Update on the Update

[Gairnulf]

And who talked about action speed? Adam was talking about damage, and I was responding to him. Less damage per swing, longer combat, that's what I would like to see.

 

Josh's method of strong variable swings is actually pretty good. Don't even dream about having a proper mathematical representation of the entirety of combat. You can compare the value of Dmg% to Accuracy% (Might vs. Perception), yes, that's about how far math will take you. Function tables themselves don't tell you anything about how certain game elements are actually used in the game. I've been balancing a strategy game mod for 3 years in the past, and watching replays was always the most valuable input to make decisions.

 

EDIT:

When you buff of nerf something slightly, fine-tuning, tweaking, most players won't adjust their routines, their heuristics and you get "wrong data" out of them. It's as if nothing has happened. Then you tweak it more, and more, and suddenly, players decide to re-route their brain, there is a landslide, the perception changes to the opposite. It's faster to get the boundary data on what is too high and what is too low if you make radical changes first, and then tweak after the boundaries of "this is OP/this sucks" have been revealed.

So this is like using heaps to find the correct value in the least amount of tests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_(mathematics) ? Basically, assign extreme values, then cut each new value in half, or double it, as the shortest route to reaching a satisfactory value.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Gairnulf

[Endrosz]

It's a standard approximation method in mathematics, interval halving, used by Euler to calculate the roots of difficult equations, etc. But I don't think anyone's interested in analytic math within his gaming, so I gave a "common language" explanation.

[Gairnulf]

I've discovered it independently as a faster way to find a correct value (usually in px) than measuring :D

[Clean&Clear]

 

Less damage per swing, longer combat, that's what I would like to see.

 

 

Exactly. I feel combat is starting to come together in v364 and feels much better (apart from obvious known issues I don't want to get into here because they are thoroughly discussed elsewhere). However, I also have the feeling that combat is nearly always over before it has even started.

 

Decreasing per hit damage (and I can imagine even as much as 30-40% will be the way to go) would make combat feel much better and put more emphasis on what the player actually does during the combat, not just how it's initiated. Initiation is currently way too important, not that it shouldn't be, but good initition is by far the most decisive factor of victory at the moment.

 

Alongside decreasing per-hit damage, I would increase duration of most buffs and debuffs. Currently they are so short to correspond with combat lenght (30 sec base debuffs often aspire to last the whole combat), but the 10 sec effects just don't feel good (actually it feels quite bad IMO).

[wjbaird]

It's looking pretty good for Thursday - Tomorrow Josh wants to do a balance pass over the backer beta before we release it. We have made adjustments to how DR and DT work, and combat is feeling too fast right now. He can talk about it when he gets a chance to pop on here. The save/load issue was fixed too. I'll keep this thread updated if things change.

 

Any chance of getting a mac and/or linux build before the holidays?

[Sensuki]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/

 

Josh was kind enough to reply about the armor changes

 

enverxis asked: What's the scoop on the DR and DT changes in tomorrow's patch ?

 

The stat currently called DR (percentage damage reduction) is being removed. Even though DR helped ameliorate big hits (which is why it was a part of the Fallout games along with DT), it was confusing for a lot of people, especially across six party members.

 

Damage Threshold itself is actually being renamed Damage Reduction (DR). Tim and I used Damage Threshold because Fallout’s DT does most of what PoE’s DT does. Many of PoE’s designers are also F:NV designers so they were familiar with DT and no one really questioned it.

 

We were surprised to find that a lot of people didn’t know what Damage Threshold was, didn’t recognize the abbreviation “DT”, and did not quickly determine that it was subtracted from incoming damage. People seem to intuit DR/Damage Reduction more easily, so we just changed the strings over.

 

With these changes, the overall damage of weapons and many spells has also been reduced.

 

Tangentially related, but we’ve made a lot of changes to the character sheet and the creature tooltips that make them much easier to read. The combat log is also in the process of being updated. A few changes should be in the update tomorrow, but there are many more coming.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[Jajo]

 

It's looking pretty good for Thursday - Tomorrow Josh wants to do a balance pass over the backer beta before we release it. We have made adjustments to how DR and DT work, and combat is feeling too fast right now. He can talk about it when he gets a chance to pop on here. The save/load issue was fixed too. I'll keep this thread updated if things change.

 

Any chance of getting a mac and/or linux build before the holidays?

 

I don't know about mac, but linux build is waiting for some fixes to unity engine. Unity3D 4.6 has been released in the end of November, so I'm keeping my hopes up.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I for one am very happy about the removal of DT, and just keeping DR  (the name fits what DT did better too).

[Sensuki]

That's not what happened. They're removing DR and keeping DT. Matt516 is not impressed.

[Nakia]

Dt is being renamed Dr because Damage Threshold confused people.  

[Doppelschwert]

So this is like using heaps to find the correct value in the least amount of tests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_(mathematics) ? Basically, assign extreme values, then cut each new value in half, or double it, as the shortest route to reaching a satisfactory value.

 

 

Are you sure the link you posted is the one you meant? Somehow I don't have the feeling that people working on category theory and abstract algebra care much for a technique you learn in the first year of studying math. I may be wrong though, so feel free to write me an elaborate pm with some references if you want, i'm interested.

 

That's not what happened. They're removing DR and keeping DT. Matt516 is not impressed.

 

I don't think it makes a lot of difference conceptionally. I don't know whether DR or DT is applied first at the moment, but it hardly matters as the result on the damage function is the same - it stays constant at 0 up to a point and then rises with the (1-DR) being the slope. With the change, it stays constant at 0 up to a point and then rises with a slope of 1. Changing the point of view, they remove the ability of armor to buff your stamina by a certain factor.

The most likely balance change is that damage for characters without armor will be a bit lower while damage for characters with armor will be a bit greater after the patch. The decision on which weapons to use against a certain type of armor for the most DPS remains an actual meaningful decision. I think it would've been worse if they kept DR and removed DT.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[Sensuki]

DT is applied before DR currently.

 

Personally I'm not overly phased, I'll wait and see how it plays.

[Dark_Ansem]

we all are, apparently

[Chilloutman]

DT is applied before DR currently.

 

Personally I'm not overly phased, I'll wait and see how it plays.

Yep, not happy with it as well, I kind of liked percentage reduction more than simple damage reduction. I was recently been watching LP Gothic and it is so obviouse why its bad move. You have sword with 10 dmg and doing 0 damage to almost all enemies, then you got sword with 20 dmg and magicaly you now 1-2 shot basic enemies.

[Sensuki]

I have nothing against integer reduction, I just think it can be a bit strange when bonus damage is handled in percentages. Will require some weird damage values for weapons/spells to be balanced properly. If damage was being handled in integers (+1 damage etc) then there wouldn't be a problem, and it would also be a lot more intuitive.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Sensuki

[Cluas]

It will be interesting... Looking forward to see that new Char Sheet - And test the combat... 

[Gairnulf]

 

So this is like using heaps to find the correct value in the least amount of tests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_(mathematics) ? Basically, assign extreme values, then cut each new value in half, or double it, as the shortest route to reaching a satisfactory value.

 

Are you sure the link you posted is the one you meant? Somehow I don't have the feeling that people working on category theory and abstract algebra care much for a technique you learn in the first year of studying math. I may be wrong though, so feel free to write me an elaborate pm with some references if you want, i'm interested.

No, I wasn't sure actually. I also wasn't sure if it was the right method to liken it to, hence my question in the post itself. I'm neither a mathematician, nor a computer scientist. A friend of mine who is both explained heaps to me once, in terms broad enough that I would understand. How about this link: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Heap.html Is it about the same thing? All I remembered was the practical application of heaps for quckly ordering elements by size, if I'm using the correct language.

 

I think going back to one armor stat is the right thing to do. I found two armor stats to be confusing as well once I started playing the BB with various characters to try out classes. As for F:NV, there I just shot at enemies and equipped whatever armor had the higher stats, never took the time to find out how the DR/DT system works.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Gairnulf

[archangel979]

This change I like a lot, I didn't see the need to have two similar mechanics. I also like the name change as DT was only used in Fallout and it is not known to all. In D&D DR does work like flat damage reduction and this is now inline with that.

 

As for if this change will be good overall, that we have to see in practise. I hope the damage per hit will be lower now and fights will last longer.

[Shevek]

Honestly, I liked the armor system as it was. I cant think of many people who were that baffled by it.

 

Whatever they do, I hope it works. Combat in 364 was feeling pretty good. Why jeopardize that with a change like this when a few tooltips could have cleared up any confusion?

Edited December 18, 2014 by Shevek

[archangel979]

Honestly, I liked the armor system as it was. I cant think of many people who were that baffled by it.

 

Whatever they do, I hope it works. Combat in 364 was feeling pretty good. Why jeopardize that with a change like this when a few tooltips could have cleared up any confusion?

Well to me this sounds more like giving us what we wanted - slower combat through receiving less damage per hit - but not calling it that. OE does not admit we were right and we get what we want. Win, win for all :D

[Shevek]

Hopefully one handers dont become totally useless with a universal percentile reduction in damage (as opposed to armor based) and a pure reliance on integer based reduction on armor.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Shevek

[Sensuki]

What?

 

They will probably just drop the ranges a bit. 1H weapons were meant to have their damage ranges increased so that they actually beat 2H for dps vs light armor, we'll know if that has happened when we see the values.

[Shevek]

What i mean, is currently, with low percentile dr on light armor, one handers arent too hindered by the dt on it.

 

It sounds to me like they are experiencing far too much dmg with the drop of percentile based dr. Easiest fix is then to drop base dmg across the board (I would assume thats what they do - that would be the same effect as high dr for everyone in current system).

 

What is that going to mean for one handed weapons?

Edited December 18, 2014 by Shevek

[Endrosz]

I have nothing against integer reduction, I just think it can be a bit strange when bonus damage is handled in percentages. Will require some weird damage values for weapons/spells to be balanced properly. If damage was being handled in integers (+1 damage etc) then there wouldn't be a problem, and it would also be a lot more intuitive.

 

I agree with you. If you're doing flat reduction (which is easy to understand and easy to tweak), you have to be really careful that the damage with all the extras applied doesn't make those DT values meaningless. If I can reliably crit every 3-4 attacks for 100 dmg against a DT of 15, damage types, armor types etc. are rendered meaningless.

[Chilloutman]

 

I have nothing against integer reduction, I just think it can be a bit strange when bonus damage is handled in percentages. Will require some weird damage values for weapons/spells to be balanced properly. If damage was being handled in integers (+1 damage etc) then there wouldn't be a problem, and it would also be a lot more intuitive.

 

I agree with you. If you're doing flat reduction (which is easy to understand and easy to tweak), you have to be really careful that the damage with all the extras applied doesn't make those DT values meaningless. If I can reliably crit every 3-4 attacks for 100 dmg against a DT of 15, damage types, armor types etc. are rendered meaningless.

 

 

Thats exact reason why there was percentage reduction as well - and I dont see reason to remove it