Graze gotta go, no?

[IndiraLightfoot]

Great post, gkathellar!

 

And I especially like this part:

 

 

 

In fairness, while BG's swingy RNG could be a pain in the ass, that was a feature, not a bug. A lot of character abilities were essentially ways to manipulate or eliminate the presence of the RNG, because the risks of failing to do so were too great. I agree that a lot of this comes down to preference, but it does bear noting that it's not just more RNG vs. less RNG - there's also the question of how player abilities interact with the RNG.

 

 

I am one of those who really like this feature, including the reloads that come with it. Plain and simple, I enjoy that combat format, both RPG-wise and gameplay-wise.

[archangel979]

You are a real fan  gkathellar  

Edited September 29, 2014 by archangel979

[Mr. Magniloquent]

The only difficulty I've had with the Graze mechanic is through spellcasting. Priests and Wizards have highly conserved resources of spellcasting. When you have around a 40% chance to graze in almost all scenarios....it really makes an impact.

[Matt516]

Yeah, grazing on spellcast is not fun. I don't know if spells are genuinely UP because of it, but it certainly doesn't "feel" good pretty much ever. I guess it's better than completely whiffing though. xD

[Fiebras]

 

 

Eoten

SkyDragon

AdraDragon

FleshConstruct

 

 

Yeeeeeeeeeeeees.

 

From your list it says Barbarians have 5 Base Deflection as oposed to the Fighter´s 25? What? Im gonna assume thats a typo and its suposed to be 25.

 

Also, everyone is so hugh up on Deflection because its your first line of defense but what about the defenses that allow you to resist skills and attacks should your first line fail?

Fortitude, Reflexes and Will.

Acording to what you just posted Sensuki, every class starts with all these defenses at 0.

I assume they are still influenced by their respective atributes. Though Im am unsure about their growth or how the atributes and classes influence their growth upon level up, if at all.

We have new talents for them though we also have talents to resist conditions that they are supposed to prevent (I still think weapon and defense talents should have a separate level up skillpoint every 2 or 3 or 5 levels or so as oposed to having to choose between them and class abilities).

 

 

 

Btw, I think the reason everyone is having such a hard time with Cowled Dwarf is because not only is it a Dwarf, it also has a Brigadine and it buffs himself because hes a Priest. So high Deflection makes thing very hard to kill.

On the other hand EVERYTHING besides the Cowled Dwarf dies ridiculously fast to BB Rouge with an Arquebus. I killed the Ogre in one round before he could even raise his club because she did like 200+ damage with a single crit, which was incidentally the first shot AND a sneak attack. The freaking Spider Queen (which for some reason is classified as a Spear Spider for cyclopedia purposes) lasted longer.

She crits like like its going out of style. She also has 22 Perception which, as Ive said before, is HAX (though I like NPCs being able to do things the PC cant ever do. It gives them character and makes them not completely disposable in favor of custom min/maxed adventuers. Edwin from BG comes to mind). I just hope Eder can compare to her in he real game. Though Eder´s image will be kinda ruined anyway since everyone is gonna have him run around in robes(if in clothes at all) firing a gun.

 

 

Yeah, grazing on spellcast is not fun. I don't know if spells are genuinely UP because of it, but it certainly doesn't "feel" good pretty much ever. I guess it's better than completely whiffing though. xD

From my limited grazes on Fireballs Ive seen that even grazing spells do enough damage for it to not matter much. Granted that was on spiderlings and those are made of paper. Flamable paper.

Couldnt you miss with Fireballs in BG? Then again you didnt have a convenient "this be there area wot things die in" targeting cursor. Im indiferent to grazing on AOE damage spells but I do like being able to crit on spells. Single-target spells should not be graze-able.

You have Fortitude, Reflex and Will for enemies to defend against spells though so those are still gonna mitigate the damage you do.}

 

EDIT: BTW, who is in charge of updating the wiki?

It would be nice if all the information in here were up-to date so we can have a reference point instead having to comb through threads and use the slow search function:

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Accuracy#Accuracy

Edited September 29, 2014 by Fiebras

[Doppelschwert]

Here's all the creature values

 

Spoiler Tag would have been nice, as a lot of this stuff seems to be outside of the beta. I only skimmed it (as I don't want to be spoiled), but the sheer number alone implies its stuff outside of the beta.

[Matt516]

Barbarians have always had really low base Deflection, Fiebras.

 

Also, you said that single target spells shouldn't be able to graze because reflex, fortitude, and will all exist to defend against those spells. But grazing is exactly how those defenses defend against the spells! Maybe I misunderstood you but that statement doesn't seem to make sense..

Edited September 29, 2014 by Matt516

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I like spell grazing over missing completely. Part of the reason I typically avoided status spells in PnP is because they would often fail and I would be out a limited resource.

[Fiebras]

Barbarians have always had really low base Deflection, Fiebras.

 

Also, you said that single target spells shouldn't be able to graze because reflex, fortitude, and will all exist to defend against those spells. But grazing is exactly how those defenses defend against the spells! Maybe I misunderstood you but that statement doesn't seem to make sense..

5 Deflection seems too low considering Paladins have like 20 acording to that list. If Barbarians are meant to be that squishy they they dont make as good front liners, especially since they already have Frenzy which lowers their deflection further.

 

I interpreted Deflection as affecting spells but I was confusing it with Accuracy, ignore that.

Fortitude, Reflex, Will should be able to make Spells/Abilities graze, but only at very high values. Like, your mind control spell isnt gonna do anythig to a Mindflayer and you arent gonna knock that Uranium Golem on its butt. Of course, the problem with all this is that our Abilities/Spells dont seem to get stronger outside if they crit and for that accuracy and might is the best bet for less grasez lategame it seems. But even then theres a cap to how much damage you can do or how much an ability is going to be successful. At some point you will maybe only graze.

I dont know if abilities/spells are all "this is what you get, nothing more and nothing less" outside talents.

 

If PoE follows a linear increase in enemy defenses eventually that Fireball isnt gonna do much even if it crits. So the way I se it (and Im on a tangent here already)  the only way to bypass those high defenses is stacking multipliers. Like, classes could get say "+20% more damage" or "spells inflict -20 reflex before hitting" talents.

Or you will need to use debuffs and buffs more, which can make fights last longer.

 

For example, in Path of Exhile you get a small base hp pool that only increases by a bit and the skill tree progression encourages you to stack as many +% hp multipliers you can get. Same with damage, and many skills and talents take mainhand weapon damage into account to stack multipliers and effects.

 

Or you could remove graze from spells entirely but that still doesnt get rid of the posibility that lategame your damage spells arent gonna be as strong as they used to be earlygame or that your other spells arent as reliable. I hope that makes sense, I went on a bit of a ramble there I feel.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Fiebras

[Doppelschwert]

 

Barbarians have always had really low base Deflection, Fiebras.

 

Also, you said that single target spells shouldn't be able to graze because reflex, fortitude, and will all exist to defend against those spells. But grazing is exactly how those defenses defend against the spells! Maybe I misunderstood you but that statement doesn't seem to make sense..

5 Deflection seems too low considering Paladins have like 20 acording to that list. If Barbarians are meant to be that squishy they they dont make as good front liners, especially since they already have Frenzy which lowers their deflection further.

 

I interpreted Deflection as affecting spells but I was confusing it with Accuracy, ignore that.

Fortitude, Reflex, Will should be able to make Spells/Abilities graze, but only at very high values. Like, your mind control spell isnt gonna do anythig to a Mindflayer and you arent gonna knock that Uranium Golem on its butt. Of course, the problem with all this is that our Abilities/Spells dont seem to get stronger outside if they crit and for that accuracy and might is the best bet for less grasez lategame it seems. But even then theres a cap to how much damage you can do or how much an ability is going to be successful. At some point you will maybe only graze.

I dont know if abilities/spells are all "this is what you get, nothing more and nothing less" outside talents.

 

If PoE follows a linear increase in enemy defenses eventually that Fireball isnt gonna do much even if it crits. So the way I se it (and Im on a tangent here already)  the only way to bypass those high defenses is stacking multipliers. Like, classes could get say "+20% more damage" or "spells inflict -20 reflex before hitting" talents.

Or you will need to use debuffs and buffs more, which can make fights last longer.

 

For example, in Path of Exhile you get a small base hp pool that only increases by a bit and the skill tree progression encourages you to stack as many +% hp multipliers you can get. Same with damage, and many skills and talents take mainhand weapon damage into account to stack multipliers and effects.

 

Or you could remove graze from spells entirely but that still doesnt get rid of the posibility that lategame your damage spells arent gonna be as strong as they used to be earlygame or that your other spells arent as reliable. I hope that makes sense, I went on a bit of a ramble there I feel.

 

 

Spells and abilities and attacks alike take your accuracy rating into account, which increases while leveling up. At the same time, deflection, reflex, will and the last I can't remember fortitude rise as well while leveling up, so ignoring base specific modifiers, the chances to hit / grace / miss / crit for two characters at the same level would always be the same. Therefore, your spells don't get weaker over time, at least not in terms of how they are hitting the target.

The formula is always the same:

 

Base Accuracy + Modifiers vs. Base Defence + Modifiers will result in miss,grace,hit or crit.

 

The difference lies in which defence is targeted and which modifiers are recieved based on the action. The values of Accuracy and the defenses both raise while leveling up.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[Fiebras]

Yeah I just went in-game to check. I wish I could remember all the variables for certainty but I feel I shouldt commit them to memory just yet because they are subject to change.

 

It seems the increase of defense is very mild like 4 points per level but thats probably just the class. Doesnt seem like enough but I could be wrong.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I think increases per level are uniform.

[Lephys]

 

Hit, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, Hit, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, Hit, miss, miss, Crit ...

Misses are sometimes frustrating. Attrition is always boring.

 

Take your pick.

 

Okay, I'm sorry... I had to go ahead and address this sentiment, as it permeated the first couple pages. I skipped ahead a bit for this, so if I'm saying something someone else already said, then consider me seconding it:

 

If attrition is always boring, then we should try to get rid of attrition, not grazes. Misses are just as much promotions of attrition. What makes the difference? How often they occur.

 

So, the same must be true of grazes.

 

If grazes are happening too often, then maybe they just need to be adjusted, no? Sheesh. I'd hate to see the knee-jerk reaction if party deaths occurred to often. "WE'D BETTER BE INVINCIBLE, SO WE DON'T HAVE TO DIE SO MUCH! 8D!"

 

Really, though... my first instinct would be to simply adjust the base Attack Resolution scale. Instead of 1-5(miss),6-50(graze),51-95(hit),96-100(crit), maybe it could be 1-5,6-30,31-95,96-100. Just an example.

 

Seems easy enough to try out. Make an educated guess (which the devs can do with oodles of combat data), test it out, and see what happens. If it's way better, tweak it, and voila. If not, and it's troublesome, on to suggestion 2: Separate Graze from Attack Resolution.

 

Basically, you'd have a default 1-5(miss), 6-95(hit), 96-100 (crit). Then, separately, Graze would be a chance-to-occur thing, based on other combat factors (armor, weapon type, damage type, range, etc.). Trying to hit that guy with no armor, with your sword? No chance to graze. Trying to hit that orc from 200 feet away with your bow? There's a good chance you'll graze him. Etc.

 

With this, you could even (if you wanted to) have critical hits that resulted in grazes. Critical multipliers could be pretty variable, since other factors than just accuracy versus defense would determine a graze. So, you could have a x3 Critical Damage multiplier, for example, but have your weapon be ineffective against your target's armor, resulting in a graze (reduced to 1.5x damage). While, a regular hit would've been .5x damage.

 

In a way, really, it seems like both grazes and critical hits should be divorced from Attack Resolution, but I understand how, in a different way, they work just fine within Attack Resolution. So, first, I'd just try adjusting the scale, as that seems like a perfectly feasible fix in the event of an abundance of grazes.

 

Either way, though, it'd be nice for tactical factors like positioning, and weapon/damage-type versus armor to come into play and modify your graze/crit chances. Using a mace against that heavy plate armor? You have an increased chance to crit. Using a dagger, instead? You have an increased chance to graze.

 

Dunno how tricky that would be to add in on top of the existing shifting-scale Attack Resolution mechanics, though, which is the only reason I suggest the possibility of divorcing them entirely from that (all graze/crit chances would be derived purely from external modifiers, rather than from the Attack Resolution scale with modifiers on top from a plethora of sources.)

 

Just me thoughts.

[Fiebras]

You can consider grazes the consolation Miss. You didnt really do much but hey at least you tried. Theyre fine.

 

 

I think increases per level are uniform.

It would be nice to have some confirmation. I seem to get +4 Will per level of Druid but didnt check the other stats or other classes.

[Matt516]

Lephys: I like your alternate spread for hits/misses/etc - though it'd require some balance changes as doing so would greatly buff Might indirectly by raising the average effective damage from Accuracy (and therefore the marginal benefit of each point in Might) since (by default) you'd now be hitting a lot more. Not that I don't think it's a good idea, just that it might be prudent to also suggest a buff to Perception. Maybe +2 Accuracy per point and increase Might to +3% per point. That gives Perception more weight.

 

Fiebras/Kaine: All defenses (and Accuracy) are supposed to increase by +3 per level for all classes. At least in the last version, and I haven't seen any devs mention making changes there in the recent patch.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Matt516

[Sensuki]

Also, everyone is so hugh up on Deflection because its your first line of defense but what about the defenses that allow you to resist skills and attacks should your first line fail?

Fortitude, Reflexes and Will.

Acording to what you just posted Sensuki, every class starts with all these defenses at 0.

I assume they are still influenced by their respective atributes. Though Im am unsure about their growth or how the atributes and classes influence their growth upon level up, if at all.

We have new talents for them though we also have talents to resist conditions that they are supposed to prevent (I still think weapon and defense talents should have a separate level up skillpoint every 2 or 3 or 5 levels or so as oposed to having to choose between them and class abilities).

No, Barbarians have 5 Base Deflection, they've always had that.

 

And Fort/Ref/Will is

 

Fort: [MIG + CON] x 1.5 + ( [Level-1] * 3 )

Ref: [DEX + PER] x 1.5 + ( [Level-1] * 3 )

Will: [iNT + RES] x 1.5 + ( [Level-1] * 3 )

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm assuming that's for all classes? Also, is that mentioned in the game? Something like a mouse over?

 

I really dislike all this maths and percentages system.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Sensuki]

No it's not, it's what Josh Sawyer has said on other forums and it's what's in the source code

 

That's for all classes and creatures.

 

Actually it looks like they've changed it in the new patch.

 

Now it adds +0.5 so that in the cases where you fall 1 short, you don't anymore

 

ie

 

11+11*.15 = 27.5, that now becomes 28.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Matt516]

I'm assuming that's for all classes? Also, is that mentioned in the game? Something like a mouse over?

 

I'll be highly disappointed if they don't have every single attribute in the Inventory screen display how it's calculated on mouseover. Not doing so would be gross negligence in UI design.

 

I really dislike all this maths and percentages system.

 

The percentages can be a little less intuitive, to be sure. That said, D&D had its really unintuitive moments as well - THAC0, attribute boni every 2 points, etc. I think if they get all the UI feedback in correctly (and finally stop changing stuff so people can learn the system) it'll hopefully be a lot less confusing.

 

Actually it looks like they've changed it in the new patch.

 

Orly? O_o

[Sensuki]

yeah they added +0.5

[Caladian]

I do like the idea of grazes it helps moderate the wild fluctuations of the RNG.  Can the system be better?  Of course.  Personally there should be no health loss from grazes.  The rate of grazes and the amount of dmg could also use some tweaking.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I do like the idea of grazes it helps moderate the wild fluctuations of the RNG.  Can the system be better?  Of course.  Personally there should be no health loss from grazes.  The rate of grazes and the amount of dmg could also use some tweaking.

If grazes remain, I do like your suggestions, Caladian. At least no health loss from them (it doesn't make sense), and make them scarcer - and then divvy them up in graze message and blocked message (I'd love to see "blocked" at times). Misses, however, are scarce enough as it is - if graze is kept. Lastly. like I've said before, please no 3.7 in damage. Turn those numbers into units, please.

Edited September 30, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[IndiraLightfoot]

I just found a very informative interview with Josh and Adam that PcWorld did in Nov 2013. Amongst other things, Josh explains why he has introduced grazes:

"To kind of ameliorate the swinging craziness of old D&D, below a standard hit which is normal damage and normal effect, we have something called a “graze,” and a graze is, “Eh, you kind of hit him.” And that does half duration or half damage. And then below that we have miss, but that’s not very common unless you’re completely out-of-bounds, like, “I attack the dragon with my toothbrush.” Well, you miss! Congratulations, you’re going to miss a lot.

 

Try to hit that defense and what you roll, based on the difference between them determines hit, crit, graze, or miss.

 

So the graze effect ameliorates the problem with the original Baldur’s Gate with that super-hard fight right in the beginning of the game, where you’d just go miss-miss-miss-miss-miss...

JS: Yeah, we don’t like the sense of it’s all or nothing. Miss-miss-miss, big hit, foxing murder.

So the grazes tend to do, because of our armor system, they tend to do less than half damage typically because the armor absorbs a lot of it, but you’re still making progress. It normalizes the output and makes it a little more regular as opposed to sitting there watching and it’s like, “Yahtzee! A character explodes!” So that’s kind of the goal."

 

Hmm, the good thing is: Crits are still in, so we still get those Yahtzee-moments, but so far in the BB, the grazes are for to meek. I'd say make them scarcer, but have that damage increased. It doesn't sound like Josh envisioned a death by a thousand papercuts that can take minutes upon minutes (the last BB, it took 20+ minutes in one case for me - and I gave up, and that vs a normal group of enemies).

[gkathellar]

It also needs to be contextualized for the endurance/stamina/whatever/whocares system. Which is to say, once again, that if grazes stay they really shouldn't do health damage.

 

Also, it occurs to me that certain classes might get access to Talents that adjust the percentages. So, like, melee rogues might get something that shifts Miss from 1-5 to 1-10, or something. Barbarians might get an ability turning more hits into grazes (partly compensating for their abysmal deflection). Etc.

[archangel979]

I just found a very informative interview with Josh and Adam that PcWorld did in Nov 2013. Amongst other things, Josh explains why he has introduced grazes:

"To kind of ameliorate the swinging craziness of old D&D, below a standard hit which is normal damage and normal effect, we have something called a “graze,” and a graze is, “Eh, you kind of hit him.” And that does half duration or half damage. And then below that we have miss, but that’s not very common unless you’re completely out-of-bounds, like, “I attack the dragon with my toothbrush.” Well, you miss! Congratulations, you’re going to miss a lot.

 

Try to hit that defense and what you roll, based on the difference between them determines hit, crit, graze, or miss.

 

So the graze effect ameliorates the problem with the original Baldur’s Gate with that super-hard fight right in the beginning of the game, where you’d just go miss-miss-miss-miss-miss...

JS: Yeah, we don’t like the sense of it’s all or nothing. Miss-miss-miss, big hit, foxing murder.

So the grazes tend to do, because of our armor system, they tend to do less than half damage typically because the armor absorbs a lot of it, but you’re still making progress. It normalizes the output and makes it a little more regular as opposed to sitting there watching and it’s like, “Yahtzee! A character explodes!” So that’s kind of the goal."

 

Hmm, the good thing is: Crits are still in, so we still get those Yahtzee-moments, but so far in the BB, the grazes are for to meek. I'd say make them scarcer, but have that damage increased. It doesn't sound like Josh envisioned a death by a thousand papercuts that can take minutes upon minutes (the last BB, it took 20+ minutes in one case for me - and I gave up, and that vs a normal group of enemies).

I don't like this. RNG was a feature in IE games, not something to fix. At this rate, PoE might be worse than NWN2... good thing beamdog make BG2EE, at least I can continue play that until mods come for PoE. 

Edited September 30, 2014 by archangel979