Trough what I've managed to play through the  beta so far I feel like I'm resting far more than I ever did in IE games, and almost always its because a single character (usually my tank) is low on HP from taking heals while most everyone else is fine (I've considered just letting characters get knocked out instead of healing them to preserve their HP and let other characters take the damage but honestly that just seems too stupid). Getting just some minor single-target out of combat healing would make the adventuring day much longer and would actually give a reason not to throw good spells and daily's in every encounter.

Don't worry about health until you're about to keel over, or if you're heading into a new area.

 

If you're really hurting that much, try using some more of the priest's defensive spells to reduce the damage taken.

Don't worry about health until you're about to keel over, or if you're heading into a new area.

 

If you're really hurting that much, try using some more of the priest's defensive spells to reduce the damage taken.

 

Very risky way to do things I'd say, especially on higher difficulty settings. I mean, if your PC dies, it's game over. If any other dies, depending on setting, he's 100% gone, or so weak you need to rest anyway. On iron-man mode, that's a sure way to restart constantly. On other settings, it's just save scumming extravaganza...

I've seen streams on hard difficulty and expert mode...The better the guy was doing at controlling the battle tactically, the more he had to rest after every battle, because the damage was not randomly spread among character, but instead focused on a single one (the tank). Sure, the total amount of damage taken was lower, but since it was focused, it didn't matter and the better he played, the more he needed to rest basically.

 

And you will get hit by the way, by anything and everything, based almost entirely on d100 roll. It seems that they went for "lots of hits, less overall damage" path, instead of the "lots of misses, but when you hit it's really hurting". That's common in games nowadays because designers believe that missing is "boring" or "unflattering" for some reason. Add to that huge variations on DT based on armor vs damage type (seems to range from 25% to 100% so far) means that even a character focuses VERY heavily on physical defenses and heavy armor will get hurt all the time, even by very basic mobs (as in, level 1 or 2 even if you're level 5 or 10).

 

Also, since priest defensive spells are more diffuse AE effects than focused tactical single target ones, they help when the fight is a cluster****, but barely help when you actually try to control them and usually, 50 to 90% of the spells effects will be completely wasted, since most of the affected targets don't need that spell on them when it's actually cast. The way priest (and to be honest, wizard too) spells are actually designed so far seems to indicate that they want complete clusterfest in battle when you just need to take vague and indirect actions (hence AEs), not tactical battles where you carefully plan each action. The fact that INT for example increases the size and duration of spells and effects and yet there are no ways to alter size of said effects (for example a variation between base size up to max size, based on your INT) nor cancel any of these effects means one thing: cluster click-fest battles.

 

On top of that, since you cannot leave combat mode nor "zone out" once it's engaged, it means you cannot retreat at all and therefore any fight that is started, will need to be finished before you can do anything else so you wandering around without maxed out health is VERY risky. It's also not really about a hurting you can control or not via spells and playing carefully or something, just about naturally accumulated damage on "tank" characters or the random massive critical hits on weaker characters.

 

And finally, since combat doesn't reward any XP, nor really any sort of reward most of the time but trash loot (since apparently full item loot is no longer an option), you end up with a combat that is :

• highly random (d100 system exacerbates this), making your choices and preparation irrelevant
• focused on getting hit constantly for low amounts, rather than getting hit rarely for high amounts
• based heavily around a gimmicky damage type system with wide variations
• focusing on vague wide AE spells and effects (potentially really wide) that will have most of their actual effects completely wasted.
• based around a strict resource system while at the same time not allowing for any resources to affect what really matters: Health
• impossible to escape
• yields no reward whatsoever most of the time

So...unless you play on easy with all helpers activated, the "don't worry about it until you're about to keel over" thing is a sure way to either restart the game all the time, or reload constantly. From everything I've seen, you instead will want to go back to that inn and rest ALL the time to make sure you get the attribute boosts.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by mutonizer

Well, that certainly told me! Great points sir!

And you will get hit by the way, by anything and everything, based almost entirely on d100 roll. It seems that they went for "lots of hits, less overall damage" path, instead of the "lots of misses, but when you hit it's really hurting". That's common in games nowadays because designers believe that missing is "boring" or "unflattering" for some reason. Add to that huge variations on DT based on armor vs damage type (seems to range from 25% to 100% so far) means that even a character focuses VERY heavily on physical defenses and heavy armor will get hurt all the time, even by very basic mobs (as in, level 1 or 2 even if you're level 5 or 10).

• highly random (d100 system exacerbates this), making your choices and preparation irrelevant
• focused on getting hit constantly for low amounts, rather than getting hit rarely for high amounts

 

Your whole answer is so loaded that I just focus on the most irritating thing.

The difference between d20 and d100 is marginal in almost any situation. Second are you really trying to say that "lots of misses, big hits in between" is in any way more controled than "alot of hits, low damage per hit"?! Developers tend to do the later not because they believe that missing a lot is boring they do it because the majority hates systems that go like this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, crit dead, reload...

 

...also what does a clever man do if he finds out that a tactic doesnt work? He adapts, he tries to find a way to beat it instead of trying to rush head-on through a wall. Their are also spells that reduce health damage, use them.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by Mayama

If even 25% of mutonizer's analysis is true then I don't have any definition for the current iteration of combat system other than "garbage". Sorry, have to call things by their proper names.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by prodigydancer

If even 25% of mutonizer's analysis is true then I don't have any definition for the current iteration of combat system other than "garbage". Sorry, have to call things by their proper names.

On hard you usually need to rest once per area-map right now if you know what you are doing.

Developers tend to do the later not because they believe that missing a lot is boring they do it because the majority hates systems that go like this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, crit dead, reload...

I wonder: did they actually ask the majority or just went with a groundless assumption? In my eyes occasional "crit dead" (read: not prepared or not careful enough) certainly beats getting hit all the time and having to rest after every fight.

 

Also "crit dead" works both ways. It's fun to hit a tough enemy and see some huge damage number in combat log. On the other hand a steady stream of low damage hits isn't nearly as much fun even if it results in a more impressive DPS. On emotional level these things aren't equal. That's why people love crit builds even at the expense of some DPS (as long as tradeoff margin is reasonable).

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by prodigydancer

 

Developers tend to do the later not because they believe that missing a lot is boring they do it because the majority hates systems that go like this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, crit dead, reload...

I wonder: did they actually ask the majority or just went with a groundless assumption?

 

In my eyes occasional "crit dead" (read: not prepared or not careful enough) certainly beats getting hit all the time and having to rest after every fight.

 

Resting after every fight made the whole limitation of mages in BG useless. 

Ask yourself do you like getting hit often for small amounts which gives you time to act or do you like getting no damage for a long time and all of a sudden getting crited for huge amounts which propably kills a squishy instantly?

 

Mutonizer doesn't seem to have access to the beta, only observing youtubers. Just because someone streams does not mean that he knows what he is doing. In general almost anyone with beta access here on the forum thinks that we have no real clue about how combat will be because it has bugs that cause cluster****s, no readability implemented and zero balance.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by Mayama

Use  2 tanks.

Use  2 tanks.

By this logic you're even better off with 6 tanks. Just need to find a sweet spot between damage output and mitigation.

I still don't like or understand this mechanic.

I feel that mechanic works for what they intended to do but it's not a "yuss! spirit of the game preserved forever, people will clean dungeons like in D&D! degeneracy defeated", and it never will be in a game where there is no real time or resource management, where going into adventure is dangerous and you can't backtrack to tavern all the time.

 

PoE makes you want to play through adventuring "the proper" way, holding on your biggest guns and evaluating situation instead of just resting after every battle, but it's more like a mindtrick than real technical achievement (a combination of having finite resource for resting and stamina management/regeneration).

 

But expecting 1 char to gather all encounters and survive them through is a dumb thing to do. Try tanking ogre in IWD1 with just one fighter, see how well that goes.

 

 

Just need to find a sweet spot between damage output and mitigation.

Isn't that what you always do when balancing a party.

 

I know beetles are just rapist destroyers of the beta, but it's possible to reach the ogre and even deal with him without resting once. It requires some more micro than just sending BB Fighter into everything and auto attacking though. Using stealth and pulling adventuring mobs 1 by 1 helps for example.

I generally only rested once per map in beta, when I was sure I reached a "boss".

 

And I wasn't just being a **** saying use 2 tanks gitgut lol. Playthroughs that felt right to me had 2 tanks, either Barb+ or Paladin+BB Fighter.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by Shadenuat

Your whole answer is so loaded that I just focus on the most irritating thing.

The difference between d20 and d100 is marginal in almost any situation.

 

A d20 (or indeed d100) system tend to exacerbate everything, especially extremes. That's just what a linear system does compared to a curve system: You always have as much chance to completely **** up something, as you are to heroically succeed. Some think it's more heroic, others that it's just unrealistic and puts control in the hands of fate instead of careful thinking and preparation (ie: the player) but that could be down to personal opinion. What's not however is that it tends to make player decisions less meaningful because of how unpredictable things are and in video games, this means one of two things:

- Ultra meta-gaming and save scumming because values are important.

- Nobody cares because values are trivial.

 

Sure, in theory, the difference between a d20 and d100 systems is marginal because everything's scaled to match anyway, but, a d20 system ala D&D uses integers and flat values for most things (modifiers from stats, to hit chance, fixed critical hit target values, etc). This is not what we have here, we have a mixed of flat and % based values.

 

1) The ratio of DEF vs ACC needed to avoid being hit (grazed and others) is extremely high (thanks to Matt515 for his analysis on that btw) and this means you will be hit all the freaking time, be it on your naked mage or your ultra decked out fighter. Sure, some will be grazes and the higher your DEF compared to the ACC of the enemy, the less you will get critically hit, but no matter what, you will get hit, by everything, even very low level mobs compared to you.

 

2) The critical hit chance is NOT a flat value (as in D&D, natural 20, natural 19-20, etc) but instead a dynamic one based on the ratio of DEF vs ACC and the actual roll of the d100. What that means is that you don't just have a 5% chance to critical hit someone, but instead, if somehow your DEF is lowered or your enemy ACC raised, up to 100% chance to actually land critical hits. On top of that, it seems (I could be wrong) that the DT is integrated in the calculation of damage AFTER the damage multipliers are applied, not before. This means a high DT character is just as screwed up by a critical hit from a big hitter, than someone completely naked (I mean, when you take 100 damage, the difference of 15DT between a heavy plate and 0DT from being naked doesn't really matter right?). It "could" be great for grazes, but since there is a minimum value to damage as long as you score at least a graze so no matter your DT, it seems that you will always suffer "some" damage, even if it's just a butterfly trying to chew on your plate armor, as long as it doesn't completely miss. In a system where the only factor that really matters is Health (since that's your only game over) that is heavily resource based and yet that same crucial factor (I mean, this is the ONLY game over factor, everything is basically meaningless compared to it) is removed from said resource system, this is a massive issue for me, even more in a system where extremes and randomness is exacerbated like that.

 

3) ACC scales via flat values as far as I could see so far. Damage however is percentage based. What this means is that you can lower or raise ACC and DEF via flat modifiers (therefore effectively reducing to 0 or booting to 100s) while you can also boost your damage exponentially via percentage based modifiers. This system means ultra extremes in damage both taken and dealt and a huge bias toward ultra hard hitting base weapons (or spells). After-all, 20% damage boost on a weapon with a base damage or 10-20 is nothing, but a 20% boost on something with a base damage of 70-90 is insane. Then comes the stacking factors and how they are calculated. What happens when you have say a 50 base damage weapon, boosted 20% via talent, boosted 40% via Might, boosted 100% via spell, boosted by, boosted by....? If you don't see the potential for INSANE meta gaming here (way, way more than in any D&D version ever), I'm not sure what else to say.

 

Second are you really trying to say that "lots of misses, big hits in between" is in any way more controled than "alot of hits, low damage per hit"?! Developers tend to do the later not because they believe that missing a lot is boring they do it because the majority hates systems that go like this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, crit dead, reload...

That's my point, you say hate, I say boring, same thing. And yes, I'd rather have a system where a character focusing on defense is almost never hit unless something extremes happen, than being constantly hit. Why? Because that means I can effectively prepare and plan tactically for 95% of the situations, knowing that my choices matter, and just suck it up when very rare extremes happen. You could also remove the concept of critical hits entirely, or make it very, very rare and instead of crazy damage, have specific effects that matters and yet don't mean instant death.

And at the core of it, it's because people are not "flattered" by misses and feel frustrated by them. This goes hand in hand with the "no bad build" concept and, sadly, with the dreadful new Bioware philosophy of: "push a button, something awesome happens".

 

...also what does a clever man do if he finds out that a tactic doesnt work? He adapts, he tries to find a way to beat it instead of trying to rush head-on through a wall. Their are also spells that reduce health damage, use them.

A clever man stays the hell away from system that put more emphasis on complete luck of the draw than on actual thinking and preparation, that's what a clever does. A clever man also stays the hell away from any linear system where you have as much chance to crash into a wall or that your car instantly explodes for no reason, than to make it to work on any given day.

 

In video games however? A clever man saves ALL the time and meta-game the hell of the system by designing his team around one simple task: 100% chance, maxed out critical damage via slow hard hitting weapon, like this:

• Have one character with maxed out lore to learn enemies flat DEF values
• Have a naked big hitter with maxed out Might and Accuracy (rest doesn't matter whatsoever) and with slowest and most damaging weapon you can find, then, since animation speed modifiers are % based (which means slower weapons are more affected than fast weapons), stack that on him too.
• Use buffs/debuffs to ACC/DEF values so that your big hitter will have exactly 100 difference between his ACC and their DEF, effectively cancelling any possible roll, therefore removing any randomness (since +100 modifier is always a critical hit and ACC/DEF modifiers are flat values)
• Stack % based modifiers (debuffs are useless since DT on crit is useless the bigger the damage you do, so just buffs really) to buff big hitter damage.
• Rinse & repeat.

Note: is that happens to your character, you're screwed and you NEED to rest (or reload, or really, restart the entire game if on ironman) because there is nothing else you can do, even if your ENTIRE team is 100% ready to go.

Note 2: resting anywhere but where you get buffs to things like Might and Dex is suicide on any hard difficulty setting/ironman. +2 to Might gives % based boost to your damage, which, on big hitters, is crazy. +2 DEX means it's easier to land critical hits all the time. Have fun trekking back and forth across every single map every time someone's a bit low on Health while the rest of the team is 100% ready to go. If you don't, one bad roll might mean that character is gone, forever.

 

Can it be done? We don't know since we have very little content. That said, this is what the current system means, that's the core of it and it's why I voice my concern really.

 

And yes, I'm not a backer, I don't have access to the beta so of course all my comments are just from analysis and questions on streams and videos, or here on forums. That doesn't really make them invalid though I think, unless of course I'm wrong on how a mechanic actually works and the like.

 

 

PS:

Oh, and a final note.

Remember that actually getting into a fight is a failure in doing, not a success, even if you win easily or lose. There is nothing to be gained from fighting unless it's a story progression fight. Loot seems useless (and not full loot anyway, seems that concept was removed) overall, there is no item degradation either. No XP to be gained either so no character progression feeling either. So not only you don't really get rewarded, but you risk getting frustrated (by randomness), penalized (by resource used) and simply aggravated (by being forced to go back to rest).

So you have an entire system (and entire game really) designed around combat (classes have nothing but combat related things, attributes mean very little outside of combat as long as you have the necessary flat value required for something, items are meaningless outside of combat, etc) that is your only game over factor and yet almost nothing to be gained from it.

I cannot say if the story elements will be interesting or not since we've seen nothing about that, but we can be sure that combat will be most of what you'll be doing. That strikes me as odd really.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by mutonizer

Isn't that what you always do when balancing a party.

I'll give you an example: in BG one the most efficient party setups you could generate in MP mode was six elven figher/mages with proficiencies in long bows. Or five plus a healer for emergency cases. Rolling for good stats wasn't necessary because CON, WIS and CHA were all dump stats. Due to how bows worked you'd have ridiculous amount of total attacks per round, pre-fight buffs and the ability to chain summon expendable meat shields. Of course playing such a party was about as exciting as eating a gallon of vanilla ice cream.

 

There are always ways to break the game. The question is how much the combat system pushes you in that direction. If playing the game "as intended" is constant pain you start getting all kinds of powerful but nonsense party setups abusing ranged combat, summons, crowd control, etc.

Using 2 people to tank 5-6 enemies is abusing system how? It's like a standard of any party building ever.

 

1) The ratio of DEF vs ACC needed to avoid being hit (grazed and others) is extremely high (thanks to Matt515 for his analysis on that btw) and this means you will be hit all the freaking time, be it on your naked mage or your ultra decked out fighter. Sure, some will be grazes and the higher your DEF compared to the ACC of the enemy, the less you will get critically hit, but no matter what, you will get hit, by everything, even very low level mobs compared to you.

 

 

Most of time grazed hits don't do damage on your ultra decked fighter because of their armor's DT, which is usually higher than damage from grazed hits even if those hits are done with weapons that are good against that type of armor. 

 

2) It "could" be great for grazes, but since there is a minimum value to damage as long as you score at least a graze so no matter your DT, it seems that you will always suffer "some" damage, even if it's just a butterfly trying to chew on your plate armor, as long as it doesn't completely miss.

 

 

There is no minimal damage that goes rough armors' DT.

 

Note 2: resting anywhere but where you get buffs to things like Might and Dex is suicide on any hard difficulty setting/ironman. +2 to Might gives % based boost to your damage, which, on big hitters, is crazy. +2 DEX means it's easier to land critical hits all the time. Have fun trekking back and forth across every single map every time someone's a bit low on Health while the rest of the team is 100% ready to go. If you don't, one bad roll might mean that character is gone, forever.

 

 

Currently bonuses in combat that you get from +2 Mig and +2 Dex are so small that they actually do little difference at the end, even with you heavy hitters. So it isn't actually worth run back and worth between in and map that you are currently exploring.

 

If you have one character with low health and others have 100% then your combat strategies are very much surrounded around that one character, and I would recommend to try bit more diverse tactics.

 

PS. your cheese tactics is quite mediocre to some other tactics that you can use, which don't even need buffs or debuffs to kill enemies with single hit.  

Most of time grazed hits don't do damage on your ultra decked fighter because of their armor's DT, which is usually higher than damage from grazed hits even if those hits are done with weapons that are good against that type of armor.

That's true for low damage thresholds, big hitters will hurt on graze of course. And big hits from critical damage will **** you up (ie: Elder Lions) no matter your DT.

  

[..]There is no minimal damage that goes rough armors' DT.

I'm sorry but I'm not even a beta backer and I KNOW that as long as you graze, you will ALWAYS deal damage, even if it's just 0.1 or something. I've seen it demonstrated many times on streams. That means it'll eat away at your Health no matter what as long as it's a graze hit AND that "on hit" effects will be applied (poison, petrification, etc). Now, I don't know how precise their float calculations are regarding lost Stamina and Health, so that could be a factor, but to be clear: DT will NEVER absorb all damage once you get hit, grazed or critically hit, even if it's 1000000 times higher than the base damage taken.

 

 

 

Currently bonuses in combat that you get from +2 Mig and +2 Dex are so small that they actually do little difference at the end, even with you heavy hitters. So it isn't actually worth run back and worth between in and map that you are currently exploring.

Well this just validate the idea that attributes means very little then? I mean, if a cheap rest boost ranging from 10% (if you have ultra maxed out 20 in attribute) to 90% (if you have 3 in said attribute) in 3 or 4 given stats means so little, what's the point then?

 

 

If you have one character with low health and others have 100% then your combat strategies are very much surrounded around that one character, and I would recommend to try bit more diverse tactics.

Diverse tactics? You mean mass clusterfrak melee so damage is randomly split across the board or you mean range kitting mobs all over the place while CC-locking them? I mean, we're not dealing with ultra hardcore smart AI here so far. What's been presented is very basic tank'n spank stuff that you'd expect to be able to deal with using said tank'n spank method. Actually, you can, most fights are actually complete cake-walks by themselves and when they'll balance things out, will probably be even easier.

The ONLY mechanic making them challenging currently from what I've seen (not talking about bugged out poison, etc) is the ONE mechanic that is outside the core resource based system of the entire game, and yet is only the game-over factor: Health management.

 

Sure anyone can abuse the system, that's pretty easy, but that doesn't make anyone smarter or anything nor is it called tactics or strategies, it's called abusing the system.

 

And I'm sorry but most casual people (not talking hardcores, not talking backers but you know, the MILLIONS of casuals that will buy this game hopefully) will behave "normally" in a given fantasy RPG setting: Big guy in big armor goes first and tanks, little dudes in the back doing damage.

In doing so, they'll find themselves completely screwed over by the Health system as it is currently.

 

 

 

PS. your cheese tactics is quite mediocre to some other tactics that you can use, which don't even need buffs or debuffs to kill enemies with single hit.

And that doesn't strike you as a bit problematic? It does me but if it's based on specific abilities, that can be easily balanced out I think, which is what they're still doing, so I'm not worried for the long run yet.

 

On the contrary, what I've explained is the logic of the core system as it is. Not saying it's godlike or cheesy, it's just what it implies.

 

Also, as it is now, I can already foresee people having 3/4 of their team COMPLETELY NAKED, wielding just one ultra slow MASSIVE 2hd hitter and running with it. The attack speed in such condition is INSANE and you chew through health/stamina at incredible rates, being, it seems, overall much better off having an entire team of DPSers being naked and ending fights in nanoseconds, than any other way.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by mutonizer

To answer the OP's question, I believe it's because the designers think it's not desirable to have classes, characters, or abilities that you NEED to have to lengthen your "adventuring day". The length of the adventuring day is something that's important to the game's overall pacing - so important that they'd prefer to maintain more control over it.

 

Or in other words, they don't think "you can clear out two dungeons before having to rest if you have a priest, but only one dungeon if you don't" is a particularly interesting choice to make.

 

Of course, the entire system requires balancing now, including better enemy AI to make damage spread more equally across the party. On the other hand, if you're letting your one tank get f*cked up constantly, that's kind of your fault.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by Infinitron

Use 2 tanks.

This.

 

Using a Paladin or Monk with the BBFighter allows you to engage mobs and keep other characters safe from charging melee. Use the BBCleric to buff and have the BBWizard fire off CC if possible. Finally use the BBRogue to flank or plink with a ranged weapon.

Trough what I've managed to play through the  beta so far I feel like I'm resting far more than I ever did in IE games, and almost always its because a single character (usually my tank) is low on HP from taking heals while most everyone else is fine (I've considered just letting characters get knocked out instead of healing them to preserve their HP and let other characters take the damage but honestly that just seems too stupid). Getting just some minor single-target out of combat healing would make the adventuring day much longer and would actually give a reason not to throw good spells and daily's in every encounter.

 

Some trash mobs in the wild areas are bugged and broken. Lions have x2 accuracy than they should, comparing tooltips and battle log, and the same apply to damage, and other mobs while some others are ok.

 

You can see this ingame, some encounters even being trash mobs are really tought and let your tank with varely 20 healt points and another trash mobs, of the same lvl, focus your rogue and let him with 90% healts. This is cose mobs are bugged.

 

Just, check the accuracy of enemies in the tab toltip and then check the combat log to see that the enemy is hitting or critcs you because their accuracy attribute is wrong.

Edited August 30, 201411 yr by NeV3rKilL

 

Most of time grazed hits don't do damage on your ultra decked fighter because of their armor's DT, which is usually higher than damage from grazed hits even if those hits are done with weapons that are good against that type of armor.

That's true for low damage thresholds, big hitters will hurt on graze of course. And big hits from critical damage will **** you up (ie: Elder Lions) no matter your DT.

  

[..]There is no minimal damage that goes rough armors' DT.

I'm sorry but I'm not even a beta backer and I KNOW that as long as you graze, you will ALWAYS deal damage, even if it's just 0.1 or something. I've seen it demonstrated many times on streams. That means it'll eat away at your Health no matter what as long as it's a graze hit AND that "on hit" effects will be applied (poison, petrification, etc). Now, I don't know how precise their float calculations are regarding lost Stamina and Health, so that could be a factor, but to be clear: DT will NEVER absorb all damage once you get hit, grazed or critically hit, even if it's 1000000 times higher than the base damage taken.

 

 

 

Currently bonuses in combat that you get from +2 Mig and +2 Dex are so small that they actually do little difference at the end, even with you heavy hitters. So it isn't actually worth run back and worth between in and map that you are currently exploring.

Well this just validate the idea that attributes means very little then? I mean, if a cheap rest boost ranging from 10% (if you have ultra maxed out 20 in attribute) to 90% (if you have 3 in said attribute) in 3 or 4 given stats means so little, what's the point then?

 

 

If you have one character with low health and others have 100% then your combat strategies are very much surrounded around that one character, and I would recommend to try bit more diverse tactics.

Diverse tactics? You mean mass clusterfrak melee so damage is randomly split across the board or you mean range kitting mobs all over the place while CC-locking them? I mean, we're not dealing with ultra hardcore smart AI here so far. What's been presented is very basic tank'n spank stuff that you'd expect to be able to deal with using said tank'n spank method. Actually, you can, most fights are actually complete cake-walks by themselves and when they'll balance things out, will probably be even easier.

The ONLY mechanic making them challenging currently from what I've seen (not talking about bugged out poison, etc) is the ONE mechanic that is outside the core resource based system of the entire game, and yet is only the game-over factor: Health management.

 

Sure anyone can abuse the system, that's pretty easy, but that doesn't make anyone smarter or anything nor is it called tactics or strategies, it's called abusing the system.

 

And I'm sorry but most casual people (not talking hardcores, not talking backers but you know, the MILLIONS of casuals that will buy this game hopefully) will behave "normally" in a given fantasy RPG setting: Big guy in big armor goes first and tanks, little dudes in the back doing damage.

In doing so, they'll find themselves completely screwed over by the Health system as it is currently.

 

 

 

PS. your cheese tactics is quite mediocre to some other tactics that you can use, which don't even need buffs or debuffs to kill enemies with single hit.

And that doesn't strike you as a bit problematic? It does me but if it's based on specific abilities, that can be easily balanced out I think, which is what they're still doing, so I'm not worried for the long run yet.

 

On the contrary, what I've explained is the logic of the core system as it is. Not saying it's godlike or cheesy, it's just what it implies.

 

Also, as it is now, I can already foresee people having 3/4 of their team COMPLETELY NAKED, wielding just one ultra slow MASSIVE 2hd hitter and running with it. The attack speed in such condition is INSANE and you chew through health/stamina at incredible rates.

 

Character's don't seem to take health damage from hits that do less than 1.0 stamina damage, which means that enemies that don't have high base damage can't do anything against fighter in high DT armor.

 

Your character should get hurt if they get critical hit from high level enemies. So I don't see any problem that Elder lions or Ogre for example can smash character with somewhat high DT with critical hit. 

 

They give you minor boost (+2 mig gives 4% damage and healing boost and +2 dex gives you +2 in accuracy, and +2 con gives you 4% more health and stamina), but nothing that you can't live without or that would motivate back and worth between inn and map that you are exploring.

 

Running naked is close combat is only good tactics for monk, other classes have much better luck by using at least some sort armor. Heavy hitter with leather armor (8 DT - 20% attack speed) is much better than running naked with two handed weapin  (0 DT and nor combat speed minuses) because 8 DT actually stops most of the grazes from the enemies

 

Diverse tactics mean that you don't always but single character in harms way when others fight from range, but do some circulation in your front line.

 

One tactic is to abuse  poor pathfinding that enemies currently have, which allow zergling singular enemy so that you get them attack one of your characters and then others will block it way and kill it when it tries to find its way to that it tries to attack. Other tactic is to equip firearms (which are currently super effective against everything) to all your party members and use scouting to get close enough to small number enemies and kill them with single volley.  Or abuse some very over powered abilities, like Ciphers "Soul Ingnito" that kill any single enemy in the beta. But with some balancing these tactics will change much less effective. And if there is buffs and debuffs that allow your party get so big difference against enemies that they always hit critical hits then those buffs and debuffs also need balanced.

 

Also, as it is now, I can already foresee people having 3/4 of their team COMPLETELY NAKED, wielding just one ultra slow MASSIVE 2hd hitter and running with it. The attack speed in such condition is INSANE and you chew through health/stamina at incredible rates, being, it seems, overall much better off having an entire team of DPSers being naked and ending fights in nanoseconds, than any other way.

So what? Back row artillery always was lightly armored in IE too - like your mages, thieves and bards.

 

I was more afraid that in PoE you'd be better running around with 6 tankomages all in full plate because difference in speed would be minimal.

Having armor on does make a difference in PoE, although nobody stops you from also running dual wielding naked barbarian, which is kinda cool.

I think the mechanic is OK, and I understand the reasoning. It's about "strategic healing resources" -- how deep can you go before you have to stop to rest/resupply, and with priest/cleric gameplay.

 

In the DnD based games, the limiting factor was your priest's spell selection. You kept going until you ran out of heals. You set aside potions for emergency use in combat, but at least I rarely used them to extend the adventuring day as it were; instead when my priest was out of juice, I rested.

 

This works well enough but it has two problems. One, you pretty much need a priest in every party, or at least a druid; and two, if you only have one, if not all, at least a very large chunk of the priest's spells go towards healing. I.e., your priest becomes a medic--someone you absolutely need, but who doesn't do all that much other than casting heals.

 

The idea with the stam/health+no magic healing mechanic, plus having several classes with per-encounter stamina healing, is that it frees the priest's spells for other uses, and it makes it possible to play even without a priest. If your tank soaks up most of the damage, you can use the barb's Defiant Resolve of the fighter's Second Wind; if you have a pally in the party, you can Lay On Hands. And of course it all recharges after the fight is over, until you run low on health and have to rest.

 

The principle is IMO sound. There would have been other ways to accomplish it, but this works well enough. Priest gameplay still has problems -- it's basically turned the priest from a heal-o-mat to a buff-o-mat, still making for rather monotonous gameplay -- but now there's no fundamental obstacle to giving the priest cool abilities.

 

The stam/health ratio needs tweaking though. 1:4 is too punishing. I'd try 1:8 to see if it's too forgiving.

[..]On the other hand, if you're letting your one tank get f*cked up constantly, that's kind of your fault.

Hmm, what's the role of a tank is not to be the one to get ****ed up instead of others?

I mean you might not agree with the need for a tank (which I have no problem with), but once you allow that path to be taken, then that's pretty much their role? I mean, fighters have nothing but talents dedicated to do just that, soaking up damage and get ****ed up constantly. The more you use resources to "CC" and "prevent damage", the more useless they become at their one and only role in the game...

...so it's not a failure or a fault if your tank gets ****ed up really, according to the game design, at least some of it, it's actually a success if the tank is getting hit constantly, because that's what everything in the class is designed for...except the Health system...