New build feedback

[Matt516]

 

 

 

Speaking as a weaksauce player, am I to directly take that a MIGHT + CON guy would be a bad tank?

Might is for damage. Strength didn't make a good tank in D&D as well except minimum strength needed for some armour.

 

STR = Thaco and damage. Puh-leez.

And how does thaco and damage help you tank?

Strength is dps stat. Con and Dex are tank stats.

 

 

Well, in the current system, Con and Int. But yeah, pretty much.

[Sensuki]

Alright folks. Finally finished my inventory UI update. Please let me know what you think.

That looks really good, but I'd also like to be able to see Weapon Damage and Weapon speed displayed somewhere, but I suppose the tooltips could be used.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I think the stealth mechanics may be a little OP.

 

First picture shows me the limit where I can travel before the guards 'notice' something. The red line is the limit.

Second picture is when I cross that imaginary line, the colour in the Fighter's circle starts to change colour to yellow below his foot.

Third picture shows I can face hug the guard without him noticing and then run back to my party before the characters circle changes completely to yellow and he was completely unaware.

 

 

 

 

 

[Matt516]

I'm sure they're still balancing it - they said that what we got was basically the very first implementation.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I just saved someone that I thought couldn't be saved in the beta. I'm hoping something in the dialogue mentions why my character could save this person concerning my attributes or skills. I have an idea what attribute did save her though. The dialogue in the beta shows the minimum skills you need for missing dialogue but doesn't tell you what skills are opening different dialogue options. Huge spoiler.

 

 

 

Aelys can be saved and doesn't need to die. But you have to be careful of AoE spells as some can kill her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[MasterPrudent]

I just saved someone that I thought couldn't be saved in the beta. I'm hoping something in the dialogue mentions why my character could save this person concerning my attributes or skills. I have an idea what attribute did save her though. The dialogue in the beta shows the minimum skills you need for missing dialogue but doesn't tell you what skills are opening different dialogue options. Huge spoiler.

 

 

 

Aelys can be saved and doesn't need to die. But you have to be careful of AoE spells as some can kill her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's been known that you can save this person for some time but it's only if your PC is a cipher (skills and attributes have no bearing on it). There's some speculation that you may be able to save her with any cipher in your party but I don't think anyone has tested this yet.

Edited September 28, 2014 by MasterPrudent

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I hope they fix that up. I'd hate to be writing the walkthrough for this game. eg. if you do this quest with your main character as a cipher, you can save this person. Otherwise if you take any other class you can't 'save' this person. If there's a cipher in your party and they can't help out, then I don't agree with that. I'll test it out in my next play through to see if a companion cipher can help. At the moment, we're seeing dialogue between you and whoever you're talking with and your party members become mindless drones. Interjections may be in the final game with party members but they should be able to help imo.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[ctn2003]

What im hoping for is that after its stable thel release patches more often as they said before.

[Monte Carlo]

 

 

 

Speaking as a weaksauce player, am I to directly take that a MIGHT + CON guy would be a bad tank?

Might is for damage. Strength didn't make a good tank in D&D as well except minimum strength needed for some armour.

 

STR = Thaco and damage. Puh-leez.

And how does thaco and damage help you tank?

Strength is dps stat. Con and Dex are tank stats.

 

 

I'm talking about D&D not some half-arsed MMO.

[Cantousent]

 

 

And how does thaco and damage help you tank?

Strength is dps stat. Con and Dex are tank stats.

 

I'm talking about D&D not some half-arsed MMO.

 

What the hell are you on about?  Maybe it's the vino talking here, but DnD STR doesn't make you more durable.  it helps you carry more and do more damage.  It doesn't do a damned thing to avoid or survive more damage.  It doesn't do so in any version of DnD up to and including 3.x as far as I remember.  We're not talking any MMORPGs here.  We're talking ol' skool RPGs.  I'm confused as hell as to why they named the things they did, but I don't think there's any real disconnect in how the attributes work.  I would, to be honest, wish they'd try to find a way to make the names of the attributes more intuitive, but might seems to me to be *more* helpful for tanking in PoE than in DnD, if only in a kind of tertiary way.  Okay, in the logic straining sense that doing more damage kills enemies more quickly and thus you prevent damage to your tank, it works in exactly the same way as DnD.  MMO?  Give me a break.

 

...And, any version other than 2nd edition (and perhaps some 3.x) would break with the much venerated IE gameplay mechanics anyhow.

[Gromnir]

 

 

 

And how does thaco and damage help you tank?

Strength is dps stat. Con and Dex are tank stats.

 

I'm talking about D&D not some half-arsed MMO.

 

What the hell are you on about?  Maybe it's the vino talking here, but DnD STR doesn't make you more durable.  it helps you carry more and do more damage.  It doesn't do a damned thing to avoid or survive more damage.  It doesn't do so in any version of DnD up to and including 3.x as far as I remember.  We're not talking any MMORPGs here.  We're talking ol' skool RPGs.  I'm confused as hell as to why they named the things they did, but I don't think there's any real disconnect in how the attributes work.  I would, to be honest, wish they'd try to find a way to make the names of the attributes more intuitive, but might seems to me to be *more* helpful for tanking in PoE than in DnD, if only in a kind of tertiary way.  Okay, in the logic straining sense that doing more damage kills enemies more quickly and thus you prevent damage to your tank, it works in exactly the same way as DnD.  MMO?  Give me a break.

 

...And, any version other than 2nd edition (and perhaps some 3.x) would break with the much venerated IE gameplay mechanics anyhow.

 

much as with the perception that rogues and fighters is boring in PoE, we believe a problem regarding obsidian's naming scheme is at fault for continued confusion. mc and others has played fighters in the ie games and in any number of pc crpgs. everybody knows that to make a fighter more efficacious, you boost strength and constitution, or whatever is the equivalent o' strength and constitution in the given game. therefore, if one is building a PoE fighter, one should ratchet up might and constitution, yes? if the fighter were called by an complete new name, am doubting this confusion would persist. call the fighter a snarffleblargen and who is gonna be shocked to discover that as a low maintenance damage sink, the uniquely PoE character constructed with a seeming evolving attribute system, might be most effective at its stated role by boosting intellect and constitution?

 

the PoE fighter has an initial hurdle to overcome-- expectations. one wonders is such an obstacle will be insurmountable for many.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[mutonizer]

It's really very simple. I made a high Might / Con two-handed paladin and barbarian. Both were crap in combat. 

I made a high dex fighter with crap strength who was great in combat. The stat value imbalance seems out of kilter.

It's not stat imbalance, it's just how ACC works in regards to class progression.

 

From my testing, no matter how you spec, any class with Low of Avergage base class ACC will be sub-par in damage dealing compared to one that is High.

Fighter and Rogue are the killing machines for now due to this and their own abilities to convert graze to hit and hits to critical, Rangers close on their tails but very limited and weak overall due to their pet link though the "tag team" ACC bonus is nice.

Rest cannot even compete.

Monks don't have access to a Fist weapon spec so they fall far, far, behind, especially considering you don't have damage type versatility.

[Captain Shrek]

Mutonizer. 

 

Is DT the real culprit here? 

[Monte Carlo]

 

What the hell are you on about?  Maybe it's the vino talking here

 

 

It probably explains the pissy tone of your post, yes.

[mutonizer]

I'd say it's a combination of the hit system, DT and Crit Multiplier being applied before DT, which exacerbates the problems with hit mechanic.

The fact that grazes and critical hit are not just flat % make the whole thing a bit bonkers to me and if you can't hit/crit hit reliably, you're useless overall as DPS while if you can hit/crit reliably, it makes you crazy powerful.

 

Since Fighters have high base ACC and a talent to convert grazes into hits, and Rogues also have high base ACC and a talent convert hits into crits, you can see how things go when comparing with other classes who not only don't have these talents, but overall lower ACC anyway.

 

And the more you level up the worse it gets, fighter and rogue becoming incredible killing machines, while others barely able to land any hit on anything, constantly grazing.

 

Personally I'd put critical hit as a flat % removed from ACC vs DEF calculations (ie: if you roll 90% or above on the d100, you crit) but still affected by some talents (ie the Rogue talent would make it so 80% rolls or above would crit or something). That would make the system more stable overall in my opinion.

After that, I'd put crit multipliers applied on the damage left over once you factored in the DT and remove DR completely as a mechanic. That would result in lower critical hits overall on heavy armored targets, and still decent crits on low armor targets. Other damage multipliers would still be applied before though of course (such as Might, Savage Attack talent, etc).

As for graze, I'd get rid of it completely and instead put a critical miss chance (ie: if you roll 5% or below, or something), which could do like double your recovery time or something.

 

For ACC vs DEF calculation, you'd then go 1d100+ACC vs 1d100+DEF and if attacker roll overcomes defender roll, then you score a normal hit and go on to calculate damage. Of course that would result in a lot more misses, but I don't mind personally, that just means you can block/evade properly. Endurance can then be lowered to prevent inflation, making hits matter.

Of course some people don't like damage spike and would rather constantly get hit or hitting. Personally I don't mind and this allows for weak but very defensive characters (focusing on defenses and not getting hit at all but it hurts when hit) and pure damage soak like barbarians (ignoring defenses but got so much Endurance blot they can safely ignore hits for a time). With the current mechanics, my fighters are incredibly durable because nobody can do anything but graze on them, and barbarians get two shotted.

 

Never gonna happen, but there you go

 

Edit:

As a note, I'd also replace the linear dice rolls with curve rolls. As in, something like 5d20 instead of 1d100. Linear rolls just exacerbate randomness instead of character development, while I find curve rolls push everything to a more stable medium range, making character development more of a factor overall.

Edited September 28, 2014 by mutonizer

[Captain Shrek]

Funny, I was under the impression that if they gave, oh, like a +2 benefit to certain skills for a class those benefits would not matter at all. Percentage wise these would not even make a dent.

 

I never realized that OE would skew the mechanics by giving inherent bonuses to classes for ATTRIBUTES. No wonder those builds are broken. Add to that the Stamina bar being tied to classes and you have perfect pigeonholing.

 

Was it not a chief goal to avoid that kind of a thing? 

[archangel979]

 

What the hell are you on about?  Maybe it's the vino talking here

 

It probably explains the pissy tone of your post, yes.

 

I think you should understand what you are talking about before arguing with others.

[Monte Carlo]

 

 

What the hell are you on about?  Maybe it's the vino talking here

 

It probably explains the pissy tone of your post, yes.

 

I think you should understand what you are talking about before arguing with others.

 

 

Hey, thanks for the advice, Sparky.

[PrimeJunta]

Funny. The better the game gets, the louder the Bitter Brigade complains.

 

Very early impressions on 301: yep, another major leap forward.

 

The attribute system is now good enough. I still prefer the S&M take on it, but this will get the job done. It feels more natural, more understandable, and more DnD-ey. Making 10 the baseline did a lot for that, even if it's purely aesthetic. So no more complaints on attributes from me.

 

Big, big, big, BIG thanks for getting rid of the ranged/melee accuracy split for classes. I suddenly feel way less pigeonholed, and it simplifies things too but in a good way. Please keep that!

 

The new talents are... nice to have and serviceable but not supremely exciting. Many are also relatively minor in impact, so I think it might be worth seeing how it feels if we got one every other level instead of every third.

 

I'm taking back my criticism of the no-FF AoE INT bonus fringes. Now that I see it in practice, it's perfectly fine, and makes INT genuinely more valuable for wizards (without being a must-pump stat), which is also as it should be. Keep it.

 

The new stealth system is an enormous improvement over the old one. The tension is back. Individual stealth would still be nice, but I won't complain if it stays this way.

 

Not entirely happy with the engagement indicators. A lot better than nothing, but still hard to make out. I still think simple flat arrowheads pointing out from the selection circles would work better, or perhaps mouseover with targeting reticles. (Yes, it does still need those.) I don't have a ready solution, but it does need some work.

 

I have no problem with the shader effect on characters. Spell effects, however, are still to blingy and obscure too much of what's going on.

 

Combat in general is coming together nicely. It now feels responsive, and although I can't put my finger on the cause, the pacing seems better. Fights are shorter but sharper. Perhaps weapons have been balanced better?

 

I like the adjustments to the health/endurance mechanics as well, although I'll have to play some more to figure out how I feel about the specific splits for individual classes.

 

I've almost completed by BG1 playthrough, and at this point I'm enjoying the P:E combat more. It still needs some work to get to really good, but for me it's now past the point of being a liability.

 

Nice to see some better inventory on the BB party. Too bad (apparently) traps don't yet work as intended; I'm looking forward to trying those out.

 

The new icons and stuff also look sweet. Can't wait to see more of those bags of flour and arquebuses replaced by proper ones.

 

In other words, excellent job: this is coming along really nicely.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Nice write-up, PJ!

 

I agree with most of the stuff on it. A lot of things have indeed improved, and I really like the changed attribute system too - but then again, like you, I reckon, I would prefer the SenMatt system.

 

I must add that art-wise the game looks extremely nice and is overall very promising, including music and sound effects, down to the footsteps.

 

What is needed from here on in, the priorities in my book:

-Make the talents more interesting, let our characters get them more often, and perhaps add some weapon focus/spec-"spell school" focus/spell specialization to it all. Each class needs a few more level 1 and onwards talent/focus/spec-branches to pick just for the sake of diversity and playability

-Clean up the combat even more. I want to be on my toes when playing the game. In WL2 (and actually in BG1, btw), each and every encounter has a sense of danger and risk to it. I want less attrition and harder hits - that deal more damage, it's more fitting in a low-level campaign. I personally don't mind the so-called save-scumming/RNG problem, at least not to a degree, I must add. Perhaps a slightly bigger health pool on all - but I want low-level fights to be resolved faster than it is now - more pain and urgency, please!

-Have the attributes effect your character's uniqueness more, including the weight of the attributes

-Fix the character/NPC models so that they are less gloomy and semi-transparent. Obviously, I don't mean some D3/D:OS colour intensity level.  Also, while the models have been touched up and look better. Some are still not good enough.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Courtesy of gkathellar:

Half of my combat problems would probably be solved by adding a "recovery completed" auto-pause! Great idea. Cheers, mate!

[Cubiq]

I noticed that the AoE of some of the healing spells has decreased, like 2nd level priest spell that does healing over time for a longer duration.

This kind of forces me to ignore most of the buffs and save nearly all of my spells for healing, since vs tougher enemies, on hard, the damage spikes can come too quickly to react fast enough if you just wasted a spell on buffs. (even if the priest is completely naked)

[morhilane]

 

 

 

And how does thaco and damage help you tank?

Strength is dps stat. Con and Dex are tank stats.

 

I'm talking about D&D not some half-arsed MMO.

 

What the hell are you on about?  Maybe it's the vino talking here, but DnD STR doesn't make you more durable.  it helps you carry more and do more damage.  It doesn't do a damned thing to avoid or survive more damage.  It doesn't do so in any version of DnD up to and including 3.x as far as I remember.  We're not talking any MMORPGs here.  We're talking ol' skool RPGs.  I'm confused as hell as to why they named the things they did, but I don't think there's any real disconnect in how the attributes work.  I would, to be honest, wish they'd try to find a way to make the names of the attributes more intuitive, but might seems to me to be *more* helpful for tanking in PoE than in DnD, if only in a kind of tertiary way.  Okay, in the logic straining sense that doing more damage kills enemies more quickly and thus you prevent damage to your tank, it works in exactly the same way as DnD.  MMO?  Give me a break.

 

...And, any version other than 2nd edition (and perhaps some 3.x) would break with the much venerated IE gameplay mechanics anyhow.

 

Might is helpful for the "tanking-class" with self heals (Paladin, Barbarian and Fighters). It increase those abilities healing output.

[Hormalakh]

 

Alright folks. Finally finished my inventory UI update. Please let me know what you think.

That looks really good, but I'd also like to be able to see Weapon Damage and Weapon speed displayed somewhere, but I suppose the tooltips could be used.

 

 

Hey Sensuki; the weapon damage and speed is shown for each hand wielding a weapon in the first section under LH and RH (left hand and right hand). You are right though, each weapon set doesn't have its weapon's information immediately available. 

[Seari]

 Looks like OE is reading the talent suggestion thread.  for these new talents.