The 'Changes for Balance' Thread

[nemesis205bw]

why dont you play on story mode then? It will be just right for you. Low IQ people have their own story mode where they dont have to use brain and they destroy everything with autoattacks. Other people had no difficulty for them as POTD was way too easy (and still is btw) and those changes were needed as you cant for example make this game balanced if there is so many abilities that makes you immortal forever. If story mode is still too hard for you, you can always use the console and give your characters 99 in every attribute. Or just dont play this game - its not for you.

Edited June 12, 2018 by nemesis205bw

[Dorftek]

 

 

 

 

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.

If i want a story ill read a book

That *really* does a disservice to the potential and capability of video games as a medium.

Heh yeah you're right. I enjoy a game with a good story don't get me wrong but to me, personally, the gameplay is way more important than the story. The gameplay is what makes me play the game several times. The story is only interesting for me once and yet even if the story is really really good but the gameplay is completely mindless I can't even finish the story once. Happened with the witcher 3 for me, loved the setting and I loved the characters and the world but eventually just mashing quick attack got too old. I mean by going with some of the ppl arguments in here I could have mixed in some heavy swings and some signs here there but then I would have deliberately gimped myself Wich isn't fun either.

[Mikeymoonshine]

Low IQ people

 

Can you not?

[ThacoBell]

 

 

There are low difficulty modes, aren't there? Stop the whining.

Yeah okay, but class and balance changes aren't happening ONLY on PotD or Veteren. Changes and nerfs to classes and abilities affects every difficulty level. Changing to a lower difficulty DOES NOTHING if your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN.

 

 

Boo hoo. Your over powered skill is no longer over powered. Why is this a bad thing? One, if you're playing on lower difficulties, it shouldn't matter. You can still use that build and beat the game with little effort. I don't understand why some players insist on having a game where every choice they make has to have immense rewards.

 

As Tigranes wrote very well above, if there was some weapon that was so over-powered it made the rest of the weapons obsolete -- that's a  huge design problem. And one that the designers are right to prioritize fixing, even if it means your character built around that weapon isn't going to be as powerful as they were.

 

Your playstyle is not more important than mine or anyone else's. An ability doesn't have to overpowered for Obsidian to nerf it apparently.

[cokane]

 

 

 

There are low difficulty modes, aren't there? Stop the whining.

Yeah okay, but class and balance changes aren't happening ONLY on PotD or Veteren. Changes and nerfs to classes and abilities affects every difficulty level. Changing to a lower difficulty DOES NOTHING if your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN.

 

 

Boo hoo. Your over powered skill is no longer over powered. Why is this a bad thing? One, if you're playing on lower difficulties, it shouldn't matter. You can still use that build and beat the game with little effort. I don't understand why some players insist on having a game where every choice they make has to have immense rewards.

 

As Tigranes wrote very well above, if there was some weapon that was so over-powered it made the rest of the weapons obsolete -- that's a  huge design problem. And one that the designers are right to prioritize fixing, even if it means your character built around that weapon isn't going to be as powerful as they were.

 

Your playstyle is not more important than mine or anyone else's. An ability doesn't have to overpowered for Obsidian to nerf it apparently.

 

 

I'm not the one asking that Obsidian do things or not do things because of how they are affecting *my* play experience. You're the one doing that.

[ThacoBell]

 

 

 

 

There are low difficulty modes, aren't there? Stop the whining.

Yeah okay, but class and balance changes aren't happening ONLY on PotD or Veteren. Changes and nerfs to classes and abilities affects every difficulty level. Changing to a lower difficulty DOES NOTHING if your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN.

 

 

Boo hoo. Your over powered skill is no longer over powered. Why is this a bad thing? One, if you're playing on lower difficulties, it shouldn't matter. You can still use that build and beat the game with little effort. I don't understand why some players insist on having a game where every choice they make has to have immense rewards.

 

As Tigranes wrote very well above, if there was some weapon that was so over-powered it made the rest of the weapons obsolete -- that's a  huge design problem. And one that the designers are right to prioritize fixing, even if it means your character built around that weapon isn't going to be as powerful as they were.

 

Your playstyle is not more important than mine or anyone else's. An ability doesn't have to overpowered for Obsidian to nerf it apparently.

 

 

I'm not the one asking that Obsidian do things or not do things because of how they are affecting *my* play experience. You're the one doing that.

Actually the op is. Though I DO think it is reasonable for Obsidian to consider the less masochistic playerbase when introducing balance passes outside Veteren or PotD.

[cokane]

 

 

 

 

 

There are low difficulty modes, aren't there? Stop the whining.

Yeah okay, but class and balance changes aren't happening ONLY on PotD or Veteren. Changes and nerfs to classes and abilities affects every difficulty level. Changing to a lower difficulty DOES NOTHING if your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN.

 

 

Boo hoo. Your over powered skill is no longer over powered. Why is this a bad thing? One, if you're playing on lower difficulties, it shouldn't matter. You can still use that build and beat the game with little effort. I don't understand why some players insist on having a game where every choice they make has to have immense rewards.

 

As Tigranes wrote very well above, if there was some weapon that was so over-powered it made the rest of the weapons obsolete -- that's a  huge design problem. And one that the designers are right to prioritize fixing, even if it means your character built around that weapon isn't going to be as powerful as they were.

 

Your playstyle is not more important than mine or anyone else's. An ability doesn't have to overpowered for Obsidian to nerf it apparently.

 

 

I'm not the one asking that Obsidian do things or not do things because of how they are affecting *my* play experience. You're the one doing that.

Actually the op is. Though I DO think it is reasonable for Obsidian to consider the less masochistic playerbase when introducing balance passes outside Veteren or PotD.

 

 

Again, you made this argument: "your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN"

 

This is an argument about someone's particular gameplay experience, and you are arguing on behalf of maintaining that individual experience. Whereas I am arguing on general design principles -- if one ability is too strong, it's functionally equivalent to the other abilities being too weak. If one weapon is too strong, it's equivalent to the rest of the weapons being bad.

 

Nobody has complained that normal and below difficulties have become too hard. If you want to make that case go ahead. But so far you have ONLY argued on behalf of players being able to maintain same particular build and effectiveness they previously had. This is arguing *for* a particular playstyle and moreover, it is arguing that this maintenance is "more important" than other considerations. Exactly the thing you claim to be against.

[Loren Tyr]

Actually the op is. Though I DO think it is reasonable for Obsidian to consider the less masochistic playerbase when introducing balance passes outside Veteren or PotD.

 

Ah, yes. Those players playing on fairly forgiving difficulty levels, whose delicately crafted builds have become utterly unplayable by assorted class and item changes. Somehow. 

 

What I always wonder about, in many threads I read on this forum: so many people here are apparently quite in the loop on the inner motivations and considerations of the Obsidian dev team. Curious, that. 

[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.

What are you talking about? What does it have to do with Deadfire difficulty problem? 

 

Deadfire's issue wasn't that some fights weren't difficult, or that it allows you to outlevel certain encounters. It failed to provide any challenge no matter whom you fight. I don't need random shmucks to challenge my experience pirate party, but facing a late game dragon and snoozing through the fight is a bigger letdown than having to quit for a day and try another time. Smacking an enemy you faced earlier in the game and had issues with is satisfying. Killing a mighty dragon without even trying is... anticlimacting. 

[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.

It failed to provide any challenge no matter whom you fight.

 

That's simply hyperbole. That's not accurate. Like, did you literally just set to autoattack on every enemy, every time, throughout the entire game? Did you autoattack the Kraken without ever using an ability? Did you autoattack every vampire fight throughout Splintered Reef? Did you literally clump-autoattack the dragon at Ukazio and then never interact again until it was dead, while you read a book in the next room?

 

Like seriously. That's just not an accurate statement. I understand your making a point, but so am I: people are making inaccurate statements about this game and then treating those statements like their actual literal truth.

[Lord_Mord]

 

That's simply hyperbole. That's not accurate. Like, did you literally just set to autoattack on every enemy, every time, throughout the entire game? Did you autoattack the Kraken without ever using an ability? Did you autoattack every vampire fight throughout Splintered Reef? Did you literally clump-autoattack the dragon at Ukazio and then never interact again until it was dead, while you read a book in the next room?

 

Like seriously. That's just not an accurate statement. I understand your making a point, but so am I: people are making inaccurate statements about this game and then treating those statements like their actual literal truth.

 

I'm not a great player, I don't read all the numbers and sometimes play like an idiot (I like that thingy. It seems to fit that other thingy. Lets put it on.). I died countless times on PotD in PoE. In Deadfire I died in three fights (Splintered reef entrance, Nemnok, Ukaizo). For every of that three fights I needed 2-3 attempts to finally win. That is not the same as winning with autoattack but it is a measurable difference.

 

P.S.: My wife just told me that so far she died only once on normal difficulty. She's just arrived at Ashen Maw and she's also definitely not a powergamer or Min/Maxer.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Lord_Mord

[Wormerine]

 

 

 

It failed to provide any challenge no matter whom you fight.

That's simply hyperbole. That's not accurate. Like, did you literally just set to autoattack on every enemy, every time, throughout the entire game? Did you autoattack the Kraken without ever using an ability? Did you autoattack every vampire fight throughout Splintered Reef? Did you literally clump-autoattack the dragon at Ukazio and then never interact again until it was dead, while you read a book in the next room?

Like seriously. That's just not an accurate statement. I understand your making a point, but so am I: people are making inaccurate statements about this game and then treating those statements like their actual literal truth.

That was indeed a hyperbole. I did allow AI to autoattack to death Lava Dragon with scripts off. I used abilitites when fighting Kraken and Ukaizo Dragon (I have heard that Kraken fight can be decent. Was way over level at that point and scaling didn’t work). I died in the game three times- when fighting Steel Preacher straight after leaving Port Maje, when fighting Vampires in cave, and I got sunk once. The couple early game bounties which I talked way before my level are the fondest memories I have from 1.0 encounter experience. Not because my balls got busted, by they were memorable. I remember Steel Preacher as I had trouble penetrating his armor and his priests would burn me to death. I remember fighting guys protecting Woedica’s mace, as I had to depseretaly hold the choke to survive, running out of healing spells and consumables. I remember fighting Fampires as they took control over my ascendant cipher and did some serious damage. The other ones are a bit of a blur.

[Tigranes]

Here, an example. My first playthrough, 1.00, story companions, no theorycrafting or metaknowledge, just sailing around the islands with the skull markers turned off.

 

After level ~12, about half the fights, I don't need to pause, and I never use any scripts. Half the party's just standing around. I select my monk, click swift flurry, he's blowing one enemy up every 3 seconds. Maybe tell Maia to fire some arrows. She's blowing stuff up every 3 seconds too.

 

Sometimes, oh, the enemy actually does put up a resistance. So now I need to pause and actually give orders to my party. When I do, I'm usually fine and I never feel like I'm in danger of losing the fight. No drugs or food or kiting or pulling or other cheesing.

 

So yeah, that's a pretty awful state. With 1.1, this still happened, but only after about level 15. Earlier game difficulty I think is pretty good challenge now.

 

Basically, if you very rarely feel like you might actually lose the battle, and if half the time you can have half your party twiddle their thumbs, then that's too easy for POTD. And that's how it was for the second half of the game on 1.00, and how it happens to a lesser extent in 1.1 later game.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Tigranes

[Karkarov]

To be completely fair, this is not aimed directly at Josh Sawyer. I used to work with him as external QA and I can tell you that he's not a tyrant hell-bent on his own concept. Quite the opposite, he's very open to reasonable suggestions.

 

I have nothing against balance itself, but I strongly believe it should be mostly completed before the title is released. Small tweaks after that are fine. Completely overhauling the game a month after it launches is just.. mean?

While I actually agree with everything you posted on principle, this game absolutely needed a combat rebalance post launch.  It was not dialed in enough to be considered "finished" and it will probably get a few more passes still.

 

The challenge with this sort of game is that there are just too many options.  All the different race/class combos, the different talents, spells, and add multi classing on top?  There are many ways a player will think to game this system Obsidian would never try.  I do agree that yes, at launch it could have been better, but there is no realistic way this game would not have needed post launch balancing and tweaks.

[Abel]

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?

 

That is not what you said.

 

First, you assumed since the start, that only a minority of players saw any interest in overhauls of the game. I never made polls on the topic myself, but you used this preconception deliberately to give weigh to your opinion, without anything to back your claim. You basically said "why care about overhauls when only a few people want them", while not having a clue if what you said bear any truth. I call that dismissing other people opinions without even trying to consider them. Which is something i dislke. And since i am who i am, i tend to say it when it's the case. People can evolve, but never change, you know. This is something i believe in, at least.

 

Second. You assumed that the reason for these overhauls where some posters here, once again to give weigh to your point of view. I would have been ok if you had made a humanly mistake, but assuming this kind of thing like this has nothing to do with a simple mistake, unless you are narrow minded, as i said. You just assumed that Josh Sawyer was some kind of braindead machine which obeys posters orders, or something like that. Because, once again, it was usefull to illustrate your idea that "It's because of the posters here that i can't play the game the way i want". Which is, once more, just a usefull preconception you are using. If you have a problem with the patches, just say so, don't throw accusations towards posters here who, according to you, bear the fault for it, when they just posted opinions. Even more so considering that most of these persons troubleshooted both games during beta testing for everyone's sake. I think it is disrespectul towards their involvement. And i dislike it, too.

 

Finally, you gave you  opinion about the patches (which is fine by me), but failed to consider the whole picture, and others posters have already adressed this point. I won't rince and repeat.

 

As a side note, i don't personally care this much about perfect balance either. Unless it totally breaks the game like in the examples i used (arcanum and Fallout 2). Which basically means that if you had brought your point in the way others like Katarack did, i would have posted a reply to say that i , at least, partly agree, and that your point may have some truth to it, depending on the person and what they need to enjoy the game properly.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Abel

[Katarack21]

 

 

That's simply hyperbole. That's not accurate. Like, did you literally just set to autoattack on every enemy, every time, throughout the entire game? Did you autoattack the Kraken without ever using an ability? Did you autoattack every vampire fight throughout Splintered Reef? Did you literally clump-autoattack the dragon at Ukazio and then never interact again until it was dead, while you read a book in the next room?

 

Like seriously. That's just not an accurate statement. I understand your making a point, but so am I: people are making inaccurate statements about this game and then treating those statements like their actual literal truth.

 

I'm not a great player, I don't read all the numbers and sometimes play like an idiot (I like that thingy. It seems to fit that other thingy. Lets put it on.). I died countless times on PotD in PoE. In Deadfire I died in three fights (Splintered reef entrance, Nemnok, Ukaizo). For every of that three fights I needed 2-3 attempts to finally win. That is not the same as winning with autoattack but it is a measurable difference.

 

P.S.: My wife just told me that so far she died only once on normal difficulty. She's just arrived at Ashen Maw and she's also definitely not a powergamer or Min/Maxer.

 

So...you just proved my statement true. Like, if you died, if you had to pay attention at all, if you had to attend to the game in any way, then the statement "It failed to provide any challenge no matter whom you fight." *isn't accurate*.

 

Look. I'm not saying "don't complain about the game". All I'm saying is keep your complaints grounded in reality. Complain about problems that you *actually had*. When you exaggerate, use major hyperbole, or just say things that aren't true you give a really inaccurate impression of what this game is. Saying "THIS GAME WAS BROKEN ON RELEASE" or "It failed to provide any challenger no matter whom you fight." doesn't provide anything useful; it's such an exaggeration that it distorts reality to a level of vagueness that is ultimately meaningless.

[ThacoBell]

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are low difficulty modes, aren't there? Stop the whining.

Yeah okay, but class and balance changes aren't happening ONLY on PotD or Veteren. Changes and nerfs to classes and abilities affects every difficulty level. Changing to a lower difficulty DOES NOTHING if your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN.

 

 

Boo hoo. Your over powered skill is no longer over powered. Why is this a bad thing? One, if you're playing on lower difficulties, it shouldn't matter. You can still use that build and beat the game with little effort. I don't understand why some players insist on having a game where every choice they make has to have immense rewards.

 

As Tigranes wrote very well above, if there was some weapon that was so over-powered it made the rest of the weapons obsolete -- that's a  huge design problem. And one that the designers are right to prioritize fixing, even if it means your character built around that weapon isn't going to be as powerful as they were.

 

Your playstyle is not more important than mine or anyone else's. An ability doesn't have to overpowered for Obsidian to nerf it apparently.

 

 

I'm not the one asking that Obsidian do things or not do things because of how they are affecting *my* play experience. You're the one doing that.

Actually the op is. Though I DO think it is reasonable for Obsidian to consider the less masochistic playerbase when introducing balance passes outside Veteren or PotD.

 

 

Again, you made this argument: "your favorite class no longer works the way it used to. You can no longer that way, EVER AGAIN"

 

This is an argument about someone's particular gameplay experience, and you are arguing on behalf of maintaining that individual experience. Whereas I am arguing on general design principles -- if one ability is too strong, it's functionally equivalent to the other abilities being too weak. If one weapon is too strong, it's equivalent to the rest of the weapons being bad.

 

Nobody has complained that normal and below difficulties have become too hard. If you want to make that case go ahead. But so far you have ONLY argued on behalf of players being able to maintain same particular build and effectiveness they previously had. This is arguing *for* a particular playstyle and moreover, it is arguing that this maintenance is "more important" than other considerations. Exactly the thing you claim to be against.

 

Actually, I'm just saying to take consideration for the players that don't enjoy extreme challenge. Some of us either can't or don't want to (due to time constraints, or a stressful day, etc.) want to have an entire run scrapped because a patch made an already not min maxed build weaker. Some of us want to have a mdoerate difficulty, but not have to head bang an encounter a dozen times to figure it out. But go ahead and keep arguing with imaginary statements that I never made. Whatever floats your boat.

[Shadenuat]

Le patch destroying build thus ruining whole playthrough. Lmao. So much posing.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

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?

 

Unless members of this forums make a majority of the playerbase (which is obviously not likely), the only thing you're doing by these changes is make other players annoyed. There is absolutely nothing fun in having to restart the game because a dumb patch just nerfed your fun character to the point of being uplayable. Also, when a player returns after DLC and wants to continue his old save, then realizes that there was a patch along the way that made his character garbage, what makes you think he will restart and not abandon the game completely? How could you possibly think that effing up someone's playthrough is a good idea to keep them playing?

 

Do you really not see how pointless it is to do a Blizzard-style overhauls to a single player game? Having an "overpowered" character does not affect anyone's game, only YOURS, and you're free to play anything else if you're bored. If the player wants to rebalance the game himself with mods: sure, why not? Let them. Baldur's Gate did. And it was fine, because only people who wanted these changes got them, they weren't forced down their throat because a random Joe on official forum cries that the game is too easy for him.

 

So I ask again: what is there to gain by this? Flexing about achievements perhaps? Hey, did you know that mods do not disable achievements and you can mod yourself to be a god anyway?

 

In short.. fixing obvious bugs is great. Having mod support, so that players can modify the game to their own needs, is also great. But doing these horrible rebalance changes to a game with zero competitive play is just a **** move.

If the Steam stats are anything to go by, the majority of players haven't finished the second main quest and only about 2/3s have made it off the starting Island.

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/560130/achievements

 

For better or worse, Obsidian is going to design and tweak the game around what frequent players do and what forum posters talk about instead of assuming that players who stopped playing after an hour will pop back in and rage that their lvl 3 character has been radically changed. This is a good thing, because if anyone here remembers PoE at launch with the lack of hard counters and other unfortunate issues I'm willing to bet they strongly prefer the WM revisions to PoE to the launch version.

[Tigranes]

"Actually, I'm just saying to take consideration for the players that don't enjoy extreme challenge."

 

That's why there's 5 difficulty levels. Why should item balancing or XP curves remain poor? The worst that could possibly happen to such players is that they dial their Veteran down to Classic. It's not like their ability to have a relaxed playthrough is being destroyed.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Tigranes

[Multihog]

Do you really not see how pointless it is to do a Blizzard-style overhauls to a single player game? Having an "overpowered" character does not affect anyone's game, only YOURS, and you're free to play anything else if you're bored. If the player wants to rebalance the game himself with mods: sure, why not? Let them. .

This is one of the stupidest arguments in existence in regards to balance. Why does it not matter if the balance issues only affect my game? You think it's fine if playing a certain character class removes any semblance of challenge from the game and if that class clearly stands above other classes in terms of sheer power? Saying the player should balance the game himself by avoiding certain tools the game gives him is completely asinine. It's not up to the player to make sure he's not using the overpowered parts of the game nor is it his job to rebalance it with mods. 

 

What if I really like some part of the game, but said part is game-breakingly overpowered? Now I need to avoid utilizing it in order to retain some sense of challenge in the game, which is a requirement for me to even enjoy the game. How can you not see these problems? Challenge absolutely matters, competitive game or not. This is a GAME, not a visual novel. The game challenging the player is an integral part of any game. 

Edited June 13, 2018 by Multihog

[Trogdor]

As a casual gamer that played the game on classic, changes to classes don't really bother me.

 

What I feel is potentially a bigger problem is the time and resources devoted to class mechanics and balance over storytelling. I'd hate to see the game such balancing go at the expense of a rich story and lots of interesting content. Thankfully it seems Obsidian has been well aware of this dilemma, and has pushed back proper class balancing post-launch. It might annoy players that play the game mainly for the tactical combat, but I think it was the right choice.

 

(I also realize that people working on class balance won't work on writing and art, but the game still has a budget and its a question of allocation of resources)

[tinysalamander]

This is a GAME, not a visual novel. The game challenging the player is an integral part of any game.

Hey now. In many good VNs you tend to die quite a lot…

[giftmefood]

Two words OP.

 

Git Gud

[Manveru123]

 

 

The challenge with this sort of game is that there are just too many options.  All the different race/class combos, the different talents, spells, and add multi classing on top?  There are many ways a player will think to game this system Obsidian would never try.  I do agree that yes, at launch it could have been better, but there is no realistic way this game would not have needed post launch balancing and tweaks.

 

Fair point, but note that Obsidian is not doing this by itself. They have a bunch of external testers, they have beta. With this statement, you are basically assuming that all of this failed to provide a clear picture of the game's state. Which might be the case.

 

 

 

That is not what you said.

 

First, you assumed since the start, that only a minority of players saw any interest in overhauls of the game. I never made polls on the topic myself, but you used this preconception deliberately to give weigh to your opinion, without anything to back your claim. You basically said "why care about overhauls when only a few people want them", while not having a clue if what you said bear any truth. I call that dismissing other people opinions without even trying to consider them. Which is something i dislke. And since i am who i am, i tend to say it when it's the case. People can evolve, but never change, you know. This is something i believe in, at least.

 

Second. You assumed that the reason for these overhauls where some posters here, once again to give weigh to your point of view. I would have been ok if you had made a humanly mistake, but assuming this kind of thing like this has nothing to do with a simple mistake, unless you are narrow minded, as i said. You just assumed that Josh Sawyer was some kind of braindead machine which obeys posters orders, or something like that. Because, once again, it was usefull to illustrate your idea that "It's because of the posters here that i can't play the game the way i want". Which is, once more, just a usefull preconception you are using. If you have a problem with the patches, just say so, don't throw accusations towards posters here who, according to you, bear the fault for it, when they just posted opinions. Even more so considering that most of these persons troubleshooted both games during beta testing for everyone's sake. I think it is disrespectul towards their involvement. And i dislike it, too.

 

Finally, you gave you  opinion about the patches (which is fine by me), but failed to consider the whole picture, and others posters have already adressed this point. I won't rince and repeat.

 

As a side note, i don't personally care this much about perfect balance either. Unless it totally breaks the game like in the examples i used (arcanum and Fallout 2). Which basically means that if you had brought your point in the way others like Katarack did, i would have posted a reply to say that i , at least, partly agree, and that your point may have some truth to it, depending on the person and what they need to enjoy the game properly.

 

POTD players are a minority. That's a fact. You'd have to know literally nothing about gaming if you assume that most players play on highest difficulty level. And the changes done by Obsidian are not POTD-only, they affect everyone, even if the degree is considerably smaller.

 

Also would you mind not trying to read my mind? You're not very good at it. I never said anything bad about Josh Sawyer. If you read the whole thread, you'll see it was actually quite the opposite. I also don't blame the posters for anything. I mean, this is the internet. People will post tons of crap and there's nothing you can do about it. Just see how many people in this topic posted insluting one-liners and moved on.

 

 

This is one of the stupidest arguments in existence in regards to balance. Why does it not matter if the balance issues only affect my game? You think it's fine if playing a certain character class removes any semblance of challenge from the game and if that class clearly stands above other classes in terms of sheer power? Saying the player should balance the game himself by avoiding certain tools the game gives him is completely asinine. It's not up to the player to make sure he's not using the overpowered parts of the game nor is it his job to rebalance it with mods. 

 

What if I really like some part of the game, but said part is game-breakingly overpowered? Now I need to avoid utilizing it in order to retain some sense of challenge in the game, which is a requirement for me to even enjoy the game. How can you not see these problems? Challenge absolutely matters, competitive game or not. This is a GAME, not a visual novel. The game challenging the player is an integral part of any game. 

 

You sound like you have never played a cRPG in your life. Every single one of these games has one or more builds that are either overpowered right from the get-go, or become as such at some point during gameplay, unless the game happens to not give two craps about combat and treats it like an unwanted little brother to its story (Torment is a good example of that). Do you play RPG to feel like a peasant with a stick challenging dragons all the time? Good for you then, but believe me, this is not a very common approach.

 

Also, this is completely beside the point. Some of you feel like this whole topic is just complaining that the game is now too hard. But u can haz play casual! Right. Well, no, it is not hard for me at all. Because the only point I was trying to make is that >>major overhaul when the game is already released can lead to multi-hour gameplay sessions become straight un-fun or tiresome, when the build you're using suddenly stops working at all and requires you to either struggle or restart the playthrough<< No matter how you look at it, this is a **** move. This isn't World of Warcraft. There is no need to balance the game a year after it was released (looking at you again POE1). Do you know what happens with most players when the game they play is no longer fun? They move on. I highly doubt this is what Obsidian wants.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Manveru123