Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Constentin Lévine]

53 minutes ago, yorname said:

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.

DoT are status effects, so the status itself is applied after a hit roll, but not the ticks. Even when these ones are applied after some conditions ( combusting wonds etc), there are no hit roll fore them. Like you suggest, Toughened Fury require a hit roll to get critically hit.

[yorname]

30 minutes ago, Constentin Lévine said:

DoT are status effects, so the status itself is applied after a hit roll, but not the ticks. Even when these ones are applied after some conditions ( combusting wonds etc), there are no hit roll fore them. Like you suggest, Toughened Fury require a hit roll to get critically hit.

the modded Toughened Fury is changed to "when receiving damage" though, that's why I don't know for sure.

[Constentin Lévine]

Ah yes, sorry! DoT doesnt break the invisibility, the sleeping ,entropy and charm status wich end on damaged. Then, I think that dont work for Toughened fury too.

[Elric Galad]

On 6/8/2022 at 5:16 AM, 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.

Taken into account for next version/

On 6/5/2022 at 6:23 PM, 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.

Incorporated for next version, thanks again @Noqn

On 4/20/2022 at 8:19 PM, NotDumbEnough said:

Ascendant is much less broken in BPM due to Brilliant rework and Salvation of Time rework. In the unmodded game you can just repeatedly use Brilliant on Xoti who basically serves as a Salvation of Time bot and nothing else.

By the way, I corrected a bug with Ascendant where th +20% additional weapon damages when ascended actually applied to all damages. Included in nerf package.

On 5/21/2022 at 3:11 AM, NotDumbEnough said:

Not sure if a base game bug or related to the fix that skips the need to roll for attacks against corpses, White Worms Writhed is receiving a +6 accuracy from PL bonus even though I'm only level 3. Ability level bonus is appropriately +2. Other abilities seem to work fine.

Yes, I confirm the issue. The unupgraded version gets +2 Acc per Level which happens for some abilities. But the upgraded one only gets +1 Acc. I will align to +1, there is no reason for the unupgraded to get more.

 

I also nerfed Blinding Smoke to only apply to Crit as display instead of Graze / Hit / Crit. Included in nerf package.

 

I remember someone complained about Ring of Greater Regen not stacking when 2 are worn (contrary to all other rings). It apparently can't be corrected (making the status "stackable up to 2 times" does not work).

 

Finally, I want to correct the food issue, sometimes stacking, sometimes not. I understand Saving and Reloading should cause food to stack, but I haven't been able to reproduce, even by relaunching the game. Any trick to make it stacks for sure (so I can test my stacking prevention  ) ?

[NotDumbEnough]

Have you tried switching zones, restarting the game or even playing the game on another computer? I don't think anyone quite knows what causes it but those are my best guesses. For me it's unreliable, sometimes Hot Razor Skewers +2 Pen will stack with sword modal, sometimes it doesn't etc. After a while it seems to be permanent unless you lose and regain the buff, i.e. if it doesn't stack it never will, if it does stack it always will, until you lose the resting bonus.

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Have you tried switching zones,

Nope

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

restarting the game

Yup

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

or even playing the game on another computer?

Quite an HW requirement. My two candidate computers are basically split between 2 countries with Germany in the middle.

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I don't think anyone quite knows what causes it but those are my best guesses. For me it's unreliable, sometimes Hot Razor Skewers +2 Pen will stack with sword modal, sometimes it doesn't etc. After a while it seems to be permanent unless you lose and regain the buff, i.e. if it doesn't stack it never will, if it does stack it always will, until you lose the resting bonus.

 

I might as well go with an "always stacking" solution just because it would be easier to test 

[thelee]

wait, have you tried reloading a game? e.g. save, then reload (with or without exiting)? that seems to correlate with stacking for me, though imperfectly.

but yeah, i find it to be extremely unreliable to repro. there's some additional conflating factor.

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, thelee said:

wait, have you tried reloading a game? e.g. save, then reload (with or without exiting)? that seems to correlate with stacking for me, though imperfectly.

but yeah, i find it to be extremely unreliable to repro. there's some additional conflating factor.

Yeah, that's the first thing I tried.

The issue is that it makes any correction about untestable.

If the bonus doesn't stack, it could mean either that the mod worked OR that for some reason you're not in a situation where stacking would work.

I'm not at ease at releasing some untestable feature, so I'm probably going to abandon the idea, and let the game be as it is.

 

The only possible alternative would be "Oh well, let's make all food bonuses stacking". If you guys ask for it. This would be a buff, but at least it would have clear rules. This one is testable  I won't nerf food effect to make it more balanced, though. Just too much headache  

[Bosmer]

7 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Edit: inserte quote: “

The only possible alternative would be "Oh well, let's make all food bonuses stacking". If you guys ask for it. This would be a buff, but at least it would have clear rules. This one is testable  I won't nerf food effect to make it more balanced, though. Just too much headache “

Personally, I think this would be the cleanest solution. And resting is not so much of an “active” act that it would break the games buff logic.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Bosmer

[thelee]

10 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

The only possible alternative would be "Oh well, let's make all food bonuses stacking". If you guys ask for it. This would be a buff, but at least it would have clear rules. This one is testable  I won't nerf food effect to make it more balanced, though. Just too much headache  

honestly this is how i thought food bonuses did work for much of my playtime, since the way you set them up is more akin to setting up an extended passive bonus rather than, e.g. drinking a short durational potion. maybe this is too much of a buff, though honestly maybe it's a necessary change to make a set of rest bonuses and consumables more useful since they're no longer trivially overriding each other.

[Elric Galad]

18 hours ago, Bosmer said:

Personally, I think this would be the cleanest solution. And resting is not so much of an “active” act that it would break the games buff logic.

15 hours ago, thelee said:

honestly this is how i thought food bonuses did work for much of my playtime, since the way you set them up is more akin to setting up an extended passive bonus rather than, e.g. drinking a short durational potion. maybe this is too much of a buff, though honestly maybe it's a necessary change to make a set of rest bonuses and consumables more useful since they're no longer trivially overriding each other.

OK, here we go then.

It will apply to :

- All food including Hylea's Boon

- All resting place at inns

- Prostitute Bonus

 

I'm not going to track down every unique one-time Bonuses until next rest, but feel free to complete the list above if I'm missing something important (repeatable) and relevant. 

On 5/1/2022 at 2:40 AM, NotDumbEnough said:

I suspect this is a base game bug as it seems familiar, but with just Greater Wildstrike (not Wildstrike Frenzy) my Fury Spiritshift duration is going up with every crit. Here I have 120+ seconds duration remaining because I kept getting crits against the Eoten

 

Not sure if it's a Fury bug or a bug with Greater Wildstrike

OK so after my testing it seems that there's something intresically degenerate with using several abilities that grant + duration.

After 1 kill while in Fury form, every single BPM version Salvation of Time tick (which grant +0,5s every 1s) granted about +4-5s duration.

I've not spotted anything weird when a single effect is used.

It seems to apply to everything using + duration (BPM Bloodstorm, which has a different coding as Fury bonus duration on Kill).

 

Ahem

 

Impossible to correct something broken by hardcode apart by removing the +duration effects...

So my point of view is to fix the most degenerate cases.

 

1) I won't change BPM SoT because it is nice. I would recommand not abusing it with abilities with +Duration effect.

BPM SoT and Wall of Draining seem to interact fine.

 

2) I want to keep Wildstrike Frenzy as it is. It is the corner stone of SC Druid balance.

 

3) There's a couple of self-prolonging abilities around : Blood Storm, Pain Persists, Each Kills fed his Fury. Honnestly, I don't believe they would be "too broken" if a glitch allows them to prolonge indefinitely.

 

4) Fury is the main issue IMHO.

- BPM added a +10% damages on Kill in Blight Form until the end of the Shift (stackable 3 times). This one would be broken to prolonge indefinitely.
- SC Fury intresically gets an ability (the shift) that has 2 means of prolonging. This is the only case (I think) when an ability is broken on its own, without any combo. Since it is hard coded, there is basically no way to fix it (unless I'm missing something).

=> My proposal is to cut Fury duration extension on Kill. Because of point 2), it would affect less the game than cutting Wildstrike Frenzy duration extension.
=> I will also change the +10% damages on Kill in Blight Form until the end of the Shift to +10% damages on Kill in Blight Form for 30s (INT and PL apply). The effect will be limited in time independantly from Shifting duration BUT will last after the shift. This will keep the spirit of "Fury getting additional benefits from Kills in Blight form" even if I have to abandon the virtuous circle of getting more damages and duration per Kill (so more duration of more damages etc...).

 

On 5/21/2022 at 4:05 AM, dgray62 said:

I recently noticed that I am no longer getting the backstab damage bonus after downloading the later BPM patch. I still get the backstab icon while stealthed, but when I attack from stealth or invisibility there's no bonus damage and no backstab animation.

I haven't been able to reproduce this on my game (tested with melee and ranged weapons), and I haven't spotten anything weird in the code either. So I have no mean to address this.

If it really fails on your PC, just check the load order as BPM should be loaded after CP. And if it fails, then sorry, but I'll recommand to delete this particular change and go back to CP version of backstab (which is quite fine too).

[Jayd]

Sorry for the topic shift, and it might have been discussed before, but has there been an investigation into why Chanters with +1 phrase cost passives don't always start with max phrases? Briefly discussed in this thread.

[NotDumbEnough]

In case it saves you some labor I believe prostitute bonuses and other "until rest" bonuses like Dawnstar's Blessing already completely stack with other bonuses. It is only resting bonuses from food and inns that have janky stacking.

[Elric Galad]

9 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

In case it saves you some labor I believe prostitute bonuses and other "until rest" bonuses like Dawnstar's Blessing already completely stack with other bonuses. It is only resting bonuses from food and inns that have janky stacking.

It would indeed save some labor, I guess I will have to... check the info at the wild mare  #EdgyFace

Edited July 29, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Jayd]

Hi, I managed to encounter and isolate a nasty bug. @Elric Galad

Took me a while to figure out what was happening but if you have the Strand of Favor exploit fix in the Nerf package of this mod active and use Cabalist Gameson with the +beneficial effect duration enchantment on a Druid who uses spiritshift, and the spiritshift expires while in combat, then the game will crash. Or, at least, my game crashes.

Doesn't seem to happen if you manually cancel spiritshift in combat or if combat ends before the duration of your spiritshift expires. Only if it expires in combat.

 

[Elric Galad]

13 hours ago, Jayd said:

Hi, I managed to encounter and isolate a nasty bug. @Elric Galad

Took me a while to figure out what was happening but if you have the Strand of Favor exploit fix in the Nerf package of this mod active and use Cabalist Gameson with the +beneficial effect duration enchantment on a Druid who uses spiritshift, and the spiritshift expires while in combat, then the game will crash. Or, at least, my game crashes.

Doesn't seem to happen if you manually cancel spiritshift in combat or if combat ends before the duration of your spiritshift expires. Only if it expires in combat.

Anyone else get the problem ?

Does it also apply to Citzal Armory / Fearsome Beast / etc ?

Edited August 11, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

On 8/10/2022 at 10:11 PM, Jayd said:

Hi, I managed to encounter and isolate a nasty bug. @Elric Galad

Took me a while to figure out what was happening but if you have the Strand of Favor exploit fix in the Nerf package of this mod active and use Cabalist Gameson with the +beneficial effect duration enchantment on a Druid who uses spiritshift, and the spiritshift expires while in combat, then the game will crash. Or, at least, my game crashes.

Doesn't seem to happen if you manually cancel spiritshift in combat or if combat ends before the duration of your spiritshift expires. Only if it expires in combat.

 

OK, bug confirmed. However, since there are no ways to fix it easily, I will probably pass and add a warning on mod page.

Now that the mod has been released for a fair time (and a fair amount of work), I think it's time for me to let go the non game-breaking issues. This one only requires you to avoid a particular upgrade of a specific magic item in combination with a specific class (although it probably triggers with some other form). (or remove the Strand of Favor fix files and swear to Woedica that you're not going to use the exploit  )

Thank you for pointing it anyway.

[Elric Galad]

On 7/29/2022 at 12:15 AM, NotDumbEnough said:

In case it saves you some labor I believe prostitute bonuses and other "until rest" bonuses like Dawnstar's Blessing already completely stack with other bonuses. It is only resting bonuses from food and inns that have janky stacking.

Yeah, Prostitute bonuses stack with everything.

Also Inn Resting bonuses stack with everything too.
Which is weird because I don't see why Room bonus should stack and food should not. Maybe an oversight ?

Anyway, next BPM version will include full food stacking, which makes even more sense now that I've discovered Inn resting bonuses stack.

EDIT : next BPM version is about ready, unless something else comes to my mind, or if I have to do something about elemental weapons (but it should stay in CP scope)

Edited August 16, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Hi,

The new Version 2.3 is live :

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

Stacking food, Fury tweaks, and a couple bug/oversight/glitch fixes.

[Elric Galad]

Currently leaning toward giving a little buff to evasive fire, but not as much as in version 1.0 of the game (where it dealt 20-36 damages)

So I intend to make it 15-20 -> 20-25 damages

And also 7 PEN -> 9 PEN so it would be more reliable. So the cap is below version 1.0, but slightly more consitent vs high AR.

 

Flurry of Blades seems a bit underwhelming for a Tier VIII, even with the Shadow Step boost to 2 Guiles and 8s Paralysis.

The AoE is only 1.5m radius and it has 5 PEN.

I plan to give 5 PEN -> 7 PEN and 14-28 -> 25-35 damages. The benchmark here is Spirit Tornado and its instant 14-20 damages for 1 Rage, for 3 ability points and with other side effects. 

[NotDumbEnough]

I actually never took the evasive fire upgrade due to it being so terrible so that does seem a bit better.

 

For Flurry of Blades I think it should have less damage but a larger radius. A single class rogue usually isn't going to be hugging multiple enemies in melee range too often.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I actually never took the evasive fire upgrade due to it being so terrible so that does seem a bit better.

It is a kind of pure DPS pick, so it has to be compared to Accurate Wounding Shot and Twinned Arrows, granted that the later 2 adds "hit chances/additional hits". The question is how much damages 1 Bond adds to a standard attack, since you can "standard attack+evasive fire" with a similar time taken and ressource cost as the abilities described above.

I think that now the DPS is good, albeit obviously inferior to the 2 abilities quoted above. Granted that Evasive Fire has utilities, and can be repeated multiple time to increase DPS even more in a short time, making it more versatile. Increasing the PEN was also critical to ensure the ability won't go wasted.

Basically you can use Evasive Fire as your spammable bread and butter DPS ability now, instead of Accurate Wounding Shot. Even without the positionning, it grants respectable additional damages for 1 bond + 15% attack speed for moderate duration through quickness, and "save an ability point" since you'd usually want Accurate Wounding Shot + at least Evasive Roll. This makes up for the random targetting and absence of accuracy weapon combo (e.g. Frost Seeker...).

3 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

For Flurry of Blades I think it should have less damage but a larger radius. A single class rogue usually isn't going to be hugging multiple enemies in melee range too often.

I thought about this but discarded for following reasons :

- I wasn't sure how animation will keep up with a greater radius
- Benchmarking is my basis for balance (cause I can't play everything) so I seized the opportunity of balancing it with Spirit Tornado
- Could be an overlap with BPM Smoke Grenade for the "quick AoE" ability niche. (Smoke Grenade isn't instant but quick Interrupt).

Flurry of Blades use is more limited but grants the utilities of Shadow Step. I think it is borderline interesting to spam on a foe already in melee. Additional instant damages + 8s guaranteed paralysis can bring doom to an opponent (the Hobbled at least removed any DEX Inspiration before Paralysis is applied). If you're going to use Shadow Step anyway, this could worth the ability point. 

[Elric Galad]

10 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

For Flurry of Blades I think it should have less damage but a larger radius. A single class rogue usually isn't going to be hugging multiple enemies in melee range too often.

Or maybe you're right, and I'm considering alternate options :

- 5 PEN -> 6 PEN but also deals Pierce/Slash damages. Pierce Immune are a nuisance, Flurry of Blades already suffers from dealing a Tier 1 affliction which is often resisted, so dual damages would make it more robust, as a Tier 8 should be. Also you're throwing daggers... which deal Slash damages to begin with (I can understand that a thrown dagger deals Pierce, but if an arrow deals Slash/Pierce, why not a dagger ?)
- Clinging to 8s Hobbled. So if you Hobble your future Paralysis target, 8s Paralysis would be a strict upgrade.
- Crazily increase the AoE to Point Blank 5m radius with same damages (14-28, still won't worth the cost). The point of the ability is to bog down as much foes as possible while your pummel their selected friend. It would look cool  this way.

[Elric Galad]

Or yet another idea (sorry for the flooding) , rising the damages, but in the form of DoT, to avoid the consequence of instant ability spamming. This version would be "benchmarked" around the Panther's Leap upgrade since it costs also 1 Tier 8 ability point on top of a 2 ressources ability.

- 5 PEN -> 7 PEN
- AoE 1.5m radius -> 2.5m
- 14-28 damages -> 10-14 damages (as daggers)
- Add 3 raw damages DoT per second for 8s. Total damages = 12 instant + 3x(8+1 initial tick) = 39 damages (panther leap = 14 + 7x(4+1) = 49 damages with same AoE, but doesn't add hobbled)
- Clinging to 8s Hobbled. So if you Hobble your Paralysis target, 8s Paralysis would be a strict upgrade.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Now that I think about it, DoT are a good way to increase the damages of instant abilities that require it without allowing instant damage burst, especially in TB. Thus, for Evasive Fire, I will rather go this way :

- Damages stay at 15-20
- PEN 7 -> 9 (still legit I think)
- 6 raw damage DoT for 9s (enabling Predator's Sense on the way) EDIT : tuned down from 12s

Total : 17,5 + 6 x (3+1) = 41,5 base damages, which is fairly reasonable considering you can't aim and is not instantly applied.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Elric Galad