Understanding combat mechanics or How I stopped analyzing weapons and started to love the game

[Hormalakh]

This is long, so apologies for the rough draft of my thoughts.

 

Having followed PoE's development throughout its course, I have seen many of the combat mechanics explained on this site and others by Josh Sawyer. Specifically, the way combat resolution works with armor and weapons and how the different weapon sets work has been explained several times over. However, in all of the discussions, I have always felt uneasy in grasping the "overall picture" with each weapon/armor/other complex system. Quite often, Josh describes a certain weapon based on its characteristics like DT negation, attack speed, damage, etc. but I feel, especially because I don't have the whole system in front of me, that I'm ill-equipped to make informed decisions. Others, probably have an easier time because, well they sit and do the number-crunching and analysis.

The problem I have is that these numbers do not give me a quick understanding of how these weapons should be used. They only give me the details (the minutae that describe the parts, not the whole) and then - I assume - I am to sit and figure out the best scenario to use each of these weapons in. In short, I have to sit and do my own analysis of each weapon, and then utilize that analysis in playing the game, or at least that's my fear when the game comes out. This is the same feeling I got when playing Fallout: New Vegas. Yes, each weapon was "balanced" to some extent, but just playing the game without using guides (which I never did/do) and just shooting from the hip, so to say, you don't really get a feeling that you're making informed choices. Quite often, in most games, there exists a short period of time when the game comes out and where the "strategy" for each weapon is "solved" by a group of players who have the inclination to do so. Until that time, players are expected to "figure it out on their own."

I argue that this sort of weapon analysis is 1) not worth my time to pursue, 2) not fun, and 3) not really where higher-level strategy and tactics comes in. First, as most of the backers (including me) are concerned, we play these games as a hobby and a past-time, not as a full-time job. Increasingly, I find myself pulled at all directions when trying to manage my time in my busy life. When I sit to play a game, I would rather sit and play the game instead of powering up excel to solve simple, but ultimately mind-numbingly boring, analyses of what weapons work best when and where. When playing PnP or other "multiplayer games" a lot of the analysis and first-order break-down of tactical choices are explained to me without my having to sit and analyse them myself. Once that analysis is done, can I truly begin to be "creative" with my solutions to the problems presented to me. The first-order analysis is really more like solving a math problem and lesser order-thinking than having that information and knowing what to do with it and then making tactical choices when situations present themselves.

All this to say that I would hope Obsidian will take the time to explain the benefits and costs of each choice (in a general sense) in layman's terms to players. For example, I want to know that "hatchets, generally, work best against leather armor but are weak against shields" instead of "hatchets are 2+ DT, speed factor of 14, DPS of 56, etc. Yes, the second one is important, especially for that type of nerd who wants to reanalyze the conclusions that Obsidian came up with. But until that analysis is done and given to me, I can't make informed decisions about my choices and actually start to play the game.

So my contention is this: please please please give us an analysis of the weapons and armors in the manual, game encyclopedia, whatever where it explains where it makes sense to use a weapon or armor or other fairly complex system with multiple inputs so that I can begin to make informed decisions. Just giving me numbers and equations, yes, I can figure out "the solutions." But I don't want to. I came to play a game, not do math.

A few points:
1- I do believe there is value in players making those analyses themselves. I just don't want to do it because I don't think it's fun.
2- I don't expect to know everything and for complexity to be "dumbed down" - once a basic understanding of the system is obtained, adding +15 cold and - 10 attack speed on a basic sword makes more sense because I have a baseline to play from.
3- I believe players should be expected to read the manual to find these answers, not just "know" them.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Chilloutman]

hmm what to say? if you dont want to analyse, just dont do it, put you char axe in hand and experience how good it is against other targets, hack if you want to use axe just use it and dont min/max at all. Obs will never please everyone, but giving us more details and allow us to not use them is much better then 'dumb down' for all

[Hormalakh]

hmm what to say? if you dont want to analyse, just dont do it, put you char axe in hand and experience how good it is against other targets, hack if you want to use axe just use it and dont min/max at all. Obs will never please everyone, but giving us more details and allow us to not use them is much better then 'dumb down' for all

 

you missed the point.

 

actually, you didn't even read the post. seriously, wtf? did you not read the "a few points?"

Edited July 11, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Sensuki]

It might just be me, but I don't think the systems and how they interact as whole is difficult to understand. That also may be because I have read literally *every* statement about them, sometimes more than once.

This is my understanding of how it works

First and foremost, the amount of attention you have to pay to the systems depends on the difficulty setting you intend to play on. Play on easy? Probably don't need to worry too much about it. Equip your characters with whatever gear you want them to use, switch them over when you find better stuff and have at it. That is my impression of what easy is going to be here. You will probably have to still use different tactics (ability selection / spell selection / formation / positioning) in combat however, as tactics, rather than strategy is the core focus of combat in this game (so I've read anyway). On normal and hard you may need to pay more attention.

Different individual enemies will have different strengths. For enemies that use gear, it will tie into the weapon and armor systems. For other creatures, you will learn about them through the Bestiary/Tooltips.

Here are some examples:

For simplicity, I'll just talk about melee weapons.

A creature with a very high DT will not suffer much damage from 1H Fast weapons because their damage ranges are low, Dual Wielding because the trade off for dual wielding is damage, or perhaps even 1H normal weapons. In this situation to do more weapon damage you will need to equip Two handed weapons or weapons with the -DT property (Stiletto, Mace, Estoc).

If this creature has a weakness to a type of damage (of which I believe there are seven - slash, crush, pierce, fire, cold, corrosion, shock) then you'll do more damage by using abilities/spells and weapons with that damage type.

A playable race enemy that is not wearing any armor will be most vulnerable to 1H Fast weapons and Dual wield attacks because they don't have any or much protection from damage. 1H Fast weapons attack rate is 0.667 seconds plus recovery time. We are not sure what dual wielding does exactly regarding the time it takes to perform a dual wield attack just yet but apparently dual wielding 1H Fast weapons will do the most damage to a 0 DT opponent.

Now the question you may ask is, which weapons to use in this situation? You have a choice of six base weapon types - dagger, stiletto, club, hatchet, flail and rapier. This is where the bonus property of the weapon comes into play.

If this opponent has a high deflection, higher than your accuracy, you may want to equip a dagger, club or rapier as they have an accuracy bonus. Furthermore you may want to go one-handed, no shield for a further +15 bonus to accuracy. This may give you more overall damage (due to more hits than grazes) against this foe.

If the opponent is using a shield, a flail negates a portion of the shield's bonus to deflection, so using a flail or even dual wielding them might be your best option there.

Maybe this unarmored opponent has a high accuracy. Therefore you might want to use a shield against him, so you swap from dual wielding a flail to a weapon set with a shield (for deflection bonus) or for maximum protection, a hatchet and shield combo (as hatchets also provide a small deflection bonus).

Perhaps you're a rogue and your accuracy is really nice, and you score a lot of crits. Perhaps you should equip a battle axe do deal more damage on critical hits.

Anyway, there's some examples of how to take advantage of the weapon bonuses. It may not be necessary to have the correct gear and the correct party member attacking the correct unit every time, but some of the time, these strategical decisions may be useful.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Sensuki

[Hormalakh]

Sensuki, you were actually part of the reason that I started this thread. You clearly have put in a lot of time and effort in analyzing the bits and pieces of information and have come up with your own analysis. But as you put it:

 

That also may be because I have read literally *every* statement about them, sometimes more than once.

 

what do the rest of us "filthy casuals" do when the game comes out? Wait until you've done the analysis and then play the game? Or should we suffice ourselves with "easy mode" until we do get a good understanding of the game.

 

I say, give us a good understanding of the system at a higher-level, sort of how you have explained in your reply, so that we can make informed decisions. don't just get bogged down in the numbers.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Sensuki]

Nope, it's up to the designers to convey that information to the uninformed player through the game.

I can think of a number of ways that they can provide the information, but there also needs to be an incentive to read it.

BG2 used loading screens to give players tips, and BG1 had the Candlekeep Monks to explain the mechanics. I wonder how PE will go about involving the player in learning the mechanics.

 

I personally really like Knights of the Chalice hyperlink style way, but hoverable tooltips on the Character Record is another one. I think there's also some sort of rules screen, which was also there in the IE games.

[curryinahurry]

I like the idea of hoverable tooltips.  If they're going for 'Old School', this is the type of information that would be perfect for the manual or as a special, separate table.  Actually, since they're not doing the physical DVD/ Blue-ray documentary, and mentioned a make up reward, I'm thinking it would be great to have this type of reference information (including experience point charts, etc.) in the format of the old Dungeon Master Screens.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

TBH, I don't really understand what the OP is saying. Would it be that you want the game to be intuitive (and enjoyable to work out) but not dumbed down?

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

TBH, I don't really understand what the OP is saying. Would it be that you want the game to be intuitive (and enjoyable to work out) but not dumbed down?

 

 

give us an analysis of the weapons and armors in the manual, game encyclopedia, whatever where it explains where it makes sense to use a weapon or armor or other fairly complex system with multiple inputs so that I can begin to make informed decisions. Just giving me numbers and equations, yes, I can figure out "the solutions." But I don't want to. I came to play a game, not do math.

 

There 

Edited July 11, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Hiro Protagonist II]

So the OP wants a manual with the game that explains all this. Okay.

[Chilloutman]

 

hmm what to say? if you dont want to analyse, just dont do it, put you char axe in hand and experience how good it is against other targets, hack if you want to use axe just use it and dont min/max at all. Obs will never please everyone, but giving us more details and allow us to not use them is much better then 'dumb down' for all

 

you missed the point.

 

actually, you didn't even read the post. seriously, wtf? did you not read the "a few points?"

 

 

Oh I read it all. But in fact you are saying - I dont want to do it, but I want that knoweladge which someone who analyse will get

[Nonek]

I would include such general descriptions of the implements use in the item descriptions, available on right clicking or however poe handles it.

 

Poinard: A slim strong dagger made for slipping through the cracks or weakpoints (visor, armpit, groin, back of knee) in plate armour or punching through mail and lighter materials, does little damage but has a high possibility of achieving a critical hit, and ignores a lot of armour.

 

Pollax: Multipurpose can opener, meat tenderiser and butchers cleaver, effective whatever the opponent.

 

Etcetera.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Nonek

[aluminiumtrioxid]

So the OP wants a manual with the game that explains all this. Okay.

 

That, or tooltips, or an in-depth tutorial or whatever. A reasonable expectation, although I personally wouldn't think the devs intended to release the game without any of those.

[Kjaamor]

There's nothing said so far that specifically states that things will be this way, but I worry that by focusing so much about the uses of different weapons against different foes PoE sets itself up to be a swap-fest/specific-fest.

 

Out comes another of Kjaamor's JRPG analogies, but FFX was an otherwise entertaining romp blighted by the way that half the fights consisted of "One quick enemy, one armoured enemy and one magic enemy". Superficially it appears like something like that encourages tactics, but because it is both obvious and your options limited, all it serves to do is make all other options worthless, reducing tactical input. Granted, PoE should rightly get far superior combat (just as FFX specialises in melodrama rather than strategy), but I don't want to see "Xvart's! Everyone get their daggers out! Apart from the bear, switch to two-handers for him!"

 

That's the specific fest. The swap-fest is that it becomes necessary to carry multiple different weapons and switch frequently, including mid-fight. The combination of damage types and bottomless stash make this a real concern for me. To my mind, a fantasy character's weapon (not to be confused with their "weapon") is an extension of their personality. I dislike the idea of Legolas occasionally bringing a two-handed maul into the fray because he knows he'll be fighting trolls. I hope that the proficiency table will encourage specialisation at least as much (and preferably rather more) as flexibility.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

That, or tooltips, or an in-depth tutorial or whatever. A reasonable expectation, although I personally wouldn't think the devs intended to release the game without any of those.

 

A question to the OP. Is this what you want? A manual, tooltips, tutorial, etc that explains all this?

[Valorian]

Oh.

It doesn't seem to me that there's anything about PoE's combat mechanics that's difficult, or time consuming, to understand.  Every mechanical detail (that's been discussed so far) is available on the wiki. Of course, I don't think it's outrageous to ask for a detailed manual. That's always cool.

 

The weapons/armor thing is fine, more or less, now that's gone through two iterations.

It'll be really valuable to swap your damage type sometimes (to benefit from the 40% vulnerability, e.g.) and I don't think weapon specializations (+15% damage) have enough impact to make the player not swap. Yes yes, specializations cover all damage types.

What I'd like to see is a nontrivial cost/penalty for swapping weapons in combat, so that swapping isn't simply a no-brainer.

 

They, sometimes, even go out of their way to make combat-related stuff easy to grasp with strict categorizations, I think.

 

An example is attributes. I asked myself... why would they make all damage be affected by 1 attribute and all types of accuracy also by 1 attribute? The answer isn't "no dump stats", because I'm sure they're smart and know that this type of categorization isn't necessary to achieve the "no dump stats" goal. Also, people, 'coz soulpower' could be used to answer everything, but it really isn't a good answer.

The answer is: to not confuse players, especially those who don't bother to read the basic rules. Let's say player Maria wants her wizard to deal massive damage, she quickly scans over attribute descriptions wanting to immerse herself in the story as fast as possible, and sees the word "damage" next to Might/Strength so she pumps it. She, sadly, didn't read that it doesn't affect damage with spells. Of course, might would be beneficial for her wizard in other ways, but she's sad nonetheless. Perhaps they want to avoid this?

Josh basically asked me why would they want to differentiate it. A: For the same reason they differentiated reflexes and fortitude. 

 

 

Another example is the excessive use of percentages. Now let's analyze where it's needed and where it isn't:

 

Might: fine. If it was a flat number, fast weapons would benefit from it disproportionately more.

 

Sneak attacks: iffy. I don't think it would be wrong to let this one class gravitate more towards light/fast weapons. If a non-percentage sneak attack damage bonus isn't abnormally high, there would still be instances where the rogue would benefit from switching to a heavy two-handed weapon with massive damage to overcome an exceptionally high DT. Some enemies are harder to land sneak attacks on, too.

Also, I don't advocate categories of enemies with sneak attack immunity, but it would be nice if there are enemies who are resistant to sneak attacks (suffering, say, only half the bonus damage).

 

Weapon bonus elemental damage as percentage: not needed. If you find a weapon in the world, why would this bonus damage be expressed as a percentage? There's no reason.

 

 

 

I like most of the stuff that I've read about combat mechanics, but there's room for improvement.

[Sensuki]

An example is attributes. I asked myself... why would they make all damage be affected by 1 attribute and all types of accuracy also by 1 attribute? The answer isn't "no dump stats", because I'm sure they're smart and know that this type of categorization isn't necessary to achieve the "no dump stats" goal.

Actually I think that no dump stats is the main reason. The way Josh is doing the 'balancing' is (in his own words) limiting the number of inputs into a system.  

 

Personally I'm a little bit iffy about the addition of Interrupt/Concentration into the attribute system. For me, their inclusion struck me as grasping for combat stats to use, having taken deflection out of the equation, but we'll see how it feels in the beta.

 

Another example is the excessive use of percentages. Now let's analyze where it's needed and where it isn't:

 

...

 

Weapon bonus elemental damage as percentage: not needed. If you find a weapon in the world, why would this bonus damage be expressed as a percentage? There's no reason.

Consistency. Remember the game also has enchantments. If +4 to damage was an enchantment, it would be more valuable on a fast 1H weapon than others, because it would give a larger bonus percentage of damage overall.

 

I like most of the stuff that I've read about combat mechanics, but there's room for improvement.

There always is.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Sensuki

[Sabotin]

I don't think you need a special understanding of the system to use it. Unless the difficulty is so high that you need an optimal setup to get through an encounter (which I suspect would be reserved for optional bosses and such). I think you can sort of intuitively change your setup or approach based on how your fights are going, what enemies are giving your trouble etc. I mean I doubt a +2 bonus against shields would be the game changer...

[Valorian]

 

An example is attributes. I asked myself... why would they make all damage be affected by 1 attribute and all types of accuracy also by 1 attribute? The answer isn't "no dump stats", because I'm sure they're smart and know that this type of categorization isn't necessary to achieve the "no dump stats" goal.

Actually I think that no dump stats is the main reason. The way Josh is doing the 'balancing' is (in his own words) limiting the number of inputs into a system.

 

That's like saying that the main reason you don't watch TV is to not have bad teeth. You can watch TV and have good teeth. Differentiating inputs is not the same thing as overloading a stat with inputs.

 

Personally I'm a little bit iffy about the addition of Interrupt/Concentration into the attribute system. For me, their inclusion struck me as grasping for combat stats to use, having taken deflection out of the equation, but we'll see how it feels in the beta.

I like the interrupt thing. I also kind of support deflection being taken away from attributes.

As much as I like putting almost everything into AC/deflection via attributes, I'm aware that it can screw attribute balance if there's such an option.

 

Consistency. Remember the game also has enchantments. If +4 to damage was an enchantment, it would be more valuable on a fast 1H weapon than others, because it would give a larger bonus percentage of damage overall.

I was talking specifically about pre-enchanted weapons found in the world. Players enchanting items is another thing.

You can enchant your burning dagger (13-20 slash damage + 2-4 burn damage) with +20% corrode damage (and +X-Y corrode damage would be added, like in the example). I don't see a problem.

[Fatback]

Op if you wanna sit down and just play a game with your busy life. Just sit down and play the game. The knowledge will eventually come. This isn't an mmo were your trying to get into the top teir raiding guild were 39 other people are counting on you too know your classes exact rotations and proper wep combos. I really don't see the point isn't part of the fun finding out that this mob will drop in 2 hits with this wep, or this mob will never pass a will check against this char but is immune to almost all of my melee weps. I'm sure you will be able to figure all this out for sure by hour 50.

[Hormalakh]

i want to play higher difficulties without having to lose out on the story by sitting through it twice. if its supposed to be tactical, i want the information that will allow me to play tactically.

[PrimeJunta]

Sorry, Hormalakh, but that sounds kinda dumb. "I want to play at higher difficulties but can't be arsed to figure out how to play the game most efficiently." If a game is balanced to be hard, then to beat it at higher difficulties you should be expected to do some work figuring out how to win. If you don't want to do that work and just want to enjoy the ride, then play at the lower difficulties, that's what they're there for.

 

FWIW I won't start out at hard difficulties. I'll start out at Normal, and will only crank it up for replays, when I know how the damn thing works.

 

Manuals are good though. Also, as far as I can tell the thing seems pretty commonsense -- a rapier won't work against heavy armor but an estoc will, but an estoc will be kinda bad against a nimble, lightly-armored enemy. The other adjustments seem eminently sensible as well -- a single one-handed weapon is more accurate, a shield makes you harder to hit but slower, some weapons are good all-rounders whereas others are designed for specific purposes. I don't think you'll need to do a lot of arithmetic to be able to play reasonably efficiently.

[Sensuki]

That's like saying that the main reason you don't watch TV is to not have bad teeth. You can watch TV and have good teeth. Differentiating inputs is not the same thing as overloading a stat with inputs.

What? I don't see how it's that difficult to understand. You have a bunch of combat stats that could be used for attributes - Damage, Accuracy, Defenses, Durations, Health system etc etc and they have to be balanced against one another. The simplest way to do this is to keep them simplified and to not break them down any further so you can iterate quicker on the system. The reason there are four defenses is because it's IE/D&D-like.

 

I like the interrupt thing. I also kind of support deflection being taken away from attributes.

As much as I like putting almost everything into AC/deflection via attributes, I'm aware that it can screw attribute balance if there's such an option.

I don't want to turn this thread into an attribute discussion thread as we've already had enough of those and I accept the system as it is. I don't see anything wrong with interrupts as they existed in the IE games external from attributes. If Interrupts/Concentration can be balanced to make them a compelling reason for picking an attribute then I'm all for it, but I think it will be harder to do. Concentration seems like a no-brainer for some classes specifically (such as for spell casters) but Interrupt, why would I want to take that over accuracy (which it is dependent on), damage, or durations/AoEs as an offensive ability? If it proves to be a valid tactical choice then that's good.

 

The problem with interrupt is it's effectiveness as a combat stat is entirely dependent on accuracy. We aren't sure if interrupt checks are made on grazes, maybe they are but at a reduced rate or something. The issue is you don't get something out of it every attack.

What an interrupt actually does is reduces the overall damage/durations of status effects that are inflicted upon your party over time (by a fractional amount).

 

Bonus damage from Might (or Duration from Intellect) is applied on grazes and hits, so you get something out of it each time. This makes Interrupt a difficult one to balance compared to the others.

 

I was talking specifically about pre-enchanted weapons found in the world. Players enchanting items is another thing.

You can enchant your burning dagger (13-20 slash damage + 2-4 burn damage) with +20% corrode damage (and +X-Y corrode damage would be added, like in the example). I don't see a problem.

I know you were, but in this game I'm pretty sure the system for pre-enchanted weapons and enchantments is the same (JES big fan of unified mechanics), and that's why it's most likely a percentage for everything.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Sensuki

[Valorian]

What? I don't see how it's that difficult to understand. You have a bunch of combat stats that could be used for attributes - Damage, Accuracy, Defenses, Durations, Health system etc etc and they have to be balanced against one another. The simplest way to do this is to keep them simplified and to not break them down any further so you can iterate quicker on the system. The reason there are four defenses is because it's IE/D&D-like.

You don't understand, Sensuki.

It is v-e-r-y simple. There's no need to dump all damage into one attribute and all accuracy in another to make a balanced system without dump attributes.

 

"Because it's IE/D&D-like" is clearly not the guiding light of PoE's combat mechanics and that's all right.

 

 

Concentration seems like a no-brainer for some classes specifically (such as for spell casters) but Interrupt, why would I want to take that over accuracy (which it is dependent on), damage, or durations/AoEs as an offensive ability? If it proves to be a valid tactical choice then that's good.

On the contrary, I think that concentration is more useful for classes that are supposed to be in the front, basically classes that are most exposed to hits. You'll keep your casters in the back, right?

You can interrupt with spells.

[Gfted1]

Here are some examples:

 

For simplicity, I'll just talk about melee weapons.

 

A creature with a very high DT will not suffer much damage from 1H Fast weapons because their damage ranges are low, Dual Wielding because the trade off for dual wielding is damage, or perhaps even 1H normal weapons. In this situation to do more weapon damage you will need to equip Two handed weapons or weapons with the -DT property (Stiletto, Mace, Estoc).

 

If this creature has a weakness to a type of damage (of which I believe there are seven - slash, crush, pierce, fire, cold, corrosion, shock) then you'll do more damage by using abilities/spells and weapons with that damage type.

 

A playable race enemy that is not wearing any armor will be most vulnerable to 1H Fast weapons and Dual wield attacks because they don't have any or much protection from damage. 1H Fast weapons attack rate is 0.667 seconds plus recovery time. We are not sure what dual wielding does exactly regarding the time it takes to perform a dual wield attack just yet but apparently dual wielding 1H Fast weapons will do the most damage to a 0 DT opponent.

 

Now the question you may ask is, which weapons to use in this situation? You have a choice of six base weapon types - dagger, stiletto, club, hatchet, flail and rapier. This is where the bonus property of the weapon comes into play.

 

If this opponent has a high deflection, higher than your accuracy, you may want to equip a dagger, club or rapier as they have an accuracy bonus. Furthermore you may want to go one-handed, no shield for a further +15 bonus to accuracy. This may give you more overall damage (due to more hits than grazes) against this foe.

 

If the opponent is using a shield, a flail negates a portion of the shield's bonus to deflection, so using a flail or even dual wielding them might be your best option there.

 

Maybe this unarmored opponent has a high accuracy. Therefore you might want to use a shield against him, so you swap from dual wielding a flail to a weapon set with a shield (for deflection bonus) or for maximum protection, a hatchet and shield combo (as hatchets also provide a small deflection bonus).

 

Perhaps you're a rogue and your accuracy is really nice, and you score a lot of crits. Perhaps you should equip a battle axe do deal more damage on critical hits.

 

Anyway, there's some examples of how to take advantage of the weapon bonuses. It may not be necessary to have the correct gear and the correct party member attacking the correct unit every time, but some of the time, these strategical decisions may be useful.

This type of management sounds awful to me. Hopefully I will be able to equip my party as I see it fit the character concept and it will be "good enough". If I have to hot swap weapons every fight or even within the same fight, theres gonne be some kitten punching.