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

[Lampros]

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.

 

There's food that gives more Penetration?!!!

[Verde]

I hate blanket buffs which is why I don't play on PotD. I'm glad Pillars considers the power gamer, but PotD feels so wrong when your entire party is focused on taking down one boar. It's about feel for me - if it feels off it breaks my immersion completely.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Verde

[Yosharian]

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

 

...are you joking or is this actually how it works?

[AndreaColombo]

It’s how it used to work but Alchemy scaling was nerfed in one of the earlier patches, AFAIK.

[Jaget80]

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

[Ophiuchus]

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

Nice idea. It would gel with the game's attribute system, which was designed to avoid break points.

[-dib-]

Yeah, penetration can be such a pain in the ass sometimes... Especially if they go in dry.

[Ancelor]

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

 

Great idea... not too late to be implemented in a patc

[Yosharian]

It’s how it used to work but Alchemy scaling was nerfed in one of the earlier patches, AFAIK.

Ugh I just realised this is a ****ing discussion from JUNE.

 

Stupid thread necromancers.  Thanks for responding, anyway.

[Ophiuchus]

I hate blanket buffs which is why I don't play on PotD. I'm glad Pillars considers the power gamer, but PotD feels so wrong when your entire party is focused on taking down one boar. It's about feel for me - if it feels off it breaks my immersion completely.

Deadfire Tweaks mod includes an option to tone down some of PoTD's defenses while retaining enemy composition.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/72?tab=description

 

 

[dunehunter]

I think if the enemies in DF can talk, they will say the same thing: 'Wow that f**cking paladin has so much AR I can do nothing to him'. Imo this is more an issue to enemies than to players, as players have different way to bypass high AR, but enemies are AI who is dumb enough to not be able to handle high AR players.

[GuyNice]

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

Someone should mod this in. Sounds like a much better system to me. Make it a multiplicative buff/debuff and it's pretty much gold. Then you could also allow more stacking of abilities. Just set a hard cap to avoid total abuse.

[Erik Dirk]

I'm surprised the system made it through beta, pretty sure it didn't get a single positive player review.

The fact that a brigidine could provide zero protection is unrealistic and an irritating game mechanic.

[Haplok]

I'm surprised the system made it through beta, pretty sure it didn't get a single positive player review.

The fact that a brigidine could provide zero protection is unrealistic and an irritating game mechanic.

 

So kind of like in DnD, where armor only helps with hit avoidance, but doesn't actually reduce incoming damage?

[hilfazer]

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

 

Sounds like turning penetration into damage. Game already has damage.

[Jaget80]

 

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

 

Sounds like turning penetration into damage. Game already has damage.

 

 

But that is exactly what is it now except it does nothing most of the time at least in POTD.

[Boeroer]

First of all tweak the numbers!

 

-75% with double inversion is actually -300% as long as the attacker has dmg bonuses. Thats WAY too high.

 

Again: I think the guys who choose the numbers are not the ones who implemented those wonky and superunintuive double inversion mechanics.

 

-1 PEN: -25% dmg. With double inversion it's -33%

 

-2 PEN: -50% dmg -> -75%

 

-3 PEN: -75% dmg -> -300%

 

Like with the original "blunted criticals" (-25% crit dmg which lead to -33% and lead to the situation where crits were doing less dmg than hits) somebody who decides which numbers go into abilities doesn't understand the underlying mechanics. I can't blame them - the double inversion

mechanics are horrible.

 

But that maybe explains why the current AR/PEN system is so unbalanced.

 

Either remove double inversion or tweak numbers so they actually lead to a linear regression of dmg.

 

AND remove AR increase on PotD! Dammit! Everything evolves around PEN on PotD. It's annoying and boring at the same time.

[hilfazer]

 

 

Yes, the penetration system is not good.

It's too simplistic IMO.

 

The problems you bring up could easily be counter by giving the penetration a scaling. 

One penetration point above armor rating could give 4% more damage just to put a number.

 

Recerse would also be true.

 

Sounds like turning penetration into damage. Game already has damage.

 

 

But that is exactly what is it now except it does nothing most of the time at least in POTD.

 

 

 

Doing nothing most of the time is precisely what makes a difference xD

[jww]

First of all tweak the numbers!

 

-75% with double inversion is actually -300% as long as the attacker has dmg bonuses. Thats WAY too high.

 

 

Could you explain what -300% damage means in this context? The traditional CRPG definition would be that it does no damage at all, plus it heals you for twice as much damage as it would have caused. That's obviously not happening here. Is there a complete (and accurate) damage calculation formula available? (The last one I saw posted on the forum didn't actually work mathematically.) Thanks!

Edited October 3, 2018 by jww

[karnor00]

The fundamental problem with the current AR/AP system is that there is a very small window in which penetration is by far the most valuable stat available.  And outside that window it does either literally nothing or virtually nothing.

 

For example, take an opponent with 15 armor.

The first 12 points of penetration do literally nothing.

The next 1 point is a 100% damage increase.

The next 1 point is a further 50% damage increase.

The next 1 point is a further 33% damage increase.

After that, the next 15 points are about a 2% damage increase each.

 

The way the maths works out is that points 13-15 of penetration generate a total 300% damage increase, and the rest do practically nothing.  Trying to fix this by giving NPCs more/less armor/penetration just shifts the window of opportunity, it doesn't fix the problem.  There's never going to be a good way to balance a system that has such a tiny window of effectiveness.  

(Incidentally, due to the ridiculous double inversion maths actually used in the game, the problem is actually slightly worse in practice than in the example above.  But the maths for that gets very complicated and the problem is still the same)

 

The system needs to be redesigned such that armor and penetration have a much bigger window of effectiveness.  Perhaps something like 1 armor = 5% damage reduction (capped at say 75%), and that each point of penetration reduces that damage reduction by 5%.  So with say 10 armor that would be 50% damage reduction but 10 penetration would reduce that reduction by 50% (i.e. a net 25% damage reduction).

 

It would mean that penetration gains increasing value as your opponent has more armor (which feels right to me), but both will always be useful to have.

[hilfazer]

Perhaps something like 1 armor = 5% damage reduction (capped at say 75%), and that each point of penetration reduces that damage reduction by 5%.  So with say 10 armor that would be 50% damage reduction but 10 penetration would reduce that reduction by 50% (i.e. a net 25% damage reduction).

 

It would mean that penetration gains increasing value as your opponent has more armor (which feels right to me), but both will always be useful to have.

 

Now you're talking.

% is the best way to do penetration.

[bringingyouthefuture]

 

Perhaps something like 1 armor = 5% damage reduction (capped at say 75%), and that each point of penetration reduces that damage reduction by 5%.  So with say 10 armor that would be 50% damage reduction but 10 penetration would reduce that reduction by 50% (i.e. a net 25% damage reduction).

 

It would mean that penetration gains increasing value as your opponent has more armor (which feels right to me), but both will always be useful to have.

 

Now you're talking.

% is the best way to do penetration.

 

Not a math major, so then a Kobold with 10 penetration hits me with 75 percent damage, but a Kobold with 6 penetration hits me with 65 percent - not sure the damage fall off is heavy enough though the idea makes things very simple - but the way the ratio goes not sure the fall off would ever be enough ... maybe make the fall of double for each point below, but keep it 5 percent for above?  I have seen this percent idea floating around on the forum so started to try to do the math, might be a mistake on my part ... hehe

 

So - 10 penetration stays at 75%, 9 drops to 70 %, 8 drops to 65 %, 7 drops to 60 %, and 6 is 55 % - still seems pretty high for 6 penetration ...?

 

EDIT:  Anyway I get what everyone is saying, but a steeper drop-off isn't all bad ; ) as long as the math is good that is ...

Edited October 3, 2018 by aaronghowell

[Boeroer]

As is, the whole game circles around PEN vs. AR - especially on PotD. It's not hard - the game is easy enough even on PotD - it's just boring and tiring that one single side-mechanic is so dominant because its implementation is kind of "all or nothing" (not really, but you get the point).

[Phenomenum]

I probably found some useful data in "global.gamedata":

 

"PenetrationRatioMultipliers":[{"Threshold":0,"Value":1},{"Threshold":1,"Value":1},{"Threshold":2,"Value":1.3}], - "Threshold" here is the PEN/AR ratio, "Value" - damage multiplier

"FlatPenetrationMultipliers":[{"Threshold":-99,"Value":0.25},{"Threshold":-2,"Value":0.5},{"Threshold":-1,"Value":0.75} - "Threshold" here is the PEN minus AR, "Value" - damage multiplier

 

I can add some new data in this strings (not sure if it wiil work), eg:

 

"FlatPenetrationMultipliers":[{"Threshold":-99,"Value":0.25},{"Threshold":-4,"Value":0.40},{"Threshold":-3,"Value":0.55},{"Threshold":-2,"Value":0.7},{"Threshold":-1,"Value":0.85} - every point of underpenetration reduce damage by 15%, -5 or more underPEN reduce damage by 75%

 

I will test this today - maybe can create a mod if this changes will works.

 

One thing - is the "double inversion" - i need formula to take it into account, so -75% damage will be -75% and not -300%.

[Phenomenum]

Tested it just now - works fine.

 

Now i need a numbers.

 

For now, test verion contains these changes:

 

OverPEN:

x1.3 = +10% damage

x1.6 = +20% damage

x2 = +30% damage

 

UnderPEN:

-1 = -15% damage

-2 = -30% damage

-3 = -45% damage

-4 = -60% damage

-5 or more = -75% damage

 

Any suggestions? And i can write correct damage multipliers according "double inversion" - just give me formula or exact numbers.