Beta patch 1.1 important changes

[Esajin]

Okay I finally (finally!) fully cleared the Arena below solo before ending the first act. This was on a Single Class Unbroken, with 2 stealth. Here are my observations:

 

- I had to upgrade the Gladiator's Blade to Exceptional AND use both the Sword and the Shattered Vengeance club to stand a chance. I also needed to use both a Medium shield and a Large Shield, both with the modal acive and inactive depending on the enemy and situation, and I had to stance dance between guardian/duelist/cleave to maximize my tanking and damage. I was lucky to find a Plate armor in a random loot sequence on the overworld map, and ended up using that the whole run.

- I entered the Arena near the end of level 5 (started at level 4) and reached level 7 before meeting Serafen. I didn't know there was so much xp available.

- Stance-Dancing between "The Wall" and actually evading attacks is really fun and saved me a LOT of health vs the Adra Ooze.

- Choke points are invaluable, especially the little cell for the cristal spider encounter at the middle of the map. Get to the cell, activate the wall

- Combat Speed is your friend, you need to go bind the keys in the Control menu.

- Curse of Woedica seems to have been nerfed and no longer stacks with itself. No more ray of fire abuse

- the Fight at the southwestern corner is insane, there are like a dozen mobs in there. Fortunately I had a pistol lying around. Shoot the gunpowder barrel and keep some distance. You won't get xp for 80% of the mobs there, but at least it will be down to 2 crystal spiderlings and a couple wurms. Far more manageable.

 

After completing the Arena I realized I was stupid: my entire battleplan for the anomalies fight relied on the Blessing of Eothas + Fresh Fruit for +75% healing bonus, and I forgot to go get them. Oh well, I had to waste 3 Cinder Bombs on them. Instead of going straight to Neketaka I paid Meriel a visit and promptly dispatched her. She wasted all her healing reduction spells at the start of the fight, desperately trying to stop my constant recovery. She seemed to be completely unchanged from pre-1.1

 

Overall the Unbroken is a mighty fine tank right from the start, but I was a bit irked; all the monsters in the arena have 10 penetration, and even with my class bonus I could only reach... 10 armor.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Esajin

[dunehunter]

The thing I don’t understand is the nerf if priest spiritual weapons, 50% lash to 20% is a bit too much, nobody use summon weapons now.

 

I tried both Firebrand and Berath sword, your weapon get no penetration bonus until like lvl 5 or something like that. 6 base Pen... I tried a few times with no Pen then I switch to fine weapons. Both are already bad because they are 2h weapons.

 

In summary, they scales slower than enemy armor scales, or your real weapon pen scales. Bad weapon type, not impressive bonus and 3 sec cast time makes it very bad, even It’s instant cast I’m not sure if I wanna use them. But maybe they are considered as ok for lvl 2 spells.

Edited June 6, 2018 by dunehunter

[thelee]

The thing I don’t understand is the nerf if priest spiritual weapons, 50% lash to 20% is a bit too much, nobody use summon weapons now.

 

say whaaaaaat? they nerfed the lash?

 

at 50% it was only kind of worth the opportunity cost (especially since the relatively slow scaling on summoned weapons means that you could be finding e.g. exceptional weapons and it would only be getting fine-level scaling). 

 

first nerf i've heard of so far that sounds confusing to me because i didn't think too many people were using the priest's spiritual weapon much as it was right now. (by contrast, i find the wizard summoning weapons and at least druid/priest's rot skulls to be decent... wonder if they got nerfed.)

Edited June 6, 2018 by thelee

[Esajin]

The thing I don’t understand is the nerf if priest spiritual weapons, 50% lash to 20% is a bit too much, nobody use summon weapons now.

 

What I never understood was the long cast time. 3 seconds is looooooong. How fast is it, talented?

[dunehunter]

It’s just scales bad with current system. Imagine you have already get some exceptional weapon at lvl 5, then u decide to cast firebrand and you get a weapon with 6 penetration. Congrats u waste 3 sec to summon that crap.

[Whitewolfsp]

I hope they dont turn this into a MMO style , take the fun out of the game for the sake of balance , i wish they focus more on Bugs , fixing the companions , story , etc ... But thats just me and im the minority ...

[thelee]

 

The thing I don’t understand is the nerf if priest spiritual weapons, 50% lash to 20% is a bit too much, nobody use summon weapons now.

 

What I never understood was the long cast time. 3 seconds is looooooong. How fast is it, talented?

 

 

in deadfire, 3s is "fast" (using poe1 terminology). 4.5s is "average" and 6.0s is "slow". and summoned weapons (at least all the ones i can think of) have no recovery, so it is faster than "fast" spell casts (more than 100% faster, in fact). (very fast would be the .5s spell casts)

 

there used to be a time in backer beta where summoning was something like 6-9 seconds. that was long.

Edited June 6, 2018 by thelee

[AndreaColombo]

in deadfire, 3s is "fast" (using poe1 terminology). 4.5s is "average" and 6.0s is "slow". and summoned weapons (at least all the ones i can think of) have no recovery, so it is faster than "fast" spell casts (more than 100% faster, in fact). (very fast would be the .5s spell casts)

 

there used to be a time in backer beta where summoning was something like 6-9 seconds. that was long.

 

3s is still way too long for summoned weapons. Even at 0.5s / 0.0s (which is where I've always believed they should be) they would barely be worth it compared to unique weapons that don't require you to spend a precious talent point (and one of two precious casts per encounter of their spell level) to acquire.

[Climhazzard]

Ideally you probably want something exceptional for your main damage dealers by level 7, superb by level 10, and legendary shortly thereafter.  If summoned weapons are nowhere near that progression they'll probably always be second rate, at least until endgame where the progression meets.

[thelee]

 

in deadfire, 3s is "fast" (using poe1 terminology). 4.5s is "average" and 6.0s is "slow". and summoned weapons (at least all the ones i can think of) have no recovery, so it is faster than "fast" spell casts (more than 100% faster, in fact). (very fast would be the .5s spell casts)

 

there used to be a time in backer beta where summoning was something like 6-9 seconds. that was long.

 

3s is still way too long for summoned weapons. Even at 0.5s / 0.0s (which is where I've always believed they should be) they would barely be worth it compared to unique weapons that don't require you to spend a precious talent point (and one of two precious casts per encounter of their spell level) to acquire.

 

 

i think esp for wizard, summoned weapons do enough special stuff that they can warrant a decent cast time - up until i really decked out spellblade-aloth i was still using concelhaut's parasitic staff for self-healing and citzal's lance for group combat into pretty late game. priest summoned weapon is just "do more damage" and depending on whether you're ahead of the scaling curve (which up until superb/legendary--without barely trying in PoTD--I was) and what modals you have, it may not be that much more damage (especially if it's a downgrade to your accuracy). with just a 20% lash the math gets even harder. i might have to do more in game testing, because as it was, je sawyer thought the summoned weapons were pretty good, even lower PL ones (like concelhaut's staff).

 

depending on scaling, maybe an auto-legendary 50% lash weapon might have been too good for a PL2 spell since it's comparable to some of the blander fully upgraded uniques out there (in particular since you can't just puta lash enchantment on any ol' weapon in deadfire). but 20%...

[Boeroer]

Maybe the lash now scales as well?

[knownastherat]

Ideally, the devs would have access to data directly from games played and make decisions about balancing with such data in mind. Regardless of what we write here, for example, whether summoned weapons should be buffed or not, the devs would know exactly whether or not players use summoned weapons. The problem, of assessing effectiveness, is as simple as observing players behavior as players will, if their number is large and number of trials is large enough, always find the most effective ways to use tools available. 

 

Of course, the dev can gather feedback by reading players reactions here or elsewhere, but such reactions are necessarily more or less biased, inaccurate and harder to decipher than data gathered in-game. 

[thelee]

Ideally, the devs would have access to data directly from games played and make decisions about balancing with such data in mind. Regardless of what we write here, for example, whether summoned weapons should be buffed or not, the devs would know exactly whether or not players use summoned weapons. The problem, of assessing effectiveness, is as simple as observing players behavior as players will, if their number is large and number of trials is large enough, always find the most effective ways to use tools available. 

 

Of course, the dev can gather feedback by reading players reactions here or elsewhere, but such reactions are necessarily more or less biased, inaccurate and harder to decipher than data gathered in-game. 

 

Deadfire does have telemetry data reported back (i think you're prompted to opt-in at the start), and they definitely get some meaningful playstyle data out of it (they were able to tell how/when empower was being used during backer beta), so it is possible (maybe even probable) that they have specific ability usage data as well.

 

Anecdotally, it does not seem like many people are using spiritual weapon, but who knows maybe everyone outside of these forums has been roflstomping the game with a +50% slash lash from xoti's spiritual weapon.

[AndreaColombo]

Just because I use something in the game, perhaps to experiment with it, doesn't mean that it is good.

[Boeroer]

Especially not after such a short period of time. Most people don't know (yet) what's really good. They just take what they think is good or just sounds cool - because there hasn't been enough time to really determine what's great and what not  - apart from the obious game breakers of course. 

Edited June 6, 2018 by Boeroer

[Climhazzard]

It could probably be taken a step further to say the majority of people who play through this game will probably never know what's good.  People like us are the minority.

[Hoo]

How about improving some underwhelmed passive abilities, such as Martial Caster? Those passives give very small bonus now even though the effects are too much situational. Enhancing cast time by 1 rating, e.g., from Average to Fast, would be good.

[knownastherat]

Just because I use something in the game, perhaps to experiment with it, doesn't mean that it is good.

 

Of course not, and I did not claim it is. I claimed that: The problem, of assessing effectiveness, is as simple as observing players behavior as players will, if their number is large and number of trials is large enough, always find the most effective ways to use tools available, which is just obvious.

 

As far as the vocal minority, out of the total number of players who play(ed), who post here. First of all, I have to reiterate the question I've been asking since PoE: What is the point of constant tinkering since only minority will experience it?

 

Secondly, unless we will have some data, which we do not, we can only speculate how others who do not post here play their game. What we know is that players, some of them posting here, figured out very quickly what is effective and what not. Beginning with the person who speedran it in 26 mins to players who posted their Fighter/Monk/Paladin builds and we will likely never hear from them again.

 

Lastly, that some people figured out how, in their own words, to cheese by, for example, abusing PL and poison and withdraw should not, in my opinion, be even considered as a matter requiring attention simply because who would play like that? 0.001% of players? It's not worth the time and energy to bother with.

 

This is a game, not a timeless piece of poetry to be cherished by the future generations.

[thelee]

 

Just because I use something in the game, perhaps to experiment with it, doesn't mean that it is good.

 

Of course not, and I did not claim it is. I claimed that: The problem, of assessing effectiveness, is as simple as observing players behavior as players will, if their number is large and number of trials is large enough, always find the most effective ways to use tools available, which is just obvious.

 

As far as the vocal minority, out of the total number of players who play(ed), who post here. First of all, I have to reiterate the question I've been asking since PoE: What is the point of constant tinkering since only minority will experience it?

 

Secondly, unless we will have some data, which we do not, we can only speculate how others who do not post here play their game. What we know is that players, some of them posting here, figured out very quickly what is effective and what not. Beginning with the person who speedran it in 26 mins to players who posted their Fighter/Monk/Paladin builds and we will likely never hear from them again.

 

Lastly, that some people figured out how, in their own words, to cheese by, for example, abusing PL and poison and withdraw should not, in my opinion, be even considered as a matter requiring attention simply because who would play like that? 0.001% of players? It's not worth the time and energy to bother with.

 

This is a game, not a timeless piece of poetry to be cherished by the future generations.

 

 

I find this perspective inane.

 

The difference between a decent game, and a great game, is that people didn't stop and say "this is good enough for 50.1% of players out there" but rather tinkered until it was the the very best version of itself that it could be. I honestly don't understand how one could love video games and not want video games to be tinkered with so they could be improved. I wish games long gone/abandoned could be tinkered with and have updated balance patches.

 

Also, for your final quip, video games have only been around for a few decades. It hasn't had time to have the legs that poetry has had. But when we talk about board games... chess, go, chinese chess have had longer legs than entire civilizations, to say nothing about the art that those civilizations produced, and a game like chess has been tinkered with over literally centuries (did you know originally the queen moved identically as the king instead of being the most powerful piece on the board?). I don't think many people still play System Shock or System Shock 2 anymore (and the # of people who played them at the time were so low that Looking Glass Studios had to shutter), but virtually every AAA game that is a first-person-shooter with rpg-y-spellcast-y elements, story told by audio logs and an absent narrator, stealthing, with optionally a hacking component owes itself to SS and SS2 and the care and talent that was put into them, and game designers know this because they were the ones playing SS and SS2 at the time (which is why you see the code 0451 or 451 in so many genre-similar games). So let's not be so disingenuously dismissive of something that has been around for less time than, say, film.

Edited June 6, 2018 by thelee

[Camonge]

Maybe the lash now scales as well?

 

I believe that's the case.

 

I was dead worried about my templar of berath and ran some combats in 1.1beta: every time I used flames of devotion + spiritual weapon on a even armored enemy, corrode damage was higher. At character level 6, power level 2, Corrode lash is doing 30% dmg on normal attacks. Multiplicative.

 

Btw, empower spiritual weapon has no effect on item scaling of spiritual weapon.

[thelee]

 

Maybe the lash now scales as well?

 

I believe that's the case.

 

I was dead worried about my templar of berath and ran some combats in 1.1beta: every time I used flames of devotion + spiritual weapon on a even armored enemy, corrode damage was higher. At character level 6, power level 2, Corrode lash is doing 30% dmg on normal attacks. Multiplicative.

 

Btw, empower spiritual weapon has no effect on item scaling of spiritual weapon.

 

 

I think it has always been the case that power level only influences the duration of summoned weapons (and summoned creatures), which is sorta lame. (Shorter durations for more powerful weapons would make pwoer level scaling a bit more relevant)

[dunehunter]

 

Maybe the lash now scales as well?

I believe that's the case.

 

I was dead worried about my templar of berath and ran some combats in 1.1beta: every time I used flames of devotion + spiritual weapon on a even armored enemy, corrode damage was higher. At character level 6, power level 2, Corrode lash is doing 30% dmg on normal attacks. Multiplicative.

 

Btw, empower spiritual weapon has no effect on item scaling of spiritual weapon.

Did u see summon weapon lash scales? Or u just guess? Because lash damage is bugged when over penetrating.

[Camonge]

It's a guess. I would need to test it in multiple lvls to be sure. But it's not an overpenetrating issue. I was hitting with a greatsword, afterall.

 

I think lash from Spiritual Weapon scales because Flames of Devotions kept doing 20% bonus fire dmg, while spiritual weapon made 30% bonus corrode dmg. Testing on the same attack, opponent had no special armor against these types.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Camonge

[knownastherat]

 

 

Just because I use something in the game, perhaps to experiment with it, doesn't mean that it is good.

 

Of course not, and I did not claim it is. I claimed that: The problem, of assessing effectiveness, is as simple as observing players behavior as players will, if their number is large and number of trials is large enough, always find the most effective ways to use tools available, which is just obvious.

 

As far as the vocal minority, out of the total number of players who play(ed), who post here. First of all, I have to reiterate the question I've been asking since PoE: What is the point of constant tinkering since only minority will experience it?

 

Secondly, unless we will have some data, which we do not, we can only speculate how others who do not post here play their game. What we know is that players, some of them posting here, figured out very quickly what is effective and what not. Beginning with the person who speedran it in 26 mins to players who posted their Fighter/Monk/Paladin builds and we will likely never hear from them again.

 

Lastly, that some people figured out how, in their own words, to cheese by, for example, abusing PL and poison and withdraw should not, in my opinion, be even considered as a matter requiring attention simply because who would play like that? 0.001% of players? It's not worth the time and energy to bother with.

 

This is a game, not a timeless piece of poetry to be cherished by the future generations.

 

 

I find this perspective inane.

 

The difference between a decent game, and a great game, is that people didn't stop and say "this is good enough for 50.1% of players out there" but rather tinkered until it was the the very best version of itself that it could be. I honestly don't understand how one could love video games and not want video games to be tinkered with so they could be improved. I wish games long gone/abandoned could be tinkered with and have updated balance patches.

 

Also, for your final quip, video games have only been around for a few decades. It hasn't had time to have the legs that poetry has had. But when we talk about board games... chess, go, chinese chess have had longer legs than entire civilizations, to say nothing about the art that those civilizations produced, and a game like chess has been tinkered with over literally centuries (did you know originally the queen moved identically as the king instead of being the most powerful piece on the board?). I don't think many people still play System Shock or System Shock 2 anymore (and the # of people who played them at the time were so low that Looking Glass Studios had to shutter), but virtually every AAA game that is a first-person-shooter with rpg-y-spellcast-y elements, story told by audio logs and an absent narrator, stealthing, with optionally a hacking component owes itself to SS and SS2 and the care and talent that was put into them, and game designers know this because they were the ones playing SS and SS2 at the time (which is why you see the code 0451 or 451 in so many genre-similar games). So let's not be so disingenuously dismissive of something that has been around for less time than, say, film.

 

 

Well, I guess I am old school. Back in time, a game was released as more or less a final product. It was either a good game or not. No constant tinkering was possible due to several reasons, mainly technological. I do not believe that constant tinkering makes today's games more fun, or better, than games made decades ago. 

 

Speaking of System Shock, which is indeed and in my opinion one of the greatest games ever made. How many updates it got? 

 

Video games, unlike chess, are heavily reliant on technology which makes them vulnerable to technological progress. Some games do define genres or introduce groundbreaking stuff and such games will probably go to annals of history to be remembered, not played, by the future generations. Pillars of Eternity is not such game. It is a spiritual successor of such game - Baldur's Gate. How many updates Baldur's Gate got? Who cared about "broken" stuff in Baldur's Gate? What made Baldur's Gate so great?

 

When I asked about the reason for constant tinkering in PoE I was told that its to polish the mechanics for future use. Well, from where I sit it did not work out all that well.

Edited June 7, 2018 by knownastherat

[thelee]

 

 

 

Just because I use something in the game, perhaps to experiment with it, doesn't mean that it is good.

 

Of course not, and I did not claim it is. I claimed that: The problem, of assessing effectiveness, is as simple as observing players behavior as players will, if their number is large and number of trials is large enough, always find the most effective ways to use tools available, which is just obvious.

 

As far as the vocal minority, out of the total number of players who play(ed), who post here. First of all, I have to reiterate the question I've been asking since PoE: What is the point of constant tinkering since only minority will experience it?

 

Secondly, unless we will have some data, which we do not, we can only speculate how others who do not post here play their game. What we know is that players, some of them posting here, figured out very quickly what is effective and what not. Beginning with the person who speedran it in 26 mins to players who posted their Fighter/Monk/Paladin builds and we will likely never hear from them again.

 

Lastly, that some people figured out how, in their own words, to cheese by, for example, abusing PL and poison and withdraw should not, in my opinion, be even considered as a matter requiring attention simply because who would play like that? 0.001% of players? It's not worth the time and energy to bother with.

 

This is a game, not a timeless piece of poetry to be cherished by the future generations.

 

 

I find this perspective inane.

 

The difference between a decent game, and a great game, is that people didn't stop and say "this is good enough for 50.1% of players out there" but rather tinkered until it was the the very best version of itself that it could be. I honestly don't understand how one could love video games and not want video games to be tinkered with so they could be improved. I wish games long gone/abandoned could be tinkered with and have updated balance patches.

 

Also, for your final quip, video games have only been around for a few decades. It hasn't had time to have the legs that poetry has had. But when we talk about board games... chess, go, chinese chess have had longer legs than entire civilizations, to say nothing about the art that those civilizations produced, and a game like chess has been tinkered with over literally centuries (did you know originally the queen moved identically as the king instead of being the most powerful piece on the board?). I don't think many people still play System Shock or System Shock 2 anymore (and the # of people who played them at the time were so low that Looking Glass Studios had to shutter), but virtually every AAA game that is a first-person-shooter with rpg-y-spellcast-y elements, story told by audio logs and an absent narrator, stealthing, with optionally a hacking component owes itself to SS and SS2 and the care and talent that was put into them, and game designers know this because they were the ones playing SS and SS2 at the time (which is why you see the code 0451 or 451 in so many genre-similar games). So let's not be so disingenuously dismissive of something that has been around for less time than, say, film.

 

 

Well, I guess I am old school. Back in time, a game was released as more or less a final product. It was either a good game or not. No constant tinkering was possible due to several reasons, mainly technological. I do not believe that constant tinkering makes today's games more fun, or better, than games made decades ago. 

 

Speaking of System Schock, which is indeed and in my opinion one of the greatest games ever made. How many updates it got? 

 

Video games, unlike chess, are heavily reliant on technology which makes them vulnerable to technological progress. Some games do define genres or introduce groundbreaking stuff and such games will probably go to annals of history to be remembered, not played, by the future generations. Pillars of Eternity is not such game. It is a spiritual successor of such game - Baldur's Gate. How many updates Baldur's Gate got? Who cared about "broken" stuff in Baldur's Gate? What made Baldur's Gate so great?

 

When I asked about the reason for constant tinkering in PoE I was told that its to polish the mechanics for future use. Well, from where I sit I did not work out all that well.

 

 

System Shock got close to zero updates, and its sequel got like two. It's irrelevant though, because what matters is how much care went into the product to begin with based on a given baseline. Deadfire (or any cRPG) is a vastly more complicated product than SS2, and people's expectations are higher (SS2 is nowhere near balanced and can be trivialized even on impossible difficulty by just investing in an assault rifle, but that was fine for 90s) so things are different now.

 

How many updates did Baldur's Gate (I and II) get? Well, it got several patches at the time, and then it got an Enhanced Edition release, and more patches since then. So actually, quite a bit, and that's almost two decades worth of tinkering (fairly continuous, considering that much of the original enhanced edition stuff was incorporating the baldur's gate unofficial fix pack that fans had been working on fairly continuously since original release). As a lineage though, it also got further tinkering in Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II, Planescape: Torment, Pillars of Eternity, and now Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire. Much in the same way that chess in the 7th century is not the same as the chess in the 21st century and is really the continuous evolution of a very narrow, specific genre of board game.

 

But frankly, I'm not here to debate with you whether or not games deserve to be considered a serious media, like poetry or chess. I'm here to basically say that if all you're doing is to come into a thread about people who care about making Deadfire the best it could be and your main contribution is "who cares" then you're not really a productive contributor.