Turn based mode and Troubador

[Koiju]

Ive been doing some testing with chanter on turn based mode

 

Overall btw, very good job on the mode so far, its looking very good and I like what you've done with how dex affects things, I feel that dex and int are definately still relevent in this mode.

(though worth noting that dex is probably more important for casters in this mode due to the casting delays)

 

Anyway, onto the chanter:

 

One of the current issues here is that the chanter is working with lots of very small durations, and thus rounding things to whole rounds is making the balance a bit wonky, specifically im talking about troubador.

 

(In the following examples I will assume a song consisting of 2 phrases that are sung alternately, phrase 1 -> phrase 2 -> phrase 1 -> etc)

 

As it stands, chanters basicly get to chant 1 phrase per round, and the currently chanted phase is only active for that round, ie, they will have phrase 1 and 2 active on alternate rounds, never having both active at once. The only exception to this is for VERY large values of int, where its possible to get them to last 2 rounds each, thus giving permanent uptime on both phrases.

 

Now I noticed that you already changed troubadors linger duration bonus from 50% to 100% in turn based mode, this means that even for lower values of int, troubadors will always be able to maintain permanent uptime on both phrases (while brisk recitation is off). This is good, as its basicly what they are supposed to do (due to the +1 phrase cost of all their other abilities).

 

The problem comes when you turn brisk recitation on, as what now happens is at the start of your turn on every round, you immediately get BOTH songs trigger for a duration of 1 round, as well as gain 2 phrase points (as opposed to 1 per round as is normal for chanters in turn based mode). This means that troubadors can still maintain permanent uptime on both phrases while brisk recitation is on, but will also gain the 2 phrase points per round, making turning it off strictly inferior to just leaving it on. It loses its versatility of having 2 different modes that are good in different situations, as now simply leaving it on has the best of both worlds.

 

 

A suggestion for rebalancing this is to make it so that with brisk recitation on, you only get 1 phrase per round (as it is with brisk recitation off), but have that 1 phrase award double phrase points (ie 2 instead of 1) this should mean that turning it on remains the choice it is in RTwP, maintain less phrases at once, but get double the resource generation.

 

Alternatively you could do one of the suggestions from another topic, and have them expire (as well as start) mid-round.

 

As to how to do this last one, I would think that the best way to implement it would be to calculate the 'value' of one second at the start of every new round, take the highest intiative value of anyone acting in the next round, and divide that by 6 to get the intiative value of 1 second, then use that to calculate on what intiative count the effect sound expire/start.

Ie, if the highest intiative of the next round is 9, the value of 1 second is 1.5, then if you have a remaining duration of 2 seconds on an effect, it would expire on intiative count 3.

 

(Note that ive seen from testing that obsidian is taking all durations in seconds and then converting them to rounds with 1 round = 6 seconds, with any smaller values than 6 left over being discarded, and all effects having a minimum duration fo 1 round. Ie, a duration of 10 seconds would last 1 round, and the 4 seconds left over are discarded, my above example would have it last untill intiative count 6 instead)

 

Anyway, that was long winded, let me know if anything ive said is confusing :S

 

But let me just say again that I greatly appreciate this update and am looking forward to playing through on turn-based mode

 

[EDIT: corrections and formatting]

Edited January 26, 2019 by Koiju

[TheMetaphysician]

Interesting. I interpreted the base chanter's "1 round active, 1 round linger" to indicate that the base (non-troubadour) chanter can always have 2 songs up all the time -- the one you are currently chanting, and the lingering one from the previous round. Am I wrong about that?

[Koiju]

In my testing it seems to have tried to add the 3 seconds +int bonus onto the 1 round initial duration and rounded it down to 1 round total duration, only on my troubador did it last 2 rounds, I cant remember what int value I had at the time though, I should do some more testing and see at what point that changes, but its definately way easier to achieve on the troubador (which makes sense since they get a bonus to that).

 

[EDIT]: Just tested again, and this is true, even with 20 int a standard chanter has a 1 round total duration on their chants (the linger essentially doesnt happen due to rounding) only the troubador gets the 1 round chant then 1 round of linger.

 

I suspect youd need 30 int (+100% duration bonus) to get a standard chanter to this state, which im not sure is possible.

 

So I'm thinking that letting effects start/finish mid-round is probably a good idea.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Koiju

[Crumbleton]

Would power level effect the linger? So like a chanter with 20 int at lvl 10?

[Koiju]

Thats a good point, I believe power level does affect durations, so it should do? but I cant test that as I dont know of any cheats :S (Ive been testing using the 'start at level 4' blessing)

[SChin]

Hey everyone,

 

Thank you so much for the feedback!  I'll put it into a report for the team to look at.  If you think of anything else, please continue to post about it here as I'll be linking this thread to the report as a reference for the team.

 

Thanks again for all the help!

[nivodeus]

Interesting. I interpreted the base chanter's "1 round active, 1 round linger" to indicate that the base (non-troubadour) chanter can always have 2 songs up all the time -- the one you are currently chanting, and the lingering one from the previous round. Am I wrong about that?

This is my interpretation as well, meaning I can always go back and forth between 2 phrases and benefit from both. Wasnt that the case? It's really hard to see the chanter effect in this game compared to the first game. I remembered the first game has some sort of AoE musical note around the perimeter of their chanting. Right? 

[Faytte]

Yeah I stopped my chanter play through for similar issues here. A lot of their debuffs are also very short duration, and playing around with the console, to ever get my stun or paralysis to gain an extra round beyond 1 I would need something like 30+ intelligence. Basically there is almost 0 value in increasing your intelligence as a chanter in turn based outside of area of effect, and that alone is not as attractive as duration + area of effect in the normal mode. I also think it makes the Skald a real chore to play, since before all of their spells were relatively 'quick' to cast at melee, allowing you to swing your sword around and take a brief pause to unload your phrases. In the new system you give up a full turn for it however, and probably is no doubt what dual wield players are feeling where being fast no longer feels very impactfull.

 

On the other hand, it is great to feel like two handed weapons are now actually the meta choice, after Pillars 2 being so dominated by attack speed and dual wield builds. I think it be nice however if turn based mode (if it does not take a FF10 approach to turn order) gives you a a move, 2 free actions, a lesser actions (for a quick action) and a normal attack. Lesser actions could be used to cast 'quicker' spells as well as maybe strike with your off hand weapons.