Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Boeroer]

Full Healing can be achieved by simply healing for a ridiculously high amount. But I don't understand where/how you would want to apply that...?

If you alter an existing ability like Tough you don't have to touch progression tables, right? And can you not add several triggered "sub-effects" to Tough then? So one for every CON-value over 10?

Man it's too bad that the attribute bonuses are not moddable. 

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Full Healing can be achieved by simply healing for a ridiculously high amount. But I don't understand where/how you would want to apply that...?

Nowhere precisely. I was just adding this as an example of an indirect way of buffing CON. Thelee mentionned % based healing. This is basically it. You can't code a true percentage based healing, but as you said a ridiculously high amont mimic 100%.

Sacred Sacrifice is an example. I think this (and Feign Death for pet) is the only example in the game.

I have no clear plan about it but I thought it was interesting to mention. Maybe someone could have an idea.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

If you alter an existing ability like Tough you don't have to touch progression tables, right?

And can you not add several triggered "sub-effects" to Tough then? So one for every CON-value over 10?

Man it's too bad that the attribute bonuses are not moddable. 

This is hard to explain because very technical :

Basically you can have triggered conditional sub effects on :

- An attack* (but having a CON based effect on an attack feels weird. Maybe on a pseudo-attack occuring when knocked out ?)

- The initial application of a status (you can't have a status applied until the condition become false, and the re-applied when it becomes true again)

- An "gamedata item called Ability" : this one enables a status tobe applied and de-applied when conditions changes dynamically (for example : Blooded bar ability works this way). Each "Ability" can only have 1 condition (with possible AND or OR) to activate and 1 condition to de-activate. This means I would have to use 25 different "Ability".

Now the reason I write it "Ability" is because a pickable Ability can (in rare cases) be linked to several different "gamedata item called Ability". A good example is Resonant Touch : picking the ability actually gives you 1 Active "gamedata item called Ability" and 1 Passive "gamedata item called Ability".

So technically, I can have Tough direct to 25 Ability in addition to the original one. But this "pointer" is a component of the Progression Table. So I will have to add the pointer to all Progression Table which uses Tough (fortunately, there is a way to append a Progression Table rather than to replace it, but I will still have to append it n times for each Progression Table using Tough.). This would be horribly tedious in addition to be potentially buggy. There's a limit to what I'm willing to do  

Edited July 21, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Yeah, that wouldn't be a neat solution.

[Elric Galad]

I guess potion of miraculous healing with a decent alchemy, a bit of might and various healing done / received can be interpreted as a full heal. Max con martial could get more than 600 hp and won't wait 1hp to drink the potion, so I guess this could be quite interesting in this case. A bit narrow maybe but still...

At least it means high con should probably go for High Alchemy, because it's hard to top potion in term of single target heals.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Not So Clever Hound]

All this talk about CON as a primary stat to be maxed out reminded me of The Anvil, the Monk fire godlike build that relied upon crazy-high endurance and Battle Forged + other retaliation effects to kill his foes in PoE1.

Back to @Elric Galad's initial observation, it's too bad there isn't a possibility to play around high CON builds for unexpected effects in PoE2. I mean of course there are Human/Streetfighter/Death Godlike shenanigans but generally speaking you don't want to mess around with low health, unless you're abusing BDD or Potion of the Final Stand in which case sky-high CON is not really useful anyway.

 

[Elric Galad]

Mod updated wto Version 1.4.5 with the companions & sidekicks slight attribute buff, constitution changed to +6% health (once again, couldn't do much better) and a couple of other minor changes :

Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Edited July 25, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Current changes being tested :

 

Hunter's Claw & upgrades :

Set to 1 bond, making the ability much more usable on a single battle. => See below for more changes

 

Smoke Cloud & Upgrades :

- (already set to interrupt on graze from previous BPM versions)

- Recovery 4s -> 3s

- Smoke Grenade : added damages (25-35 corrode, 7 PEN), added Acid KW

The purpose of this change is to make this line of ability slightly more convenient and buff Smoke Grenade which does not benefit from Pernicious Cloud great AoE nor damages. It does not buff Pernicious Cloud too much (the ability is nice but not really super strong for 2 Guiles, so changes to interrupt range and recovery should not break it. It is rather ).

Spamming Grenades should be nice to stunlock a crowd, but they still cost 2 guiles and damages are not that high, so I think it will remain nice at most.

 

Fire Godlike :

- Slight fire damages increased (applied from 100% with BPM) to 3-5 (+20% damages and 0.5PEN per PL scaling)

 

Reviving abilities upgrades improves :

The idea is that reviving abilities are often great to pick, but upgrading them is meh since it costs an ability point and is quite situational. Therefore I've improved the upgrades a bit :

 

- Reviving Command and Rebirthing Exhortation give 999 health back and cause only 50 health loss when wearing off. The point is that committing an additional ability point to them will help mitigating Reviving Exhortation main drawback AND will support super high CON build (in addition to the existing  inspiration buff).

Edit : - I went for giving all Reviving Exhortations and upgrades 999 health back. This is not intended as a Reviving Exhortation buff but a Constitution buff : current value of 300 already get to full health any character with "normal or a bit above constitution". Provided Paladin has a bit of MIG, a couple power level above Tier 4 and Practited healer, you are already at 400-500 health back.... which basically exlcudes only High CON characters.

Edit 2 : - I eventually preferred not to lower the health loss value as it is basically the only drawback of Reviving Exhort. I went with increasing the duration of the buffs to 25s (only for the upgrades) which also delays the health loss. Basically the upgrades helps buying more time before the health loss which makes the ability drawback easier to deal with but still don't avoid it.

 

- "...and face your foe" : +20 all defenses -> +33 all defenses. The bonus is relatively short lived (10s, probably around 20s with PL and good INT) but is meant to prevent the resurrect target(s) to be killed again. +20 all defenses felt a bit weak toward this goal, so I raised it.

 

-  Vengeful Revival : set to +30% damages for 30s. OK that's big, but we're speaking about a pet. +30% vs sneak attack target cost an ability point and is arguably less conditional than being revived by your ranger pal.

 

Please not that Infinite duration extension with SoT is not possible with PBM  

 

Please tell me if you see something that sounds broken  

 

Also, don't hesitate to post your opinion about this idea on Mod subforum  

 

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Just ran a few tests with Hunter's Claw & friends and it is definitely bugged.
I'm not the first one to run into it :

[4.1.2] hunter's claw is extremely busted in all sorts of ways (topic originally was "weird weird bug: different kinds of 'beasts'") - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Technical Support (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

Arguably "strand of favor" level of broken.

 

But given th "per rest" way it works, I haven't use it much until now.

After testing again a bit, the ability is indeed completely corrupted by save/reload cycles.

It seems to work fine in a single battle, even with different "types" of "races" (tested with zombie, animat, skeleton).

 

So basically, the only clean way to fix it is to alter it so it wear off at the end of combat (and change the values accordingly). I know it wasn't the initial philosophy of the ability, but I can't think of another way.

So Hunter's Claw & upgrades will be :
- 1 bond per use
- +2 Accuracy (resp. +2 all defenses, +2% damages) per hit, lasts until end of combat against the first targetted type of creature.
- Up to 10 stacks (same total of +20)

In case both weapons connect, it would be +4 accuracy until end of battle per use (on top of a full attack giving a bit of extra damages). Not much, but the "last until end of battle" enables some grinding (and acc/defenses provide increasing return). Upgrade makes it much better.

What do you think about it ?

Note : apparently, Sun & Moon still enables it to get an extra charge per cast.

[Hoo]

Wow, I'm deeply impressed by your continued effort for this great mod, Elric!

I've missed PoE II suddenly so I returned to check this forum, and you're still working on it very actively. I really appreciate it. 

I'm just reading the whole changelog, it seems Sooo many things have been revised and adjusted. I'm so excited to play PoE II again with this mod (and with several mods like adding items). 

 

What I'm thinking of is an assembly combined by things that have been buffed via the latest BPM; Fire Godlike + High CON (might be redundant though) + Shifter MC (shapeshifts do benefit from PL, doesn't it? and I'm just wondering whether the Shifter's healing effect after a spiritshift ends can benefit from it or not) + Beetle Shell. 

The Beetle Shell Shield + Fire Godlike's retaliation sounds funny, if it works as I expected. What do you think of which MC would be fit with this theme? 

[Elric Galad]

10 hours ago, Hoo said:

Wow, I'm deeply impressed by your continued effort for this great mod, Elric!

I've missed PoE II suddenly so I returned to check this forum, and you're still working on it very actively. I really appreciate it. 

I'm just reading the whole changelog, it seems Sooo many things have been revised and adjusted. I'm so excited to play PoE II again with this mod (and with several mods like adding items). 

Thanks !!

Yep and it's keep going on. Just corrected a bug that caused Spirit Frenzy (and Spirit Tornado with the mod) to cause Staggered on your teammates when "hitting" with buff and healing...

10 hours ago, Hoo said:

What I'm thinking of is an assembly combined by things that have been buffed via the latest BPM; Fire Godlike + High CON (might be redundant though) + Shifter MC (shapeshifts do benefit from PL, doesn't it? and I'm just wondering whether the Shifter's healing effect after a spiritshift ends can benefit from it or not)

With BPM mod, yes. Proportionally as much as other Spiritshift. And healing also benefit from PL scaling.

10 hours ago, Hoo said:

+ Beetle Shell. 

The Beetle Shell Shield + Fire Godlike's retaliation sounds funny, if it works as I expected. What do you think of which MC would be fit with this theme? 

Not 100% sure about Beetle Shell. It applies a shield barrier but prevent you from doing anything. It can be a life saver, but overall is a cheap Sanctuary spell (albeit greater range and more flexible). There are probably better other source of damages mitigation.

I would say Goldpact Paladins goes well with High Con Fire Godlike. You can stack Armor Rating from Spiritshift, Goldpact's special, Fire Godlike below 50% and Stoic Steel. Or Darcozzini for the additional fire shield (and still stoic steel).

Edited August 3, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Hoo]

Oh, thank you for your idea. It seems that your idea is better than mine. 

By the way, do you have plan to release next version soon? I'm just considering to play PoE II again with your mod, so I'd like to know when the next version will be released. 

And, could you consider to buff Xoti's unique Monk class as well as Serafen's unique Cipher class? I've felt that the Monk sublclass is quite meh...

[Elric Galad]

19 minutes ago, Hoo said:

By the way, do you have plan to release next version soon? I'm just considering to play PoE II again with your mod, so I'd like to know when the next version will be released. 

Most likely this saturday. Sunday at most.

19 minutes ago, Hoo said:

And, could you consider to buff Xoti's unique Monk class as well as Serafen's unique Cipher class? I've felt that the Monk sublclass is quite meh...

Probably not for Xoti. It isn't the most optimal subclass, but as a Companion, Xoti benefits from +2 total attributes from BPM 1.4.5 which is probably enough to vaguely counterbalance suboptimal aspects of her build. (Serafen subclass has already been tweaked).

I could give her +3->+5 wounds on kill though. Would be more fun but I don't want to alter her too much. One could repeat WotW for a while as long as one gets at least 1 kill.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

I also thought Xoti's Monk subclass is meh in the past - but if you really lean into it and use a good melee build who does the bulk of your party's killing and combine it with Rooting Pain it becomes pretty good. Also Xoti's Lantern (+1 Wound, +1 Mortification per any kill) makes Inner Death worthwhile imo. 

What I would improve is to give her wounds with any kill (as the Landern does), not only melee weapon kills. Then it would be a great subclass.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I also thought Xoti's Monk subclass is meh in the past - but if you really lean into it and use a good melee build who does the bulk of your party's killing and combine it with Rooting Pain it becomes pretty good. Also Xoti's Lantern (+1 Wound, +1 Mortification per any kill) makes Inner Death worthwhile imo. 

What I would improve is to give her wounds with any kill (as the Landern does), not only melee weapon kills. Then it would be a great subclass.

This would be a great buff for her Monk / Priest build, but it won't do much for SC Monk (although I think it could help with Resonant Touch, Inner Death and the likes). The lantern is meh too with SC Monk (you usually don't use shield with SC monk, bar Tuotilio's). But you can swap after inner death.

That said, setting it to any kills is certainly a good start.

Or maybe +4 Wounds on any kills ? (so 5 wounds with the lantern, just below WotW cost ?, 2 kills for full refund)

Edited August 6, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

New version uploaded with all the changes discuted above (including the 4 wounds for Sisters of the Reaping Moon, applied on ANY kills, not just weapons) 

Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Oh my, there were still a significant number of Ranger bugs.

[Hoo]

Thank you for uploading the new version!

Now I should prepare to start game again, I still cannot decide the main character build at all though. 

 

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, Hoo said:

Thank you for uploading the new version!

Now I should prepare to start game again, I still cannot decide the main character build at all though. 

 

CP + BPM isn't advised for people with restartitis.

That's why we are discussing with @Noqn about a mod to allow Seeker Slayer Survivor standalone runs  

[Hoo]

This is very small things, but I found a something missing;

 

It doesn't show the additional Godlike's passive abilities, Crescent Purity and EvergreenVigor on tooltip of first character making scene. 

[Elric Galad]

7 minutes ago, Hoo said:

This is very small things, but I found a something missing;

 

It doesn't show the additional Godlike's passive abilities, Crescent Purity and EvergreenVigor on tooltip of first character making scene. 

I know. I'm becoming lazy on description change  

Edited August 8, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Hoo]

Just my two cents, I'd like to share what I've felt during the new game playthrough, especially about Wizard subclass changes.

 

1. Illusionist

The current change seems a bit unhandy for me because of several reason.

First, applying the effect is quite unstable, since the Vanilla version 100% guarantee it at specific situation (when first attacked). This provides possibility to use this passive ability in purpose. The current version, on the other hand, is obviously better than the original when the battle is getting harder and harder, like confront Mega Boss, especially). 

 

At the situation when the combat time is relatively short, however, it's hard to use the current passive proactively. So, I'd like to suggest changing this one as below:

 

Changed: Once per encounter, the passive spell is applied when become Hurt, Bloodied, and Near Death (it means the total number of the spell applied is 3).

 

If the change looks like too much strong, I think it can be easily handled by lowering the count like 1~2 (e.g., when become Bloodied and Near Death or something like that).

And if this passive ability should be useful enough at the situation like what I've mentioned above, like in the battle against Mega Boss, this also can be achieved by setting timer what you've done already on Fury Shaper's penalty adjustment while a Ward is destroyed. So Once per encounter, this passive ability basically not only be active 2~3times in small battle, but also can be reset in large battle due to its timer (more than 120~180 sec would be reasonable).

What do you think of this change? Thanks in advance!

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Hoo

[Elric Galad]

36 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Just my two cents, I'd like to share what I've felt during the new game playthrough, especially about Wizard subclass changes.

 

1. Illusionist

The current change seems a bit unhandy for me because of several reason.

First, applying the effect is quite unstable, since the Vanilla version 100% guarantee it at specific situation (when first attacked). This provides possibility to use this passive ability in purpose. The current version, on the other hand, is obviously better than the original when the battle is getting harder and harder, like confront Mega Boss, especially). 

 

At the situation when the combat time is relatively short, however, it's hard to use the current passive proactively. So, I'd like to suggest changing this one as below:

 

Changed: Once per encounter, the passive spell is applied when become Hurt, Bloodied, and Near Death (it means the total number of the spell applied is 3).

 

If the change looks like too much strong, I think it can be easily handled by lowering the count like 1~2 (e.g., when become Bloodied and Near Death or something like that).

And if this passive ability should be useful enough at the situation like what I've mentioned above, like in the battle against Mega Boss, this also can be achieved by setting timer what you've done already on Fury Shaper's penalty adjustment while a Ward is destroyed. So Once per encounter, this passive ability basically not only be active 2~3times in small battle, but also can be reset in large battle due to its timer (more than 120~180 sec would be reasonable).

What do you think of this change? Thanks in advance!

 

The timer + guaranteed effect is a good idea, maybe closer from the original. The thing is this is quite a technical and time-consuming change to make, as it was for the current version of the ability, so I'm honestly not to fond of changing it (bar the numbers).

Somehow I think it is fitting that illusions are not totally reliable.

 

EDIT : but now, I'm thinking about adding a timer to Moon Godlike's Silver Waves  
Maybe not. Their bonus corrode AR was set to give them an asset vs one of the Megabosses.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Hoo]

8 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

The timer + guaranteed effect is a good idea, maybe closer from the original. The thing is this is quite a technical and time-consuming change to make, as it was for the current version of the ability, so I'm honestly not to fond of changing it (bar the numbers).

Somehow I think it is fitting that illusions are not totally reliable.

 

EDIT : but now, I'm thinking about adding a timer to Moon Godlike's Silver Waves  
Maybe not. Their bonus corrode AR was set to give them an asset vs one of the Megabosses.

Oh, I should consider the aspect of technical issues before I suggest something. I'm sorry if I was bothering you... 

[Elric Galad]

2 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Oh, I should consider the aspect of technical issues before I suggest something. I'm sorry if I was bothering you... 

No no, it's good to have feedbacks.

Now I'm thinking : what about higher chances with much shorter duration ? Like 25% chances for 15s ? (these adjustments are quite easy)

Edited August 9, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Hoo]

1 minute ago, Elric Galad said:

No no, it's good to have feedbacks.

Now I'm thinking : what about higher chances with much shorter duration ? Like 25% chances for 15s ? (these adjustments are quite easy)

This would be great alternative change that can replace with the current one imo! Higher chance will give possibility to use the passive intentionally as the original (but much more frequently), like the way standing upon some damage hazard spell.

[Elric Galad]

13 minutes ago, Hoo said:

This would be great alternative change that can replace with the current one imo! Higher chance will give possibility to use the passive intentionally as the original (but much more frequently), like the way standing upon some damage hazard spell.

Even 20% for 12s could be enough. With scaling and INT, it would last enough when gangbanged and provide decent protection vs single foe (good chance to be reactivated before all charges consumed)