Deadfire Polishing Poll pt2

[Boeroer]

Good point with getting infuriated by crits. Also  indeed fits nicely with Barbaric Retaliation as you said.

Also good point that if something is too tempting (in this case Barb potentially getting back Rage on receiving crit) there will be few motivation to take other stuff. Good example: Whispers of the Wind (is nearly always awesome) vs. Inner Death (costs Mortification and is bad if it doesn't crit which you can only make sure with Empowered Strike).

Still: I like the idea because a) Barb's do get crit frequently because of low starting deflection and Frenzy and b) is makes total sense to become enraged if somebody hits you harder than you would like. Hulk mode and so on.

I think Paladin is kind of fine as is atm. I mean compared to Rogue and Ranger (and Fighter to a lesser extend because he has what the Barb should have had).

Fighter's Discipline could potentially rise when downgrading received attack rolls AND when upgrading his own rolls maybe? Both are abilities of his. But graze to hit is not very good after the early game because the graze range is pretty small compared to hit and you ACC/enemy defense ratio gets bigger throughout the game. So graze to hit happens a lot less than hit to crit after some levels. Since Confident Aim no longer gives you a damage bonus it loses its power very soon. Would be nice to have a higher PL upgrade that added a (small?) chance for discipline regain...?

Only thing is that this would make flails his favorite weapon choice (if the ability is too good or too appealing) - and I don't know if that is desirable.

@Wotcha's suggestion for Rangers sounds fitting and in line with what I want from a regaining-Bond-mechanic - but I fear that this solution is a bit too complicated for modding and to communicate? Maybe something along those lines but a bit simpler (mechanically)? Like a 5% chance for every hit/crit of the ranger that was done while the enemy was attacked by both? Not counting the damage? Afaik that mechanic "are both attacking the same target?" is already there to determine stuff like Stalker's Link upgrade. And if you go with simple chances per hit you won't have to keep track of damage dealt (which maybe difficult to mod).

 

[Powerotti]

Rangers are warriors of the woodlands and masters of the hunt. Always partnered with soul-bonded animal companions - ingame description 

It sounds more like tracking and taking down target quickly (sniping maybe?) with assistance of animal companion, than dealing constant damage over time. That's why i think killing with critical hit enemy, that is threatened by companion fits ranger quite good. It is also something that he is designed to because of high accuracy. 

[Vonbek]

On 8/17/2019 at 12:11 PM, Boeroer said:

And that's good. Of course for Rogues it kind of makes sense that they would regain resources via crits or killing since they are good at that. But if we look at the name of their resource (Guile) it would even make more sense for them to regain it if they did something "guileful". Like landing an attack from stealth and invisibility, applying a DoT or affliction and so on. For example a passive that gives a 25% chance to regain Guile when an affliction is successfully applied. But this has the risk that AoE appliances of afflictions would break it. So one has to think about it thoroughly. But you get the idea. Rogues can already regain Guile via Gambit by the way but you can't get back more than you spend.

@Boeroer : could that simply be done ( remember not a modder for this game so not sure of mechanics for mods etc ) by working out what the longest AOE animation is that could be abused for this, or if it is easier for DoT reasons check the effect window for the Initial Hit for the AOE and lock the Regain to :

• Regain balanced amount of guile of Initial Application for the Ability, then lock out any regain for that cast on a GCD to stop AOE/DoT ticks proccing the ability

As said, remember I'm not modding here yet so no idea if somethign as simple as a First Hit Check followed by a GCD on Regen via that effect would work.

 

Clarification : First Hit Check the way we used it for TL means it checks all possible hits, and triggers on the first successful application of the effect.

 

So here it would parse through the AOE hits, then trigger the GCD as soon as you get an application to stop any further regen from that cast.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Vonbek
Realised FHC is a term we only seemed to use in one specific Torchlight set of threads :D

[Boeroer]

Afaik it's easy to put a cap on an ability. e.g. stuff like Stunning Surge, Gambit and Barbaric Smash have that. But in this case it's directly linked to the ability. If a Rogue had a passive that would let him regain guile by applying afflctions with any ability he chooses (like Spellblade uses Chillfog) one would need to cap the outcome of that passive somehow. I don't know if that's possible: to link the ability use of Chillfog (which pulses a lot in aould apply a ton of afflictions over its duration) to that passive... sounds complex.

I guess you could put a cap on the passive itself so that you could only regain like let's say 10 Guile in total over the course of an encounter. But that sounds inelegant. 

Maybe that idea isn't feasible. 

[Boeroer]

Same problem with the Fighter gaining discipline from conversion: sooner or later the player would use pulsing spells like Tanglefoot or Pull of Eora to generate a ton of rel. harmless attack rolls that would get converted eventually, giving the Fighter lots of Discipline.

Like a Forbidden Fist can regain wounds and heal like crazy if he wanders around in a Pull of Eora or in an Area of Tanglefoot.  

[Powerotti]

Fighter ability is abusable already. Max mig and int, dump def, get many crit with high ar, so they don't overpen and spam unbending trunk. It heals more than damage you take and restore more discipline than you spend. To prevent abuse conversions there could be a limit to only direct mele or ranged hits excluding aoe spells.

Why actually limit resource regen to passive skills? Rogue could use active ability that leaves trap/sigil on the ground and get guile when it activates or ability (free cost) that is used from stealth and restore guile on exchange for lower damage, so you must choose between more damage and resource regen. Skill named "cheap trick"

Edited August 18, 2019 by Powerotti

[Powerotti]

I was thinking some more about it and came up with this: 

Cheap trick - can be use only on enemies vulnerable for sneak attacks, damage decreased by 50%, apply 1 tier random affliction, restore 2 guile, add "tricked" effect to enemy for 30sec (tricked - positive effect that prevents "stealing resources" so it can't be spammed on one enemy) 

Or apply "swindler" effect on rogue, instead of "tricked", so he can't use cheap trick for duration

[Elric Galad]

I'm not sure all classes (even only every martial Single Class) should be provided a way to regain ressources (except Brillant and that Tier 9 Invocation). A couple of them can already do it, that's fine but I'm not sure we need all classes to be similar.

I feel there could be something wrong with a "Sustainable" Rogue or even Ranger, who are supposed to be ambush warriors that deal their damage quickly.

That's why I was simply suggesting to increase their initial pool, but of course there might be other more interesting ways to do something (such as +2 ressources bracer avaiable to all martial classes). Take into account that Rangers and especially Rogues don't have tons of good high level abilities.

If going this route, a small percentage of chances (5% ?) to gain ressources against afflicted ennemies or pet's target (or bleeding target) is the most straightforward (and best ?) way to go IMHO.
I also like the idea of tweaking Toughened Fury to work on Hit rather than Crit (with smaller percentage of course… 5% too ?) because current version, even improved by Community Patch is anti synergetic. Tweaking Blood Surge so it works as current Toughened Fury could be a good idea then.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Elric Galad

[Powerotti]

How big is area of clear out (and its upgrades), exactly? Is it like poe1 Length: 2.5m 135° Cone? is it influenced by int? And the most important, is it possible to highlight this, like with cone spells?

The same situation is with power strike, carnage or torments reach. Is this because of conflict with aoe weapons (wotep, wahai, mortars)?

[Boeroer]

I have no idea why you can't see the AoE. That's kind of meh. I like to use Clear Out with WotEP: at least you can see the exact direction then.

Clear Out's radius seems to be pretty big - more than 2.5.

What you said (that you maybe can't see it because it can be executed with AoE weapons which have their own AoE indicator) might be the explanation. Makes sense. Although  I would have preferred two overlapping AoE indicators instead.

135° for Clear Out could still be the case. Feels like it. I guess somebody could look it up in the code...?

Clean Sweep's radius becomes huge with some good INT, so I suspect the base radius is also pretty big. 

Clear Out and Clean Sweep seem to scale with INT normally.

Clear the Path is like Mind Lance, Driving Roar or Rolling Flame: a very long 'line'. But in this case it's also pretty broad. Like Driving Roar's I guess (which you can see). The size of the Clear-the-Path AoE doesn't seem to be influenced by INT at all. It's perfect for Edér and similar lowish INT Fighter's.

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Boeroer

[DragorTheDrake]

Hi guys great to see that this mod project is revived the question I wonder is when can we expect the next update and what changes to item, abilities, classes and other tweaks to the overall game can we expect?

[Boeroer]

I think it's pretty dead since neither @MaxQuest nor @Phenomenum seem to be posting frequently anymore. Happy to be proven wrong though.

[Elric Galad]

Does it mean there would not be any further version ? Even for Druid / Priest trinkets who were in a quite advanced step ? Or Brillant / SoT unstackability ?

It's not that I'm complaining. I might try to make my own balance mod one day, and I would like to start from the community patch as a basis (I mean not making overlaping changes). So I would like to know 

 

I won't do it before a couple of months anyway, so I'm not in a hurry to know it.

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

I don't know. I wrote down some ideas about priest trinkets (based on the requirements I explained in length in this thread), Phenomenon didn't like the direction where my trinkets were going and I said he should maybe discuss with MaxQuest what they really want from trinkets/want to do with trinkets. That was the last thing I heard about that topic. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

How difficult would it be to tie resource regeneration to stuff like downgraded/upgraded attacks or team attacks with animal companions? Because the idea fits thematically, which is good, but seems to look like it could be messy in implementation or end up being only situationally useful (which is already true of +x resources on kill). 

[Rooksx]

The improved Stag Carnage is working very nicely, thanks for that. Note though that it is unaffected by Accurate Carnage. Is that intentional?

[Boeroer]

Accurate Carnage just replaces the original Carnage Ability with a new one (that has the same stats but +5 ACC).

It's not that Accurate Carnage is a passive that just "docks" onto your base Carnage or something. Unfortunately...

That's the case with all upgrades of abilites: they are actual completely seperate abilites. Think of copy & paste of the original - then add a few improvements. In most cases the orginal ability will be removed from your character and the new one will take its place (there are some exceptions like Lay on Hands/Greater Lay on Hands where you keep the original).

Because of this "Copy & Paste" programming/code design choice (non-modular) you'd need a seperate "Accurate Stag Carnage" ability. that would replace the normal one You would need to either

a) pick it seperately at level-up OR

b) you would need to change Accurate Carnage so that it secretly adds Accurate Stag Carnage as well - IF you had Stag Carnage in the first place (this sounds rather complicated).

The first solution a) would be a lot easy(er) to mod. 

 

This is the same with all upgrades o passives that "sound" like they could work for different abilities. But if Obsidian didn't create those manually they won't be tehre even if it would make sense.

Another example: Beckoner's passive only works for Chanter summons. Only his skeletons/wurms/whisps etc. will be double the number and weaker. Because Obsidia made "Ancient_Brittle_Bones" for the other Chanter subclasses but a specific "Ancient_Brittle_Bones_Beckoner" for the Beckoner subclass.

If you now multiclass with Ancient those summons (like the Sporelings) will not be affected. That's because there is no ability "Summon_Sporelings_Beckoner".

This can eve be a "problem" inside a single class: most Paladins get "Flames_of_Devotion", Bleak Walkers get "Flames_of_Devotion_Bleak_Walker". Now... if you'd just made one upgrade "Eternal_Devotion" and replace the PL-1 FoD with it the Bleak Walker would lose his spcial corrosive/sickerning lash. So he needs a "Eternal_Devotion_Bleak_Walker". Same with Kind Wayfarer.

The upside is: it's straightforward to develop. The downside is that it introduces redundancy and is prone to oversight once you start changing abilities (e.g. when patching for balance): let's say you want to nerf the FoD lash from 30% to 20% - you need not only to change the original ability but ALL the upgrade copies now. 

THis is also done when e.g. Priests get "cross class" abilities like Preist of Eothas gets Sunbeam (original Druid): this is not the same ability. It is a copy which name is "Sunbeam_Eothas" (or something like that, don't remember 100%). So if you as a designer want to change Sunbeam because it's too bad or good you don't need to forget that tehre are several SUnbeams you'd have to edit.

It happens often that something is forgotten. For example Shadowing_Beyond and Shadowing_Beyond_Skaen started out as the same code (copy). But over the course of the patching cycle those two have become different. I guaratee that Shadowing Beyond got some mechanical tinkering while Shadowing_Beyond_Skaen was either forgotten or intentionally left alone. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[Rooksx]

Ah thanks. That explains why when I looked at the code for Accurate Carnage, I couldn't figure out how it linked into Carnage.

[Elric Galad]

Thanks Boeroer. Your post is very informative for wannabe modders.

I'm currently trying to decipher a bit the data file and I am so noobish that I have trouble to even get a proper indentation on Visual Studio Code.

Still, if I got the file right, I have managed to sport that Druid PL8 Entropy only trigger Hit to Crit thrice (same number of triggers as Enduring Dance).
And that Healing Chain mysterious "healing slightly less with each jump" is a 0.75 factor (still have to check in-game how it is applied). Healing Chain also has a parameter not to bounce twice on the same target.
Gurps, these 2 abilities seem to need a little "care".

Edited September 6, 2019 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

By the way there are some passives that do indeed influence other abilites without creating a seperate copy for every ability they work with. For example "Lingering Echoes" of the Cipher works for all outgoing afflictions no matter if it's a cipher power or a wizard spell and so on. I think this is due to the already implemented mechanics around afflictions/inspirations which already provide means of influencing durations via crits/INT/Resolve etc. So it was easy to implment Lingering Echos as a similar effect. Also see Ring of Overseeing or Aloth's Armor: same mechanic basically but with AoE size.

But whenever there is an upgrade or effect that doesn't fit into the "generic" mechanics it usually is a hard copy of an ability.

Edited September 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

Mule Kick, Panther's Leap and Dragon's Leap are missing the parent ability in the field "UpgradedFromID". I think that is the reason why these are the only abilities I found that didn't keep the original ability PL for the purpose of scaling (they scale as if they were PL3 and PL8 respectively instead of PL1 from knockdown and PL6 from leap).

Edited September 6, 2019 by Elric Galad

[3x0du5]

Sad that in game version 5.x stuff like that still exists ... and probably will never be fixed

[Boeroer]

I think it's intentional. Instead they get a 25% additive dmg bonus (Mule Kick) which works well with the following PL bonus to come or get added damage in the first place (Leaps).

[Wotcha]

And in the end it’s a very modest difference of scaling. Mule Kick is already an excellent ability, a minor buff in its scaling isn’t going to move the needle that much, except to make a nearly auto-pick ability even more attractive. I can’t speak so much to the upgraded Leaps as I almost never play SC barbarian.

The kinds of buffs I’m more interested in are things like trying to bring never-pick abilities up to reasonable par with the usual suspects. This is surprisingly hard to do! Sometimes the structural idea of an ability isn’t worth it, and twiddling the numbers a little bit doesn’t help. 

Some examples from the cipher mod I’m working on:

Antipathetic Field: does anyone take this? It’s entirely useless on single targets, and much more awkward to use compared to Ectopsychic Echo (a near-auto-pick) because you don’t control both ends. I changed it to affect the target as well, which suddenly turns it into something just as worth casting as Ray of Fire. Yes, I know it didn’t affect the target in PoE 1. I didn’t take it back then either. 

Tenuous Grasp: Confused is probably the least useful affliction on most enemies. If the enemy isn’t using AoE abilities it’s only a minor debuff to durations and to Will. Shaken isn’t terrible, but it’s not that great. And on just one target? It’s not even worth the time spent casting it, never mind the ability slot or the focus. I added Distracted to it, which I’m still not convinced is enough to make it worthwhile, but it potentially has a role in being able to strip up to 3 inspirations from a target, and/or debuff several defenses and ability PLs. And it still might not be worth picking compared to Eyestrike.

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, Wotcha said:

And in the end it’s a very modest difference of scaling. Mule Kick is already an excellent ability, a minor buff in its scaling isn’t going to move the needle that much, except to make a nearly auto-pick ability even more attractive. I can’t speak so much to the upgraded Leaps as I almost never play SC barbarian.

The kinds of buffs I’m more interested in are things like trying to bring never-pick abilities up to reasonable par with the usual suspects. This is surprisingly hard to do! Sometimes the structural idea of an ability isn’t worth it, and twiddling the numbers a little bit doesn’t help. 

Some examples from the cipher mod I’m working on:

Antipathetic Field: does anyone take this? It’s entirely useless on single targets, and much more awkward to use compared to Ectopsychic Echo (a near-auto-pick) because you don’t control both ends. I changed it to affect the target as well, which suddenly turns it into something just as worth casting as Ray of Fire. Yes, I know it didn’t affect the target in PoE 1. I didn’t take it back then either. 

Tenuous Grasp: Confused is probably the least useful affliction on most enemies. If the enemy isn’t using AoE abilities it’s only a minor debuff to durations and to Will. Shaken isn’t terrible, but it’s not that great. And on just one target? It’s not even worth the time spent casting it, never mind the ability slot or the focus. I added Distracted to it, which I’m still not convinced is enough to make it worthwhile, but it potentially has a role in being able to strip up to 3 inspirations from a target, and/or debuff several defenses and ability PLs. And it still might not be worth picking compared to Eyestrike.

Mule Kick and Leaps would be more for the purpose of having a bit more consistent rules.

I've started a (quite long) list of abilities requiring some changes.

Antipathetic field : I agree with your proposal, especially because Anitpathetic field would be very interesting for SC Cipher given that is the best way to trigger 1000 cuts proc.

Tenuous Grasp : Its main utility is to be a quite long Will debuff IMHO. Focus cost is a non issue, but casting time is. It's already quite low so setting it to 0.5s/3s would be enough IMHO. Quick affliction spamming has its use, especially for a ranged mindstalker.

Now the true question is : how do we keep on coordinating the balance effort ^^ ? The community patch has already been a really great common work, so how do we continue this ?

Main issues of modding are :
- Power Creeping
- Lack of visibility of mods
- Too much changes from the original game, so might not feel "legit"
I think Community Patch has managed to avoid (mostly) these issues for now, especially thanks to polls, and I wonder how to continue the good work.