Critical Damage Balancing/ mitigation....

[tdphys]

Lots has been said lately about the over balance of damage to health in the recent backer, along with claims of swinginess...

 

One way to fix it, other then straight up imbalance tweaking ,  might be to give crit bonusses not to total damage, but the net damage.  This could work with damage thresholding in interesting ways, and would hopefully cut down on crits (Accuracy) being the ultimate way to raise damage.  Pumping might, perhaps would give more reliable damage.  High accuracy light weapons could pump up their guaranteed bypass by getting a relative boost from critting... etc...  multiple paths for damage options, more strategy?   Fitting weapon types to armor style might actually mean something...

Edited January 9, 2015 by tdphys

[curryinahurry]

Good Topic!  I think differential damage multipliers/ crit multipliers based on weapon type might be the key.  I'll try to write something more coherent about this tomorrow

[Sensuki]

Crits do only increase 'net' damage. When you crit with anything, the base damage of the spell/ability/weapon is increased by a critical modifier of x1.5, and bonuses added individually (I think additively).

 

Since all increases (and decreases) to damage are dealt in percentages, the values are more severe the better or worse the result, leading to very low damage on bad results, and very high damage on good results.

 

I recently made a dual War Hammer wielding Rogue, and was scoring 60+ damage on critical hit sneak attacks, but on a graze against the same target I was dealing 2 damage (both of these results were against DR).

Edited January 9, 2015 by Sensuki

[illathid]

Eh... pretty sure the math would be different. Compare a crit for 15 vs DR 10 before the multiplier in each scenario.

Vanilla: (15*1.5)-10=12.5

Propossed system: (15-10)*1.5=7.5

[archangel979]

Eh... pretty sure the math would be different. Compare a crit for 15 vs DR 10 before the multiplier in each scenario.

Vanilla: (15*1.5)-10=12.5

Propossed system: (15-10)*1.5=7.5

And low damage high attack weapons that profit most from high critical chance would be useless with this.

[Sensuki]

Eh... pretty sure the math would be different. Compare a crit for 15 vs DR 10 before the multiplier in each scenario.

Vanilla: (15*1.5)-10=12.5

Propossed system: (15-10)*1.5=7.5

Oh I see, interesting notion.

[illathid]

 

Eh... pretty sure the math would be different. Compare a crit for 15 vs DR 10 before the multiplier in each scenario.

Vanilla: (15*1.5)-10=12.5

Propossed system: (15-10)*1.5=7.5

And low damage high attack weapons that profit most from high critical chance would be useless with this.

 

 

I can't comment on the merits of the idea. I was just saying the math would be different than it is now.

[Karkarov]

Problem is there are too many things to factor in.  It isn't just crit bonuses, it is your might bonus, your damage roll, bonuses from talents, bonuses on the weapon itself, temp spell buffs, blah blah blah.  The math for one single swing of your sword in this game is in short way too damn complicated.  The numbers in general need to be reduced, while the graze penalty needs to be reduced as well.  Changing just one modifier won't work.

[Sensuki]

The math for one single swing of your sword in this game is in short way too damn complicated.

You can say that again.

[tdphys]

Some more comments...  

 

If we compare with DnD,  a crit happens 5% of the time.  Let suppose a 3x crit multiplier,  if you distribute that over the other 45% of successful attacks, ( assuming you hit 50 % of the time)  for base damage of 10 per hit,  means you've effectively raised damage over time by 2 pts  (  10 x 3 = 30,  so 20 extra damage, spread over 10x as many hits).   That translates into a 1.2 damage modifier per hit over time,  in the absence of DT in DnD.

 

From what I see in the beta,  crit mods can exceed this alot.   This means more unrelenting pervasive damage amplification for highly accurate characters and creates a balancing issue.  

 

Things get worse when you include DT.   Let's suppose we add DT to DnD; If you do 10 damage , with 8 DT,  you're doing 2 damage per hit.  

Now apply a crit, which again applies 20 damage over 10x as many hits,  but now we have  an effective 2.0 damage modifier.

 

Now look at PoE, where crits happen say half the time for  a highly accurate player.   We have 20 damage over 2x as many hits.  

This means we've done 4 regular damage and 20 crit dependent damage, and that's an effective modifier of 5x, and happens every 2 hits.  

 

How do you balance that?  Well,  by reducing crit mods, I guess.  Still..

 

Do you balance DT for just normal hits...  making critical hits the optimized way by far to do damage...

 

Do you balance DT for crits....  relegating normal hits to *grazes*,  again making critical hits the optimized way to do damage.  

 

By making crit mods apply to net damage,  you can focus balancing DT against regular hits, and allow interesting paths to damage amplification.

 

1.   make light weapons like daggers/rapiers have a higher damage pass through against DT,  you could focus on crits and attack speed amplifying that damage, rather then might.

 

2.   A high might/low per character might actually be viable as guaranteed overcoming of DT,  and could withstand per debuffs a bit better without wrecking damage output.

 

3.   You'd actually need to pay attention to weapon/vs armor DT to optimize you damage, even with high per characters.

 

I'm not sure what to do with spells and such.  Is there DT against magic damage? without DT crits are a little more balanceable.    At least you can consider a hit vs a crit as half damage vs full damage or something.  

Edited January 9, 2015 by tdphys

[tdphys]

Problem is there are too many things to factor in.  It isn't just crit bonuses, it is your might bonus, your damage roll, bonuses from talents, bonuses on the weapon itself, temp spell buffs, blah blah blah.  The math for one single swing of your sword in this game is in short way too damn complicated.  The numbers in general need to be reduced, while the graze penalty needs to be reduced as well.  Changing just one modifier won't work.

 

Yeah, but at this point, I think there might be a systemic problem in the math,  mainly excessive crit amplification of damage,  see above.

Ultimately, if your math makes it hard to balance the game, and makes parts of it redundant,  it doesn't matter if people understand the math or not,  the game will just suck regardless.

Edited January 9, 2015 by tdphys

[archangel979]

In IE games crit was x2 damage. And using two handed weapons or single one handed weapon styles (no shield) raised crit chance to 10%.

[Shevek]

Crit was fine, absolutely fine, until they removed percentile damage reduction from armor. The old armor system did a fine job limiting the top end of crit damage. The removal of percentile dr from armor has made crits far too punishing (and has further made one handers even worse than two handers, but thats a separate issue). There was zero need for the change, very few people had any real issue with it and it has led folks down a rabbit hole of trying to come up with oddball solutions for things that were non-issues just one patch ago.

[Sensuki]

I disagree, I don't think it was fine even before the armor change It's just now worse than it was before.

I had an issue with the armor system, but I thought that percentile DR and no DT would be easier to balance. They went the opposite direction.

[Shevek]

I can respect the want to have some DT in there to make one and two handers feel different and be balanced a bit different (some better against highly armored targets and, if done right, some better against lightly armored targets). But all DT and no DR is just worse.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Shevek

[tdphys]

change, very few people had any real issue with it and it has led folks down a rabbit hole of trying to come up with oddball solutions for things that were non-issues just one patch ago.

 

 

Oddball ?  Come on... it's just ... untested

 

Seriously though,  how to balance crit in the face of DT is what needs to be addressed if the current state of combat can be fixed/balanced as is.  The only other way I can think of is making Crit modifiers really really low...

 

I like the idea of DT,  the question is, how do you  keep it relevant with progressively higher damage values.

 

By only modifying  the net damage, you keep DT relevant, and thus the thematic meaning of armor stays relevant in the game.

 

You could apply some effects, maybe +1 sword  before the DT,  but you'd have to make sure those before DT modifiers are very few and limited,  because they are more powerful.  

 

(I like the might before DT modifier, because it allows to differentiate between per and might, but that would have to be carefully balanced)

 

 

 

If you apply all modifiers before DT,  multiplicative bonusses (crits) make DT irrelevant really fast.  Then the game devolves into running around in underwear trying to maximize per... 

Edited January 9, 2015 by tdphys

[Kjaamor]

From the second it was mentioned all those months (years?) ago, the importance Obsidian placed on DT in PoE left me shifting uncomfortably in my seat. It always seemed to me that making it a core part of the mechanics of every fight both unnecessarily complicated balance and also led to anti-strategic gameplay (One option to win, another to lose). I hadn't even considered the impact of critical hits on this.

 

I think I would have agreed with Sensuki that DR was the way to go. Obsidian could have continued their desire to explore different weapons for different armour by having damage types reduce (or increase) the percent DR accordingly.

 

However, I'm an armchair critic and not a game designer, so I shall have the good grace to assume that the decision to balance around DT was not taken flippantly, and that there may have been good reasons for it.

 

Pre-order, in this case, not cancelled.

[tdphys]

 

Eh... pretty sure the math would be different. Compare a crit for 15 vs DR 10 before the multiplier in each scenario.

Vanilla: (15*1.5)-10=12.5

Propossed system: (15-10)*1.5=7.5

And low damage high attack weapons that profit most from high critical chance would be useless with this.

 

 

If you buff the min damage throughput for low damage weapons,  they could benefit because the crit would apply after the DT rather then having the crit get soaked up in it.

[Hormalakh]

I am also surprised by the conclusion that the old DR (now removed) was a more complex notion than the new DR (old DT) system.

 

To me it just seems that saying if you're wearing light armor all damage is reduced by 10%, medium 15%, etc would be easier to understand than saying that a fixed amount would be reduced. This is especially true when all other systems continue to use a percentage based adjustment.

 

I, too, think the above proposed modifications might be worthwhile to look at - they seem like interesting changes. I especially like the might attribute rebalancing. I think as it stands, while might is no longer the most obvious choice, it truly does seem a bit OP compared to other attributes.

[Karkarov]

I disagree, I don't think it was fine even before the armor change It's just now worse than it was before.

 

I had an issue with the armor system, but I thought that percentile DR and no DT would be easier to balance. They went the opposite direction.

I can't blame them.  The math needs to be simplified and it is easier to balance versus 1 modifier than it is versus 2.

[archangel979]

Crits have always been one of the main culprits for combat being too fast and with armor nerfed it is even worse.

[morhilane]

I am also surprised by the conclusion that the old DR (now removed) was a more complex notion than the new DR (old DT) system.

 

To me it just seems that saying if you're wearing light armor all damage is reduced by 10%, medium 15%, etc would be easier to understand than saying that a fixed amount would be reduced. This is especially true when all other systems continue to use a percentage based adjustment.

 

I, too, think the above proposed modifications might be worthwhile to look at - they seem like interesting changes. I especially like the might attribute rebalancing. I think as it stands, while might is no longer the most obvious choice, it truly does seem a bit OP compared to other attributes.

 

I think the confusing part was having both the static (DT) and % (DR) based damage reduction at the same time. They decided to stick to static and renamed it DR because people who play PoE don't understand what DT means. Josh explained that DT came easily to the team because it is the name they used in Fallout New Vegas, but it would appear that people who play PoE didn't play FNV...

[Shevek]

If the problem is the name, then simply change the names of crap. They could have changed the name of DT to DR for 3E DnD Barbarian players (who else?) and called percentile reduction something else (maybe damage absorption or something). Honestly, they said they were making this game for experienced crpg players. Anyone who gets confused by the names of this crap (and apparently cant be bother to read a tooltip or something) shouldn't be given the time of day.

[curryinahurry]

^ The old damage threshold could be changed to Armor Rating and Damage Reduction could remain the same (as a % reduction term).  The problem seems to be more with two terms starting with 'damage' rather than what they represent.

 

If the reason the original DR was dropped was because of jargon vs. real complexity concerns...that's kind of silly.

[Sensuki]

They did make it seem like it was purely for that reason when they spoke about it ...