draw their strength from "soul power" (monks, kensai).