[Defense Discussion] They're testing the 'fenses for weaknesses...

[Odd Hermit]

Here are my current issues with the game's defense system, after testing a variety of tactics and builds on a few of the tougher BB fights:

 

 

High defense stacking characters are all well and good, each point of defense matters as long as you keep up with enemy accuracy - which on PoD might be nigh impossible but on hard and below it works at least for the BB content.

 

Outside of the fighter-y classes it's just a total waste even trying to make your caster characters - Wizard, Priest, Cipher, Druid in roughly order of most -> least fragility - durable enough to be anywhere in harm's way.

 

The problem is that many of the talents and abilities are almost useless when applied to lower defense characters. +20 deflection doesn't mean jack if you're still low enough deflection to get hit/crit frequently anyway. Same goes for Fort/Will/Reflect and such. There aren't many options for mitigating burst damage other than getting as much DT as possible and then positioning.

 

Due to this, many encounters are going to be entirely decided on squishy characters being placed out of the way, and taking advantage of AI limitations to keep them unharmed. It doesn't add up to interesting gameplay, fights will too often be decided by simple mechanic knowledge, opening tactic and positioning. There's not much room for too-and-fro reactive situations.

 

It also prevents one of the things JE has talked about a fair amount with all characters being versatile and having viable build options for many play styles. You cannot make a reasonably successful melee Wizard the way the system currently works, at least not on hard+difficult. It's a dead weight character. Same goes for Druid, Cipher, Priest IMO. I'm sure you could run a party through with them but your other characters would be baby-sitting your wannabe gish characters.

 

 

 

Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit are big jumps in damage and you need too much deflection to bother trying to get much out of the deflection stat on many classes. There really need to be better abilities/talents for mitigating spike damage, not just talents that you build up one uber-durable character to take all the hits.That's boring. That's MMO style gameplay, not what the target audience of old IE game players probably want.

 

Granted, there is DT. But putting everyone in heavy armor with +DT enchants is also a bit dull.

 

 

There's a similar issue with Fort/Reflex/Will. If you can't stack them high enough, they're rarely going to matter. What inspired this post was some testing of the various defensive talents related to these. I found they were mostly a wasted talent on anything but characters that already had them up fairly high.

 

It's also worth noting that the constitution attribute isn't doing its job. It's got a similar problem to the 2h debacle where high base gets way, way more out of investment in it than low base. But, honestly, my high base stam/health characters don't need the extra health either. It's just a bad attribute as is.

 

Example:

 

Wizard with 40(30+10/level) stam, 120health has +15% from 15 Constitution = +6 stam, +18 health.

Fighter with 56(42+14/level) stam, 280health has +15% from 15 Constitution = +8.4 stam, +42 health.

 

Fighter is getting much more gain when you also consider they get higher stam/level so the gap just gets bigger. Then factor in the fighter having better defenses in general, and you get the idea.

 

 

I think general durability really, really needs to be looked at and fixed before many other balance changes. If you have something broken at its base, building on it is foolish.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Sensuki]

There's not much room for too-and-fro reactive situations.

 

Thankyou, this is what I've been saying the whole time. While not totally related to how defenses works, it is a problem.

 

I don't have time to reply properly atm, but give me 5-8 hours or so and I'll be back.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Sensuki

[Luckmann]

My name is Eldoth Kron and I support this message.

[GreyFox]

I have to agree with that assessment and I'm also not sure why some things are split up into percentages while other, usually opposite things are integer based....con isn't even the worst attribute atm.

[Infinitron]

I don't understand why you wouldn't put your wizard in armor if you don't want him to be squishy. It's dull? Tough cookies.

 

I'm also curious about why some people seem to think that "+20 defense is useless if your defense is low". No, it's not useless, you're still getting hit less. Does it have to be all or nothing?

 

Anyway, none of this sounds particularly different from the traditional class differences in the IE games? So it seems to me that the target IE audience would be okay with it.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Infinitron

[Mazisky]

I dunno guys but i remember i completed Baldur's gate (back in the 90's) only by  summoning creatures (both spells and wands) to tank everything, last boss included.

 

It was my first Rpg ever played (if you exclude diablo, not properly an rpg anyway) and the first playtrough, so i was a supernoob....I can imagine an expert guy

Edited March 9, 2015 by Mazisky

[Striped_Wolf]

How about Wizard protective spells? Some of them:

 

Wizard's Double – Creates a duplicate of the caster to distract enemies, granting the caster a high Deflection bonus against a single attack.

Spirit Shield – Surrounds the caster with a shield of spirit energy, granting an increased Damage Threshold and a Concentration bonus.

 Fire Shield – Increases the freeze damage threshold of the caster and inflicts burn damage to any enemy that hits the caster.

Ironskin – increases the caster's damage threshold for 10 attacks.
Llengrath's Displaced Image – Increases deflection and reflexes of the caster.
 

Citzal's Martial Power – Caster temporarily sacrifices arcane power for martial might. Wizard gains bonuses to Deflection, Accuracy, Might, Constitution and Dexterity, but becomes unable to cast spells or switch grimoires for the duration of the spell.

 

They look good on paper atleast. And the Fighter dont get any of those.
 

Edited March 9, 2015 by Striped_Wolf

[Odd Hermit]

I don't understand why you wouldn't put your wizard in armor if you don't want him to be squishy. It's dull? Tough cookies.

 

I'm also curious about why some people seem to think that "+20 defense is useless if your defense is low". No, it's not useless, you're still getting hit less. Does it have to be all or nothing?

 

Anyway, none of this sounds particularly different from the traditional class differences in the IE games? So it seems to me that the target IE audience would be okay with it.

I would put a Wizard in Plate, but it still won't allow him to really play a gish role, and sometimes won't even necessarily save him from being gibbed by a gun - what matters is not having him targeted at all. I have my Druid, the squishiest character I take now, in Fine Breastplate. But he still isn't going to be fighting on the front.

 

In IE games enemies didn't all swarm around your fighter with 100+ deflection. It might not've been advanced AI but your whole party was fair game and you had to adapt on the fly.

 

Wizards / Clerics w/pre-buffs were also the tankiest characters.

 

I'm not saying PoE needs be the same, but right now the way fights play out is just too predictable. And class roles are a bit too rigid and in some cases simplistic. Someone in my power-game party thread pointed out something that I was rather disappointed to find out was true -

 

 

I suspect we have vastly different estimations of the value of engagement then. In my experience the AI is simple enough that simple positioning dictates who gets targeted, not engagement.

 

 

Turns out this guy is entirely right. If felt like an important part of tactics until I build a fighter w/out it and enemies still just went after him ignoring all my squishy targets most of the time, as long as he "pulled" and was in the front. What I though was engagement at work before, was actually just enemies trying to circle my fighter to get within range, they were never actually rushing for my casters.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Infinitron]

Well, one of Sensuki's arguments against the engagement mechanic is that in the Infinity Engine games, simple positioning was enough to achieve an identical effect, so...

[Odd Hermit]

How about Wizard protective spells? Some of them:

 

Wizard's Double – Creates a duplicate of the caster to distract enemies, granting the caster a high Deflection bonus against a single attack.

Spirit Shield – Surrounds the caster with a shield of spirit energy, granting an increased Damage Threshold and a Concentration bonus.

 Fire Shield – Increases the freeze damage threshold of the caster and inflicts burn damage to any enemy that hits the caster.

Ironskin – increases the caster's damage threshold for 10 attacks.

Llengrath's Displaced Image – Increases deflection and reflexes of the caster.

 

Citzal's Martial Power – Caster temporarily sacrifices arcane power for martial might. Wizard gains bonuses to Deflection, Accuracy, Might, Constitution and Dexterity, but becomes unable to cast spells or switch grimoires for the duration of the spell.

 

They look good on paper atleast. And the Fighter dont get any of those.

 

 

-Wizard's Double

As I said in the OP, Wizard can't easily get enough deflection for this deflection to matter much. It's also only a single attack.

 

-Spirit Shield

It's 3 DT at the moment I believe, at the cost of 1 of your spells per day, for one encounter. It's not very cost effective.

 

-Fire Shield

Freeze DT isn't going to save you from a big 2h or a gun. The minor damage you deal when enemies hit you is also negligible, since most enemies will negate much of it with DT plus your wizard can't get tanky enough that you'd last for many hits anyway.

 

-Ironskin

Probably the least terrible of these, it's a decent amount of DT.

 

-Llengrath's Displaced Image

Same issue as Wizard's double.

 

-Citzal's Martial Power

Problem is you'd have to build your wizard like a fighter to get much out of it, and he still wouldn't fight as well as an actual fighter, on a time limit, using a spell/day.

 

 

Overall PoE doesn't currently have mechanics that allow for you to buff-up your casters and enter combat. Combat outcome is usually already decided before they'd have the time to buff themselves up to something passable as a fighter - since you have to cast most buff spells while in combat. Better to spend your spells disabling of exploding things than waste them on trying to be another class temporarily.

[Striped_Wolf]

Perhaps these spells would need a rebalancing then.
On the other hand, a wizard probably shouldnt be as capable as a Fighter at Fighting. Thats why it is called Wizard - A person who has spent most of his life studying the arcane rather than working out... Right?
Even if a heavy armor would allow the wizard to take a only a few hits more than otherwise, it could be worth it, depending on the build.
Perhaps its not the intention to allow for Wizards to become all out frontline brawlers.
 

Edited March 10, 2015 by Striped_Wolf

[Odd Hermit]

Perhaps these spells would need a rebalancing then.

On the other hand, a wizard probably shouldnt be as capable as a Fighter at Fighting. Thats why it is called Wizard - A person who has spent most of his life studying the arcane rather than working out... Right?

Even if a heavy armor would allow the wizard to take a only a few hits more than otherwise, it could be worth it, depending on the build.

Perhaps its not the intention to allow for Wizards to become all out frontline brawlers.

 

 

The problem is Wizards have way too many spells that are useless because it seems playing a spellsword type of wizard was intended to be a valid/viable approach, but they just aren't realistically any use as such.

 

I would be fine with Wizard being a pure caster. Probably only ~15-20% of their spells are actually useful for a pure-caster play-style though. Druids are in better shape, since their fighter-wannabe is a mostly separate and easily ignorable mechanic rather than plaguing their spell arsenal.

[Sensuki]

Well, one of Sensuki's arguments against the engagement mechanic is that in the Infinity Engine games, simple positioning was enough to achieve an identical effect, so...

 

He's obviously not doing it properly.

[Odd Hermit]

Well it has been awhile since I played BGII, I suppose I probably had mods that may've changed the AI since I played it awhile past its release date. I remember some enemies targeting seemingly random members of my party with some devastating stuff. There was a particular dragon fight, Draconis I think, that I remember having that "to-and-fro" feel where you had to react to his actions more than just positioning.

 

Or maybe I was just young and blissfully ignorant of many mechanic abuse possibilities.

[Heijoushin]

I can sympathize with this argument.

 

I never used much defensive or buff spells in IWD. Attacking is just so much more fun than defending, you know? So if I cast a defensive spell, I really want it to be worth my time.

 

Mirror Image was an okay early ability. Sounds like Wizard's Double is similar, but yeah, just 1 copy isn't enough. You need a couple.

 

After you get Stoneskin, it's all smooth sailing... perhaps a bit too smooth...

Edited March 10, 2015 by Heijoushin

[Striped_Wolf]

Well it has been awhile since I played BGII, I suppose I probably had mods that may've changed the AI since I played it awhile past its release date. I remember some enemies targeting seemingly random members of my party with some devastating stuff. There was a particular dragon fight, Draconis I think, that I remember having that "to-and-fro" feel where you had to react to his actions more than just positioning.

 

Or maybe I was just young and blissfully ignorant of many mechanic abuse possibilities.

 

 

Random targeting by the AI could be interesting, but even then a warrior up front will 'soak up' any passers by with his engagement radius (which seems realistic).

Another thing I thought of is to give some enemies larger sight range than your own party, allowing them to come at you from beyond the fog of war, thus preventing you from scouting & taking your time setting up an optimal formation before the attack is initiated. Perhaps even make the AI sight range randomized so that every playthrough turned out differently encounter wise.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Striped_Wolf

[Sensuki]

Well it has been awhile since I played BGII, I suppose I probably had mods that may've changed the AI since I played it awhile past its release date. I remember some enemies targeting seemingly random members of my party with some devastating stuff. There was a particular dragon fight, Draconis I think, that I remember having that "to-and-fro" feel where you had to react to his actions more than just positioning.

 

Or maybe I was just young and blissfully ignorant of many mechanic abuse possibilities.

 

This is a problem with the game design, not how defenses works. This is the very thing I've been complaining about throughout the beta. In the Infinity Engine games - good encounters elicited reactions from the player and the player had many tools that they could use at their disposal in a reactive fashion. The game also included counter spelling, which is my favourite thing about spell casting in the IE games. Counter spelling has been intentionally mostly eradicated from the game - at the preference of the SA and badgame goons I believe - and most of the fun along with it.

 

In Pillars of Eternity basically the only two things that you have to react to are moving out of a persistent hazard such as the AoE of Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, or casting Suppress Affliction. The high per hit damage in conjunction with this leads to combat that is stacked very hard on the encounter strategy and alpha striking phase, with virtually no reactive tactics required unless you make a mistake of some sort. I think the devs have unfortunately been looking at D&D rather than the Infinity Engine games for their combat influences, so the RTS feel and reactionary tactics that made the IE games fun have been eschewed from the combat. It really sucks.

 

There are people here (Infinitron might be one of those people) that do not care for reactive tactics and make the case that because "the majority" of IE players simply cheesed the game, that people do not expect to have to use reactive tactics. I think the developers also think that the game is more tactical than it actually is.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Sensuki

[Odd Hermit]

Random targeting by the AI could be interesting, but even then a warrior up front will 'soak up' any passers by with his engagement radius (which seems realistic).

Another thing I thought of is to give some enemies larger sight range than your own party, allowing them to come at you from beyond the fog of war, thus preventing you from scouting & taking your time setting up an optimal formation before the attack is initiated. Perhaps even make the AI sight range randomized so that every playthrough turned out differently encounter wise.

 

 

Random is much less cheese-able. And having engagement come into tactical play more would be nice. I think it has potential anyway.

 

Alternatively or in addition, a system where enemies have lore and prioritize certain vulnerable and/or low health targets when in range might be good. If an enemy caster gets a strong debuff on a character for example, priorities of the AI could kick in and have them focus fire that character while they're deflection/defenses are lowered.

 

Random scouting actually exists just not many enemies use it. The lions move along a path for example and can bump into your party. But they don't have larger sight range. If some enemies used stealth, and the PC's party had to have decent perception levels, that would be interesting as well. I think perception values playing into stealth could help add variation without it feeling too random. Currently I get the opener on almost all enemies in the BB except for scripted stuff that drops you from dialogue into combat.

 

Ideally I think AI of animals and humanoids/intelligent monsters should be a bit different as well. I can buy beetles being dumb, but it doesn't make sense that you can pull a single humanoid away from his group without a call for backup or a reaction or something.

 

 

 

This is a problem with the game design, not how defenses works. This is the very thing I've been complaining about throughout the beta. In the Infinity Engine games - good encounters elicited reactions from the player and the player had many tools that they could use at their disposal in a reactive fashion. The game also included counter spelling, which is my favourite thing about spell casting in the IE games. Counter spelling has been intentionally mostly eradicated from the game - at the preference of the SA and badgame goons I believe - and most of the fun along with it.

In Pillars of Eternity basically the only two things that you have to react to are moving out of a persistent hazard such as the AoE of Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, or casting Suppress Affliction. The high per hit damage in conjunction with this leads to combat that is stacked very hard on the encounter strategy and alpha striking phase, with virtually no reactive tactics required unless you make a mistake of some sort. I think the devs have unfortunately been looking at D&D rather than the Infinity Engine games for their combat influences, so the RTS feel and reactionary tactics that made the IE games fun have been eschewed from the combat. It really sucks.

 

There are people here (Infinitron might be one of those people) that do not care for reactive tactics and make the case that because "the majority" of IE players simply cheesed the game, that people do not expect to have to use reactive tactics. I think the developers also think that the game is more tactical than it actually is.

 

 

The random interrupts could easily go in favor of activated countering. Or they could keep the random interrupts, and players could build more passive or more active interrupters - as they seem to want classes to have active and passive builds possible. Although Priest/Wizard/Druid aren't possible to really build passively right now and be very successful on hard.

 

High per hit damage is at least in part a problem with defenses though IMO. You can view it as a problem with damage output as well I guess, the point is there's high spike damage and talents that add a lot of damage output, but few defensive talents that do anything substantial without being stacked on already durable classes. I can give my druid with 35 deflection +5 deflection, but it's a waste of a talent because the difference in damage taken is extremely minimal. Meanwhile I can grab a straight +20% damage to my strongest elemental spells NP and just bomb things faster than they bomb me.

 

High spike is fine on debuffed targets with focus firing, but in the BB right now you can simply shoot a gun with an ability and talents that boost the damage and one shot something with a single character no set-up necessary. Defenses don't need to be hit first, you don't need to flank them or CC them or anything. At least @ higher levels in IE games, significant fights often involved a lot of stripping of defenses while trying to manage your own. Granted, they were kind of "higher magic" games and casters had a weird curve where they started out weak and became monstrosities, but I think PoE could manage most of the good without most of the bad. Lower level casters seem much better in PoE as single classes, even the Wizard in spite of its problems.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Sensuki]

The X-Factor for this problem is DR. If there was no DR, Josh could have used D&D style lower numbers for things. Because DR exists, everything requires much higher numbers and it makes it very hard to balance. Another thing that throws it off is the Endurance and Health system and how Constitution works. 

 

The attack resolution system was designed so that unit actions had a positive outcome most of the time. The original design didn't even include a chance to miss. They have not really accounted for the fact that things pretty much always deal damage with their numbers properly IMO, or, if they are - they're looking at it from the wrong angle or something.

 

It's a fair experiment for a system, but it's got a long way to go before they get it right IMO.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Sensuki

[Striped_Wolf]

 Currently I get the opener on almost all enemies in the BB except for scripted stuff that drops you from dialogue into combat.

Yeah that is a problem because it means you have the time to position yourself and really exploit predictable AI mechanics.

If enemies spotted you before you spotted them they would attack you while still on the move, it would make the encounter more 'reactive' in nature, initially at least.

The AI reevaluating targets in the middle of the fight would be great, if it could somehow take the engagement mechanics into account. 

 

 

[Sensuki]

AI targeting does need work, I've made some videos on it but perhaps I need to make more.

[roguelike]

The AI is too bad and exploitable at the moment for stacking defense on your frontline taunters to not be amazing.  

 

If that ever gets fixed--and the fact that the game is launching without any evidence that they've laid the slightest groundwork for a decent AI doesn't make that seem likely--there are still a lot of design decisions that favor specializing in either offense or defense to the exclusion of the other:

 

* The attack resolution naturally favors each additional point of deflection more than the next one.  This isn't really a problem on its own, but compounds the other issues.

 

* Every decent defensive ability comes with a steep cost in offense.  Shields, Armor, Cautious Attack, anything that gives a respectable defensive boost comes with an arbitrary tax to your offense in addition to the opportunity cost you already paid by not using a two-handed sword or picking a +15% damage talent.  This is actually a big problem and you can immediately see why after taking one defensive talent that makes your offense terrible, it becomes attractive to just assume that you won't be doing any damage.  Likewise, dabbling is a terrible idea since you lose 20% of your damage if you even think of picking up a shield or learning a defensive talent.  Lowering the offensive penalties or transitioning to them to neutral or defensive penalties would make them more attractive to non-specialists and give specialists a more intersting choice to make beyond 'well my attack speed is already -60%, I guess I don't care if it goes down to -90%'. 

 

* Deflection is overvalued as a defensive stat.  Deflection abilities come with either tiny values (Superior Deflection) or large drawbacks, precisely because deflection is far better than the other three defensive stats combined.  In theory, it shouldn't be a problem if you manage to make a character that is virtually immune to attacks that target def because there should be a variety of other kinds of attacks.  In reality, deflection is overtargetted in spells and abilities meaning there are many encounters where no other defenses are ever seriously targeted.  This is an encounter balance issue that is probably not easily addressed.

 

* There are no abilities that improve both offense and defense.  Every offensive ability makes other offensive abilities better and every defensive ability makes other defensive abilities better.  Give rogues an ability that improves their def by a percent of their accuracy or give fighters a charge that gets a bonus from DR.  Talents like these could shore up characters weakness rather than just further strengthening specialists.

[Sensuki]

Yeah I think the game favors extreme specialization in many cases. Skills and Talents/Abilities, among other things.

[Infinitron]

In theory, it shouldn't be a problem if you manage to make a character that is virtually immune to attacks that target def 

 

 

In practice: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70392-solo-insanity-u-cant-touch-this/

 

 

 

In reality, deflection is overtargetted in spells and abilities meaning

 

Well, the other three defenses are really just an evolution of the saving throws from D&D, which in the original games weren't really considered "first class citizens" in your character sheet compared to the almighty Armor Class. The systems were made more symmetric for PoE, but I'm not sure there was ever an intention to make them symmetric in terms of their in-game usage frequency.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

High deflection is useful against mook enemies, but against enemies like Korgrak, Elder Bears, Elder Lions etc - it's not that great. Anything with a high accuracy and high-per hit damage, Deflection doesn't really do much for you - you're still gonna get hit and hit hard, but not really be able to hit back.