The armor system needs work

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Any thought on the armor at all?.... Could use a bit of tweaking imo, if nothing more than changing the length of the penalties around.

Cutting recovery penalties in half would be a good start. As it is, they are far too long.

[PrimeJunta]

One approach would be to accept the current state of affairs, i.e. that armor is not great for people who don't expect to be beat on a lot... and mitigate this somewhat with encounter design. For example:

 

1. Remove the penalties from light armor, or reduce them to near-insignificance. A 5% hit to recovery time is not much and probably worth the additional protection even for a caster or archer who doesn't expect to be targeted much.

2. Add clothing with no DT but other interesting properties.

3. Add more enemies with ranged attacks, and tweak the AI so it picks its targets more intelligently, e.g. targets the squishiest ones first.

4? Make some heavy armor more attractive by making it contribute to deflection as well as DT. (This would also be intuitively correct IMO, as plate armor does deflect blows in addition to distributing their energy.)

 

Since second-row characters would be targeted more and would pay less of a penalty, on balance light armor would still be worth wearing. First-line troops would still want the high DT and newly-introduced deflection bonus from heavy armor and would want to wear it.

Edited September 5, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Ganrich]

The thing with ideas is that you could give one, and someone may shoot it down. Maybe the whole forum shoots it down. However, 1 person reads it and makes an adjustment to that idea. That adjustment makes the idea more palatable to the previous naysayers while possibly still making you happy. I had a couple ideas last night that Hiro debated. That won't stop me from posting ideas tomorrow if I have any. If you don't give ideas then you can't expect anything to change as other ideas you might be against are put forth, and discussed. These ideas get there day in the sun for the developers to read and perhaps consider. Your idea is never seen. Do what you will.

 

On armor... I think changes need to be made for sure. I know AI needs to press the back line more frequently. As of now not wearing armor on your ranged classes is too good an option.

[IndiraLightfoot]

PJ: A great list of suggestions!

 

1-4 are all very good. If all those are done, and then halving the recovery like KaineParker suggested, or even cutting it up in just a few simple categories, we would have come along way already, methinks, and hey, you guys were on topic as well!

 

As for 3. In the IE games, this was always the case - the enemies went for the squishy ones first, same thing in NWN2 for the most part. I see no reason not to continue that tradition.

Edited September 5, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I disagree PrimeJunta. While things like bugs getting squashed, animations, pathfinding, and other minor things might get better, a lot of the core design is still flawed. You can say things like 'there's a good game hidden in there somewhere' but seriously, anybody can say that with any game with major problems in its design. And you know what, there is a good game in there, but unless it gets a complete overhaul, we won't see it.

 

And the constant line from people with, 'the systems fine, just needs a little tweaking'. LMAO. Do you seriously think a little tweaking is going to fix fundamental flawed core designs? This is not some thing where you tweak some numbers. And Sawyer isn't going to come out a couple of months before release and do a complete turn around and take penalties off armor, go against the lore and introduce healing to health and any other number of major flaws with the core designs. These are major problems that can't be fixed with tweaks.

 

PoE has degenerate game play. It has rest spamming, it has save scumming, it has min/maxing and dump stats, the enemy A.I. is highly exploitable, it has objective quest xp that you can exploit without actually finishing the quests, it has ridiculous exploits including your characters running around as nudists because the combat is faster and easier. Everything Sawyer criticised with degenerate gameplay in the IE games like min/maxing, rest spamming, he's made worse in this game, by introducing a new system that encourages degenerate gameplay that is worse than in the IE games. Core fundamental problems that can't be fixed with a little 'tweaking'.

 

The game needs to go back to the beginning and it's too late for that. All we're going to see are cosmetic changes but the flawed system will be there. No, there is no good game somewhere hidden in there waiting to burst out like a phoenix. It will be probably be an okay game on release after all the bug fixes but not a great game due to the poor design mechanics and philosophy behind that design. And it's a real shame, a missed opportunity to make something great.

[PrimeJunta]

Edit: never mind. Not getting sidetracked anymore.

Edited September 5, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[IndiraLightfoot]

Hiro: There are some major issues with some of the core designs, where much more drastic decisions would need to be made. Still, I refuse to throw my hands and ascertain that those won't get changed. I need to keep the hopes up of this game still getting great in the end. I realize that major changes are unlikely, since we haven't seen devs here discussing those core designs in a while, but, hey, it's their game and reputation on the line. They may very well listen and change things up pretty radically, even delay the release to accommodate for such changes. This is me being positive, right there ---->   

Edited September 5, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sensuki]

I would also agree that the design seems to be the farthest off atm. A lot of the design decisions have tried to remove aspects of degenerate gameplay while in fact just creating different methods of degenerate gameplay.

 

Bugs can be fixed. UI elements and feedback can be added.

 

Design can also be tweaked, altered though.

 

And tbh I understand if some people are upset by the direction that the mechanics have taken. A lot of the systems are a far cry from the IE games, even if they try to invoke the IE feel in spirit.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Sensuki

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

And tbh I understand if some people are upset by the direction that the mechanics have taken. A lot of the systems are a far cry from the IE games, even if they try to invoke the IE feel in spirit.

Nice wording, Sensuki, trying to "invoke the IE feel in spirit". I'd love to see an urgent shift at OE, where they instead "try to embody the IE spirit, down to the bone".

Edited September 5, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Seari]

Have naked characters generate more aggro, basically.

That's realistic, I like it.

 

 

[Sensuki]

The good thing about this patch is we can actually really grasp the issues with the core mechanics. Once we get those sorted out we can start looking at stuff like how classes feel, abilities etc - down to the finer stuff.

 

Need to get the broader strokes of combat right first. Core systems and speed/pace atm are pretty key.

[Infinitron]

With the possible exception of Divinity: Original Sin (which had the advantage of years of development and some very unique features that helped people overlook its flaws) I've yet to see a Kickstarter RPG beta that didn't make a large number of its backers weep or rage.

 

This is going to keep on happening. It'll happen with Torment, too. An unfinished RPG is an ugly, ugly thing.

[Zansatsu]

 

Have naked characters generate more aggro, basically.

That's realistic, I like it.

 

 

 

My sides hurt!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Infinitron: Feargus told us about how BG appeared a few months before they began production for real, a version they were showing some sales executive, and it was nothing like the BG we know. Nothing, except for the isometric perspective with a bit of digital arts and craft in it. So, indeed, Rome wasn't built in one day.

Edited September 5, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[PrimeJunta]

Nice wording, Sensuki, trying to "invoke the IE feel in spirit". I'd love to see an urgent shift at OE, where they instead "try to embody the IE spirit, down to the bone".

 

I wouldn't want that. There was plenty I didn't like about the IE games, which I feel is nevertheless quite central to the experience. I would not want them to reproduce that just because they want to get it "down to the bone." Off the top of my head, the straitjacket classes/kits, Vancian casting, various completely arbitrary restrictions on what your class could or couldn't do, set-piece battles designed to be won by trial and error, haphazard overall layout, masses of filler combat...

[IndiraLightfoot]

PH: Heh, you need to break off some of the ribs, many of them aren't necessary or outright bad, but my "bones", the backbone of the IE games, were the three ones I just listed in a post like an hour or ago. And to me, two of them are still missing. Those were my personal favourites, mind you, and I'm not imposing them on anybody else. Still, I see from plenty of posters that they really like those three as well.

Edited September 5, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sensuki]

Vancian casting, set-piece battles designed to be won by trial and error

I loved both of these. I think Vancian is a good system as it ties into the whole 'adventuring day' concept. I think per-encounter powers kinda hamstring the concept because if you DONT use them in an encounter you've technically played wrong, whereas with Vancian that is not true at all.

 

I keep forgetting to use my Fighter's knockdowns, but I really should be using 2 of them every encounter, as there's no reason not to. Kinda makes combat repetitive in a way.

 

The IE games had some of the most fun fights I've had in any game. Knights of the Chalice would be up there too.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

There's the rub, Indira. There is no objective way to decide what's core and what's not. Of your three core elements, I'd only count two, as I don't care about the dice. (I do care however that the numbers are understandable, which currently needs work.)

 

It's a good question though, and a tough one. It's also hard not to let your preferences blur the picture, and just concentrate on what was central to the experience. My "core feature" list would include...

 

• Isometric, painted backgrounds (not rotatable)
• Party-based, RTwP
• XP- and class-based advancement
• XP from quests and combat <- yep, you read that right... 
• Scads of gear to choose from
• Scads of different enemies to fight

[Tartantyco]

People in this thread:

 

[Sensuki]

Dat passive aggressive.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 Of your three core elements, I'd only count two, as I don't care about the dice. (I do care however that the numbers are understandable, which currently needs work.)

 

 

The dice part, the designers of PoE could save it all by at least simplify it a lot, and ditch all the fractions and decimals and percentages. I want low and clean numbers, and also the "will I hit or not"-excitement, should be in, IMHO.

[PrimeJunta]

@Sensuki Actually Vancian casting and trial-and-error set-pieces are kind of two sides of the same coin. The rhythm becomes fight, get beat up to know what spells I should have had to win, reload, shuffle spells around, rest, fight again, win. It breaks mah immershun to have to consciously play with meta-knowledge like that. A lot of the encounters were did require rather specific resources to beat, a lot of these resources were spells, and if you didn't know what was coming you were somewhat unlikely to have them memorized.

 

I realize this is a preference, and that many feel differently.

 

Edit: also the games were different between each other in this respect; the IWD's made much less use of this than BG2 for example.

Edited September 5, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[PrimeJunta]

The dice part, the designers of PoE could save it all by at least simplify it a lot, and ditch all the fractions and decimals and percentages. I want low and clean numbers, and also the "will I hit or not"-excitement, should be in, IMHO.

 

IMO "will I hit or not" was only an issue in BG1 and the IWD's, and there only during the tutorial. From there on out it would take more than one hit to bring an enemy down, or get brought down yourself. And I found the L1-2 gameplay frustratingly rather than enjoyably random.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah, L1-2 mean too fragile party members - very entertaining, but the game should've started at level 3 instead, like in NWN2 (nicely solved, OE!).

[Seari]

People in this thread:

 

Why can't you just say: "Shut the **** up you ****ing crybabies, there's still not enough info to criticize the current system.". Well maybe not to that extent, but being passive aggressive is the ****ing worst.