EI Mod and my opinions

[Luckmann]

That's why i say that it's a design problem and Obsidian can't fix it.

You "numbers tweaking" would require such amound of tweaking that would effectively mean abandoning Josh' ideas.

So the only hope for this game is the modding community.

Well, let's hope the next kickstarter to have a completely different designer team.

I don't think a completely different designer team is necessary. Just key changes to the makeup.

 

And yes, of course, any changes along these lines would require abandoning Josh's ideas.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Luckmann

[PrimeJunta]

I don't think so. For example, I don't think there's even a mechanic for specifically resisting... anything. So it's not just numbers adjustment (far from it, I believe).

Let's take the oft-cited problem of Slicken vs. drakes. Slicken targets Reflex, unless I'm completely off. Fail, you go Prone.

 

You can bump up the drake's Reflex, but you can't give him resistance specifically vs. Prone.

 

To further complicate matters, we'd probably be fine with making drakes go Prone with Knockdown, right? But not Slicken. So it's not just vs. Prone, but suddenly vs. a specific form of spell or ability.

 

The same goes for Malekith's example. I don't even think it is possible to make Firearms freely punch through Arcane Veil, but at the same time allow 95% physical resistance (I would go so far as to say 100%; magical effects on weapons would still allow you to do that super-tiny amount of damage we'd see with 5% anyway).

 

There's no numbers to adjust, the game needs new functions and it needs to use it.

 

On a side note, I can't express how much I like the Arcane Veil idea. It's the exact kind of thing I think is needed. In spades. Massive spades. All over the game.

 

Humm... hey, maybe you're right. I was kind of assuming that it'd be possible to give higher resistances (and therefore also immunities) to specific status effects at least, e.g. Prone. I don't think it'd be necessary to distinguish between, say, Slicken and Knockdown for this to work; just have some enemies which can't be Blinded, Paralyzed, or Prone'd.

 

If the system really doesn't allow for that then yeah, that does need fixing.

[Sensuki]

That's true, and Josh has said somewhere that he explicitly dislikes it. "Combat as puzzle" I think was the term he used. I.e. a hard encounter that becomes trivial once you know the solution.

Problem is the use of one-trick hard counters. Kangaxx can't do anything if he can't Imprison you or Death Spell you. What if he actually dealt damage on top of that?

 

The issue is just having an all or nothing situation. There's nothing wrong with Hard Counters but once you've countered the main problem, there still should be a challenge IMO.

 

I can see Josh's problem, but I don't think he thought it through all the way.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[Hassat Hunter]

But.. a scripted AI cycle of abilities is all it is. Yes, PoE:s is arguably more advanced (arguably) but it's the exact same thing. You learn how they behave, and you beat them based on that merit.

 

So of course it's comparable.

I mean, are a specific set of instructions for one enemy, specifically written for set enemy, and learning those comparable to learning every behavior categorised to the source AI used for all enemies in the game, but just appended to from then onwards with specifications.

 

I don't think so. One should be so easy to remember that you can do it without even reading a script, the other should be indeterminable without actually taking it alone and de-composing it step by step.

[tinderbox]

 

 

 

Um, yeah.  I'm sorry, if you believe that DA2 encounter design is a model that should be followed (because this is exactly how DA2 encounters worked), then...  I have a hard time taking anything that you suggest seriously.

 

 

I've never played a Dragon Age game in my life.

 

 

Then you should, because DA2 (in particular) works exactly the way that you described -- you should love it.  Being ambushed in this game occurs so frequently that it even comes up in reviews (although almost always in an unfavorable light, for some reason).

 

 

Maybe! I do like ambushes conceptually because that generates tension and I enjoy that on-edge feeling of I'm-bot-quite-sure-what-wil-happen. I don't have a lot of spare time for gaming these days tho. PoE is the longest I've spent on a game in a several years, although I did give the BG EEs a fair whack as well before real life became a distraction.

[View619]

I still think Obsidian needs to figure out what it wants to do with this game/series . Just looking at some of the different combinations of equipment, skills and abilities (guns and arcane veil, for example), it's obvious that they had a goal in mind at the start, but then somebody went in a completely opposite direction mid-way and ruined a lot of good ideas. Middle of the road games tend to turn out badly at the end of the day, imo.

 

It's like they went from "we're going to make this a challenging crpg with different enemy tactics to overcome" to "this needs to be easy to understand and complete for anybody, so no tactical problem solving".

Edited April 13, 2015 by View619

[Luckmann]

 

I don't think so. For example, I don't think there's even a mechanic for specifically resisting... anything. So it's not just numbers adjustment (far from it, I believe).

Let's take the oft-cited problem of Slicken vs. drakes. Slicken targets Reflex, unless I'm completely off. Fail, you go Prone.

 

You can bump up the drake's Reflex, but you can't give him resistance specifically vs. Prone.

 

To further complicate matters, we'd probably be fine with making drakes go Prone with Knockdown, right? But not Slicken. So it's not just vs. Prone, but suddenly vs. a specific form of spell or ability.

 

The same goes for Malekith's example. I don't even think it is possible to make Firearms freely punch through Arcane Veil, but at the same time allow 95% physical resistance (I would go so far as to say 100%; magical effects on weapons would still allow you to do that super-tiny amount of damage we'd see with 5% anyway).

 

There's no numbers to adjust, the game needs new functions and it needs to use it.

 

On a side note, I can't express how much I like the Arcane Veil idea. It's the exact kind of thing I think is needed. In spades. Massive spades. All over the game.

 

Humm... hey, maybe you're right. I was kind of assuming that it'd be possible to give higher resistances (and therefore also immunities) to specific status effects at least, e.g. Prone. I don't think it'd be necessary to distinguish between, say, Slicken and Knockdown for this to work; just have some enemies which can't be Blinded, Paralyzed, or Prone'd.

 

If the system really doesn't allow for that then yeah, that does need fixing.

 

It's of course possible to make such a system, but I don't think it's just about adjusting numbers. The underlying system needs quite an overhaul.

 

And I'd prefer it if you could differentiate on a spell-per-spell basis, or use keywords/mechanics tags to do it. Let's say there's a "Concussive" tag that is shared by some Abilities and Spells, then you could have some formidable foes (Dragons, Ogres?) have an immunity (or high resistance) specifically vs. "concussive" spells.

 

It would let you denote some Spells and Abilities as "Cold"; say, you could tag Chill Fog as "Cold", and then it's blinding effect would not work against Ice Elementals - the fact that Ice Elementals also have a super-duper high DR vs. Frost has nothing to do with it; they will obviously not be blinded by cold.

 

Slicken could be marked with "Terrain" - and flying enemies, such as Drakes, would be immune to Terrain-based spells.

 

And so on. This would of course be in addition to blanket immunities, such as Oozes not being able to become Blind or Prone at all, or undead Vessels being immune to Terrify and Frightened.

 

 

And for me itemization is worse than BG1, to the point i would prefer if PoE abandoned the whole "magic items" consept and just have the same mundane weapons through the whole game.

BG1 was more low level than PoE, but the few Special items felt more special than anything PoE has. Varsona +2, The spider bane, ring of wizardy, gauntlets of dexterity,the +3 gratshord in Durlang's tower.... Varscona is just a +2 sword with added cold damage. But when it's the ONLY +2 sword in the whole game, and the only weapon that has cold damage, it feels Special. in a way that PoE's diablo inspired loot doesn't

Nothing in PoE comes close to these items. And in BG1 you didn't fought dragons for them.

Dragon scales in BG2-> you craft a special set armor, unique to the whole game

Dragon scales in PoE-> enchanting adds +2 to your sh ity armor

I have to agree, the whole "enchantment" thing is IMO the 1st worst thing (2 being trap/lockpick XP) in PoE, totally ruining the joy of finding new weapons or armor.

The only items which can be fun to get are (*shockingly*) those who cannot be enchanted! That should already speak for itself I think.

 

Crafting doesn't really affect my game much (I ignored it) but enchanting actively dragged the game down even if you're not using it.

 

This. Enchanting isn't fun, because found items have more interesting things, but then when you find the unique items, they don't feel unique and you kinda wish you could enchant them... but you can't.

 

A unified system sorted under the enchanting mechanics was probably a bad idea in regards to itemization in this regard.

[Hassat Hunter]

Yeah it's surprising how Edér is as good as immune to status effects as well so much of the time.

 

Do I just suck? Do you all have massive Edér buffs due to bugs?

Since the guy's pretty fragile to me, my main barbarian double-wielder was more fight resistant than he was.

[Luckmann]

 

That's true, and Josh has said somewhere that he explicitly dislikes it. "Combat as puzzle" I think was the term he used. I.e. a hard encounter that becomes trivial once you know the solution.

Problem is the use of one-trick hard counters. Kangaxx can't do anything if he can't Imprison you or Death Spell you. What if he actually dealt damage on top of that?

 

The issue is just having an all or nothing situation. There's nothing wrong with Hard Counters but once you've countered the main problem, there still should be a challenge IMO.

 

I can see Josh's problem, but I don't think he thought it through all the way.

 

It is like the arguments around Pre-Buffing. I don't think even you can say that Pre-Buffing did not have any issues at all in the IE games, but people get hung up on a ridiculous dichotomy based in the belief that either it works exactly like that, or you remove it completely.

 

Nobody likes Save-or-Lose mechanics, and nobody likes the one-trick-ponies of Kangaxx & Co. Does this mean all hard counters needs to die? Of course not, that'd be nonsense. There are likely hundreds of ways to do it "properly" without falling into these extremes.

 

 

Yeah it's surprising how Edér is as good as immune to status effects as well so much of the time.

 

Do I just suck? Do you all have massive Edér buffs due to bugs?

Since the guy's pretty fragile to me, my main barbarian double-wielder was more fight resistant than he was.

 

No idea. Edér is a beast in my game, and while he had two or three Attribute points too much (Per, Res and something else, I think; this was with pre-1.03 changes) I don't think that made much difference.

[Hassat Hunter]

Imagine if the game didn't have DR. Every single balance problem related to damage would easily be able to be solved.

 

But then how would you make the PC's protect themselves? Full immunity from everything like my -10AC in Baldur's Gate 1? Wasn't such a great system either.

 

And how would you make enemies harder to kill if you didn't have a system that gave them more immunties to X or Y? Doing just full damage on everything, all the time.

 

Dunno, that sounds even *worse* to me in my book.

[archangel979]

 

Yeah it's surprising how Edér is as good as immune to status effects as well so much of the time.

 

Do I just suck? Do you all have massive Edér buffs due to bugs?

Since the guy's pretty fragile to me, my main barbarian double-wielder was more fight resistant than he was.

 

I play on Hard. And I took a bunch of defensive talents and Eder has best defensive gear in my part (+10 to all saves and +10 to deflection).

[Sensuki]

In my game Eder has over 100 Deflection, which is enough to make most attacks graze against his 20-25DRs, or miss.

 

But then how would you make the PC's protect themselves? Full immunity from everything like my -10AC in Baldur's Gate 1? Wasn't such a great system either.

 

And how would you make enemies harder to kill if you didn't have a system that gave them more immunties to X or Y? Doing just full damage on everything, all the time.

 

Dunno, that sounds even *worse* to me in my book.

I'm just saying that the choice to use integer DR makes it extremely hard to balance damage output/input in the game especially in conjunction with the attack resolution system.

 

High Deflection and High DR = grazes for next to no damage, or complete miss, but the same attack will hit a normal character for 50+ damage or whatever, dropping them to half endurance or worse.

 

It's incredibly swingy.

 

I preferred the non-universal system that AD&D and even 3E used compared to this. Integer bonuses to damage would help alleviate the issue.

 

TBH, I'm not sure how I'd fix what they've created, and that's why I don't really have anything to add to the discussion because it's so far gone in my opinion that it's not worth worrying about.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[tinderbox]

 

Do I just suck? Do you all have massive Edér buffs due to bugs?

Since the guy's pretty fragile to me, my main barbarian double-wielder was more fight resistant than he was.

 

No idea. Edér is a beast in my game, and while he had two or three Attribute points too much (Per, Res and something else, I think; this was with pre-1.03 changes) I don't think that made much difference.

 

 

 

I found that my Eder was fairly easy to knock over up until level 5 and then started to gain significant robustness after that. I think some of that is that encounter design seems to be better earlier on. However, at that point I also ended up with a pair of draining weapons and that combined with constant recovery seems to be very powerful for maintaining max/near-max endurance.

[Luckmann]

 

 

Yeah it's surprising how Edér is as good as immune to status effects as well so much of the time.

 

Do I just suck? Do you all have massive Edér buffs due to bugs?

Since the guy's pretty fragile to me, my main barbarian double-wielder was more fight resistant than he was.

 

I play on Hard. And I took a bunch of defensive talents and Eder has best defensive gear in my part (+10 to all saves and +10 to deflection).

 

In my game he has over 100 Deflection, which is enough to make most attacks graze against his 20-25DRs, or miss.

I'm not sure, I'm just taking a bit of a stab in the dark and it feels like a bit of a band-aid, but we know that the game does deal in fractions in a lot of cases, and it might be a good idea to extend the base rolling to deal with that and impose percentage-based diminishing returns on stacking values such as Accuracy and Deflection. The flatness of the current system clearly has a hard time dealing, beyond the theoretical stage, and greatly incentivizes this "all or nothing"-approach to  damage and defence.

 

I'm not sure though, someone would probably have to write a small thesis on it and come up with concrete numbers for the argument. It was just a thought.

[Monte Carlo]

That's true, and Josh has said somewhere that he explicitly dislikes it. "Combat as puzzle" I think was the term he used.

 

Irony alert. What does Josh like? I'm certainly finding PoEs systems more puzzling than anything in the mad-as-a-box-of-frogs 2nd Ed AD&D.

[PrimeJunta]

 

That's true, and Josh has said somewhere that he explicitly dislikes it. "Combat as puzzle" I think was the term he used.

 

Irony alert. What does Josh like? I'm certainly finding PoEs systems more puzzling than anything in the mad-as-a-box-of-frogs 2nd Ed AD&D.

 

You keep saying this, which keeps puzzling me as I find P:E's mechanics incredibly straightforward and transparent, perhaps even too much so. What exactly is puzzling you?

[Casildar]

 

 

 

he's an IE devotee

and all those IE games he likes were based on the DnD ruleset... duh.

 

still seeing serious fail in his argument.

 

it's time to move forwards, not backwards.

 

AD&D didn't have AOO's. Those were introduced in D&D3.

 

(I also am in the pro-engagement-attack camp BTW. But do let's keep our facts straight, shall we?)

 

 

In the interest of facts straightening:

 

"Breaking Off From Melee:

 

At such time as any creature decides, it can break off the engagement and flee the melee.  To do so, however, allows the opponent a free attack or attack routine.  This attack is calculated as if it were a rear attack upon a stunned opponent.  When this attack is completed, the retiring/fleeing party may move away at full movement rate, and unless the opponent pursues and is able to move at a higher rate of speed, the melee is ended and the situation becomes one of encounter avoidance."

 

--AD&D DMG, pg. 70

[Luckmann]

 

That's true, and Josh has said somewhere that he explicitly dislikes it. "Combat as puzzle" I think was the term he used.

 

Irony alert. What does Josh like? I'm certainly finding PoEs systems more puzzling than anything in the mad-as-a-box-of-frogs 2nd Ed AD&D.

 

 

The combat is a mess, not a puzzle. If PoE:s combat was a puzzle, it'd be square peg, any hole, round peg, any hole, in fact, forget the shapes, peg, meet hole.

 

 

 

That's true, and Josh has said somewhere that he explicitly dislikes it. "Combat as puzzle" I think was the term he used.

Irony alert. What does Josh like? I'm certainly finding PoEs systems more puzzling than anything in the mad-as-a-box-of-frogs 2nd Ed AD&D.

 

You keep saying this, which keeps puzzling me as I find P:E's mechanics incredibly straightforward and transparent, perhaps even too much so. What exactly is puzzling you?

 

I don't think it's a puzzle as such, but there's some valid critique against the actual mechanics going on. It's anything but transparent. It doesn't need that transparency, because it's really not a puzzle, and like I've said many times, you can just kinda do the drunken dance through the game, but it's.. obtuse.

 

For example, we know that variant DR modifiers operate on percentages based on the core DR, for armour. Where is this explained? Nowhere. We know that all damage calculations take fractions into account, but all we see is rounded numbers. Where is this explained? Nowhere.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Luckmann

[Monte Carlo]

In retrospect, allowing JES to design a game like this is like asking Ingmar Bergman to direct a re-boot of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

BG2

 

 

 

 

PoE

 

[Sensuki]

In the interest of facts straightening:

 

"Breaking Off From Melee:

 

At such time as any creature decides, it can break off the engagement and flee the melee.  To do so, however, allows the opponent a free attack or attack routine.  This attack is calculated as if it were a rear attack upon a stunned opponent.  When this attack is completed, the retiring/fleeing party may move away at full movement rate, and unless the opponent pursues and is able to move at a higher rate of speed, the melee is ended and the situation becomes one of encounter avoidance."

 

--AD&D DMG, pg. 70

I think PrimeJunta meant AD&D 2E - because there's nothing like that in my 2E manual.

[PrimeJunta]

@Casildar You're right, I stand corrected.

 

It's on page 59 of the 2nd edition sourcebook BTW. There's also a clause that if two characters are engaging a single enemy, one of them can withdraw without the free attack.

[Hassat Hunter]

In regards to DR, most systems use percentage based resistances, I personally find this much better.

 

% usually results in 2 solutions; Either they take it into account and end-game opponents give massive damage to somehow overcome the % and still deal damage to the ever-increasing HP of opponents, or enemies level their damage regular, not taking this into account and elemental foes generally feel very weak.

 

Another system is about immunity. D:OS allows you to go over 100% healing on some enemy attacks. Cool, but you can see how this makes certain encounters trivial. And if it can be acquired with just 3 item pieces, that of course puts everything over the table.

 

Others try to prevent this by capping the % on like 80, so it can still damage you, ruining any additional items you find with that defense on it. Also not fun IMO.

 

PoE has the better sollution of that in my opinion. DR can be improved and leveled up pretty infinitevely, without having to insanely raise enemy damage. You can stack them without ever becoming truly immune to all or having to just arbitrarily limit them. You don't have situations like getting 100% early on being for the 5 damage lesser fire elemental and the 75 damage Magma Monster Boss. If you get 10DR, 15DR, 20DR you are 100% still for the early folk, but the Magma Boss can still do something against you. Far easier and better to balance than the % other systems use, and generally drown in.

[Luckmann]

 

In the interest of facts straightening:

 

"Breaking Off From Melee:

 

At such time as any creature decides, it can break off the engagement and flee the melee.  To do so, however, allows the opponent a free attack or attack routine.  This attack is calculated as if it were a rear attack upon a stunned opponent.  When this attack is completed, the retiring/fleeing party may move away at full movement rate, and unless the opponent pursues and is able to move at a higher rate of speed, the melee is ended and the situation becomes one of encounter avoidance."

 

--AD&D DMG, pg. 70

I think PrimeJunta meant AD&D 2E - because there's nothing like that in my 2E manual.

 

Also, "Breaking Off From Melee" is clearly different from AoO:s. You do not need to be engaged in melee to trigger AoO:s in 3e/3.5e/PF (and not 4e either, but I'm not sure).

 

Furthermore, Engagement in PoE is not AoO:s either. It works differently.

 

So PrimeJunta is correct in that AD&D does not have AoO:s, and I think Sensuki is also correct in that I think PrimeJunta meant 2nd Ed.

[Sensuki]

@Casildar You're right, I stand corrected.

 

It's on page 59 of the 2nd edition sourcebook BTW. There's also a clause that if two characters are engaging a single enemy, one of them can withdraw without the free attack.

Oh yeah I see. Hah, we never used that rule when we played. Glad it wasn't in the Infinity Engine games either

 

 

It's funny though because those rules make more sense than any other edition. 

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sensuki

[waltc]

Some enemies seem to like avoiding your tanks (e.g. Fampyrs for some reason always run around my tanks and right at my squishies) and I think that those fights are generally pretty interesting. Suddenly you need to decide whether you a) suck it up and hope that your squishies survive long enough for your fighters to mop up the other enemies or your other characters to kill them or b) disengage your fighters to attack the fampyr, with the danger of making even more enemies slip past unless you hold them down somehow.

Fampyrs also charm your characters, which can pose some risk as well (although some other enemies are better at it).

 

I would generally reduce the efficiency of tanks a bit by reducing health and defenses, as well as giving more enemies the ability to break up the standard patterns a bit (as the flanking and charming fampyrs sometimes manage).

 

I really wish people wouldn't use words like "tanks"...  (Makes me feel like this is a 'World of Tanks' game, or some other WWI/WW2 game.)  But I think the game intelligently seeks out your weakest characters first--which is why they should be restricted to ranged spells & weapons, imo.  This leaves your melee fighters to take on the worst of the bad guys first, be they spell casters or melee fighters themselves.