Let's talk about the Estoc...

[dirigible]

 Well, they read that everything you write in your post is complete bollocks. With the exeption of your claim that someone on youtube did a cartwheel in some armor, but that point was really neither here nor there.

If you want to have a conversation then you need to say something specific, like "In this article it says that X happened in Y century, which conflicts with what you said".

 

If you want to ****post and waste your time, then continue being smugly vague. I'm not going to read an entire wikipedia article and then GUESS which part you want me to address.

[Daemonjax]

Plate armor was made to stop swords not bullets... not that many people could afford plate, anyways.

[Shevek]

These armor penetration and related weapon balance issues are due to one thing:

 

During beta, some of the internal OE beta testers complained that the armor system confused them. It had something called Damage Threshold (what we now call DR) and the original Damage Reduction (percentile, not integer based like now). So weapons like the Estoc got through some DT but not the (old)DR. DT bypass was good but not as godly as it is now since player still had to deal with percentile DR. Also, weapon damages were lowered to accommodate for this change - this further amplified weapon imbalances created by the armor system.

 

The game still hasn't recovered weapon balance wise from the fateful decision to move away from its superior older armor system to move to the simple one it shipped with.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Shevek

[ErlKing]

I think there should be 3 types of enemies scalling:

 

a-type - Ironclads, DR scale with difficulty (15+), health low  - use firearms, poison, RAW spells, DR debuffs, slow n hard-hitting weapons.

 

b-type - hybrids, DR scale, but not that crazy, health scale mostly - each approach viable, but monsters have their weaknesses

 

c-type - meatbags, DR 0-5, only Health (stamina/endurance) scale with enemy type, so fast / duals weapons, aoe damage spells, much better than two-handers/firearms.

 

As I understand:

 

a-type - skeletons (high pierce, zero crush), armored humans, automates...

 

b-type - various...

 

c-type - flesh zombies, beasts...

[Epsilon Rose]

These armor penetration and related weapon balance issues are due to one thing:

 

During beta, some of the internal OE beta testers complained that the armor system confused them. It had something called Damage Threshold (what we now call DR) and the original Damage Reduction (percentile, not integer based like now). So weapons like the Estoc got through some DT but not the (old)DR. DT bypass was good but not as godly as it is now since player still had to deal with percentile DR. Also, weapon damages were lowered to accommodate for this change - this further amplified weapon imbalances created by the armor system.

 

The game still hasn't recovered weapon balance wise from the fateful decision to move away from its superior older armor system to move to the simple one it shipped with.

This is becoming an annoying trend.

 

 

 

 

 

I wish they would unbalance the weapons more. No weapons should be best for every situation, but DR-penetrating weapons should certainly be best against DR.

 

I feel the complete opposite way. As much as I like the game I hate the damage type and DR systems. All it does is force me to gauge the enemy's DRs and switch to the weapon that does the highest DPS to it, which is just a chore. If weapons just had a few niches (probably high-interrupt [two-weapon], high defense [shield], high damage [two-handed]) and otherwise were just aesthetic choices I'd be much, much happier.

 

The other matter is how incredibly annoying flat DR is. I've tinkered with some RPG systems of my own in the past and found that, just like the video game Gothic demonstrates, that a system of flat DR is incredibly difficult to balance well. You touched on PoE's big problem earlier in your post: heavy armor is too common, which means the high damage-per-hit weapons are the clear choices (long live the Estoc/Poleaxe combo!). Of course if heavy armor was too rare then dual-wielding would be the obvious choice, but that wouldn't be so bad since the toughest fights tend to have more DR so who would kit themselves out based on how to handle the easy fights?

 

Armor should just be a simple increase to deflection. It's much simpler and doesn't bias the game towards one weapon type or another.

 

 

 

I do agree that flat DR is incredebly difficult to balance. In fact in real life they didn't manage to balance it at all. They raced towards heavier armor and weapons, leaving lighter ones in the past..until they found the weapon that penetrates all armor they could conceivably wear. After that they stopped wearing armor, as it was almost pointless or even worse than not wearing it. This gives the unbalance in PoE an extra immersive dimension.

 

I don't care about the "balance" or weapons  in the game because that concept is moot in a 'single-player. I don't like character creation traps, but I really detest the idea of killing the well-functioning single-player mechanics just because some people can't cope with their pre-conceptions being broken.

 

I can't believe I have to keep saying this, but that is not how balance works. You want a balanced game, believe me you do, because an unbalanced game is a broken game that will, at best, quickly grow stale. Go turn on the cheat console and do a run where you start at level 12 with 24s in all of your stats and you'll see what I mean. There is a difference between balanced and everything being the same or even on the same level. 

 

 

Sir, this thread starts with a complaint that one weapon is better than the others, and that it unbalances the game with the 5 extra points of damage it does against monsters who doesen't have extra protection against piercing attacks. I think it's safe to say you're missing the mark by a fair bit there.

 

No, the thread started by saying one type of weapon is always better than the others because the condition for it to be better is always true. In a game that's all about building different characters, if one choice is always clearly superior in a category of weapons, then that is broken and you might as well not have a choice in the first place.

[Hatred]

 

 

Frankly my jabber about armor-history is just hear-say, as my interest in the subject is somewhat low. Being contradicted so completely however made me curious. Maybe I've been subscribing to lies? However, these two wikis about the arquebus and plate mail contradicts you in turn..

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour

 

Can I assume you have a more credible source of evidence?

 

You're gonna have to be more specific on how they're contradicting me.

 

 Well, they read that everything you write in your post is complete bollocks. With the exeption of your claim that someone on youtube did a cartwheel in some armor, but that point was really neither here nor there.

 

But no you're wrong, I didn't even have to be more specific. You made a boast of superior knowledge, and I asked for evidence. You don't deliver you're just a phony who conveys his own fantasies to seem important, getting hooked up on something entirely beside the point in the first place. Now you just look self-important.

 

 The first thing I read in the wiki you linked was how an arquebus didn't penetrate a breastplate. So yeah. Sorry. You do need to be more specific. In a general sense you are quite wrong about how arms and armour work though.

[Hatred]

 Hmm back to the topic of Estoc's. The two best weapons I have found to date are both Estoc. So that does kind of further push them into the 'you should definitely choose these' category.

[Daemonjax]

These armor penetration and related weapon balance issues are due to one thing:

 

During beta, some of the internal OE beta testers complained that the armor system confused them. It had something called Damage Threshold (what we now call DR) and the original Damage Reduction (percentile, not integer based like now). So weapons like the Estoc got through some DT but not the (old)DR. DT bypass was good but not as godly as it is now since player still had to deal with percentile DR. Also, weapon damages were lowered to accommodate for this change - this further amplified weapon imbalances created by the armor system.

 

The game still hasn't recovered weapon balance wise from the fateful decision to move away from its superior older armor system to move to the simple one it shipped with.

 

That would actually be a very good system for DR in a video game (it would suck for PnP -- too much math).  

 

Too bad they didn't stick with it.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Daemonjax

[PIP-Clownboy]

It's okay for a weapon to be good.  The estoc is good, but not overwhelmingly so.  The counterpoint to estoc goodness is their rarity, especially the rarity of magical ones, at least in my play so far.  I have only seen ones with fine/exceptional...no special magical effects.  This is in contrast two two-handed swords; I have seen a couple special ones, including one so good that my second playthrough will be with a character designed specifically to use it.

 

Edit: Even finding a non-magical estoc to buy is a chore.

 

What rarity? Eder literally hands you a good estoc at lvl 2. And you can get and exceptional Estoc and a ridiculously awesome blizzard casting estoc after doing one easy quest immediately in act 2. 

[Hatred]

 

 

 

What rarity? Eder literally hands you a good estoc at lvl 2. And you can get and exceptional Estoc and a ridiculously awesome blizzard casting estoc after doing one easy quest immediately in act 2. 

 

 Whoa. I didn't even find those two. I have one which has extra DR punch and Fire resist and also the one which is superb and with bonus attack speed and marking. Where is this blizzard one ?

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

 

 

What rarity? Eder literally hands you a good estoc at lvl 2. And you can get and exceptional Estoc and a ridiculously awesome blizzard casting estoc after doing one easy quest immediately in act 2. 

 

 Whoa. I didn't even find those two. I have one which has extra DR punch and Fire resist and also the one which is superb and with bonus attack speed and marking. Where is this blizzard one ?

 

 

Dunstan sells it, Crucible Keep after you complete Built to Last. And I assume non-hostile to the Knights but haven't tested that

 

[Hatred]

 

 

 

 

What rarity? Eder literally hands you a good estoc at lvl 2. And you can get and exceptional Estoc and a ridiculously awesome blizzard casting estoc after doing one easy quest immediately in act 2. 

 

 Whoa. I didn't even find those two. I have one which has extra DR punch and Fire resist and also the one which is superb and with bonus attack speed and marking. Where is this blizzard one ?

 

 

Dunstan sells it, Crucible Keep after you complete Built to Last. And I assume non-hostile to the Knights but haven't tested that

 

 

ooh how do you do the spoiler tag >.> I am such a forum noob. Thanks for the info I just now headed over there. If you explain how to add spoiler tags I can tell you where I got my two super awesome Estocs.

[PrimeJunta]

IMO the estoc is fine because of the weapon group it's in. There's no really good ranged weapon or really good one-handed weapon in that group, so if you pick Adventurer weapon it's gonna be just the estoc. You gain in maximal striking power but you won't participate in opening volleys and you won't be much good at tanking or hitting accurately when that's needed.

 

Don't nerf the estoc I say.

[Matt516]

These armor penetration and related weapon balance issues are due to one thing:

 

During beta, some of the internal OE beta testers complained that the armor system confused them. It had something called Damage Threshold (what we now call DR) and the original Damage Reduction (percentile, not integer based like now). So weapons like the Estoc got through some DT but not the (old)DR. DT bypass was good but not as godly as it is now since player still had to deal with percentile DR. Also, weapon damages were lowered to accommodate for this change - this further amplified weapon imbalances created by the armor system.

 

The game still hasn't recovered weapon balance wise from the fateful decision to move away from its superior older armor system to move to the simple one it shipped with.

 

Eh... I wouldn't say that. Integer damage reduction may be hard to balance, but integer damage reduction with percentile damage reduction is even harder. If they really wanted to go with integer reduction, removing the percentile reduction was probably a good call. It's simpler as well.

 

Granted, the fast weapons conundrum is still an issue - but in my experience, most enemies that aren't specifically super resistant to some damage type have DR that is below what even a fast weapon does on a hit - so it's not a huge deal. It could certainly be balanced better, and I'm sure they're working on it. But just from playing the game, I've found most of my initial concerns from the Beta about the armor system to be relatively moot. Theoretical concerns aside, the game feels very good to play, and I'm using a variety of different fighting styles to considerable success on Hard.

[Matt516]

IMO the estoc is fine because of the weapon group it's in. There's no really good ranged weapon or really good one-handed weapon in that group, so if you pick Adventurer weapon it's gonna be just the estoc. You gain in maximal striking power but you won't participate in opening volleys and you won't be much good at tanking or hitting accurately when that's needed.

 

Don't nerf the estoc I say.

 

Fair enough. And after playing a bit more, I've found a few more enemies who are heavily resistant to piercing (as well as a few more who have less than 5 DR), so it's probably not that big a deal. I may have overstated the imbalance - as I said above, theoretical concerns about the mechanics aside, the game feels fantastic to play and I haven't felt like I'm being punished for using basically whatever weapons I feel like using. I'm playing on Hard, not PotD - but I'm liking the difficulty (at least this time around). In the Eothas temple (only long dungeon I've done), I had a few fights necessitating a reload due to party wipe - but when I came back the second (or third) time with better tactics, I was able to pull it through (and without ever having to leave to use the inn ).

 

Game feels good. Plays great. Much fun.

[Hatred]

IMO the estoc is fine because of the weapon group it's in. There's no really good ranged weapon or really good one-handed weapon in that group, so if you pick Adventurer weapon it's gonna be just the estoc. You gain in maximal striking power but you won't participate in opening volleys and you won't be much good at tanking or hitting accurately when that's needed.

 

Don't nerf the estoc I say.

 If you want to carry 6 guns for some opening volley I dont see how a lack of the right talent for that one shot stops you. I use a hunting bow on sagani though so that kind of shows you how much i feel the need to min max right now.

[TrashMan]

 

With your proposed system, you may as well scrap all DR types and resistances.

Yeah, scrapping those was kind of the point. It's a horrendous system that adds nothing except busywork for the player. Yes, I'm smart enough to get Weapon Focus: Adventurer and to hover over the enemy's stat block before I fight, please quit making me prove that I have mastered weapon-switch technology. It's not as satisfying in the same way that, say, landing the perfect fireball or choosing who to Pain Block is.

 

 

You brain is horrendous and need fixing more than PoE.

[Elerond]

There are quite lot enemies and some armors (Exceptional/Superb Breastplates Fine/Exceptional/Superb Mails) that have either slash or crush DR and in some case both over 5 points lower than pierce DR. So estoc is not always superior, especially when you compare it to pollaxe, But there are only three type enemies whose slash DR is over 5 point lower than their pierce DR: Adra Dragon, Giant Dank Spore, and Forest Lurker.  So Estoc is nearly always superior to Great Sword, only reasons to pick great sword as your weapon of choice are Tidefall and Justice which are quite good magic swords for burst damage dealers. Pollaxe is good secondary weapon for estoc against those enemies that are vulnerable to crush and those few that are vulnerable slash. 

 

EDIT: What makes Pollaxe and Estoc even better companion weapons each other is fact that they are in same weapon focus group.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Elerond

[Matuse]

Estoc is nice, sure, but it is not unequivacably the best. Leaving aside anything with heavy pierce resistance, the fact that it doesn't have reach means there will be times when it won't be able to hit anything at all.

 

It also means that you'll need to get adjacent to any enemies to hit them, which means they can easily turn away from the tank and smack you (since there is no aggro generation mechanic that forces monsters to stay on the tank, and they do enjoy switching to whomever hits/debuffs them the hardest, which will emphatically NOT be your tank)...which means that any melee character using the Estoc needs to also be wearing something in the way of protection, and the -recovery means you are hitting less often than someone using a Pike/Quarterstaff.

[EmilAmundsen]

 

These armor penetration and related weapon balance issues are due to one thing:

 

During beta, some of the internal OE beta testers complained that the armor system confused them. It had something called Damage Threshold (what we now call DR) and the original Damage Reduction (percentile, not integer based like now). So weapons like the Estoc got through some DT but not the (old)DR. DT bypass was good but not as godly as it is now since player still had to deal with percentile DR. Also, weapon damages were lowered to accommodate for this change - this further amplified weapon imbalances created by the armor system.

 

The game still hasn't recovered weapon balance wise from the fateful decision to move away from its superior older armor system to move to the simple one it shipped with.

This is becoming an annoying trend.

 

 

 

 

 

I wish they would unbalance the weapons more. No weapons should be best for every situation, but DR-penetrating weapons should certainly be best against DR.

 

I feel the complete opposite way. As much as I like the game I hate the damage type and DR systems. All it does is force me to gauge the enemy's DRs and switch to the weapon that does the highest DPS to it, which is just a chore. If weapons just had a few niches (probably high-interrupt [two-weapon], high defense [shield], high damage [two-handed]) and otherwise were just aesthetic choices I'd be much, much happier.

 

The other matter is how incredibly annoying flat DR is. I've tinkered with some RPG systems of my own in the past and found that, just like the video game Gothic demonstrates, that a system of flat DR is incredibly difficult to balance well. You touched on PoE's big problem earlier in your post: heavy armor is too common, which means the high damage-per-hit weapons are the clear choices (long live the Estoc/Poleaxe combo!). Of course if heavy armor was too rare then dual-wielding would be the obvious choice, but that wouldn't be so bad since the toughest fights tend to have more DR so who would kit themselves out based on how to handle the easy fights?

 

Armor should just be a simple increase to deflection. It's much simpler and doesn't bias the game towards one weapon type or another.

 

 

 

I do agree that flat DR is incredebly difficult to balance. In fact in real life they didn't manage to balance it at all. They raced towards heavier armor and weapons, leaving lighter ones in the past..until they found the weapon that penetrates all armor they could conceivably wear. After that they stopped wearing armor, as it was almost pointless or even worse than not wearing it. This gives the unbalance in PoE an extra immersive dimension.

 

I don't care about the "balance" or weapons  in the game because that concept is moot in a 'single-player. I don't like character creation traps, but I really detest the idea of killing the well-functioning single-player mechanics just because some people can't cope with their pre-conceptions being broken.

 

I can't believe I have to keep saying this, but that is not how balance works. You want a balanced game, believe me you do, because an unbalanced game is a broken game that will, at best, quickly grow stale. Go turn on the cheat console and do a run where you start at level 12 with 24s in all of your stats and you'll see what I mean. There is a difference between balanced and everything being the same or even on the same level. 

 

 

Sir, this thread starts with a complaint that one weapon is better than the others, and that it unbalances the game with the 5 extra points of damage it does against monsters who doesen't have extra protection against piercing attacks. I think it's safe to say you're missing the mark by a fair bit there.

 

No, the thread started by saying one type of weapon is always better than the others because the condition for it to be better is always true. In a game that's all about building different characters, if one choice is always clearly superior in a category of weapons, then that is broken and you might as well not have a choice in the first place.

 

 

I'd say there is a fair difference between what OP reads and what you choose to interprit between it's lines.

 

Regardless, you're wrong. I use both pikes and quarterstaffs when I game with a party. Their reach ability outdoes the DR penetration by a fair bit for any caster. Then there is the morningstar, which I feel you need a build to make worthwhile. I don't know what that build is, but if morningstar is subpar it's so compared to all weapons in the category. Then there are just two remaining weapons in the category, pollaxe and greatsword. I feel that Estoc is better than both as a general purpose weapon, tho more so against the greatsword. Pollaxe is better against certain enemies. In the end the only comparable weapon that is almost always a bit poorer than the Estoc in terms of base stats is the Greatsword.

 

That said, weapon enhancements outdoes basic weapon stats. Since enhancements are escalating throughout the game, I'm limited more by what magic weapons I find than by weapon-type. The weapons I equip is based on what magic ones I find, and only secondarily each characters preferred weapon. Which makes your points moot.

Edited April 3, 2015 by EmilAmundsen

[EmilAmundsen]

The weapons in PoE should not be more "balanced", if anything they should be more unbalanced. The point is that they should be more diverse, not more alike. They should not be more unbalansed to make one weapon always best and another always worst, but to make them clearly shine under different conditions. I can't think of a game of the top of my head that does this better than PoE so I'm happy as it is, but I'm sure it can be improved further.

 

This thread have brought up a valid complaint about character creation traps. Devs should look into why players feel anything but two-handed weapons are traps and look for a good way to eliminate the traps. If nothing else the text "some players have reported that it's very hard to make non-giant melee-weapons worthwhile" could be useful. But maybe they would also discover something about their game design they hadn't realized. Regardless this is a task for about 6 months into the future.

 

Please ignore people who can't cope with their broken pre-conceptions, and demand that you break the game down to cope with their frustration instead. 

[dirigible]

The weapons in PoE should not be more "balanced", if anything they should be more unbalanced. The point is that they should be more diverse, not more alike. They should not be more unbalansed to make one weapon always best and another always worst, but to make them clearly shine under different conditions. I can't think of a game of the top of my head that does this better than PoE so I'm happy as it is, but I'm sure it can be improved further.

Balanced does not mean homogeneous.

You can have different weapons all of which have different areas of specialty, which are still balanced against each other.

 

When each weapon is useful and best in different circumstances, and no one weapon dominates all the others, that's balance.

When one weapon is the best weapon under 90% of situations, that's not balanced.

[EmilAmundsen]

Balanced does not mean homogeneous.

happy as it is, but I'm sure it can be improved further.

You can have different weapons all of which have different areas of specialty, which are still balanced against each other.

 

When each weapon is useful and best in different circumstances, and no one weapon dominates all the others, that's balance.

When one weapon is the best weapon under 90% of situations, that's not balanced.

 

 

I don't find Estoc best 90% of the time unless I'm soloing. In a party I usually have 1 or 2 frontliners with Estocs, depending on what enhanced weapons I find. All my backliners use pikes or quarterstaffs.

 

I do agree "balance" can mean many things. The posts in this thread however have called for nerfing the Estoc with the consequense of making weapons more homogeneous, making it a good descriptor for what this thread rely as balance.

 

Edit: I do find two-handed melee-weapons best 90% of the time tho.

Edited April 3, 2015 by EmilAmundsen

[Shevek]

The best balance to the Estoc is to modify 50% of enemies by drastically increasing their endurance and decreasing their dr to 0.

[Matt516]

There are quite lot enemies and some armors (Exceptional/Superb Breastplates Fine/Exceptional/Superb Mails) that have either slash or crush DR and in some case both over 5 points lower than pierce DR. So estoc is not always superior, especially when you compare it to pollaxe, But there are only three type enemies whose slash DR is over 5 point lower than their pierce DR: Adra Dragon, Giant Dank Spore, and Forest Lurker.  So Estoc is nearly always superior to Great Sword, only reasons to pick great sword as your weapon of choice are Tidefall and Justice which are quite good magic swords for burst damage dealers. Pollaxe is good secondary weapon for estoc against those enemies that are vulnerable to crush and those few that are vulnerable slash. 

 

EDIT: What makes Pollaxe and Estoc even better companion weapons each other is fact that they are in same weapon focus group.

 

 Yeah - my original post wasn't so much directed at the Poleaxe/Estoc pairing (since they are complements) but the Greatsword/Estoc pairing. Greatswords seem like they kinda get shafted, not having any 2H crush damage on the weapon focus and hardly ever being better than the Estoc. I like Greatswords... :/