The 'Changes for Balance' Thread

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

The most common negative feedback in the published reviews of the game was that it was too easy.

[Lord_Mord]

 

I mean its frustrating that the vast majority of items, spell and abilities in the game are very mediocre eg +1 this +2 that +10% that. I hardly even notice using 99% of stuff.

 

Just stack and combine a few of these items and they will work. Before the last patch they worked too well. For a while, my Aloth was equipped with Whale of a wand, the wand from a certain temple (both enchanted to the max), the illusionist mask, Arkemyrs Book, a few minor items that helped him trigger the wands abilities and his intelligence and perception boosted as far as I could. What I ended up with was that Aloth confused, charmed, dazed and whatever absolutely everyone, no matter their will defenses. If you are in a boss fight and the big monsters side with you or just stumble around for the whole duration of the fight, the fun is gone.

 

 

Namely the Guardian of Ukaizo fight. Those two big guys did the whole work for me. I replayed that fight with Aloth as a melee mage using a rapier, just because it was more fun. And there you have it again: A few cleverly chosen passives and some item changes and Aloth can be an illusionist or a roguish melee monster in the same playthrough.

 

 

Those items needed to be tuned down.

[C.H.A.R.L.I.E]

It's clear when the game plays itself with party AI on POTD something is wrong. 

[Katarack21]

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass. For me, the difficulty of Deadfire on Classic was exactly right; I was challenged in various fights, but was able to feel like my character was powerful and gaining power, as well. Part of the problem is that some people want every single fight to be a difficult, challenging, painful encounter where you have to plan and use tactics and work out what your doing; for these people challenge and difficulty are the primary generators of fun. For me, that makes me feel like my character isn't advancing, doesn't become more than he was; I *want* my character to become so much stronger and more powerful that by the end of the game I'm face-stomping most enemies. For me, that makes me *feel* like I've become, over time, one of the most powerful people in the game-world. Plus, I'm easily frustrated; when I have to replay this Ogre encounter seven times, I don't feel like I'm having fun figuring out the puzzle of this combat; I just want to throw my keyboard and scream "****" over and over.

[Manveru123]

Modding is a nice option, but it is not a substitute for game design and balance. Fans shouldn’t spend their time fixing game they bought. It happens, but it’s not a proper solution.

When the game is completely overhauled, it is no longer the same. I was actually happy with what I bought, tyvm.

 

 

I agree with Lord Mord. I tend to dislike people who can't consider anything but their own viewpoint. People who think that the whole world can only work in one way, the very one they see for themselves. These people tend to have a lot of opinions, and give you tons of advices on how to live your life that can only apply to themselves, but completely fail to understand this. When you fail to understand that the way you feel and experiment life and things (even in this case, games) can only be true for you, you become narrow minded and engage on the road of pointless proselytism, forgetting that you should just defend your point of view, try to weigh on things, while never discarding right off the blue the one of others, just because you can't see anywhere further that your own nose.

It's funny because this is exactly what you're doing in your own post, while all I want is to not have to play a completely overhauled game every couple of months. I'm fine with how you want to play, but why would I be okay if it affects my game too?

 

The most common negative feedback in the published reviews of the game was that it was too easy.

More enemies, stronger enemies, smarter enemies, better AI, there are so many ways to improve difficulty without messing up the player's character itself.. 

 

 

Why even thinking to discard the problem while arguing that modders can do the job, when the very mechanic designer himself is willing to do it for us? I can't grasp your point.

Imagine you're drinking Pepsi. You feel it's fine but it could be better. Now what would you prefer: going to the store, trying other drinks, figuring out if maybe another drink would be better for you, or having someone tell you "hey this is better drink it" and then chugging it down your throat?

[Mannock]

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass.

Well, there's also a third group, like me, who are more or less indifferent. For me the story, the companions and the side quests are always more interesting than combat itself. And since the different easy settings caters to people like me, we have little interest in PotD difficulty.

 

But I do think combat is a valid part of the genre and those who enjoy combat challenge should certainly be catered to, even though I personally could care less about it.

[Lord_Mord]

 

It's funny because this is exactly what you're doing in your own post, while all I want is to not have to play a completely overhauled game every couple of months. I'm fine with how you want to play, but why would I be okay if it affects my game too?

 

Because the ones that created it, think it needs improvement. Certainly not because a handful of idiots in a forum demanded it.

 

 

 

More enemies, stronger enemies, smarter enemies, better AI, there are so many ways to improve difficulty without messing up the player's character itself..

 

This is not a solution for the aforementioned problems. But I'll let you figure out yourself why. You need the training.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Lord_Mord

[kanisatha]

This game definitely needed some rebalancing coming out of the gate. But it ought to have happened before the game's release because I agree it can be frustrating for players to have to restart their game with each new patch.

 

However, the OP's point about "minority opinions" is absolutely true. Posters on these forums do tend to see themselves as representing the majority of the people playing these games even though the active posters on these forums in reality represent only a tiny fraction of the overall player base. This is why, in spite of all the whining about this, I am happy that Sawyer gets his feedback from a range of other places besides these forums.

[Zoso der Goldene]

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass. For me, the difficulty of Deadfire on Classic was exactly right; I was challenged in various fights, but was able to feel like my character was powerful and gaining power, as well. Part of the problem is that some people want every single fight to be a difficult, challenging, painful encounter where you have to plan and use tactics and work out what your doing; for these people challenge and difficulty are the primary generators of fun. For me, that makes me feel like my character isn't advancing, doesn't become more than he was; I *want* my character to become so much stronger and more powerful that by the end of the game I'm face-stomping most enemies. For me, that makes me *feel* like I've become, over time, one of the most powerful people in the game-world. Plus, I'm easily frustrated; when I have to replay this Ogre encounter seven times, I don't feel like I'm having fun figuring out the puzzle of this combat; I just want to throw my keyboard and scream "****" over and over.

I agree that on Classic, it should be exactly like this.

On PotD, it should be a challenge. Leveling up to me feels more rewarding the more challenging it was to get there.

On TCS, it should be near-to impossible. I never felt as engaged in a game as when doing the Ultimate in PoE.

 

But I see how these goals might be mutually exclusive, to some degree.

[kanisatha]

 

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass.

Well, there's also a third group, like me, who are more or less indifferent. For me the story, the companions and the side quests are always more interesting than combat itself. And since the different easy settings caters to people like me, we have little interest in PotD difficulty.

This exactly. I've played PoE many times (though finished it only once). And every time I replay it I only play at the easy or story mode. The story, the side quests, the companions, and my own character's development are all that I care about, and I generally hate the combat situations.

[Lord_Mord]

 

However, the OP's point about "minority opinions" is absolutely true. Posters on these forums do tend to see themselves as representing the majority of the people playing these games even though the active posters on these forums in reality represent only a tiny fraction of the overall player base. This is why, in spite of all the whining about this, I am happy that Sawyer gets his feedback from a range of other places besides these forums.

 

Josh Sawyer ignores this forum for a while now. Nobody here sees themselves as representing a majority. Most users here just see the reasoning behind those fixes. Please stop claiming things like "The majority thinks this or that", "People on this forum think this or that". You do exactly the thing you're complaining about.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Lord_Mord

[Katarack21]

 

 

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass.

Well, there's also a third group, like me, who are more or less indifferent. For me the story, the companions and the side quests are always more interesting than combat itself. And since the different easy settings caters to people like me, we have little interest in PotD difficulty.

This exactly. I've played PoE many times (though finished it only once). And every time I replay it I only play at the easy or story mode. The story, the side quests, the companions, and my own character's development are all that I care about, and I generally hate the combat situations.

 

That's a legitimate way to play the game, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion about how to tune combat, IMHO. People who are focused on story and character and don't care about combat don't really have a stake in the discussion; easy and story mode are there specifically to cater to that group. When the rest of us are discussing how and in what way the game should be balanced, saying "I don't care about combat" doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

[Wormerine]

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass. For me, the difficulty of Deadfire on Classic was exactly right; I was challenged in various fights, but was able to feel like my character was powerful and gaining power, as well. Part of the problem is that some people want every single fight to be a difficult, challenging, painful encounter where you have to plan and use tactics and work out what your doing; for these people challenge and difficulty are the primary generators of fun. For me, that makes me feel like my character isn't advancing, doesn't become more than he was; I *want* my character to become so much stronger and more powerful that by the end of the game I'm face-stomping most enemies. For me, that makes me *feel* like I've become, over time, one of the most powerful people in the game-world. Plus, I'm easily frustrated; when I have to replay this Ogre encounter seven times, I don't feel like I'm having fun figuring out the puzzle of this combat; I just want to throw my keyboard and scream "****" over and over.

I dont want to be able to kill a dragon with an autoattack. A classic, "default" difficulty of the game should engage players with its full range of mechanics - I don't think it should be too punishable, but on classic difficulty players should think about inspirations, interrupts, armor etc. Playing on veteran the only think I was looking at was: what is the lowest defence and armor of an enemy I am attacking. I engaged with 1/3 of combat mechanics. That's bad, really really bad. That's what relaxed should be: I am not really thinking about what I am doing, and I occasionally feel resistance. I rarely healed as enemies weren't capable of doing decent damage, I allowed half of my team to run on auto. I killed some of the most powerful enemies by allowing AI, with disabled scripts to just autoattack.

 

Yes, PotD should be really hard - that is what it is there for. I expect veteran to keep me on my toes, while giving space for mistakes. Classic should be engaging while not difficult enough for players to get stuck. Difficuly in 1.0 was simply way way way too low, allowing players to ignore majority of game mechanics. 

[gGeorg]

So for some reason people around here feel that a purely single player game with NO competitive part requires constant rebalancing. My question is: WHY?

Improving and balancing game is Obsidian advantage. Other company might release and forget, which is the style you prefer. Then you could choose some money snatch project, there are  plenty on the Steam.

When you feel the difficulty rises up over your character build, then you can lower it by yourself. You could still feel that power of unstoppable of rolling at first level of difficulty. Feel free to have fun.

[Manveru123]

 

So for some reason people around here feel that a purely single player game with NO competitive part requires constant rebalancing. My question is: WHY?

Improving and balancing game is Obsidian advantage. Other company might release and forget, which is the style you prefer. Then you could choose some money snatch project, there are  plenty on the Steam.

When you feel the difficulty rises up over your character build, then you can lower it by yourself. You could still feel that power of unstoppable of rolling at first level of difficulty. Feel free to have fun.

 

Everyone does balance. It's HOW, not IF. Check out Larian. They do balance with a sword. Obsidian uses nuclear weapons.

[AeonsLegend]

Can minorities please stop claiming they where the majority? It is really annoying.

 

I don't think people who want to have fun while playing PotD-difficulty are a minority. And people who don't want their character to be able to eliminate whole encounter groups with a single blow aren't either.

I don't want to get involved in this topic, but claiming PotD players aren't a minority... lol. Sure, each and every player wants to play on the highest difficulty setting. Which planet were you from again?

[E.RedMark]

 

 

 

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass.

Well, there's also a third group, like me, who are more or less indifferent. For me the story, the companions and the side quests are always more interesting than combat itself. And since the different easy settings caters to people like me, we have little interest in PotD difficulty.

This exactly. I've played PoE many times (though finished it only once). And every time I replay it I only play at the easy or story mode. The story, the side quests, the companions, and my own character's development are all that I care about, and I generally hate the combat situations.

 

That's a legitimate way to play the game, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion about how to tune combat, IMHO. People who are focused on story and character and don't care about combat don't really have a stake in the discussion; easy and story mode are there specifically to cater to that group. When the rest of us are discussing how and in what way the game should be balanced, saying "I don't care about combat" doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

 

that's not...completely true . 

 

I give you an exemple : I play an MMO , so I'm a PVE Player . I play for the story . Homewhever , I still enjoy my character zapping abilitie (Sorc) . Here come the PVP player , who whine that Sorc heal and zapping is too OP! Nerf it ! 

 

Bioware nerf it . Guess what ? I feel it too . Now my kick ass abilitie is downgraded . 

 

PVP player will say : Why do you care ? You only here for the story !

 

I still enjoy my class , thank you very much . I still use Summon and spell . Maybe I don't track the number like a hard core player and use a calculator . But I still can freaking feel it when my summon won't last long as before , or when my spell doesn't hit that hard still . 

 

The difference is I won't go rage in the PVP Thread and tell them to cut it out . But they never come and ask if it's ok for the rest of us either . 

 

So personally , I understand the need of 'Balancing' . I can't really say if this class or that spell is weak or overpowered . I just ask , plz don't nerf stuff for no good reasons or for Power Trip or cose you don't like the class ..so it has to get grinded to dust . That's all . 

[Amentep]

I admit one of the things that dismayed me about PoE1 was having played through with a character to completion right after the game launched and then coming back to play both expansions after they were released and patched to find how different the character I'd created felt.

 

Partially this is due to the fact that I restart a lot while trying to find a character I like; to pick up the game months down the line and have the character be changed because of various balance fixes was frustrating and indeed triggered me to restart the game multiple times again.  I still haven't completed the White March material, as a result (and consequently, I probably won't play Deadfire until everything has been released for it).

[evilcat]

1000 chaps is statistically representive sample.

PotD players could be desrived as "dedicated & recuring" so they will probably buy DLC or support future games.

Even if you played Devoted/Monk (probably the hardest nerfs) it is still viable combo.

It is important to have all difficulty levels from story mode to unfair mode, to cover different player groups.

Natural players probably havent read patch notes and will just figure new things out in the fly.

 

I think there is a bigger problem, that we have pleanty of cool named talents, which are not very good unless you are going full flavour.

Edited June 12, 2018 by evilcat

[Katarack21]

 

 

 

 

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass.

Well, there's also a third group, like me, who are more or less indifferent. For me the story, the companions and the side quests are always more interesting than combat itself. And since the different easy settings caters to people like me, we have little interest in PotD difficulty.

This exactly. I've played PoE many times (though finished it only once). And every time I replay it I only play at the easy or story mode. The story, the side quests, the companions, and my own character's development are all that I care about, and I generally hate the combat situations.

 

That's a legitimate way to play the game, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion about how to tune combat, IMHO. People who are focused on story and character and don't care about combat don't really have a stake in the discussion; easy and story mode are there specifically to cater to that group. When the rest of us are discussing how and in what way the game should be balanced, saying "I don't care about combat" doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

 

that's not...completely true . 

 

I give you an exemple : I play an MMO , so I'm a PVE Player . I play for the story . Homewhever , I still enjoy my character zapping abilitie (Sorc) . Here come the PVP player , who whine that Sorc heal and zapping is too OP! Nerf it ! 

 

Bioware nerf it . Guess what ? I feel it too . Now my kick ass abilitie is downgraded . 

 

PVP player will say : Why do you care ? You only here for the story !

 

I still enjoy my class , thank you very much . I still use Summon and spell . Maybe I don't track the number like a hard core player and use a calculator . But I still can freaking feel it when my summon won't last long as before , or when my spell doesn't hit that hard still . 

 

The difference is I won't go rage in the PVP Thread and tell them to cut it out . But they never come and ask if it's ok for the rest of us either . 

 

So personally , I understand the need of 'Balancing' . I can't really say if this class or that spell is weak or overpowered . I just ask , plz don't nerf stuff for no good reasons or for Power Trip or cose you don't like the class ..so it has to get grinded to dust . That's all . 

 

Okay, that's legit, but that's a discussion about MMO's. In MMO's, balancing occurs for entirely different reasons and in entirely different ways. It's implicit in your example; PVP vs PVE is a debate that only and exclusively exists in MMO's; it's not really analogous to the difficulty and balance debates that occur about *single-player* games. I can't really see how a story-focused person in a single-player game really is effected by the difficulty curve, balancing, and combat tuning debates. That is, provided a certain baseline of class and character viability, I don't see how somebody in a single-player game whose major (or sole) focus on gameplay is narrative and character based is really concerned with how strong each class or ability is relative to each other or to combat enemies.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Katarack21

[KDubya]

The game at release was broken, entirely too easy on PotD with some abiliities way over tuned. Now PotD is challenging, builds are better balanced and there are actual choices to make regarding what to pick and use for abilities.

 

If you still want that feeling of 'god mode Gandolph' just drop the difficulty, no one will know  

[Katarack21]

The game at release was broken

 

[Lord_Mord]

 

I don't want to get involved in this topic, but claiming PotD players aren't a minority... lol.

 

 I already answered that.

[KDubya]

 

The game at release was broken

 

 

 

What do you call 'level scaling' not working at all?

 

Or how about a Fighter's 'Charge' ability coupled with a Chanter's ' have free unlimited class resources' invocation?

 

The game was entirely playable and I finished it and enjoyed myself but that doesn't mean that the balance was not broken and needed to be fixed as it now has been.

[E.RedMark]

 

 

 

 

 

In the end this comes down to a debate about what's more fun; challenge and difficulty or face-stomping and feeling like a badass.

Well, there's also a third group, like me, who are more or less indifferent. For me the story, the companions and the side quests are always more interesting than combat itself. And since the different easy settings caters to people like me, we have little interest in PotD difficulty.

This exactly. I've played PoE many times (though finished it only once). And every time I replay it I only play at the easy or story mode. The story, the side quests, the companions, and my own character's development are all that I care about, and I generally hate the combat situations.

 

That's a legitimate way to play the game, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion about how to tune combat, IMHO. People who are focused on story and character and don't care about combat don't really have a stake in the discussion; easy and story mode are there specifically to cater to that group. When the rest of us are discussing how and in what way the game should be balanced, saying "I don't care about combat" doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

 

that's not...completely true . 

 

I give you an exemple : I play an MMO , so I'm a PVE Player . I play for the story . Homewhever , I still enjoy my character zapping abilitie (Sorc) . Here come the PVP player , who whine that Sorc heal and zapping is too OP! Nerf it ! 

 

Bioware nerf it . Guess what ? I feel it too . Now my kick ass abilitie is downgraded . 

 

PVP player will say : Why do you care ? You only here for the story !

 

I still enjoy my class , thank you very much . I still use Summon and spell . Maybe I don't track the number like a hard core player and use a calculator . But I still can freaking feel it when my summon won't last long as before , or when my spell doesn't hit that hard still . 

 

The difference is I won't go rage in the PVP Thread and tell them to cut it out . But they never come and ask if it's ok for the rest of us either . 

 

So personally , I understand the need of 'Balancing' . I can't really say if this class or that spell is weak or overpowered . I just ask , plz don't nerf stuff for no good reasons or for Power Trip or cose you don't like the class ..so it has to get grinded to dust . That's all . 

 

Okay, that's legit, but that's a discussion about MMO's. In MMO's, balancing occurs for entirely different reasons and in entirely different ways. It's implicit in your example; PVP vs PVE is a debate that only and exclusively exists in MMO's; it's not really analogous to the difficulty and balance debates that occur about *single-player* games. I can't really see how a story-focused person in a single-player game really is effected by the difficulty curve, balancing, and combat tuning debates. That is, provided a certain baseline of class and character viability, I don't see how somebody in a single-player game whose major (or sole) focus on gameplay is narrative and character based is really concerned with how strong each class or ability is relative to each other or to combat enemies.

 

my comparaison is based (at least in my exemple of Swtor) that if you nerf stuff in PVP , it will effect PVE players (and vice versa) . And not all PVE players are there for story . 

 

Just because one buy the game cose of the story , it doesn't mean they are totally blind to the rest of the game . 

 

I love a good game , sure the story is my focus . But Once I ge that out of my system , I be playing the game and enjoying kicking ass . Sure , I won't play Ironman , but I will up the difficulty evantually (Till Insanity) if only for the Lolz and see how many time I will die . 

 

 

I don't see how somebody in a single-player game whose major (or sole) focus on gameplay is narrative and character based is really concerned with how strong each class or ability is relative to each other or to combat enemies.

 

No you are right . I..and I will speak for myself only , I will not be concerned how strong each class is (since I can't say if x class is strong or not , or if x spell is weak ) . Homewhever , Nerf while they touch the +1 +2 dmg stuff and such , they will also touch stuff like 'How many times you can cast this ' and 'How long this buff last ' and how 'this summon last ' . Those like it or not will happen eventually . And those , one cannot be blind and see it . 

 

Will it be a great concern for me enough to say 'Argh , they nerf it so bad..I want a refund ' ? No . But enough for me to see it . 

 

The real issue is assuming that everyone who play for story...wouldn't care . They do . Just like assuming that anyone who play on the Hardest difficulty actually know how to tweak a class proprely . Some peoples maybe able to beat Ironman , doesn't mean they know the 'proper' balance to fix something that annoy them . What MAY annoy them , may just be for THEM . I've seen it many time in PVP where 'PVP Players' ask for a tweak here and there just to be shot down by peoples who know better . 

 

Hence why I'm not demanding , but pleading . For those who know this stuff better then me , to becareful with asking to nerf and balance . 

 

That's really all I,m asking . 

 

P.S: And the worry come from the fact , that none has a badge of expertise anywhere . None can claim 'Hey! I'm a Pro at balancing class!' . Each go with their long experience of playings and such . And everyone wanna add their 'experience' which often will lead to this kind of debate . Right or wrong , just keep everyone in mind . Cose everyone play the game .