My Only Real Gripe w/ POE2

[Dezus]

Weapon Proficiency Leveling becomes very redundant very fast.  I think the assortment of cross-class offensive, defensive, and utility talents are a lot better and add more replay value.   Other than that the game is great and enjoy every RTwP  second of it.

I do realize different damage types work better and/or worse on different enemies.

[Boeroer]

You don't need Weapon Proficiency to use different weapon types (in order to apply the most effective dmg type). In that regard you could do without it.
The only effect (besides Devoted's passive and Confident Aim) is that you can use a "balanced" modal that gives you additional options. Maces can lower AR for others but hit a lot slower, Morning Star lowers fortitude but does less dmg then, Sword gains +2 PEN but deflection drops. I generally like this approach. 

I do agree though that

a) at a certain point it feels redundant because you already picked all of those you think are useful for you and
b) replay value or -motivation would be increased (at least for me) if the choice were a bit more scarce. 

I also think that some of the modals are fantastic while others are meh. They seem to be a bit unbalanced. For example the modals of battle axe, mace, flail, club and especially morning star can be very useful while I can't see as much value in the hunting bow or great sword modal (trading one dps stat for the other).

Edited October 16, 2019 by Boeroer

[Ancelor]

I also wished that weapon perks worked in a different way.

I usually prefer a passive bonus when I pick weapon ability although I liked how they used specializations with fighter abilities.

[xzar_monty]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I also think that some of the modals are fantastic while others are meh. They seem to be a bit unblalanced. For example the modals of battle axe, mace, flail, club and espacially morning star can be very useful while I can't see as much value in the hunting bow or great sword modal (trading one dps stat for the other).

Interestingly (and certainly knowing a lot less about the subtleties of the game mechanics than you do!), here's how I looked at them: it became very obvious very quickly that Penetration is important. Therefore, modals that improve penetration are my first pick, because they will benefit me. That was essentially my only criterion.

I don't know if that was anywhere near the ideal approach, but it did work.

[Boeroer]

The thing with the PEN modals which suffer a 50% recovery malus is: it's just better to switch to a weapon which either has higher PEN and/or targets a lower AR. For example: it's way better to switch from sabre to war hammer. If the enemy's slash AR is only 1 point higher than pierce or crush. A bit less base damage but no recovery malus and the same PEN compared to the sabre+modal. And you spare yourself a weapon proficiency point.

On the other hand you can't sustitude a Morning Star's -25 fortitude debuff (that targets deflection) with something else so easily. That makes it far more valuable for me.  Also because a lot of great spells target fortitude while it's the defense that's usually the highest on most enemies.

[algroth]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I do agree though that

a) at a certain point it feels redundant because you already picked all of those you think are useful for you

I agree though I think the general reason behind this is to not punish first-time players who at some point in the game find a new cool weapon that they want for a character and feel they can't because they haven't invested a proficiency point into it. This is something of a tricky point, because regardless of the game making it very clear that proficiency only grants a modal and has no negative side-effects if you don't take it, the fact that it's a spiritual successor for a series of games that heavily punish the player for using weapons they're not proficient at means a lot of players come with the preconception or psychological reflex of assuming one *must* use weapons they're proficient in and *must* invest proficiency points based on the weapons they intend to use and not the modals they grant.

[Blunderboss]

PEN weapon modals don’t even stack with potion that gives 2 pen or 2nd/3rd tier might inspiration, they are useless past early game 

[xzar_monty]

14 minutes ago, Blunderboss said:

PEN weapon modals don’t even stack with potion that gives 2 pen or 2nd/3rd tier might inspiration, they are useless past early game 

Fair enough, if that's the case -- I may very well have been wrong, technically, in my choices. But maybe that's yet another example of the possibly-overly-balanced mechanics of the game: even if it is useless, it doesn't matter. At least playing on Veteran, it won't lead to any difficulties, you'll do just fine.

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by xzar_monty

[thelee]

I think if the game designers were willing to be a bit less "systematic" they could front-load the weapon proficiencies a bit more earlier on, maybe like 1-3-6-9 and then that's it. Picking up a weapon proficiency at level 16 or 20 is virtually pointless, because by then you probably already have figured out what weapons your characters are using, and you've probably already seen most of the content in the game.

Also, count me in the club that was disappointed early on to learn about how stacking rules mean that the +2 PEN from modals doesn't stack with with Tenacious/Energized or the Potion of Piercing Strikes, as well as dagger's +10 deflection for defensive magic. It makes the Mace's -1 AR modal and wand/hatchet's -10 accuracy a bit better by comparison. Though in general, I rarely have enough coverage of Tenacious/Energized/Piercing Strikes to make those modals completely redundant.

[Blunderboss]

Almost as disappointing as food/drugs getting replaced by other combat buffs 

[xzar_monty]

But then, I was happy to see that ability bonuses from various sources do stack, unlike in PoE. So they just changed everything, nothing more than that.

[Blunderboss]

Stacking rules are honestly miserable, items you can stack same effects as many times as you want but food and potions get replaced by active abilities which makes them mostly useless unless you need some affliction resistance for end game fight.The thing is that even if items did not stack players would still use items in item slots just with different effects, however since its food and potion effects that doesn’t stack they get neglected to the point where i never use any potions that aren’t for healing and penetration and food is only used for affliction immunities against bosses and I just spam Luminous Bathouse bonuses every time i need to rest(you can stack luminous bathhouse rest bonus with the bonus of taking a bath which nets you +2 class resources for martial classes) . Make potions great again for PoE3!

Weapon modals being considered active effects is huge oversight too,they should have been unique effects that stacks with everything since all of them have drawbacks attached to the buffs.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Blunderboss

[xzar_monty]

11 hours ago, Blunderboss said:

however since its food and potion effects that doesn’t stack they get neglected to the point where i never use any potions that aren’t for healing and penetration

Both PoE and Deadfire are full of potions and scrolls. I almost never used any of them. On the rare occasions that I did, it was healing potions in Deadfire, that was pretty much it -- very, very little other use ever, particularly for scrolls. And, again, this caused no problems whatsoever: there was never a point where I felt I was missing either potions or scrolls that would have helped me (except on one specific occasion where it was that ritual scroll that improves Mechanics).

This part of the game is not very well designed, I think. Excellent game, no question, but there are these strange little things.

Edited October 17, 2019 by xzar_monty

[Boeroer]

I don't use consumables at all (besides the obligatory food when resting). Still I think that if you introduce consumables you better make sure that they have any worthwhile impact. Best is if they do something different than the other items/abilites. Let them have unique effects. 

Stacking rules are rel. simple: active effects stack, passives don't. Stuff from items stacks. The problem is: it's often not recognizeable what's active and what's passive (besides in the ability tree). Starts with weapon modals. Is an ability that I get from a weapon an active effect or not?

And then you have the cases where debuffs/buffs "to all" do stack with debuffs/buffs "to x". See Vigorous Defense, Borrowed Instincts or Llengrath's Safeguard stacking with Mirrored Images or Arcane Veil and so on. Confusing...

A solution would be to only give a certain type of effect to a certain group. For example only give direct defense/offense bonuses (defenses, accuracy, dmg) to items and passives. Only give inspirations and afflictions to active abilites. Make scrolls different active abilities than the ones from classes but communicte that they are actives. Give potions direct attribute boosts but no inspirations. And so on. Keep it separate and you don't run into stacking confusion. And where you have overlapping or where it still might be unclear: communicate the stacking rules for this effect right with the item/ability/consumable - every time (not only on the char sheet once it's all active or having to check the combat log for everything). 

And while you are at it: put stuff like attack speed and recovery on the char sheet where the other stats like weapon dmg and accuracy etc. are. It's not great having to manually check the tooltip ofthe equipped weapon. 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Boeroer

[Ancelor]

13 hours ago, Blunderboss said:

Weapon modals being considered active effects is huge oversight too,they should have been unique effects that stacks with everything since all of them have drawbacks attached to the buffs.

this

[xzar_monty]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I don't use consumables at all (besides the obligatory food when resting). Still I think that if you introduce consumables you better make sure that they have any worthwhile impact. Best is if they do something different than the other items/abilites. If they have unique effects.

The funny thing is that this (plus much of the rest of your comment) seems to painstakingly obvious -- but it definitely isn't there, in the game. If I thoroughly understood the engine, I might also have an understanding as to why, but then again, maybe not. Maybe I would still think that some oversights are very strange.

[Blunderboss]

To rub even more salt on to this wound whenever I decide to actually craft some scroll to help myself with  early game fight I realise that crafting a simple scroll will require same materials as enchanting items to legendary adra ban especially which can’t be bought in stores and there are very few fixed adra bans in the game compared to how much u might need to enchant different items to legendary 

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

The funny thing is that this (plus much of the rest of your comment) seems to painstakingly obvious -- but it definitely isn't there, in the game. If I thoroughly understood the engine, I might also have an understanding as to why, but then again, maybe not. Maybe I would still think that some oversights are very strange.

I guess those things need a lot of planning and also playtesting. Maybe establishing such a strict regiment and making it fun to play and somewhat balanced takes too much time. At least when you are reinventing the mechanic's wheel once again at the same time (as was done with Deadfire). Maybe this is a step that could be taken with PoE3 should it ever come. Incremental improvements and so on. They should hire a German engineer - those are famous for that.

Declaing the weapon modals as active effects and making them not stack (with regard to their "balanced" approach) is an oversight I'd say. And honestly I think nobody at Obsidian knows the workings and stackings and whatnot as well as some of the users here. They are busy developing games - no time for power gaming Deadfire.  

 

[Ancelor]

I do remember there was extensive feedback regarding the weapon modals in the early stages of the game.

It's just there was alot to do in the area of bugfixing that re engineering the modals was never on the list

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

And honestly I think nobody at Obsidian knows the workings and stackings and whatnot as well as some of the users here. They are busy developing games - no time for power gaming Deadfire.

You could well be right. Based on some of the descriptions, it appears that nobody at Obsidian knows what some things in the game do. You can easily come across at least a couple of item/skill/etc. descriptions that are extremely vague (on the level of language), with the text "Right click for more details", and when you do right click, you get exactly the same less-than-informing piece of information but on a different sheet. D'oh.

So, in addition to the German engineer you suggested, Obsidian should also hire someone who can write concisely and precisely and who never falls for unintentional ambiguity.

[Boeroer]

The reason for those vague descriptions is that values and workings of items/abilities etc. may change during development, even after release.

But you have to lock the written content at some point because of localisation (esp. if you're not doing it inhouse). That means that everything that is most likely to change because of balance passes, bug fixing etc. shouldn't be too detailed - or you'd have to rewrite the description and give it to the localisation team again.

That's one big reason why developers like to auto-generate certain parts of descriptions and other text - Obsidian also tried it and used more generated descriptions in Deadfire than in PoE. Unfortunately generated stuff fails once your effects are a bit unique and out of the line compared to your more systematic stuff. I believe at some point there wasn't time left to go through all the descriptions and check if they are specific enough. 

For PoE3 I would like a separated tooltip: one section for the fluff and lore and stuff and a vague description what the item does - and then a block that is auto-generated. Every item/ability etc. should display all the game values it influences. You can use icons/symbols to display stuff (and give mouseover explanations for those) to keeop it short. 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

22 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

That's one big reason why developers like to auto-generate certain parts of descriptions and other text - Obsidian also tried it and used more generated descriptions in Deadfire than in PoE.

Yep. The auto-generation also creates its own fair share of rather hilarious errors. I'm sure you've noticed some of them. Like, if a part of the game narrative contains a word that has something to do with the game mechanics (like, "healthy" or "bloodied" or "injury" or stuff like that), that word is highlighted/hyperlinked as if it were a part of a game mechanics description, although it has nothing to do with that.

Not a problem, just a funny error resulting from auto-generation.

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The reason for those vague descriptions is that values and workings of items/abilities etc. may change during development, even after release.

But you have to lock the written content at some point because of localisation (esp. if you're not doing it inhouse). That means that everything that is most likely to change because of balance passes, bug fixing etc. shouldn't be too detailed - or you'd have to rewrite the description and give it to the localisation team again.

Yeah, this is the reason why even effects that trigger all the time nevertheless has a description that is "chance of X" or, if they were feeling bold, "high chance of X". Who knows if in some balance patch they need to knock it down from 100% to 80% without needing to an entire localization pass.

(I was recently privy to some budget details of a (non-game) translation effort needed for a tech project also based in California and even for one language on a small scale it was literally thousands of dollars. So yeah, translations don't come cheap.)

Edited October 17, 2019 by thelee

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

(I was recently privy to some budget details of a (non-game) translation effort needed for a tech project also based in California and even for one language on a small scale it was literally thousands of dollars. So yeah, translations don't come cheap.)

Obsidian should just ditch the translations, if you ask me. After the game came out, there was plenty of evidence on these forums that the quality of translation was just horrendous. I mean, seriously poor. Your self right now imagines please text that which in language you speak look like quality of this and then ask your own self does it makes your game beautifuler. That's pretty much how poor it was -- lack of grammar, lack of nuance, lack of style. Unbelievable. The sad thing is, apparently nobody at Obsidian has the expertise to even glimpse at the translations and determine their quality, or lack of it.

(For what it's worth, this is an area I'm a proper expert in, hence the strongly-worded comment.)

[GloatingSwine]

On 10/17/2019 at 6:13 AM, xzar_monty said:

Both PoE and Deadfire are full of potions and scrolls. I almost never used any of them. On the rare occasions that I did, it was healing potions in Deadfire, that was pretty much it -- very, very little other use ever, particularly for scrolls. And, again, this caused no problems whatsoever: there was never a point where I felt I was missing either potions or scrolls that would have helped me (except on one specific occasion where it was that ritual scroll that improves Mechanics).

This part of the game is not very well designed, I think. Excellent game, no question, but there are these strange little things.

That's not unlike literally every RPG ever though.  It's super rare that you'll come across a game where using consumables is a regular event because they're usually just about the worst way of doing whatever you were trying to do and when they're not they're too useful to use unless it's really a real emergency.  And it's never a real emergency because the final boss might have another even harder form.