Beta patch 1.1 important changes

[gkathellar]

But but... if there's an ability that gets taken all the time by people although it's not overly powerful but just "cool" - wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to buff the competing ability instead of nerfing the not so great (but for whatever reason appealing) one?

 

It depends?

 

thelee made a point about Diablo 3 above which is worth acknowledging: if you just buff everything, you end up with number bloat that can cause a system's internal math to fall apart.

 

In general, I think many of the nerfs are deserved, but the approach taken to them feels wrong in many instances, and some are frustrating because they're solutions to problems that were foreseeable. WotEP is a really easy example: the problem was that the AoE damage was too valuable (which should have been obvious, given there's an entire class built around the premise of reduced-damage melee AoEs), so they ... cut the single-target damage in half? lolwut

[Camonge]

 

 

My previous game with the 3 skull boars was on POTD, with critical path scaling on, and my party had reached level 4 by doing all of the content available up until that point.

 

I am going to hit level 4 on my current POTD run WITHOUT scaling of any kind turned on and see if the issue persists.

 

In any case, I don't believe the tuning is appropriate - either on grocery street or some of the ruins encountered - in PoE1 you could get up to 5 companions before committing to anything very difficult - you weren't required to use hirelings. I don't care if you only have to hire them for a quest or two - I just don't like the idea of balancing being dependent on the (for me) immersion breaking of stacking up some hirelings to fill your party out because you can't physically get the story companions yet

 

 

About Boars and skulls: I just redone the area (potd, scaling upwards only). Entered engwith ruins at lvl 3: boars had 2 skulls, defs 52 65 41 46. Drakes 1 skull, defs 53 65 52 36. Before fighting them, I went to the training area and reached level 4. Moving back to ruins main area, they gained skulls )  one skull each and +6 to all defenses.

 

I also find tavern mercs immersion breaking and I only ever recruit them in these situations (did it in gilded vale. Searching for Durance and Kana before finishing eothas temple and raedric hold felt metagamey all the same to me). I'm just cool with obsidian making it about available mechanics in this particular instance.

[amiable]

You can break the animal groups apart and lead them back to chokepoints.   that let me get through both encounters with a single restart once I learned the lay of the land (this was with me (herald), xoti and edar).   To be fair I am playing a defense-oriented herald who can chain summons which makes everything in the early game much easier.  I imagine classes without such advantages would need to use traps/explosives to get through those fights without hiring npcs (even then it would be dicey).  You basically need a charm, summons, mercs or lots of consumables to do those fights.  Or do an incredible amount of kiting.

[Esajin]

Okay, now picture this little change: the guy with the boars, make him recruitable as a Shapeshifter sidekick with proper dialogue choice. Are the Engwithian Ruins now balanced, or should they adjust something else?

 

Assuming his first skill pick is Charm Beast, of course.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Esajin

[thelee]

 

 

 

My previous game with the 3 skull boars was on POTD, with critical path scaling on, and my party had reached level 4 by doing all of the content available up until that point.

 

I am going to hit level 4 on my current POTD run WITHOUT scaling of any kind turned on and see if the issue persists.

 

In any case, I don't believe the tuning is appropriate - either on grocery street or some of the ruins encountered - in PoE1 you could get up to 5 companions before committing to anything very difficult - you weren't required to use hirelings. I don't care if you only have to hire them for a quest or two - I just don't like the idea of balancing being dependent on the (for me) immersion breaking of stacking up some hirelings to fill your party out because you can't physically get the story companions yet

 

 

I also find tavern mercs immersion breaking and I only ever recruit them in these situations (did it in gilded vale. Searching for Durance and Kana before finishing eothas temple and raedric hold felt metagamey all the same to me). I'm just cool with obsidian making it about available mechanics in this particular instance.

 

 

PotD is not the "normal" way to play the game. It is intended to be punishing and require metagame knowledge, such as when to recruit companions or where to find specific items.

 

Back in the early days of PoE, the entirety of Act 1 could be really punishing on PotD, and you would have to recruit to max out your 6-person party (because by default you could only get eder, aloth, durance, kana for five, and you had to know in advance where to pick up durance and kana before doing some of the harder act 1 quests) to stand a chance at some of the quest paths (especially storming Raedric Hold's with violence). With successive power creep and players having better strategy/knowledge of the game, you don't need to do this as much anymore, but this just goes to say that I think it's perfectly reasonable that a PotD encounter in Deadfire be overly challenging without some sort of special recruiting or metagame knowledge.

Edited June 4, 2018 by thelee

[amiable]

Charms and summons are now much more powerful.  Charms in particular because now you can turn the super-charged mobs against themselves.  

 

Edit:  And bombs.  Seriously if you haven't used bombs you should seriously consider it, they take a lot of sting out of the changes.

Edited June 4, 2018 by amiable

[merkmerk73]

 

 

 

 

My previous game with the 3 skull boars was on POTD, with critical path scaling on, and my party had reached level 4 by doing all of the content available up until that point.

 

I am going to hit level 4 on my current POTD run WITHOUT scaling of any kind turned on and see if the issue persists.

 

In any case, I don't believe the tuning is appropriate - either on grocery street or some of the ruins encountered - in PoE1 you could get up to 5 companions before committing to anything very difficult - you weren't required to use hirelings. I don't care if you only have to hire them for a quest or two - I just don't like the idea of balancing being dependent on the (for me) immersion breaking of stacking up some hirelings to fill your party out because you can't physically get the story companions yet

 

 

I also find tavern mercs immersion breaking and I only ever recruit them in these situations (did it in gilded vale. Searching for Durance and Kana before finishing eothas temple and raedric hold felt metagamey all the same to me). I'm just cool with obsidian making it about available mechanics in this particular instance.

 

 

PotD is not the "normal" way to play the game. It is intended to be punishing and require metagame knowledge, such as when to recruit companions or where to find specific items.

 

Back in the early days of PoE, the entirety of Act 1 could be really punishing on PotD, and you would have to recruit to max out your 6-person party (because by default you could only get eder, aloth, durance, kana for five, and you had to know in advance where to pick up durance and kana before doing some of the harder act 1 quests) to stand a chance at some of the quest paths (especially storming Raedric Hold's with violence). With successive power creep and players having better strategy/knowledge of the game, you don't need to do this as much anymore, but this just goes to say that I think it's perfectly reasonable that a PotD encounter in Deadfire be overly challenging without some sort of special recruiting or metagame knowledge.

 

 

Raedrics hold was skippable. There was only one critical path fight - where you could only have 4 story NPCs - and it was entirely doable on POTD without anything overly ridiculous (and that is clearing Caed Nua)

 

Metagaming for story  companions I'm ok with. But I don't want to be forced to build-a-npc just to progress through the game.

 

I will have to test with scaling off when I get home. In any case this is a beta patch and it's highly possible that some of these fights are overtuned. Grocery street - potd or not - is overtuned.

 

I think I'd rather have the tight, difficult encounters last the whole game than have a ridiculous grocery street in the early game and then it gets easier again as you hit around level 9 or 10 and start powering up with 5 dudes

[Ganrich]

Gorecci Street is able to be skipped just like Raedric. You can come back after finishing everything else, dock at Maje to stock your ship with crew and the like, run to Gorecci with a full party, clear it, turn it in, and set the dude in the jail free. Exactly like avoiding Raedric till later levels.

[merkmerk73]

Gorecci Street is able to be skipped just like Raedric. You can come back after finishing everything else, dock at Maje to stock your ship with crew and the like, run to Gorecci with a full party, clear it, turn it in, and set the dude in the jail free. Exactly like avoiding Raedric till later levels.

 

 

Not if you need the +1 level from the quest to have a chance at the ruins. I'm gonna head there to the ruins at lvl 3 and see what's up.

 

I have a feeling it might have just been a scaling issue just like what the previous poster mentioned about how the boars leveled up and got nastier.

[Whitewolfsp]

Ok there is alot of nerfs , but what about bug's ? They are fix ? Like the respec bug or companions dispositon , etc ???

[knownastherat]

Gorecci Street quest (giver) indicates for a peaceful solution .. to help keep order .. states the quest (giver). If Ilari gets killed Savia notes this again. Overtuned or not .. just dont fight them and move on ffs. This is getting ridiculous. 

[amiable]

Gorecci Street is able to be skipped just like Raedric. You can come back after finishing everything else, dock at Maje to stock your ship with crew and the like, run to Gorecci with a full party, clear it, turn it in, and set the dude in the jail free. Exactly like avoiding Raedric till later levels.

 

Gorecci street is doable at level 3 with the 2 story companions.  Just exit the city on foot, and then come back through the south entrance.  Then kite the first group around the corner.  Then engage the second group once the first group is dealt with.  You can even grab the pendant between groups 1 and 2 to make things easier.  Kill the mage in the second group first.

[Ganrich]

 

Gorecci Street is able to be skipped just like Raedric. You can come back after finishing everything else, dock at Maje to stock your ship with crew and the like, run to Gorecci with a full party, clear it, turn it in, and set the dude in the jail free. Exactly like avoiding Raedric till later levels.

 

Not if you need the +1 level from the quest to have a chance at the ruins. I'm gonna head there to the ruins at lvl 3 and see what's up.

 

I have a feeling it might have just been a scaling issue just like what the previous poster mentioned about how the boars leveled up and got nastier.

You can still get level 4 before the big fight to get Aloth at the ruins by clearing out imps and a few other rooms on the top level. I did it with a Chanter. It is 100% doable. No merc. Just me, Eder, and Xoti. Required some consumable use.

[Braven]

Regarding Devotions of the Faithful nerf being the "death of priest"... I always thought that Triumph of the Crusaders was better anyway at level 4.  Base 200 health gained per enemy killed... that is insane amounts of healing with proper healing modifiers.  For example +15% from passive ability, +50% from the dawn priest blessing, +30% or so from might, power level boosts, the pet bonus, etc...  Nothing else in the game comes anywhere near that kind of raw healing power. 

 

I have thought about using that spell with a monk who uses Rooting Pain.  Then all you need is more health than the weakest enemy within an encounter.  This can be helped by +10 CON from wounds, 20 starting CON with a dwarf, and Fit inspiration for an easy 35 CON without items.  Add in stuff like Hylea's Bounty to increase you health total by another 25% and I wonder if there is any encounter where they will actually kill you before you kill them just by standing still and hitting one with a morning star to lower fortitude and help your rooting pains hit.  As soon as one goes down, you gain some 350+ health and the next one will probably die shortly after that gaining you another 350+ health.  The duration is base 60 seconds so it will last the whole encounter.  That is way better than some minor accuracy bonus.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Braven

[Omeganova]

I'm going to reserve my full judgement for when the full patch is released.

 

That being said there's a reason why a lot of people of people are unhappy, when a game makes very large sweeping changes that strip classes of class defining features. The irony of this nerf first balance later is you basically create a never ending game of whack a mole. By dethroning what many consider the top tier choices, you logically elevate the next line of options. Already people are wondering when say the Barbarian is going to be considered "too strong" despite little to no complaints about his power level.

 

Now did there need to be adjustments? Absolutely but smaller more incremental changes would be preferable. Now obviously removing self procing abilities was a healthy change, but Cleaving Stance could have been changed to a Primary Attack instead of a full, and the same could be said of Charge. Or if a Primary Attack on Charge was still considered too strong changing it to a set amount of damage that scaled with PL in addition to the current stun.

 

And then there's the treatment that Ciphers and Priests got. Now i'm no authority on Ciphers, but Priests i do know. Priests right now suffer extreme redundancy in that many of their spells are just direct upgrades over another. And with the new inspiration changes many of their old staples are husks of their former selves. Now the change to Devotions of the Faithful was honestly warranted +10 ACC is still great but what set it apart from other buffs was because it was meant to stack with other inspirations, in its current form it's suppressed by a basic strong inspiration which are handed out left and right in priest spells. This ties again into what i was saying, they could have left the stacking rules as they were and observed if devotions was still out of line. But now one of, if not the defining spell of the class is suppressed by any of the plethora of Strong Inspirations in the game.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Omeganova

[Ganrich]

@Braven - Triumph is also a good way to make use of Sacred Immolation without dropping dead. You just have to ensure that a couple of the enemies have taken some damage So that when you hit SI they drop after a tick or two.

 

@Omeganova - I wont speak on Priests, but the harder difficulty actually helps ciphers. Their charms are now incredibly potent. You're swinging the numbers in your favor. That isnt to say some of their other spells dont need looking at, but they are for sure better in a difficulty where charm/Dom is useful.

[theBalthazar]

Base 200 health gained per enemy killed...

 

 

Yes ! Why take kind wayfarer when you have this ?^^ That's why Obsidian will nerf it. That's why it is illogical to stay at 4.5s of casting time with devotion for the faithful now. 3s is enough. I don't want spend 4.5s for that, when for 3s I have -10 on all defenses and damage overtime.

 

We can speak of blood thirst. I don't understand why there is no nerf on this... Far more problematic than minor nerf of beta patch 1.1...

Edited June 4, 2018 by theBalthazar

[thelee]

And then there's the treatment that Ciphers and Priests got. Now i'm no authority on Ciphers, but Priests i do know. Priests right now suffer extreme redundancy in that many of their spells are just direct upgrades over another. And with the new inspiration changes many of their old staples are husks of their former selves. Now the change to Devotions of the Faithful was honestly warranted +10 ACC is still great but what set it apart from other buffs was because it was meant to stack with other inspirations, in its current form it's suppressed by a basic strong inspiration which are handed out left and right in priest spells. This ties again into what i was saying, they could have left the stacking rules as they were and observed if devotions was still out of line. But now one of, if not the defining spell of the class is suppressed by any of the plethora of Strong Inspirations in the game.

 

Hang on there, what? Devotions is suppressed by inspirations now? How does that even work, since +10 ACC is better than any perception inspiration's bonus?

[Climhazzard]

 

And then there's the treatment that Ciphers and Priests got. Now i'm no authority on Ciphers, but Priests i do know. Priests right now suffer extreme redundancy in that many of their spells are just direct upgrades over another. And with the new inspiration changes many of their old staples are husks of their former selves. Now the change to Devotions of the Faithful was honestly warranted +10 ACC is still great but what set it apart from other buffs was because it was meant to stack with other inspirations, in its current form it's suppressed by a basic strong inspiration which are handed out left and right in priest spells. This ties again into what i was saying, they could have left the stacking rules as they were and observed if devotions was still out of line. But now one of, if not the defining spell of the class is suppressed by any of the plethora of Strong Inspirations in the game.

 

Hang on there, what? Devotions is suppressed by inspirations now? How does that even work, since +10 ACC is better than any perception inspiration's bonus?

 

 

 

Devotions still stacks with perception inspirations.

[thelee]

 

 

And then there's the treatment that Ciphers and Priests got. Now i'm no authority on Ciphers, but Priests i do know. Priests right now suffer extreme redundancy in that many of their spells are just direct upgrades over another. And with the new inspiration changes many of their old staples are husks of their former selves. Now the change to Devotions of the Faithful was honestly warranted +10 ACC is still great but what set it apart from other buffs was because it was meant to stack with other inspirations, in its current form it's suppressed by a basic strong inspiration which are handed out left and right in priest spells. This ties again into what i was saying, they could have left the stacking rules as they were and observed if devotions was still out of line. But now one of, if not the defining spell of the class is suppressed by any of the plethora of Strong Inspirations in the game.

 

Hang on there, what? Devotions is suppressed by inspirations now? How does that even work, since +10 ACC is better than any perception inspiration's bonus?

 

 

 

Devotions still stacks with perception inspirations.

 

 

Sorry I misread the original post. Strong inspirations suppress Devotions? Like, all of it? Or just the +might bonus?

[Omeganova]

 

 

 

And then there's the treatment that Ciphers and Priests got. Now i'm no authority on Ciphers, but Priests i do know. Priests right now suffer extreme redundancy in that many of their spells are just direct upgrades over another. And with the new inspiration changes many of their old staples are husks of their former selves. Now the change to Devotions of the Faithful was honestly warranted +10 ACC is still great but what set it apart from other buffs was because it was meant to stack with other inspirations, in its current form it's suppressed by a basic strong inspiration which are handed out left and right in priest spells. This ties again into what i was saying, they could have left the stacking rules as they were and observed if devotions was still out of line. But now one of, if not the defining spell of the class is suppressed by any of the plethora of Strong Inspirations in the game.

 

Hang on there, what? Devotions is suppressed by inspirations now? How does that even work, since +10 ACC is better than any perception inspiration's bonus?

 

 

 

Devotions still stacks with perception inspirations.

 

 

Sorry I misread the original post. Strong inspirations suppress Devotions? Like, all of it? Or just the +might bonus?

 

The Might component 

[thelee]

That being said there's a reason why a lot of people of people are unhappy, when a game makes very large sweeping changes that strip classes of class defining features. The irony of this nerf first balance later is you basically create a never ending game of whack a mole. By dethroning what many consider the top tier choices, you logically elevate the next line of options. Already people are wondering when say the Barbarian is going to be considered "too strong" despite little to no complaints about his power level.

 

 

Thing is, it's not about there being no "top-tier" choice, it's about appropriate build diversity (i.e. "no trap builds"). The "no trap builds" design philosophy of pillars is very similar to the approach that Wizards of the Coast takes with their tournament-level Magic: The Gathering banning decisions. They know that banning a particularly powerful card or undermining a deck type is just going to produce a new #1 card or top deck type, but what they care about is making sure that no card or deck strategy is particularly dominant. The reason is two-fold: a. players find it boring when there's only one or limited dominant choices in deck types or cards and b. wizards of the coast sees less revenue when players drop out of playing because the metagame is too boring or static. it's win-win for wizards of the coast to prefer some diversity of cards/decks. So if barbarians are the new #1, that's fine, so long as it's not so the #1 that it renders any party without a barbarian a trap build.

 

I'm reserving full judgment until the ramifications of the patch are fully known, but everything so far sounds like a similar thing; obsidian is knocking down dominant (either too-good or too-prevalent) stuff and is doing only incremental improvements to lift stuff up so as to promote viability/diversity of builds (by them not having been overshadowed by some really good stuff). So Whispers of the Endless Paths gets knocked down a bit, but AFAICT any weapon that comes up to take its place isn't there because it got buffed to be #1, it'll just be a little better relatively speaking, so not-gaming your PoE1 history and not-getting Whispers of the Endless Paths if you do great swords is not going to be a trap decision.

 

And then there's the treatment that Ciphers and Priests got. Now i'm no authority on Ciphers, but Priests i do know. Priests right now suffer extreme redundancy in that many of their spells are just direct upgrades over another. And with the new inspiration changes many of their old staples are husks of their former selves. Now the change to Devotions of the Faithful was honestly warranted +10 ACC is still great but what set it apart from other buffs was because it was meant to stack with other inspirations, in its current form it's suppressed by a basic strong inspiration which are handed out left and right in priest spells. This ties again into what i was saying, they could have left the stacking rules as they were and observed if devotions was still out of line. But now one of, if not the defining spell of the class is suppressed by any of the plethora of Strong Inspirations in the game.

 

Priest redundancy is somewhat of an issue, but you can always respec (that is, once respec is not so buggy). My view on Spirit/Litany is that you can take the Spirit early on, and either keep it for redundancy later (since you only get 2 casts per PL per encounter), or respec out of the Spirit in favor of the Litany and open up a different choice at that PL. Same thing with e.g. Blessing/Dire Blessing or Holy Power/Triumph. Also I might just be grateful that in Deadfire I don't have to waste a choice at each PL to get "Restore Minor Endurance" "Restore Moderate Endurance" etc like in Pillars.

 

Anyway "one of, if not the defining spells of the class" is a clear sign that it needed to be hammered down aggressively. It's only PL4, it really shouldn't be something that I would personally happily cast before literally any other spell in virtually any situation in literally any build in the priest spellbook (even in PoE1). If the buff is indeed suppressed by Strong, I would be mostly disappointed in that stacking rules are getting even more confusing (because previously my understanding was that afflictions/inspirations were in a completely separate stacking category from direct adjustment buffs/debuffs) and not because the buff itself got comparatively weaker.

 

Frankly, +-10 accuracy, +-might, even if the might is suppressed by affliction/inspirations, is still for me a first pick for PL4. Just a little less obviously so than before and consequently going without it won't be as huge of a power level hit for a priest.

Edited June 4, 2018 by thelee

[AndreaColombo]

^ You'll have to admit, however, that Devotions for the Faithful in its 1.1 incarnation isn't really worth the time it takes to cast it.

 

My first play through was without a Priest—and in the first game I never played without a Priest. The reason? It took too long to cast the buffs, so I didn't bother. Sure, Devotions for the Faithful was good; but 4.5s good? Not really. I never needed +20 Accuracy that badly.

 

Now it offers less benefit for the same overly slow casting time? The chances I'll bother with a Priest have just gone below zero.

Edited June 4, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[mammasaura]

I don't necessarily find redundancy a bad thing with the current inspirations/afflictions counter-system, at least not for a class supposed to support with buffs and cleanses.

Sometimes you use abilities to buff, but you still need abilities to cleanse and the redundancy can cover the reapplication of afflictions.

[merkmerk73]

Gorecci Street quest (giver) indicates for a peaceful solution .. to help keep order .. states the quest (giver). If Ilari gets killed Savia notes this again. Overtuned or not .. just dont fight them and move on ffs. This is getting ridiculous. 

 

No this isn't ridiculous - it's feedback for a beta patch.

 

Stealth should not be a requirement for an encounter that is over tuned. As an option it's fine.

 

I've done it before by cheesing the pathing - doesn't mean that it's properly tuned.