Armor penetration is a pain in the ass. Stacking armor is OP.

[Zelse]

The whole armor system is pretty much ResidentSleeper. Especially on POTD.

 

Stacking armor, especially when using some spells like the RANK1??? wizard spell that gives +3 for 60seconds+ is too good too fast. If you overcap enemy pen by 3 points you literally become invincible. Its pretty stupid. Meanwhile if you dont go over pen, armor does nothing. Literally nothing.

 

On the other hand the game basically forces you to gear up really early (i have seen guys with 10 armor regularly even early on), makes low pen weapons effectively useless (e.g. Greatswords) and while you technically CAN reduce armor through other means, there really arent that many good spells/abilities for doing that in the game. Basically just the Chanter spell at rank 3 and the Cipher spell later on.

Theres a rank 7??? druid spell that does it as well i mean WUT? rank 7? reduce by 2? can miss?? limited duration? Or you know... you could just get a mace with the mace weapon ability instead of spending your rank 7 spell...

 

There is also absolutely no payoff for stacking penetration since getting twice the enemies armor in penetration is pretty much impossible on POTD (maybe some random instakill trash like the devoted slaves idk) and even if it was theoretically possible it gives 30%?? bonus damage?

 

What this means is you always want to have your penetration exactly equal to the enemies armor since you probably pay somewhere else with stats/abilities otherwise.

 

Why not just make armor give a consistent %damage reduction that is reasonable (not 70% instantly for 3 points over pen). The breakpoint is extremely annoying to play around and on the defensive end makes characters invincible way too fast. While it has no impact at all before going over that breakpoint as long as you dont run around i a shirt. (And even then its only 30% bonus damage...)

Edited June 15, 2018 by Zelse

[Dorftek]

There's a food that gives u more weapon pen. There's a potion that gives u nutty amounts of pen with high Alch skill.

 

There are also grenades that reduce enemy armour.

[Ashen Rohk]

Penetration is a pain the butt, especially in the later game when whichever Sigil pillar smashes your penetration into the ground.

 

There was a great thing you could in IWD back in the day that after you completed the game (can't remember if you need HoF for it) but you could import the geared characters into the game, drop all their gear, remove them, add them back, etc etc to lower your armour class.

 

Got a dwarf fighter to -16.

[mammasaura]

It's potd, it's meant to be hard, making the usage of consumables and specializing team members a mandatory thing.

The problem of stacking armor is resolved by stacking weapon penetration, crits and raw damage.

Modals, consumables, abilities, spells, some class's passives are the tools.

Edited June 15, 2018 by mammasaura

[Boeroer]

Meant to be hard or not - I agree the mechanics of PEN vs AR are wonky and tedious to play around and no fun at all.

 

A criticism of PoE's flat DR was that it felt mushy and didn't scale well with higher levels. In my option a simple, percentage base damage reduction like the OP suggests would have been better.

 

An additional mechanic that I saw in Tyranny (and that was pretty much the only thing I liked about Tyranny as a general idea) was the conversion of enemies' attacks to a lesser tier. For example a crit-to-hit conversion or a hit-to-graze conversion (not graze-to-miss). That can resemble situations where you hit the enemy but glance off the armor. At the same time armor should not lower attack speed too much but stride and deflection.

Edited June 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[Zelse]

It's potd, it's meant to be hard, making the usage of consumables and specializing team members a mandatory thing.

The problem of stacking armor is resolved by stacking weapon penetration, crits and raw damage.

Modals, consumables, abilities, spells, some class's passives are the tools.

I am talking about stacking armor yourself is op^ . Its very easy to get to70% damage mitig and just steamrolling difficult encounters because you are literally invincible.

 

Anyway, yes POTD is supposed to be hard. Thing is Pen juggling (i.e. min maxing pen alongside other damage stats) isnt hard, its just a major pain in the ass.

Edited June 15, 2018 by Zelse

[giftmefood]

Except when you are playing potd with level scaling mod (you can get it in Nexus) and the guardian of ukaizo has 20-23 armor pen XD 

[mammasaura]

 

It's potd, it's meant to be hard, making the usage of consumables and specializing team members a mandatory thing.

The problem of stacking armor is resolved by stacking weapon penetration, crits and raw damage.

Modals, consumables, abilities, spells, some class's passives are the tools.

I am talking about stacking armor yourself is op^ . Its very easy to get to70% damage mitig and just steamrolling difficult encounters because you are literally invincible.

 

Anyway, yes POTD is supposed to be hard. Thing is Pen juggling (i.e. min maxing pen alongside other damage stats) isnt hard, its just a major pain in the ass.

 

I assumed there were also problems to deal with high armored enemies when talking about penetration in potd, sorry if misunderstood.

Tried to give the most generic rule that can help others with dealing vs enemies in potd. Problem I had starting my first potd run.

Edited June 15, 2018 by mammasaura

[anishar]

yes, current armor system is not good. it makes every armor point more valuable than the previous one. Compared to pen, at +1 armor you go from 100% damage to 75% (1/4 reduction), but from +2 to +3 it becomes from 50% to 25% (1/2 reduction), litteraly twice as powerful !

 

i personnaly had no issue with Pen because the game offers enough ways to boost it or lower ennemy armor (Berserker/Devoted, Sword Modal, Food buffs, Expose Vulnerabilities, or simply by targetting ennemy weakest armor type).

 

However it is true that it's too easy to become immortal; and i don't blame the ennemies not having enough pen, i blame the armor for being too valuable and being exponencial

Edited June 15, 2018 by anishar

[mant2si]

This thread reminded me about Divinity Origin Sin 2 armor system, in Divinity Origin Sin 2 exists two independent armor pools which you must destroy, before you can apply CC, but when you destroyed armor you can stunlock anyone, even end game bosses

Same in PoE 2, if you can overpen or has enough armor you can destroy game content without problem

I personally don't like approach (All or Nothing), will be much better if obsidian little bit change armor formula, i.e the more difference between attack and defense, the more/less damage you done, with hard cap at 50% for player

I'm expected something like this
 
1 point - 3% DR  | +1% DM
2 point - 4% DR  | +2% DM
3 point - 5% DR  | +3% DM
4 point - 5% DR  | +4% DM
5 point - 5% DR  | +5% DM
6 point - 5% DR  | +5% DM
7 point - 3% DR  | +4% DM
8 point - 2% DR  | +3% DM
9 point - 0% DR  | +2% DM

Breakpoint: 

10 point - 2% DR   | +10%
11 point - 5% DR   | + 1%
12 point - 1% DR   | + 1%
13 point - 1% DR   | + 1%

...

Also they can add to game half-immune enemies for example if the add +5%, 10%, 10% to DR if the difference between armor and pen, more than 50, 51, 52 points, then monster will has 50% + 25% DR, but if player can lower monster armor for 1 - 5 points, monster DR will be lower to 50%, this approach can be used for skeletons 

Edited June 15, 2018 by mant2si

[Erik Dirk]

Meant to be hard or not - I agree the mechanics of PEN vs AR are wonky and tedious to play around and no fun at all.

 

A criticism of PoE's flat DR was that it felt mushy and didn't scale well with higher levels. In my option a simple, percentage base damage reduction like the OP suggests would have been better.

 

An additional mechanic that I saw in Tyranny (and that was pretty much the only thing I liked about Tyranny as a general idea) was the conversion of enemies' attacks to a lesser tier. For example a crit-to-hit conversion or a hit-to-graze conversion (not graze-to-miss). That can resemble situations where you hit the enemy but glance off the armor. At the same time armor should not lower attack speed too much but stride and deflection.

The fact that you said this says it all. It' doesn't add anything to the players experience and makes the game almost impossible to balance as those one or two points can make an absurd difference in difficulty.

I can hardly believe the original binary system of the beta even lasted long enough to put into code.

The other suggestions are better, but making penetration a random variable like damage could also work, anything just so long as there is never a point where heavy Armour could do absolutely nothing in a under levelled fight.

[rjshae]

yes, current armor system is not good. it makes every armor point more valuable than the previous one. Compared to pen, at +1 armor you go from 100% damage to 75% (1/4 reduction), but from +2 to +3 it becomes from 50% to 25% (1/2 reduction), litteraly twice as powerful !

 

 Your math seems squirrely to me. In both cases the damage is reduced by 25%.

[hilfazer]

Stacking armor, especially when using some spells like the RANK1??? wizard spell that gives +3 for 60seconds+ is too good too fast. 

 

Theres a rank 7??? druid spell that does it as well i mean WUT? rank 7? reduce by 2? can miss?? limited duration? Or you know... you could just get a mace with the mace weapon ability instead of spending your rank 7 spell...

 

 

Obsidian wants wizards to be better than druids.

[Boeroer]

Yes, that's why Druids have Plague of Insects, Infestation of Maggots, Insect Swarm etc. which scale with Alchemy like crazy - so you can kill everything with one cast. It's obviously more lame than +3 AR.

 

They also have those laughable Lifegivers who can only cast healing spells with +7 PL so nobody can die. Lame I say!

[anishar]

Scales with Alchemy? How? Why? Does that make sense at all? It is not mentionned, or intuitive, are you sure it works like this? Sounds like a "bug" (no insect related joke)

Edited June 16, 2018 by anishar

[Boeroer]

Yes, I'm sure that it works that way. It gives you additional power levels if you invest in alchemy. Why? Seriously, I have no idea. I guess it happens unintentionally because of keyword issues. Poisons are supposed to scale with Alchemy - maybe certain druid spells and poisons/potions share the same keywords.

Edited June 16, 2018 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

Yes, that's why Druids have Plague of Insects, Infestation of Maggots, Insect Swarm etc. which scale with Alchemy like crazy - so you can kill everything with one cast. It's obviously more lame than +3 AR.

 

They also have those laughable Lifegivers who can only cast healing spells with +7 PL so nobody can die. Lame I say!

 

Scales with Alchemy? How? Why? Does that make sense at all? It is not mentionned, or intuitive, are you sure it works like this? Sounds like a "bug" (no insect related joke)

 

We will see how long it will last. I expect it to go away, it's such a danger to balance!

[baldurs_gate_2]

I have 22 Alchemy with my Monk / Animist and Plague deals 39,5 Raw Damage each 3 sec for 83,8 seconds.

[Zelse]

Yes, that's why Druids have Plague of Insects, Infestation of Maggots, Insect Swarm etc. which scale with Alchemy like crazy - so you can kill everything with one cast. It's obviously more lame than +3 AR.

 

They also have those laughable Lifegivers who can only cast healing spells with +7 PL so nobody can die. Lame I say!

I didnt know plague of insects and such scales with alchemy?? of all things but that sounds a lot like an exploit and i hope it gets fixed. The vanilla spell is good enough and raw is op for obvious reasons.

 

Im playing the lifegiver this run and the powerlevel bonus doesnt do much tbh. If i could reroll into vanilla i probably would just so i get to use shapeshift all the time.

Also the healing bonus falls off instantly as soon as you leave your shapeshift. I.e. you cant cast a healing spell right before it ends and have it tick for maximum value. The moment you leave the shapeshift all currently active healing spells get penalized instantly.

 

Also i still think wizards are the worst class is in the game. With very little going for them (mauras writhing tentacles being one of these things). Other classes are much better at armor abuse later on. That particular wizard spell just stuck out to me because you can cheese the early game really hard with it and nothing else is that early.

 

But whatever... armor is still a pain in the ass -> back to topic.

Edited June 16, 2018 by Zelse

[Zelse]

I have 22 Alchemy with my Monk / Animist and Plague deals 39,5 Raw Damage each 3 sec for 83,8 seconds.

Seriously though, can i make this into a thread so it gets fixed?

 

That is insanely stupid.

[KentDA]

Boeroer, ironically your idea about armor should have an negative impact on Stride and Deflection is almost like what DnD does.

 

Heavier armors reduce your movement speed and also caps how much Dexterity can improve your Armor Class.

 

So its not like the idea is a foreign one, if the grand daddy of RPGs does it ....

 

Of course I'd like it if we could actually SEE what our Stride was to begin with.

Edited June 16, 2018 by KentDA

[mrscojangles]

Also i still think wizards are the worst class is in the game. With very little going for them (mauras writhing tentacles being one of these things). 

 

I don't know how you think wizards have nothing going for them. Just to name a few: chill fog (crazy strong for a level 1 spell), combusting wounds, expose vulnerabilities, arcane dampener, ryngrim's enervating terror (easily one of the best CC spells in the game, along with charm/dominated stuff), wilting wind, missile salvo, etc. And plenty of other good stuff, especially in terms of aoe damage.

Edited June 17, 2018 by mrscojangles

[dunehunter]

With 20+ alchemy your potion of spirit shield gives +9 armor for 200 sec!!!

[Boeroer]

Boeroer, ironically your idea about armor should have an negative impact on Stride and Deflection is almost like what DnD does.

 

Heavier armors reduce your movement speed and also caps how much Dexterity can improve your Armor Class.

 

So its not like the idea is a foreign one, if the grand daddy of RPGs does it ....

 

Of course I'd like it if we could actually SEE what our Stride was to begin with.

Actually AC in D&D increases the equivalent of deflection, it doesn't reduce it per se. There is no DR from (normal) armor. This I find a bit meh because it's obviously easier to hit somebody who's wearing armor. It's just not so easy to hurt them.

 

But a crit-to-hit conversion or a hit-to-graze conversion is ok. Your ability to connect with the enemy will not suffer (actually it will be even easier if deflection gets reduced) - but the quality of your hits will suffer if you glance off of armor.

[dunehunter]

 

Boeroer, ironically your idea about armor should have an negative impact on Stride and Deflection is almost like what DnD does.

 

Heavier armors reduce your movement speed and also caps how much Dexterity can improve your Armor Class.

 

So its not like the idea is a foreign one, if the grand daddy of RPGs does it ....

 

Of course I'd like it if we could actually SEE what our Stride was to begin with.

Actually AC in D&D increases the equivalent of deflection, it doesn't reduce it per se. There is no DR from (normal) armor. This I find a bit meh because it's obviously easier to hit somebody who's wearing armor. It's just not so easy to hurt them.

 

But a crit-to-hit conversion or a hit-to-graze conversion is ok. Your ability to connect with the enemy will not suffer (actually it will be even easier if deflection gets reduced) - but the quality of your hits will suffer if you glance off of armor.

 

 

That's partially true, if you are very good at builds in D&D 3.5, you will know the best AC builds are without armors, because armors has limitation on how much DEX bonus you can get, the heavier the armor is, the less DEX AC bonus you get. So a Monk/Wizard can get much higher AC with spells and WIS ac bonus than heavy armor fighters.

 

My understanding to D&D AC system is armor will cover the softest and weakest spot on your body, thus someone with plate armor is hard to hit because hits are deflected if they graze on the armor. I know this explanation is flawed because it cannot explain why the hell light armor like leather armor has AC bonus, but you get what I mean :)

Edited June 17, 2018 by dunehunter