IndiraLightfoot Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) After my solo tests in BB 480 on Easy, I am a bit chocked, to be honest. (EDIT: I used slomo for the first time, and I tried to pause and issue commands, but to no avail.) Why? Well, it showed something else very clearly, apart from soling being super-difficult ( I know, it's intended): You need a tank, you need a tank, you need a tank, you need a tank, you need a tank, you need a tank, you need a tank... You get the picture. If you approach any hostile, or have neutrals go hostile on you, they will still bum-rush you like there's no tomorrow. It's frigging scary. *Poke* A hoard of maniacs overrun you! I relatively rarely make my main a tank in CRPGs, so I find it a bit sad, given the ability to create our own party, and Josh's goal of all builds viable, that parties with no tank whatsoever (spell-wise or armour-wise), is not supported. Perhaps I wanted a glass cannon or a sneaky ranger with a bow. At the moment, that will be impossible, even on lower difficulty levels. I really wish that this will change, but I doubt it will do so before Poe's released, obviously. Edited March 13, 2015 by IndiraLightfoot *** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***
Luckmann Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Seems obvious Josh has a clear disconnect here...when viewing the SA forums there are like the same few people egging him on so I guess we get a game optimized for 12 people. Been an issue since forever, it seems. Sawyer enjoys the hugbox and the echo chamber more than any locale which will question his sometimes odd decisions or hangups. God forbid he'd have to defend the decisions. 2
morhilane Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what's going on in this thread to be honest. You have Josh Sawyer saying the game plays fine on Hard with the unoptimized, non-min-maxed default companions, and in here, a bunch of people saying it's punishingly difficult if you don't use a party consisting of "one tank and five naked spellslinging mages", and that you can't make a defensive character without sacrificing literally every offensive ability. Can we get some clarity here? Just look at how Josh is playing the game, he doesn't rage-quit when one of his character drop down to 0 Endurance in a fight. Min-maxers hates when a single of their character lose 20% of its health and they have to rest more often, that is all there is to it. 6 Azarhal, Chanter and Keeper of Truth of the Obsidian Order of Eternity.
IndiraLightfoot Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 My concern is much more about six naked spell-slinging mages being next to non-viable. *** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***
aeonsim Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 The attributes really dictate how you run a character, which in some ways is really good for customizing your primary character- you can get it to perform exactly as you like (at a cost of the fairly high system mastery requirement- you absolutely must understand how the background math works). At the same time, it is really bad for companions. If the mage companion has a low might, there is nothing you can do to make him a good damage dealer, and you have to focus on support abilities instead. There simply isn't anyway around that, short of being able to assign attribute points when you recruit the companion. The attributes absolutely dictate play-style, and some classes really aren't functional if there is a mismatch. ... WTF? Uhm the worst might score gives you -21% damage while the highest easily achievable is +33%, so if you've a spell that does 30 average damage setting your Might to 3 (-7) is a 6.3 reduction... while if you maximised it you get an extra 9.9 damage... While it's a difference it's hardly massive, those extra 7 points had to go somewhere so it's likely your Wizard has maximised Intelligence so can hit more enemies at once and has a 50% longer spell duration, or they have high Resolve/Perception and thus better defences (get closer to use short range higher damage spells) or high dex for faster attacks and spell casting. Add in the fact there will be in game items to boost characters Might, (Inns, Potions, Spells, Enhancements and Items) it hardly seems like a big issue 16points dmg difference between a minimal might wizard and a max might is going to make them completely unusable... About the only character build I think might be completely gimped is if you dumped both Resolve and Perception giving you -14 to Deflection and a nasty reduction to both Will and Reflex defences and that is requiring a double dump and 14 free attribute points to be used somewhere else... I agree with many others that in general the Attributes and a reduced effect on gameplay compared to the older games... 2
Veevoir Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 On the other hand - we don't know how dense the text adventures are and how often attributes are used there. If it is quite dense - then they serve their primary purpose - description of your character, not combat numbers generators.
morhilane Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 My concern is much more about six naked spell-slinging mages being next to non-viable. Why wouldn't it be viable? Plenty of potions and spells to increase DR, deflection and CC things along with damaging spells to kill things with. Azarhal, Chanter and Keeper of Truth of the Obsidian Order of Eternity.
IndiraLightfoot Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 morhilane: I meant on Hard. I'll try it later, and see how it goes. Perhaps you are right, but after my little tests today, I'm not very optimistic. Mind you, I'm not allowed to use Arcane Veil and any armour. We'll see how it turns out with more enemies and all. *** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***
morhilane Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Why can't you use Arcane Veil? I'm starting to think that you are trying to make characters that don't use any defensive options win encounters, which shouldn't be possible (or dear god we would have even more "there is no strategy in this game" posts than we have now). Azarhal, Chanter and Keeper of Truth of the Obsidian Order of Eternity.
Dorky88 Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 I was always under the impression that they made this game based not only on the old IE games but also based heavily on tabletop role playing. Where the idea is that you need teamwork to succeed. Although you should be able to, and probably can, solo the game it's focused around having a party to your liking and going at it, hence the ability to make an Icewind Dale esque squad or have the pre-made companions.Which might explain why there is so little focus on being able to make a jack-of-all trades kinda of character. "He who fights trolls should see to it that he himself brings fire or acid" - Me
Elerond Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 I have played beta with all sort of party compositions (although not yet in newest build), and I have always succeeded to go through all content that beta has to offer, so even though some builds and party compositions are clearly better than others it don't mean that other builds and compositions aren't viable (which was in my understanding the goal that Josh tried to achieve). But of course it is bit sad that number of optimal builds are quite low and that they heavily support min-maxing both in attributes and talents.
Luckmann Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) On the other hand - we don't know how dense the text adventures are and how often attributes are used there. If it is quite dense - then they serve their primary purpose - description of your character, not combat numbers generators. Thing is, I would like to roleplay a certain character without sucking absolutely terribly in combat. While I'm no Sensuki by any means, me playing very much for the story, storytelling and so forth, a lot of the game is combat. For example, I'd love to go for a high-resolve Paladin with a lot of Perception, for roleplaying purposes. But to do so, to roleplay that kind of character, I'm going to have to utterly gimp myself. Hardly ideal, no matter how many 'text adventures' there are. Not only do we not know how many of them there are or their effect, but everything being equal, there is no reason we should suspect that Attribute X is better than Attribute Y when it comes to them. People with good attribute combos will still get the same bang for their buck when it comes to 'text adventures' as someone with a terrible line-up, but only one of them will be struggling for the entire rest of the game by comparison. Why can't you use Arcane Veil? Why would you? Edited March 13, 2015 by Luckmann
Voss Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) The whole idea of companion stats is to make the combat personality and the roleplay personality being an organic "one", even with sub-optimal builds. I'm totally fine with that since I'm kind of addicted on sticking to the "vanilla" view of the developer of the game I'm playing, rather than forcing my optimal build on it (it often provides interesting challenges that optimal builds kind of dismantle). It can't be, since they're totally unrelated concepts. Personality has nothing to do with being high might so damage or high intellect so long duration debuffs. Which has what to do with Aloth liking fine wine and comforts again? WTF? Uhm the worst might score gives you -21% damage while the highest easily achievable is +33%, so if you've a spell that does 30 average damage setting your Might to 3 (-7) is a 6.3 reduction... while if you maximised it you get an extra 9.9 damage... While it's a difference it's hardly massive, It's 54%. That is pretty massive, especially when you figure in DT afterwards, which hurts those smaller numbers more than the larger numbers. And the stacking multipliers for various damage effects (including weapon enchants) also benefit more from a larger base number than a smaller base number. Take an enemy with 10 DT against that attack, and 100 hp. Simplified (to ignore grazes, crits and misses) Character doing 24 damage (24-10DT=14)needs 9 attacks to drop such an opponent, character doing 40 (-10DT=30) needs *4*. Add some multipliers (a lash, any of a bunch of modals) and that can drop down to 2 quite easily. Even one 1.2 multiplier takes the first to 28.8 damage and the second to 48 (which means the 40 damage character drops the enemy in 3 attacks). Thats really huge, as you're roughly denying the enemy 5 or 6 actions. Why can't you use Arcane Veil? I'm starting to think that you are trying to make characters that don't use any defensive options win encounters, which shouldn't be possible (or dear god we would have even more "there is no strategy in this game" posts than we have now). Because it is a terrible ability that doesn't do much. The characters using defensive abilities pretty much need to be built to that purpose using an entirely different class. You might as well ask why not use Larloch's Minor Drain rather than Magic Missile all the way to the end of BG1. The better option is to build the mage as a damage dealer and protect himself by burning down enemies as quickly as possible. Temporarily raising a wizard's defense a few notches isn't worth the activation time. Just put a 60 defense (and buffable higher) fighter in the enemy's face and the problem is solved far more effectively than raising the wizard's defense. Edited March 13, 2015 by Voss 1
ISC Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 WTF? Uhm the worst might score gives you -21% damage while the highest easily achievable is +33%, so if you've a spell that does 30 average damage setting your Might to 3 (-7) is a 6.3 reduction... while if you maximised it you get an extra 9.9 damage... Its not fully that simple though, due to DT. Say that the enemy has 10 DT, then you're down to 13,7 vs 29,9, which is quite a significant difference of more than twice as much damage.
ISC Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 It can't be, since they're totally unrelated concepts. Personality has nothing to do with being high might so damage or high intellect so long duration debuffs. Which has what to do with Aloth liking fine wine and comforts again? Uhm, are you saying that intelligence are not a personality trait? You are not confusing personality with taste now? I believe that both intelligence and preferences can be part of what we normally describe as personality. 1
Luckmann Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 It can't be, since they're totally unrelated concepts. Personality has nothing to do with being high might so damage or high intellect so long duration debuffs. Which has what to do with Aloth liking fine wine and comforts again? Uhm, are you saying that intelligence are not a personality trait? You are not confusing personality with taste now? I believe that both intelligence and preferences can be part of what we normally describe as personality. Nevermind Might; Might in PoE describes not just your physique, as evidenced by the modifier to magic damage and healing. If that's not part of your personality, I don't know what is. Nevermind the fact that physical traits and personality have all kinds of connections, either way. The odds of seeing someone with an IQ south of France having a genuine appreciation for the written word, or someone with the dexterity of a fridge enjoying mountain hikes is pretty much zero.
Infinitron Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) Josh Sawyer acknowledges your opinions: http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/113517551741/k-take-it-up-with-these-guys-on-your-companys http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/113519146896/i-wasnt-actually-expecting-you-to-publicly Edited March 13, 2015 by Infinitron 2
IndiraLightfoot Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Mere opinions? They need to be elevated to "beta feedback". *** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***
Sensuki Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Well he has a point, and the advantage of playing the full game. This issue is too far gone to worry about for now - we all need to play the full game and come back with a clear picture.
Voss Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) It can't be, since they're totally unrelated concepts. Personality has nothing to do with being high might so damage or high intellect so long duration debuffs. Which has what to do with Aloth liking fine wine and comforts again? Uhm, are you saying that intelligence are not a personality trait? You are not confusing personality with taste now? I believe that both intelligence and preferences can be part of what we normally describe as personality. Yes. And no, nothing to do with taste. Its your ability to retain and absorb information, nothing more. You'll be a better person with access to more information, but it doesn't dictate if you're a doormat or a jerk, or a kind romantic who loves helping puppies. But in this game, all the attributes are just adjustments to various secondary characteristics (damage, duration, etc) and nothing more. Well, and unlocks for conversation options, but that is a gamist mechanic of a different colour. @Luckmann Nevermind Might; Might in PoE describes not just your physique, as evidenced by the modifier to magic damage and healing. If that's not part of your personality, I don't know what is. It is a number in a spreadsheet. I have no idea what part of your personality you think makes you 'gun harder' (do more damage with bullets) but I suspect might is a pure game abstraction unconnected to anything real. Edited March 13, 2015 by Voss
Luckmann Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Josh Sawyer acknowledges your opinions: http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/113517551741/k-take-it-up-with-these-guys-on-your-companys http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/113519146896/i-wasnt-actually-expecting-you-to-publicly It's hilarious that he basically boils it down to "well that's just, like, your, like, opinion, man". Yes, opinions are part of it, but most of the issues aren't opinions, they're solid facts. Now, if you want the game to work like this, that's an entirely different matter, but I don't think the vast majority does, and I honestly can't see why Sawyer himself would want it to. 3
armorb Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Seems obvious Josh has a clear disconnect here...when viewing the SA forums there are like the same few people egging him on so I guess we get a game optimized for 12 people. Been an issue since forever, it seems. Sawyer enjoys the hugbox and the echo chamber more than any locale which will question his sometimes odd decisions or hangups. God forbid he'd have to defend the decisions. So of course, when X designer doesn't agree with you, he must just "enjoy the hugbox". What an asinine thing to say, but all to common around these parts... 3
Voss Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 Seems obvious Josh has a clear disconnect here...when viewing the SA forums there are like the same few people egging him on so I guess we get a game optimized for 12 people. Been an issue since forever, it seems. Sawyer enjoys the hugbox and the echo chamber more than any locale which will question his sometimes odd decisions or hangups. God forbid he'd have to defend the decisions. So of course, when X designer doesn't agree with you, he must just "enjoy the hugbox". What an asinine thing to say, but all to common around these parts... Considering said designer literally just posted a short 'nuh-uh' in response to people showing the math, perfectly justified. 3
armorb Posted March 13, 2015 Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) Seems obvious Josh has a clear disconnect here...when viewing the SA forums there are like the same few people egging him on so I guess we get a game optimized for 12 people. Been an issue since forever, it seems. Sawyer enjoys the hugbox and the echo chamber more than any locale which will question his sometimes odd decisions or hangups. God forbid he'd have to defend the decisions. So of course, when X designer doesn't agree with you, he must just "enjoy the hugbox". What an asinine thing to say, but all to common around these parts... Considering said designer literally just posted a short 'nuh-uh' in response to people showing the math, perfectly justified. He didn't respond at all to the substance (such as it was - what I actually quoted was entirely content-free), and gave his reasons why that was so. Does baby want a belly rub too? Edited March 13, 2015 by armorb 1
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