Balance Discussion

[Diogenes]

What kind of stat spread are you guys thinking for Ciphers? I guess 18 in Int and Might is probably ideal, or is a more balanced spread better? I'd like to be able to make Resolve checks in dialogue etc but not if it makes me useless in combat.

[Sensuki]

TBH same as Rogues I think Int, Might and Dex would all be good on Ciphers.

[roguelike]

I'm too lazy to fill in 20 dex blunderbuss, but just imagine a slightly longer bar.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sensuki]

is this all based on ACC-DEF = 0 ? Because the numbers scale depending on the ACC-DEF score

[roguelike]

Yeah that's based on ACC-DEF = 0.

 

As accuracy increases, I think arquebuses just become better and better since their accuracy penalty is worth less and less.  I guess eventually the crit penalty catches up with them, but my guess is that takes a long time to become significant, +40 accuracy or something.  The curve on the other side is a little more complex since arquebuses deal amazing graze damage thanks to high base damage and penetration, but the accuracy penalty becomes more and more significant.  I'd still guess that things don't really change until around -30 accuracy or something, but I'm not really sure.

[Sensuki]

Matt516's spreadsheet that I sent you likely contains the math to figure it out, although his calculations were done back when multipliers were multiplicative

I can pull any calcs you need from the source code

 

ACC-DEF +1 through +15 will always be significant because it removes a miss chance AND adds a crit chance, after that, accuracy isn't worth as much

Edited March 15, 2015 by Sensuki

[roguelike]

I'm not sure the graph is really sturdy enough to survive probing all the generalizations.  Not just accuracy, but attack speed is going to be better than it's represented here since it will tend to multiply any +damage modifiers, higher rate of fire weapons will have less overkill and tend to be better against multiple enemies, higher damage weapons will tend to be better than represented since every fight starts with a free shot, actual arquebus/blunderbuss users are probably going to be carrying two and will switch for even more burst damage, as weapon enchantments become available, the expected ACC-DEF is going to change...

 

For the majority of non-blunderbuss cases though, penetrating shot just doesn't seem that compelling.  If I were just eyeballing solutions, really hunting bows probably need to have the 1% more real attacks per 1% attack speed gain that dual weapons get instead of the .67% more real attacks per 1% attack gain that most things get.

[Sensuki]

It's something we might have to address in a mod/community patch because I so far they haven't really paid to much heed to our claims about this kind of stuff. 

I'm far more concerned at the moment about how terrible one-handed style is, it's just utter garbage. That's an entire weapon style (not just the talent, but the entire style) that is bad.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Sensuki

[roguelike]

The obvious solution is just to keep cranking up the accuracy bonus until the style becomes good.

[Sensuki]

I'd prefer if it was made faster than it is, because then it would benefit from Might and Dexterity a bit more. It suffers from being the same speed as Two Handed style but doing less flat damage and receiving less % bonus to DPS because damage mults scale worse with a 1H than 2H.

 

Currently they are supposed to both attack every 3 seconds (subject to those possible errors), they could make it 2.5 or something instead.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Sensuki

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

What kind of stat spread are you guys thinking for Ciphers? I guess 18 in Int and Might is probably ideal, or is a more balanced spread better? I'd like to be able to make Resolve checks in dialogue etc but not if it makes me useless in combat.

 

 

I'm planning a human blunderbuss cipher with 19 int, 16 Might, and 13 Dex. With +2 enchantment items to each, that's 18 might, 15 dex, and 21 Int. In the Backer Beta that seems to be enough to one-shot a minion in most fights, it's the max Int you can have as a human, and a little bit of extra dex will give a *slight* edge with spellcasting and if I want to go dual-wield melee (which is relatively easy since blunderbuss is in ruffian group with sabers and stilettos).

 

Int seems to be a good choice for dialogue options too; usually when there's a Per check there seems to also be an Int check. I'd prefer to put the three extra points into Per rather than Dex but Per is just worthless for ranged characters.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[axedice]

Does ACC-DEF change anything in damage? My low DEF monk is obliterated by these sentries and I'm curious if my build is broken, or this is another bug like the 150+ DEF sentries in the same floor.

 

 

 

[Sensuki]

That's a bug

 

I will go there with the IE mod and check their character stats

Edited March 16, 2015 by Sensuki

[Sensuki]

Hey Roguelike, can you do some jostling around with different numbers? e.g. if you increase bow damage a few points, how does that affect the graph ... stuff like that

[rheingold]

Hi roguelike, thanks for the work, though unfortunately your chart is wasted on me, I don't understand it. My problem not yours, but when I see a chart like my brain shuts down and I need to go get a beer, quickly. Can you elaborate a bit on which ranged weapons are the best and why penetrating shot is not great....

[roguelike]

 

Hi roguelike, thanks for the work, though unfortunately your chart is wasted on me, I don't understand it. My problem not yours, but when I see a chart like my brain shuts down and I need to go get a beer, quickly. Can you elaborate a bit on which ranged weapons are the best and why penetrating shot is not great....

The arquebus is the best, although the blunderbuss can also be good.  They are the only two ranged weapons worth using now for most builds.  Penetrating shot isn't great if you aren't using a blunderbuss because you're spending a talent that could have gone to improving your damage in other ways on making your weapon do slightly more damage than an arquebus against enemies with 7 DR or less and a whole lot less damage than an arquebus against enemies with more than 7 DR.  

 

This analysis is somewhat complicated by the fact that arquebuses do very little damage with increased attack speed, so Sensuki was wondering if you could pump Dex enough to take advantage of the larger gains from attack speed that bows have.  The answer seems to be that you can do a lot more damage against low DR enemies, but are still hosed against high DR enemies.  Unfortunately for bows, the blunderbuss has these exact same properties and is better in almost all situations.

 

Hey Roguelike, can you do some jostling around with different numbers? e.g. if you increase bow damage a few points, how does that affect the graph ... stuff like that

 

It's hard to show changes like that nicely on a chart.  Just to pick an arbitrary point, most weapons need about a 50% damage increase to do the same damage as an arquebus against enemies with 8 DR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A more useful graph might be the number of times that DR gets applied in a given period (basically the inverse of attack speed), which is roughly how quickly a weapon goes from being 'good' to 'bad' as DR increases.  Blunderbusses have an increidbly sharp dropoff since they fire 8 projectiles, hunting bows attack 4 times for every 1 time that an arquebus so they fall off quickly too.  Everything else falls into this mediocre middle ground where they have fairly sharp decline as DR increases but not enough damage to deal decent damage to low DR enemies.

[rheingold]

Awesome, thanks for the info.

[Odd Hermit]

 

 

The arquebus is the best, although the blunderbuss can also be good.  They are the only two ranged weapons worth using now for most builds.  Penetrating shot isn't great if you aren't using a blunderbuss because you're spending a talent that could have gone to improving your damage in other ways on making your weapon do slightly more damage than an arquebus against enemies with 7 DR or less and a whole lot less damage than an arquebus against enemies with more than 7 DR.  

 

 

This analysis is somewhat complicated by the fact that arquebuses do very little damage with increased attack speed, so Sensuki was wondering if you could pump Dex enough to take advantage of the larger gains from attack speed that bows have.  The answer seems to be that you can do a lot more damage against low DR enemies, but are still hosed against high DR enemies.  Unfortunately for bows, the blunderbuss has these exact same properties and is better in almost all situations.

 

 

It's hard to show changes like that nicely on a chart.  Just to pick an arbitrary point, most weapons need about a 50% damage increase to do the same damage as an arquebus against enemies with 8 DR.

 

The high alpha and weapon swap potential to skip reloads pushes them even further ahead. Faster weapons really should do more DPS than the high single shot weapons to make up for that. Even if the DPS was equal I'd still choose the high single damage shot. Especially since it can mean instantly killing some enemies before they can react or get support/heals from their group.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[roguelike]

Today's update is brought to you by healing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healing:  A thing that druids eventually become better at, just like everything else involving spellcasting.

 

Also by restore light endurance: a spell that no one should ever cast.

 

And Holy Radiance: Maybe if this scaled by level, it wouldn't be the worst healing ability in the game.

[pswendel]

Today's update is brought to you by healing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healing: A thing that druids eventually become better at, just like everything else involving spellcasting.

 

Also by restore light endurance: a spell that no one should ever cast.

 

And Holy Radiance: Maybe if this scaled by level, it wouldn't be the worst healing ability in the game.

I fully expected this. Thank you for Putting that together for reference. One surprising item was Moonlike scaling. Edited March 17, 2015 by pswendel

[Luckmann]

Today's update is brought to you by healing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healing:  A thing that druids eventually become better at, just like everything else involving spellcasting.

 

Also by restore light endurance: a spell that no one should ever cast.

 

And Holy Radiance: Maybe if this scaled by level, it wouldn't be the worst healing ability in the game.

 

These graphs and such are amazing, Roguelike. Please don't stop.

[GordonHalfman]

Played a bit of this build. Made a chanter with might, int and a bit of dex. Took Gunner, Penetrating Shot and Marksman with Sure Handed Ila using the lead splitter. Seemed totally broken. Stopped doing it after a few fights it was so daft. Probably just the weapon that needs toning down.

 

The chanter invocations seemed like a bit of a mixed bag, I hope they give them another pass. It's good you have a reason to use something other than Thrice She Was Wronged now although it might have been overnerfed. The summon phantom spell seemed good, as well as the force push and the paralyze one but the rest seemed a bit meh and situational, especially when you can only choose three per level. Like bonus DR against slash and shock only, or bonus def against paralyze effects. (The latter should at least be buffed in line with the priest prayer line of spells.)

 

I also tried an interrupt based Wizard. I maxed Per and Dex with a bit of Int, and dumped Res, and then took Blast and Weapon Focus for wands. Then spent a lot of time casting Eldritch Aim + Alacrity and then just using my wand to look for AoE interrupts, sometimes using Miasma of Dull Mindedness to debuff enemy concentration. It actually seemed sort of decent, I was definitely getting a ton of interrupts with blast anyway, hard to say how much impact it was having. (I also tried the Interrupting Blows talent but that didn't seem to do anything? I wonder if they plan to take it out.)

 

It's interesting that interrupts don't seem to prevent ability usage anymore, like before I could use Thrust of Tattered Veils on Adra Beetles to stop them from using their shocking blast, but now it only delays it. Thrust doesn't seem that useful now. 

 

Level 4 Wizard spells could use some love, I like the summon spell now it works but Confusion is still only slightly better than the level 2 version, Wall of Flame got nerfed and Iron Skins is still a bit crap, the others are a bit situational. 

 

Priest Deity spells seem to be the same, kind of a weak selection, I think they could at least change them to be 3 per rest. (I wouldn't personally have a problem with them just being added to the priest spell book at the appropriate level to be used whenever like domain spells were in D&D.)

[ushas]

Today's update is brought to you by healing.

 

...

 

Healing:  A thing that druids eventually become better at, just like everything else involving spellcasting.

 

Also by restore light endurance: a spell that no one should ever cast.

 

And Holy Radiance: Maybe if this scaled by level, it wouldn't be the worst healing ability in the game.

 

Nice. Does all those abilities scale with Might? (i guess you used something like Might=10 & Int=10 here?)

Perhaps Silver Tide scale with lvl but not with Might...

Edited March 18, 2015 by ushas

[ushas]

For those who are interested in armors, the Damage Reduction table sits below. Kudos to Sensuki for checking out the percentages of armors.

 

Numbers which BBv480 probably uses:

 

 

 

 

Rounded DR numbers, which are shown on character sheet and in descriptions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basically, quality enchantments add bonus to the base DR value of the armor (+2 Fine/+4 Exceptional/+6 Superb). Then the individual DR subtypes are reestimated as percentages of this new base DR. Compare to the flat increase -- the "better" DRs rise faster with the quality and the grow of the "worse" DRs is slower.

Edited March 18, 2015 by ushas

[roguelike]

I think they all at least claim to scale?  Though how much a DoT claims to scale isn't very reliable in this game.  All the healing spells that tick are going to potentially scale better since they can benefit from enough int to hit a breakpoint as well as might.

 

I know that Silver Tide scales.  The base radius is huge too, 20m or something, like they forgot to nerf it from another version of the game.  Holy Radiance also scales (all 10 points of it, lol) even though it's always displayed as +10 in the combat log.

 

For those who are interested in armors, the Damage Reduction table sits below. Kudos to Sensuki for checking out the percentages of armors.

 

Numbers which BBv480 probably uses:

...

 

Rounded DR numbers, which are shown on character sheet and in descriptions:

...

 

 

Basically, quality enchantments add bonus to the base DR value of the armor (+2 Fine/+4 Exceptional/+6 Superb). Then the individual DR subtypes are reestimated as percentages of this new base DR. Compare to the flat increase -- the "better" DRs rise faster with the quality and the grow of the "worse" DRs is slower.

 

I really enjoy how everything this game tells you is a lie.  Is Superb Plate really the cheapest Superb armor?