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

[Odd Hermit]

 

If they don't fix the armor or damage before release would the combat be laughable?  I'd rather the game get pushed back even more if it meant it'd release with better combat and volume options and such.

 

What Odd Hermit and Sensuki are complaining about here is basically that traditionally non-melee classes such as mages don't perform well in melee if you build them as such. At least, not as well as they'd like them to.

 

Infinity Engine purists shouldn't have a problem with this, since in those games it wasn't really possible to build a pure mage that performs well in combat anyway. Not until you got cheesy spells at the high levels, anyway.

 

 

This isn't at all what I'm complaining about.

 

The problem with Wizard is that the game clogs the wizard spell selection with spells that are clearly intended for melee, but that's a side issue.

 

The main problem is that damage is so high that if you get the starting attacks, most fights are over before they begin if you play your cards right. And on the flip side, durability is so low that builds are pushed toward extremes because there is no happy middle-ground. This creates combat where there's very little on-the-fly tactics, it's very formulaic. You take your high damage characters, you gib their high damage characters. Your tank soaks up damage from everything else while you take it down. 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Striped_Wolf]

In the classic IE titles, you could multiclass casters with a fighter class. And that made up for it to some degree.

As far as I know you cant multiclass in PoE, which means that the class-inherent stat-templates are really going to gimp creative character builds such as melee Wizards.

I dont get why they dont just ditch the templates and make the Attributes allmighty instead. Probably because of balancing issues, but still... Its singleplayer. Some minor imbalances are acceptable in favor of build freedom imo.
Fighter is still going to be a preferable tank over a Gish because of the talents, knockdowns and whatnot.

 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Striped_Wolf

[Infinitron]

This isn't at all what I'm complaining about.

 

The problem with Wizard is that the game clogs the wizard spell selection with spells that are clearly intended for melee, but that's a side issue.

 

The main problem is that damage is so high that if you get the starting attacks, most fights are over before they begin if you play your cards right. And on the flip side, durability is so low that builds are pushed toward extremes because there is no happy middle-ground. This creates combat where there's very little on-the-fly tactics, it's very formulaic. You take your high damage characters, you gib their high damage characters. Your tank soaks up damage from everything else while you take it down. 

 

 

But it's what your complaint ultimately comes down to. The sum of all those things means that the game rewards class purism. Those who have complained since the beginning of this Kickstarter that mean old Josh Sawyer is watering down their archetypes in favor of 4E-like homogenizing design can relax.

 

Or maybe it'll all be rebalanced, we'll see!

Edited March 11, 2015 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

Stop trolling. There are actually people out there that want the system to meet it's goals, not fail at them.

 

You often come into threads holding the flag of people from the Codex who make complaints about the system based off maybe 10 minutes played in the game (eg. felipepe or whoever), but I don't believe you even hold those opinions yourself. Why do you even bother?

 

Personally I couldn't care less about those opinions.

 

This creates combat where there's very little on-the-fly tactics, it's very formulaic. You take your high damage characters, you gib their high damage characters. Your tank soaks up damage from everything else while you take it down.

 

This, although it's not 100% caused by the defense issue.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Sensuki

[Infinitron]

 

That said...

 

 

 

This, although it's not 100% caused by the defense issue.

 

Yeah, I don't see why just tuning down the damage would necessarily make things more "on-the-fly". Couldn't it just as easily end up making the combat the same, only slower?

 

I get what Odd Hermit is saying - making the combat more forgiving in terms of damage would let you use a wider variety of builds, which would in turn be able to do a wider variety of stuff in combat. But I don't think "on-the-fly tactics" is a good description of that. It'd mean you'd be doing different stuff in combat, but it doesn't imply some kind of new layer of tactical complexity that would be unlocked.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

Defenses and mixed builds being viable are a problem but it's not defenses that make the combat feel that way - it's a combination of things, including the lack of 'counter' mechanics and things like that. Engagement also makes most tactical movement in combat not worth pursuing.

 

Gotta go to work now - but it is something that needs to be more thoroughly examined after release. Nothing's going to change between now and then, and the full game.

[Odd Hermit]

Defenses and mixed builds being viable are a problem but it's not defenses that make the combat feel that way - it's a combination of things, including the lack of 'counter' mechanics and things like that. Engagement also makes most tactical movement in combat not worth pursuing.

 

Gotta go to work now - but it is something that needs to be more thoroughly examined after release. Nothing's going to change between now and then, and the full game.

 

There are a few counter mechanics(spells like Thrust of Tattered Veils for example), but you're right that it's a combination of things.

 

The damage vs. defense issue may not be the root of the problem but without slowing things down I think it'd be hard to balance the rest of it. Many spells/abilities don't have any use right now due to the fast pacing/spike damage. The existing counter mechanics included - they don't come into play much because it's not cost effective relative to nuking things. And things such as lore and carefully choosing which enemies are more susceptible to CCs target will/reflex/fort aren't very relevant due to fights being short and bursty.

 

Of course, the AI being poor is also in the way. If the AI were better/more aggressive/less predictable it'd highlight the weaknesses of the defense system more. Right now you can succeed easily enough due to limited AI and some players probably don't analyze as much when they're successful as when they're not.

 

Oh, and as for tactical movement, I'd say it's actually pretty strong depending. Moving in and out of enemy visual range is very effective. OTOH it feels like cheating because the AI doesn't handle it well. So it's not in a good state.

 

I still like the engagement mechanic and think it has potential, and I've had my moments where I screw up or intentionally place my casters in harm's way for testing purposes, and a knockdown from my fighter breaks the engagement allowing escape. It can add to tactical depth, it just doesn't most of the time.

 

The lack of strong engagement escapes is part of the problem. You could call that a counter mechanic problem I suppose. They did allow interrupts to break engagement but it's unlikely the characters you need to escape engagement are going to interrupt a fighter-type enemy hugging them to death with any success.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[GreyFox]

Defenses and mixed builds being viable are a problem but it's not defenses that make the combat feel that way - it's a combination of things, including the lack of 'counter' mechanics and things like that. Engagement also makes most tactical movement in combat not worth pursuing.

 

Gotta go to work now - but it is something that needs to be more thoroughly examined after release. Nothing's going to change between now and then, and the full game.

 

Well then I may actually wait to play it unless mods can really fix it because that is pretty lame to me. I worry about what the masses will think with combat the way it is now, especially since the attributes and character sheets are pretty garbled up with decimals and misleading information that you pointed out in the video in the other thread.

 

Why do they bother putting in stuff like +.03 damage and stuff....I mean the regular gamer is going to be like WTF...hell non ordinary gamers are going to be like that...

hopefully SOME of that gets cleared up before release.

[roguelike]

I'm not sure I agree with the claim that high survivability characters are worthless against high accuracy, high damage foes.  Here's a chart of character survivability against the most dangerous unit of measurement I could find, a Path of the Damned Elder Bear (112 accuracy and 55 average damage), to give some idea of how various classes fair in melee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the tank is far from invulnerable, they easily survive long enough to fight and be healed, far longer than any character not built for it could ever hope to.  

 

As far as other takeaways go, note that the tanky paladin's +DR aura and +5 deflection are worth 20-25% more durability over a tanky fighter (vigorous defense is not represented on the chart).  Likewise, Plate Armor is worthless against high damage enemies for anyone who doesn't already have high deflection, but is very worthwhile for characters that do.

 

I suspect that ultimatly the decision of having crits on the attack resolution (instead of being the equivalent of a natural 20), is playing a negative role by magnifying surviability on one end of the spectrum and dooming everyone on the other end to near instant death.

 

[Odd Hermit]

Well then I may actually wait to play it unless mods can really fix it because that is pretty lame to me. I worry about what the masses will think with combat the way it is now, especially since the attributes and character sheets are pretty garbled up with decimals and misleading information that you pointed out in the video in the other thread.

 

Why do they bother putting in stuff like +.03 damage and stuff....I mean the regular gamer is going to be like WTF...hell non ordinary gamers are going to be like that...

hopefully SOME of that gets cleared up before release.

 

 

 

It's not that bad, really. For a new system that hasn't had time to develop like DnD it's pretty good. Combat will still be fun as long as you don't take it too seriously, and the content itself will likely be very good considering the developer.

 

I haven't put over 100 hours into the beta just 'cause I like complaining. The combat isn't as tactical as it could be but it isn't going to ruin the game for me.

 

Worst case scenario, play on normal instead of hard and have silly fun while they patch up the combat system post-release.

[GreyFox]

 

Well then I may actually wait to play it unless mods can really fix it because that is pretty lame to me. I worry about what the masses will think with combat the way it is now, especially since the attributes and character sheets are pretty garbled up with decimals and misleading information that you pointed out in the video in the other thread.

 

Why do they bother putting in stuff like +.03 damage and stuff....I mean the regular gamer is going to be like WTF...hell non ordinary gamers are going to be like that...

hopefully SOME of that gets cleared up before release.

 

 

 

It's not that bad, really. For a new system that hasn't had time to develop like DnD it's pretty good. Combat will still be fun as long as you don't take it too seriously, and the content itself will likely be very good considering the developer.

 

I haven't put over 100 hours into the beta just 'cause I like complaining. The combat isn't as tactical as it could be but it isn't going to ruin the game for me.

 

Worst case scenario, play on normal instead of hard and have silly fun while they patch up the combat system post-release.

 

 

I always operate under the assumption that we are really just nitpicking rather than all out complaining or the sky is falling type nonsense. But still that's good to hear then.

Actually I usually play games on hard and I do take it too seriously sometimes though

Edited March 12, 2015 by GreyFox

[Lephys]

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.

I'm with you on reactive tactics. Not with you on counterspelling, for the most part. I love countering spells, but not with other spells. I don't want to stop someone from Expelli-ing my Armus by casting "Anti-Expelliarmus." And I think that the combat requiring you to do something very specific in reaction to something else isn't very much fun, save for the figuring out what that specific thing is phase. After that, it starts to feel a bit like quick-time-events. "Oh, crap, I didn't counter that in time with the one feasible option in this situation, -___-".

 

In general, I'm not really a fan of CTRL-Z ability design in RPG combat. I'd much rather have to figure out how to take back the advantage, or spoil someone else's advantage, then simply undo their advantage with the "Remove Advantage" spell. Doesn't mean there's absolutely no place for something like Dispel or something, but there are some more interesting ways to do dispel effects, even than just to erase them with a spell effect.

 

Even healing. Healing is undoing damage. Again, doesn't mean it can't be neat. But, it irks me when a game is designed around "if you don't have enough healing, you lose." Instead of just "if you don't win the fight before you run out of health, you lose." Healing (or, counter-damaging, ) should be a tactical choice, and not THE thing you do because the enemies are designed to output more damage than you can take in a fight without healing.

 

Annnnywho... I'm sure I'll get all sorts of fun responses to that. "YOU HATE HEALING?!" *sigh*...

 

As for AI, I very much second that, in lieu of "intelligent" AI, random stuff is the way to go. Sure, sometimes something an enemy does won't make a boatload of sense. BUT, I'll take that over "these guys always predictably target the same people in the same circumstances, and never ever switch targets."

 

I think some simple scripts to have the enemies do something different sometimes (maybe a check after each attack for "not engaged? roll to see if you switch targets," just for example), and/or randomly choose targets, can go a long way.

[Sensuki]

I'm with you on reactive tactics. Not with you on counterspelling, for the most part. I love countering spells, but not with other spells.

All classes have spells in Pillars of Eternity. They are called active abilities.

[Sensuki]

I'm not sure I agree with the claim that high survivability characters are worthless against high accuracy, high damage foes.  Here's a chart of character survivability against the most dangerous unit of measurement I could find, a Path of the Damned Elder Bear (112 accuracy and 55 average damage), to give some idea of how various classes fair in melee.

 

[picture/stuff]

 

While the tank is far from invulnerable, they easily survive long enough to fight and be healed, far longer than any character not built for it could ever hope to.  

 

As far as other takeaways go, note that the tanky paladin's +DR aura and +5 deflection are worth 20-25% more durability over a tanky fighter (vigorous defense is not represented on the chart).  Likewise, Plate Armor is worthless against high damage enemies for anyone who doesn't already have high deflection, but is very worthwhile for characters that do.

If you get hit like twice by an Elder Bear, that character is KO'd. Also, surviving 3 hits as opposed to 2 isn't really a 'fun' difference.

 

I have played several maximum defense characters and they did survive noticeably longer in many encounters, but there were several encounters where their defense didn't help them or the party, and they were pretty much a liability.

 

I suspect that ultimatly the decision of having crits on the attack resolution (instead of being the equivalent of a natural 20), is playing a negative role by magnifying surviability on one end of the spectrum and dooming everyone on the other end to near instant death.

Quite possibly. I advocated for the removal of crits from the formula and to make them occur on natural rolls but Josh Sawyer was against it.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Odd Hermit]

I actually like having one uber-low damage character for the purpose of keeping my chanter in combat. Keep one alive on your tank, who can only poke it with a stick, keep chanting and sending phantom/will-o'-wisps to pull more enemies into shooting range. It's how I clear "trash" basically. It's cheesy but it works and it gets my various builds/party compositions to the more interesting fights faster.

 

You can still interrupt things w/out even getting damage through their DR as well. As long as it hits or grazes it seems you can still interrupt. I will probably try max dex/perception/resolve next build along with the interrupting blows talent - fast attacks w/high interrupt. Interrupts are potentially better mitigation against single hard hitting enemies than deflection/DR so it'd make sense to add that to a tank.

 

I've been using a Paladin, although I use the accuracy modal to buff the rest of the party rather than the DR modal which for the most part only helps my tank and the additional survivability it offers doesn't make a big difference for most encounters.

 

I've used a Paladin with decent might score as well though, and it is nice opening with an Arquebus w/Flames of Devotion even w/out talents devoted to damage.

[Lephys]

 

I'm with you on reactive tactics. Not with you on counterspelling, for the most part. I love countering spells, but not with other spells.

All classes have spells in Pillars of Eternity. They are called active abilities.

 

My apologies. I should've said "but not with other spells that are designed to counter them." I thought I made that distinction clear in the rest of my post, though. In fact, I thought I'm usually the one who types too much, and not too little. 8P

 

I really couldn't care less whether the things you're doing are called "spells" or "abilities." I'm more concerned with their design and function. If Knockdown stops a Wizard from casting Super Bad News For You, then awesome. If that ability is instead called "StopSpell," and its tooltip is "make a Wizard stop casting a spell," then I'm sad.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Lephys

[Sensuki]

I am referring to stuff like Vocalize dispelling Silence, and things like that. PE's systems don't really offer this kind of thing. There's one spell - Suppress Affliction, and the Paladin has a single-target exhortation and the Monk has a self-targeting one. That's it.

 

I'm also not 100% sure if they're working correctly, OR how they are supposed to work. I need to test them. But for future titles I am really going to push for more counter-style mechanics.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[GreyFox]

I'm also not 100% sure if they're working correctly, OR how they are supposed to work. I need to test them. But for future titles I am really going to push for more counter-style mechanics.

 

Yea me too..makes combat way more dynamic, interesting, and fun.

[Odd Hermit]

Liberating Exhortation(the Paladin temporary dispel) works and is nice to have in a pinch. It's particularly nice that it's an ability on the class capable of some of the highest "saves" - or fort/reflex/will defenses. They can target themselves with it as well, if necessary. Haven't tried the monk one.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Bazy]

Hermit and Sensuki are right about everything. This is not turning out to be the game that some of us thought it will be. 

 

This is not a tactical game. The fights are 90% positioning... rinse and repeat. I'm baffled as to why it's still like this. 

 

All the jazz about different armor types vs different damage types, attack speed differences, attributes, classes. None of it really matters as long as your tank is in front. 

 

 

 

 

 

And the best party is still 1 Tank and 5 naked ranged. And good luck building a tank that doesn't use a shield. 

Edited March 12, 2015 by Bazy

[Namutree]

 

This is not a tactical game. The fights are 90% positioning... rinse and repeat. I'm baffled as to why it's still like this. 

 

That's an exaggeration.

 

 

 

And the best party is still 1 Tank and 5 naked ranged.

Naked ranged is sub-optimal as you can enchant clothes to raise attributes. Oh, and 1 tank is probably not optimal. I'd go with 2 tanks or no tanks.

 

 

And good luck building a tank that doesn't use a shield. 

No luck needed. A tank with a good two-handed weapon is just as good. Arguably better. In fact, I wouldn't even suggest using a medium or large shield. The small shield is probably the only shield worth using.

[Sensuki]

Hermit and Sensuki are right about everything. This is not turning out to be the game that some of us thought it will be. 

 

This is not a tactical game. The fights are 90% positioning... rinse and repeat. I'm baffled as to why it's still like this. 

 

All the jazz about different armor types vs different damage types, attack speed differences, attributes, classes. None of it really matters as long as your tank is in front.

 

And the best party is still 1 Tank and 5 naked ranged. And good luck building a tank that doesn't use a shield.

I actually don't really pay attention to damage types hahah, even on Hard it makes almost no difference at all. What matters are damage multiplier stacking, damage stacking enchantments and DR bypass and disables/debuffs.

 

After that it's all alpha strike and positioning, if you get that right and don't play like a doofus - combat is over. In the Infinity Engine games, I did NOT remotely play like this at all. Character building is fun, but combat isn't really fun at the moment.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Sensuki

[Luckmann]

 

And the best party is still 1 Tank and 5 naked ranged.

Naked ranged is sub-optimal as you can enchant clothes to raise attributes. Oh, and 1 tank is probably not optimal. I'd go with 2 tanks or no tanks.

 

You can enchant clothes.

[roguelike]

 

No luck needed. A tank with a good two-handed weapon is just as good. Arguably better. In fact, I wouldn't even suggest using a medium or large shield. The small shield is probably the only shield worth using.

 

A tanky fighter with a fine large shield and W&S style is going to be around twice as durable as one with a two-handed weapon, so that's going to be a tough argument to win.  Unless Josh goes through with nerfing W&S and then shields are going to be terrible on PotD and still  pretty good on all the other difficulties.

[GreyFox]

lol enchanted T-Shirt builds....derp