Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

I think this depends on the goals of the author. Some fantasy novels are basically 'magic exists and it is alternate science and this story is about figuring out the rules of alt-science." Brandon Sanderson's stuff is a really good example of this. On the other hand, sometimes magic beyond human understanding is the whole point, as in, say, Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; it's not supposed to be a rational system at all, it's magic, to the point that at one point a character deliberately drives himself insane so he can perform magic better. Maybe magic isn't fully systematized in such settings, or maybe human minds can't grasp the system, or maybe it's rational in a different way, etc.; ultimately, it's something outside the grasp of the human mind, either way. Neither is necessarily better or worse in the abstract. However, in a game setting, and especially a video game setting, there are obvious benefits to "magic" having clear rules, not just, say, some vague mentions of a Secret Fire.

that's one word for it at least

Is level scaling actually implemented? I thought about this but wasn't sure it was implemented to the point where I could accept the results as reliable. I kinda feel like spell balance is so messed up right now that it's functionally impossible to test it until they do a balancing pass on durations and effects and casting times. One reason I've been posting more than playing

If you don't like non-integer bonuses, let's tone down all other attributes by 33%. So +2% damage per Might, +2% action speed per Dexterity. One can find proportional (possibly rounded) values to Int and Con, as well. That's an option too yeah but I'm hesitant to downgrade Dex because it worked fine at 3% for the whole first game and I don't want to muck with something that works; so I'd rather bring everything else up to the 3% point if possible. edit: hrm What about if you changed critical hits to +50% damage, instead of +25%? Then, either (miss to graze + Graze to hit) OR (hit to crit) would be mathematically, roughly, against equivalent defense, equal to +(one half an accuracy point). So you could give Per an additional +1% hit to Crit, and give Resolve (+1 downshift everything)+(+1 crit to hit) and they'd be equivalent.

There are two problems with this: First is giving a non-integer value to the bonus from each additional point of Perception. Depending on whether the calculator rounds up or down or rounds at all, you're prioritizing either even or odd values of Perception, and it's best to avoid those kinds of break points in the ability scores. Second is that Accuracy is vs. all defenses, while Deflection is just one defense. So mathematically you would have to give Resolve +(all defenses) to even out the accuracy bonus from Perception. What you *could* do is give Perception and Resolve something like outgoing hit to crit bonus / incoming crit to hit bonus. You'd have to crunch the numbers to see exactly what percentages of each you'd have to give each point of Per/Res to even it all out. (1 point each of miss to graze, graze to hit, and hit to crit being roughly equal to one point of accuracy, and conversely, 1 point each of crit to hit, hit to graze, and graze to miss being roughly equivalent to one point in all defenses). Or maybe that doesn't work either because if you give 1 of each conversion you're still dealing with the integer-value problem and if you give only some conversions and not others the math gets really overcomplicated. Resolve would need a much bonus than Perception in order to bring it up to equivalency, since there's no direct defensive counterpart to Accuracy; i.e., if Perception gets +1 accuracy and +1 hit to crit, Resolve would need +1 (crit to hit, hit to graze, graze to miss) AND +1 crit to hit, to mathematically balance out. There's also an effective "ceiling" to how much you can improve Perception; get more than +25 accuracy from any source, you're no longer missing (vs. equivalent defense targets), you're only shifting Grazes to Crits and that's a much lower effective damage bonus On the other hand crossing that accuracy threshold is very useful with crowd control spells! Perception and Dex do also benefit from buffing non-damage powers and abilities and spells, whereas Might doesn't. In Dex's case this is balanced out by the irreducible frames and a few other things, in Per's case it's probably overcompensated for.

Blinded is still fairly effective (perception and accuracy penalty, longer recovery, shorter range) but Paralyze is a lot less effective than it was, yeah. I think we can assume that the spells all currently have placeholder values for cast time / duration / effect etc. I agree that casters need a wider power selection but I suspect that will get tweaked too.

I'd still prefer a return to Might instead of Str/Res. Might was a unique mechanic and it made hybrid builds a lot more viable. The major issue is that if we did move back to Might over str/res, both Resolve and Perception need significant buffs; each point of Might and Dex gives about a 3% dps boost, but each point of perception gives, at best, about a 2% damage increase. And then Resolve doesn't do much of anything. The solution is to give something to per and res, I think -- maybe hit to crit / crit to hit, maybe something with interrupts and concentration, etc.

I think the idea is that by introducing abilities one at a time, people can learn the abilities more gradually, and also you can make each individual ability better and more interesting. Gives players more time to learn the system. In terms of "helping players master the system" I think it's probably a smart change but it leads to some balance issues, as above.

So the solution to most players not using most their spells is to remove most spells from all players? This seems like a strange thing to do. Is the experience really changing much for those players who already didn't use most the spells? Well, they have a point. Like I didn't even bother to use most priest spells in PoE until my third or fourth playthrough because you got so many new ones at each level up that you just ignored them mostly. Wizards at least are getting grimoires to expand their power selection and allow some flexibility, but Priests and Druids don't seem to be getting anything similar. And of course CIphers who never had that problem at all are getting hit with the solution, too, going down to 1 power / level instead of the previous 2 powers odd levels / 1 power even levels setup. I'd suggest that high level Priests and Druids start getting extra unlocks of low level spells, just one or two additional ones per level, so that they gradually unlocked more of the spell tree. That way players end up the same place but have more time to learn each new spell.

Agreed, and honestly I don't think it would make Druids or Priests much more powerful if they were given access to their full suite of spells as they were in Pillars as they'll still be limited by the number of casts per encounter. Similarly for Wizards and scribing spells. Apparently from what Josh has said on SA, the problem is that if you give players a big pile of spells on levelup, it's too much for most people to process and most spells end up never used or ignored. Possible solution: Let high level characters unlock a few extra low level spells. Like, you hit level 9, you get a level 5 spell and unlock two extra level 1 spells.

Yeah but if you have break points in character ability scores character creation gets complex and non intuitive and so does buffing . Plus every other ability score is all "each point gives discrete integer value bonus / penalty." Basically ability scores it's best if it's whole number benefits. Penetration and power level is different because it goes up every level and it's ok to have break points at new levels.

I would say however that the Cipher is likely doing pretty good damage whilst building their Focus up, so it's not like they're getting nothing during their non-casting time. Yeah it's not the biggest deal in the world, it's just a thing that would need to be taken into account if you moved other casters to a mana based system or w/e. Yep. They also have a max focus cap so even if they could it wouldn't allow them to spam nearly as many powers as Wizards. Another thing I'm not particularly fond of in the new Deadfire system is the loss of niche powers. In Pillars the spell Charm Beast was great when fighting beasts and useless otherwise: it still exists in Deadfire but I can't imagine any Druid ever taking it since it's a waste for all those fights where you aren't fighting beasts. In fact I suspect that only a small selection of spells for each of the Vancian casters will ever be taken. This is a really good point. I think those more situational powers might make good "freebies" (like if you're a Galawain worshipper or however it is druid subclasses are divided). Overall though there's just a much more restricted power list in Deadfire and it forces a lot more uniformity of builds. It seems unnecessary too -- having a wider selection of spells doesn't mean wizards get more casts per encounter, etc.

Right. You do get a small pool at the start of each new encounter but it's generally enough for lower-level casts only, so you can open with a low level power -> gain focus -> cast next power or open with an attack -> gain focus -> high level power cast.

Can you elaborate on this. Google tells me that both Wizard spells and Cipher powers had casting times in PoE. Has this changed in PoE2? Oh sorry if that created confusion. I was talking about a mechanical change from PoE to Deadfire. In PoE 1, yes everyone had casting times, but each class also had additional limitations: Wizards were Per-Rest for most of their powers, while Ciphers were per-encounter (but had to build focus). So in PoE, theoretically a wizard could dump their whole spellbook in the time it took a cipher to build focus and cast half as many powers, but the wizard would be paying the price of using up per rest abilities. In Deadfire there have been a lot of changes; wizards are now Per-Encounter on all abilities, ciphers get 25% focus returned instead of 35% (lack of grazing in the current beta doesn't help either, etc.). The result is that a typical wizard in the current Deadfire beta can cast their whole spellbook (i.e., five spells) in about the time it takes the Cipher to cast once or maybe twice (depending on which powers they're casting -- if a cipher wants to use their top level power they have to build focus first, otherwise they could cast two lower level powers in about the same timeframe). There's also variation based on which weapons the cipher is using, etc., but the basic point I was aiming at is just that the move from per-rest to per-encounter casting on Wizards, Priests, and Druids made Ciphers relatively less useful, because their big advantage was per-encounter flexibility, and while they still have a degree of flexibility, they're no longer the only per-encounter caster (but they still have to build focus, and other classes don't).

I believe that we were told it'd be two per level all the way till max level (with the exception of when you first get access to a given level, when it's one rather than two). Oh boo I support the "more wizard casts of low level spells" agenda

Well in the full game presumably there will be things like Rings of Wizardry, and I imagine you'll get more low level casts at higher levels too.

I seriously doubt grazing is a core component of their vision. I don't see a problem with trying something out and then changing or killing it if it doesn't work out. I also doubt the change happened solely based on player feedback. Sawyer explained the "why" over on somethingawful. Basically, the problem was two things: 1) Player feedback that grazes just ran into AR and never made it past AR thresholds, so clogged the combat log with pointless spam 2) observations that grazes made hard CC really powerful because it meant you could pretty much always hit with a debilitating CC. So they got rid of Grazes. Thing is, though, they'd already solved both those problems via other changes: 1) We have Penetration/DR now so grazes will still do damage, and 2) Hard CC effects are generally less powerful now due to the revamping of the Affliction system.

Not a bad idea in the abstract but then why are you making Ciphers build focus? Like, the whole cipher thing is increased flexibility at the price of having to build focus. That advantage is already turned into a hindrance in Deadfire by the move to per-encounter casting -- Wizards can often dump their whole spellbooks by the time a Cipher has made one or two casts. You could make the change but at that point you'd need to change Ciphers too somehow, maybe just get rid of the focus mechanic entirely.

Good catch! At least Perception is required for spotting traps... but you only need one char with high Per in your party for that. To be fair though, either perception or dex was often a dump stat for defensive chars in PoE1, right? So if Resolve is going to get spell/healing power, what the hell does Perception gain? Or are we going to go round robin on each attribute as the dump stat? The best suggestion I can come up with is to (after returning to Might), give Perception a hit-to-crit bonus on outgoing attacks, give Resolve a crit-to-hit effect on incoming attacks, and then make critical hits Interrupt. There might be some secondary effects but it would give everyone a reason to take both Perception and Resolve, and you could adjust the hit-to-crit ratio granularly so that Per worked out to be giving an appropriate amount of additional DPS per point, and mathematically speaking it shouldn't change the game too much on average because you're just creating an arms race between Per and Res where they cancel each other out. edit: you could also go miss to graze to hit to crit for per, and crit to hit to graze to miss for Resolve. But at that point you're just adding Accuracy, just with more decimal points. The mechanical issue is you can't add a half point of accuracy per Per point, and if you went up to 2 points of accuracy per Per point, then that's a 4% dps increase, much higher than any other stat.

Actually miss-to-crit gives only 1.25% additional damage, plus extra penetration and duration. Nevertheless, we have three or four (with new Resolve) attributes that increase DPS various ways. This is a bit redundant, and Perception is most probably the weakest one. Right, but that additional 1.25% is roughly 2% of your total damage -- i.e., if accuracy and deflection are equal, the "expected value" of a weapon swing works out to be around 62.5%, and the additional 1.25% from +1 point of accuracy ends up being about 2% of that 62.5% total, so 2% additional damage. That's like the best case scenario for the expected value of an additional point of Per, too. Accuracy gets above 25, relative value drops fast. Might and Dex both have similar diminishing relative returns for each additional point, but the curves start much higher and for most in-game ranges you're going to get between 3% and 2% dps increase per additional stat point, whereas for Per it's like between 2% and . . . probably somewhere under 1%, I haven't crunched the top end numbers.

As Concentration was removed from Resolve, most of us think it's pointless. Interestingly, although Perception was also deprived of Interrupt, nobody complains. Perception has become almost equally worthless (at least, for a defensive character) to my opinion! +1 Accuracy is just the offensive version of +1 Deflection, after all. Unless Interrupt and Concentration are restored, or Resolve and Perception receive something really valuable, both attributes could be expelled from Deadfire. If somebody complains about the lost symmetry of the defenses, let's just remove Fortitude from Might, too. It isn't a pure physical attribue, anyway. Yeah, I didn't realize how problematic Perception was now till I crunched the numbers and realized that each point of Per gives you at best about 2% additional damage (by changing misses to crits mathematically) whereas increasing might or dex (or even str/res) gives you a 3% bonus (roughly).

Essentially yes. The increase from Might 39 to Might 40 is 1.6%, and the increase from Might 2 to Might 3 is 3.95% (yep, you actually get the biggest relative increase going from Might 2 to Might 3), and Dexterity will be a little less. However the irreducible delay makes the Dexterity calculation more complicated as the relative increase changes depending on what other +Attack Speed bonuses a character has (the same isn't true with Might and other +Damage bonuses). The closer your Recovery is to zero, the less relative increase a point of Dexterity gives (essentially because that irreducible 5 frames becomes a bigger proportion of what remains). This is why in PoE, characters who could reach 0 recovery usually left their Dexterity at 10. Ok, that makes sense. GIven what we can see in the beta, then, it seems like multiplicative might and multiplicative dex are roughly equivalent now -- given that Might/Str/Res buffs only damage while Dex boosts everything and makes on hit/crit effects pop more often -- and whether or not they're equivalent in the full game will depend on how many +action speed effects there are in the full game, which we can't know yet. EDIT: It does mean that Dex is clearly superior to Strength / Resolve for anyone who ever plans to use a weapon and a damage causing spell, both. Perception seems to me to be a lot more complicated to assign a value to since it depends on things like +Crit Damage bonuses, Miss>Graze>Hit>Crit modifiers and, of course, the difference between your base Accuracy and the enemy's Deflection. Yes. . . but . . . most of those potential modifiers to Perception make the relative value of additional points worse. Any increase in accuracy past +25, you're shifting grazes to crits, rather than misses to crits. The same is true for any graze to hit or hit to crit effects. The most common critical hit damage modifier I've seen in the beta is "blunted criticals" on guns (why! so cruel!). Upshot is that most of the time, if you're choosing between Per and either Dex or Might, Per is the worst choice for DPS. Even on Path of the Damned .. presuming it keeps the same +15 to all defenses penalty. . . that just means that, presuming otherwise equivalent attack/defense, you're going to miss on a 0-40, graze on a 41-65, hit on a 66-115, and crit above that. So: expected value of a normal attack on PotD: 35 + (25/2) = 47.5 With one additional point of Perception: 36 + (25/2) = 48.5 So that works out to still roughly a 2% damage increase per point ( a little more, but not enough more to make up for Crits being unreachable; it's a rounding error). The only real modifier that would make Per better would be either more accuracy (but if you went up to 2 acc per point that would be too much) or bonus damage on a critical hit (but then you run into a feedback loop issue where you have increasing rather than diminishing returns).

Ahhhhhh ok, now I see what you're saying. SO really what I want is a chart of the relative value of each additional point of Might, Dex, and Per, and also Str / Res, from 3 to about 40 or so (since that's generally the max practical ceiling and if you can get your stats over that this kind of fiddling with numbers no longer matters anyway). And what such a chart will probably show is that even with multiplicative Might, each additional point of Might gives somewhere between a 3% and 2% bonus, each additional point of Dex gives a similar but slightly smaller bonus, and each point of Per gives at most a 2% bonus (with a threshold at about +25 accuracy where it drops considerably).

edit: wait, actually, my above math on Per is wrong (I think): Each point of per adding 1.25% (below +25 accuracy above target's defense) means that each point of Per is actually worth a 2% or so dps boost: 62.5% (expected damage on a given swing when accuracy equals defenses, given graze and miss damage adjustment); increase of 1.25% to 63.75%, from one additional point of accuracy, is 2% of 62.5%; so, each point of Per gives a 2% damage increase, so long as you don't have too many other accuracy bonuses. That's a better rate of dps-per-stat-point than a high Dex gives, but worse than a low dex gives. So if you have dex buffs or gear you may be better off with Per, but at character creation and otherwise naked, Dex is probably a better buy at least for the first few points. I apologize if I'm turning this thread into my scratch math sheet -- my desire for #'s sometimes exceeds my grasp of #'s! Unfortunately I don't think any of that really gets us too much closer to answering the original question re: multiplicative v. additive might. A straight 3% multiplicative might is definitely better than any other stat for pure damage dealers, but a straight 3% additive might might be inferior. What about if might/res/str gave a 2% multiplicative bonus, instead of 3% ? That would be more in line with the bonuses from Dex and Per, with the limitation that it was damage only (not other actions) but the benefit that it was linear and not subject to diminishing returns. It seems like at least part of the issue isn't so much additive vs. multiplicative, as that Might (or even str/res) gives a much stronger DPS bonus than other stats do.

The fact it's multiplicative was determined through testing and through looking at the code, with MaxQuest being the one who worked it out fully in this thread: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86684-mechanics-the-big-attack-speed-conundrum/ TL;dr: each point of Dexterity increases the number of times you attack per second by 3% (compared to Dexterity 10) and hence increases your DPS by 3%. Yeah, I was looking at the chart in this post : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86684-mechanics-the-big-attack-speed-conundrum/?p=1808225 Maybe I'm misreading it, but it looks like Dex is multiplicative but there is a diminishing-returns effect that occurs (partly due to the irreducible frames, partly because you're taking bites out of a progressively smaller pie). Going by that chart, again if I'm reading it correctly, going from 10 to 11 dex results in a DPS increase of 2.3%, whereas going from 20 to 21 dex gives 1.7%. So, if those numbers are correct and I'm understanding them correctly, then Dex is always inferior to multiplicative Might for damage based characters, always superior to a point of either multiplicative str/ or multiplicative res for hybrid damage dealers, and always superior to Per for everyone -- at least for values attainable in the character creator. The real story seems to be that Per just dramatically underperforms for everybody.