The 'Changes for Balance' Thread

[theBalthazar]

Immunity to engagement is totally useless 95 % of the game, frankly.

 

Perhaps at the begining yes... but this spell arrive far later the beginning...

 

______________________

 

Solution 1 : Add an external boost (like Monk)

 

Was 50 %. Too much for pillars 2 it is obvious.

 

/2 = Target of 25 %

 

Result : 

 

Inspiration 3 + 10 % external recovery speed = 25 % (our target) = balanced.

 

______________________

 

Solution 2 : Change inspiration 3 of dexterity

 

Dexterity +5

20 % Crit to hit

Immunity to engagement

-10 % of recovery speed.

Edited June 18, 2018 by theBalthazar

[dunehunter]

A lot enemy has no engagement slot in the game now, even they have, there is a bug where disengagement attack is not triggered. Thus immune to engagement is almost useless.

[ThacoBell]

Who cares about casual gamers? They didn't ask for this game and didn't back it, and most of them never bought it. Whoever did, probably never even finished it.

 

Why should main audience that backed it get an unfinished game on release that is not for them? We're not Obsidian's personal money lenders.

You have some date to back up your entitlement? Crap like this is why I can't take players whining about difficulty seriously.

[Tigranes]

You realise you were the one going on and on about how this game is for people who like story and is not for people who like hardcore combat? You're not any better than him.

 

It's not entitlement to state that POE is a niche franchise that was pitched at old school CRPG players & funded by them. We don't "deserve" anything, we're simply the target audience.

 

Where there is room for debate is what exactly that niche is. I would agree that plenty of people who backed/bought POE & enjoy older CRPGs also turn out to enjoy relaxed difficulty in all areas, from resting to combat to XP to gold. So personally I'm fine with resources being invested in things like story mode or companion romances, even if they are not for me. That doesn't mean I can't suggest ways to make the game more difficult, and be disappointed when it doesn't turn out (which is different than slamming my face on the forums and whining).

[Loren Tyr]

It's not entitlement to state that POE is a niche franchise that was pitched at old school CRPG players & funded by them. We don't "deserve" anything, we're simply the target audience.

 

Says who? That may certainly be part of the target audience, but while coasting on nostalgia has certainly been quite lucrative in a number of different markets (both gaming and other media), I would expect that Obsidian is very much trying to appeal to other audiences as well. Niches being inherently small and all that.

 

Besides, as you already noted yourself, the old school cRPG players are hardly a homogeneous group. So even if that were the entirety of the audience Obsidian is aiming for, how best to cater to that audience would still be a rather open question. How many of that group would care much about a more difficult PotD, for example? Not sure we have much data on that, as it stands. 

[Shadenuat]

personally I'm fine with resources being invested in things like story mode or companion romances

Ima gonna tell EVERYONE

 

it's not entitlement to state that POE is a niche franchise that was pitched at old school CRPG players & funded by them. We don't "deserve" anything, we're simply the target audience.

The fact that Tigranes even has to make that point is very funny. We went a long way from a game for sleeping IE fans & killing beetles to "well Obsidian has to eat eh".

Edited June 18, 2018 by Shadenuat

[Mirandel]

I see only one problem here - bad timing.

 

Many people do not like changes mid-anything. cRPGs are based on two things - mechanic and story. There are people who would like to skip the story and explore all aspects of game-mechanic and the opposite, who care only about the story. But whether  a player is one of the extreme or something in between, changes of the core pillars of the game in the middle of a PT aggravate people to no end. If perfectionists in Obsidian would suddenly decide to "balance" dialogs and parts of the main plot - I, personally, would quit with several rage posts on every open media out there. Therefor reaction of people who suddenly lost a cool ability they based their gameplay on, looks very natural and understandable to me.

 

HOWEVER, there is a perfect place and time to introduce your beloved changes to the game - DLCs. Not patches, but specifically an additional campaign. It's easy to headcanon changes, it can be avoided (install/uninstall), it can even justify all the changes. Why not wait until then? And - no - "not installing patch" is not an option because of bugfix and QoL changes.

 

I really wish Obsidian would wait with re-balancing until first DLC (which is already on the go anyway).

Edited June 18, 2018 by Mirandel

[ThacoBell]

You realise you were the one going on and on about how this game is for people who like story and is not for people who like hardcore combat? You're not any better than him.

 

It's not entitlement to state that POE is a niche franchise that was pitched at old school CRPG players & funded by them. We don't "deserve" anything, we're simply the target audience.

 

Where there is room for debate is what exactly that niche is. I would agree that plenty of people who backed/bought POE & enjoy older CRPGs also turn out to enjoy relaxed difficulty in all areas, from resting to combat to XP to gold. So personally I'm fine with resources being invested in things like story mode or companion romances, even if they are not for me. That doesn't mean I can't suggest ways to make the game more difficult, and be disappointed when it doesn't turn out (which is different than slamming my face on the forums and whining).

No I didn't. I said combat wasn't the SOLE focus of the game, as many people in the difficulty requests thread were saying. Combat is a big part, but its not the only focus. Heck, I'd put money down that Obsidian wrote the story before sussing out the combat mechanics if I had any. Claiming that I said combat was never a part of the game is disingenuous at best.

[Loren Tyr]

HOWEVER, there is a perfect place and time to introduce your beloved changes to the game - DLCs. Not patches, but specifically an additional campaign. It's easy to headcanon changes, it can be avoided (install/uninstall), it can even justify all the changes. Why not wait until then? And - no - "not installing patch" is not an option because of bugfix and QoL changes.

 

I really wish Obsidian would wait with re-balancing until first DLC (which is already on the go anyway).

 

I agree in part, but the other side of that is that plenty of people at least on this forum were also complaining that post-launch the game was far too easy. Of course, how representative that is of the game's audience in general is hard to say, but if the game is indeed considered too easy by too many players then that's going to be damaging to the game as well. They'll probably not stick around to buy the DLC, for one. Now of course, ideally balance and difficulty would have been better at launch. But given that they weren't, there is much to be said for fixing it sooner rather than later. After all, a major rebalance with the DLC is still going to potentially disrupt people's existing builds and characters, and at a moment as well when they'll probably really want to be using them for the new content. 

[ThacoBell]

I find it hilarious that after the difficulty patch, the front page for this forum has consistently been threads with the title, "Why was x nerfed" or "X isnow useless".

[JerekKruger]

I find it hilarious that after the difficulty patch, the front page for this forum has consistently been threads with the title, "Why was x nerfed" or "X isnow useless".

It's not necessarily the same people who were complaining about the game being too easy who are complaining about certain abilities being nerfed. Moreover there were plenty of things that were nerfed in the difficulty patch which really didn't need to be (a bunch of items that no one had ever complained about were suddenly nerfed seemingly at random). It's quite possible to both think the game is too easy and not want random abilities to be nerfed.

Edited June 19, 2018 by JerekKruger

[Archaven]

I find it hilarious that after the difficulty patch, the front page for this forum has consistently been threads with the title, "Why was x nerfed" or "X isnow useless".

 

The proper balance changes after difficulty patch should have been "now the game is really hard, how do i beat this encounter?" and shouldn't been "this nerf break my build".

[Zoso der Goldene]

 

I find it hilarious that after the difficulty patch, the front page for this forum has consistently been threads with the title, "Why was x nerfed" or "X isnow useless".

It's not necessarily the same people who were complaining about the game being too easy who are complaining about certain abilities being nerfed. Moreover there were plenty of things that were nerfed in the difficulty patch which really didn't need to be (a bunch of items that no one had ever complained about were suddenly nerfed seemingly at random). It's quite possible to both think the game is too easy and not want random abilities to be nerfed.

 

I agree that a few nerfs seem to be pretty random, but I think it's a misconception that the nerfs are intended to increase difficulty.

There was both difficulty tuning (encounters, enemy stats) in Veteran and Path of the Damned AND overall balance changes, mostly nerfs (some things were actually improved, like some AoE going from AoE to Foe AoE).

Of course, nerfs are important to arrive at a consistent power level across the board if you want to tune difficulty, and that aspect is far more important than any change to difficulty as nerfs also affect enemies, so there Backstab is now less powerful as well.

[Abel]

HOWEVER, there is a perfect place and time to introduce your beloved changes to the game - DLCs. Not patches, but specifically an additional campaign. It's easy to headcanon changes, it can be avoided (install/uninstall), it can even justify all the changes. Why not wait until then? And - no - "not installing patch" is not an option because of bugfix and QoL changes.

 

I really wish Obsidian would wait with re-balancing until first DLC (which is already on the go anyway).

 

 

What you said makes perfect sense. I would only disagree on this. I believe balance is about fine tuning things. You will change something, look at how it fares for some time, change something else, and go back later to the first one to change it again. I believe balancing such a complex game is not about bringing one, definite solution in a DLC, but more about iterations. That's why it took quite some time to make Pillars 1 better.

 

As a side note, i still fail to understand why people are discussing about PoTD like this. I can't see the point. Unless people assume (once again) that the class/abilities balance changes are only about increasing PotD difficulty. Which would be getting the wrong idea, probably. Obs takes into account the necessary balancing process while reworking PoTD, but they are not doing it BECAUSE of PotD. They probably aim to balance classes in any difficulty level to begin with, PotD or not. I'm pretty sure of that. Why are people complaining that PoTD gets more difficult anyway, granted class/abilties balance has nothing to do with it? The only reason i could see for this is that there are some people here who can't stand not being able to faceroll everything in the highest difficulty mode. If it's not the case, please, consider that the balance changes you are complaining about probably have nothing to do with the increase in difficulty for PotD, and pick another game difficulty to get the appropriate level of challenge for you. And if you can't stand having your character build modified by patches. probably just wait some time until things start to settle balance-wise. In short, please, stop complaining about PoTD when the problems you seem to experience have seemingly nothing to do with it.

 

Besides, i never played PotD (sticking to hard), but i very much understand people who don't want PotD to turn into "Let's go pick Mushrooms in the Forest" difficulty...

Edited June 19, 2018 by Abel

[Mirandel]

 

HOWEVER, there is a perfect place and time to introduce your beloved changes to the game - DLCs. Not patches, but specifically an additional campaign. It's easy to headcanon changes, it can be avoided (install/uninstall), it can even justify all the changes. Why not wait until then? And - no - "not installing patch" is not an option because of bugfix and QoL changes.

 

I really wish Obsidian would wait with re-balancing until first DLC (which is already on the go anyway).

 

 

What you said makes perfect sense. I would only disagree on this. I believe balance is about fine tuning things. You will change something, look at how it fares for some time, change something else, and go back later to the first one to change it again. I believe balancing such a complex game is not about bringing one, definite solution in a DLC, but more about iterations. That's why it took quite some time to make Pillars 1 better.

 

As a side note, i still fail to understand why people are discussing about PoTD like this. I can't see the point. Unless people assume (once again) that the class/abilities balance changes are only about increasing PotD difficulty. Which would be getting the wrong idea, probably. Obs takes into account the necessary balancing process while reworking PoTD, but they are not doing it BECAUSE of PotD. They probably aim to balance classes in any difficulty level to begin with, PotD or not. I'm pretty sure of that. Why are people complaining that PoTD gets more difficult anyway, granted class/abilties balance has nothing to do with it? The only reason i could see for this is that there are some people here who can't stand not being able to faceroll everything in the highest difficulty mode. If it's not the case, please, consider that the balance changes you are complaining about probably have nothing to do with the increase in difficulty for PotD, and pick another game difficulty to get the appropriate level of challenge for you. And if you can't stand having your character build modified by patches. probably just wait some time until things start to settle balance-wise. In short, please, stop complaining about PoTD when the problems you seem to experience have seemingly nothing to do with it.

 

Besides, i never played PotD (sticking to hard), but i very much understand people who don't want PotD to turn into "Let's go pick Mushrooms in the Forest" difficulty...

 

 

And I would even agree, accept fine tuning is truly "fine" only during betas. This is exactly what betas are for. Everything that passed beta-test (except obvious bugs) - should stay until huge events like DLCs, because people already bought it the way it was sold and many of those who pay knew exactly what they were buying. You change it mid-use - you change something that was already payed for and considered property of the gamer (not by law, probably, but psychologically).

Worse than that - most of the changes were nerfs. Something was taken away from the customers who payed for some fun, were having that payed-for fun - and suddenly lost it. And all because developers can not stop fine-tuning released product!

 

Difficulty is a questionable thing. For me "Classic" is challenging enough to enjoy mechanics too. For others - PotD is laughable. When they say "G, lower the difficulty" I can say the same - "G, increase your difficulty yourself - take the most gimped class and repeat your PotD. If it's not enough, try to play blindfolded or bind your hands behind your back, ffs!". And emotions aside, there was already mentioned at least one modern game (DOS-2) with no balance at all from the start, yet, game was a smashing success. "Balance" is not the reason people buy any game - cool mechanics and interesting stories are.

 

If balance still so much important for Obsidian - fine, but released product is not their own playground anymore, yet they could play and tune DLCs all the way they want, then suggest it to players saying "you thought core game was easy, now try that!". That way those who left for lack of challenge will be lured back, yet, those who enjoy things as they are still can play the way they want. Everybody is happy!

[Manveru123]

I don't think anyone complained that PotD is now too hard. Well, maybe the first island for some, I dunno. PotD difficulty was not even the topic of discussion, well not before we got two threads about completely different stuff ninja merged. The point was that these nerfs (not balance changes to PotD, direct nerfs to classes) made some characters bad or at the very least not enjoyable, in the middle of a playthrough. I really wouldn't care that my game suddenly got super hard because the enemies were buffed to Hel and beyond. I would feel less powerful, but because enemies are stronger, not because my character is suddenly weaker! And that would be fine.

 

I literally resolved my own problems. I restarted with a completely different character, by level 10+ I already blow **** up as hard as I did previously. If enemies get stronger again, it will mean that fights take longer and that's it. Not a big problem, I've spent 70 hours on this game and will probably double this before I get bored. But if I get forced to restart because of character nerfs again, I'm just going to drop the game and buy the DLC in 2 years or so in a -75% bundle just to check them out.

 

 

 

HOWEVER, there is a perfect place and time to introduce your beloved changes to the game - DLCs. Not patches, but specifically an additional campaign. It's easy to headcanon changes, it can be avoided (install/uninstall), it can even justify all the changes. Why not wait until then? And - no - "not installing patch" is not an option because of bugfix and QoL changes.

 

 

This guy gets it.

[Zoso der Goldene]

 

 

HOWEVER, there is a perfect place and time to introduce your beloved changes to the game - DLCs. Not patches, but specifically an additional campaign. It's easy to headcanon changes, it can be avoided (install/uninstall), it can even justify all the changes. Why not wait until then? And - no - "not installing patch" is not an option because of bugfix and QoL changes.

 

I really wish Obsidian would wait with re-balancing until first DLC (which is already on the go anyway).

 

 

What you said makes perfect sense. I would only disagree on this. I believe balance is about fine tuning things. You will change something, look at how it fares for some time, change something else, and go back later to the first one to change it again. I believe balancing such a complex game is not about bringing one, definite solution in a DLC, but more about iterations. That's why it took quite some time to make Pillars 1 better.

 

As a side note, i still fail to understand why people are discussing about PoTD like this. I can't see the point. Unless people assume (once again) that the class/abilities balance changes are only about increasing PotD difficulty. Which would be getting the wrong idea, probably. Obs takes into account the necessary balancing process while reworking PoTD, but they are not doing it BECAUSE of PotD. They probably aim to balance classes in any difficulty level to begin with, PotD or not. I'm pretty sure of that. Why are people complaining that PoTD gets more difficult anyway, granted class/abilties balance has nothing to do with it? The only reason i could see for this is that there are some people here who can't stand not being able to faceroll everything in the highest difficulty mode. If it's not the case, please, consider that the balance changes you are complaining about probably have nothing to do with the increase in difficulty for PotD, and pick another game difficulty to get the appropriate level of challenge for you. And if you can't stand having your character build modified by patches. probably just wait some time until things start to settle balance-wise. In short, please, stop complaining about PoTD when the problems you seem to experience have seemingly nothing to do with it.

 

Besides, i never played PotD (sticking to hard), but i very much understand people who don't want PotD to turn into "Let's go pick Mushrooms in the Forest" difficulty...

 

 

And I would even agree, accept fine tuning is truly "fine" only during betas. This is exactly what betas are for. Everything that passed beta-test (except obvious bugs) - should stay until huge events like DLCs, because people already bought it the way it was sold and many of those who pay knew exactly what they were buying. You change it mid-use - you change something that was already payed for and considered property of the gamer (not by law, probably, but psychologically).

Worse than that - most of the changes were nerfs. Something was taken away from the customers who payed for some fun, were having that payed-for fun - and suddenly lost it. And all because developers can not stop fine-tuning released product!

 

Difficulty is a questionable thing. For me "Classic" is challenging enough to enjoy mechanics too. For others - PotD is laughable. When they say "G, lower the difficulty" I can say the same - "G, increase your difficulty yourself - take the most gimped class and repeat your PotD. If it's not enough, try to play blindfolded or bind your hands behind your back, ffs!". And emotions aside, there was already mentioned at least one modern game (DOS-2) with no balance at all from the start, yet, game was a smashing success. "Balance" is not the reason people buy any game - cool mechanics and interesting stories are.

 

If balance still so much important for Obsidian - fine, but released product is not their own playground anymore, yet they could play and tune DLCs all the way they want, then suggest it to players saying "you thought core game was easy, now try that!". That way those who left for lack of challenge will be lured back, yet, those who enjoy things as they are still can play the way they want. Everybody is happy!

 

Balance helps in coming up with interesting stories for everyone.

[antman45454]

I find it hilarious that after the difficulty patch, the front page for this forum has consistently been threads with the title, "Why was x nerfed" or "X isnow useless".

why?

 

I personally would have been happy if they just balanced it by increasing the amount off enemies in every encounter and increasing the stats of enemies, 

 

I honestly think that about 90% of the spells and abilities in the game simply are not worth casting, you are better of just auto-attacking and not using the spells/ powers

[Zoso der Goldene]

 

I find it hilarious that after the difficulty patch, the front page for this forum has consistently been threads with the title, "Why was x nerfed" or "X isnow useless".

why?

 

I personally would have been happy if they just balanced it by increasing the amount off enemies in every encounter and increasing the stats of enemies, 

That would make the game more difficult (increases the mean difficulty), it does not make all powers more on the same level (reduce the standard deviation of power level, escpecially removing outliers).

[Abel]

Like i said previously, i don't personally really care much about perfect balance. As long as the game is not broken like first 2 Fallout or Arcanum were. If we can at last forget about PotD or difficulty as a whole, it's a good thing, since we can get back to the core topic (it was pretty much my point actually, since i see people arguing about difficulty quite often, while the core problem was balance between classes and subclasses, and the fact that the patch hindered some character concepts mid-game).

 

But well... while i hear and understand what you say (Manuvera, Mirandel, and others) and even agree to some point, i can't help but think that for the game to be memorable even in years to come, the balance process will be of much importance. Because for once, the balance mistakes of the old RPGs will not be forgiven anymore, and because many people who play several different playthoughs over the time, will want to test many different builds. It they are utterly unbalanced over the board, this will kind of ruin things for many here.

 

-Are patches that change how some build play mid game an hindrance? Yep, probably.

-Should the game have been better balanced during the beta? Yep, probably. Although i'm not sure how much can be accomplished in this regard for such a complex game in the beta.

-Will doing this convince some people to buy the game in 2 years with all DLCs for cheaper? Yep, probably

-Will some players drop the game and wait, only to never return to the game? Yep, probably.

 

 But... On the other hand...

-Should the game stay like this? I think not.

-Should the patches be limited to DLCs? I think not. Because you can't fine tune things without going through the whole process. Fact is: the game is out now, the beta is in the past. It can't be helped anymore, and there is no point discussing about the ''If only..."

-Should Obsidian care about the reputation of their only owned IP for years to come? I think so. Even if some players will hate this process of balancing, my belief is that in 3 years, most who will have played the game by then will be grateful for the refined, finished game that will be Pillars 2. Like we are regarding Pillars 1, way better now than it was when it was released. And it got countless balancing patches over the time.

 

Am i an Obsidian or Sawyer fan ? (well, this word is so overused by US people that it does not bear any sense anymore i guess.)

-No. I find much potential in both Obsidian and Sawyer. But i dislike quite a few things about how they approach RPGs nowadays. So, i'm not here as a fanboy.

 

In the end. I don't plan to dismiss valid arguments. Because well... they bear some truth. It's pointless for me to deny this very fact. But, at the same time, if i consider the whole picture, i can't help but think this patches are a necessary potential bad thing. Both for the game itself, and for the future of the IP. And here, i have to balance by myself pros and cons. And not everyone will reach the same conclusion as me. But i think that dismissing these patches as only a bad thing is too much, whatever your personal point of view is.

Edited June 19, 2018 by Abel