Patch notes for 1.03

[Bollockoff]

I can't use my Chanter to create a Napoleonic party anymore. Outrageous.

[mammasaura]

They're tailoring (I prefer this word than balancing) their own creation, to make it perfect like an artist with his/her masterpiece.

They want this game to be perfect, I feel it, they want our suggestions and feedback.

 

Too bad most of these replies don't bring anywhere and seems to me only trolling.

Do we deserve games like this?

[Bollockoff]

OUTRAGEOUS.

[Elerond]

Balance?  Is this an mmo?  Why are so many people telling others how they should or shouldn't play?

 

Yeah balance don't matter in single player games as we see that only half of this threads messages are complaining how wizards are weaker than other classes 

[kylania]

OUTRAGEOUS.

 

[Meretrelle]

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME) at all. Why a wizard can't cast this or that defensive\buffing spell outside of combat? It's just contrived.And this is why it is so irritating

 

 

Because pre-buffing is tedious and if you allowed it you would need to balance encounters around this thus forcing everyone to pre-buff.

 

 

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME).  There is no justification for this whatsoever IN-GAME. It is absolutely contrived. What, there is an invisible god in the sky who bans certain spells from being  used until enemies see you? Please..

 

 

 

 

yet never actually using it shows that you're just complaining for the sake of it.

 

 

 

Nice logic. No. It just shows that  I know how this spell works same as I know how  a knife and a fork works.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Meretrelle

[Starthief]

 

You're not alone, I feel the same. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with discussing balancing changes as if it was a MOBA. Don't forget to have fun playing the game, guys...

 

 

The game is less fun if a single 1st-level spell is the best thing to use for every situation at every level.

 

That's what balance is for in a single-player game.

 

I'm looking forward to the patch.

[Meretrelle]

There is a difference between rebalancing and making almost useless.  Add to this 3 or 4 difficulty levels, yeah... Good luck "balancing" that.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Meretrelle

[Elerond]

 

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME) at all. Why a wizard can't cast this or that defensive\buffing spell outside of combat? It's just contrived.And this is why it is so irritating

 

 

Because pre-buffing is tedious and if you allowed it you would need to balance encounters around this thus forcing everyone to pre-buff.

 

 

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME).  There is no justification for this whatsoever IN-GAME. It is absolutely contrived. What, there is an invisible god in the sky who bans certain spells from being  used until enemies see you? Please..

 

 

There are lots of things that don't have in-game justification but work as they work because of mechanics of game

[Anelor]

When exactly it will be released?

[Bayzent]

*getting tired of nerf-this-nerf-that crowd bringing MMO attitude to a single player CRPG*

 

They've started nerfing abilities but we have several difficulty modes.. so once nerfed this or that spell becomes OK on normal, mediocre on hard and totally useless on POD.. How do you actually "balance" this,uh?

 

Magic is already nerfed in this game:

 

- rest limit

 

- certain buffing spells disabled out of combat

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME) at all. Why a wizard can't cast this or that defensive\buffing spell outside of combat? It's just contrived.And this is why it is so irritating

 

- certain attack abilities disabled out of combat

 

It doesn't make any sense either. So, a fighter can't use X to attack someone coz..well. no reason.. just coz devs say so.

 

 

Yeah I don't get how avoiding "Pre Buffing" is balancing anything either. Basically you are punishing players who prepare themselves before hard combats by forcing them to lose several turns in combat before being ready to start passing Damage Reductions...

 

Overall the whole combat systems seems really off for some reason...

[Caerdon]

It is not hate; yes, I think that Sawyer is overly fond of restricting playstyles in the interest of "muh balance", and overly zealous when it comes to hunting down would-be exploits, whether those things can be considered real issues or not (in some cases, there are examples of behaviour that aren't even exploits, but degenerative behaviour that the developers have dealt with extremely admirably, such as the rest-spam), but that's ultimately completely beside the point.

 

It's funny how you mention Sawyer every time you say something negative about the game mechanics, but the one time you point out something positive, it's the developers... I'd love to know how you know so well which decisions Sawyer is personally responsible for and which were made by others.

[GrinningReaper659]

 

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME) at all. Why a wizard can't cast this or that defensive\buffing spell outside of combat? It's just contrived.And this is why it is so irritating

 

 

Because pre-buffing is tedious and if you allowed it you would need to balance encounters around this thus forcing everyone to pre-buff.

 

 

 

This one doesn't make any sense(IN-GAME).  There is no justification for this whatsoever IN-GAME. It is absolutely contrived. What, there is an invisible god in the sky who bans certain spells from being  used until enemies see you? Please..

 

 

Yeah, kind of like how in BG2 I had to click on a target to cast magic missile, right? Like, is there some invisible god who just hates the idea of me casting magic missile at a patch of dirt, some sort of dirt god? Absolutely contrived.

[demeisen]

Lots of talk about Slicken... I think they should have gone for something mid-way between how it was and how it will be.  Maybe reduced its duration to 1/3 of the old duration, rather than being instant only.

[Mirandel]

There could be one simple solution about keeping OP skills and exploits - to make any patch optional. Although, Steam does not allow it for some reason (the only thing Origin does better).

Edited April 3, 2015 by Mirandel

[Archaven]

Wow.. there's no mention of scrolling bug being fixed but a huge list of NERFS!

[cavemandiary]

I think it's ok that Slicken got nerfed. So far it has been the ultimate answer to any difficult fight which a level 1 spell really should not be.

Sort of like how Mental Binding is for Cipher (ok, admittedly, it´s level 2). How/why they nerfed mental blades rather than the latter is beyond me. Both were leaps and bounds better than pretty much anything else, but IMO Mental Binding was just ridiculous with 20+ int.

[demeisen]

make any patch optional. Although, Steam does not allow it for some reason

 

 

Which is a good reason to support GOG instead of Steam...

[cavemandiary]

 

 

Bleh, I was hoping for DR / Deflection buff on a monk, really disappointed

Freakin' why? The monk is an already very powerful class.

 

Actually Barb is way more powerfull than Monk, so if monk is very powerfull i wonder what Barb is atm....

 

I tryed a MOnk lvl 12 it does like 5-10 per hit

 

Having done a complete playthrough with barb, and half a playthrough with monk, I would agree. But monk doesn´t feel like it needs a buff. Just more incentive to use fists over exceptional weapons imo.

[vattghern]

Any ETA on patch?

[Luckmann]

 

It is not hate; yes, I think that Sawyer is overly fond of restricting playstyles in the interest of "muh balance", and overly zealous when it comes to hunting down would-be exploits, whether those things can be considered real issues or not (in some cases, there are examples of behaviour that aren't even exploits, but degenerative behaviour that the developers have dealt with extremely admirably, such as the rest-spam), but that's ultimately completely beside the point.

 

It's funny how you mention Sawyer every time you say something negative about the game mechanics, but the one time you point out something positive, it's the developers... I'd love to know how you know so well which decisions Sawyer is personally responsible for and which were made by others.

 

Yes, it's funny that way, what following the development of a game can endow you with. It's almost as if I've followed the development of the game and the arguments going back and forth, it's almost as if, I don't know, there's Sawyer's Tumblr and other developers Twitters, and whatnot.

 

Go figure.

 

In all seriousness, though, I would lie if I didn't acknowledge that there's probably some modicum of truth to what you say. I'm not always as fair as I should be, but you make it sound like some kind of sinister, concious, master supression technique. It's not, it's simply that in a lot of cases we know what Sawyer favours or have promoted, and in other cases we know nothing. For example, when the Engagement system is discussed, it tends to be attributed to Sawyer, because he's the one that pitched it, and when questioned on it, he either "misunderstands" the question or dismisses it. And we know that he's got some kind of verz irrational fear or hatred of even potential exploits.

 

But then when we're talking about the resting system, attribution is harder. Not only because we don't know who worked the most on the concepts involved, but also because there's several disparate and co-existing mechanics that contributes to it's excellence. It is entirely possible that the reason it was looked at was because of Sawyer, but it's equally arguable that rest-spamming was a rather ubiquitously acknowledged issue.

 

So there's a method to the madness.

 

Yeah, kind of like how in BG2 I had to click on a target to cast magic missile, right? Like, is there some invisible god who just hates the idea of me casting magic missile at a patch of dirt, some sort of dirt god? Absolutely contrived.

That comparison is ridiculous, though. There's no reasonable reason you'd want to do that, whereas PoE is shock-full of situations where you'd want to do something that is quite reasonable, but you can't do it, because... why?

 

That being said, I fully support you being able to cast Magic Missiles on the ground. It would be silly to stop you from doing that. It was not included because it was not considered relevant. Here, the issue of "Combat Only" abilities have been brought up time and time again, because it stops us from doing something quite reasonable, in a lot of cases.

 

Is it unreasonable that you would be unable to cast Magic Missile on the ground? Arguably, but I don't think anyone ever had an issue with it's omission, because it ultimately had no bearing on the game. In PoE, "Combat Only" abilities most definitely does.

 

What's more, the developers have acknowledged it as an issue, and said that they'd want to do away with it through patching or expansion(s), but that it was required as a work-around. It was mentioned during the latter parts of the beta where this was discussed extensively.

 

To now suddenly go back on that for what amounts to very flimsy reasoning is odd, to say the least.

 

There could be one simple solution about keeping OP skills and exploits - to make any patch optional. Although, Steam does not allow it for some reason (the only thing Origin does better).

That's not a reasonable solution and at best it's a ridiculous suggestion. Patches are more than fixing "exploits" and criticism of balance decisions is more than wanting to keep "OP skills".

 

Patches comes with many more features than just that, and even the most adamant vanilla-tard would be daft to not want to patch.

[Doxy]

Any ETA on patch?

Yeah that's what i want to know aswell. Want to start my Triple Crown Solo playthrough.

[lordkim]

 

Also I don't like the arbalest Nerf. The weapon is super slow to make up for its stronger hits.

So are all the firearms. I'm sure they just brought down to be in line with the other slow but hard-hitting weapons.

 

I havent even used a firearm in this game.... Why ?.... Because its not suitable for this kind of game

[mychal26]

I wish there was a slider to reduce global exp gains. More than anything, I don't like hitting the level cap way before the end and a simple slider would be effective in making the game more challenging and allowing players to hit the maximum level near the final boss. This seems to be pretty relevant for PoE since people are hitting the cap many hours before the final boss (in some cases 20 hours or more). Maybe this would be something easy to mod.

[sparklecat]

 

Any ETA on patch?

Yeah that's what i want to know aswell. Want to start my Triple Crown Solo playthrough.

 

Later today if all goes well with testing, I gather.  Of course, GOG will take longer than Steam to distribute it, as always.