My thoughts on the issues with combat systems

[Sensuki]

As many of you know, combat currently doesn't feel right. While many of these issues are related to movement speed and could also possibly be related to action speed, I think many of the issues are being created by some of the other combat systems - most notably the attack resolution and armor systems. I have also included some sections about Attributes and Interrupts, as while the v301 changes to the Attribute system made the system a little bit better ... the changes to the system made attributes have less impact on character builds when we were asking for more impact, it still has quite a lot of holes, there are still dump stats and it still feels like a non-choice on many/most classes about what attributes to choose.

So here are my thoughts on these systems. They are just budding thoughts and I have not had the opportunity to thoroughly investigate any of these issues through modding or mathematics (as Matt516 is currently very busy with University), so I thought I'd just put this out there to the public and see what people think.

Attack Resolution
 
I like the attack resolution system and I think grazes are a good idea. After having played with situations when party unit accuracy is 10+ points higher than enemy defenses and/or party unit defenses are 10+ points higher than enemy accuracy in v301 and in v333 where enemy defenses can be 10+ points higher than party accuracy and/or enemy accuracy is 10+ points higher than party defenses, I think that the range of accuracy that begins to convert misses into critical hits becomes problematic and throws out the 'fun' in the game. It either makes it too easy (v301) or kinda hard (some enemies in v333) and I can see issues where attempting higher level content will not be possible.
 
I think the solution to this problem is to change the way the attack resolution system works, slightly. Instead of ACC-DEF +1 or higher increasing the critical hit chance, I think it would be better if critical hits were normalized to the "natural roll of the dice", or rather only occured on the Unity.Random.Range rolls of 96-100.
 
This would make it so that when enemies or party units have ACC-DEF +1 or higher, the damage values do not get too ridiculous, they will just score hits more often, and less misses and grazes.
 
I've spoken with Matt516 about this and he agrees, and sometime in the future he's going to produce a new chart to plot the bonus DPS from Accuracy and Might with this change.
 
This would mean that the abilities/talents/buffs in the game that increase the crit range would now need to affect natural rolls only.

Armor System
 
The armor system has gone through quite a few revisions over the course of development, and unsurprisingly, the current system is pretty much the Fallout armor system, with the minimum damage rule from Fallout: New Vegas. Not surprising considering the people doing the system design are Tim Cain (Fallout) and Josh Sawyer (Fallout: New Vegas) ... funny how that works.
 
The Integer DT system makes low damage/high speed weapons/spells/abilities really terrible and DT bypassing stuff like Stilettos, Maces and Estocs are without a doubt the best weapons of their type. It also makes increased attack speed worse than flat increased damage percentage.
 I think the DT system is the sole cause for all of the balancing issues. It is very hard to balance percentile increases to damage against integer DT. I think that if the designers keep the current armor system, balancing the damage of weapons and abilities is going to be a nightmare for them for a long time due to the fact that all increases to damage are in percentages, rather than integers.
 
There are two solutions to this problem. The first solution is to change all damage increments from percentile values to integers. I broached this in a very unpopular suggestion in the first week of the beta, and I also think that the designers would be against it.
Therefore, I think the solution here would be to remove DT from the armor system and have DR / Percentile armor only. Obsidian can easily balance the base percentage of DR against the Recovery Time penalty because they are the inverse of eachother. DR 50% = 50% less damage taken, Action Speed -50% = 50% less DPS (both of these assume no other inputs). They can also still do the per damage type DR resistances, such as Plate Armor 50% DR, 25% DR vs Shock or something.
 
This would fix the issue with Fast and Normal Speed weapons being inferior choices, because they would no longer have to deal with DT, they would all be useful against armor. This would also make Action Speed 2% equal to +2% DPS, and would help balance it better against the +2% Damage bonus from Might. Might also grants Healing, Action Speed increases the speed of non-damaging actions as well. Currently Dexterity is a dump stat, this would make it very good.
 
This could also possibly mean that health and damage values could be brought back into more sensible (and familiar) ranges to balance, rather than thousands of Endurance/Health points and damage rolls in the 100-200 ranges and it would also be easier to tweak the speed of the game because formulas just become mostly a simple damage * speed calculation.

Shields

I would not however suggest that DT be completely removed from the game. I think that it is more intuitive that Shields block damage rather than increase your Deflection. Currently I do not use shields in the beta. I find that the increase in Deflection that they grant is not a good tradeoff for the reduced DPS. There was one Shield in the beta that I found was worth using, and that was an Exceptional Heater Shield or something because it gave more Deflection than it reduced Accuracy and Action Speed and it felt like it actually made a difference to the BB Fighter's survivability.
 
I think putting DT on Shields would be cool, it would make shields really really good rather than almost never worth using. Flails would then need to reduce a portion of the damage block.

Attributes

I think changing the Attributes to a 10 and 0 system has really limited the impact of Attributes on all characters. Currently you can choose Armored Grace as a Fighter and it is the same as getting a free 18 Dexterity. Weapon Focus gives the same bonus as 20 Perception.
 
What I would suggest to do is change the zero point of Attributes from 10 to 8. In AD&D 2E, 8 was the zero point for Attributes, so it would still be somewhat familiar to IE players. This would give more headroom for attribute selection and would create arrays that look similar to 3E point buy.
 
I would also suggest that Attributes have a greater impact, and thus, the bonuses (and negatives) that attributes grant should be increased per point. I think combined with a "Natural 20" style critical hit in the Attack Resolution system, Attributes could be balanced around Perception granting +3 to Accuracy. +3 Accuracy is the same amount that characters get each new level so that would feel more like the BAB/THAC0 bonus that Fighters get in 2E and 3E - and thus would feel impactful.

In light of these changes, the formula to Fort, Ref, and Will may need to be changed to something like [Attribute A + Attribute B x 2] instead of x1.5+0.5
Matt516 could create some new charts to plot ACC vs MIG again with these changes.

For the record I still don't really like the swapping of Deflection and Durations, I think I understand why they did it as in Ars Magica Resolve is more of a mental stat and Deflection on Resolve probably feels funny to Josh, being an Ars Magica player ... and there was some D&D splat book that made an Intellect Fighter possible (Int AC bonus or something). I think while the new Intellect may be the best Attribute for Paladins and Chanters, it's horrible on everyone else. Most casters don't need extra Deflection because they are in the backline, and AoEs only rarely give extra DPS/Durations because bonus AoE size won't allow you to hit extra units with your spells all the time, only some of the time. Players can also make up for the lack of extra AoE by smart play - such as luring enemies into clumps or positioning the spell in the 100% best position when paused. I don't pick Intellect on any characters except Paladins and Chanters, because for all buff and debuff based casters, Accuracy and Durations are far more important. For damage based casters, Accuracy and Damage (Might) is more important.
 
I don't think what they have done creates a hard choice between Intellect and Resolve, it's an easy choice - don't pick Intellect. I think the system Matt and I created offered greater build flexibility, while Obsidian's changes just create more non-choices. Players pick what style of character they want to play and then pick the attributes that accomodate that style. If you want to play a Defensive caster? Under our system, pick Resolve - makes you harder to hit and increases your Concentration so your spells don't get disrupted. Want more potent spells? Pick Intellect - AoE and Durations are improved. Their original version of Intellect was a perfect attribute.
 
A bit of a side track, but the changes to the advancement system also make it possible to dump Resolve just like in v278 now, because if you opt for a more passive character, you don't need the attribute as the extra duration percentage is not as valuable as increased DPS or Health. I recently created a more Passive fighter with 4 Resolve and it was great.

Interrupts
 
I still think that the attribute system we proposed in our paper has some advantages over the current one. I think that the problem with Interrupt can be solved through the User Interface. Interrupts are now shown in the combat log, and if the character's Interrupt score was shown in the inventory screen / character record screen then players would be able to get a pretty good to very good estimation of how effective their Interrupt is, provided that Concentration is also shown in the inventory along with it.

I do not think that increased Range adds anything to the game, as units being far away from the party is a bad thing as they miss out on party auras and buffs. Priests need to be close to the battle to use their AoE heal ability. Rogues/Rangers etc need to be pretty close to benefit from auras and AoE buffs. Wizards can drop AoE spells from the back but any other type of spell requires them to be closer. If your party is standing directly in front of you, you can't case a Lightning Bolt through the party, you need to position them on an angle so that they aren't hitting the party and that requires them to get closer 99% of the time.
 
So yeah I still think that Accuracy and Interrupt would be good together.
 
I also think Interrupts as a build would be more viable if there were talents that augmented them, such as "Staggering Interrupts" that procs a secondary attack against Fortitude for the Dazed status effect for base 2-3 seconds on a successful Interrupt roll.

 

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Let me know if you guys think those are good ideas / if any of that stuff sounds sensible.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Infinitron]

Interesting, but the truth is that as soon as Obsidian cut down the speed of all enemies by half, 90% of the people on these forums will declare that the combat is now great, mission complete

Edited November 3, 2014 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

You have only played the game for 3 hours, and for 0.1 hours in the current patch. The problems are more obvious than that IMO, particularly the per-hit damage.

 

90% of people who don't care about combat - that might have been a better phrase

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Karkarov]

Just to throw this out there but there is an interrupt talent now, also accuracy and interrupt on the same stat as the game stands now would be OP.

[Sensuki]

Yeah but remember how I recommended to nerf Accuracy so that it doesn't increase crit chance?

 

There's an interrupt talent that makes you interrupt more often although that would be superfluous if it was to be put back into the attribute system.

 

I don't think they're going to add it back, but I can always mod it back in myself.

 

Like I said, haven't done the maths. Have to wait a while for Matt to become free again, so I thought I'd just put this out there to see if it was worth looking into.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

I hope they listen to you on this Sensuki. These ideas would make poe much more fun, and more balanced.

 

Oh, and more varied. Also more user-friendly.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Namutree

[Grone]

Agree with pretty much everything. An addendum: like I've said before, it seems to be percentile scalings that really make up much of the core of the issue. If everything was done in flat numbers all navigation would be easier. Fixing it like you suggests seems possible, but why keep percentages? They're aesthetically and functionally annoying.

[Sensuki]

I would prefer they be dropped for integers too, as that would be more intuitive, but Josh and the MMO players here may not. Rather suggest something neutral than something people flat out won't consider

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Nonek]

I sound like i'm proving Mr Infinitron right, but having watched your recent video which at the beginning showed stealth animations, my immediate thought was that this is how a combatant should approach combat (without the transparency of course.) Wary, watchful and in a combat ready stance, rather than running forward willy nilly. However that's only my preference however.

[Sensuki]

I agree that movement speed should be slower. Been saying that since v257. I just don't think it's the only problem with the game.

 

A run animation was a silly idea IMO, but I think they made a few of those pre-production choices without considering the impact they would have on combat (such as lower camera angle, characters sorting into grass etc).

 

Opening line was

While many of these issues are related to movement speed and could also possibly be related to action speed

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[IndiraLightfoot]

Grunker: I agree. Those percentages and decimal numbers (for grazes) must go. It may fit some futuristic post-apocalyptic games, but for some reason, it actually makes my precious CRPG feels curdle and then go stale. The same goes for super-high numbers. It fits ARPGs, and perhaps DA:I (we'll see), but I don't want to see it in PoE.

 

On movement speed: Sure, slower is nice. But let's be frank here. There shouldn't even be a slomo-mode. That also oozes of some replay a la Matrix slomo action movie or sports or just lameness!! The game should have one speed - it's not default - it's the only one available.

 

The biggest culprit in combat is rather speed and the magnetic grater problem.

 

Magnetic grater problem?

Well, noticed how all enemies move sci-fi fast? And they often gang up on you? Everything becomes a graphically messy grinder with metallic "shick, shick, shick, shick" going off like one of the bizarre robots in WL2. That's where the fun in combat dies in PoE atm. Instead, it becomes "throw your hands" bad, leaving you with a sense of lack of control (unless you pause every nano-second - which sucks!).  Grater? Well, this magnetic enemy mess constricting your pc is grinding it down - small grazes and a thousand papercuts make it bleed out, just before it dies from being squeezed to death.

 

The solution:

Less damage per hit.

Slower speed.

And the most important part - remove recovery and all sorts of meta-gamey counters and pips and bars - all of it, and replace that with combat animations that are slow enough and oomphy enough. Instead, balance the combat via these animations and the melee position shifts they entail.

 

Attack with a 2H-sword? Well, that swing will be big, take time, and push the enemy a bit, if you land a hit, but if you a miss, you will stumble away a bit.

Attack with a crossbow? Best part in game so far. That animation takes time. Thumbs up!

Stillettos, daggers - they are the only weapons that should be "shick"-quick, but the amount of damage should be low, and some armour will prove almost too hard for them, unless they are magical, or handled by stiletto pros wiith armour-passing specialisations and what not.

Edited November 3, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Infinitron]

Sensuki: Considering how often you invoke the dreaded "banalce", I'm surprised at your championing of DR over DT.

 

Simply put, DR is always less mechanically interesting than DT. Handling a character who takes 50% of damage from all attacks across the board is less interesting than handling a character who might take trivial damage from one sort of attack (like a dagger stab) but takes more-or-less the same amount of damage as everybody else from another sort of attack (like a fireball).

 

And I would certainly think that most Infinity Engine "grognards" want high damage magical attacks that always kick butt, and aren't decimated by armor DR values.

 

tl;dr You've out-Sawyered Sawyer.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Infinitron

[Nonek]

I'm definitely with you on an increased focus on shield use Mr Sensuki, armies and combat have been built upon good use of the left arm, and methods of using and bypassing shields could build an entire talent tree in my opinion. For single combat it would be nice to see the effectiveness of the buckler actually translated into a game for once, rather than it being the poor mans choice of defense. Indeed maybe even spiked bucklers, or the Highlanders famous use of the Dirk in his Targe holding hand.

[Sensuki]

Sensuki: Considering how often you invoke the dreaded "banalce", I'm surprised at your championing of DR over DT.

 

Simply put, DR is always less mechanically interesting than DT. Handling a character who takes 50% of damage from all attacks across the board is less interesting than handling a character who might take trivial damage from one sort of attack (like a dagger stab) but takes more-or-less the same amount of damage as everybody else from another sort of attack (like a fireball).

 

And I would certainly think that most Infinity Engine "grognards" want high damage magical attacks that always kick butt, and aren't decimated by armor DR values.

 

tl;dr You've out-Sawyered Sawyer.

DT would be fine if bonuses to damage were in integers, then there wouldn't really be a problem I don't think. That's how it was in the Fallouts right? They're basically using the Fallout Armor system with percentile increase to damage. The Fallout system worked with integers, but it doesn't appear to be working with percentile damage.

 

Fallout 1/2/Tactics didn't really have to deal with percentile increases to real-time attack speed either.

 

I'm not not sure they're willing to recognize that/compromise the use of percentages.

 

I personally do not care which solution is used, as long as the issue is resolved. I have no preference.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

Sensuki: Considering how often you invoke the dreaded "banalce", I'm surprised at your championing of DR over DT.

 

Simply put, DR is always less mechanically interesting than DT. Handling a character who takes 50% of damage from all attacks across the board is less interesting than handling a character who might take trivial damage from one sort of attack (like a dagger stab) but takes more-or-less the same amount of damage as everybody else from another sort of attack (like a fireball).

 

And I would certainly think that most Infinity Engine "grognards" want high damage magical attacks that always kick butt, and aren't decimated by armor DR values.

 

tl;dr You've out-Sawyered Sawyer.

Sometimes I get DR and DT confused. 

[prodigydancer]

The solution:

Less damage per hit.

Slower speed.

And the most important part - remove recovery and all sorts of meta-gamey counters and pips and bars - all of it, and replace that with combat animations that are slow enough and oomphy enough. Instead, balance the combat via these animations and the melee position shifts they entail.

 

Attack with a 2H-sword? Well, that swing will be big, take time, and push the enemy a bit, if you land a hit, but if you a miss, you will stumble away a bit.

Attack with a crossbow? Best part in game so far. That animation takes time. Thumbs up!

Stillettos, daggers - they are the only weapons that should be "shick"-quick, but the amount of damage should be low, and some armour will prove almost too hard for them, unless they are magical, or handled by stiletto pros wiith armour-passing specialisations and what not.

Um. You need to be very careful with animations and how they affect combat.

 

Remember how (mathematically proven) best DPS for melee rogue in DA:O was auto-attack? That's right, "active" abilities had bonus damage on paper but time wasted on animations made them inferior.

Edited November 3, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Sensuki]

DR / Percentile armor can also be handled by formulas rather than by flat DR (this would make it more interesting, Infinitron)

 

This is just an example (and some people may recognize it)

 

For positive Armor, DR =((armor)*0.06)/(1+0.06*(armor))

For negative Armor, its damage increase = 2-0.94^(-armor) since you take more damage for negative armor scores.

That way stacking armor has diminishing returns and spells/abilities/etc that reduce armor are cool, and reducing armor below zero is awesome.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Sensuki

[IndiraLightfoot]

prodigydancer: You are right, and I am well aware of that. However, there are plenty of games out there that use animations for both visual combat feedback and combat pacers in their own right. Any auto attacks need to be scripted to take such bot-advantages into account.

[archangel979]

I agree with this topic. Combat both needs to be slowed down and damage per hit needs to be lowered. If armor needs to be changed to do that, then do it. Criticals only depending on base roll is how it worked in IE games and it worked well.

 

I also agree with parts of Sensuki's attribute section, especially the part about making attribute bonus/penalty greater.

 

Shield changes idea is good.

 

I would rather not see any AoE influenced by attributes and I don't really have an opinion about range of abilities based on attributes.

 

Interrupt is for me needlessly complicated mechanic. Let it just be a an extra effect of some spells/special attacks/weapons.

Edited November 3, 2014 by archangel979

[Nonek]

As a point of interest, if I may ask you ladies and gentlemen whom have played the beta: How much do you think that your characters efficiency is marred by not having access to the resources you will have (theoretically) built up throughout the rest of the game, up to the point where the beta begins?

Edited November 3, 2014 by Nonek

[archangel979]

As a point of interest, if I may ask you ladies and gentlemen whom have played the beta: How much do you think that your characters efficiency is marred by not having access to the resources you will have (theoretically) built up throughout the rest of the game, up to the point where the beta begins?

That is impossible to know and if it makes a big difference it is a huge problem for OE if they expect useful feedback on combat balance and feel.

[Sensuki]

As a point of interest, if I may ask you ladies and gentlemen whom have played the beta: How much do you think that your characters efficiency is marred by not having access to the resources you will have (theoretically) built up throughout the rest of the game, up to the point where the beta begins?

Well if you want to test your party with gear that you will have acquired up to this point it's not difficult to do. There's a mod floating around that unlocks the additem command again, you can equip your PC with fine items and throw some magic items into the mix (obv low level ones) and voila - probably around about right.

[Nonek]

Ah much appreciated.

[prodigydancer]

I think Nonek asked a good question and the implications merit some analysis. Depending on how powerful gear is relative to character's stats and abilities perceived balance or imbalance of BB combat may be totally misleading.

 

This reminds me of how weak my party felt when they were making their way through Irenicus Dungeon and fighting trivial monsters. And how quickly their power grew when they geared up after that.

[Infinitron]

I don't know about gear, but I do think familiarity and skill play a factor, especially when dealing with fast enemies who swarm you. The less confident you are about your ability to handle events, the more you pause. The more you pause, the more awkward and "not fun" combat feels.

 

The Infinity Engine games didn't have many fast enemies, but they did have some. The werewolves in the Baldur's Gate 1 expansion were fast, especially compared to the slow walking speed of characters in the vanilla BG1. Here's an LP of the Werewolf Island, done by a "pause-a-holic" LPer:

 

 

Looks pretty awkward, doesn't it? One of the reasons I'm a bit skeptical of accusations that Pillars of Eternity has incredibly chaotic combat is that the way the accusing people are playing it just isn't all that different from the way novice players play the Infinity Engine games.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Infinitron