Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Jayd]

OK, I've published my alternate Shifter Spiritshift cooldown rules here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/613/

I haven't noticed any bugs but do let me know if you try it and notice something. I also haven't tried the meme builds I mentioned but I feel pretty satisfied with the 180s cooldown. I don't think I'd want it much longer or shorter. I explained the design philosophy in the mod page but copying it here too:

 

Design philosophy: 
By default, the Druid class is a caster first and foremost, with Spiritshift as an ancillary feature. Ideally, the point of the Shifter subclass is to make Spiritshift the class’s primary feature rather than an ancillary one. Thematic Shifter builds should aim to spend the majority of their time in animal shape, with spells playing an important but secondary role.

Because this is my perspective on the subclass, I disliked BPM’s implementation of a global cooldown on the Shifter’s Spiritshift forms. Preventing the Shifter from transforming freely discourages the player from treating Spiritshift as the centrepiece of their build and therefore, in my opinion, runs counter to the spirit of the subclass and the fantasy it encourages.

Accordingly, I altered the relevant file in BPM so that the Shifter has a cooldown on each of its forms independently. For example, if you use the bear shape, you will incur a cooldown on bear shape only – you can still freely use any of the other four shapes, subject only to their independent cooldowns. This should not feel different to vanilla except in extraordinarily long fights, wherein you will no longer be in danger of losing your ability to Spiritshift altogether. This ensures that the player can feel confident building around Spiritshift no matter the length of an encounter.

The cooldowns are set to 180 seconds. That is long enough that the player should not be able to use the same form twice in any ordinary encounter but short enough that a character who spends most of their time in Spiritshift in a very long encounter should always have at least one form available. Keep in mind that BPM has Spiritshift base duration scale with Druid power level.

 

@dgray62 tagging you because you said you were interested

@Elric Galad Let me know if I did anything wrong with the credits. (Also, I took you to be a “him” because of your name but just let me know if that’s not the right pronoun.)

Edited May 24, 2022 by Jayd

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Jayd said:

@Elric Galad Let me know if I did anything wrong with the credits. (Also, I took you to be a “him” because of your name but just let me know if that’s not the right pronoun.)

That's fine, I'm a "him"  

[dgray62]

Thanks, @Jayd. I'll try it out and will let you know if I notice any issues.

I downloaded it and tried it, and it works like a charm. Thanks again for sharing this! It's great for those who like to play shifters with maximum flexibility, allowing you to change shapes or return to kith form to cast a spell, and then shift again.

Edited May 24, 2022 by dgray62

[NotDumbEnough]

With the change to Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment, I notice that the spell always bounces to the primary target. Since the effect doesn't stack, one of the bounces is sort of wasted (i.e. you will see Eder affected by two Wondrous Torment debuffs at the same time. One is the -10 to PER/INT/RES effect, the other is the -5 effect). Suggest giving the spell +1 bounce to compensate.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

With the change to Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment, I notice that the spell always bounces to the primary target. Since the effect doesn't stack, one of the bounces is sort of wasted (i.e. you will see Eder affected by two Wondrous Torment debuffs at the same time. One is the -10 to PER/INT/RES effect, the other is the -5 effect). Suggest giving the spell +1 bounce to compensate.

Yes I knew this. But it was always the case I think. The original spell actually applies the secondary effect on initial target too after the first ellapses (which rarely happens). This was undocumented.

Unless I failed my testing it still affects 2 additional targets.

[yorname]

Edit

Edited June 2, 2022 by yorname
not relevant to the thread, should ask community patch developers

[Jayd]

Quick question: does the 'treat as weapon' change to the Fury blight form's weapon in CP/BPM allow it to work properly with Ranger's Driving Flight so that it bounces twice? I assume so but having trouble finding confirmation.

Edit: Just remembered you can hire adventurers to test these things in this game! It turns out that Driving Flight still doesn't work properly. The blight's attack only bounces once even after you have Driving Flight. Has anyone figured out why this interaction doesn't work? @Elric Galad have you encountered anything in the code that would explain this?

Edited June 3, 2022 by Jayd

[Elric Galad]

20 hours ago, Jayd said:

Quick question: does the 'treat as weapon' change to the Fury blight form's weapon in CP/BPM allow it to work properly with Ranger's Driving Flight so that it bounces twice? I assume so but having trouble finding confirmation.

Nope.

I tried what I could but it all failed.

20 hours ago, Jayd said:

Edit: Just remembered you can hire adventurers to test these things in this game! It turns out that Driving Flight still doesn't work properly. The blight's attack only bounces once even after you have Driving Flight. Has anyone figured out why this interaction doesn't work? @Elric Galad have you encountered anything in the code that would explain this?

I haven't found any logical explanation for it. If anyone find a solution, I'll be happy to incorporate it in my mod.

[NotDumbEnough]

Suggestion: make Essential Phantom last longer (maybe 60s?). It is a tier 7 spell, but is often actually worse than the tier 4 Substantial Phantom. It has a lower duration due to less PL scaling and will often waste time casting its low tier spells despite most players probably summoning the phantoms to make use of conjured weapons. The phantom having Minoletta's Minor Missiles is particularly bad since it has penetration issues.

[Jayd]

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Nope.

I tried what I could but it all failed.

I haven't found any logical explanation for it. If anyone find a solution, I'll be happy to incorporate it in my mod.

Thanks very much for trying. Really curious issue.

This obviously isn't a solution, but if anyone is desperate for a workaround I've created a gamedata file that gives the Fury blight's weapon two bounces instead of one (building off/learning from Elric's files again). If you're playing a Beastmaster you can just drop this file into one of the gamedata folders in your override folder as soon as you pick the Driving Flight talent and you'll be good to go. Just remember to take the file out again before you play a different Fury Druid character (or not - I'm not the police).

Edit: Hmm @Elric Galad would it be possible to write something that gives the fury weapon two bounces on the condition that the player has Driving Flight? 

cl.druid.fury_weapon_bounce_twice.gamedatabundle

Edited June 4, 2022 by Jayd

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Suggestion: make Essential Phantom last longer (maybe 60s?). It is a tier 7 spell, but is often actually worse than the tier 4 Substantial Phantom. It has a lower duration due to less PL scaling and will often waste time casting its low tier spells despite most players probably summoning the phantoms to make use of conjured weapons. The phantom having Minoletta's Minor Missiles is particularly bad since it has penetration issues.

I somewhat agree. However, the pl7 phantom has better stats iirc (at least more health).

But you confused the names. Essential Phantom is the pl4 summon while Substantial Phantom is pl7.

[NotDumbEnough]

Ironically the phantoms tend to have so much health that making suicide builds (e.g. with Whitewitch Mask, Effigy's Husk, etc.) with them tends to be very underwhelming. The Wizard weapons you summon naturally keep them out of harm's way, or in the case of this mod, Citzal's Enchanted Armory makes them quite tanky. I don't really need more health on them.

[Boeroer]

I don't know. If you use them for tanking it's pretty good to have two additonal casts for 2 more phantoms in long fights. The substancial phantom casting stuff is indeed a bit annoying at times (I like Arduous Delay of Motion because it targets Will and stacks with all other debuffs, but Necrotic Lance and Minor Missiles are often just a waste of action time - casting can also break engagement the phantom might have via items which is detrimental to tanking) but if it's used as a tank then bigger health pool doesn't hurt I guess.

It would have been very exciting if one could pick the 3 spells for the substancial phantom from your own spell portfolio. The opportunities...   

[Noqn]

Would it help if the phantom was controllable?

[Not So Clever Hound]

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It would have been very exciting if one could pick the 3 spells for the substancial phantom from your own spell portfolio. The opportunities...   

Yes yes yes... also, if only Wild Growth worked on your Phantom  

[NotDumbEnough]

3 hours ago, Noqn said:

Would it help if the phantom was controllable?

Too imbalanced, as it would have access to item abilities too, including the per rest abilities.

[Noqn]

@Elric GaladFury Driving Flight fix: Fury Bounce Fix.zip

I think the issue is in ExtraStraightBounces description: "Adds Value bounces (in a straight line) to the target's ranged attacks that have no bounces."

Watershaper's Focus solved it by setting the attack's bouces to 0 but giving the item the Leaping Arc mod which adds +1 bounce instead.

I applied the same solution to Fury's weapons.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Noqn

[Noqn]

18 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Too imbalanced, as it would have access to item abilities too, including the per rest abilities.

ah, good point

[Jayd]

48 minutes ago, Noqn said:

@Elric GaladFury Driving Flight fix: Fury Bounce Fix.zip

I think the issue is in ExtraStraightBounces description: "Adds Value bounces (in a straight line) to the target's ranged attacks that have no bounces."

Watershaper's Focus solved it by setting the attack's bouces to 0 but giving the item the Leaping Arc mod which adds +1 bounce instead.

I applied the same solution to Fury's weapons.

This is a nice find and great work, thanks! There is an issue, though.  With this fix, the first Fury bounce also becomes a 'straight line' bounce, whereas before it was an 'unconditional' bounce. This is a pretty significant nerf to the Fury weapon in every situation other than a Fury/Ranger with Driving Flight.

Perhaps everyone else here already knows the ins-and-outs of the different kinds of bounces, but I just figured them out after a little testing, so I'm going to explain. Watershaper's focus has a 'straight line' bounce, and this is the kind of bounce that Driving Flight gives. The Fury's vanilla blight form weapon has (what I'm calling) an 'unconditional' bounce. I haven't checked, but I imagine pretty much every spell which has a bounce is also this sort.

The difference between these two lies in whether or not the projectile can bounce along acute angles. Draw a line from the shooter to a target and then from that target to another target. If the angle formed where these lines intersect is obtuse, then either the 'straight line' or 'unconditional' bounces will work to hit that second target. If the angle is acute, however, the 'straight line' bounce won't work, but the 'unconditional' one will. 

At a guess, the 'straight line' bounce is supposed to represent a projectile which glances off a target and strikes another, preserving its momentum (not one that is reflected) while the 'unconditional' bounce is supposed to be one that seeks out another target regardless of its original momentum. I suppose the developers didn't want these different bounces to mix.

An 'unconditional' bounce is obviously better than a 'straight line' bounce, except in case you pick up the Driving Flight talent, so changing the Fury's weapon to a 'straight line' bounce is a straight nerf to every Fury that isn't a Ranger multiclass. But it does enable a pretty delightful interaction in that specific edge case.

For my game, I'm currently doing a Fury/Arcane Archer run and I'll install @Noqn's mod once I take Driving Flight (headcannon: my character learns to curve the lightning the same way he curves bullets/arrows, but that restricts the way that it bounces). But @Elric Galad may or may not want this (mostly) nerf as a general feature of his mod.

 

[Noqn]

Thanks, incredibly informative post!

So with the way the game distinguishes between omnidirectional and straight bounces, would it be accurate to say that Fury+Driving Flight vanilla behavior (although disappointing) is working as intended and can be left as-is for the Balance Patch?

[Jayd]

34 minutes ago, Noqn said:

So with the way the game distinguishes between omnidirectional and straight bounces, would it be accurate to say that Fury+Driving Flight vanilla behavior (although disappointing) is working as intended and can be left as-is for the Balance Patch?

Straight and omnidirectional are much better adjectives! 

I would say it looks to me like this is working correctly according to the game’s internal logic (what the developers intended and what they simply didn’t think too hard about – who knows). The confusion from our end is that the Fury’s weapon and Caedebald's Blackbow are the only weapons in the game that have omnidirectional bounces instead of straight bounces (and Blackbow isn't available to multiclasses so the Driving Flight question never came up). Players are otherwise led to expect that weapons have straight bounces and spells have omnidirectional ones. That expectation is reinforced by the existence of Driving Flight which is explicitly supposed to give a bounce to ranged weapons, and that is translated in the game’s logic as a straight bounce, stackable with weapons which already get straight bounces. I guess you can interpret Fury and Blackbow as special magical exceptions which don't work like other weapons (including Watershaper's Focus...which also looks pretty magical, but whatever).

I think it's reasonable to want to change Fury to a straight bounce to preserve an otherwise clear distinction in player expectation for ranged weapons but, again, that’s a nerf to a weapon that is not at all too strong.

On the other hand, the weapon itself is intrinsically underwhelming (Furies are all about the spells, not auto-attacks), but can become more interesting if made to interact with Driving Flight, especially with Arcane Archer. So the ‘nerf’ enables at least one interesting edge case to an otherwise underwhelming weapon.

So, this has become a judgement call open to interpretation rather than a bug fix or simple question of balance, I would say.

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Jayd said:

This is a nice find and great work, thanks! There is an issue, though.  With this fix, the first Fury bounce also becomes a 'straight line' bounce, whereas before it was an 'unconditional' bounce. This is a pretty significant nerf to the Fury weapon in every situation other than a Fury/Ranger with Driving Flight.

Perhaps everyone else here already knows the ins-and-outs of the different kinds of bounces, but I just figured them out after a little testing, so I'm going to explain. Watershaper's focus has a 'straight line' bounce, and this is the kind of bounce that Driving Flight gives. The Fury's vanilla blight form weapon has (what I'm calling) an 'unconditional' bounce. I haven't checked, but I imagine pretty much every spell which has a bounce is also this sort.

The difference between these two lies in whether or not the projectile can bounce along acute angles. Draw a line from the shooter to a target and then from that target to another target. If the angle formed where these lines intersect is obtuse, then either the 'straight line' or 'unconditional' bounces will work to hit that second target. If the angle is acute, however, the 'straight line' bounce won't work, but the 'unconditional' one will. 

At a guess, the 'straight line' bounce is supposed to represent a projectile which glances off a target and strikes another, preserving its momentum (not one that is reflected) while the 'unconditional' bounce is supposed to be one that seeks out another target regardless of its original momentum. I suppose the developers didn't want these different bounces to mix.

An 'unconditional' bounce is obviously better than a 'straight line' bounce, except in case you pick up the Driving Flight talent, so changing the Fury's weapon to a 'straight line' bounce is a straight nerf to every Fury that isn't a Ranger multiclass. But it does enable a pretty delightful interaction in that specific edge case.

For my game, I'm currently doing a Fury/Arcane Archer run and I'll install @Noqn's mod once I take Driving Flight (headcannon: my character learns to curve the lightning the same way he curves bullets/arrows, but that restricts the way that it bounces). But @Elric Galad may or may not want this (mostly) nerf as a general feature of his mod.

 

The thing is that I recently buffed Fury druid base damages. So nerfing it a bit to allow rangerer combo would not hurt too much overall. I will think about it.

 

Good find @Noqn !!

[NotDumbEnough]

Suggest changing Tekehu's Stormspeaker version of Weather the Storm to be the same as Druid's, i.e. give it crush AR bonus, for the sake of parity.

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Suggest changing Tekehu's Stormspeaker version of Weather the Storm to be the same as Druid's, i.e. give it crush AR bonus, for the sake of parity.

Huh, did I forget that ? That's a shame

[yorname]

Does the new Fighter's Toughened Fury possibly trigger on every DoT tick or do they require a hit roll like some other abilities? I'm having great fun with a SC fighter with the balance changes, but it's hard to test if Hylea's Talons actually helps with Disipline regen.