So is 1.1 Really the End of Days?

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hey guys,

 

So... I've been seeing a lot of threads on this form saying that the blanket nerfs for 1.1 have pretty much killed all interest they have in playing the game, even with future DLCs/potential future balance updates. That now that Fighter/Monk have been adjusted, they're garbage tier, and all of the "Good" items are worthless now. My question here is a simple one.

 

Really?

 

So far, the only changes I really have an issue with are the ones to items because those seem to have been handled a little more sloppily than the class adjustments (Blanket changes rather than specific tuning on a case by case basis). Understandable due to how many items there are in the game, but at the same time it led to some somewhat arbitrary number changes. Cipher also got hit somewhat hard without really getting anything in return which is unfortunate, as Cipher was in a pretty not great place already as anything besides multiclass fodder. Priest kind of came out smelling like roses, they're not mandatory to take for Devotions of the Faithful anymore, but their single target spells now cast within half a second. Rogue apparently got some really nice buffs across the board and some bugfixes. 

 

And even the classes that got hit the most - Monk and Fighter - only had that happen because they were considered two of the most overpowered classes in the game. And for good reason, frankly. Both had abilities that could proc off of themselves infinitely. Fighter could output insane amounts of AoE damage on its own, which essentially meant it was all three roles at once instead of a primary defender. 

 

So my big question is... Is the game still fun with these nerfs? Do the classes still feel powerful without being able to cheese the whole game? 

 

Followed by... How are the changes to Veteran/PotD in addition to all of these changes? 

[TheMetaphysician]

I feel exactly the opposite: the balance changes have rekindled my interest in the game. It is hard now, which means I have to care about the mechanics.

[Cylion]

People will alwats complain, before this patch they where mad because things were op and this made the game easy. Now the game is a lot harder and in my option really fun. This always means tha they can't play their OP stuff. All they want is to complain, ignore it.

[Abbzug]

As long as there's difficulty settings for people to breeze through the game with I don't see how you can complain about the game also having a difficulty setting that challenges players as well.

[AndreaColombo]

People will alwats complain, before this patch they where mad because things were op and this made the game easy. Now the game is a lot harder and in my option really fun. This always means tha they can't play their OP stuff. All they want is to complain, ignore it.

 

Funny how you dismiss criticism as "all they want is to complain."

 

Patch 1.1 over-nerfed a lot of things and applied awkward, patchwork fixes to others. Many things that really didn't need fine-tuning were tuned.

 

Preventing Swift Flurry from proccing itself was a good change; nerfing its speed bonus from 20% to 15% was completely pointless and uncalled for. Just to make one of many, many possible examples.

[Archaven]

here are my thoughts. as soon as they have done all the engine performance optimizations, bugfixes and engine enhancement, i would hope the veterans in this community (you stay long enough here you can recognize who they are) can come out with their own balance patches. i foresee they can do a much better job than the team has in obsidian. i'm all for balance but not taking out the fun of game mechanics (for example taking out procs instead of balancing the encounters and the numbers), attack speed, recovery, etc. i would rather have those interesting mechanics but balance it in a way that is really good "late game". a little of overpoweredness (which procs not so frequent) does no harm and makes the game interesting for me. an overbalance game is moot in a single player game and makes the game boring.

 

i understand some people like challenge. i'm all for it. i would suggest that obsidian provide more customization on difficulty challenges. for example going to a location where it will spawn high level encounters where you cant save in this area and if you died you have to start all over again. without the proper knowledge of game mechanics and preparation of solution: antidote, buffs, debuffs, poison, drugs, bombs, party composition when going to this "special location" you see yourself toast. preventing save scumming and throw in some randomness in here will surely give the veterans some "heart pumping adrenaline" as are no longer safe as they can't save scum.

 

with overpowered builds you can see yourself slaughtered in this area. this is what i envision the game to be if i'm a designer in obsidian. not removing game mechanics and nerfing unnecessary skills/talents.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Archaven

[ProfessorCirno]

It's not the end of days, but it's a bummer of a patch.  We're still in the real early release of the game, which means there's probably going to be several balance patches that upend stuff, so yeah, it's kinda got to be expected.  And yeah, a ton of stuff was overpowered, and you need to establish a good baseline to build classes off of.  And yeah, there's going to be a future patch that probably buffs stuff back up.  But this in-between period just kinda sucks.  If you were playing a fighter or, god help you, a cipher, you probably just watched all your interesting stuff get cut down, without anything to really replace it (as I was playing both, I just watched my entire character collapse, so it's restart time).  Ciphers especially are in a real bad place balance wise.  My hope is that there's at least some work done to the nerfed classes to make the patch not just feel like a complete loss, as patches in general probably shouldn't make you feel targeted, and my desperate hope is that ciphers get looked at real goddamn hard before the patch is released, because that class may as well not exist right now.

 

I should note: this isn't a case of "oh just play on an easier difficulty if you want to breeze through."  I doubt anyone on these forums in particular actively want to just breeze through anything.  The problem isn't "I'm not strong," the problem is "I'm not interesting."  Cleave stance and charge needed to be nerfed, but people weren't drawn to it because they wanted the game to be easy, they were drawn to it because it was hype as hell to be able to just juggernaut your way through a group of enemies and leave nothing but entrails in your wake.  It wasn't about making the game easy, it was about being kicking rad.  When you see these huge nerfs without any abilities positively changed, it mostly just means your good stuff isn't anymore, and your class is now way more boring.  People aren't upset because fighters no longer render the game obsolete, they're upset because fighter offense got kicked in the ****, and they want to do more then just vaguely take up space.

[TheMetaphysician]

AndreaColumbo, you officially have the coolest forum avatar. I take everything you say 12% more seriously just because of the mood I get into when I see it.

Edited June 3, 2018 by TheMetaphysician

[Boeroer]

Right. There are several things that were totally uncalled for. I blame it on the fact that certain designers only read SA or Tumblr or Twitter contributions instead of follwing this forum.

 

But it's also true that:

 

 

 

Oh my GOOOD the game's too easy! Game is broken...

 

 

Oh my GOOOOOOD the nerf bat swung too hard. Game was fixed and then broken again with one patch WTF???

 

 

A lot of people don't seem to be able to differentiate. Like... at all.

[wih]

I blame it on the fact that certain designers only read SA or Tumblr or Twitter contributions instead of follwing this forum.

 

 

I always assumed Josh reads this forum, just avoids posting on it? How can he know what is going on without reading the official forum?

[Myrtillo]

 

People will alwats complain, before this patch they where mad because things were op and this made the game easy. Now the game is a lot harder and in my option really fun. This always means tha they can't play their OP stuff. All they want is to complain, ignore it.

 

Funny how you dismiss criticism as "all they want is to complain."

 

Patch 1.1 over-nerfed a lot of things and applied awkward, patchwork fixes to others. Many things that really didn't need fine-tuning were tuned.

 

Preventing Swift Flurry from proccing itself was a good change; nerfing its speed bonus from 20% to 15% was completely pointless and uncalled for. Just to make one of many, many possible examples.

 

 

On which basis do you consider that the nerf to 15% was uncalled for ? Basically every effect in the game that gave better recovery was nerfed by -5% or -10%. 

The rationale behind it is probably that our chars were acting too much compared to the opponents and it was easy to:

-Hard CC everyone;

-Heal through most of the damage;

-Nuke before retaliation;

I found myself using in priority recov items/effects over other effects, so I do understand that it was too potent. If an option is a no-brainer, then you have to either nerf it or buff all others, depending of the global state of the challenge offered by the game. And since game is considered too easy, then nerfing is the way to go.

 

This is clearly a global balance adjustement, why would Swift Flurry not follow the same road with a similar effect ?

[knownastherat]

IMO -5% or -10% nerf to items across the board is a cheap solution. Sure it can be called "global balance adjustment" but it does not mean much. It just means that player damage output over time is on average lower. Recovery reduction was not overpowered on all builds but only on certain builds and I would say very specific builds. In this sense, and together with making Veteran and PotD difficulties harder by adding enemies, I can see how the said nerf could be labeled as uncalled for. 

 

Anyway, there is not any end of days. PoE showed that the devs, for not very rational reasons, like to fine-tune Their game for some time so for the few who will stick around its the beginning of days so to say. And for the vast majority of others who played the game once or twice? Well, they don't care either way. 

Edited June 3, 2018 by knownastherat

[AndreaColombo]

On which basis do you consider that the nerf to 15% was uncalled for ? Basically every effect in the game that gave better recovery was nerfed by -5% or -10%.

 

That's my problem. No recovery buffs should have been nerfed—recovery was already boringly slow enough.

 

Contrary to the first game, Deadfire makes it impossible to reach 0 recovery (unless you were cheesing Time Parasite, which I reckon no longer stacks with itself?) As though that weren't enough, average recovery time for weapons is 4s, which is way slow. I too packed recovery buffs in priority—as a way to avoid having to stare at my party's idle animation and yawn for the better part of combat. Not only does it make my party feel weak regardless of whether they really are so, it bores me to boot.

 

The game was too easy, yes, but over-nerfing is not a solution. I'm sure Baubles of the Fin wasn't breaking anybody's game; why nerf its damage boost from the already-useless 5% to 3%? Dual-wielding was already stronger than 2H because it's faster; why nerf the only item that gives bonus speed to 2H? And so on, and so forth.

 

I understand wanting a challenge, but do we really want the challenge to be due to the fact that our abilities suck? I'd rather be challenged by smart A.I., intelligent encounter design, and enemies who are strong enough to hold themselves in combat. Again, that doesn't preclude fixing abilities that can proc themselves, or stack with themselves an infinite number of times, or are just too powerful—but many nerfs in this patch target stuff that wasn't too powerful, and/or go way overboard.

Edited June 3, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[Myrtillo]

IMO -5% or -10% nerf to items across the board is a cheap solution. Sure it can be called "global balance adjustment" but it does not mean much. It just means that player damage output over time is on average lower. 

 

I disagree. It also means that you can heal more, cc more, interrupt more, reposition more, use more consumables, overall have a better chance to be able to use that critical ability at the critical moment, and these are the things that actually make the game too easy.

People only thinking in terms of damage output (or to some extent raw individual defense) is what in my opinion causes most of the comments that I read here.

But Pillars of Eternity is not a Hack n Slash where one character has to do everything, and just kills ennemies.

It lets you control a 5 members party and offers a tactical layer to the battles. 

In my opinion the nerfs are oriented towards forcing you to engage with that combat system. All I see are players complaining that their watcher will not solo steamroll PotD anymore. 

 

Fighter is a good example. They were an entirely self sufficient class, able to bring both very high survivability and very high damage output to the table without having to really think about how they play.

The way I see it, now fighters can still be very resilient, and still do decent damage, but in a more tuned manner. And because their pure damage output will probably now not be sufficient enough to be satisfactory, you need to engage with other mechanics, such as interrupts, mobility, disruption, etc.

It makes it much more fun to play in my opinion.

When a class is summed up to numbers, then game design is a failure. What matters is what you feel when you play it.

[Ciphys]

 

On which basis do you consider that the nerf to 15% was uncalled for ? Basically every effect in the game that gave better recovery was nerfed by -5% or -10%.

 

That's my problem. No recovery buffs should have been nerfed—recovery was already boringly slow enough.

 

Contrary to the first game, Deadfire makes it impossible to reach 0 recovery (unless you were cheesing Time Parasite, which I reckon no longer stacks with itself?) As though that weren't enough, average recovery time for weapons is 4s, which is way slow. I too packed recovery buffs in priority—as a way to avoid having to stare at my party's idle animation and yawn for the better part of combat. Not only does it make my party feel weak regardless of whether they really are so, it bores me to boot.

 

The game was too easy, yes, but over-nerfing is not a solution. I'm sure Baubles of the Fin wasn't breaking anybody's game; why nerf its damage boost from the already-useless 5% to 3%? Dual-wielding was already stronger than 2H because it's faster; why nerf the only item that gives bonus speed to 2H? And so on, and so forth.

 

I understand wanting a challenge, but do we really want the challenge to be due to the fact that our abilities suck? I'd rather be challenged by smart A.I., intelligent encounter design, and enemies who are strong enough to hold themselves in combat. Again, that doesn't preclude fixing abilities that can proc themselves, or stack with themselves an infinite number of times, or are just too powerful—but many nerfs in this patch target stuff that wasn't too powerful, and/or go way overboard.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. The reason recovery reduction was so valued by players was that it was a "stat" that stopped your character from feeling slow and sluggish. It acted simply as a countermeasure to the long default recovery time imposed across the board.

[Sobric]

I don't think it's the end of days mainly because the patch isn't even complete yet (I assume). I expect more changes to come after the weekend since release is still 2 - 3 weeks away. 

 

I think the reaction to the nerfs so far are a little strong from the community - toning down items across the board is not the worst idea as the game gets noticeably easier once you've found a few unique items (I mean, how many of you used Superb/Exceptional gear that wasn't unique?). I expect to see more changes to POTD/Veteran yet to come as well (for example, how about giving all enemies +1 Tier on their Inspirations/Afflictions in POTD? So enemy Rogue's using Crippling Strike Immobilize rather than Hobble you)

 

Having said that I hope that Obsidian are looking at the general tone of why people are reacting badly to these nerfs, and that is recovery time. I think they increased it in the beta, but it does feel as though it takes forever for your characters to do anything. 

[gkathellar]

I would say people are less agonized over infinite procs and OP stuff being removed, and more bummed that the beta patch takes things that were super cool (see also: Whispers of Endless Paths) and makes them lame.

[theBalthazar]

The way I see it, now fighters can still be very resilient, and still do decent damage, but in a more tuned manner. And because their pure damage output will probably now not be sufficient enough to be satisfactory, you need to engage with other mechanics, such as interrupts, mobility, disruption, etc.

 

 

Interrupt : Berserker. Mobility : Monk. Defense : Paladin.

 

Fighter is now average in all domains an lose his finish/special move.

 

I confess, Fighter is perhaps the most difficult class to balance. Because average in all. Until patch 1.1 and far before, he have two trump cards.

 

Disciplined strike : 50 hit to crit. (= 25 % more critical)

Perhaps the real error is this nerf. Because Fighter could have been a security card (even without cleave stance). With 25 %, you have only 12.5 % of critical. Not crazy, not decisive)

 

For Cleave stance. It is different. It is a feature that Berserker could have got easily with this "concept" of AoE attack. But on an optimal run, you can think to it for a front character (niche = only physical damage). Far less interresting than a wizard in end-game anyway. So nerf too much is perhaps a problem here...

 

Cleave stance was the little "+" for classical and boring mono-target. Perfect. Obsidian undo a good decision.

 

Now ? Lol, with this patch all secondary classes with a fighter (devoted) have disapear of my team ? Mystery ? With my way of playing pillars, Fighter is not useful anymore.

 

...Like he was in POE1. Yes you have vigourous defenses. Yes... But after that ? Armored grace ? I can recovery after a kill with a barbarian... On a single target this recovery don't work yes, but I do more damage, and more critical. A paladin / Berserker cover all my needs (deffensive and offensive). No, Fighter is definitely dead. He have no functions.

Edited June 3, 2018 by theBalthazar

[hilfazer]

 

On which basis do you consider that the nerf to 15% was uncalled for ? Basically every effect in the game that gave better recovery was nerfed by -5% or -10%. 

The rationale behind it is probably that our chars were acting too much compared to the opponents and it was easy to:

[...]

This is clearly a global balance adjustement, why would Swift Flurry not follow the same road with a similar effect ?

 

 

Because when game is too easy you don't want to make enemy monks slower.

[dunehunter]

 

The way I see it, now fighters can still be very resilient, and still do decent damage, but in a more tuned manner. And because their pure damage output will probably now not be sufficient enough to be satisfactory, you need to engage with other mechanics, such as interrupts, mobility, disruption, etc.

 

 

Interrupt : Berserker. Mobility : Monk. Defense : Paladin.

 

Fighter is now average in all domains an lose his finish/special move.

 

Why do u think Paladins is superior to Fighter or Monk in aspect of Defense?

 

I think you shall read this:

 

 

That shield pairs well with Casita Samelia's Legacy armor.  That armor has an (easy to get) upgrade providing Will defense that scales with health loss (up to 20 will), to make you even more invulnerable with will defense.  That armor is good anyways for a tank since it grants a +5 base deflection bonus.  Now, you could use intimidate to increase the deflection further, though it was nerfed to be 4 intimidate for 1 deflection (but if we are lucky the bugs with it were also fixed).  Because the gift-bearer cloak was also nerfed to require twice as many points, this makes using a cloak of protection an interesting alternative.  With the unique vendor blessing, you can get a cloak of protection in the first town that offers +10 to all defenses for only a few hundred coin.  With 20 history, gift-bearer now provides 15 to non-deflection defenses; only 5 more than the cloak of protection. This opens up the option of instead getting 20 intimidation for +5 additional deflection with the Casita Samelia armor.  I would rather have 5 extra deflection than 5 extra non-deflection defense.  You could also swap that cloak of protection with the cloak of greater deflection, also available for cheap by that vendor, for when you need more deflection instead of other defenses giving you more flexibility to pump up the defenses you need for a particular encounter instead of being locked in on the gift-bearer cloak because you invested so much into it.  That cloak was not nerfed and still offers +7 deflection.

 

I checked the Paladin F&C nerf.  It now tops off at 15, so a loss of 6 to all defenses.  That is enough, I think, to encourage using Monk instead of Paladin for a max defenses build.  The helwalker monk gets +10 Might and +10 Int/Con with max wounds.  This amounts to either +40 Fortitude or +20 Fortitude and Will in stats.  The flexibility is really good since some fights you will only face one or the other and can switch your defenses instantly.  Or just switch to Con after casting your buffs.  If crucible of suffering activates, you end up with a +70 passive defense increase.  In comparison, paladin has +60 total passive defense increase now.  But it goes beyond raw numbers; monk has a much more equal distribution.  Paladin/Wizard has a hard time increasing fortitude and an easy time maxing out will and reflex.  Monk can play around with starting stats more, like lowering intelligence, because the bonus INT from wounds will compensate.  Likewise, dex is less important with swift strikes.  Those points can be shifted into Might/Con for higher fortitude and duality can be switched to CON instead of INT if facing fortitude attacks that can't be reflected.  The net result is 15 lower deflection, but better overall "other" defenses, which tend to be more important since there are lots of ways to buff up deflection anyway.  I did the math and you can reach an "untouchable" level of deflection without Faith and Conviction, unless they have increased enemy accuracy by quite a bit (I haven't heard this said).

 

Monk synergies better with tanking items.  Paladin has basically all worthless abilities beyond Faith and Conviction, as far as solo super-tanking goes.  You don't want to heal, you don't need resistances, etc.  Monk can control exactly how low in health they want to be since they can inflict wounds upon themselves with an ability (Mortification of Flesh).  This allows you to maximize the benefit of the shield and armor enchantments that scale on health.  Monk/wizard, even with the nerfs, has much higher DPS than paladin/wizard can ever dream of and has an infinite supply of wounds and extra accuracy thanks to dance with death and will be reflecting lots of ranged attacks with soul mirror for extra damage.

 

Human's Fighting Spirit (+12 accuracy) combined with dance with death (+12 accuracy, if still capped) should provide enough bonus accuracy to hit enemies with illusion debuffs like blind.  Good to target at enemies you can't use your melee-only deflection boosts against to ensure you don't get hit and to help your soul mirror proc.

 

Edited June 3, 2018 by dunehunter

[knownastherat]

 

IMO -5% or -10% nerf to items across the board is a cheap solution. Sure it can be called "global balance adjustment" but it does not mean much. It just means that player damage output over time is on average lower. 

 

I disagree. It also means that you can heal more, cc more, interrupt more, reposition more, use more consumables, overall have a better chance to be able to use that critical ability at the critical moment, and these are the things that actually make the game too easy.

People only thinking in terms of damage output (or to some extent raw individual defense) is what in my opinion causes most of the comments that I read here.

But Pillars of Eternity is not a Hack n Slash where one character has to do everything, and just kills ennemies.

It lets you control a 5 members party and offers a tactical layer to the battles. 

In my opinion the nerfs are oriented towards forcing you to engage with that combat system. All I see are players complaining that their watcher will not solo steamroll PotD anymore. 

 

Fighter is a good example. They were an entirely self sufficient class, able to bring both very high survivability and very high damage output to the table without having to really think about how they play.

The way I see it, now fighters can still be very resilient, and still do decent damage, but in a more tuned manner. And because their pure damage output will probably now not be sufficient enough to be satisfactory, you need to engage with other mechanics, such as interrupts, mobility, disruption, etc.

It makes it much more fun to play in my opinion.

When a class is summed up to numbers, then game design is a failure. What matters is what you feel when you play it.

 

 

Right you are, there are other variables influenced by recovery speed, however, nerfing recovery reduction for items across the board is exactly what you seem to disapprove .. summing it up to numbers. Instead of going ability by ability, item by item, they summed it up and went for time efficient solution from their point of view.

[AeonsLegend]

Players basic reaction to nerfs:

 

"Character/champion/item X is completely unusable now. I stop playing."

 

After playing Leauge of Legends for 5 years you learn how to ignore those people and form your own opinion.

[theBalthazar]

Because of wayfarer, simply, for example.

 

There is not only bonus in all defense in the life.

 

And you must use 2 ressource points to use a thing add 20 to all defense for 15s. But you need at least stay at 10 or not too much down the INT.

 

Paladin stay with a better ratio offensive/defensive. You have aura (Excellent +1 armor and healing), almost instant exhortations... A boost of +12 for all the team after a kill, incremental armor, an armor VS actual type of weapons foe, etc etc. There are defenses yes, but also armor AND healing. And also offensive side obviously.

 

Fighter is beaten by all means now. 

 

Players basic reaction to nerfs:

 

"Character/champion/item X is completely unusable now. I stop playing."

 

 

No. You see the changes, you compare. There are legitimate nerf in this patch. Here I think Fighter is far less useful. 

 

You don't add an argument saying that... Too much superficial, too easy to say that. "yeaaah... people are... bad. always the same thing. Speak for nothing " Yeah and after please ?^^ You add nothing to the debate : p

Edited June 3, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Archaven]

 

On which basis do you consider that the nerf to 15% was uncalled for ? Basically every effect in the game that gave better recovery was nerfed by -5% or -10%.

 

That's my problem. No recovery buffs should have been nerfed—recovery was already boringly slow enough.

 

Contrary to the first game, Deadfire makes it impossible to reach 0 recovery (unless you were cheesing Time Parasite, which I reckon no longer stacks with itself?) As though that weren't enough, average recovery time for weapons is 4s, which is way slow. I too packed recovery buffs in priority—as a way to avoid having to stare at my party's idle animation and yawn for the better part of combat. Not only does it make my party feel weak regardless of whether they really are so, it bores me to boot.

 

The game was too easy, yes, but over-nerfing is not a solution. I'm sure Baubles of the Fin wasn't breaking anybody's game; why nerf its damage boost from the already-useless 5% to 3%? Dual-wielding was already stronger than 2H because it's faster; why nerf the only item that gives bonus speed to 2H? And so on, and so forth.

 

I understand wanting a challenge, but do we really want the challenge to be due to the fact that our abilities suck? I'd rather be challenged by smart A.I., intelligent encounter design, and enemies who are strong enough to hold themselves in combat. Again, that doesn't preclude fixing abilities that can proc themselves, or stack with themselves an infinite number of times, or are just too powerful—but many nerfs in this patch target stuff that wasn't too powerful, and/or go way overboard.

 

 

This is what i have been highlighting where obsidian are just plan lazy and incompetent. Make the game harder by other means like revisting encounters, adding more enemy variation, adjusting more hitpoints/defense, smarter AI instead of nerfing recovery, skill, talents, procs and interesting game mechanics. They are just scouting the forum on the builds and then nerf the hell out of it. I'm sure there are other undiscovered powerful builds where veterans are not reveling to not hit the nerf bat

Edited June 3, 2018 by Archaven

[hilfazer]

 

That's my problem. No recovery buffs should have been nerfed—recovery was already boringly slow enough.

 

 

The game is called Pillars of Eternity for a reason